IT goes without saying that the destitution and suffering occasioned by the flood were fearful. Everywhere might be seen hundreds of sad-eyed, disconsolate, almost famished creatures, groping about the wreck, almost unconscious of present necessities by reason of present woe. Scores were compelled to drag their precious dead from the wreck and bury them with their own hands—a trying task. Other scores found never a trace of many whom they sought. Hundreds of telegrams of anxious inquiries will never be answered.

The pressing necessities of the hungry people soon drove many to seek escape from the place. Yet all railroads were damaged, and in Johnstown itself one could hardly get about the streets. A stranger describes it as it appeared on June 1:

“Johnstown proper was partly a lake, partly several small streams, partly a vast sandy plain, and partly clusters of more or less ruined houses. Around, among, between, inside and on top of these houses, wherever the rushing torrent had been checked, were piled masses of wreckage; trunks of mighty trees, household furniture, houses whole and in fragments, bridges, locomotives and railroad cars, hundreds of tons of mud and gravel. Thickly strewn through it all were hundreds of corpses and carcasses. The only communication between this section and the Pennsylvania Railroad and the village of Peelerville on the north, and Kernville on the south, was across swollen torrents in skiffs, which required constant bailing to keep them above water. From the Stone Bridge of the Pennsylvania Road, for a distance of half a mile, no river could be seen, simply a dense mass of drift from twenty to fifty feet deep, apparently inextricable, bound together with miles of wire, here blazing and there smoldering, and enveloping the bridge in a cloud of nauseating vapor and smoke, giving unmistakable evidence of the presence of burning flesh. Not a thoroughfare was passable for a team, and very few for a horse. Locomotion was difficult, the mud was deep, the streets obstructed often to the roofs of houses, the rain was incessant.

The flood quickly called forth the best and the worst exhibitions of human nature. We shall mention first the evil, as a back-ground against which the good may stand more conspicuous. We believe that to most men it will be simply incomprehensible that anybody should think of adding so much as the weight of a hair to the calamities of Johnstown, as they were seen on the morning of that first day of June. Ghouls were quick to enter, snatching from the living, robbing the bodies of the dead. Johnstown doubtless had her complement of thieves, and these were speedily reinforced by many more—crooks and jailbirds, pickpockets and burglars, from cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburg; for “where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” Residents guarding silverware and other valuables were, in some instances, overpowered in broad daylight and their goods taken away from before their eyes. These crimes were diligently laid at the door of the Hungarians, but better knowledge acquitted them of the charge and proved that they were not more guilty than others.

The American, accustomed by republican training to regard himself as the chief source of law, is never slow to take things into his own hands in cases of extremity. We are told that a few of these ghouls were summarily dealt with; and under the circumstances the most conservative find it hard to condemn the grief-crazed men. One correspondent asked Deputy Sheriff “Chall” Dick if the reports of summary execution were true. Chall replied slowly:

“There are some men whom their friends will never again see alive.”

“Well, now, how many did you shoot?” was the next question.

“Say,” said Chall. “On Saturday morning I was the first to make my way to Sang Hollow, to see if I could not get some food for people made homeless by the flood. There was a car-load of provisions there, but the vandals were on hand. They broke into the car, and in spite of my protestations carried off box after box of supplies. I only got half a wagon load. They were too many for me. I know when I have no show. There was no show there, and I got out.

“As I was leaving Sang Hollow and got up the mountain road a piece, I saw two Hungarians and one woman engaged in cutting the fingers off of corpses to get some rings. Well, I got off that team and—well, there are three people who were not drowned and who are not alive.”

“Where are the bodies?”

“Ain’t the river handy there?”

Another form of robber appeared in the relic-hunter. He is a phenomenon inexplicable—at least to the writer of these pages. Why men should think to chip off pieces of the Washington Monument, or from Lincoln’s coffin, or from the granite sarcophagus in the great pyramid, and carry them home and put them in a cabinet, and call people to admire them, without thereby simply advertising themselves as vandals, passes comprehension. Why a chip from Johnstown should be better than the same kind of a chip from any other place, no man can tell. But the world has always had a good stock and store of this kind of fools, well described by our neglected and forgotten poet, Robert Pollok, as men who roamed about the world searching for pieces of old pottery and the like, and

These relic-hunters, commonly of genteel appearance, were in force at Johnstown, picking up knives, forks, silver spoons, communion vessels—anything they could call fools like themselves to gape at because it came from Johnstown, and sometimes judiciously preferring as mementoes the things that were of greater value.

