These relic-hunters, commonly of genteel appearance, were in force at Johnstown, picking up knives, forks, silver spoons, communion vessels—anything they could call fools like themselves to gape at because it came from Johnstown, and sometimes judiciously preferring as mementoes the things that were of greater value.
JOHNSTOWN AFTER THE FLOOD.
There were professional thieves who entered the morgues and identified, with expressions of sorrow, their dear departed dead, strangers never seen before, in order that they might secure the valuables found on their persons. There were others who offered their services for the recovery of the dead, and who were placed upon the details sent out for that purpose, and plundered many corpses before the arrival of Mann’s detectives pointed them out as the worst of thieves and robbers.
Besides these there were sleek scoundrels, too base and black for respectability even in the pit, who approached weeping, orphaned, beautiful young girls with alluring offers of jewelry and fine clothes and delightful homes, in great cities. Their object has no need to be stated.
It is pleasant to turn from these few ghoulish and degraded human reptiles to the mighty army of noble men and women who succored Johnstown.