Show THE SITUATION AT JOHNSTOWN As the details of the johnstown catastrophe become known the magnitude of the increases proportionately the mind is only able vaguely to conceive desolation words ai e the in attempting to impotent to describe cope with the facts of overwhelming calamities the unconscious ten d i to exaggerate the actual and loss bat in this most ap pallin the first general reports hurried over the wire awful though they arro ant dimly foreshadower foreshadowed fore shadowed alie spurt enormity of alie evil fortune each days revelations make more terrible alie destruction of 12 lives almost in alie cwiok ling of an which the mind can eye is 1 fact upon it is incomprehensible not lay hold appreciatively indeed the imagination can not picture it it is moral consciousness the deep benso ot humanity that is aroused by toe knowledge of the which the people have responded to the need of the hour is eloquent of pre found sympathy and humane sentiment words are unavailing at such times they are empty sound nothing that tongue can or pen write can adequately set forth how lamentable is the result of this calamity or how pitiable is the state of the sufferers or hoa alie work willing fiands will have to perform in last sad rites over the multitudinous dead it estime tor acts not words help iu practical ways is alio urgent consideration of the hour too much generosity can not be shown where so much needed service is to be performed itis not alone but along the entire alloy of the that llie cry for succor is raised there is incredible suffering destitution und charity has much to do before even lie material distress can be relieved no one need be de barred from doing through fear eliat overmuch will be done money aud provisions however generously offered will hardly exceed the demand of necessity the work of recovering and burying the dead alone will require a support much greater than many who are sufficiently impressed with the magnitude of tha avent imagine at the lowest estimate this will require in addition to tins there are thousands of people who have been made helplessly dependent on alie bounty of their fellow creatures and are suffering fort liR daily wants of life business interests have boon swept away homes obliterated property destroyed st the very means of sustenance cut off only the kindness of alie outer world interposing between the victims and utter despair the misery and wretchedness are absolute is no of unhappiness this side of death to which the afflicted people of the conemaugh valley could bo bom beyond their present state commiseration muot be active practical prompt the pity of words is wora than mockery sentiment need take no other boim than deeds and deeds arill re valuable in alic ratio of their it is the present and furuie conditions of johnstown nud its environs that appeal to humanity diio ant creates a sentiment only the present the possibility of fi future pestilence create i and disclose a necessity the pennsylvania deluge already lias passed into history to be recorded among hie great disasters that have le fallen mankind the present condition of the hungry and houseless multitudes appeals to alie sentiment of charity they must be fed clothed and shel acred till time and circumstance evoke the means of self support spasmodic charity however generous will be inefficient to the relief demanded it will be weeks before the need of food clothing shelter and medicine ceases to be felt the gifts must be ample enough to provide for the long interim of chaos which stretches between destruction st and reorganization of the conditions of civilized life but if the present condition appeals to charitable sentiment alie inevitable future makes peremptory demands for aid the vast masonry and mud of timber and the suddenly deposited refuse of thousands of bouses and out houses beneath and in all which thousands of carcasses of domestic animals lie rotting must bo removed or pestilence will ensue and as contagion travels it its but a step from johnstown to pittsburg from pittsburg to cincinnati and louisville from there to chicago or st louis or if another route be taken philadelphia baltimore new york and washington are not thoroughly safe from so vast an infection as alie hundreds of tons of decaying animal and vegetable matter now seething in a huge mound of putrefaction at johnstown may engender plagues begotten of less active forces have devastated continents in time past the law of self protection adds its de mand for that sonorous relief which the spirit of charity supplicates es on behalf of the people of the devastated region |