16
the numerous claimants. Immediately after the disaster the special constables were called out, and continuing on duty throughout the whole of Monday, Tuesday, and part of yesterday, these gentlemen have been of the greatest use in preserving and effecting the restoration of property.
The exertions of Drs Johnston and Chalmers to give medical assistance to the unfortunate sufferers was beyond all praise. They bled numbers in the church-yard, and throughout the whole night went from house to house, giving that relief and advice which their eminent talents so well enabled them to afford.
On Tuesday evening the scene changed to one of a more mournful character. On that day we witnessed no less than ten funerals in Kirkcaldy; and in one of these four bodies, being those of the Mathewsons and their cousin Ann Smith, were at once conveyed to the church-yard, and deposited in the same grave. One uninformed of the cause might have taken this town for a "city of the plague," and supposed that the frequent sombre processions which met him at every turn, were escorting the victims of an unsparing pestilence to their last resting-place. All these funerals, though of persons in the lower ranks of life, were attended spontaneously and uninvited by the venerable Provost and all the respectable people of the place. While standing in the church-yard, looking at the interment of one of the corpses, we were much affected with the simple appeal made
