The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 29, 1896, Page 16

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 1896. on the water front, along Telegraph Hill frowns iown, lik nother Gibraltar, on and on the wharves the foot of Sansome street— fraction of the City’s popula- directories fail to discover, figure on the voting regi: lists; yet which playsa role of absorbing interest in the complex drama of everyday life, and which con- 8 tes a rather striking factor in the sum total of the metropolitan makeup. The mbers of this fraction of the population ry on commerce without capital; they rs without license; tradesmen philosophers without ilators who invest nothing mething out of it; strangers oolroom and apt pupils in the st school. They have eyes 1d wits that flash; they du tonishes and glory in 2 re self-reliant, . bold, saucy, quick with capable of doing good turns eedy as well as mean turns bjects of their hatred. “White Rats of the Water where a ich does not ter, nor on the that s y nerve that know tice tk nothing of Altruria, but s0-operative system, and | r gets his fair share of the r numerous enterprises. more about the daily history | v than most of the people in it. el wagers on the races; | They : seductive negro game of | “pull away” “craps” on the sly in dark corners; dis. cuss tize Brown scandal,and laugh at the | shortcomings of humanity in general. | Take some of these *‘white rats’” out of their miserable haunts, give them a bath, | dressthem 1n neat clothes and their bright- | ness and good looks might attract atten- tion. Christian charity need not sail to Asia for subjecte—there are very appropri- | ate subjects for treatment here. They are little books, containing tales of poverty, and they are bound in rags. Stroll down to Whitelaw’s wharf some | morning when the sun is smiling, and you | may witness an exceedingly common ex- | ample of wharf-rat industry, There is a loose board at the beach end of the planks, one foot wide and two feet long. | raised up and a couple of urchins—8 or 10 vears old, perhaps—lower themselves to the rock foundation underneath the wharf. | There the teredo has been pursuing his work of destruction; and there laborers are engaged in replacing the ruined spiles. A teredo-eaten spile is rolled aside; but it does not block any passageway for long, | for the urchins twain are on hand to grap- ple with it. They do wonderful things— these little fellows; they carrry burdens as big as themselves. A head is poked up | through the hole in the wharf, and a voice cries, “‘Hey, get a move on—lower de | rope!” An arab aloft on the wharf lets down the rope, and straightway rises an indignant voice from below, “Make a loop, you Chinaman!” The loop is made, the rope let down, and soon the signal to is wafted up from the GATHERING [Sketzhed by a FIREWOOD. “Call” artist.] This is | { gloom of the pillared cavern. A trio of ragamuiins pull and haul till beads of perspiration gather on their foreheads, and, rolling down, make creases in the dirt from brow to chin. “Once more — everybody — now!” is shouted in an ascending scale, and now the spile is landed on the sunlit ground. Again and again the operation is repeated | on new-fallen spiles until the arabs | have realized an ordinary cord of wood. They gather about and, as far as possible, | make an equal aivision, after which the child laborers proceed to bear away their respective shares to their homes on the rocky hill. The arabs laugh as they march away shouldering sticks that one would think were burden enough for a | full grown man. The “wharf rats” do not groan as they tug; each vies with the other | in overcoming difficulties, and failure in | an undertaking would mean the onslaught of chaffing critics. | The wood being stored the gang takes | another tack. Under the wharf with crab- | | nets they go to emerge later with a num- | ber of big, fat crabs. These are carried to the base of the giant hill, where, in a pro- tected nook, the ‘‘white rats” kindle a | flame in an improvised fire place of rocks. | A great rusty powder can is called into requisition and a committee brings up water from the salty bay. The crabs are dropped into the powder can, a sheet of | tin is used for a cover and the “rats” sit around and swap stories, or limber them- | selves and turn somersaults, or do some- | R thing else of a diverting nature until in- | vestigation proves that the crabs are