davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Scandal Attached
To Du Bury's Action.

Something of scandal has attached to the
circumstance under which the chalice was
rescued. In the first party to penetrate
within the Cathedral walls was Captain Du
BURY, q British army officer, in
of a detachment of artillery at Barbados.
Captain Du Bury is himself a devout Cath
Ole. In prodding about through the debris
of the Cathedral, he found the sacred vessel
and an intimate friend of his. whom l saw
last night. is authority for the statement
that the wafer was found intact, though
baked to a hardened mass.
Not in the soothing spirit of a curio-hunter.
but reverently and devoutly. Captain bu
Bury took the chalice and bore it to Barba-
does. intending there to transfer 1t into the
custody of priests of the Catholic Church
with whom he was well acquainted.
The facts became known i'll Fort de
France. and French residents. resenting the
action of a foreign army officer in intruG-
ing into the sacred places of their city.
started the story that Captain Du Bury had
engaged in what was little. if any better.
than looting of the altar. In Fort de France,
the subject has now become a public scan
dial. and there is open gossip of a possible
military court of inquiry to investigate Cap
tain Du Bury's action at the request of the
French authorities of the colony.
Captain Du Bury being in Barbados. It
was impossible to-day 10 obtain his version
of the incident at first hand. but one of his
intimate friends-an officer of the United
States Navy. Lieutenant Cyrus Robinson
Miller, attached to the cruiser Cincinnati
has assured me that Captain Du Bury had
Immediately indicated his intention of trans
ferring the chalice to the Catholic church
authorities. Knowing the artillery Cap
tain's character as well as he does. and
knowing his church affiliations. Mr.. Miller
says that nothing could be more foreign to
his character than a desire to appropriate
to his own use vessels which he would hold
most sacred.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
City of Ruins as
She Appears To-Day.

Above the miles of piled debris rise here
and there the relics of her 10000 homes and
commercial factories, ragged walls, rent,
scanned and scared by fire. Fit monuments
they are to the myriads of dead beneath,
who are victims of the most heart-rending
calamity of modern times!
In other parts of the city not even a roof
peak or chimney thrusts its top through the
sea of scoria- In the section known as the
new town. winding up the slope of the
mountain from the crescent of the road
stead, many of the city's most pretentious
homes have utterly vanished, as a Swiss
chalet is swept from sight by the rush Of
an alpine avalanche. At such points one is
spared all the grewsome horrors of the
scene elsewhere, for Pelee covered them
under a pail of ashen dust as soft, impal-
pable and smooth as drifted snow, with only
a scurry blown from the surface now and
then into the blinking eyes of the explorer,
blinded by the dazzle of the sunlight on the
bfllowy gray-white surface of this volcanic
grave.
Old Pelee breathed upon the city and.
under his dragon breath. fair st. Pierre
shrivelled. crumbled and burned, as the
wing of the moth Is scorched in the flame
of a torch. He breathed again and shroud-
ed the dead city under a pail that merci-
fully hides in spots the CHASTITY relics of her
former comelinesS.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
First Sound Heard
Is That of Water.

Here on the left Is heard at last a sound.
In the death-like stiffness 1t strikes upon
the ear strangely. 1t Is the ripple Of gurg-
ling water. Tracing It to its source we find
a water pipe, the nozzle OF which projects
through the shattered wall of a private
dwelling. From 1t the water, In pure,
crystal plenty. is pouring down and welding
the masses of ashes and cement-like powder
beneath into a sticky paste.
st. Pierre's streets, with their trickling
rivulets of mountain water, had been the
pride of her citizens. Through all the blast
of fire this remnant of her water system, at
least. had survived.
One of the party had approached the
trickling water to lave from his hands and
face the choking accumulation of dust. As
he did so he stepped back and paused. Di-
rectly below where the water fell lay hud-
died the remnants of a dead family.
From this point the Herald Republic par
ty. with difficulties increasing at every step.
pushed further up the slope toward the
heart of the town and into Victor Hugo
street.
Progress here was made rather by climb
ing than by walking. At every step. bent
and twisted iron Orders. pieces of steel
shafting. tons of tumbled masonry and piles
of half-burned corpses barred the way. One
sought instinctively to so turn his steps as
not to desecrate the dead. but, try as he
might. at every footstep his feet shufled up
the dust that covered a corpse.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Rich Loot at the
Mercy of GhouIs.

