save San Francisco. They obeyed orders, and Captain
MacBride and his two gunners made history on that dreadful night.

CHAPTER XVII.

MISCELLANEOUS FACTS AND INCIDENTS.

=Many Babies Born in Refuge Camps--Expressions of
Sympathy from Foreign Nations--San Francisco's Famous
Restaurants--Plight of Newspaper and Telegraph Offices.=

In the refugee camps a number of babies were born under the most
distressing and pathetic circumstances, the mothers in many cases
being unattended by either husbands or relatives. In Golden Gate Park
alone fifteen babies were born in one night, it was reported. The
excitement and agony of the situation brought the little ones
prematurely into the world. And equally remarkable was the fact that
when all danger was over all of the mothers and the children of the
catastrophe were reported to have withstood the untoward conditions
and continued to improve and grow strong as if the conditions which
surrounded them had been normal. This, undoubtedly, was in great part
due to the care and kindness of the physicians and surgeons in the
camps whose efforts were untiring and self-sacrificing for all who had
been so suddenly surrendered to their care.

In an express wagon bumping over the brick piles and broken streets
was a mother who gave birth to triplets in the Panhandle of Golden
Gate Park a week later. All the triplets were living and apparently
doing well. In this narrow park strip where the triplets were born
fifteen other babies came into the world on the same fateful night,
and, strange as it seems, every one of the mothers and every one of
the infants had been reported as doing well.

The following night thirteen more babies were born in the park
Panhandle, and these, so far as the reports show, fared as well as
those born the first night. In fact, the doctors and nurses reported
that there had been no fatality among the earthquake babies or their
unfortunate mothers. One trained nurse who accompanied a prominent
doctor on his rounds the first night after the shock attended eight
cases in which both mothers and children thrived. One baby was born in
a wheelbarrow as the mother was being trundled to the park by her
husband.

* * * * *

Expressions of sympathy and condolence on account of the great
disaster were sent to the President of the United States from all over
the world. Among the messages received within about 24 hours after t