The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-05-05
FIRES IN JAPAN.
PeculiarIties Which Make Them n Source
of Amusement to Foreigners.


of Amusement to Foreigners.
A Japanese fire is one of the sights to
see. and beside the sorrow, the misery,
suffering and tears that one sees, there
are humors that renders such situa-
lions incompatible. When the fire
bell clangs every one rushes to the
scene, friends helping friends to save
their household effects. and thieves
making most OF the opportunity. Elk
element reigns blocks away from the
fire. agitated people gathering up their
mats, screens, bedding, clothing and
cooking utensils and hurrying away
from the neighborhood The sim
plicity of japanese life is best shown
then. There is no clumsy furniture to
be rolled out and broken. no tables,
chairs or clumsy beds to be more than
ruined in the saving. One small hand
cart holds the roll of waddcd comforters
and gowns that are the bedding of the
family, and their clothing, and the few
other effects 60 with it. The sliding
paper screens are slipped from their
grooves, the thick straw mats are taken
from the floor, and the family decamp,
leaving nothing but the roof, corner
posts and rough floor Of the house be-
hind them. Professions of these
refugees are met streaming away from
the fire. fearful women and wailing
children conveying to one sense of
what their sorrows are. 1t is ALWAYS
the wonder how these poor people live
with so little, and when that little is
swept away all ones sympathy is with
them.
At three o'clock the other morning
there was great fire in japanese
Town. The reelection in the sky penc-
trated thick blinds, and Weakened resi-
dents in the foreign settlement, to
whom fire is as much haunting terror
as to the natives. A fresh wind was
blowing up the bay and against the
steely blue water the white ships and
mcn -of-war glowed like crimson ships
in the fires reflection. BY nine o'clock
in the morning more than thousand
houses had been burned, and the flames
were not subdued. An hour later we
went TO view the scene. At one end OF
the leveled space streams of water were
being played on smouldering ruins,
hand-pumps were being worked with a
shouting chorus. and lines of buckets
were being passed up from the creek.
A few fire-proof godomes. built of thick
mud and tiles, with all the chinks
stopped with mud, stood with cracked
and blistered walls as sole monuments
in the area of ruins. At the other end
of the burned region plank fence had
already been built around the space,
and carpenters were building new
houses on the smoking ground and
stepping gingerly to escape hot stones
and tiles. The amazing quickness with
which japanese houses rise from their
ashes defes comparison. The Phoenix
and Chicago are nothing for parallels.
By the same afternoon the new houses
were advanced enough for the little
shopkcepers to set up their wares, and
by lamplight the workmen were creep
ing over the roofs and mailing on the
tiles. One has to follow quickly upon
the first alarm to see the fire. and often
times coming upon section of new
houses with their fresh implanted walls,
is the first intimation that one has OF
there having been fire along the street
that one most commonly frequents. Fire
is so common and so frequentt that there
is not a japanese who has not been
burned out gain and again, and looks
upon future experiences with cool phil
osophy. He might even preface his
stories by the accustomed 81 always dc
so and so when my house burns down. u
Yokohama Cor. st. Louis Globe Demo-
! crdt.