suf- | ficiently boiled. | Crab after crab is fished up; the shell | | | goes here, the legs there, and in a few sec- | onds every one of the gang is picking away at the crustaceous delicacy and working his jaws as an indication of healthy relish. | Are these street arabs gallant? On that | point you may stake your life. A little | girl, poorly clad and with a look of hunger written on her thin face, happens along. | She stops and gazes with half a sigh at | | the banquet in the rocky nook. Ah! | there's where little hearts respond—under | | the brow of Telegraph Hill. Nobody talks | | about giving. t the last crab in the powder-can is fished out of the boiling brine and a barefoot boy is running with | | it to the side of the little maiden. R | “Do not give me all—it is too much, | she says. | “We've got heaps more,” cries the boy and scampers back to his comrades, leav- ing the little girl smiling through tears of | gratitude. | The “white rats” think nothing of this; | they would scorn to boast of such little things. They merrily laugh and play again, and if, perchance, their appetites are still unappeased the bay is populated | largely with crabs and the boys under- | stand how to reach them. Crabs prepared ‘ by royal chefs and served in palaces taste | | | “THE WHITE RATS OF THE WATER FRONT” (Sketched by a “‘Call” artist.] PREPARING FOR S L A FEAST. | not half so good to the epicurean million- | aire as these crabs, boiled in sea brine, to | the *“white rats” of the beach. | Not many yards removed from White- | | law’s wharf are o be seen a number of un- sightly piles, known as the dumps. From | all parts of the City come the trash and refuse that build up these hills of rubbish | and dirt. It is afternoon and the ‘‘white rats’’ are busily delvingiin the black heaps. | *“What are you seeking, my boys?” “Spec,” is the quick rep “And what is ‘spec,’ pray “Junk!” | A kindly disposed person inquired the | name of the youthwho acted as spokes- man for the gang. “Willie Shau ssy,” said the boy; forty dollars ’'fore dey got away. Say! Maybe we didn't sport. eh? De whole | gang fed in de high-toned hash factories, and I bought meself a suit o’ clothes way upin G. De big blokes blowed demselves all over the water frontand up in de stores. De swag was all 'round—everywhere— w’en de cops got onto it. Say! De whole cheese was bogus!” | Baldy stopped a moment to allow the fresh listener to his oft-told story to re- cover from the surprise that should follow all such climaxes. Then he scratched his head and wound up: “Dem was high- rollin’ days on de front. 1 was 10 years ola den, and dat’s four years ago. No more boodle found down here—dis ain’t no safe | deposit!” | mains to be set. black eye and a sbarp face sauntered up. | He introduced himself as Georgie Lang. | Baldy supplied the information that Lang | was *‘de champion fist-fighter o’ de gang, but I licked 'im wid de gloves.” Lang said helearned to fight ‘‘up in Gir- van’s lot on Bay street.” | “Billy Wilson loaned us de gloves,”” said | the champion, “an’ I done up all de kids but Baldy. Baldy put me out wid de | gloves, but w'en he tackles me fair fist, | den’s w'en you'll see who's de champion.” Thisintimation was too much for Baldy, who cannot afford to allow such doubts to shake his prestize with the gang. A chal- lenge immediately followed Lang’s clos- ing sentence. The date of the fight re- “Tilly, the Rat,” a de- | “dey dubs me ‘Baldy’ fer short.” “‘Have you everattended school, Willie 2" X ep: . “You spoke of hunting for bones, Wil- lie?” “Yep. Bonesis t'irty-five cents a sack. scendant of the Cwsars, and Patsy Kelley, | a bright roguish-looking lad of 10, vol- | unteered to act us seconds. There will be who must be attracted and lured by amus- ingjpastimes and healthful diversionsfrom the influences of the streets. There is a City Front Boys’ Club in the second story of the brick building at 61. Sansome street. That club is a scheme of splendid promise. It has neariy a han- dred members at present, and as itis growing continuously it is probable that verv soon the whole building will be leased for the benefit of the boys. There are some ten classes of these youngsters, and they are taught by kind ladies who devote afternoons from 3 to 6 o’clock to the work of instructing the little fellows in such useful trades as may be easily mastered. The members are taught, for instance, the art of making wicker-baskets and demijohn-covers; how