Though many ghouls have already prowied
through the catacomb OF the ruined city,
st. Pierre presents a profitable field for the
would-be looter. 1t would have been easy
for any member of our party. during the
hours we tramped over the entombed town.
TO have filled barrels with silver spoons,
roins. earrings. finger rings. iewelry and
knicknacks of all kinds. many of them of
intrinsic value and others of interest solely
as souvenirs. In the ruins of every house
of the better residential quarters might have
been picked up scores of such trinkets.
Looters had entered the town the mo-
ment its streets had sufficiently cooled to
make that possible. They were busily at
work there when the United states steam
ship Potomac. which arrived nearly a week
ago, ran into the harbor. The naval off,
GERS placed under arrest q party Of one
white man and five negroes. who were found
burdened with loot. Their only explanation
was that they were endeavoring to recover
the property of relatives who had been
killed in the disaster. The Potomac trans
ferred her prisoners to the captain Of the
French battleship Suchet. but he seemingly
attached little Importance to the matter and
set them free.
While an effort was being made to Gre
mate such bodies of victims as were found
directly upon the surface or not deeply
buried, there was some attempt to police
the ruins and to prevent the entrance OF
undesirable visitors. The guard was main
tanned, however. only n few days, and now
any person. hardy enough to brave the
threatening clouds of vapory steam that roll
almost continuously from a dozen fresh
vents around the sides of old Mont Pelee,
Is at liberty to roam at will through the
deserted city.
On the very day that the British and
American expeditions destined to recover
the bodies of their Consuls had been post
poned because of the renewed evidences
of volcanic energy. The Republic party
found no difficulty in penetrating well into
the town except such as were presented by
the material obstacles impeding their path.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Dead Marshaled
in Awful Hosts.

Nowhere was stronger evidence presented
than here that the cataclysm was explosive
in character. Nowhere else in the silent
city were the visible dead marshaled in
such awful hosts as in the immediate vicin-
ity of the CO thedral and the Place de Moul-
lace.
One could not escape the thought that.
CAV and mercurial as was the daily life of
ST. Pierre, its citizens had flocked in greater
numbers than usual to the shadow of the
cross during the four days of anxiety and
panic that preceded the climax.
When Pickett on the last day of Gettys-
burk hurled his legions in the final assault
upon Hancock's Second Corps. it was sad
that, over the ground traversed by that
great charge from Seminary. Ridge to the
point held by Webb's Philadelphia brigade.
a man might have walked literally upon
the bodies of the slain. Could he have done
80. he must have picked his way. In the
Place de Moullace Of st. Pierre, and i'm
mediately surrounding the cathedral. one
could hardly so pick his way as to escape
walking upon the bodies Of the dead.
1t was no exaggeration when Consul
Ayme of Guadeloupe said that the streets
of St. Pierre were paved with the corpses
of her citizens.
Some crude effort there had been made to
destroy by fire the grewsome relics spared
by the original cataclysm. but the work
had been done all too effectively. Fagots
of d~riftwood. piled around and above heaps
Of the slain, had been fired by negroes en-
ployed for that purpose, but the work of
cremating was only partly accomplished.
From a sanitary point of view, it is
fortunate for Martinique that the vast ma
jority of those who died when her chief
city was annihilated are buried so deep as
to need no better sepulchre.
Within the walls of the Cathedral the
ruin is complete. Even the, altar was not
spared. though one of the earliest rescuing
parties upon the ground succeeded in saw
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Doomed City's
st Breath.

