THE WRECKED HOUSES BURNING AT THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD BRIDGE.THE WRECKED HOUSES BURNING AT THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD BRIDGE.
"I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up the loss of life would have been any less. They would have floated a little further with the same certain death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to have reached the bridge in order to blow it out, for the waters came so fast that no one could have done it.
"I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge at the same time.
"I offered a man $20 to row me across the river, but could get no one to go, and finally had to build a boat and get across that way."
It required some exercise of acrobatic agility to get into or out of the town. A slide, a series of frightful tosses from side to side, a run and you had crossed the narrow rope bridge which spanned the chasm dug by the waters between the stone bridge and Johnstown. Crossing the bridge was an exciting task. Yet many women accomplished it rather than remain in Johnstown. The bridge pitched like a ship in a storm. Within two inches of your feet rushed the muddy waters of the Conemaugh. There were no ropes to guide one and creeping was more convenient than walking.
One had to cross the Conemaugh at a second point in order to reach Johnstown proper. This was accomplished by a skiff ferry. The ferryman clung to a rope and pulled the load over.
Confusion Worse Confounded.
It is impossible to describe the appearance of Main street. Whole houses have been swept down this onestreet and become lodged. The wreck is piled as high as the second story windows. The reporter could step from the wreck into the auditorium of the Opera House. The ruins consists of parts of houses, trees, saw logs, reels from the wire factory. Many houses have their side walls and roofs torn up, and you can walk directly into what had been second story bedrooms, or go in by way of the top. Further up town a raft of logs lodged in the street and did great damage.
The best way to get an idea of the wreck is to take a number of children's blocks, place them closely together and draw your hand through them.
At the commencement of the wreckage, which is at the opening of the valley of the Conemaugh, one can look up the valley for miles and not see a house. Nothing stands but an old woolen mill.
As Seen by an Eye-Witness.
Charles Luther is the name of the boy who stood on an adjacent elevation and saw the whole flood. He said he heard a grinding noise far up the valley, and looking up he could see a dark line moving slowly toward him. He saw that it was made up of houses. On they came like the hand of a giant clearing off his tables. High in the air would be tossed a log or beam, which fell back with a crash. Down the valley it moved sedately and across the little mountain city. For ten minutes nothing but moving houses were seen, and then the waters came with a roar and a rush. This lasted for two hours, and then it began to flow more steadily.
The pillaging of the houses in Johnstown is something awful to contemplate and describe. It makes one feel almost ashamed to call himself a man and know that others who bear the same name have converted themselves into human vultures, preying on the dead. Men are carrying shotguns and revolvers, and woe betide the stranger who looks even suspiciously at any article. Goods of great value were being sold in town to-day for a drink of whiskey.
A supply store has been established in the Fourth ward in Johnstown. A line of men, women and children, extending for a square, waited patiently to have their wants supplied.
An Improvised Morgue.
The school house has been converted into a morgue, and the dead are being buried from this place. A hospital has been opened near by and is full of patients. One of the victims was removed from a piece of wreckage in which he had been imprisoned three days. His leg was broken and his face badly bruised. He was delirious when rescued.
In some places it is said the railroad tracks were scooped out to a depth of twenty feet. A train of cars, all loaded, were run on the Conemaugh bridge. They, with the bridge, now lie in the wreckage at this point. The Pennsylvania Railroad loses thirty-five engines and many cars.
Fire Still Raging.
The cling-cling-clang of the engines has a homelike sound. The fire has spread steadily all day and theupper part of the drift is burning to-night. The fire engine is stationed on the river bank and a line of hose laid far up the track to the coal mine. The flames to-night are higher than ever before, and by its light long lines of the curious can be seen along the banks.
FIREMEN ON DUTY AT THE BRIDGE.FIREMEN ON DUTY AT THE BRIDGE.
The natural gas has been shut off, owing to the many leaks in Johnstown. No fire is allowed in thecity. The walls of many houses are falling. Their crash can be heard across the river, where the newspaper men are located. In the walk through the town to-day the word "danger," could be noticed, painted by the rescuers on the walls.
Cremated.
One of the Catholic churches in the town was burned on Saturday. A house drifted down against it and set it on fire. A funeral was being held at the church at the time of the flood. The congregation deserted the church and the body was burned with the building. Two large trees passed entirely through a brick Catholic church located near the centre of the town. The building still stands, but is a total wreck.
Colonel Norman M. Smith, of Pittsburgh, while returning from Johnstown after a visit to Adjutant General Hastings, was knocked from the temporary bridge into the river and carried down stream a couple of hundred yards before he was able to swim ashore. He was not hurt.
A Lucky Escape.
O.J. Palmer, travelling salesman for a Pittsburgh meat house, was on the ill-fated day express, one car of which was washed away. He narrowly escaped drowning, and tells a horrible tale of his experience on that occasion. The engineer, the fireman and himself, when they saw the flood coming, got upon the top of the car, and when the coach was carried away they caught the driftwood, and fortunately it was carried near the shore and they escaped to the hills. Mr.Palmer walked a distance of twenty miles around the flooded district to a nearby railroad station on this side.
Freaks of the Disaster.
A novel scene was witnessed yesterday near Johnstown borough. Some women who managed to escape from the town proper had to wear men's clothes, as their own had been torn off by the flood.
The force of the flood can be estimated by the fact that it carried three cars a mile and a half and the tender of an engine weighing twelve tons was carried fourteen miles down the river. A team of horses which was standing on Main street just before the flood was found a mile and a quarter below the town yesterday.
The damage to the Cambria Iron Works was not so great as at first reported. The ends of the blooming mill and open hearth furnace buildings were crushed in by the force of the flood. The water rushed through the mill and tore a great pile of machinery from its fastenings and caused other damage. The Bessemer steel mill is almost a ruin. The rolling and wire mills and the six blast furnaces were not much damaged. This morning the company put a large force of men at work and are making strenuous efforts to have at least a portion of the plant in operation within a few weeks. This has given encouragement to the stricken people of Johnstown, and they now seem to have some hope, although so many of their loved ones have met their death. The mill yard,with its numerous railroad tracks, is nothing but a waste. Large piles of pig metal were scattered in every direction. All the loose débris is being gathered into heaps and burned.
Hurled to a Place of Safety.
