CORNER WALL AND FRONT STREETS, JEFFERSONVILLE.
The damage was mostly to roofs and top-stories, and the people were doubtless indoors and below. This, however, does not account for the deliverance of a number of persons in buildings which were completely destroyed. Possibly some of these may be accounted for by sudden explosions of buildings, such as has been noticed heretofore. The fragments would be much more apt to injure persons just outside than those within. The largely increased percentage of damage done to roofs and upper stories only shows how rapidly the storm was weakening. It could not go very much farther with its devastation. The old Orphans’ Home was wrecked; one old lady injured; a pastor’s house demolished, while two men in the upper story in some mysterious way escaped unhurt. At the foot of Front street, a shanty occupied by a man with wife and three children was lifted bodily and thrown into the river. The family would have been drowned had not some car-works employes rescued them, at the peril of their own lives. A number of guests, and some who came for shelter, were in a house at the corner of First and Spring streets. The shock of the tornado was followed by a hail of bricks and tumbling walls, but no one of the entire assembly was seriously hurt.
WRECK AT JEFFERSONVILLE.
The average American worships no god but Mammon. He may go to church and bow his head to Jehovah, but it is Mammon who keeps his heart. Between his devout amens he is thinking of the main chance. He can be converted and made religious; it is a great deal harder to make him honest. He is willing to sing the praises of the Lord, but he doesn’t like to foot the bills. Amid the sorrow and bereavement of a stricken city, the American was true to himself. Those who had lost house and friends, were asked to pay ten dollars for a carriage in which to follow the corpse to the grave. As about thirty victims of the storm were buried on Sunday, it may be inferred that the carriages in each procession were none too numerous. A sad sight was that of the four laundry girls, and the chamber-maid, all being borne together to their long home. Hardly less impressive was the burial at half-hour intervals of ten members of the I. O. O. F., killed in Falls City Hall. It was a profitable day for undertakers.
Nor did the officers of the Louisville and Southern Railroad forget their interests. They had for some time been desirous of regaining possession of their property controlled by the Monon Route. This they did in the confusion, dismay and darkness, immediately following the storm.