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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1899)
"JS 8 the Conservative * This generation WHAT A PKVTI- hns seen nothing LENUK IS 1,1 KK. like a widespread visitntion of nil infectious rtison.se , such as we read of in times past ; there are cities in our Southern states which have suffered at times almost to the limit from yellow fever , but this contagion it is always found possible to confine tonne locality , thanks to modern methods , aided in time by the arrival of frost. By far the larger pnrt of the country , however , is ignornnt of nny epidemic save the grip , or occasional outbreaks of certain children's maladies ; and an im pression is unconsciously prevalent that the age of serious pestilences is past , and that wo are safe , without nny effort to mane ourselves so , ironi any suca troubles as people have had at other times and places. And yet it is idle to deny that our country , and possibly the world at large , owing to the growing in difference to the only preventive at pres ent known , is now directly confronted with a visitation of small-pox ; it has sprang up in a hundred widely-scattered places , where it gains n foothold it re mains , and no mensures that nny auth orities have tluis far taken seem to be able either to eradicate it or prevent its transmission. It is quite possible thnt we nre just at the beginning of it , and that the country stands at the threshold of n serious battle with this disease , against which neither frost nor any cli matic influence has any power. In this state of ' things , De Foe's ac count of the pestilence which visited London in 1G65 becomes of interest. This account is commonly classed as a work of fiction , yet it would be hard to find anything in literature more plausi ble , or with a better right to be consid ered ns nuuiencic. xuougn VQ * oe was only a child in that year , the events of the plague must have formed the stnple of his elders' conversation for many yenrs thereafter , and we may think what an impression they would make on a mind so painstaking , EO keen for effec- Hve details , ns De Foe's. ' We give a few pictures : The Look of the City. The fnce of London was now indeed strangely altered I mean the whole mass of buildings , city , liberties , suburbs - urbs , Westminster , Southwark , and altogether ; for as to the particular part called the city , or within the walls , that wns not yet much infected ; but in the whole , the fnce of things. 1 sny , was much altered ; sorrow and sadness sat ' upon every face ; and though some parts were not yet overwhelmed , yet all looked deeply concerned ; and as we saw it apparently coming on , so every one looked on himself and his family as in the utmost danger. Were it possible to represent those times exactly to those who did not see them , nud give the render duo ideas of the horror that everywhere presented itself , it must moke just impressions upon their mind * , and fill them wi'h ' surprise. London might well bo said to be all in tears ; the mourners did not go about the streets , indeed , for nobody put on black , or made a formal dress of mourning for their nearest friends : but the voice of mourning was truly henrd in the streets ; the shrieks of women and children at the windows and doors of their houses , where their dearest relations were per- laps dying , or just dead , were so fre quent to bo heard , as wo passed the streets , that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost in every house , especially in , ho first nnrt , nf t.lin visitation : fnr tn- wards the latter end , men's hearts were linrdened , and death was so always before their eyes , that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends , expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour. The Closing : of Houses' . As I went along Houndsditch one morning , about eight o'clock , there was a great noise ; it is true , indeed , there was not much crowd , because people were not very free to gather together , or to stay long together , when they were there ; nor did I stay long there : but the outcry was loud enough to prompt my curiosity and I called to one that hod looked out of a window , and asked what was the matter. A watchman , it seems , hnd been em ployed to keep his post nt the door of a house which was infected , or said to be infected , and was shut up : he had been there all night for two nights together , as ho told his story , and the day watch man , had been there one day , and was no noise had been heard in the house , no light had been seen ; they called for nothing , sent him of no errands , which used to be the chief business of the watchmen ; neither had they given him any disturbance , as he said , from the Monday afternoon , when he heard great crying and screaming in the house , which , ns he supposed , wns occnsioned by some of the fnmily dying just nt that time : it seems the night before , the dead cart , as it was called , had been stopped there , and a servant maid hod been brought down to the door dead , and the buriers , or bearers , as they were called , put her into the cart , wrapped only in a green rug , and car ried her away. The watchman had knocked at the door , it seems , when he heard that iioiso and crying , ns above , and nobody an swered a great while ; but at last one looked out , and pnid , with nn angry quick tone , and yet a kind of crying voice , or the voice of one that was cry ing : "What d'ye want , thnt ye make such a knocking ? " Ho answered , "I am the watchman : how do you do ? what is the matter ? " The person ou swered : "What is that to you ? Stop the dend cnrt. " This , it seems , was about ouo o'clock : soon nfter , ns the fellow snid , he stopped the dend cnrt , and then knocked again , but nobody answered : he continued knocking , and then the bellman called out several times "Bring out your dead ! " but nobody answered , till the man that drove the cart , being called to other houses , would stny no longer , and drove away. The watchman knew not what to make of all this , so ho let them alone till the morning-man , or day watchman , as they called him , came to relieve him , crivincr him an account of the narticu- ! ars ; they knocked at the door a great while , but nobody answered ; nnd they observed thnt the window , or casement , at which the person had looked out who liad answered before , continued open , being up two pairs of stairs. Upon this , the two men , to satisfy their curiosity , got a long ladder , and one of them went up to the window , and looked into the room , where he saw a woman lying dead upon the floor in a dismal manner , having no clothes on her but her shift : but though he called nloud , nnd putting in his long stnff , knocked hnrd on the floor , yet nobody stirred -answered ; neither could he hear any noise in the house. He came down again upon this , and acquainted his fellow , who went up also ; nnd finding it just so , they re solved to ncquaint either the Lord Mayor , or some other mngistrnte of it , but did not offer to go in at the window : the magistrate , it seems , upon the in formation of the two men , ordered the house to be broken open , a constable rmrl ntlipr norKmiR hmtirr nnnrmif-prl fr > VIA present , that nothing might be plun dered ; and accordingly it was so done , when nobody was found in the house but that young woman , who , having been infected , and past recovery , the rest had left her to die by herself , and were every one gone , having found some way to delude the watchman , and get open the door , or get out at some back door , or over the tops of the houses , so that he knew nothing of it ; and ns to those cries nnd shrieks which he heard , it was supposed they were the passionate cries of the family at the bitter parting , which , to be sure , it wns to them nil , this being the sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house , his wife , several children nud servnnts being nil gone nud fled , whether hick or sound , thnt I rould never lenrn ; nor , indeed , did I make much inquiry nfter it. The Pits for the Dead. I went nil the first part of the time freely about the streets , though not so freely as to run myself into apparent danger , except when they dug the great pit in the C'LuicliTnrd of our parish of Aldgate ; a terrible pit it was , and I could not resist my curiosity to go and
