Wallowa County chieftain. [volume] (Enterprise, Or.) 1909-1911, 1910-02-03
Destruction Of Paris Goes on
Despite all Efforts.
WHOLE CITY is UNDERMINED
Tributaries of River Above Paris Are
Now Stationary and Worst Is
Thought to Be Past.

Paris, Jan. 29.-After a slow but
steady rise of the food waters all day,
the Fluvial department at midnight
could only issue a statement saving
that it was possible the crest of the
flood would be reached tomorrow.
The water has begun to fall in all of
the tributaries of the Seine a aboye
Paris, but the passage through the
city is clogged by bridges and an i'm
mense accumulation of drift continued
tonight. Sailors, firemen and police
are hastily constructing temporary
walls by the light of campfres and
torches in an endeavor to keep out the
invading floods, while pickets patrol
those sections of the city that are
plunged in darkness.
The situation in the Place de POpera
tonight is serious. The entire terri
tory has been roped off as unsafe. It
is said also that the new Equitable
Life Assurance building is in danger
of collapse.
President Fallieres and Premier
BRAND today drove in automobiles to
the flooded suburbs, where distress is
greatest, speaking words of comfort to
the homeless and encouraging soldiers
and others engaged in salvage and res
cue work.
Charitable organizations are CO -oper-
ating with the authorities in throwing
open their buildings and in succoring
refugees. Several converts and a
number of public buildings have been
equipped with military cots and bed
ding and transformed into hospitals.
The Red Cross is performing splendid
services in distributing food and cloth
ing. Nevertheless, numerous instan-
ces are cited Of women and children
who had refused to leave their homes
in the submerged districts, shrieking
from their windows for bread.
The number Of refugees arriving
here is enormous, Charenton alone
sending in 38. 200, who had got there
from Calais and other afflicted points.
The family of M. Barthou, ex-min-
lister of public works. whose home in
the Avenue d'Antun is surrounded,
was taken out on the backs of soldiers
and in boats.
A large number of schools are closed
and the municipality is considering the
advisability Of closing all. Practically
all of the flooded suburban towns about
Paris tonight are without light and
several are without water. Their in
habitants are leaving.
The chamber of deputies held a sit
ting today in the water-beleaguered
Palais Bourbon, believing that an ad-
journment or transfer of their activ-
tiles to Versailles, which had been
suggested, would only serve to in
crease the popular panic. Parliament
today voted bill extending business
notes one month.
Communication with England, Hol-
land, Denmark, and Austria and many
cities and towns in France is complete
ly cut off. The telephone has been
practically abandoned in Paris. New
districts are being flooded constantly
and the people. are vacating blocks of
buildings.
Several hospitals where sick refu-
gees were taken are in q dreadful
plight, the water having quenched fires
in the furnaces.
-Four hundred patients were hurried
ly removed in ambulances from the
Hospital de la Salpetriere and the Hos
pital Boucicault. Their rescue was
dramatic and timely. The hospital
was isolated and new rush of water
threatened to level it. The tireless
prefect of police, M. Lepine, sum-
moned ambulances and boats and addi-
tional police and soldiers.