progress was governed by laws which we could neither understand nor
controul; and if we search the reports of contagionist writers, we
shall find fully as much, and as strong evidence of its progress being
independent of human intercourse, as of its being propagated and
governed by the laws of contagion.[28]

[Footnote 28: Vide Orton, Kennedy, &c.]

To the question, which has so often been triumphantly asked, of its
progress to the Russian frontiers being conducted by caravans along the
great highways of human intercourse, and what else than contagion could
cause it to be so carried? An admirable journalist has already replied
by asking in his turn, on what other line than amongst the haunts of men
could we possibly have found, or detected a human disease? And surely
the question is most pertinent, for in those barbarous regions that
interpose between Russia and India, where the wolf and the robber hold
divided alternate sway, and isolated man dares not fix his habitation,
but must congregate for safety; where else than in those great
thoroughfares could the disease have found its food; or if beyond these,
man, almost as ignorant and as savage as the wolf, could have been
found; who under such circumstances would have recognised, described,
and testified to its existence? Even at Sunderland, amongst ourselves,
its existence was long hotly disputed by the learned of the faculty; and
the fatalist barbarian of these regions would have dismissed the enquiry
with a prayer of resignation, while he bowed his head to the grave, or
if his strength permitted, with a stroke of his dagger against the
impious enquirer who had dared to interfere with the immutable decrees
of fate. The stories too of its importation into Russia, are exactly the
same as have come to us from our own Gibraltar, in the case of the
yellow fever, and may be expected to come from every other quarter where
a well paid officious quarantine is established to find infection in
its own defence, and to trace its course in proof of their own services
and utility. Under such circumstances, this well gotten up drama of
importation may be rehearsed in every epidemic, adapted in all its parts
to every place and every disease, they wish to make contagious. First
will be presented, as at Gibraltar, the actual importers--their course
traced--the disease identified--its reception denounced, and quarantine
established; and this will go down until sober minded disinterested