THE JOHNSTOWN FLOODS AN APPALLING CALAMITY. FLOOD AND FIRE. TEN THOUSAND REPORTED LOST. SCENE OF THE DISASTER.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 388, 27 July 1889, Page 4

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOODS AN APPALLING CALAMITY. FLOOD AND FIRE. TEN THOUSAND REPORTED LOST. SCENE OF THE DISASTER.

Two hundred and sixty-eight miles from Philadelphia and in a corner of Cambria counts' where the gorges on the western slopes of the Alleghanies contract to very narrow limits, the trains of the Pennsylvania Kailroad pass along the valley of the Conemaugh River- through a section only ! rivalled for picturesque giandeur by thecanyous of Utah and Colorado. The merciless felling and burning of timber on the Alloghanies has y ready altered the topography of the entiio country between Pitt&burg and the border line of [Maryland and West Virginia. Floods of a destructive character are constantly recurring in the late months of spriDg, due to the abrupt piecipitation of latge quantities of moisture, which were formerly steadily removed by the foliage of the mountain forests. Every stream which has its source in the Alleghanies tells the same story today, and the numerous dams and other obstacles placed in the'beds of the streams for commercial pm poses have contributed largely to the disasters recorded within the past live decades.

AWFUL LOSS OF LIFE. The exact number of peoplo who perished in the great flood will probably never bo known, but there are many persons who now placo the figures at not less than 12,000. Millions cannot repair the damage, and the desolation covei> miles of territory. The number of bodies thus far reco\eied is about 2,000. How many lie beneath the great bed of fire undcr&wept by raging torrents, the uncovering of their bodies can alone determine, but from all appearances there ate thousands. The agonising cries | and lamentations of friends who have not been able to learn any tidings of their loved ones are most pathetic. When a form is seen to drop down deeper into the flames from the burning away of supports, shrieks pierce the air. The condition of the streets is one of unparalleled desolation. Fine thoroughfares in the most densely populated parts of town are denuded ot shops which once were the pride of their inhabitants. Trees have been denuded of their branches, their trunks landing bare and broken, or are uprooted and swept away. It is not an exaggeration to soy that not a single structure is now left within the confines of the city that is safe as a place of habitation, and all must oe torn down and rebuilt.

A TERRIBLE RESPONSIBILITY. Henry Smith, the manager of the Associated Press, who was a passenger in the train which nariowly escaped destruction by the ilood, gives a graphic picture of the A\ay the flood came. He declares that the reservoir, the bursting of which caused such great loss of life and property, was maintained by a fishing club that v ad forced to (rive a bond ot §3,000,000 for ito safety. He declaies that the criminal responsibility foL the awful calamity is biou^ht home directly to this club.

AFTER THE CALAMITY. A sad and gloomy sky, almost as *ad and gloomy as the human faces under it, shiouded Johnttown to-day (June 3). Rain fell all day and added to the miseries of the wretched people. The gieat plain, whete the beit part of Johnstown u«ed to stand, is half covered with water. The few sidewalks in the pai t that escaped the Hood weie inches thick with black, sticky mud, through which tramped a steady procession of poor women, who are left utterly destitute The tenth where the people are housed who cannot find other shelter were cold and cheeilcsn. The town seemed like a great tomb. The people of Johnstown go about in a sort of daze, and are only half conscious, of their grief. Kveiy hour, as one goes through the fctrcets, he hears neighbours greeting each other, and then inquiring, without a show of feeling, how many each had lost in his family. To-day I heard a grey-haired man hail another across the street with this question. " I lost five. All are gone but j\Jary and I," was the reply. i "I am woise off than that," said the first old gentleman. " I have only my grandson lett. Seven of us are gone. ' And bo they passed on without apparent excitement. They and everyone else had heard so much of these melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity had loot its significance. They ticat it exactly as if the dead persons had gone away and were coining back in a week.