A pitiful sight was that of an old, gray haired man named Norn. He was walking around among the mass of débris, looking for his family. He had just sat down to eat his supper when the crash came, and the whole family, consisting of wife and eight children, were buried beneath the collapsed house. He was carried down the river to the railroad bridge on a plank. Just at the bridge a cross-tie struck him with such force that he was shot clear upon the pier and was safe. But he is a mass of bruises and cuts from head to foot. He refused to go to the hospital until he found the bodies of his loved ones.
Heroism in Bright Relief.
A Paul Revere lies somewhere among the dead. Who he is is now known, and his ride will be famous in history. Mounted on a grand, big bay horse, he came riding down the pike which passes through Conemaugh to Johnstown, like some angel of wrath of old, shouting his warning: "Run for your lives to the hills! Run to the hills!"
A Cloud of Ruin.
The people crowded out of their houses along the thickly settled streets awe-struck and wondering. No one knew the man, and some thought he was a maniac and laughed. On and on, at a deadly pace, herode, and shrilly rang out his awful cry. In a few moments, however, there came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down the narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, overturning, crashing—annihilating the weak and the strong. It was the charge of the flood, wearing its coronet of ruin and devastation, which grew at every instant of its progress. Forty feet high, some say, thirty according to others, was this sea, and it travelled with a swiftness like that which lay in the heels of Mercury.
On and on raced the rider, on and on rushed the wave. Dozens of people took heed of the warning and ran up to the hills.
Poor, faithful rider, it was an unequal contest. Just as he turned to cross the railroad bridge the mighty wall fell upon him, and horse, rider and bridge all went out into chaos together.
A few feet further on several cars of the Pennsylvania Railroad train from Pittsburgh were caught up and hurried into the caldron, and the heart of the town was reached.
The hero had turned neither to right nor left for himself, but rode on to death for his townsmen. He was overwhelmed by the current at the bridge and drowned. A party of searchers found the body of this man and his horse. He was still in the saddle. In a short time the man was identified as Daniel Periton, son of a merchant of Johnstown, a young man of remarkable courage. He is no longer the unknown hero, for the name of Daniel Periton will live in fameas long as the history of this calamity is remembered by the people of this country.
A Devoted Operator.
Mrs. Ogle, the manager of the Western Union, who died at her post, will go down in history as a heroine of the highest order. Notwithstanding the repeated notifications which she received to get out of reach of the approaching danger, she stood by the instruments with unflinching loyalty and undaunted courage, sending words of warning to those in danger in the valley below. When every station in the path of the coming torrent had been warned she wired her companion at South Fork, "This is my last message," and as such it shall always be remembered as her last words on earth, for at that very moment the torrent engulfed her and bore her from her post on earth to her post of honor in the great beyond.
Another Hero.
A telegraph operator at the railroad station above Mineral Point, which is just in the gorge a short distance below the dam, and the last telegraph station above Conemaugh, had seen the waters rising, and had heard of the first break in the dam. Two hours before the final break came he sent a message to his wife at Mineral Point to prepare for the flood. It read: "Dress the three children in their best Sunday clothes. Gather together what valuables you can easily carry and leave the house. Go to the stable on the hillside. Stay there until the water reaches it;then run to the mountain. The dam is breaking. The flood is coming. Lose no time."
His wife showed the message to her friends, but they laughed at her. They even persuaded her to not heed her husband's command. The wife went home and about her work. Meanwhile the telegraph operator was busy with his ticker. Down to Conemaugh he wired the warning. He also sent it on to Johnstown, then he ticked on, giving each minute bulletins of the break. As the water came down he sent message after message, telling its progress. Finally came the flood. He saw houses and bodies swept past him. His last message was: "The water is all around me; I cannot stay longer, and, for God's sake, all fly." Then he jumped out of his tower window and ran up the mountain just in time to save himself. A whole town came past as he turned and looked. Great masses of houses plunged up. He saw people on roofs yelling and crying, and then saw collisions of houses, which caused the buildings to crush and crumble like paper.
Racing with Death.
All the time he felt that his family were safe. But it was not so with them. When the roar of approaching water came the people of Mineral Point thought of their warning. The wife gathered her children and started to run. As she went she forgot her husband's advice to go to the mountain and fled down the street to the lowlands. Suddenly she remembered she had left the key of her home in the door. She took thechildren and ran back. As she neared the house the water came and forced them up between the two houses. The only outlet was toward the mountain, and she ran that way with her children. The water chased her, but she and the children managed to clamber up far enough to escape. Thus it was that an accident saved their lives. Only three houses and a school-house were saved at Mineral Point.
A Dangerous Venture.
One of the most thrilling incidents of the disaster was the performance of A.J. Leonard, whose family reside in Morrellville. He was at work, and hearing that his house had been swept away determined at all hazards to ascertain the fate of his family. The bridges having been carried away he constructed a temporary raft, and clinging to it as close as a cat to the side of a fence, he pushed his frail craft out into the raging torrent and started on a chase which, to all who were watching, seemed to mean an embrace in death.
Heedless of cries "For God's sake go back, you will be drowned." "Don't attempt it," he persevered. As the raft struck the current he pulled off his coat and in his shirt sleeves braved the stream. Down plunged the boards and down went Leonard, but as it arose he was seen still clinging. A mighty shout arose from the throats of the hundreds on the banks, who were now deeply interested, earnestly hoping he would successfully ford the stream.
Down again went his bark, but nothing, it seemed, could shake Leonard off. The craft shot up in the airapparently ten or twelve feet, and Leonard stuck to it tenaciously. Slowly but surely he worked his boat to the other side of the stream, and after what seemed an awful suspense he finally landed amid ringing cheers of men, women and children.
The last seen of him he was making his way down a mountain road in the direction of the spot where his house had lately stood. His family consisted of his wife and three children.
A Thrilling Escape.
Henry D. Thomas, a well-known dry goods merchant, tells the following story: "I was caught right between a plank and a stone wall and was held in that position for a long time. The water came rushing down and forced the plank against my chest. I felt as if it were going through me, when suddenly the plank gave way, and I fell into the water. I grabbed the plank quickly and in some unaccountable way managed to get the forepart of my body on it, and in that way I was carried down the stream. All around me were people struggling and drowning, while bodies floated like corks on the water. Some were crying for help, others were praying aloud for mercy and a few were singing as if to keep up their courage.
A large raft which went by bore a whole family, and they were singing, 'Nearer my God to Thee.' In the midst of their song the raft struck a large tree and went to splinters. There were one or two wild cries and then silence. The horror of that time is with me day and night. It would have driven a weak-minded person crazy.
