Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1892-09-29
A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.
Alfred Heinkle, a Sioux City Laborer,
Came Home on the MoravIa.

Came Home ON the Moravia.
Alfred Heinkle, an intelligent la
boring man, who was returning from
a visit to relatives in Austria on the
steamer Moravia, of the Hamburg
American line, had a terrible exper-
fence in the steerage of that vessel,
says the Sioux City Journal, When
she rounded Sandy Hook on August
80, twenty-five passengers in all had
been consigned TO the deep. Eight of
them were women and fourteen men.
The first death occurred when the
ship was but thirty-eight hours at
sea, and the ships doctor at once
pronounced the disease cholerine.
He then set about isolating the steer
age from the other apartments of the
vessel, and did so by keeping the $50
steerage passengers under closed
matches. The decks and hunks were
sprinkled with carbolic acid, and
what with the smell of bilge water
and the filth incident to sea sickness.
the atmosphere in the Steerage deck
was horrible. Those sick with chol-
crime were not taken to the hospital
on the intermediate deck, as is the
custom in other cases of illness, but
we're kept In the after berths of the
steerage deck. Every night two or
three corpses would be carried up
the hatch when it was thought the
passengers were asleep, and every
effort made to disguise the nature Of
the disease that was causing the
deaths. BY the time the boat had
been four days out, however, the
whole Storage crowd were aware that
they were battened down in an apart
ment reeking with filth and swarm
ing with the germs of the dread dis
ease.
The ships crew either refused or
were not permitted to come in and
clean up. Meals were handed down
through the hatch and distributed by
the passengers themselves. Mr..
Heinkle and other young men in the
steerage assisted in caring for the
sick, but he says if he had understood
fully the deadly nature of the disease
he was exposing himself to he would
not have done it. He was kept in
| quarantine on Fire island Cor ten
days, during which time he was thor.
Oughly disinfected and most of his
belongings destroyed. Such as he
was allowed to retain were subjected
to a sulphur-impregnated atmosphere
for twelve hours.
The scenes in the steerage during
the latter part of the voyage, he said,
were indescribable. Men and women
crouched in their apartments and
watched the sheet-wrapped corpses
carried up the ladder by the doctors
crew. Every throe of seasickness
was regarded as the first pang of the
fatal malady. Men and women slept
llouJ oIiScI tAilduStlOu Oilig anu lluu-
died together IN the forward apart
ments, farthest from the pest house.
The relatives of the sick were never
permitted tosee them, and when the
boat reached quarantine there were
many who did not yet know whether
father, mother or sister had been
among those they had heard splash
in the water alongside.
With his treatment while in quar-
antine Mr.. Heinkle had no complaint
to make. He realized the necessity
of destroying much of the personal
effects of the passengers, and was not
inclined to murmur. In fact he
thought most Of those who came
ashore were glad enough to come in
alive, notwithstanding they came be,
reft of their goods.