Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-10-22
FIRE AND WATER.
FIRES In SAN FRANcIsco-How TIE
FIRE DEPARTMENT MOVES.
Something About the Old Volunteer De-
partment-Eirsmen and Tenpsr-
ance-A "Reminiscences.
SAN FEANeIsco. October 10. 1881.

SAN FRANeIsco, October 10, 1881.
"Hcw long have you been writing fol
the RECORD UNION p asked lady of ms
the other day, and told her six yesrs last
month. Mercy, what an age" she ex
claimed. "Do You know any of YOU
RECORD UNION readers ?" she asked agar
presently. Comparatively few 1 re
piled. Don't you wonder what they
think of you." answered her, q Yes
very often. 81 suppose you have made
both friends and enemies y "Many of one,
l hope; a few of the other I am afraid
1 could see that her curiosity was not yet
srtisfed-although a friend, she evidently
regarded correspondents for the moment
as public characters, and was putting ques-
tions very much as she would have poked
bits OF bread at one Of the coekatoos in
Wocdward's Gardens 81 should think
you'd have hard work to find things to
write about. I'm sure I couldn't think OF
L
her l presumed | did write about uninter-
esting things sometimes, but even the
smallest item in the doings of a day must
interest the women outside the city who
listen for the worlds heart beats. She
asked then il she might 90 with me, and
when I inquired amusedly where? she
answered anywhere l intended to
go at any time. So she has an intense in.
terest ia this letter because she feels that
che lived part Of it as it was suggested
by our mutual experience of last Sunday.
The great dread Of city is fire. Every
time a match is struck there is a possibility
of accident
WE FEAR EARTHQUAKES
In San Francisco, and put up wooden
houses lest the bricks rattle about our ears
some fine October day, and structures CT
wood are but piaYthings for flames. How
great, then, is our danger Again and
again chimneys filed with SCOT take fire,
some one runs with all speed to the near
est fre-alarm box such as adorn the lamp
posts everywhere, and turns on the alarm
then, before you know it, boom, boom tolls
the great bell, and crowd has sprung up
as if by magic. gave short description
little time ago of the daily drill at the
Fire Patrol headquarters, and all that min
ute work IS SO nearly the same at all the
stations through the city that it
seems but a second till the eager listening
horses and the excited fremen come down
the street like whirlwind under control.
La five minutes, perhaps, it is all over, the
crowd drops away, the horses lag slowly
off, and everybody but the scared woman
who lit the fire forgets all about it. We
often wake in the night to the long toll and
roll of the great bell followed by the jaugle
of smaller bells, and then by the whoop
and clatter Of the engines off TO the fire.
Rising and looking over the housetops,
blush sweeps across the sky and trees the
direction of the trouble, and by consulting
the little card of signals always kept con
venient to hand, one just knows where it
is. When the fire is easily extinguished
three alarms are given, but when it is
large fire the general alarm is struck, and
the whole city has warning Fires seem
somehow to go in little groups of
threes and tours, succeeding ore another
curiously in the same vicinity, then jump
ing to another. The large fire usually has
Its companion in dimensions, and one little
bls re IN back yard has its other little
blaze to keep it company. But no matter
how large O.. email it may be, it never fails
to create
AN ExcITl9 AENI.
In the triangle bordered ~ Market and
First streets and the bay is si:tuated prop
erty on which insurance men will .Ncarcely
ever take whole risk, and they require
an exorbitant premium on partial insur-
ance. 1t is factories, mills, lumber yards,
hay and grain stables, asphaltum works,
with old wooden rookeries
that have been In existence since that was
the chief part of town, and it seems al
most temptation to kindle blaze and
blow one Whit with the breath, because it
would be SO easy to sweep it all away.
Cheap saloons, a bit of arestaurant now and
then, tumble down houses with board and
lodging at So 80 a week are sandwiched
in, and the wonder is, at which the be-
holder cannot be enough astonishteSd, that
a fire is ever extinguished there. On Fri
day there came the signal of fire, then by
and by the general alarm, and we who
live in the suburbs knew by ear
that there was danger In that part
of the town. One is always anxious
for the fathers, husbands and brothers,
whose business lies there, SO the fre-bell
becomes a shudder when it tolls for those
boxes. 1t is welcome then when the men
folks come safely home at night. But last
Friday night three men did not come home;
burned to death, they lay charred beyond
recognition among the smoldering ruins.
On Sunday we two went down to the burnt
district, on no particular mission, but filed
with fascinated curiosity, az We're the
decorous lines of people passing up and
down the walks. It was a dirty part of
the town, filed with evil smells which the
water, thrown IN every direction, had
wetted up and brought to life. There was
sewage and bilge odor abroad, beside the
charred oiliness of old boards and the
smoky, close vapors that hung between the
houses and refused to float away. 1t was
a place to make one gather the skirts in the
hand and regret best kid boots. Finally,
there lay
THE RUINS,
A vast mass of timbers half in shape, ashes,
burned sawdust and iron burned red. The
great engine of one mill lay topped on its
side where it had sunk through the floor,
and other machinery lay in various stages
of destruction. Three safes which had
come out of the trial by fire stood open on
the sidewalk, and half dozen aud-trucks
were by them. People peered into the
safes, opened the drawers and put their
hands in, swing the doors and passed on to
some new curiosity. Here was the spot
where the two men were foand close to-
gether, and here is where the other one
met his death alone. WHAT fate Were
they born to die like that. destined to it
ages ago even before they lived? Heart
sick OF it all, by and by we went down upon
the wharf to see the ships, the gulls, the
water, and the people there to view it all.
Suddenly there came great cry, the peo-
pie stared about them stupidity for mo-
ment, then darted off with great rush.
Sailors ran up ships rigging like