Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 165, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1915 — Page 3

The SCARLET PLAGUE

By JACK LONDON

SYNOPSIS. —4— In a California valley an old man, one of the few survivors of a world-wide plague that has destroyed civilization, tells the story of the Scarlet Plague to hl* grandsons. CHAPTER ll—Continued. "Sit down," Edwin counseled soothingly. "Qranser’s all right. He’s just gettln’ to the Scarlet Death, ain't you, Granser? He’s just goin’ to tell us about it right now. Sit down, HareUp. Go ahead, Granser.? The old man wiped the tears away on his grimy knuckles and took up the tale in a tremulous, piping voice that soon strengthened as he got the •wing of the narrative. “It was in the summer of 2013 that the plague came. I was twenty-seven years old, and well do I remember it. Wireless dispatches—” Hare-Lip spat loudly his disgust, and Granser hastened to ma-e amends. “We talked through the air in those days, thousands ahd thousands of miles, And the word came of a strango disease that had broken out in New York. There were seventeen millions of people living then in that noblest city of America. Nobody thought anything about the news. It was only a small thing. There had been only a few deaths. It seemed, though, that they had died very quickly, and that one of the first signs of the disease was the turning red of the face and all the body. Within twenty-four hours came the report of the first case in Chicago. And on the same day, it was made public that London, the greatest city in the world next to Chicago, had been secretly fighting the plague for two weeks and censoring the news dispatches—that is, not permitting the word to go forth to the rest of the world that London had the plague.

"It looked serious, but we in California, like everywhere else, were not alarmed. We were sure that the bacteriologists would find a way to overcome this new germ just as they had overcome other germs in the past. But the trouble was the astonishing quickness with which this germ destroyed human beings, and the fact that it inevitably killed any human body it entered. No one ever recovered. There was the old Asiatic cholera, when you might eat dinner with a well man in the evening, and the next morning, if you got up early enough, you Would see him being hauled by your window in the death cart. But this new plague was quicker than that—much quicker. From the moment of the first signs of it, a man would be dead in an hour. Some lasted for several hours. Many died within ten or fifteen minutes of the appearance of the first signs. “The heart began to beat faster and the heat of the body to increase. Then came the scarlet rash, spreading like wildfire over the face and body. Most persons never noticed the increase in heat and heartbeat, and the first they knew was when the scarlet rash came out. Usually, they had convulsions at the time of the appearance of the rash. But these convulsions did not last long and were not very severe. If one lived through them, he became perfectly quiet, and only did he feel a numbness swiftly creeping up his body from the feet The heels became numb first, then the legs and hips, and when the numbness reached as high as his heart he died. They did not rave or sleep. Their minds always remained cool and calm up to the moment their hearts numbed and stopped. And another strange thing was the rapidity of decomposition. No sooner was a person dead than the body seemed to fall to pieces, to fly apart, to melt away even as you looked at it. That was one of the reasons the plague spread so rapidly. All the billions of germs in a corpse were so immediately released. “And it was because of all this that the bacteriologists had so little chance in fighting the germs. They were killed in their laboratories even as they studied the germs of the Scarlet Death. They were heroes. As fast as they perished, others stepped forth and took their places. It was in London that they first isolated it. The news was telegraphed everywhere. Trask wa» the name of the man who succeeded in this, but within thirty hours he was dead. Then came the

struggle in all the laboratories to find something that would kill, the plague germs. All drugs failed. You see, the problem was to get a drug, or serum, that would kill the germ in the body and not kill the body. They tried to fight it with other germs, to put into the body of a sick man germs that were the enemies of the plague germs —” ”knd you can’t see these germ things, Oranser,” Hare-Lip objected, “and here you gabble, gabble, gabble about them as if they was anything, when they’re nothing at alt Anything you can’t see ain’t —that's what. Fight* ing things that ain’t with things that ain’t! They must have been all fools $n them days. That’s 'Why they

