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mremm • I v tm>m 55! If OF THE DELtJGE. •ttAMffUCKDINO fttfSXBS WX JtAITUH VAUKY. COMI- tl Njf„* VBllan Hmty Smith'* fir»|>l>tc Descrip­ tion of the Flood's Awful Approach-- Mad Plunge of the Aqueous Avalanche on ft* Ci^y of C«n<«m*ngh-How Trains, •atauM, K very thing. Went Down Brfhre £ tUtom Nlegera--A Wftal Scenes of De- w"' '?£ sfe., Mr. William Henry Smith, General Manager ef |)m Associated PrBBfi, viifl an rye-witness of MtfrinrMl seenes in Conemaugh Valley on the M^t 0< the areat calamity. He tells tee follow- fliistory of the flood's devastation : Ilihtt-Hr* trains that leave Chicago at 3:15 Cincinnati at 7 p. m. constitute the day ex- i eastward from Pittsburgh, which runs in sections. This train left Pittsburgh on Friday morning, but was stopped for an Ht Johnstown bv reports of a washout Steed. It had been" raining hard for over six- taili'jbonra, and the Bides of the mountains Were eeewed -with -water descending into the Him. The Conemaugh River, whose task is followed bv the Pennsylvania Xaflroad for many miles. looked an an pry flood nearly bankful. Passengers were inter- iUM in seeing hundreds of saw-logs and an •»«»i ill1111in amount of driftwood shoot rapidly fcy, and the train pursued its wp.y eastward. At Johnstown there was a long wait, as before Mated. The lower stor^i of many houses were submerged by the slack water, and the inhab­ itant* were looking o«t of the second stories. Horses were standing up to their knees in water in the streets ; a side-track of the railroad had'been washed out; loaded cars were on the tc keep it steady, »mkI th^ ox 'the Western liiiiou IVkgM^ii 5'« »>p*ny, carrying fifteen wires, strayed badly. and several soon went down. The two "sections ran to Conemaugh, about two miles this -side of Johnstown, and lay there about three hours, when they were moved on to •ilw highest ground and placed side by side. The tnrrft train was placed m the rear of the first section, and a freight train was run on to a side btck on the bank of tiw Conemaugh. The re­ port was that a bridge bad been washed out, •arrv ng away one track, aud that the other track was unsafe. There was a rumor also that Hi Minute at South fork, game time agoe ofetefets, irttr *Und idly an*.are fcetag & may . whole families polished. In a small room of the school-house lay eleven little children, A blB boy sat by contemplating them. They W«re hw brother* and elMers. His ftlM, w>5« Fisher, and blf mother were drowned, but their bodies have not yet 1x*>n found. The children were in the attic and would have heon Raved, but a locomotive was hurled through the house and taiocked down. The business part of Johnstown ia without form. The stores in such buildings as still sta;id are in vast disorder. The doors are block­ aded with drift; bat peering within a number their clerks, >wlllw6 do nothing but gw A man named gory at a ride dpwn^ti^o of them, the proprietors, th tomers can be seen dead on the floo^ CU8- - „ The Hotel Hurlburt, a large brick building, 'was Blade a nlace of refuge, and fell, killing seventy people. The whole valley, as far as the eye reaches, is an indescribable wreck, and upon this hideous scene a cold rain lias poured all day long and still prevails to-night. No attempt is made to avoid the weather and the thousands of survivors are wringing wot to-night. Most of the fugitives have got shelter now. The first dispatches from this scene were many times short of the tremendous truth. The catastrophe is ao great, that none dare venture an estimate upon its extent. "Woodvale and Conemaugh are utterly destroyed, and their joint population of 5,000 is dead. Johnstown is wrecked, and certainly 5,000 people lie dead in the streets and among the driftwood in the sub- siding stream. The business portion of the prosperous little city is obliterated, and for a mile along Main street the wreckage is piled fifty feet high. For miles below the debris of chattered houses chokes the stream. One hundred and ninety lyylfne were pickod out of the river r.f Nineveh, aud Use majority wore ln;ik-u ihvk<. lo-iiay. The depot is tilled with dead, and all tlie pub­ lic buildings left standing Are used as morgues. In Johnstown proper the work of picking up the dead has barely begun. There are about two square miles of wreck­ age gorged against the brnlge and iu flames. It is said that 2,000 people died there. This vast drift is still ablaze, and is so tightly packed that it will require great engineering to clear the stream. The river is parted by it, and rang like a mill-race on either hand. The lower part of the town along the river bank is washed,as bare as a common, and it is : TtEW OF KIOOD IK JOHNBlTOWX--THB OPEN SPACE WAS KNOWN AS IBOK STBBET. t f > : | * ' 1^' • & • v Jwiercf the Pennsylvania C»-oal. but latterly fte property of a club at Pittsburg, and used for hunting and fishing, was unssfe and might Ireak. This made most of ihe i assengers «ae*sy. and they kept a pretty good i>6k<mt for Informs'ion. Tne porters ft the- Pullman ears remained at their y«ts and comforted the passtugers with ihe as- *orin;ce that the Pennsylvania Eailroad Crm- l>any always took care of its patrons. A few •wtVmen arid some ladien ond chililren qcietly «»tfdthems» Ives, apparently contented, One gentleman, who was ill, had liis bai th made up and retired, although advised not to do so. Soon the cry came that the water in the reser- <«r had broken down the barrier and was yweeping down the valley. Instantly there was a panic, and a rush for the mountain side. Children were carried and women assisted kf a few who kepi cool heads. It was a race for life. There was seen the Mack ' head of the flood, now the sfssiister <;? destruction. whose crest van high raised in the air, and with this in view *Tpn the weak frond -wings for their feet. No weMUi cau adequatoly describe the terror that lllni averv breast, or the awful power mani- by tee flood. The round-house had stalls twenty-three locomotives. There were eight- M or twenty of these standing there at this tlpne. There was an ominous crash, and the MWnd-hoQse and locomotives disapxxared. Evenrthinc in the main track of the flood was flrst lifted in the air and then swallowed up by ihe waters. A hundred houses were swept away % • lew minutes; these included the hotel, steles, and saloons on the front street, and resi- dnoee adjacent. As the fugitives on the mountain side wit­ nessed the awful devastation, they were moved as never before in their lives. They were power­ less to help those seized upon by the waters ; the despair of those who had lost everything except j back in a week thousands of dwellings I tile hard to believe tha and business blocks so recently covered ground. jS)i . & DAZED BT THE HORROR. Johnstown