SICKEN INC AND DISGRACEFUL SIUHTS. The effect of the dreadful things thoy saw and beard was to drive most of them bo drink. By noon tho streets were be ginning to be full of boisterous and noisy countrymen, who were trying 1 to counteract the strain upon their nerves with unnatural excitement. Then half of the police, foreseeing unseemly sights that wore likely to disgrace the streets, drove out and kept out all visitors who had not some good reason for their presence. After that and far into the evening all the country roads were tilled with drunken stragglers who were trying to forget what they had seen. One thing that makes the work of searching for the bodies very slow is the strange way that great masses of objects were l'ol'ed into

INTRICATE MASSES OF RUBBISH. As the flood came down the valley of the South Fork ib obliterated the suburb of Woodvale, where not a house was left nor a trail of one. The material they had contained rolled on down the alley," over and over, grinding it up to pulp and finally leaving ib against an unusually firm foundation JSvery one of thet© masses contains *

human bodies, bub it is slow work fco pick them bo pieces. Inside of one of them today I saw the remnants of a, carriage, the body of a harnossed hovse, a baby cradle and a doll, a bress of a woman's hair, a iocking-hor.se and a piece of boefuteak still hanging to a hook. Tho city is now very much better patrolled than it has been at any timesince thoilood occurred. Many members of the police force of Pittsburg came inand offered their services. One of them showed his sphit by striking a man, whom ho saw opening a trunk among the rubbish, a tremendous blow over tho head which knocked him senseless. Several big trunks and safes lie in full sight on the desolate plain in tho lower part of the town, bub no one dared to touch them atter that. A man named Dougherty tells a thrilling story of a ndo down the river on a log. When the water struck tho roof of tho houses on which ho had tnken shelter, he jumped astride a telograph pole, riclinjr a distance of some 23 milso, from Johnstown to Bolivar, before ho was rescuod.

MADE INSANE BY TIIS LOSS. A man named Christ. Myers has boen rendered completely insane by the fact that his mother, father, two sifters and brother- are among the missing. When notified ot the loss of the family ho threw up his hands and exclaimed : "My God ! what will come next?" lfrom that time, which was lasfc night, until the piefent, he has been hopelessly insane, even at times becoming violent and wanting to kill himself. AWFUL SIGHTS IK THE STREETS. This morning tho peculiar stonch of decaying human flesh was plainly perceptible to the senses as one ascended tho bank of Stony Creek for half a mile among the smouldering ruins of the wreck, and the most sceptical now conceive the worst, and realise that peihaps thousands of bodie? lie, charred and blackened, beneath the great funeral pyre. Fiom the banks many chaired remains of the victims of the flame and flood arc plainly visible as the receding waters reluctantly give up their dead. Beneath almost every log or blackened beam the glistening skull or blanched remnants of ribs or limbs maik all that remain of life's hopes and dreams.

NARROWLY ESCAPED WITH HIS LIFE. A milkman who was overcharging" for milk this morning narrowly escaped lynching. Infuriated men appropriated all his milk and distributed it among the poor and then drove him out of town. Tho body of tho Hungarian who was lynched in the orchard la&t night has> been recovered by his friends. The inhuman monster was noticed as he cut otF four ringers of a woman's hand. He chopped the lingers into his pocket, where they woie found when he was captured. The act maddened the men, and they took him to the orchard on the hill&tde and hanged him. Thcro is but onesticct left in the town. About 155 houses are standing, wheic once there stood a thousand. Below the mills is Cambria, a subborough, in which district resided probably 2,000 people. The scenes arc but a iepetition of other parts of tho flood- wasted city. In St. Columbus Church, a new structure, which has boon flooded fco a depth of six feet in the auditorium, tho water had receded, and the floor was covered with slimy 00/.c to the depth of eeven or eight inches. On boards stretched along the top of the pewe weie thirty bodies which had been snatched from the stream by Father Thos. Darlin and some of his parishioners, whom he had impressed into the service. While in the awful presence of the dead the Associated Press representative saw Joseph Smith, a man of extraordinary size and strength, enter. Ho said not a word, bub quietly went from corpse to corpse, lifting the stained and mud-coveied coverings of the dead. At last he came to the corpse of a child about 9 years old — his daughter. ITe looked at the swollen and bloodstained features a moment, and then with a \oice of atrony cried,

