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during the last spring, the numbers of those birds brought to market, were immense. Never, perhaps, were there so many before.

Several classes of people were highly benefited by the pub lic distress. Coffin-makers had full employment, and in general high prices for their work. Most of the retail stores being shut up, those that remained open, had an uncommon demand; as the whole of the business was divided among a few. Those who had carriages to hire, to transport families to the country, received whatever they pleased to require. The holders of houses at from three, to twenty miles from the city, who chose to rent the whole or part of them, had high rents. The two notaries, who protested for the banks, profited highly by the absence of the merchants and traders.

I have learned with great pleasure, that a few landlords, commiserating the distresses of their tenants, have come to the very humane resolution of remitting the payment of rents due during the prevalence of the disorder. Were they to enter into resolutions generally to do the same, it would reflect honour on them. But there are some, whose hardened hearts know no compassion, and who will have " the pound of fleshthe penalty of the bond." Indeed, when the disorder was at the highest stage, some landlords seized the small property of poor roomkeepers, who were totally unable to pay their rent A man wrote to the Committee, informing them that the poverty of his tenants rendered it impossible for them to pay him; he therefore begged the Committee would, as they were appointed to relieve the poor, pay the arrears due him!

A man lost his wife with the disorder. He had it himself, lost his sight totally, and was left pennyless, with two infant children. Yet his landlord, before his convalescence was complete, seized his clothes and furniture, and turned him out of doors!!!

"You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb,
As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)
His flinty heart."-

SHAKSPEARE.

I hope the reader takes more pleasure in perusing cases reflecting honour on human nature, than those of a different description. An amiable woman in New York, feeling for the situation of the numerous orphans in the city, wrote to a member of the Committee, to choose her one of them, as nearly as

possible resembling a child she had lost, whom she described. She particularly desired one without connexions, if such could be procured. She proposes to adopt it, and, with her husband, to bestow on it all the tenderness one of her own would have had. Would it not be unjust to withhold her name? Every reader answers, yes-and I will therefore reveal itSusan Willet. Several applications of a similar nature have been made by some of our own citizens.

In the summer of 1791, the yellow fever prevailed in New York, in a part of Water street, and in proportion to the sphere of its action, was as fatal there as it has been here. It began in August, and continued till the middle of September, when it totally disappeared, and has never since visited that place. This should ease the fears of many among us, who, always viewing the black side of every thing, terrify people with their prognostications, that we shall have it again next spring or summer. All the symptoms were full as dangerous and alarming in New York, as in Philadelphia. Many persons died in three days; "stupor, delirium, yellowness, the black vomit, and death, rapidly succeeding each other." It spread no farther at that time, than the one street, although no precautions, as far as I can learn, were taken to prevent its extension. The same species of disorder raged in this city in 1762, with great violence. It disappeared in the month of November, and has not from that time until this year visited Philadelphia.

The summer and fall of this year have been unhealthy in many parts of the union, as well as in Philadelphia. At Lynn, in Massachusetts, I haye been informed, that a malignant fever, not unlike ours, prevailed in August. In many of the towns of Virginia, intermittent fevers have been much more prevalent and mortal than they have been at former periods. Georgetown and its vicinity, which are in general very healthy, lost, in the course of a few weeks in summer, an unexampled number of people by the flux, which disorder has raged with great violence in many parts of America. The influenza has generally spread throughout the union, and been very fatal. It has been twice in Vermont, where likewise the putrid sore throat has carried off numbers. At Harrisburg and Middletown, in this state, the flux and a putrid fever have been extremely destruc

* Letter from a physician in New York, to his friend in New Jersey. Federal Gazette, Sept. 21, 1793.

tive, and swept away, I am credibly informed, a fifteenth part of the inhabitants. Delaware state, particularly Kent county, has suffered much from fall fevers, which have produced a very great mortality. At Dover, in the same state, a bilious colic raged with great violence, during last summer, and was extremely fatal. At Pauling's Kill, in Sussex county, New Jersey, a bilious and remittent fever has made very great havoc. And various other places have experienced a mortality, very uncommon, and which, but for the calamity of Philadelphia absorbing public attention every where, and being the standard of comparison, would have created great alarms and uneasiness.

Of the number of citizens who fled away, it is difficult to form any accurate estimate. In the city, from Vine to South street, which has been surveyed by a man employed by the Committee, of 21,000 inhabitants, the number of absent people is stated to be 8600. But as this business was several weeks performing, considerable variations must necessarily have taken place. The emigration was not finished in those streets examined in the early part of his progress,—and towards the latter part, the returns had been already considerable. One may be supposed to balance the other, and the removals in the liberties to have been equal to those in the city. We shall therefore probably not err much, when we estimate the number who left the city at about 17,000. This is not so many as I formerly supposed, having estimated them at 23,000. Which of the two is accurate, or whether either of them is so, I leave the reader to determine.

