From the Richmond Commercial Bulletin, 8/1/1865, p. 3, c. 1

HIGH WALLS. – There are still standing throughout the burnt district, high, cracked and blistered walls, threatening to topple over at almost every moment and crush the hapless ones beneath. Particularly is this the case with the remnants of the walls which formed the immense and extensive flouring mills of Warwick & Barksdale near the Basin. It has been now four months, to within a few days, since the devouring element seized upon these beautiful structures, and yet the blackened walls, like monuments of the despair and distress, rear up their heads, threatening in every brick. It has been a matter of pleasure and gratification for us to have been unable all through these dreary days to note a single fatal accident resulting from the sudden falling of these walls, and but one accident of that character has occurred so far as made public.

But this is no safeguard against the accidents of futurity; every day the most diminutive speck of dust that flies from the atomic whole gives less of security to it than the day before. The gentle breeze may first be not perceptible in its influence upon them, but soon the shaking and the swaying will be felt; its fall will be sudden, fearful and overwhelming. Are we writing too seriously? The subject might, perhaps, be better treated in the light, easy, flippant manner of ridicule, but a broken limb, a head crushed shapeless, one single vital spark extinguished, with all its attendant horrors of lacerated hearts, perhaps of widow’s prayers and orphan’s tears, would not be spoken of lightly. We do not care to particularize, but there are too many dangerous localities in our burnt district – too many by far.

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