The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 19, 1902, Page 1

VOLUME XCI-NO. 170. BODIES OF NINETY VICTIMS AND RUINS OF MANY BLOCKS MARK TEXAS CYCLONE’'S PATH Tornado Destroys the Town of Goliad and Scores of Dead Are Found in the Ruins of Buildings Demolished in a Trice by the Twister. OLIAD, Tex, May 18.—FEight blocks of business houses blown down, at least ninety persons killed and more than 120 injured, many of whom will die, is the dread record of & tornado that swept Goliad to-day. To-night the scene that is spread out be- fore the survivors is one of appalling de- struction. Between Church and Patrice streets, which run north and south a distance of & mile in length, only one | house is left standing, and of many struc- tures scarcely a vestige remains. Very little damage was done except within these boundaries, & width of 250 yards. The tornado was preceded a few mo- | ments by a heavy hailstorm and a deep | rumbling sound, but no one had any pre- | monition of the disaster, and there was | Do opportunity for escape. The death-| dealing cyclone struck the town and passed on, and only a few seconds were | required in the completion of its awful | work. BUT ONE BUILDING SPARED. The section which most suffered was the residence portion, the lower part be- ing the negro settlement, while the upper pert contained many fine residences. The Methodist and Baptist churches and the Baptist parsonage, both just completed, | and the negro Methodist church were de- stroyed. The Episcopal church was bad- damaged, and fully 100 houses were utterly demolished. of D. ing in the pathway of the rm not reduced to splinters, and it is wreck. The people of Goliad, realizing at once pendous pature of the calamity e terrible loss of life, telephoned to r cities of Cuero and Victoria ance, which was sent immedi- Superintendent Forbes e regular Beeville train at Gol- d turned it back to Victoria, whence ht six doctors and an abundance s and surgical appliances. An- her train came later from Cuero with number of physicians, dozens of nurses nd many citizens. PARTIAL LIST OF DEAD. ral The following is a partial reported. <f e whites Who perished: SON, aged ®. T POPE, aged 8. DIAL. PURL, two children, Maud and]| Augustine children. STOPPLE MRS. WILLIAM HOARD and | en. H SAVAGE and child, Farinette, )SA SAVAGE. NEWCOMB, wife and child. M THREADWELL. AYWOOD JONES. e so far reported are: legs bmken and in ‘head, probably fatal; Mr. and Mrs N. Vandalsen and two children, Mrs. G. Pope, leg \juries, very serious; William Lott, ribs Walter and Stuart Mr. and Mrs. John Au- ; Mrs, Miss Sallie Good, badly Gibson, badly injured; Miss hurt; Bessle Oscar, ce l"a'k not fatally; J. A. mother-in-law and one fatally; Clyde Harbison, John Bekar, Linda Smith, N d son Albert of Victoria; Jim erford and wife, Smith of Rockport, T8 ; Mrs. Mrs. Harbison and young son, Ruby Mad- dox, Ba Maddox, Mrs. Casey, Maud Casey, P. Harrington. The negro dead, as reported at a late The stone residence | T. Davis of the Goliad Guard was | dead and 120 injured ha»e‘ LETT, daughter of William | and children, except | Joseph Savage, | SAN FRANCISCO, MONDAY, MAY .19, 1902. Special Dispatch to The Call. hour, were: Abile Jefferson, Alfred Rob- inson, Mollie Lew. Gussie Gordon, Terrell Hall, Joe Simon, Rufus Taylor, Pauline | Simon, Clayton Taylor, Cliff Douglass, | | Floyd Lott, Gussie Windry and baby, { Topsy Tippen, Fannie Taylor, Pauline | Lott, Fannie Robinson, George Taylor, | | Will Weston and two children, John Bare- | field, Ethel Barefield, George Paste and baby, Joe Smid. Besides ,these, there are thirteen unidentified bodies, making forty- two dead negroes recovered. Fifty-three negroes were injured, many fatally, and it is believed there are at | least fifteen dead not included in the foregoing list. ‘STBIKm WITHOUT WARNING. Residents Have Nc Time to Flee From the Twister. DALLAS, Tex., May 18.—A special from Goliad, Tex., says: Ninety are dead, more than a hundred are injured. In addition there is a gaping \wcund in the town—the path of one of | the most destructive cyclones ever known | in Texas. | The tornado struck this place apout 3:45 | | o'clock this afternoon, lasting only about five minutes, leaving death and disaster everywhere in its wake. It came from the southeast withou: a | warning, completely demolishing a strip ! about two blocks wide and a mile long through the whole western part of the town. | Among the many houses demolished are | the Baptist Church and parsonage, just built; the Methodist Church and a aegra church. It is impossible to estimate the number | will reach 100. The damage done caunot be approximated, but it is very great. About all of the dead and injured have ! been taken care of. | iInmates were | of houses destroyed, but it is believed it | tween there and Mineola. On the trans- continental division it is impossible to re- ceive any response from anywhere east of Douglass, which is forty-two miles west of Texarkana. Wild rumors abou. the fate of Tex- arkana were in circulation for a time, but the anxiety on that score was relieved by the statement from incoming train crews that there had been no damage at Mar- shall, Texarkana or intermediate points. Shreveport, La., seems to be cut off from th2 world. The Southwestern Telegraph and Tele- phone Company of this city had informa- tion last night that the cyclone caused the loss of about 100 lives at Goliad. The information came direct from the com- pany’s operator at Goliad, who managed to send a message to Houston before the wires were rendered useless by the wind. While all Texas seemed to have been storm-swept, the territory immediately to the west of this city was especially badly damaged by the high winds. In Walters Park, a small hamlet fourteen miles to the northwest of this city, three score or more of houses were blown down and, many trees uprooted. In this city a num- ber of houses were unroofed and the State institution tor the blind was con- siderably damaged, though none of the injured. A number of camping parties at various points up the river were serious sufferers in the de- struction of property, but so far no loss o. life_has been reported. All wires to Shreveport and Texarkana are down. That district was reachad by a portion of the big storm. It is believed, however, that no loss of life has resulted there, although the property damage may be heavy. S et DAMAGE IN SAN ANTONIO. | Several Persons Are Injured, but There Is No Loss of Life. [ animals. The pitiful cries of the injured | | are heard everywhere. A report from the country around Go- | liad is to the effect that no damage was | done. A special train bearing the 0'Cén- | nor Guards, six physicians, nurses and | many volunteers came from Victoria, and also a speeial train from Cuero, bringinz physiciens, nurses, druggists and volun- | teers. Although everything is done for the relief of the injured, cries for phy- | sicians and medical attention are every- where heard. Zye ol Wi | WIDE AREA OF THE STORM. Many Towns in Texas Suffer Enor- | mous Damage. DALLAS, Tex., May 19 (2:15 a. m.)—Ad- | vices from all available sources here last | night were that a disastrous cyclone swept | across Texas yesterday, causing loss of | 1ife ana &lmost incalculable damage to | property. The cyclone is believed to have origi- | nated on the gulf coast, at a point al- most directly south of Goliad, and travel- | ed in a northeasterly direction as far as Kentucky. It left desolation behind it in four States, but Texas seems to have suffered more than the others. At 10 o'clock last night there were two reports current concerning the fate of the | historic town of Goliad. Both of them | were sufficiently distressing. One was | | that ninety lives were lost and much of | the town destroyed; the other was that'| not less than 200 persons were killed and | that nearly every structure there was‘de- | molished. The high wind-which prevailed over | that portion of the State which lies east | and south of here has demolished the | telegraph and telephone services. On its | main line the Texas and Pacific Railroad has no communication further east than Mineola, but the conductor on a train ar- riving late last night reported to the gen- eral officers here that this was because a tree had been blown across the wires be- The path of devastation is strewn with | | all kinds of debris and dead and dying | SAN ANTONIO, Tex., May 18.—At 12:48 o’clock this afternoon a terrible wind and rain storm swept over San Antonio, dam- aging property to the extent of $75,000. | The wind reached a velocity of seventy- two miles an hour and continued at that rate for nearly twenty minutes. It blew | from the southeast and then shifted to the southwest, the greatest velocity being from the latter polnt. At Fort Sam Houston Government prop- erty was damaged to the extent of $20,000, the doors being torn from the officers’ quarters and the barracks. The West End church was completely destroyed, loss $5000; Hartwell's Hotel damaged, $3000; - St. Louis College damaged, $6000; Academy of the Lady of the Sacred Heart damaged, $2000. The damage to pri- vate residences will reach at least $20,000 Several persons were injured, but there were no fatalities. The storm was a con- tinuation of the one that swept over Goliad with such terrible results. sl it s Houses Razed in Mineola. MINEOLA, Tex., May 18—A heavy windstorm, followed by rain, visited Min- ecla this morning at 5 o'clock. Hundreds of shade trees were torn up by the roots and otherwise damaged. Several houses were blown from thelr foundations. The roofs of a number of stores were badly damaged, causing heavy losses In stocks of goods. There was no loss of life. QUEEN NATALIE LIKELY TO TAKE THE VEIL ROME, May 18.