The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-16

In 1864 the same plague revisited
Russia, carried by tray elers from
Bedesh to Nishnynovogorod, Kolomna,
Pereslawl and Pskow, and in all these
cities the chroniclers relate:
There was no time to bury the
dead; there remained scarcely ten
healthy individuals to a hundred that
were sick; the unfortunate victims
breathed their last without any one at
tending them in their dying hour:
seven, eight or more corpses were
buried in one trench; many houses be-
came quite deserted, while in others
one baby, perhaps, was left.''
Again the winters cold checked the
appalling work of death, but the pesti-
lence, instead of being driven away.
was only forced to lie dormant until
the return of warm weather in the sue
ceedin9 spring reawakened it in all its
ferocity. Then it spread to Rostow,
liver, TOrsok and other places. devas-
tating them most terribly. Another
winter stayed its course, but, as before.
1t retired not from the SEEMINGLY
doomed land upon which it had fast
ened; 1t only waited until the sun
should ripen its deadly seeds, and in
1866 it again desolated Moscow.
Fancifully and inexplicably it would
seem to desert city for time, only to
return at the momentum the wretched
inhabitants remaining were THANKING.
God for their deliverance. Not.deliyer7
ance, but only respite, had been ac-
corded them, for in that hour the black
death would spring upon them once
more with tenfold fury. Thus it raced
four times in PSkow and Govogorod. and
twice III the districts of Moscow. liver.
Smolensk and Rjassan. In Novoaorod
alone, according to the German 6isto-
rian, Kranz, $4,000 individuals were
swept from the face of the earth in the
short space of six months. The peo-
pie" he relates, "fell down in the
streets and expired in moment: per-
sons in health, engaged in burvinG the
dead, died suddenly. and were Inferred
in the graves they had just dug"
Smolensk was visited three times, un-
til at last, in 1887, five individuals only
were left alive of the whole population.
and they, according to the historical
record OF that awful time, event forth
from the city OF death, locking its gates
behind them"
Not until 1927 did the black death
really leave Russia. During seventy
five years it had in every one rayaoed
some portion of the land, and there
were many horrible summers in which.
as an epidemic of most fearful malipni.
ty, it spread over and blighted nearly
every city in the Cars domains. Hun
dreds of thousands of dead marked its
pathway in every direction. As an able
commentator of high medical authority
has written upon the subject:
The excessive virulence of this dis
ease in Russia may be entirely attributed
to the circumstance that the people took
no effective means for its cure wherever
the malady ragged, or against its recur-
renee where it had once disappeared
Superstition was then at its height
prayers, hastings, professions, charities.
etc, were reSOrted to as means to an.
pease the anger of the Almighty while
the remedies which God had placed in
their hands were disregarded. But
unfortunately, it was not only in acts OF
piety that the superstition of benight.
edpeople displayed itself; in tn ose times
fanaticism, the close ally of superstition
led them also to the commission OF
atrocities. The populace of Pskow
actually devoted twelve unfortunate fe.
males to the stake, and burned them as
reputed witches, in order, as they said
to propitiate God of mercyr
AT Sunday breakfast table: Pater
familias to son and heir Glad to see
you dressed for Sunday school, George
1t will be the first time you have beer
there in six weeks George
know it, father; but Tom Greene say:
the new pirate and cannibal books have
come, and I'm going every Sunday
steady"