The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-17
MESS|NA BEC|NN|NC ONLY NOW ID BUILD Effect of Earthquake Seven
 Years Ago Still Is Seen
 LIVING IN BARRACKS
LIVING IN BARRACKS
Few of the Houses Destroyed by the Disaster of 1908 Have Been Re- built-People Cling to Tenn
 pOrary Structures

Messna. Italy, October 2-tcorre-
 spondence of the Associated Press.)
 The twin cities of Messina and Reg
 gio di Calabria which were wrecked
 by earthquake in 190S are, after seven years of hesitation, just now beginning
 to rebuild themselves along permanent
 lines. Notwithstanding all the time that has elapsed since the disaster the havoc still to be seen here is even greater than that in war torn Ypres or sutted Louvain With few exceptions every single house will have to be
 rebuilt from the very foundations A very few have been built already the station, two hotels, the building
 in which is lodged the royal earth
 quake relief commission. bank or
 two, temporary hospital and the local building of a world wide Amer lcan concern. But the great mass of
 the people still live in the wooden bar racks furnished them by the Americans
 Who sprang to the rescue of the stricken cities-though already almost all have forgotten that these buildings came from America
 Complain of Houses
 The barracks were splendid for their temporary purpose-easily transported
 quickly put up, comfortable, sufficient shelter and clean. But they were nor
 Intended for permanent habitations
 and having been used as such, there is reason for the querulous complaints
 or them so common among the natives The corrugated iron roofs catch all
 the heat possible and the wooden walls guard 1t and add to it. instead of spreading a coolness of their own as do stone walls. Vermin lodge readily 10 n nfu nf tbo hf., ,rl, impossible to clean the wooden dwell linss by simply sloshing a bucket of water over the interior which is the customary Italian way of cleaning their stone houses.
 Worst of all, the crowding necessi- tated just after the earthquake by the limited number of accommodations available has not been improved in seven years. Indeed, in many houses seven years have added several more human beings to the lodging 1t is probably the general spread of this condition that has finally forced the inhabitants of Reggie and Messina to set about constructing themselves per- manent houses.
 With this enforced decision. a re-
 markable advance in wages in the building trades has appeared. The fact that work has been seriously begun coincident with the war has only ag- sravated the situation-there are few
 men available to do the work, Just when there is more work to do. It is an advance taste of what conditions will be all over Europe when the war
 is over and all the hundreds of cities of northern France, Belgium, Poland Galicia, Servia and Turkey have to be
 built again after the ravages of war Builders Grow Rich
 n Cicilu xx,b< brick straight or put few stones to- sether With the aid of cement has a Job 10 hours a day. The average wage in the building trades, which before the earthquake was no more than $l 25 to s1.50 day. now ranges from S1.75 to S3, or even higher. Even unskilled labor, of which there has always been | an excess in Sicily at 30 cents to a cents per day, now commands s1 to $1.25 merely to tear down the walls. In spite of paying these higher wages the building contractors are | making what, for Sicily, are fortunes The contract to build seven-room house runs to S0,000 lires--roughly $6000-and the stone is the volcanic the cement with which it is put to- | sether is delivered by boat within easy hauling distance of the work at min- | mum freight charge
 | Among the few things left by the 1 earthquake in Messina. among bits of carved stone walls of churches and graceful arches flung off into space, | is a tablet on the face of a building be- | low a picture of the Virgin before which candle still burns The In | scription reads: "Messina remembe with grief the terrible earthquake of December, 1Sg4'=and the guarding | Virgin looks out upon the whole hill side, covered still with meaningle ess wreckage, the shapeless debris of hum dreds of what were once homes, de- stroyed. annihilated. left without form | of identity-the result of the earth | quake l 1 years later than that of the inscription.
 | And again Messina rebuilds.