AMERICA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 384, 23 October 1868, Page 2

AMERICA.

(PROM TTIE SPECIAL COTntESro:N"DENT OF THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES). New York, sth August. The month of July, 1868, will long be remembered in America, as a season of great distress and calamity. Por six days in the middle of that month the heat was something terrible to bear. _ Six strong men dropped down dead in the streets, and every morning the New York papers contained the records of hundreds of deaths from sunstroke the previous day. During the first fifteen days of July, the temperature exceeded the mean temperture of the corresponding days, for the past

twenty-five years by 10 degrees. New York was not the only city that suffered. Prom all the surroundiug suburbs, from Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Canada, telegrams poured in, containing accounts of hundreds of deaths from Bunstroke in those and many othor places. Hordes and cattle of every description died by the hundreds ; in one cattle yard at Baltimore ■fifty bullocks dropped dead within an hour. On the 17th July the thermometer reached 108 degrees in the shade, (it h said that in some parts of the country the thermometer showed nearly 120 degrees in the shade), and lip to that time over a thousand deaths from cou/p-de-soliel were recorded in the city of New York. Not a breath of air was stirring during the day, and the heat glared over the city like a funeral pall. Great alarm was felt lest a plague should break out, indeed, there ■were many deaths from cholera, espe<cially among children. The Board of Health issued cautionary bulletins to the people daily, and the newspapers strongly advised the inhabitants to do at? little work as possible, and to keep themselves quiet. The Herald, on the 17th July, said that if the heated term continued for another week, it would be impossible to prevent the appearance of yellow fever. There was considerable fear that yellow fever would break out in what are known as " tenement houses," a class of dwelling places with which New York abounds. In some of these tenement houses, as many as a hundred families live, each family having one small bedroom and -one other room in which they sit, eat, cook, and wash. These tenements may truly be called the pest-houses of the city. Many remedies for the prevention of fatal effects from sun-stroke were printed and circulated. One correspondent said that " in Egypt, where sunstroke is of frequent occurrence, the Arabs dissolve salt in water, and pour it into the ears of the patient; this almost immediately relieves the sufferer." It is almost unnecessary to say that during the hot weather, there was but little trade done, but the cars ran as usual, the horses having great wet sponges fastened upon their heads to counteract the effect of the sun which blazed down upon them. A strange feature in the records of deaths which were published daily, was the number of " unknown men " who died, were taken to the Morgue, and buried without being identified. It is a proof that the class of friendless persons in New York must be very large ; the fact is a melancholy one, and gives rise to much sad reflection. In one day twenty-one unknown persons died and were buried without identification. The scenes at the Morgue are described as being truly horrible. Thousands of people went there for the purpose of ascertaining whether their missing friends or relatives were among the dead, who were laid out upon slabs, on which were playing jets of water. One case of sunstroke excited much commiseration and sympathy. A young lady, but newly married, was walking with her husband, when she suddenly fell, and died in two or three hours afterwards. But there were many terrible scenes in the streets of New York during the heated term of July, which will long live in the memory of the inhabitants.