The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1883-11-03
The YEARS. Calamities.


The disasters of the current year have
been most extraordinary. Their FREE
quency, and the appalling character of
most of them, are constant source of
remark. Leaving out pestilence, which
in Egypt is working frightful havoc,
having already destroyed $4,000 lives,
probably. the record Of catastrophes is
most gloomy. About 400 lives have
been lost id this country by cyclones.
BY, the falling Of the pier at Tivoli, near
Baltimore, 100 souls per shed. In tho
flood, invading the M ne at Braidwood,
n persons were destroyed. BY the
burning of the Newhall House and 9th.
er hotels, 100 human beings have been
done to death in tho flames. BY the
upsetting of a North Carolina boat 10
persons were drowned. BY the railway
collision at Carlyon 80 persons were
crushed to dea h. The New York
bridge panic caused the death of Is per-
sons. These are only the more conspic-
uous OF the catastrophes which in this
land have thrown shadow on so many
homes. On the other side of the water
the same law of casualty, only, if any
thing, more terrific, has prevailed. A
y
in loss of ID lives. An avalanche on
Mount Ararat buried $50 souls. A boil
er explosion in France swept away 81,
a nine explosion l27, and an explosion
In Sicily 80. A fire In Hungary burned
tip 50 persons. another in italy Az, an
explosion at Scutari 100. The circus
disaster in Poland killed 26S persons.
In the floods in Germany and Austria
140 were drowned. The Cimbria car
ried down with her 434 human beings.
In the Sunderland panic 202 children
were swept into eternity. More de-
structive than all was the terrific loss
of life through the earthquake in Isciiia,
where 1900 persons are believed to have
persisted How far are these calamities
to be attributed to natural causes. which
man Is powerless to control, and how
far to the ignorance or carelessness Of
menP 1t seems quite certain that the
Newhall tragedy, the Sunderland hec-
a'omb, the appalling destruction of
the Cimbria, are, to q large ex-
tent, referable to human Responsiveness
that is to say, that the foresight and
knowledge of which men are capable
might have avoided these disasters
Like the great Chicago fire, they teach
a lesson of the reign of natural law and
the inexorable necessity that man con-
form thereto. II anything could move
the stony heart of nature il would seem
to be a gathering of fond mothers and
their innocent children at the North
Point pier, or that assembly of sweet
ness and love that was slaughtered at
Sunderland, on those poor girls finging
their arms through the flames and.
crying for help at Milwaukee. But
nature hears no prayer. A fire-trap. is
a fire-trap all the same though hum
dred homes be desolate, q hole with no
exit is a cage in which fright does its
appalling work precisely as though a
thousand hearts did not ache. Is the
saying now SO common that thurman
life is the cheapest thing in the MARKET
truep If so, all the worse for human.
nature. Ii is much feared that this
saying, at least, is not quite a lie, and
can not be regarded as Islander until
pnSsinony and avarice shall be elimin-
ated trohfthe causes OF the occasions of
disaster.
The disasters>bv cvclone and ax+,.o
ordinary floods a. bavnnd "r c.i+; IS.."
Science has not yet esseovere,l what i" a
cyclone is; some say aS,xind-storn, :
concentrated hurricane, otfssrs SOW -, 90 .
electric storm, the very rese.so;r ~ 81
lightning dropping down to thesevei
of the earth, performance of nath,,
on lower stratum, such as is all the
time going ON in the clouds. The
cyclone-all the prophets to the con-
trary--can not be foretold as vet And
there is no defense against it but cave
in the earth. The belt of cyclones even
is uncertain within wide limits, so that
they can only be infallibly avoided by
the abandonment of any country where
the cyclone is known. Till science,
therefore, shall catch up, at least, men
must call the desolation caused by
terrific whirls of wind and water and
electricity as being due to natural
causes, and in no sense refer them to
the Responsiveness of men. The fact
that calamities come not singly, that
railway disasters, fires, and all the train
of woe come in groups, and that other
forms of disaster take the same occasion
to work ruin, is one of the strange
things which neither philosophy nor
religion is competent to solve. The fact
is none the less glaring, and the
current year is sufficiently eonspicu.
GUS illustration. - Chicago Times.