Garfield County Democrat. (Enid, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 5, 1902 Page: 6 of 8
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ST. PIERRE'S DAY OF
To the Last, the Light-Hearted Population Refused to Believe There
Was Danger, Though the Warning Was Ample.
Tho Bpocial correspondent of the
New York Herald, writing from St.
Pierre, Martinique, says:
It is not so very long ago that I vis-
ited this poor St. Pierre—this now
city of the dead. It had, I am told,
undergone but few changes until the
coming of that frightful day which
changed it bo utterly.
Where all is now aching desolation
a chaos of ruined walls, blackened
fall, tell of bow short lived the fright
was and how quickly the mercurial
population regained its buoyant spir-
its. Some there wore who looked
grave when ashes, white and fine as
powdered magnesia, began to sift
from the great cloud which hung over
Pelee'a crest, but It seems that none
thought to connect these myriads of
floating particles with the deep, muf-
fled rumble which had just been
when on the next morning—Sunday,
that was—another growling note was
heard from Pelee and a small river of
hot, black mud, touched here and
there with red, was seen to come snak-
ing down out of the mists screening
Pelee's summit, to cascade over a
hundred-foot precipice and then to
follow the line of least resistance un-
til it swirled about the Guerin factory,
I setting that building ablaze and des-
stumps of trees and sickening stench. : heard; none to trace the one to the Irovlnt mBnv ," ,hn n,J
there basked l„ summer sunshine a other-the effect to the cause. Their 1 Z '1 "l 0,011 """"' T
little cty splashed through with vivid 1 mind, were not grooved to such . h.ave
ZONES OF DESTRUCTIVENESS AT ST. PIERRE
AS REPORTED BY UNITED STATES GEOLOGIST.
gmnm
color—red tiled roofs cutting sharp
lines on walls of creamy white, yellow
and orange and bird's-eye blue, min-
gled with the green of tropic verdure.
Built on a long undulation, which slop-
ed to the sea, where It clustered in a
riot of color near the shore, Its sub-
urban spots could bo picked out here
and there along the flanking spurs
and foothills which roll from Pelee's
base, that great volcanic bulk whose
crest Is ever shrouded in a veil of
clouds.
Over the doomed city the morning
ot May 1 broke in miracle splendor,
skies bright and blue, and foliage
washed to a tresher green by a hard,
Tain which had swept over the Island
the preced.ng night. But it was the
last fair day that St. l'ierre was to
know.
The market place, the first section
of the city to show life when a West
Professor Robert T. Hill.
lapsed into a panic, which doubtless
would have saved through flight the
lives of the thousands that were soon
to bo sacrluced.
It was at this crisis that the hand
of the government appeared. To Fort
de France, the seat of local authority,
had come reports of the uneasy feel-
ing of those dwelling In St. Pierre,
Martinique's commercial theater. It
is thought that Gov. Mouttet honestly
believed there was no cause for alarm
and that a panic in St. Pierre would
work disaster in many ways, interrupt-
ing commerce and injuring the whole
island as well as the threatened city.
I He, if none other, realized that an
j exodus from the place would be a
tacit acknowledgment of the danger
[ that lurked in the volcano, which all
] in Martinique would have the world
believe was long ago extinct and never
to be restored to the list of still active
nor yet clashed with those that are
dormant.
So It came about that the governor
saw fit to exercise moral restraint,
it not being within Ills province or
within that ot any other man to use
physical force in a matter of this
I kind.