Like a Great Tomb--Scenes in the 8tricken City. A sad and gloomy 6ky, almost as sad and gloomy as the human faces under it. shrouded Johnstown to-day. continues Air. Giles. Bain fell all day and added to the miseries of the wretched people. The great plain where the best part of Johnstown used to stand is half covered with water. The few sidewalks in the part that escaped the flood were inches thick with black sticky mud, through which tramped a steady procession of the poor women who are left utterly destitute: The tents, where the people are housed who cannot find other shelter, were cold and cheerless. The town seemed like u great tomb, i'ne people of Johnstown have supped so full of horrors that they go about in a sort of a daze and only half conscious of their griefs. Every hour as one goes through the streets he hears neighbors greeting each other and then inquiring, without show of feeling, how many each had lost in his family. To-day a gray-haired man bailed an­ other across the street with this question. "I lost five; "all aie gone but Mary and I," Has the reply. "lam worse off than that," said the first old gentleman; "I have only my grandson left. Seven of us gone." And so they passed on without apparent ex­ citement. They and every one else had heard so much of these melancholy conversations that somehow the calamity had lost its signifi­ cance to them. They treat it, exactly as if the dead persons had gone away and were coming Mfe, and the wailing of those whose relatives 9r friends were missing filled their breasts with antrtterahle sorrow. The rain continued to fall iteadily, but shelter was not thought of. Very Jew pa'ssengers saved anything from the train, *0 sudden was the cry, "Bun for your lives: the reservoir has broken." Manv were without 1 late, and, as their baggage was left on the trains, Ifaejf were without the means of relieving their uhappy condition. The occupants of the houses still standing on the high ground threw them open to those who had lost all and to the passengers of the train. During the height the flooa the spectators were startled by the •oaed of two locomotive whistles from the very sritfet of the waters. The engineers, withchar- aetarlatfe courage, had remained at their posts, and while there was destruction on every hand, " ' r them, th ' repeated __S1E Ibe waters were receding from . $ »* * ? " * y • ' p \ - ' K*?.".1 f • aad apparently no escape for them, they sound­ ed thmr whistles. This they repeated at inter­ val*---the last time with triumphant vigor as the waters were receding from the sides of their IpemiiatiVM. By 5:30 the force of the reservoir waters had been spmt on the village of Cone- Pullm an cars and locomotive of awng&i th»*eeoE stground. The c thaPi ^ Bection • roiiianied unmoved. This they wflBe on the highest and Itard- i destructive current of the reservoir flood iad passed tfctween that and the mountain, while the current of the river did not eat it away. But the other trains had been destroyed. A solitary locomotive was seen imbedded in the «ud where the round-house had stood. The melancholy task of searching the ruins for more bodies went on today in the soaking rain. There were little crowds of morbid curi­ osity hunters around each knot of workingmen, but they were not residents of Johnstown. All their curiosity in that direction was sated long ago. Even those who come in from neighboring towns with the idea of a day's strange and ghastly experiences did not care to be near after they had seen one body exhumed. There were hundreds and thousands of these visitors from the country. One thing that makes the work of searching for the bodies very slow is the strange way that great masses of objects were rolled into intri­ cate masses of rubbish. As the flood came down the valley of the South Fork it obliterated the Buburb of Woodvale, where not a house was left nor a trace of one. The material they had contained rolled on down the valley, over and over, grinding it up to pulp and finally leaving it against an unusually firm foundation or an eddy. These masses contain human bodies, but it is slow work to pick them to pieces. In the side of one of them was seen the rem­ nants of a carriage, the body of a harnessed horse, a baby cradle and a doll, a tress of wom­ an's hair, a rocking-horse, and a pieoe of beef­ steak still hanging to a hook. Kit :. in <>'• <» fi y,K,. As the greatest danger had passed, the people ef Conemaugh gave their thoughts to their neighbors of the city of Johnstown. Here was tentereftlbe^eat Steel and iron industries, the fride of'Western Pennsylvania, the Cambria ron Works being known everywhere. Here were eharches, daily newspapers, banks, dry goods house*, warehouses, and the comfort­ able aud well-built homes of 12,000 people. What was their fate ? In the contemplation of »he irresistible force of that awful flood gather­ ing additional momentum as it swept on toward ihe Gqlf, it, became clear tlmfc' the city must be destroyed, add that, unless tbie ifiihUtante had tefegrajftfc notice of the bretjking Of'the reser­ voir they must perish. A cry of horCprwent up ircm the hundreds on the monntaln-side, and % few instinctively turned their steps toward Johnstown. The city was destroyed. All the mills, furnaces, manufactories; the many and varied industries, the banks, the residences --all. All were swallowed up before the shadows -of eight had settled down upon the earth. What •f the inhabitants f Who can tt-ll with any cer­ tainty V Those who came back by daybreak said that from 5,000 to 8,000 had been drowned. Our hope is that tt*i« is an exaggeration, Mid when •he roll is called most will respond. In the light « this calamity the destruction at Conemaugh sinks into insignificance. In this latter place they were already bringing in the dead on stretchers. How many had been lost here, at Mineral Point, and at South Fork could not be told and may never be known. There were some passengers and perhaps forty or fifty inhab­ itants. The loss of property is enormous The Vack of the railroad company ia certainly de­ stroyed for at least ten miles below South Fork, yd all other property of the company on the hne. The destruction of Johnstown's industries win alone reach many millions. Then to this peat sum add the value of the houses and public buildings in that city and of the villages above end below it, and some idea can be formed of the wealth obliterated by the flood created by the breaking of the reservoir. And this reservoir was maintained for the fJeaeure of a Pittsburgh club. Upon the moun­ tain was suspended a body of water three miles ksig, one mile wide, and seventy feet deep for the recreation of a few pleasure-seekers. What would happen if there should be a break must have been imperfectly