CHAPTER IV.

The Cry of Distress in the Wrecked City—Negro Vandals Shot Down—Progress of the Relief Work—Strict Military Rule.

The situation on the third day after the flood was vividly described a visitor to the city as follows: It is plainly apparent that as a result of the Galveston disaster, a task confronts the public authorities such as neither Texas nor any other State has ever before had to grapple with.

Human nature at its worst has had opportunity for the display of its meanest passions, and relentless measures have been rendered necessary. Looters and vandals have ignored all moral restraints, and gunpowder has had to be used unsparingly to subdue the savagery being practiced. It is learned on unquestionable authority that the soldiers under Adjutant General Scurry have to-day (Wednesday the 12th) slain no less than seventy-five men, mostly negroes, guilty of robbing the dead.

POCKET FULL OF HUMAN FINGERS.

One of these had in his pocket twenty-three human fingers with costly rings on them. The fingers had been cut from the victims of the storm found on the beach or floating in the waters of Galveston Bay.

W. McGrath, Manager of the Dallas Electric Company, and representing large Boston interests in Texas, returned from Galveston direct. He says: “The only way to prevent an epidemic that will practically depopulate the island is to burn the bodies of the dead. The Governor of Texas should call an extra session of the Legislature and appropriate a million or half a million dollars, or whatever amount is needed. The situation must be taken intelligently in hand to save the State from a possible epidemic. Before I left Galveston about 4,000 bodies had been found. Eleven hundred had been tied together in bunches and sunk into the sea. Last night some fresh water was found by forces of men who explored the ground until the principal main of the city water works was found. Tons of rubbish were removed and the main tapped. I believe the water question is solved for the present, but money, clothing, wholesome bread, ice, drugs, etc., are needed.”

A bulletin from Galveston, via. Virginia Point and Houston, received here at 11 A. M., says:

“The situation grows worse every minute, water and ice needed. People in frenzy from suffering from these causes. Scores have died since last night, and a number of sufferers have gone insane.”

THE STORY INCREASES IN HORROR.

A despatch from Houston summed up the situation as follows: Houston is now being rapidly filled with refugees from Galveston. Stragglers have been arriving every few hours, and this afternoon a trainload of some eight hundred reached the city thoroughly worn out and disheartened, each with a tale of woe and harrowing experiences. Contrary to the usual thing in chronicling catastrophes of the present character the story of Galveston grows worse as the time progresses and the facts become known. Each chapter is more appalling than its predecessor, and the burden of death becomes heavier as the hours roll on. The estimates of the loss of life have grown from 1,000 to 8,000, and even the latter figure is said to be too small in the opinion of many of the survivors.

ACTUAL LOSS WILL NEVER BE KNOWN.

The actual loss will never be made known. The storm overwhelmed entire families, who were swept into the Gulf with the wreckage of their homes. The bodies may gradually be thrown on the sands, but identification will be impossible. The committees are endeavoring to compile lists of both dead and living, but they will not be accurate, as many mistakes have already been made and the living reported dead. Registers have been made and posted in the city in order to facilitate this feature of the relief work.

DISPOSING OF THE DEAD.

So far the efforts of the searchers have necessarily been confined to the open places, and it will be some time before the dead swept into the fields, the alleys and the gullies are gathered and laid away for good. The city is one awful stench of decaying animal matter. Nearly every animal on the island was killed, and the thousands of human remains still scattered beneath the vast piles of debris add to the danger of the situation. Too much time was lost in consigning the dead to the sea, and the workers were compelled by the exigencies of the situation to pile the corpses where found, and cremate them as well as this could be done.

PEOPLE DELAYED FLIGHT TOO LONG.

Oswald Wilson, editor of the _Texan_, who arrived with the refugees, says that the situation cannot be painted any blacker than it really is. Fully one-third of the city has been destroyed absolutely and every building damaged. He says that one reason that the loss of life was so excessive was due to the fact that they delayed leaving their homes until too late. The water rose rapidly for several hours until the centre of the city was six feet deep and the outlying section covered to a depth of over ten feet. The people of Galveston were accustomed to high water, although they had never witnessed so great an inundation, but their fears were calmed by the fact that during this period the wind had not risen above thirty miles an hour, and every year they had seen this condition during the equinoctial periods.

REALIZED THEIR PERIL TOO LATE.

Men waded about the city laughing at the rise of the water for hours, for the sea gradually encroached during the morning, and it was only when they realized the bay was forcing its contents to meet the tide from the Gulf that they lost their confidence that the present was but another attempt of the elements to create a disturbance, and seriously endeavored to reach a point of safety. Then it was too late, for the tide swirled in the streets and the wind had begun rapidly to increase in violence. It howled and screamed in great gusts, which increased in strength every minute, and one by one the houses along the Gulf front and in the Denver resurvey and about Fort Point began to go to pieces and pile one against the other.

