The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 19, 1895, Page 10

10 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 19, 1895. Money Maxkinag By FRANK G. CARPENTER, IN ASHA, The representatives of a number of big American syndicates are now on their way across the Pacific to investigate the possi- bilities of investment and speculation in | China, Korea and Japan. One of these is thé Hon. George B. Williams, who was for | years connected with the Japanesg Govern- | Toent as one of its foreign advisers, ana who later on was the legal adviser of the i FEquitable Life Insurance Company in Lon- don. Another is Chester A. Holcomb, | who long associated with our legation : in Peking, and who is well posted upon China and the Chinese. In addition to these I hear of scores of individuals who | propose to go to China and Korea in order to be able to take advantage of the changed | conditions consequent upon the carrying | out of the new treaty, and a number of old | schemes will probably be revived. It was only seven years ago that Wharton Bar- | er raised a fund of $50,000,000 to build | Iroads and to do banking for the Chi- | He has, I understand, been in cor- | e nese. respondence with Li Hung Chang since then, and he may now again come to the | front. I have met a dozen young men who have told me that they were anics or engineers on s, and I receive letters to the chances for Americans n investments in these coun- situation is undoubtedly big It is, however, far_dif- ferent from what people believe,and in this Jetter I will attempt to give some- thing concerning it. o The indemnity from China will probably in Japan, and especially in eat Tokio, the capital. When the Franco- Pru var was concluded every German thought the money aid by the French would all be spent in Eerlin. and the peo- | ple rushed by the thousands from all parts of the empire to take advantageof it. Ber- in in 1850 had less than 500,000 people, and | 1e went to war with France she had ,000. Three years after the settle- of the war her population numbered 968,000, and in 1880 she had already more She has now, with her sub- ) rly 3,000,000, and she stands next London among the great cities of the world. The war was succeeded by an_era of spéculation in Berlin. Stocks and real estat» jumped upward, and it was so until the panic of 1873, when there was a col- | lapse. The city toon recovered, however, | and it'is now one of the most prosperous of | the world. The same thing will be re- | peated in Tokio. Prices will advance and | real estate is bound to go up. An era of | speculation will probably follow, and the | man who goes in now and sells out nick | Shatle o BT MincHananoaesinrat stock exchanges, and their water- | s stock, their railroad stocks and their | tocks are regularly quoted in the Many of the companies have | z big dividends, and this is | sear teadily growing, estate in these ought to be good. | or instance, Yokohama. It was a e when Commodore Perry first | 1e to the country. It hasnow a popula- of more than 100,000, and it is a town | gas and newspapers. | 0 has now more than 1,000,000 peo- ple, and the probability is that it contains | more than a million and a half. It is only | fourtcen miles from Yokohama, through a | thic settled country, and an electric | railroad built between the two points would undoubtedly pay. At present there are no electric railroads in Tokio, and there are no streetcar lines in Yokohama. The field for electric rail- | roads practically uncultivated. and by he new treaty it would be impossible for Americans to engage in such work outside | of the treaty ports. Take the town of ©Osaka, in the central part of the empire. It has, with its suburbs, 1,200,000 people, i and there is not an electric railroad in it. | It lies sixteen miles back from the sea- coast, and it is connected by railroad with | the town of Kobe. Kobe was very small | ~-at the time tnat Japan was opened, but by | the census of 1890 it contained 136.000 peo- Ivle. Ap electricrailroad between Kobe and )saka ought to pay. This part of Japan is one succession of villages, and only a few miles west of Osaka is the great city of Kioto, which was for years the capital | of Japan, and which is now as big as Washington or Cleveland. If an electric line were stretched from Kobe to Osaka and thence on to Kioto, it would strike villages at almost every mile of travel, and it would accommodate a population of fully 2,000,000 of people. The Japanese are | great travelers. They make long excui- sions over the country to visit the most sacred temples and shrines, and I met hundreds of families walking along the