THE SAN FRANCISCO HOLOCAUST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8131, 11 June 1906, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO HOLOCAUST.

The following frcsli incidents of the earthquake and lire are to hand : One old cab, with the driver pile with terror, tleeing Jrom the city, carried over a million dollars in currency and securities. Never were stranger automobile parties, says a correspondent. " I saw one lady, clasping her baby, walk barefooted from tlie marble entrance of her house to a waiting automobile, wearing only a kimono over her nightdress."

Hundreds of firemen and rescuers were prostrated by the strain. In the crowds people fainted, and, in some instances, dropped dead of shock. In the midst of the panic and lire, vagabonds were lying about the streets m-i nk. Mr J. I'. Barrett, the correspondent ofthe"2few York Journal," suddenly, while sending a brilliant message, stopped m the middle of a word. Since ilitn there has been no sign from him. His last message ran : " I write believ. ng this message to bo my swan song." ; While women were shrieking and clinging about the necks of their husbands and fathers, ai:d little children were frying and piteously begging for food and water, soldiers, forced by stern necessity, drove them into open spaces with fixed bayonets. A telegraphist, taking relief duty at Santa Eosa, hail occasion to send a message describing the death of a woman and three children in the earthquake. To his message he added the simple words: "My sister and my nieces."

Eich men in the city were made beggars, with their houses and offices in cinders, and their hunger and thirst were such that they begged for aid from the soldiers. Tlie American Consul at Cardiff advised that out of San Francisco's population of 4i O.'.jijo, from fifteen, to twenty thousand arc of Welsh descent. Zadkiel, in liis almanac for 11)06, predicted that underground trouble would affect San Francisco in January. Heedless of personal danger, Mr Schmitz, Mayor of San Francisco established himself with a force ot helpers in the b spuu-nt of the ruined Hall of Justice, where he worked all night, by surrounded by hideous noises, esp'o-ion-;. the erics of the frightened auj h.'lpless, and the curses of-thc drunken, wlio broke into every place where tlioy thought they could fiud liquor, and ocrasionially the eraek of rifles, nntifyin; the sl.oot ng of looters. Bodies were being constantly piled up at the Mayor's headquarters, until the approaching 'flames convinced the rescuers of the necessity for flight.