There were professional thieves who entered the morgues and identified, with expressions of sorrow, their dear departed dead, strangers never seen before, in order that they might secure the valuables found on their persons. There were others who offered their services for the recovery of the dead, and who were placed upon the details sent out for that purpose, and plundered many corpses before the arrival of Mann’s detectives pointed them out as the worst of thieves and robbers.

Besides these there were sleek scoundrels, too base and black for respectability even in the pit, who approached weeping, orphaned, beautiful young girls with alluring offers of jewelry and fine clothes and delightful homes, in great cities. Their object has no need to be stated.

It is pleasant to turn from these few ghoulish and degraded human reptiles to the mighty army of noble men and women who succored Johnstown.

The story of the help rendered, how much, by whom, and in what ways can not be detailed in this place. It will be enough to give a brief and general statement, while for full particulars, even to the long list of the dead, known and unknown, the reader must be referred to Dr. Beale’s most interesting book.

The faults and evils of government have been conspicuous since man was upon the earth. The contemplation of these has turned some shallow-brained people into anarchists, who think the ideal state of the race must be one in which there is no government at all.

There was no government in Johnstown while the flood was sweeping it away. All human laws were then suspended, for there was no human power that could enforce them. It is curious and instructive, in a condition of complete anarchy, to note the spontaneous movements towards organized government—movements simply evoked by the popular need. Government was introduced into Alma Hall almost before the sun had set on that dreadful day. Two hundred and sixty-four men, women and children, from various directions clambering out of the debris, had been gathered there. They were wretched enough already, but disorder would only add to their woes, and for the sake of order, and to feel that the strongest and wisest were at the helm, they were ready to submit themselves to command. Accordingly, a meeting was at once called on the stairway to elect a director to control the whole building and one of the stories, and two subordinates to take charge of the other two stories. Orders were at once issued that there should be no lights, lest the escaping natural gas should explode, and that all persons having spirituous liquors should surrender them to the directors. These orders were cheerfully obeyed.

As this company was wending its mournful way the next morning to Adam street, Dr. Beale saw a man taking some valuables, and ordered him to put them down. With this hint as to the capabilities of bad men, he sent a boy a little later to the nearest telegraph station with a message to Governor Beaver to send the military. The response came soon in the presence of the National Guard, the services of whose officers and men were, in almost every way, of inestimable value.

But the necessity for government was instant, and could not await the coming of a National Guard. The community called Johnstown consisted of seven straggling boroughs, each with its own officers. Some of these were dead, all were scattered and paralyzed, while furthermore, the common calamity demanded common action, and this called for a single government instead of seven. Accordingly, before the sun was high in the heavens on that first day of June, government had been organized. According to our Declaration of Independence, it must have been a lawful government, for it had for its basis the consent of the governed.

But it was not a republican government; it was an absolute monarchy—Charles L. Dick, Esq., was elected generalissimo to direct all matters according to his will,—the best government in the world if always there were a wise and good man at the head; for the wisdom of one man is better than the folly of a multitude.

It makes one proud of his race as he watches this stricken community in the midst of overwhelming sorrow and loss taking action immediately for preservation and recovery. Barbarians would not have done it; Asiatics would not have done it; nor would anybody else have done it so quickly and so well as Anglo-Saxon English-speaking republicans, full of energy, resource, and indomitable courage, and habituated to the idea of a “government of the people, for the people, and by the people.”

Avoiding details let us see in brief what was done.

Within eighteen hours after the flood, there was a force of three hundred qualified policemen guarding the vaults of the First National and Dibert’s banks, and patrolling the town. A few were armed with shot-guns, the most with base ball clubs extracted from a wrecked store. The size of their batons was an indication that they were not on dress parade, but were equipped for war. Committees were quickly appointed on finances, on supplies, on morgues, on the removal of dead animals and debris, on police, on hospitals; and these committees entered on their respective duties without an hour’s delay. Farmers and others were now crowding to behold the ruin, and there were many with hearts to sympathize and hands to aid. Dr. Wm. Caldwell, one of the oldest and best known merchants in the place, met the wondering comers and engaged many of them for service in the removal of the wreckage and the recovery of the dead. Details were at once constituted and sent forth under proper leaders for these purposes. Within a brief while, Charles Zimmerman had removed more than two hundred dead animals, and Thos. L. Johnson, his assistant committeeman, one of the owners of the great plant at Moxham, had made visible progress in clearing the streets of debris.

