The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1906-05-05

DleS Win the name OF jne ,Ilie DIOllH-
ing their faces into the outlines of a
gargoyle.
One patriotic son of Nippon labored
painfully up Dupont street with the
crayon portrait of the Emperor of ia
pan on his back.
While this zone of fire was swiftly
gnawing it's way through Kearny and
up the hill another and even more ter
rible segment of the conhagratiOn was
being stubornly fought at tn corner
of Golden Gate avenue and Polk street.
Here exhausted firemen directed the
feeble streams from two hoses upon
a solid block of streaming flame. The
engines pumped the supply from the
sewers. notwithstanding this desper-
ate stand the flames progressed until
they reached Octavia street
Shortly after midnight the streets
about Union Square began to be barred
and guled by the red stripes of the
fire. First Cordes Furniture Com
pany's store went, then Breuner's. Next
a tongue of flame crept stealthily into
the rear of the City of Paris, on the
corner of Geary and Stockton streets.
Eager spectators watched for the first
red streamers to appear from the win
dows of the great dry goods store.
Smoke eddied from under window stills
and through cracks made by the earth
quake in the cornices. Then the cloud
grew denser. A puff of hot wind came
from the west, and as if from the sig
nal there streamed fiambouyantly from
every window on the top floor of the
great structure billowing banners as
Of poppy-colored silk that jumped sky
ward in curling swapping breadths, a
fearful heraldry of the pomp of de-
struction.
Dozens of saloons had been smashed
in early i'm the evening, and the brutes
that kill their brains with liquor were
made mad by the fiery stuff which
flowed even in the cutters from STAYED
flowed even in the cutters from staved
lowed. Men fought and cursed, head.
We're crushed like the crushing of g
crisp cinder, and blood was let by The
stealthy blows of knives. A veritabl,
hell on earth prevailed for blocks.
Against these human wolves two
companies of regular soldiers from thu
Preside We're rushed at top speed
They had to make a wide detour of the
fire-stricken district and by the time
they arrived on the scene drunken
wolves were themselves laying fires tC
the kindling still untouched.
A pitched battle between the regu-
lars and the liquor-sodden brutes who
were threatening their own lives and
those of the troops who had gone dowr
into the terrible hell of flame followed
The regulars used butt, bayonet AND
ball and are reported to have killed
over half-doZen of the fiends besides
wounding a score with bayonet-pricks
and the MASKING blows of their gun
stocks. Order was at last restored.
Even while this was in progress the
wall of flame sweeping up the hill from
Kearny street had reached Chinatown
Like butter in a blaze this famous nest
of rookeries and gambling dens was
swept off the face of the map. Where
the black smoke" was won't to curl
ragged an acrid yellow cloud. Where
the sound of tinkling gold once de-
lighted the ears of the celestials, the
crash of timbers and the infantry fire
crackers.
And in the midst of this chaos, with
the dreadful pail of smoke still ad-
vancing westward, death and starva-
ton stalking abroad through the will
derness of ruins, and water not to be
had for drinking, sit thousands hud-
died about their paltry belongings on
the hot ashes of what had once beer
homes.
One family on Van Ness avenue was
huddled upon fallen telegraph pole
cooking potatoes in the Goals of theil
ruined mansion. The women were
wrapped about in cloaks of red anC
ermine, yet potatoes were their meal
and the fire which spelt their ruiz
served to make them palatable.
Hundreds slept last night in the nave
= of the ferry building and along the
unburned wharves to the right and lef
of the building. They slumbered witt
their heads pillOwed upon trunks bas'
kets and bags, representing all theil
earthly belongings. Others went GU
} to the sand lots back of the Chute'
? and into the Park, and there stretched
themselves out, exhausted, on the damn
earth. A vacant lot on Van Ness ave
nue., surrounded as far as the eye coulC
penetrate through the smoke pail was
: the bivouac of half dozen families
, They lay sprawled on the sand
wrapped i'm table clothes, mating, sack
ing and canvas.
- 90 1895 80 ';-~..~eE
ribla satI,aclr hut tba growth Of Sal