Evening star., 1922-07-30

barrier Of Russia. From the
heights OF Notre Dame Cathe-
dral the cholera demon
watches its approach His stony
face is over toward the east. So he
was watching in the year 1896. when
the dread scourge took quarter of
the population.
In vain did soldiers, citizens and
through the streets, carrying the
powerful relics of Sainte Genevieve
in their gold casket
Only when, at last, the little chill
dren, in procession. innocently mount
ed Notre Danes towers, on the roof
there. did the fend. ashamed, re-
buked. permit the pest to pass away.
The children scarcely knew he was
the cholera demon. His pathetic
ugliness awoke their youthful SYM
pathy.' They called him 1.-The good
beast" and piled flowers round his
wicked form and hung wreaths from
his hornllke ears.
Being done on impulse. it gave a.
strange confidence to Paris. Word
went round, The cholera will cease.
The children have made a pact with
demon
When the children learned it was
demon they were frightened. They
took no more wreaths up. But there
was no need-the cholera ceased.
4 <:
GO runs the Paris legend In the
~ Pantheon frescoes the calming of
the epidemic is attributed by impli-
cation to the grown-ups' procession.
But wait
A century passed. Again the chol-
era came to Paris. Again bells tolled,
organs rolled. cannons doomed and
holy relics were paraded. 1t was the
epidemic of the sixteenth century
When $1,000 persons had died the folks
began to talk again about the chill
dren's demon.
1t became a burning controversy.
The original adventure had been ac-
cidental. The children had been led
to the cathedral roof to show their
helpless need to God-as innocent,
dumb animals are still paraded
through the fields in time OF drought
and famine. Should deliberate pro-
cession to the grotesaue stone fig
ure up there be organized. why
Christian Paris would be going in for
devil worship! So grave men said.
But the cholera was at its height.
Paris was in clamor. Word went
round among the parents. Early in
the morning. dressed in white and
bearing flowers. the children f1ocked
to the great open space-the Parvis
before Notre Dame. Led by
philosophical doctor of the Sorbonne.
they climbed the tower and piled
their posies round the beast"
Paris breathed free. Within five
days the cholera ceased again. So.
four times since, in the greatest four
epidemics up to that of 1882 twhen
the procession of the children was
replaced by hysienic law with a death
penalty for ci.izers to be caught break
ing IT, they piled flowers round the
beast-and cholera stopped.
X \ X
JIERE is a strange thing. The hy
gienic law (when it was new)
had less effect than did the ancient
superstitious practice. The cholera
lasted seven months in 1882 Never
was Paris so frightened. Tne re-
ceipts of the governments grand
opera (which was kept open to give
public confidence) fell to 800 a night.
There was no confidence in the new
hygiene-because the masses did not
understand it. And the ancient
things (Which they had understood)
had ceased, They died like flies.
until winter stopped the cholera.
Today, for similar reasons. a pro-
cession of the children to 1.-The beast"
might prove as Intellectual. But if you
think that the hygienic law is all that
keeps the pest from western Europe,
you are mistaken.
They 4now, nowadays. that the kids
really stopped the cholera in the old
days! And something very like their
innocent little miracle is. at this hour.
the shield and buckler of the civilized
world!
You read that the cholera is in
Russia.
You know nothing more than that.
How they are fighting it. in silence.
at the barriers of Germany and Po-
land, is a sealed dispatch. On the
Rhine frontier tthe occupied territory
the same silent struggle goes on. BY
a government circular, no alarmist
data may go in reports.
Because. you see, the characteristic
ehn 81, aho'd