Barre evening telegram. (Barre, Vt.) 1898-19??, 1898-09-03
THE BLACK DEATH.
THAT FEARFUL PLAGUE THAT FOL
LOWS IN THE WAKE OF WAR.

| In the FOurceenth century III SWept Ill
Whole Of Europe. Killing Twenty iv
Millions of People In Three Years-Th
Pestilence In London.
The plague, or pestilence, that mys
ferrous and fearful visitation which la
moved its hosts in the wake of armie
to slay more than war itself, is suppose
to have first originated among the dens
masses of people who crowded togethe
in the great cities of Asia and Egypt, o
who formed the encampment of Xerxes
Cyrus and Tamerlane the Tartar. l
probably sprang from the impurit.
which must have existed in the mids
of such vast gatherings and in part als'
| from leaving the unburied dead upol
| the field of battle. At any rate thu
germs of this fearful human poison have
! always been most active where condi
lions similar to those have prevailed. L
has always been war and the march o.
armies that has spread it broadcast ovel
the world from time to time, and a!
war became less frequent and les!
worldwide the frequency and extent Of
these ravages have lessened also.
The first recorded outbreak Of the
plague in Europe occurred in the six
tenth century. 1t came from lower
Egypt. This was the first tapping of the
wave that reached into the east again,
there to stay its movement SO far as the
west was concerned until 544 A. D..
when the returning legions of the EN-
peror Justinian brought it again into
the western world from the battlefelds
of Persia. Constantinople was the first
place it attacked. Here in single day
as many as 10, 900 persons are said to
have fallen victims to it. But the plague
did not stop with Constantinople. 1t
had found too congenial soil in Eu-
rope, which was little else than one
great battlefield at the time. 1t was
carried into Gaul, where it followed
close in the wake of the Frmkish
armies, and from Gaul it moved into
Italy, with the Lombards, and SO devas-
tated the country as to leave it entirely
at the mercy Of the invaders.
The various crusades, which ext ended
over space of about 200 years, no
doubt did much to hold the pcstilence
in Europe, for they served to keep open
the channels of intercourse between the
east and the west Periodic epidemics
were common during their continuance,
and these seem to have eliminated in
the fourteenth century with what is
known in history as the black death.
The black death was more fatal to hu-
man life than any other single cause
since the world began. The havoc of wal
was nothing in comparison to it. 1t
swept the whole of Europe, leaving in
its path such misery and restitution as
the world had never known. 1t killed in
three years some rs, 200, 900 of people.
Such figures stagger the comprehension,
but the records of the time cannot be
doubted. The entire population of Eu-
rope is estimated to have been about
100, 900, cockpit down as it was by
the constant warfare-an6 of these 100,-
900, 900 at least fourth perished
The ravages of the plague in Italy,
"ASAO ~ ChhlO UIlC OItCh VI Viz WAL
of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, was
particularly disastrous to mankind. 1t
ragged with terrible fury in Naples,
where 10000 persons are said to have
died. 1t fell upon Pisa and seven out of
every ten persisted. 1t utterly and for
ever destroyed the prosperity of Siena
Florence also suffered severely, while
100, 900 of the inhabitants of Venice
were literally wiped off the face of the
earth. From Italy it moved into France,
where the mortality was almost as
great; in Paris alone SO, 600 people died |,
from it. One of the worst features pre-
sented by the history of the black death |
was the cruel persecution it aroused
against the Jews. They were supposed |
to have infected the air in some mys-
FERROUS manner, and they We're accused
of having poisoned the wells and
springs. In Strassburg 1900 of them
were buried alive III their own burial
ground.
The order CT the Flagellanto arose at
this time coming from the belief that
the sins Of the world had at last brought
down the wrath of heaven. 1t was the
of the so called Hundred
Years war that carried the black death
into England, where in London it's vic
TINS numbered 100000. When at last
the plague had worked it's ravages, it
doubled back over it's course, to disap.
pear in the east. In 1915 it appeared
again in England, first among the SOL
diers of Richmond after the battle of
Bosworth Field, and when the victo-
rious army marched to London the
plague went with them to work its
havoc there. AS long as it lasted the
mortality was as great as that caused
BY the black death half a century be-
fore. Five thousand people died in five
weeks, and then the plague left London
Is suddenly as it had appeared there, tc
sweep over the rest of England.
LII Scotland the plague of 1868 came
after the battle of Lang.
'lde, when Queen Mary was dethroned, {
'ut no records of the mortality it occa-
Toned seem to have been preserved.
The plague visited London in 1876.
This followed after the civil war which I
nded with the death of Charles II, but '
o many years interv aned that it is i'm.
possible to trace any connection .etweeu G
he two events. In modern wars .anger t
rom the plague seems gradu lily to
AVE lessened, perhaps as a result of !
'etter sanitary conditions maintained t
y the armies of Observation-Disclosures n
"Aii Hands Abandon shipi" f
"A naval officer thus describes the =
ealistio IAN hands abandon shin" !