The centre of apprehension as to cholera has been trans-
ferred from the valley of the Volga to Hamburg. It is true that in Russia 75,000 deaths are officially admitted as due to cholera, and that the true number is probably twice that, but Russia is far off, and the severe outbreak in Ham- burg is considered more menacing to Western Europe. The accounts of Thursday represent the disease in the German port as abating, but on the 27th ult. there were 616 cases and 366 deaths ; on the 28th, 562 cases and 277 deaths ; on the 29th, 514 cases and 207 deaths ; on the 30th, 357 cases and 161 deaths ; and on the 31st, before noon, 115 cases and 61 deaths. Moreover, the type of the disease in Hamburg is exceptionally virulent, and the people who quit the city carry the infection wherever they go. The city, too, is in a bad sanitary condition, and the foreign accounts of its hospitals, loaded down with patients till proper cleaning is impossible, are simply horrible. In America, so great is the alarm created by the arrival of a ship with cholera-stricken patients on board, that President Harrison has imposed a twenty-day quarantine on all emi- grant ships ; thus, in fact, stopping immigration, and so crippling business as to cause a 2 per cent. general fall in
values. The measure seems needlessly severe ; but the Pre- sident knows that he is watched by a highly-strung, nervous people, and that checks on immigrants are becoming popular.
