Show MOST 0 DISASTROUS YEARJN THE HISTORY OF THEWOKLD NETEEN HUNDRED AND T nULl EIGHT the most terrible r Jj M year Of disaster In the history fJ his-tory of the modern world Thnt Is the black record which Time has entered In his books for the year which has just closed A quarter of a million people destroyed In awful I catacylsms billions of dollars worth 11 of property wiped out of existence a sum of pain and human anguish which can never be expressed In words or llgures such Is the balance which must be carried to the debit Hide of the worlds account books The mention of the word catastrophe catastro-phe will of course bring the thoughts of every one bock to the great Italian earthquake the greatest single disaster dis-aster In the worlds history a tragedy which cost 125000 lives and wiped out I of existence great and historic cities In the shadow of that terrible holocaust a holo-caust the world has failed to realize that It was merely the climax of along I long series of horrors which followed f one on the heels of the other from the first day of January 1908 to the flrst day of January 1909 The chimes of the rejoicing bells that rang In the new ycar of 1908 had t y not died away when the grim Hand of destruction commenced Its work Inn In-n mine nt Carthage N 1L I Twelve miners were blown out of human rec Ognltlon and the black year had opened The first big blow IcU 11 days later when 300 people were Incinerated Inn In-n rcstaurnnt fire at Canton China It was followed the next day by atrag edy In America which shook the country coun-try to the core and sent thousands Into mourning The opera house at Hoycrtown Pa was burned down during I dur-ing an amateur performance and 172 charred and mangled bodies were subsequently i sub-sequently taken from the ruins The first month of the ominous year waned to n close amid a series of M minor disasters at home and abroad which were overshadowed by the horrors hor-rors which preceded them and the 1 yet greater horrors which were to 1 come The first of February ushered in the first cyclone which devastated I Mississippi leaving 20 dead bodies t and hundreds of ruined homesteads In Its wnko Two days later news was Hashed across the wires that amino i 4 explosion In Japan had destroyed 91 miners and that 21 lives hud been 1 lost In a snowstorm In Algeria r Devastated by Cyclone 1 Scarcely a week had elapsed before l the cyclone fiend made Its second appearance ap-pearance sweeping through Minnesota Minne-sota and Texas claiming 13 lives On the same day a mine explosion In 1 Natal put an abrupt end to the hazard J first of the month with an avalanche In Switzerland which cost 61 lives among the lost being several Americans Ameri-cans Till ee days afterward came the schoolhouse fire at CollliiKWood O One hundred and children chil-dren burned trampled and crushed to death No adjectives and no words of any language could adequately describe de-scribe such an appalling event Violent Vio-lent death Invested with terrors always al-ways strikes humanity with peculiar fiendishness when It seizes as Its prey helpless and Innocent children This holocaust of childhood stunned the country Into oblivion of lesser calamities calam-ities while the despairing shrieks of hundreds of mothers and fathers rang across the world The month closed with an earthquake In Mexico in which 500 people were killed and amine mine explosion at Havana Wyo which added 70 more Items to the long toll of the years violent deaths Fire and earthquake gave place to flood and storm In April and the loss of life leaped upward with terrific bounds The first groat disaster the month occurred In China where 2000 people were drowned ina flood which Inundated the province of Huplh A few days later two railway accidents one In Australia and the other In Alberta accounted for 68 more unfortunates un-fortunates On April 24 a series of cyclones of unprecedented fur burst over the southern states destroying 368 lives annihilating villages and devastating property tq the extent of millions of dollars Mississippi paid 229 lives to the rage of the storm Louisiana contributed 108 and Alabama Ala-bama 31 While the cyclones were still ravaging ravag-ing the south in far northern Alberta a snowblldo burled 40 persons and obliterated u village The last week of April saw a lust supreme effort put forth by the malign fates to make the first of the month of spring the most deadly of the dread year Forty lives were lost In n railroad accident in Australia and 28 more In n similar disaster dis-aster In