From the Richmond Dispatch, 7/25/1854, p. 2, c. 4

HEALTH OF THE CITY. – We give below the number of interments at the Shockoe Hill Burying Ground, from the 19th to the 23d insts., inclusive, with the number of interments rom cholera each day. As a great deal has been said about “other cemeteries,” we take occasion to add that the prevailing “dysenteric disease” is confined almost exclusively to the poor laboring classes and negroes, more than nine-tenths of whom are interred at the “Shockoe Hill Cemetery.” That the disease has not assumed an epidemic form, we are fully satisfied; and that it is rapidly abating, is equally certain.

Number of White Interments.
Wednesday, July 19th              2
Thursday, July 20th                   5
Friday, July 21st                         6
Saturday, July 22d                     6
Saunday, July 23d                     4
Total in five days:                     23

Number of Negro Interments.
Wednesday, July 19th              8
Thursday, July 20th                  5
Friday, July 21st                        4
Saturday, July 22d                    4
Saunday, July 23d                    2
Total in five days:                    23

Number of White Cholera Interments
Wednesday, July 19th             1
Thursday, July 20th                 3
Friday, July 21st                       1
Saturday, July 22d                   3
Saunday, July 23d                   3
Total in five days:                   11

Number of Negro Cholera Interments.
Wednesday, July 19th            4
Thursday, July 20th                 2
Friday, July 21st                       2
Saturday, July 22d                   3
Saunday, July 23d                   1
Total in five days:                   12

By the above tables it will be seen that from the 19th to the 23d of July, inclusive, there were 46 interments. Of this number there were five white and six negro children under the age of twelve years. There were in the same time eleven white men and twelve negro men by cholera – making an average of four and three fifths, including white and black, in five days. What say the “alarmists” now about the epidemic? Does the above report show that cholera is on the increase, and that it is attacking all classes, without regard to habit or diet?

Our country friends need feel no alarm about visiting the city. There are just as safe here from disease, as any where else in the world, if prudent. Excesses produce diarrhea, and inattention causes it to run into cholera, in the country as well as every where else. We are now enjoying as pure atmosphere as can be found in the mountains – the weather is delightful – and the temperate, prudent portion of our community are not only free from “dysenteric diseases,” but from those fatal fevers which prevail in other portions of the State. The idea that the atmosphere is impregnated with cholera, at this time, is supremely ridiculous. Frequent thunder storms, and the presence of a vast amount of electricity in the air, prove the absurdity of such an assertion.

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