THE PLAGUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11368, 10 May 1900, Page 6

THE PLAGUE.

By Telegraph.— Association.—Copyright; Melbourne, May 9. The first case of plague ; here is reported, a carter named Cooper, who had been engaged handling Sydney cargo, and residing in Collingwood. It is a mild case. ■ ■'■;. .The following fresh cases of plague have been reported David Fatzen, Glebe ; John Nutt', Redfern; Ah Hon, Macquariev street South ; -George Carroll, hospital patient; Preaker, Woollahra., '■ Hardwicke is dead. Albany, May 9. The mail steamer Himalaya, which arrivedfrom London to-day, brings a supply of Yersin serum for Sydney.

AUCKLAND A CLEAN PORT.

ACTION BY THE GOVERNMENT.

Mr. J. H. Witheford, M.H.R., who is at present in Wellington, has been informed by the Colonial Secretary that the Government have forwarded communications to Tahiti and other places that Auckland is a clean port. PLAGUE SCARES EXPLODED.

INDIGNATION AT HONOLULU AND

SAN FRANCISCO.

American papers just to hand show that merchants at Honolulu and at San Francisco are complaining on account of their pdrts having been reputed infected with plague. The San Francisco Call, referring to the position in Honolulu, says: —

Private letters received in the last mail from Honolulu show that the business men of that city are just awakening to the fact that there has been a large percentage of bunko game in the black plague phantom that has hung over the islands during the past three months, bringing with it business disaster, destruction of property, and the loss of millions of dollars to the public treasury. It is now openly asserted that there never has been a case of bubonic plague in Honolulu. L. E. Pinkkam, a well-known railroad man, from the Paradise of the Pacific, says that many learned doctors have been studying the alleged cases of plague, and say that not one of the cases that came under tho notice of the Board of Health was bubonic plague. The assertion is made that the disease which earned off so many of the Chinese, Japanese, and Hawaiians, was nothing more than a malignant type of typhoid and pneumonia. A prominent sugar planter, who says that the plague scare has already cost him 250,000 dollars, is in town, and expresses great indignation at the state of affairs, In an interview, he said:

" Sixty deaths from typhoid fever and pneumonia in three months' time would never be considered a very high death rate in Honolulu. The natives die readily from almost any disease that takes a firm hold on them. I believe that many of the Chinese patients were scared to death. A San Francisco paper recently stated that a Chinese fireman on a transport in this harbour, who was merely suffering from beriberi, died after having been put through a rigid examination by the quarantine officials, lasting an hour. The ship's surgeon stated openly at the time that he had been frightened to death. If a Chinese makes up his mind that he is a very sick man he will Hie anyway, even if he had only a toothache. "The Board of Health at Honolulu has pounced upon every case of fever reported, and there is no doubt in my mind that their method of handling patients lias often proved fatal. Take the case of Herman Levy, the hotel clerk, for instance. Even to-day the Health Board will rot assert that he is suffering from the plague., yet when the Board first took up his case they had him removed, at two o'clock in the morning, while he was dangerously ill, from his cottage to the pesthouse, where he still is. His own physician says that he suffered a relapse under this treatment, which will likely cost him his life, or make him m invalid for the remainder of his days. "In any case, I understand that Levy's relatives will bring a heavy damage suit against the Hawaiian Government. If the suit comes to trial there will likely be many interesting developments, and, no'doubt, all available expert testimony will be introduced. It will at, least ue determined whether or not the plague ever did exist in Honolulu. If the suit is successful, it will set the pace for several score of similar suits, and the public purs.i will have to stand a tremendous drain."

There are now in Honolulu two learned Japanese doctors— sent, it is stated, by the Japanese Government and the other by a Japanese Emigration Society. Both are familiar with tie bubonic plague in all its phases, and both have been unable to find that it eyer existed in Honolulu, Another physician, who spent many years in India, and studied the disease there in all its forms, is now in Honolulu. He laughs at the idea that the plague has made its"appearance in Honolulu. He saw several cases and pronounced them typhoid. He points out, too, that if the disease had ever existed in Honolulu over a period of three months or three weeks, it would have become epidemic. A fair estimate is that the plague scare has cost Hawaii 2,500.000 dollars, and possibly will cost twice that much in damago to her commercial interests.

The same paper, referring to the scare in San Francisco, says:-"Tho bubonic buncombe of Mayor I'helan, his Board of Health, and his yellow associate, the Examiner, has reached a climax and a rebuke. The outrage committed on this city by this precious tA-itimvirate could no longer be ondured. Added to the distress brought upon the people of San Francisco by tho dread of a terrible disease, came the terrible affliction of unwarranted and lying advertisement to every other city in the Union. The merchants of San Francisco could no longer tolerate the criminal misrepresentation, and they appeared before Mayor Phelan to protest. They demanded that redress be given, and at once. ' You have proclaimed us,' as one of them said, 'as a community waving a yellow flag in a cave of death.' 'Mayor Phelan, as is his custom, was conciliatory. He penned a telegram to 40 American cities, and declared that in San Francisco there was not a single case of bubonic plague, that there had not been one for three weeks, that there is not a suspicion or a fear of a case, and that there never was more than the suspicion of a case. This telegram was sent to these 40 cities as a measure of scant justice to San Francisco after the commission of an outrage that is without parallel in the history of the city."