"The true condition of things that night can never be adequately described in words. The water came down through a narrow gorge, which in places was hardly two hundred feet wide. The broken dam was at an elevation of about five hundred feet above Johnstown. The railroad bridge across the Conemaugh River is at the lower side of Johnstown, and the river is joined there by another mountain stream from the northeast. It was here that the débris collected and caught fire, and I doubt if it will ever be known how many perished there. The water came down with the speed of a locomotive. The people there are absolutely paralyzed—so much so that they speak of their losses in a most indifferent way. I heard two men in conversation. One said: 'Well, I lost a wife and three children.' 'That's nothing,' said the other; 'I lost a wife and six children.'"
The Sudden Break.
A man named Maguire was met on his way from South Fork to Johnstown. He said he was standing on the edge of the lake when the walls burst. The waters were rising all day and were on a level with a pile of dirt which he said was above the walls of the dam. All of a sudden it burst with a report like a cannon and the water started down the mountain side, sweeping before it the trees as if they were chips. Bowlders were rolled down as if they were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake was emptied in an hour.
At the time there were about forty men at work up there, building a new draining system at the lake for Messrs. Parke and Van Buren. They did all they could to try and avert the disaster by digging a sluiceway on one side to ease the pressure on the dam, but their efforts were fruitless.
"It was about half-past two o'clock when the water reached the top of the dam. At first it was just a narrow white stream trickling down the face of the dam, soon its proportions began to grow with alarming rapidity, and in an extremely short space of time a volume of water a foot in thickness was passing over the top of the dam.
"There had been little rain up to dark. Whatever happened in the way of a cloud burst took place during the night. When the workmen woke in the morning the lake was very full and was rising at the rate of a foot an hour.
"When at two o'clock the water began to flow over the dam, the work of undermining began. Men were sent three or four times during the day
To Warn the People
below of their danger. At three o'clock there was a sound like tremendous and continued peals of thunder. The earth seemed to shake and vibrate beneath our feet.
"There was a rush of wind, the trees swayed to and fro, the air was full of fine spray or mist: then looking down just in front of the dam we saw trees, rocks and earth shot up into mid-air in great columns. Itseemed as though some great unseen force was at work wantonly destroying everything; then the great wave, foaming, boiling and hissing, dashing clouds of spray hundreds of feet in height as it came against some obstruction in the way of its mad rush, clearing everything away before it, started on its terrible death-dealing mission down the fatal valley."
Engineer Henry's Awful Race.
Engineer Henry, of the second section of the express train, No. 8, which was caught at Conemaugh, tells a thrilling story. His train was caught in the midst of the wave and were the only cars that were not destroyed. "It was an awful sight," he said. "I have often seen pictures of flood scenes, and I thought they were exaggerations, but what I witnessed last Friday changes my former belief. To see that immense volume of water, fully fifty feet high, rushing madly down the valley, sweeping everything before it, was a thrilling sight. It is engraved indelibly on my memory. Even now I can see that mad torrent carrying death and destruction before it.
"The second section of No. 8, on which I was, was due at Johnstown about 10.15 in the morning. We arrived there safely, and were told to follow the first section. When we arrived at Conemaugh the first section and the mail were there. Washouts further up the mountain prevented our going, so we could do nothing but sit around and discuss the situation. The creek at Conemaugh was swollen high, almost overflowing. The heavens were pouring rain, but this didnot prevent nearly all the inhabitants of the town from gathering along its banks. They watched
The Waters Go Dashing
by and wondered whether the creek could get much higher. But a few inches more and it would overflow its banks. There seemed to be a feeling of uneasiness among the people. They seemed to fear that something awful was going to happen. Their suspicions were strengthened by the fact that warning had come down the valley for the people to be on the lookout. The rains had swelled everything to the bursting point. The day passed slowly, however.
"Noon came and went, and still nothing happened. We could not proceed, nor could we go back, as the tracks about a mile below Conemaugh had been washed away, so there was nothing for us to do but to wait and see what would come next.
"Some time after 3 o'clock Friday afternoon I went into the train despatcher's office to learn the latest news. I had not been there long when I heard a fierce whistling from an engine away up the mountain. Rushing out I found dozens of men standing around. Fear had blanched every cheek. The loud and continued whistling had made every one feel that something serious was going to happen. In a few moments I could hear a train rattling down the mountain. About five hundred yards above Conemaugh the tracks make a slight curve and we could not see beyond this. The suspense was something awful. We did not know what was coming, but no one could getrid of the thought that something was wrong at the dam.
"Our suspense was not very long, however. Nearer and nearer the train came, the thundering sound still accompanying it. There seemed to be something behind the train, as there was a dull, rumbling sound which I knew did not come from the train. Nearer and nearer it came; a moment more and it would reach the curve. The next instant there burst upon our eyes a sight that made every heart stand still. Rushing around the curve, snorting and tearing, came an engine and several gravel cars. The train appeared to be putting forth every effort to go faster. Nearer it came, belching forth smoke and whistling long and loud. But
The Most Terrible Sight
was to follow. Twenty feet behind came surging along a mad rush of water fully fifty feet high. Like the train, it seemed to be putting forth every effort to push along faster. Such an awful race we never before witnessed. For an instant the people seemed paralyzed with horror. They knew not what to do, but in a moment they realized that a second's delay meant death to them. With one accord they rushed to the high lands a few hundred feet away. Most of them succeeded in reaching that place and were safe.
AN ENGINEER'S TERRIFIC RACE IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH.AN ENGINEER'S TERRIFIC RACE IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH.
"I thought of the passengers in my train. The second section of No. 8 had three sleepers. In these three cars were about thirty people, who rushed through the train crying to the others 'Save yourselves!' Then came a scene of the wildest confusion. Ladies and children shrieked and the men seemed terror-stricken. I succeeded in helping some ladies and children off the train and up to the highlands. Running back, I caught up two children and ran for my life to a higher place. Thank God, I was quicker than the flood! I deposited my load in safety on the high land just as it swept past us.
