“Johnstown proper was partly a lake, partly several small streams, partly a vast sandy plain, and partly clusters of more or less ruined houses. Around, among, between, inside and on top of these houses, wherever the rushing torrent had been checked, were piled masses of wreckage; trunks of mighty trees, household furniture, houses whole and in fragments, bridges, locomotives and railroad cars, hundreds of tons of mud and gravel. Thickly strewn through it all were hundreds of corpses and carcasses. The only communication between this section and the Pennsylvania Railroad and the village of Peelerville on the north, and Kernville on the south, was across swollen torrents in skiffs, which required constant bailing to keep them above water. From the Stone Bridge of the Pennsylvania Road, for a distance of half a mile, no river could be seen, simply a dense mass of drift from twenty to fifty feet deep, apparently inextricable, bound together with miles of wire, here blazing and there smoldering, and enveloping the bridge in a cloud of nauseating vapor and smoke, giving unmistakable evidence of the presence of burning flesh. Not a thoroughfare was passable for a team, and very few for a horse. Locomotion was difficult, the mud was deep, the streets obstructed often to the roofs of houses, the rain was incessant. “How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man; How passing wonder He who made him such, Who centered in our make such strange extremes From different natures marvelously mixed.” The flood quickly called forth the best and the worst exhibitions of human nature. We shall mention first the evil, as a back-ground against which the good may stand more conspicuous. We believe that to most men it will be simply incomprehensible that anybody should think of adding so much as the weight of a hair to the calamities of Johnstown, as they were seen on the morning of that first day of June. Ghouls were quick to enter, snatching from the living, robbing the bodies of the dead. Johnstown doubtless had her complement of thieves, and these were speedily reinforced by many more--crooks and jailbirds, pickpockets and burglars, from cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburg; for “where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” Residents guarding silverware and other valuables were, in some instances, overpowered in broad daylight and their goods taken away from before their eyes. These crimes were diligently laid at the door of the Hungarians, but better knowledge acquitted them of the charge and proved that they were not more guilty than others.