Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-07-01

THE MORTALITY LIKELY TO BECOME TERRIBLE.
By Cable to the New York Times

THE MORTALITY LIKELY TO BECOME TERRIBLE.
By Cable to the New York Times
LONDON, June 27.-At time. of the year
when the cholera had only taken few scores of
lives In Tou1on and its suburbs and had just
made its appearance in Marseilles in 1884,
there have been 1920 deaths reported from
eight provinces of Spain, which is much more
than half the entire number of deaths in all
oil France last year. From the start the rate OF
mortality in Spain has been far greater than it
greater than it was last year even in Naples.
Tue average ratio of deaths to cases now is
about tour in nine throughout Spain. Roughly
speaking. the death ratio was two in seven in
france last year, and three in seven In Italy.
Within the last week, and notably has this
been the case in Murcia, more than half the
people attacked have died and in the new
provinces where the pest has appeared within
the last lew days escapes have been the ex-
ception.
LAST YEARS FEATURES REPEATED.
All the features of last years SIEGE either
essential or eccentric-and who shall say in this
strange disease which Is which-are being
repeated. The fearful experience at the AK
niadhouse finds its parallel in an asylum out
side OF Madrid, where the lunatics are dying
IKE sheep in murrain. The peculiar suScepti-
olilty OF young soldiers to cholera, which was
noted at IOuion and in CampObaSso last year,
has been exemplified again at the Toledo bar
racks. The deaths among the Sisters OF Charity,
now, as then, are almost wholly confined to
peasant women i'll the less exclusive orders like
the Augustinians The plague finds ninety
nine in q hundred of it's victims in the Sums or
Door villages, where hygiene is an unknown
word.
PANIC AND BUSINESS PARALYSIS.
A wine merchant who has just arrived in
London from Murcia tells me that it is abso.
lute1y impossible to describe the national panic,
quarantines. Not only has this feeling of panic
paralyzed the business of Spain, but it threatens
10 WORK more evil by deranging the food
supply than even the cholera has worked or
may yet work.
THE WATER SUPPLYsAND THE PLAGUE.
III is interesting here to note, in considering
the theory that the spread of the disease is con-
nected closely with the water, that Murcia and
Valencia are the most plentifully irrigated dis
tricts In the southof Europe. The system of
supply dates from the time of the Moorish
4sccupatlon OF Spain, and for scientific utiliza-
Ion 1h the water supply there is sti unryaled
SO desperate u slum as it formerly was, since,
after the great flood destroyed the lower part
OF the town, it was rebuilt with more regard to
sanitation But the people are distinctly Of the
lowest type, mental and physical, in Spain.
But here, as at Valencia, the city is surrounded
by a perfect network OF crowded halnlets con-
shutting one vast tropical garden, irrigated by
system which permits not q drop of water to
reach the sea-a system which is most marvel
simply murderous now when the summers
sun makes every trench dispenser of the
were quick to spread the disease through these
villages; now, more slowly, but none the less
surely, they are disseminating it throughout
the peninsula.
A HIDEOUS TOTAL MORTALITY Likely.
When we consider the total mortality at this
early date, it is fri.htful to contemplate what
the total for Spain may be, and almost surely
VIII be, during the four Or five torrid months to
come, to say nothing of the probability, nay,
almost certainty, of the speedy outbreak of the
plague In other southern lands. No case has
been reported from Marseilies. During the
week X, there have been rumors OF sporadic eases
on the coast, both in the province of Barcelona
and near Port Vendres, in France, but it has
been impossible to get confirmation OF the rll-
Inors. The authorities at Marseilles Toulon
and Cette are doing what can be done at this
late day to guard against the scourge, but
there is still a tendency to rely upon the eti-
cacy oT'quarantne rather than upon that of
cleanliness. The belief Is general thatan out
break of cholera in the provinces bordering on
the Pyrenees is now only matter of days.