The Great Plague

Tho comparative imnmnity which naiions have enjoyed in the present century from all forms of pestilence must be attributed to better modes of living, as the restraint of the spread of epidemics when they do appear is to be attributed to more intelligent methods of dealing with them. In Oarthage, Rome, Athen's, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Syria, plagues raged within the five centuries preceding the Christian era ; and nearly every Centnry until the present contains the awfui record of similar devastation. At Constantinople, in the eighth century, 200,000 persons died in three years, without assistance, except such as superstitious eharity - not a j very generous virtue in any age - supi plied, and large nnmbers died from the spread of the infection in Sieily and Greece. England and Ireland were visited in the eleventh and twelfth, and cattle, f o wis, and domestio animáis died of the same pestilence as the people. It was the plague which drove Henry II. out of Ireland in the next century; and, in the thirteenth, it extended all over Europe, and was especially malignan t in the British islands. In the fourteenth, the fifteenth, the sixteenth and seventeenth, plagues were frequent throughout the world; doctors and governments werealike ignorant of their causes and equally incapable of checking them. Indeed, all classes of people appear to have considered them in a spirit of faith, and the pions, no less than the wicked, anticipated their dread approach with as certain a convietion that they were special visitations of God as did thechildron of Israel in their day. Many fanatics even urged that it won ld be bíasphemy and prosumption to attempt to escape frorn what was manifestly God's wrath, which had to be appeased. Probably many of the so-called plagues m the cities of Western Europe were engendered by causes wholly within the control of cleanliness and good sense, and were not kindred to the Asiatic pestilence, although always believed to be of the same nature. There was an epidemie in London in 1407, of which 30,000 died. It was produced, no doubt, by local neglect. The Irish famine probably produced the socalled plague of 1466 and 1470, and, although there was a pestilence in Oxford in 1471, and a general and deadly epidemie all over England in 1478, there is no reason for believing that the malady, whatever its type, was imported. Henry VII. fled with his court to Calais to escape the distemper in 1500 ; Oxford was literally depopulated i teen years later by what was called the ; " sweating sickness," which did not ! then appear for the flrst time, aad the ! plagiies in Ireland a few years later ! were of the same still unexnlained charaeter. In the beginning of the seventeenth century a large part of the i population of London perished of a ! malignant epidemie which the j cles of the time describe as Asiatic plague, and seven years later it swept France with a besom of destruction. In 1656, 400,000 died of plague in ! Italy, and the great English pestilence of 1C65 has been graphically described by De Foe. The fire in the following year seems to have had the effect of a disinfectant, for England remained free ' from pestilance of every kind for nearly 200 years, until the arrival of the ! cholera from Asia in 1831. But the rest of Europe was not equally fortúnate during the interval. In 1720 it is estimated that 60,000 persons died in : Marseilles of what was probably Asiatic j plague, brought there in a ship irom the Eastern Mediterranean ports; and het'ore thft elnse of the ní'nfcnrv Kvri.n. : Pei-sia, Egypt, Barbary and Spain were ! afflicted in turn, and their oities and ! towns turned into charnel-houses. Cholera, nppearing at intervals during the present century, seems to be the ! natural successor oí the plague of j tiquity and tradition; its most fatal irniptions were in 1831-'32, '36-'37, ! '49, '65-'66. Medisoval litcrature is replete with ! vivid and often wholly incredible accounts of these periodical sconrges. j The idea of associating them with ' ral causes, or checking them by I tifie remedies was practically unknown. j Indeed, there were no scientific remedies. The black death in Florence was Boccaccio's inspiration in the "Decameron," and Dante paints the awful specter in the opening lines of the seventeenth canto of the "Inferno :" I.o ! the feil monstf r with the deadly sting ! Who passes mountains, breaks throughfencedwalls And ftrm embattied spea, and with his fllth Taints all the world ! Torn Moore uses the plague with excellent effect as a dark spot in his rococo picture or "Paradise and the Peri:" Who eould havo thought that there. even there. Amid those scènes so still and fair, The Demon of the Plague doth cast From his hot winfr a deadlicr blast, More mortal far than ever carne From the red desert's sands of flaniet Ho qtück. that every living tiblng Of human shape, touched by liis wini:, Like planta vhere the simoon hath passed, At onee falls black and withering! Ihe sim went down on many a brow, Which, full oL bloom and freshness then. Is ranklinir in pest house now, And ne'er will fccl that un again, And. oh! to hcc the unlmried heapi Ou which the lonely moonligbt Biceps- The vtry raltnrei turn away And sicken at so foul a prey ! Only the flerce hyena stalkH Tlirougliout the city's desolate walks At midnight, and his carnage plieH. "l'oor race of meul " said tho pitying spirit, "Dearly ye pay for your primiil fall- Some flow'rets of Eden ye still inherit, But the trail of the serpent in over them all." In English prose, the author of " Eobinson Crusoe" haa written the story of I the plague in London in 1GG4 with a simplicity verbose, indeed, and, at