The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-08-08


that it got the title of "the black
death" 1t ran over Europe again
and again from the sixth to the
eighteenth centuries, and it is said to
have caused more deaths than any of
the great epidemics which human
flesh has been heir to. It is the pest
which Daniel Defoe describes in his
story of the great plague of London of
1865 and 1866, and it has done ter
rible damage in Arabia and Persia
within the past generation. It came
few years ago from China to South
ern Russia, and the Czar stationed
troops about the infected districts and
in this way kept it from the rest of
Europe. The plague that ravased
Europe in the fourteenth century
came from China, and it has been
known to have existed for some years
past in one of the Chinese provinces
above the Burmese frontier.
The black death broke out in Can
ton during the last week in February,
and for time the average of those
who died from it was about two hun
dred per day. This average steadily
increased, until in March and April it
was five hundred per day. 1t is said
that the Pearl River, which flows past
the city, and upon which hundreds of
thousands of peoplelive, contains many
floating corpses, and that the under
takers are unable to make eofins
enough to supply the demand. In or
dinary times the Chinese spend large
sums upon their funerals, and they
are more particular as to the styles of
their burial caskets than they are as
to those of their wedding beds. Cof-
fins cost all the way from few dollars
up to thousands of dollars, and it is
not an uncommon thing for man to
buy a coffin and keep it in his house
for years, 30 as to have 6rst-class
article on hand when he dies. Chill
dren often make their parents presents
of cofins, and they have their mutual
coffin supply association, somewhat
like our building and loan association,
or like our mutual life insurance socie-
ties. Every member of such an asso-
clation gets coffin and burial clothes
when he dies, and the not having these
is considered a greater calamity than
death itself. To-day the dead in Can
ton are carted out and disposed of in
all sorts of ways, and the greatest
trouble is found in getting rid of them.
Often the pall-bearers who are paid to
carry the cofins to the grave are
stricken with the dread disease on the
way, and of the four who start out
with the body only one or two return.
There are not cofins enough for the
grown persons, and the children are
being buried in baskets or wrapped
up in pieces of mating. In some
places the babies are not buried at all
and the baby towers are full. These
baby towers you find all over China.
They are little buildings, with windows
high up near the roof. The babies
are laid on the windows and are pushed
inside to decompose as they will. I
saw, near Shanghai, the bodies of
babies thrown out upon the roadside,
and such corpses are often left by the
poor for the dogs to eat. To-day many
of the dead at Canton have not bur-
ial plot and their cofins are left on
the top of the ground. This, in the
case of such an infectious disease as
the black plague, cannot but be of
great danger to the rest of the people,
and the plague is said to be steadily
spreading over the surrounding coun-
try. Some of the cofins are hermeti-
cally sealed by vanishing them again
and again with sort cf lacquer var
nish, and as the wood is often four in
ches thick, in ordinary times they do
not cause much trouble from their Of
fensive smell. Now, however, the
haste with which the dead are dis
posed of does not admit of such treat
ment, and the very air about Canton
is laden with the pestilence. The
richer Chinese of the city have been
doing what they could to relieve the
distress, and there are number of
charitable associations who are aiding
in the disposal of the dead. At one