apprehended, since it is art# that a bond of only three millions had been •KSdwdtioixi the club. "What are three millions 9um for tbe destruction of proper- 5? , P restore the dead to life, or assuage tbe grief of ttie bereaved V The question of inor- al respoMHibUltv swallows up the financial as •ampletely ae the angry waters did the city ol Jahnntown, WILLIAM HKNBI SMITH. SCENE SIMPLY AWPUJ^ fern Pictures of the Heartrending Con­ dition of tbe Valley. This to certainly one ol the world's greatest eataetrophei, telegraphs 'Fred B. G:leg, the Chi­ cago Newt' special correspondent at Johnstown 9w» mm» i* awful. The dead lie so thick that a eotpae Maa»al)roomu:iUKlb attention, save as the -- ptoeeed on their rounds. In a on the hillside there are 150 bodies 0$ them are frightfully out and bruised, ooqdttian ef life and both sexes hi •amoat number are among tbe dead. The peo- re ea Tight without warning in the .of thflif mania* SMALL TOWNS SWEPT AWAY. Little Left of Kernville--Woodvale a Sea ' ' of Mud. Out of tUe 1,000 houses that once made up the little town of Kemvillo only 155 remain stand­ ing, says a Johnstown special. One thousand people is a low estimate of the number of livee lost from this town. But a few of the bodies have been recovered. It is directlv above the ruins at the bridge, and the bodies Save floated down into them, where they burned, A walk through the town revealed a desolate sight. Only about twenty-five able-bodied men Ivave sur­ vived and are able to render any assiataaCe. Men aud women can be seen with black eyes, bruised faces, and cut heads. The apj>enrance of some of the ladies is heartrending. They were injured in the flood and since that have not slept. Their faces have turned a sickly yellow, and dark rings surround the eyes. Many have suc­ cumbed to nervous prostration. For two days but little assistance could be rendered them. No medical attention reached them. The wounded remained uncared for in some houses cut off by the water and died from their injuries alone. Some were alive on Sunday, and their shouts could be heard by the people on the shore. i £ "i'S !1 ™w in * temporary jail in what is left of the town. He was caught stealing a gold watch A shot was fired at him, but he was not woanded. Ihe only thing thai; saved from lynching was the smallness of the crowd. His sentence will be the heaviest that e&xite given A milkman who was overcharging for •ed lynchi e Af» *««* as possible the cuca^o men t WMfcof organizing relief partie* to *.*7 the Jec^ae-who were on the houses th ' .ghrilHPg eat his awful been swept bade into Stony Creek whi the waters struck the he had taken abetter, he jmapeg aetrMfc a telegraph pole, riding a distance of some twenty-three miles from JehnHtown to Bolivar before he was rescued. A nameless Paul Bevere lies aootewhere among the dead. Who be to may aev«r be known, but his rido will be famous to local history. Mounted on a large bay hocee,<hftoame riding) like an angel of wrath, down the pike which passed through Oonemtragh to Johns­ town, shouting as he came: "Knnfor your lives to the hills 1 Bun to the hflur The jieople crowded out of their tmtM along the thickly settled * ' " the man, and some a maniac. On he rode, . cry. In a few moments theore came a cloud of ruin down the broad streets, down tbe,narrow alleys, grinding, twisting, hurling, overturning, crashing, annihilating the weak and tttong. ft was the charge of the flood. On raoed the rider and on rushed the wave. Doiena of people heeded the warning and ran for the hllla. Just as the lone rider crossed the railroad .bridge the mighty wave fell upon him, and hone, man, went down into r ngoi finmllK^ 9,"' ' THB FATAL DAM.' ̂ Its'CrWfiera Were Aware of Its ^Condition. Messrs. H. Ringer, George Singer, IiRnls Clark, and R. Hussey Binns, of Pittsburg, relatives of members of the South Fork Fishing Club, have arrived from the broken dam, says a dispatch from Johiisto".'?!. Tliti lake ia completely dried out. The dam broke in the center at 3 o'clock on Friday after­ noon, and at 4 o'clock it was dry. That, great body of water passed out in one hour. Messrs. Park and Van Buren, who are building a new draining system at the lake, tried to avert the disaster by digging a sluice-way on one side to ease the pressure on the daui. They had about forty men at work, and did all they could with­ out avail. The water pass»xl over the darn abou t, a foot above its top, beginning at about 2 :H0. Whatever happened in the way of a cloudburst took place during the night, There had been but little rain up to dark. When the workmen awoke in the morning the lake was very full and was rising at the rate of a foot au hour. It kept on rising until 2 o'clock, when it first be­ gan breaking over the dam, undermining it; men were sent three or four times during the day to warn the people below of their danger. When the final break came at 3 o'clock there was a sound like thunder, and trees, rocks, and earth were shot up into mid-air in great columns, and then the wave started down the ravine. A farmer who escaped said that the water did not come down like a wave, but jumped on his house and heat it to fragments in an instant. He was safe upon the hillside, but his wife and two children were killed. At the present time the lake looks like a cross between the crater of a volcano and a huge mud-puddle with stumps of traes and rocks scattered over it. There is a small stream of muddy water running through the center of the lake. The dam was seventy feet high, and the break ia about 200 feet wide, and there is but a small portion of the dam left «-n either side, No damage was done to any of the buildings be­ longing to the club. The whole south fork is •wept, with not a tree standing. A man named Maguire says he was standing on the edge of the lake when the walls burst. The water was rising all day and nan on a level with a pile of dirt which, he said, was above tho wall 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 trees as if they were chips; bowlders were rolled down as if they were marbles. The roar was deafening. The lake was emp­ tied in an hour and a half. All the water, he said, is now out. The ra'lroad is in a terrible condition. At some points holes twenty to thirty feet deep were washed in the tracks. On his way down he stopped at Mineral Point, where sixteen houses were washed away and several lives lost. At Ea-it Conemaugh thirty houses were carried away by the flood, Tlw loss of life is large at this point. - oame ia dof miat ofr foam, aad a* It ~ houses it swept them down tibocegsion of era ghee that was |. there were lose than M0 people 1 with him. The otbara went He saw hundreds ef them i eyes as they stood looking wreck. No one eeoaped from otJBe, and Messrs. Felt and Mto- ^ lhave