times, even tedious; but with a circumstantiality which makes tlie ghastly recital at once valuable as history and exciting as the most absorbing romance; and with a masculine diction which, considcring the time in which lio wrote, would liave been sufficient of itself to give him a high place in Englieh literature. De Toe was a child during the plague; some of the harrowing scènes he describes he may have witnessed ; but, although most of it is necessarily hcarsay, and some of it invention, it bears the stamp of nature on every page, and might have been absolutely true in each detail. The reported approach of the plague, after the close of tho war with Holland, demoralized tho pcopK-, aud in thelr rrigiit tliey became easy victims to quacks, astrologers and fortune-tellers. Signs appeared on many doors : " Here lives a fortuneteller," and crowds visited these impostors every day to find out who was to be attacked by the disease. " Infallible Preventive Pilis," the "Only Trae Plague-Water," and similar nostrums, were energetically advertised and brought large profits to the frauds engaged in selling them. One doctor advertised "an infallible preventive, and shrewdly adaed : " Advice gratis to the poor." Hundreds flocked to his door. His advice was - given gratis, of oourse - to sell furniture or personal effects, and buy his bottles. Many deluded wretches were so overeóme with fear that they robbed travelers on the highways in order to raise the money to get the doctor's decoction. At last, the mob began to appreciato the character of the fellow, and he was compelled to distribute his stock among them and fly for his life. The churches were the favored resorts, also, for the ignorant and superstitious, as well as for the pious and educated. Extraordinary seasons of devotional exercises were carried on, in the hope that Providence would stay His hand - as the plague was generally considered. Praying was considered much more effective tb an soap and water and disinfectants ; in fact, nobody thought of cleanliness, ventilation or any hygienic rule as of any value at such a time. Many of the regular clergymen fled in precipitation as soon as the approach of the plague was heralded; and dissenters entered their pulpits nnresisted, and kept the religious spirit at a high temperature. De Foe says that while the plague lasted these objects of legal and popular disfavor were very much appreciated for their generosity and seii-sacnnce; tneir tneoiogy -was unquestioned, and their construction of the scriptures satisfactory to the most orthodox. As soon as the plague was over, and tliu paüd dergy returneil, the disfenters were attacked as violently as ever, and their services were forgotten ! with the same promptitude with which j thev had been accepted. Nothing is said about the churches doing anything in the form of practical relief or benevolence. Nor is it clear that, on account of the j regulations adopted by the Government, anything conld have been done. As has always been the habit of monarchs when danger of this kind approached, the King, Charles II., and his court, ran away. The Lord Mayor and municipal autliorities undertook the üdministration of business, civil, moral and scientific, during the plague season. The plague provisions were extremely simple. They consisted in shutting up the doors, windows, and even the chimneys, in every house in which the disease was known or suspected to have found its way ; the inmates were expected to die as speedily possible ; and when a proper interval as elapsed the dead-cart stopped, the dead bodies were dragged out, and, uncoffined, unshrouded, the corpses were flung into pits, as many as could be accommodated. Wntchrnen were employed to see tUat no inmate of an infected house escaped ; and, when moved by eowardice, or bribery, or humanity, any of these failed in his assigned duty, he was tied to a cart-tail and whipped up and down the streets. These were, of course, deserted after the pestilence had taken its hold on the city. Their stones heard no livelier rattle than the dead-carts, the shrieks of maniacs, the groans of the sick and dying, and the lamentations of faithless watchmen, as the bloody lash welted their naked backs. Other sounds occasionally disturbed the profound silence when these were absent. Fanatics, lunatics, fools of high and low degree, went about singing psalms, praying obstreperously, and calling upon the people to prepare for death by repenting of their sins. All trade was dead. The shops were closed, except here and there where some hnckster, borrowing courage from his greed, kept his door ajar to catch the shillings of the creatures who still hunted for nostrums. All the worst human passions were excited into frenzy. The buriers, who went about with dead-carts, were brutal and avaricious. They tossed the dead about as if they were hogs in packing-time ; sex received no respect ; neither age nor condition in life made the least difierence. So swiftly did the poison of the plague affect the vital organs that, in the beginning, many robust men dropped dead in public places. They were, of course, robbed. As the season extended, families prepared for their fate by getting ready fitting garments for the grave; these were, as a rule, torn off in the journey from the dweiling to the cemeteries. There was no pretense of ceremonial. The contents of the carts were spilled like coal into bins. Many blood-curdling stories are told of the excesses and the indecencies committed even while the pestilence was at its height. The theaters and all public places were closed, and the dramshops were supposed to be mcluded in the general prohibition. Many were kept open, of course, and