A Plague Stricken City.

Manawatu Standard, Volume VIII, Issue 138, 21 November 1884, Page 2

A Plague Stricken City.

In an article on the cholera panio at Naples, the Pali Mall Gazette ways: — There is lying before us. as we write a lady's* letter fresh irfim the Naples Pose Office. It is pierced tbreugh and through m four places by a knife, m order 1 to permit of the more effective fumigation, of its contents, although the cholera germ would probably laugh /at such a precaution. The writer says : — v From the moment they let' loose upon ns the Italian workmen from Marseilles and Toulon 1 ielt simTthat we should have the cholera here, m spite of a\ld their quarantines and cordons sanitaires. The soil was indeed prepared for its advent. The Bassi, where the jsoorer Neapolitans, live ,in t .squalid misery, is m a dirty foetid state. The hovels have no windows no waterclosets. They are simply human burrows,, with a hole called a door, and no other means of egress or ventilation. Nothing was done to cleansethis filthy quarter, and there the disease has raged and is raging* When it broke out there was a sauve quipeutoi (he beau monde, and as '.he rich and fashionable fled, there streamed, m from; all parts of Italy doctors and nurses, only asking* to be employed m combating the disease. From the King to the chemists all have done nobly, m the midst of scenes too trying to describe. ; There has not been time to make coffins for the dead. The corpses are simply put; into sacks. I hardly ever go out now, but - having to buy a dress I drove out today. I' came ; Home without buying anythiug; I could not bear driving about the streeis. Everything made me so sad. . We met six processions ot women (I have since lieard ; that they: were of the •worst class) with their htiir hanging down their backs, chanting m hoarse and : tuneless voices horrible dirges foi the j dead. Men accompanied them with plates, asking alms, and insulting those who refused to give. 1 did not meet a single person known m Naples. Many of the shops never open, and all are closed at three o'clock. The papers do hot tell you half (the horror and gloom that hangs over this City of the Dead."