The effect of fear in predisposing the body for the yellow fever and other disorders, and increasing their malignity, when taken, is well known. The following exception to the general rule, which may be depended on, is curious and interesting. A young woman, whose fears were so very prevalent, as not only to render her unhappy from the commencement of the disorder, but even to interfere with the happiness of the family with whom she lived, had to attend on seven persons, all of whom were in a very dangerous state, and one of whom died. Her attendance was assiduous and unremitted for nearly three weeks. Yet she has never been in the slightest degree affected.

The watches and clocks in this city, during the disorder, were almost always wrong. Scarcely any of the watchmakers remained and few people paid attention how time passed. One night, the watchmen cried ten o'clock when it was only nine, and continued the mistake all the succeeding hours.

The Hope, a vessel from Londonderry, arrived in our river towards the end of August. The passengers had a malignant disorder among them, in consequence of which, orders were issued to have them landed at State Island, that they might undergo examination. Nevertheless, several of them came to the city, and added to the dangers already existing. The Mayor, on the 3d of September, issued a proclamation, calling upon the citizens not only to use their endeavours to detect such as had arrived, and to prevent others from coming, without procuring the proper certificates; but to make report to one of the magistrates, of the names of those by whom they were harboured, that they might be prosecuted according to law. On this subject an obvious reflection arises, which I will not suppress. Our citizens have generally been in the habit of severely censuring the inhabitants of those places in which very strict precautions were taken, to prevent the spreading of the disorder that prevailed here; and yet we see that our own conduct, in a case nearly similar, has not been very different. I would not wish to be understood as if I meant to justify the whole of the proceedings that took place every where; far from it; some of them have been to the last degree severe, and unnecessarily so; for all the cautions requisite, were compatible with attention to the comfort and convenience of fellow citizens, in good health, travelling for business, for pleasure, or the preservation of health, and even of life.-Whereas in many places it would appear as if the harshest mode of carrying harsh measures into effect, were adopted. My intention is merely to show, that such as indiscriminately vilify those who have resorted to precautions dictated by prudence, do not weigh the matter in the scales of impartial justice.

Governor Moultrie's proclamation, announcing the existence of the malignant fever in the Grenadas, &c., and ordering a quarantine, is dated the 7th of June.

Some of the postmasters, in the different States, used the precaution to dip Philadelphia letters into vinegar with a pair of tongs, before they handled them. Several of the subscribers for Philadelphia papers, made their servants sprinkle them with vinegar, and dry them at the fire, before they would venture to touch them.

Joseph Inskeep attended several sick persons in a family near him. When he was ill himself, he wanted assistance,* and sent

* His wife was ill at the same time.

for some of them to attend him—but they ungratefully refused! O shame! where is thy blush?

Many of our citizens who fled from the city, neglected or forgot to leave their servants money enough for their support; so that some of these poor creatures had to depend for sustenance on the charity of their neighbours.

Some of our unemployed tradesmen wished to procure work at the new roads now making. But the people who were employed, agreed, if they were engaged, that they would all abandon their work; so that the overseers were obliged to renounce the idea, at least for some time.

The incautious security of the citizens of Philadelphia, at the first stage of the disorder, is highly to be regretted. Most of those who died of the malignant disorder, before the 26th of August, were carried to burial with the accustomed parade of attendants which so generally prevails in this city. The chief of the persons who at that time carried the dead to the grave, and several of those who attended the funerals, were speedily taken sick, and hurried into eternity.

Sebastian Ale, an old grave digger, who had long lost the sense of smelling, fancied he could not take the disorder, and followed his business without apprehension. A husband and his wife who lay sick together, wished to be interred in the same grave. Their deaths happened within a few days of each other. When the latter of the two was to be buried, Sebastian was employed to dig open the other's grave. He struck upon and broke the coffin, and in stooping down, inhaled such an intolerable and deadly stench, that he was taken sick immediately, and in a day or two died.

The scourge of the yellow fever has fallen with extreme severity on some families. There are various instances of five and six, and some of eight, ten, and of Godfrey Gebler's family no less than eleven were swept off the face of the earth. Dr. Sproat, his wife, son, and daughter-Michael Hay, his wife, and three children-David Flickwir and five of his family-Samuel Weatherby, wife, and four grown children, are no more. And there are numberless instances of a havoc equally great in particular families. There is one house in this city, from which above twenty persons were carried, some to Bushhill, but the most of them to the grave.

There is one fact respecting this disorder, which renders it probable, that the exercise of the duties of humanity towards

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