THE OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 376, 26 April 1879, Page 23

THE OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE IN RUSSIA.

(Berlin correspondent of Melbourne Argus.) Beiilin, February 11.

From a political aud commercial point of view, pestilence continues the most important topic of the day. Notwithstanding the unremitting attempts of the Russian Government to hush up the spread of the disease, there can be no doubt that it is penetrating further ea-t. The cordon round the infected locality near Astrachau having been arranged with true Russian carelessuess and indifference, thousands have managed to run away from the contagious villages, and are now sowing the seeds of the malignant disease in evei\y part of Southern Russia. The capricious nature of the malady baffles calculation as to whether it will gain head or not. Meanwhile, alarming accounts have beeu received by the German Government from the whole country between Volga and Dneipar, and have led to the establishment of quarantine on the frontier. This example having been imitated by Austria at the instance of Germanand iu smaller measure by Roumaniaand Franco,Russian commerce is gre ally impeded, and, should the disease progress, may be entirely paralysed. Add to this that the Russian army in Bulgaria is being decimated by typhus exanthematious, the forerunner of the plague, which in many cases has even now assumed the dreadful symptoms of the latter malad) T , and it is pretty clear that extreme precaution is needed. But if Europe has every reason to be on her guard, what shall we say of Russia and Turkey ? Human nature, it is manifest, can no longer support the misery of a Russo Oriental war. The dirt, the destitution, and the untold hardships incidental to that sort of Imperial pastime are getting too much for flesh and blood. Were hostilities renewed, calamities which would laugh to scorn the experience of the last two years might be iu store. Independently of this, there is the all but certainty that Russia would have to reduce payment o£ interest on the national debt were she to prolong her military exploits, while her corn vessels are under quarantine. So gloomy is the prospect as to frighten even the Czar. Despite the immense military preparations made for prosecutiug the war, despite the manifest reluctance evinced only a month ago to conclude peace with Turkey, the necessity for paving the way for a different course is too patent to escape the cunning diplomatists of St. Petersburg. 111 proportion as deaths multiplied on Volga and Danube a more pacific disposition was displayed by Russian negotiators at Constantinople. There came to pass at last what none were sauguine enough to anticipate four weeks before the event. The final treaty of peace between Russia and Turkey—the treaty which is to confirm that portion of the San Stefano preliminaries not superseded by the Berlin agreement—was signed and sealed at Istamboul. We have seen enough of Russian diplomacy the last few years not to overrate the importance of the act. We are, on the contrary, but too well aware that Russia’s willingness to carry out the contract and withdraw her troops will be in exact ratio to her inability to pursue an opposite course. Terrible as it is, we are by past experience driven to conclude that the disappearance of the plague would have a tendency to diminish the chance of ultimate peace. Said chance having suddenly increased since the advent of the poisonous scourge, the inference as to what would happen were apprehensions set at rest is only too obviovs. The ways of Providence are mysterious. We must hope on, hope ever. Private accounts from the doomed region are heartrending. As on previous occasions, the disease arose in the swampy grounds adjoining the Caspian, where every species of fever is apt to become epidemic. Fix-st showing itself two years ago, when the troops were concentrated, and left, as usual, to fight with hunger, nakedness, and cold, it lingered on dux-ing the War, aud, neglected by the authorities, ultimately assumed its present virulent form. It is worst in the Delta of the Volga River, between Zariziu and A>trachan, a district studded with fishing stations, and densely inhabited by some 200,000 souls. So far as can be ascertained from the unreliable data l-eceived, there are villages numbering before the inroad 2000 inhabitants, now entirely deserted. The hotbed, Vetlanka, has been burned by order of the Government. From other hamlets survivors ran away when a host of neighbors had succumbed. Iu many localities the doctoi’s, impotent to cope with the formidable enemy, were torn to pieces by the infuriated populace. There being none to bury the dead, convicts were despatched from the nearest prisons to perform the last offices ; being promised liberty after interring a certain number. But the soldiers appointed to look after the convicts, not liking the uncanny job, the improvised gravediggers ran away whether they had fulfilled their contract or not. The resuit may be better imagined than described. Aud this while the pestiferous della wss supposed to be surrounded b3 r the strictest military cordon, appointed to maintain order among dead and djing, and shut off communication with the rest of the woxdd. To make bad worse, the Kalmuks anti Ivhirgese, the vagrant children of the adjoining Steppes, themselves suffering from the infection, fell upon runaways aud waggoners, diverging into the wilderness from the old road along the x-iver, robbing aud killing all on whom they could lay hands. With these terrible scenes enacting at the seat of the calamity, the Russian Government did not hesitate to treat Europe to two telegrams per day, representing the disease as all but extinct. Imitating those famous despatches from the seat of

war which imported the death of a single Cossack at the end of a long and sanguinary engagement, the sanitary authorities, as a rule, confined their admissions to the avowal of one person attacked or diseased. On a certaiu day last week, when two deaths were announced in the St. Petersburg telegrams, Russian securities experienced a severe fall on Berlin Change, the one additional case beiug interpreted as meaning hundreds, and creating a panic. Yet it would be wrong to charge the St. Petersburg Government with the entire guilt of the concealment practised. Thanks to the notorious qualities of the RufS’au Civil Service it is very probable that the telegrams circulated by T the central authorities contain nothing but what is transmitted by their employes on the spot. Whether the German Government doctors sent to Astrachan to watch the course of events, will be permitted to learn the exact truth remains to be seen. One fact more and I have done with the subject. When field operations were at an end, the members of the great commercial firm who had been commissioned to provision the troops were charged with fraud, and upon absconding had their property confiscated by the Government. In consequence of private aud confidential communications made by them in their self-imposed banishment the pi-osecutiou has been abandoned, aud their property restored. Tb&y now go about freely as honored millionnaires. How many of the military 7 officers, likewise accused with embezzling provision funds, have beeu set at liberty it is difficult to say. But as the investigation threatened to reach gigantic proportions, the courts seem to have shrunk from the task of going into particulars.