The story of Johnstown : its early settlement, rise ... - JohnstownCafe

XXVI,
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.
Hosts of Bog is Sufferer.-, Making Capital Oit of the Calamity — Impostors and Pretenders
Unmasked — Two Rascals Receive Their Just Desert — Exaggerations
Exploded — A 1Ik\n Specimen of Mankind — Three Sisters Cheated- Silver Lining
tothe Cloud — Xor.LE Conduct — Aftermath uf the ])elU(,k - Dits of Driftwood
that Reflect Varioi s Oualities of Character — a Variety of Odds and
Ends Rescued from the Wkki k fcr the I'ublic Benefit.
1 was al Johnsiown." said ihe tram[>
Said Uie lady, " say no n-...n.-.
lust come ri'.;!it m uut of the damp,
For litre is I'ood galore."
And when the h..t, al.uudant meal
Had warmed tlie lelJows blood.
• I was at I .Imstown." he remarked.
Six months before the flr.od'-'
L 1 OF 1 HE calamity hosts ot pretenders, impostors and
knaves of evtry stripe endeavored to make capital.
Rai;£,'ed tramps assumed a woe-Lcucne e.xpression as they
^elicited alm.s. clainiini; they had sulfered at [ohnstown.
Bej^oarb told piteous tales of families swallouetl up and
propcrt}" wiped out by the flood. Fellows were often
encountered in traveiiny who. accordins^ to their Moodcurdliny;
\ersitin. hatl seen more people go down to death
than would constitute the entire population of the Couemaugh
\'allu\'. Otliers posed as life-sa\ers to a decree
that rendered it mar\elous how an_\l)ody could have been
lost. Tlie thriiliuL;" recitals poured into the ears of reulv
listeners, eager for intorination of the disasti-r. ^Muild
"I WAS AT jOHNSTouN. (lij-couut tlic A Ta b i au X iglus Q ud relegate Daron Munchausen
to obscurity. Ananias was a tyro in deception, contrasted v, ith these
wholesale dealers in unadulterated falsehoods. Human nature displayed all im-
Deeds
aginable phases, presentim: tl;e strangest and strongest contradictions.