The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1885-07-09
SWEPT AWAY BIZ CHOLERA.

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An appalling Number of Deaths In Spain-
Cities Devastated By an Epidemic That Il
Spreading With Wonderful Rapidity.
London dispatch: At this time last year
cholera had only taken a few scores OF
lives in Toulon and its suburbs, and
had just made its appearance in Mar
settles. There have now been 1900 deaths
reported from eight provinces OF Spain,
which is more than half the entire number
OF deaths in all Of France last year. From
the start the rate Of mortality in Spain
is far greater than it was in France, and
latterly it has become greater than it was
last year even in Naples. The average
ratio OF deaths to cases now is about four
in nine throughout Spain. Roughly speak
ing the death ratio was two in seven in
France last veal and it was three in seven
In Italy within the last week. Notably has
this been the case in Murcia. More than
half the people attacked nave died and in
the new provinces where the pest has ap-
peared within the last few days the a
v been the exception. All the features
OF last years siege either essential or eccen-
tric-and who shall say in this strange dis
ease which is which-are being repeated.
The fearful experience at the AK mad
house finds it's parallel in the asylum out
side OF Madrid, where the lunatics are ay-
ing like sheep. In Murrain the peculiar
susceptibility OF young soldiers to cholera,
which was noted in Toulon AND in Campo
basso last year, has been exemplified again
at Toledo barracks. The deaths among
sisters OF charity now as then are almost
wholly confined to the peasant women in
the less exclusive orders like the Augustine
ians. Tho plague finds ninety-nine in a
hundred OF it's victims in the slums Of
poor villages where hygiene is an unknown
word.
A wine merchant who has just arrived in
London from Murcia tells me that it is abb
solutely impossible to describe h enational
panic, loss of nerve and reason, and frenzy
OF local guarantees. No only has this
feeling OF panic paralyzed the business Of
Spain, but it threatens to work more evil
by %deranging the food supply than even
cholera has worked or may yet work. 1t
is interesting here to note, in considering
the theory that the spread OF the disease
is connected closely with water, that MUIR
cha and Valencia are the most plentifully
irrigated districts in the south OF Europe.
The system of supply dates from the time
of Moorish occupation of Spain, and for
scientific utilization the water supply there
is still unrivalled in the whole world. The
city of Murcia is not SO desperate an asy-
lum as it formerly was, since the great
flood destroyed the lower part OF h etown.
1t was rebuilt with more regard to SANTA
ton, but the people are distinctly of the
lowest type, mentally and physically, in
Spain. But here, as at Valencia, the city
is surrounded by a perfect network of
crowded hamlets, constituting one vast
tropical garden, irrigated by a system
which permits not one drop OF water to
reach the sea. The system smost marvel
Gus from an engineering point of view, but
is simply murderous now when the sum
mer's sun makes every trench a dispenser
of plague and of death. Refugees from the
cities were quick to spread the disease
through these villages. Now more slowly
but none the less surely they are dissent
mating it through the peninsula. When we
consider the local mortality at this early
date it is frightful to contemplate what the
total for Spain may be and almost surely
will be during thefour or five torrid months
to come to say nothing OF the probability
may, almost the certainty OF a speedy
outbreak OF the plague in other southern
Ianda-