The Project Gutenberg EBook of The San Francisco Calamity, by Various

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Title: The San Francisco Calamity

Author: Various

Editor: Charles Morris

Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1560]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALAMITY BY EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE

A Complete and Accurate Account of the Fearful Disaster which
Visited the Great City and the Pacific Coast, the Reign of Panic and
Lawlessness, the Plight of 300,000 Homeless People and the World-wide
Rush to the Rescue.

TOLD BY EYE WITNESSES

INCLUDING GRAPHIC AND RELIABLE ACCOUNTS OF ALL GREAT EARTHQUAKES AND
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE WORLD'S HISTORY, AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS
OF THEIR CAUSES.

EDITED BY CHARLES MORRIS, LL. D.

PREFACE

Earthquake and famine, fire and sudden death--these are the destroyers
that men fear when they come singly; but upon the unhappy people of
California they came together, a hideous quartette, to slay human
beings, to blot from existence the wealth that represented prolonged and
strenuous effort, to bring hunger and speechless misery to three hundred
thousand homeless and terror-stricken people.

The full measure of the catastrophe can probably never be taken. The
summary cannot be made amid the panic, the confusion, the removal of
ancient landmarks, the complete subversion of the ordinary machinery
of society. When chaos comes, as it did in San Francisco, and all the
channels of familiar life are closed, and human anguish grows to be
intolerable, compilation of statistics is impossible, even if it were
not repugnant to the feelings. And when order is once more restored,
after the lapse of many weeks, months and perhaps years, the details of
the calamity have merged into one undecipherable mass of misery which
defies the analyst and the historian. It is the purpose of this book
faithfully to record the story of these awful days when years were lived
in a moment and to preserve an accurate chronicle of them, not only
for the people whose hearts yearn in sympathy to-day, but for their
posterity.

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