The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1878-09-27
THE SOUTHERN PLAGUE.
Dsplorable Condition a Memphis.


Deplorable Condition a Memphis.
Moved by an incorrect report that the
Associated Press reports were exagger-
ating the deplorable state in Memphis,
Tenn, the appeal of that city, in its
issue of the 10th inst. says: "To lose
over 200 men, women and children in
twenty-seven days, out of population
of $4,000, white and black, and to be
expanding over $4,000 for 200 nurses
and 40 doctors, and for medicines, and
food for more than 5000 sick and 10000
INDECENT, is to us sad reality, enough
to move even q stole to tears. But be-
sides this, there come the tales of indi-
vidual sorrow; of whole families swept
away in a 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 heart and
give us pause amid the general wreck
and ruin. No PEG can do these scenes
and sights justice; no tongue exaggerate
them. Lisping childhood, hoary and
venerable old age, the vagrant and the
merchant, the man of God and the I'M
believer, all are taken, claimed alike by
the awful pestilence. The cry of the
fatherless is heard every hour, claiming
the pity, the sympathy, and the tears of
the most hardened veteran. In this of
fee, as we write, there are but two left
of all who month ago were employed
in the editorial, counting and compos-
ing rooms, and our pressman is down
with the fever. Strangers to the office,
as to the business, are attending to our
affairs, while the only editor left on
duty alternates, through sixteen hours
day. between his desk and case. This
is our personal measure of the dread
full epidemic, and surely it is a sad
one. Our experience is one we will
never forget, and it is common
one. The fifth epidemic we have
passed through, this surpasses them
all in the horrors it has uncovered.
Parents have deserted children, and
children parents, 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-spreading gases
from their bodies. Ministers of the
Gospel, carrying messages of peace,
hurrying from house to house, have had
their weary feet arrested and their work
stayed by the pestilence that walks in the
MONDAY as at night. The priest add
ministering the extreme JUNCTION, and
the bride of Christ, wiping the death
damp from the forehead of those whose
friends and kin-folk are far away, are al
most paralyzed in the sacred act, and
die even before we know they are sick.
The business of the hour is the succor
of the sick, the burial of the dead, and
the care of the needy living. The last
words of those who are well are at night
farewells to the dead, and the first in
the morning, "Who lives and who has
died" All day, and every hour of the
day, this question is repeated, and the
soul grows weary over the repetition.
And yet there is no relief nor any re-
lease. Worse and worse the epidemic
has grown, until to-day it has capped
the climax, and the hearts of the brave
men who have stood in the breach are
blanched with fear, with dread that
humiliation awaits us, and that we are
destined to be blotted from the earth
Fear sits on every face and dread on
every heart. We work not in the shad-
ow, but in the very face of death We
meet him on every hand and at every
moment in the names of his victims and
in the desolation he has spread about
us. Hope, we have none. We despair
of any relief, but we are nerved for the
end. We pray blessings upon the gem
erous who have helped us in all the
States; we pray for the safety of those
who have come among us to nurse the
sick and minister to the dying, and we
ask that the names of the women and the
men who have laid down their lives for
us shall be handed down forever as
among the brightest and the best of
earth"