DEATH’S HARVEST CART.
The death rate among these fragile frame buildings was horrible. The borough authorities estimate the loss of life at 1,100. Almost 750 bodies have already been recovered and brought to the morgue. It is not probable that Cambria City will be rebuilt, at least for a long time. The expense of preparing that rocky plain for building would be enormous. There is not a street left or any landmark by which to determine the location of lots, except the water mains through one or two streets. The part of the town still in existence will probably be put in order and maintained, but the broad flat will doubtless remain a rocky desert for a long time to come.
And all the time all along the valley the work of recovering the dead goes on with undiminished vigor, and as the workmen become accustomed to the terrible scenes they apply themselves more diligently to their duty and labor with a system that produces rapid results.
The great number of bodies not identified seems incredible. Some of these bodies have lain in the different morgues for four days. Thousands of people from different parts of the State have seen them, yet they remain unidentified. At Nineveh they are burying all the unidentified dead, but in the morgues in this vicinity no bodies have been buried unless they were identified. There are at present thirty unidentified bodies at the Fourth ward school house.
These bodies have been lying there for the past three days, and in that time at least forty thousand people have viewed them, but no one has identified them, and they have nothing in their clothing to indicate who they are. During the past twenty-four hours sixty bodies were embalmed and taken from this place. This morning five bodies were brought in.
But to enumerate would be too great a task, when reports of additional bodies being found are constantly coming in from all points along the valley.
Judge Advocate Rogers, of Gov. Beaver’s staff, this morning decided an important question which arose by the discovery of forty barrels of whiskey in a building on Main street. Adjt.-Gen. Hastings was disposed to confiscate it as a safeguard, according to a section in the military code which prohibited the sale of liquor within the limits of a military camp. Judge Advocate Rogers ruled that it was private property, and a licensed dealer had a right to sell liquor. Besides, it was not a military camp, but a posse comitatus, the militiamen doing police duty.
Last evening employees of Lutz & Son unearthed ten barrels of beer from the cellar of a building on Main street. The body of a man was found close beside it. The driver was bringing his capture away when Major Samuel Hastings arrested him. Adj’t-Gen. Hastings knocked in the head of a barrel and let the beer run into the street. Under orders it was all destroyed.
“You will not be paid for the beer,” said Gen. Hastings to the owners.
Among the bodies recovered in Kernville yesterday was that of a young woman richly attired, wearing diamond rings and a gold watch marked “J. J. L. to E. J. L.” The remains were taken to the chapel on the hill.