victims were dragged out whose last hour was shortened by maudlin drunkenness. One of these resorts rlourished nearly opposite the "great pit," in which 1,100 bodies were deposited bcfore the legal limit was reached - nobody was to lie within six feet of the surface. One night, as the carts rolled up to the pit, a man's piteous lamentations filled the air and attracted the attention of a carousing party in the dram-seller's. They rushed to the door, and a gentleman whose wife and children had just been cast into the pit tottered toward them weeping and giving way to heart-rending exclamations. The wretches taunted him with cowardice for not going into the pit with his family; but the keeper gave him some refreshment and laid him upon a bench to rest. The ers feil upon the host and beat him for his charity. Their career was doomed to a sudden close. All had canght the infection, and in a few hours were themselves occupants of the pit. No modesty, no regard for the proprieties, remained in the lower elass of the people. Nurses were said to murder their patients in order to get rid of and rob them. Thieves broko into infected dwellings, and pillaged even the ehambers in wliich the dying and dead lay extended. Exorbitant prices were demanded for the smallest service; and it was even chargcd that fiends who had recovered from the disease stealthily caused it to be introduced into families who, by accident or clcanliness, had escaped it fxt its usual coursi' ÖèBrium pne of its i-omiiion effects. It is hard to believe I the chroniclo that madmen were let j loose into households to murder tin;, own children, in order that pillagers might get possession of money, jcwelry and clotbing. The story of the blind piper is one of the grim legenda of the time. De Foe says he was not blind, but weak, ignorant and poor, and that he went at night from door to door, piping, and thus ob tained food and drink - of whieh he was i fonder - and some kind of lodging. One I night, overeóme with liquor, he lay I down upon a street-stall and feil sound ! asleep. The practice of the buriers was : to ring a bell to announce the coming i of the dead-cart, and as a signal to bring j out the bodies readyfor interment. As j the blind piper forgot, in the unconI sciousness of intoxication, the plague I and its horrors, the bell rang around the corner. A door opened, and a dead body was laid upon the stall beside him, he, too, being supposed to be dead. Thb cart halted- the piper and his lifeless companion were thrown in, and other occupants soon joined them in the vehicle. It is said that bis pipe was thrown in with him, and that, when the jolting over the stones partially disturbed his stupor, he, all unconscious of the j ly company, put his pipe to his mouth j and set up a merry tune. The animáis drawing the cart reared and ran- -the ' buriers nearly died of terror, and the j piper and his dead associates were scattered along the road. De Foe affects to discredit a part of this marvelous tale, which is probably all fiction. He i says the piper awoke, struggled to free j hitnself from the heap of dead bodies, j and cried, to the astonishment of the cartmen; " Where am I?" One of them, recovering his senses, quicldy said : " You are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you." " But I am not dead, am I? " inquired the piper. The cartmen's terror turned to merriment, they released him, and he ran away. ïhere were fully 100,000 persons garried off by the plague in London won e dnring the summer montlis of the year. It is extremely probable that there wonld have been another and a deadlier ontbreak had not the fire of the following year destroyed tlie geruis and fumigated the city. The conflagration lasted three days and nights ; 400 streets and 13,200 houses were laid waste, eighty-nine churches, including St. Paul's, were destroyed, and a stop was put to the flames only by blowing up a large belt of houses in their way. The " Black Death " of the fourteenth cenjtnry, which in Europe caused, ing alittle more than three years, at least 25,000,000 to perish, was preceded by remarkable natural phenomena. There were eartkquakes, floods and families, swarms of locusts, comets and celestial as well as terrestrial storms; the order of the seasons seemed to be inverted. It is said that a dense fog was seen in the east moving toward Italy. It appears to have been believed that the disease was attributed to an atmospheric poison attacking the ] organs of -respiration. The route of j the " Black Death " was distinctly j traced over the ereat caraven roads; , the northem shore of the Black sea sent ' it to Constautinople, thence it entered Italian ports and was distributed all I over the European continent. It is I timated that 13,000,000 died in China and 24,000,000 in the other countries of the East. The rivers were dammed with the dead. Dead crews putrified on their vessels on the open seas, and their fatal crafts floated abo ut from shore to shore, disseminating death. The plague was stupidly attributed to the Jews, and in Mayence 12,000 were massacred by infuriated mobs. The lessons which Western Europe j and the United States havelearned from j the cholera have not been without general effect. Europe is armed and mailed against the Eastern visitant; and diphtheria in the North and yellow fever in the South have taught us that eterna! cleanliness is the price of libcrty from epidemics. The quarantine j regulations in use at all American ports are believed to be comprehensive in principie, and eflïciently enforced. If it be the genuine plague in Astrakhan ! it will undoubtedly make some progress westward. There is abundant reason for prudence, and none for panic.