“The wife of Dr. Longino, an army surgeon, was at a friend’s house, with her little baby, when the storm commenced. During the storm, from fright or something else, the baby lost its breath. Everybody thought the child was dead and tried to persuade Mrs. Longino to leave it and try to save herself but she would not do so. She caught hold of the baby’s tongue and held it so it could not retard the passage of air in the windpipe.
TRYING TO SAVE THE CHILD’S LIFE.
“She blew her own breath into the baby’s body. After working for a long time, during the most terrible part of the storm, the baby was revived and is still living. She kept her invalid aunt alive by pinching her cheeks. The next day she reached a place of safety in the city. She said she could hardly walk along the beach for the bodies of children. There was a Catholic orphanage about five miles down the beach, in which were a hundred children and ten nuns. All of these but three boys were killed.
“One woman who was trying to save a child was pinned down by a piano. She was just about to give herself up for lost when a big wave came and washed the piano off of her. She and the child were both rescued. We kept a little pet lamb alive, which afterwards we thought we would have to kill for food. But Mrs. Brown got a calf somewhere. It was killed and cleaned, but the ladies themselves had to cut it up. This served for food for two days. The two big cisterns in the cellar were full of salt water; there was a small one on the roof which furnished us with water for a little while. After that we had to beg it from the neighbors.
“The only clothes we have are what we have on and one change of underclothes, which we took with us when we went to Mrs. Brown’s. All the rest of our clothes are mildewed.
“We did not see any of the negroes stealing, as mother kept us in the house all the time, but we could hear the shots. They commenced this dastardly work Sunday night. The ghouls are composed of negroes and foreigners. We did not get very frightened when people kept coming to us for help the night of the storm. All we could do was to thank God that He had given us a place of shelter which we could share with those less fortunate.”
THREATENED WITH PESTILENCE.
A visitor to the stricken city made the following report:
“Galveston’s stress and desolation grows with each recurring hour. Pestilence, famine, fire, thirst and rapine menace the stricken city. Each refugee from the storm-lashed island brings tidings which add to the tale of the city’s woe.
“Of the dead that lie in piles in the desolated streets and dot the waters that girdle the city, the true number will never be known. All estimates of the total of the victims of Saturday’s night’s tempest must be qualified with the mark of interrogation. It is not conjecture to say that the death roll in Galveston alone will hardly fall short of 5000. Sober-sensed men, who have brought to the outer world conservative accounts of sights and scenes in the hapless city, say that there are 10,000 dead people within a half dozen miles of Galveston’s centre. No one disputes that the storm victims number the half of 10,000.