roads from one sacred point to another, The railroad cars were well filled, and these electric roads would fpick up many parties on these trips of religion and pleasure combined. As to the electric- ight field, that is aiso great. The 40,000, | 000 people of the Japanese empire live, to a large . extent, in villages and cities, There are few gas plants. and the chief lighting is done with coal oil. Electric lights could be put in without much ex- pense, and in the large cities at very low rates. The telephone is rapidly coming into use. There are a larze number in Osaka and Tokio, and the rates_for service in the Japanese capital are $35 in silver or $17.50 in gold per year. There will probably now be an increased demand from Japan for American goods. The country aiready takes $14,000,000 worth of American raw cotton every year. It has been buying, and will continue to buy, American machinery, but the great trade between America and Japan in the future is to be in shipping American raw mate- rials te Japan undlf’xriuging back Japanese Pproducts to America. The money to be made by Americans will be largely through their better knowledge of the American markets and American needs. The settlement of the war will bring about a great change in China, and from now on the empire will probably be slowly - bit steadily opened. The making of Nan- king a treaty port will give a new foreign setttement at that point, two hundred miltes up the Yunfi-tse-Kinng. The Goy- ernmrent will be obliged to cede a certain amount of land here to the foreigners, and a Hittle foreign city will spring up at this point, such as have already sprung up at every ‘open port. In Canton there is an island which is given up to the foreigners. At Hankow the foreign concession covers, I judge, at least a square mile, and at Shanghai many foreigners have made for- tunés out of the rise of the real estate in tlie foreign concession. There are foreign settlements at Tientsin, at Kiukiang and at Chinkiang, and in these property is worth'much more than in the Chinese cities themselves. These concessions are overned by the foreign Consuls, and the hihese like to obtain property within them if they can, as this frees them from the eéxactions of the Chinese officials and puts them under foreign law. These con cessions are much like foreign cities, They have modern houses. Their streets are macadamized and they are kept in_or- der by being smoothed with heavy rollers which are drawn by hundreds of Chinese. They have their own policemen and are by dll.odds the most desirable places in China in which to live. The city of Nan- king is about five miles back from the riverand is one of the richest cities in China. It was for years the capital of China, and it is in the heart of one of the crichest of the Chinese provinces. The for- - eign concession may be on the river or it - may be on the edge of the city. Wherever It iS the land is almost certain to increase in value, and an investment in it ought to be good: . ‘Those best posted on the Chinese char- - Bcter say that this war will be followed by 8 ‘great military activity throughout the Chinese Etr:gure. New gunworks will be at --once started. A new navy will be con- | to carpet them. | the women on hand-looms. SEUUUINV IS structed, and there will be a great demand for all kinds of machinery for the making of arms and the munitions of war. There are now more than 2000 men at work in the shops at Shanghai, An equal number are probably employed in the gunworks at Tientsin, and the Foochow shipyards will be pushed to their utmost capacity. The Chinese have seen the necessity for rail- roads, and their lack of ability to move their troops without them. The first road to be built will probably be one from Tient- sin to Hankow, and thence to Canton. This has been planned for years, and it will tap a territory containing huntfreglsol millions of people. The work of getting such con- cessions will be slow, and it is very doubt- ful whether foreigners will be allowed to build railroads. 