Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1899-08-29

swept away. did not want IL to be
burned up. and l took flying jump
into the middle OF the street
II landed up TO my neck In the tor
| rent that was tearing down Saiud
| street which had now become the cen
| ter OF the Portuguese river 1t was I'm
| possible to attempt to guide myself.
| All my strength was exerted In push
| Ing aside the crates and boxes and
| beams and tree trunks that came rip
| ping down the stream. l saw ahead
| Of me as I was whiried along, the
lights In a house which | knew was
near the Junction of Salud street with
the street that runs from the Plaza
down across the river to Playa, as they
call the port OF Ponce. I was filed
with hope that they would not put out
the lights until l was opposite the
house. So that hearing me cry out. they
would perhaps throw a rope 10 me and
save me- You must understand that
since . O'Clock the only light In Ponce
had been the glare from the sheet
lightning which played almost inces-
sanity. The electric light plant had
been swamped. As | approached the
|
from the window, that 1t was the
house of John Costello. Miss Costello,
his sister. had put candles in the win
dows TO guide those outside
Il saw a Porto Rican boy clinging to
IN iron telegraph pole. A turn in the
street caused the current to throw
me toward him. and at the risk of his
own life he reached out and got me by
the wrist We chung there until /
thought l should drop into the torrent
again from sheer exhaustion. After
midnight. the soldiers formed a hand
To hand chain from the higher ground
toward the plaza and succeeded in
pulling me and the boy out of the cur
rent.
After l was pulled out of the
stream. although l count myself quite
familiar with Spanish, l found that
every word OF the language had gone
from me. l could not SO much as say,
Thank you to the boy who had saved
my life. rack nay brain as l might to
recall the Spanish words | stumbled
from door to door In the higher part
Of the town, but no one would let me
in. l did not blame them. The entire
town was flooded to the depth of foot
or SO. and il was more liquid mud
than water. Any one who had opened
his door would have let in a flood of
this oozy stuff and would have been
unable to close his door again. At last
/ found the house of the marine hos
pital surgeon. who took me in, and as
we are much Of a size. he lent me the
clothes l have on now.
1.-The water began to go down at
O'Clock in the morning. AS it sub
sided 1t left layer of mud foot
deep all over the town. The founda-
tons of every house that had been
wrecked formed an eddy. where the
bodies of men and animals lodged
No one knew then or can know now
how many lives We're lost. AS IL
chung to the telegraph pole l saw at
least so bodies swept by. out OF my
reach. Some Of them were struggling
against the water. others were already
dead. From the mud and debris over
the foundations of my house. which
was. entirely swept away after l left
1t. IL bodies were taken Bodies are
still being found wherever a heap Of
brush or lumber has lodged. On the
day the Philadelphia sailed 264 bodies
were in the morgue awaiting identifi
cation.
Porto Rico people have always
seemed to me the most poverty str1ck
en- In the world. 1t was hard to be
lieve that they could be worse off than
they were before the cyclone. but their
state then was happy and comfortable
compared to that In which they were
after the food. Many of them go
oh xx-yfh Oh rvfy-n 70 hnn hx-I
the government, pinned about them
for their only clothing. Meantime the
people from the country districts are
pouring into Ponce every day. The
wind devastated the entire island. 1t
destroyed every stalk Of sugar cane.
every coffee tree. every banana tree In
its path. Those people have absolute
ly nothing to live on. and they come to
the seaport for bread. The govern
ment took charge Wednesday morning
and promptly forced the price Of bread
down to practically nothing No bread
was allowed to be sold until the poorer
people who had fled to the higher dis
tricts We're fed. But they We're by no
means the only sufferers. The entire
business district of Ponce was directly
In the course of the flood, and there
was barely anything left in the stores.
In the warehouses along the water
front, where all the export goods for
the last six months We're in storage.
awaiting the time when the export du-
ties should be reduced, the goods were
ruined.
las a physician. the sanitary side OF
the situation of course appeals to me
most foreibly. am absolutely certain
that within a few weeks the entire
city will be overwhelmed with terri
BILE epidemic of fevers. yellow or ty-
phoid. The only drainage that Ponce
ever had was surface drainage The
cesspools Of each house overhowed
into the cutters. Not one of those
cesspools, so far as any living being
LII.