been among the lost had they dined;* As HOOB as possible tbe Chicago men began * • • " • * -- t o rescue that had Stony Creek when the watej eould not escape below. These people were wfld with fright, and Mr. Felt securtfta otothes-lino which was used to send out araft with a strong man to take people off the tKrtxses. A river man volunteered for this • work, and with a rope tied se­ curely about his body, he made many trips into the flood, and each time brought two peopleashore with him. The other gentlemen carried these people up to the high ground where they -were cared for by the residents of that looality. They rescued over fifty people in this j way, -mostly "women and children. They worked as long as thev could see auditor dark the fire at the bridge gave them light w> see here and these the people still clinging to roofs, some of irhom were rescued. A number of traveling men who wove in the hotels tied tags to their clothing and shot themselves, so desperate were they in this scene of terror. Both gentlemen vo'ueh for this, QOV. BEAVER'S CALL FOR AID. Money, Provisions, and Clothlngr Badly Needed. Gov. Beaverc of Pennsylvania, issued a strong appeal for aid. It is addressed to the people of the United States, and says: reports as to the loss of life and THB LOSS OF LEWS. The Terrible Sacrifice of Human Lifts Will Never Be Known. The developments of every hour make it more and more apparent that the exact number of lives lost in the Johnstown horror will never be known, says one correspondent. All estimates that have been made up to this time are conser­ vative and when all is known will doubtless be found to have been too small. Over one thousand bodies have been found since sunrise to-day, and the most skeptical con­ cede that the remains of thousands more rest beneath the debris above Johnstown bridge. The population of Johnstown, the surrounding towns, and the portion of the valley affected by the flood is, or was, from fifty thousand to flfty-flve thousand. Associated Press representatives to-day interviewed numerous leading citizens of Johnstown who survived the floods and the consensus of opinion was that fully 30 per cent, of the resi­ dents of Johnstown and Cambria had been vio- timsof the combined disasters of fire and wa­ ter. If this be true the total loss of life in the entire valley may reach 15,000. Of the thou­ sands who were devoured by the flamea, and whose ashes rest beneath the smoking debris above Johnstown bridge, no definite informa­ tion can ever be obtained. As little will be learned of the hundreds who sunk beneath tho current and were borne swiftly down the Conemaugh only to be deposited hundreds of miles below on the banks and in the "driftwood of the raging Ohio. Probably one-third of the dead will never be recovered, and it will take a list of the missing weeks hence to enable even a close estimate to be made of the number of lives that were snuffed out in that brief hour. That this esti­ mate can never be accurate is understood when it is remembered that in many instances whole Newspape; property have not been exaggerated. The Valley of the Conemaugn, wnicn is peculiar, has been swept from one end to the other as with th© beaom of destruction. It contained a population of 40,000 to 50,000 people, living for the most part along the banks of a small river confined within narrow limits. The most conservative estimates place the loss of life at 5,000 human beings and 1,000. „ needs so far as food is con- * applied. Shoes and clothing of all sorts for men, women and children are A CORN KB Ol* THE CAMBRIA IBON COMPANY'S MlUCa NEXT TO THE BRIDGE. greatly needed. Money 1h also urgently required to remove the debris, bury the dead, and c'are temporarily for widows and orphans and for the homeless families. Other localities have suffored to some extent in the same way, but not in the same degree. Late advices would seem to indicate that there is great loss of life and destruction of property along the west branch of the Susquehanna and in localities from which we can get no definite information. The responses from within and without the State have been most generous an.d cheering. North and South, East and West, from the Uni­ ted States and from England there cornea the some hearty, generous response of sympathy and help. Funds contributed in aid of the sufferers can be deposited with Drexel & Co., Philadelphia; Jacob E. Bamberger, banker, Harrisfouig; or William I?., Thompson A Co., bankevrfl, Pitts­ burg. All money contributed will be used ease- fully and judiciously. BODIES FOUND NEAR KERNVILLE. Nearly 1,000 Corpses Discovered and the FearfUl Figures Growing Larger. It has not been generally believed that the district in the neighborhood of Kern ville would be so prolific of corpses as it haB proved to be, says a press dispatch from Johnstown. In that part of the town where both the river and Stony Creek have dene their worst within the last twenty-four hours almost 1,000 bodies have been recovered. The place is one great repository of the dead. One hundred and fifty persons were taken out of the sand along Stony Creek this morning. One hundred and seventy-five bodies were re­ covered to-day at Morrellville. Grand View Cemetery has 300 buried in it, all of whom met death in the flood. They have thirty-five men digging graves. Seven hundred dead bodies are in the hospital on Bedford street, Conneaut, and one hundred and fifty dead bodies in the schoolhouse hospital, Adam street, Con- nea ut . Three hundred bodies were found to­ day in sandbanks along Stony creek, in the vi­ cinity of the Baltimore <& Ohio, and 182 bodies at Nineveh. Parts of bodieB were taken out at the railroad bridge. The hourly recovery of bodies near the vicini- • ty of what was once the Baltimore and Ohio depot at. Johnstown is increasing with frightful rapidity. Half of the unknown dead are man- THE CAMBBIA IBOK WOBKS. him. milk this morning narrowly escaped lynching. The infuriated men appropriated all his milk and distributed it among the poor and then drove him out of the town. Services in the chapel from- which the bodies were buried consisted merely of a prayer by one of the survivors. No minister was present. Each coflin had a descriptive card upon it and on the grave a similar card was placed so that bodies can be removed later by friends. Where Woodvale once stood there is now „ .. of mud, broken but rarely by a pile of wreckage Nothing is standing but tbe old woolen-mills The j>lace is swept bare of all other buildings but the ruins of the Oautier •wire-mill. Tho boilers of this great works were carried 100 yards from their foundation. Pieces of engines, rolls, and other machinery were swept far away from where they once stood The wreck of a hose carriage is sticking up out of the