The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 10, 1896, Page 27

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 10, 1896. 27 F any artist of pen or brush is eager to find character studies of more than ordinary interest and at the expense of only a short stroll from the busi- ness portion of the City, he should direct his steps to that portion of the beach about the foot of Sansome street, keep his eyves wide open and watch the procession go by. Everybody down that way“knows old Bob Spear. Any gamin can tell you where he lives. *‘Old Bob” has the name of being ‘“well off,” but yon would never suspect it were you to see his poorly attired form on the street, and you wouldn’t be- lieve it were you to get a glimpse of the insids of his dwelling-place. Nevertheless when you get close enough to peer over his back fence and note the fact thathe has hensin great number and a half dozen pigs; and when you gaze up at the most attractive feature in all the premises—his dovecotes, with their cooing white-winged multitude of residents—you begin to think that Bob can’t be so very bad off after all. Bob was a boatman long ago, but the tus- sle with winds and waves was too much of a drain on his vigor of life and he settled down as an economical landsman. No- body ever sees him spending any more than the few pennies that keep his kitchen supplied with the bare necessaries which preserve the spirit safely in the clay. He feeds his hogs and his hens on the de- cayed cabbages and other truck that are thrown out daily by the vegetable mar- kets, and this makes the daily banquet of his oirds and beasts. The people around the base of Telegraph Hill are certain that “Old Bob™ is the possessor of a razor, for the hair-crop on his face is regularly mowed down; and they are sure that the aged Spear would never patronize a bar- ber even at a nickel a chance. Hence they are free to guess that the razor is an heir- loom in Bob's family. Street arabs, so they say, have seen old | Bob digging now and then in lonely spo ts, and so the story has passed around that Spear has treasure buried somewhere or other, and in many a water-front breast is inspired the hope that some day, while gamins are digzing for baitworm, they may turn up one of old Bob's hidden pots of gold. The ancient fellow has an ancient male | companion, who holds the fort whenever Bob isaway. They have no visitors, and never respond to knocks on the front door. People in the vicinity are used to these ways and never disturb the gray brethren. Beach urchins have framed many mystery tales about these old men. silent and grave., Thissilence and gravity is puzzling. Now if old Bob, for instance, would get wild once in a while and open up with a volley of oaths, the boys would take a supreme delight in keeping him worried; but old Bob simply says nothing, though his eyes have a look in them tnat They are both | RACTERS, N N FEEDING HIS STOCK / .‘ ! W\ r, \ \\\\\\' X \GAL SALooN SCENE P pTY 7 i { SHE-GATHERS FIRE W0OOD That old woman yonder, with a load of driftwood on her shoulders, is a sorry sight to see. Wait a while and you may witness several more like her, all strug- | gling under the same kird of a burden. These women, perhaps, dwell in miserable hovels, with scarcely enongh food to eat, eking out an existence wherein there can be little sunshine of soul. ‘‘Horseshoe Kate,” it is said, often cheerily lends a helping hand to these victims of poverty and misfortune—often drops them a dime orso. Such wrinkled old. faces and bony old hands as those poor women have! And if he could read the stories hidden in those breasts, perhaps the realist might pause to think how little he knows of the trials of life, which he pretends to portray as it is. Some of these old women are | truly religious, it is said. It is easy | enough for the rich to be religious; but | where an abiding faith arises from homes | wherein the gaunt wolf of starvation sits ever beside the hearthstone, there cer- tainly is virtue, one would think, worthy of better things than beggar's clotbing or | crumbs from the tables of the well-fed. The tough girl will not permit herself to be missed. There she 1s! Her dress i Her hat is tough. Here faceis ill. The dialect she speaks is a between slang and profanity. She walks with an unwomanly swagger, and one can hardly regard her asa woman at all. Her nose tells a story of dissipation, and the rest of her face furnishes corrobo- rative evidence. She is devoid of self- respect; and there is no deep of life so low that she will not recklessly and shame- lessly descend to it. It is too bad that the Salvation Army cannot arrest the tough girl and keep her in a guardhouse on healthful rations until she undergoes a chanee of spirit. Those boys runuing alodg the streets withibarrels on iheir back are a type of the enterprising street arab. The gates of i that rock-quarry have been left open while EERRNN S \' SHE LIKES TO EAT BONES. A Chicago Woman Who Loves to Have Mrs. Matilda Childs of street is the possessor of one of the most remarkable appetites known to the human family. with a vigor that would put to shame the granted to few. Mrs. Childs is 30 years of age, a decided beauty, and her mother was as goud a carries a sort of warning along with it. The mystery is like a wall of protection. The boys perpetrate many pieces of devil- ment on the beach; they steal chickens sometimes and torture stray animals, but Bob’s pigs are never assanited, his hens are never molested, and the missile of the slungshot is never hurled at the congrega- tions of his dovecotes. Old Bob is held in veneration. His silence and his piercing eye are the most effective police force on the water front. ‘Horseshoe Kate” is famous in the dis- trict toward the foot of Sansome street. It is & very common declaration that woman is physically too weak to compete with her brother, man, in tne heavier em- ployments. This claim is refuted by the instance of “Horseshoe Kate.” She may be called an exception by some; but what has been done can be done. Women have ousted their male brethren from many of THE YOUNG JUNK ,— GATHERER.S Q. petitors all along the line—even down to the street-sweeping contracts, Wasn't it the Rev. Anna Shaw who a short while ago toid of her ambition to be a police- man? Ttisjust possible that in the ap- proaching century the