1f they should be permit- ted to do so the field for electrizity and steam is practically unlimited, and such a revolution in railroad building_and manu- facturing will take place as will turn the remainder of the insusu’ial world upside down. Idon’tbelieve the Chinese will do this at present. They move slowly, but it will come eventually. They will, however, have a great trouble in raising the money to pay Japan, and there is no telling what | may be squeezed out of the government at this time. Think of cities of 100,000, | 500,000 and 1,000,000 within a few miles of each other. . : Think of a country as big as_the United | States, and containing about eifiht times as many people, with no railroads whatever and no decent wagon roads—a country in most places as flat as a floor and well fitted for railroads without grading, and vou have something of the condition of China to-day. It is a country which has 4000 walled cities and countless villages. A country where locomotion is expensive, and where the &:eople squeeze money harder than they do anywhere else in the world. There is no land on the globe where cheap transportation would pay bet- ter. The harvest 1s ripe for the speculator and the investor, if the fence of Chinese conservatism and exclusion can be torn away. Take Pekinf, with its million and a half of people. It has not a line of street- ’lPiemsin. eighty miles away, hasa n of people, and is one of the great trading centers of the empire. Those who ride go about in chairs, carried on the shoulders of men, and all goods are carted around on wheelbarrows. Tientsin sup- plies Peking with goods, and there is no railroad between them. It is the same all over China. The Chinese are beginning to make their own cotton. They have a number of large factories and Li Hung Chang proposes to build others. In these they have modern machinery. A great part of the cotton used is made by hand, not more than one- fifteenth being imported. Our cotton cloths are more popular than the English or the native cottons, but they cost too much, and hence we send but little manu- factured cotton to China. The market, however, is enormous. One of the Consuls made an estimate of it not long ago. He said that the Chinese are clothed princi- pally in cotton. There are at least 400,- 000,000 of them, and they unse about 20 yards apiece every year. This would make a consumption of 8,000,000,000 yards a year. Take your pencil now and see what that means. Eight billion yards are 24,000,000, 000 feet, or a strip of cotton a yard wide 24,000,000,000 feet long. At 5000 feet to the mile this would be more than 4,000,000 miles long, or enough to reach one hundrea and _sixty times around the world. One hundred and sixty feet makes a very wide city street. If you could have three such streets running clear around the world, and could patch the cotton used by the Chinese into one vast crazy quilt, it would be more than enough Of this enormous amount more than seven and a half billion yards are made by the Cliinese, being woven by If we could get low freight rates we ought to be able to supply a large part of these cottons. The Chinese want a good cotton, and they need heavy, strong and closely woven goods for winter. In the future they will probably make the greater part of their own goods, but the enormous market which might be created for our raw cotton is almost inestimable. There would be no limit to production if we had it, and with the opening of the Nicaragnan canal the great part of it ought to come to us. The kinds of cottons used by the Chinese are generally blue in color. "They use a large amount of drills, and the sails for their vessels are made of this cloth. The Chinese are now using quite a lot of American lumber. The lumber comes from Oregon and Washington, and it goes as far north as Peking. I saw American pine in the lumber-yards of Japan, and I | met a man who was trying to introduce it into Eastern Siberia. During my stay in Vliadivostock an American ship loaded with California wheat was lying at the ‘wharves, and quite a good deal of our flour is now used in China. Strange as it may seem to many, rice is an expensive form of food there, and in the north many of the Eeople are too poor to eat it. There are no ig flouring-mills in China, and even in the city of Canton, which, you know, con- tains about 2,000.000 people, I saw oxen grinding flour by dragging one stone about on the top of another. It is impossible to appreciate the for- tunes which are sure to come sooner or later to_some one out of Chinese cheap labor. I saw a locomotive which they built at the gun works near Shanghai, which looked a3 well as any turned out in our shops, and a Chinese engineer was operating it. He got about 25 cents a day. I'saw men making eyerything under the sun for wages about a tenth of what the same class of labor receives in the United States, and the Englishman in charge told me that it required only a few months to make a good mechanic out of an ordinary Chinaman. ‘When the Chinese appreciate that they can manufacture for the world. The coolies and the men who are now working on the roads could be put into the factories and the people will become a nation of me- chanics and manufacturers. At present they toil from ten