The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-10-17
BILL AKP'S LETTER.
The Three Great Evils to Mankin

wal, peSGu6ucS anu 1an1uS-tuS tulS
great scourges of mankind. We don
know much about the last, but we d.
know something of war and pestlence
and in some respects they are very mucl
alike In their horrible results. It is deatl
in its most unfeeling pitiless form. Tht
great difference is that war is the worl
of man Intentionally and provoked, in
stigated by bad passions that come
straight from the devil, while pestilenct
is simply an inheritance of the curse
one of the great affections that is for maj
to conquer and subdue-an ahiction like
thorns and weeds and poison oak an6
devouring worms and mad dogs ano
measles and toothache and pains of al
kinds and cold and heat and fire and
food. all of these have their remedies.
Most of them have been overcome by
mans ingenuity and all will be. The
power of pestilence has already been
broken by preventives just as the powe,
of pain has been broken by anesthetics.-
Our generation suffered more than its
share from toothache and earache
and coicaches and beestings and stone
bruises and stumpedtoes. If man had
to have an arm or leg amputated or 8
wen cut off he wasn't put to sleep but
just had TO be held like he was in q vice
and take the excruciation just as it came.
If he went blind there was no surgeon
to remove the cataract. If he had the
fever not a drop Of water was given him
to cool his parched tongue. l helped to
hold q poor fellow once as he lay
stretched upon long table. I held his
foot hard and strong while the surgeon
was cutting off his leg just below the
knee and when he sawed through the
bone, the severed leg and / came down
together for it made me sick before I
knew it. He stood it better than / did
The flow of human blood always makes
me sick, and I never got hardened to it
during the war. At the battle OF Malvern
Hill / saw more of the horrors of wal
than ever before or after. Most OF the
deaths were from shell and the dead were
awfully torn and mangied. I recall
soldier who sat leaning against tree,
his rifle grasped with rigid hands and the
muzzle resting on the ground. He was
sitting up just as he fell, but his head
was entirely gone and the blood still
oozing from his neck. 7 have seen
the army wagons crossing the shallow
trenches where the dead of the battle of
Seven Pines had been burieda q few days
before, and as the wheels crushed down
into the soft wet clay, an arm or leg
would be forced up and fall again, and
sometimes ghastly bloated face would
show itself as the heavy wheels passed
upon the breast. But all this is nothing
compared with the silent helpless grief
that comes to q household when the
pestilence is there. First one loved one
is stricken and then another. Despair
treads close upon the heels of Hope. The
house seems doomed. No cheerful voices,
no happy songs; music and smiles have
gone and sad whisperings and sadder
tears have taken their places. These
scenes are heart rending and no one
wishes to give them thought; but all
ought to, for the sufferers are our fellow
creatures, and but for our sympathy
would be more pitiless still. That NAN
who gave Mayor Hewitt twelve thousand
dollars for the Jacksonville sufferers and
would not give his name, did not turn
away from the picture. He thought of it
by day and by night, and it followed
him about, and his great big heart
opened wide.-I would like to have that
mans picture in my parlor.
How helpless these refugees from the
awful pestilence must have felt when
they realized the full force of the quaran-
tine that was against them. A scourge
behind them relentless as death, and as
they fed to find refuge the doors of
humanity we're closed. This is right OF
course, IN some measure, but it is awful.
I saw it once in 1878 when hundreds of
the poor and friendless were hurried out
of NJ Memphis. Three long trains Of cars
freighted with women and children. I
was at Grand Junction when they came
and took passage with them for Chatta-
nooga. Al nj ght long I sat upon the
platform and hugged the iron post and
nodded in my sleep, and when surprise
found us few miles from our destination
we met the quarantine and could so no
further. There was no food and but
little water. Mothers we're worn out
with anxiety, and the children in 9
piteous condition, for they had slept
upon the floor and the foul air was fear
full. After a long parley the humane
doctors said they would 90 though the
the city, and on to the mountains Of
East Tennessee. When and where they
stopped never learned but heard they
were scattered and dropped along the
line and that the kind people gave them
welcome. What fearful lessons have
been given to make us prudent and
careful. Memphis had to be and she
was purged OF her filth and is now prob
ably one of the healthiest cities in the
South.
Many years ago Savannah was purged
and so was Charleston, and those cities
seem to be proof against the birth OF
pestilence. Two centuries ago London
had become almost stagnant with her own
corruption, and suddenly the great
plague came Like simeon, and in six
weeks twenty-three thousand of her
people perished. That there is remedy
for such visitation the mod-rn civiliz-
alton and modern science have demon
strated, and Jacksonville will yet rise
above the pestilence and defy it.
Blackstone says there is no wrong with
out remedy, and SO the doctors ssy
there is no disease without an antidote.
I believe this on general principles. !
believe in what is called the Providence
of God. As He gave King Solomon
knowledge Of all the hesbs that we're