The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-20
strained sweep across the western addition. LAST STAND OF FIREMEN
 ON VAN NESS AVENUE.

laddition.
 LAST STAND OF FIREMEN ON VAN NESS AVENUE. Every available pound of dynamite was hauled to this point and tho sight was one of stupendous and ar- pslling havoc, as the cannon were !! trained on the palaces and the shot | tore into the walls and toppled the buildings in crushing ruins. At other points the dynamite was used and house after house, the dwellings of millionaires, were lifted into the air | by the power of the believing blast and dropped to the earth mass of dust and debris. The work was neces- sarily dangerous and many of the ex- hausted workers were kept working ] through a stretch of forty eight hours without sleep. and scarcely any food, through force of instinctive heroism alone. and may have been killed while making this last desperate stand. Many of the workers in placing the blasts took chances that spelled injury or death.
 The fire line at o'clock extends a mile along the east side of Van Ness avenue from Pacific street to Ellis. | All behind this excepting the Russian Hill region and small district lying along the north beach has been swept clean by the flames and from the steel hulks of buildings and pipes and shafts and spires have been dropped | into the molten mass of debris like so much melted wax.
 The steady booming of the artillery and the roar of the dynamite above the howl and cracking of the flames continue with monotonous regularity. Such noises have been bombarding the
 ears of the panic stricken people since the earthquake forty-eight hours ago. kox h had inc GnIind and rush pell meil, drowning their senses in bedlam of their own crea-. l tion. There seemed to be an irresis-. tibIe power behind the flames that even l the desperately heroic measures being l taken at Van Ness Avenue could not stay. While the heroic fire fighters were making the last stand at the line of Van Ness Avenue, panic reigned l among the survivors in other parts of l the city.
 | SCORES ARE FRANTIC AND DROP FROM EXHAUSTION. The intense heat and absence of water have been so terrible that scores have become frantic and others have dropped from exhaustion in the streets
 The streets are still choked with ref
 ugees scrambling wildly for an avenue of escape. Since early morning, when the great rush of flames doomed the hotel and apartment house district along Ellis, OFarrell and Sutter
 streets, men, women and children have been rushing and staggering under
 heavy loads of luggage. some to the ferries at the water front in the hope of getting to Oakland and the east side of the bay, others to the hills. the Golden Gate Park, the Ocean Beach, the
 Presidio and San Mateo bay. The trip to the hills and the water front was one
 of terrible hardship. Furnishing wo-
 men and children and exhausted men
 were compelled to walk seven miles around the north shore, in order to avoid the flames and reach the ferries.
 Many dropped to the streets under
 the weight of their loads and willing fathers and husbands, their strength
 almost gone, strove to urge them for
 ward again.
 At Iarkin and Sutter Streets two men
 and a woman broke from the police and rushed Into a burning apartment
 house. never to reappear.
 Probably two hundred thousand refu-
 gees are struggling to get out<of the
 city and hourly the task is becoming
 more difficult as the fire and heat cut
 off avenue after avenue of escape. The streets are filled with struggling peo-
 pie. some crying and weeping. On
 sidewalks in the threatened area are hundreds and hundreds of household
 CTS attempting to drag some of their effects to places of safety. In some in- stances men with trunks are dragging trunks tandem style. others having sewing machines strapped to the trunks. Again women are rushing for the hills carrying In their arms only the family cat or bird cage.
 ALL FORGOTTEN SAVE
 EFFORTS TO SAVE THEMSELVES.
 There Is no aid for any one from In. fha fttI ble for safety the half crazed survi- vors disregard everything but the thought of themselves and their prop erty In every excavation and hole through the north beach. householders are burying household effects. throw ing them into ditches and covering the holes. Attempts are made to mark the graves of the property so that 1t can be recovered after the flames are ap- peased.
 Sufferers are invading the few buildings that remain in the hope of finding something to eat. They only desist when warned or shot by the soldiers.
 At the ferry building A crowd of q thousand people were gathered beg ging for food and transportation across the bay. Hundreds had not even ten cents car fare to Oakland Most of the refugees at this point were China men and Italians who fled from their burned tenements with little or no per sonal property.
 Tonight the sufferings of many from
 hunger is pitiful. At o'clock a mob of a hundred or more roDued a bread wagon of it's contents, The police made an attempt to interfere but were pow
 erless Bread is arriving from Berke ley and Oakland and Is being distribut- ed in the north end of town by the re-