His description of the scenes is horrible in the extreme. The dead were everywhere. They were scattered on every hand, and nearly all in a complete state of nudity. He saw an Italian woman standing in the street holding in her hand the foot and leg of an infant severed from the little body. She was unclad, but alive and insane, and refused to leave the pile of debris which contained the remains of her little one.
Roberts witnessed one of the guards shoot five negro looters. He observed one of the men robbing a dead body. The man refused to desist and the guard shot him dead as he knelt on the sands. Four companions of the ghoul started to assault the guard, when he threw himself on his stomach, and, firing rapidly, killed them all.
NINETY NEGROES EXECUTED.
It is said that ninety negroes have been executed for robbery, and it is unsafe for any one to stir at night unless provided with a passport from the officer in charge. A description of the burning of the dead and the burial at sea is beyond reproduction. All sentiment is at an end. It has become a matter of self-protection and in order to avoid pestilence rapid disposal of the corpses is necessary. Several loads of lime have been sent from here, with other disinfectants. The people of Galveston have had no bread since the storm save what little has been sent from Houston. A cracker factory opened its doors Sunday and sold its entire contents in a short time. Some food was left after the storm, but this is rapidly being distributed.
Bonfires are burning all over the city. They are the funeral of a thousand festering corpses cast back upon the shore at high tide yesterday. Cremation has become a necessity to prevent an epidemic. The negroes refuse to work, and the townspeople are paralyzed with fright and suffering, or are making preparations to leave the doomed island.
The first train to carry refugees to Texas City, seven miles across the bay, was announced this morning, and since daylight a thousand men, women and children have been crowding into catboats, lifeboats, sloops, schooners and a single steamboat, the Lawrence, all bent on escaping from the city. Nearly all of them have lost some member of their families. The women wear no hats, are unkempt and ill-clad. They look as if haunted.
THE CITY OFFICIALS IN A LIVELY QUARREL.
The situation has gotten beyond the control of the authorities. The powers in control have been quarreling. Last night at 7 o’clock every citizen soldier under command of Major Fayling was called in, disarmed and mustered out of service. Chief of Police Ketchum then took charge, and the Major was relieved of his command. During an hour and a half the city was unguarded. Negro looters held high carnival.
As the Major’s work was unusually brilliant, the citizens are furious. This morning the situation from the police standpoint is improved. A hundred of the State militia of the Houston Light Guards, Houston Artillery and Houston Cavalry have arrived. They are patrolling the west end of the city. General McKibbin, Commander of the Department of the Gulf, and Adjutant General Scurry, of Texas, are on the ground, and are advising with Mayor Jones and the Chief of Police Ketchum.
In all other respects the city is worse off than on the morning after the tragedy. A terrible stench permeates the atmosphere. It comes from the bodies of a thousand unburied dead festering in the debris, that cannot be removed for weeks on account of the paucity of laborers. Every tide brings scores back to the shore. During the early part of yesterday trenches were dug and the bodies thrown into them, but it soon became an impossibility to bury all, and the health authorities decided upon cremation as an expedient.