Unofficial letters of an official's wife [by] Edith Moses.

AN OFFICIAL'S WIFE

We are doing many things just now that seem like
overprecaution. Of course, we eat only tinned
vegetables and well-done meats, but in addition we
toast all the bread, heat all the plates, and scald all
the glasses before every meal. We open a fresh tin
of cream each meal, and have concluded to buy
tinned butter. The water is distilled, and the bottles in which we keep it sterilized. This means continuous oversight, and at night I am so tired that I
have no time to let my imagination run riot.
The Commission is holding extra sessions, and
everyone is working to prevent the spread of the
disease, and get the city in as sanitary a condition
as possible. It has been divided into districts, in
each of which there is a chief surgeon, under whom
are doctors, inspectors, police, and helpers. There
is a house-to-house inspection, and the nipa shacks
in which deaths occur are to be burned, because the
nipa hut cannot be properly disinfected. The government will pay the owners for the property destroyed. A detention camp has been built outside
the city, where it is proposed to detain the inmates
of the houses where a death from cholera has occurred. This quarantine camp is regarded with
suspicion by the natives, who imagine all kinds of
horrors await them there. It is difficult to manage
the lowest classes, who are the ones at present in
the greatest danger. They instinctively hide their
sick, and do everything to avoid a quarantine. Even
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