The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-19

soutui uoWn inc SANTA Clar8 falley. AS
for the Fasteners, they had come by ferry
and they started to get out by ferry. But
when the half dressed people, carrying
ridiculous bundles snatched up In time Of
panic, reached Montgomery street they
found their way stopped by ten blocks Of
fire.. They piled up on the edge Of this dis
trict; fighting with the police, who held
them back and turned them again toward
the hills. They must stay in the city. II
it wen they went with it.
TROOPS sToP FLIGHT.
The troops ended their last hope Of get
ting out of town. So great had been the
disorder that as afternoon came on and
the earth seemed to be quieting down
they enforced strict laws against move
ment. This stopped a strange feature OF
the disaster-a run on the banks by people
who wanted to get out their money and go.
All the morning lines Of dishevelled msn
had been standing in line before the banks
on Montgomery and Sansome streets, ig-
noring the smoke and flying brands and
beating at the doors, The troops droye
these away, and the banks went on with
their work of getting out the valuables.
COMMITTEE OF SAFETY FORMED
There is an open park opposite City Hall.
Here, in default Of q building. the Board
Of Supervisors met and formed, together
with fifty substantial citizens whom they
had gathered together, a committee Of
safety, They also set themselves to the
problem of quarters for the dying and the
dead Strangely enough, Mechanics Pa
vilion, across from the City Hall, had es-
capped, although it is only a wooden build
ing. But it has the largest floor in sau
Francisco and it was pressed into service
at once. The police and the troops, work.
ing admirably together, passed the word
hat the dead and injured should be brought
there, since the hospitals and morgus had
become choked; and toward that point, In
the early forenoon, the drays. express
wagons n hacks, impressed as tom
porary a~mbulanoes, took their course.
There we're perhaps four hundred injured
people, many Of them terribly maneled,
laid out on the floor before noon. Nearly
every physician in the city volunteered.
and they got together enough trained nurses
to do the work. There were fewer oorpsss:
too busy were the forces Of order In stop
ping the %confiagration and caring for the
| living to care for the dead. One Of the first
wagons to arrive, however, brought a
whole family-father, mother Int three
| children-all lead except the baby, who
had a terrible cut across the forehead and
a broken arm. These had been dragged
out from the ruins of their house on the
waterfront.
A large consignment of bodies, mostly
of workingmen, came from a small hotel on
Eddy street, through whose roof there fell
the entire upper structure of a tall building
next door. 1t made kindling wood Of the
two upper floors of the lodging house, which
itself stood. Men from the ~neighboring
houses, running along the streets. heard
the cries and groans from this house and
ran in. They reached the second floor,
and through a hole in the calling there
tumbled a man, horribly mangled about the
head, who lay where he had fallen and died
at their feet.
Then there is a story, one Of the almost
incredible horrors TO which we have listened
all day, brought to the central police station
by a man named Hussey. He told how he
found in a burning building a man pinioned
by the wreck and already scorohed by the
flames; now this man begged Of a policeman
who stood by for release from his misery
and how the policeman fired and missed.
Then Hussey took a knife and severed
an artery in the wrist of the sufferer, who
bled to death. Hussey talked nationally,
but the police locked him up until they
can investi gate.
GROUND SUCKED HoTEL IN.
Later and unoonfrmed news from the
wreck Of the Valencia Hotel says that the
ground fairly sucked it in. The basement
was full Of water, so that when the reacue
corps got through the debris they found
the bodies floating about. apparently a.
many drowned as crushed. They tell to-
night of people thrown from windows and
killed on the pavements below by the first
great shake, of people crushed in the streets
by the debris which fell from the upper
stories of buildings. The people are %
sickened by horror tonight that they are
willing to believe anything.
AS the day wore on and the wind changed
the fire along the waterfront burned itself
out and ran on further down south Of
Market street. This gave a comparatively
clear passage to the Ferry building. and
the troops permitted genuine refugees to
pass to the Southern Pacific ferries, which
were loaded down with people, many Of
them still half dressed. At nightfan the
troops cut Of. this privilege, probably for
fear Of rioting and disorder. Now it L.
almost impossible to cross the street.
From the Oakland shore the whole down.
town district Of the city appears to b