It will easily be seen that the greatest part of the tax collected from the hard earnings of seamen is used to enrich political favorites. I remained in this establishment about sixty days, during that time the yellow fever raged there violently, causing a number of deaths in the house. Many patients were brought there who were unable to walk or stand on their feet, and were most of them soon cured.
After I left the hospital I found some light employment for a few days, when I agreed to take another trip across the lake. Previous to my going on board of the vessel I returned to the hospital, where I had left some of my clothing, took with me such as I wanted, and left some of my heavy articles in charge of a sailor named Daniel Dunn, with whom I had formed a short acquaintance in the hospital, and proceeded over the lake, where we remained a few days, and then returned to the city. On my return I found the cholera had broken out and was raging to such an alarming degree that the inhabitants were terror-struck. The returns of deaths were over two hundred per day. Laborers wages for digging in the church burying ground was seven dollars per day. Not being able to procure laborers sufficient to dig single graves, they dug canals about one hundred rods in length, of sufficient depth to place three coffins one above the other, the water in the bottom of it being about eighteen inches deep. All graves dug in New Orleans are half filled with water before the coffins are deposited in them.
The morning after my return I proceeded to the hospital to see after my clothing. On visiting the building I was much surprised on walking through many of the rooms without seeing a living soul. In the back yard I found eight or ten dead bodies laying on the ground in a putrid state. I then searched the upper stories, and in a room called the small-pox ward, I found one dead body laying on a bed covered with a woollen blanket, in a very putrid state, the offensive gas rising through the blanket like a dense fog. Some few were still alive, but suffering for want of attendance. On descending the stairs I met the assistant physician of the hospital, and asked him the cause of this great neglect of the few who were still living. He told me that Doctor M'Farlane, the proprietor, was very sick, and that the cook, steward, washer woman, and the black man who conveyed the corpses to the grave, were all dead, and that they could not procure any assistance. He asked me if I would try to hire some help for him. I told him that I would use my best exertions to procure him some, but if I could not obtain any I would assist him myself. I then left him and returned to my lodgings. Just before I left my boarding house to visit the hospital I heard one of the boarders, a journeyman hatter, who had been on a drunken frolic for some days, say that he had spent all his money and had not enough left to get his bitters that morning. Knowing that the want of money in such circumstances stimulate men to undertake unpleasant jobs sooner than go without their bitters, I proposed his going to work with me at the hospital, and rendering the doctor all the assistance in our power, which he readily agreed to. When we arrived at the place I introduced the doctor to the hatter. After the introduction was over my partner showed a great anxiety to fix on the price of our day's work, which was soon settled at five dollars each. The bargain being closed we were presented with some antidote, which we were ordered to snuff up our noses.
About this time three or four carts arrived at the door, when we were requested to assist in carrying out the few sick persons that remained in the building, which we found to be only sixteen, being all that were left alive out of about sixty inmates that I left there some ten days before.
The doctor showed us a number of rough boxes, called coffins, which were placed in the back yard. Many of them were made very wide, that they might hold two dead bodies. He requested us to harness up a poor old half-starved horse, which we found on the premises. After a long search we found the old harness scattered about the yard, which we gathered up, both of us being ignorant of the way of putting it together. After a long consultation we placed it on the horse's back, which was so sore that he trembled badly during the operation. After we had rigged him and the cart, we agreed to take on one of the double coffins for the first load. We opened one of them and placed a large body in it, and then hunted for a small one to crowd into the same box; when we had accomplished this we attempted to lift the double coffin on to the cart; finding that we were not able to accomplish it we were obliged to roll it on. I asked the hatter if he would drive the horse to the grave-yard, telling him I was unacquainted with that employment. He told me he was a stranger to that business, and insisted upon it that I must be the driver. I mounted the cart and proceeded towards the burying ground, on the road we found the mud so deep that the cart wheels buried themselves nearly up to the hubs. After driving nearly a mile we arrived at the Catholic burying ground, where we found a long canal and twenty or thirty men employed in digging and receiving dead bodies. Before our arrival there, a board burst off from the coffin, which caused one arm to hang out. The Irish laborers employed there commenced a quarrel with us, swearing that they would be the death of us if we brought any more coffins there in that situation, and we found some difficulty in prevailing upon them to receive the present one. They at last agreed to help lift it off the cart. It was then placed in the canal, where the water was about two feet deep, two men stood upon it until they put another coffin on the top of it, when they placed the third one on the top of the second one, making the tier three deep, laying the coffins crossways in the canal. When one tier was finished they hove large quantities of lime upon it and commenced another.
We now returned to the hospital and took in two more bodies, enclosing them in single coffins. This time we found a number of chickens busily employed in the hospital yard picking maggots out of the eyes and ears of the putrid bodies laying on the ground in the yard. The hatter and myself had a long consultation about handling the putrid carcases, and agreed between ourselves to pick out the soundest of them first. We noticed some cartmen drawing a number of loads of wood and depositing them on a vacant lot of ground near the hospital. A report was circulated that the Mayor of the city had ordered the building to be burned down that night. We proceeded back to the grave-yard, where we met with a more peaceable reception. On our return we found the fowls still busily engaged on the dead bodies, which had become more putrid during our short absence. This was one of the most unpleasant scenes I ever witnessed. We stopped on our way and took some refreshments, and then conveyed two more loads to the burying ground, carrying two at each load.
About sunset we unharnessed our old horse and put him in his place. Having satisfied our employer we took our discharge. We agreed between ourselves to stop at the hospital a short time and see what disposal was to be made of the remaining dead bodies. Soon after sunset some eight or ten men made their appearance and took up an old door and bored one or two holes through it, and putting a rope through the holes, rolled two of the putrid bodies upon it, and then took hold of the rope and dragged it to a vacant lot near the hospital, which process they continued until they had gathered them all into one heap, when they went to the various rooms and took all the beds and bedsteads containing the dead bodies, and carried them into the same yard and deposited them on the putrid heap; they next broke down the fence to more readily kindle the fire on this offensive mass, when they piled on the three cords of wood which the Mayor had sent there for that purpose, set it on fire, and consumed the whole of it.