The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-02
THRILLING WITH HUMAN LIFE.

j hlT LINU VIII HUMAN LIT Es
The CONSERVATION of the people of
Texas on learning that the investing
board, of which the governor is the
head, has determined to buy with
school money, at high premium,
100000 United States three per cent
bonds, will have counterpart some
dire morning when the faithful chron
icler of the condition of public health,
as well as OF state financial schemes,
THE STATESMAN, announces that
contagion is epidemic in Austin.
The people of the civilized world are
contemplating with breathless excite
ment the march of Asiatic cholera
towards our shores; the dread disease
has swept across the land of the
Ptolemies with a pestiferous breath
as fatal to human life as the burning
sirocco of Sahara is destructive of
vegetable existence. Slowly but
surely it has crept along the course
of the great artificial canal, connect
ing the Dead and the Mediterranean
seas, and now it worms its poisonous
existence along the devious course of
the Mediterranean coast, advancing
on Tripoli and Algeria and Gibraltar.
Through the frowning straits that
unite the waters of the Mediterranean
and Atlantic passes vast mercantile
marine, the white sails of commerce
bearing from the Orient to the Occi-
dent richly laden argosies. Vessels
from Mediterranean ports are con-
stantly crossing the Atlantic to find
port along our coasts, and if we es-
cape this time the importation of the
dreaded plague, the fact will be a re-
version of all the settled rules of its
past existence and progress. Any day
it may be announced that the dire
plague has reached New York or
Philadelphia, and then it will speedily
follow the injunction of the dead sage
of Chattaqua, and go west. 1t is said
that cholera dotes on decaying organic
matter and a limestone region, and, if
this be so, it would soon sniff
from afar the odors of Austin's
alleys and its street cutters.
and pounce down without warning in
our midst. Had our city authorities
been officially notified that the mile
MUM was just on the eve of its be-
ginning; had it been revealed to them
that, when Sirius this year became the
attendant of the Sun, the fraternal
period between the lion and the lamb
would begin; that disease and bodily
misery and death would no longer be
known, they could not have displayed
less solicitude for the public health
than has been evinced. To study the
sanitary standing of Austin one would
suppose the city dads had really en-
joyed a revelation from above that
filth had ceased to be a progenitor of
disease, that cleanliness and goodness
had parted company, that rottenness
had became the handmade Of pu-
rity. No thought apparently is
paid to the proper sanitary condition
of the community, except it be, to take
evidences as proof, that this condi-
ton shall be as b I'd as it possibly can
be. The cutters on Congress Avenue
appear to be set aside for the accumu-
lation of filth, as receptacle for the
discharge of all that is pestilential,
and to contemplate Pecan street, and
the alleys lying on either side of
these two thoroughfares, is full
initiation to the mysterious COM
pounds that make and feed all man
ner of pestilential maladies. If pro-
violence do not intervine and protect
us there is no predicting what results
may be. Napoleon said the god of bat
ties attended the best ornaments. So
it is with health. Reliance on provi-
dence, when noxious gases arise from
every point, poluting the pure air of
heaven, displacing the life-giving oxy-
gen and feeding the human lungs on
carbon an floating poisonous vapors.
is dependence of the poorest sort.
Providence may smile on those who
respect the laws of nature, but to sin
against these laws is one of the I'M
pardonable offences set forth in the
natural decalogue. God no more
helps the community that revels in
filth than He leads armies, without
the best ornaments. to victory. The
general who sends his forces to an un-
equal contest, becomes the slayer of
his own men, while the municipal
officers, who pay no attention to the
condition of a city, BECOME,
when disease attacks it. the
slay ers of its people. If gaunt pesti-
lence and death stalk in our midst,
retributive justice may be their at
tendants. If the dread plague that
travels westward from its Asiatic
home find its way to Austin, it may
be expected that the seat of alder
manic intelligence may be seized with
poetic qualms and cramps. If this
were all, the community could man.
age to survive consequent funeral
rites, but unfortunately the end of
these incompetent agencies of NUM-
cipal authority would be matter of
small moment when the health and
existence of thousands are taken
into account. Season after sea-
son, throughout these many
years, has the STATESMAN
urged the adoption of sanitary meas
ures calculated to preserve the public
health. and as often has nothing
whatever been done in this direction.
Instead of lending every aid to i'm
proving the healthful condition OF
Austin, the city council has on the
other hand never failed to throw OBJ
stacles in the way of any sanitary re-
form. Long opposition was made to
the federal authorities laying sewer
from the federal building, and when
at last right-of-way was obtained it
was most most grudgingly given.
Again, for months and months, the