Some of the cultural attitudes, e.g. to the Turkish harem, are out-dated, but much of the day-to-day experience of life in a pandemic sounds extremely familiar...
WELSH LADY'S EXPERIENCE.
-
RAVAGES OF THE "FLU" IN SAN FRANCISCO.
-
A lady resident in Wales until a
few years ago, and who is now in
San Francisco, writes to friends here
giving details of the terrible rav-
ages of the influenza epidemic in that
far-away city. The following extract
from her letter will be of interest: -
"Have you got the Spanish flu very
bad? It is terrible here, funerals
going by all day and the ambulance
rushing about at all hours. All pic-
ture shows, theatres, schools and
churches are closed. Our meeting
room is closed. Doctors and nurses
are dying, and we are so short of
them because so many of them have
gone to France. I do not know what
we should do if it was not for the
Red Cross. They have had to let the
women out of prison to help nurse
the sick. We have lost more soldiers
through death in the training camps
than in France fighting. Every man,
woman and child has to wear a mask
of four-fold white muslin, which cov-
ers the mouth and nose, leaving noth-
ing but the eyes to be seen. We all
look as if we had just come out of a
Turkish harem. If a policeman
catches anyone without a mask, or
one not properly fixed, he runs them
in for 10 days, or 100 dollars fine
(£20.) All soldiers and sailors have
to wear them. They look so funny,
hundreds of them drilling with white
masks, and at night in the street cars
we look like a lot of ghosts, and do
not know our best friends. It is hard
on the girls and men in the stores:
they have to wear them all day. The
schools have been turned into hos-
pitals. All the bodies are cremated,
and the clothes which belonged to them
also. I think that was has
saved me up to now is my being so
much in the fresh air. I have a nice
sleeping porch in my cottage with
windows all round, of which I always
have one or two open at night. Most
of the windows have been taken out
of the street cars to give us plenty
of air. It is an awful plague. I have
got my clothes all ready in case I
have to be rushed off to the hospital."
