The Great Galveston Disaster / Containing a Full and Thrilling Account of the Most Appalling Calamity of Modern Times Including Vivid Descriptions of the Hurricane and Terrible Rush of Waters; Immense Destruction of Dwellings, Business Houses, Churches, and Loss of Thousands of Human Lives; Thrilling Tales of Heroic Deeds; Panic-Stricken Multitudes and Heart-Rending Scenes of Agony; Frantic Efforts to Escape a Horrible Fate; Separation of Loved Ones, etc., etc.; Narrow Escapes from the Jaws of Death; Terrible Sufferings of the Survivors; Vandals Plundering Bodies of the Dead; Wonderful Exhibitions of Popular Sympathy; Millions of Dollars Sent for the Relief of the Stricken Sufferers

by Paul Lester

ASLEEP OVER A VOLCANO.

“Perhaps the persistency of the people who dwell on the slopes at the foot of Mount Vesuvius offers the most striking illustration of disregard of danger against which no human provision can be made. With a volcano boiling on the verge of eruptions that are forever imminent they pasture their flocks and press their grapes, careless of the menace which familiarity has taught them to despise. The whole kingdom of Naples is marked by the same disregard of natural and uncontrollable danger. The statement is accepted by the encyclopedias that in seventy-five years—from 1783 to 1857—the kingdom lost 111,000 inhabitants by the effects of earthquakes. About 1,500 a year in a population of less than 5,000,000.

“The city of Lisbon sits smiling and prosperous on the north bank of the Tagus, and its inhabitants still point with pride to scarred earth dating from the earthquake in which 40,000 lives were lost. Charleston, S. C., is rebuilt. Johnstown, Pa., is restored to its prosperous industry. The Japanese still go their flowery way in Jeddo, where in one great shock 200,000 lives are said to have been lost—which figure is even approximately the greatest disaster the world has ever known. St. Thomas, in the West Indies; Port Royal, Jamaica; Cape Haytien, in Santo Domingo, with a tribute of 45,000 lives within the memory of men yet living, and the spice island of Krakatoa, are still peopled despite the black danger signal of the death which constantly waves over them.