The cry of fire is dreadful enough anywhere, but to any one who lived in San Francisco in those days it must ever be more exciting and more suggestive of disaster and destruction of property than it can be to those who have been all their lives surrounded by brick and stone, and insurance companies. In other countries, when a fire occurs and a large amount of property is destroyed, the loss falls on a company--a body without a soul, having no individual identity, and for which no one, save perhaps a few of the shareholders, has the slightest sympathy. The loss, being sustained by an unknown quantity, as it were, is not appreciated; but in San Francisco no such institution as insurance against fire as yet existed. To insure a house there would have been as great a risk as to insure a New York steamer two or three weeks overdue. By degrees, brick buildings were superseding those of wood and pasteboard; but still, for the whole city, destruction by fire, sooner or later, was the dreaded and fully-expected doom. When such a combustible town once ignited in any one spot, the flames, of course, spread so rapidly that every part, however distant, stood nearly an equal chance of being consumed. The alarm of fire acted like the touch of a magician’s wand. The vitality of the whole city was in an instant arrested and turned from its course. Theatres, saloons, and all public places, were emptied as quickly as if the buildings themselves were on fire; the business of the moment, whatever it was, was at once abandoned, and the streets became filled with people rushing frantically in every direction--not all towards the fire by any means; few thought it worth while to ask even where it was. To know there was fire somewhere was quite sufficient, and they made at once for their house or their store, or wherever they had any property that might be saved; while, as soon as the alarm was given, the engines were heard thundering along the streets, amid the ringing of the fire-bells and the shouts of the excited crowd.