AMERICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 218, 2 February 1856, Page 5

AMERICA.

The Pestilence in Virginia.— The Mayor of Norfolk writes, Sept 29 —The disease (yellow fever) is raging with equal violence as heretofore— not at the hospitals, for no one will go there unless some stranger who has no home. But the suffering and misery in private houses is beyond all description. We have no papers published among us. Both editors of the Beacon are dead. All hands at the Herald and Argus offices, also News Courier, down sick. Several of our most valuable people have lately died. Between now and frost, a space of 60 days at least, unless kind Providence should interpose and arrest the disease, 1 fear that the greater part of the population (about 5000) will be swept off. At Norfolk on Saturday there were 33, and on Sunday 51 deaths. At Portsmouth, on Saturday and Sunday there were 34 deaths. Norfolk is the most complete wreck you ever saw or could imagine. About 2500 of the people have been snapt off: and whilst the obscene and profligate that filled the lanes and alleys have been removed like autumn leaves, the very stamina and bone of our society — the mechanics, merchants, physicians, ministersare all gone. And still they fall. Drs. Upshur and Gordon, if not dead, it is thought cannot .live. These, if they die, will make nine of our physicians gone, about one-half.".... Another account states that many noble and self-sacrificing hearts,~who were not afraid to visit the sick and the dying to administer to their wants, have been sacrificed in the cause of humanity. A few still remain, who are unremitting in their attention upon the sick, and doing the last sad but kind offices for the dead, with their own hands shrouding them and placing them in their last resting-place. My heart sickens (says. Dr. Freeman) at the thought of scenes which I have this day. witnessed, and pray God that I may never be called to witness the like again. Death is still fearfully at work here, and there is a considerable increase in the number of cases. Those who have been attacked this week have nearly all died; scarcely one in ten survives. The fatality is absolutely awful to contemplate, and our remaining population are still in great distress, and oppressed with feelings of the deepest grief and sorrow. I hope that ere another month rolls by we shall have a severe frost, or few, if any of us, will escape an attack. Could I recite to you some of the scenes of woe and:distress that I daily — aye, I may say hourly — witness, your hearts would melt. Many a tear steals down my cheek as I go my daily rounds. I have seen many epidemics; but none which can be compared in its sweeping virulence to this. Last year I was one of the physicians in Barbadoes — employed by the executive of that island — during the prevalence of epidemic cholera, when, out of 135,000 souls upwards of 22,000 were swept off in about six or seven weeks. ' This was one in every six. Here, I fear,? the mortality -will exceed one in. five of the inhabitants remaining during the visitation. Unparalleled in the annals of history !".... The telegraph reports that yellow fever has made its appearance in Canton, Mississippi, and that' 60 cases and ■10 deaths , had taken place during "the week.. . ... Later dates- from America (Oct. 6)"state*ttiatthe~ yellow fever still, continued to rage at Norfolk and Portsmouth." V , ■ , *- ". ,"'*-/ .Thb'.Biquob, Laws:— The JPost^ Oot 8, states that "enforced temperance m America has , failed.*' ln Maine the.law is annulled,' and in Bos-rC ton convictionsicould riot be obtained against offenders."*; *; J'&V* fr^v^'Zfr* -'V:V*> '"'*>" i-"'\ ■ The corajcropin Ohio; Indiama; I; lUmois, and Eerij-:^ tuoky is>said,ito /tietethesfHeane^t,,tbisYßeaso'n^eYer >•'■ ' grown W wie Wwt. I* %»< a ■ c t*M$ f * i j»> >'\ - .';. mshop;Lee ;says;.,that- ; apou^^^ •?■ •kfyeax are 'making H t I, 'i^ftr^^ioßsQill&a^pT^^^t^^^n^l^^^: ;mißes;M^e^one pf : tUe:le«^ng|»gti^^^