Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 186, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 August 1910 — A QUAKE IN CHILE [ARTICLE]

A QUAKE IN CHILE

SERVES TO BHOW LIMITATIONS OF THE NATIVE SERVANT. Ludicrous Experience of an American Residing There During the Memorable Santiago Shock of 1 906. - “The South American servant is usually most considerate of your comfort, but he is not apt to use his brqin very much,” said John H. Gilmor, an American who has passed most of. his life below the equator. “During the earthquake in Santiago de Chile in 1906 my cook refused to go upstairs to help me save some clothes and valuables, but unthinkingly risked her life to get me a bottle of whisky. “I was at the .Union club early in the evening of-August 16, and some of us were shaking dice for drinks. When the first shock came I, not being used to earthquakes, ran out into the patio. My companions jeered me when I went back to the table. We got busy with the dice again, and pretty soon came the grand shock, that lasted three minutes and fortyseven seconds. There was no jeering this time, but everybody made for the front door., house was about five blocks from the club, btu all the lights were out, the streets were pitch dark, and it seemed an hour before I got there, though I was running as hard as I could. There was a light in the dining room, and everything was on the floor. I shouted for my wife, but she, the servants and the dog were gone. “While I was turning off the gas, Abtonia, our cook, who was an Araucanian Indian, came to the front door.

“ ‘Master, for God’s sake get out,’ she cried. “She told me that my wife had gone to the AlamedS, a wide street some distance away, and would wait for me there. “It was midwinter and bitterly cold. I ran into the house again and upstairs to get some wfaps, and begged Antonia to come with me to help find them and some valuables, but she would not. She ran to the kitchen and fetched a candle and then caught the things as I threw them into the patio. When I got downstairs she had made them all up into a bundle. "I put on a heavy overcoat, and we started for the Alameda. As I ran I felt something' bumping against my~ legs. I reached into my pocket and drew out a bottle of whisky. Antonia though she would not go upstairs, which was fairly safe, had ducked into the bodega or wine closet, the most dangerous sort of place in an earthquake, and dug out the whisky. “Everybody in the city who could get there was in the Alameda, and there was such a throng that I could not find my wife. We searched about the spot where Antonia had left her, but there was not a sign. “We walked about calling her name, but it was not until -2 o’clock in the morning that we found her. Then it was by our little fox terrior’s recognizing my voice, and coming and leaping toward me. T found my wife and the other servant sitting on the curb near by. We commandeered a vacant carriage, and my wife and I lived in it for two nights."