The Monticellonian., 1903-06-04
BODIES FLOAT IN STREETS
Over Two Hundred People Lose Their Lives in Kansas
 Floods
TOTAL LOSS OF LIFE MAY NEVER BE KNOWN
Many Thousand People Rendered Homeless and Millions of Dollars Worth of Property Destroyed Fire Follows the Fiood-Disaster Worse Than That at Galveston.

Topeka, Kan, May 31.-This city presents a dismal appearance as the result of the most disastrous flood ever known in this section.
 The treacherous Kansas river is be lieved to be settling back into it's rightful channel. Up and down the official gauge has futtered all day. Tonight, however, City Engineer McCable issued a bulletin. giving out the cheering intelligence that the wa ters had subsided to the extent of exactly 1-2 inches. It may be few hours before another drop may be | noted. With 175 or POO lives lost, mil lions of dollars of property destroyed, hundreds of pistol shots as signals of distress, blending with the agonizing cries of unwilling inhabitants of tree tops and roofs of houses, and the wa ters creeping upward and then slowly subsiding and alternately changing hope to despair the capital city has passed the most memorable Sabbath day of it's existence Through all this discomforting condition of affairs was added the presence of a cold, dismal rain.
 The ardor of the rescue work of the heroic rescuers was not abated in the least by the conditions which con fronted them. For long. dreary hours, kneedeep in water and sometimes in water up to their neeks, they worked with might and main. Tonight they can proudly point to 300 or more res eued ones, who otherwise might have been swept away in the current
 SUMMARY OF SITUATION.
 Briefly stated. the present eoadi. tioa of the food is this:
 One hundred and seventy to 200 people drowned
 Eight thousand people without homes.
 Four million dollars of property loss.
 Floating bodies seen. twenty.
 People missing, 200.
 Bodies recovered, five
 Houses burned as a result of the fire. from stacking lime, probably 200.
 Banks collapsed. two.
 Wholesale grocery stores flooded. two.
 Big business blocks almost ready tc crumbla, 90.
 Wholesale commission houses de serted. six.
 Rock Island train containing 150 passengers held here by high water
 City waterworks plant useless.
 THE KNOWN DROWNED.
 Karl Rupp.
 Oryille Rupp
 Two Rupp girls.
 C. H. Garrett,s 5.year-old son.
 Twenty unidentified bodies
 ESTIMATES OF LOSS OF LIFE.
 Leading men have made careful examination of the flood and all it's conditions, and as a result of their campaign they give 250 as the proba. ble number of lives lost A more conservative estimate places the mum. Der of dead at 175.
 The higher number is as apt to De correct as the lower
 The number of deaths is merely a matter of estimate Twenty members of the rescuing parties tell of how they saw people drop from houses. only to be swept away by the flood, and others tell of men who, terrified at the approach of the fire, dropped into she water, where they sank and did not reappear.
 This estimated number of dead does not include the large number classed as missing who cannot other wise be accounted for Neither does it include the number who are sup posed to have lost their lives in the fire.
 In the latter class there is abso. lutely no means of arriving at even an approximate number of victims The water is so high and the current so strong that all that can be done now is to rescue those in the buildings surrounded by water. It will be at least three days before the correct number of dead will be de cided on.
 --=------- I'M ENCI AND,S CApITAI