Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-10-27
A FRIGHTFUL DEATH ROLL.

A certain grim fascination attaches to
the idea of community in which death
has become commonplace, writes Pana-
ma correspondent. A man who establish
es himself in Colon or Panama, or who
undertakes tospend any considerable time
on the line, knows that the aggregate
mortality around him is something fright
full. He knows of specific cases in which
the statistics of small number of lives
have been such as to indicate certain
death as his portion. He knows that
within the last five months the death rate
among the chief resident officials of the
canal company has been more than SO per
cent, a mortality to which, if extended to
all classes of the community, would exter-
inmate every man, woman and child on
the isthmus in six months. He knows,
perhaps, that on the first of last October
thirty Italians arrived at Colon, under
agreement to serve the Paris Company of
Public Works as foremen; that of these,
twenty-nine were in perfect health and
robust condition, and the remaining one
only suffering from debility caused by ex-
cessive sea-sickness that they were at
once sent to the Emperador's contract,
where they were eXcellently housed and
had every advantage of medical attend
ance that on the 23rd day of the same
month only five of them survived-a death
rate which, if it were universal, would de-
populate the earth in less than month.
He knows, it is true, of one man who
lived on the isthmus nineteen years, and
who is still in good health. But he knows
too, of men who have lived there for ten
and fifteen years, and then died after only
four or i've days. illness. All this is per-
picking. But he is the more perpleXed
when he stops to consider that in the in
stance of the five chief officials out of six,
and the twenty-five italian foremen out
of thirty, the mortality was not from a
contagion, was not even from uniform
infection. One man died of a common re-
mittent malarial fever, another of the
most virulent type ofyelloW fever, anoth-
er one of g bilious fever of an indistinct
character, uurth of acute Bright's dis
ease following successfully resisted case
of yellow fever. He knows that he ought
not to drink heavily. But he discovers
that the climate superinduces an intolera-
BILE lassitude which nothing but frequent
stimulants seem to relieve.
WHERE GOOD CITIZENS COME FROM
The country boy or girl is face to face with
practical realities. He sees how slowly
money is made on the farm he is taught
from youth up the need of economy; he
has the nature of saving first explained to
him every day in the week :; he is not ex-
posed to the temptation of the saloon or
ballroom and he is not so much of a lady's
man before he has occasion to use razor
on his downy cheeks. He may be trifle
rude; he may not feel easy in company,
but in the long, closely contested race of
life it is the chap that trudges to school
barefooted in summer and in stogas in
winter, whose mother cuts his hair with
the sheep-shears, who leads the chap that
goes to the city school with the starched
shirt front and fancy slippers, and whose
head is-shaved with lawn mower at the
barber shop. Such has been our observ-
ance, and we think we know what we are
talking about.--Erchanqe.