The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1906. EARTHQUAKE AND FLAME.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 95, 21 April 1906, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1906. EARTHQUAKE AND FLAME.

For the cause that UicUs assistance. For the tcrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

Every message that reaches the outer ■world from California secma to accumulate fresh horrors upon the last. The latest estimates of the loss of life at San Francisco range from 5,000 to 10,000, with a minor casualty list at least as great. But it is still quite impossible even to guess how many lives have been sacrificed in this terrible holocaust; indeed, it is not likely that the whole truth in this particular will ever be known. 1 Buried under the vast ruins of the city, all intelligible record of the dead will be I swept away by the devouring flames that followed in the path of the earthquake; and for the time at least we must be content to leave the dreadful mysteries of this sepulchre unsolved. At such a moment as this human speech seems too weak and futile to express adequately the pity and the sympathy that so tragic a fate must evoke in every heart. Even to those who have never seen Golden Gate, and have no personal interest in the city, this tragedy is too awful for words to describe. For those amongst us whose relations or friends were in San ; Francisco when destruction overtook it, it may be small consolation to know that they have the earnest sympathy of the whole community with them in the time of agonising suspense through which they are passing. It may be worth while repeating that the loss of life seems to have been confined chiefly to the lower residential. quarters, where the wooden tenement-houses or "flats" inhabited Jjy the poorer clasees would naturally suffer most from earthquake and fire. But after making every conceivable allowance for possible mitigations of the city's dreadful fate, the one great fact of its terrible destruction stands out before the eye of imagination, prodigious and appalling.

So fax as can be gathered from our cables, the present position of things could hardly be more. distressing. Three hundred thousand people are said to be homeless; and the lack of food and wateT and the danger of pestilence are difficulties that must at once be faced. The loss of property by fire is put down at £60,000,000 sterling; and no doubt by far the largest part of the damage was done not by the earthquake, But by the conflagration that followed it. San Francisco was originally a town of wood. Partly through fear of earthquakes,' but chiefly because California is a timber country, the city that grew Tip after the jgold discoveries in 1849-50 was practically built of redwood ana pine. Only the modern business centre of the town contains many structures in brick and stone; and even the palatial houses of the wealthy d*aee&.:we*e in jnrujy cases,

'timber buildings. On«e started, a fire; would spread through, such a town •with' fearful rapidity; and as the water supply has been cut off, or Tendered inacjcessable by the fallen ruins, the heroic : 'efforts of the brigades have failed to check the ravages of the flames. The latest reports state that three-quarters of the city have already heep. s-wept away, and that there is no means of saving even the sections which the fire has not yet reached. To all intents and purposes* w e may regard the city as bnrnei to the ground.

We do not yet know enough of the trne position of afiaixs even to conjecture what effect this awful catastrophe will have upon the future of San Francisco. There may be a wholesale exodus of the inhabitants from the ruined city; but it does not appear that human foresight can either predict or prevent such calamities. They must be accepted as among the inevitable contingencies of Hfe, and no doubt American, pluck and enterprise will ultimately restore San Francisco to the proud place which three days ago it held among the cities of the world. The destruction, of Chicago by fire 35 years ago affords a rough analogy with the fall of San Francisco; and its speedy resurrection from its ashes encourages the hope that K the Golden Gate of the Pacific" will not long remain shrouded in the darkness of this disastrous eclipse. In the "great fire" of Chicago only 200 lives were lost, though 98,000 people were rendered homeless, and £ 10,000,000 worth of property destroyed. The losses at San Francisco altogether overshadow the injury sustained by Chicago; but the fact that Chicago within 30 years has risen from the ashes in more than its original wealth and splendour at least justifies the belief that the run wrought at San Francisco is not final or irreparable. Of one thing at least we may be sure, that the wealthiest men and women ,of the wealthiest nation on earth will not stand idly by and hear the bitter cry from San Francisco unheeded. For outsiders to offer material help, it seems to us, would be an insult to the generosity and patriotism of all true Americans; and we believe that our friends in the United States would receive a message of sympathy from us far more gladly than any monetary contribution which the immense wealth of America can so easily ■ supply.