Mexico A landslide at Notre Dame de Sabelle Canada added 36 to the swelling total and finally the Japanese cruiser Mulsushlm blew up and 240 members of Its crew perished Past Mere Foretaste of Future It might well have boomed that the fury of the fates would have been exhausted ex-hausted by this time tint Instead humanity hu-manity had only experienced the first few blows of the terrible scourging which was to be visited upon it In the first three days of the next month 26 persons wore burned to death in America 13 in Norway and the collapse col-lapse of a tenement In London accounted ac-counted for 20 more The following day a ferryboat capsized In Russia and I I 0 4 + HUNDRED i t 1 o s AND SfYf Y UVhOLO5T r t t lr w iv f i I i r r R r1 0 r L i v = I 1 1 J I or ii ill t i TFlp cS DFy lsr rilvc cyrc OilS calling of 32 miners Within two weeks similar accidents In England and Spain had called 92 more men to their account while a dynamite accident acci-dent In California was paid for with 30 lives vAs v-As If each month was endeavoring to outdo In horror Its predecessors March opened with a record of terrible disasters among which Is numbered the most heartrending American tragedy trag-edy since the Iroquois fire The rarnlval of destruction opened on tho I 121 pabciigcis were diowned A week later another terrific cyclone burst over the doomed southern states and took toll of 12 lives In Louisiana 17 in east Nebraska and 14 In Oklahoma The sequel to this include came on the 13th when 10000 lives went out In another Chinese flood at Hankow Beside this appalling tragedy a railroad rail-road accident In Belgium with GO fatalities fatal-ities seemed tilvlal Ad a grand finale the Illfated Hankow was struck t by a typhoon and the total of her dead was Increased 1000 The following day atother thousand lives were sacrificed sacri-ficed In a mine fire at Kowang China June apparently despaired of over competing successfully with her sister month However she continued to pile tragedy on tragedy On tho first of tho month an accident on tho Amur river In China resulted in S9 deaths and 18 was added to the days loll by a flood in Mexico On the fourth n typhoon on the west coast ot Australia wiped out 270 lives nnd two das afterward aft-erward another cyclone burst In Nebraska Ne-braska at a cost of 28 lives to be followed fol-lowed the next day with another cyclone cy-clone In loa which increased the list by five On the same day 20 persons were lost In a flood In Mexico and 18 In an explosion In Vienna The month of roses concluded Its list with a tornado tor-nado which struck tho Portuguese I coast and slew 400 while Oklahoma contributed 100 more of her citizens to another storm As far as America was concerned July was the most merciful month of the year Kiftytwo lives was tho entire en-tire tribute collected In tho United States through the agencies of flood fire and storm Tills leniency was more than compensated however by the list of fatalities abroad On the second bf the mouth Batavia Java was ravaged by a storm which destroyed de-stroyed 600 lives On the same day amine a-mine explosion in Russia was icspon l n r I I I > i sible for 235 fatalities On the 13th 57 lives were lost In a storm off the coast of Spain and on the 15th a flood In Asia Minor swept away 2000 peo tile Few Fatalities in August August was the most merciful month in the year In the United States the death roll was 170 principally prin-cipally caused by floods In North and South Carolina and Georgia The biggest disaster abroad was a cyclone In Hungary which killed 74 people It was closely followed by a mine explosion ex-plosion in England with 70 fatalities The total deathroll for the remaining disasters was 81 the largest single Item being 39 lives lost In forest flics In British Columbia The United States was still lorlun ate through September with a total of fatalities merely nn rjntlug to 33 but abroad the ominous figures commenced com-menced to mount with a rush again Five thousand lives woe lost In n flood In India and 140 through a ferry disaster at Symina October was the month of the great forest tires which devastated Michigan Michi-gan destroying 50 lives and 20000 000 worth of property A typhoon In the Philippines added Its quota of 800 souls and a second typhoon off China claimed 5000 victims Both at home and abroad November proved v a compniatlvely innocuous month although It was marked by two comparatively large disasters Three hundred and thirtynine lives were lost in a mine explosion In CJoimnny and 123 deaths