STARTLING SEQUELS TO EARTH QUAKES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 270, 11 May 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

STARTLING SEQUELS TO EARTH QUAKES

IIOW" THE JAMAICA UPHEAVAL CAUSED MAURTAOES, I **" Iheie have been some amazing sequels to earthquakes, of which there have been so many during the past few weeks. To have put up the marriage rate, however, is 'an achievement which has recently been credited to an earthquake for Hie lirst time in the whole history of 'seismic upheavals. It is in the Colonial Office report oil Jamaica, issued a few months ago, that this interesting statement is made/There it is recorded that the marriage rate in the island is now falling to the normal level at which it stood before the occurrence of the earthquake four years ago. The report goes on to say' that the abnormally high marriage rates during' the two years immediately following the eai thquake were "due to the emotional effects of that calamity." In 1!)05 there was one of those awful visitations iu Celabria, and vast sums of were raised in this and other countiies for the relief of the sufferers. A gi eat deal of it was grossly misapplied. To cover up their misdeeds the culprits, found it necessary to hoodwink their King, and houses were actually pulled down on the approach of his 'Majesty and shown to him as evidence of the havoc wrought by the earthquake. In another place all the sick and ailing persons for miles around were gathered up and placed in the hospitals and palmed off on the Sovereign as victims of the earthquake. There was a queer sequel to an earthquake which happened at Na/areth, a charming Portuguese seaside resort, in Apiil, It was followed by a. huge tidal wave, which brought treasure Galore. .Lhe articles found consisted of a large quantity of. ancient arms, valuable coins of all nationalities, gold buttons, scarfpins, and other jewellery of considerable value. Investigation proved the "find" to lie treasure which had been concealed long before in a stronghold of buccaneers of the Spanish Main. But foi; the happening of the earthquake the booty might never have been unearthed. A somewhat similar incident was reported from Warrnambool, in Australia, after an earthquake which took place there in April, ,1903. When passing : through a pad'dock some children noticed that the soil round the base of a tree had been thrown up. Closer inspection showed that amongst the earth were quite a number of coins I the youngsters took to be halfpennies. They collected upwards of one hundred, and took them home to their parents, who found to their amazement that the coins were sovereigns. They' were supposed to have been planted at the foot of the tree for safe hiding by a miserly "swagman," who had been a lesident in the neighborhood about a dozen years before. One of the most comical effects of the earthquake at San Francisco was to clear thew hole State of California of tramps, of which it had previously had a great many more than enough. But the earthquake inspired them with a mortal dread, and they cleared out as fast as freight and other trains could carry them. Never in its history had'tlie Southern Pacific Railway Company to contend with j so many "hoboes"—as the tramps were called—as immediately after the earthquake. Drivers and brakemen declared' that if they attempted to keep them off' it would have been quite impossible to run their trains to schedule time. It was a common sight for a train to pull up at a station carrying these "Wind baggage" passengers as thick on th£ car platforms as bees at the entrance of a hive. The railway officials did all tlu y could to keep the undesirables off tlx trains, but they travelled—-of course "fojiirth class"—in flocks of twenty to twenty-five. To keep them off it would have been necessary to earrv armed guards with orders to shoot when persuasion failed, as it always did. As recently as last August there was an earthquake at Constantine. Algeria, to which there was a very remarkable sequel. Unfortunately a good many persons were killed, but the extraordinary phenomenon was the strange effect produced by the upheaval on. springs of water. ' Some which had hitherto always been c'ohj were found to have become decidedly Warm; stranger *till, at the Hanunn Thermal Springs the water suddenly turned red. Quite amazing iu some respects was the sequel to the earthquake which took place at Valparaiso in August. l!X)ti. According to the British • Journal of Nursing, while it proved fatal to so many people in robust health, it turned out to be the salvation of quite a number of ailing ones. A ease was quoted, by way of illustration, of a man afflicted with rheumatic fever, who leaped from his bed when the walls of his abode commenced to rock and ran into the street, completely cured. In other instances typhoid, pneumonia, epilepsy and other serious diseases were reported as having been completely cured 'by the earthquake. A strange ease w.-\s that of an insane person, who, as the direct result of the excitement and the shock, recovered his reason for the spa«c of three days. Matters then having settled down to their normal condition, the man relapsed into his former insanity so that his last state was as bad as his tir4t. An earthquake that disgorged instead of swallowing up is somewhat of a novelty, yet sncli a one was reported from Mexico a s(iort time ago. It- happened in the neighborhood of Cliilapa, where a' number of buildings were levelled to the ground. fortunately, not a single human being was injured, the only persons affected being the prisoners incarcerated in the; local gaol. They had every reason to teel grateful for the upheaval which, while it destroyed their prison-house, enabled everyone of them (o escape and get clear away.