The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-06-25


wiped out hundreds of thousands of men
and women, when society needed to be re-
minded to keep clean. The disease is called
varously the plague, the distemper. the
pest, the great death and the black death
The plain name plague" suits the disease
best. 1t means blow, and the plague has
dealt to the human race the hardest blows
it has ever known. AT this time the disease
Is raging in China. When it visited Lon
don in 1865 and killed a hundred thousand
men it was believed to have come from the
East in bales of goods. AS we get many
bales of goods and some boxes of tea from
China we should know as much about the
disease as possible. 1t is fine disease to
study. first. because nothing definite is
known about it, which allows the magina-
ton to act. and, second, because it is the
most grewsome and terrifying trouble that
flesh ever inherits. The best and most
thentic news of the plague in China is con-
tanned in the following letter, dated Hong
Kong, May 20: THE news will have
reached you ere this of the outbreak here
OF the plague. But / might as well warn
you at the start that it is not safe to ac-
cept accounts from English sources without
some qualifications. The notion has gone
forth from Hong Kong that the pestilence
which has made its appearance here is the
sudden and unexpected temperance of the
black death of the middle ages, which had
disappeared. This is a startling way to
put it, but the simple fact is that the form
OF the pest is the same that rayaged Eu-
rope in 100 and almost depopulated Mar
settles, and has been epidemic in this coun-
try ever since.
There is no worse place on earth than
n Q.at hold OF niol
simple reason that the provisional COVER
nors are not required TO keep any that are
OF a sanitary character, and the lesser Off
mortuary lists. But in the absence CT in
formation from officials there are English
surgeons and missionaries who have been
long enough in the country To furnish some
reliable data. From several sources of
this kind 1 have the assurance that there
dred years when sporadic cases OF the
plague We're not to be found somewhere
in the crowded centers of this population
l believe that China had kept the germs
or the plague I've all these years In spite
of the efforts of Europe to eradicate it and
1T had done this by combination of the
most incomprehensible superstition and OPP
position to the plainest rules Of sanitary
science. 1t is not known that the disease
has been present in the province Of Yum
nan for at least thirty years and appeared
in the Tong Aing gulf as late. as 1883. To
say that 1t had been eradicated is sheer
nonsense. All they did was to escape the
year which would make 1T epidemic.
ACCOUNTS SUPPRESSED.
"The disease took pestilential form about
the middle of April in Canton and as soon
az the authorities were apprised of 1t they
began to suppress the accounts. Anything
like rigid supervision of the mortuary
lists outside Of the free ports is unknown.
This city, as you know, lies narrow
estuary called the Pearl river, and behind
it on the north side the bald and barren
line Of hills which have been used as the
burial place for thousand years at least.
Through the center of the city there has
been built partition wall that divides the
municipality into old and new Canton and
around three sides of the whole domain is
a broad, open ditch, into which all the re-
fuse OF the city is emptied, the conven-
lent theory that the tide water will wash
1T out. In confederation of this theory it
Is only necessary TO say that for six hours
almost every day an almost tropical sun
beats down on an accumulation of filth two
TO four feet deep and eight miles long
Another convenient theory is that rats per-
form scayenger work that would not other
wise be done. On the morning OF April II
word was brought 10 the project that the
rats were dying at the foot of the city
walls, and, instead of taking measures to
verify the story and abate the nuisance,
word was conveyed from the Project s
yamun to the Rice Commissioner va
mum, and from thence to the Governor s
and report of all the officials to the tenn
pie of the five genii where 1t is presumed
they went through some form. &.
RATS AS SCAVENGERS.
perhaps / ought to say that this per-
Torrance of the rats strikes the Oriental
mind with all the force of a well-preserved
mystery. The collective death of the rat is
and always has been a sure precursor OF
the black plague. No one has attempted
al MI ati0 of mir aa1c 4
out of their retreats three times to an
nounce to Constantinople the arrival of the
death. By the 18th it was known that the
inhabitants of the old quarter were imltat-
ing the rats, and in less than five days
the pestilence was raging.
II was in Canton up TO the 18th and can
give you my own observations. There are
of course, a great number of Englshmen
here, some permanent residents There is
also a fair contingent of F'renchmen and a
few Americans. It is worth remarking that
these foreigners have for the most part
refused to, be panic-stricken. / think il
may be observed that they regard the
black death with a certain amount of con-
tempt, as if 1t were something adapted
only to the Oriental Whether this feeling
has acted as a prophylactic / cannot say
but the exemption of the foreign popula-
ton has been most remarkable. Most OF
these foreigners are merchants and reside
in the western district of the city, which
has far been remarkably exempt from
sickness Among them is a New York man
terested in the palm-leaf fan trade, and
employs over -wo hundred native workers
On the 18th he came back from that place
and reported that the plague had closed w
his works, which are situated at Loting
| 100 miles east of Canton. His account OF
the difficulties he experienced with his peo-
| pie will stand as a fair sample of the in
comprehensive faulty Of the Chinese
| Ninety per cent. of the inhabitants of Can.
| ton and the adjacent country are Bud
| dhists, and in the presence of great disas
| ter they exhibit q ,fatalism quite as pro
nounced the Mahometans, but of alto
gether a different character. In the latter
| a profound conviction that it is useless &c
| struggle against the DEGREES of beaver
| make the patient uninteresting victim
With the former belief to interfere with
| the DEGREES of heaven will only subject hin
hereafter to some obscure reincarnatioI
| makes him a dull kind of hero. preferrini
| the ills he has rather than rush to those
| Chinese, they stick up prayers over theil
doors on colored paper without believing
| In them. and wait foP the Emperor TO ge
mad and abolish the plague by edict. %
/ the 20 iow-caste Chinese employed by DR.
| Mcintosh 80 per cent. died of the disease
| in four days. The Doctor stayed in the
neighborhood and gave himself up to fight
ing the epidemic, nobly assisted by severa
Sisters of Charity who came at his cal
| from Canton. This summary 1 give yol
of no manner of use with these people
If they get the fever they make up theil
| mind to die, and that's all there is i'm Ii
| But / am satisfied that ordinary sanitary
| precautions are more effective than in any
! other scourge of which / know anything
BORN OF DIRT:
1.-The disease has its beginning in dirt
and is aggravated by a low moral condition
| of nonresistance that appears to have beer