he flood had been reached. On Thursday the water was
receding three inches an hour. It had fallen four feet since the
previous morning, but the current was still so swift on Canton Street
and in South Peru, that it was impossible to investigate in rowboats the
district in which the heaviest loss of life was supposed to have
occurred.

There were three inches of snow on the ground and it was still falling.
Recovering from the flood, Peru organized to meet greater menaces,
famine and disease. At a meeting in the courtroom at the county
building, Lieutenant-Governor O'Neill was chosen head of the committee
on organization.

Hundreds of persons marooned in the second stories of their homes
appealed to passing boats for food, fuel and water. Fishermen seized
some of the boats and were taking the curious sightseeing. Persons who
appropriated boats and tied them up were arrested.

There were 500 persons at the Bears Hotel in Peru. Their only fire was a
grate in the lobby. Two meals a day were served. The water had receded
so that a Lake Erie and Western relief train was pulled up to the
canning factory in the northeast part of the town and took out 200
persons marooned three days. They were taken to towns along Lake Erie.
It was estimated that 2,000 persons had left the city and were being
cared for in towns and school houses to the north. The relief committee
discouraged the influx of people who came to Peru to see and eat, as
there were more mouths to feed than there were provisions.

Lieutenant-Governor O'Neill remained in Peru to insure whatever aid the
state could give the sufferers. He ordered the Indiana Board of Health
to send experts to make the city sanitary. These specialists had the
co-operation of city and county medical societies and a score of
physicians who came from other cities.

[Illustration: Copyright by George Grantham Bain.
Scores of strongly-built bridges like this throughout the flood
districts were carried away by the raging torrents]

[Illustration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
When the waters of the Hudson overflowed, hundreds of men, women and
children were trapped in their homes near the river bank and were
rescued with difficulty]

TWELVE BODIES IN ONE HOUSE

Twelve bodies were recovered in a single house in the southern part of
Peru on Friday. This was taken to indicate that the loss of life in that
section of the city was great, as it was there that dwellings were
comp