The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1909-04-03
NAPLES. ITALY. March asth. 1909.

sible to drive away the tragic visions evoked by
the pictures and dispatches which appear every
morning in the journals, and which are made so
terribly real by the constant arrival of wounded
victims and refugees. All this was of course to
be expected in an italian seaport only few
hours distant from the scene of the disaster, but
the feature of the situation, which has filled me
with surprise, is the rapidity with which prepare
tons are going forward for the reconstruction
| of the ruined cities.
To counterbalance every column of reading
matter consecrated to the disaster proper the
newspapers are printing two devoted to the
plans for restoration, and on the streets leading
to and from the harbor. the ambulances and
stretchers, moving in their sad procession to-
ward the hospitals, are passed by wagon loads of
building material destined for the earthquake
DISTRICTS not planking for temporary shelters
chat work has been inished) but brick. cement
and heavy timber.
Before the cataclysm Sicily, with her emerald
hills and glistening. snow-white cities, was a
veritsble queen Of islands. Today the queen is
dead, her beauty is In ashes, and already the
people cry, "Long live the queen?"
New foundations are actually being laid while
the earth still trembes, and thus history again
repeats ITSELF for this same succession of events
has been going on in Italy from time immemo-
rial. Ever since the island of Sicily has been
known to man it has trembled beneath his feet,
and With it has trembled the whole Calabrian
coast. One might imagine that this southern
extremity of Europe. this peninsula, so often
likened to boot, is in reality gigantic foot.
resting on tip-toe, unstable in its equilibrium,
poised as If preparing to begin other journeys.
Time after time cities in this volcanic zone have
been devastated by seismic shocks, and as often
have been promptly rebuilt upon their old foun-
dations. To cite one of the best known instances
Pompeii, at the moment she was buried by the
lava and cinders of Vesuvius. had just recovered
! from the ravages of a preceding earthquake,
had barely finished the rebuilding of her palaces
and temples. From Naples to Palermo, every
where along the coast, are scattered vestiges of
former catastrophes, some of them we'll known
| to history, some of them long forgotten. This
is particularly true in Sicily where the very
railway lines are laid on lava road beds, where
the orange trees scatter their fragrant blossoms
upon boulders that were once molten FIRE, and
Irvine their roots among crevices that once
opened straight into the sulphurous bowels of
the earth. The traveller who ascends Aetna or
Vesuvius is confronted at every pace by crater
mouths, perhaps extinct, perhaps only dormant,
by assures cold and silent today, but hot and
rumbling yesterday, by frightful excavations
marking the pathways of former lava streams.
Everywhere the same spectacle-ruin Every
where the same warning-death In the actual
| presence of these terrors the foolhardy daring
| of the little human beings who persist in build
| ing their ant-like habitations upon the slopes,
| becomes incomprehensible. The enormous
| mountains dominate the landscape, powerful
| and ominous. Down below, toward the plain,
man rears his palaces and cities, raises his monu
ments of brass and marble, and justly marvels at
his own prodigious genius, but how tiny his
| work all seems how like Liliputian kingdom.
compared with these great stone monsters,
whose heads are lost among the clouds How
helpless, when these sleeping giants awake |!
But if nature here is TERRIBLE she, at least is not
| treacherous. She does not pretend to be in ccm-
plete repose does not appear, as in other chimes,
mans humble and obedient servant. Beneath
these mountains, the devil who dwels in all in
animate things is forever crouching, but never
hiding. He shows his cloven hoof. The people
of Messina and Reggie were warned, constantly
warned, as were the Pompeians of old. Up
there above the snowy summit of Aetna thin
| column of smoke rose ceaselessly night and day.
| Further north, above Stromboli, more smoke,
| and these two gray whsps floating in the serene
azure of the Mediterranean sky advertised the
Sicilians that just below the earth's thin crust
| were lurking forces before which, when once
| aroused, all human resources would count for
| naught. The menace was visible. 1t is still
| visible. True, the blow has again fallen, but
| the survivors have received no divine assurance
| of even temporary safety. and have no means of
knowing whether the next shock will occur in
year or in century-yet they are already be-
| ginning to rebuild their fallen dwellings. The
terror has just passed over their heads. ut
-.
fully to work.
In the face of these constant menaces for the
future, and these multiplied relics of former
disasters, 1 can scarce believe my own ears when
hear survivors of this latest and worst catas-
trophe talking about new Messina. 1 am told
that for two or three days Immediately after the
shock, while the Inhabitants who had not been
buried beneath the ruins were huddled together
on the water front, half naked and half crazed
with fear, they declared:
"Messina is no morel Never will we return
to these accursed shores"
But now, since they have been clothed and fed
and rendered comfortable, they begin straight
way to long for Sicily.
am commencing to wonder whether the pc
culiar religious beliefs, or, more properly speak
ing, the supersttions of the Calabrians and Scil-
ians do not partially explain their presumptu-
GUS confidence. These people have never come
to realize that the terrible forces, which from
time to time overwhelm them, are blind mani
mate phenomena of nature which prayers and
incense are powerless to affect. Forces guided
by reason can be reasoned with. Calamities
specifically willed by rational divinity can be
averted by supplications and burnt offerings
In this category the Scilans have always placed
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions In ancient
fnnao uod 70 TNx,o k<lo
pray to Jehovah, but the underlying principle
is still the same. Indeed it is not surprising
that feeble humanity is filled with holy super
stitious terror in the presence of such forces,
and attributes them to supernatural origin. In
classic ages it was believed that the Titans, van
pushed by Jupiter, were buried beneath the
volcanoes of the island When the Titans breath
ed, smoke and flames issued from the crevices
among the rocks, and when they struggled to
throw of the immense weights which had been
piled upon them the earth trembled. The SIM
pie. primitive inhabitants of the region builded
temples to the Olympian conqueror and some
times consecrated offerings of sheep or goats to
the fallen giants. hoping thereby to render the
former propitious and to moderate the fury of
the latter, then prayed to them and fearfully
adored them, as If supplications could soften the
brutal power of the elements or change the in
neXlDle laws OF nature, or placate forces which
leave humanity only two alternatives-fligh or
destruction. Such was the attitude of the an
cient Siclians, and is the attitude of their de-
scendants today. The popular imagination has
not ceased to attribute these natural phenomena
to Divine will. The revelations of science
have here left untouched the mentality of the
masses. The modern Sicilian is just as supersti-
tious as the antique; he has changed the names
of his gods, and VOLTA tout For him it is still the
sky that causes the earth to tremble, still the
sky that brushes man or permits him to go his
way unframed. Images of the Madonna and
the saints have replaced the ancient statues,
and in time of danger are adored or paraded
through the streets by the childish frightened
people, who rush to shrines with candles and
offerings as did their classic forebears They
have always believed and always will believe
that pious devotion is a sort of lightning-ro
capable of protecting them against thunder
bolts from high, and it is surely possible that
this blind faith, by no means confined to the
lower classes. explains at this moment the readi-
ness of the Italian people to undertake so cheer
fully the reconstruction of Messina. But
whether such an explanation be true or merely
fanciful, the fact remains that new CITY is des-