Los Angeles herald., 1906-05-01
Never was solemn solitude turned into
teeming life quicker.
Nlne.nav Wonders

Never was solemn solitude turned into
teeming life quicker.
Nine-Day Wonders
cor the wonders wrought by tho
great earthquake these were all that
came under my eye; but the tricks It
did, elsewhere, and far and wide, over
the town, made toothsome gossip for
nine days. The destruction of property
was trifling-the injury to II was wide
spread and somewhat serious.
THE curiositles OF the earthquake
were simply endless. Gentlemen and
ladies who were sick. or were taking a
siesta, thronged into the public streets.
One woman who had been washing a
child, ran down the street holding It by
the ankles as If It were a dressed tur-
key. Prominent citizens who were sup
posed to keep the Sabbath strictly,
rushed out of saloons i'm their shirt
sleeves, with billiard cues In their
hands. Dozens Of men with necks
swathed in napkins rushed from barber
shops, lathered to the eyes or with one
cheek shaved and the other still bearing
n stubbe Horses broke from stables,
and q frightened dog rushed up a short
attic ladder and out onto a roof, and
when his scare was over had not the
nerve to go down again the same way
he had got up.
Street That Opened and Shut
"The plastering that fell from ceilings
in San Francisco that day would have
covered several acres of ground. For
some days afterward, groups of cycling
and pointing men stood about many q
building, looking at long, zigzag cracks
that extended from the caves to the
ground. Four feet of the tops of three
chimneys on one house were broken
a way as to stop the draught. A crack
q hundred feet long gaped open six
inches wide in the middle of one street
and then shut together again with such
force as to ridge UP the meeting earth
like slender grave. A lady sitting in
her rocking and quaking parlor, saw
the wall part at the ceiling, open and
shut twice, like q mouth and then drop
the end of a brick on the floor like a
tooth. She was a woman easily dis
gusted with foolishness, and she rose
and went out of there. One lady who
was coming down stairs was astonished
to see q bronze Hercules lean forward
on it's pedestal as if to strike her with
its club. They both reached the bottom
of the flight at the same time-the
woman insensible from the fright.
1.-THE first shock brought down two or
three huge organ pipes in one of the
hands, was just closing the services He
glanced up, hesitated, and said:
" However we will omit the bene-
diction!'-and the next instant there
was a vacancy in the atmosphere where
he stood.
AFTER the first shock an Oakland
minister said:
Keep your seats! There is no bet
ter place to die than this
"And added after the third:
But outside is good enoughn He
then skipped out at the back door,
"Such another destruction of mantel
ornaments and toilet bottles as the
created San Francisco never
saw before. There was hardly girl
or matron in the city but suffered
losses of this kind. Suspended pictures
were thrown down, but oftener still, by
a curious freak of the earthquakes
humor, they were whirled completely
around, with their faces to the wall!
There was great difference of opinion
at first as to the course or direction
the earthquake travelled, but water
that splashed out of various tanks and
buckets settled that. Thousands of
people were made so seasick by the roll
ng and pitching Of the floors and streets
that they were weak and bedridden for
hours, and some few for even days af-
terward. Hardly an individual escaped
nausea entirely"