"For nearly an hour we stood watching the mad flood go rushing by. The water was full of débris. When the flood caught Conemaugh it dashed against the little town with a mighty crash. The water did not lift the houses up and carry them off, but crushed them one against the other and broke them up like so many egg shells. Before the flood came there was a pretty little town. When the waters passed on there was nothing but
Few Broken Boards
to mark the central portion of the city. It was swept as clean as a newly brushed floor. When the flood passed onward down the valley I went over to my train. It had been moved back about twenty yards, but it was not damaged. About fifty persons had remained in the train and they were safe. Of the three trains ours was the luckiest. The engines of both the others had been swept off the track and one or two cars in each train had met the same fate.
"What saved our train was the fact that just at the curve which I mentioned the valley spread out. The valley is six or seven hundred yards broad where ourtrain was standing. This, of course, let the floods pass out. It was only twenty feet high when it struck our train, which was about in the middle of the valley.
"This fact, together with the elevation of the track, was all that saved us. We stayed that night in the houses in Conemaugh that had not been destroyed. The next morning I started down the valley and by 4 o'clock in the afternoon had reached Conemaugh furnace, eight miles west of Johnstown. Then I got a team and came home.
"In my tramp down the valley I saw some awful sights. On the tree branches hung shreds of clothing torn from the unfortunates as they were whirled along in the terrible rush of the torrent. Dead bodies were lying by scores along the banks of the creeks. One woman I helped drag from the mud had tightly clutched in her hand a paper. We tore it out of her hand and found it to be a badly water-soaked photograph. It was probably a picture of the drowned woman."
Over the Bridge.
Frank McDonald, a railroad conductor, says: "I certainly think I saw 1,000 bodies go over the bridge. The first house that came down struck the bridge and at once took fire, and as fast as they came down they were consumed. I believe I am safe in saying I saw 1,000 bodies burn. It reminded me of a lot of flies on fly-paper struggling to get away, with no hope and no chance to save them. I have no idea that had the bridge been blown up the loss of life would have beenany less. They would have floated a little further with the same certain death. Then, again, it was impossible for any one to have reached the bridge in order to blow it up, for the waters came so fast that no one could have done it. I saw fifteen to eighteen bodies go over the bridge. At the same time I offered a man twenty dollars to row me across the river, but could get no one to go, and I finally had to build a boat and get across that way."
Nothing seems to have withstood the merciless sweep of the mighty on-rush of pent-up Conemaugh. As for the houses of the town a thousand of them lie piled up in a smouldering mass to the right of Conemaugh bridge.
At the present moment, away down in its terrible depths, this mass of torn and twisted timbers and dead humanity is slowly burning, and the light curling smoke that rises as high almost as the mountain, and the sickening smell that comes from the centre of this fearful funeral pile tell that the unseen fire is feeding on other fuel than the rafters and roofs that once sheltered the population of Johnstown.
A Ghastly Scene.
The mind is filled with horror at the supreme desolation that pervades the whole scene. It is small wonder that the pen cannot in the hands of the most skillful even pretend to convey one-hundredth part of what is seen and heard every hour in the day in this fearful place. At the present moment firemen and others are out on that ghastly aggregation of woodworkand human kind jammed against the unyielding mass of arched masonry.
Round them curls the white smoke from the smouldering interior of the heaped up houses of Johnstown. Every now and then the gleam of an axe and a group of stooping forms tell that another ghastly find has been made, and a whisper goes round among the hundreds of watchers that other bodies are being brought to light.
How many hundreds or thousands there are who found death by fire at this awful spot will never be known, and the people are already giving up hopes of ever reaching the knowledge of how their loved and lost ones met their doom, whether in the fierce, angry embrace of the waters of Conemaugh, or in the deadly grip of the fire fiend, who claimed the homes of Johnstown for his own above the fatal bridge.
Every hour it becomes more and more apparent that the exact number of lives lost will never be known. Up to the present time the disposition has been to under rather than overestimate the number of lives sacrificed.
A Mother Rescued by Her Daughter.
A daughter of John Duncan, superintendent of the Johnstown Street Car Company, had an awful struggle in rescuing her mother and baby sister. Mrs. Duncan and family had taken refuge on a roof, when a large log came floating down the river, striking the house with immense force, knocking Mrs. Duncan and daughter into the fast running river. Seeing what hadhappened, Alvania, her fifteen-year-old daughter, leaped into the water, and after a hard struggle landed both on the roof of the house.
The members of the Cambria Club tell of their battle for life in the following manner: They were about to sit down to dinner when they heard the crash, and knowing what had occurred they started for the attic just as the flood was upon them. When the members were assured of their safety they at once commenced saving others by grasping them as they floated by on tree tops, houses, etc. In this manner they saved seventy persons from death.
The Clock Stopped at 5.20.
One of the queerest sights in the centre of the town is a three-story brick residence standing with one wall, the others having disappeared completely, leaving the floors supported by the partitions. In one of the upper rooms can be seen a mantel with a lambrequin on it and a clock stopped at twenty minutes after five. In front of the clock is a lady's fan, though from the marks on the wall-paper the water has been over all these things.
In the upper part of the town, where the back water from the flood went into the valley with diminished force, there are many strange scenes. There the houses were toppled over one after another in a row, and left where they lay. One of them was turned completely over and stands with its roof on the foundations of another house and its base in the air. The owner came back, and getting into his house throughthe windows walked about on his ceiling. Out of this house a woman and her two children escaped safely and were but little hurt, although they were stood on their heads in the whirl. Every house has its own story. From one a woman shut up in her garret escaped by chopping a hole in the roof. From another a Hungarian named Grevins leaped to the shore as it went whirling past and fell twenty-five feet upon a pile of metal and escaped with a broken leg. Another is said to have come all the way from very near the start of the flood and to have circled around with the back water and finally landed on the flats at the city site, where it is still pointed out.
The accounts contained in the foregoing chapters bring this appalling story of death down to June 4th. We continue the narrative as given from day to day by eye-witnesses, as this is the only method by which a full and accurate description of Johnstown's unspeakable horror can be obtained.
On the morning of June 5th one of the leading journals contained the following announcements, printed in large type, and preceding its vivid account of the terrible situation at Johnstown.
Death, ruin, plague! Threatened outbreak of disease in the fate stricken valley. Awful effluvia from corpses! Swift and decisive means must be taken to clear away the masses of putrefying matter that underlie the wreck of what was once a town. Proposed use of explosives. Crowds of refugees are already attacked by pneumonia and the germs of typhus pervade both air and water. Victims yet unnumbered. Dreadful discoveries hourly made! Heaps of the drowned, the mangled and the burned are found in pockets between rocks and under packed accumulations of sand! Pennsylvania regiments ordered to the scene to keep ward over an afflicted and heartbroken people. Blame where it belongs.The ears of the inhabitants were dulled to fear by warnings many times repeated—forty-two years ago the dam broke—vivid stories of witnesses of the great tragedy—the owners of the lake must bear a gigantic burden of remorse—sufferings of survivors!
