e 



EARLY HISTOEY OF WHEAT-GROWING 27 



talked of but the sick, the dying, and the dead." On 

 one occasion thirteen burials were proceeding at the same 

 time. From June 18 to August 2, the deaths averaged 

 seven a day, or 321 in all, so that the population was 

 reduced by one person out of every sixteen. ^^ The Span- 

 ish influenza which became epidemic in the city of Winni- 

 peg in the present year, 1918, serious though its effects 

 have been, has not exhibited one-tenth the virulence of 

 the bloody flux of 1846, for out of a population of some 

 200,000 there have been fewer than 1,000 deaths, or 

 about one death for every two hundred persons. There 

 is every reason to believe that the bloody flux was due to 

 insanitary living conditions. The disease itself, which is 

 now sometimes called bleeding diarrhoea, was doubtless a 

 form of dysentery and may have been caused by the water- 

 inhabiting parasite Amoeba histolytica, which was respon- 

 sible for so many deaths to the soldiers of the British Em- 

 pire during their gallant attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula. 



XVII. The Census of 18W 



A census taken in 1849 shows that by this time great | 

 progress had been made in the development of the colony. ? 

 The population had grown to 5,391 persons. There were 

 745 houses, 12 schools, 7 churches, 2 water-mills and 18 

 windmills. The plows niimbered 492, the harrows 576, 

 the carts 1,918, the boats 40, and the canoes 428. The 

 land under cultivation was upwards of 6,000 acres. The 

 live-stock consisted of 1,095 horses, 990 mares, 2,097 oxen, 

 155 bulls, 2,147 cows, 1,615 calves, 1,565 pigs, and 3,096 

 sheep.^^ 



62 A. Ross, loo. cit., pp. 362-363. 

 53 lUd., loc. cit., p. 409, 