analysis; they were too simple, too ln st P'erre there were some gov-
West Indian for that. Sufficient that < rnment employes, among these grayr
the nimble had gone. ! Iiear<|s who had spent years in vol-
St. Pierre was gay that night of May canic regions, and wno knew somc-
1. The municipal band played music j °I" the preliminary warnings
in the plaza, as was its wont Thurs ; wllicb c°me from tnese excitable
day evening. This band night was j ,liIls' when tlle lava streams came
the one when youth3 and maiden:; j )l0,lrinB down from Pelee these at once
might mingle in public, and the young | macle hurried applications for leaves
gallants and mademoiselles, prome- j "f al>sence. The government sought
nading around the square under t..e Ina^e an example of the youngest,
watchful eyes of fathers and mothers ! an<1 ln a communication to him denied
and duennas, talked lightly of Pelee j "le aPPHcation for furlough, and said
and that whitening fall. j moreover that if the applicant quitted
Up near Morne Rouge, abode of St llis post at the time his position
Pierre's well-to-do, there was a I wou'd be taken from him. This man
lawn party that evening, which car unfortunately, names arc hard to
rled its gayety far into the night— obtain now from Martinique's hysteri-
zitzas tinkling in the tropic air, and j ral population—promptly decided that
mantilla-draped girls dancing in the j his li(e was worth more than his place
moonlight to the click of castanets. ' all(l- Pac'ki"R up his belongings, went
Friday, day of the evil omen, dawn- with his family to some point inland,
ed over St. Pierre. It was made ■'ust where no one seems to know,
sombre by a thunderstorm, which 11 seems tcat the others were not
brooded over the mountains and from so 1,arfy' or werR morc so, according
whoso dark clouds came Intermittent to une s wav of looliinS at it. At ail
flashes of lightning. The nervous event8' whPn the government's die-
started at every thunderclap and anx- ,um was linown a" the government
iously asked one another if that was emPloves uecidod to remain, and as
not Mont Pelee, while others sought lpar loves comPa y no less than mis-
to trace the ollnding flashes to their ery (loes' these affecte<' to make lig.it
source, to see if they were really the the tlanger so as to better induce
mere play of lightning or volcanic otllers to remain.
blazes from the time-worn crater, Monday, May 5—Less than eighty
which many believed, and all hoped, hours, and the 30,000 live3 of St. j
was long ago extinct. Then a heavy plene are to be blotted out as quickly
mist settled over the city and its sur- as one smlffs a candle. Fear is rife
roundlngs, and under its depressing amonR the P°Puiace the morning of
Influence the day wore Itself to a (il's 'ay am' an "nwonted silence per
close. vades the city—the hush that precedes
Saturday, May 3! Just five days 11 great ,rage,Iy- Macaws ancl parrots
to the obliteration, to death, utterly, 8l]lawk discordantly from cages, foun ;
wholesale, sudden and tragic! And ,a'us tinkle merrily, seas and skies
yet St. Pierre went forth that day to are bIuc' b,lt Pervading all is an air
carnival doings, local celebration in expectancy of dread.
honor of something or somebody. ! Few have yet left the city, but it
Facts are meager as to that one day ! would now take little to turn every !
and those following, for it must be ! street into a struggling stream of hu- j
remembered that nobody survived the i manity fleeing panic-stricken from the
horror that was so soon to come. But vicinity of that awful volcano. From j
there were some who had spent days ! tales I have heard one can easil.v
to say whether there was danger there I strange quiet of the racked earth,
or not. Then, too, the governor was ! Thomas T. Prentiss, United States
coming, and, moreover, his family was consul at St. Pierre, was sitting on
coming with him. Could there possi- j the veranda at his home in the early
bly be any danger where so eminent [ hours of the following morning. A
and so important personages as these | friend came driving by in a buggy,
were? Also a company of soldiers "You had better get out of this,"
from Fort de France were coming, ! he called to the consul. "I am gening
and while the St. Plerrans were talk- j out, and getting out as fast as 1 can."
ing of their arrival the company ap- "Oh, you are Just merely a little
peared. j scared," Mr. Prentiss replied. "There
It seems singular that the presence j is no need of anyone going away."
of this small band of soldiery should ] "It is better to be safe than sorry,"
have inspired a misplaced confidence, j retorted tne citizen as he whipped up
but it was so, though none seems to j his team and hastened on.
have asked what good the soldiers j It Is from this man, who witnessed
could have done, or even the might!- j the disaster a short time later from
est army have effected against vol- j a neighboring elevation, with a few
who survived the wreckage ln the of
flng, and the few who looked on the
cataclysm from distant points, that
canic Pelee.
The governor came, and with him
his family arrived from Fort de France
on the little steamboat Topaz. With
the governor came the geologists, the
wise men who were to sit in judg-
ment and to so fatuously misjudge.