These were the terrible headings in a single issue of a newspaper.
A registry of the living who were residents of Johnstown prior to the flood was begun to-day. Out of a total population of 39,400 the names of only 10,600 have been recorded. This may give an approximate idea of the number of those who lost their lives.
Gaunt Menace of Pestilence.
The most important near fact of to-day is the increasing danger of pestilence.
As the work of disengaging the bodies of the dead progresses the horrible peril becomes more and more apparent. There is need of the speediest possible measures to offset the gravity of the sanitary situation.
From every part of the stricken valley the same cry of alarm arises, for at every point where the dead are being discovered, as the waters continue to abate, the same peril exists.
The use of explosives, especially dynamite, has been discussed. There is some opposition to it, but it may yet be resorted to. The great mass of ruins at the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, which is still smoking and smouldering, is a ghastly mine of human flesh and bones in all sorts of hideous shapes, and unlessdesperate means are employed, cannot be cleared away in weeks to come.
READING THE HORRIBLE NEWS.READING THE HORRIBLE NEWS.
Still, vigorous work in that direction is being performed, and explosives will be used in a limited degree to further it. This great work may be divided into two parts—the clearing away of the mass of débris lodged against the Pennsylvania Railroad bridge, and theexamination and removal of the many wrecked buildings which mark the site of Johnstown.
Order Out of Chaos.
Slowly something like order is beginning to appear in the chaos of destruction. Enough militia came to-day to put the town under strict martial law. Four hundred men of the Fourteenth regiment, of Pittsburgh, are here. There will be no more tramping over the ruins by ungoverned mobs. There will be no more fears of rioting.
The supplies of food are constantly growing. The much needed money is beginning to come in, though not at all needless relief committees are beginning to go out. Better quarters for the sufferers are being provided. Better arrangements for systematic relief are made. Something of the deep gloom has been dispelled, though Johnstown is still the saddest spot on earth.
The systematic attempt to clear up the ruins at the gorge and get out the bodies imprisoned there began to-day. The expectations of ghastly discoveries were more than realized. Scores of burned and mangled bodies were removed.
Freaks of the Torrent.
The great waste where the city stood looked a little different to-day. Some attempt was made to clear up the rubbish, and fires were burning in a dozen places to get rid of it. Tents for the soldiers and some of the sufferers were put up in the smooth stretch of sand where a great, five story hardware store used tostand. The dead animals that were here and there in the débris were removed, to the benefit of the towns-people's health.
Curious things come to light where the rubbish was cleared away. The solid cobblestone pavement had been scooped up by the force of the water and in some places swept so far away that there was not a sign of it. Behind a house that was resting on one corner was found a wickerwork baby carriage full of mud, but not injured or scratched in the least nor yet buried in the mud, but looking as if it had been rolled there and left. Very close to it was a piece of railroad iron that must have been carried half a mile, bent as it it were but common wire. Exactly on the site of a large grocery store was a box of soap and a bundle of clothespins, while of all the brick and stone, of which the store was built, and all the heavy furniture it contained there was not the slightest trace.
Many articles of wearing apparel were found here, but no bodies could be discovered in the whole stretch of the plain, from which it is inferred that most of the deaths occurred at the gorge or else the flood swept them far away.
Reminders of a Broken Home.
One of the few buildings that are left in this part of town is the fine house of Mr. Geranheiser, of the Cambria Iron Company. It presents a queer spectacle—that is common here but has not often been seen before. The flood reached almost to the second floor and was strong enough to cut away about half thehouse, leaving the rest standing. The whole interior of the place can be seen just as the frightened inmates left it. The carpets are torn up from the first floor, but the pictures are still hanging on the walls and an open piano stands against the wall full of mud; a Brussels carpet being halfway out of the second story on the side where the wreck was and showing exactly how high the water came. There was a centre table in the room and an open book on it. Chairs stood about the room and the pictures were on the walls, and half of the room was gone miles away.
Seven Acres of Wreckage.
Just below the bare plain where the business block of Johnstown stood, and above the stone arch bridge on which the Pennsylvania Railroad crossed the river, are seven acres of the wreckage of the flood. The horrors that have been enacted in that spot, the horrors that are seen there every hour, who can attempt to describe? Under and amid that mass of conglomerate rubbish are the remains of at least one thousand persons who died the most frightful of deaths.
This is the place where the fire broke out within twenty minutes after the flood. It has burned ever since. The stone arch bridge acted as a dam to the flood, and five towns were crushing each other against it. A thousand houses came down on the great wave of water, and were held there a solid mass in the jaws of a Cyclopean vise.
A kitchen stove upset. The mass took fire. Athousand people were imprisoned in these houses. A thousand more were on the roofs. For most of them there was no escape. The fire swept on from house to house. The prisoners saw it coming and shrieked and screamed with terror, and ran up and down their narrow quarters in an agony of fear.
Sights to Freeze Their Blood.
Thousands of people stood upon the river bank and saw and heard it all and still were powerless to help. They saw people kneeling in the flames and praying. They saw families gathered together with their arms around each other and waiting for death. They saw people going mad and tearing their hair and laughing. They saw men plunge into the narrow crevices between the houses and seek death in the water rather than wait its coming in the flames. Some saw their friends and some their wives and children perishing before them, and some in the awful agony of the hour went mad themselves and ran shrieking to the hillsides, and stronger men laid down on the ground and wept.
All that night and all the next day, and far into the morning of Monday, these dreadful shrieks resounded from that place of doom. The fire burned on, aided by the fire underneath, added to by fresh fuel coming down the river. All that time the people stood helpless on the bank and heard those heartrending sounds. What could they do? They could not fight the fire. Every fire engine in the town lay in that mass of rubbish smashed to bits. For hours they had to wait until they could get telegraph word to surroundingtowns, and hours more until the fire engines arrived at noon on Monday.
Wrecks of Five Iron Bridges.
