Sept. 4.
Tne terrible message that all reports agree that Tokio is practically destroyed, is something that the mind cannot grasp. When disaster arrives, swiftly and apparently relentlessly, the picture it leaves upon the imagination of the spectator is seldom an accurate one. Ruin becomes magnified a hundredfold, and so stunned is the mind that the possibilities of escape from the catastrophe appear too remote for consideration. Yet, in spite of all the adverse elements here, we already have accounts from survivors, and as time passes there will be more of-them. And this in spite of a particularly unfortunate conjuncture of events. Japan and Yokohama were experiencing the after wind of a typhoon when the earthquake occurred, and that fires should spread was unavoidable. With water mains broken and the usual routine of a city upset there could be little hope of making a fight against its progress, and realizing the position a great many sought safety in flight. They reached safety, too, for we know that the Mayor of Tokio has sent an urgent message for food supplies. From such a fact as this We may extract some small hope.
Seldom has Shanghai been thrown into so grave a condition of anxiety as during the past sixty hours, in the course of which time details have been filtering through of the catas-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.