"MY MAGGIE. MY LITTLE MAGGIE !" at the same time pressing blic inanimate form to his bosom and eiving expression to alternate caretsings and ejaculations of giicf. The man took his child and went with it to what had been hib home. He placed it beside those of his wife and two other children, all of whom had been di owned. Jb is impossible to narrate the many pathetic incidents that occurred on all sides«. At Morrell forty-thiee bodies were laid out waiting to be identified. Eight of them were children, one that of a child which a phybicitin said had been born while the mother was lighting for her life in the iaging Qood. At Nineveh, nine miles down the stteam, 106 bodies, mostly women and childicn, \vere laid out in a sawmill, and additions weic being made by waggon loads at a time, which weie being picked U P on the mcado.vs, over which the great tide had surged. Many were found with their hands clinging tenaciously to branches of tiees and shrubs In one case a young couple weie found locked in each other's arms. In another ca&e a mother was found with a child clapped in each arm and held closely to her bosom. There is no possibility of telling just who have been lost, as thousands are mifs&ing. The survivors, many of whom tell of mo^t thrilling escapes from the collections ot debiis, house roof;?, car doots and plank*, seek the hanks and gaze with stupor upon the terrible scene. The number oi people who are visible from the banks i.s &o few in contrast with the population ot the various little boiougl.s which constitute the city that the quostoin I " Where are the people?' is asked on all sides. The impression is gaining that the disclosures yet to como, whore the gorge collected, is yob more ghastly. The awtulness of the scene defies language to depict, as it does the imagination to conceive oh Without seoing the ha*oc created no idea can be given either of the area of desolation or the extent ot damage.

A NOBLE* FATHER. Ab Bolivar a man, woman and child were seen floating down on a lot> of drift. The mass of debris commenced to part, and by desperate efforts the husband and father succeeded in getting his Wife and little one on a floating tree. .Just then the tree washed under the bridge, and the rope was thrown out. It fell over the man's shoulders. He saw at a glance that ho could nob save his dear ones, so he tbrew the means of safety to one side, and grasped eloper in his arms those who were with him. A moment later the tree struck a floating house. Ib turned over, and in a second the three peisons were in the seothing waters, being carried to their deaths. Another instanco is that of a mother's love told at Belware. A woman and two children were floating down the stream. The mother caught a lope and tried to ho d it and her babe. It was impossible, and, with a look of ang-uish, sho relinquished her hold and sank with hor two littlo ones clasped iv the grasp that soot) proved one of death.

A PITIFUL TALE. Just before reaching Sang Hollow, the end of the main line of the Pennslyvania railroad, is a signal tower, and the men in it, told piteous btorie.s of what they saw. A beautiful girl came down on the roof of a building, which was swung in near the tower. Sho screamed to the operators to save her, and one brave fellow walked as far into the liver as he could, and shouted bo her to euido herself in to the shote with a bit of plank. She was a plucky girl, and stood up on her frail support in ovident obedience to tho command of tho operator. Sho made two or three bold strokes and actually stopped the couise ot the raft for an instant, then it swerved and wont out from under hoi. Sho tried to swim ashore, but in a few seconds sho \v;us lost in tho swirling wateis. Something hit her, for sho lay quietly on her back, with her face pallid and expicfsionlefes.

STRUGGLING FOR LIFE. There were men and women in dozens, in pairs and singly; childien, boys, big and little, and woe bnbo« were there in among the awful confusion, drowning, gasping, f-tru«7*ling and lighting d opera tely for life. Two men on a tiny lafthhot along in the swiftest part of the cuircnt. They crouched stolidly looking ab the shoies, while between tliem, dressed in -white and kneeling, with her face turned heavenward, ,< was a girl 6 or 7 years old. When she came ooposite the tower sho turned her lace to the operators. She was? so clo.-c that they could see the big tears on her cheek", and her pallor was a& denlh. Tho helpless men an shoie shouted to her to keep up her courage, and she resumed her devout attitude and disappeared under the trees bo a piojectingpointa&horb distance below. " YVo could not see her come out again," .said the opeiator, "and that was all o\ it." "Do you ace that fringe of tree?" said an operator, pointing to the place whoro the little pirl had £>one out of sight. " Well, we miw 'Jeore? ot childien swept in Micro. I beliexo that when the time cones they \\ill find almost a bundled bodies of childien in there among those bushes."

