The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-05-19
OF
PHILIPPINES
Are Fifty Thousand OF
Them.
co ABOUT AS THEY PLEASE
Leper Beggars and Leper Workmen.
Black Plague and Small
Pox Prevalent.

MANILA, May 4-One of the serious
problems which confronts the Govern
ment here is the selection of a Ieper isl
and and the segregation of the Iepers.
There are lepers scattered throughout the
archipelago. In many places they mix
with the rest of the people They NAV he
seen begging at the doors of the churches.
and it is hard 10 tell whether they are
not in the markets handling the vege-
tables and meats which we eat on our
tables. There are, it is said, 10000 Iepers
in the Nisayan Islands, and the number
in the whole country must be upward Of
$4,000. Leprosy exists to an alarming ex-
tent in several of the provinces of Lu-
zon, and Captain Lynch, one of the doe
tors of the health department, tells me
that he saw several hundred cases dur
ing his stay in Negroes The Spaniards
paid but little attention TO the prevention
OF the disease. They had only two hos
pitals' one in Cebu and one in Manila
In Cebu the disease is known to be
spreading and in Manila there are I'M
doubtedly many lepers at large.
a Visit to Leper Hospital.
l took carriage this afternoon ana
drove out into the country to the lepar.
hospital. II is about three miles from
the center of Manila and not far from
bilt OuNShlI u OF the CITY. You bX "A
market where hundreds of men women
and children are crowding and pushing.
one another in buying and selling think
ing as you look how easily one leper
could contaminate the whole. You go bv
thousands of the matched huts of the
lahorlnS classes, each hut swarmiuay
with people, and at last come 10 a big
White building which looks not unlike a
penitenttary. 1t is surrounded by large
grounds, and shut off from the road nv
a thick wall of stone. 1t has a barred
gate, and as you look up you instinctly
remember the inscription over Dante's
An hope abandon We who enter here.
ana wonder why it is not inscribed upon
Entering the gate is like going into =
tween nigh walls of stone, and far down
at the end of this, you see the barred
doors of the hospital itself
Come with me and let US take trip
through il. There is a native at the en-
trance who looks ugly enough to be a
patent himself. We ask for the Iapers.
lie points across the court and tells us
10 enter We do so, and within few
seconds are in the presence of two score
notwithstanding objects, who have run to
the doors to meet us. Some are young
some oId-an are lepers. Here is a bov.
brown-faced, bright-eyed and as ouick
In his actions and joyful in his laugh as
your own boys at home. But look, His
hands ana his breast are covered with
ready begun to decay. Next to him is a
man whose nose has been eaten away
ana whose eyes are bleared with the dis
ease. Others have foreheads which arc
falling in. toes almost gone and their
bodies covered with sores 1t is so hor-
rible. indeed, that words can hardly ex-
press il.
AS we hesitate the lepers gather around
US. motion them off, but they point
TO my camera, and one saws "retrato -
tne spanish word for photograph, and
holdlng out his mutilated hands adds
these two words in English Give mon
ey-' i take out a Mexican dollar and
throw it to him, and he gathers the hor-
RID crowd in the sun to one side and
poses them for me.
In the Hospital.
As l snap the button the native doctor
appears and we go together through the
building with the ghoulish crowd at our
heeIs. We pass upstairs through one
long NAH after another, each filled with
beds, upon some of which lepers are ly-
ing. The halls are clean and well light
ed. The walls are whitewashed, and the
building is cool and well kept The floor
Is OF hard wood, polished so that our
races ana those of these living dead men
are reflected i'm it as we walk through.
Fifty-hve Women Lepers.
Leaving the mems ward, we next go 10
the women ward. There are eighty-one
men and hfty-fve women and girls now
in the hospital. The females are of all
ages. from little tots of up to gray
haired horrible looking hays of CO. The
most OF them are idle, sitting about talk
ing, smoking and chewing the betel. One
woman has her mouth so eaten away that
neither teeth nor lips are left to hold her
cigarette. Her nose is almost gone. but
she has put the cigarette in one of her
nostrils and is putting out the smoke
through the hole where her mouth should
have been. L take a photograph of five
of the worst cases, trembling as / do so
for fear | may catch the disease
| can imagine nothing more horrible
than the condition of these people here
They have no amusements and no work
They are just waiting to die and watch
ing themselves, knowing that they must
die inch by inch
L understand that the health officers