The truth is that when flames eat out the heart of a great city, devour its vast business establishments, storehouses and warehouses, sweep through its centres of opulence, destroy its wharves with their accumulation of goods, spread ruin and havoc everywhere, it is impossible at first to estimate the loss. Only gradually, as time goes on, is the true loss discovered, and never perhaps very accurately, since the owners and the records of riches often disappear with the wealth itself. In regard to San Francisco, the early estimate was that three-fourths of the city, valued at $500,000,000, was destroyed.
But early estimates are apt to be exaggerated, and on Friday, two days after the disaster, we find this estimate reduced to $250,000,000. A few more days passed and these figures shrunk still further, though it was still largely conjectural, the means of making a trustworthy estimate being very restricted. Later on the pendulum swung upward again, and two weeks after the fire the closest estimates that could be made fixed the property loss at close to $350,000,000, or double that of the Chicago fire. But as the actual loss in the latter case proved considerably below the early estimates, the same may prove to be the case with San Francisco.
Special personal losses were in many cases great. Thus the Palace Hotel was built at a cost of $6,000,000, and the St. Francis, which originally cost $4,000,000, was being enlarged at great expense. Several of the great mansions on Nob’s Hill cost a million or more, the City Hall was built at a cost of $7,000,000, the new Post Office was injured to the extent of half a million, while a large number of other buildings might be named whose value, with their contents, was measured in the millions.
It was not until May 3d that news came over the wires of another serious item of loss. The merchants had waited until then for their fire-proof safes and vaults to cool off before attempting to open them. When this was at length done the results proved disheartening. Out of 576 vaults and safes opened in the district east of Powell and north of Market Street, where the flames had raged 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.