The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-09-01
THE MEMPHIS EPIDEMIC.
The Present Scomrge Much Worse Than
That OF hS53-The CiGy Deserted
,and gloomy.
Correspondence of the Democrat
MEMPHIS, August %, 1878.

Correspondence of the Democratl
MEMPHIS, August 49, 1878.
To the Editor of the Democrat:
In writing you hurriedly from Grenada
three days ago. | failed to present some Of
the ghastliest features of the situation il
that desolated town. Two men were found
dead, that day, in one room, where they had
died during the night, without its being known
that they were seriously ILL., The body of an.
other man had been found the day before, in
a Warehouse, where he lay down to die with
out food, medicine, bed, blanket or any hui
man tending. These are but specimens OF
the frightful facts that surpass all the in
vented horrors of fiction.
Amid such appalling scenes there is almost
always something that has it's ludicroue
aspect. Such was the case Of
A BENEVOLENT STRANGER
how OF whence he came, | have no idea--who
was tearing through the streets in state of
much excitement, declaring that he had a
remedy which would cure the fever in two
hours If the doctors would only permit it to
be administered 1t was suggested to him
that he might easily find patients enough
without any physician to interfere, but have
not learned whether any corpus nile was
found upon which to perpetrate the expert
ment of premature cure.
Yellow fever is not the only, nor perhaps to
man OF unsteady nerves the worst danger
to be encountered in visiting Grenada The
train stops to deliver its mails and passengers
(if it has any in the midst OF the swamps, a
mile or more beyond the city and beyond the
little river that flows by. Female nurses gen
orally take passage into the town from this
point by the hand-car that carries the mails,
but men are expected to walk, and this walk
takes them over q series of lofty and very
formidable bridges of trestle work without
any footway. 1t is not only dangerous, but
very tedious. Looking down into the dizzy
depths below, while passing over these bridges.
the consciousness OF having q small accident
policy was no small consolation.
This is perhaps only one of the minor in
convenlences resulting from
THE "QUARANTINE''
panic now prevalent throughout the land. It
is question whether this is not o. worse eDi-
demlc than yellow fever.
In leaving Grenada for Memphis avoided
the perilous passage of the railway bridges
by taking special train, such as is OCCASION
ally permitted to run into the town On condi-
ton OF not stopping at any Of the way sta
Ciou5. Inc only passengers were a cOnvale8-
cent nurse, my. young travelling companion
ana myself. Never perhaps were these OBJ
scure individuals the objects of m ore curiosity
than we were to the Inhabitants of the vii
Lagos on the way, who congregated to gaze at
the train as it fitted past. The story of the
nurse would furnish @ curious chapter of the
romance of yellow fever, if there were time to
tell it. ''''
Entering Memphis at night, as at similar
stage Of the great epidemic Of 1873, the con-
trast was startling. On the former occasion
there We're no external
SIGNS OR TOKENS OF PEsT1LENCE
in the principal streets. Shops and saloons
were open, people passing to and fro, groups
gathered. .,; as usual about the hotels and bar
rooms, billiard tables in activity, and life pre-
sentlng its ordinary aspects except in the
- INFECTED district" to which it was then
fondly hoped that the fever would be con-
lined. Such vas the case, in some degree