Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-11-14
,h,oueh The Biz telescope, Or irving ,he lung.

0e II n was Iest1VRl tney Nau JOurneyeC
hither to see. rather than the destruction of
great section of great city by fire. The
number Of strangers brought into the city
during the day was immense. At no time
during either Of the peace jubilees were tho
rolling stock of the different railroads SO tax
cd Trains of great length crowded with
men, women and children, came In from eve
~ section in the early day, and went out as
crowded at dusk Ia the evening. One train
OF thirty cars on the Boston and Albany rail-
road reached this city at one O'Clock from
way stations beyond Worcester, filled com.
pletely, notwithstanding that specials and reg
ulars from portion OF the same section had
been run, and on the other lines,
the Old Colony, the Providence, the Lowell,
Maine and Flchburg, the passenger
ireights were nearly if not quite as heavy.
The majority of these strangers evidently
came to the city out of curiosity solely, and
they might much better have stayed away.
They we're Of no service; worse than useless,
they were annoying and in the way, and their
presence was not little dangerous TO the
community, as it gave the gangs of profess
ional thieves who have tlocked mere from 9TH
er cities material to work upon, and hence
reason to tarry longer than they would If on
" the fire district and the closely guarded
piles of goods saved from the onfi,gration
gave them opportunities for plumber Be-
some means few out-oi towners got within
the FIRE limits and among the ruins, and here
they lunched on rural viauds, or parted With
small scrip for relies" that urchins who hAi
s.ormed the lines offered for ssle-biss a
crochery, pieces of Enthusiastically twisted iron,
hlackened hard boiled eggs, which Ii vas pre-
tested had stifened in the fiery furnace. strips
of charred lesiher, and other like rubbish.
In the midst Of the ruins there was life and
energy at every hand. Before the huge heap
of bricks had cooled and while many fires
we're smoulderIng and cracking, and the
smoke was yet thick and sitting, men had be-
gun the work of clearing away the debris pre-
paratory to the slower work of rebuilding
v hat has been so suddenly overthrJwn. The
lines of old familiar thoroughfares were so
effectually obliterated that the masters and
workmen alike were frequently bewlldered,
and citizens clamberng over the heaps Of
bricks and granite blocks were utterly lost in
places where before the fire they were most
at home. One man was seen wandering
around what was once the lower part of Wa
ter street, with sign announcing the pres
ent quarters Of the Shawmut Bank, busily
searching for the site of its building, which
was not far from the corner Of Congress, and
a prominen, "shoe.man' was heard arguing
that Purchase street, where he was standing,
WAS the upper portion of Pearl.
THE CITY By cASpLELICHr.
The consumption of candles last night vas
enormous, there being very small supply Of
gas, the dsily manufacture of the gas eompa
ny. as we'll as the large reserve supply, hay-
ing been completely exhausted by the leakage
and destruction OF gas in the burnt district,
and the manufacture of the day not being
sufficient for the exigencies of the night. Ii
was announced at noon that there might pos
sibly be no gas, but this apparently was not
very generally understood, and not few
housekeepers, having neglected to prepare
| for the night before the night came, found it
difficult to procure light at all, as the stock
OF candles IN nearly all OF the retail groceries
about town was completely exhausted before
evening. The dealers in kerosene lamps and
oil did large business, as well as the can.
die traders, and so the old adage that it is an
Ill wind that blows no good was proven.
Without gas the city presented forlorn ap
pearance. Stores generally brilliant with
light in the early evening were dark, and the
hotels, usually bright and inviting, were al
most literally "enveloped in gloom" Bosto-
mans last night had a touch Of what the ci Y
was in our grandfathers' days. The loss OF
5 the gas light company has been heavy. The
arrangements made by them to meet sucl
|
gas in districts ravsged by fire became una
/ valuable, as the stopcocks were inaccessible
, so that with the fall of the buildings ant
breakage Of the mains the supplies furnished
| 10 each of the burnt district were destroyed
AT six o'clock yesterday morning for the first
tine since 1928 there was absolutely no gas
in the receivers. The manufacture is now
going on as rapidly as possible, and the prob
ability is that to night there will be a plenty
of light.
THE RUINS BY MOONLIGHT.
A walk through the ruins by night reveals
the desolateness OF the scene more impress
lively even than by daylight. There is weird,
grOtvsQue beauty in the prospect that is
strangely fascinating. Amidst the erumbling
heaps Of rubbish in the cellars there are small
fires chickering's sufficient to reveal the fantas.
tic proportions of the surrounding fragments
of walls, and lend a ruddy glow to the real
canopy of smoke oyerhansing all, sufficient
TOO, to enable the pedestrian to pick his way
over the debris that fill the streets. The
r mysterious, intense Rembrandt effects of fit
tul light and shade, the moonlight occasion
ally penetrating through riffs in the smoke
blending with the Pickering freight, the ex
r aggerated shapes of lonely columns and ir
, regular masses of wall, the silence broker
only by the occasional hoarsely given orde
of a fireman, or mayhap the distant chatte
. of party of women whom some one is es
, corting through the wonderful scene, all com
bine to produce an impression of which moth
ing we can liken 1t to will convey an adequate
t conception. The Imagination may conjecture
, up such scene, genius perhaps might par
TALLY present it on canvass-no words we cal
command can at all describe it. Shadowy
5 lurid, silent, grand, awful, desolate, fantas
, tic, it possesses the imagination, and the ad
venturer wonders whether he is still in tn,
body, creature Of senses and instincts, or
D ueing as unsubstantial and strange and dreary
, as the phantasmagora by which he is sur
, rounded. If it were not for the occasiona
group of firemen directing stream Of waite
! ON some flame that the wind is tanning t
, comparative violence of passion, and the hal
dozen explorers like himself whom he meets
and who stare at him in wondering way, al
! if his appearance in such place and no
theirs was the questionable thing, one nigh
well suppose he had left the abodes Of mel
and fallen upon the chaotic surface of anothe
planet whose fires had been but Incomplete,
f quenched.- Boston Adrcrtiser, Toesday