Plague and Riot 



habits of the people and the sanitary short- 

 comings of the Government, they seldom get 

 a hold here. Possibly the outdoor life of the 

 people and the qualities of the air have some- 

 thing to do with this. Scarlet fever, so severe 

 a scourge of youth in England, appears to be 

 almost unknown, and one hears little of diph- 

 theria, which might be expected to prevail. I 

 have had propounded to me an agreeable theory 

 that such diseases cannot propagate themselves 

 for more than three generations here ; that is, 

 if A is landed from a steamer suffering from an 

 infectious disorder, he may communicate it to 

 B, and B may pass it on to C, but that C has 

 no such power. The remarkably abrupt termi- 

 nation of the small-pox epidemic and the 

 complete disappearance of the disease seem to 

 lend some colour to this comfortable belief. 



95 



