Cholera in Bagdad and Bussorah.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 428, 14 December 1889, Page 6

Cholera in Bagdad and Bussorah.

A well-informed correspondent writes: — ' The two most eastern pashaliks of Asiatic Turkey, Bagdad and Bussorah, have been visited by an epidemic of sporadic cholera. The disease first broke out, at all events was first noticed, in obscure inland spots, whence it spread to Bussorah, the well known opBn port on the Shat-el-Arab • near the head of the Gulf of Persia. There one of its first victims was P. J. C. Robertson, assistant political agent to the Government of India and her Britannic Majesty's consul. From the first the Ottoman Government left nothing undone in the way of quarantine to prevent it spreading up the Tigris, but all its efforts proved unavailing. At Bagdad, where the Government of India has a strong political establishment under a Resident (Colonel Tweedie), who is also Her Majesty's Con&ulGeneral, a severe outbreak has occurred, many dying daily ; in the absence of systematic registration, it is impossible to say how many. As usual, the Jews were the first to give way to panic and forsake their homes for such places of shelter as the open country round about afforded. Tbe native Christian community, and in relatively smaller numbers the Muslim, soon followed their example. In many instanoes even Europeans have fled, those of them whose pursuit is merchandise having this excellent reason for going, that, with the departure of the Jews, trade came to a standstill. There is hardly any section of the extremely mixed communities in tha town that has not lost one or moreof its members by death, not the natives only, but Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen. In one important house of business Messrs Darby and Andrews, working a useful line of merchant steamers between Cardiff and Bussorab, the unassisted European manager * died at his post on August 23rd, leaving no one but the British Consulate to take charge of his wool presses, books, and safes. These many years Bagdad has been a dull place commercially, at' any rate for Europeans. The fear is that the scenes it is now passing through will inflict on ib a blow in this respect from which it \rill take long to recover. — "London Times," Sept. 20th.

The Pope has had his large bedroom filled with singing birds. The philosopher is like the moon — hia brightness is due to reflection. He is not always bright when he is full,' how ever.