The hour Of the disaster is placed at about
s o'clock. A clerk in Fort De France called
up another by telephone in ST. Pierre and
was talking with him at five minutes TO
eight. by Fort De France time. when he
heard a sudden. awful shrek and then could
hear no more.
The little that actually happened then
may be briefly, very briefly. told.
1t il known that at one minute there lay
a city smiling in the summer morning:
that In another 1t was a mass of swirling
flames. with every soul of its 5000 writhing
in the throes Of death.
One moment and church bells were ring
ing joyful chimes in the ears Of st. Pierre's
10000 people: in the next the flame-Clogged
bells were sobbing a requiem for 5000 dead.
One wait of morning breeze flowed over
cathedral spires and domes. over facades
and arches and roofs and angles of a pop
ulous and light-hearted city: the next swept
q lone mass of white hot ruins.
The sun glistened one moment on spark
ling fountains. green parks and placid
ponds: its next ray shone on fusing metal.
blistered fiame-wrecked squares and charred
stumps OF trees.
One day, and the city was all light and
color. all gayety and grace: the next. and
its ruins looked as though they had been
crusted over with twenty centuries of soli-
fude and silence.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Everything on Shore
A Mass of Flame.

o shore all was afiame. The city burned
with a terrible roar. We realized that the
inhabitants had all died, az not one was to
De seen making an attempt to escape. Not
a cry was heard save from the ships that
We're in the harbor.
Our own condition was desperate In the
extreme. The heat was intense. We were
able TO keep our faces above the surface of
the water for a second at a time at the
most. We would take a mouthful Of air
and then sink into the water to stay there
until forced to come to the surface again.
This only lasted about three minutes
After that We Were able to float by the side
of the boat. dipping only occasionally. When
We could sustain the neat that filled the Air
We clambered back into the boat and rowed
back to Carbet.
"Gustave Dore, in his most ecstatic delir-
ium, never conceived anything 50 dramatic
and so awe-inspiring as was st. Pierre after
it had been desolated by the whirlwind of
fire that swept down upon 1t from Mont
Pelee. 1t was more than a city of the dead.
1t was an Inferno. magnifed and realized.
I looked upon 1t and the vision was sucb
that Its impression will never be removed
from my mind.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27

city. We saw the shipping destroyed by
a breath Of fire. We saw the cable ship
Grappler keel over under the whirlwind and
sink as though drawn down into the waters
of the harbor by some force from below.
The Roraima was overcome and burned at
anchor. The Roddam. a trifle more fortu-
nate, was able to escape like a stricken
moth which crawls from a fame that has
burned its wings and left 1t a cripple to
suffer until death relieves.
Our own danger was great. and. had 1t
not been for the bravery and courage of
the Baron i would have persisted as miser-
ably as did the thousands of wretcheS
ashore. ! was stunned, unable to lift Il
hand to assist myself Baron lie fonteui!-
hat dragged me from the boat into the
water. where he supported me until | was
so far recovered as to be able to care for
myself"
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Pictures Secured
of Minor Eruptions.

1t is certainly true that Mont Pelee wore
a forhidding front. and n dozen times dur
ing the afternoon of exploration a shout
from one of the party called the attention
of the others to a tremendous column OF
smoke that went soaring aloft from some
newly opened vent or crevice. where only
the blue sky had appeared an instant be-
fore.
The Republic photographers were fortu-
nate in being able to secure snap shots Of
several of these subsidiary eruptions at the
moment OF their occurrence. The only i'm
mediately unpleasant result. so far as con-
cerned those who were In the ruined streets
of the town. was an evident increase short
ly afterward in the downfall Of futter.ng
ashes that coated shirts. hats and CATERS
alike a dirty gray.
Strange contrasts were presented at ev-
cry pace during this grewsome journey.
There were sugar mills and distilleries, in
which heavy machinery was crushed and
pulverized, SO as to be hardly recogniza-
Bile. Ponderous fly wheels and cylinder
heads were dattened out and shivered by
tome titanic force, and yet, in one instance
at least. in a house not a hundred yards
from where such manifestations Of power
We're visible. 50 fragile a thing as a tropical
bird had been spared mutilation.
Outside the balcony of one of the houses
facing toward the sea a roomy wooden cage
was suspended from either end by two
wires. Its support at one end had been de-
tached. but 1t hung securely from the
other. The cage had not even been scorched.
AT its bottom. dead. but u%nburned. and
brilliant yet in the bright colors Of the
tropical plumage. lay a heron, doubtless
the pet of some St. Pierre belle.
Next door to the house where the bird in
his feathered panoply had escaped the
death blast. a building. fitted with great,
thick oaken doors. had been riddled as
though under the fire OF a battery of rifed
guns. The doors were blown from their
hinges and great ragged openings yawned
through their panels. as though volleys of
buckshot had been poured through them.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Gray Volcanic Dust
Covered Everything.

