The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-02-25
SENATE.
THIRTY-NINTH DAY.

THURSDAY, February 49, 1880.
Senate met pursuant to adjournment Lieut.
Gov. Sims in the chair. Prayer by Rev
DR.. Hunter.
The journal of yesterday was read and an
proved.
Several of the standing committee made re
ports.
Mr. johnson offered the following. which
was unanimously adopted
Mr.. PRESIDENT introduce this reso
luton and will urge its adoption because
think it due to ourselves, as well as the
people we represent, being the first General
Assembly that has met since the great
Epidemic of 1878. We shudder when w
look back on that dark period and behold
the clouds of misery and death, as they en-
veloped the entire Western portion of our
beloved State, when we listen to the cries
OF anguish and misery, and the groans of
the dying at Grenada, Holly Springs, Can
ton, Vicksburg, Jackson, and many other
portions of our State, where the epidemic
prevailed; where thousands of our fellow
citizens were unable to make a support by
the suspension of all business, and hear the
cries of women and children for the COM
forts of life this terrible plague had de-
prived them of, and hear the means of the
dying, the cries of the orphan and the dis
tressed everywhere, and this too, at time
we, as people, were unable to render them
such assistance as would prevent their
suffering. This, fellow Senators, was our
condition. When we appealed to the world
for help, did that helpcome? Go to those des-
Olated fresides ask the widow and orphan
and those who survived the great plague, and
hear their response. From every State of
this Union, East, West, North and South,
help came, and came literally, and not only
from our own loved countay, but from al
most every civilized nation of the earth
our cry was heard, and our wants were
well supplied. Money, provisions, medicine
and clothing were forwarded to US in such
quantities to meet all our demands; and
while misery and death were upon u.s. it
was consoling to know the outside world
had looked on US with compassion, and
came to our relief as though we were breth-
rem.
We then, as the Representatives Of the
people of Mississippi, in our legislative ca
pacity, should give some expression of our
appreciation of the generous manner with
which our appeal for help was answered.
l therefore move the adoption of the resolu-
ton:
A JOINT RESOLUTION in relation to the
Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878.
WHEREAS, The assembling of the Legislature |
OF Mississippi for the first time since the fatal
epidemic of yellow fever by which our citi- |
tens were scourged in the summer and au-
tumn of 1878, suggests the propriety of some
permanent memorial Of that affecting calami-
ty and of some official recognition of that
worldwide charity which it worked Seldom
in recent history has the human family been
smltten by disease so sudden, so widespread
so fatal, and which so successfully baffied the
researches Of science, alike as to its origin and
its cure. Originating, so far as the United
States is concerned, in our neighboring city
of New Orleans, it leaped at a single bound to
the town of Grenada, distance Of more than
$40 miles, and Frustrated more than fifty vic
tins before the wisest of the medical profess
sion suspected its existence. Thence rapid
ly spreading to many towns and cities in our
own State and in Tennessee, it made its way
as an epidemic as far North as Paducah XIV
and in sporadic form to Louisville, Cincin7l
natl and ST. Louis. In the brief space of four
months more than hundred thousand per-
sons were stricken down, of whom
twenty-five thousand died Our own
people were called upon to mourn the '
heath of thousands of our best citizens in t
avery rank and condition of life 1t attacked !
rich and poor, lofty and lowly alike. No
wealth or position warded off its cunning and r
no poverty or obscurity escaped its attack. n
Such was the terror caused by its approach