The Portland daily press., 1889-06-05
DISEASE ADD ITS TERRoRs.
Pneumonia Among the Refugees at
Prospect Hill.

Pneumonia Among the Refugees at
Prospect Hill.
Increasing Danger from the Effect
OF DecompositIon-The Work Of
Searching for the Dead Vigorously
Prosecuted-A Novel Plan to Clear
the Old River Bed.
JoHNsTowN, Pa, June 4.-Pneumonia has
broken out on Prospect Hill, to which sever
al hundred people fled from the flood on Fri
day. Every little house on the hill, and
there are one or two hundred of them, threw
its doors open to receive the bruised and
half-clad fugitives on the day of the deluge.
Every house is now crude hospital. Half
of the women who scaled the height were so
overcome with fright that they have been
bedridden ever siuce. There had been pnue-
monia on the hill, but only few isolated
cases. Today several fresh cases developed
among the fugitives. The local physician
said the prospects for the scourge were
promising. The enfeebled condition of the
patients, the unhealthy atmosphere pervad-
ing the valley, and the necessarily close
quarters in which the people are crowded.
render the spread of the disease almost cer-
tain. A carload of provisions, and another
from Columbus, Ohio, containing clean mat
tresses and bedding. came today, specified
for the Prospect Hill sufferers.
The Cambria hospital is In charge of a
corps of Altoona physicians. The wards
are full of
BRUISED AND SUFFERING ONES
dragged from the flood. Several yellow flags
were noticed sticking up from the black
wreckage above the stone bridge. This is a
new plan adopted by the sanitary
corps to indicate at what point bodies are
located.
AT the present rate there will soon be
live man digging in the ruins to every dead
one. Evans Jones, Pittsburg contractor,
stated today thet 1900 men would be at work
In the ruins by tomorrow morning. Three
hundred arrived from Pittsburg today and
800 more are announced coming tomorrow.
Twenty-six foremen are here and keep the
qnweldly and almost exhausted forces un-
der masterful control. Although scattered
all over the waste places today, the heavy
work was done on the point district, where
couple of hundred mansions lie solid heaps
of brick, stone and timbers. Here the
labors of the searchers were rewarded by
the discovery of a corpse about every five
minutes. As a general thing, the bodies
were mangled and unrecognizabe
unless by marks or letters ON the
persons; In, every case, decomposition
had set in. The work Of the searchers is
becoming one to test the stomachs as we'll as
the hearts. Superintendent Kirk of the
Plttsburg Dynamite Company, said: "We
will not attempt to loosen the wreckage by
dynamite. 1t is full of dead bodies and
THEY WOULD BE TERRIBLY MANGLED
if dynamite was used. We will employ
small cartridges for shattering heavy tim
bers occasionally but that is ALL" A reek-
ing menace to life and health lies in the bed
of the Conemaugh for 300 yards above the
Pennsylvania railroad bridge. When the
drift accumulated against this adamantine
structure, hundreds, some say thousands, of
bodies were pinioned under the debris. 1t
extends across the river for 400 feer, and
top of the huge pile burned, it left foul
sediment to act as a seive for the Cone
maugh. Hundreds of half burned corpses
have been taken off the place but every tim
ber holds others where the strongest
machinery is required to reach and liberate
them. Blasters have been at work all the
afternoon near the stone bridge. Mr.. Kirk
has decided that the bodies will rot before
half can be reached in this manner, hence a
new, plan. When the waters surged against
the big stone bridge and were repelled, they
formed vent through the eTlbankment
which has been washed away. Wreckage
was piled up against the bridge and the
flood was turned into a new channel, thus
leaving the old bed a receptacle for drift
The water has been running through the
new channel ever since. The plan is to
build wall along the old river course, turn
the water into the drift and flush it. This is a
monster scheme, but Mr.. Kirk thinks the
earth wall can be thrown up by tomorrow
evening. A large force of men will be put
to work at once.
Deputy Marshal Dicks condition excites
general pity. His total bereavement of
wife, family and relatives
HAS AFFECTED HIS BRAIN
1t is thought. He goes riding about the
country giving all the assistance in his power
and keeping an especial lookout for law
breakers and vandals. lie has distinguished
himself on several occasions in the past. it is
reported, by shooting Hungarians whom he
detected pillaging the dead. His last action
was particularly noteworthy Detective Nc
Tighe and Officers Garrigan and Mulvehill
had arrested two notorious crooks who
reached town Monday evening from
Kansas City, probably travelling to Johns
town for nefari0us purposes. Detective
McTighe knew them and promptly nailed
them as soon as they stepped off the train
The fellows deftly dropped several gold
out with their fists and were with some diff
Guilty overcome and led to the Cambria City
lookup. This place was full of mud knee
deep and it was impossible to lock them in
there. A box car was visited and while the
rltx.rr xxxtk
officials as to the advisability of placing the
crooks inside, Dick rode up and imperiously
demanded to know the cause of the trouble
1t was explained to him. 'Stand the fellows
there" shouted Dick. reigning up his horse
while his features stiffened into an express
ion of determination and rage. He whipped
out revolver and levelling It at the ouaking
wretches, muttered
Sill STOP THEIR THIEvING."
After some minutes of parleying, Dick was
called off, and better counsel prevailed. No
accommodations could be found for the Kan
sas City gentry. and they were given five
minutes to leave town on the backward trip
| to Sang Hollow, and they departed.
The retentive eye of the amateur photo
grapher's camera is gazing from every hill.
At meeting of the Johnstown Com
mandery, Knights Of Pythias. held this after
| noon, K. g. Grouse, the secretary, was APP
| pointed to receive funds.
There are six improvised morgues in Johns
town and in these bodies are held until de-
/ composition renders 1t unsafe to keep them
| longer. These temporary places for the
| dead are in the churches and school houses,
the largest one being In the fourth ward
school house. where planks are laid over the
tops of the desks. On them the remains are
| placed. When a corpse is dug from the
| bank il is taken to the ante-room in the
school and placed under a hydrant The
mush and slime are washed off and the
clothes ripped open. An attendant then
searches the pockets for valuables or papers
which may lead TO Identification. Four mer
tie tne corpse Washed VA ana sa0ie ana ambaIm y
ing fluid injected in the arm
The corpse lies in the large room