| Show the coming of the plague I 1 it is more than a century and a half since the last nevelt never to be forgotten visit of the p plague ague to england half a century has gone by since it disappeared it was wa hoped for ever from the continent of europe ana ats ts once favorite haunts sli liri asla asia miner cholera has taken its place to a grea greab great i ful aa as have been the devastations of this scourge eurge sc 10 fes fis lo its name never struck such terror aa as did that of the tho plague PJ ague and now after lesio its long iong ng absence the dreaded Plague is once more on its old oid time westward route for the last two years yeara it has made fitful appearances at villa villages gei 3 0 on the lower euphrates news has been received of its outbreak at hillah hillab s iu in asiatic turkey and also at bag dad these outbreaks are reported jo to show no diminution of the old virulence and there is every probability that the malady will bufore lonz long be conveyed from bagdad to the lovant levant the london times gives v arning that it may way no nut stop there but will not unlikely continue its westward progress ip tp europe and even to great britain the present state of commercial com communication ni tj n leation is highly favorable to ta swift and easy ortho of the pestilence lence from its asiatic home homo to western europe from whence it might perhaps be conveyed by emigrant ships to our own shores cs it is true that improved sanitary regulations and better habits of living will make it easier to fight the pestilence than in the old days of its westward visits yet the caution is not ill timed that bids the sanitary authorities of all seaport towns especially to be fully prepared for any emergency which may arise and to consider beforehand the precautions which would be required if any case of plague e should be brought within their r jurisdiction the seventeenth century was the period r od of the greatest ravages of tte the plague in western europe in 1603 and 1601 more than thirty thousand persons perished of itin it in london alone and it was very destructive truc tive in ireland twenty years yean later thirty five thousand persons died in london within a twelvemonth from the disease six or seven years sears later than this france was wag devastated by this scourge aud and 14 the city of lyons sixty thousand persons are reported to have llave perished in 1656 1056 the plague reached naples in a transport laden with soldiers and in six months four hundred thousand persons died 0 of r it jn in 1661 5 occurred that awful visitation in london when from seventy thousand to one hundred thousand persons perished when scenes of the most horrible kind occurred and when the streets re rei I echoed with the appalling cry bring out your dead the disease was not finally extirpated until the great fire of 1666 1636 purified the city by destroying a large part of it il ailer after that period the most de destructive s truc true tive visit of the plague in lia western europe was in 1720 llen when lien a ship arriving from tho the levant ati marseilles brought the pestilence with iland sixty thousand pe per peri i sons fell vict victims fink link during therez there the remainder z of the century terrible de vas vaa tation was caused by mhd pestilence in ih syria persia egypt and barbary then it allea died out or only gave evidence of its existence in afew sporadic cases now it th threatens rea ren teris to resume izsold its ils old oid marc march h of tor death cleveland herald |
