No. 382.
Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Fish.
St. Petersburg, July 12, 1872. (Received July 30.)
Sir: I regret to inform you that the cholera has made its appearance both in this place and in Cronstadt. It has gradually worked its way up here from the southwest of Russia, where it has been raging with great violence for the past month. Kief has suffered severely, some two thousand persons having died there.
It has been at Kief that the cholera has made its first appearance for now three years. This is thought to be owing to changes in the direction taken by the Persian trade in consequence of the new railways, and to the immense numbers of pilgrims which congregate there from all [Page 493] parts of Russia. It is no doubt aggravated by the almost total absence of sanitary regulations on the drains and cess-pools, which are constructed in a very primitive and unhealthy manner.
In addition to the cholera the small-pox is epidemic in St. Petersburg, there being now more than twenty new cases daily, all of an aggravated form.
The cattle-pest has also made its appearance, accompanied by great mortality, in the neighboring provinces of Tver and Novgorod.
I am, &c.,
Chargé d’Affaires ad int.