They pondered long, and then gave
fatal assurance that all was well. The
people read the assurances which the
papers printed, drew a long breath of
relief and then turned their attention
to other things, to affairs of business
and pleasure and all that goes to
make up the indolent, happy life of
the pleasure loving natives of this
isle. And that night—the night of
May 7—tho wise men hastened back
to Fort do France.
The governor and his family were
to have followed the next day, the
French cruiser Suchet having been di-
rected to leave her anchorage at Fort
de France at 7 o'clock for the purpose j
of bringing home the governor and his j
party.
That plan, if carried out, would j
have brought the cruiser to her doom, j
and her crew will never cease to ■
thank their saints and bless the blun-
dering mechanic who broke something j <Mai'tinique Official Whom Scientists
B-room as the vessel w . Hold Was Responsible for the Great
II! V A,
Governor Mouttet.
Loss of Life - rom the Eruption of
Mont Pelee.)
in the engine-room as the vessel was
about getting under way, which acci-
dent delayed her departure and proba-
bly saved the lives of all on board.
Wednesday night—eve of horror!
There are none left alive to tell
what the city was like that night, but
just around a little promontory at de France called up another in
its southern edge nestles the little vil Pierre and was talking with hin
the only eye-witness versions can bo
had.
The hour of the disaster is placed
at about 8 o'clock. A clerk in Fort
St.
at
lage of Carbet, a pretty town of some I 7:55 by Fort de France time, when
six or seven hundred people. And he heard a sudden, awful shriek, and
not one of them was hurt, the town then could hear no more.
having been screened by the high The little that actually happened
ridge which lay between it and ist. then can be briefly, very briefly told.
Pierre and runs sheer to the sea. It is known that at one minute there
Its northern wall was precipitous lay a city smiling in the summer
and built close up to it was the south- morning; that in another it was a
ern section of St. Pierre, a thickly mass of swirling flames, with every
populated district whoso houses left soul of its 30,000 writhing in the
DIAGRAM OF VOLCANOES i,M THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE:.
(First Man to Penetrate to the Crater tDo clty ^ to ttle '">P °°n?e'ye of, *hat ,a ,ramPlin« 1 1
| edy—some who had left it only a ! might have followed some tocsin alarm
of Mont Pelee and Report on the
Eruption.)
I scant half hour before the holocaust, j —such a mad rush for safety as theater
j Grieving for their own lost dead pnd I crowds are wont to make when the
Indian town awakes, was filling with with nerves unstrung by the narrow cry of "fire" is heard.
venders and purchasers, when the
first murmur of Pelee. the sleeping
giant, was heard—a deep-toned, jarred
growl, which instantly blanched the
faces of all who heard, for those bred
in the shadow of the volcano had long
since learned to dread its wrath, and,
growing up, these in turn had taught
other generations of the malevolenc
(i that giant bulk. Startled eyes were
turned to the gloomy mountain,
and were reassured to see it still quiet
so far as vision went, for its top was
hidden In a white mist, and there was
no sign of boiling lava and no fall
of hurtling rocks.
Those who by chance were in the
city that morning, and who by far
luckier hazard were out of it before its
Mf
, v^\ ^ C fM
V NORTH. \
*-<< "A t v 7
' ATLANTIC
PACIFIC
barely enough room for streets, the
ncss of their own escape, it may be I But there was none in Martinique
that their overwrought minds arc j to give needed warning—not even
coining visions now, but these tell ear ! Pelee. All that day and the next and
nestly of a column of smoke which j the next the volcano smoked, and at buildmK3 huddling close to the steep
arose, black as a pall, from Pelee's intervals emitted clouds of ashes. aml woodecl acclivity, as if seeking to
white shroud to rear its billows of i finely pulverized pumice the chemists ®SKcapo on the. otner side of the lidge-
crape into the form ot a great up say the ashes are composed of, but ,'e |nt®r>cn^n8 distance was short,
ended coffin. However that may be. the wind sent the smoke and ashes I By the broac1' finely Rraded. bridge
there is evidence that all festival gay- away from the city, and while the roll-
r I GTVINttNT
V
^america ).
