The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-04-05

column: would reach up to the moon
the timber of the trees destroyed by
forest fires in the course of the last
sixty centuries would form a massive
tower Of the same height
The works of human labor destroyed
during the same period in the confla-
grafton of cities and villages would
form pile as high as Mount Hamilton
The treasures OF art thus aanihilated
in Rome alone would stock q thousand
museums
a list of great cities burned would be
list of nearly all the great capitals of
the world Persepolis. the splendid
residence of long series of rulers
whose tributary provinces extended
from the Indus 10 the Heliespont was
burnt with ali its palaces and temples;
Babylon and Carthage were SO utterly
destroyed that their very location has
become matter of doubt Rome was
burnt eight times Jerusalem four times.
and though they rose from their ashes,
The second temple is not ike the first
Athens, Syracuse. Bagdad. Alexan-
dria and Antioch now exhibit only a
shadow of their former grandeur. The
Phenicians, like the Spartans and As
syrians. disappeared with the ruin of
their capitals, but the most fateful con-
fagration recorded in the history of the
world is perhaps that of Moscow.
They talk as if the fate of Europe
had been decided at Waterloo" said De
Bourienne in his memoirs of the first
1.I hao Il
hngton and Butcher q dozen times 10
could not have retrieved the reverses of
the three preceding years The truth
Is that the French Caesar and his fort
unes were ruined by the burning of
Moscow. That city was the funeral
pile of the great nation"
When London burned for three DAYS
and three nights in 1866 its population
hardly exceeded two hundred and fifty
thousand, and in regard 10 the extent
of the destruction, neither that fire nor
those of Hamburg and Chicago can
compare with the confiagration of
Rome under Nero at time when the
capital of the Roman empire had prob
ably more than three million inha Bit
ants. That calamity, by the way, may,
after all. have been caused by an acci-
of the ancient civilization, proves that
both Nero and Tiberius were the vic
Tins of gross ISLANDERS, not limited to
the eXaggeration of their vices and the
misrepresentation of their political
acts. The authors of their annals were
politicians whose privileges had been
curtailed by the omnipotence of the
Caesars and who avenged them
selves by painting the objects of
their resentment in the darkest
possible colors. That Nero, in his
mania for music, fiddled during
the burning of Rome is likely enough;
but it is hardly credible that he would
have survived even the suspicion of the
alleged monster crime.
The revival of such cities as Athens
and Damascus can be explained by the
unrivaled advantage of their location.
an advantage which has also more than
once proved the salvation of CONSTANT
nople. The fire service of the Turkish
capital is a century behind the average
of the times. and IN the southern sub
urbs there are miles of streets lined
with nothing but wooden houses, bat
the aristocratic quarters in their pres
ent condition are really almost fire.
proof The palaces of the Turkish
grandees are built almost exclusively
of stone, the very floors consisting Of
mosaic of variegated marin BILE, while
an abundance of water is supplied by
indoor baths and fountains, but ia addi-
ton to all that they are surrounded 10y
acres of evergreen shrubs which in
their turn are inclosed by massive stone
walls.
single esta blishment OF that sort
land their number runs up in the hun
dred) could stand uascathed in the
midst of flaming streets, and old Siam
boul may, in the same way, survive
BON bardment of the predicted Russian
invasion. Its site, at all events, would
insure its resurrection.-San Francisco
4 al