JLMI'FOVISED MOJiGUES. There are six improvised moigues illi 11 Johnstown, and in these bodies are held until decomposition renders it unsafe to keep them longer. These temporary places for the dead arc in churches and schoolhouses, the largest one bein^ the Fourth Waid school house, where planks have been laid over the tops of the desks, and on them the remains are placed. When a coipso is dug from the bank it is covered with mud ; it is taken to an ante-room of the school, whero it is placed under a hydrant, and the muck and hlime washed on". With a kniie the clothes arc ripped open, and an attendant searches the pockets for \aluablcs or papers that would lead to identification. Four men lift the corpse on lo a rude table, and theie it is thoroughly washed and embalming Jluid injected into an aim. Then, with other bodies, the corpse lies in a larger room until identified or until it becomes offensive. In the latter case it is hurried to a laigo gra\e that will hereafter have a monument over il bearing the inhcription,

" UNKNOWN DEAD."' The number of the latter is growing houily. Bodies of stalwart workmen he beside the remains of dainty ladies, many of whom are still decked with costly cartings and jewel 4 ! on their fingers. Rich and poor throng these quarters in the hope of recognising a missing one, so as to accord the body decent burial. "Mamma, mamma," cried a child. She had recognised a body that no one else could, and in a moment the corpse was ticketed, boxed and delivered to labourer?, who bore it away to join the long funeral piocession. A mother recognised her baby boy.

"KEEP IT A FEW MINUTES," ahc a&ked the undei taker in charge. In a few minutes she leturned carrying in her arms a little white carfket. Then t<hc lined two men to bear it to the cemetery. No hcuibes are seen in Johnstown. Relatives lccogniso their dead, secure colhn&, get them cauied the best way they can to the moigucs, then to gi-aveyaids. A piayei, some tears, and a lew more of the dead thousands aio buried. A frequent visitor to thece hoirible places is David John Lewis. All ovci Johnstown he lides a poweiful giey hoibe and to each one he meets whom he knows, ho exclaims, 'Have you '-cen my bisters V H.-rdly waiting foi a lcply hegallopb away, either to seek inprcss to the moigue or to ride along tho rivei bunk. One week ago Lewis was worth ->'60,000 dollars, his all being invested in a largo commission bu&inr&s. To-d'iy he owns the hoibo he rides, the clothes on his back, and thao is all. In ll)e fierce wave weie buried five ot hio near relatives — his titters Anna, Lizzie and Maggie. Tho latter was married and her little boy and babe vveic also drowned.

LIFE INSURANCE LOSSES. A representative of the Mutual Lite Insurance Company of New Voik stiaterl today that the Company would loso by deaths in the Concmaugh valley. Some of tiio untortunateb who could not go to the ic!icf trains cndca\oured to obtain flour ironi the wi'cckcd stoics in Johnstown, One dealer was clnuging :S5 a sack for ilour. Suddenly a crowd heaul oi the occurrence, and eovcial de&pcrate men wonfc to tho btore and doled out Jlour gratuitously lo the homeless and stricken ainiy. Anotlier dealer was selling (lour at ft 1.50 a sack. Ho refuted to give any away, guarding his f.tore witli a shotgun. ! Hundreds of men, women, and children went Moating down tho current to meet their death.* Mothers calmly them^ches to the iuvy ol tho flood or tire to save the lives ot their childion and loved one?. Not infrequently a pale-faced woman, clinging with her child to the floating debi'iS, lealiaing that tho suppoit was too frail for two, would be seen to lift her pro cioub ii'eighb high up on tho floating dcbrib, and, M'ith a hasty ki&b, bink beneath the wavofc.

Lonoox, July 22. Mr Parnell intends to apply to the House of Commons for a Committee of Inquiiy into the oiigin of tlic Pig golt conspiracy. The "Coiomandel News," in a leading article on bhe proposal to utilise- labour in gold pioduction, says that profits would be poured into the Colonial Treasury after paying the workmen full wages of 8^ per day, meanwhile providing a deserving class of men with the means of earning an honourablo living for themselves ; also arguing that prosperous gold field communities provide the best markets for farm produce ; the wages paid workmen simply going into the hands of trade&men and to the growers of the necessaries of life, being so much money put into active circulation. The article closes as follows : — "A feasible and practical scheme for the profitable utilisation of our golden wealth has been promulgated by Mr Wibheford, and is published in another column. Wo hope to hear ot it being adopted by theUovernmenb and put to fche practical test."