The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 28, 1895, Page 13

A { THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 28, 1895. 13 Made drunken, tottering wi Made drunken, g He spake, He heard, 2s a baby hears. like all small big showing, akness and man had pt a store iter and he goodness! Jones, , was Sheriff | 1 a pack train, a share | hare in almost every- pand down the Trinity rivers, t to Colonel Short, the best story- bacon, dustin the beaus, w1 some dust got into the sugar mats too. You see, we used Kanafia sugar—put up in mats—entirely in those dear ‘‘good old days,” and surely the wind must have beer blowing always very hard in the sandy Sandwich Islands when the good mission. ary sugar merchants out there were put- ting the sugar up in the mats. And per- haps they untied the mats in San Fran- cisco to dry the sugar with the most honest intentions toward the honest miner before sending it up to us; and maybe the wind ir ndy San Francisco was blowing awful t the time. This sugar was then sent up by boat to Sacramento, another sandy place. Maybe the sugar got damp on theboat and had to be opened and dried there, too. Anyhew, what with the sand of all these sand places, sand and dirt and dust, dust and dirt and sand, there was never less than half an inch of grit on the bottom of the 1 acute, a sort of acute triangle as it were, but one don’t like it spread all over crea- tion for breakfast and dinner and supper.” She did not quite comprehend, and to make himself clear he said, still more sol- emnly and slowly, as he stirred up the sand and took a swallow: “Madam, the square described on the hypothenuse of a rightangled triangle is | equal to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides; therefore, why not focus?” These terrible and mysterious new words convinced her. In the dim poetical and dreamful twilight of that same afternoon she and the obese, obtuse and rotund part- ner of Sheriff Jones, Colcnel Short, silently and solemnly carried two of the tomb- | stones into the little restaurant. Fancy the dismay and horror of Jones on discovering, after a hurried breakfast next morning, that he had taken his meal |on a marble table—a tombstone upside | down! | He simply roared at the obese, obtuse | Short when he got back to the store and | told him he could have the widow, tomb- | stones and all, entirely to himself there- | after and forever. The tombstones were | carried back into an old shed, but they had | already created a coolness between the two that never to thisday has quite thawed out. | Some of the custom fell off, too, and | there were those who hinted that the spouse was not dead at all, notwi!hsmndmg this profusion of tombstones, but ha | picked up a big nugget in China Camp “THE LOST FRENCHMAN WALEED IN.” teller and most popular liar in the mines. Handsome, was Jones, and proud. it for all that. He needs | poor, rich United States now, the tor. Jones could cinch a mule. He could work, swing a pick or ply the shovel. be he could, but we never saw him try. aps this was only one. of his ¢ little stories. But cinch a mule! You should have seen Senator Jones of Nevada cinch a mule, the big bell mule. The big canvas cinch-band that goes un- der the mule’s belly and almost cuts the creature in two has a long cinch-rope on one end; the other has a big oaken hook. You gather the whole long rope in your ht hand, throw it away, away out full ngth back past the mule’s tail and heels, throw the hook and canvas girth under the mule’s belly to the man on the other side, throw 2 fold of the rope over the pack, lay the “diamond hitch” across and about the top of the pack as the other man makes fast in the hook, and then pull, pull and baul and haul and pull as the mule sets her four feet wide out, takes in her breath till her girth islike unto the girth of Saturn, and then she grunts, and grunts, once, twice,. and then rip! The third grunt you do not hear, you feel; the long neck and head swee§> around with iftness and velocity of a 1000-volted electrode, and while you don’t so much mind the wear and tear in the rear of your overalls you really don’t like to sleep on your face or stand up at a stump to eat your beans for a month or two at a time When it can be avoided. S Senator Jones always wore a “Tomrim, that is a great flat sheet of perforated stove piping, after his first experience _with that old bell-mule. He would lash it on the lower end of his back with a rope when he went to cinch her—a sort of breastplate, as it were. Sometimes a fresh young packer would come from some other camp and want & job. | 1%an you throw the diamond hitch? Train goin’ out soon as we pack up—might