to make mats out of rope, and’ hammocks out of cording. Their work is sold at the market price and the profits are divided among the workers. Here 1s the beginning of a trade education, with an immediate incentive to learn. The boys work faithfally, spurred by the knowledge that their labor will bring re- | quitement. The club is not a religious alfair, but js maintained by contributions. Mrs. Phaebe Hearst is one of the most lib- eral among the supporters of the plan. In ihe evening the club is open from 7 to 9:30 o’clock, and Manager Hughson, who has had experience with boys in con- nection with the New York Tribune’s fresh-air fund, acts as athletic mstructor and defender of the peace at these evening meetings. It is not only in Girvan's lot on Bay street that boys can slog with the gloves. In the City Front Club there are boxing mittens of superior make. There in the | evening the arabs gather and have set-tos that awake enthusiasm and thunders of | vocal as well as pedal applause. The boys | have beautiful scraps at the club, but they | never get ill natured about such affairs. | Each one learns to take his medicine like a man, and although some hard hitting is | indulged in nobody whimvers and nobody | complains. In the athletic-room there are pendant | rings and turning-boards, horizontal and | parallel bars, trapeze and mat and dumb- bells and swinging clubs. If anything { would attract the average boy of the water front these opportunities for athletic | exercise and sportive enjoyment are the things. They have a reading-room. When there are not chairs enough to seat all the boys the floor is not too good to squatdown upon, and the boys are not a bit averse to | settling down on the floor and there pur- | suing their reading or picture studies. | The shelves in the reading-room contain | many picture-books, magazines and | periodicals that good people send in. ‘The Youth’s Companion, Puck, Judge, Har- | per's Young People, Life and a host of | other publications are strewn about. There is also the nucleus of a library on | the shelves. Robinson Crusoe is in evi- dence, besides Fenimore Cooper’s stories, | Pilgrim’s Progress, Fairy Tales, Dickens’ works, Scottish Chiefs, Mark Twain’s *Merry Tales” and a number of stories of travel and adventure. And tiere 1s also | an American Encyclopedia. : In another room there are various | games and amusements—checkers, chess, | authors, bagatelle and the like. In a few weeks an entertainmen: will be given by | the boys, and Manager Hugnson expects to astonish the patrons of the club by feats that will put them in mind of Olympian i games in the infant stage. The club mem- | bers are telling other boys on the front about their fine boxing-gloves and punch- ing-bag and trapeze—and these very things, | let it be hoped, may serve fo break up | and even reclaim the gang known as the “White Rats of the water front’’—boys, | 2s was mentioned before, not altogether devoid of good traits—boys worth the strongest efforts to save. 1 “‘How long, my son?” De bones is used to pure de sugar up de | no aanger of police interference in this “Eight mont’s.”” “Why did you stop?” “Fired!” “And what for?”’ “Being good. "’ One of the arabs stepped up, witn the query, “Ha’in’t you never heard o’ Baldy ? refinery.” | “Well, what do you find, for the mosti part, in the dumps? and what profits do | you make?” pursued the inquisitive man. “Scrap-iron—lots of it—quarter cent a pound. Brass—one cent pound. Rags—“ say, dey rob us on rags—five cents for de | } Don't read de papers, I guess, Say, he's [sack! Ain’t dat robbery? Bottles—one | de geeser dat dug up all de swag on Bay | cent apiece. Beer bottles—two and a half | street. Say, it was hot times den.” | cents.” | “‘And what is the story about this ‘swag,’ | The boys pick rags and hunt scraps and as you term it, Willie?”” the curious | bottles cn a strictly partnership basis stranger asks. | When a =ack is filled with scraps it is “W’y, y'see,” replies Baldy, striking an | dragged to the junkshop and the money | attitude of self-importance and tbrowing | realized from the sale is divided among | his head back so as to peer straight into | the mgmbers of tne gang. The money is the eyes of the questioner; “y’see, I was | Spent in sucn luxuries as swimming st the under de sidewalk ratting for bones, and | baths, crossing the bay for an excursion, w'at does Tdo but hits ke'plunk against | visiting the