Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1883-08-09

The shock was felt at sea, and accord
ing to some accounts even at Naples.
A gentleman who was staying at the
hotel Piccola Sentinela, and who es-
capped, relates that he only had time
to secure some candles for use in the
darkness of the ruins before the col
lapse of the building. The terrified
people, amid the falling walls and
balconies shouted ''to the sea!
COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS.
The human slaughter by earthquake
in the Island of Ischia, is beyond COM
prehension. The statement. three
thousand human lives swallowed up, +"
lost its appalling force in the long
Journey it made to reach Americas
ears. The men and women in safe
homes in America who shudder, utter
little cries of horror, then read The
details of the awful entombment fail
to realize how great a number three
thousand is. Let them remember the
Newhall House calamity. Let them
recall all the appalling loss of life
then suffered. Multiply that by two.
Then multiply that by two again
InCn lIu1CIpIy tIIS NIO1C Wy CCIl'
That is the number dead in Ischia,
with hardly an instant of warning.
And if SO far removed, men and
women in the United States fail to un-
derstand how great is the number of
the sum of agony suffered, picture the
unspeakable horror of even one of the
three thousand doomed to that hideous
death The lost were merry-makers,
they were in the main, people well-to-
do They were off for a summer of
pleasuring In the midst of unusual
enjoyment, their summons to instant
death came. All of the thousands
lost, lived long enough to know that
death was coming and was inevitable.
They were denied even the poor relief
of striking back" accorded to the
men doomed in battle, and even to suf-
ferers fighting against hopeless dis
case. They could not even resist, but
only help1essly and miserably die,
leaving no tangible sign even of
grave to remind men that they had
lived. The sum of the mental agony
endured by that army of men and
women, can not be comprised by any
widest flight of imagination. From
exceptional happiness which other
men looked on and envied, to eXcep-
tional and utterly hopeless misery
whereat men shuddered, those sum-
mer-dwellers were hurled in an in
slant of time. Not ten of them, not
twenty, but three thousand.
Ischia, or more specifically, Cassa
micciola, where were the mineral
springs and the hotels, was peculiarly
an Italian resort. This cloud-burst of
bereavement floods i'll Italy therefore,
vastly more than elsewhere. In Ma
pies and Rome and throughout the
cities of the kingdom, hundreds of
hOme-circles are broken and other
hundreds quite blotted out, but the
cities of Italy will not be alone in
their sorrOwing. 1t is probable that
when all details are known, homes in
all quarters of Europe and homes in
the United States will be forced to tell
of loved members swallowed up at
Ischia 1t is not reasonable in view
of the recent incessant exodus Of
American tourists to Europe, to expect
that America escaped unscathed from
that death-harvest in the Mediterra
mean.
Why was this unspeakable horror
visited upon the world? Men can on
ly grope on in the darkness of their
ignorance and helplessly ask, Why?
While humanity lasts, occasions Will
continue to arise for the same anX-
ious query And its answer will
never come to men.