The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1884-12-11
he Remorseless Reaper Revealing "
Giutted Graveyards
IAND A LAND OF pEsoLArIoN
a Reporter Visits and Journeys Through
ths Plague Stricken Regions Of
Kentucky and virginia aud
Gives n 5iesening Story
AN sFEoRT TO SOLVE AND SAVE

I.oUI sVlLLF, Dec. THE Courier
Journals staff correspondent has sent
his paper the result OF his tour through
the plague strloken district, in a SPECIAL
from Mount Pleasant, Harlan county,
Kentucky. He says: "No one who has
not personally visited this country eau
form any idea Of the woe that envelopes
like awiuding-sheot and casts the pail
of desolatiop and sorrow everywhere.
Almost every house in many sections
has contributed its one or more victims
To the hu dreds who have gone To fill
the simple country grave yards, and the
mourning il as widespread as the hills
which have been devastated. / LETT
Mount Pleasant three days ago, aud
have travelled along Glover Fork and
the little streams emptyin ing into 1t, and
then went on To Poor Fork, along whose
banks, in Harlan and Letcher counties,
scores have yielded up their lives to the
awful scourge. From Poor Fork, /
crossed the Cumberland mountains into
Wise and Isle counties, Virginia, en-.
oountering in the former such a condi-
ton of horror that my heart fai when
begin to write. Al one place in Har-
Ian county / learned of an in
stsne where five out of fam
lily Of seven, the Clarks, iiv,,
lux On ODT rOIhy SuCCuinptu
to the sconrge; in another, where the
only living member OF family of five
was babe not yet able to pfattle; in
another, where the father and three
children had left hereaved wife and
mother to mourn her sorrow alone, and
still in another where not one of Il
househOuid of four remained to perpetu-
ate the name. At Letcher, the county
cemetery has has thiriy-seven new
made mounds. In one ncighborhCod,
not five miles square, in that SECTIONAL
most whole ia lilies were swept
away, aud in many more
death had taken a majority.
The deaths in Letcher had been far
above the average Of those in any other
county, save Wise county, Virginia, in
which the disease had made a wider
swath than i'll any have visited. They
number, as nearly IA the best author-
ties could eaiuiate, 200, and the number
OF cases tr4ve exceeded that fully three
Mh II was not until l crossed into
VN that the most pitiful stories
reached my ears. Here, was told, near
the little town of Imboden, in grave
yard containing sixty three, new
slaves, twenty nine out of the
Baker family had died.
day thirty-three persons had died; that
there was not grave clothes aud collins
y
them. The physicians who practice in
the county were totally unable to cope
eth the disease, and the dead have null
cd faster than they could be buried.
(3e county the deaths exceed 400.
Ms county, as in "tcher, the mum
of those attacked has been enor
nous, In many instances there not being
enough well people to care for the sick.
In Lee county i met DR.. w. g. Winter.
He has been in the infected section but
about three weeks, but since his arrival
he has treated scores of patients and
saved every one. In Lee county, as in
fact in all the districts in which have
pursued my Investigations, the disease
is now decreasing, both in the number
attacked aud in is fatality. And while
fresh rases appear, singly and in twos
and threes daily, they are lacking in
the malignant features which marked
the epidemic before the recent rains and
frost.
ESTIMATE OF VICTIMS.
Having travelled through many
counties and made every effort
to secure the most relia
ble information, / think the
following estimate of the number deaths
as correct as any can he secured; GER
tainly neare the truth than an y figures
given troni outside sources:
Whitley county. ..,....... ...........-..... 80
Bel county -....-.....,-......, ~
fletcher county ......,,.,..... ..... 20
Lee county Virginia. Observation-Disclosures. 100
Knox county ,........... ............, so
Harlem county -...,...... .. 100
Wise county, Virginia.. .-................ 400
Total. ..s................................. 0lO
This estimate does not include Buch
.anan county, Virginia, in which the !
mortalit, is placed at over IT'S.
Scott county. Virginia ....,............ $50
Dickinson comfy, Virginia. Is,
Pill county, Kentucky ................ 100 |
Floyd counl y, entucky Observation-Disclosures. rs |
Leslie county, Kentucky. ..........-...., 8
Scott, b ii, Menifee and Wolf counsies, ~
Kentucky ...... 400
This br,ogs he grand total up to 2,045,
q startling figure, truly.
DoCTOH's THEORY.
After leaving Virginia met D.. j. O
Carsen, OF Bowling Green, Kentucky,
who had been sent out by the state
board of health to investigate the dis
ease ana its causes. He informed me
he had visited several houses where /
there were people sick and he had !
formed the opinion that the malady was
not contagious. He attributed the sick
ness to ,alaria ~ we'll as to iinpurei
water, and was not satisfied as tot
WHETHER vegetable or mineral poisoiy
had csilsed the latter to become SD |
han6fui. DR.. Carson procured walls
OF water from several streams on |