The Cairo daily bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1870-1872, 1871-10-12
GREAT CONFEDERATION.
THE FIRE OF SATURDAY NIGHT.

| Box No. 2fS, at about II o'clock last night
was the solmn prelude to one of the mos
disastrous and imploring conflagration
that has ever visited city which has al
ready enrolled in her annals numbers o
such visitatians, many of them SO terrible
that they can serve as eras in her history
for days past alarm has followed alarm
| but the comparatively trifling losses have
familiarized us to the pealing of tb,
courthouse bell, and we had forgotten
that the absence of rain for three weeks
had left everything in so dry and infama-
bic condition that spark might start q
fire that would sweep from end TO end OF
the city.
Only few minutes elapsed after the
striking of the alarm before the flames
were seen sweeping to the sky, and the
lurid light that illuminated the horizon
grew more and more powerful, casting its
brilliant rays in every direction bringing
out in bold relief the fronts of the build
ihcs which faced it from all quarters. The
| wind seemed 10 rise as the flames did, set
| from the southwest, carrying with it in its
| onward rush streams of sparks, cinders
and partially burned pieces of wood,
which covered the sky with dazzling span
giles, sweeping north ward like fight OF
thousands of meteors, but falling in frey
shower of rain, over that broad area en-
| braced between the river, South Branch,
| West street. and jackson street, the light
err ones going far over the North Division,
| while the heavier and more dangerous
ones fell before they reached that point.
| They dropped with great force upon the
| ground, to the occasional danger of foot
passengers, and the soaring of horses, and
showcred upon the roofs of buildings, in
spring constant fears that other conhagra-
tons would break out, and that a terrible
broad area would be covered by the hamcs,
and put it out Of the power of engines 10
combat them.
Late as it was the splendor of the flames
and the wonderful brilliancy of the sky
were such as to attract enormous crowds
from every quarter. The densely popula-
ted West Division lying near the fire
would have, of itself, been sufficient to
choke up the surrounding streets with q
dense and impossible crowd, but, as the
fra showed no signs of abatng, they came
from greater and greater distances, fore
ing their way down Clinton street, in the
center of which, near Adams, were half a
dozen isolated street cars, utterly unable,
for sometime to come, to get back to their
stables and getting over or around the
distractions made by policemen or engines,
made their way down TO Jackson, near
which the fire began, and stopped there,
careing nothing for the. smoldering ruins
which lay beyond that point. They crowd
ed Quincy, Adams and Jackson streets on
the one side of the river, while others far
more an xious, and fearful that the blaze
might at any moment leap across the
South Branch, and sweep toward the filed
streets leading to and on the cast side Of
the South Branch.
At first the concourse was all from the
West Side but as time passed on they lie.
gan to come from across the water, and as
the blazing viaduct and the police made
Adams-strcet Bridge impossible, they
swept in n solid mass across NJ adison street,
meeting, as they crossed, the returning
stream Of those who had satisfied their
curiosity, or who felt it inadvisable to
stay there after II o'clock. The bridge
and the approach on Madison street were
covered with men and women, alone and
together, who found there favorable
point for watching the flames, while they
were generally out of the reach of the
falling cinders. The viaduct at Adams
street with its blazing woodwork, stood
out in bold relief, and beyound and under
meath it nothing but wild whirlwind of
flames, obscurcd for a moment by bursts
of smoke, but rcappearing the next with
added brilliancy. The fire, burning
close down to the river, and impelled east
ward by the wind, seemed TO one looking
from the bridge to have almost reached
across the water, and to have partially con-
sumcd that, as well as the more combusti-
BILE material ON which it was really fee
ding. Above the sound of the conhagra-
tion occasionally rose the scream of the
engines, or the thunder of falling beams
and tumbling houses. The sharp smell of
smoke filled the uir with its oppressive
oder.
On the west side Of Clinton street, from
Jackson to- Adams, were relics of the
household gods of the people who had
been living on the east side Of the street
sometimes piled on drays or wagons, but
generally piled upon the sidewalk, after
the adjoining houses had proved too small
to contain them; their frayed and dllapi-
dated condition testified TO the haste with
which they been carried away. On,
around, and among them their unfortunate
posscs'ors, who had been awakened from
sound sleep in which they were refresh
| ing themselves for the religious services of
the morrow, and who, instead of getting
up to dress for church, found themselves
to snatch what they could and fly for their
lives Those who were near jackson
| street could look eastward across weltcr-
ing sea Of fire, through. which black and
! dcsUlatc, ran jackson street like some road
cut through the Internal regions From
the wrecks of burning buildings, from rapi-
| dly consuming lumber piles, and more
| slowly but more steadily burning coal
! heaps, rose thousands of Jets of flame,
whlriing with them pillars Of smoke,
through which doomed up the taller bull,
dings along the river, or the slender mast,
and blazing rigging of some vessel in tn,
river SO grand and SO novel was tn,
spectacle that those poor men and wOmer
who stood shclterless by night did not wal
and moan, and hug their half-clad babic,
tighter to their bosoms, as is the custom Oh
such occasions, but stood gazing straight
forward. They did not stop to see wha
they had lost, or to inquire into the con
dltlon of what they had saved, but watche,
with intense admiration the terribly beau
titul spectacle which unfodcd itself befor
them.
: Further north on the street the efforts O
the hremen and the eastward tendenc
OF the wind had preserved the house
facing west on Clinton street; the south
crn ones were mere shells, and their con
ditlon improving AS one went north, thougl
| thcy Were all much scorchel and wand a,