The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 19, 1896, Page 25

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 19, 1896. 25 A MAN WHO SPURNS MONEY He Is Neither Tramp Nor Hobo. Joe Steele Says That the Gifts of Nature Are Enough for His Needs. Joe Bteele is a living exemplification of the theory that a man can live without money and not be a tramp. There is no iispuiing it, for he has done so. It hardly seems credible, and yet Joe says positively ihat he has not handled a single dollar in the last fifteen vears, and at the same time ire has haa all he wanted to eat and a good romfortable place to sleep, as well as all necessary clothes. 2 How has he done it? why? and where? are questions one would naturally ask. And it might. be answered that Joe did it simply by taking advantage of the gifis of nature. ‘The reason hé did it was be- cause he was too old to work. The: place, or rather places, was along the banks of the San Joaguin River. Of course Joe hasn’t had all of the ad- vantages of civilization, but at the same | time he has been free from the worries in- cidental to living in eivilized communities, He has lived as free as the air, slept peace- fully every night, and now at 80 years of age feels like a boy. According to his own story there wasa time when Joe Steele was a well-known man in California. He took his place in themad race for gold and at times was in the lead. He dressed in the finest clothes | and frequented the most expensive hotels, | saloons and restaurants. But his time came as well as many others, and when he was only a little over 60 years of age he | was a penniless old man walking up. and down Montgomery street in the hope that some friend would ask him to dine. Just exactly how the change came i something Joe has aimost forgotten, but he does know that some friend gave him a job to take care of a small hunting ark. On the friend’s death nobody came to claim the ark, and Joe has simply re- tained possession of it ever since. Joe traveled up and down the rivers for seve- ral years, hunting and fishing until the ark became leaky and he had to tie it up. Ir time the house on it fell down, and he replaced it with one of tule. His present anchorage is a few miles above Antioch, and he is one of the happiest men in all California. Joe says if he had to live his life over he would live it all as he is living now, but in a locality where nature is more bountiful than in the San Joaquin marsh. As it is he never wants. There are plenty of fish and frogsin the river, and tons of vegetables float down its sur- face that have only to be picked up. Some of these he trades for meal and flour; some he trades for old clothes, e MosT Afifl)'rl(. ARCHWAY N SanFrancses: [ AS THEY DID | ON THE NILE é/—\r\cier\t Irrigating Plan at Sargents. For Several Reasons It Is Best : and Most Practical for the Gonditions | This is an age of improvement, and yet on a ranch near Sargents station in Santa Cruz County there is one of the most primitive methods of irrigation in use, In | fact it is the same as was employed by the Egyptians 6000 years ago. The rea- son why this system 1s used is not because it is cheap, but because it is the best for | 'the conditions. Of course the same thing “cou]d be" accomplished by the use of ex- pensive machinery, but the work would be done no better. The conditions that ealled for the system such a position as not to be reached by the | covered, { To carry the water from the river in buckets was of course out of the question. It was also out of the question | to putin. & pump that could be operated | by a man that would do any amount of | work. The only solution of the problem was the present one. The system employed might be called a “'sweep” system, for it is a series of | sweeps like those uwsed in old-fashioned | wells that are used. If the ground to be | watered was not so high sbove the river the water might be raised in one of the buckets and poured on the land above. But as it bappens the land is too high, and to overcome the fact two sets of sweepsare used. The sweeps are of the crudest de- scription, being only the forked branches | of trees stuck into the ground with the i fork up. In this is suspended a long stick | 8o arranged that it will swing freely. On | one end is a large lump of mud that is cal- culated to balance the bucket full of water. Tke bucket is hung tothe other end. Midway between the water of the river | and the land to be irrigated is a pool cap- | able of holding many buckets of water. Two setsof men are required to operate the affair rapidly. The men on the lower level raise the water from the river and pour it into the pool a few feet above them. Theset of men on the upper level in turn take the water from the posl and pour it into the canal at the top where it runs to all parts of the ground where it is required. The limits of this irrigating plant are of course only dependent on the number of men.at work and the number of sweeps to handle. If necessary, water can by this system be raised several hun- dred feet and in Egypt it is done frequently, The only question is to have enough pools and sweeps and enough men to operate them., —_— E = z - = = t & | in question were a small area of land that | lay several feet above the river bed and in | system of ditches with which the ranch is | Mme QERKEN: THE