The waters were filled with debris and the debris with men, women and children seeking to save their lives. Wading was impossible, save in the centre of the city, and the unfortunates were swept to and fro, dashed by the waves and bruised by the flying fragments, until death resulted in one form or another. Many were the deeds of heroism, but rescuers and all fell victims to the storm, for human efforts were unavailing.

MORE HORRORS DETAILED.

J. C. Roberts, of the firm of Behring Brothers, Houston, was sent to Galveston to learn of the family of his employers. His journey was arduous, for he was one of the first. Arriving in the city worn out, he entered a little drug store and asked for whisky. He was refused. A doctor was present and gave him a prescription for the stimulant. The druggist charged $2.50 for the whisky, and the doctor $5 for his services. He landed at Galveston at Twentieth street, and walked through dead bodies.

His description of the scenes is horrible in the extreme. The dead were everywhere. They were scattered on every hand, and nearly all in a complete state of nudity. He saw an Italian woman standing in the street holding in her hand the foot and leg of an infant severed from the little body. She was unclad, but alive and insane, and refused to leave the pile of debris which contained the remains of her little one.

Roberts witnessed one of the guards shoot five negro looters. He observed one of the men robbing a dead body. The man refused to desist and the guard shot him dead as he knelt on the sands. Four companions of the ghoul started to assault the guard, when he threw himself on his stomach, and, firing rapidly, killed them all.

NINETY NEGROES EXECUTED.

It is said that ninety negroes have been executed for robbery, and it is unsafe for any one to stir at night unless provided with a passport from the officer in charge. A description of the burning of the dead and the burial at sea is beyond reproduction. All sentiment is at an end. It has become a matter of self-protection and in order to avoid pestilence rapid disposal of the corpses is necessary. Several loads of lime have been sent from here, with other disinfectants. The people of Galveston have had no bread since the storm save what little has been sent from Houston. A cracker factory opened its doors Sunday and sold its entire contents in a short time. Some food was left after the storm, but this is rapidly being distributed.

Bonfires are burning all over the city. They are the funeral of a thousand festering corpses cast back upon the shore at high tide yesterday. Cremation has become a necessity to prevent an epidemic. The negroes refuse to work, and the townspeople are paralyzed with fright and suffering, or are making preparations to leave the doomed island.

The first train to carry refugees to Texas City, seven miles across the bay, was announced this morning, and since daylight a thousand men, women and children have been crowding into catboats, lifeboats, sloops, schooners and a single steamboat, the Lawrence, all bent on escaping from the city. Nearly all of them have lost some member of their families. The women wear no hats, are unkempt and ill-clad. They look as if haunted.

THE CITY OFFICIALS IN A LIVELY QUARREL.

The situation has gotten beyond the control of the authorities. The powers in control have been quarreling. Last night at 7 o’clock every citizen soldier under command of Major Fayling was called in, disarmed and mustered out of service. Chief of Police Ketchum then took charge, and the Major was relieved of his command. During an hour and a half the city was unguarded. Negro looters held high carnival.

As the Major’s work was unusually brilliant, the citizens are furious. This morning the situation from the police standpoint is improved. A hundred of the State militia of the Houston Light Guards, Houston Artillery and Houston Cavalry have arrived. They are patrolling the west end of the city. General McKibbin, Commander of the Department of the Gulf, and Adjutant General Scurry, of Texas, are on the ground, and are advising with Mayor Jones and the Chief of Police Ketchum.

In all other respects the city is worse off than on the morning after the tragedy. A terrible stench permeates the atmosphere. It comes from the bodies of a thousand unburied dead festering in the debris, that cannot be removed for weeks on account of the paucity of laborers. Every tide brings scores back to the shore. During the early part of yesterday trenches were dug and the bodies thrown into them, but it soon became an impossibility to bury all, and the health authorities decided upon cremation as an expedient.

WORK OF THE RELIEF COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the Relief Committee held this morning reports were received from the various wards. The chairman called for armed men to assist in getting labor to bury the dead and clear the wreckage, and arrangements were made to supply this demand.

The situation in the city to-day is that there are plenty of volunteers for this service, but an insufficiency of arms. There have been two or three small riots, but the officers have managed to quell them. The committee rejected the proposition of trying to pay for work, letting the laborers secure their own rations. It was decided to go ahead impressing men into service, if necessary, issuing orders for rations only to those who worked or were unable to work.

All of the ward chairmen reported the imperative need of disinfectants. A committee was appointed to sequester all the disinfectants in the city, including the lime which escaped wetting, and to obtain more. Houston was called upon for a barge load of lime.

WORK AT THE WATER WORKS.

Work on the water works had not progressed so satisfactorily as had been hoped for. The men did not work last night. Chief Engineer Reynolds has not been at the works since yesterday morning. Alderman McMaster took charge of the work to-day. The machinery has been cleared of the debris and the pipes found to be badly damaged, and plumbers, steam fitters and boiler makers are at work on them. Mr. McMaster says he thinks it will be possible to turn water into the mains to-morrow.