to twelve hours a day for wages which would hardly support a dog in this country. I have gefore me a list of wages given by Dr. Bedloe when a Consul at Amoy. Here are some of them: Barbers get $3 a month, boatmen $4, brick- layers $5, masons $6, laundrymen $4 and | pavers $4 50 per month. The plumber is a rich man in America, but he is glad to re- ceive $6 25 a month in China. Printers re- ceive $9 a month, tanners $6 a month, telegraph operators $24 a month, ordinary laborers $4 a month and cigar-makers about $5 per month. It isthe same all over the empire and the wages may be di- vided in half, as they are paid in silver, which is worth only half the value of our money. I could fill a page of this newspaper with the possibilities and the curious features of labor in China_and Japan, and the same may also be said of Korea, though there has been until now so little security for the fruits of labor that the people have had no incentive to work. The treaty will bring anew light into the hermit nation, and many of the old and barbarous customs will now pass away. For some time there will, however, be chances for speculative turns outside of the wonderful resources of the country. One will be when any mem- ber of the royal family dies. At this time the whole nation is supposed to go into mourning. Every man in the country has to puton a white straw hat as big as an umbrella and a new gown of yellow grass- cloth. The man who has a corner on grass- cloth at such times is sure to have at least three million men howling for it. He can charge his own ?rices. and can do almost as well as Colonel Sellers hoped to do with his eye-water for the millions of cross-eyed Chinamen. 1 have already written at lengtk concerning the gold mines, the coal mines and the probabilities of there being large deposits of petroleum in Korea. The country will now be developed, and there are 500(1 chances in it for American capi- . talists. Frark G, Copriight, 1895, CARPENTER, POTRERO AND MISSION. LIGHTS ON FOLSOM STREET. Bits of Gossip Gathered Up From Bright and Busy Sections. Napa-Street Hill-Shea’s Insanity. Ambitious Boys—Irving Institute. The Southern Heights Improvement Club is working in a quiet way to perfect a plan for the removal of the unsightly hill along Kentucky streetat the Potrero. There are many vlaces around there for which it would supply filling, such as the Mission Creek marsh and the mouth of Islais Creek. A member of the club observed yesterday: ““The hill will probably never have any- thing done with it until the work on the Valley roaa is begua. Then it may be found necessary to use the earth forA the filling in around China Basin. The City— that is, the School Department — owns twelve lots on the south side of the Napa- street line, between Kentucky and Tennes- see streets, and on the other side Messrs. Dawvis ana Reis own thirty-two lots that T know of, and the Reis estate considerable more. It would probably be an easy mat- ter to get the earth of the hill all the way to Minnesota street, because that would bring the property there down to the present grade, and make it valuable for building purposes. The most of the Propcrty be- yond Minnesota street to Pennsylvania avenue, and extending from Mariposa street to Shasta, is owned by the Southern Pacific, and when that company has de- cided upon its new route to Sierra Point it will probably use the hill for filling in the Mission Creek marsh, which it also owns. “This would make Napa street a fine thoroughfare, and reclaim from nature’s inconsiderate topography an immense stretch of valuable business property. An electric line would in all likelihood follow the easy grade on Napa street to De Haro.” A dredger of the San Francisco Bridge Company is at work on the channel just above the Fourth-street drawbridge. The insane man, David D. Shea, whom Sergeant Bennet had confined in the Potrero station out of regard for the safety of Father O'Connell of St. Teresa’s Church, has the reputation of being a dangerous man to be at large. He was arrested five times at the Potrero between 1886 and 1891, Since he was let out of the Agnews Asy- lum on probation he made a trip to Boston and had only recently returned. Shea has a_homicidal mania, which is aggravated whenever he takes a drink or two. He keeps a lot of crucifixes, to which he pays devout respect when deranged. About twelve years ago he went to South San Francisco and proceeded to take charge of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum. Two years ago he attacked a sister superior at 8t. Dominic’s Convent, Bush and Steiner streets. Heisa very powerful man, and at that time gave