Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1900 — GALVESTON COUNTS HER DEAD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GALVESTON COUNTS HER DEAD.

Grand Total of the Storm's Victims Is About 6,500. Those killed in Galveston during the great storm number about 6.500. The identified dead number 4,17 b; unidentified dead recovered, 300,; estimated number missing, 2,000. Grand total, 6,478. There are also 300 lives lost on the mainland. Laborers are still scarce and Geo. Scurry said that he could give employment to several thousand men. A fetr mechanics from other places have immediately found work. Many architects and contractors are preparing [flans for netv buildings and other improvements. Building material is needed, but its delivery is necessarily slow, owing to the lack of rail communication with the mainland. There are still many pitiable cases of destitution. Many half-demented persons positively refuse to leave their wrecked homes and as persistently refuse to accept offers of relief extended them. In several instances parents who have lost children still occupy ruins of their former home and the surroundings have brought tlviu to a state of mental and physical collapse. The number who have gone insane as a result of their experiences will probably never be known. In every I<j|t of refugees sent out of the stricken city there have been some insane men and women. The victims first make light of their Josses, and laugh immoderately when telling of the death of relatives in the flood. It is a quick step from this to uncontrollable madness. There are no developments which would lead to the belief that the estimate of a property loss of $22,500,000 is too high, writes a correspondent. While one occasionally finds a business roan whose property has not suffered greatly, it must be stated that the class Ss hopelessly in the minority, and that large losses are the rule. The people are becoming more cheerful every* day aud it is more than remarkable to observe the composure exhibited by some of them under the terrible circumstances. The sound of the hammer is beginning to be heard throughout the city and every man not engaged in the grim work of looking and caring for the dead is putch-

ing up the holes made by the great tidal wave. 'Die spirit displayed by citizens is remarkable. They seem determined to immediately begin to rebuild the stricken city and want building material as speedily as possible. Business houses are being restocked and restaurateurs are conducting business on the sidewalks. The exodus of those who lost everything continues. Galveston’s Pluck. While the catastrophe at Galveston is calling forth proofs of sympathy and a •pirit of practical helpfulness on every hand, the people of Galveston themselves are giving the world an equally notnble proof of courage and sturdy resolution. The situation as it hus developed there from day to day has afforded a striking evidence of their ability to pull themselves together and prepare to face the future. The conditions which they had to coufront on the days immediately following the catnstrophe, when they were cut off even from communication with the outer world nnd were alone in their knowledge of the extent of the calamity, must have been appalling beyond conception. Stunned by a disaster in which individual griefs were lost in n common hftrror nnd the presence of death ou all sides made tbe finding of the dead an Incident of commonplace, they could scarcely have been expected to act with energy, organization or promptitude. The blow sustained *by the city must have seemed irrepnrnblc. It stands to the credit of Galveston people that ns soon as tbe clear comprehension of their misfortune came to them they faced it resolutely, and, pushing aside individual griefs, set themselves to protect those who were still living. They recognized the Trutllity of lamentation, and the necessity of foregoing the rites and formalities which men hold to be sacred obligations to the dead. There is no move talk about abandoning the site or allowing the city to pass into n stage of decadence. The town Is to be rebuilt from Ito mins, and it 1* not merely to rebuilt, bnt to be Improved.

FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, HOUSTON.