, 1879-07-27


Of strangers pouring into Chicago, attracted
from fer aud near by its widespread reputa-
ton as summer-resort, they are not lone
| some.
"THE PEsr1LENcE WHICH WALKETH
IN DARKNESS"
A Memphis dispatch says: ga flock ot
sandhill cranes approached, hovered over the
city two or three minutes, and then disap-
pearcd, whereupon an old negro remarked
that it WAS 'sign,' and predicted the
destruction of the town" Superstition is
the child of ignorance and mystery: The
sailor in unknown seas discerns in the
Mother Carey's chicken circling about the
ship the soul of lost comrade. M1cHE1ET
says: " HOMER and the Arabian Nights have
handed down to us good1y number OF those
frightful legends of shoals and tempests,
and of Gains no less murderous than tenn
pests,-those calms during which the hardest
sailor agonizes, moans, loses all courage and
all hope in the tortures of the hours, days,
haply weeks, when, with cracked LIP and
blood-shotten eye, he has around him, heay-
ing upward and sinking downward, but
never progressing cables length,
/ 'Water, water everywhere,
But not drop to drink.'''
The scourge Of yel1ow-fever has all the
mystery and horror Of the sea in q tempest.
The sufferer, para1yzed by fear and con-
sumed with fever, like the wrecked ship,
without sail, rudder, or compass, drifts
rapidly towards the rock OF death. His
friends and neighbors avoid him, as the ship
still struggling with the waves shuns the
passive hulk blown hither and thither by the
| gale. It has always been thus with ''the
pestilence which wa:keth in darkness, and
! the destruction that wasteth at MONDAY"
The people Of the stricken city shrink from
shadows, seek portents of evil in the
| heavens, and fee "frou1 the wrath to come"
| DEFoE's celebrated work on the Plague in
| London is replete with graphic descriptions
Of the intense alarm excited by the advent
and progress Of the scourge, and Of the gross
superstitions to which its presence gave
rise. As DEFoE was barely years Of age
at the time of the pestilence, his descriptions
of its progress, its horrors, and its effects
! upon individuals and communities were
| necessarily borrowed. But that they were
mere fctions Of the imagination by no means
follows, since the experience of mankind
under similar circumstances tends strongly to
confirm their verify. Indeed, it is proba-
| BILE that a vivid recollection OF the
awful scenes through which the city passed
| remained with him and stimulated him to
| special inquiry on the subject Of those Of
| ripper age. Besides, the visitations of tbs
| plague did not cease entirely until 1863; when
DEFoE was years old. DEFoE estimates
! the population Of London at the time at
million souls. As the people fee from The
yellow-feyer stricken cities Of the South
now, SO they fed from London then,-the
rich first, to great distances, and next the
| middle class, to such distances as their
means permitted. Two hundred thousand
persons-one-ffth Of the population-fed
the city. The poor remained and died like
cattle. Says DEFoE: escrow md sad
ness sat upon every face; London might
well be said to be ell in tears" When the
pestilence had made considerable progress
the "old women " and The 'shypoohondriac
d
comet passed directly over the city," that it
was '*of FAINT, dull, 1anguid color, and its
motion very heavy, solemn, and slow" and
that accordingly it foretold a heavy judg-
msnt, slow but severe, terrible and frightfu1
as was the plague" Religious pamphlets
were published with alarming titles
as, "Come out Of her, my people,
lest ye be partaker Of her plaques" Preach
ers. 's ran about the streets" crying like
JONAH to Nineveh, +" Yet forty days, and
London shall be destroyed" A man, nearly
naked, rushed through the city crying, "Oh!
the great and the dreadful Con, this and
nothing more. "Some heard voices warn-
ing them to be gone, for that there would be
such plague in London so that the living
would not be able to bury the dead; others
saw apparitions in the mir" Consulting the
sky, they !" saw flaming sword held in
hand coming out Of cloud, with point
hanging directly over the city, nearses and
cofdns in the air carrying to be buried, and
heaps of dead bodies lying unburied-" Even
the clergy Of the Established Church-some
of them-lost their wits and preached SER
mons full OF terror" and, as they brought
the people together with kind of horror,
sent them away in tears, prophesying moth
ing but evil things; terrifying tho people
with the apprehensions Of being utterly de-
stroyed; not guiding them, at least not
enough to cry to Heaven for mercy.
Having been nearly frightened to death by
the clergy and the soothsayers, the people
next encountered the army of quack doctors
who offered "infal1ible preventive pills
against the plague, never-failing preserva-
tives against the infection, sovereign cor
dials against the corruption of the air, anti
pestilential pills, and the only true plague
water" Criminals confessed their crimes
publicly. ':People might be heard in the
streets as We passed along calling upon GoD
for mercy, through JESUS CHR1sT, and say
ing, i have been q thief, have been m
adulterer, have been murderer But
there were none to comfort or arrest them.