rd of August. By that time the daily number of victims had
already risen to some hundreds, while the experts and authorities were
making up their minds whether they had cholera to deal with or not.
Their decision eventually came too late and was superfluous, for by the
27th of August the people were being stricken down at the rate of 1000 a
day. This rate was maintained for four days, after which the vehemence
of the pestilence began to abate. It gradually declined, and ceased on
the 14th of November. During those three months 16,956 persons were
attacked and 8605 died, the majority within the space of a few weeks.
The town, ordinarily one of the gayest places of business and pleasure
on the continent, became a city of the dead. Thousands of persons fled,
carrying the disease into all parts of Germany; the rest shut themselves
indoors; the shops were closed, the trams ceased to run, the hotels and
restaurants were deserted, and few vehicles or pedestrians were seen in
the streets. At the cemetery, which lies about 10 m. from the town, some
hundreds of men were engaged day and night digging long trenches to hold
double rows of coffins, while the funerals formed an almost continuous
procession along the roads; even so the victims could not be buried fast
enough, and their bodies lay for days in sheds hastily run up as
mortuaries. Hamburg had been attacked by cholera on fourteen previous
occasions, beginning with 1831, but the mortality had never approached
that of 1892; in the worst year, which was 1832, there were only 3687
cases and 1765 deaths. The disease was believed to have been introduced
by Jewish emigrants passing through on their way from Russia, but the
importation could not be traced. The Jews were segregated and kept under
careful supervision from the middle of July onwards, and no recognized
case occurred among them. The total number of places in Germany in which
cholera appeared in 1892 was 269, but it took no serious hold anywhere
save in Hamburg. The distribution was chiefly by the waterways, which
seem to affect a larger number of places than the railways as carriers
of cholera. In Paris 907 persons died, and in Havre 498. Between the
18th of August and the 21st of October 38 cases were imported into
England and Scotland through eleven different ports, but the disease
nowhere obtained a footing. Seven vessels brought 72 cases to the United
States, and 16 others occurred on shore, but there was no further
d