A crying and instant need was a hospital. Before the flood there was only one hospital in Johnstown. This was built by the Cambria Iron Company for the use of their own men. This hospital was now almost instantly filled and running over; but before sunset on this memorable Saturday, June 1st, the committee had opened another. Telephonic communication was broken, but a boy was sent on horseback to Shoyestown with a message to Pittsburg for hospital equipments—cots, mattrasses, pillows, medicines and other necessities; and such was the energy of all concerned that by two o’clock on Sunday, less than twenty-four hours from the sending of the message, the equipment was in Johnstown. At that time every bench and counter and even the floor was crowded with the sick and wounded from all parts of the city.

It is impossible to describe the varied movements of that dreadful day. There was little shelter and less food, death everywhere, and some doubtless imprisoned in heaps of wreck, and not yet dead, but dying of wounds, or of cold and exhaustion. The first patient in the Bedford street hospital had been taken up, presumably dead, and carried to the morgue; there he was found to be yet alive, was removed to the hospital and died of congestion the next day. The claims of the dead and of the living seemed to be equally urgent. Many of the living, for food and shelter, pushed to the country; the farmers received them with

open doors. They sent wagon loads of provisions to the valley of death; the dairymen came with milk and distributed it freely; but what was this among so many? It is needless to say that the flood, even where buildings had escaped wreck, had overflowed cellars and lower stories and destroyed or badly damaged almost everything eatable in the city.

Not a few of those who survived the flood are notable for their untiring and abundant labors. It was no time for perpetuating sectarian differences. Dr. Beale pays a warm tribute to Father Davin, a Catholic priest, who stood at his post, laboring with superhuman energy, though constantly urged to take even a short rest. But he could not rest in view of so much misery. He and Dr. Beale turned their respective churches into morgues, and labored like heroes, incessantly. Father Davin’s health gave way under the terrible strain, and he finally went to the mountains; but it was too late. He died of overwork and exhaustion.

Nor must the work of that much abused fraternity, the newspaper reporters be forgotten. None but reporters can appreciate the difficulties under which those men worked; and one, a pale, earnest, sympathetic little Philadelphian, toiled on till his health failed. He died at the sea shore, whither he had gone to recuperate. These men we must thank for the prompt and full reports sent throughout the country, stirring it to prompt and energetic measures of relief.

The advantages of Christian over Asiatic civilization are never more apparent than when the calamity of some calls for sympathy and help of all the rest. Then, in an hour, the news is borne to every city and hamlet in a broad continent, in another hour the press has thrown it off in millions of sheets, and every street is vocal with the cry of the newsboy proclaiming the disaster, millions of hearts are throbbing with sympathy, voices from opposite sides of great cities are talking to each other over the telephone, a meeting is called and quickly assembled, counsel is taken, performance is prompt, and before the day is done, the railroad train, bearing the necessary forms of aid, is flying with the speed of the wind to the relief of the sufferers.

Not often, even in a Christian land, has relief been so prompt or so bountiful as it was to Johnstown. Pittsburg read the news in the papers of Saturday morning. The Mayor called a meeting for one o’clock. It was crowded to overflowing, for the interest was intense. A committee was appointed, and work began instantly. By four o’clock nearly twenty cars were ready. Seventy volunteer aids were on board—all that could be taken—and the train was flying towards Johnstown. At 10:30 P.M. Sang Hollow, four miles from the scene of death, was reached. Here three-quarters of a mile of track had been washed entirely away, and the train stopped. But the men from Pittsburg stopped not. They sprang out, and trip after trip through the mud and dark, in the use of hands and shoulders, they bore onward their precious burdens of food for the starving brothers and sisters. Long before daylight, the installment of provisions—a car load and a half—was deposited at the Stone Bridge. Further than this it was impossible to go. The flood had broken the embankment beyond the bridge and a furious river a hundred feet wide was sweeping through.

But while these valiant relievers were struggling forward under boxes and parcels, the railroad management was working a veritable miracle. Men and material were placed on the ground, the grade was restored, the track was laid, and at seven o’clock the next morning the train was quietly standing at the Stone Bridge!

Was ever human energy more conspicuous, or in a better cause? Some corporations must have souls—at least, the Pennsylvania Railroad—for this triumph was stimulated not by self-interest, but by the interests of thousands dead or ready to perish. And it was General Superintendent Pitcairn of the Pennsylvania Road who moved the mayor to call the Pittsburg meeting.

