Читать книгу The Great Galveston Disaster - Paul Lester - Страница 57

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The situation has gotten beyond the control of the authorities. The powers in control have been quarreling. Last night at 7 o’clock every citizen soldier under command of Major Fayling was called in, disarmed and mustered out of service. Chief of Police Ketchum then took charge, and the Major was relieved of his command. During an hour and a half the city was unguarded. Negro looters held high carnival.

As the Major’s work was unusually brilliant, the citizens are furious. This morning the situation from the police standpoint is improved. A hundred of the State militia of the Houston Light Guards, Houston Artillery and Houston Cavalry have arrived. They are patrolling the west end of the city. General McKibbin, Commander of the Department of the Gulf, and Adjutant General Scurry, of Texas, are on the ground, and are advising with Mayor Jones and the Chief of Police Ketchum.

In all other respects the city is worse off than on the morning after the tragedy. A terrible stench permeates the atmosphere. It comes from the bodies of a thousand unburied dead festering in the debris, that cannot be removed for weeks on account of the paucity of laborers. Every tide brings scores back to the shore. During the early part of yesterday trenches were dug and the bodies thrown into them, but it soon became an impossibility to bury all, and the health authorities decided upon cremation as an expedient.