The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-02-19
THE BLACK PLAGUE.
THE TERRIBLE CONDITION or Az
FAIRS PREVAILING IN THE IN
TERROR OF BRAZIL.
HsIf a Million OF People Killed by IT
starvation and the smallpox
Men Eating Their own Children.
brazil Cor. OF the Naw York Heral

PASTURES without grass, forests without
leaves, rivers without water, fields without
crops. The cattle industry destroyed utterly
only few beeves survived about the larger
towns OF the thousands that had roamed
over these plains. The cotton and sugar in
dustries almost annhilated; no mandioca
oven. except In about three or four mountain
villages People obliged to 20 five or six
miles from their houses to dig for water In
the bed OF some torrent. At least 100000
refugees encamped about the larger towns
10000 Of these added to the $4,000 Of Forta-
lea. famine mortality, which In many
places bad reached twenty per day. A NOR
tally from disease very much greater. No
money In the provincial treasury; no hope OF
outside aid, except the drop Of private chart
W, and all men looked for rain. l have let
tiers from the interior that cover all this
period; you will ace II / exaggerate. A let
Ter from Aracaly, December 26, says:
The current Of emigration continues to
swell. On some days more than a thousand
refugees have entered this town. Already
we have an adventurous population of 40, 900
souls. During the past month there died 403
persons, and as we have no epidemic here we
must suppose that the greater part OF this
mortality arose from bad Authorization or
actual famine A little later, the note says,
sixty-seven persons died on the thirtieth OF
December and sixty-six on the thIrty-first."
iI,
Ceara had To fight when the second great
famine year broke upon her. In january |
there was fear, in February terror, In March |
despair; no rains at all in some places. little
useless showers ut best And now comes the |
most terrible scene Of all There was no more
hope In the SertaO. No food and no possibi- |
tty Of obtaining 1t except along the sea shore. |
Then the whole bewiideTed, famine-stricken,
panic-wild crowd came rushing down to For |
taleza and the coast cities Without food for |
the road, naked, sick, dying, even as they fed |
from death--every man for himself Children |
striving vainly to keep up with their parents
crying as they roll over the stones, with |
bleeding feet and skeleton bodies, walking,
crawling along, begging where no one could
!gtve-for how could man support thous-
ands. They were fanlished when thew started
Three, four, five days they held their way.
Then they fell by the roadside and groaned
and died. Some plying hand, perhaps, threw
handful Of earth over them, but, for the
most part, each was too busy with his own
safety to care for others. SO our human
brothers died
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE
PBH1SHED.
The greatest mortality from hunger was
probably in March from February to May l.
when the exodus was taking place. | can ,
hardly calculate the number of famine deaths
at less than 100000, and during the whole
drouth probably 10000 died Of hunger.
should add that my calculations are much
lower than those Of other persons; some ,
place the entire number as high as 100000. In ,
Aracaty the death rate fluctuated between
80 and ITO day; in Fortaleza 1t was less at
this time, but eighty per day was bad enough ,
1 have notices Of ten, twenty or more daily
deaths In small villages, and everywhere {
along the roadsides nameless crosses still tell
the story OF uncatalogued victims. Dark I
tales OF cannibalism begin to appear. From .
q letter written at Quixeramobim translate
as follows ,
EATING HIS own CHILD t
81 write in haste. Have no time to tran 6
scribe the scenes Of horror about me. 1t Is I,
enough to give you as specimen one name !
less crime. father, whose nature was so Z
overcome by hunger that he killed and cooked =
in pot his little child. two years old This :
took place in California Ia settlement near
Quixadal. The father died soon after his !
horrible repast. have three or four similar l
stories, very well authenticated. 1 believe y
that these and other cases OF cannibalism
were caused by insanity-a common result OF .
hunger"
quote also letter from Jaglaribe- Mirim, .
one Of many that tell the same story: 2
This village Is full Of abandoned children; !,
the despairing fathers would no longer see u
them torn by this monster hunger This very g,
day, while | was eating dinner, my house was .
invaded by crowd OF these wretched chill "
dren, very Skeletons who could hardly speak. !,
Some OF them were SO weak that they would y
take only soup obstinately refusing more
solid food. The road from here to Aracaty is
full Of bodies. You can count the crosses by
hundreds. Tho other day, In an abandoned
mousse, UIlFIP WtEG lDHHu i've DUulpS Oh fHfU- aE
gees, four children and one old woman. By %
the bodies there were tiree strips Of leather In
in the kettle the ashes of an extinguished ts
fire. dog, the faithful friend Of the family, b.
was still watching them Near Lettrado oil
three young girls and an old man were found al
eating the flesh Of dead horse which lay by b,
the roadside This was family from Laoras. al
Even In the villages these poor wretches no +
longer ask for mandioca meal. they ask for bl
cats and dogs to eat. This Ia no exaggera ri
ton. One shop keeper told me OF O refugee 81
who asked permission to kill the rats about G.
his pIace1 Three days ago made Journey fir
~ s}x leagues nv the road from leo and what h.
saw was indescribable. / found eleven dead ii
bodies by the roadside and ut least forty who W
were dying Happily there is no pestilence II
here; the deaths are from hunger Oh
WHAT CAN THE GOVERNMENT Do2 VI
In Crato the number of famine deaths regis ~
tered from February 10 to March is was G64 J,
in CORN. during the same time, nearly four q
hundred were recorded, and 80 on for the a.
other villages. But by May the interior OF "
the province was almost deserted. Even n
large places like Cratic and leo hardly con- o.
tanned tenth Of their original population. y
The scene Of misery was transferred 70 the n
sea coast. In Ceara birds and insects died a,
during the first blazing summer. Imagine n
what the plains must have been with second n,
drv year. The whole population was gath p,
cred in a strip not more than seventy-fve
miles In Its greatest width running along the r
coast. The people were crowded about the
cities and villages, living In wretched huts
and drawing government rations. AT one
time there were 10000 of them at FortaleZa,
30, 900 at Aracaty, and 80 on Tor other places. p,
BREAKING OUT OF SMALLPOX. u
The people had food enough, but still the =
death rate increased steadily. In Fortaleza ~ ~
IL had reached 200 per day, even as early as /,
May or June. In Aracaty it was hardly less 4,
There were pernicious fevers. beri-berl. n
little cholera Yellow fever disappeared with u
the spring months. But above all other dis ii
eases the smallpox began to assume terri a,
BILE pre-eninenCe. 1t was worst at Fortaleza ~
Very lev of the people were vaccinated. lso- u
lation OF the sick was never enforced. The y
postllence, confined at first to the refugees,
soon spread tn the richer classes. By Octo- y,
dwindled to 10000 or 10000. including the g
townspeope, many had died many had emf =,
grated Among those that were left the pes y
thence was stalking and marking its victims. :,
On November 80 persons died of small-pox Il