The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-07-29
A Correspondent NJ Personal Inspection
Of the Cities q ch the Cholera
Is Doing = 3 adly Work.
TOulOn and Aries deserted, While Mar
seilles Shows Little Sign Of Panic.
The Filth in the Latter City Scenes at the
Bedsides of the Dying A Midnight
Visit to Cemetery.
A RELIABLE REPORT.
What an English Speaking Newspaper Man
Saw in the Infected Region.

What an English-Speaking Newspaper Man
Saw in the Infected Region.
Marseilles Gable Special to New York Times
have made a FIVE days visit to this city, to
Toulon, and to Aries, in order to learn and re-
port for American readers some facts and scenes
In regard to cholera have visited every room
IN every cholera hospital existing in Marseilles
and Toulon, and have seen the wretched people
dying in hospitals and in their own novels, and
buried at midnight in the cemeteries, by the
light Of torches and lanterns have discussed
all the phases of the epidemic exhaustively with
the hospital doctors, with priests, and with
nurses, and my conclusion is that the much
dreaded cholera, probably the most fatal and
severe of all diseases to which human flesh is
heir, is thing in which no intelligent communi-
ty of well-ordered lives and well-managed sewer
pipes Iced have an alarming fear even when
brought into close contract with it, to say moth
ing OF gettin" into panic at distance. But
those who read my story will draw. their own
conclusions on this point
On leaving Paris to begin my tour Of the in,
fected cities found an absence of fear prevail
ing and few evidences of the former quarantine
precautions which have since been abandoned.
The few persons to whom conveyed my inten-
tions of going to Marseilles, Toulon, and Aries
deprecated the visit, as I had expected they
would do, but they ridiculed the idea Of the
disease becoming. epidemic in so clean
a city as Paris. took the night
train for Marseilles, and arose for break
fast at o'clock in the morning at Valence, some
fifty miles south of Lyons, and watched the
country carefully for signs of anxiety or com
motion, but saw nothing unusual until Aries
was reached Here every window of the Span
ish looking houses was closed SO far as could
observe them, andin the streets of this town of
%, 900 people not soul was to be seen At the
depot was congregated melancholy crowd of
poor people, the most of whom had bundles of
clothing and various domestic articles tied up by
means of bed-clothes. They were waiting for.
the omnibus train-a traiE belonging to the
third class and miscellaneous in its character
that should carry them northward
to TarascoE, which is in the same
department. as Aries, and to Beaucaire on the
opposite bank of the Rhone from Tarascon Dur
ing the day and night there had been thirteen
deaths, and a fearful panic had prevailed in
spite OF the archbishops formal procession to the
relics of the saints in the cathedral of St Troph-
linus. Aries is about the most bigoted and
priestridden town in France and if ANYTHING
could have allayed the panic, it would have been
this procession Our train fastened on to the
south along the parched and burning slope of
the shore of the Rhone, passing group oflancers
IN field OF tents, these soldiers having been sent
out of Marseilles during the reign of the epidemic
MARsEILLEs AS FIRST SEEN
On the first view that one gets of Marseilles
no one would be apt to suspect, either from the
appearance of the city itself or of the people he
could see, that pestilence had seized the town
actir Tod lot fho% of
fully 100000 people had already left the city; but
their absence was scarcely noticeable from the
appearance of the streets In one of the public
squares band of Italian musicians were play
ing to throng of children and grown persons
The omnibuses and street-cars were full of
people as in ordinary times, while on the
sidewalks, under the cafe awnings, nearly all the
chairs were occupied and the walters were kept
as busy as ever by cheerful crowd of loungers.
But at the sumptuous Hotel Noailles on the
Rue de Noailles, a continuation of the famous
Cannebiere a different scene was observed. In
all its hundred rooms myself and my courier
were the only guests to be seen. In the eorri-
dor were signs of the suspension of the table
d'hote We ate our luncheon in a spacious open
court under the shade of refreshing palms and
blooming oleanders amid the music of birds and
the splashing of the fountains. Only the foot
steps Of solitary waiter, he passed to and fro
on his errands for US, served for over one hour
to interrupt this sombre solitude Later on. /
inferred by the size of the bin that had paid
for all the absentees as well as for ourselves,
which tended to diminish my sympathy for our
landlord
The repast ended, we undertook drive
through the city In the chief streets we could
discern but slight changes In the Rue ST
Ferreol, broad and prominent street in the
main part Of town, only four shops were closed;
in the Rue de la Cannebiere. in which are stu
ated all the finest shops and business places of
other kinds only nine were closed. But the
poorer quarters-and God knows there
are enough of them-revealed another side to
the picture as we drove into them Passing
along the narrow and squalid Rue Caisserie,
over one-half the shops were seen to be closed
at every crossing. From a tenement region on
the hill above stream of fetid water flowed
across the street and plunged down precipitous
descent on the other side through dark lanes
crowded with towering rookeries, swarming be-
low with idle men and children playing in the
filthy cutters, the women meanwhile swashing
the water about with their brooms, under the
evident impression that they were cleaning
something Each glimpse of any one Of these
streets is enough to turn the stomach of any
healthy man. The smell through all this quar-
ter, in which, during space Of twenty minutes,
we met three laden hearses was bad enough,
but the smell was indescribably worse when we
had driven across town to two of the most af-
ficted quarters of all Marseilles- -Capelette and
the adjoining quarter In order to reach them
we crossed the old ship canal. which was filed
10 blo urll1 Wttl 1SckluB tWdU0Es ana ndu
its surface thickly covered with garbage
and refuse Of decidedly miscellaneous and re-
voting kind. Finally we got on street known
as Toulon road-a wide thoroughfare without
shade tree, Alongits cutters ran rivulets of
drab-colored water which had oyerfiown from
the canal when the canal was damned
now and then by heaps Of rotten vege-
tables or worse substances including
dead cats and dogs. Four out of every
Ave houses were found closed Those which re-
manned open were mainly estaminets, where.
under dirty awnings and on dirty sidewalks,
men and women sat drinking or were already
reduced to stupor from previous drinking, aud
rotten rags in an unspeakably vile atmosphere.