OCEAH
OCEAN
ety went when showers of pebbles be
gan to rattle over the city, with now
and then a shower of sand, of grains
hot to the touch, despite their Ion,;
flight through the air.
St. Pierre, it is now said, was In a
more sober humor that evening than
It has been within the memory of those
who tell dlsjointedly the tale of the
days that ushered in its doom. And
ing clouds were seen from far-off
points and while the ashes fell on
the ships half a hundred miles away
none in St. Pierre seems to have
known that the mountain was even
then pouring forth smoke and ashes.
What the residents did know was
that a commission of geologists had
been appointed by the government to
survey Pelee and report upon it—
WO
•CF..NB or PKATU AND DgSOLATION 7N MARTINIQUE.
(Official French icwmuMt K,p ol Bont*« <cro kUrttwi., nut pclcu of chlet lat
ltj>r aeat lad.ottd.)
and tunneled highway which connect-
ed city with village, one would judge
that a five minutes' brisk walk would
be amply sufficient to reach the one
from tne other.
But none sought safety by that
road—at least none escaped by it.
The heart-breaking pity of It all is that
j safety was so near—at the end of
; one's fingers almost. For just over
j the ridge the grass and palms are
I everywhere as green as any in the
tropics to-day, while up to the very
| crest of its northern slope are the in-
i effaccable marks of ruin and disaster,
j as if some sea of flame had brimmed
j to the very crest of the ridge, to suck
j back again before overflowing on the
I other side.
So it is the the village folks of Car-
bet that one must turn for the last
| act in this horrible tragedy.
Night fell, tho villagers say. with
an unnatural, unearthly quiet. Not a
breath of air to stir tne palms fring-
ing on the shores; not a ripple to
break the mirror-like clearness of
still waters. It was as if the hush of
death lay everywhere. True earth-
quake weather, more than one of the
villagers observed as they noted the
oppressive stillness of the air and the
throes of death. One moment and
church bells were ringing joyous
chimes in the ears of St. Pierre's 30,-
000—the next the flame-clogged bells
were sobbing a requiem for 30,000
dead. One waft of morning breeze
flowed over cathedral spires and
domes, over facades and arches and
roofs end angles of a populous and
light-hearted city—the next swept a
lone mass of white-hot ruins. The
sun glistened one moment on spark-
ling fountains, green parks and frond-
ed ponds—its next ray shone on fusing
metal, blistered, flame-wrecked squares
and charred stumps of trees. One
day and tne city was all light and
color, all gayety and grace—the next
its ruins looked as thougn they had
been crusted over with twenty cen-
turies of solitude and silence.
Prof. Robert T. Hill, United States
government geologist and head of the
expedition sent out by the National
Geographical society, has just come
in from a daring and prolonged in-
vestigation of the volcanic activity In
Martinique.
Prof. Hill chartered a steamer and
carefully examined the coast as far
north as .'ort de Macouba, at the ex-
treme edge of the island, making fre-
quent landings. After ianuing at I o
Precheur, five miles north of st
Pierre, he walked through an area of
active volcanism to the latter place
and made a minute examination of
the various phenomena disclosed.
Shopworn heiresses are seldom
picked up on the matrimonial bargain
counter.
8?0 A UKI K AND CXPElfVS
to rr."n vrith rlj? to introduce our Pcilt/v
bcniUtp. JuvelicMfg to.,DeptD,Par ons,Kan!
Remember that a inan may be a
dwarf and *>tili be every inch a gentle-
man.
To Cape a Cold in One day,
Take Laxative Promo Quinine Tablets. All
druggists refund inouey if it fails tocure. i5c.
Fortunate is the man who is on the
lonj,r aide of the collar button market.
Hall's Catarrh Curo
!s taken internally. Price, 75c.
The mint julep crop is one that never
fails.
1
You never hear any one complain
about "Defiance Starch." There is
none to equal it in quality and quan-
tity. 10 ounces. 10 cents. Try it now
and wive your money.
An undertaker never has occasion to
do the same job more than once.
Mrs. Window's Soothing Syrup
For children teething, toftena the gum#, reduce! In-
Cauiuisilun. allays pain, cure* wind colic. a but lie.
