YELLOW FEVER IN AMERICA.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3089, 11 January 1879, Page 1

YELLOW FEVER IN AMERICA.

The past year has witnessed tunny a scene of horror (says the Pall Mall Budget), but it is doubtful whether any. thing much more terrible has been seen than the spectacle of disease, desolation, and death presented by the city of Memphis in the United States, which has lately .been devastated by yellow fever. Ac* counts by physicians, nurses and correspondents of American newspapers agree as to the frightful condition of affairs iv that city. The peculiar odor of the disease cap, it is stated, be detected three miles' distance from the place. All business is suspended, the banks only remaining open an hour a day lor the handling of remittances from abroad. All the drug stores but three are closed. The only vehicles seen in the streets arc doctors'^ carriages and dead-Cfirts. At night fires of wood and tar burn in front of houses here and there. These are death'signals, meaning that the remains, of the tWer-victims are lying within, waiting for the dead-wagons to call. A black or rod cloth is the deathsign by day; but many die unsignalled and unattended. Persons attacked «uddenly, being unable from weakness or delirium to call assistance, die all alone, and their bodies are sooner or

lattr= .^covered. This occurred the other day in the case of a lawyer named Strickland, who died in his office at the Masonic building. Vagabonds frequently crawl into deserted houses and never go out alive; others are found dead in the open air. The work of burial is done hurriedly. The rude coffins are placed vide 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 tramps have flecked in, braving the fever for the sake of what they can get by robbery. At first they extorted enormous pay for light services, but soon refused to do work at all. Eeckless bands of men and women wander through the streets, breaking into houses and stores UDhinhindered, and would sack the city if they were numerous enough.