The Baltimore & Ohio Road also signalized its achievements and generosity. By Monday morning it had entered the south side of Johnstown, bringing relief, or exit to the suffering people. Superintendent Patton called on the villages and towns along the road to load as many cars as they pleased, and they would be transported to Johnstown without charge. The services of both the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads were of inestimable value, and from first to last, in a spirit of true philanthrophy, they co-operated with the efforts for the relief of a stricken people.

The labors of the Pittsburg committee knew no pause nor rest for ten days, until the State, whose duty it was in so great a calamity, stepped in, and through the Flood Commission, took hold and continued the work. Even then their labors did not cease, but were continued in hearty co-operation with the officials appointed by the State. During those ten days from the first of June to the eleventh, they had placed in the field under the most efficient management between 6,000 and 7,000 laborers, they had supplied a population of about 30,000 people with food; they had looked after sanitation and hospitals and morgues; they had accomplished much in the way of opening the streets and clearing the properties of filth and debris deposited by the flood. They had been the ministers not only of the charities of the twin cities, Alleghany and Pittsburg, but of other and more distant cities. These, recognizing the integrity and efficiency of the Pittsburg committee, directed their benefactions to them, with the request that they would control their administration. A total of $831,295 passed into their hands; of this $560,000 was turned over to the Flood Commission, the balance having been expended by themselves. Of this total, $250,770 was contributed by the cities of Pittsburgh and Alleghany.

In the ladies’ committee, Pittsburg developed another agency that was vastly beneficial. Established in rooms of the Second Presbyterian church, they began work on the 4th of June, and their doors thereafter were open day and night. A special committee was always on duty and waiting to receive every train, both of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania Roads. These brought scores and hundreds of refugees who had lost everything, and who did not doubt that in Pittsburg, at the hands of people they had never seen, they would receive sympathy and aid. They were met at the depots, conducted to the rooms of the committee, fed and clothed, and sent to comfortable quarters till they could see a way to provide for themselves. Many were seeking homes in the country or cities beyond, and the railways generously furnished free transportation to all who were certified by the ladies’ committee. Situations were procured for many, and many fragments of families, seeking permanent homes in Pittsburg, were aided even to the anticipation of their winter supplies.

Philadelphia has long been an example to other cities, in that it has had a permanent committee of relief, ever ready with men and means to answer the call of some unusual distress. At the announcement of the great calamity, this committee was at once summoned by the mayor. R. M. McWade, city editor of the Public Ledger,

a gentleman who had raised $25,000 and sped with it to Charleston, South Carolina, at the time of the earthquake, was present, and at once moved the appropriation of $5,000, saying that when the facts should become known, ten times the sum would be required. Others did not wait for organized effort, but hastened with medicines, surgical instruments, shoes and carloads of prepared food—bread, butter, bacon, cheese, coffee—to the field of disaster. Personal contributions were many and liberal. On the 11th of June the committee placed $500,000 subject to the order of Governor Beaver. As late as the 4th of August the committee was induced through Dr. Pancoast to appropriate $10,000 to the Red Cross Hospital in Johnstown. Philadelphia is truly a city of “brotherly love.” Newsboys and bootblacks anxiously offered their mites; and in the penitentiary hundreds of convicts gave eagerly of the hard-earned pennies gained by working extra time, till the warden placed a limit upon the amount each might give. The total contributions of Philadelphia amounted to nearly $800,000.

New York went promptly to work on the 2nd of June. The churches beginning. Monday, the 3d, liberal contributions were placed in the hands of a committee, by individuals and corporations. The poor or bad boys in the charity and reform schools were an example to many, for they of their penury cast in all that they had. The boys in the House of Refuge on Randall’s Island, gave $258.22. Perhaps such lads may be yet worth saving.

The total amount contributed by the City of New York was very close to $1,000,000.

Boston gave upwards of $500,000, Chicago about $200,000, Baltimore gave liberally, and received and cared for a multitude of refugees. Fifteen hundred rendered homeless by floods at Johnstown and elsewhere arrived in Baltimore in one day.

