The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-12-17
FLocKrNG TO FLORIDA.
Crowds of Refugees on Their Way
Back Home

| BACK acme.
The Savannah, Florida and Western rail.
way officials are highly elated over the in.
creasing passenger traffic over their lines
going southwark. Every train going to
Florida is crowded with returning Flor
idians and northern people who, now that
the fever has been stamped out, are making
their usual winter visit to South Georgia
and Florida.
| The regular schedule of steamers on the
ST. Johns river will be resumed today, and
Sanford, the only place maintaining quar-
antine, will lift it next Thursday.
| General Manager Haines, of the Savan-
nah, Florida and Western railway, is in
South Florida arranging the details which
are incident to the free and untrameled
opening of the state to railway travel, and
everything points to healthy flow of travel
to the peninsula-the typical land of
| flowers.
A Jacksonville man said last night:
YES, we are on our way home. and no one
can conceive what is implied by the word
nome to us, who have been refugees for
the past four months. No wonder that
Payne wrote Home, Sweet Home, if he
wrote the poem in enforced exile We have
watched the daily papers since the middle
| of last August, not daring to say we were
refugees from Jacksonville Among the
list of the sick we have watched narrowly,
day by day, to see if they died. Full as
were the press accounts, the names of many
who were discharged were never given, and
we could only judge by the list of the dead
who had not died. The suspense was awful.
We got occasional letters from home, but
they always seemed to lack the information
which was most desired"
And you are now homeward bound ~
Eyes, and as the distance narrows the
love of home increases. We have been
| away at an expense which had not been
| foreseen, and for d time beyond our ex-
pectation, and we are glad enough to turn
southwark toward our deserted hOmes.n
The trains which have been going to
Florida the past week have been crowded,
although extra coaches have been added.
All danger having been dispelled the influx
is so great that we can now form some idea
of the exodus. The Floridians in the infected
districts left the state at intervals as oppor-
tunity afforded. They are going back pell
NELL, and they argue that there will be no
falling Off in the usual winter travel They
say that Florida, like Memphis and New
Orleans, in past years has been visited by
an epidemic, and that there is no reason
that now that the epidemic is over there
should not be- as much security as in the
Mississippi Valley after the subsistence of an
epidemic.
An official of the Savannah, Florida and
Western railway said last night that not
| only are the Floridians returning home and
the northern tourists going southwark
sufficient to crowd the trains, but the tur-
pentine hands are beginning to go to their
homes to spend the Christmas holidays. The
outlook for heavy passenger traffic was
never more promising than at present, and
there is no likelihood OF a falling off until
after the turn Of the tide Of travel north
ward next spring. With a resumption of
the old time schedules, the volume of travel
will be very great.