The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 24, 1896, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 24, 189 19 Some streets of a great city present scenes of ing men and women and speeding vehicles all the day long and every day in the week; but there are other streets that have periodical spells of tu- multuous life, and which, although ordi- narily playing second fiddle to the big thoroughfares, sometimes make brave enough to try a few strains on the first violin. Sixth street in 8an Francisco, for instance, doesn’t pretend to rival the great downtown business streets nor to com- mand throngs of equal size every day; but when it comes to Saturday night—why, then it is a different story. On Saturday night Sixth street is one of the liveliest thoroughfares in all the City. From 7 o’clock until close to midnight the crowds surge this way and that, and the stores reap a harvest, if appearances are not very deceptive. Saturday night is the flush night with tbe laboring classes, and Sixth street attracts a great many of the | dollars of labor as sure as that night rolls around. Street fakers appreciate the desirability | of Rixtn street on such an occasion, and they ma on the closing evening of the week, indus trio eral-handed. The tamale men are out in force with their steaming pails, the fruit venders are shaking their bargains under people’s noses, and from wayside wagons which the well-fed police find it difficult to keep on the move chickens and ducks and rab- bits are being sold in numbers to suit. Agitators are haranguing crowds on the corners, candy men with huge baskets strapped on in front of them are pushing here and there picking up loose nickels, patent-medicine folks are holding forth under flaring gasoline lamps or smoking torches, and the whole street seems slive with investors and money-turners. B the scene of a great butchers’ warfa: big | markets—Brady's and Stone’s— were having things pretty much their own v nota long time ago, and doing business ugh to make rivais envious. But th markets failed to patronize the Baden slanghter-house and this peculiar fact pre- a row. The Baden people re- Two cipitated solved ness a a re; with that object in view started meat market on the same side of street, and not a stone’s throw dis- tant from the old establishments. . To inform the street of this advent and attract’attention the Baden man hired a | brass band, and people were offered the | novelty of a chance to purchase steaks | and chops to the entrancing music of “Ma | Angeiine” or “johnny, My Old Friend | be jound there in strong array v plving their work of luring into | their tin boxes the stray dimes of the lib- | Sixth street is better known of late as | run those two shops out of busi- | | | i | 1 | H 1 John.” They got the flesh-building ma- | terial at reduced rates and a concert in the bargain, . | But the Baden butchers didn’t enjoy a | monopoly of this thing very long. As ! saon as the brass horns were heard splite | ting the atmosphere about the Baden mar- ket messages were dispatched in haste by | Stone and Brady in quest of the best | bands that could be had on the moment, and in a surprisingly short time the | erowds on Sixth street were audience toa | pandemonicm of sound. *“Mary’s Little Lamb”’ got mixed up in «The Song cf the Golden Calf,”’ and when | “The Cow That Burned Chicago” threw | its strong-winded music into the choruses the respective airs could no more be dis- tinguished than the pedigree of the beef in a hamburger steak or the identity of | the parts of a particular hog in a bologna sausage, There was a pandemonium of sound, and each band seemed bent on | blowing louder blasts and beating its | drums “more varbarously than its rivals. And it is ratber odd to relate that all three shops have been having more business to attend to on Saturday nights, when the bands play, than they could handle witly | ease, Each shop has a small army of workers, and cashboys and errand-boys run about | as they do in the downtown general’ mer- chandise and ciothing stores. As might be supposed, the three shops are rich in signs. At the Baden market you will note such poetic legends as “Our Meats Wil Melt in Your | Mouth.” The Baden people keep re- | frigerated meats, however, and at | Stone’s establishment you will observe the suggestive sign, “No Embaimed Meats Here,” while at Brady’s the motio is flaunted, “Down With Monovoly.” And there are additional notices about *‘Steaks Fit for the Gods,” and the assurance, “No Baden Hams Sola Here.” The battle of | the butchers has excited such interest that peoplg go ovet to Sixth street from distant | parts of the City to buy their meats. When | one firm makes a cut in prices