—Queen Natalie of Ser- via has been: devotedly going the rounds of the churches, giving herself up entire- ly to religious avocations. It Is rumored that in her interview with the Pope she expressed a desire to take the veil, but his Holiness besought her to weigh well s0 serious a step, lest she might after- ward change her mind. The Queen spent an hour yesterday with Queen Margharita and probably will accompany her later on a pligrimag: to Ixhe Holy Land at the end of this month. CONFESSION OF ANARCHIST EXPOSES A PLOT AGAINST THE YOUNG KING OF SPAIN Police Make Many Arrests and Seize Dynamite Cartridges Which One of the Prisoners Says He Was Commissioned to Hurl at Alfonso. Special Cable to The Call and the New York Herald. Copyright, 1902, by the Herald Publishing Company. ADRID, May 18—An an- archist plot against King Al- fonso has been pez, an employe of an. in- surance company, have been made. Dyna- mite cartridges were found on the prem- ises where Lopez was arrested. Lopez seys he received a package of cartridges from another anarchist with instructions $o throw them at the moment of the pas- sage of the royal carriage in yesterday’s procession. The discovery of the plot against the King is confirmed by the newspapers. It is said that nine dynamite cartridges were seized. The prisoners include six medical students, & printer, a carpenter and a mason. The captured cartridges are being an- alyzed by the military authorities. According to the newspapers, the police aiscovered | umber of arrests, in- | cluding that of Gabriel Io- | have had an inkling of an anarchist plot against the King since last March, and in April they discovered an anarchist meet- ing place in a fashionable quarter of Madrid. Three Andaluslan anarchists ar- | rived here May 2 and were arrested | shortly after their arrival. | After these arrests it was learned that | Gabriel Lopez, a doorkeeper of an assur- | ance company situated in the Carrera San Geronimo, on the route of yesterday's rgyal procession and near the Chamber of Deputles, had a number of cartridges, be- lieved to be dynamite, in his possession, and he was arrested at 3 o'clock this morning. Lopez was examined before a magis- trate and declared that the man who gave him the cartridges and told him to throw them when the royal coach passed was Francisco Suraez. Suraez is notorious for the part he played in an attempted outrage upon the late Canovas del Castlllo seyen years ago, when he accompanied an anarchist named Ruiz, who intended to explode a bomb in Canovas del Chstiilo’s garden. The bomb exploded prematurely. Ruiz was killed and Suraez was badly injured. He was committed to prison for seven years ana was only recently liberated. Lopez was confronted to-day with Suraez and ac- cused the latter of giving him the dyna- mite cartridges. This Suraez denfed and both men are detained. Four other men who have been arrested do not deny being anarchists, According to the Heraldo, some vacil- lation was shown by certain men, who re- cently attended an anarchist meeting here, whereupon Carpentes Palaclos, one of the anarchists taken into custody, said: “We must decide. ‘At the King’s oath- taking we must not allow ourselves to be called cowards."” - ORT DE FRANCE, May 15— [Special Cable to the New York World.]—I succeeded in landing at $t. Plefre from the sea this afternoon, with a photographer. I found thirty-nine panic-stricken men, women | and children waving & 7} ineh flag and pleading to be taken fromi the jsland. It was impossible to give them supplies. They fled from Morne Rouge last night and said the Mont Pelee volcano was in eruption all yesterday and during the night. Eight hundred residents of that suburb started to walk through the mountains to Fort de France, a distance of fifteen miles. The streets in Fort de France are crowded with refugees, mainly from the interfor towns. The destruction of St. Marie, five miles from Mont Pelee, Is teared. : The bodles of Thomas T. Prentis, Amer- fcan Consul, and James Japp, British Consul, have been identified and will be brought to Fort de France for shipment. Both bodles were bruised almost beyond recognition by the fall of lava and stones. COUNTS HUNDREDS OF DEAD. I counted in the streets of St. Plerre 432 bodies. One was that of a mother ly- ing with an infant in her arms. . Neither body was scarcely burned at all. I count- ed five bodles in the American Consulate building, burned and crus!ed beyond rec- ognition. I found part of an Amecrican | burned. The