All were coated with the gray dust that
gave to everything ashore the same pallid,
ashen hue.
This volcanic dust, from which Pelee
wove the burial shroud of ST. Pierre. is
in color and texture strikingly suggestive of
Portland cement before it had been mixed
with water. 1t is equally impalpable, pow
derry and fine. Blown into the eyes it Is in
tensely annoying, and to the mouth and
nostrils it is more than unpleasant. as all
on board the Luckenbach had learned dur
ing the last half hour of the cruise
Running in toward Pelee, and directly to
the leeward of the volcano. the steamship
decks and awnings were well powdered. Tho
man at the wheel grew red-eyed under the
strain, and all hands had adjusted hand
kerchiefs over nostrils and mouths to IA
%cilitate breathing without inhaling the sui
phurous ashes. In a cloudy, whitish haze
they foated down almost invisible. yet
pungent and alkaline. of the smoke-capped
peak nearly a mile above our mast trucks.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Body of Daughter
of Italian Consul.

After leaving the ruins in which the Amer
lean and British Consuls met death with
their families. the Republic-Herald party
located another dwelling to which attaches
a mournful interest. 1t was that in which
the charming daughter of the Consul for
Italy to Barbados was visiting with friends.
TIL italian Consul had been among the
first to come to st. Pierre in search of the
body Of his child. Strangely enough. it was
his fortune to identify his daughters re-
mains beyond peradventure of doubt. The
explosive blast. which had reduced wrought
iron machinery to pulp and heavy masonry
to powder. by a strange freak had left In
tact a bit of needlework and a garment Of
French make. which told the Consul that
he had found his own dear one. B
The bodies Of a team Of horses and the
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27

either by passengers or crew. In the
shadow of such a horror all were awed.
But now living beings were seen scrambling
down to the shore from amid the ruins.
They were a party of negro looters. The
approach of the Luckenbach had inter-
rupted them at their work, and they sour
ried down to the beach and tumbled into a
long dory which had lain hidden behind a
half-burned bulkhead.
Closer inspection of their craft. during n
brief parley, while the Luckenbach boat
was run alongside. showed that the other
craft was well filed with silver tableware.
blackened and much of 1t fused: with sill
Yer and copper coins, gnarled and twisted
candelabra. bits of broken pottery. and
mantel ornaments and detached pieces OF
iron and copper machinery.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
ST. PIERRE Is AS
DEAD AS POMPEII.
New City Can Arise Only on Ruins
of the Old-Most of Bodies
Buried Fathoms Deep.
BY HAMILTON PELTZ

SPECIAL BY CABLE FROM THE ST. LOUIS
REPUBLICS AND NEW YORK
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.
st. Pierre. May 10. via Herald Republic
Dispatch Boat Mary E. Luckenbach. to San
Juan. Porto Rico. May 2o.-tCopyright,
1e02)-St. Pierre to-day is a vast charneI
house. Skirting for nearly a league the
blue waters of the Caribbean. Its smoking
ruins are the funeral pyre of $1,000. not one
of whom lived long enough TO tell a story
that will stand grim. awful. unforgotten as
that of H~erculaneum. when the world is
older by a thousand years.
St Pierre is as dead as Pompeii. If men
be found with hearts stout enough to build
again beneath the steaming NAV of Old
Pelee, a new city can rise only on the ruins
of the old. st. Pierre is not only dead. but
buried. Most of her people lie fathoms
deep in a tomb made in the twinkling of an
eye by the collapse of their homes, and
sealed forever under tons of boiling mud,
avalanches Of scoria and a hurricane Of
volcanic dust.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Evidence of Ghouls'
Work on All Sides.