give you a job. Start in on old ‘Billy’ there, you and Bell Boy.” 4 And Jones would bite an inch off his cigar, wink at his Bell Boy and the crowd and then begin to shake and shake away down to his boot-tops. Well, to cut it short, the new man wouldn’t stay long enough in Trinity Center to sit down as a rule. Ab, these were the good old days when Red Bluffs was the head of navigation and the one single, narrow dittle pack trail to Trinity Center was simply an endless, tor- tuous, tiresome, braying, yelling, cursing, moving corkscrew of mules and Mexican | old da {in coffee cup after dinner in “‘the good old days,” strain it and drain it through your teeth as you might, grit and dirt that cost just evi No reproach on Colonel Short now; no nc{n of Senator Jones. They loved r joke, their gold dust, too, but they in- | jured” no _man. In truth, they helped many a miner when he could not help him- staked” him, sent him forth, and so, too frequently, if, like the dove, he found no place for the sole of his foot, he | came back, and Colonel Short put forth his hand ana received him again into the | ark; and if, on the other side, he found ‘‘the waters abated from off the earth,” or, | in other words, he ‘‘struck it,” he, too fre- y for the upbuilding of faith in man, never came back till time, convenience or old age made him “ante up.” There was a Frenchman and the French- man had a wife, and the wife had a garden all full of old prospect-holes—holes as deep | and dark as sin. The two didn’t get on very well, and one dark and stormy night the man, half drunk at the time, Colonel Short said, disappeared. He had been last seen in the garden of dark and deep holes. The water was booming over the whole place by morning, and as it abated the poor, lorn French widow went from one prospect-hole to another and wept and wept. She could not decide in which one of the three deepest holes her husband was buried, and so she planted flowers and shed tears on each one copiously each day. This touched the heart of Colonel Short; and as she, like all good Frenchwomen, was a good cook, he furnished supplies, and she set up a little resort, or restaurant, which soon became the very heart of boom- ing and beautiful Trinity "Center, It was poker games were played. It was there that Sheriff Jones and Colonel Short told their most brilliant tales and “were wont to set the table in a roar.” And so it was that the widow prospered amazingly; but she did not forget her buried lord “in the vegetable garden or neglect the triangle of possible or probable graves. So far from that she went to Shasta City with her very first money and ordered three marble tombstones. It looked odd, this triangle of tearful tombs, to Sheriff Jones in that pretty garden down the slofling hill be- yond the festive door, and he told the widow so in the gentlest terms possible. There were likewise many other men in Trinity Center, mischievous persons, and clearly not of the aristocracy, but voters, who did not like this profuse display of tombstones, and Jones threw himself at their head and once more made solemn protest with the widow. packers, all knee-deep in dust. Dust on the mules and Mexican drivers till all were of the ssme color of clay; dust on the “This three-cornered grief, madam,” he said one day as hestirred a spoonful of sand and Kanaks suger in bis —, “maybe 1 its weight in gold “in the good | there that all the high-toned and first-class | Gulch while prowling through the chapar- ral with his shotgun in quest of jackrab- bits and had gone to 'Frisco to have a good time. | Years on years rolled gently and swiftly { along. Jones and many good men went | away, the pack trains went; stages, freight wagons, immigrant wagons, women, all these things came, and still the platonic and gbtuse colonel and the pretty widow stayed. The colonel had become a doctor, doctor of both law and medicine, for he was now ‘“the magistrate, with fat, round belly.” He performed all the marriages, and in cases when he thought the tie not quite so fast as the Gordian knot, he kindly decreed an occasional divorce, just to oblige. In medicine he never lost a case. This, perhaps, was due to the good French cook- ing, the pure water and the fine air as much as anything else, for he rarely ad- ministered medicines. Stop a minute. Let it be explained that there was, most likely, one death; but hear the facts and ou will hardly blame his want of skill, ut rather his want of memory, for this one fatal termination. The patient was a poor leprous loafer, repulsive from sores and want of soap, and also sadly in love with the widow. { Colonel Doctor Judge Short believed in | simple remedies. He