Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-08-06
WORSE THAN YELLOW FEVER.
How the Cholera Ravaged American
Cities In I849.
St. Louis GIobe-pemocrat.l


In view of the fear of yellow fever
which now prevails in the West and
Southern States, it is interesting to
recall to mind that fearful pestilence
which spread its ravages throughout
the land just thirty years ago. During
the months of June and July, 1849,
the cholera ragged throughout the
United States to a fearful extent. In
the Atlantic towns it was not so de-
vastating as in 1882, but on the West
ern rivers its sweep was appalling. In
the cities of st. Louis and Cincinnati
the deaths often amounted to $50 and
200 per day. At the beginning of
July a gentleman writing from St.
Louis to New Yorker, thus described
the horrors of the pestilence
Calamities are all around us.
Death is everywhere. Cholera is deal
ing its blows to the right and left, and
thousands Of our people have been
hurried to their graves. A we'll man
now may be an hour hence a corpse.
The sections, the undertakers, and
even the horses of the city are worn
out with the dreadful work of the
burial. Carts and furniture wagons
have to supply the places of hearses,
which, though numerous, are INSULT
cient to carry out the collins, though
piled one upon another. Many dead
bodies lie, without a friend to
execute the rites of interment,
until public officer or Sister Of
Charity comes to put them in the
ground. Some persons, to save eX-
penses, which they are unable to bear,
bury their friends in the woods or on
the sand bars of the river. Many is
the house, lately full of inhabitants,
that now has scarcely one left to tell
the story of the departed. Husband
and wife will take their tea together
at evening, and before the next morn
ing one or both is ready for the grave.
Some of the sections, OYertaxed, bury
the dead at half the usual depth. The
city government have abdicated their
powers before an indignant populace,
and the duties of the board of health
are devOlved upon committee OF
citizens. The public school houses
are turned into hospitals, and the
chief business of the living is to take
care of the sick and dying and to bury
the dead. The stiffness of the Sab
bath reigns while death is doing its
work. The atmosphere is hot and hui
mid.
If more be wanting to complete the
sad picture, let me read you the fol
lowing description by the st. Louis
correspondent of the Buffalo Express
The city, from a population o.
near 10000, is now reduced to no
over 10000. Everybody has fed bu
those too poor to leave or whose bust
ness compelled them to remain. The
streets are deserted, except by the
hearse and the mournful procession
moving to the gloated cemeteries
Few steamboats, are running, anC
those 90 away loaded with the alright
ed population, and bring back no pas
sengers. The entire night is spent il
burying those who die during the
day"
In Cincinnati, for a period of eight
weeks, the reported mortality was
4,62S. In Dayton, o., physicians grew
panic patients suffering from
disease were left to die alone and neg
lected husbands deserted their wive.
in this fearful extremity, and daugh.
ters forgot what they owed to theil
mothers, At Sandusky, out of pop
ulation of 5000, not more than 70C
remained, most of the inhabitants who
had escaped the malady having left
the city in dismay. Business was en-.
tirely suspended, and the yariou,
hotels, together with the postofice anC
public stores, were all closed. The
sick suffered in a dreadful manner fol
the want of medical aid and assistance
They were not only unable to attenC
to the wants of the sick, but the,
could not bury the dead. There wer,
none to be found to dig graves anC
make collins. Birmingham, a flourish
ing town in the vicinity of Pittsburg
was desolatod by the scourge. il
Pittsburg the greatest CONSERVATION
prevailed, and few who could leaY
their houses remained in them. Ii
some instances whole families wer
swept away. In little settlemen
between Ohio City and Charleston
Mo-, every member of three families
numbering thirteen persons in all
died Of the cholera. A doctor VIII
had been attending them was ais,
taken with the disease and died alone
The bodies were found in the house
in too decomposed o state to be place.
in the cofins provided for them, The,
were buried as they were found.
| might lengthen the account, ad,
to the list of sufferers many more in
stances of the fatal progress of tn
pestilence. 1t is not confined 10 an,
class or age. The poor and the ricl
alike were its subjects temperate an,
J Incorporate; the finest intellects an,
, the noblest spirits in the land. 1t wa
under these dreadful circumstance
that President Taylor issued his proc
lamatiOH setting apart the Sd of Au
gust as a day the people should hum
bic themselves before His throne
"It is therefore earnestly Teoom
mended," he wrote, "that the frs
Fridayin August be observed through
out the United States as a day of fast
ing, humiliation and prayer; and t.
implore the Almighty in his own goo,
time to stay the destroying bend whicl
is now lifted up against us !"
But the ravages Of the pestilenc
were not confined 70 our own country
: The angel of death, who seemed t
! have crossed the Atlantic to us, re
visited the Eastern world with NOR
fatal effects IN some places than at tn
first visitation. The rayaqes of tb