croaked. I ain’t goin’ to believe in such rot I tell you that” Granser promptly began to weep, while Edwin hotly took up his defense. “Look here, Hare-Lip, you believe in lots of things you can’t see.” Hare-Lip shook his head. “You believe in dead men walking about You never seen one dead man walk about” "I tell you I see ’em, last winter, when I was wolf hunting with dad.” “Well, you always spit when you cross running water,” Edwin challenged. “That’s to keep off bad luck,” was Hare-Lip’s defense. “You believe in bad luck?” “Sure.” “An’ you ain’t never seen, bad luck,” Edwin concluded triumphantly. “You’re just as bad as Granser and his germs. You believe in what you don't see. Go on, Granser.” Hare-Lip, crushed by this metaphysical defeat, remained silent, and the old man went on. Often and often, though this narrative must not be clogged by the details, was Granser’s tale interrupted while the boys squabbled among themselves. Also, among themselves they kept up a constant, lowvoiced explanation and conjecture, as they strove to follow the old man into his unknown and vanished world. “The Scarlet Death broke out in San Francisco. The first death came on a Monday morning. By Thursday they i were dying like files in Oakland and San Francisco. They died everywhere —in their bedj, at their work, walking along the street. It was on Tuesday that I saw my first death —Miss Collbran, one of my students, sitting right there before my eyes, In my lecture room. I noticed her face while I was talking. It had suddenly turned scarlet. I ceased speaking and could only look at her, for the first fear of the plague was already on all of us and we knew that it had come. The young women screamed and ran out of the room. So did the young men run out, all but two. Miss Collbran’s convulsions were very mild and lasted less than a minute. One of the young men fetched her a glass of water. She drank only a little of it, and cried out: " ‘My feet.’ All sensation has left them.’ “After a minute she said, ‘I have no feet. I am unaware that I have any feet. And my knees are cold. I can scarcely feel that I have knees.’ “She lay on the floor, a bundle of notebooks under her head. And we could do nothing. The coldness and the numbness crept up past her hips to her heart, and when it reached her heart she was dead. In fifteen minutes, by the clock —I timed it —she was dead, there, in my own classroom, dead. And she was a very beautiful, strong, healthy young woman. And from the first sign of the plague to her death only fifteen minutes elapsed. That will show you how swift was the Scarlet Death. “Yet in thqse few minutes I remained with the dying woman in my classroom, the alarm had spread over the university; and the students, by thousands, all of them, had deserted the lecture rooms and laboratories. When I emerged, on my way to make report to the president of the faculty, I found the university deserted. Across the campus were several stragglers hurrying for their homes. Two of them were running. “President Hoag I found in his office, alone, looking very old and very gray, with a multitude of wrinkles in his face that I had never seen before. At the sight of me, he pulled himself to his feet and tottered away to the inner office, banging the door after him and locking it. You see, he knew I had been exposed, and he was afraid. He shouted to me through the door to go away. I shall never forget my feelings as I walked down the silent corridors and out across that deserted campus. I was not afraid, I had been exposed, and I looked upon myself as already dead. It was not that, but a feeling of awful depression that impressed me. Everything had stopped. It was like the end of the world to me—my world. I had been born within sight and sound of the university. It had my predestined career. My father had been a professor there before me, and his father before him. For a century and a half had this university, like a splendid machine, been running steadily on. And now, in an instant, it had stopped. It was like seeing the sacred flame die down on some thrice sacred altar. I was shocked, .unutterably shocked. “When I arrived home, my housekeeper screamed as I entered and fled away. And when I rang, I found the housemaid had likewise fled. I investigated. In the kitchen I found the cook on the point of departure. But she screamed, too, and in her haste dropped a suitcase of her personal belongings and ran out of the house and across the grounds, still screaming. I can hear her scream to this day. You see, we did not act in this way when ordinary diseases smote us. We were always calm over such things, and

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

sent for tie doctors and nurse*, who knew just what to do. But this was different It struck so suddenly, and killed so swiftly, and never missed a stroke. When the scarlet rash appeared on a person’s face, that person was marked by death. There. was never a known case of a recovery. I “I was alone in my big house. As I have told you often before, in those days we could talk with one another over the wires or through the air. The telephone bell rang, and I •found my brother talking to me. He told me that he was not coming home for fear of catching the plague from me, and that he had taken out two sisters to stop at Professor Bacon’s home. He advised me to remain where I was, and wait to find out whether or not I had caught the plague. “To all of this I agreed, staying in my house and for the first time in my life attempting to cook. And the plague did not come out on me. By means of the telephone I could talk with whomsoever I pleased and get the news. Also, there were the warehouses. Murder and robbery and drunkenness were at every door, so that I could know what was happening with the rest of the world.”

