River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-03-25


kxAQE EIGHF-the most terrible
>6kzlsNA year of disaster in the his
SSAg3EN tory of the modern world.
m59E That is the black record
w. which Time has entered in
his books for the year
which has just closed. A quarter Of
a million people destroyed in awful
catacylsms, billions of dollars worth
Of property wiped out of existence, a
sum Of pain and human anguish which
can never be expressed in words or
fgures-such is the balance which
must be carried to the debit side of
the worlds account books.
The mention of the word catastro-
phe will of course bring the thoughts
of every one back to the great Italian
earthquake, the greatest single dis
aster in the worlds history, tragedy
which cost 900 lives and wiped out
Of existence great and historic cities.
In the shadow of that terrible holo-
caust the world has failed to realize
that it was merely the climax of a
long series of horrors which followed
one on the heels of the other from
the first day of January, 1908, to the
first day of January, 1909
The chimes Of the rejoicing bells
that rang in the new year of 1908 had
not died away when the grim fiend of
destruction commenced it's work in
a mine at Carthage, N M. Twelve
miners were blown out of human rec
ognitiOn and the black year had
opened
The first big blow fell IL days later
when 300 people were incinerated in
restaurant fire at Canton China. 1t
was followed the next day by a trag-
edy in America which shook the coun-
try to the core and sent thousands
into mourning. The opera house at
BoyertcWn, Pa, was burned down dur
ing an amateur performance, and 172
charred and mangled bodies were sub
sequently taken from the ruins.
The first month of the ominous
year waned to close amid a series of
minor disasters at home and abroad
which were overshadOWed by the hor-
rOrs which preceded them and the
yet greater horrors which were to
come. The first of February ushered
in the first cyclone, which devastated
Mississippi, leaving 20 dead bodies
and hundreds of ruined homesteads in
its wake. Two days later news was
flashed across the wires that a mine
explosion in Japan had destroyed 81
miners and that 81 lives had been
lost in a snowstorm in Algeria.
Devastated by Cyclone.
Scarcely a week had elapsed before
the cyclone fiend made it's second ap-
pearance, sweeping through Mime
sofa and Texas, claiming 13 lives. On
the same day mine explosion in
Natal put an abrupt end to the hazard
Gus calling Of 80 miners. Within two
weeks similar accidents in England
and Spain had called 80 more men to
their account, while a dynamite acct
dent in California was paid for with
80 lives.
As if each month was endeavoring
to Guido in horror it's predecessors,
March opened with a record of terrible
disasters, among which is numbered
the most heartrending American trag-
edy since the Iroquois fire. The
carnival of destruction opened on the
first of the month with an avalanche in
Switzerland which cost 81 lives,
among the lost being several Ameri-
cans. Three days afterward came the
schoolhouse fire at COllingwood, 0.
One hundred and seventy eight chill
dren burned, trampled and crushed to
death! No adjectives and no words OF
any language could adequately de-
scribe such an appalling event. VIC
lent death invested with terrors al
ways strikes humanity with peculiar
fiendishness when it seizes as its prey
helpless and innocent children. This
holocaust of childhood stunned the
country into Oblivion of lesser calam-
tiles, while the despairing shrieks OF
hundreds of mothers and fathers rang
across the world The month closed
with an earthquake in Mexico in
which 500 people were killed and a
mine explosion at Havana. Wyo.,
which added 70 more items to the long
toll of the years violent deaths.
Fire and earthquake gave place to
flood and storm in April, and the loss
of life leaped upward with terrific
bounds. The first great disaster of the
month occurred in China, where 1000
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