nearly always, for | example, applied moist, clean earth to all | sorts of bruises and broken limbs, and with marvelous results. And to show how nearly right he was in this primitive method fiec it be mentioned that the French surgeons of the army used this same simple remedy continually in their late great war. This most remarkable Judge of Trinity reasoned that if a little earth will heal a little bruise or break, a lot of earth ought to heal a lot of big sores as well; and so he had a pit dug away up on the hillside, and one pleasant twilight stood the man in there with the dirt packed tightly in about him up to his very chin. He wanted a drink then, the poorleprous and soapless loafer, and so the generous widow went to her restaurant, returned, got down to him on her hands ana knees and filled him half full of gin. It had been hot work in the sun, and so the men drank hezrtily all around of what was left, drank twice three to his good health. Then they filled his mouth with tabaccn,tgnt a lighted clay pipe in his teeth, and, as the long, dark shadows of the lordly pine treescame down over the kindly and humane group of sympathizers with the poor fellow, they, one by one, melted away down to the com- mon center, the widow’s tables. The doctor was the last toleave. He could not feel the patient’s pulse, but he got down on his hands and knees, as the widow had done, and took a_good look at his tongue. As he arose and brushed the pine g and fresb, sweet earth from bis knees, he heard the howl of a wolf far away on the wooded mountain top, and, knowing how timid was the widow, he hastened down to where she stood waiting and took her home to where the hungry and merry crowd was already waiting for supper and the usual game of poker after. There had been a big “find” that day, and so the game was unusually steep, pro- longed and absorbing. Besides that there was a sensation. A half-drowned China- man, one of six who had suddenly disap- peared a few days before, taking one of their number in a handcart, fast on his pack with innumerable broken bones, so they said, has returned. True, they had not called in ‘“‘doctor” with his “earth and other simple remedies, but they had taken pains to tell everybody that they were in great haste to get the dying man, who had been crushed in a landslide, out of the moun- tains before he died. The stage driver had remembered that when he met the little gany near Shasta City they had a_yellow ag “displayed above the cart, indicating smallpox. Well, the story now was that the hand- cart had held the biggest nugget in it that had ever seen the light of day in Galifor- nia, besides a lot of other and smaller nuggets, all taken the week before from China Camp Creek, near town. The hali- drowned Uginamnn had begged his way back from where he had scrambled out from the overturned canoe in the Sacra- mento River, leaving his dead companions, and now was compelled to tell the truth to the magistrate In the hope of getting back his abandoned claim and cabin; a hopeless hope. : ut the sensation of sensations took place next morning at about daylight, when the great poker game was at high- water mark. The lost Frenchman, the man who once had three tombstones when he was not entitled to even so much as one, walked in, sat down in a corner with a shotgun on his lap and waited, but waited not long, to see that crowd melt into thin air. Jones had long since gone far, far away; had become Senator, a great and greatly honored United States Senator. Colonel Short was a man of resources, when not blinded by the little blind boy in his pure platonic love. He did not wait to see the crowd go. He set a virtuous example, and was first to leave. Hehad businessat his store. Later, as the gray dawn came, the late widow saw that he was burning at least two candles, and, maybe, many letters. The stage left at sunrise each morning. A mile from Trinity Center, in the midst of a clond of dust, the horses were thrown back on their haunches and a man clam- bered up without a word and took his place with the driver. ¥ Certainly Senator Jones would give his old *‘pard” of poker and Trinity a great place. The country needed him abroad, and abroad he needed the country. Did you ever know a man te go to Jones and get the promise of a place? or, rather, did you ever know a man who didn’t go to Jones and get the promise of a place? One year, two years, five years, ten, fif- teen. Short grew short in every sense. Possibly he was as tall as ever, but he seemed only about half his usual height and twice his usual thickness. He had thought he could play poker. It cost him much to find out that he did not know the first thing about that delusive chimera. He had believed he knew a little bit about olitics. Fifteen years taught him he knew less even about politics than about poker. g 5 At last, grown desperate by disappoint- ments, he made open quarrel and protest with Jones. Jones blandly referred him to the Civil Service examination commit- tee. ‘“Me! me! Hell and blazes! Did Bay- ard have to put up with that Civil Service examination?”’ per At last, word came that the ubiguitous Frenchman had kindly laid aside his shot- gun and consented, so far as he could con- sent, to let the tombstone still standing in the garden, with some alterations of dates, record his many and manly virtues. “Jones is not a bad man, except that he is such a dreadful liar about offices,” said the retiring colonel at the Palace, as he drew out the httle check from a Washing- ton letter with the Senator's name at- tached. ‘“‘Yes, boys,”” he cried to some old cronies, ‘‘back—goin’ for old Trinity. By George, 1 can see the stately old sugar pines nodding their plumes to welcome me. I can see the rabbits dancing in the dusty road as the partridge whistles at sundown from the chaparral hill for him to dance. Ican see the large-eyed, timid deer step daintily out in the dusty stage road and look up and down, and then pass across unharmed. I 8an hear the rustle of the cool, sweet waters -over the cobble- stones and sands of gold; and I am going to get gold, gold, gold, as of old. Come along with me, boys! Why, bless me! it used to cost a month to get there, and all sorts of trial and privation, while now we can go in no time, live on nothing and be like lords as of old. Same skies, same mountains, same rivers, same sweet air and spicy smell of wood and carpet of pine quills. Glad I didn’t get a place afterall. We will open the old China Camp Creek with a grand sluice! We will—gocdnesss! what will we not do?” And so the little fat Colonel Short pulled together a few of his old companions. They, too, thought the mines of old Trinity still’ the sweetest, healthiest, happiest, dearest place on earth, and so had only wanted a leader and some one to “put up a stake ”’ And what a happy, hilarious old party it was that trundled out of Redding in the old stage drawn by the six dusty old horses! Let who will rebuke the obese and short old man with his short memory and all other sorts of shorts. He was a pure and clean old fellow from the first, entirely platonic in his love, for his heart was in his stomach, as with many another man, and the widow knew it. And all those old fellows, now his following, knew that his love for the rotund little old woman, now so old and fat you could scarcely see her little black eyes, was from the first en- tirely chivalrous and platonic, else they had not been at his side. Let us rather honor his loyalty to the old love, the old mountains, rivers, pines and all that makes old Trinity a paradise. She was fixing things up as the stage was nearing Trinity, e marble tables? She had not only the two from the shed, but the one from the garden. God bless her! for it had fallen down soon after they had dug the new grave by it. They chatted of the widow and her waste of tombstones. The merriest stage- ful and stagetopful of old boys that the world ever saw or heard of. Old heads hatless, hairless, bobbed in and out and about each window and blossomed on the top as thick as they could stick, while hats swung in the air and the old fellows vowed with one voice to live and die in dear old Trinity, tombstones or no tomb- stones. The very trees, they declared, were glad to see them back again; for in their years and yearsof absence the forests had grown up and the road had become so narrow that in places the pleasant, cool boughs hung over their heads and reached out merrily as if to shake them by the hand in welcome. At Trinity Crossing they saw little farms on either hand, and fruit trees laden with rosy apples. Pretty girls, rosy as the ripe, red fruit, stood out on the low, vine-cov- ered porches, and showed their pretty teeth with pleasure, as the old heads bowed and bobbed, and hats went high in the air in happy salutation. Too old to be scandalized now, the two rotund lovers reached out in the won- drous moonlight that poured a path of silver down the hill for them to walk upon. They ascended toward the great sugar pines that had cast their lordly shadows over them that last twilight when they had been together in Trinity Center. As they approached the spot where they had left” the man buried to the chin with a pipe in_his teeth, the colonel seemed to remember, and suddenly asked, as if for the first time some dread| idea had come to his obtuse