The Great Galveston Disaster, Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Page: 66

66 CRY OF DISTRESS IN GALVESTON.
As the Major's work was unusually brilliant, the citizens are
furious. This morning the situation from the police standpoint
is improved. A hundred of the State militia of the Houston
Light Guards, Houston Artillery and Houston Cavalry have arrived.
They are patrolling the west end of the city. General McKibbin,
Commander of the Department of the Gulf, and Adjutant General
Scurry, of Texas, are on the ground, and are advising with
Mayor Jones and the Chief of Police Ketchum.
In all other respects the city is worse off than on the morning
after the tragedy. A terrible stench permeates the atmosphere.
It comes from the bodies of a thousand unburied dead festering in
the debris, that cannot be removed for weeks on account of the
paucity of laborers. Every tide brings scores back to the shore.
During the early part of yesterday trenches were dug and the
bodies thrown into them, but it soon became an impossibility to
bury all, and the health authorities decided upon cremation as an
expedient.
WORK OF THE RELIEF COMMITTEE.
At a meeting of the Relief Committee held this morning reports
were received from the various wards. The chairman called for
armed men to assist in getting labor to bury the dead and clear the
wreckage, and arrangements were made to supply this demand.
The situation in the city to-day is that there are plenty of
volunteers for this service, but an insufficiency of arms. There
have been two or three small riots, but the officers have managed
to quell them. The committee rejected the proposition of trying
to pay for work, letting the laborers secure their own rations. It
was decided to go ahead impressing men into service, if necessary,
issuing orders for rations only to those who worked or were unable
to work.
All of the ward chairmen reported the imperative need of
disinfectants. A committee was appointed to sequester all the
disinfectants in the city, including the lime which escaped wetting,
and to obtain more. Houston was called upon for a barge load of
lime.