’Flu Worse Than Bubonic
p. 17 · Read in the full issue
Plague
Oct. 9, 1944.
OUR schools, theatres and honky-tonks still remain closed because of our twin epidemics—dengue and influenza.
If you have read John Masefield’s South American romance, “Odtaa,” the signi ficance of the title represents precisely our problems at Tahiti. The title “Odtaa” signifies “One damned thing after another.”
Odtaa enter in train, from passing ships, into the foul incubation of the honky-tonks, and emerge as epidemics.
And it will so continue here and else where, until influenza, in its various forms, shall be placed on the list with small-pox. bubonic plague, cholera, and yellow fever, where it properly belongs, influenza has killed more people than have all the other “quarantined” diseases combined.
This is an example of the extraordinary mental attitude of the public toward that which is familiar or otherwise.
For instance, during pre-war years, in the United States, the slaughter by motor cars maintained an annual total of 40,000.
This became familiar, and no one was horrified/ or even disturbed by the ghastly mass-murder. Had, however, a band of Esquimaux invaded San Francisco and killed 400 Chinamen, the newspapers of the land would have shrieked the “ter rible holocaust” as a major tragedy.
So. throughout the world, influenza slays its millions, while bubonic plague— a name of horror —kills its hundreds.
Horrors On Tahiti
IN the procession of Odtaa, also, are dregs of the wine press from inglori ous vineyards, that outrage the palate: the cold south wind that stirs to pernicious activity the filaria sleeping in our lymphatics: the wood-choppers who, destroying our forests, threaten our water sunply; fishermen who refuse to fish unless they receive for their catch its weight in gold; the speeding motor car that passes at a distance of a quarter of an inch when we are abroad on the highway; our young women imitating the costume and manners of Hollywood blondes.
Verily, with this last, our cup of sor row is full and running over; for we remember the charmingly modest cos tumes and the gracious good manners of their mothers and grandmothers.
Our young Tahitians are not, indeed, Clown Worshippers; but some clown cos tume or affectation will, now and again, attract? them; and another Odtaa is upon us for a season.