The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-07
Shotgun Quarantine.

reads the south lecture about its shotgun
guarantees. 1t calls them senseless and
cowardly, and hints that if congress next
winter undertakes to substitute national
quarantine for city and state guarantees
it may find it necessary to change its course
with respect TO quarantine matters and
favor giving the government control of all
quarantine regulations. The immediate
cause of the Journal of Commences out
burst of Indignation is the Inconvenience to
which New York merchants have been put
| by the delays in southern mails caused by
saotgun quarantines.
While there may be soma reason for the
Journals sweeping condemnation of those
who have interfered with the free trans
mission of the mails, it is evident that it
knows very little of the su 1ject about
which it speaks SO freely and so strongly
1t is very easy matter for those who aN
far removed from all dan ger of the pesti-
lence to criticise the conduct of those who
are fighting it, or who are exposed to it.
and are doing the best they know how to
guard themselves and their families
against it,
As far as anybody knows there is no pre-
ventive nor cure for yellow fever. 1t is
mysterious disease, and the mystery which
surrounds it adds to its terrors. Experience
teaches that the only way to guard an ex-
posed community against it is to establish
strict quarantine against all infected places.
In 1879 for instance, the places along the
Illinois Central railroad which permitted
no trains to stop within their limits, escaped
the Scourge, while those VIII CHI permitted
the trains to stop to put off the mails, or to
change engines, became infected with it. Is
it to be wondered at, therefore, that people
in southern towns, during the present cpl
demic, have objected to keeping open rail
communication with infected placesa They
have considered that their first duty was to
take care of their own lives and the1iiFescf
their families If other communities out
side of the danger line were inconvenienced,
that was their misfortune. Those in the
danger line did not think they were called
upon to run great risks in order to accomo-
date those outside of that line. The shot
gun quarantine may be senseless, but the
Journal of Commerce must admit, if it
pays any attention to facts, that there is
some excuse for it.
But has there not lately been witnessed in
New York city something akin to what the
Journal condemns in the south9 Not long
ago distinguished scientist was taken sick
with what was thought to be yellow fever,
in New York hotel. The board of health
of that city was apparently panic stricken,
and dragged the poor man from the hotel
to hospital in the night, and during a
cold rain storm. OF course he died
Such treatment would have killed almost
any man afflicted with yellow fever. 1t Is
quite safe to say that the scientist would
not have been so inhumanely treated in any
southern city, although the danger to be
apprehended from caring for the patient in
his hotel would have been many times
greater than it was in New York in fact,
as far as spreading the disease was con-
cerned, there was more danger in removing
the patient than in permitting him to re-
main in his hotel. The same sort
of fear that caused the scientists death
is the cause of the shotgun quarantine, but
there was very little reason for it in New
York, while there is great deal for it in the
south. The Journal of Commerce, how
NCSo
necessary to call the fear which caused the
scientists death senseless and cowardly.
AS far as government control of inland
as we'll as coast quarantine is concerned,
the Journal of Commerce will offend
nobody in the south by advocating
it, 1t is certainly safer and much
less expensive to fence in,
as it were, an infected place than for every
town in the country, within the danger
line to fence against it, and only the gov
eminent can enforce the fencing-in policy.
If, in the beginning of the Jacksonville cpl
demic, that city had been shut in by
strong Gordon, and her people allowed to
pass out only through detention camps, it is
doubtful if the fever would have reached
other places. 1t is certain that there
would have been no interruption of
trade, or travel or the mails, and the people
of other places within the dangerous terri
| tory would have felt such sense of security
that business would have suffered no in
| terruption. The Journal Of Commerce
should give this subject of shotgun quaran-
tines little closer study.