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The Location of Quarantine

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THE LOCATION OF QUARANTINE.

Our Albany correspondence has not reached us this morning, but from what we learn from those of our citizens who have visited the Capital, it seems that the State authorities are disposed to "let up" on the Sepoys of Staten Island,1 and to inflict on this County the curse and pest of yellow fever hospitals. The bill which seems likely to pass, in the shape in which it originally came before the Legislature, gave power for the location of Quarantine anywhere on Long Island. But this trap being detected by the vigilance of Dr. Tuthill,2 and public attention drawn to it, Senator Spinola caused the bill to be amended so as to exempt "Long Island and Coney Island" from the visitation of the nuisance which the Staten Island people so summarily removed from their shores.3

The plan now contemplated by the framers of the bill, we are assured, is to locate the Hospitals of Barren Island, and the store houses on Sandy Hook. Barren Island, it will be contended, is not a part of Long Island, and hence Mr. Spinola's exemption of Long Island does not affect it. Barren Island lies off Flatlands, is surrounded by salt marshes, depositories of stagnant water, holding in solution the pabulum on which the virus brought from Southern climes feeds and spreads, and which would be blown by southerly winds directly landward, over the flats, to Flatlands, Flatbush and Brooklyn, were the Hospitals located on Barren Island. We trust therefore that such contingency will be prevented, by adding Barren Island to Long Island and Coney Island in the list of localities exempted from the possible future location of the Quarantine buildings.


Notes:

1. "Sepoy" refers to an Indian soldier employed in a European (esp. British) military. [back]

2. Franklin Tuthill (1822–1865) was a doctor and legislator in New York. [back]

3. Francis B. Spinola (1821–1891) was a lawyer, a Brooklyn alderman, a U.S. senator, and a brigadier general in the Union Army. [back]

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