Burial of the Victims.
Hundreds have been laid away in shallow trenches without forms,
ceremonies or mourners. All day long the work of burial has been going
on. There was no time for religious ceremonies or mourning and many a
mangled form was coffined with no sign of mourning save the honest
sympathy of the brave men who handled them. As fast as the wagons that
are gathering up the corpses along the stream arrive with their ghastly
loads they are emptied and return again to the banks of the merciless
Conemaugh to find other victims among the driftwood in the underbrush,
or half buried in the mud. The coffins are now beginning to arrive, and
on many streets on the hillside they are stacked as high as the second
and third story windows.
At Kernville the people are not so fortunate. It would seem that every
man is his own coffin maker, and many a man can be seen here and there
claiming the boards of what remains of his house in which perhaps he has
found the remains of a loved one, and busily patching them together with
nails and hoops or any available thing to hold the body.
When the corpses are found they are taken to the nearest dead house and
are carefully washed. They are then laid out in rows to await
identification. Cards are pinned to their breasts as soon as they are
identified, and their names will be marked on the headboards at the
graves.
Wholesale Funerals.
There were many rude funerals in the upper part of the town. The coffins
were conveyed to the cemeteries in wagons, each one carrying two, three
or more.
At Long View Cemetery and at one or two other points long trenches have
been dug to receive the coffins. The trenches are only about three feet
deep, it being thought unnecessary to bury deeper, as almost all the
bodies will be removed by friends. Nearly three hundred bodies were
buried thus to-day.
There will be no public ceremony, no funeral dirge, and but few weeping
mourners. The people are too much impressed with the necessity of
immediate and constant work to think of personal grief.
The twenty-six bodies taken to the hose house in Minersville were buried
shortly after ten o'clock yesterday morning. Of the twenty-six, thirteen
were identified. Eight women, a baby and four men were buried without
having been identified.
All day yesterday men were engaged in burying the dead. They ran short
of coffins, and in order to dispose of the rapidly decomposing bodies
they built rough boxes out of the floating lumber that was caught. In
this way they buried temporarily over fifty bodies in the cemetery just
above the town.
Putrefaction of dead bodies threatens the health of the whole region.
Now that the waters are fast shrinking back from the horrid work of
their own doing and are uncovering thousands of putrid and ill-smelling
corpses the fearful danger of pestilence is espied, stalking in the wake
of more violent destruction.
The air is already reeking with infectious filth, and the alarm is
widespread among the desolated and overwrought population.
Cremation Best.
Incident to this phase of the situation the chief sensation of the
morning was the united remonstrance of the physicians against the
extinguishment of the burning wreck of the demolished town which is
piled up against the bridge. They maintain, with a philosophy that to
anxious searchers seems heartless, that hundreds, if not thousands, of
lifeless and decaying bodies lie beneath this mass of burning ruins.
"It would be better," they say, "to permit Nature's greatest
scavenger--the flames--to pursue his work unmolested than to expose to
further decay the horde of putrefying bodies that lie beneath this
debris. There can be but one result. Days will elapse before the rubbish
can be sufficiently removed to permit the recovery of these bodies, and
long before that every corpse will be a putrid mass, giving forth those
frightful emanations of decaying human flesh that in a crowded community
like this can have but one result--the dreadful typhus. Every
battlefield has demonstrated the necessity of the hasty interment of
decaying bodies, and the stench that already arises is a forerunner of
impending danger. Burn the wreck, burn the wreck."
Sorrow Rejects Safety.
A loud cry of indignation arose from the lips of the vast multitude and
the warnings of science were lost in the eager demands of those that
sought the remains of the near and dear. The hose was again turned upon
the hissing mass, and rapidly the flames yielded to the supremacy of
water.
It is almost impossible to conceive the extent of these smoking ruins.
An area of eight or ten acres above the dam is covered to a depth of
forty feet with shattered houses, borne from the resident centre of
Johnstown. In each of these houses, it is estimated, there were from one
to twenty or twenty-five people. This is accepted as data upon which to
estimate the number that perished on this spot, and if the data be
correct the bodies that lie beneath these ruins must run well up into
the thousands.
Members of the State Board of Health arrived in Nineveh this morning and
determined to proceed at once to dredge the river, to clean it of the
dead and prevent the spreading of disease. To this end they have wired
the State Department to furnish them with the proper appliances.
Drinking Poisoned Water.
From other points in this and connecting valleys the same fear of
pestilence is expressed. The cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, which
have a population of three hundred and fifty thousand and drink the
waters of the Allegheny River, down which corpses and debris from
Johnstown must flow unless stopped above, are in danger of an epidemic.
The water is to-day thick with mud, and bodies have been found as far
south of here as Beaver, a distance of thirty miles below Pittsburgh. To
go this distance the bodies followed the Conemaugh from Johnstown to the
Kiskiminetas, at Blairsville, joining the Allegheny at Freeport, and the
Ohio here, the entire distance from this point being about one hundred
and fifty miles.
"This is a very serious matter," said a prominent Pittsburgh physician
who is here to me to-day, "and one that demands the immediate attention
of the Board of Health officials. The flood of water that swept through
Johnstown has cleaned out hundreds of cesspools. These and the
barnyards' manure and the dirt from henneries and swamps that were swept
by the waters have all been carried down into the Allegheny River. In
addition to this there are the bodies of persons drowned. Some of these
will, in all likelihood, be secreted among the debris and never be
found. Hundreds of carcasses of animals of various kinds are also in the
river.
Typhus Dreaded.
"These will decay, throwing out an animal poison. This filth and
poisonous matter is being carried into the Allegheny, and will be pumped
up into the reservoir and distributed throughout the city. The result is
a cause for serious apprehension. Take, for example, the town of
Hazleton, Pa. There the filth from some outhouse was carried into the
reservoir and distributed through the town. The result was a typhoid
fever epidemic and hundreds of people lost their lives. The water that
we are drinking to-day is something fearful to behold."
The municipal authorities of Pittsburgh have issued a notice embodying
the above facts.
Sanitary Work.
A message was received by the Relief Committee this morning confirming
the report that for the health of the cities of Pittsburgh and Allegheny
it is absolutely necessary that steps be taken immediately to remove the
bodies and drift from the river, and begging the committee to take early
action. The contract for clearing the river was awarded to Captain
Jutte, and he will start up the Allegheny this afternoon as far as
Freeport, and then work down. His instructions are to clear the river
thoroughly of anything that might in any way affect the water supply.
Helping Hands.
The work of relief at the scene of the great disaster is going on
rapidly. The Alliance (Ohio) Relief Committee arrived here this morning
on a special train with five carloads of provisions. The party is
composed of the most prominent iron and steel merchants of Alliance.
They have just returned from a tour of the ruined town. They have been
up to Stony Creek, a distance of five miles and up the Conemaugh River
toward South Fork, a distance of two miles.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTING SUPPLIES FROM THE RELIEF TRAIN.]
In describing their trip, one of their number said:--"I tell you the
half has never been told. It is impossible to tell the terrible tale. I
thought I had seen horrible sights, and I served five years in the War
of the Rebellion, but in all my life it has never been my lot to look
upon such ghastly sights as I have witnessed to-day.
"While making the circuit of the ruined places we saw 103 bodies taken
out of the debris along the bank of the river and Stony Creek. Of this
number, we identified six of the victims as our friends."
[Illustration: SCENE ON SOUTH CLINTON STREET.]