mud. It belonged to the crack company of Johnstown. The engine house is swept away and the cellar is filled with mud, so that the site iB obliterated A German watchman was on guard at the ™tii when the Waters came. He ran for the hillside and succeeded in escaping. He tells a graphic story of tbrf appearance of the water as it swept down the valley. He declares that the first wave was as high as the third story of a house. The place is deserted. No effort i a being made to clean off the streets. The mire has formed th® grave for many a poor victim. Armo and lege are protruding from the mud, and it makes t sickening of pictures. the most The Cambria Hospital has now 300 patients. Several Injured people have had opevMUns per­ formed on them. - The hospital in the upper is full to overflowing. Many tc the aamraadtaghoaseK, . - , Ko»pitalsjCw,be& entabMub^d»-atf'fctae- inaugh amniinenl Point. A rope ferry is now being operated in the etfsvfr '4e -beia^ families and their relatives were swept away and found a common grave beneath the wild waste of waters. The total destruction of the city leaves no data to even demonstrate that the names of these unfortunates ever found place on the pages of history. "All indications point to the fact that the death-list will reach over five thousand names, and in my opinion the missing will reach 8,000 in number," declared Gen. D. H. Hastings. At present there are said to be 2,200 recovered bodies. The great difficulty experienced in getting a correct list is the great number of morgues. There is no central bureau of infor­ mation, and to eommunicate with tbe different deadhouses is the work of hours. In answer to questions from Gov. Beaver, Adjt. Gen. Hastings has telegraphed the follow­ ing : "Good order prevailed throughout the city and vicinity last night. Police arrangements are excellent. Not one arrest made. No need of sending troops. "About 2,OCX) bodies have been rescued, and the work of embalming and burying the dead is go­ ing on with regularity. There is plenty of medi­ cal assistance. We have a bountiful supply of food and clothing to-day and the fullest tele­ graphic facilities are afforded, and all inquiries are promptly answered. The Pennsylvania rail­ road will be completed to Johnstown station to-night. Have you any instructions or Inqui­ ries? "The most conservative estimates here place the loss of lives at fully 5,000. The prevailing impression is that tho loss will reash from K,0 0 to 10,0)0. There are many widows and orphans, and a great many wounded--iny>ostiib)e to give an estimate, The property destroyed will reach 825,000,000. The popular estimate will reach 840,000,000 to $50,000,000. Chief Burgess Hurl and L. C. Moxham, Chair- man of the Belief Committee, are doing good work. Have made requisition on Pittsburg for cooking facilities, shoes, and made- clothing for men, women, aud children, all of wldch wo need badly. To-morrow morning we will have 000 men, with horses, carts, axes, and other tools, clearing away tha debris. "You cannot raise too much money for this anffay^njig oQitiimmlfcy.n TWO CHICAGO AN 8* KXPBRHBNOB. How "fhey Bacaped the Rushing Wall of Water. Frank Felt and Sidney McCloud, two Chicago merchants, were in Johnstown when the a va­ line*; of water fell upon the ill-fated city. Both gentlemen give It as their estimate that the lost will number between. 10,000 and 15,00*). They say that on the night of Decora­ tion Day they saw 20,000 people In the streets, and the town was alive with people. Friday morning the streets wore crowded with people rushing for the mountain when they started, and not more than 500 reached the place. All others went down with the flood. Messrs. McCloud and--Felt tell a graphic story of their escape. They were out attending to business during tbe morning, and when they wenfr to tbe hotel, the HafDMlt House, at noon these -was about ten iaonecof water In the offloe, and they went to IthxX sin. »• j*. wte mm CLEARING tm RUINS. JOMW»T<mW TUMNXD WTO * fiUT ©KAJH0BMBO1HM5. ^ • gled. or burned, or crushed beyond recognition. Ever since the recovery of the first body the populace have not had near enough coffins for the dead, although hundreds arrive daily, and, owing to the decomposed condition of most of the bodies, they have to bo and are boxed up In rough board boxes and buried at once. A man named Chris Myers has been ren­ dered completely insane by the fact that bis mother, father, "two sisters and a brother we among tbe missing. WHERE ONCE WAS THB TOWN. Almost Complete Destruction of th* Buildings that Adorned Johnstown. Temporary bridges have been built- between Cambria and Johnstown and they increase the facilities for getting into the city. All are guarded, however, aud one can get in only by presenting a passport. Tho city itself is beyond the power of pen to describe, and what there is left of it is a mass- no other word will describe it. There !• little left of it, as a matter of fact, hardly enough for a stranger to discover the streets, although they are easily discernible by peo­ ple acquainted with the place. The search for bodies is being made by streets, but it is slow work. The debri s has to be removed, and even then the body is apt to be buried in the mud. "I don't wonder either," said a man who lived on the bill. "That body of water didn't sweep them away at first; it crushed them down. It seemed to come right on top of them and to simply grind them down to powder at first. The houses that were left after the first onslaught wers tbe ones that were carried away.* " ' i'-r • A Little Too Late. Old lady--I have determined to leave my fortune to the man who saved my life when I was a little girl. Lawyer--Noble woman! All tha world will ring with your praises. "Who is the man ? "James Jameson, a poor carpenter. He lived " "Ah, yes, I remember hijn. He starved to death forty vean ago."