The St. Johns herald., 1893-06-15
OVERRUN BY LEECHES.
A Tenement Invaded by Hundreds
 of the Noisome Creatures.
Farms Where the Squirming Vampires Are Raised for Commercial Pur- poses-How They Are Fed
 and Captured.


 and Captured.
 People in the western addition have slept soundly for years in ignorance of the fact that at any moment plague worse than the locusts of Egypt might come crawling into open windows and under loosely-hung doors-a plague of fierce blood-hungry leeches.
 There is an extensive leech farm on Bush street, where ten thousand of the repulsive monsters are confined, await ing purchasers. The farm is ore of two in the United States, the other be- ing in New York, and there at times fifty thousand leeches squirm cease lessly about, over and through swamp muck, constantly searching for some hapless animal that chance might have mired down to furnish a feast for the insatiate amelia.
 The leeches at the San Francisco .arm broke away the other night. says he San Francisco Examiner, and over spread the neighboring tenement in a very short time. Hundreds of them crawled up the walls and tried every window and crevice. But a minority found their way into the sleeping-roomS not more than thousand-but even that number of snaky, greenish-blaclz, creepy worms sufficed to terrify the occupants almost into fits when they felt the eager suction of the leeches and awol1e to find themselves festOoned with the ugly products of the swampy ooze of Bordeaux
 The first to awaken was young lady, and she was not long in announcing her distress and arousing her fellow-occu- pants of the house, only to find that each of them had for room companions from a score to hundreds of the leeches.
 Brooms were savagely piled in every corner and under every piece of furni- ture. Bedclothing was shaken and closely examined Leech bites were dressed with soothing applications, and after several hours of activity the household again settled down to rest.
 Next morning an examination of the premises and those adjacent was made, and when the leech farm was discovered the secret was out. as well as the leeches.
 The worms are brought from France where about Bordeaux there are wide areas of black, light ooze, in which leeches of the fiercest sort multiply un- stinted. The ooze fairly heaves with their writhings at the season of the year when they are most active, and then one of the cruelest sights possible may be seen.
 Old horses, worn out in faithful serv- ice, are driven into the marshes and are soon covered with the hungry leeches, which fasten to lips, eyelids, nose or any other tender part, and hang on un- til glutted with the life blood of their victim, or until the wretched horse weakens under the drain and falls to suffocate in the slime of the leech mo- rass.
 When leeches are desired to send to New York or San Francisco men are hired whose poverty compels them to accept any chance. The men walk bare-legged into the borders of the leech swamps and are immediately cov- cred by the repulsive crawlers, but be- lOlC OilC Shln of the men with their sharp semi-lunar teeth they are swept off into pouches, from which they are counted out into beds of wet moss and boxes of their na- tive ooze, embedded in which they are transported safely any distance
 The large leeches, such as those of Japan, which reach two feet in length, are not in common use, nor are certain poisonous sorts, such as the small black leeches of Australia. The thick, fat fierce worms of Hungary, Sicily and France are preferred by practitioners who use leeches, and it is from those countries that the rest of the world is supplied. The San Francisco leech farm is formed by placing quantities of the ooze of the Bordeaux swamps, es- pecially imported for the purpose, in large boxes with tight covers. The Ieeches bore about through the muck until wanted for sale, when they are counted out, washed and disposed of, ready to bite any living thing and hang on until they are swollen to eight or ten times their ordinary size. Then they drop off and lie dormant until as similation shall have been finished and hunger apain arOuSeS them