Omaha daily bee., 1884-10-15
rbAGuE.srRIoKEN NAPLES.
A Dark Picture of IA Condition of
Affairs In the Beautiful Italian
City, the Scene of the Chol.
era Epidemic
Pail Mall Gazot e.

- lneTO Is lNlnE DtlOlo uo % We NIllb
lsdy's letter fresh from the Naples post.
g office. 1t is pierced through and through
in tour places by knife, in order to per
5 nit of the more effective fumigation Of
of ito contents, although the cholera germ
would probably laugh at such II precau.
ton. The writer says: From the mo.
ment they lot loose upon us the lCalian
workmen from Marseilles and Toulon |
felt sure we should have tho cholera here
in spite of all their guarantees and cor.
dons sanitaires. The soil was indeed
prepared for it's advent. The Bassi,
where the poorer Neapolitans live in
suualid misery is in o dirty, fetid state,
the novels have 10 windows and no
water closets: they are simply human
burrows with a hole called o door, and
no other means Of egress or ventilation.
Nothing was done TO cleanse this filthy
quarter, and there the disease has ragged
and is raging. When it broke out there
: was a ssuve oui pent Of the beau mode,
and as the rich and fashionable fed
these stresmed in from all parts of Italy
doctors and nurses, only asking to be
be employed in combating the disease.
From the king to the chemists all have
done nobly in the midst OF scenes too
trying to describe. There has not been
time to mako cofins for the dead. The
corpses are simply put into sacks. l hardly
ever 90 out now, but having to buy a
dress | drove out to-day. l came homo
without buying anything. l could not
beardriving aboutthe streets. Everything
made me 30 sad. We met ak professions
of women Ct have since heard that they
were of the worst class) with their hair
hanging down their backs, chanting in
hoarse and tuneless voices horrible dirges
for the dead. Men accompanied them
with plates, asking aims and insulting
those who refused to give. did not
meet a single carriage containing any
person known in Naples. Many of the
shops never open, and all are closed at 3
o'clock. The papers do not tell half the
horror and gloom that hang over this city
of the dead.
This letter and others which have been
received from the cholera.stricken dis
tricts in Italy offer many points of resem-
blance to descriptions OF former plaques
In the same localities. The panic among
the lower classes, which has been grow
ing into delirious fright as the number of
deaths increased at Naples, the disorgan-
ization and interrupted communications
seem almost a repetition of the occur
rences in 1S4S, of which Boccaccio writes
that "such was the public distress that
the laws, human and divine, were no
moro regarded and that the citizens
and relations showed 80 little regard to
each other that ga brother fed from
his brother, a wife from her husband
and a parent from its own child" The
condition of the poor at that time was
much what today it appears to be at Ma
Piles. "What regard to the lower sort
and many of the middling rank, says b.
c~caccio, in his introduction to "The De-
cameron" ''the scene was still more af-
fectipg, for they, staying at home, either
through poverty or hopes of succor in
distress, fell sick daily by Thousands, and,
having nobody to attend to them, gener-
ally died; some breathed their last in the
streets, and others shut up in their own
houses, when the stencil that came from
them made the first discovery of their
death in the neighborhood."
Things are not quite 30 bad to-day;
even in Naples there is some progress
The disease which showed itself in "a
sad and wonderful manner" snatched
away over 1O0,0 600 victims between
March and July of 134S; the deaths from
cholera during the last fortnight have
not been much over 2, 1000 in Italy.
A striking picture of the plague. strick-
en- Naples, which is almost equally fam
iliar, is given in Mr. Shorthouse's "John
Inglesant," which for the sake of its
grim and CHASTITY beauty we take the
liberty of %reprinting: "In 1887 human
precaution and terror became cruel and
merciless, all bonds of fellowship and of
society were loosened, and Naples, a city
of thoughtless pleasure and of reckless
mirth, a city lying under a blue and
cloudless sky, by the azure sea, glowing
in the indispensable brilliancy and splen.
dor of the sun, was turled into a charnel
house-nay, into a hell and place of
torment"
The Naples of to-day, although not
in the same degree as then,
bears some resemblance to Mr.. Short
houses description of the city
at the time of the plague: "The
streets were full of people-more 30, in
deed, than is usual In Naples; for bust.
ness was at a standstill, the houses were
tull of infection, and terrible restlessness
droue everyone here and there. The
rows of houses and palaces and
the lofty churches looked down on a
changing, fleeing. restless crowd-un-
occupied, speaking little, walking hither
and thither with no aim, every few min
utes turning back and retracing their
steps. Every quarter of an hour or
thereabouts a confused profession of
priests and %laymen, singing doleful and
despairing miseres, and bearing the
sacred host, with canopy and Crosses,
came from one of the side streets or out
of one of the churches, and proceeded
along the Strada. AS these professions
passed, everyone Frustrated themselves,
with an excess and desperate earnestness
of devotion, and many followed the host.
n In this city the mighty,
unseen hand suddenly struck down its
prey, and without warning seized upon
the wretched conscience, all unprepared
for such a blow. The cast of a panto.
mime is a strange sight beneath the glare
and light of midday; but there were
quacks and mobiles, jugglers and soldiers,
comic actors and 'flosofii,' pleasure seek
ers and monks, gentry and beggars, all
surprised as it were, suddenly by the