Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1879-02-08

general pestilence was that ut the mid
die of the fourteenth century. Accord
ing to the Chinese, the pestilence broke
out there about 1888, following great
earthquakes and floods with their usual
attendants, failure of crops and famine.
Ere it reached Europe this pestilence is
said to have destroyed $4,000, 900 people
in China and nearly twice as many in
Eastern Asia and Northern Africa. 1t
visited every part OF Europe. from
Spain and Italy to Scotland and Rus
sia. This was the terrible "Black
Death" Boccaccie's "Decameren" re-
calls its ravages Inference IN 1348. Half
the population of Italy are said to have
died of 1t. In London there were 200
burials daily in the Charter House yard.
The Jews we're massacred by wholesale.
supposed authors OF the pestilenco. No
accusation was too monstrcus to be be.
lieved of them. They were charged
with poisoning the streams and wells,
and many of them even slew themselves
to escape the nideous tortures prepared
for them. Bands Of Flagellants and
other fanatics went from town to town,
lashIng and torturlng themselves to ex-
plate the sins of the people-and spread
ing the infection. The terror.stricken
wealthy enriched the monasteries with
offerings of gold, which they were
obliged to cast over the walls and
through locked gates People went to
sea TO escape the pestilence.. and ships
filed with the dead and the dying were
cast upon distant strands, there to COM
munlcate the contagion. Men took re-
fuge in forests and caves, only to find
death there awaiting them. In the
epidemic of 1875 four million people
are said to have died in the Byzantine
Empire, Russia. Germany, France, Italy
and Northern Spain. but as the earlier
scourge had spared the Mohammedan
countries, where the inhabitants were
more temperate and cleanly, so it was
observed that this pestilence respected
the monasterles OF the stricter order and
spared the frugal peasants dwelling in
the open fields of Calabria and Sicily.
In 1911 nearly quarter OF million of
people died of the plague at Constanti-
nopIe, and in 1856 Sardinian transport
laden with troups carried the disease to
the fertile regions OF Naples, where in
six months 100000 of the inhabitants
were swept away. a ship from the
Levant brought the plague to Marseilles
in 1920, when $4,000 OF the $4,000 resi-
dents perished in five weeks, among
them the heroic Bishop Belzance. who
had received at Paris this message from
the stricken city: 1--WE are dying
come home and die with u.s." and pay
ing courtly compliment to the grande
dame he was visiting. the brave Bishop
bade her ay reuotr. and in an hour was
posting southwark, day and night. to
comfort his people and-to die. 1t is
not pleasant to have to say that the peo.
| pie of Marseilles threatened riot few
weeks ago when it was proposed to
pay honor to his statue. Yet, though
seventy per cent. of the population
died, in the suburb of the Catalans
inhabited by abstemious Spaniards,
only 200 out of 6 900 perished. The Ia
ter plaques in Europe and the Orien
were those of 1760, in Syria, which wa
very malignant; OF 1771-2, in Moscow
of 1878, IN Persia, when $4,000 soul
died at Bassora; of 1892, in Egypt, 300,
600 deaths; of 1899, in the north Of Al
rica, when 5000 persons are said to hav
perished daily in Barbary of 18O4-5, il
the south of Spain, and Of 1926. q
Naples.
Before 1865 the plague, according t
Sydenham, visited England about ono
in generation. In 43O the living i
Britain, tradition tells us, were not abl
to bury the dead, ,and several pestllence
arc recorded previous to that of I'LL
| NH Ah Id 10
plague drove Henry II from Ireland
1172, and swept away prodigious nun
Der of the starving and shelterless Iris
in 1904. London was visited again
1348, 1862 and 1367-the year of tt
"black death''-and Ireland was scourf
ed in 1870 and 1888. In 14O7 Londo
lost 10000 residents in 1866 and 1470
, pestilence, following time of sore fan
F inc, ravaged Ireland and Dublin terribl
Next year the pest visited Oxford. an
in 147S destroyed more people than tt
, continual wars for the fifteen years pr
, ceding In 1499-150O the plague dro,
Henry VII and his court over to Calal
Leaving out of the list the five eplder
. les of the strange and fearful "sweatir
I sickness" which was mortal in thr,
hours, between 1885 and 1851. we noti'
the visit of the plague to Limerick
1922 and to London in 1904. when sc
57S people died. and again in 1926. .whe
a 35,417 persons perished. With the gre
a plague of 1864. 5 most readers are fami
3 lar through the story of DeFoe. whic
as most of them doubtless also kno,
: is not the tale of an eyewitness. In th
q visitation 68.596 persons died; fir
+ were kept burning day and night to p
rity the air, and it was thought that Il
! infection was never effectually destroy,
till the great fire OF 1866.