The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1878-08-21
YELLOW FEVER.
NOT AN EPIDEMIC IN NEW ORLEANS.

reason given to prove this assertion
is that the Board Of Health have no
yet pronounced it epidemic, and W
are to take it for granted that it Cal
not become epidemic without thei
consent. We presume this pretende'
wisdom about what is and what j
not epidemic, Is for the purpose o
quilting few scientists in every com
munity, who, for the sake of science
have shut their eyes to commol
sense. We have been little troub
led by these scientists ourselves, bu
not quite as much as Grenada SEEM
to have been. We presume that it il
now a matter of no Importance to tn
citizens of Grenada, whether tn
fever was epidemic at New Orlean!
or not. The fact that it was not, ant
is not epidemic at New Orleans, doe.
not make one case or one death les.
at Grenada, or raise any doubt as tt
its being epidemic there.
1t always seemed to US, tLat the
point in the case is not whether the
fever is epidemic in New ORLEANS
but, whether it can be carried from
there to other places. This is nc
longer an open question. While the
papers of New Orleans, with the 81.
lent acquiescence of the Board OF
Health, were lulling their customers
into security, by protesting that the
fever was not epidemic, and
therefore their intercourse would not
endanger others, Vicksburg, Cincin-
natl, Louisville, St, Louis with dis
may, found cases brought to their
doors, and poor Grenada wakes from
her fancied security to find herself
in the very embrace of death. 1t is
evident that this great calamity
would have been avoided, if the New
Orleans papers had been as Jealous
to have put their customers on their
guard, as they have been in inducing
them to continue their commerce
with New Orleans. We are willing
to believe that their papers have led
their friends into this great calamity
unwittingly, but we must say to them
that some contrition for the evil they
have wrought, would be much more
becoming than denouncing the num-
erous cities and towns which have
quarantined, as t'senselcss panic
strikers" The papers and citizens
of New Orleans cannot be ignorant
of how far and wide The yellow fever
has been carried from their midst,
we are at loss to know upon what
principle ofhumanity they can in
sist upon a commercial intercourse,
by which they are sowing the seeds
of this fearful plague throughout the
South.
That a steamboat or railroad train
from an infected place should be
permitted to land or discharge her
cargo and passengers in the midst Of
any community, is one of the absur
dities and anomalies of human ma
ture. During the war, We were
charged with attempting to send
smallpox among the federal troops,
and it was denounced as contrary to
the usages of civilized warfare. We
denied and denounced the charge as
an Infamous aspersion upon our
honor. By what rule of logic or COM
mon sense can New Orleans insist
upon sending, not her enemies but
among her friends, plague, thou
sand times worse than smallpox?
BY what code of law or morals does
the New Orleans Times justify itself
in ridiculing and caricaturing as
"senseless panic strikers" and threa-
ten with law suits and damages,
those who have forbidden it's infected
trains and steamboats, from coming
into their midst? For preventing
them from doing that which was de-
nounced as too cruel for cruel war.
As an illustration we will give an in
stance with which our citizens are
familiar. In 1867, a steamboat lay
at our landing for several days, with
numbers of cases of yellow fever
while the captain was looking and
waiting for freight. From it the fear
full plague was sown in our town, and
60 deaths was the result of the cap
tain's financial enterprise. How
many dollars it footed up, we never
learned, butif he received one mill
for every hour of pain, or every tear
of sorrow, or every broken cord of af-
lection which he had caused, or one
hundred dollars for every life he had