Читать книгу The Great Galveston Disaster - Paul Lester - Страница 56

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It is said that ninety negroes have been executed for robbery, and it is unsafe for any one to stir at night unless provided with a passport from the officer in charge. A description of the burning of the dead and the burial at sea is beyond reproduction. All sentiment is at an end. It has become a matter of self-protection and in order to avoid pestilence rapid disposal of the corpses is necessary. Several loads of lime have been sent from here, with other disinfectants. The people of Galveston have had no bread since the storm save what little has been sent from Houston. A cracker factory opened its doors Sunday and sold its entire contents in a short time. Some food was left after the storm, but this is rapidly being distributed.

Bonfires are burning all over the city. They are the funeral of a thousand festering corpses cast back upon the shore at high tide yesterday. Cremation has become a necessity to prevent an epidemic. The negroes refuse to work, and the townspeople are paralyzed with fright and suffering, or are making preparations to leave the doomed island.

The first train to carry refugees to Texas City, seven miles across the bay, was announced this morning, and since daylight a thousand men, women and children have been crowding into catboats, lifeboats, sloops, schooners and a single steamboat, the Lawrence, all bent on escaping from the city. Nearly all of them have lost some member of their families. The women wear no hats, are unkempt and ill-clad. They look as if haunted.