the police a fierce battle, He was arrested this last time because of his most persistent menacing of Father O’Connell. Hesaid he had given $5 toward the building of a parochial home, and as be did not observe any building going up demanded his money. It is hisdisposition to resort to violence in the belief that he is divinely commissioned to renovate the Catholic church that makes him a terror to Catholic circles. His insanity was caused by the hanging of his son for the murder of a policeman at Washington, D. C. Shea was then a ser- geant-at-arms in the National Capitol, and s}\enl all the money he could obtain in his eiforts to save his son from the gallows. His case has been taken under advisement by the Insanity Commissioners. Nine boys are receiving instruction in mechanical drawing at the Potrero Gram- mar School by Professor R. E. Eldridge, as competitors for the apprenticeship in the draughting department of the Union Iron Works, which School Director Henry T. Scott is offering as a_prize. They are: Fred Hildebrand, Ang. 5}.) Linehan, Walter Scharetz, Edward J. Keane, Roscoe G. Horn, Fred Riccomi, Ferdinand F. Gros- bauer, Ben Hedstrom and David Dic James H. Aver of Kentucky and Napa streets has given to the park museum some specimens of ingenious whittling. Mr. Aver has a wooden chain which he carved out of a sin%]e rod of sugar pine. The rod was 117 inches square, 154 feet long and weighed six pounds when he commenced and when he finished the chain was 21 feet long and only weighed two pounds. The whale fleet steam-tender Jeanie is about to go on the wan at the Union Iron Works for an overhauling. The Golden Shore, one_of the Spreckels sugar fleet, is at the dock of the Western sugar refinery. uger’nn.endent Spreckels of the West- ern Sugar Refinery said yesterday that very little of the cargo of the John G. North was damaged. He gives Captain Carlsen and his crew much praise for sav- ing the cargo by vigorousand constant pumping. Eureka Valley is rejoicing over the cut being made on "Ridley street, through the old Spring Valley reservoir at Buena Vista Park from the junction of Market and Dolores streets. There is talk of again agitating the proposition to extend Market street from BSeventeenth street over the saddle between the Twin Peaks, and turning Twin Peaks into a park. Diedrich H. Wauizen, on Seventeenth and Castro streets, is said to be the only objector of any con: sequence. A. B. Maguire stated yesterday aft- ernoon that the committee, consisting of Messrs. Somers and Center and himself, chosen by the Folsom-street Improvement Club No. 1 to confer with the Electric Light Company for the lighting of the bituminized portion of the street, namely, from Nineteenth street to Twenty-sixth, was successful. Accordingly ‘electric lights will be placed on all the street cross- ings on the Kor!ion mentioned. Work of putting up the poles for the lights will be- gin to-morrow. Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, at Market and Sixteenth streets, which has just been enlarged by the addition of an- other story, will be dedicated to-day. by Bishop Daniel A. Goodsell at 3 . ., a sisted by Bishop Walden. Rev. R. Dille of 'the Central Methodist Episcopal Church will preach in the evening. The Epworth League anniversary will precede the evening services. The commencement exercises of Irving Institute will be held in Trinity Presby- terian Church, corner of Twenty-third and Capp streets, next Thursday evening, Ma, 23, at 6 o'clock, says the Mission Journal. Following will be the programme: Organ prelude, Mrs. H. J. Stewart; chorus, «If Hope Were but a Fairy"; prayer, Rev. J. Cumminf Smith; piano, “Cachucha Caprice,” Helen L. Ruthrauff; essay, “Lights,” Mabel F. Meany; piano, “Schlummerlied,” Eleanor Dill; essay, ‘A Schoolgirl’s Potpourri,” Cornelia D. Lott; piano, Sonati, Andante, Opuis 26, Chant Polonaise, Ethelwynne Marrack; violin solo, “Legende,” Miriam Hall; essay, “Gordian Knots,” Fannie M. Agar; songs, “Slumber Song” and “Good-night,” Juliet Greninger; essay, “To-day and To-morrow,’ Elizabeth Curry; piano, *Valsz Caprice,” Agnes M. Stewart; address, Rev. W. Meany; presentation of diplomas, Rev. Blll‘mP Nicho class song, ‘‘Alma Mater,” class of '95; bene- diction; organ postlude, H. J. Stewart. Bishop Nichols will present the di- lomas and_there will be an address by ev. Edward W. Meaney. The graduates are: Miriam Hall, Estelle M. Dayis, Ethelwynn Marrack, Agnes M. Stewart, Mabel F. Meaney, Juliet L. Greninger, Fannie M. Agar, ile&nor Dill, Elizabeth Curry, Cornelia’ D. Lott and Helen L. Ruthrauff, At the Friday night recital of the institute, which was a very