We may not detail further. The reader who desires the fullest account of what was done, and how, and by whom, must be referred to Dr. Beale’s most interesting book. It may suffice in this place to say, that contributions were forwarded, not only from the principal cities and from every State in the Union, but from foreign countries. Ireland sent $18,252.21; England, $33,158.36; Canada, $4,454.64; Mexico, $130.40; Turkey, $876.57; Italy, $9.46; Austria, $481.70; Germany, $34,199.36; Prussia, $100; Wales, $68.60; Saxony, $2,637.20; Persia, $50; France, $24,511.13; Australia, $1,251.12. Total, $120,187.79. These figures prove that there are men everywhere who love their fellow men, and that the whole world is of kin.

The total loss in the Conemaugh valley was between $8,000,000 and $9,000,000; the total bestowment about $3,000,000. The loss of life is estimated variously; from 4,000 to 10,000. It will never be definitely known.

The aid of the sympathetic public—was it charity? No, it was duty. I owe to help my fellow man in distress just as much as I owe to pay my debts, and sometimes more. Mercy is due to men no less than justice. “If any man seeth his brother have need and shutteth up the bowels of his compassion against him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” We might add: How dwelleth the love of man in him? He that does not love his fellow men is not entitled to a place among them, any more than fleas or serpents are entitled a place in human beds.

CHAPTER XIX.

FAMINE AND PESTILENCE.

Owing to the decidedly local character of our own rains, the probability of a general famine in this country is very slight, though local droughts are of continual occurrence. Europe has been affected with serious famines at various periods; but the greatest “harvest of death” has been in Oriental lands. During the present century there have been two or three severe famines in Asia Minor, the last but two or three years since. But it is in India and China, with their overcrowded populations and lack of facilities for inter-communication, that famine becomes most terrible in its ravages. The story of one is that of another; a deficient rainfall, a failure of the rice crop, a multitude eating grass, dead leaves, straw, offal—millions starving. As these lines are written come reports of great dearth in some provinces in Japan.

One of the best known famines of recent date is the great Bengal famine of 1866. When the rice crop failed the British government at once used every possible means to facilitate the importation of rice and established large systems of public works that the people might earn money wherewith to buy. Yet it was but the chief of many great employes. Great companies pushed great projects. The customary wages remained steady; but rice had trebled in price. Hence, even by doing double work the people could not procure their usual food. And no allowance had been made for the scores of isolated villages where the news of relief measures penetrated not. So the employed grew weaker continually and less able to labor and earn; those unemployed perished by hundreds. Private charity supported thousands; for the Hindoo dreads the beggars’ curse as much as the loss of caste. The women added their labors to those of the laboring husbands, but this did not suffice to support the weakening families.

Then government charity was broached; but it was at once seen that efforts in this direction would cause the cessation of individual charity. Every village looks after its own poor; every noble family continues to dispense alms, even when every vestige of wealth and greatness is gone. It would not do to take steps that might instantly suspend this work. Yet the famished crowds grew daily greater, and the residents of the European quarter of Calcutta were horrified by the influx of thousands of squalid creatures in the last extremity of hunger.

At this crisis another factor came into play. Every pious Hindoo merchant writes at the top of his day-book each day the name of the divinity whose favor he courts, and immense sums—even millions of dollars—are spent in the annual celebration in honor of Kali, the especial favorite of Bengal. A wealthy and humane Hindoo merchant suggested that Kali would be better pleased if her celebration fund were used to relieve her starving worshippers. The idea became popular at once; and the fund, promptly swelled by the exigencies of the case, aided greatly in the relief of the destitute. When we remember that Kali is a fiend incarnate, who delights in human blood, and wears a necklace of skulls, we can but consider the suggestion of the pious merchant as savoring of the ludicrous.

Another objection to government charity was in the fact that the government could only hope to establish a few great central depots. Again, the Hindoo does not discriminate between the professional beggars, fakirs, hermits, yogis, and those whom we consider more deserving: and such discrimination as it was certain the government would make would only render it odious, and probably cause grave disturbances. So the government lost three weeks when it should have been actively at work. Meanwhile English residents were spending liberally their means in private relief depots.

The government found its way out by making quietly large grants to the private relief committees established. But it was two or three months ere the best scheme was adopted. Rice could be imported in abundance. How to place it within the purchasing power of the people was the problem. The government turned merchant, and established depots where the laborer could buy at a price within his means. But while placing the market rate within reach of the needy one-third, the rate for the remainder must not be disturbed, or the merchants would be antagonized. It was easily accomplished. The market was opened but a short time each day; and the “respectable” Hindoo would never expose himself or his family to be jostled by the hungry labor-stained multitude that at once thronged the places. And public opinion, all-powerful in little Bengali towns, strongly condemned any one who without good reason, bought at the relief depots.

