and a limited amount of hot coffee, was served to all
those who applied. About 1,500 tons of provisions were being moved
daily from the water front.

The food supply committee had fifty-two food depots in operation.
Plain food of every description was plentiful.

The troops who dispensed the food played no favorites. Sometimes it
took two or three hours to get through the lines, and with three meals
a day a man living in the parks passed a good part of his time
standing for his food.

The Red Cross saw that weak women and children were provided for
without waiting in line. Even the people living in houses had to take
their chances with the rest of the crowd in the parks near by.

Fully 30,000 refugees were fed by the government at the Presidio and
North beach. Provisions were bountifully supplied to all who made
application, and there was no suffering from hunger. Over 10,000 tents
were given and the authorities distributed them as long as the supply
lasted.

Barracks were erected in Golden Gate Park to accommodate 15,000
persons. The buildings contained thirty rooms, in two room apartments,
with kitchen arranged so as to suit a family or be divided for the use
of single men.

By great luck a lot of lumber yards along the water front escaped.
Their stock was appropriated and used for barracks. Two or three
lumber schooners arriving from the northern forest country were seized
and the stocks used for the same purpose.

Further, the Red Cross, with the approval of Funston, went through
the standing residence district and made every householder give over
his spare room to refugees. Here, generosity was its own reward. Those
residents of the western addition who took in burned out friends or
chance acquaintances on the first day had a chance to pick their
company. Those who were selfish about it had to take whomsoever the
Red Cross sent, even Chinese and new arrivals from Hungary.

The Red Cross people enjoyed the grim joke of this. They trotted ten
refugees up to the door of a Pacific Heights residence. The woman of
the house came to the door. The sergeant in charge made brief
explanation.

"Heavens," she said, looking them over. "You have brought me two of my
discharged cooks."

"See that the guests are quartered in the parlor," said the sergeant
briefly to his high private.

What with tents, barracks, the exodus to other parts of California,
the plan of concentration in the standing houses of the western