A square cut in the wire screen
permitted of the insertion of a counter, behind which stood members
of the militia acting as food dispensers. Before the improvised window
passed the line of refugees, a line which stretched back fully 300 yards
to Speedway track.

"I want a can of condensed cream, so I can feed my baby and my dog,"
said a large, florid-faced woman in a gaudy kimono, "and I don't care
for crackers, but you can throw in some potted chicken if you have it."

"What's in that bottle over there?" queried the next applicant. "Tomato
ketchup? Well, of all the luck! Say, young man, just give me three."

A little gray-haired woman in an India shawl peered timorously through
the window. "Just a little bit of anything you may have handy, please,"
she whispered, and she cast a careful eye about to see of any of her
neighbors had recognized her standing there in the "bread line."

"Yesterday, at the Western Union office," says one writer, "I saw a
woman drive up in a large motor car and beg that the telegram on which a
boy had asked a delivery fee of twenty-five cents be handed to her. She
said she had not a penny and did not know when she would have any money,
but that as soon as she had any she would pay for the message. It
was given to her, and the manager told me that there were hundreds of
similar cases."

Many weddings resulted from the disaster. Women driven out of their
homes and left destitute, appealed to the men to whom they were engaged,
and immediate marriages took place. After the first day of the disaster
an increase in the marriage licenses issued was noticed by County Clerk
Cook. This increase grew until seven marriage licenses were issued in an
hour.

"I don't live anywhere," was the answer given in many cases when the
applicant for a license was asked the locality of his residence. "I used
to live in San Francisco."

Births seem to have been about as common as marriages, in one night
five children being born in Golden Gate Park. In Buena Vista Park eight
births were recorded and others elsewhere, the population being thus
increased at a rate hardly in accordance with the exigencies of the
situation.

THE EXODUS FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

We have spoken only of the camps of refugees within the municipal
limits of San Francisco. But in addition to these was the multitude of
fugitives who made all haste to escape from that city. This was with the
full consent of the authorities, who felt that