roken cigar boxes simply by the awful sweep of the wind]

[Illustration: Photograph by Underwood & Underwood.
Some of the most prominent society women and girls in Dayton shouldered
hoes and shovels in the work of cleaning up the city]

HEAVY LOSS ON BALTIMORE AND OHIO

The financial loss to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad aggregated
millions of dollars in the destruction of property alone.

President Willard was asked on Thursday for an estimate of the damage
wrought by the floods. His reply was:

"I cannot tell. I haven't an idea. I wish I could say that it would be
$2,000,000, but I cannot.

"I know that half a dozen bridges on the Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton
have been destroyed and bridges on the Baltimore and Ohio have been
washed away. We have lost one of our largest bridges on the main road to
Chicago, at Zanesville, Ohio, and it will probably be six months before
we will have another completed bridge there, although we will have some
bridge there soon. We hope to have our main line to Chicago open in
twenty-four hours, and our main line to Cincinnati open in the same
time. We cannot tell when we will have our line to St. Louis open."

ESTIMATED DAMAGE

Conservative estimates of the damage to railroad property in the flooded
Middle West, plus the loss entailed by the suspension of traffic, ranged
from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000.

The entire railway system of Ohio and Indiana was practically put out of
business for five days by the floods in the Middle West. To repair and
replace the railways affected by this disaster, railway officials
stated, would practically wipe out the surplus earnings of many
railroads. In other cases dividends were threatened. The reason was,
they said, that all such damage must be retrieved out of current
earnings and could not be charged to capital.

As an illustration of how the railroads spend money in such an
emergency, it may be said that the Pennsylvania sent one hundred and
fifty expert bridge builders out West from New York in one day soon
after the flood. These men received record wages; they traveled in
sleepers, with special dining cars. The company was sending
steam-shovels and pile-drivers on limited trains and a first-class
laborer could get a private compartment quicker than could a financier.

"There will be improvements in railroading through all the districts
every day from now on, but there will not be anything like a restoration
of former condition