A CLEAN SWEEP OF EIGHTEEN BLOCKS BY SIX, WAS THICKLY POPULATED AND COMPLETELY DESTROYED
RUINS AT TWENTY-FIRST STREET AND AVENUE O ½
“Immediately on my arrival here a meeting of the Woodmen was called and $200 in cash subscribed and turned over to me, and about $300 more pledged to be placed in my hands on demand. All camps throughout the State are requested to immediately call meetings and forward such subscriptions as they may see proper to me at Dallas. This will be used for the benefit of Woodmen and their families, many of whom are in absolute want and distress, and we hope to raise at least $30,000, which is less than $1 each from our members.”
From Houston came the following heartrending news of the Galveston horror two days after it occurred:
“The dreadful fatality of Galveston is looking worse, in the face of facts brought out to-day. Three men, who reached here this morning, tell of so and so many dead bodies being found in a single house or yard or on one block, that the conclusion is almost irresistible that a greater number than 1000 has been lost. They tell that twenty or forty or a hundred were lost by the collapse of a single large house, they having gathered there for safety, but they are unable to say anything about the hundreds of small houses that were swept away, some vacant, of course, but many occupied, but without a mark, a sign or a memory to recall the lost.
NAMES OF DEAD WILL NEVER BE KNOWN.
“The outline of the terrible disaster is now known over the United States, and even farther. The details are wanting; no list of names approaching completeness can be had for weeks, and it is almost sure that a complete list will never be found. As time wears along the names of different persons will be recalled by those who were neighbors, and they will be set down on the death roll that will be made up; but where neighbors do not know neighbors, the names will never be called, and the identity of the lost will pass with eternity—without recall or remembrance.
“This city and her people are devoting themselves assiduously to relieving the unfortunates. Her business men are losing not a moment. They thoroughly realize that seconds are valuable. Last night large wagons jostled along the streets with boxes of prepared food to load them on boats and cars. The Mayor has sent out calls to the large cities of this and other States for immediate help, and everybody here feels that the response will be generous and speedy. These people know the justness of their demand, and hence their confidence in getting the answer.
“W. O. Ansley, a well known cotton man of this city, received a letter this morning, brought by private messenger, from A. W. Simpson, a cotton man at Galveston, saying: