never repudiated. South Carolina, it should in justice be said, through her Legislature of 1804, receded from her repudiation, and fulfilled her original contract.

Mr. Miller, the partner of Whitney, died, poor and embarrassed, on the 7th of December, 1803. At the term of the United States District Court for Georgia, held at Savannah in December, 1807, Mr. Whitney obtained a verdict against the pirates on his invention; his patent being now in the last year of its existence.

Mr. Whitney's patent expired in 1808, leaving him a poorer man, doubtless, than tho he had never listened to the suggestions of his friend Mrs. Greene, and undertaken the invention of a machine, by means of which the annual production of cotton in the Southern States has been augmented by from some five or ten thousand bales in 1793 to over five millions of bales, or one million tons, in 1859;* this amount being at least threefourths in weight, and seven-eighths in value, of all the cotton produced on the globe. To say that this invention was worth one thousand millions of dollars to the Slave States of this country is to place a very moderate estimate on its value. Mr. Whitney petitioned Congress, in 1812, for a renewal of his patent, setting forth the costly and embarrassing struggles he had been forced to make in defense of his right, and observing that he had been unable to obtain any decision on the merits of his claim until he had been eleven years in the law, and until thirteen of the fourteen years' life

The cotton crop in recent years has been: 1899, 11,235,383 bales; in 1909, 13,828,846 bales; in 1910, 10,656,961 bales.

time of his patent had expired. But the immense value of his invention stood directly in the way of any such acknowledgment of its merits and his righteous claims as the renewal he sought would have involved. Some liberal members from the cotton-growing region favored his petition, but a majority of the Southrons fiercely opposed it, and it was lost.

In 1798, Mr. Whitney, despairing of ever achieving a competence from the proceeds of his cotton-gin, engaged in the manufacture of arms, near New Haven; and his rare capacity for this or any similar undertaking, joined with his invincible perseverance and energy, was finally rewarded with success. He was a most indefatigable worker; one of the first in his manufactory in the morning, and the last to leave it at night; able to make any implement or machine he required, or to invent a new one when that might be needed; and he ultimately achieved a competency. He made great improvements in the manufacture of firearms-improvements that have since been continued and perfected, until the American rifled musket of our day, made at the National Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, is doubtless the most effective and perfect weapon known to mankind. In 1817, Mr Whitney, now fifty-two years old, found himself fully relieved from pecuniary embarrassments and the harassing anxieties resulting therefrom. He was now married to Miss Henrietta F. Edwards, daughter of the Hon. Pierpont Edwards, United States District Judge for Connecticut; and four children, a son and three Springfield rifles came into general use during the Civil

War.

daughters, were born to him in the next five years. In September, 1822, he was attacked by a dangerous and painful disease, which, with alternations of terrible suffering and comparative ease, preyed upon him until January 8, 1826, when he died, not quite sixty years of age.

THE YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC

IN PHILADELPHIA

(1793)

BY MATTHEW CAREY1

The consternation of the people of Philadelphia, at this period, was carried beyond all bounds. Dismay and affright were visible in almost every person's countenance. Most of those who could, by any means, make it convenient, fled from the city. Of those who remained, many shut themselves up in their houses, being afraid to walk the streets. The smoke of tobacco being regarded as a preventive, many persons, even women and small boys, had cigars almost constantly in their mouths. Others, placing full confidence in garlic, chewed it almost the whole day; some kept it in their pockets and shoes. Many were afraid to allow the barbers or hair-dressers to come near them, as instances had occurred of some of them having shaved the dead, and many having engaged as

1 From Carey's "Miscellaneous Essays," published in 1830. Carey was born in Dublin in 1760, and died in Philadelphia in 1839. He was a noted publicist and founded in Philadelphia a large publishing business. He also founded a newspaper, receiving financial aid from Lafayette. Among his friends was Franklin.

Philadelphia, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, suffered from two epidemics of yellow fever-one in 1793, which caused the death of 4,000 persons, and one in 1798, when 5,000 died. In the latter year the population which remained in the city during the plague was only 30,000.

bleeders. Some, who carried their caution pretty far, bought lancets for themselves, not daring to allow themselves to be bled with the lancets of the bleeders. Many houses were scarcely a moment in the day free from the smell of gunpowder, burned tobacco, niter, sprinkled vinegar, etc.

Some of the churches were almost deserted, and others wholly closed. The coffee-house was shut up, as was the city library, and most of the public offices-three, out of the four, daily papers were discontinued, as were some of the others. Many devoted no small portion of their time to purifying, scouring, and whitewashing their rooms. Those who ventured abroad had handkerchiefs or sponges, impregnated with vinegar or camphor, at their noses, or smelling-bottles full of thieves' vinegar. Others carried pieces of tarred rope in their hands or pockets, or camphor bags tied round their necks. The corpses of the most respectable citizens, even of those who had not died of the epidemic, were carried to the grave on the shafts of a chair, the horse driven by a negro, unattended by a friend or relation, and without any sort of ceremony. People uniformly and hastily shifted their course at the sight of a hearse coming toward them. Many never walked on the foot-path, but went into the middle of the streets, to avoid being infected in passing houses wherein people had died. Acquaintances and friends avoided each other in the streets, and only signified their regard by a cold nod.

The old custom of shaking hands fell into such general disuse, that many shrunk back with affright at even the offer of the hand. A person with a crape, or any appearance of mourning, was shunned like a viper. And many valued them