CIiff or in feasting at a chop- two big sacks covered wid dirt. I says, | house. ‘Wat's here?’ says I. T opens oneo’de| “We findsloadso’ stuff we don’t look | sacks, and gee-whiz—it made me head | for in de dumps,” observed Baldy. *‘Once swim! Say! It was silver dollars—bushels | dere was a pair o’ roller skates—good as o'dem. I was akid den, I was, and wat | new. Den dere was a pair o’ dese—w’at- does I do but runs over to some o' de big | you-call-'em glasses w'at de high-toned blokes on de beach and shosts off me | jays squint t'ro’ at de balley-dancers. It | mout’ about de boodle. Yep, and dey | was ivory, too. But scraps is de stuff | trur: me down. Dey swipes de two sacks. | w'at counts on de long jog.” | I got me fist in one o’ dem and hooksout | A husky youngster with a piercing championship battle, because the **White | Rats of the Wharf,” unlike the Corbett | and Fitzsimmous ilk, are genuine sports, | mean what they say, and abhor the name | of “‘faker.” i The ‘“‘wharf rats” range in age from 8 to 14 years, Baldy having reached the latter figure. Could many of these boys have proper care and training, they might dis- tingunish themselves as men. Perhaps | some of them will, in spite of their youth’s environments, in spite of associates with vicious elements; in spite of all the evil influences around their daily lives: for they are not all bad, and some of them are surely “diamonds in the rough.” But any article that touches, even thus lightly, upon life among the youth of the water front would be incomplete without | some reference to the endeavors of a num- | ber of good-hearted peovle of means to | smooth the rough lot of the archins of that | locality; and, of course, the youngsiers | thereabout are not all to be deemed “white rats.”” There are many little boys and girls on the front who are positively eager to acquire the mental arms of learning; | eager to improve themselves by all avail- able means. There are more, however, | ‘“ONCE MORE, N \;flluu o e NOW, EVERYBOBY!” This [J\.\n has driven N the thirty-nine years of his experi- ence on the turf Orrin A. Hickok, the famous trainer and driver of trotting and pacing horses, has handled the ribbons in a sufficient nuimber of mile heats in public races to cover a distance which, on a straightaway course, would be a little greater than the distance between San Fran o and New York. If the average gait were 2:20, which means a rate of 37 5-7 feet per second, the actual time consumed in traveling 3038 miles, or a distance equal to that between this City and the metropolis of the Atiantic side, would be 4 days 22 hours 8 minutes and 40 seconds. Orrin Hickok is 56 years old, and since he turned his seventeenth year he has been continuously occupied in training - and driving trotters and pacers. His father was a great horseman and main- tained a horse farm in Ohio. In his youthful days Orrin had a fancy for riding, but, growing rather too heavy for that style of racing, he made driving his specialty, and to-day his trim figure is familiar in all the grand circuit tracks of America. From his father’s farm in his native Buckeye State, therefore, Orrin dnifted into the racing field, beginning his pubiic career at Chicago in 1856. “The first celebrated trotter brought out by me,” said Mr. Hickok the other even- ing, “was the mare. L: In 1871-72 the two fastest trotting horses in the world were Goldsmith Majd and Lucy. In 1872 the latter won the §10,000 trotiing purse at Buffalo, N. Y., 1n 2:18%. It was wonder- ful time in those days. In the spring of that same year Goldsmith Maid electrified the sporting world by rounding tiie mile in 2:163{ at Boston. The astonishing records of these latter daysareattributable in no snmall degree to the assistance of the bicycle sulky. Since Lucy’s time I have driven Huldain 2:08 and Angie D, the pacer, in 2:07. One of my present string of trotters, Buzzeta, has a record of 2:063;, and at Lexington, Ky., last October, I won the record for double teams with Miss Bita and Josie D in 2:1214. *You seldom hear of long-distance trot- ting races in these times, but 1n 1874, at Oakland, I drove Jack Stewart in a race of twenty miles, circling tbe mile track twenty times in 58 minutes and 59 seconds and winning a purse of $3000. ““In the best racing years I have driven from forty to fifty races, generally the best three in five heats, but twenty races a year would perhaps be a liberal average. st year