Arrival of a cholera ship from Hamburg. 105 Dead.

25 Jan 1868

Arrival of a cholera ship from Hamburg. 105 Dead. New York newspapers report that the Hamburg ship "Leibnitz", under Capt. Bornhold, arrived late Saturday night after a 60-day trip. During the trip cholera broke out and claimed 105 people, of which 70 adults and 35 children between the ages of 1 to 12 years. Presently there are still 35 sick on board the hospital ship to which they were immediately brought after their arrival.

The ship itself is under quarantine. No new cases broke out during the last ten days of the trip. Based on the ship's list, among the 105 victims of the epidemic were 91 Mecklenburgers, while the other 14 were from other countries. During the trip 8 children were born and from these 8 innocent creations four died immediately. Only one member of the ship's crew died, the cook. It seems that this time, unlike the last cholera ship, whole families didn't die, as the same last names weren't repeated in the list of victims. Such a terrible calamity as this one hasn't happened on a ship for a long time.

1 Feb 1868

The Slomann Shipping Company from Hamburg has earned its disrepute. After investiagating the cholera deaths on the ship "Leibnitz", that left Hamburg on 2 November sailing under Capt. Bernhold and only arrived in New York on 11 January, it turns out that unsanitary conditions and poor provisioning and subsistence ship were responsible for 108 deaths. Therefore, 100 times guilt for death should be assigned to the shipping company that, from greed and avarice, didn't properly provision the ship. It was proven later through eyewitness accounts that each person received merely one-half pint of water per day while the ship took a very southern course so that the temperature for entire days registered 94 degrees. The unsanitary situation on the ship was evidently incredible and mainly the cause for the outbreak of the disease. Also there was no doctor on board, although there were 544 passengers.

In general it was substantiated that for years more people die on Slomann ships than on the Bremen or Liverpool ships and the warning against the former well intentioned.

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