THE LATE EPIDEMIC OF SMALLPOX. 567 



of death. The havoc of the plague had been more rapid; but the 

 plague had visited our shores only once or twice within living memory, 

 and the smallpox was always present, filling the churchyards with 

 corpses, tormenting with constant fears all whom it had not yet 

 stricken, leaving on those whose lives it spared the hideous traces of its 

 power, turning the babe into a changeling at which the mother shud- 

 dered, and making the eyes and cheeks of the betrothed maid objects 

 of horror to the lover." 



At last our English brethren have learned the lesson and learned it 

 well. They have had bitter experience of the devastation which 

 smallpox is capable of working among their kindred, whether in the 

 hovel or in the palace. They have mourned the loss of a gracious sover- 

 eign smitten with the pestilence on the very throne of their kingdom. 

 While we may not wish to follow them in all matters, they have set us a 

 worthy example in the patience with which they have buttressed their 

 bulwarks of immunity. The germs of this pestilence are powerless 

 against the army of their humble villagers and peasantry, ranks jipon 

 ranks of whom bear upon the arms of each no fewer than four, and 

 often as many as six and eight, simultaneously produced scars of suc- 

 cessful inoculation of cow-pox. Vaccination should be the seal on the 

 passport of entrance to the public schools, to the voters' booth, to the 

 box of the juryman, and to every position of duty, privilege, profit or 

 honor in the gift of either the State or the Nation. 



