The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-05-31

E are probably 0000 more persons in the city at two o'clock in the afternoon than at two o'clock in the morning People who live across the bay coms over in very considerable numbers to do business; and then there is the very large number of mere curiosity hunt CTS and sightseers who come in the morning and go out at night. All dur ing the hours of the day the main thoroughfares are thronged not more by persons legitimately busy than by those who have come to look upon the wreck of the. city. The colossal ruin exerts strange fascination upon many, for it has been observed that there are those who, without apparent business motives, come again and again to wander about the ruined streets, to take snaphot photographs, and even to join in hilarious picnic parties amid the ruins,
 It would be impossible to conceive anything busier than San Francisco at this time. Whether one goes in the vast ruined area or along the fringe of docks at the city front or in the un- burned district west and south, 1t is the same. There is an in tense, un- resting movement of men and teams, and all parently-excepting alone the swarm of sightseers-wo with a fixed purpose. The apparent confus- ion of two of three weeks ago has given place to a condition in which every person seems to be doing some definite thing. While, of course, the general activities are abnormal, they are as orderly each in its way as were those of month ago.
 The most striking change in the situ- ation within the part few days is the almost magical springing up of hun dreds of temporary structures of wood and corrugated iron within the deva- l stated district. The centre of the tenn porary building Is very naturally near Market Street, but it extends through out the burned district, which is now fairly dotted over with the huts of boards, or sheet-iron, or of canvas very suggestive of the hurled construc- ton of newly established mining district. For year or two, at least San Francisco throughout it's burned district is destined to be city of light and flimsy structures, hastily put to- gether, the sake of accommodating a business which consistently declines to remain away from its accustomed haunts.
 Many new lines of business of a small kind have sprung into existence to meet the new conditions, Market Street as far up as Ellis is fairly well lined with little booths in which every thing from fire relics to bananas are offered for sale by an inslstent and clamorous brotherhood of vendors, each whoom does little noisy "spiel- ing" on his own account. In the naming of these outdoor establishments a clumsy humor freely disports itself. A coffee stand vaingloriously announces itself as the Palace Grill'; another calls itself the Hoffman House.; still lanother calls itself the Poodle Dog; another fDelmonioo' ss" and soon. A seller of broken and fire-damaged arti- cles evidently f1shed from Chinatown bears the famous name of ''Ichi Ban" The humor of all this not not very im- presslve, but it goes at least to exhibit a sense of cheerfulness and the dispo- sition to see the ridiculous side of a very unpleasant condition. The dust and dirt are most oppressive and the intermittent watering of Market Street scarcely tends tends to reduce the dis comfort on this score There is such a mass of ashes, so many crumbling
 walls, such a concourse of dustraising traffic that nothing is effective in the way of keping the streets in fairly livable condition Whoever passes through the burned district must be prepared to take what comes in the
 farm of polluted air and general dirt and discomfort.
 The work of clearing out such struc- ltures as remain standing goes on with lprodigious vigor. In the Crocker build ing, the Mills building, the St Francis Hotel the Kohi building, the Call build Ting, and score of others, there are large gangs of men aided by innumer- able teams working in each instance to
 reduce chaos to something like order, and the work is going ahead in sur Uprising way. The safe deposit depart Iment of the Crocker- Woolworth Bank is doing business in it's old basement quarters, and the first floor is being lput in shape for the return of the banking house to it's old quarters. The basement of the Call building is a bee hive in which large force is licking into shape printing press which, though damaged by fire, 1t is hoped to have in operation within another week. Another group of men in the same basement is busy setting up typsetting machines, while on the floor above carpenters are improvising 8 newspa- per publication office In the St. Francis Hotel the work of cleaning up has reached the ninth floor, and in a few days the establishment will be do- ing business in the three or four floors nearest the ground. The old Chronicle building. which lolkoed to be complete
 wreck immediately after the fire, is in It's lower floors bsing fitted up for busi- enss, and it will not be long before it will be occupied again. The Examiner has returned to the west side of the bay in temporary quarters somewhere on Folsom Street, and the old site at the junction of Market and Third Strets is being cleared of its tngle of wreekage.
 As yet the whole work of removing debris Is done by wagon, and while this