--- New York Weekly. NOTHING seems much clearer than the natural direction of charity. Would we all but relieve, according to the measure of our means, those objects immediately within the range of our personal knowledge, how much of the worst evil of poverty might be allevi* ated, " Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence; if you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will itnetf fd*s* tfaa ead of tbv je«r.] Bvery Hour had Minute Brings to tight New Horrors of the Terrible Deluge - Burying the Bead--The Bead Will Num­ ber ll,flM to 1A.OOO--Tbe Fatal Dam. A Johnstown special of Thursday says: The grmy abb had scarcely arisen from the hills this morning until a thousand funerals were coaming tbei<- green sides. There were no bearses, few mourners, and as little solemnity as formality. Tbe major­ ity of the CoHins were of rough pine. Tbe hearses were strong farmers' teams, and instead of six pall bearers to one coffin there were generally six coffins to one team. Silently the processions moved and silently tlu y unloaded their burdens in the lap of Mother Earth. No minister was there to pronounce a last blessing as the clods rattled down. A fact that lias been here­ tofore overlooked in the awful strain is the soiled condition of the corpses. Fully one-third of those recovered have been so mangled, bruised or charred that identifi­ cation was impossible. In an ordinary flood this would not have been the case, but here human bodies were the filling* in of a mountain-like mass of houses, rail­ road tracks, trains, and other debris which went crunching and crashing through a valley three miles long. How any of life's clay rcteiasd form or EembLir.cc is enig­ matical. All day long the corpses were being buried below groond. The unidentified bodies wefre grouped on a high hill west of the doomed city, where one epitaph must do for all, and that the Word "unknown." There are hundreds of these graves al­ ready, and each day will increase the pro­ portion. The possibility of identification diminishes every hour. Fires are raging over the tangled graves of hundreds and the partial cremation of many bodies is inevitable. Others are becoming so black­ ened in their contact with the debris or at m time, aa no organlsation can be ef­ fected if workmen arrive and lear<* when they please." • The . volunteers are doing noble work Nearly every town In western Pennsyl­ vania is represented bj from ten to one hundred men, and many towns in Ohio and New York have also furnished a quota of laborers. These volunteers are working with a will, bnt before the end of the weak they will want to return home. Men who come here will be paid $2 a day and board. All the laborers who have been with the wreckage are quartered at night, tome in barns, others in tbe tents above referred to. It was a scene as of army life at the time that sapper , was ready, and the long pine tables were crowded with men. Stoves were erected out in the open and coal fires heated the gallons of coffee. This hevrage was heated in large wash-boilers, and tor one gang of men seven boiler, uls were emptied in a half hour. As the darkness drew a veil over the scene the valley became quiet, the only noise being the occasional challenge of a militiaman as he bade some belated in­ dividual obey the orders of tho sheriff and leave the city of the dead. Johnstown is under martial law and laborers onlv are wanted. Conservative estimates place tbe loss of life at from 12,000 to 15,000, The total population of' this section was between 40,000 and 50,000. About 18,000 have so far signed their names. It is thought that by night fully 85 per cent of the survivors will have registered. J The principal commissary station is at the Johnstown station on the east side' of the river. Fifteen thousand people have been fed there and 6<)G families supplied with provisions. Five carloads o£ cloth­ ing have also been distributed. £ m THE DAM AT SOUTH FORK LAKE. WtW is ,taken fvom a point below the dam and sbewa the Peculiar way in whioh ihe water cut through it. through putrifaction that a grinning skel­ eton would show as much resemblance to the persons in life as they. Almost every stroke of the pick in some portions of the city to day resulted in the discovery of another victim, and although the funerals of the morning relieved the morgue of their crush before night they were as full as ever. Wherever one turns the' melancholy view of a coffin is met. Every train into Johnstown was laden with them, the bet­ ter ones being generally accompanied by friends of the dead. Men could be seen staggering over the ruins with shining mahogany caskets on their shoulders. Several stumbled and fell into the abound­ ing pits. The hollow houses of the dead went bouncing over the stones like drums in a funeral march. The coffin famine seems to be alleviated. The enormity of the devastation wrought by the flood is becoming more and more apparent with every effort of the laborers to resolve order out of chaos.) Over 100 men have been all day engaged in an effort to clear a narrow passage from the death-bridge upward through the sea of debris that blocks the Conemaugh for r.eariy half a mile. Every ingenuity known "to men has been restored to by the crew. The giant power of dynamite was brought into requisition, and at frequent intervals the roar of explosions reverberated through the valley, and sticks, stones, and logs would fly high iu the air. Gradually a few of the heaviest timbers were demol­ ished and the fragments permitted to float downward through the center arch. At nightfall, however, the clear space above tbe bridge did not exceed an area of sixty feet in length, by forty feet in width. When one reflects that fully twenty-five acres are to be cleared in this way the task ahead seems an interminable one. But there is no royal road, and if the hundreds or thousands of bodies beneath these black- enea ruins are to be recovered for Christian burial the labors of to-day must be contin­ ued with increased vigor. There are many conservative minds that recommend tbe use of the torch in this work of clearing the river, but they are not among the sufferers, and when such counsels are heard by those whose wives, children, sisters, or brothers rest beneath this sea of flotsam] and jetsam, this sug­ gestion of cremation meets a wild furore of objection. It is only in defe.ence to the unrea oning mandate of grief that the hurculear labor of clearing the river by means of the dynamite and the derrick is persisted in. There is no hope in the calmer minds that this task can be pursued to the end. • " The progress to-day is hardly discerni­ ble, and ere two days more have elapsed there is little doubt that the emanations of putrid bodies will have become so fright­ ful as to drive the hardiest workmen from the scene. Until that time arrives, how­ ever, there is no hope that the grief-strick­ en populace will abandon the cherished hope of again gazing upon the forms of loved ones whose lives went out in the fire and flood of the Conemaugh. The plead­ ings of sanitarians and the logic of engi­ neers alike fail to find an echo in the minds of the grieving and afflicted, but in a few more days the sterner logic of nature will assert itself, and in the face of impos­ sibility the task of cremation will become a Christian duty. Where Johnstown's principal stores stood last Friday are now pitched 1,000 tents, and before night this number will probably be doubled. Under this shelter are accommodated the workmen who are trying to clear tbe streets. Over 5,000 men are thus employed in Johnstown proper, about l.'KK) of these being the reg­ ular street hands hired by