ride of lime, which they took for the poisonous powder, confirmed
their suspicions, and drove the people to madness. In this state of
excitement, they committed the most appalling excesses. Thus, for
instance, when a detachment of thirty soldiers, headed by an ensign,
attempted to restore order in Klucknow, the peasants, who were ten times
their number, fell upon them; the soldiers were released, but the ensign
was bound, tortured with scissors and knives, then beheaded, and his
head fixed on a pike as a trophy. A civil officer in company with the
military was drowned, his carriage broken, and, chloride of lime being
found in the carriage, one of the inmates was compelled to eat it till
he vomited blood, which again confirmed the notion of poison. On the
attack of the house of the lord at Klucknow, the countess saved her life
by piteous entreaties: but the chief bailiff, in whose house chloride of
lime was unhappily found, was killed, together with his son, a little
daughter, a clerk, a maid, and two students who boarded with him. So the
bands went from village to village; wherever a nobleman or a physician
was found, death was his lot; and in a short time it was known that the
high constable of the county of Zemplin, and several counts, nobles, and
parish priests, had been murdered. A clergyman was hanged because he
refused to take an oath that he had thrown poison into a well; the eyes
of a countess were put out, and innocent children cut to pieces. Count
Czaki, having first ascertained that his family was safe, fled from his
estate at the risk of his life; but he was stopped at Kirtchtrauf,
pelted with stones, and wounded all over, torn from his horse, and only
saved by a worthy merchant who fell on him, crying, 'Now I have got the
rascal.' He drew the count into a neighboring convent, where his wounds
were dressed, and a refuge afforded him. His secretary was struck from
his horse with an ax, but saved in a similar manner, and in the evening
conveyed with his master to Leutschau."[31]

[31] Quoted from an address delivered in Boston by Edward Everett.

A little knowledge on the part of the peasantry would have prevented
these horrible scenes. Had they learned even the elements of physiology
and chemistry, they would have known that cleanliness is essential to
health at all times, and that during the prevalence of a malignant
epidemic it is doubly needful. They would have known, also, that
chloride of lime is n