CHAPTER 111. The Survival of the Fittest. “New York city and Chicago were in chaos. And what happened with them was happening in all large cities. A third of the New York police were dead. Their chief was also dead, likewise the mayor. All law and order had ceased. The bodies were lying in the streets unburled. All railroads and vessels carrying food and such things into the great city had ceased running, and mobs of the hungry poor were pillaging the stores and warehouses. Murder and robbery and drunkenness were everywhere. Already the people had fled from the city by millions —at first the rich, in their private motor, cars and dirigibles, and then the great mass of the population, on foot, carrying the plague with them, themselves starving and pillaging the farmers and all the towns on the way.

“The man who sent this news, the wireless operator, was alone with his instruments on the top of a lofty building. The people remaining in the city —he estimated them at several hundred thousand—had gone mad from fear and drink, and on all sides of him great fires were raging. He was a hero, that man who staid by his post—an obscure newspaper man, most likely. "For twenty-four hours, he said, no transatlantic airships had arrived, and no more messages were coming from England. He did state, though, that a message from Berlin —that’s In Germany—announced that Hoffmeyer, a bacteriologist of the Metchnikoff school, had discovered the serum for the plague. That was the last word, to this day, that we of America ever received from Europe. If Hoffmeyer discovered the serum, it was too late, or, otherwise, long ere this, explorers from Europe would have come looking for us. We can only conclude that what happened in America happened in Europe, and that, at the best, some several score may have survived the Scarlet Death on that whole continent "For one day longer the dispatches continued to come from New York. Then they, too, ceased. The man who had sent them, perched in his lofty building, had either died of the plague or been consumed in the great conflagration he had described as raging around him. And what had occurred in New York had been duplicated in all the other cities. It was the same in San Francisco, and Oakland, and Berkeley. By Thursday the people were dying so rapidly that their corpses could not be handled, and dead bodies lay everywhere. Thursday night the panic outrush for the country began. Imagine, my grandsons, people, thicker than the salmonrun you have seen on the Sacramento river, pouring out of the cities by millions, madly over the country, in vain attempt to escape the übiquitous death. You see, they carried the germs with them. Even the airships of the rich, fleeirig for mountain and desert fastnesses, carried the germs.

“I was telling about the airships of the rich. They carried the plague with them, and no matter where they fled, they died. I never encountered but one survivor of any of them—Mungerson. He was afterward at Santa Rosa, and he married my eldest daughter. He came into the tribe eight years after the plague. He was then nineteen years old, and he was compelled to wait twelve years more before he could marry. You see, there were no unmarried women, and some of the older daughters of the Santa Rosans were already bespoken. So he was forced to wait until my Mary had grown to sixteen years. It was his son, Gimp-Leg, who was killed last year by the mountain Hon. “Mungerson was eleven years old at the time of the plague. His father was one of the Industrial Magnates, a very wealthy, powerful man. It was on his airship the Condor, that they were fleeing, with all the family, for the wilds of British Columbia, which is far to the north of here. But there was some accident, and they were wrecked near Mt Shasta. You have heard of that mountain. It is far to the north. The plague broke out among them, and this boy of eleven was the only survivor. For eight years he was alone, wandering over a deserted land and looking vainly for his own kind. And at last traveling south, he picked up with us, the Santa Rosans. (TO M - '

AUSTRALIANS BEFORE SEDD-UL-BAHR FORTRESS

A glimpse of the fortress of Sedd-ul-Bahr, the Turkish citadel which, in the bombardment by the allies, was almost battered to pieces. In the foreground before the ruins are massed some of the allied troops, among whom the Australians are most prominent

