Abstract :
If news had been received during the last six months of the total destruction of our fleet of battleships on its way to San Francisco, even without any loss of life, what a calamity it would have been considered, and how messages of sympathy would have poured in from all the governments in the world. The value of that fleet is probably less than $125,000,000; the property loss by the conflagration in the city of San Francisco, toward which that fleet was headed, of $350,000,000 by one fire, brought similar messages because it was an unusual occurrence.