The shrieks ceased early in the morning. Men had began to search the ruins and had taken out the few that still lived. The fire engines began to play on the still smouldering fire. Other workmen began to remove the bodies. The fire had swept over the whole mass from shore to shore and burned it to the water. A great field of crushed and charred timbers was all that was left. The flood had gorged this in so tightly that it made a solid bridge above the water. A tremendous, irresistible force had ground and churned and macerated the débris until it was a confused, solid, almost welded, conglomerate, stretching from shore to shore, jammed high up against the stone bridge and extending up the river a quarter of a mile, perhaps half as wide. In this tangled heap and crush of matter were the twisted wrecks of five iron bridges, smashed locomotives, splintered dwellings and all their contents; human beings and domestic animals, hay and factory machinery; the rich contents of stores and brick walls ground to powder—all the products of human industry, all the elements of human interests, twisted, turned, broken in a mighty mill and all thrown together.
A Sickening Spectacle.
I walked over this extraordinary mass this morning and saw the fragments of thousands of articles. In one place the roofs of forty frame houses were packed intogether just as you would place forty bended cards one on top of another. The iron rods of a bridge were twisted into a perfect spiral six times around one of the girders. Just beneath it was a woman's trunk, broken up and half filled with sand, with silk dresses and a veil streaming out of it. From under the trunk men were lifting the body of its owner, perhaps, so burned, so horribly mutilated, so torn from limb to limb, that even the workmen, who have seen so many of these frightful sights that they have begun to get used to them, turned away sick at heart.
I saw in one place a wrecked grocery store—bins of coffee and tea, flour, spices and nuts, parts of the counter and safe mingled together. Near it was the pantry of the house, still partly intact, the plates and saucers regularly piled up, a waiter and a teapot, but not a sign of the woodwork, not a recognizable outline of a house. In another place a halter, with a part of a horse's head tied to a bit of a manger, and a mass of hay and straw about, but no other signs of the stable in which the horse was burned. Two cindered towels, a cake of soap in a dish, and a bit of carpet were taken to indicate the location of a hotel. I saw a child's skull in a bed of ashes, but no sign of a body.
Recognized by Fragments.
In another place was a human foot and crumbling indications of a boot, but no signs of a body. A hay rick, half ashes, stood near the centre of the gorge. Workmen who dug about it to-day found a chicken coop, and in it two chickens, not only alive but cluckinghappily when they were released. A woman's hat, half burned; a reticule, with a part of a hand still clinging to it; two shoes and part of a dress told the story of one unfortunate's death. Close at hand a commercial traveller had perished. There was his broken valise, still full of samples, fragments of his shoes and some pieces of his clothing.
Scenes like these were occurring all over the charred field where men were working with pick and axe and lifting out the poor, shattered remains of human beings, nearly always past recognition or identification, except by guesswork, or the locality where they were found. Articles of domestic use scattered through the rubbish helped to tell who some of the bodies were. Part of a set of dinner plates told one man where in the intangible mass his house was. In one place was a photograph album with one picture recognizable. From this the body of a child near by was identified. A man who had spent a day and all night looking for the body of his wife, was directed to her remains by part of a trunk lid.
Dead Bodies Caressed.
Poor old John Jordan, of Conemaugh! Many a tear ran over swarthy cheeks for him to-day. All his family, his wife and children, had been swept from his sight in the flood. He wandered over the gorge yesterday looking for them, and last night the police could not bring him away. At daylight he found his wife's sewing machine and called the workmen to help him. First they found a little boy's jacket that herecognized and then they came upon the rest of them all buried together, the mother's burned arms still clinging to the little children. Then the white headed old man sat down in the ashes and caressed the dead bodies and talked to them just as if they were alive until some one came and led him quietly away. Without a protest he went to the shore and sat down on a rock and talked to himself, and then got up and disappeared on the hills.
To Blow Up the Gorge.
Was this the only such scene the day saw? There were scores like it. People worked in ruins all day to find their relatives and then went home with horrible uncertainty. People found what they were looking for and fainted at the sight. People looked and cried aloud and came and stood on the banks all day, afraid to look and still afraid to go away. The burned bodies are not the only ones in the gorge. Under the timbers and held down in the water there must be hundreds that escaped the fire, but were drowned. To get at these the gorge is to be blown up with dynamite. The sanitary reasons for such a step are becoming hourly more apparent. It is the belief of the physicians that a pestilence will be added to the other horrors of the place if such a thing is not done. All day the bodies have been brought to shore. Those that were not recognized were carried on stretchers to the Morgue. One hundred and twenty of the identified bodies were carried over the bridge in one procession.
Relief work for the suffering goes on at the headquarters of the Relief Committee on that little, muddy, rubbish-filled street which escaped destruction at the edge of the flood.
The building is a wretched shanty, once a Hungarian boarding-house, and a long line of miserable women stretches out in front of it all day waiting for relief. They are the unfortunate who have lost everything in the flood.
Quarters for five thousand of these people are provided in tents on the hillside. For provisions they are dependent on the charity of the country. Bread and meat are served out to them on the committee's order.
They are the most mournful and pitiable sight. There was not one in the line who had not lost some one dear to her. Most of them were the wives of merchants or laborers who went down in the disaster. They were the sole survivors of their families. Very few had any more clothes than they wore when their houses were washed away. They stood there for hours in the rain yesterday without any protection, soaked with the drizzle, squalid and utterly forlorn—a sight to move a heart of stone.
Silent Sufferers.
They did not talk to one another as women generally do even when they are not acquainted. They got no words of sympathy from any one, and they gave none. Not a word was spoken along the whole line. They simply stood and waited. In truth there is nothing about the survivors of the disaster thatstrikes one so forcibly as their evident inability to comprehend their misfortune and the absence of sympathetic expressions among them. It is not because they are naturally stolid, but the whole thing is so vast and bears upon them so heavily they cannot grasp it.
People in California know much more about the disaster than any resident of Johnstown knows; more information about it can be gotten from towns-people forty miles away than from those who saw it. The people here are not at all lacking in sympathy or kindliness of heart, but what words of sympathy would have any meaning in such a tremendous catastrophe? Every person of Johnstown has lost a relative or a friend, and so has every other resident he meets. They seem to see instinctively that condolence would be meaningless.
Famine Happily Averted.
On the west side of the lower town one or two little streets are left from the flood. They are crowded all the time with the survivors. As I have gone among them I have heard nothing but such conversations as this, which is literally reproduced:—
"Hello, Will! Where's Jim?"
"He's lost."
"Is that so! Goodby."