UTMOST MISERY GRIPS MASS OF THE ROUMANIANS

Four-Fifths of the People of Balkan Country Are Doomed to Beggary. NATION RUN FOR THE RICH Uprising of 1907, In Which 12,000 Peasants Were Slaughtered, Ac- . complished Little—Political Rights Only Nominal —War Interrupts Reforms. By RAYMOND E. SWING. Correspondent of the Chicago News. Bucharest, Roumania. Roumania was the scene in 1907 of a peasant insurrection, details of whose extent and suppression may never be known. Hundreds of dwellings were burned by the peasants, many middlemen and landowners were killed, and it is estimated that 12,000 peasants were slaughtered In the struggle to reestablish order. The governing classes of Roumania were willing that the world should believe that the peasants’ rebellion was against the Jewish middlemen, but, though Jews were attacked in the uprising, the outrages in districts where no Jews lived were as frequent as in the regions where they were numerous. The revolution was not racial, it was economic. It was a revolt against degradation and starvation. Eight years have elapsed since the revolution, and as there is a considerable discussion just now of Roumania’s right to rule over Roumanians residing in other countries, it is pertinent to Inquire into the causes of the revolt and into the changes the revolt brought about Four-Fifths “Doomed to Beggary.” It was the liberal minister, Vasile Lascar, who, in the days of the revolution, announced to the chamber that four-fifths of the Roumanian peasantry “suffer chronic hunger and are condemned to beggary.” Other information concerning Roumanian conditions is drawn also from Roumanian sources, chiefly from articles written in 1907 by M. Branestianu, editor of Adeverul, and brought up to data in personal conversation with that able and democratic journalist. According to statistics given by M. Branestianu, in 1905 the arable land of Roumania was so divided that 920,939 peasants owned 46 per cent, while 5,000 landowners had 54 per cent. Of the 5,000 landowners, 2,071 owned nearly a million peasants. The system was almost feudal. Gift*'of Land Fall to Aid. The government has tried to remedy this situation by giving away crown'lands, and though a million hectares (a hectare is about two and a half acres) were distributed, it developed that the peasants themselves were in such a state of degradation that barely half administered what land they owned, while still close to half a million remained with no whatsoever. The problem was not one to be settled by redistribution alone. The real aim was to find some solution by which conditions of labor could be so improved that the peasant would receive a living wage and be < so raised from helplessness that he could do something when he at last had land at his disposal. The middleman system prevailing in Moldavia, the northern province of Roumania, was the cause of bitter complaint from the peasantry. The capitalist owning the land leased to the middleman, the latter dealt with the peasantry. Sweatshop Applied to Farming. Now in the last 20 years the area of cultivated land in Roumania had steadily increased, as had the prices obtained for farm products. The capitalist increased the rates which the middleman paid him, and the middleman in turn had to wring the Increase from tbs peasants. The same middle-.

man who employed the peasant on the capitalist’s lands, forcing him to great toil at small wages, also bought his •products at small prices. It was a sweatshop system applied to farming. The capitalist frequently netted 100 to 120 per cent while the peasant barely sustained life. In good seasons the peasant could raise enough food to keep himself during the winter months, but in bad seasons his plight was pitiful, for then it was that he went to the capitalist for assistance, selling his services at low wages for the coming summer in return for the means of livelihood for the winter. Other System Not Much Fairer. In Wallachia, the southern province, the system was different, but not much fairer. There the peasant paid his rent by working the land of the capitalist. Here is a typical instance: The peasant has six hectares to care for. Of these two hectares are for the capitalist and he gets everything which comes therefrom, and the capitalist’s hectares are, of course, the best land. On two hectares the peasant donates partial service, undertaking the mowing, harvesting and hauling. The peasant gets a maximum of four decaliters (1,136 bushels) of grain from these two hectares, the capitalist gets the rest. In addition, the peasant pledges himself to four days’ teaming, four days’ labor and nine days’ hauling. The peasant, therefore, has to produce the remaining two hectares. The peasant is required to do the capitalist’s work before doing his own. His land being poorer than the capitalist’s, it often happens that he gets only half the profit from his two hectares, which the capitalist makes from his two. And the whole system so works out that the peasant pays In rent from 150 to 200 lei (S3O to S4O) for what costs the capitalist 20 to 30 lei ($4 to $6). Mud Houses for 600,000. The living conditions of the peasantry were appalling. Two hundred and fifty thousand peasants were living In 50,000 holes In the ground, dwellings unfit to be called by any other name. Of 1,000,000 dwellings only 76,000 were of brick, 298,000 were of wood, the rest of mud. Most of these were of one room, where the whole family lived, even with domestic animals. Under these conditions mortality was high, especially infant mortality, which was more than 40 per cent The chief food was polenta, a cornmeal mush, and many peasants had only one meal a day, being unable to spend more than two to three cents per capita daily for food. Epidemics were frequent, especially of pellagra, which resulted from the exclusive consumption of corn. Despite compulsory education, schools were scarce in many regions and many children who otherwise might have attended school were kept at home by their parents, who needed the extra hands In earning the meager family living. M. Branestianu estimated the illiteracy of that time at 84 per cent. To crown It all, the peasants had

