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Evening Star, Issue 2915, 22 June 1872, Page 3

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THE GREAT FIRE AT YEDO. The Japan Evening Mail gives the following account of the great fire which occurred at the capital on the 3rd inst., and remarks that the only conflagration which could be compared with it took place 18 years ago. Two square miles of a city sre laid waste ; 30.000 persons are rendered homeless; 10.000 houses have been burnt, and from 250 to 350 persons have been killed. Tho fire, from all that can be learned, broke out at a quarter-past 3 p.m., on Wednesday, April 3. The scene witnessed by those who were in Yedo during the fire was horrible indeed. A gentleman who was near the Castle at the outbreak of the fire saw at least fifty persons carried by on stretchers, nearly all dead, while a third witness, who was in Tskidji, saw great numbers dead by suffocation or fire. Mothers threw their children away from them —into the water to be drowned or on the ground to be burnt—and rushed on to save themselves. Two-sworded men, drunk with excitement, cut and hewed in all directions, aud the men who were seen disabled by sword cuts were too numerous to count. In contradistinction to this, daughters were to be seen carrying their fathers and mothers away, children just old enough to understand what was going on helped to save their parents from destruction, and what was more touching than all was to see in the distance people fall under their burdens, to be overtaken by the flames before they could rise. About 10,000 houses were burnt, placing 50,000 people in the open at the lowest calculation. The loss of property must exceed a couple of millions of dollars.