The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-12-10
Most Pathetic of All Was Plight
of Little Children.
Saw Burned Tots Trying To
Awaken Dead Mothers.
LIKE STAMPEDE OF BELGIANS
Preacher Describes His Escape
and Sights in Halifax.
Men Rushed Home to Find
Home and Family Wiped Out.

Montreal, Que. Dec. 1O.-Telling
vivid story CT terribly burned children
pitifuIly trying to awaken dead moth
ers, of weeping women calling Tor
their loved ones thru blazing streets;
of agony, wholesale carnage and nor
ror, Rev. George Adam, of Emmanuel
Congregational church returned to
Montreal from Halifax today. He was
one of the first survivors to leave the
| stricken city His own escape from
death he considers miraculous.
Halifax seemed the most peaceful
Mace in the world ten minutes pc
| fore the explosion" he said TO-DAY.
'',Then violent tremor shook the no.
! tel Three or four seconds passed
The windows of my bedroom crashed
in Furniture was knocked over. L
| believed the town was being shelted:
81 could hear people running about
| the streets shouting and weeping. Inc
hotel corridors were strewn with de-
| bris When I reached the street
found it Uttered with jewelry. clothes,
broken glass; food and everything
| ina ginabIe that had been forced by
the air conclusion out of the shops
Watched Refugees in Flight.
an front of the lieutenant governors
| residence L paused to watch the peo-
L. L
pede of Belgian refugees. An endless
stream of terrified men, women and
children was passing. There were
various numbers who had left their
converts, old bedridden women being
carried half dressed mothers with
babies hurried wrapped in blankets.
Little boys led blind men. Children
weeping bitterly-hurried past fran
tically clutching their pigeons and
cats. Sailors. firemen and survivors
1
| throng. Many were bleeding. Wag-
ons, automobiles and trucks mingled
with the panic stricken populace. The
cry was going from lip to lip that an
| other explosion was imminent.
| Harry Mclean of the Cook Con-
struction company, took me through
| the devasted area in his automobile.
Houses had been blown up by the
| hundreds. Flames were licking up
| through the wood work where many
were trapped. Dead lay in the streets.
Flames Leaped 200 Feet High.
1.-THE means of the injured, wound
| ed and dying were heart rending. The
screams of suffering children stabbed
| the heart on every side. On the edge
| of this area, great factories were
| shooting tongues of flames. The cot
ton factory's flames roared 200 feet
into the air.
There are many stories of fami-
| seeking vainly to awaken dead moth
ers, of husbands, racing home to find
| a ruin and their families dead. The
chauffeur who was driving our car was
one of a family of nine. Seven of
them persisted.
| "a railway man at the round house
| found his wife and children dead and
then went back to work. All kinds of
buildings were taken over for hospi-
| tails Churches and theaters rapidly
h s1Cr7 h.
noon I visited some of the hospitals.
Terrible! Faces burned black showed
CHASTITY against the white pillows.
Bandaged faces, arms, legs. From in
fants to old, old people were there and
many voices joined in one sustained
moan of agony.
| Ninety per cent of all railroad
equipment in Halifax had been
smashed by the explosion. The work
of transferring wounded to other cities
was a great task. Praise must be
given the doctors, nurses and firemen
who stuck to their posts hour after
hour.
Frenzied Mother Searched in Vain.
LAS night came, the weird sights
made an unearthly impression upon
my mind. Now and then frenzied
mother would pass, seeking a son or a
daughter.
"A woman burst into the Canadian
Pacific railway engineers office, hunt
ing her son. She said he had gone to
work that morning and had not re-
turned. She had searched every hos
pital, had seen every terrible spectacle
these places offered, but refused to
go to the morgues.
I'll search every house in Hall
fax until I find him. she cried. He
can't be dead! God could never allow
my only boy to be killed. He's only
sixteen
Words would not comfort her, so
she went out into the night seeking
her son.
Halifax is today place of mourn
ling and ashes