mind, “Did—did he get well?” “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! I no bin see he! He no bin see me!” The colonel groauned. He fell on his|o knees at the spot. There was a little de- pression in the ground—a foot or two of soft, sweet-smelling pine quills. That was all. Ho felt about in the leaves & littlewfor the bowl of the pipe, maybe—but soon he rose up, cheerfully brushed his knees with his two hands, and as they sauntered bac to the '‘French restaurant” he proved to he widew that the man had, of course, got well and got out, for as he fasted and convalesced he naturally 'grew very thin, and so, of course, crept out as beautifully as a butterfly from the chrysalis. And she believed it.” Indeed so did he, for, in fact, it is quite possible, although it is said b the miners that the wolves ate his head of the first night. JoAQUIN MILLER. A SALVATION WEDDING. The Army Also Celebrates Its Twelfth Anniversary. Friday night the Salvation Army cele- brated its twelfth anniversary on this coast by a rousing meeting at their headquarters on Market street, the event of the evening being the wedding of Captain Thompson and Lieutenant Rosa Harrington. The bride, a very prepossessing young lady, 19 years of age, is a native of San Francisco, and has been stenographer to Brigadier Keppel of the army for some time past. Her fatheris a gentleman of some means, and she also has two brothers living here, one of whom is bookkeeper for the Produce Exchange and the other an employe of Mr. Kaufman, the grain-broker. The groom, who recently had charge of tbe army’s work at Fresno, is a fine-look- ing young man of 27 years. The hall was filled to suffocation. When the bridal procession marched up the aisle to the air of ““Ihe Secret Is His Love” the hallelujahs were impressive. Numerous sonfis set to popular music were rendered with piano and trumpet accompaniment, and one set to the tune of “Whoa, Emma,” and sung by Captain Gardiner of San Jose, with a banjo accompaniment, was applauded to the echo. The marriage service is very original and differs from the orthodox form greatly,fealty and allegiance to the Salvation Army being exacted. After the ceremony and congratulations the meeting continued antil a late hour. AGAINST THE FRUIT RING, United Action of the Growers the Only Thing That Will Do It. L Secretary Flicher of the State Board of Trade on the Fruit Question. There seems to be only one thing for the fruit-growers of this State to do to break the power of the combines in New York and Chicago, according to the views ex- pressed yesterday by Secretary Filcher of the State Board of Trade and A. T. Hatch. This one thing is to stand together to a man and crown with success the efforts of the California Fruit Growers’ and Ship- pers’ Association to bring about the estab- lishment in each of those cities of a con- solidated and open auction-room. Mr. Hatch has the utmost confidence in President Weinstock. It is due to the pluck and persistency of Mr. Weinstock, Mr. Hatch recalls, that Washington Porter ‘was secured as the agent in all the terri- tory east of the Mississippi for the growers of California. Previous to that time Mr. Porter had been a very successful manipu- lator of the market, not, however, for the best interests of the California growers. Parker Earl was always friendly to the interests of the producers here, and the co-operation of these two giants of the fruit trade meant great things for Cali- fornia. It now remains for the fruit-growers to study their own interests and to ship onl; to the open auctions, if possible, though it may be that their transportation arrange- ments might possibly conflict somewhat with this: Otherwise, if the fruit of Cali- fornia is sold in both the close and open auctions it is brought into competition with itself. Said Secretary Filcher: One auction in each city, and that an open one, is what the fruit-growers must have to keep California fruit from being brought into competition with itseir, ana that they will have if they will only all pull together. The close auction is a regular robblnF scheme—a sort of buyers’ union to which only those can beadmitted who are willing to pay for the privilege. H. E. Parker of Placer County went to Chi- cago & little while ago and made an investiga- tion of the way the market was run. He saw eaches bougiit in by the members of the com- ine for 75 cents, and afterward sold to retail- ersat$1 25. Here was a clear profit of 40 r cent made by the man in the combine on ust one turn, and with not an iota of expense. t costs money to raise fruit and if anybody at all should get the bigger share of the profit it should be the