the others follow snitor go the figure a notch lower; and this competition continues to make trade boom. Sixth street does a ‘‘land-office business” on Saturday night. When the butcher- shop bands are not hurling out volumes of | sound you may hear the waltz or polka | music from the dancing parlors, were the | shopgirls and the counter-jumpers are finishing up the week in mirth and revelry. It is long after midnight that the | street begins to show a restiul ap- | pearance. And even then when the hours are telling of the Sabbath day | the quiet is frequently broken by a cry that was lost in the evening by reason of: the tumult of horns and drums—a cry* | that almost affrights you as it strikes you from behind a dark corner unexpectedly—- a cry that makes you wish that seagullsl | never perished—“Tama les!” King David’s Bedstead. A friend of the writer's was reading. prayvers one morning, when he came to the following verse: And David slept with his fathers, and buried in the city of David."” “Papa,” said one of the children, a boy | of seven, “I thought David was a king."” | “Well, so he was,” said his father. nd wasn’t he a rich man?" I suppose so.”” “Then what did he want to sleep with his fathers for? Couldn’t he afford to buy a bedstead for himseli?”—Spare Mo ments. @ urator of the department of orni- |§= thology of. the Academy of Sci- _[ ences, is at present making prepa- rations to start on an extensive ex- pedition to observe the migration of sea is as they pass down the California coast from tie northern to the southern | No definite plans have yet | hemisphere. been decided upon, but the expedition will start as soon as 1t can get ready. As on his similar expeditions Mr. Loomis will work off the coast of Monterey Bay, using to gi a et as near as possible to the moving spite of the fact that the migration of birds has been known since Biblical times, the study is practically in its infancy. It is known that birds nesting in the far north in summer go south when winter comes. But how far south? And how do they know the way? still to be sge‘tled. Some ornithologists hoid to the theory that the whole act of migration is a matter of instinct; others believe it is the resalt of experience. Mod- ern students generally tend to the belief that it is partly experience and partly teach- ing by the old birds, largely governed by the food supply. The rocky inlets of Alaska afford safe nesting places from April to Septernber and also furnish an abundant supply of food. But with the winter comes hunger. and the rookeries must be depopulated for a more congenial locality. The coast of Califoinia has an abundant | food supply, but, with tne exception of a | few islands, has no secure nesting-places s0 tke birds have to go further south, pos- | sibly to the Antarctic regions. Gulls, petrels, anks, loons and albatrosses pass ROFESSOR Leverett M. Loomis, | small rowboat to go out from land so as | Those are questions | down the coast in myrads. There is a steady movement sonthward from June to December and & northward movement for about four months, commencing in Janu- ary or February. The early birds to arrive in the north are of course the first to harch their young and start south. Some birds migrate almost from pole 1o pole, while others go only a short distance on either side of the equator. The man-of- | war bird is known to nest in marshy places along the coast of California in the winter, but it never gets very far north in the summer. [n our summer the petrel | is found on the northern shores of the continent, and in the following January | the same birds may be found nesting on the shores of New Zealand, and thereisa | strong ground for belief that they go to | the Antarctic continent, | Professor Loomis was the first ornitholo- | gist to study the migration of birds or. the water, and on his expedition made over a year ago found out several things that were surprising and made him believe that instinct had very little to do with it. The migration of land birds nearly all takes place at night, and.of course is most diffi- cult to observe, but on the water the oppo- | site condition obtains, While in his small boat off the coast of Monterey Mr. Loomis was able to see that the migrating columns foliowed the shore line. They even swerved to the eastward when they came to Santa Cruz Point and | followed the curved line of Monterey Bay around to Point Pinos. To havi across between the two points would seem to be the instinctive route. It would have | also made the distance much®shorter. It was also seen that on foggy days the col- { umn kept close to shore. As cut oon as the A Man-o’-War Birds’ Rookery in Lower California, Drawn from an Instantaneous