Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1907 — FOOD SUPPLY IS THE NEED [ARTICLE]

FOOD SUPPLY IS THE NEED

Official and Private Reporta Are Not in Harmony. Food supplies are beginning to be urgently needed, and the demand on medical supplies lias exhausted the stock in hand. The Are that followed the disaster, it was reported, was confined to that section of the city bordering on the water front The flames were supposed to have been checked, but a later dispatch Indicates that they may have again broken out The shipping in the harbor is said to have escaped undamaged, and the members of the party of Sir Alfred Jones are safe on board the steamer Port Kingston. The United States navy department has sent the battleships Missouri and Indiana from Guantanamo, Cuba, to Kingston to render all the aid possible. Any reliable estimate or the property damage is Impossible. It Is reported that the business section is In ruins, and that a large bank building and a big hotel have been destroyed, while other messages say that almost all the houses of the Jamaican capital have been destroyed, and those In a radius of ten miles damaged. Governor Swettenham’s report says the fire was confined to one-sixteenth of the city, among the wharves and warehouses. The very much more serious aspect of the situation given by private and special messages received from Jamaica has not been confirmed by official reports. Some of the messages emanating from Jamaica are without date, and It Is thus impossible to tell whether they refer to the panic of the first hours and give exaggerated reports of casualties, or are sent at a time when greater calm prevailed and actual estimates of the situation had been made. King Edward, through the Earl of Elgin, secretary of state for the colonies, has telegraphed to Governor Swettenham, as follows: “I am commanded by the king to request you to express to the inhabitants of Kingston the horror with which his majesty and the queen have learned of the terrible catastrophe which has befallen the town, with the loss of so many Ilves, and the deep sympathy of their majesties with the sufferers and relations of those killed.”

Terror Reigns at Kingston. New York, Jan. 17. —The shores of the hnrboi of Kingston are sinking 'and there is terror lest the city slip into the sea, accoidlng to a private dispatch recehcd by a large mercantile house here from Port an Prince, Hayti. Tlu* bed of the harbor is said to be sinking. and the water in many places is now 100 feet deep. Every wharf not destroyed by lire is said to have sunk into the sea or to have been rendered worthless.