Another was:—
"Good morning, Mr. Holden; did you save Mrs. Holden?"
"No; she went with the house. You lost your two boys, didn't you?"
"Yes. Good morning."
Two women met on the narrow rope bridge which spans the creek. As they passed one said:—
"How about Aunt Mary?"
"Oh, she's lost; so is Cousin Hattie."
It gives an outside listener a strange sensation to hear people talk thus with about as little emotion as they would talk about the weather. But the people of Johnstown had so much to do with death that they think about nothing else. I will undertake to say that half the people have not the slightest idea what day of the week or month this is.
A Rope Bridge of Sighs.
To get from one part of the town to another it is necessary to cross the river or creek which is now flowing over the sites of business blocks. Of course every vestige of a bridge was swept far away, and to take their places two ropes have been hung from high timbers built upon the sandy island that was the city's site. On these ropes narrow boards are tied. The whole structure is not more than four feet wide, and it hangs trembling over the water in a way that makes nervous people shudder. Over this frail thing hundreds of people crowd every hour, and why there has not been another disaster is something no one can understand.
The river is rising steadily, and all the afternoon the middle of the bridge sagged down into the water, but the people kept on struggling across. Many of them carried coffins containing bodies from the Morgue.There are no express wagons, no hearses—scarcely any vehicles of any kind in the town—and all the coffins have to be carried on the shoulders of the men.
Coffins are a dreadfully common sight. It is impossible to move a dozen steps in any direction without meeting one or very likely a procession of of them. One hundred of them were piled up in front of the Morgue this morning. Twice as many more were on the platform of the Pennsylvania station. Carloads of coffins were being unloaded from freight cars below town and carried along the roads. Almost every house has a coffin in it. Every boat that crosses the river carries one, and rows of them stood by the bank to receive the bodies.
Merely a Mud Plain.
There is a narrow fringe of houses on each side of the empty plain, which escaped because they were built on higher ground. Fine brick blocks and paved streets filled the business part of the town, which was about a mile long and half a mile wide. Where these blocks stood mud is in some places six feet deep. Over and through it all is scattered an extraordinary collection of rubbish—boilers, car wheels, fragments of locomotives, household furniture, dead animals, clothing, sewing machines, goods from stores, safes, passenger and street cars, some half buried in the sand, some all exposed, helter-skelter.
It is simply impossible to realize the tremendous force exercised by the flood, though the imagination is assisted by the presence of heavy iron beams twistedand bent, railroad locomotives swept miles away, rails torn up, the rocks and banks slashed away, and brick walls carried away, leaving no traces of their foundations. The few stone houses that resisted the shock were completely stripped of all their contents and filled four feet deep with sand and powdered débris.
A Glimpse from a Window.
As I write this, seated within a curious circular affair, which was once a mould for sewer pipe, are two operators busy with clicking instruments. The floor is a foot deep with clay. There are no doors. There are no windows which boast of glass or covering of any kind. The lookout embraces the bulk of the devastated districts. Just below the windows are the steep river banks, covered with a miscellaneous mass thrown up by the flood. The big stone bridge is crowded with freight cars loaded with material for repairing the structure and with people who are eager to see something horrible.
That Funeral Pyre.
The further half of the bridge which was swept away has been replaced by a trembling wooden affair, wide enough only for two persons to walk abreast. To the left of the bridge and across the river are the great brick mills of the Cambria Iron and Steel Company, crushed and torn out of a semblance to workshops. Just in front of the office is what has been called the "funeral pyre," and which threatens to become a veritable breeding spot of pestilence.
Just before me a group of red-capped firemen aredirecting a stream of water upon such portions of the mass as can be reached from the shore.
Where Death Was Busiest.
Over to the right, at the edge of a muddy lagoon which marks the limit of the levelling rush of the mad torrent, there are dozens and dozens of buildings leaning against each other in the oddest sort of jumble. The spectacle would be ludicrous if it were not so awfully suggestive of the tragic fate of the inmates. Behind this border land are the regions where death was wofully busy. In some streets a mile from any railroad track locomotives and cars are scattered among the smouldering ruins. In the river the rescuers are busy, and so are the Hungarians and native born thieves.
Men take queer souvenirs away sometimes. One came up the bank a short time ago with a skull and two leg bones, all blackened and burned by the fire.
There is, of course, no business done, and those who have been spared have little to do save watch for a new phase of the greatest tragedy of the kind in modern history. On Prospect Hill is a town of tents where the homeless are housed and fed, and where also a formidable city of the dead has been just prepared. Such are some of the scenes visible from the window.
The Skeleton of Its Former Self.
The water has receded in the night almost as rapidly as it came, and behind it remains the sorriest sight imaginable. The dove that has come has nogreen leaf of promise, for its wings are draped with the hue of mourning and desolation. There now lies the great skeleton of dead Johnstown. The great ribs of rocky sand stretch across the chest scarred and covered with abrasions. Acres of mud, acres of wreckage, acres of unsteady, tottering buildings, acres of unknown dead, of ghastly objects which have been eagerly sought for since Friday; acres of smoky, streaming ruin, of sorrow for somebody, lie out there in the sunshine.
Like Unto Arcadia After the Fire.
The awful desolation of the scene has been described often enough already to render a repetition of the attempt here unnecessary. These descriptions have been as truthful and graphic as it is possible for man to make them; but none have been adequate—none could be. Where once stood solid unbroken blocks for squares and squares, with basements and subcellars, there is now a level plain as free from obstruction or excavation as the fair fields of Arcadia after they had been swept by the British flames. The major and prettier portion of the beautiful city has literally been blotted from the face of the earth.
Disease Succeeds to Calamity.
Up the ragged surface of Prospect Hill, whither hundreds of terrified people fled for safety Friday night, I scrambled this afternoon. I came upon a pneumonia scourge which bids fair to do for a number of the escaped victims what the flood could not. Death has pursued them to their highest places, and terrorwill not die. Every little house on the hill—and there are a hundred or two of them—had thrown its doors open to receive the bruised, half-clad fugitives on the dark day of the deluge, and every one was now a crude hospital. Half the women who had scaled the height were so overcome with fright that they have been bedridden ever since. There had been pneumonia on the hill, but only a few cases. To-day, however, several fresh cases developed among the the flood fugitives, and a local physician said the prospects for a scourge are all too promising. The enfeebled condition of the patients, the unhealthy atmosphere pervading the valley and the necessarily close quarters in which the people are crowded render the spread of the disease almost certain.
