"YELLOW JACK" AT BUENOS AYRES.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 837, 18 July 1871, Page 3

"YELLOW JACK" AT BUENOS AYRES.

The fearful ravages of the yellow fever at Buenos Ay res were mentioned in a late San Francisco telegram. The " Buenos Ayres Standard" thus describes the effects of this visitation: " The city is like the city of the dead ; the streets silent and deserted, and more than half the population have fled. Business is at a standstill. Ifc is rumoured that decree will be passed to close every establishment in the city, and send all the people outside. The greatest mortality continues among the poorer classes of Italians and natives. Nothing can exceed the misery and desolation which meet the view on all sides." The rapid spread of the disease is attributable to the filthy condition of the city, regarding which the same journal says:—" There is no drainage in the city, and its foundations are completely honeycombed with vaults, &c. The nouses are square blocks with courts or spaces within. There are no back doors to their dwellings, and everything has to go in and come out at the front door. There is a box in every house into which all the sweepings of the rooms, all that is left in the kitchen, such as bones, pieces of meat, &c, are thrown. And meat is so cheap here that the bones are not scraped qufre so closely"as they are elsewhere ; and the consequence is that much flesh finds its way into these boxes, is decomposed soon in that climate, and when the police cart comes after these boxes in the morning, there is necessarily a bad smell all over the city. These boxes, or their contents, are dumped not far away, and the result is that a death-dealing miasma is constantly arising from these heaps."