The South of France and the North of Italy were
visited on Wednesday morning with shocks of earthquake. The damage done in France was not great, though the rocking of the houses in Nice and Cannes created wild alarm, and thousands of the guests who were attracted by the carnival fled to safer cities. Along the Riviera, however, the shocks were stronger ; and it is feared that when the telegraph system is re-established, the lots of life will be found to have been great. It is already reckoned in telegrams from Rome as two thousand. No place has quite escaped, and at Noli fifteen persons were killed ; at Oneglia, twenty-eight were injured by falling houses ; and at Diano Marina, a third of the houses were destroyed, and the dead will be reckoned in hundreds. This was the centre of the move- ment, which spread eastward and westward in a succession of shocks which were felt in Marseilles, Geneva, Genoa, Milan, and even Leghorn. The usual accompaniment of earthquake, a wild panic, appeared everywhere. One unfortunate lady at Nice flung herself out of a window ; thousands, as we have said, fled by railway ; and thousands more camped out without clothes or shelter. This is no imputation on their courage, for the shock of earthquake has some as yet unascertained physical effect on the nerves. The writer has himself seen a healthy man vomit as the wave passed him, and has heard a Sonth American ex- plorer, whose courage could not be doubted, declare that at twenty he could defy the earthquake, but at forty, after experiencing scores of them, he fled from them whilst still fast asleep.