Contractors Booth and Flynn of Pittsburg, the others being volunteers. Mr. Flynn's estimates show more than anything the chaotic condition of this city. He says: "It will take 10,000 men thirty days to clear the ground so that the streets are passable and the work of rebuilding can be commenced, and I am at a loss to know how the work is to be done. This enthusiasm will soon die out and the volun­ teers will want to return home. It would take all summer for my men alone to do what work is necessary. Steps must be taken at once to furnish gangs of work­ men, and to-morrow I shall send a commnn- kmtaom to t*» ftWsburg chamber of co«- SEATTLE IS IN ASHES& ^MBSHwoir TKwmrmtim CITY Bcunia». - ' Vkm Eatfra Fe*tte« D««troT«« --Much Lou ef Under Yallta* Boild- taffs y»1l< l'lni Pllni|i| Kesfc'WeariW A W. T-i Disp*4ch of Ihe 7th.. lugMt city ia tto TNTttnry, is to _ ETftr3Lb!ttllE» fc**. •** ptaoe of all tfce A gray-haired woman was among the applicants for clothing at the distributing depot at the Pennsylvania railroad station this morning. An outfit was made up and given her, but after examining the dress sbe reapproached the agent in charge and asked him if he would exchange it for a black one. "I have lost all my family," she added by way of apology, as the tears streamed down her wrinkled face, "and would like to have a black dress if I could get one. My husband and children are in that awful pile by the stone bridge and I ain alone now." A black dress was found for her. ,!yv .. THB BREAK IN THB TIA-MF, . STDNKY, New South Wales, June 9 > . _ . . The German steamer Lubeck has arrived ̂ An Engineer's Story of the Terrible ITood. * here from the Samoan Islands. She sailed Mr. Fred R. Giles, the spefeial correspond- newspaper ant miles of steamboat bonkers, freight wan&oum, and* ts£»r graph offices wen burned. Ihe fire began new tbe corner of Froni and Pearl streets is the Seattle candy fac­ tory building At 2:*0 p. m. aitd before' midnight had consomed tha whole of the! business section of the city northward Stetson & Post's mill, along Front Second streets to th© water front. The city is literally wiped oat exoeptj the residence portion on high ground. A0 H:30 o'clock p. m. the flames had reached; the warves, and the steamboats and ship-*!; ping were compelled to head out into th* stream. A stiff breeze was Mowing from the northwest when the fire began, and it ssoa't ' got the best of the fire department. Wate?' supply gave out. within two hours aftee»'- the iir-j uegsii uuu iyua eho a&iaiOn aa4 ejjfc"' clean sweep. Word was telegraphed to! Tacoma and a train started with fire ap-' paratus at 4:35 p. us., reaching Seattle ii*C; sixty-three minutes, • distance of forty-4 two miles. The ocean steamers Mexico, for San Francisco, and Ancon, for Alaska, escaj destruction by pulling out into the harbor^. A great deal of property was saved onljfM'S to be burned again, so quickly did tha- V flames spread. There is great privation felt among th#r poor classes, as nearly every resident and^ grocery in tbe city has been consumed by ,' J the fire. The burnt district now presents r the aspect of a huge oven of burning coalsh V' and threatens even further destruction.;?' 8 The firemen, reinforced by the Tacoma. - ^ and Snohomich departments, are on tha* • alert. Th© streets are crowded with peo-»i, pie wandering about penniless and tome-AS less from the effects of the fire. The mil-V ',;5 itia and extra folic? W to 1» sew SAJ '*• every ettm# guarding against tMewfe^ and vandals. The losses will wrgregatai $15,000,00') at the least calculation. Tha burnt district comprises sixty-four acres.* . One hundred arrests have been made. . When the fire became uncontrollable the, • 'k people fled to the hills to the east, and horses flecked with foam dashed up tha !f| highlands with promiscuous loads of every- ^ thing attached to every available vehicle. When the Foklas & Singermau building fell about thirty people were near it andi '* many of them were crushed. Similar * accidents occurred at most of the large s buildings. An estimate of the loss of life#;!jjf would be simply guess work. ; Words fail to describe the awful pioturej of desolation. It is like the Chicago flre,,""^] but like Chicago the city will be rebuilt. ^5 -3 Everybody seems in good spirits, and it is£i|| hard to realize the dreadfulnesa of thta'^l sudden calamity. The city looks like some doomed Go< ^ marrah. There are now no streets ia thsfc®; burned district. It is all burning debris^ -IS with few standing walls. %; | A committee had been hard at work up^:|| to the time of the fire soliciting subscript tions for the Johnstown sufferers, an&sf?-:? about $5,000 was i&ought to have beeaat^ raised. < The magnifloent Boston block, In which : . , i was the postoffioe, is saved. Tbe Canadian \ ̂ Pacific docks are gene and nearly every- *| thing from the head of Elliott Bay t(K Union street. The Yesler hvenue, Jack-: son street and1 Front street cable lines andsi&| electric motor lines are useless, their tracks being badly damaged and many ot their cars burned. All the warehouses*- are gone. The survivors of this fire will" | suffer terribly for want of the necessaries^^ of life, and those whose homes and plaossfk#:1| of business are spared are generous in thefarf | offers of aid. MORE TROUBLE IN SAMOA- ^ the Rival Chiefs Organise Their Forces 'end Things Look Serlou*. I ent of tho Chicago Daily News at the scene of the calamity, telegraphs that journal as follows: I ascended the valley to Inspect the country and investigate the cause of tne disaster.- The rich Pittsburgera who maintained the ill-starred lake have been prompt to deny the cause. They can rationally do so no more. The proof of the fact is evident. It is eighteen miles to the lake by the devious course of the valley down which the torrent descended. No harm was done to the club house and cottages of tho South Fork Club, but the transformation worked by the flood ia even more striking there than anywhere eise. The house formerly stood by the shores of a beautiful lake. Now the cottages are on a bluff above a wide ravine, seventy-Jivo feet deep, at the bottom of which rolls a muddy stream. The picturesque beauty of tbe place was extracted when the water rushed out at the gap in the great embankment. When one examines the breach in the dam the feeling is one of jjreat surprise. There is none of the laceration of the edges that one would expect from a rending force, but, on the contra­ ry, the aperture has a symmetry that suggests art rather than accident. The middle of the dam has been scooped out for about two-thirds of its height. The lower portion of this is again cut out, and this latter excavation extends to the bottom of tbe dam, making an opening that affords ample space for the stream now