ever, the cholera laid hold here more rapidly and terribly than elsewhere.[1]
Its arrival was officially announced on the 29th of March, and as this was the day of Mi-Carême, and there was bright sunshine and beautiful weather, the Parisians hustled and fluttered the more merrily on the Boulevards, where one could even see maskers, who, in caricatures of livid colour and sickly mien, mocked the fear of the cholera and the disease itself. That night the balls were more crowded than usual; excessive laughter almost drowned the roar of music; people grew hot in the chahut; a dance of anything but equivocal character; all kinds of ices and cold beverages were in great demand when all at once the merriest of the harlequins felt that his legs were becoming much too cold, and took off his mask, when, to the amazement of all, a violet-blue
- ↑ Our author sketches the true causes of the cholera with great intelligence. Prominent among these was that neglect of cleanliness, which, as he says, was by no means confined to the lower classes. Even in the Forties and Fifties there was to be found in a vast majority of the houses in Paris such fearful filth and poisonous smells as would be now deemed utterly incredible. That the cholera was to a great degree endemic or local from such causes was fully proved by its being confined chiefly to towns. While it raged, for instance, in cities, it often happened that in rural villages at no great distance not a single case occurred. In the last generation it was very commonly said and believed by many that "dirt is healthy." Now we are learning that it is another name for death.—Translator.
