“Houston Relief Committee.”
“Chicago’s first offering of food and clothing for the Texas sufferers left here last night (Thursday, the 13th), over the Rock Island Road on a special train of six cars that has the right of way over all trains as far as Fort Worth, Texas. Other cars packed at Rock Island, Davenport, Muscatine, Topeka, Kansas City, St. Joseph and Wichita will be picked up on the way, and it is expected the train will consist of twenty-three cars when it reaches its destination. The train is expected to reach Fort Worth on Saturday, from where it will be taken to Houston, over the Houston and Texas route on a special train schedule.”
The banking house of Munroe & Company, New York, received from its Paris branch advices to draw on that bank for $10,000 for the aid of the Galveston sufferers.
Vice-President and General Manager Trice, of the International and Great Northern Railroad, spent several hours at Bryan on the 13th. Mr. Trice has just come from Galveston, where he had been in touch with the situation since the great storm. He said the railroad losses will aggregate $5,000,000 or $6,000,000.
“We are now operating trains to Texas City, and carrying on traffic from that point to Galveston by boat,” he said. “Better shipping facilities will be established at Galveston than ever as fast as men and money can place them there. Negotiations are now going on to the end that all railroads entering the city join forces and materials and establish a temporary bridge across the bay, and if the plan succeeds it is hoped that trains can be run into Galveston in thirty days. The negotiations going on also contemplate the construction of a permanent double track steel bridge, to be used by all the railroads entering the city.”
PLANS FOR A NEW BRIDGE.
W. Boscheke, assistant engineer of the Southern Pacific Railroad at Galveston, has received orders by wire from New York to prepare plans at once for a double-track steel bridge across Galveston Bay, ten feet higher than the old one, and to proceed with all the force possible. Engineers are at work making a survey and running lines preparatory to the resumption of work.
J. W. Maywell, General Superintendent, and J. W. Allen, General Freight agent of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, have arrived here for the purpose of conferring with General Manager Polk, of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe, and Manager Hill, of the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railway, with the object of combining their efforts on the reconstruction of one bridge for all railways entering Galveston for the time being, and thus secure an early resumption of traffic and the partial restoration of business in Galveston. Such a plan, it is believed, will be adopted.
What Galveston needs now is money and disinfectants. Next to these two things, she needs forage. There are now, as near as can be estimated, three hundred cars of provisions on the way, and it is thought that, with what is already here, that amount will suffice for a time at least. No more doctors are needed. Galveston has begun to emerge from the Valley of the Shadow of Death into which she has been plunged for nearly a week, and to-day for the first time actual progress was made toward clearing up the city.
The bodies of those killed in the storm have for the most part been disposed of. A large number may be found when the debris is removed from some of the buildings, but at present there are none to be seen, save those occasionally cast up by the sea. As far as sight, at least, is concerned, the city is cleared of its dead.