By June, every one was anxious to know if the rains would come and insure the September crops—there are two rice harvests each year. Thousands of sacrifices were offered, and sometimes human beings were offered. But the rains came, and the fall brought abundant crops.

The total loss of life was about 1,250,000, of whom one-fourth starved outright, while the remainder perished from disease and pestilence resulting from the scarcity of food. A famine in the same region in 1769 carried off 6,000,000; but then the government did nothing, and after the scourge immense tracts of cultivated land returned to their original wilderness. The reverse was the result in 1866. The methodical work of the government and the great corporations left the land far more improved than ever before; with the increasing facilities for communication and transportation, a repetition of the disaster even of 1866 is almost impossible—certainly beyond probability.

We may not go into details of scores of famines, ancient and modern; we have selected this one, showing how, even in adverse circumstances, prompt work lessens the ravages of the destroyer. Judging from the percentage of 1769, the loss of life in 1866 would, but for the relief work, have been about 9,000,000—one-third the population of Bengal. The only other calamity in recent years at all comparable, is the terrible famine of 1876 in China. How many perished then may not be definitely known; but it has been variously estimated at from 15,000,000 to 50,000,000. We may not dwell upon the horrors of such things—the hideous cannibalism that has at times resulted; as when we are told that during one famine in Egypt, in the dark ages, human flesh was openly sold in the markets!

A terrible scourge that frequently visited the old world in the middle and dark ages is that known as the “Black Death.” As to its real character and source, the world is yet in ignorance. Whether it was readily conveyed in the atmosphere or not seems a mooted point. Modern medical science has robbed many contagious diseases of their terrors. Small-pox is easily guarded against. Diptheria has no terrors for clean streets. Yellow Jack has little chance against sound sanitation and hygiene. The germ theory of disease has greatly aided disinfective measures.

In contagious diseases, infection proceeds chiefly from personal contact with a diseased person or objects that have been touched by him. In malarial diseases there is no danger from personal contact; the disease resulting clearly from a poisoned atmosphere. But in the case of what are known as epidemics, the source of infection is not clear. The disease may attack thousands in a short time, and yet not appear readily communicable by personal contact. Doubtless in these cases the atmosphere is the medium of infection. Hence, disinfective measures are of little or no use against them. So while such can not properly be classed among atmospheric phenomena, yet it would seem that in the atmosphere we find the chief vehicle of the disease.

We may not here undertake any discussion of the several deadly contagious diseases that are known to modern medicine. Suffice it to say nearly all of them may be classed as filth diseases, arising from impure food or water, or filthy streets. Most notable of these is perhaps the terrible Asiatic cholera, that has swept Europe frequently, and which is now known to originate in the overcrowding and filth attendant upon the great twelve-yearly festival in honor of a Hindoo idol. Had the people of the middle ages, who regarded its ravages as a visitation of God upon them for their sins, been aware of its origin, they might have been disposed to wonder why they should be punished for the idolatry of a people thousands of miles away. Possibly such reflections might have originated either a new species of crusade, or have opened the missionary movement several centuries earlier than it really began.

Comparatively speaking, there is little mystery left in connection with the greater contagious plagues known to modern medicine. But the famous Black Death, or Plague, or the Pestilence, as it is variously called, remains a secret so far as its origin and its proper treatment are concerned. Its symptoms are somewhat variously described by various ancient writers. In one point all agree: that when near death the body of the victim was covered with dark, gangrenous or carbuncular spots and swellings, or boils made their appearance in the glands of the neck, armpit and groin. It may be that the plague of boils and blains sent upon the Egyptians was none other than this Black Death. And doubtless it is identical with the terrible plague that visited Athens, B. C., 430, continuing its ravages through three years. People died in swarms, and the dead lay about the streets.

