Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1895-10-11
The BRAVE men OF EYAM.
INFECTION FROM THE GREAT
PLAGUE AFTER NINETY YEARS.
wonderful Narrative ofn Clcrgyman's
Action I'm an Emergency in the
Seventeenth Century.

OF the great plague, 1906, is from
the Diocesan Magazine Of Homo
lulu for September. Bishop
Willis, the editor of the periodi-
cal, adds only one moral to it.
There are several things in the
narrative that have a bearing on
the recent pestilence hero:
Eyam is lovely village in
Derbyshire between Buxton and
Chatsworth, nesting among
the hills, which shut it
in, so that the winds
sweep above it, and when the
pestilence got in it had undis-
puted possession. Tue plague
broke out in the family of the
village tailor, who had received
some patterns of cloth from Lon
don. In one day they s!ckened
and died. The village was filed
with dismay. But they were not
panic-stricken. The rector, the
Rev. William Mompesson,a young
man, inspired his parishioners
with his own courage. He wrote
to London for the most approved
medicines and prescriptions. At
the same time he sent q letter
to the Earl Of Devonshire, at
Chatsw engaging that his
parishioners would quarantine
themselves from the whole neigh
borhood, and thus confne the
contagion within their own
boundaries, provided the Earl
would undertake that food and
other necessares should be
placed at certain appointed
spots. at regular times, upon
the hills around. where the Eya-
mites might come, leave payment
for them, and take them without
holding any communication with
the bringers, except by letters,
which could he placed on a stone,
and then fumigated, or passed
through vinegar, before they were
touched with the hand. TO this
the Earl consented, and for seven
whole months the engagement
was kept. Such is the nature of
the country, that regiment of
soldiers could not have kept the
villagers from escaping, bad they
sought to do so. But all yielded
to the Rector's remonstrance, and
not one parishioner was known to
have passed the boundary, and
the plague never spread to the
neighboring villages.
Day and night the Rector and
his wife were among the sick,
nursing, feeding, and tending them
with all that care and skill could
do; but, III spite of all their en-
deavors, four-fifths of the inhabi-
tants died. To lessen the posi-
bility of infection he conducted
the services of the Church in the
open air, the people assembling
in dell which TO this day rcta;ns
the name Of Cucklet Church.
Before the plague ceased Mrs.
Mompesson had died, but the
Rector was never touched. There
were no fresh cases after October
l1th, and he then set himself to
burn all wooden clothing lest the
infection should remain. In
letter, dated Nov. Goth, 1866, he
wrote: 1.-THE condition of this
place hath been so dreadful, that
/ persuade myself it exceedeth
all history and example. | may
truly say our town has become II
Golgotha, place of skulls; and
had there not been small rem
nant of us left, we had been as
Sodom, and like unto Gomorrah.
MY ears never heard such doleful
lamentations, my nose never @no!t
such noisome smells, and my
eyes never beheld such CHASTITY
spectacles. Hero have been
seventy-six families visited within
my parish, ont of which died 259
persons. For the avoidance Of
Infection those who died were not
inferred in the churchyard, but
on healthy hill above the village,
where the burial service was
daily read.
The wisdom of this precaution
was mournfully demonstrated
ninety-one years after. In
1857, five laboring men in