The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-10-13
The GALVESTON DISASTER.
A MEMBER or MISS CLARA BAR
TONS ST4EF
Writes Concerning Red Cross Work i'm
Te1as-Aftcrnath of the storm.

I Galveston, oct. 6,--When the Rec
Cross party left Washington, nearly
month ago, in respond to the first cal
of distress from Galveston, ii was my
| intention to write you at once of cur
! rent happenings in the track of the
| storm. Fastening to the field, we founC
conditions so infinitely worse than hac
been described and so much work te
do in the way of sorely-needed immedi-
ate relief, that letter-writing was alto
! gether out of the question. My prom
, Used mite, however, can hardly have
been missed while hundreds of profess
sional news gatherers, presumably ON
the spot" were flooding the country
with information and INSTRUMENTATION
concerning the great calamity. AS to
the transformation, it came about as
naturally as during the Cuban war,
when the noble army of war cores
pondents tiguratively "fit bled and
died. on the safe and easy fields OF
Tampa and Key West. When things
We're at their worst on this small is
land of the Mexican Gulf-When dead
citizens lay by thousands amid the
wreck of their homes, and corpses,
dumped by barge-loads into the bay,
came floating back to menace the liv-
ing, and long buried collins, washed
from the graves of Galveston's six GEM
eteries, were scattered in the streets;
when raying maniaes searched the de-
bris for loved ones whom they will new
or find until the resurrection morning,
and the nights were lurtd with crema-
ton of naked bodies piled like cord
wood, black and white together ire
spectiye of age, sex or previous condi-
ton; when ghouls I'm human shape
proWled amid the chaos, cutting Off
ears and fingers for the jewels on them,
though martial law prevailed with such
hysterical severity that shootings We're
common for offences like the taking OF
a photograph; when railways and
bridges were obiterated for miles
around steamers aground on new
sand-bars thrown up by the storm, tel
egraph wires down, postal facilities non
est and to reach this little island from
any where outside was to run the
gauntlet OF soldiers bayonets-"
special correspondent" may perhaps be
excused for disseminating his hear-say
news from various vantage grounds on
the mainland of Texas.
Now that the worst Is over and the
-gatherers gone their way in
search of fresh sensations, this may be
added by one who has been In position
to know whereof she speaks, viz, that
the half has not been told Of the most
fearful storm since Noahs day, and
never i'll be. The blood -curdlng ac-
counts of the yellowest journals have
not been eXaggerations, but on the con-
trary have fallen far short of the truth
simply because it is beyond the power
of words to portray the full horror of
it, You read figures and statistics till
doomsday without being able to form
an idea of the real situation in Calves
ton.
Imagine, if you can, the most thickly
populated section of a beautiful city
up streets of handsome
houses-swept clean as a parlor floor,
every vestige of a thousand homes re-
moved in moment. to be heaped in
distant places as kindllngwood and
bricks Every house that
stands to-day in Galveston is a house
Of mourning. Every member of many
families is numbered among the dead,
and Sadder yet are the cases where
one or two are left out of numerous
Fancy yourself sitting at
home, as usual some evening, listening
to equinoctial wind and rain, when sud
denly 1t is discovered that the Gulf of
Mexico is stealing up into your door
yard At the same time, though you
10 not know it, the six-mile-wide bay is
creeping up in the other direction.
Higher and higher rise these two great
bodies of water, till in an incredibly
short time, they meet and clash in the |
center of the doomed city, then sweep
back again, carrying all before them. |
Salt waters rush in at your door eager |
or prey. You retreat to the upper sto-
" to find cyclone raging, the roof |
blown away, the house lettering to its
all. Some of your family are buried !
lnder the debris, the rest rush out into |
he wild night of total darkness (the
sas- works and electric light plant were
Imong the first to be demolishedD, rag
ng waters of unknown depth In place
If the familiar streets, the icy current
wiring with astonishing velocity, car
ee, a beating rain that lacerates the
esh like a penitent's scourge-shrieks,
,roans, vain prayers for help rising
bove the fury of the gale. One by one,
our loved ones are torn from your
ide. Siezing upon any floating object,
perhaps you are carried far out into the
neasureless Gulf of Mexico, to be
ashed back with the returning tide, if
GU can manage to keep SO long aflOat
have talked with scores of people who
Uttered a similar experience, some of
hem children and delicate girls. The
larVel is that any survived. All are
urised and battered by flying debris,
18th broken bones and shattered
erves; and to-day in Galveston are
lore than hundred cases of nervous
rostraton which will result in DEATH
he aftermath Of that awful night In
early every instance women We're en-
rely denuded of clothing by the COM
ined force of wind and waves, and
hen found, living or dead, We're naked
s the minute they were born. Think
the sick, the crippled, the infirm, the
Aeble of populous city in such desper-
te plight. Among imprinted happen
lgs may be whispered a hint of the
Orrible fact that scores of babies were
born in the icy water-of
,ulee to perish, and dmous The corpses
ere found many females partially de-
vered Of infants,
Heaven knows, YOU have heard Incl
ents enough, but | cannot forbear tell
g you one or two that have come UNI
.1.e, |