resulted from the burning of the steamer Sardinia at Malta December and Ynletldo came and exhausted humanity saw the hack year drawing to a close in apparent calm They were looking forward to the new year In eager hope that the evil days weie over when tho greatest great-est blow of nil fell On December 28 1908 occurred the great Italian earthquake the most stupendous disaster of the worlds history his-tory Even yet It is Impossible to make nn accurate estimate of what Its cost was either li loss of human life or property It Is known that 125000 people perished but In actual fact It la piobablo that figure Is far below tho real number of victims In material mate-rial loss It Is Impossible to name Ullr figure Far Surpassed Lisbon Disaster Up to the time of the Italian earthquake earth-quake the ucord dlsnstci had been the ciiithquakc at Lisbon In 17C8 when COOOO lives hud been lost Thin terrible tragedy had been for ever n century and n half the object of the awful dismay of the world It be comiK almost Insignificant In view of the calnmlt which befell In the closing clos-ing days of 1908 For every soul that went out at Lisbon two were quenched In Sicily mud Italy and 6000 more VVPIO added for good measure Another point of Interest especially for those who cherish the venerable superstition anent the unluckiness of tin iiimilitT 13 Is the discovery thnt there vnn a disaster on every thirteenth thir-teenth day of the month for the first Been months of tho year The record rec-ord was started on January 13 the date of the Hoyertown theater fire A mouth later then was a boiler explosion ex-plosion In Pennsylvania followed In Miiich by nn avalanche which took 18 lines In Siberia April 13 saw a flood In China which cost 2000 lives and the same day in May a similar dlsns ter wan icsponslblo for the loss of 10000 people while 42 people died In u cyclone In Louisiana Juno 13 a dynamite explosion took nine lives In Winnipeg and on July 13 47 lives were lost in a storm off tho coast of Spain Another curiosity Is discovered In connection with the highlyuseful elo < valor which has made possible skyscrapers sky-scrapers While It Is fairly common to hear of accidents In elevators few people realize what a heavy toll It tales on life In the United States In 1908 108 peoplo were killed and 57 Injured In elevator accidents A significant feature of tho list Is the exceptionally high number of fatalities fatal-ities which resulted from the accidental acci-dental discharge of high explosives In spite of tho elaborate precautions which are generally observed In tho handling of such material as dynamite I dyna-mite death marshaled a large army ot victims from premature explosions Altogether 499 lives were lost through this class of disaster Dangers Surround Earths Delvers An examination of the figures brings home forcibly the terribly dangerous conditions under which work the men who go down into the earth to delve for wealth From every country In the world which owns mines was contributed con-tributed the tale of a growsorae underground un-derground tragedy In all 2270 miners min-ers were sacrificed and the universal distribution of the disasters would seem to Indicate that no precautions can bu taken which will guarantee safety with any certainty to tho subterranean sub-terranean workers In considering the statistics given here It must not be forgotten that they do not Include many thousands of violent deaths which would run the total far above Its present tremendous tremend-ous total of over a quarter of a million mil-lion No account Is taken in these figures of single fatalities such as persons killed by street cars and III other thoroughfare accidents and the long list of Individual deaths for which tho railroads are annually responsible re-sponsible Also the criminal statistics are not Included and it Is only too true that tho number of persona who meet their death from assassination every year is a large one Suicides also are not included nor tho big number who lose their lives through Individual drowning accidents careless care-less handling of firearms and the numberless other stray hazards which surround life If all these figures could bo collected and added It Is not an exaggeration to say that It would be found that at least 300000 persons came to a violent end during the fatal months of 1908 That Is to say that the year aw tho violent destruction of a population of a city almost us largo as Plttsburg Asa As-a mutter or fact tho true figures would probably bo much In excess ot that number |