The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1886-10-10
The Home of the Leper in the
Pacific.
FATHER DAMEN'S HEROIsM.
He Casts His Lot Among the Hapleas
hOrtals and is Stricken
With LePFOsy.

|
rosy Will touch cord of sadness anC
sympathy in the hearts of all who knew
anything Of this heroic man and hi,
work. Father Damen Is a Roman Cath
Ole, and what is peculiarly repugnant
TO the average Protestant mind, Jesuit
But, says Tennyson,
The sun, the moon, the stars
seno no such l1gh upon the ways OF men
As one great deed.
Now and again the world has wit
messed deeds of sublime self-sacrifce in
the dazzling radiance of which all
distinction OF churches and Creeds and
orders have been Obliterated. Such =
deed did this Jesuit perform when,
twelve years ago, in the early prime of
his manhood, highly cultured and with
prospects Of his speedy promotion in his
church, he quietly turned his back upon
the world and all it had to offer and
voluntarily entered on the obscure
career which must now inevitably ter
inmate IN the lingering, loathsome death
| OF Ieper. Nowadays we in this country
happily know nothing of this dread
full malady, at least of its more virulenI
form, though to what we owe our
immunity IS point upon which science
is not yet able 90 speak very positively
We are apt to regard leprosy as a
disease or ancient times, an old world
malady, lingering here and there in odd
corners Of Oriental lands. In an article
OF painful interest ia the Nineteenth Cen
tttTy, year or two back, Miss Agnes
Lambert pointed out that not only was
fT1l Il =
In China and throughout the east
generally, but that there was hardly.
any of the Queens possessions abroad
in which leprosy is not more or less
rife, while in some of our coIonies-the
Cape for instance-ir appears to be
RlarTningly on the increase.
But II there are any spots on the face
OF the earth in which one would De dis
posed confident to predict that the foul
est OF diseases would be unable to find
any permanent footing, the EIysian
fields of the Pacific should Certainly be
among them. Those who have visited
the Sandwich Islands describe them as
presenting scenes of the most eI chant
ing beauty. They have exhausted all
the articles of language in depicting the
begitching combinations of coral sands
and blue seas, sparkling cascades and
all the blaze and brilIiancy of tropical
foliage and flowers. blue waters"
says one of them, stretched 10 the
horizon, the LEAKAGE was almost dazzl-
ing to the eye, the mountainous island
of Molokai floated like a great blue
morning glory on the yet blUer sea; a
sweet, soft breeze rustled through the
palms; the lazy ripples FLASHED lightly
on the sand; humanity basked flower
clad in the sunny Incidence; everything
was redundant, terVld, beautiful"
Nowhere on earth is life more easy,
pleasure more fairly distributed, or
nature more enchanting than in some of
the Pacific islands, and nowhere on
earth is there more fOrlorn and pitla-
bic community than is 10 be found
among them. "MOlokai." continues
the writer Just quoted, lis only enchant-
ing in the distance, for its blue petals
enfOld 400 lepers doomed to endless
and then follows a quotation
from an official announcement made
that day-sOme time during 1873 it must
have been-that all lepers not already
consigned to the settlement appointed
for them were required to report to the
Health Officer within four |
teen days for inspection and final |
Punishment to Molokai. An attempt |
had been made in 1865 to carry out g |
system of complete isolation of those !
smitten with the fearful disease, but |
they concealed themselves in the woods |
and caves, or friends MD them in one /
way or another when government !
nqUisition was being made. and though
t was pretty well known that there
must be some 800 afflicted persons I'D
md down the islands, only sb0ut 400
had been banished. But in 1873 more
} rIDgent measures we're taken. There
ire parts Of the world IN which the leper
5 regarded with horror that appears TO
Iueneh every natural affection and every
humane feeling. Children are thrust
)ut by their parents and parents by
heir children, without the slightest
hesitation or remorse. In a report OF |
Ter Majesty's Commissioner IN Cyprus,
published as recently as 1882 We read
hat when a man is hrSt suspicion of |
eprosy the people go to the MukhtarOf
he village and accuse HIM OF the
plague. A council is held, examination
s made, and if the suspection is
to be well founded, the
nan is Immediately torn from his
amily. who, as a rule, at once become
lis readIest enemies. His goods are
IiVIded among his relatives and be is
laulSuCO HULL kuGlI DlCSCICE 7. |
Ills clothes and a cotton quilt are given
liu, and guard conducts him to the
81 ers' farm at Hocosa. and there is lett
o live or die. In the Sandwich Islands
he case seems to have been very
ifferent. The utmost humanity and |
entleneSs appear to have been exercise d
q the melancholy duty of thrusting
hese poor creatures out from
heir homes and kindred, but the scenes
Tere distressing in the extreme. The
zoe of those VINO were taken" saws Miss
Bird in her interesting account of six
nonths' residence in these islands, 1.-THE
ismal Wailings OF those who were left
nd the agonized partings when friends
nd relatives chung to the swollen limbs
I'd kissed the blistering, bloated faces
{ those who were exiled from them for
yer, 1 shall never forget" In the course
( seven or eight years about l $50 Iepers
{ both sexes, OF all conditions of life.
nd nearly all ages, were banished to
IoIokai. This island is about forty !
niles long and eight or nine miles
road, and il appears to have popula
on of 1000 or 1900 people, apart from S
be IepeIs. 1t is, however, little more
han q chair of volcanic mountains, pre-
snting tremendous precipices to the