All saloons were closed by the Chief of Police on Sunday. At a meeting of the General Committee with the city officials to-day, the policing of the city was discussed. Mayor Jones announced that Adjutant General Scurry would take charge of the situation with the soldiers and citizen soldiery. The city is patrolled by about 2,000 police officers, special officers, soldiers and deputy sheriffs. Deputy Chief of Police Amundsen is acting as Chief. Chief of Police Ketchum is engaged in other work outside of the police department.

STRICT POLICE RULES.

No liquor is permitted to be sold under any circumstances, unless ordered by the chairman of one of the committees or by a physician, who must state that it is to be used for medicinal purposes. All persons not having business on the streets after dark must be identified before they will be allowed to pass. Unless identification is forthcoming they are arrested. No person is allowed to work in or about any building unless he has a written permit signed by the Chief of Police or Deputy Chief. No person is permitted to carry furniture or other property through the streets unless he has a written permit from the proper authority. No gambling is permitted, and any violations of this rule are prosecuted to the fullest extent.

During the storm Saturday night the young men of the Boddiker family, with the aid of a skiff, rescued over forty people and took them to the University building, where they found shelter.

The organization of forces under the able administration of General Scurry was observable on every hand, and the chaotic condition of the city was being supplanted by a vigor of action that portended restoration in the near future. Private enterprise went to work and the people took heart.

NURSES FROM A DISTANCE.

The very presence of nurses was a sign that the calamity had attracted the attention of the world at large, and the city would not be left to succumb to the dire and terrible disaster that has overtaken it.

One of the local journals said: “Merchants are cleaning up their stores and repairing their injured buildings; property owners are seeking everywhere to obtain men and materials with which to restore their shattered habitations. Hope has by no means departed. In a brief time the sound of the locomotive will be heard upon the island, freight will be pouring up to the ship’s side, and the mechanic and artisan will find remunerative employment for years to come. Out of the destruction of the greatest wind and tide force that ever played upon the American continent, there has arisen already a feeling that what a week ago was regarded as an irretrievable disaster, will yet prove the starting point of a remodelled and reinvigorated Galveston. The whole world is behind us in generous sympathy and noble beneficence.”

GOVERNOR SAYRES ON THE SITUATION.

Governor Sayres made the following statement to the Associated Press on the flood situation:

“Conditions at Galveston are fully as bad as reported. Communication, however, has been re-established between the island and the mainland, and hereafter transportation of supplies will be less difficult. The work of clearing the city is progressing fairly well, and Adjutant General Scurry, under direction of the Mayor, is patrolling the city for the purpose of preventing depredations. The most conservative estimate as to the number of dead places them at 2,000. Contributions from citizens of this State and also from other States are coming in rapidly and liberally, and it is confidently expected that within the next ten days the work of restoration by the people of Galveston will have begun in good earnest and with energy and success. Of course, the destruction of property has been very great—not less than $10,000,000, but it is hoped and believed that even this great loss will be overcome through the energy and self-reliance of the people.”

During the day the contributions have fairly deluged the Governor, upwards of $100,000 having been received. Among the large contributors are to be noted the Standard Oil Company, with $10,000; St. Louis Commercial Club for a like amount, and the Huntington interests for $5,000.

THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM.

This afternoon Governor Sayres received the following official report from General Manager Trice, of the International and Great Northern Railroad, who is conducting the operations of the relief corps at Galveston:

“To Governor Sayres, Austin, Tex.—Your message of yesterday received. The cars containing the tents and rations were turned over to the barge line this morning and forwarded to Galveston, arrangements having been made for all freight to be handled by barges hauled by tugs from Clinton to Galveston, and passengers by our line to Texas City, and by boats from Texas City to Galveston. This is the best arrangement that can be made, and it prevents delay to either the freight or the passenger service, for, if we handled the freight with the passengers to Texas City, to transfer from the cars to the boats would cause too much delay to the passenger service.

“We brought in one train, consisting of about three hundred Galveston people, to Houston to-day, and will get another trainload to-night, mostly women and children, which will make about 600 that we will get out of Galveston to-day. The passenger and freight service between Houston and Galveston is all free for sufferers, and we are issuing transportation to all points north of Houston to all sufferers not able to pay their way.

“L. TRICE.”

ADJUTANT GENERAL SCURRY’S ESTIMATE.

The following report was also received from Adjutant General Scurry:

“Governor Sayres, Austin.—Mayor of Houston ordered Houston military companies here, sixty-five men and officers came. Thirty more come to-morrow. Mayor of Galveston directed me to take command. Streets patrolled for purpose of preventing thieving. Work of clearing the city progressing fairly well.

“THOMAS SCURRY, Adjutant General.”

LOSS OF LIFE AND DAMAGE AT OTHER POINTS.

