The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-25
THRILLING QUAKE
 INCIDENTS RETOLD Secret Report of Captain of
 Italian Navy BATTLE. WITH CONNECTS Courage of Women and Some Narrow Escapes in the Recent Earth
 quake Disaster in South ern Italy.
BATTLE. WITH CONNECTS
From the New York Sun.

Y I
 The following incident was recounted in
 a secret report sent by Captain Cagni of the Italian navy, now in command of the battleship Napoli the first war vessel to reach Reggie after the earthquake, to the
 minister of marine.
 As soon as Captain Cagni reached Reg | gio he landed in a boat, accompanied by | party of officers and men, score in all, I in order to arrange for the organization | of relief parties. No sooner did they set | foot on shore than about 100 escaped con- | victs armed with rifles which they had stolen from the barracks opened fire on | the party.
 Cagni and his men were unarmed, so | they returned to their boat and signaled l to the battleship to dispatch at once 200 sailors armed with rifles and two quick firing guns. Within ten minutes the sail ors were landed. Cagni assumed com mand lined them on the beach and gave the order to march.
 The convicts opened fire on them from | behind the ruined houses. The sailors l fired a volley in the air. and then, as the l convicts continued to fire, Cagni ordered
  &ey did. The firing continued for five | minutes until most of the convicts were killed and the remainder surrendered. Captain Cagni in his report does not
 state how many were killed. but he says | that the first step was to secure all the | escaped convicts he could find. convey ] them on board in irons and sail to a port |! in Sicily, where he handed them to the | police. and he did this before rendering any help to the victims, as he considered l 1t of the utmost importance to free the city from this band of looters. A reference to the incident sent by wire | was stopped by the press censor, as loot
 ingswas officially denied.
 Many of the earthquake survivors owe | their lives to strange circumstances. Some fell bed and all, from top stories to cell | lars and were not hurt. A sacred picture served as shield from the crumblfng | walls to others, while some were shot from their beds in the street without sus- | taining any injury.
 | One family owe their lives to dog. a | mastiff, who, scenting the approach of the | earthquake ahead of them, parked and | bayed for 12 hours before the catastro- | phe, alarming his master so much that neither he nor his family could sleep all | night. The dogs barking grew fiercer and louder as morning came until at the l first shock he leaped toward the door, 1 begging with his eyes for his master and | the family to follow him. He guided | them down a street over a mass of ruins
 to the cathedral, barking all the time 1 and looking back to see if they were still | following him.
 The master and his family sought shel-
 ter under a flight of steps. but the dog | refused to stop, and no sooner had they
 followed him than the stairs collapsed.
 owing to a fresh shock. The dog was
 only satisfied when they reached the Ma
 rina, where they found a boat which con- 1 veyed them to man-o'-w - 1 There are many cases of wives saving | their husbands, which shows that Italian 1 women under stress of circumstances play 1 better part than the men. One courage
 ous woman dug out herself, her husband
 and five children.
 Another young girl with two small 1 brothers, was taken out after eight days,
 living in corner of cellar upon which
 nearly all the rest of the house had fallen.
 She dug for three days with her hands
 until she had opened a small hole for
 air and by reaching out her hand and
 signaling she caught the attention of a
 passing squad of soldiers, who rescued | the trio just as the two children were
 about to die.
 | A party of soldiers removed a portion | of crumbling wall at Messina which
 blocked a room in which husband and | wife were discovered in bed. Their heads appeared first side by side on the same | pillow. The husband was dead while the l woman was alive. A soldier seeing this
 took off his coat and covered the mans | face to hide 1t from the wife.
 Never mind," she said. 1T know he is l dead and his arms are around me-" | When the bodies were removed it was found that the poor man had embraced | his wife when he died and the doctors had to amputate the arms to detach the
 dead from the living body. The wife did | not cry.