The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-02-16

1
purlals daily In the Charter House yard. The
Jews were massacred by Wholesale the pop
ular rage turning on them as the supposed
auInoIs OF Che pestilence. No accusation was
700 monstrous TO be believed of them They
We're charged with poisoning the streams and
wells, and many of them even slew themselves
TO escape the hideous tortures prepared for
them. bands of Flagelants and other fanat-
ics went rom town to town, iashIng and tor
turing themselves to expiate tho sins of the
people. and spreading the infection. The ter
rof-strlcken wealthy enriched the monaster-
Leg with offerings Of gold, which they were
locked gates. People went to sea to ,,s
cape the pestilenee, and ships filed with the
dead and the dying were cast upon distant
strands. there to comm unlcate the contagion,
Men took refuge In forests and caves, only TO
find death there awaiting them. In the epi-
demic 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 scOurgs had spared the
Mohammedan countries, where the inhabi-
tants were more temperate and eeany. SO
It was observed that this pestilenee respected
the inconsistencies Of the stricter order and
spared the frugal peasants dwelling In the
open helds OF Catabria and Sicily. In 1911
nearly quarter OF a million of people died
Of the plague In Constantinople and In 1856 q
Sandman transport laden with troops carried
the disease to the fertile region Of Naples,
where In six months 100000 OF the inhabitants
were swept away. A ship from the Levant
brought the plague to Marseilles In t72D
when 50, 900 of the $4,000 residents persisted In
five weeks, among them the heroic Bishop
Belzunce. who had received ut Paris
this message from the stricken city
I'VE are dying come homo and die with
us," and paying oourtly ompiimeDt to the
grande dame he was visiting the brave Bishop
babe her du reUoir, and in an hour was posting
southwark, day and night, to comfort his
people and-to die. 1t Is not pleasant to have
H..
ened q riot n few weeks ago when II was pro-
posed TO pay honor to his statue. Yet, though
70 per cent of the population died, In the sub
urb Of the Galatians, inhabited by abstemloils
Spaniards, only 200 out Of 5000 pershed. The
later plaques In Europe and the Orient were
those of 176O, In Syria, which was very ma
! lignant; of 1771-2, In Moscow; of 1878, In Per-
sia, when $4,000 souls died ut Bassora; Of
| 1902 In Egypt, 100000 deaths; Of 1799 in the
North OF Africa, when 5000 persons are said
to have persisted daily in Barbary; Of 1804-5,
In the South Of Spain. and Of 1876. at Ma
pies.
Before 1865 the plague, according to Syden-
ham, visited England about once in n genera
ton. In 430 the living In Britain, tradition
tells us, were not able to bury the dead and
| several pestlences are recorded previous to
that of iii, which extended TO cattle and
fowls. The plague drove Henry II from Ire
land In 1172, and swept away n prodigious
number of the starving and shelterless Irish
Y,
1862 and t367-the year Of the BLACK Death
and Ireland was scourged In 1870 and 1888. In
1907 London lost $4,000 residents; In 1866 and
1890 pestilence, following q time of sore
famine, ravaged Ireland and Dublin terribly.
Next year the pest visited Oxford and In 1878
destroyed more people than tho continual
wars for the fifteen years preceding. In 1499-
1900 the plague drove Henry VII and his court
over to Calais Leaving out OF the list the
five epidemics OF the strange and fearful
sweating sickness (which was mortal In
three hours between 1895 and 1851, we notice
to London In 1904, when sc, 278 people died,
and again in 1926, when 35,4l7 persons per-
ished With the Great Plague OF 1G6i-5 most
readers are familiar through the story of De
Foe, which, as most Of them doubtless also
know Is not the tale of an eyewitness. In
this visitation 68,596 persons died fires were
kept burning day and night to purify the air,
and 1t was thought that the infection was
never eifectually destroyed till the great fire
Of 1894