The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-05-15
FEVER'S FATAL WORK.
Origin and Progress of the Dis
ease at Plymouth, Penn.
Death and Destitution Among the
Stricken People,

Dispatches from Plymouth Penn, give the
following details of the fever epidemic pre-
vailing in and about that stricken place:
The town of Plymouth has a population of
| perhaps 10000, 1t is on the Susquehanna
| river in Luzerne county, not far fromW Wilkes
barre. The plague began about the LIST of
| April In forty-six families known to be in
| destitute circumstances, with no money to
buy medicine or ordinary food, there are 11S
sick. The physicians say that the epidemic
! has spent its force, but that of the 730 sick
fifty or seventy-five will die. Sixty
families have left the place within
smiling faces on the streets Everybody
! looks solemn. Undertakers' wagons, hearses
and doctors carriages are on the streets at all
hours OF the day and night. Drug stores do
| not close their DOORS and the march of death
has caused many houses to be tightly closed.
| Grape hanging on thirteen doors on Thurs
day told the story of what this plague had
done within.
The miners have worked about one-third
time only since the first of the year and
their pay has been barely sufficient to keep
body and soul together. When disease stalked
into their homes, and they were stricken
down. the family purse was empty. This
state of affairs became apparent the second
week of the epidemic Chief Burgess Lo-
derrick and the town council did nothing
toward helping the poor, and destitu-
ton developed IN every quarter of
the town. The cry for help reached the ears
of some of the merchants, and on Tuesday
night last a meeting was held and q relief
committee organized, with subcommittee in
each of the eight wards of the borough
The best people that could be got to
act were appointed on the sub-commit-
tees, to canvass their wards and find out how
many were sick and the number of families
that were destitute or on the verge of desti-
tuition.
Since the canvass was made death has
knocked at the door of many of the destitute
who were too proud to tell of their poverty,
and when it came to calling in the undertaken
pride had to be put aside. A visit to several
of the destitute families showed that their
Indebtedness is beyond exaggeration. Will
liam Lewis has died, and the two boys who
worked in the mines are dying. They were
the only support of the family John
Bowen who lived on Turkey HILL died
last week, and left a wife and three
little children utterly destitute
Mrs Dennis Breslin has six little children, the
oldest only eight years of age Three of
them are down with the disease. She frank
ly admitted that she hadn't five-cent piece
in the house with which to buy medicine or
food. Owen Morgan, an industrious miner,
has had no work Tor month. He has SIX
children, one baby three weeks old. Five
of them are sick He wouldn't tell his wants.
but his next door neighbor said that the
children would die for want of proper medi.
cine and nourishment; that there was nc
money in the house, and Owen was too proud
to let anybody know it.
j. NJ. Shaw lives in a little house with
rough board walls and carpetless floors His
wife died of the fever on Tuesday, leaving
eight little children i'll bed with the same dis.
ease. Shaw was found standing over the bed
looking at his children. There was no nurse
except himself. He is Il tall, broad Shout
dered, handsome mana type of the back
woodsman. He is an American, and uses
good language. When asked if he had any
money he said in husky voice:
mo; haven't I've had no work for over
three weeks. My wife's gone and my chill
dren are sick. Oh, my God, my home is
broken upr' And the father leaned over the
footboard of the sick bed and sobbel
The Rev. DR.. Walker, pastor of Plymouth
Methodist church, has two grown sons down
with the fever One of them came home from
Drew seminary Just before the epidemic be-
came pronounced and was taken sick in a few
days. Black Grape hung on the front door of
the next house, and as Chairman Davis who
was making tour of inspection, greeted the
clergyman, the latter said:
There's sad case pointing toward the
crape). Snyders so proud, you know
Chairman Davis knocked at the door, and
a thin, pale, Careworn women opened it. Sit
ting in chair was the wreck of a once big,
robust tman, his limbs and fingers now
twisted with rheumatism. In the next room
J
lay in an ice box, dead from the fever Last
week his nineteen-y ear-old daughter, pretty
girl, the neighbors say, lay in the
same ice-box, a victim of the plague When
Snyder could work he was an industrious
compositor in Wilkesbarre, and went to and
from his home at Plymouth night and morn
ing, but the rheumatism crippled him, and
the son became the only support of the fam
lily. When he died the father and mother
were pennilesS
Tell me frankly, Snyder" said Chair
man Davis; surely you must be without
money"
"No not yet, thank God" he said, owe
got dollar Then, in whisper, he said:
"But what drives me almost crazy is, | can't
buy coffin for my boy
1t is impossible to accurately give the num-
Der of dead and dying, for there is no board
of health, and the records of the cemeteries
are very imperfect The doctors are toiling
night and day, and are hopelessly
lost when they try to reckon up
the number of cases on their hands
The origin of the trouble is def
nitely known, however, and the doctors are
treating their patients for typhoid fever.
Many of the six hundred who are now ill
will probably die, for the efforts of the best
physicians can accomplish nothing unless
supplemented by nourshing foods and
careful nursing. Owing to the poverty of
most of the population these latter are unob
tainable.
A committee of three Wilkesharre doctors
after examination reported that the disease
was typhoid fever, and that it was caused by
contamination of the towns water supply.
nDOMINTENN DEODT ~