Phofograph. l/; """—;m Mo 10 &I W & 2 | fog lifted the birds would take a course | | further out, generally about three miles | | from land. ~This showed plainly that they | | were gnided by the shore line. | A few incidents observed that the columns were in charge of a leader | that dirccted their movements. One morn- | ling a petrel was shot near the head of a column of several thous A very old | | bird at once flew back and turned the | | whole column so that it would not pass | | near the naturalist’s boat. | The physical c for migration are | | pretty well understood, although tney vary so with each breed that no rule can be found to apply to all. The rookeries of | were 1 the far north afford secure nesting | | places that cannot be found in the more | temperate regions, even though they are | able for a very short ti The sub- | e of this is that * rds return to | e region of their birth, there being no om for them to nest anywhere else.” | of hours after any old birds had passed it “IfI could see several flocks of young | birds flying along by themseives a couple would be prett, they were gu y conclusive evidence that d by some sort of instinct. Of course I may not get such an oppor- tunity, and on the other hand I may rlu con as ive evidence that the old birds act des, and thus set at rest many con- flicting theories. “There is only one way to do the work, and that is to get as near the track of tge birds as possible in a small boat and wait and watch. A large sailboat or vapor launch would serve to scare the birds. I take only onc man with me to row and keep the boat in position. “Sometimes [ use a marine glass to look at distant flocks, but generaliy the birds 7o past s0 quickly 1t is of little use. In September and October the equinoctial gales blow and the water gets very rougn, has of course a great deal to do with the desire to migrate, but does it always con- vey the knowledge of the proper route to a safe and congenial nesting place? ‘“If, as some sayv, beredity is everything and these young birds are 'guided by in- stinct to the nests of their ancestors of thousands of years ago, then surely it is a matter that ‘passeth all understanding.’”” | OUR POSTAGE-STAMPS. Varieties the Public Never See. The Government now makes teen denominations of post they are1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, cent stamps.and the §1, inations. Very few people in the po service even can tell you the use of the or $3 varieties, however, for really th rarely have any other use than the grati Some eneral about four- pe-stam p: 9, 10, 15 and and $5 denom- 50 | cation of the whimsical tasies of stamp- | 1 | { | Which Had Just Winged Their Leader. Rear and Quickly Swerved the Entire Flock Seaward. The Birds Did Migratory Course Southward Again Until Some Miles Distant From the Monterey Shore Line. An Immense Flock of Petrels Executing a Flank Movement to Avoid the Rifle of Professor Loomis, Immediately Another Bird Flew Ahead From the Not Pursue Their The principal thing to discover now is how the migrating birds find their way { and to what extent the young birds are guided by the old ones. This is a most difficult matter and can only be settled by long observation during the whole mi- grating season from June to December. “What I want to do,” said Mr. Loomis, | | when speaking of the matter, “is to first | 2o out to the Farailones and watch the young birds that have just been hatched there. I want to see how much the old birds teach them and whether the voung birds start south by themselves or in com- pany with the old ones; or, if they simply wait until the migrating column from the north comes along and then join the throng. “By eetting to Monterey before the end of June and staying until the end of July, I will be able to observe the beginning of the movement. During September and October the height of the movement can be seen and I may then determine whether the old birds or young birds are most numerous and whether the voung ever travel in companies without an old bird to guide them. but at such times the birds show little fear, | and the chances for observation are most | favorable. The birds also fly very close to | the water, not more than ten feet above it | at the highest. “I also intend to go several miles to sea | | during the height of the movement to see | if any birds are going south there, and in what proportion they are to those nearer | land. If the weather is fine, there wili be | no difi‘x(-ullyr settle beyond doubt whether | the birds ar guided by the shore line or | not. | “This migratory movement,” continued | Mr. Loomis, 'is to me like a penduluml swinging between the northern and the southern hemisphere. One movemen: has