Governor Sayres began receiving reports from various points along the Gulf coast, which would indicate that there has been great property damage done for several hundred miles, and that the list of Galveston fatalities and suffering will be largely augmented. Down the coast from Galveston, the town of Dickinson was laid waste and five people killed. The towns of Alvin, Alta Loma, Texas City and Brookshire, are wrecked and hundreds are destitute. Richmond is so badly demolished that it will require weeks to clear the town.

Missouri City and Stafford, just opposite, were entirely demolished, and the few remaining people at these places have no homes to cover their heads. Bay City, in Matagorda county, is reported wrecked, with much loss of life, though no official report has been made to that effect. Patton, Rollover, Bolivar Point, Quintana, Sugarland, Belleville, Wharton, Fair View, Missouri City, Sartartia, Arcola and El Campo are all reported heavy sufferers both in point of property destroyed and lives lost. Owing to the fact that the telegraph service is still badly crippled, Governor Sayres cannot ascertain the exact number of dead at the points named, but it is approximated at 500.

BOATS FOR TRANSPORTATION.

The Governor was informed that quite a number of tugs from New Orleans and other available points had either arrived or were on the way to Galveston, and the transportation problem would soon be solved so far as the getting people from the island to the mainland was concerned.

Hundreds applied to Governor Sayres for permits to go to Galveston, but he refused all, saying that there were already too many people there.

THE DEVASTATION APPALLING.

The Quartermaster’s Department at Washington, received the following from Galveston:

“Quartermaster General, Washington: Referring to my telegrams of 9th and 10th, I have, subject to approval, suspended the Crockett construction contracts, and again urgently recommend that contractors be paid for labor and material in place and on the ground. All swept away and lost beyond recovery. Fortifications at Crockett, Jacinto and Travis all destroyed and cannot be rebuilt on present sites. Recommend continuance of my office here only long enough to recover Crockett office safes and morning gun, when located; also to close accounts and ship my office and recovered property where directed. I fear Galveston is destroyed beyond its ability to recover. Loss of life and property appalling.

“BAXTER, Quartermaster.”

VESSEL ORDERED TO GALVESTON.

President McKinley received a telegram from Governor Sayres, of Texas, asking that a light draft vessel be sent to Galveston to assist in the communication between the island and the mainland. The message was referred to the Treasury Department, and an order was issued to the revenue cutter Winona, at Mobile, to proceed to Galveston without a moment’s unnecessary delay. The Lighthouse Board also ordered the lighthouse tender Arbutus, then at New Orleans, to clear at once for Galveston.

Captain Shoemaker, Chief of the Revenue Cutter Service, is apprehensive as to the fate of the cutter Galveston, which was anchored in Galveston harbor at the beginning of the storm. It is assumed that she put to sea, but as three full days have elapsed since she was heard from there are fears for her safety.

The relief work, now under full sway at Houston, is along two lines—to succor those who cannot leave Galveston and to bring out of the city all those who can and are willing to leave.

Mayor Jones and the citizens’ committee of the island city are urging that only those shall be permitted to enter Galveston whose presence is imperative, and transportation lines are straining every nerve in order that they may accord the privilege to those who are pleading to get away from the scenes of horror and desolation around them.

Hundreds of people have come to Houston from the four points of the compass, anxious to get into the stricken town, but since the exodus of islanders has begun many of these have concluded to remain here rather than run the risk of missing on the way those for whom they are in search.

ATTEMPT TO SUM UP THE LOSSES.

News has gradually been reaching here of the immense losses along the coast beyond Galveston. Damage difficult to estimate in dollars and cents has been done in a wide stretch of territory, and many human lives have been lost besides those which were wiped out in Galveston and its immediate vicinity. Based on reports believed to be accurate, the following statement is probably as near correct as can be arrived at at this time:

Place. Lives lost. Property loss.

Galveston 8000 $10,000,000 Houston 2 300,000 Alvin 9 100,000 Hitchcock 2 75,000 Richmond 3 75,000 Fort Bend county 19 300,000 Wharton 40,000 Wharton county 8 100,000 Colorado county 250,000 Angleton 3 75,000 Velasco 50,000 Other points in Brazoria county 4 30,000 Sabine 40,000 Patton 10,000 Rollover 10,000 Wennie 10,000 Belleville 1 50,000 Hempstead 1 15,000 Brookshire 2 35,000 Waller county 3 100,000 Arcola 2 5,000 Saratatia 5,000 Other points 100,000 Dickinson 7 30,000 Texas City 5 150,000 Columbia 8 15,000 Sandy Point 8 10,000 Near Brazoria (convicts) 15 1,000 Damage to railroads outside of Galveston 200,000 Damage to telegraph and telephone wires outside of Galveston 30,000

Damage to cotton crop, estimated on average crop of counties affected, 50,000 bales at $60 per bale; total, $3,000,000. Losses to live stock cannot be estimated, but thousands of horses and cattle have been killed all over the storm district.

