The Sunday herald. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1866-1887, 1885-08-02

lions. Contributors or correspondents tcho ndp |
desire TO possess their manuscripts, Ounused
should keep a oopp
The case of hydrophobia, or what is
feared TO be that disease, in the city |
last week ought 10 arouse the community 10 |
the presence of terrible danger. There
can be no doubt that this most frightful of
diseases is spreading, and that deaths from
hydrophobis, with all its horrible sufierings,
must be expected with accelerating fire.
quency until some cure for the disease is
found or vigorous measures to check the dog
nuisance are adopted. The SUNDAY HEaALD
has several times pointed out the danger of
which the case Of last week is an illus
tration, but which does not yet seem to have
aroused much popular attention. As moth.
ing is likely to be done either to prevent
dogs from running at large, or to hunt down
and destroy those which may have been in.
fected with hydrophobia, until public senti
ment demands, it is only q duty to state the
case again. Hydrophobia, however it may
have originated is a disease propagated
chiefly, if not entirely, by the bite of the
rabid animal. The insidious nature of
its spread is due to the very long pc
riod Of incubation, sometimes as much as
nine months. Thus rabid dog may bite
various others before it is killed or dies, and
the fact that this one original source Of
danger has been multiplied dozen times
~ ho al of of
hydrophobia are much more numerous thar.
they were few years ago can be attested
by almost any reader of newspapers. The
late Sir Thomas Watson, one Of the most
eminent of English physicians, in au article
in the Nineteenth Century about five years
ago declared these facts to be beyond dispute.
In some countries hydrophobia has not yet
occurred among the dogs, which would indI-
cate that it is not of spontaneous origin, but
wherever the infection has once begun it
spreads steadily, being propagated by the
bite, and its increase concealed by the pro-
longed incubation. Sir Thomas Watson wrote
that during his youth the very existence
of this disease was denied by some scientists,
by the late Frank Forester, among others,
yet during the later years Of his professional
career he had himself had numerous cases,
and there was hardly physician in the
United Kingdom in large practice who had
not seen more than one. During the few
years since Sir Thomas Watson's warning
was published we have noted the rapidly
increasing frequency with which un-
doubted cases of hydrophobia are chronicled
in the American press, and We now protest
that it is high time that people who persist
in keeping dogs should be compelled by law
to see that they have no chance to bite those
who do not keep them. The popular delu-
sion that dogs are only dangerous in the
dog days eught to be eradicated, for mad
dog can distribute hydrophoba during any
season. Just what measures are needed to
protect the community against this most
horrible Of deaths need not be more than
outlined here. But certainly heavier dog
tax would not be amiss, and the freedom of
dogs I" patrol streets and alleys and bite at
will should be entirely taken away.
The fate of Surgeon General Wales will be
warning to heads of bureaus that they
must not trust the control Of money entirely
to subordinate officers. 1t will crafty DR..
Wsles's numerous friends here to know that
his personal honor comes out of the
ordeal unscathed, but the lesson, though
sharp, is one many bureau heads need to be
taught. The letter of the Secretary in pro.
mitigating the sentence was singularly ap-
propriate and felicitous, and will add to the
growing reputation of an officer who seems
emphatically TO be the right man in the right
place.
sensational special despatch to the New
York World of yesterday gives, We are in
the results thus far obtained in the investi-
cation of the Coast Survey. The examina-
tion has not yet progressed far enough to
warrant the assertion that no Irregularities
can be found in the administration of this
bureau, but we are assured by good author
ity that the alleged frauds set forth by the
World correspondent are entirely mythical.
The whole affair grew out of rather sharp
answer sent by Professor Hilgard to one of
the new accounting ofiicers n regard to the
are kept.
A meeting of wealthy men in New York
las: Sunday adopted this resolution
Resoloed, That the committee respectfully invite
the people OF the United States to send contributions
OF money 10 the Mayor of New York to aid in the
erection of national monument In honor OF Gen.
Grant
In the dialect of New York this ia what
would be dsnominated "gall," which is
otherwise known az nerve" and Ii never
lacking Oh Manhattan Island. Having So
cured the intOmbmsnt Of General Grant in
their local soil against the protest of the
whole country, these picayuns millionaires
begin passing round the hat, as they did in
the case of the Bartholdi statue. What have
the people OF the United States 10 do with a
mere town Office like the Mayor of New
York; II that city will restore half the
money it flched from the late General and
his family in his declining days there will
be enough to build handsome monument.
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AS is we'll known, this journal advocates a
general reduction OF the tariff. But there
are classes of imports that could DO rOundly
taxed without hurting the country. Cheap
wines form one ofthese classes. The cheaper
Bordeaux wines, for example, are distinctly
inferior to the wines Of native growth with
which they are often mixed and sold as ST..
Julien or Medoc II would be a public good
ii prohibitiye duty were placed upon cheap
white and red wines, leaving the tariff upon
the higher grades unchanged. The wine in
dustry in the United States is in its infancy,
but most promising infancy. Already the
Virginia and California wines are better and
purer than can be procured from abroad for
moderate prices. Exclude the cheap Bor-
dssux and we shall not pay more for our