The Pascagoula democrat-star. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1878-1920, 1878-10-11
A True Picture.
RUBY.

Memphis Appeal.
| Memphis people visiting Boston laugh at
the reports of the panic which the associ-
ated press has sent north. They say things
are not half SO bad.
The above, from a Boston paper,
was sent to one of the telegraph op.
orators employed here by the West
ern Union telegraph company, and
by Mr. Catron, local agent of the
Western Associate Press, to whom
he gave it, was handed to us.
We would give worlds. had
we them to give, to know the
names of the Memphiaus,
who, absenting themselves from
their homes from fear of the fever,
mock at the pangs and sutferings
of 5000 sick, laugh over the 1900
dead men, women and children
who sleep in Elmwood and Calvary
cemeteries and Potters field, and
deride the needy widows and Or
phans, and hungry unemployed la
borers, who clamOr for the food
dished out to them day by day, the
charity, not of Memphis people, who
enjoy Boston and laugh over the
press reports, but, thank God, of
millions who never saw Memphis,
and many who never met any Mem
phians, but who are moved by the
plain, simple, unvarnished state
ments Of Mr. Catron. who, to our
knowledge, has always been under,
rather than over the mark. Mem
phis people visiting Boston may
laugh, but we, who are here, are
daily, hourly, in tears, for the man
ly men and sanity women, many of
whom might have fed, but who
preferred to share the tate of their
humber fellow citizens. and have
fallen in the cause of humanity.
But there must be some mistake
about it. Surely there is not one
of all the thousands of Memphis
who are safe from the pestilence
that takes its hundred per day or
more, who laugh over the reports
even though they were exaggerate d,
which they are not. Surely there
is not one so lost to shame, to the
commOnest decency, as to laugh |
while all the world is serious over
our sorrow, and the open hand of
charity ministers to our wants from
all parts of the earth. TO lose over
twelve hundred men, women and |
in twenty seven days, out
of population of $4,000 white and
black, and to be expending over
$4,000 for twelve hundred nurses
and forty doctors, aud for medi-
cines and food, for more than 5000
sick and 10000 INDECENT, is to us a
sad reality, enough to move even a
stole to tears. But besides this,
there comes the tales of individual
sorrow; of whole families swept |
away in week, leaving not even
one of the name; of nurses dying at
their posts, of priests and ministers
and good sisters following those
they succored so fast as to appall
the stoutest hearts aud "give us
pause" amid the gel eral wreck and
ruin. No pen can do these scenes
and sights justice, no tongue exag-
gerate them. Lisping childhood,
hoary and venerable old age, the
vagrant and the merchant, the man
of God and the unbeliever, all are
taken, all are claimed alike by the |
awful pestilence 1t tthins all ranks,
and brings sorrow TO the mansion,
the cottage and the cabin. The
cry of the fatherless is heard every
hour, claiming the pity, the sym
pathy, and the tears of the most |
hardened veteran. In this Office,
as we write, there are but two OF
all who month ago were employed
in the editorial, counting and com
posing rooms, and our preSSman is
down with the fever. Strangers to |
the Office, as to the business are at
to our affairs, while the only
editor left on duty alternates, throgh
sixteen ours a day, between his desk
and case. This is our personal
measure of the epidemic, and sure
ly it is sad one. 1t has moved us
to tears many time the past ten
days, although we are not used to
the melting mood. Our experience |
is one we will never forget, and it |
is a common one. Of the five epi
denies we have passed through, this
surpasses them all in the horrors it
has uncovered. Parents have de-
serted children, and children pa
rents, husbands their wives, but
not one wife husband. Men have
dropped dead on the streets, while
others have died neglected, only to
be discovered by the death-spread-
ing gasses from their bodies.
Little children clamoring for the
food she could no longer give, have
to the dead mother, who
gave up her spirit as she gave birth
to her last. in an agony of the fever.
Ministers of the Gospel carrying
of peace, hurrying from !