d with the greatest fury, it was found
that fully forty per cent. had not performed their duty. When opened
they were found to contain nothing but heaps of ashes. The valuable
account books, papers and in some cases large sums of money had
vanished, the loss of the accounts being a severe calamity in a business
sense. As all the banks were equipped with the best fire-proof vaults,
no fear was felt for the safety of their contents.

LOOTERS IN CHINATOWN.

Chinatown suffered severely, the merchants of that locality possessing
large stocks of valuable goods, many of which were looted by seemingly
respectable sightseers after the ruins had cooled off, bronze, porcelain
and other valuable goods being taken from the ruins. One example
consisted in a mass of gold and silver valued at $2,500, which had been
melted by the fire in the store of Tai Sing, a Chinese merchant. This
was found by the police on May 3d in a place where it had been hidden by
looters.

But with all its losses San Francisco does not despair. The spirit of
its citizens is heroic, and there are some hopeful signs in the air. The
insurances due are estimated to approximate $175,000,000, and there
are other moneys likely to be spent on building during the coming year,
making a total of over $200,000,000. Eastern capitalists also talk of
investing $100,000,000 of new capital in the rebuilding of the
city, while the San Francisco authorities have a project of issuing
$200,000,000 of municipal bonds, the payment to be guaranteed by the
United States Government. Thus, two weeks after the earthquake, daylight
was already showing strongly ahead and hope was fast beginning to
replace despair.

CHAPTER VIII.

Wonderful Record of Thrilling Escapes.

Shuddering under the memories of what seems more like a nightmare than
actual reality to the survivors of this frightful calamity, they have
tried to picture in words far from adequate the days of terror and the
nights of horror that fell to the lot of the people of the Golden Gate
city and their guests.

They recount the roar of falling structures and the groans and pitiful
cries of those pinned beneath the timbers of collapsing buildings. They
speak of their climbing over dead bodies heaped in the streets, and of
following tortuous ways to find the only avenue of escape--the ferry,
where men and women fought like infuriated animals, bent on escape from
a fiery furnace.

These refugees tell of the great