successtul affair and well attended, the following took part: Miss Mabel Gale, Miss Aileen Day, Miss Elizabeth Curry, Miss Anna Joost, Miss Mabel Barnes, Miss Edith ¢ =z T T WG ;,_IIMHIUH‘U f? o il | i 1 i Il “THE OLD, OLD STORY. T HE PICTURE recalls the days when youth, vitality and ambition knew no care, and gives no hint of what worry, work and application will do to the system. How many wish they had those days back again! And yet they can if they will but con- sult their common sense. Everybody knows that the continual use of the body, brain and nerves leads to waste in each, and that to preserve health and balance the system a NATURAL AND EFFICIENT SUSTENANT OR TONIC is nzeded. could be better than the following ? What CELERY For the Nerves and Brain. BEEF To Build Up and Sustain. IRON Given in a Pleasant and Natural Form FOP the BIOOd R. HENLEY’S CELERY, BEEY and IRON combines these three great ingredients to health and strength in a way that makes it agreeable to take, and at the same time tones and builds up the system in a most wonderful manner. The weakest stom- ach accepts this remedy, and almost immediately SLEEPLE sSNESS, NERVOUS- NESS, HEADACHES, INDIGESTION, KIDNEY, LIVER, STOMACH and BLAD- DER TROUBLES DISAPPEAR. There is nothing like it as a TONIC, NERVINE and SYSTEM-BUILDER. Try it once and you will never be without it. DR. HENLEY’S CELERY, BEEF AND IRON Nature’s Builder and Tonic ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTE, Mills, Miss Ellie Panno, Miss Addie Stew- art, Miss Mabel Meaney, Miss Edna Smart, Miss Helen Ruthrauff, Miss_Blanche Southack, Miss Ethel Dalton, Miss Cor- | peli . Lott, Miss Juliet Greninger, Miss Harriet Fisher, Miss Reba Blood, Miss Miriam Hall and Miss Daisy Waterman. The orchestra consisted of Misses Hall and Day, first violins; Misses Smart and Southack, second violins; Miss Dal- ton, cornet, and Miss Ruthrauff, piano, under the directorship of Professor A. Harold Dayton. It gave a selection from Gounod’s “‘Faust.” "Misses Fisher, Gale, Panno, Curry and Blood produced a scene from Shakespeare’s “Henry [V.” The next session of Irving Institute will begin on Monday, August 5. H. J. Stewart is the musical director. _Superintendent J. G. Gallagher of sta- tion C postoffice has been sick and con- fined to his bed for several weeks. C.W. Seeley has been stationed at station C postoffice during his absence. John Doyle of 2253 Mission street pro- Pposes to take a trip East. He will spend a week at Portland first. Along the Oak-street route of the How- ard-street system, poles have been put up, and this week wires have been strung with aview toward changing it to an electric line. Potrero residents look upon this as an indication that the old horsecar line running on Tenth street from Howard, and along Potrero avenue, will before long be chnn%ed o a first-class electric road, too. Track-laying of the Sixteenth-street electric system was about completed on Solano street yesterday. —_— A Small Boy’s Answer. At a country school in England it is said that one of the examiners, in a general ex- ercise, wrote the word ‘‘dozen” on the blackboard and asked the pupils to each write a sentence contairing the word. He was somewhat taken aback to find on one of the papers the following sentence: ‘“I %A:zbel: now my lesson.”—Harper’s Round EFFORT TO KILL A GOAT. Patrick Murphy Ties Its Legs With the Remnants of His Shirt and Casts It Upon the Railroad Track. A black and white goat of patriarchal appearance, especially in regard to a lovely | white beard, who has long been a wanderer in the vicinity of the Fifty-second street station and who has had the reputation of _conducting himself in a :manner not ealcu- lated to raise him in the estimacion of his neighbors belonging to the human family, had a narrow escape yesterday from being run over by a freight train, as the result of an escapade in which he brought down the wrath of one of the long-suffering natives, says the Philadelphia Times. Patrick Murphg, a flagman on the Penn- sylvania railroad, near the Fifty-second street station, has long been addicted to the use of red-flannel shirts, and cherishes each one with loving care, nllowinino one to wash them but himsolf, and hanging them out to dry in_a sunny spot where he can watch them daneling in the breeze. Yesterday was a particnlarly good day for the drying process, and had it not been for the arrival of the wandering goat every- thing would have gone to Patrick’s satis- faction. The goat has always had an especial ha- tred for the flagman on account of his red Visage and his red shirts and Patrick has mot been loath to return the dislike, and