BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE.
“But all the reserves of human energy are summoned forth by the very worst disasters, and courage should be written on the heart of Galveston. It is the time to lift up the hands of her strong men, to give them a word of cheer, for they are bound to the spot and must make the best of their fate. A chorus of evil predictions simply multiplies their difficulties and is a cruelty to them, whether it is intended to be so or not.
“Let the dismal prophets reflect a moment. Though buildings have been destroyed there is not a foot of land on the island that does not represent savings. Though railroad communications have been cut off, the currents of commerce by the land and by the sea are merely waiting to resume their courses. There is a capital in trade connections which is not necessarily wrecked along with wrecked stores, offices and houses.”
C. J. Sealey, a young man of Galveston, Texas, who was in La Junta, Colorado, received a telegram from the Mayor of Galveston informing him of the death of twenty-one of his relatives, among whom were his mother, two sisters and three brothers. The young man said he did not believe he had a relative on earth.
An eye-witness of the desolation described the scene as follows:
“Galveston is beginning slowly to recover from the stunning blow of last week, and though the city appears to-night to be pitilessly desolated, the authorities and the commercial and industrial interests are setting their forces to work, and a start has at least been made toward the resumption of business on a moderate scale.
“The presence of the troops has had a beneficial effect upon the criminal classes, and the apprehension of a brief but desperate reign of anarchy no longer exists. The liquor saloons have at least temporarily gone out of business, and every strong-limbed man who has not his own humble abode to look after is being pressed into service, so that, first of all, the water service may be resumed, the gutters flushed and the streets lighted.
BODIES CONSTANTLY COMING TO LIGHT.
“The further the ruins are dug into the greater becomes the increase in the list of those who perished as their houses tumbled about their heads. On the lower beach a searching party found a score of corpses within a small area, going to show that the bulwark of debris that lies straight across the island conceals more bodies than have been accounted for.
“Volunteer gangs continue their work of hurried burial of the corpses they find on the shores of Galveston Island, at the many neighboring points where fatalities attended the storm. It will probably be many days, yet, however, before all the floating bodies have found nameless graves.