The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-21

the west. Just why this was so might
not occur to you at first, but consider:
There are more opium smokers in San
Francisco than in any four cities in this
country at tine most conservative esti-
mate. These folk were all absolutely cut
off from their dope, and they made as
much trouble for the authorities for time
as the food hunters.
II 8 wonder to me that. with all
these benefits being given here and in
hundreds of other cities, that some bunch
OF hop fiends don't get together and give
theatrical performance for the purpose
of rushing through a consignment of the
brown stuff to their suffering fellows in
San Francisco. 1t would be a thoughts
full and merciful thing to do.
when left San Francisco hop was
selling for $40 shell. and hard to get
at that. Seattle and Spokane, and It few
other nearby cities, were rushing the
stuff in by the hogshead, but it wasn't
&C ming in quantities to afford relief.
Unless you know San Francisco, YOU
can't realize just what happened when
the earthquake and fire combined to put
the town out of business.
Nearly all the opium smoking of the
city was done in Chinatown. There were
hop joints outside of Chinatown, of
course, but they Were of the swell sort
Every house in rhe Chink quarter had
population OF smokers connected with it,
and. of course. nearly all the opium In
San Francisco was warehoused by the
Chinese.
THE fire swept Chinatown out of ex-
istence. II ate up the fimsy wooden
structures in one gulp and passed on,
leaving mass of smoldering embers
filling up the tunnels, subways dug-outs
and hundreds of underground passages in
China town. The opium was kept in these
caves and holes in the ground. and while
there is probably whole lot of it there
yet. it hadn't been dug up when l left.
by the afternoon of the first day of
the earthquake YOU could spot the hop
Gends all over San Francisco. The few
drug stores remaining had sold out in
short time. and there We're at least 1000
whites and yellows hunting hop
They didn't care for food, and going
without water didn't bother them at all,
but the nerye-rael>ing experiences of the
earthquake combined with the horror
produced by the aspect of the burning
city drove hundreds of these pipe-hitters
crazy for the time.
"By the mex; morning the 10000 cases
Of Nen-yen developed had turned San
Francisco into a city of horrors, beside
which the mere destruction of the town
was a trife OF course. thousands got
away to Oakland, but this didn't help
matters much. Opium was as hard to get
In Oakland as In San Francisco at this
time, and there was no relief from the
quarter.
by the morning of the second day
after the trembler the hop fiends were
riotlng Ground the different relief head
quarters end besieging the drug stores.
Frequently these opium victims would be
shanghaied by the troops and forced to
work in the streets, but many of them
went temporarily insane and were turned
loose. Nearly all these stories that came
east OF people going crazy from excite
ment and horror were based upon these
cases of hop fiends going bughouse.
by the third day thousands OF the
Chitese had disappeared. No one knows
what became of them. they simply
dropped out of sight 1t Is probable they
got away to Los Angeles. Seattle and
other big cities along the coast. Many of
them in all likelihood went away to take
commercial advantage of the scream for
opium, as we'll as To get enough for them
selves. At the end of the third day hop
was coming into San Francisco by every
rain and boat
This Is just one of the sidelights
The great catastrophe, but the man who
thinks that this was the least of San
Francisco's troubles has another speculs-
tion coming to him.