Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1894 — AN AWFUL PESTILENCE. [ARTICLE]

AN AWFUL PESTILENCE.

Chinese Dying by Thousands at Various Places. Similar to the Great London Plague ol 1605—A Panic Among the ~ People. The New York Herald has the following from a special correspondent at . Shanghai, moder date of May 10: The news of the outbreak of the plague at Hong-Kong has doubtless reached the Herald ere this by telegram, but no such brief communication on the subject can. convey an adequate idea of the character and extent of the visitation which is ravaging Canton, Pakhoi and Hong-Kong and throwing this part of the world generally into a state of terror and panic almost without parallel. The disease has long been raging In the two first-named places, and it has carried off tens of thousands of victims in the last few weeks, but so long as it was confined to China very little was said about it in print. The moment it reached HongKong, however, which it did last week, the alarm became great and threw tho colonists and the government of that island, as well as the foreign and native residents of the coast ports, into a state of terror and alarm. On Saturday night (11th inst.) tbeuFronch and Portuguese consuls here issued a notification proclaiming HongsKong an Infected port. On the Monday following the entire body of foreign consuls united In a representation calling upon the Chinese authorities at Shanghai to impose quarantine regulations upon all vessels coming from Hong-Kong or Canton. Tho French mail steamer, which left Shanghai for Europe on the 12th inst., refused to call in at Hong-Kong for either mails er passengers, and since then all vessels are giving the port a wide berth. The plague, which is described by medical men as almost exactly similar in appearance and symptoms to “the great plagueof London,’’ which devastated that city in 1655, was noticed first in Canton about the end of April, prior to which date there had been a period of prolonged drought. The first sign observed was the appearance of thousands of rats, swollen and evidently dying, crawling up from the open sewers and the houses of that abominably; filthy city. These vermin are invariably the precursors of all such visitations in southern China, and every year they give notice of the appearance of the plague in Pakhoi, where it appears to be almost epidemic. The disease is of a bubonic character, with purplish or black swellings in the glandular regions, in the groin, armpit, under the knees and in the neck, accompanied by terrific fever, the temperature going at a bound up to 105 and 106.

It is frightfully rapid In Its course. Purging diarrhea at once sets In, and a state of delirum, followed by a coma, Is reached in three or four hours in a bad case, death ensuing and the body turning black, putrid and swollen to thrice its size in the course of twelve to twenty-four hours. Very strong men have resisted the attack for two days and then succumbed, but as many as 80 percent, of those attacked in Canton died in one day. Those who held out for three or four days generally recovered, but they were very few. Six thousand fatal cases are known to have occurred in one district in Canton—the old Mohammedan quarter of the city—within a week, these figures being checked by the number of coffins given but for tho burial of the dead by one charitable institution. A hundred thousand people are believed to have already perished from the terrible plague.