The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-10-24
Tho Yellow Fever.

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wounded. In great convulsions of Ma
ture, We can definitely measure the
limits Of destruction. Hitherto in the
history of epidemics it has been posi-
bic to fix metes and bounds, and to say
with some degree of positiveness what
localities would be spared and what
would suffer. There is an element Of
certainty in these horrors; in the pres
emit yellow-fever epidemic there is no
element of certainty except its WIDE
spread and sudden fatality.
From the very day that the yellow
plague crossed the Gulf of Mexico in
the Inflated Italian bark and was
landed in New Orleans, it commenced
to spread with uncomfortable rapidity.
It is not yet three months ago that q
brief dispatch announced q case of
yellow fever in New Orleans, and now
the wires of the whole country are
burdened with plague-dispatchcs; then
a line or two told the story, now 1t
takes several columns in each MORN
ing's issue of the daily press to bring
the saddening tidings of disease and
death; then an operator could send the
news in minute, now tho telegraph
companies cannot supply men fast
enough to gather and send tho news.
In hardly longer time than it took the
Italian vessel to bring tho seeds of death
from Havana to New Orleans, it had
not only obtained Judgment in that
city, but had commenced a rapid march
up the Valley of the Mississippi, assist
ed by the malaria of Its swamps and
bayOus, and now 1t has clutched all of
Louisiana and Mississippi, part of
Western Alabama, Eastern Texas, and
the western portions of Tennessee and
Kentucky, has followed the Ohio River
to Louisville, skirted along Southern
Tennessee into the otherwise healthy
mountain regions of Northern Georgia,
and sent isolated cases even into the
Northern cities. The region now lying
in the shadow of death embraces an AREA
500 miles in length and $50 in breadth,
east of the Mississippi and south
of the Ohio River, the west bank of the
Mississippi, through Arkansas and Mis-
souri,. having been spared, though it is
equally assswampy as the other.
Hitherto the yellow fever has been
confined to certain localities, usually
cities, and even to certain parts Of
cities, which have not observed sani-
tary precautions. This time it Is uni-
nivor0tls. 1t searches out every one.
1t spreads through rural villages, Wis
its farms and plantations, and clutches
even isolated families living miles away
from inhabited centers. Like q fire
sweeping over the prairies, it spares
nothing. Like the tide rising over tho
lowlands, it fills not only the rivers,
but every little ditch and gully. The
very winds of Heaven seem to be full
of its germs, and blow them, as they
blow the winters flakes, into every
crack and crevice. 1t strikes one man
down in the crowded city streets; it at
tacks another at work on his farm; It
searches out and grapples with another
So far away from his kind that
he has not heard the monster
is abroad in the land. It makes
no determinations in its terrible march
of destruction. "With equal haud'' it
knocks at the door of the howell and at
the portals of the mansion. 1t has
swept away poor families and rich FAM
lilies. 1t has ravaged the uncleanly
quarter of a city one day and the clean.
ly quarter the next. 1t has been as
fatal with those who are acclimated as
with strangers. 1t has not only taken
the whites, but the blacks, who have
never had 1t before. It strikes those
who remain at home, and searches ont
those who have fled into the country.
Doctors and nurses who have grappied
with it heretofore with impunity are
now swept off by hundreds. So far as
it has spread, no place or person can
claim to be exempt. IF one remain at
home or remove elsewhere for safety,
he knows not at what minute the vel
low monster may fasten its fangs. He
can only wait in grim and silent de-
spair its terrible coming.
1t is the most disheartening feature
that these terrible results have been &C
complished Notwithstanding the almost
superhuman efforts that have been
made to arrest its course. 1t has de-
fed all remedies. It has baff1ed the
skill not only of the best physicians In
the South, but of hundreds Of the best
physicians and nurses of the North,
W AAO A1VO xVAU UuV1A 00S10Ue8uCOS Ill u1dkxy
cases only 10 swell the daily roll OF
death. Every city, town and village
of the North has sent relief. They
have shOwered hundreds of thousands
of dollars In money and great stores of
material comforts upon the afflicted
South to aid their associations in their
brave and beneficent work, but all this
generosity has been pcwerless to stop
the progress of the fever.
$50 bad begins, but worse remains
behind" Business is paralyzed. Dis
ease, even quicker than panics and
hard times, has brought trade to .
standstill The cotton fields are white
with the harvest, with no one to gather
the staple. The sugar crop may share
a similar fate if the disease does not
stop soon. New Orleans, shut off by
a rigid and almost cruel quarantine,
not only from the North, but even from
the Southern interior towns languishes.
The trade of her merchants is para
lyzed. Her workshops are closed.
Thousands of her workingmen are with
out employment and without money. 1t
is estimated that the Government will
nave to feed $4,000 of her people for
weeks to come. From these causes
alone, the South. after having lost
thousands of her people, must lose
millions of money, and be set back
just at the time when she had begun to
recover from war, and panic, and civil
confusion. II is q hard fate, and one
for which history hardly records q par
allel. National pride, honor and SYM
patty alike appeal to the more FORUM
ate sections of the country not to stop
in the work of well-doing until the at
hicted South is lifted to her feet and
healed. -CAjcago Tribune, Oct. 8.
4 Tender Conscience.
A CORRESPONDENT of the New York
World tells q touching story of a young
Irish girl, whose tender conscience has
been burdened for many years by sill
yer thimble.
About twelve years ago an Irish girl,
Maggie by name, arrived in New York
on her way to N to find her sister.
rs ~ -