The morning call., 1894-07-02
Reach the HOme-Stretch
Round the World.
THEY COME BY THE PERU.
What They Saw of the Great
Plague.
OUARANTINED AT NAGASAKl.
Played at Canton i'm the heart or
the Black Death Horror-uiad
They're Home.

Mrs. Brown-Potter sat in a rocker in her
room at the Baldwin Hotel last evening,
while Kyrle Bellew sat in another rocker
just beyond little center table, upon
which was box of bon.bons. and both
seemed-in fact said they were-delighted.
Not 50 much with the bonbons as the
rockers, and not so much the rockers as
the roomy solidity and steadfastness OF
the hotel, and the clang of the streetcars
and the glare of the electric lights and
such other things as bore evidence that
they were in San Francisco, q. S. A.
For it is two years since they waved
some handkerchiefs at friends standing on
the piers at New York and dropped out
past Fire Island. They have been travel
ing east since then and have listened to
nearly all the languages of the wor Id
spoken in their native courts.
But were this the Fourth OF July it
would be just month since they went
aboard ship in China to come back tn US
Because Of the plague at Hong Kong
they were auaran tined for nine days at
Nagasaki and the date of their arrival
here was so uncertain that their opening
at the Baldwin Theater was postponed
one week.
They arrived on the Peru from Yoko
hama last evening and the facts stated
Dressed in easy travelling costume, wear
ing a wjde.brimmed summer hat, ber
brown hair falling in careless meshes to
her neck, and just as naive and pretty as
ever. Mrs. Potter recited alternate chap
ters of the tale of adventures by land and
sea which Mr.. Bellew started to tell.
tine plague? 1t was depopulatng the
Chinese element OF Hong Kongiat thelrate
of hundreds per day; and Canton-we
never could learn how fast it was doing its
terrible work there.
''But the English people of Hongkong
thought nothing of it. There seemed to be
no alarm whatever, for the plague seemed
confined to the Chinese. People inquired
for the death rate each morning much a
the traveller asked for the rate of
exchange. To be sure" she said,
"those who went into the infected dis
trct took great risks, and the soldiers
who undertook to clean up Sal Ping Shan
fell before it in rows. The exhibition of
courage among the soldiers was splendid
but costly. Every morning there was a
call for volunteers. One would step for
ward crying Well. boys. I'm going
plague-hunting.' and the entire company
would join him. They were called the
whitewaShers.' and in nearly every in
stance half their number would be sacri-
feed.
But the limits of Sal Ping Shan came
J.,
and the boys of the hotel and every other
service came out of the district and con-
stantly touched elbows with the entire
European element-its is impossible for any
one to isolate themselves in Hong Kong
without spreading the disease in the
cleanly districts or causing alarm there.
What is the plague? 1t Is the same as
devastated London after the great fire
away back in the 16's, and has no name
other than the black death. 1t is chill,
a fever, local swelling in the throat or
other part Of the body and then funeral.
I'VE were billed TO play at Canton" re-
Sumed Mrs. Potter, "Canton whose streets
you can reach across and the smell OF
which-oh! it makes me i'll to think of it
Canton. where the death rate was sad to
be past figuring. When l heard of the
reports l said ] would not go-simply
would not GO Well, when the foreign
gentlemen heard We were lot coming they
telegra pied down to the effect that the
place had such fit of horrors. everything
being so sombre and mournfui because OF
the devastating plague. and wouldn't we
please come. So we relented and went"
"And all the way up the river we saw
them chuckiug victims OF the plague over
board at frequent intervals" resumed MIR.
Bellew. Then, afterward, when we got
to NagaSaki on our way home we were
held IN quarantine for nine days. required
to take hot baths, all our clothes steamed
and dsinfected, as they said, and clade to
feel ridiculous as we'll as impatient"
"But our adventures did not end there"
broke In Mrs. Potter. "for on the way
over we had double sensation in an
attempt at murder and suicide on ship
board. Two Chinamen-the cook and the
baker-got 10 quarreling. One cut the other
terribly and subsequently. when about to
be put in irons, cut his own throat.
ait hor ic
now breathing through tube
Mr.. Bellew and Mrs. Potter are SO well
pleased to be in San Francisco again that
the fact that they cannot get out OF it does
not seem to enter into their calculations.
They say they played to crowded houses
all round the tworld-LondOn to Burmab,
Burmah to Canton.