disorderly man wiil be made to toe the line of the ordinances by the star-adorned woman as solidly built N as “Horseshoe Kate.” { ‘Women may run the meat and fish mar- kets, and drive the plow, instead of merely monopolizing the telephone business, the 4 typewriters, millinery, clerkship and fruit- / canning. What a powerful woman is “Horseshoe Kate!” The average man is not so stout as she. The greater part of her time is spent out in the open air, and she is the very picture of sturdy health. | tion. She wears an abbreviated frock, a leathern apron and long boots. Bioomers would HORSE 'SHOE KAT AT WORK o= / g Sy / : < i immense meat-ax | beach. Nobody talks elightingly to her. | the men have gone to lunch. The boys with l:lx\:::e:::ild;r:c: :Eul? :uuld make | They know better. She isglh‘.l d of noth- | have made a raid on the empty cement Corbett green with envy. Doubiless she | ing, and night or day she goes about her | barrels inside the gates, avd ,are now in probably serve her admirably, but bloom- | could strike a blow that would feil an ox, | business with a_kingly air of indepen- | full career up Telegraph Hill. The barrels ers are at this period tabooed by water- | or put an ordinary man to sleep in short [ dence. It -would hardly do to bring a | will be broken up for firewood, and the front society, and, therefore, would be in | order. queen into the comparison. voungsters will thus save themselves, for ad form. Kate cleans horses in a livery stable and | Kate is 40 years of age. the time, from the necessity of dragging Married ? I “‘Horseshoe Kate” makes money. She | manages unruly steeds by the bits, look- | Never! She can't get @ man who would | up spiles from the beach. i " buys, cleans and smokes fish, which are | ing upon the animals with f d ort her in luxury, and she won’t take The procession has only just begun to — 'y ‘ s with a sort of prou su; P e :’he lighter walks of life. Who shall say | daily offered her by the fishérmen who | contempt that shows her contidencs ia her | a taan that she will Rave to toi] fo. feed. move; but we shall not dally for other ut that, in a_generation to come, the |spend most of their time in luring the perfect mastevy. Kate is one of the ‘‘new women,” in a few | sights. The breeze from the bay is chilling €-otist, man, will be met by femaie com- finny inhabitants of the bay to destruc- “Horses! Kate” is respected on the | particulars, anvhow. and there are days to come. Kentucky cook as ever served a ot of | day introduced to Charles A. Childs, a “pork and beans,” while Mrs. Childs her- | railroad porter, and at 5 o’clock she be- | self is a cook of no mean ability, although | came his smiling bride; thus in three | she at present boasts of a hired girl who | short hours she was met, Wooed and won, | performs that onerous duty for her. | and is to-day, she says, “the same .wm,[ Early in life Mrs. Child’s parents moved | smiling bride of eight years ago.” from the dismal swamns of Kentucky to the more concenial prairies of lowa, where they found a good school as well as a suit- able climate. The young girl attended a Dish of Bones for a Meal. Dearborn “My husband and I were always lovers,” 1 the declared, “and I think in that way we solve the problem, ‘Is marriage a failure?’ ” She crunches bones, fresh or old, = i icag. a seminery for young ladies, from most astive sonecrusner in Chicago, Ble) L, (5 “She graduated . with.': high || The thonseater s ahe s now salled is very modest and rehrmg‘an(} to see her honors, being valedictortan of her| by the few who are fami'iar with her partake of her osseous diet is a favor | jaeg Mrs. Childs came to Chicago about | gueer taste, Las'from childhood evinced a eight years ago to visit friends who were | decided preference for that part of the living on Butterfield street, and while | food generally thrown away. Her dog— stopping there she was at 3 o'clock one'for she has one—certainly has the’ best of the meal when meat 1s the | without which I think I shoul diet, for Mrs. Childs very dexterously | starve. slices the meat from around tlie bone and | ~“These bones,” she remarked, as she feeding the meat to the dog retains for |drew forth a plate of huge beef bones, nars;l t};‘e bo‘;:;, which uh:‘%t;‘vo:rs witha | “shall neverhri!a agamn.” And the way relish. The bone-eatin, as grown | she went at them proved to the reporter's | e i v as she grew, untii now it is the “'skeleton | entire satisfaction wat e eaoteebor ong | Michel Rooacy, the bareback-rider ¥as. in the closet,”” and one of which she is | pat. about to be hugged to death by a bear yes- very much ashamed, although her mealis | Mrs. Childs’ jaws are firm as iron, and | terday morning at Tattersal's, when considered incomplete without her favor- | in them are securely set thirty-two peari Babylon, one of Ringling Brothers’ big ite delicacy. white teeth, as sound as a dollar; xl\oug elephants, knocked the brute down ana My motler oiten whipped me, but to | very short, they taper off in a wedge-like | saved the child’s life. no effect,” explained she, *for eating ‘old | manner with razor, edges, which cut| The bear, known as “‘Growler,” has a bones,’ as she termed them, for I would | through ossified matter as easily as eary- | vicious temper. He was chamned near the steal ay and gnaw them in spite of her. ing-knives can divide the most tender sir- elephants. The little girl is a friend of Bones seem to have a savory sweetness | loin. Mrs. Childs is a member of uvemltha elephants, and was romping with for me which no other food contains and ! secret societies and a great favorite among ' some oF them when Growler seized her d literally | the prominert people of her race.—Chicago | ?nd closed his paws around her slender News. Lt Babylon, who had been an interested spectator, brought his trunk down with crushing force on Growler’s head. The bear was stunned by the blow and released the child, who had fainted. The elephant then picked ber up and placed her where the bear could not reach her. Attendants, | who heard Bessie's screams, ran to her assistance, but arrived too late to rob Babylon of the honor of saving a human life.—Chicago Daily Tribune. — e An Elephant Rescues a Child. Bessie Rooney, the 10-year-old sister of ——— . In Gloucester over 20,000 persons bave been vaccinated orrevaccinated during the vresent outbreak.,