The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-04-12

tinued existence of those elements of con-
tagion. To what extent they may spread,
or what devastation they may cause, is
not given to man to foretell. But they
tell enough, when covered with dread ex-
perience, to put man on his guard against
inviting their approach by neglect Of hy-
gienic laws.
The general healthfulness of Cincin-
natl is well known. The statistics of vi
tality fully sustain the claim of our city
to rank among the most healthful cities
of the world. But no city can claim en-
tire exemption from such epidemics as
have a range SO wide as the yellow fever
has trayersed, 1t is true that our city
escaped last years exposure almost un-
scathed, no case occurring that was not
imported hither from some stricken dis
trict. But such fortunate exemption
should not delude us into the idea of in
vulnerabiIity.
BY reason of our position as to lati,
tude, just bordering upon the warm
regions of the South, and so closely con.
nected Herewith by river and by rail,
Cincinnati has reason to exercise a pru-
dent and prompt precaution against an
invasion from this disease This becomes
the more needful from the surprising
fact that our sister cities of the South,
which suffered so fearfully only a few
months ago, are themselves SO neglect.
full of similar precautions.
1t would seem that cities like Memphis
and New Orleans, over which the fever
had so recently spread its yellow banner
of death, would be prompt and energetic
in the application of all conceivable
means to prevent the recurrence of such
a horrible scourge. Yet the startling
truth is that nothing of the kind has
been done. The city of Memphis has
abandoned her municipal organization
so that there are no civic authorities tc
grapple with the destroyer that had but
just made a charnel-house of her streets
Accounts received from New Orleans
are even more frightful still. A CORE
spondent writing from that city re
) Gently describes its streets as reeking
with denominations. Owing to the pool
capacity for drainage there the sewers
are necessarily surface-sewers. These art
filled with stagnant water, thick witt
unuiterable filth. So noisome was the
atmosphere that even in midwinter the
stencil from the cutters compelled pru
dent people to close doors and window.
to exclude as far as possible the fetiC
etfluvia rising from the putrefying gar
bage floating around their dwellings. The
public cemeteries, where the dead of vel
low fever were literally dumped last fall
and buried in the wet and oozy soil only
few inches deep, to be rooted up by
swine, are revolving and pestiferous to
the last degree. How could recurrence
of yellow fever be avoided when invited
by such recklessness as this?
When the destroyer was upon them,
when their households were perishing in
its grasp, when delirium and despair
were holding high carnival in theil
homes, the people and authorities of thai
city promised themselves measures Of
full and perfect precaution against any
future visitation of such horrors as those
But it would seem that New Orleans, like
another hot place that we read about, il
paved with nothing more health-givins
than good resolutions The people wert
letting their city rcek with the germs o
this pestilence while they were spending
money by thousands on their festival o
Mardi Gras.
Perhaps it would not be so much
theme for invective were the evils tina
proceed from such plague spot as tina
confined to that city alone. But sittin
as she does at the mouth of the grea
river, she thus makes herself tn
gateway for distributing the germs O
pcstilence, thus fostercd in her bosom
through all the towns and cities of til
Mississippi Valley.
And thus it is that our own city ha
l the greater need to apply all pruden
precautions, which other cities more ez
posed so recklessly neglect, to proven
D the ravages here of the pestilence tina
), walketh in darkness and wasteth at moor