“The horror of that Sunday morning I shall never forget; white, ghastly corpses turning up their faces to the light, or clinging to a child or loved one, their twisted, agonized faces, showing the anguish of that last unequal struggle against death, were everywhere. One woman I saw holding fast to two bags of silver, as if to say: ‘Better die than be a beggar.’ Nearly all the west end people were lost. Those who sought safety in large houses had but the grim consolation of dying in company, for the whole of that portion of the city was destroyed. The work of rescue began as soon as the storm abated. But the crowd of survivors on the street Sunday morning was pitiably small. They seemed to me scarce 10,000. Clad in next to nothing, bathing suits and the like, the sun brought them only the sight of dead relatives and friends—some starvation.
“There was no food and no water. For two days I tasted no water and food was scarce indeed. The city, as soon as soldiers could be gotten, was put under the strictest martial law, under protest of Mayor Jones and Chief of Police Ketchum. These officials desired to enforce the law by civil authority. Fully seventy-five men have been killed for looting the dead and refusing to halt when ordered. Every house has to be guarded lest thieves break in them and steal.
OCEAN GIVING UP ITS DEAD.
“The ‘Lawrence’ which at first was under the control of the relief committee and charged nothing for passage, now exacts $2 per capita to Texas City. Besides this, there are three boats in the service. The only way to get away from Galveston is to go by boat to Texas City, where there are about 1000 women and children and almost no accommodations.
“The bodies have been all cleared away from the central portion of the town and there is a continual stream of corpse laden floats, drays, etc., to the barges. The west end has been set on fire, as the mass of wreckage there makes recovery impossible. But the beach is lined with bodies yet. Every day they wash up upon the sand. Old ocean is giving up its dead.
“The women and children will probably be compelled to leave. They are badly in need of clothes and avow that they want no rags but nice new clothes, ‘to avoid epidemic.’ I attribute the terrible loss of life,” concluded Mrs. Smart, “to the fact that the people trusted Galveston too much, and clung too long to a failing hope. This has often appeared to be a strange trait of human nature.”
A correspondent furnishes the following account of a well-known family:
“One of the saddest cases which has come to light is that of the Jalonick brothers of Dallas. No man is better known than Isaac Jalonick, of Dallas, who was so long the secretary of the Texas rating bureau, and he and his brothers have hosts of friends all over the State. There were three of them, George, Ed and Isaac. The family of Ed Jalonick, consisting of his wife, son and daughter, the children being young, came to Galveston several weeks ago to spend the latter part of the summer on the Gulf coast. They had taken a house on the southern part of the island, west of the Denver resurvey.
ONE OF THE SADDEST CASES.
“It was far removed from the city, and was in a section which was so badly storm swept that not a house remains. Mr. Jalonick came last week to take his family home, but the bad weather interfered and the trip home was postponed. Saturday the storm came, and when the two brothers, George and Ike, in Dallas, heard of the disaster they came here at once, to ascertain the condition of their brother and his family. They went to the former home and but a vacant spot met their anxious search for the house which had sheltered their loved ones. They decided to make a search among the dead on the island, in the hope that they could find the bodies and give them decent burial.