RELIEF PUSHED FORWARD NIGHT AND DAY.

Relief for those stricken in the awful calamity is now beginning to pour in from all over the country. Relief committees are being organized, and food, clothing and money raised to be sent here as rapidly as the special trains can carry the supplies to the people so sorely in need of them.

The Relief Committee here announces that the subscriptions in cash are in excess of $15,000, and that in addition to the provisions which have been forwarded from here the Federal Government has ordered 50,000 rations, which are now on their way from San Antonio. Lieutenant Ferguson, of General McKibben’s staff, expects to take two car loads of food to Galveston to-day. A telegram from New Orleans says that the exchanges there have raised $6,000 for the sufferers.

Dr. C. P. Wertenbacker, in charge of the Marine Hospital Service in New Orleans, has arrived here. He has special instructions to look after the welfare of steamers which may be in distress in Galveston. Dr. Wertenbacker believes that two camps may have to be established by the Government, one for those who cannot leave Galveston and one for those who may come here. The National Government will send the necessary tents, and the local authorities are providing cots in large numbers.

AN APPEAL TO THE FREE MASONS.

Houston, Tex., Sept. 12.—An appeal has been sent out by the Masonic Grand Master to the Masonic lodges and members in Texas, urging them to remit or contribute to the assistance of the destitute.

Grand Commander W. F. Randolph, of North Carolina Knights Templar, to-day telegraphed the following to subordinate commanders of North Carolina:

“Our fraters in Texas in dire distress because of recent storm. Immediate relief imperative. Grand Master appeals for funds. Wire or send quickly to Henry B. Stoddard, Deputy Grand Master, Galveston, Tex.”

SUBSCRIPTIONS UNDER WAY.

Wilmington, Del., Sept. 12.—H. L. Evans & Co., bankers of Wilmington, to-day started a fund to help the storm sufferers at Galveston. Bishop Monaghan, of the Roman Catholic Church, in response to a telegram from Bishop Gallagher, of Galveston, has also started a relief movement. The money which was collected by the city during the Porto Rico famine is still in the possession of Mayor Fahey, and it is likely that it will be turned over for the relief of the people of Galveston.

Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 12.—At a special meeting of the City Council this afternoon $2500 was appropriated for the Galveston storm sufferers. Private subscriptions have amounted to more than this amount, and to-day $4771 was sent to Galveston.

Liverpool, Sept. 12.—At a meeting convened by the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, England, it was decided to open a relief fund for the sufferers from the Galveston disaster, and £1500 was immediately subscribed, exclusive of over £500 raised by the cotton association. The Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool has passed a resolution expressing deep sympathy with the people of Galveston.

PROTECTION OF GALVESTON A COSTLY PROBLEM.

To protect the city of Galveston from the ravages of future cyclones would be almost as costly as to re-establish the city on a new site. This is the opinion of eminent engineers in Washington. To insure the maintenance of the channel it has been necessary to erect jetties, which have cost more than $6,000,000, but these jetties do not furnish any obstacle of value to the invasion of the sea when behind it is a force such as a West Indian cyclone exerts.

Because of the effect of storms upon the Gulf coast it has been customary for engineer officers stationed at Galveston to report yearly upon the appearance of atmospheric disturbances of more than usual intensity, and Captain Rich, the engineer officer, who is believed to have lost his life, stated in his report for 1899 that storms which occurred during April, May and June, 1899, “carried away nearly all that remained of construction trestle and track, and caused more or less settlement of the jetties.”

The need of a safe deep water harbor on the Gulf of Mexico has long been appreciated, and in 1899 Congress passed an act directing the Secretary of War to appoint a board of three engineer officers of the army to make a careful and critical examination of the American coast of the Gulf of Mexico west of 93 degrees and 30 minutes west longitude, and to “report as to the most eligible point or points for a deep harbor, to be of ample depth, width and capacity to accommodate the largest ocean going vessels and the commercial and naval necessities of the country.” The Board consisted of Lieutenant Colonels H. V. Roberts, G. L. Gillespie and Jared A. Smith. The Board reported that Galveston was the most eligible point for a deep harbor, but also called attention to the harbors at Sabine and Aransas Passes as being worthy of consideration.

STORM TRAVELED OVER THREE THOUSAND MILES.

Under date of September 13th a prominent journal commented as follows on the great storm:

“Fast disappearing into the Atlantic by way of Cape Breton Island the great West Indian hurricane is passing into history so far as the United States is concerned.

“For twelve days this storm has been under the surveillance of the Weather Bureau. During this time it has traveled more than 3,000 miles, and has described in its course a perfect parabola. When the storm began its “swing around the circle” at Galveston its intensity was greater than it has been since, although as it goes to sea to-night it is reported to be again assuming terrine proportions.

“Its course now lies directly in the path of the North Atlantic Liners, and what future destruction it may wreak remains to be seen from reports of incoming vessels. Until the West Indian hurricane made its appearance the United States had been for exactly two months without a storm, which is the longest period on record since the establishment of the Government Weather Bureau. With the disappearance of this storm, another disturbance is reported near the west Gulf coast, with an arm of barometric depression extending northward into Western Tennessee.”

NOT MEN ENOUGH TO HANDLE THE DEAD.

Further details of the great disaster were as follows: The citizens of Galveston are straining every nerve to clear the ground and secure from beneath the debris the bodies of human beings and animals and to get rid of them. It is a task of great magnitude and is attended with untold difficulties. There is a shortage of horses to haul the dead and there is a shortage of willing hands to perform the gruesome work. It became apparent that it would be impossible to bury the dead, even in trenches, and arrangements were made to take them to sea.

Barges and tugs were quickly made ready for the purpose, but it was difficult to get men to do the work. The city’s firemen worked hard in bringing bodies to the wharf, but, outside of them, there were few who helped. Soldiers and policemen were accordingly sent out, and every able-bodied man they found was marched to the wharf front. The men were worked in relays, and were supplied with stimulants to nerve them for their task.

At nightfall three barge loads, containing about 700 human bodies, had been sent to sea, where they were sunk with weights. Darkness compelled suspension of the work until morning. Toward night great difficulty was experienced in handling the bodies of negroes, which are badly decomposed.

No effort was made after 9 o’clock in the morning to place the bodies in morgues for identification, for it was imperative that the dead should be gotten to sea as soon as possible. Many of the bodies taken out are unidentified. They are placed on the barges as quickly as possible and lists made while the barges are being towed to sea.

A large number of dead animals were hauled to the bay and dumped in, to be carried to sea by the tides.

RELIEF TRAIN FROM HOUSTON.

A relief train from Houston, with 250 men on board, and two carloads of provisions, came down over the Galveston, Houston & Northern Railroad yesterday to a point about five miles from Virginia Point. It was impossible for them to get the provisions or any considerable number of the men to Galveston, so they turned their attention to burying the dead lying around the mainland country.

There is no fresh water famine here, as the pipes from the supply works are running at the receiving tanks. It is difficult, however, to get it to parts of the city where it is needed.

ROBBERY AND MUTILATION OF THE DEAD.

A reporter has telegraphed from La Porte the story of the robbery and mutilation of the dead in Galveston and death of the offenders.

Ghouls were holding an orgie over the dead. The majority of these men were negroes, but there were also whites who took part in the desecration. Some of them were natives and some had been allowed to go over from the mainland, under the guise of “relief” work. Not only did they rob the dead, but they mutilated bodies in order to secure their ghoulish booty. A party of ten negroes were returning from a looting expedition. They had stripped corpses of all valuables, and the pockets of some of the looters were fairly bulging out with fingers of the dead, which had been cut off because they were so swollen the rings could not be removed.

Incensed at this desecration and mutilation of the dead, the looters were shot down, and it has been determined that all found in the act of robbing dead shall be summarily shot.

During the robbing of the dead, not only were fingers cut off, but ears were stripped from the head in order to secure jewels of value. A few Government troops who survived have been assisting in patrolling the city. Private citizens have also endeavored to prevent the robbing of the dead, and on several occasions have killed the offenders. Singly and in twos and threes the offenders were thus shot down, until the total of those thus executed exceeds fully fifty.

A REFUGEE’S STATEMENT.

J. W. B. Smith, who went to Galveston from Denver, was in Saturday night’s storm, and reached Houston, after having an experience which he will remember the remainder of his life.

He started from the city on Monday afternoon, and in walking from the foot of Broadway to the Santa Fe bridge, counted two hundred dead bodies hung up on wire fences, to say nothing of those floating in the water. He constructed a raft out of planks, and in company with Clegg Stewart, made for the mainland, which they reached after hours of exposure.

In every direction crossing the bay they saw the feet of corpses sticking out of the water. Upon reaching land they walked to Hitchcock, Mr. Stewart’s home, and found that twenty-five persons had lost their lives there, and that, in addition, fifty bodies that had floated ashore had been buried near there.

MONEY BADLY NEEDED.

The Galveston local relief committee sent out the following:

“We are receiving numerous telegrams of condolence and offers of assistance. As the telegraph wires are burdened, we beg the Associated Press to communicate this response to all. Nearby cities are supplying and will supply sufficient food, clothing, etc., for immediate needs. Cities farther away can serve us best by sending money. Checks should be made payable to John Sealy, Chairman of the Finance Committee.

“All supplies should come to W. A. McVitie, Chairman Relief Committee. We have 25,000 people to clothe and feed, for many weeks, and to furnish with household goods. Most of these are homeless and the others require money to make their wrecked residences habitable. From this the world may understand how much money we will need. This committee will, from time to time, report our needs with more particularity. We refer to despatch of this date of Major R. G. Lowe, which the committee fully endorses.

