Europe has been alarmed this week by stories of a
new plague imported from Siberia into St. Petersburg, and thence marching slowly westwards on the cholera route. After reading about eleven different accounts of the pest we are driven to the conclu- sion that there is as yet no evidence upon which to base either alarm or confidence, nothing being certain except that some epidemic is killing thousands in the Russian capital. According to one theory it is simply the Irish famine fever, according to another it is the result of the consumption of horned rye, which the populace have been forced to consume for want of better food. The Berlin correspondent of The Times, however, telegraphs that it is the plague, with the well-known symptoms, dilated pupils, pestilential bubo, &c. It seems most probable that it is a new disease borne of hunger and crowding, fiercely epidemic, but not mortal to any very large per-tentage of those attacked. The march of the pest, if it really moves, will be very steadily watched, the Government having already instructed its agents in the North of Europe to telegraph information of its progress.
