The first account of the earthquake at Manilla was scarcely,
it would appear, exaggerated. The official report states that 46 public buildings have been damaged and 28 seriously injured, 570 houses thrown down, and 528 left in a tottering condition ; 458 persons have been found wounded, 350 have been drawn out dead, and an indefinite number are still buried alive. It is reported, though in private letters, that the villagers who thronged in to the scene of the calamity bargained with every sufferer they could see, demanding so many dollars from a man half crushed, and twice as many if the ruins had only buried his leg or arm, and left him still a fair chance of living. The statement is very probably true. Hindoo boatmen never will assist a drowninc, man till he has promised them heavy pay, and our own drowning wreckers fifty years since did things infinitely bad. The man who said that "Money is the root of all evil" did not know much of the effect of poverty on the human heart.
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