streets are obstructed by walls of rocks and are covered from six to twenty inches” deep by yellow volcanic dust. There is not a single roof left in the town, but surprisingly few of the houses were completely destroyed. In the space of twenty feet in Rue Victor Hugo, four- teen bodies, all without markings and but slightly burned, were found and two men and two women were wrapped in each other’s arms. Another man, apparently a white per- son, as if protecting a woman, was found stunding upright and dead at the corner near the Cafe Renan, clutching a dish in onc hand. Two nuns, fully garbed but crushed to death were lying in the inte- rior of the convent. The Colonial Bank was almost completely destroyed, and $200,000 is sald to be upder the ruins. The statue of Josephine was not destroyed, but it is covered thick with ashes. LIKE A STORM OF SNOW. Mont Pelee is still in active eruption. A thick volcanic dust, like snow, was fall- ing heavily upori the entire island of Mar- irique at 5 o’clock this afternoon. People living in the interior of the island were o~ * 3 NO MORE AID, SAYS MAYOR To the Public: Unofficial advices indicate that moneys sufficient to relieve the suffer- ing and distress in Martinique and St. Vincent have already been secured. The sum of $3000 has already been for- warded from San Francisco. In! my opinion no further contributions should be mada until further offigial notice from the general committee, of which due announcement will be made through the press. EUGENE E SCHMITZ, flag only four inches long; the rest was | Volcanic Dust Falls Like Snow Upon the Entire Island of Martinique. Special bispuwh to The Call. terrified by the downfall, and sought ref- uge in. Fort de France. The French Government has announced ther eruptions. announced. ber of persons buried in the ruins of St. Pierre. safety. mate made so far. —_—— PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. PARIS, May 18.—At the close of high mass in all the Roman Catholic churches in Paris this morning funeral psalms were chanted and prayers for the dead were said in memory of those who perished in the Martinique disaster. The congrega- tions in the churches were large, and good collections for the aid of the West Indian sufferers were taken up. At a special service for the dead, to be held in St. Augustine Church to-morrow, Bishop Cormont of Martinique, who is held at Notre Dame, has been postponed because of the absence from France of President Loubet, as this service was in- tended to be a high religlous and state function. Appropriate services for the Martinique victims were held in all churches throughout France to-day and collections to aid the sufferers were ta- ken up. The 'performance of Barnum & Balley's circus at Toulon yesterday added 25,400 francs to the Martinique fund. PR B e ey ST. PIERRE A WICKED CITY. NEW YORK, May 18.—Two steamers, the Etona and the Horace, arrived here this morning and were the first vessels reaching New York from the Windward Islands since the destruction of St. Plerre by the eruption of Mont Pelee, The Hor- ace brings information that thg destruc- tion of St. Pierre is looked upon by the superstitious islanders as a judgmént of God. “While in 8t. Lucia,” said an officer .f the vessel, ing one another that they believed the destruction of St. Pirre was a terrible punishment sent by the Almighty on ac- count of the wickedness of the city. I don't know about divine retribution, but I do know that 8t. Pierre was a pretty bad place.” One of the officers of the Horace de- scribed the storm of ashes through which they had passed as belng llke a severs snowstorm, with the thermometer at 100 degrees. “It hurt our eves and choked us, and the air was so filled with fine dust that we could not see a mile ahead,” said he. i Exiles Return to Hayti. PORT AU PRINCE, Hayti, May 17.— The Cuban steamer Tomas Brooks, from Jamaica, arrived here to-day, having on beard Callistheme Fouchard and M. Picrre, candidates for the Presidency. of Hayti, and all the other persons who have been in exile at Kingston. Shortly after landing the exiles met a number of their supporters, by whom they were cordlally received. They were advised to be calm. Fouchard and Pierre said they were ready to accept every declsion of the people. Temblors in Southern ?ortugal. LISBON, May 18.—Earthquakes are re- ported from the southern part of Portu- gal, but no fatalities have occurred. The Mayor. disturbances .are supposed ‘to ‘have - been connected with the uphesva!s ln Ihe \‘ est Indies. 