The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1906-04-20

San Francisco. April l9.-With each
ucceeling hour the deva tation and
destruction In tAis stricken and pros
rate ruin Of city grows and graws.
II six o'clock it seemed as t moth
ng could save the comparatively
mall portion that yet remains I'M
ulned, The business ana Wholesale
'istrict Is now only a glowing furnace,
While giant tongues Of fire reaching
ar beyond VanNass avenue are
Fiping ont buildings and seeking more
0 devour.
At four o'clock the authorities say
he only hope of saving the western
edition, with its forest of frame
dwellings, and the Richmond district
With its thousands of homes was to
heck the fire at FanNess avenue.
This avenue is 80 feet wide ana the
possibilities of checking the march
# flames here looked hopeful 10 those
Who were figuring ways and means in
he hour Of awful horror. Orders We're
given to concentrate every fire engine
II the city al thi. avenue and to mar
shall troop. Of soldiers, police and all
ne army Of workers and make one
asst stand 10 save the remainder of the
aity The cooperation of artillery was
secured and huge CANTON drawn to
he avenue by military hoses to aid
the Iyna.niters in blowing M the
mansions of millionaires in order to
prevent the flames from leaping across
the highway and starting on Their I'M
restrained sweep across the western
addition
Every available pound of dynamite
was hauled to this poiny and the light
was one of supendous and appalling
havoc, as the cannon wera trained on
the palace. and shot tore into the
walls and topped buildings in crush.
ing ruins
At other points dynamite VA used,
and house after house. the dwellings
of millionaire were lifted into the air
by the power of the believing blast
and dropped u the earth a mass of
dust and debris. The work was neces-
arily dangerous and many exhausted
workers. who kept working through a
stretch of forty-elgdt hours without
sleep and scarcely any food through
the force OF instructive hero'sm alone,
mag have been Killed while making
this last desperate stand
Many Of the workers in placing the
plasts took chances thar spelled injury
or dcath. The fire line at six o'clock
extends a mile along the west side of
avenue from Pacific street
TO Ellis All behind this. excepting the
Russian Hill region, and a small dis.
trict 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 drop
ped into the molten mass Of debris
like 50 much melted wax.
The steady bo0T of artillery and
the roar of dynamite above the howl
and cracking Of flames continues VITA
regularity
SuCN HOl~'n nave beeD nbNhbdtulhH
the panic-slricken people since the
earthquake Of forty-eight hours ago.
They have ceased 10 heed the sound.
and rush pell nell drowning their
.enscs in a bedlam of their own crca.
ton. There seemed to be an irresist-
able power behind the flames that
even the desperately heroic measure
taken at NanNess avenue could not
stay.
Will the FIRE fighters were making
he stand at NanNess avenue the
panic among the Survivors in other
parts Of the city from the intense heat
and the alb ence Of wafer has been
so terrible that scores have become
frantic and others have dropped from
exhaustion In the streets. In the panic
many mad thing are being done. Even
The soldie-. were Obliged IN many in
stances topreycnt men and women
made insane from misfortune. from
ru hing into doomed buildings in the
hope OF saying valuabes from the
ruins In nearly every instance such