It is impossible to describe the varied movements of that dreadful day. There was little shelter and less food, death everywhere, and some doubtless imprisoned in heaps of wreck, and not yet dead, but dying of wounds, or of cold and exhaustion. The first patient in the Bedford street hospital had been taken up, presumably dead, and carried to the morgue; there he was found to be yet alive, was removed to the hospital and died of congestion the next day. The claims of the dead and of the living seemed to be equally urgent. Many of the living, for food and shelter, pushed to the country; the farmers received them with
AT THE MORGUE.
open doors. They sent wagon loads of provisions to the valley of death; the dairymen came with milk and distributed it freely; but what was this among so many? It is needless to say that the flood, even where buildings had escaped wreck, had overflowed cellars and lower stories and destroyed or badly damaged almost everything eatable in the city.
Not a few of those who survived the flood are notable for their untiring and abundant labors. It was no time for perpetuating sectarian differences. Dr. Beale pays a warm tribute to Father Davin, a Catholic priest, who stood at his post, laboring with superhuman energy, though constantly urged to take even a short rest. But he could not rest in view of so much misery. He and Dr. Beale turned their respective churches into morgues, and labored like heroes, incessantly. Father Davin’s health gave way under the terrible strain, and he finally went to the mountains; but it was too late. He died of overwork and exhaustion.
Nor must the work of that much abused fraternity, the newspaper reporters be forgotten. None but reporters can appreciate the difficulties under which those men worked; and one, a pale, earnest, sympathetic little Philadelphian, toiled on till his health failed. He died at the sea shore, whither he had gone to recuperate. These men we must thank for the prompt and full reports sent throughout the country, stirring it to prompt and energetic measures of relief.