Show A journey with a plague apropos of the recent smallpox scare anton roman tells an amusing story of personal experience which dates back to the GOS in the days before the railroad was built mr roman was obliged to make tiresome journeys to the he atlantic coast by th the old overland route on one of these occasions when he be anahis party had reached one of the little rough stations they sat eat down to a cozy meal in a small room where a man lay on a sick pallet when they had nearly finished their mea loue of the travelers his heart warmed by the good tare fare asked balha what is the matter wah with your sick man over ther 1 smallpox came the startling re p ply Y then arose a chorus of indignant exclamations and jbv you tell us before whit what do you mean by exposing our whole party in this manner what did you bring us in here to eat for when you had the man here 1 why gentlemen protested the embarrassed host rubbing his hands bands together what could I 1 do you had tu to nave something to eat I 1 either deither had to put you in here or out of doors 79 well jbv you put us out of doors do then well e 11 you see its no better out there weve rot got a man outside who died of smallpox last night we time to bury him smallpox was raging all along the route for hundreds ot of miles east of this which seemed 0 vo o be the initial aint nt the traveling party from cali onia who shuddered at their proximity ity to sufferers with the dreaded dis 1 ease soon found other people shuddering I 1 at them because they had bad ome from an infected district worse than that A strict quarantine was main bained against them and they were obliged like the lepers of old to herd with their kind mo doors were open to them save those of hostelries where smallpox was rampant and there they were obliged perforce to lodge so they went on their aljourney putting up at amateur pest houses camping alongside of smallpox patients eating with them talking with them sleeping with them on one occasion they came across a man delirious with the disease who had lost his bis way oo on the desert and as he was a human being and a fellow creature they were constrained to capture him and hold bold him down in the coach while they rode with him for miles across the plains strangely enough not oae in the party contracted the disease it is ie not so stran strange 9 e that alter after such an experience peri ence the disease was wag robbed of much of its terror to them and the narrator Aar ta declares that he be has no more blead of it than of whooping cough measles or any common disease san francisco examiner |