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Show CHINATOWN A MAS8 OF RUINS Famous Section of San Francisco Falli Prey to Flames. San Francisco. Strange Is tho scene whero San Francisco's Chlnatowr stood. No heap of smoking rulm marks tho slto of tho wooden wnr rens whero slnnt-eyed mon of the Orient dwelt In thousands. Tho plsee Is pitted with deep holes and senrcc with dark passageways, from whose depths come smoke wreathe. All the wood has gono and tho winds nre streaking tho ashes. Whlto men novor knew tho depth ol Chinatown's underground city. Thej talked of theso subterranean runways and many of them had gono beneath tho street levels, two or threo stories Hut now thnt Chinatown hns been unmasked, un-masked, for the destroyed buildings were only n maBk, mon from the hillside hill-side have looked on whero Its Innoi secrets lay. In places thoy can sec passages ono hundred feet deep. Hundreds of frlght-crnzcd yellow mon escnped from tho llnmcs, carrylnp with them their opium pipes, tholr money lings, their silks nnd their children. child-ren. Reside them ran the baggy-trousered baggy-trousered women, nnd somo of thorn hobbled painfully. Hut theso wero tho men nnd women pf tho surface. Far beneath tho street lovels, In those collars and pnssage ways, wero other lives. Women whe nover saw tho day from their darkened prisons, nnd blinking Jnllors. were caught llko rats In a hugo trap, Theli very bones wcro eaten by bo flames And now there rcmnlns only the holes. They pit tho hlllsldo llko n multitude! mul-titude! of ground Rwnllow nests. The) show depths which tho police novel know Tho secrets of theso burrowi will never be known, for Into thca tho hungry flro llrBt slfteM its rei coals obliterating everything excop' tho earth itself. |