Year: 1876

SAN FRANCISCO EARTUQUKE AND IT'S Eff


FECTs AS DESCRIBED BY BRET HARTE.


Bret Harte, in Gabriel Conroy." in
.Scrtbners Monthly, gives US the following
idea OF San Francisco earthquake: The
middle of the broad street was filed with
crowd of breathless, pallid, death-stricken
men, who had lost all sense but the COM
mon instinct of animals There were hy-
sterical men, who laughed loudly without
cause, and talked necessarily of what they
knew not. There We're dumb paralyzed
men, who stood helplessly and hopelessly
beneath cOrnices and chimneys that toppled
over and crushed them. There were auto
matte men, who, flying, carried with them
the work on which they were engaged
one whose hands were full of bills and pa
pers, another who held his ledger under his
arm. There were men whe had forgotten
the ordinary instincts of decency-some
half dressed, one who had flown from a
neighboring bathroom with only the towel
in his hand that afterward hid his naked
ness. There were men who rushed from
the fear of death into his presence &; two
were picked up, one who had jumped
through skylight, another who had blind
ly leaped from fourth story window. There
were brave men who trembled like child
rem; there was one whose life had been spent
In scenes Of daring and danger, who cow
cred paral yzed in the corner of the room
from which few inches of plastering had
fallen. There were hopeful men who be-
lleved that the danger was over, and, hav-
ing passed, would, by some mysterious law,
never recur there were others who shook
their heads and said that the next shock
would be fatal. There were crowds around
the dust that arose from fallen chimneys
and cornices, around runaway horses that
had dashed as madly as their drivers against
lampposts, around telegraph and newspaper
offices, eager to know the extent Of the dis
aster. Along the remoter avenues and
cross streets dwellings were deserted, peo-
pie sat upon their doorsteps or in chairs
upon the sidewalks, fearful of the houses
they had built with their own hands, and
doubtful even of this blue arch above them
that smiled so deceitfully; of those far
reaching fields beyond, which they had cut
into lots and bartered and sold and which
now seemed to suddenly raise against them,
or slip and wther away from their very
feet 1t seemed SO outrageous that this
dull, patient earth, whose homeliness they
had adorned and improved, and which,
whatever their other fortune or vicssitudes,
at least had been their sure inheritance,
should have become so faithless. Small
wonder that the owner of little house,
which had sunk on the reclaimed water
front, stopped in the speechless and solemn
absurdity of his wrath to shake his clenched
fist in the face of the Great Mother.


The real damage to life and property
had been so slight, and in such pronounced
contrast to the prevailing terror, that half
an hour later only a sense of the ludicrous
remained with the greater masses Of the
people. Mr.. Dumphy, like all practical,
unimaginativc men, was among the first to
recover his presence Of mind with the pass
ing of the immediate danger. People took
confidence when this great man, who had
so much to lose, after sharply remanding his
clerks and everybody else back to business,
re-entered his office.