Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 286, 10 December 1878, Page 4

The past year has witnessed many a scene of horror (says the Pall Mall, Budget), but it is doubtful whether 1 anything much more terrible has been seen tban tbe spectacle of disease, desolation, and death presented by the city of Memphis, in the United States, which has lately been devastated by yellow fever. Accounts by physicians, nurses, and correspondents of the American newspapers agree as to the; frightful condition of affairs in that city, lhe peculiar odour of the disease can, it is stated, be detected three miles' distance from the place. AU business is suspended, the banks only remain- * ing open an hour a day for the handling of remittances from abroad. ■ AU ihe drug stores but three are closed. \ The only vehicles seen in the streets are doctors' carriages and dead-carts. At night tires of wood and tar burn in front of houses here and there. These are death, signals, meaning .that the remains of the fever-victims are lying within, waiting for the dead-waggons to call. A black or red cloth is the deathsign by day ; bat many die unsignalled and unattended. Persons attacked suddenly, being unable from weakness or delirium to call assistance, die all alone, and their bodies are sooner or later discovered. This occurred the other day in the case of a lawyer named Strickland, who died in his office'at the Masonic building. Vagabonds fre-^ quently crawl into deserted houses and' never go out alive; othera are found dead in tbe open air. The work of burial is done hurriedly. The rude coffins are placed side by side, and piled one on another in trenches. The name, if known is written on the lid. There are no funeral services. Young children form fully 25 per cent of the dead. The physicians refuse to work harmoniously, so that accurate statistics of the deaths cannot be obtained. The only hotel open is the Peabody, and. that is a pest-house, seventeen of the inmates being' down at one time. The city government is thoroughly disorganised, and Memphis is all but in the power of a rabble. The population has been reduced by fright and death from 40,000 to 35,000, one-half of whom are sick. In the meantime negroes and i ramps have flocked in, braving the fever for the sakejof what thoy can get by robbery. At first they extorted enormous pay j for light services, but soon refused to j do any work at all. Reckless bands of men and women wander through the streets, breaking into houses and stores unhindered, and would sack the city if they were numerous enough.