The end of an old spring bed projected
amid the ruins of a private house. and close
beside it the relic of a human skull and the
fragments of a spinal column indicated all
that was left of its possible occupant.
Pushing through Bouille street to the
northward. the tangle became more and
more intricate. Here and there the stone
walls of the taller buildings, cracked and
crumblirg. leaned menacingly outward
toward the center of the street. Scanned
and rent with jagged cracks from base to
top. they looked as though the slightest jar
might bring them tunnbIing about the heads
of those who ventured through.
There had been commercial houses here,
and in a dozen places iron boxes and small
safes had been routed out of the ruins and
their fronts torn open by means of crow
bars and other heavy tools. In some cases
this had been done by the legitimate heirs
TO the property. In too many instances
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Negro Looters Fled
at Boats Approach.

In the center of this two-mile crescent OF
scared and blackened walls, rose the dis
mantled towers of the Cathedral de MouI-
lace. Close by it fire was squirting vicious
ly from the ruins of a factory, in which
barrel slaves were made for the three score
distilleries of the town. For ten DAYS the
stacks OF hardwood slaves and piles of fin
lshed casks had burned unchecked. South
ward a blazing coal yard shot out Jets OF
lame. and gave one more touch of bright
coloring to a picture which. without It. was
as comber as the .cowl of a monk.
As the boat drew nearer the deathlike
stiffness was broken by the cracking of
the coal yard fire. No word was spoken
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
Awful Music from
Depths of Earth.

From the depths Of the earth came rum
blings. an awful music. which cannot be
described. 1 called my companions name.
and my voice echoed back at me from a
score of angles.
A the air was filled with the acrld va
pors that had belched from the mouth Of
the volcano. l had been beaten down by
the force Of the explosion until 1 was too
weary to realize the miracle that had left
Baron de Fonteilliat and myself among
the few survivors, and the only ones who
were permitted to force our way into st.
Pierre as far as the still living flames would
permit. t-- -tt r..
normal condition, and l look back upon
that Thursday morning and the hours that
Immediately followed as upon some fearful
nightmare" . .
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27
TWO FRENCHMEN
SAW ERUPTION.
!COmte de Fitzjames and Baron
Fontenilliat, Who Escaped
From Jaws of Death,
Relate Experience.
REPUBLIC

REPUBLIC SPECIAL.
New York, May 26.-Comte de Fitzjames.
who. with Baron Fontenilliat. witnessed the
destruction of st. Pierre, Martinique, es-
Gaping destruction in a most marvellous
manner and by the display of great forth
tude and presence Of mind, described his i'm
pressions here to-day.
Both these French travellers realize now
how favored they have been by fortune,
and each shows in his appearance the hard
ships he endured. They arrived in New
York to-day or the Red D Line steamship.
the Caracas. from San Juan. Continuing
his narrative. Comte de Fitzjames said:
From a boat in the roadstead in front Of
st. Pierre Baron F~ontenilliat and 1 wit
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27

there were evidences of the alert Industry
of the hooters and ghouls who had come
only TO prey upon the city of the dead.
In the deep gray powder that covered the
surface of all things visible could be traced
the footprints Of the looters and of the res
cuing parties who had traversed the ground
before.
Save for these. the only evidences of life
in the stricken town were the footprints of
the sea birds along the strand.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27

ing the candelabra, the chalice and other
holy vessels. and persons of a deeply de-
vout bent of mind already find in this an
evidence of miraculous Intervention.
The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-05-27

HELENA, MONTE n Weed. forr,.,,,
onited states District Attorney for Mon.
lana, has been suspended by the Supreme
.ourt from practice in the courts Of Mon.
saha Ior a period of two years, havinr
oeen FOUND guilty Of malpractice ana aSs
eeit as an attorney and counselor. ~
The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1902-12-18
Death From cancer.

After three years illness with
cancer, during which time he re-
ceived treatment from the best ply
sicians, Clark Hippensteel, aged
only twenty-six years, son of Mr..
and Mrs. John Hippensteel, died at
the home Of his parents in Mt.
Pleasant township, this county,
early Friday morning.
AS stated above, the patient from
the inception Of his affliction was
given the best medical treatment
and when physicians Of this county
were unable to relieve him the
services of a skilled physician from
Philadelphia was obtained but to
no avail and after a great deal of
suffering he died at the time above
mentioned. The funeral occurred
Sunday morning. Services were
conducted by Rev. A. Houtz of
Orangeville. Burial was made in
the cemetery at Millerstown.