running through it. The dam was an embankment of earth faced on both sides with loose stone in the stvle called by engineers "riprapping." It is still intact for about three hundred feet on each side of the gap. On the east end close to the shore the dam is grooved by a wier over seventy-five feet wide and about ten feet deep, which was the outlet by which the stream below was fed from the lake. On the west end of the dain is now a sluiceway about twenty feet wide and three feet deep. This was hastily dug to relieve the pressure on the dam, but failed to save it. It so happened that at the time of the flood there was a civil engineer present in charge of the construction of a sewer and water works on the club grounds. This gentleman, Mr. John G. Parke, Jr., saw the catastrophe from first to last. Here is his account of it: "On Thursday night the dam was in perfect condition aud the water was not within seven feet of the top. At that, stage the lake is nearly three miles long. It rained very hard Thurs­ day night. When I got up Friday morning I could see there was a flood, for the water was over the drive in front of the club-bouse, and the level of the water in the lake had risen until it was only four feet below the top of tbe dam. I rode up to the head of the lake, and saw that the woods were boiling full of water. South Fork and Muddy Bun, which emptied into the lake, were fetching down trees, lc" logs, ip in and cut timber from a saw-mill that was tip : the woods in that direction. A plow was run along the top of the dam and earth was thrown in the face of the dam to strengthen it. At the same time a channel was dug on the west end to make a sluiceway there. There was about three feet of shale rock through whioh it was possible to cut, but then wo struck bedrock that it was impossible to get into without blasting. "Whew we got the channel opened tbe water soon scoured down to the bedrock, and a stream twenty feet wide and three deep rushed out on that end of the dam, while the river was letting out an enormous quantity on the other end. Notwithstanding these outlets the water kept rising at the rate of about ten inches an hour. By 11:30 I had made up my mind that it was Impossible to save the dam, and, getting on my horse. I galloped down the road to South Fork to wain the people of their danger. The tele­ graph tower is a mile from the town, and I sent two men there to have messages sent to Johnstown and other points below. I heard that the lady operator fainted when she had sent off the news, and had to be carried oft The people of South .Fork had ample time to get to high ground, and they were able to move their furniture, too. In fact, only one person was drowned in South Fork, and he while at­ tempting to fish something from the flood as it rolled by. It was just 12 o'clock when the tele­ graph messages were set out, so that the people at Johnstown had over three hours' warning. "The break took place at 8 o'clock. It was about two feet -wide at first, and shallow, but grew wider with increasing rapidity, and the lake went roaring down the valley ; that.J In ee miles of water was drained out in forty-five minutes. The downfall of those 60,000,000 tons was simply irresis.iWe. Stones from the dam and bowldirs in the riverbed were carried for miles. It was a terrible sight to see that ava- lauche of water go down thai choked with floods." - from Apia bay May 21 . 4.1M She brings news that owing to the ex- / Q pec ted arrival of the Sophie and the com-, /; ing of the other German cruisers the war 4 ^ spirit was manifesting itself again arnong^ ^ the natives. Mataafa had gathered to-' I gether 3,000 of his men near Apia and' , t Tamasese was encamped at Atna with-1' > ] 2,000. There was no war-ship in the bar- '- ^ bor of Apia and the natives were conse-, A", quently under no restraint. Moreover, nothing had been heard there of the pro- grew of the negotiations at Berlin and the., foreign residents were uneasy. 1 WON THE OAKS v 1 Lsrd Randolph Churehill's Horse Vae*» pectedly Carrie* Off the Honors* i EPSOM DOWNS, June 9.--The Oaks was gj won by Lord Randolph Churchill's black ^ filly, L'Abbesse de Jouarre, Mr. Vyner's Minthe second, and Seclusion third. The Oaks had a fine field of twelve start­ ers and was a very exciting race. The re­ sult was a genuine surprise, L'Abbesse de Jouarre was most heartily cheered, as much for her owner's sake as for herself.. Minthe, who came in S3cond, was the fav­ orite in the betting, and Seclusion (third);, had hardly been hoard of. f Wool-Grower* }**•« a K»*olution. GALVESTON, Texas, June 0.--The Texas Wool association has passed the following resolution; "Kesolved, That wscommend the action; of the Secretary of th? Treasury in his recent rulings on waste, and do most? emphatically urge upon him the import­ ance of a careful /discrimination of all such as may be imported:} for wool manufacturers' uses. We, desire to sec the wool product of America ; exceed tbe wants of our manufacturers, * but as long as these fraudulent importa-. I tions of wool are permitted, or clothing' wool is allowed to come in und^r the class-, ification of carpet wool, it will be almost' a matter of impossibility for tno grower in * this country to command sucli a price for&$$ his product as will justify the speedy de- ̂ velopment of the wool Industry in the; United States." »t valley already 3 Tim Kurwerymen Atljn »rn. :;rr', CHICAGO, June 9.--The national"^ C6TF- vention of nurserymen has adjourned. Officer* were selected for the ensuing year as follows: President, George A Sweet of Dansville, N. Y.; first vice-pi evident, G. J. Carjienter, Fairl ury, Ne \; secretary Chrrles A. Green, Rochester. N. Y. treasurer, A. R. Whitney, Franklin Grove, ?| Ili.; executive c< mm it tee, Leo Weltz, '• Wilmington, Ohio, S. D. Willard, Geneva, N. V, and S. M. Hmery, lake City, . Minn. A. ter tho reading of a number of , -:5 papers on varions topics the convention ad spurned to meet next year in New York city. 0«rm*uv A it •; ry Uith owitserlaa«l* BERLIN, June fi.--The Prat says that nuless the Swiss Bundesrath approves the officials concerned in the Wbolgeinuth, affair, Germany will take reprisals by re-' striding frontier intercourse in tbe freight, postal ends' passenger services. Wholgemuth is the German Police inspec­ tor who was arrested iu Switzerland on the charge of bribing a Swiss to act as agent provocateur, and who was expelled: from tbe country. ^ fir Tim i: glory consists in so living as to FIRE and sword are but slow engines naa^.e. ^ie world* happier and better for. of destruction in comparison with the onr babbles.' 1 * J SICK dacks never go to a quaek»_ t * • • • . . » j/T &:• ^ •. . v : : i V j * ; v . % s®:' "if., * u J a s L \ t *!l * fiit %. *». l *.1 W.-SW , A' -Smm :S§