“All communicants will please accept this answer in lieu of direct response and be assured of the heartfelt gratitude of the entire population.

[Signed] “W. C. JONES, Mayor.”

CARNEGIE’S PRINCELY GIFT.

The Carnegie Company, of Pittsburg, was foremost in the contributions to the relief of the sufferers at Galveston. At the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce a motion to contribute $5000 was under discussion, when a representative of the Carnegie Company entered and said that he had been authorized by Mr. Carnegie through a cablegram to give $10,000 for the distressed. The announcement was greeted with applause.

GREAT TIDAL WAVES IN THE WORLD’S HISTORY.

The tidal wave along the Texan coast will rank among the most disastrous in history. History is deficient in the record of such tragedies in human life, but the records are written in physical geography, and are found in the conformation of shore lines, here and there, around all the continents. It is impossible to estimate the number of lives lost through inundations since mankind began, for purposes of commercial intercourse, the development of seaports. Doubtless the total would run into the hundreds of thousands, and might reach into millions.

Geology is quite sure that the rough Norwegian coast, pierced at intervals of every few miles with the fiords or estuaries which penetrate in many instances leagues into the land, tell the story of many cataclysms such as that which has just occurred along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Science, however, taking no note of the traditions or folklore of a people, antedates all human life on the Scandinavian peninsula in setting the time when this great rising of the sea against the land took place.

Scientists are agreed on putting the formation of the Norwegian shore lines as far back as the glacial period. But in the songs of the skalds, as late as the reign of Harold Hardrada, there are allusions to the valor of olden heroes over whom the seas had swept, but whose spirits rode upon the winds which blew the Norman galleys to other shores. In the Norway of the present day there are traditions, handed down through countless generations, from the remotest antiquity, telling how, but not when, the seas came in.

OLD AND CHARMING TRADITION.

One of the oldest and prettiest traditions in the world is that which tells of a submerged city somewhere on the Scandinavian coast, the minarets and towers of which poets can see reflected in the waters at sunset, and the bells of which musicians, with ears divinely attuned to concordant sounds, can hear at vespers. Without either the poet’s eye or the musician’s ear it is still possible to conclude that traditions which have survived so many centuries, and which contradict nothing of the exact truth of science as to original causes, may be as well trusted as science when it begins to speculate, which is all it does when it seeks to prove that the Scandinavian fiords were in the country before the Scandinavian himself.

STORY OF THE LOST ATLANTIS.

The world, with the lapse of centuries, has not even been able to outgrow the tradition of the lost Atlantis. Perhaps this is the oldest of all traditions of cataclysms which have blotted out cities and continents. It may be that it is because this one comes handed down to us from the illustrous hand of Plato that we yield to it a veneration which prolongs its life. Certainly it can never be more than tradition, without a return to the ages of miracles. Our lately found expertness in deep sea soundings have given us no new light on Atlantis.

And yet we cling to the old story, and are loath to turn from the spectacle of a continent in the agonies of a watery burial, or to take down from the walls of our brain cells the pictures of a submerged world in which sea moss trails over and around great temples and monuments. More than half the world believes that there is a lost Atlantis. The Egyptians believed so, long before Plato’s day. It is in the mouth of an Egyptian priest, talking to Solon, that Plato puts the description of the vanished land. That description makes of Atlantis a land larger than the Texas of to-day.

BELIEVED THE SEA HAD CONCEALED A LAND.

The Greek philosopher located it off the shores of North Africa, a little to the southwest of Gibraltar. The Platonian description of the interior of the Atlantis of ancient times is surpassingly beautiful, but not more so than the rare imaginative power with which Plato writes of the country and its people, a most fabulous and engaging history.

All this, of course, is the work of pure fancy, and only important, beyond the fact that it is the work of Plato, as showing how deeply the conviction had taken hold upon the mind of that age that the sea had taken away a land which the ancients knew as the western shore of the Atlantic Ocean, and had left nothing but a boundless waste of waters west of Europe. Speculators have located the lost Atlantis near the Canary Islands, and these islands are, in fact, supposed to be the remnants of the lost continent. There is positively nothing tangible upon which to hang the story of the lost Atlantis.

But, like most traditions which persist in living on after the world has grown too practical to have any more use for them, it has, doubtless, a foundation in some important fact of olden time, the tragedy of which was in that sacrifice of the earth to the waters of the deep, which had become familiar even to the ancients. Byron’s apostrophe to the ocean is so singularly powerful and beautiful because it expresses that awe and fear of man for the sea which is an instinct with us, and which, if it had not been instinct with us at the first, would have become so through the many and heavy afflictions visited upon the race by Neptune, god of the sea.

TIDAL WAVES ON ENGLISH COASTS.