producer. A. T. Hatch said: I can’t think of anything better than Mr. Weinstock’s plan. Of course if all the auctions were open and the sales were at different times, so as to give all buyers who wanted to bid a chance, I wouldn’t care if therg were two places of sale. Some shippers may be so situ- ated that in sending fruit to New York they can only ship to the Erie pier, and others, like- wise, to the Union. Now, supposing both sales ‘were open to everybody, and there could be a sale on the Erie for one hour and anofher at the Union the next hour, this would give the fruit a fair chance of obtaining good prices in the market. ‘Whatever Mr. Weinstock endeavors to bring sbout is all right. His record in the past has shown this. Iam sadsfied, if the growers will co-operate with him, it will only be a question of time when we will have a fair market with- out opposition. Every grower who ships to the close-auction comrnnles at present con- tributes to the strength of the op})os}fion and weakens tne movement in behalf of the pro- ducers. Some temporary benefit or advantage might be derived by this, but 8 much greater benefit will ultimately accrue to the individual grower if all turn in and recognize only the open auction. D. E. Allison, the local fruit merchant, looks at it in the same light. He said: 1 believe in the open auction and the concen- tration of fruit all in one place, 50 asto give everybody a chance to bid on it. An open auc- tion of this kind means a greater demand East for California fruits, and the more fruit sent East, the better it will be for the merchants in the én.y. Our prices will be improved, as a matter of logical consequence. A. T. Perkins has gone East to put his new process of shipping fruit into practical operation. By his process the ne- cessity of ice will be dispensed with, a con- stant flow of dry sterilized air of even temperature being the means he proposes to use to kee&imic in good condition while in transit. Mr. Hatch is of the opinion that by this process fruit can be sent East for half of what it now costs refrigerator companies for ice. THE CALIFORNIA REGATTA A Yacht Race Off the Narrow-Gauge ‘Wharf—Movements of the Clubs. The second regatta of the California Yacht Club for the season of 1895 will be run to-day off the Alameda mole. The course is across an imaginary line out from the southerly pierhead of the nar- row-gange wharf, thence to and around Blossom Rock buoy, thence to and around a stakeboat four and a sixteenth miles to the southeast and across the line of finish- ing. There will be three classes of boats, ln% it is expected that all the craft in the club will be in the race. Prizes will be offered for each class and the Walter cup will be awarded to the yacht making the fastest time over the course. The prepara- ‘tory gun will be fired at 12:55 p. M. and the smallest class will be started five minutes later. Classes B and A will be sent off ten and twenty minutes later respectively. The San Francisco Club will take an onmd; sail fl,]o_-dsy, starting by signal from the flagship. The Coringthinpns and Encinals will have n dates to-day, and the rule for both clubs will be *‘go-as-you-please.” e - Tgxrowd F:rl.lce liglflfl:g evil ;tul wiekeg. mas ler uses @ exp! ion, “a shrewd fellow,” meaning & wicked man, |HOW THE COMBINE COSTS, Mr. McDonald Confesses the Price of Rock Has Gone Up. TWENTY PER CENT HIGHER. A Few Instances of Paving Clted Where the Difference Is Thou- sands of Dollars. J. W. McDonald, president of the City Street Improvement Company, has given the taxpayers much food for thought in his little mathematical demonstration pre- sented before the Street Committee of the Board of Supervisors last Thursday by way of showing that 14 cents per square foot was not too high a price for paving Van Ness avenue. As previously stated by THE CAvLL, they will serve a valuable purpose by merely standing for reference and comparison. For instance, take the price of bitumin- ous rock. A few months ago, when the order cre- ating the bituminous-rock monopoly, of which Mr. McDonald is so_pronoggpced a factor, was up before the Mayor seeking his approval, Mr. McDonald made a speech in its favor, 1n which he declared that the price of the rock was $4 25. Everybody not interested in creating the monopoly declared at this time that the price of rock would immediately go up once this order became a law. Mr. Mc- Donald and others interested declared the contrary. That was only a few months ago, but Mr. McDonald, careless of the effect of his fifures and only intent on making another plausible appearance in public, on sustain- ing another false position, deciares that the price is now $5 45 per ton. Here, then, we have in a brief interval of the existence of the combine an increase of $1 20 per ton on bituminous rock. Of course, this increase is only im- aginary. Nothing has occurred to make the rock more valuable—only the members of the combine have been placed in a posi- tion to ask all the people will pay. Public work is no longer put up for bids. These few tractable contractors do the work, nobody else is given a chance, and, what- ever they fix u}()ou as the figure, it ‘‘goes.” The last work done under the old speci- fications and for which bids were called for, was a stretch of four blocks on Twenty-fourth street, between Castro and Dolores, which included five crossings. The City Street Improvement Compan secured that work, being the lowest bid- der. That was before the price of the rock had gone up to $545, and Mr. Mc- Donald could bid low like the other con- tractors. His bid was 183 cents a square foot for paving and 65 cents for curbs. Re- member, that included all the work— getting the street ready, laving concrete foundations and putting down the bitum- inous rock. The majority of the Board of Supervisors at the last meeting directed the Superin- tendent of Streets to ‘‘enter into a private contract” with Mr. McDonald’s company for doing precisely the same kind of work—23l cents for the pave- ment and 85 cents for curbing—a clear in- crease of 54 cents per square foot for the paving and 20 cents per lineal foot for the curbing. In this interesting little bunch of figures which Mr. McDonald presented to the Street Committee he says his profit on the Van Ness avenue job was 114 cents a square foot. He said that he was a pros- erous business man and rejoiced in the act. He accounts for his success by the fact that he knew his business and always figured “‘safe.”” He accounted 14 cents a square foot a good, safe margin then. That margin must certainly have been in- cluded in-his Twenty-fourth street bid of 183¢ cents a square foot for paving and 65 cents a lineal foot for curbing. When to that is added 5} cents a square foot for paving and 20 cents a lineal foot for curbing—how many safe margins is that? Come, boys, figure it out for Mr. McDonald; how many times 114 cents is that and how many thousand do‘hars does it come to in five long b locks of the width of Twenty-fourth, street? Ah! This is a very expensive luxury having a bituminous-rock monopoly and street-paving combine in one’s ‘midst where there is so much street work to be done. And at a time, too, when there is such a clamor about a profiosed big tax levy, insomuch that the School Directors must be refused money which they deem necessary to carry on the complete werk of the department; when the Supervisors are hesitating about providing Chief Crowley with the new policemen he is demanding; when the proposed boulevard and other improvements are in danger of being post- ‘poned all for lack of money. s A monopoly is an expensive thing at an; time, and when it accomplishes no good, when it is ornamental not useful, it should not be allowed to prosper and be ‘‘success- ful” at the expense of the City’s best loved and most necessary institutions, It will not be allowed to do so. Here we have a few figures showing the difference in the cost of street work between the time, some few months ago when Mr. McDonald bought bituminous rock at $4 25 per ton and the combine had not been formed, and to-day when he figures it in his estimates at $5 45 per ton and the com- bine is in full bloom, figuring more than “‘safe”” and being especially *‘successful.’” Under the old regime when it had to bid for what it got, the City Improvement Company paved with basalt blocks a portion of Steuart street at 17 cents a square foot and 65 cents for curbing. Since the combine was formed the same company paved the same street between Fulton and Grove streets at 22 centsa square foot and 85 cents for curbing—an increase of 5 cents for paving, and 20 cents for curbing. No bids were called for—the Superintendent of Streets was simply directed to enter into contract, etc. Under the old regime of bidding against competitors the City Street Imprevement Company took a contract for paving Jack- son street between Steiner and Pierce with bituminous rock at 18} cents per sqémre foot, and 68 cents for cnfl)lng. ince the combine was formed the Super- intendent of Streets was directed to enter into private contract with the same com- any for paving the adjoining block— gteiner street, between Washington and Jackson—at 22 cents a square foot, and 80 cents for curbing. Since the new regime the same contract- ors secured another contract for the same kind of work in