Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1879-07-28
POOR MEMPHIS.

Hardly had the Board of Health pub
lished to the world that there was not
single case of yellow fever in the city of
Memphis, and that the quarantine was
raised, when in quick succession men and
women were taken down with the plague
in the neighborhood of last years rava-
ges. The trains were again stopped, and
all boats and conveyances leaving the
city were heavily loaded with panic
stricken people. This walls up Memphis
for the summer, and strikes lasting
blow at her commercial prosperity. Last
year the leading merchants, not willing
to desert their homes and their business
reopened their stores IN the fall, in the
hope that death would not visit them
twice so signally; but now there is hard
ly prominent business man in the city
who is not shipping his goods to other
points with a view of a permanent change.
This means that Southern city of
$4,000 inhabitants, the second cotton
market in the United States, the largest
city in Tennessee and the most impor-
tant port on the Mississippi between
New Orleans and st. Louis, is to be re-
duced to position of comparative in
significance among the cities of the
Union. A canvass through the whole
sale grocery establishments reveals the
fact that there are not provisions in the
city to last over fortnight, and with
all the wealthy men away, fully 10000
people will be thrown on the charity of
the public. No one who remembers the
generous giving of last year will believe
that these will 60 unprovlded for; that
is not the question. Has this years
attack any connection with that of last
year? A doctor on the ground thus
answers the question:
1t is said by the oldest inhabitant that
as far back as forty years there was yell
low fever in this city, though it did not
then spread, and the grand total of deaths
was extremely small for those years in
which it occurred. 1t has gradually
gained firm hold through the laxity of
those intrusted with the management of
the health affairs of the city, and now
rests like deadly curse upon her. This
mass of corruption finally came to head
last year, burst, and scattered its foul
contents over the face of the whole coun-
try. We now have to pay for our tardi.
ness. Instead of commencing the great
work of sanitation as soon as the plague
was over, the matter was laid aside until
it was time for another scourge, which
owes its origin partly to that very thing.
1t was a grievous error, which the sani-
tarians have themselves acknowledged.
In all probability Judge Rays death
was caused by the stirring up in warm
weather of sinks used during the late
epidemic as repositories for vomIt and
general filth. The five cases reported
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are in the immediate neighborhood, and
were, no doubt, brought about partly by
the same cause.
This evidence can be relied upon as
well considered and unprejudiced, coming
as it does from native of the city. Tn,
conclusion, then, is unavoidable, tina
proper care was not taken to proven
this epidemic.
Yellow fever, in the main, spread
through the low districts of the South
Few of the hill towns suffer from it, ex
cept where patient is brought Their,
from other places. The fear is now ex
pressed that the fever will spread through
the whole lower Mississippi Valley. TIL
city of Memphis is on the bank of rive
hardly thirty-fve feet above the highes
foods, and with reference to the rest o
Tennessee very low. being in the south
west corner Of the State. The natura
rains have not good facilities for runnin,
} off; and this sluggish drainage ant
culpable carelessness in applying artifi