Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1897 — IN DANGER OF FAMINE. [ARTICLE]

IN DANGER OF FAMINE.

Opelousas, La., Cut Off from Food Sup* plies by Quarantine. For fear of fever Opelousas, La., is face to face with famine. The food stores in that town are all but exhausted, and shotgun quarantine in a close cordon of neighboring. towns makes it practically impossible to bring in supplies. The population of the town is divided on the question whether starvation is better or worse than death from yellow jack. This question docs not trouble the quarantine authorities, whose restrictions have caused the shortage in Opelousas. Vicksburg, Miss., has placed an absolute, embargo on the operation of all trains of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific road on the ground that the company had violated the established quarantine regulations. It is more than likely that the general quarantine in effect throughout the cotton belt will have an appreciable effect upon the price of that staple and will cause heavy losses. The quarantine has been very strict against this character of freight, and only n few of the towns interested have as yet relaxed the severity of dnginal conditions. Even in these cases no cotton coming via infected cities is allowed to pass. Atlanta is becoming restive under the failure to receive mails, and it is claimed that more than $1,000,000 in’bank checks and drafts for the Georgia city are held up in the mail-gorg-ed postoflice of Mobile .for lack of sufficient facilities to handle the fumigating plant. There is a probability of a hitch between the State officials of Mississippi and the Federal Government. Gustavus Foster, Government lighthouse keeper of the Merril Shell Beach lighthouse, near Bay St. Louis, had refused to comply with the quarantine restrictions by the ' Mississippi town council. He was arrested and sentenced tc fine and imprisonment. Mayor Arbo, who made the ruling, reconsidered the case and ordered Foster to leave town immediately. Foster went.