The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-12-08


, noon visited some of the hospitals
Terrible. Faces burned black showed
: CHASTITY against the white pillows
! handaged faces, arms, legs. From In
!, fants to old, old people We're there, ant
many voices Joined in one sustained
] moan of agony
4 Ninety per cent of all RAILROAD
equipment in Halifax had been smash
ed 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.
AS night came, the wierd sight
made an unearthly impression upon
my mind Now and then a frenzied
mother would pass, seeking son or
q daughter.
"A woman burst into the Canadian
Pacific Ry., engineers office, hunting
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'm search every house in Halifax
until find him. she cried. He can't
be dead, God could never allow my
only boy to be killed. He's only six
teen
Words could not comfort her, so
she went out into the night seeking
her son.
Halifax is today place of mourn
ing and ashes"
Survivor Tells Story.
ST. JOHN, N. B., Dec. S.-Declar-
ing he at first thought the entire city
had blown up and that he did not
regain his senses until after he had
labored long in the work of pulling
injured and dead from beneath
wreckage. Roy Williams, formerly OF
Portland, Maine, today told the Unit
fax when the munition ship Mont
Blanc blew up in the harbor.
A graphic description of the wreck
age. the broken, bleeding bodies, the
pail of smoke that hung over the
town and made more CHASTITY the
screams of the injured, came from
the lips of Williams over the tele-
phone to ST. John from Windsor,
where he had been sent with other
wounded. Word received here stated
that rescue crews are working vail
antly today in the teeth of fierce
northeast gale. Bodies are being re-
moved from deep drifts of snow in
many places.
Williams was buried by flying
II was standing on Darlington
street waiting for a car" said Will
liams, when l felt the sidewalk
shake The roar that followed made
me think that the whole city had
blown up
Insanity" was the word he used to
describe the scenes that followed.
Screeching women, weeping men, dis
tracted children, mingled in the torn
streets, he declared.
II remember hearing the awful
noise." he continued, but for some
time after that didn't know any
thing. l had been struck by fly
ing brick from chimney. My side
is very sore and / am bruised, but 1
am lucky
"All below me when l awoke was
a mass of flames. For miles it
seemed to ME that every building had
been destroyed. It seemed as If some
force had turned the foundations of
these buildings to jelly. They had
SIAp ply tGIUIlDleu anu Suuh u a /,
jumbled shambles.
People were dashing through the
streets. Some were part dressed, [
others with blood streaming from
Others, mutilated beyond
hope of Identification, were lying in
the streets, some at my very feet
"Firemen began rushing about the
streets. The confusion became so
great I decided it was useless to push I
ahead and began to help pick up the
INJURED
Men and women wers caught in i
he fame swept ruins. As we work
I'd TO get them, their screams spurred
is on. Many of them were silenced
ong before we could aid them
'T continued IN a stunned way to |
1elp pick UP the charred and torn /
hings that had been men and wom- /
N. / worked until was driven from I
he scene by fire and smoke. I began /
o get dizzy and realized I had been I
bleeding from wounds My hands |
we're torn from clawing at the wreck
ge.
Some time in the afternoon gave
lp. My lungs were burning. My |
yes were hot Goals vas stumbling
n a daze from loss of blood. The
ity swan before me.
when / left Halifax yesterday /
here were still men and women in
he wreckage. All estimates of the
lead must be guesswork. for 1t is
uanossible now to calculate"