During the middle ages it appeared in Europe on an average, every fifty years, its last visitation being upon London, in 1665, when 100,000 people perished. Here its danger was increased by the fact that its character was more insidious than usual. The plague described by Thucydides was characterized by high fever and unquenchable thirst, and a reddish inflammation or eruption of the skin lasting seven or eight days before the appearance of the fatal spots; while from Defoe’s account of the plague in London, these symptoms, though common, were anything but universal; and frequently persons felt no special disorder till the appearance of the spots told that death was at hand. Both in Athens and London, contact with the dead bodies seems to have been fatal to any animal. The suddenness of death in many cases calls to mind the last plague of Egypt, or the fate of Sennacherib’s host:

The horrors of the plague are beyond description. The panic consequent upon the appearance of Yellow Jack in the South gives but a faint idea of it. And this very panic was a most—we had almost said the most—powerful factor in the augmentation of the plague’s fatality. It is also the case with cholera that a disturbed condition of the mind is fatal in the mildest form of the disease. Some one has thus embodied the case, though of course with exaggeration: A traveler leaving Bagdad met Cholera entering. “For what are you come?” “To slay 10,000 people.” Each went his way. On returning, the traveler met Cholera once more. “But you killed 30,000!” “Nay, friend, I killed but 10,000; scare killed the rest!”

Occasionally this panic took a terrible form; as when during a season of plague in Germany, the idea seized the people that the Jews had occasioned the plague by poisoning the wells; and Jews were murdered, tortured, and burned by the hundreds; which reminds one of a modern writer’s sarcastic definition of hydrophobia. “A peculiar periodical madness, impelling men to destroy dogs.”

Of the thousand tales of interest that have come down to us, we may give place to one, a story of Florence. This city had twenty-three visitations of the plague; the first in 1325, the last in 1630. The plague of 1338 is the noted one described by Boccaccio. The story which we condense here is an incident of the plague of 1400.

Among the noble families who were sworn foes, were those of Rondinelli and Almieri; and one might as soon have expected the lion to mate with the serpent, as to hope for an alliance between the two families. But Cupid has never bothered his meddlesome pate with politics or theology; and so it came about that, as with Montague and Capulet, Antonio Rondinelli fell in love with Ginevra Almieri, one of the most beautiful women of the time—certainly unsurpassed in Florence. Of course, Signor Almieri could not for a moment think of such a hateful match, and so Ginevra was given to Francesco Agolanti. The young wife remained faithful; but she gradually faded; and in four short years sunk into a sort of lethargic stupor, resulting in death. The plague was then at its highest, and the panic was great. Every death from uncertain cause was a source of alarm, and burials were informal and hasty. The poor young wife was promptly bundled off to the family vault beneath one of the great cathedrals.

It seems that it was merely a case of coma, or suspended animation. The lady revived, only to find herself entombed with the skeletons of her husband’s ancestors. Horrible as this would be for any one, it is a wonder that the weak nerves of Ginevra did not give way entirely under the strain. She screamed and called—only the dead heard. She groped about her tomb, and found a ladder; clambering up, she found a ray of moonlight streaming through a crevice, and learned her location. She looked abroad

After desperate effort, and with strength astounding in a frame so weak, she forced up one of the paving stones that formed the roof of the vault, and dragged herself out. Sitting wearily down for a brief rest, a sudden shower came up and chilled her to the bone. She rose and went to her husband’s house. He, at a second story window, astounded at the ghostly figure in grave clothes that roused him in the dead hour of night, “when ghosts do mostly walk abroad,” and doubtless remembering that his treatment of the living wife had not been such as to recommend him to the favorable notice of her ghost, shut the window with alternate imprecations and invocations, and covered his head with the bedclothes—well-known in all ages to be thoroughly ghost-proof. Ginevra was similarly repulsed from the houses of her father and of various relatives. As a last resort, though exceedingly repugnant to a woman of her delicate feeling, she betook herself, almost chilled to death, to the house of Rondinelli. To his inquiry as to who was there, a weak voice responded, “Do you not know me, Signor Antonio? It is I—Ginevra. Neither my father nor my husband will receive me. Will you, too, turn me away?”

Great as was Antonio’s fear of ghosts, the bare possibility that Ginevra was actually there in the flesh was a far stronger consideration; and he hastened to test the reality of his fair visitant. Having her properly cared for, he hastened to the vault, where the displaced stone confirmed her story.

A few days later, Antonio boldly applied to the civil authorities to marry the “late Ginevra degli Agolanti,” and backed his application with certificates of the death and burial of the lady! The authorities hearing the facts—and mayhap being romantically disposed—decided that the lady was legally dead, that her relatives, by their own unwilling confession, had persisted in so regarding her; hence, she was no longer bound by any legal tie to the living, father or husband! She was absolutely free!

So Antonio and Ginevra were married, and of course, “lived happily ever after.”

CHAPTER XX.

THE VOLCANO.