With blanched faces and trembling forms, they obeyed the order and begged for mercy. They were searched, and, as their pockets were emptied of their ghastly finds, the indignation of the crowd intensified, and when a bloody finger of an infant encircled with two tiny gold rings was found among the plunder in the leader’s pocket, a cry went up, “Lynch them! Lynch them!” Without a moment’s delay ropes were thrown around their necks and they were dangling to the limbs of a tree, in the branches of which an hour before were entangled the bodies of a dead father and son. After half an hour the ropes were cut and the bodies lowered and carried to a pile of rocks in the forest on the hill above. It is hinted that an Allegheny county official was one of the most prominent in this justifiable homicide.
One miserable wretch who was caught in the act of mutilating a body was chased by a crowd of citizens, and when captured was promptly strung up to a telegraph pole. A company of officers rescued him before he was dead, much to the disgust of many reputable people, whose feelings had been outraged by the treatment of their deceased relations. Shortly after midnight an attempt was made to rob the First National Bank, which, with the exception of the vaults, had been destroyed. The plunderers were discovered by the citizens’ patrol, which had been established during the night, and a lively chase ensued. A number of the thieves—six, it is said—were shot. It is not known whether any were killed or not, as their bodies would have been washed away almost immediately if such had been the case.
A number of Hungarians collected about a number of bodies at Cambria which had been washed up, and began rifling the trunks. After they had secured all the contents they turned their attention to the dead.
The ghastly spectacle presented by the distorted features of those who had lost their lives during the flood had no influence upon the ghouls, who acted more like wild beasts than human beings. They took every article from the clothing on the dead bodies, not leaving anything of value or anything that would serve to identify the remains.
After the miscreants had removed all their plunder to dry ground a dispute arose over a division of the spoils. A pitched battle followed, and for a time the situation was alarming. Knives and clubs were used freely. As a result several of the combatants were seriously wounded and left on the ground, their fellow-countrymen not making any attempt to remove them from the field of strife.
A Hungarian was caught in the act of cutting off a dead woman’s finger, on which was a costly ring. The infuriated spectators raised an outcry and the fiend fled. He was hotly pursued, and after a half-hour’s hard chase, was captured and hanged to a telegraph pole, but was cut down and resuscitated by officers. Liquor emboldened the ghouls, and Pittsburg was telegraphed for help, and the 18th and 14th Regiments, Battery B and the Washington Infantry were at once called out for duty, members being apprised by posters in the newspaper windows.
One correspondent wrote: “The number of drunken men is remarkable. Whiskey seems marvelously plenty. Men are actually carrying it around in pails. Barrels of the stuff are constantly located among the drifts, and men are scrambling over each other and fighting like wild beasts in their mad search for it. At the cemetery, at the upper end of town, I saw a sight that rivals the Inferno. A number of ghouls had found a lot of fine groceries, among them a barrel of brandy, with which they were fairly stuffing themselves. One huge fellow was standing on the strings of an upright piano singing a profane song, every little while breaking into a wild dance. A half-dozen others were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight over the possession of some treasure stolen from a ruined house, and the crowd around the barrel were yelling like wild men.”
These reports were largely discredited and denied by later and probably more trustworthy authorities, but there was doubtless a considerable residue of truth in them.
There were so many contradictory stories about these horrible doings that our painstaking correspondent put to “Chall” Dick, the Deputy Sheriff, this “leading question”: “Did you shoot any robbers?” Chall did not make instant reply, but finally looked up with a peculiar expression on his face and said:—