7 | that no further attempts will be made at | Present to resurrect the burned bodies on the island because of the danger of fur- The first officlal estimate of the resuli of the explosion of Mont Pelee has been This gives 28,000 as the num- Six thousand persons were res- cued by steamships or fled to places of Three thousand were probably drowned. This is the most complete esti- “I heard several residents tell- | PRICE FIVE CENTS. ERUPTION OF PELEE CONTINUES AND NEARBY TOWNS ARE DOOMED / ,m”%fi_'f“ fgm 7 _1/ L CANO now in Paris, will pronounce absolution. ‘ The commemorative service for the Mar- | tinique dead, which was to have been | TOWN ON THE OUTERMOST OF THE WINDWARD ISLAND,S.,\WHICH WAS COVERED BY VOLCANIC DUST FROM DISTANT LA SOU- | FRIERE, AND A VIEW OF THE CRATER OF MONT PELEE. <o EW_ YORK, May 18.—The Norton line steamer Etonia arrived here to-day from the River Platte, via St. Lucia, where she called for bunker coal on May 10. “At St. Lucia, on May 11," says Captain Canteil, “I went on board the British | steamer Roddam, which had escaped from ique three days before. ship was enough to show lhaL; those on board must haye undergone an/awful ex- perience. The Roddam was covered by mass of fine, bluish-gray dust or ashes Lf cement-like appearance. ln some parts it lay two feet deep on the ‘decks. This matter had fallen in a red-hot state upon the steamer, setting fire to everything it struck that was burnable, and when it fell on the men on board it burned off pieces of flesh. This was shown by finding of portions of human remains when the decks were cleared of the debris The rigging, ropes, tarpaulins, sails, awn- ings, etc., most of the upper spars had been swept overboard.. Skylights were smashed and cabins were filled with volcanic dust. the hespital in St. Lucia, where he gave me an account of his terrible experience. He had just arrived and anchored at St. Pierre, Martinique, on the morning of Thursday, May 8. The captain was stand- | ing near the accommodation ladder, talk- ing to the agent of the vessel, who had come on board, when he saw what ap- like a wall, with patches of fire in it, ap- proaching the sea from the land. With it came an immense tidal wave of burn- ing water, accompanied by a loud and ter- rible noise. He shouted, ‘Take shelter, to the crew. Immediately the steamer was caught and tossed ovey on her side, aimost capsizing: Darkness fell like pall, and volumes of red-hot matter showered down, while the air was thick with sulphurous fumes and dust. The sea was a confused mass of boiling mud. SEIP IS SOON ABLAZE. “Fire soon broke out in different parts of the ship. - Screams, groans and shouts the ‘terrible volcanic eruption at Martin- | The state of the the | were charred or burned, and | “I visited the captain of the Roddam in | peared to be an enormous black cloud | al e Burning Bodies Strew the Roddam’s Deck as She Flees From St. Pierre. of agony from the injured, mingled with the terrible noise of boiling water; and rushing air, together with the fallifig fire, caused horrible confusion and fright. The shock lasted a few minutes. “The captain of the Roddam, knowing the necessity of escape, rushed to the en- gine room annunciator and signaled be- low to start the ewgine at full speed. Tha anxious moments, increased by his suf- ferings from burns and agony of mind, were relieved by the vibration of the en- gines and the reply from below., It hap- pened, fortunately, that, although the crew had been running away from duty at the engines, some of the engineers were near by. The terrible tidal wave which had swept over the Roddam and nearly capsized her had parted the cable and the vessel was adrift. When the engines started it was found that the steering gear had become disabled in some man- ner and could not be worked. For nearly an hour the Roddam's engineers were backing and going ahead with the hope of bringing her head toward the sea and away from the land. Once she got dan- gerously near the steamer Roriama. Boch vessels were in’ flames. Some of those aboard jumped into the boiling water, | some fell dying to the deck. All this | time the red-hot matter was falling and l the water was hissing and steaming. Smoke and dust filled the air, and poison- ous fumes soread about. “After some time the Roddam’s steer- ing gear moved a little, and enabled ths | captain to head her out' to sea, and with much difficulty he managed to steer her a little distance, from the land. | “As the air cleared the scene on board the ill-fated Roddam became all the more ghastly. The ship steamed on through | thick, hot dust. The screams from the | Injured became more audible. Some rush- | ed frantically about with their clothes on | fire and pieces of flesh burned from their arms; others in their agony lay writhing | in the red hot dust. FEW ESCAPE UNHARMED. “In about two hours the air became | gradually clear. An investigation of the casualties on board showed that, besides Continued on Page Two. | | i