The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-11-15
A FEARFUL scOURGE.
The Great Plague In London-Graphic Az
count of Its Ravages.
from Harper's weekly.l

FROM fafpefb Ntthiy.I
The great plague of London in 1869
forms a climax in the history of diseases
1t seemed to spend its fury in one fierce
effort. 1t was to come no more. Centu
ries have passed, and still the fatal
scourge that ragged without limit, with
out resistance, almost to the destruction
OF the population of vast capital, has
wholly vanished before some inscrutable
law, some change of habits, improvement
IN morals and manners. Often before
1865 it had prevailed in London and
England almost with Oriental severity
and had slowly made its way over West
ern Europe, devouring generation IN
ITS passage. 1t began usually in Egypt
and Syria, reached Constantinople, over
ran the continent, desolated Amsterdam
and Paris, covered England with dis
may. 1t is curious to notice how all
these violent and loathsome diseases are
born and nourished in the East, ride
slowly westward, decimate destroy, are
the poisonous gifts of decaying civil
cation. The black death in 134S is the
most fearful of all. 1t came from the
East over medieval Europe, Staying
whole cities full of people, laying waste
and silent the open country, knocking
at the cottage and the palace gate. The
human race, in the words of the chroni-
clers, seemed about to disappear; cities
as large as New Orleans were nearly de-
serted; districts of fertile country fairer
than Mississippi were tenanted once
more by wild beasts. Half the people
of Europe, it was estimated, died. 1t
was as if 100000 of the inhabitants of
Boston had persisted in few months,
100000 in New York. We have moth
violence of these ancient plaques; men
have multiplied, disease diminishes. 1t
is not difficult to fancy the horror that
settled upon the survivors, the terrors of
the lonely cities, the forsaken Streets
the depopulated, desolate country; the
sudden outbreaks of fierce religious mad
ness that often followed; the fiagellants,
white penitents, fanatics, contrition, de-
spair; or the wild revelry that some
times sprung up in its midst, the shouts
of riotous merriment mingling with
groans and tears.
1t was a plague of this kind that came
upon London in 1865, SO fearful that it
could only seem Judgment from above.
SO it appeared to the rigid Puritans and
republicans who five years before had
welcomed back Charles Ii. and his Cav
alters with dissembled gladness, with
compromise with evil they could never
atone for. London had been n Puritan
city, strict in outward morals, rigid in
doctrine, industrious, gloomy; the re-
turn of the Cavaliers had filed it with
impurity. The King had brought with
him gay, mad, miserable train; every
thing rational was neglected; he was
the Comus of "rabble rout," and many,
with Milton or Defoe, looked upon the
plague as the Judgment of Heaven upon
the misdeeds of their rulers London
in the winter and spring of 1664-65 was
crowded with people; in the West End
the wealthy and noble gathered around
Westminster and Whitehall, in the city
and eastern suburbs trade had revived
The river was full of ships, the streets
filed with an overlooking tide of life.
Defoe has painted with his realistic pen
the slow rise of the pestilence, the first
alarm, the hopes, the fears, the progress
of the scourge secretly and then openly,
the flight of the citizens, the horlid
gloom, the death-cries, the yawning
graves, crime, woe, the decline of the
pestilence, the boundless JOY of the sur
vivors, the return Of the impenitent
court. For long time it had been
known in London that the plague had
been raging on the continent, brought
from the East by some unlucky trader:
but in the winter of 1864 only few
cases had been noticed in the capital,
yet these were enough to excite deep
anxiety. Men watched the reports of
the deaths in different parishes eagerly.
ave had no such thing as printed news
papers in those days" says Defoe, "to
spread rumors and reports of things, and
improve them" But the rumor of the APP
proach of the disease had already
reached London. In November two
men, said to be Frenchmen, died in
Drury lane; the physicians declared
they had died of plague and the weekly
bill of mortality was printed: PLAGUE,
q parishes infected, l." Another died
in December. For six weeks no other
death occurred; then in February one
happened. 1t was noticed, however,
that the number of deaths around st.
Giles had greatly increased; it was
whispered that the plague was there,
and few cared to venture through Drury
lane. But the winter came on sharp
and bleak, and seemed to kill the dis
ease, as if it could only flourish in the
hot air of summer. 1t disappeared
wholly. It revived in Maya cool,
pleasant month; it fingered in the filth
and squalor of st. Giles, and in June
broke into fearful activity. The pesti
lence had come; the citizens who were
able closed their houses, shops, and
fled. The court had gone to Oxford;
for weeks the streets were filed with
throngs of people moving to the coun-
try on horseback, on foot, carrying their
furniture, goods, wares, the rich and
poor mingled in common calamity.
But many were forced to stay, and on
these the pestilence fell with almost I'M
accountable fury. The hot weather of
July reused it to virulence; in August
it was fearful; in September the hor-
rors told of it surpass belief. It first
appeared with tumor on the breast or
under the arm-hard, painful, horrible