was an exceedingly poor year and the number only reached ten. “‘Horseracing has been my life business, and it is a hard business to break away from. If I had my life to live over again, though, knowing what I do of my chosen field, Iwouid never engage in horseracing. It bas pleasurable excitement to the throng; it has moments that thrill one through and through; but the business of horseracing is fraught with much worry and_anxiety. It is full of uncertainties. To-Bay I may be the possessor of a_worl beater, worth his weifim gold. To-mor- row, according to schedule, he must trot the race of his life, to save his old laurels and win new ones. In the night, however, he may be injured, and so hopes are shat- tered and we have dead weight for the weight in gold. Horseracing is a business | that demands great care and increasing watchfulness. ‘“Ihere is not 0o much money in racing as many seem to believe. They hear of | large sums won, but not so much about the big sums lost. On this coast the run- ning horse holds the leading place of inter- est at present, and trotting is necessarily aull. Inow have a string_of sixteen trot- ters in training at Oakland. These I will take East for the grand circuit—Deiroit, Cleveland, Chicago, New York and other big tracks—about the Ist of May. This string represents the finest stable I have ever had. I always drive my own races and superintend the training of my horses, having trustworthy men to assist ne.” .. Twenty races a year for thirty-nine years, if we accept an average of four heats to each race, would make a grand total of 3120 miles traveled by Mr. Hickok behind his | trotters. This, if he were driving on a straightaway course across the continent, would leave him eighty-two miles to spare after a journey from here to Gotham. Long ago somebody suggested a National | boulevard from the Atlantic to the shores of the sundown sea. If tie bicycle and the electrocycle do nat retire the horse too goon the country may yet stand along a 3000-mile paved highway and witness a passing race (drivers and trotters chang- ing half hourly or thereabolit) across the continent from sea to sea. A ROMANCE OF SCIENCE. Approaching Semi-Centennial Smithsonian Institution. Next September will ba celebrated the semi-centennial anniversary of the birth of the Smithsonian Institution. The fact that this event will excite a most sympa- thetic interest wherever throughout the world thereis a home of learning or a place for the pursuit of knowledge is the strongest possible testimony to the unique character of our National center of scien- tific research. Its history reads like a romance rather than a leaf from the most commonplace period of American annals. The impulse that prompted James Smithson—an illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland— of the Years on Orrin A. Hickok, the Horseman Who Has Had an Experienee of Nearly Forty [Drawn from a photograph.] the Turf. to write in his will in 1826 the foliow- ing passage came from nobody knows where: “I bequeath the whole of my property to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an estab- lisbment for the increase and diffusion of ficial knowledge of the character of its people and its institutions. His library contained only two volumes relating to America, but the writer of one of these predicted that Washington, then a town of 5000 inbabitants, with the Mumgs of the ) virgin forest still remaining on Pennsyl- knowledge among men,”’ Smithson never | vania avenue, would one day rival in mag- visited this country, and there is no evi- | nificence and splendor the cities of the dence that he had any but the most super- | whole world, He may have heard, too, of the passage in Washington’s farewell ad- dress recommending as an object of the highest importance the founding of insti- tutions for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. In any case Smithson, who was himself ence would do the most good. He must have reachcd this conclusion after mature deliberation, for he evidently cherished | the most sanguine expectations of the lus- ter of the institution which he was to found. *‘On my father’s side,” he wrote, ‘I am a Northumberland, on my mqther‘s I am related to kings; but this avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten.” Ana yet it seemed for a_while as if ‘his bequest was to be futile, He died in 1829, and it was six years after his death that the United States