Connecticut western news., 1878-09-12
Horrors of the Pestilence.

A letter from plague-stricken dis trict of the South says i've are all bowed down under the mighty hand of God, and crying to him to have mercy upon us. The yellow fever is no stran- ger to us, and is not usually greatly dreaded: not So much as typhoid fever, malarial fever, scarlet fever, or small pox, and not near so much as cholera. But this year the yellow fever has as- stunned new character. It is malignant as never before. Many physicians pro- nounce it not the yellow fever, but Q virulent plague under the form of the yellow fever. Children have always before been exempt, but this year the fever visits them especially. Negroes have never been much subject to it. This year they were peculiarly attacked. Usually but few die, most recover: This year it is reversed, and in some places all die who are attacked. Usually it avoids clean places. This year no cleanliness and no disinfection guards against it. Usually it avoids old inhab- itants and acclimated persons. This year it attacks indiscriminately Usually it runs nine days. This year sometimes not as many hours, and three days seems its limit. Usually it begins in September. This year in July, and there is no special reason either in the weather or the atmosphere that we know of to cause this unusual deadliness. There has been no unusual amount of sickness at all of any other kind.
 The terrible thing about it next after it's malignancy, is the season of year in which it begins. We. do not look for frost before the last of October or the 1st of November-perhaps not before the middle of November-and three months is an awful time! The Lord once offered David three years of famine, three months of war, or three days of pestilence. We have three months of pestilence to look forward to. But as the fever is new, it will probably grow worse, spread wider, and even grow more malignant. This is it's usual course, and it is with sinking hearts that we look forward down the vista of trou- ble, pain, and death. Poor Grenada two weeks ago was hourishing little town of some 5000 people. Now it is almost plotted out of existence. It was Q pretty place, full of flowers, with many houses, nicely kept grounds, many happy families and full of generosity-for when the fever became bad in New Orleans and the people there began to seek ref uge and were quarantined out of many places, the people of Grenada held meetings and sent an invitation to New Orleans telling the panic-stricken people there to come to them. They opened every house, provided against extortion, and subjected themselves to crowding and all annoyance-not for profit, but for humanity. The yellow fever had never visited Grenada, and they were confident that it could not gain a foot hold among them. But one Sunday morning they were struck as if by light ming. Before Monday morning many were dead. On the next Sunday there were but IA well white persons left, and now but five or six. Even the nurses and physicians sent from Memphis and New Orleans fell victims, and some of them, though long accustomed to the disease, fled in terror. Many died through lack of attention In two houses, close together, lived two fami
 lies, one of seven and one of nine per. sons, Some were taken sick, then others, and finally all of both families, and when discovered the next day it was too late to do more than close their eyes and bury them. One gentleman living
 in Holly Springs heard that some of his