Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1886 — SOUTHERN. [ARTICLE]

SOUTHERN.

It is known that thirty-seven persons lost their lives by the earthquake at Charleston, and as many more are reported seriously injured. The Acting Secretary of War has ordered tents sent by a revenue cutter to the distressed city. A subscription list in Baltimore was beaded with $500 by the American. The New York Petroleum Exchange contributed an equal amount in a few minutes. The Western Union Telegraph Company offers to forward contributions of money free of charge. The earthquake at Summerville, S. C., caused fissures in the earth, from which a fluid of sulphurous smell exudes. Not a half dozen houses in the place are habitable, and the terror-stricken people are leaving for other points. At a joint meeting of the Charleston Exchange and Merchants’ Exchange, the following was unanimously adopted: To all Exchanges and Commercial Bodies : Our warehouses, cotton-presses, wharves, railroads, rice-mills, and everything else necessary for handling business, though damaged, are in working order. We fear no further disturbance. The destruction of property will cause great distress and suffering, but will not. interfere with the dispatch of business. A joint meeting also adopted resolutions to apply to the President and Congress for a national loan to aid the citizens of Charleston in rebuilding the city. The City Council at a meeting adopted the following: Resolved, That in response to the numerous offers of assistance and sympathy from our sister cities and from citizens of this and other States, the Mayor is authorized to state that great distress exists among our citizens in consequence of the earthquake and that we gratefully accept the aid thus tendered us. The several Catholic churches have been seriously injured. The Catholic schools have all sustained such damages as will not permit of studies being resumed. The injury to the county jail is well nigh irreparable. Thirtysix prisoners escaped, six of whom have returned. “The most urgent need now,” says a Charleston dispatch, “is for the early repair of the injured buildings, so as to make them habitable. High winds and heavy rain would bring many shattered buildings to the ground and injure the hundreds of residences which have. defective roofs. The situation is still deplorable. Rudely improvised tents, con--structed principally of bed-clothing, are to to be seen everywhere. Few persons have as yet slept indoors, and the houses are deserted as if plague-stricken. Thousands have slept with nothing but the canopy of heaven over them. After the parks and public squares were filled last night the inhabitants suspended overcoats, bed-quilts, etc., from fences, over the sidewalks, and thus passed the night Many enjoyed repose under open umbrellas, the handles of which were stuck in the ground. The more aristocratic people camped in their own yards. ” The Queen of England sent a dispatch to President Cleveland expressing sympathy with the sufferers by the earthquake.

At 11 o’clock on the evening of Friday, the 3d inst, another terrific earthquake shock swept under the city of Charleston, coming with a heavy, booming sound from the southeast. The wildest panic ensued among the people, everybody rushing pell-mell into the streets. The colored people were well nigh beside themselves with alarm and terror. Buildings rocked and swayed, and several partially wrecked houses tottered and fell. Only one fatality occurred, a woman being killed by a falling wall The shocks were felt all along the Southern Atlantic coast from Florida to Maryland. Earthquake shocks were also felt on the Pacific coast Gen. B. F. Cheatham, Postmaster at Nashville, Tenn., expired suddenly while sitting in his chair. He was a noted General in the late war, and one of the most popular men in his State. The City Assessor of Charleston, S. C„ after making a detour of the city, stated that the loss by the earthquake will aggregate not less than $10,000,000. A telegram from the ill-fated city by the sea says: It becomes plainer with every day’s developments that the blow is one from which the city will not recover in many a year. Although but few buildings were absolutely leveled to the ground, it is not extravagant to say that fully two-thirds of all there are here will have to be either tom down and entirely rebuilt or so nearly so that the difference in cost will be but trifling. The very heart of the city seems to be utterly shattered and wrecked. It looks as though it had been literally riddled and honeycombed. Lofty church-spires hanging in air by mere shreds of masonry; great, massive porticos with tottering pillars, broken and all askew and trembling beneath their burdens at every jar; whole blocks with the fronts shoved cleanly down and lying sprawling in unsightly heaps of bricks and mortar in the streets below, with the furnished rooms which so recently were shelter and home, now all bare to the light of day ; bent and broken palings and awning rods, lamp posts twisted into all conceivable shapes and standing at all possible angles —that is all that is left of what a week ago was one of the most picturesque and beautiful of Southern cities. Charleston had another earthquake shock on the evening of the 4th inst, though less severe than that of the preceding night Its direction was southeast to northwest, and it was accompanied by a wave of wind which teemed to recede after the shock had passed. Of course it intensified the feeling of terror among the people. “The day had passed in comparative quiet,” says a Charleston dispatch, “and people who had homes to go to had in great part returned to them, while others had determined to do likewise, when the fearful subterranean thunder and the dread shaking of the earth which within the last four days has so often startled the inhabitants again raised their fears and drove them back dejected to their open places of refuge. Upon the negroes the effect of this shock was simply appalling. Their shrieks and yells, their lamentations and wailings, the shrill voices of the women, mingling with the peculiar guttural notes of the men, constituted a chorus infernally hideous. It sounded as if all the maniacs of an insane asylum had been let loose. Gradually the paroxysms became less violent, and then were heard the wailing monotones in which the Southern negro chants hymns and supplications. Thus the night wore on, and blessed indeed was the dawn, which brought new hopes to faint hearts. Showers of pebbles fell in the lower part of the city. They appeared to fall in a slanting direction from south to north. There were morsels of flint among them, and all were plainly abraded and worn by the action of the water. Some few had sharp fractures, and had evidently been recently broken.” The city experienced still another shock on the night of Sunday, the sth. It was not very severe, lasting but two seconds, yet it rais ed the wildest alarm in the citizens. They were hoping the worst was over, and the visitation dashed their hopes. At Macon and Savannah the shocks were quite severe, and caused much alarm. At Savannah, as in Charleston, hundreds of people spend the nights in the open air, being afraid to go to sleep in their houses. Material aid for the stricken Charlestonians is going forward liberally. Mayor O’Brien, of Boston, telegraphed to “draw on us for $5,000.” W. W. Corcoran, the Washington banker, sent his individual check for $5,000. Subscriptions were invited, and liberally responded to at New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, and other cities. “The great dread now,” says a Charleston dispatch, “is the approach of the autumnal equinoctial gale, which is usually disastrous in Charleston. It is estimated that every house in the city has had its foundation shaken by the earthquake. Walls have been rent, chimneys and steeples are off their square, and there is nothing plumb about the city. If. an equinoctial gale of the usual severity should strike the city before considerable repairs can be made nearly every house in the city would be blown down.” Great alarm in regard to earthquakes is nightly manifested by the convicts in the State Prison at Columbia, South Carolina. Some of the leaders in the movement had to be ironed and flogged. It was discovered Sunday that the tower of the First Methodist Church at Wilkesbarre. Pa., had settled. This is attributed to the earthquake shocks. The building was closed to the congregation. The church was recently built and cost $80,000.