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Show RUSSIAN BU?iiaST!TI0N AND IGN0- The popular ignorance and super stitiun of the lower class of Russians are sid to be wocderful to contemplate contem-plate in this age of enlightenment, uud thy frequently ccoibine to Ihe great injury of th ma-iets. A di. pitch two or three daya ago told bow the people in tue pUgue stricken did tricti were killing tbe dectors, believ ii.'g tiif latter were engage! in poison uiu by wholesale the poor .iu-lia'iiturjt. .iu-lia'iiturjt. The epidemic diseases, ,iud tuo aiiiiy fevers that are no common iu that country, are very naturally more destructive among the ranks of the poor and the ignorant, who have neither the maus nor the knowledge to enable them to&hjorvo the ordinary lawa of health, and particularly thoso commanding com-manding ulcaulincBa. The sanitary rules are almost unknown to them, and their manner of life invitei disease, while the hovels and huts in which they live are pest breeding dena. The stalo frequently finds it a most difficult task to on force any new regulation iu regard to public health. It is said that at tho present time the people are desperately resisting re-sisting the meaeures adopted by the government for checking and sup preisinc the black death plague, th o superstition of some leading lead-ing them to think tho disease ia an infliction imposed upon them by God, and that any attempt to stop it will be displeasing to Him; while otherB, in their. ignor-anco, ignor-anco, rogard tho action of tho authorities author-ities as unfriendly, aud as a design upon their persons and property. It is related that in 1870, when the, small-pox broke out in one of the ! frontier (owns of Asiatic Russia, orders or-ders were issued for the immediate vaccination of all the inhabitanta. The people, always auapicious of anything new, eaaily gave credit to 1 the absurd report that this operation waa intended to mark them as re-oiuits re-oiuits for the conscription. Instantly the whole town waa in an uproar. Several thousand men hastily armed themselves with such weapons as they could find, and rushing in a body to tho medical bureau, dragged out and cruelly tmurdered the head surgeon a very able and experienced man together with one of hia assistants; nor was it without the employment of a strong military force aud the sacrifice of Beveral more lives on either side that the riot was ultimately quelled. One can understand how the lower classes should be suspicious of any now movement on the part of the government that has always oppreaBed them; but it is surprising to find so much iguorance and superstition in thia ago. There can be little wonder at the rapid spread of a contagious filth disease among such people, and it ia rather surpriaing that an epidemic epi-demic can bo checked so long as aDy are alive. |