vowed many times that he would have the aged wanderer’s scalp. Accordingly,when the goat appeared upon the hill and began to tear the fiery garment that hung upon the line, Patrick sprang to the rescue of his property, which was nearly demolished when he reached it. The sight proved a last straw to Pat’s good nature, and, taking the remainder of the shirt, he tied the goat's legs and carried the stmgglinlg animal down to the railroad, where he placed him between the ————— Mechanics head the list of inventors. Clergymen come next, 4 tracks, and left him to return to his post and watch from a convenient distance the effect that an outward-bound freight train would have upon his enemy. Meanwhile the wandcrer lay upon his back kickinz | his fettered limbs in the air, and listening | to the noise of the approaching train, the engineer of which, everalert for the danger- signal, thought that he saw before him the customary emblem being waved to warn | him against imminent peril. | The train was moving at a rather more | rapid pace than is usually attained by | those of that species, so that the engineer | had no_easy task in bringing it to a halt, | and only did so when about twenty-five | feet from the unsalaried danger signaler | | and his flag. Then he sprang from the | | engine with the fireman, followed by the | | conductor and a little band of bratemen, | ! all of whom were anxious to learn the | | cause of the sudden waving and thankful | | for their supposed narrow escape from | death. | Great was their surprise upon getting a | few feet ahead of the engine to see the | | danger signal further down, and in its | | place appear an unpicturesque goat wear- | such as no goatis ever remembered to have worn before. A shout went up from the trainmen when they understood the reason : of their sudden stop, and all hands went | would-be slaf'er that such a clever animal should be allowed to live. —_—————— The Vervain Humming-Bird. The vervain humming-bird is the small- est bird in existence. larger than our familiar bumble-bee, Its lumage is very brilllant in coloring. WO specimens are on exhibition in the tiny balls of bright-colored feathers aver- age about 214 inches in length. The nest is a frail and almost perfect piece of bird architecture. It is composed of mosses, vegetable fiber and wild cotton, with a delicate lining of spiders’ webs. In gather- ing the latter material it is no uncommon occurrence for the little birds to become ensnared in the webs of the larger spiders, by which they are killed. The size of the vervain’s nest is three-fourths of an inch in diameter across the cavitv. and slishtlv | to congratulate the goat, and to tell his | It is very little | National Museum at Washington, and the | I The ing upon its face an expression of pleasure | more than an inch in total diameter. The eggs, always two in number, are pure white. They never measure more than | one-third of an inch in length by one-fifth |of an inch birds are found onl in width. These diminutive 2 in the island of Jamaica.—Philadelphia Times. THE ELEPHANT. African Species Have Poor Memo- ries—Descendants of the Mastodon. The European *elephant herd” Is, gen- erally speaking, the property of the large circus owners, and these prefer the Indian elephant, which they allege to be more do- cile and more reliable for their purposes than the African species. The trainers say that the latter have bad memories and that this makes them uncertain perform- ers in the ring. They will learn a few tricks without difficulty, but when called uvon to perform in public they sometimes seem to forget their accomplishments and either stand still or bolt to their stables. It has been recently pointed out that this lack of memory, or perhaps of brain- power, in the African, when compared with the Indian species, may possibly be accounted for by the descent of the for- mer from the mastodon, an_earlier extinct type than the mammoth. The teeth of the African elegxhant correspond with those of the mastodon, while in the Indian ele- Fnhoj:-gt r;lé:ly“ n;]e ana!ufiousvtvo those of the ammoth., W i England the African seems l;znhlggt]ex; tes&)e_ct for ““humans’’ than the Asiatic, and is less trusted bv its keepers, who seem to look upon it as unsafe. But this is only a comparative estimate of a creature ndged by the side of one which has long eld the first place among domestic beasts of burden. Dr. Sclater, who has sumiaar- ized the general experience of the Zoologi- cal Society for nearly twenty years, gave it as his opinion that they are quite as intel- ligent as the Indian s ecies, though per- l‘:l:;‘)'?. Jmt equally docile.—The Saturday