The Wichita daily eagle., 1898-01-06
Leprosy on the increase.

| Los Angeles, JAN TT will not be long
| before the government viii have to estab-
/ hsh an Island station like Molokai. in the
| Sandwich Islands. for lepers.' said
prominent local physician recently. A
| station, isolated and apart from human
| fty, must be selected for our own accurs-
ed Leprosy is increasing among US"
refuge for the accursed and unclean,
| They must be driven away from the high
| ways OF life and the marts of trade They
must be dragged from the plying toier-
ance of their friends and exiled for iife-
The last report of the health board of
| California presents twenty-five cases of
| ieprosy. This number is fully one-sixth
of all the lepers in the United States.
| Twenty out Of twenty-five are located in
| San Francisco. No wonder local scien-
lists have proposed the establishment of
a station for the housing of the unclean
| ineurables.
A rancher living in Ventura county has
just brought the story 10 this city OF a
| beautiful white girl who had become af-
fiicted and was sent up 10 the pest-house
| OF the golden state. She was such gra-
cious young girl tail and slender and at
tractive. She lived or ranch, and was
the daughter of a ranchman- Now. on
the blossoming of her womanhood, she
IS doomed to lifelong scorn.
Leprosy is increasing among US. Those
who have seen lepers viii understand the
tragic, awful significance of that sem
tenee- Until you have seen a leper, the
heartrending pathos of the situation, the
terror Of the solitude, the persistence of
the disease, are empty words Once behold
one OF the accursed. as he drags out his
pitiful existence from day to day, waiting
alone a iyin
with the mind so keen and alert, the heart
instincts still fresh with emotion, yet with
body rotting away inch by inch, then you
may understand.
Out at the local county hospital and poor
house, recently, there were three lepers.
One was a Chinese, another Spaniard
and the third. German. They were kept
apart from the hospital in a shanty. with
high board fence around~t isolated like
NANCY ours in a pen- The Chinaman es-
capped, the Spaniard has Just died, but
the German lives on, waiting long, weary
days to be sent to the pest-house of San
Francisco, or to be boxed up and shipped
on the eternal journey.
The warm, kindly sunshine pours into
his open door. 1t shines on his blotched
SCARED hands, nailless and sensible to
touch. 1t reveals the distorted agony of
his poor face. losing its outlines in the
Scourge of the disease He lives in bod
lily comfort there He has food and CLOTH
ing. The litter of kittens that play
his doorstep rub their furry sides against
nim lovingly. They are not afraid. They
do not run away and scream "Unclean,
Unclean," They do not start back in hor-
ror. They lick the hand of the leper, and
the tears drip from his fading eyes, blood
drinS from his anguiShed heart.
There is young white boy in the pest
house of San Francisco who has fallen
victim to the scourge. He is hopeful of
a long life; he is not Respondent: he is
happy. He is looking forward 10 the time
when he may return to the Hawaiian Is
lands, where he contracted the disease.
He is waiting for the time when he may
join the leper colony there, to live at Mo-
Iokai. the one blighted spot Of the great
Pacific.
Molokai, though it is accursed of God,
to him is paradise Within it's towering
cliffs there is leper girl. She is his sweet
heart. They are waiting for one another.
Both are in living ltombs. But there is
no craven blood in the Veins of either.
They are fighting the life battle valiantly
and they are happy in their love-
Sometimes the authorities let this youth
send letter to the girl over the sea-
First he writes his message and then they
inclose it in another envelope to avoid any
possible dissemination of baccili. Then
sometimes she is allowed to reply. Fancy
it! What strange messages these two
must send to one another-these two who
the as absolutely alone if all the rest
of the world had been depopulated.
There is a white woman leper in the
pest-house who has lost her reason. She
wanders about twining garlands of flowers
and singing in a hoarse whisper. She is
blithesome, gay, happy. She will never
realize what fate has mapped out for her.
Though nature hasrbeen most unkind, she
has been merciful.