The Military Called Out.
At the request of the Sheriff, Adjutant General Hastings called out the Fourteenth regiment of Pittsburgh, who are to be stationed at Johnstown proper, to guard the buildings and against emergencies. Other reasons are known to exist for this precaution. Bodies were recovered to-day that have been robbed by the ghouls. It is known that one lady had several hundred dollars in her possession just before the disaster, but when the body was recovered there was not a cent in her pocket.
The Hungarians attacked a supply wagon between Morrellville and Cambria City to-day. The drivers of the wagon repulsed them, but they again returned. A second fight ensued, but after lively scrambling theHungarians were again driven away. After that drivers and guards of supply wagons were permitted to go armed.
General Hastings was seen later in the day, and when asked what caused him to order the militia said: "There is no need of troops to quell another disturbance, but now there are at least two thousand men at work in Johnstown clearing up the débris, and I think that it will not hurt to have the Fourteenth regiment here, as they can guard the banks and all valuables. The Sheriff consulted me in the matter. He stated that his men were about worn out, and he thought that we had better have some soldiers. So I ordered them."
The people, aroused by repeated outrages, are bitterly hounding the Hungarians, and a military force is essential to see that both sides preserve order.
Indignant Battery B.
A number of the members of Battery B and the Washington infantry, who were ordered back from Johnstown, are very indignant at Adjutant General Hastings, who gave the order. They claim that General Hastings not only acted without a particle of judgment, but when they offered to act as picket, do police duty or anything else that might be required of them, they state that they were treated like dogs.
They also insist that their services are badly needed for the reason that the hills surrounding Johnstown are swarming with tramps, who are availing themselves of every opportunity to secure plunder from the numerous wrecks or dead bodies.
They told the General that they came more as private citizens than as soldiers, and were willing to do what they could. The General abruptly ordered them back to Pittsburgh. Lieutenant Gammel, who had charge of the men, said: "We would like to have stayed but we had to obey orders and we took the first train for home. Even the short time we were there the fifty-five men had pulled out thirty-five bodies."
Members of the battery said: "This is a fine Governor we have, and as for Hastings, the least said about his actions the better."
The Adjutant General's order calling out the Fourteenth regiment and ordering them to this place is not looked upon as being altogether a wise move by many citizens.
Narrow Escape from Lynching.
About eleven o'clock this morning, Captain W.R. Jones, of Braddock, and his men discovered a man struggling in the hands of an angry crowd on Main street. The crowd were belaboring the man with sticks and fists, and Captain Jones entered the house where the disturbance occurred, and the man shouted: "I have a right here, and am getting what belongs to my folks!"
The crowd then demanded that he show what he had in his possession. He reluctantly produced a handful of jewelry from his pocket, among which was a gold watch, which was no sooner shown than a gentleman who was standing nearby claimed it as his own, sayingthat the house where they were standing was the residence of his family. He then proceeded to identify clearly the property. The crowd, convinced of the thief's guilt, wanted to lynch him, but after an exciting scene Captain Jones pacified them. The man was escorted out of town by officers, released and ordered not to return.
Johnstown Succored.
There will be no more charity except for the helpless. The lengthening of the death roll has fearfully shortened the list to be provided for. There is now an abundance of food and clothing to satisfy the present necessities of all who are in need. Beginning to-morrow morning, June 5th, aid will not be extended to any who are able to work except in payment for work. All the destitute who are able and willing will be put to work clearing up the wreck in the river and the wastes where the streets stood. They will be paid $2.50 and $3.00 per day for ordinary laboring work, and thus obtain money with which to buy provisions, which will be sold to them at reduced prices.
Those who will not work will be driven off. The money collected will be paid out in wages, in defraying funeral expenses and in relieving those whose bread providers have been taken away.
Dainties Not Wanted.
The supplies of food and clothing are far in excess of the demand to-day. The mistake of sending large quantities of dainties has been made by some of the relief committees. Bishop Phelan has been on theground all day in company with a number of Catholic priests from Pittsburgh.
He has ordered provisions for all the sufferers who have taken shelter in the buildings over which he has placed the Little Sisters of the Poor. There are several hundred people now being cared for by the relief corps, and as the work of rescue goes on the number increases.
Bent on Charity.
Mrs. Campbell, president of the Allegheny Woman's Christian Temperance Union, arrived this morning, and with Miss Kate Foster, of Johnstown, organized a temporary home for destitute children on Bedford street. On the same train came a delegation from the Smithfield Methodist Episcopal Church. They began relieving the wants of the suffering Methodists.
Committees from the Masonic and Odd Fellows from Pittsburgh are looking after their brethren.
Mr. Moxham, the iron manufacturer, is Mayor pro. tem. of Johnstown to-day. He is probably the busiest man in the United States; although for days without sleep, he still sticks nobly to his task. Hundreds of others are like him. Men fall to the earth from sheer fatigue. There are many who have not closed an eye in sleep since they awoke on Friday morning; they are hollow-eyed and pitiful looking creatures. Many have lost near relatives and all friends.
Shylocks.
Men and horses are what are most needed to-day. Some of the unfortunates who could not go to therelief trains endeavored to obtain flour from the wrecked stores in Johnstown. One dealer was charging $5 a sack for flour, and was getting it in one or two cases. Suddenly the crowd heard of the occurrence.
Several desperate men went to the store and doled the flour gratuitously to the homeless and stricken. Another dealer was selling flour at $1.50 a sack. He refused to give any away, but would sell it to any one who had the money. Otherwise he would not allow any one to go near it, guarding his store with a shotgun.
Masons on the Field.
The special train of the Masonic Relief Association which left Pittsburgh at one o'clock yesterday afternoon on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad did not reach here until just before midnight, at which time it was impossible to do anything. Under the circumstances, the party concluded to pass the night in the cars, making themselves as comfortable as possible with packing boxes for beds and candle boxes for pillows.
They spent the morning distributing the food and clothing among the Masonic sufferers. In addition to a large quantity of cooked food, sandwiches, etc., as well as flour and provisions of every description, the Relief Committee brought up 100 outfits of clothing for women and a similar number for girls, and a miscellaneous lot for men and boys. The women's outfits are complete, and include underwear, stockings, shoes, dresses, wraps and hats. They are most acceptable in the present crisis, and much suffering has already been relieved by them.