Show THE JOHNSTOWN CALAMITY to find anything at all comparable in magnitude of destruction to alie pennsylvanian inundation the mind haa to revert to the laya deluge of herculaneum Hercula and pompeii to the of lisbon to the bursting of the holland dikes we doubt if any ether event of which profane history givel authentic account resulted in dire calamity there leave been two or three battles in which a greater number of lives were sacrificed but not one in which the percentage of death was so great sho most exaggerated estimate of loss of life in mhd three days fighting in felie wilderness assigns but 1700 dead to the union army and by this estimate men in alie engagements johnstown and ita adjacent villages counted but souls and of these at least are supposed to have perished 0 o fire plague pestilence or famine ever has so much woe in so brief a space of time among so small a population not even the terrific march of alie angel alio slew every one of alio first born of egypt approximated alie horror of alio johnstown flood alie angel took but one from eacle house the flood took well nigh half of all the souls eliat were in the line of its cruel current the earthquake of lisbon the great fire of london the great fire of chicago left the survivors sury ivors of those famous disasters well equipped for new struggles in comparison the survivors of alio recent cataclysm of the houses and stores the banks and marts of the deluged region all that can be said is the hoods came and swept them away alie devastation is complete and irredeemable nono of those beneficent agencies of modern civilization the insurance companies can be called upon to aid largely in alie relief of the survivors men insure their homes against the peril of alamei the peril of flood is not contemplated in the insurance of kiouses lio uses when firebreaks out it is rarely that some necessaries es of life clothing or bedding or at least the money contained in alie building are not saved nothing was saved from the flood he who preserved a life preserved a life preserved that alone the mother haa food nor sli elter nor cliance of clothing for and the sucking babe that is left alone to her of a lately numerous family there is no charitable neighbor to give or well despos ed trader to trust her for provisions there are no neighbors or traders in the desolate valley the husband who has saved himself or saved himself and wife or it may be himself and a now motherless child can go to no foundry or mill for work and wages industry has no more existence in johnstown than in the depths of the red sea the awful truth is that the city has cease to exist it was and is not there ia neither insurance nor charitable organization nor municipal authority nor private enterprise nor public zeal to help the sick or to employ the healthy to aid in restoration or to prevent further destruction there is nothing to restore is nothing to destroy the devastation of all things is absolute the floods came and swept them away the survivors are now the wards of the nation they are naked and hungry houseless and helpless there is not a healthy man in receipt of wages or income of any kind or degree whatsoever who is not bound by all the powers of humanity to these unfortunates not one who cannot help in some sort not one who is not called to help and while alie organized bodies of the great cities the boards of trade and commerce give of their thousands the private citizen is called upon to give of liis hundreds or ot bis tens of dollars wo aie mistaken in our estimate of alie people if the call goes unanswered the johnstown calamity was due to the bursting of a dam eliat had been built for commences com merces purposes in supplying a canal in the days of canals reservoirs were necessary but in tile case of johnstown the canal long since became a thing of the past it is easy now to gee that when the cause ceased the effect should have been allowed to sub bide the artificial imprisonment of a body of water so large as to be termed a lake involves some peril to tiie people and property below sooner or later a break is liable to come alie worst of it being that it would be most likely to conj just whon it could do the most harm no doubt the braak was caused by abe extraordinary pressure of water and the general rains which had swollen the streams emptying into that lake had so increased abe volume of water on every liand that when the imprisoned floods broke loose they found other waters ready to mingle with them and form an alliance with them it was as if the heavens with their clouds and the hills with their little rivulet turned into great rivers were in league to make use of that dammed up lake as their common arsenal of death after the caal ceased to be of any use that lake was maintained as a fish ing ground for a club of pittsburg gentlemen gant lemen of course there was no thought of jeopardizing the lives and property in the valley below and so far as now known the club was guilty of no carelessness or niggardliness that useless dam had been torn away and the water drained down to the level of nature there would have been no danger and it is easy enough to see now that this ought to have been dono and no unnecessary ribs taken but it does not yet appear that any one is culpable for this terrible error of judgment this monstrous miscalculation of the dynamic force of pent up water of course alie recent rain was very unusual in volume but not in excess of what any part of the country is likely to experience occasionally the supreme agony of bereavement can not be relieved even our tears of sympathy could not dull the poignancy of that pain but the buttering for the necessaries of life now being experienced is great and that can be ministered unto and relieved utah will undoubtedly do her share in helping the thousands in distress in accordance with the following proclamation of governor thomas EXECUTIVE OFFICE territory of utah to the keople of the territory of utah A tearful disaster baa overtaken a portion involving the loss ol 01 thou adb of lives and the ruin or thousands ol 01 who escaped only with their alves abe many sad incidents connected with and the sorrow and buffering which have followed this calamity must touch abe heart and excite the sympathy of every citizen I 1 therefore abe ts of a benor ous people and to the expressed wish of many respectfully recommend that public meetings be held at once la the different cowna throughout abe territory and that such action be may bo deemed proper and necessary I 1 governor |