The refugees are being housed and fed, and those in need of medical attention are placed in the hospitals. General-Manager Van Vleck, of the Southern Pacific, says the damage to the wharves is fully eighty per cent. The Southern Pacific, he says, expects to begin work on the bridge within two days. It is expected that trains will be run into Galveston within forty days.
John J. Moody, a member of the committee sent from Houston to take charge of the relief station at Texas City, reports as follows:
“On arriving at La Marque this morning I was informed that the largest number of bodies were along the coast of Texas City. Fifty-six were buried yesterday and to-day within less than two miles extending opposite this place and towards Virginia City. It is yet six miles farther to Virginia City and the bodies are thicker where we are now than where they have been buried. A citizen inspecting in the opposite direction reports dead bodies thick for twenty miles.
“The residents of this place have lost all, not a habitable building being left, and they have been too busy disposing of the dead to look after personal affairs. Those who have anything left are giving it to others, and yet there is real suffering. I have given away nearly all the bread I brought for our own use to hungry children.
“Every ten feet along the wreck-lined coast tells of acts of vandalism. Not a trunk, valise or tool chest has escaped rifling. We buried a woman this afternoon whose fingers bore the mark of a recently removed ring.”
WASHED ACROSS THE BAY FROM GALVESTON.
B. F. Cameron, a lumber dealer of Stowell, Chambers County, says that the relief party which went from Stowell to Bolivar, reported to him that there was over 1000 dead bodies on the beach at Bolivar, Yeast Bay, and in sight of the salt marshes which line the bay. The party succeeded in burying only forty of the corpses. The others are lying in the water and on land, decomposing in the heat. Many of these bodies were evidently swept across the bay from Galveston.
In view of the completeness with which Galveston has been destroyed by the storm, many believe the city will never be rebuilt. The argument is that from its very location the city is ever in danger of a similar visitation, and capital will be fearful of investment where the danger is so constant.
There are many, however, who take the opposite view and say that in no other place on the Gulf can there be found a location so advantageous, and therefore, no matter if the risk be great, capital will seek investment in Galveston, and the city will soon resume her importance as a shipping port.
This sentiment is reflected in telegrams and verbal utterances, some of which are here printed: