Year: 1872

Tne Terrible visitation 1T Boston-An


Era OF Grcat Calamities.


In the fearful and destructive confagraion
that has been raging in the city of Boston for
the past thirty-six hours rejecting people will
recognize one of those overwhelming calami-
ties which seem to be from time to time visited
upon the world in order to humble our pride
of power and to set visibly before our eyes the
weakness and dependence Of mankind. Since
Q little after seven o'clock on last Saturday
evening up to this morning an agent not OF
mortal creation and beyond mortal control
has been at work in the heart Of our sister
city, destroying in few hours property and
wealth which have taken more than half
q century of toll and care to accumulate,
crumbling into dust massive buildings that
seemed to bid defiance to the ravages OF
time, burning to ashes and scattering to the
winds with fearful rapidity enormous stores
of goods, which have cost years of patient
skill to perfect and months of steady labor to
manufacture. As announced in yesterday s
HERALD, when the alarm Of fire was first
sounded in Boston on Saturday evening the
flames were discovered in the back part of
large granite building on the corner of Sum-
mer and Kingston streets Doubtless the fire.
men and the lookers-on, when first called to
the scene regarded the fire as one of ordinary
character that would easily be made to yield to
the skill and prowess of the brigade; but the
resistless element went rushing and roaring
through the spacious building, bursting
through floor after floor, until it reached the
high Mansard roof, from which it shot out
with terrific violence, casting its rain of sparks
over the lower buildings all around it. Mean
while the flames darted their angry tongues
through the windows in tho front and rear of
the several stories, driving the iremen from
their posts and stretching out across the streets
to lick up new victims on the opposite sides.
AS if purposely to aid the flames, the wind
rose steadily as they spread until it had in
creased to a gale, and then the destroyer
rushed onward over every obstacle, defying
oil the efforts Of man to check its fearful
progress and spreading horror and consterna-
tion all over the city The details Of the terri
bic night and day, the account Of the de-
struction, the scenes enacted while the fire
ragged, the district burned over, the names
Of the sufferers and other news Of interest con-
nected with the conAagration up to the latest
hour will be learned from our graphic reports
and the map that accompanies them. They
do not need recapitulation here. The extent
of the calamity is told in a few words. Over
two hundred acres Of ground in the centre of
that part of the city devoted to wholesale bust
ness and on Saturday covered with thousands
of buildings as handsome as could be found in
any other city of the Union is to-day mass of
smouldering ruins. Two hundred and fifty
million dollars worth Of property has been
wiped out Of existence in one day and night.
How puny seem all the efforts Of man and how
unreliable his calculations in the face Of such
lesson as these few words convey!


It is only little over year ago since the
world was startled by the news Of the terrible
fire that devastated Chicago and spread suffer-
ing and destitution among SO many thousands
Of her citizens. When we reflect upon these
two destructive confagrations and upon the
many wholesale slaughters by land and sea
that stand as grim sentinels along the line be-
tween them, we may well believe that we live
in an era Of heavy visitatons. 1t may be that
the extent and violence of such disasters 90
hand in hand with the rapid progress of
the age that as we crowd more closely
in cities we grow more reckless Of
our lives and property; that as we rush madly
over the world in search Of fortune and pleas
ure we spare no time to give heed to those
precautions our more thoughtful ancestors
never failed to adopt. It may be that steam
and electricity have taken captive our reason
and our prudence and hurried them of out Of
the world. At all events, such fearful lessons
as these wholesale burnings, coupled with the
horrors Of the Bienville, the Missouri, the coal
mine explosions and similar scenes of car
mage, should teach us that we.are too care
less Of our fate and of the fate of others,