THE CURSE OF CHOLERA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 74, 20 November 1912, Page 6

THE CURSE OF CHOLERA.

(Received 12.55 a.m.) Vienna, November 19

The Neue Erie Presse war corres-

pondent, who on Sunday rode along the positions at the Turkish centre at Hademkeni, pictures misery such as war never previously witnes-ser. For

miles before Hademkeni he saw dozens of dead horses in puddles and marshy streams, from which soldiers tortured by burning thirst drink deadly draughts. Battalions of the fourth army corps landed at San Stcfano on Saturday are going to the front, and are already carrying dozens of cholerastricken, and others cholera-stricken from the front are coming to Gakrikein, poisoning every place passed. The nearer one gets to Hadenkcui, the more frequent are the heaps of corpses on the roadside. There are dead and dying in every wayside ditch. This is the end. In forts where at first there were only fifteen deaths, an attempt was made to localise the epidemic, but waggons with chloride of lime arriving late, and now wells being dry, men are drinking from a puddle outside camp, thousands are writhing and groaning, and piteous cries rend the air. Sufferers with distorted features grovel in the streets, squares, gardens, and fields outside Chataldja. “Going for our horses which we left at Chataldja ten days ago,” he continues, “we saw dying men drag themselves to the stables hut they were brutally driven off while screaming appealingly to Allah and their mothers. Many curse like madmen. Wo found our horses and forced our way through.” The correspondent pays a high tribute to Turkish honesty; except in the. ease of hand luggage he lost nothing. During the retreat, officers disinfect themselves and advise the men to do so, hut the soldiers, either through thirst or fatalism, continue drinking pestilential water, in which corpses lie. The population is fleeing to Chataldja where the linos form an iron girdle with 1200 guns.