Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — DIED BY THOUSANDS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DIED BY THOUSANDS.

AWFUL RAVAGES OFTHE PLAGUE IN LONDON IN 1665. Men Fell Like Autumn Leave* and Were Thrown Into NameleM Grave* Without Burial Bites—Murdering the Living, Bobbins the Dead. A Tale of Horror. The great epidemic that visited London in 1665, wiping out nearly 100,000 lives, must be reckoned one of the most disastrous visitations In history. London at that time was

ripe for an epidemic. It had a population of nearly 500,000, and the majority of the people were badly housed. The city was built mainly of wood and plaster. The streets were narrow, badly paved, worse drained, and never cleaned. Under the very windows of the palaces the streets reeked vith unspeakable abomination. In December, 1664, the first case of the epidemic occurred, but it was not until the following June that the people realized their perilous position and the horrible nature of the disease. In the second week of June 120 deaths occurred. A sudden panic swept over the city. The royal court fled to Oxford and thousands left the city as if fleeing from a charnal house. By August the city was at the mercy of the plague. Business was at a standstill. Streets once thronged were as quiet and deserted as the grave, and whole rows of houses were shut up, their occupants having fled. As soon as the disease was known to be present in any dwelling the house was shut up and marked in the middle of the door with a red cross a foot long, ani above it the printed words, “Lord have mercy upon us.” No one was suffered to leave the smitten house unless it was to go to the pest house. The authorities endeavored in every manner to isolate the infected, and those who in any way had come in contact with them were required to carry a red wand before them while traveling the streets. The dealers in the necessaries of life—all other traffic was suspended—received the money from their customers in disinfectants. People were afraid to speak to their best friends, and walked in the middle of the streets lest they should come in contact with others leaving their homes. All domestic animals were banished from the city, beggars were not allowed to frequent the streets, and all games that might draw a crowd were forbidden. Burying the Dead. As the plague progressed burials ceased to be performed with any religious ceremonies. The dead became so numerous that it was impossible any longer to preserve the individuality of a corpse. Pits were

dug, at first so small as to contain only 50 or 60 bodies each, but afterward they reached proportions sufficient to accommodate over 1,000 corpses each. The pits were generally dug down to the water and into these the rich and poor, the innocent child and the hoary reprobate were flung. There were no prayers, no friends to weep a last farewell; only hired bearers attended each commitment to earth. The dead carts went their dreary rounds by night, accompanied by a man ringing a bell, who called out as he passed the Infected houses, “Bring out your dead.” Then the bodies were piled on the carts and were taken to a common burial ground. And yet amid all this the depravity of human nature blossomed. The living were robbed by hireling nurses; the dead were stripped of the linen enshrouding their bodies; nay, what is more horrible by far, nurses after robbing killed the unhappy creatures committed to their care that they might hasten elsewhere to pillage and to murder. From the middle of August to the middle of October the plague was at its height. In these two months there perished of the plague 49,705.' The most fatal week was that between the 12th and 19th of September, when there died of all diseases 8,297, of whom 7,165 were killed by the plague. The entire mortality during the prevalence of the epidemic, which did not entirely die out until winter, was nearly 100,000. A violent fever, ending either in death or in an eruption of inflammatory tumors, generally marked each case of the plague. If the tumors broke the patient was considered . ree nom danger. In other cases the invasion of the disease was sudden, and many thus attacked fell down and died in the streets, in the market houses and in their homes.

A FAMILIAR SIGHT DURING THE PLAGUE.

GATHERING UP THE DEAD DURING THE PLAGUE.