the same w;‘y for paving Clay street, from Steiner to rce, at 85 cents for curbing and 23 for paving—an in- crease over the preceding contract, not- withstanding that the character of the work of preparing the street should have made it cheaper. Since the new regime the City Street Improvement Company ,got a private con- tract in the same way for paving Vallejo street, between Octavia and Laguna, at él cents a square foot, and was allowed—this is essentially the City’s part of it—273 cents a foot for paving the crossing at Val- lej& and Laguna. nder the system of calling for bids a contract was let to the San Francisco Pav- ing Company for paving the crossing at La- guna and Octavia streets, one block dis- tant, at 193{ cents. Work was done by public contract on Haight street, from Lyon to Scott, at 183¢ cents per square foot and 70 cents for curbing; on D street, from Fourth to Eighth avenues, at 1814 cents per square foot and 68 cents for curbing. 'his is all work in the sand neighbor- hood and of the same character. There are no big cuts or fills to be cited as accounting for the great difference in the ures. fifil‘h City’s portion alone of the work nun:d i i rices of the combine, under these high p £ o8t $9000more than it would in an open market with contractors at large per- mitted to bid. S hWhat are the people going to do about this? NEW TO'DAY. THE OWL 1128 NMarket Street, SAN FRANCISCO, 820 S. Spring Street, LOS ANGELES. WELL, NOW, DIDY'T YOU KNOW WE SELL MRS. GRAHAM’S Cocumber and Elder Flower Cream AT 40 CENTS. MRS. HARRISON’S Lola Montez Cream AT 65 CENTS. Louden’s Rum and Quinine Hair Tonic. Louden’s Cherry Tooth Paste. Louden’s Cacumber Crea: LOUDEN'S LANOLINE CREAM Guaranteed to remove Tan and Freckels. At 50 Cents. VERONICA WATER 40 Cents a Bottle. SLAUGHTER SALE TOILET SOAPS. Families, Hotels, Clubs, Attention! Kirk’s College Soap. caki T Kirk’s Juvenile Soap, 20c a cake. London Glycerine Soap, 10c a cal Colgate’s Honey and Glycerine Soap..Per hox Pears’ Glycerine Soap, 15¢ a cake.....Per box Kirk's White Oatmeal Soap, 6¢ a cake.Per doz ROGER AND GALLET'S Exiract Pean o Espagne, 85c per bottle. FINE LIQUORS —FOR— MEDICINAL AND FAMILY USE. Canadian Club Whisky. Jockey Club Rye Whisk: Blue Grass Bourbon Whis Cutter’s A No. 1 Whisky 85 Old Pepper Whisky.. 90 Allen’s Pure Malt Whisky. 85 Stanford’s Vina Brandy 12 HOFFS BITRACT HALT 25¢ a hottle, $2.85 per dozen. PACIFIC COAST AGENTS FOR DR. EDISON'S OBESITY GOODS, BELTS, PILLS, SALTS. Catalogue mailed free. Country orders filled at our regular cut-rate prices. HILADELPHIA SHOE CO. STAMPED ON A SHOE MEANS STANDARD OF MERIT. Tearing-down Sale SALE NOW GOING ON! We are the only tenants left at Third and Market sts., and as the sale of our store has virtually been completed we expect to remain only a few days longer. We have therefore marked down every pair of shoes in our store and are making prepara- tions to move. Remember we are not selling odds or ends, but new goods and every pair at reduced prices. ' We also wish our friends and customers to Know that we are not retiring from business. but that we are forced to move on account of the erec- tion of the new building by Mr. Claus Spreckels and that we are now in search of a good store in some cen- trally located place. In the meantime we will con- tinue our monster clearance sale, and will endeavor toreduce our stock. This week we are making . a special drive of Ladles’' Extra Fine Dongola Kid Button Shoes, with either cloth or kid tops, circular vamps and heel foxings, and pointed foes and patent leather tips, which we will sell for $235. These shoes are the very latest in style, and are guaranteed for wear. The cloth is & fast black, and will not fade, while the soles are pliable and require no breaking in. These shoes sell elsewhere for $3. | Weare making a special drive of a Ladies’ Fine Dongola Kid Southern 1ie, with black cloith tops, pointed toes, patent leather tips and hand-turned les, £ b $1.50 ‘That cannot be bought in any store In this city for | Jess than $2 or $2 50. These Southern Ties are being sold below cost. We have reduced all our lines, and this week will make a_special sale of Men’s Fine Calfskin Shoes, in either Congress or Lace, and with broad, pointed or medium square toes and tips. These shoes are great values, but as we must reduce our stock we have placed the selling price at $LS0O. Remember these shoes are made of calfskin, not buft or split leather, and they are McKay sewed ::dw"beo easy on the feét. They formerly sold r . 8- Country orders solicited. Ia-Send for New Illustrated Catalogue. Address B. KATCHINSKI, 10 Third Street, San Francisco. PHILADELPHIA - SHOE CoO.