CHAPTER II.


Every one knows what kind of summer we had in Naples in 1884. The
newspapers of all lands teemed with the story of its horrors. The
cholera walked abroad like a destroying demon; under its withering
touch scores of people, young and old, dropped down in the streets
to die. The fell disease, born of dirt and criminal neglect of
sanitary precautions, gained on the city with awful rapidity, and
worse even than the plague was the unreasoning but universal panic.
The never-to-be-forgotten heroism of King Humbert had its effect on
the more educated classes, but among the low Neapolitan populace,
abject fear, vulgar superstition, and utter selfishness reigned
supreme. One case may serve as an example of many others. A
fisherman, well known in the place, a handsome and popular young
fellow, was seized, while working in his boat, with the first
symptoms of cholera. He was carried to his mother's house. The old
woman, a villainous-looking hag, watched the little procession as it
approached her dwelling, and taking in the situation at once, she
shut and barricaded her door.

"Santissima Madonna!" she yelled, shrilly, through a half-opened
window. "Leave him in the street, the abandoned, miserable one! The
ungrateful pig! He would bring the plague to his own hard-working,
honest mother! Holy Joseph! who would have children? Leave him in
the street, I tell you!"

It was useless to expostulate with this feminine scarecrow; her son
was, happily for himself, unconscious, and after some more wrangling
he was laid down on her doorstep, where he shortly afterward