No. 3.
Mr. Hanna to
Mr. Bayard.
Buenos Ayres, December 16, 1886. (Received January 25, 1887.)
Sir: Referring to my No. 58, under date of the 3d instant, I may add the cholera is on a steady increase here, and that it has assumed more deadly features. Thirty-six new cases were reported to the board of public assistance of Buenos Ayres yesterday, more than half of which died in a very few hours. The worst of all lies in the fact of its rapid spread throughout the outside provinces. This dreadful disease overleaps the prudence of quarantine, and breaks down every line of military cordon. It is still raging fiercely at Rosario, and has recently broken out at Cordoba, Tucuman, Laraté, Bahia Blanca, and Azul, and, worse than that, has gained a foothold on the island of Martin Garcia, where 5,000 terrified immigrants are detained in quarantine, without sufficient food or shelter. We have great fears of appalling results there.
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Two persons connected with this legation showed symptoms of attack last night, but were almost instantly relieved by the administration of chlorodine. * * *
In cases of death the bodies not cremated are sent to the general burying ground, usually wrapped in sheets saturated with bichloride of mercury, in coffins filled with lime.
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I have, etc.,