Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-08-08
VEIL OF DEATH DRAWN OVER
SCOURGED CITY OF NEW ORLEANS.

The yellow fever situat ton in New
Orleans grows worse. The number of
new cases is not large, they are scatter
ed over much larger section of the
city, and the danger is correspondingly
increased. Never before in the history
of New Orleans have its citizens been
so thoroughly aroused. Prominent
business men can be seen cleaning out
their own cutters. The people are
screening their cisterns from one end
of The city to another. The entire
fight is being carried on by the people
of New Orleans.
New Orleans is shut off, so far as all
practical purposes are concerned, to
the outside world Friday night the
State Board of Health quarantined the
entire State of Louisiana against the
City of New Orleans. Governor Varda-
man has called out the militia of Mis-
sissippi to act as guards along the
State line to keep out people from the
infected districts of Louisiana. Prac
tically everything but the through mail
trains have been taken off by the rail
roads. Many towns will not allow the
transmission of money by express.
In the face of the strictest regula-
tons many are still fleeing from their
homes in the poor districts, only to be
driven back by bayOnets and shot
guns when they reach State lines The
pOstoffice department, acting on the
mosquito theory, will not fumigate the
mails sent from the city. The fruit in
dustry is rapidly nearing paralysis as
Chicago, st. Louis, and other points
are cutting down orders. They fear
that the scOurge may be carried North
on the fruit trains. River commerce
is at standstill and ocean shipping is
greatly checked by quarantine regula-
tons against the port of New Orleans.
Banana ships from Honduras are not
venturing to make port.
A sensation was sprung in quaran-
tine circles by the Warlike action of
Governor Vardaman of Mississippi,
whose severe criticisms of the New
Orleans health authorities threaten to
involve him in a personal controversy
with the Governor of Louisiana. Gov
ernor Vardaman ordered Colonel Wy
att, inspector general of the Mississip-
pi National Guard, to mobilize the
State troops on the Louisiana lines as
quarantine guards. The State of Mis-
sissippi has refused to allow passen-
ger and baggage communication from
New Orleans.
The people in the yellow fever zone
are to be congratulated upon the forti-
tude and hopefulnesS with which they
have encountered the plague peril. Not
even inveterate optimism, however,
can ignore the fact that the situation
at New Orleans is by no means en-
couraging. Facts have to be faced
The most serious feature of the situa-
ton is the admitted spread of the dis
ease beyond the circumscribed locality
to which it was at first confined. SO
long as no cases developed outside of
the Italian quarter there was reason
to accept the assurances of the medi-
cal and sanitary experts that the fever
would be isolated and stamped out
The development of new foci of infec-
ton tremendously increases the diff
culties of the problem. 1t also weak
ems the public morale, which is as pow
erful a factor as the merely medical
phase of the matter.
Nor is the uneasiness confined to
the city of New Orleans. The ex-
pressed suspicion that the infection
has been carried up the river and per-
haps over to Mississippi sound is cal
culated to excite apprehension in the
minGs of people all over the yellow
fever zone, and these apprehensions
are finding expression in the estab-
lishment Of guarantees.
Yet if experience at Havana counts
for anything yellow fever can be met
and conquered. For three centuries
the Cuban capital was breeding place
for the infection. Our Gulf States
were constantly quarantining against
that port. The fever was epidemic
there. United States army sanitary
experts went to work and so altered
the aspect of affairs that instead of
American ports quarantining against
Havana that city is now quarantining
against American ports, What was
done in Havana ought TO be feasible
in New Orleans.
There is, at any rate, a complete CO
operation between the city, State and
Federal health agencies which are
fighting the fever at New Orleans The
best scientific ability of this or any
other country is engaged in the fight.
In the meantime the people of the
Crescent City will have the sympathy
and admiration of their countrymen in
the cheerfulness and fcrtitude with
which they are facing a pitiless and
deadly foe.
Rats Chewed Baby.