The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1878-11-21
IALE OF TWO Giles

Grenada, and the terror-stricken inhabitants
hed from their homes in haste to save their
lives, and the doors of Cincinnati were closed
against them by a rigid quarantine, Louis
vile, with courage which must forever re-
feet credit upon her heroic people, made
every refugee welcome, and, with spirit of
self-sacrifiee so noble as to win the applause
Of all who have hearts to feel for the suffer-
ing of others, invited them to remain within
her limits. Nor did her charity stop here.
A hospital was erected and placed in charge
of competent physicians, who, with full
corps of nurses, continued, so long as there
was single case of yellow fever brought to
the city, to receive and care for their South
ern guests. Relief societies were formed,
who visited the hospital daily, carrying deli
cacies to the sick, seeking by every means that
the most enlarged philanthropy could sug-
gest to relieve the suffering of the strangers
that the terrible scourge had thrown upon her
bounty. Meanwhile subscriptions to the fund
for the relief of the sick in other cities and
towns throughout the South were made, and
the money contributed sent to the Howard
Association, to be used according to its judg-
ment.
Other cities gave full credit to the humane
conduct of the authorities of Louisville, and
there was not dissenting voice raised in the
city to protest against it. No cowardly fear
of epidemic in Louisville prevented her
citizens from extending friendly greeting to
those whom the calamity of an epidemic at
home had compelled to seek the hospitality of
a sister city. The warm tide of Southern
sympathy flows freely in the veins of Ken
tuckiAns, and they were thankful to stand at
the threshold of the epidemic and accompany
their sympathy with material aid to the
plsgue-stricken cities of the South. For this
action she claimed no reward, and asked for
no credit from people of the North or South.
She simply did her duty, and in doing so it
probably never occurred to one of her gener-
GUS citizens to ask what effect it would have
upon her Southern trade. The emergency
came upon her suddenly, and with character
istic impulsiveness she grasped the oppor-
tunity to render much-needed aid, and de-
clared there should be no quarantine against
their Southern brethren who wsre flying for
their lives.
1t was reserved for the mercenary spirit of
the Cincinnati Enquirer and Commercial to
turn the chivRlric conduct of Louisville to
the advantage of Cincinnati by publishing to
the world a lie so fragrant as to arouse the in
dignation of portion of her own press, and
wiring from it a reluctant tribute to the heroic
conduct of Louisville. DR.. Minor, Health
Officer of Cincinnati, visited Louisville to in
quire into the truth of rumors which had
been spread either by emissaries of Cincn-
natl or by one of half dozen families who
had fed from their homes, and was taken
through every portion of the city in which
the widest exaggerRtion had located yellow
fever. The result of his visit was that he
found three persons who were sick of malig-
nant malarial fever. Oaly this and nothing
more. An agent of the Associated Press
named Gordon, actuated By devilish spirit
of perverseness, sent out dispatch in which
ne gave graphic picture of the epidemic in
Louisville, founded entirely in his magma
tion. Reporters for the Cincinnati Enquirer,
who only ask for grain of truth to a whole
bushel of falsehood in the manufacture of a
sensation, interviewed DR.. Minor and few
panic-stricken people, and obtaining the nee
essary quantity of information, gave under
startling headlines the most heartrending de-
scription of the scourge which had visited
Louisville. 1t was nothing to those itemizers
that DR.. Minor could only report the exist
ence of few cases of fever; the necessity of
robbing Louisville of any credit, which they
feared she had gained in the eyes of Southern
people, was too great to allow the opportunity
to Slip and in this way the news of an cpl
demic at Louisville was given to the world,
creating no more surprise anywhere tLan in
Louisville itself. A temporary excitement
followed, which was at once silenced by DR..
Bell, who declared that yellow fever as an
epidemic never had existed, and could not
this year exist, in Louisville. The event
proved the truth of his prediction. But
thirty-four deaths from yellow fever occurred
in Louisville during the entire existence of
the scourge in Southern cities, all of which
were imported cases. During this period
about one dozen deaths took place within
radius of four hundred feet from an alley
which had been built between Tenth and
Eleventh streets, near the Nashville depot.
In making excavations for it, several old
privy vaults were uncovered, the effluvia
from which was the cause of malignant
malarial fever, which would have proved
equally fatal if no yellow fever had existed
in Memphis or New Orleans.
The people living on Broadway, near the
depot, who were daily witnesses of the arrivals
of yellow fever patients from the South, natu-
rally referred the deaths which took place
near their residences to yellow fever, in which
opinion they we're in few cases borne out by