hardly stopped before another begins in | the other direction. And so it goes on| vear after year and ceutury after centur The rocky islets of the north are depopu. lated of countless millions of birds and | come place in the southern hemisphere | must be filled up with them. | “If something definite and positive | could be asceriained about migrating sea birds it would settle many vexed ques- tion about land birds as well. Heredity collectors. Besides the postage-stamps there are made what are known as the ‘*‘periodical stamps,” that is, stamps with which newspaper publishers prepay the | postage on their editions at pound rates. These are never sold, but are attached to the stubs of the receipts which are given to the publishers for the money paid for postage on the publications. Not even a publisher can buy them, nda they never pass i unofficial pub They are made in de- { nominations which ranze all the vaygrom 1cent to §100. Besides these are made the “postage due” and special delivery stamps, stamps equal to almost any emergency. The bureau keeps on hand a store of | stamps equal to almostany emergency. There are now in its vaults more than 250,000,000, and the manufactory is ranning on full time. Last year there were pro- | duced nearly two and a half billions; yet | | with the constantly increasing demand no | 59 5 ! | that she still occupies. cessation in the creation of supply is pos- sible. Itis estimated that stamps cost the Government something like5 cents a thou- sand. Receipts for the sale of them last year were on an average more than a mil- | lion dollars a month. More than 90 per cent of all those sold were of the 2-cent denomination. nto the possession of the | ! { Along the Pacific Coast. He Is Now L) PROFESSOR LEVERETT M. LOOMIS, Who Has Gathered Much Interesting and Valuable Data by His Scientific Study of the Migration of Marine Birds Preparing for Another Expedition. SHE WILL NOT TALK. REMARKABLE PORTUGUESE WOMAN WHo LEaDps A HERMIT'S LIFE. Hermits are plentiful enough in all parts of California, but nearly all of them are men. For some reason the gentle sex sel- dom shows a desire to forsake the world | and live in a leaky cabin on a desolate spot of the earth’s surface with nothing but | wild beasts for companions and a scant | bill of fare. But there is one woman at | least who prefers such a life. She is a Portuguese, and her name is Mme. Mu- nie: Her home 15 in the sand hills on the | | Pacitic Coast, about fifteen miles below | | Pescadero. | Mme. Munier, in a way, leads a perfect | hermit’s life. More so than a great many | of the masculine hermits at presentcamp- |ing out in different parts of the State. | Her home is far off the road and close to the waters of the Pacific. It is only a box- like shanty, built under the side of a sand | hillso asto be protected from the ever-blow- | ing wind. The surroundings are wild in the | extreme and nature shows herself in her | most uncongenial mood. The house has only one room, in which the woman eats, drinks and sleeps. It is over twenty years since Mme. Mu- | nier came to live in the vieinity of her pres- ent home. Her husband, a Frenchman, was with her then, and they ocoupied a | comfortable house with a smail piece of land around it. After about three years Monsieur Munier disappeared. He went away one morning, saying that he was going to San Francisco, and has never come back. At least it isnot known to the neighbors that he has. After a few months of solitude in the little house Mme. Munier went out to the sand hills and built herself the shanty The only people that she has spoken to in ail the years since her husband’s de- parture are the storekeepers at different points slong the road, and she simply tells them what she wants and refuses to en- &age in conversation. For weeks she will keep inside her cabin. Her sole occu- pation is knitting. If anybody calls on {r-r she never stops. To ask her a ques- tion is like talking to a deaf person, as she never seems to hear. Mme. Munier is strong and healthy, ana in good weather walks all the way to Santa Cruz for her provisions. She carriesa large basket on her back, and when filled it will contain enough to last her for months. All the water she uses has to be carried a long distance, but she always takes it in large quantities and don’t make many trips for the purpose. People who know Mme. Munier look upon her as a mystery. Most of them in- cline to the belief that her husband has me reason for keeping out of sight, but visits her occasionally and brings her money. Butnone of them take enough interest to investigate, and are content to let her live as she pleases in her little | shanty in the sand hills. one Womane Wro Never TALKS.