legation 1 London was no- tified that his estate, amounting to about one hundred thousand pounds sterling, was held in possession of the accountant- general of the Court of Coarncery. There came from Congress a chorus of ‘objection to the acceptance of the gift on the ground of National dignity and of the less worthy consideration that Smithson had to get immortality at too modest a price. It was mainly due to the efforts of John Quiney Adams that this opposition was finally overcome. and Richard Rush was sent to England to prosecute the claim of our Government to tne Smithson be- quest. ¥ ' The decision of the court was reached | with a celerity quite unexampled in the history of that tribunal, and by Septem- ber, 1838, the first proceeds of the lecacy, in the form of 104,960 gold sovereigns, were duly delivered to the Philadelphia mint, where they were promptly recoined into 508,318 American dollars. Two supple- mentary returns from the bequest were re- ceived, amdbunting to abour $30,000, and the permanent fund, swelled by some re- cent bequests, now amounts to $911,000, which is held as a deposit bearing 6 per cent interestin the United States treasury. It. took eight years after the receipt of the bequest to enable the wise men of - the Nation to decide what to do with it, and to Joseph Henry, who became the first secretary of the institution, is mainly due the credit of showing how the ntentions of the founder could be most effectively carried out. Henry’s plan was based on the conviction that Smithson’s intention was to advance science by orig- inal research and publication; that the es- tablishment was for the benefit of mankind enerally, and that all unnecessary expend- tures on local objects would be violations of the trust. In that spirit the institution was conducted through a whole generation by Professor Henry himself, and through a scientific investigator of no mean fame, and was, indeed, declared on competent autbority to be one-of the most accom- plished mineralogists in Europe, doubtless . another by his successor, Professor Baird, In that_epirit it is directed now by Pro- fessor Langley and his associates, each year of its history making substantial ad- tried | | concluded that here was the place where a | ditions to the sum of its uséfulness and its | fair endowment for the promotion of sci- | well-earned fame, both home and abroad. | —Boston Herald. | — .- Ceylon has a spider which spins a yellow web, the threads of which are aimost as large as button-hole tw: Its webs are often from six to eight feet acros: NEW TO-DAY. 'DONT DRAG YOUR FEET. Lifeless Movements and You’re Always Tired. Poor Circulation Caused by Tobacco—Heart Action Seriously Affected and Blood Nicotine-Tainted. Do you feel hurt ¥ Pains in the legs, below the knees? - Feetcold dsytime, burning at right ? Many other pains and sympoms They are caused »¥ poor circulation vecause your heart ~—SS action is weakened < f by nicotine, and your vivuu is tobacco-poisoned. Tobscco Weak- ens the heart-action, the blood is 1ot pumped | fast enough. Your feet get cold, ache and burn | by turns. No wonder you feel ke putting them head-high when yon sit down. Don’t you know that tobacco weakens all the nerve-centers, and is the cause of Baly & weak, tired, lifeless, listless feeling ? i There is a gnaranteed cure, No-To-Bac, which has curea over 300,000 cases, and Will cure you ust a8 it has Senator Eilington #nd the Hon. + H. Pearce, who USED TOBACCO 27 YEARS. TroxrsoN, Gas, Nov. 23, Dear Sirs—After using tobacco nearly twenty. seven years I took two and one half boxes of our No-To-Bac, which freed me Of the pernicious abit, and have not tasied tobacco since, neither have I any desire for it. I hed previously tried a number of antidotes, but wiiiout success. Some months ago I procured three boxes for the Hon, C, H. Ellington, of this place, laté State Senator and now President of the Farwers’ State Alliance of a. He had used tovacco excessively for thirty vears. He used two 10x¢s of No-To-Bac and immediately ‘discontinued the use of tobacco. Yours truly, R. H. PEARCE, Clerk of Supreme Court. It all rests with you. Why not try No-To-Bae under absolute guarantee of cure by vour own druggist? If Zou don’t like feeting well, enjoy- ing new manhood, you can learn tobacco using over again. Getour booklet, “Don’t Tobacco 8pit and Smoke YourLife Away,” written guar- R St oy oo, Cn e, ress em .y Chi New York. * o -