MRS. THOMAS O’SULLIVAN

Reputed heiress to >2,000,000 and the beautiful daughter of Jasper Lynch of Lakewood, N. J-, who eloped with Thomas C. O’Sullivan, an aid to Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson.

practically no political rights. They had nominal representation in the chamber of 36 out of 150 members, though constituting four-fifths of the population. These members were not elected directly, but 50 peasants voted for an elector, who, with his colleagues and with the state-named teachers and priests, chose the members of parliament. Such a system resulted tn much corruption and in the preponderant control of elections by the government, which often put up candidates in districts where these candidates were utterly unknown and elected them through its superiority of power. The land owners controlled, and the government was only a change from faction to faction of land owners, with the peasant left out of any consideration which was not charitably bestowed upon him. Little Change Since Revolution. Such was the Roumanian peasantry in and preceding 1907. What is it today? What did the revolution accomplish? For what did 12,000 peasants lay down their lives? The revolution did much to attract the attention of intelligent Roumanians to the conditions. Two reforms were soon afterward instituted. A system of communal pasture lands was introduced, and these had a beneficial effect in increasing the ownership of live stock among small peasants, which under the former system was impossible. A law passed by which districts were established in which land owners, middlemen and peasants fixed the minimum wage for farm labor. The law has not been in force long enough to show whether it will be a success. The conditions of labor are practically as before. The housing is without Improvement The unequal distribution of land is much as ever. Illiteracy is still very high, probably about 80 per cent, though convincing statistics are lacking. The holding of elementary schools for army recruits is still necessary, but these schools are rapidly reducing illiteracy among young men. The political system of 1907 is still existent and the peasant still lias no proportional voice in his own affairs and no real chance of speaking through the small representation that is allowed him. Roumania is governed by and for the rich, even today. Reforms Interrupted by War. But one still has no right to impugn Roumanla’s good will in this matter. The war interrupted reforms, as it has Interrupted much else. The weighty machinery which amends the Roumanian constitution had been set in motion last year and a constitutional convention had been called, which was to consider and draft an amendment permitting the government to confiscate and partition large estates. This needed legislation it has been necessary to postpone. Reform of the electoral system also was intended. The present liberal government is pledged to carry out these reforms and can be counted upon to do it best when the war is over. But even these reforms did not include the giving of rights to the Jew, who was destined to remain without franchise and the permission to own land. Whether the participation of Roumania in the war on behalf of Roumanians in Transylvania would be justifiable is an unfair question at this time. States/no more than individuals, can put “the house in order” always at the time and in the way they like. It may be that the self-consciousness which the nationalist movement has given to Roumania will spur her on to a worthy solution of internal problems. Perhaps Roumania will emerge from the war, whether she actively participates or not, a stronger, finer, more sober state, facing her duties with a deeper sense of obligation.

Owl Responded.

Buhl, Minn. —Because he imitated a hoot owl, Frank Tfly is today shy one cat. It was a prise Angora, too. Tily went out on the porch of his farm home to exercise his lungs. For ten minutes he hooted. Then he re« entered the house. A. few minutes later he heard an agonized “meow” of a cat, following a terrific crash. He reached the veranda in time to see an owl. attracted by his hooting, making away with the cat