Sometimes a man's bad luck is due
to his reputation.
Hundreds of dealers say the extra
quantity and superior quality of Deii-
ance Starch is fast taking place of all
other brands. Others say they cannot
bell any other starch.
In the game of bridge you don't al-
ways have a walk-over.
Freckles are real, which is more
than can sometimes be said of blushes.
Never has medicine made such phe-
nomenal cures and received so many
high indorsements as Dr. Caldwell's
(Laxative) Syrup Pepsin—the cure for
all diseases of the stomach.
A divorce always attracts more at-
tention ti. u a marriage.
Truth never dodges up an alley, no
matter whom it meets.
Piso's Cure for Consumption is an infallible
medicine for coughs and colds.—N. VV. bAMuax,
Ocean Grove, N. J., Feb. 17, 1000.
If you want j'our wife to act like an
angel treat her line one.
A bachelor s advice is wasted on a
married man
A Cure for Dropsy.
Ashley, North Dakota, June 2d.—J.
H. Hanson of this place has found a
cure for Dropsy.
For years Mr. Hanson himself has
suffered with Rheumatism of the
Heart and Dropsy, and of late has
been so bad that lie could not work.
He has tried many remedies, but
nothing he could get helped him in tho
least, and he was growing worse and
worse.
Finally he began a treatment of
Dodd's Kidney Pills and to his great
delight he soon found that the Dropsi-
cal Swelling was gradually going down
and that the Rheumatism of the Heart
was also disappearing. He say9:
I have taken seven boxes of Dodd's
Kidney Pills and am feeling better
than I have for five years.
"I am able to work again and If the
Dropsy or Heart Trouble ever comes
back I will use Dodd's Kidney Pills at
once."
Artificial Diamonds,
The Chemiker Zeitung describes
some experiments in tho making of ar-
tificial diamonds. Carbon was heated
in an atmosphere of inert gas in an
iron flask raised to a high tempera-
ture by the electric arc. Bits the size
of a pea were obtained having the
hardness and crystalline form of a
diamond. The crystals have a gray
tint that makes them worthless for
jewelry, but their use in drills seems
to bo promising. A French chemist
lias made minute diamonds by heating
pure carbon under pressure.
t )
DON'T SPOIL YOVK CLOTHES.
T'se Rod Cross Hall Blue and keep them
white as snow. All grocers. 5c. a package.
The milk of human kindness isn't
put up in bottles.
A bachelor says a woman can talk
twice as last as thev can think.
Defiance Starch is guaranteed bipf-
g*est an<l best or money refunded. 16
ounces, 10 cents. Try it now.
The t3*pe-writer is not responsible
for all the machine-made poetry.
If you are troubled with constipa-
tion. indigestion or malaria get a 50c
or $1.00 bottle of Dr. Caldwell's (Laxa-
tive) Syrup Pepsin. It is guaranteed
to cure you.
New French I.lglithonne.
The newest lighthouse on the French
coast shows a beam visible at a dis-
tance of thirty-nine nautical miles in
clear weather. It is situated on the
Isle Vterge, off the French coast, to
the northeast of Ushant, the lantern
being 244 feet above the sea level.
Eagles to Draw Airships.
A German genius thinks ho has
solved the problem of steering a bal-
loon. He says an eagle has sufiicient
strengtn to draw a bailoon and he has
shown in a pamphlet how the bird can
be harnessed and hitched to an air-
ship. It "does not appear that he ha3
shown how to steer the eagles.
Kemembered Many Friend, ln Wll*..
Col. Blanton Duncan, a wealthy Ken-
tuckian, who died in California recent-
ly, left a peculiar will. Twenty-one
Kentuckians are named as legatees,
among them being Col. John B. Castle-
man, Senator J. C. S. Blackburn and
Ab Ah Sam, a Chinaman of Louisville,
who long had been a firm friend of Mr.
Duncan. Each of the legatees receives
$1,000. The total number of legatees is
sixty-eight, some of whom live ln Eu-
rope.
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Moore, E. P. Garfield County Democrat. (Enid, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 23, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 5, 1902, newspaper, June 5, 1902; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc166428/m1/6/: accessed April 18, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.