That the coasts of England have been visited by many and disastrous tidal waves there is abundant evidence. In fact, the ocean bar, which surrounds nearly the whole of England and Scotland, is evidence enough that the entire shore line, as it exists to-day, is itself the result of a great submersion, or series of submersions, which ages ago overflowed the old coast, rushed in shore, made new land lines, and, hollowing out between the new line and the old, a new ocean bed, leaving what had been called the coast line to be forever after called the “bar.” The bar is to be found in nearly every port of England, eloquent testimony to the tidal waves of the past. But there is comparatively little of other testimony save such as has been preserved in the records of seaport towns.

One of the greatest cataclysms ever occurring on the British coast was that on the coast of Lincolnshire in 1571. This has been commemorated in verse by Jean Ingelow in the poem entitled “High Tide Off the Coast of Lincolnshire.” The Lincolnshire coast is almost uniformly low and marshy—so low, in fact, at some places that the shore requires the defence of an embankment to save it from the encroachments of the sea.

A sea wall had been built when the great tidal wave of 1571 came, but it appears to have been absolutely useless as a defence of the country and the people of that time.

At the present day the fens of Lincolnshire are defended from the North Sea by some of the finest engineering works in the world, and yet it is much to be doubted whether they would prove effective against such invasions as that which has just overwhelmed Galveston.

GREAT INUNDATION OF 1571.

There are ancient town records in nearly all the seacoast towns of Lincolnshire which tell of the inundation of 1571. There was then as there is now, a chime of bells in the tower of St. Botolph, Boston, and when the tide was seen to be sweeping away the barriers the Mayor of Boston himself mounted the belfry stairs and had played the old love song called “The Brides of Enderby” as an alarm to the country side.

But the tide came so unheralded, there having been no premonition of it in storm or tempest, that the meaning of the chimes was not understood. Savants have never had an explanation of the Lincolnshire tide, coming as it did so unheralded by anything threatening a cataclysm. The flood found the people unprepared and thousands fell victims to its fury.

There is nothing in literature, and nothing of course in the musty archives of the Lincolnshire towns, conveying as vivid an impression of the horror of the day and night as the Ingelow verses. They are written in the old, and what now seems to us the quaint, English of that day.

The story is told by an old woman whose daughter, out with her two children looking and calling for the cows at eventide, is overwhelmed and drowned.

A REAL TRAGEDY AT GALVESTON.

Perhaps it is a safe conclusion that the tragedy poetry as set for us on the Lincolnshire stage had found expression in real life along the Texas coasts. The old Lincolnshire woman’s plaintive narrative has never seemed unreal, because it is filled with the spirit of a homely life, but just now it seems like a voice from out the past telling us of the tragedy now at our doors. The poem is a very long one, but a few selections from its narration of the widespread desolation of the country will picture much of the gulf coast of Texas at this time. The cry of the housewife for the cattle dies out in the evening stillness and then the old dame sees the flood:

And lo, along the river’s bed A mighty eygre reared his crest, And up the river raging sped. It swept with thunderous noises loud— Shaped like a curling, snow-white cloud, Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindus, backward pressed, Shook all her trembling banks amain, Then madly at the eygre’s breast Flung uppe her weltering walls again, Then bankes came down with ruin and rout, Then beaten foam flew round about, Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave The heart had hardly time to beat Before a shallow seething wave Sobbed in the grasses at our feet; The feet had hardly time to flee Before it brake against the knee— And all the world was in the sea.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass, That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea— A fatal ebbe and flow, alas, To many more than mine and me.

TIDES AND EARTHQUAKES.

Many of the most fatal tidal waves of which we have any history, have been accompanied by earthquakes, adding to their horrors, but making it impossible to say whether the earthquake or the inundation has been the more fatal and destructive. The great earthquake at Lisbon in 1755 was accompanied by a tidal wave which, rolling up the Tagus river from the ocean, submerged all the lower parts of the city and destroyed thousands of lives which might possibly have escaped the earthquake shocks.

When the earthquake came to Caraccas in 1812 there was a tidal wave at La Guyra, the entrepot of Caraccas, which destroyed many lives. Five years ago a series of tidal waves, accompanied by or alternating with earthquake shocks, visited some of the most populous islands of Japan. The tidal waves reached from fifteen to twenty miles inland, being of such a height, force and volume, ten miles from the ocean, particularly when restricted to narrow valleys, as to be capable of destroying much life.

The number of human lives lost at that time has never been stated in any English newspaper, but that it ran far into the thousands there is no room to doubt. Ten thousand is more apt to be an under than an over estimate, such were the ravages of the combined seismic and cataclysmic terrors visited upon that part of the world during nearly a week of days and nights of horror, which, fortunately, come but seldom in the experience of the race.

The affliction of Texas, while much less than this, is still monumental, and will always rank among the great catastrophes of history. Perhaps there have been events more destructive of life in times or places where it was impossible that any record of them should be left. But few such are known to history. Nor is it likely that the future will often bring to any part of the world a severer affliction than that which has fallen upon our Gulf coast.