The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1882-09-06
AMONG THE LEPERs.
A Ghnstly Sight to be Witnessed in the
Sandwich Islands.

/
Sandwich Islands.
A correspondent writes from Homo.
lulu, Sandwich Islands: l went with
DR.. Fitch to the branch settlement for
lepers. 1t is an inclosure of several
acres on what is called Fishermen's
point, on Honolulu bay. Scatteyed
over the grounds are scores Of cottages,
] some connected, others detached, and
the ffices and buildings used by DR..
Fitch's assistants. Imagine, il you
can, a settlement Of Anglo-Saxons, or
people Of any other hishly civilized
race, all OF them afflicted with, and all
more or less deformed, by an incurable
and horrible disease - knowing it to be
incurable, and seeing themselves and
each other dropping to pieces from It's
dread effects. l cannot imagine such q
picture, because honestly believe that
suicide would make settlement i'm
possible among any other than people
still barbarians, or else in the child.
hood of civilization. Such was the
settlement visited. There we're men,
women and children living in world
apart from ours, having nothing worth
living for save mere existence, q sue
cession OF days, marked only by slow
contamination of the death that had
already seized upon their bodies, and
had already deprived them of portions,
which were already returned to dust.
There were in that strange and
unnatural community marriages, births,
deaths, l would not attempt to de-
scribe in detail the unrelieved ghastli-
ness of the sights there, yet not one Of
the inmates who helped to make up the
absolute dreadfulness Of the scene
failed to greet us with smile and
cordial aloha.
That only served to emphasize the
darkness of the picture. / said not one;
yet there was one. On bed in a little
cottage room, whose open door faced
the dark, cool canons back OF the city,
and whose window looked out upon the
lovely bay and let in the lazy murmur
of waves breaking over the coral reefs,
lay native woman, dying. Nearly all
Of her right hand had dropped off. but
in the remnants of her fingers she held
q feather fan, which she family waved
across her distorted face, to cool the
hot, aching eyes that had not been
closed for months, the palsied muscles
of her eyelids refusing their duty.
AS the doctor spoke pleasantly to her
she turned her glaring eyes toward us,
but did not speak. "Her mouth is af-
fected, too" the doctor said. We stood
aside from her door to admit cooling
breath of air that just then came down
from the mountains. The swollen face
rested and the feebly moving hand fell,
in gratitude for the mountain breeze,
yet, when it died away the hand did not
move again; it was her last moment.
TIE mountains gentle breath had com.
forted her, and when it died away her
breathing ceased, too.
In one cottage we saw little girl
whose fingers had been drawn up until
her hand was half closed. She had ex-
perimented with novel cure by calmly
stepping on the bent fingers until she
had straightened them out. She ex-
hibited the result with pride; four
| fingers straight and stiff, and as useful
as so many wooden pegs would have
been.
Out on what is called the playground
weresome boys playing ball, one with a
useless hand, another with a palsied
leg, another with q foot partly gone,
and others with swollen, senseless
faces. On the veranda of a cottage sat
two old natives, both with useless legs,
but neither of whom showed any trace
OF lerrosy. in face or hands. As
watched them one OF them began
chanting hulu hulu. accompanying it
with appropriate movements OF his
hands. Possibly, observing the look
of astonishment on my face, the old
mans companion, with meaning wink
at me, joined in the chant, and soon
both the old lepers were chanting and
waving their hands in the sensuous
measures OF the hulu hulu. 1t was
dance of death, indeed; Punchinello's
mask over a molding skull a rolliGk.
ing revelry in q charnel house life
mocking gazing tomb.
The medical profession here in Hon.
olulu is 10 terrific dispute about what
leprosy is QJ and whether or not it is
contagious. This, of course is an old,
old dispute, but il has been revived
with great violence by the assertion OF
DIR. Fitch that it Is, if not durable,
amensble in a large degree to treat.
ment, and that it is not contagious from
ordinary contact, such as would demand
the transportation of lepers into isola-
tion. DR.. Fitch has been here two
years, and naturally bis youthful but
dogmatical contradiction of the theories
of the old and and experienced practi.
tioners has raised a discussion of a
rather warm nature. However, his
practice appeals to the sympathies OF
natives, and he has a large, if rather
ignorant, following.-Sm Francisco