Shawneetown Swept Away

Evar.sville, Ind., April 5. - At 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon the levee at Shawneetown, 111., broke. The place is sixly-two miles below Evansville on the Ohio river. It is situated in a valley, high hills skirting in the rear and a twenty-foot levee in the front, the levee running trom hill to hill. The river is unusually high and went ihroush the levee a mile above the town, twenty feet wide, like an avalanche, catching the people without warning, overturning hruees in its path aud creating general destruction. All wires are down and details are unoírtainable. A telegraph operator traveled three miles in a skiff to high land and sent word here for aid. He said the water was twenty feet deep all over town and that as far as known 200 people were drowned; that number might reach 500. No word has since been received. Two steamers have started from here to the scène with food and supplies. Mount Vernon, Ind., April 5.- The telephone wires to the stricken city failed soon after 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon. At that hour it was known that the dam was giving way, hut it was not thought that it would go to pieccs quickly enough to cause loss of life. By 8 o'clock it was known in Mount Vernon that many people had been drowned. the estímate then being 1C0. Graduaïïy the reports of loss of life increased the estimates, stories coming from varloua points near the scène of the flood showing clearly that the disaster was; far more serious than at first believed. People from Mount Vernon and ihe surrounding country besieged th-. telephone and telegraph offices, frantic for tidings from relatives and frienda in the flooded town. No attenipt at an accurate list of the lost was posslble, however, and the crowds stood all night before the bultetin boards on which were posted the meager reports being received.