F;:suzkwomn 0 Dhooss Coz. £DRO (AReA AND STRANGE LIFE FOR. A WOMAN LIVES IN AN OLP_EJRJUICEz And Yet Pedro Garcia ‘ Is Happy | Thinks Himself Better Off Than | Many a Richer Man in Some Men In Jen Years She Has Saved Money and Sent Her Son to France California ! Of all the queer habitations in California that of Pedro Garcia is the queerest. In fact, it is nothing more nor less than an | old abandoned furnace, and yet Pedro is | | happy there and does not wish for a dif- | | ferent abiding place. He even says he | would not live. elsewhere if he had to give up any of his liberty. Fisherwomen are plentiful enough in many of the Enropean countries, but in the western hemisphere they are certainly very scarce. There are said to be several of them at the fishing village near Moro Rock, but even they only do a certain part of the work. On the bay shore near Brooks Island is perhaps the only real fisher- | Pedro Gareia’s home. 1s on the seashore | Woman in. the State, for she does_all the not far from Pigeon Point. and according | Work fronmi catching ‘the fish 0 selling to his own story hé has lived there many | them to the people who eat them. years.- Tho furnace was originally putup | Mme. Gerken is the name of the woman | by the whalers, who used to take their | and she leads almost a hermit’s life. In cargoes in there for the purpose of refining | reality it is a hermit's life except when them. Many are the thousands of barrels | she zoes on her semi-weekly trips to dis- i of oil that have been boiled in the old tank | pose of her stock. Her home and place of in years gone by. | business is not a very inviting place, but With the decline of the whaling busi- | it is certainly more so than the homes of ness the furnace and a good many other | the men engaged in the same business things were abgndoned and allowed to go | Who live in the vicinity. toruin. About the time they had reached | It is many yearssince Mme. Gerken took a state of wortblessness Pedrocame along. | Up the fishing business and she is well | He was in the last stages of despair, as the | pleased with her success. She was born | wheat business was about played out and | in France and after being married came to | he had had no work for weeks and had | this conntry with her husband 1o better been sleeping on the ground, with only | their condition. But it was not long be- the sky for a roof. A kind Switzer who | fore she was 8 widow with an infant son to | has a small farm near by gave him a meal | Support. She worked at many things in | and he wandered down by the seashore. | Ban Francisco, byt none of them pointed Here he discovered the old furnace and as | the road to even comparative independ- | it looked warm and comfortable on the |ence. By chance when her son was 10 inside he crawled in and soon fell into the | Years old she met the wife of & fisherman, | most refreshing slumber he had enjoyed = Who told her many things and pointed the | in weeks. | way to a new business. The exact location of Pedro’s habitation | But great as Mme. Gerken’s suecess has is in a sort of a gully, about twenty feet | been there are few women who would like back from the water's edge and twenty | t0 follow her example. She built her own feet above it. It is protected from the | H0Ome on the bay shore on land for which cold west wind in such a position that it | She pays§1a month rental and went into gets the full warmth of the sun. The in- | the work the same as if she were a man. side of the furnace is about 6x10 feet and | It did not take her long tolearn to han- about five feet deep, The grate-bars have | 41€,a boat and ‘manage the mets, and of been removed and the opening to the ash- | course her boy was of some help to her. pit has been b8arded up, so that it really | Mme. Gerken was certainly not afraid of makes & good-sized room, although Pedro | Water, for she would go out in the worst is mot the least bit graceful when he | kind of weather and pull her boat through crawls in or out of his front door. the waves with the greatest ease. For As soon as he decided to stay there | SOme reason she slways mgde good hauls, Pedro built himself a fireplace on the hill. | , A Well as fishing in the deep water of | side and collected a few tin cans along the | the bay Mme. Gerken fished in the pools shore that he used for cooking utensils, | 800 shore for shrimps and lobsters, and 'Does More Work Than | Some of the neighbors gava him some old rags that answered for blankets, and by doing a little work and fishing all the time he managed to be comfortable. ‘It isn’t the kind of & place an oid sol- dier ought to end his days in,” he says, “but I have knocked about so much and been withaut food and shelter so long that I feel Providence been good to me in guiding me to this place.” IRRICATING RANT- oOn A RANCH NEAR SARCGENTS also dug clams. All the fish she caught she put into tanks so that they would keep alive until she took them to market, Twice a week she rented a horse and wagon from a Chinaman and-went to the different ranches on San Pablo Point and disposed of her stock at good prices. It is over ten years since Mme. Gerken went into the fishing business,’and, as a result, she has sent her son to France, where he is in the army. : ©.0.0 6.8 68806 67006 60080 300,00 000,000 0 ¢ 00008 1 'LIKE A STREET IN ALGIERS The Classic Lines of an Old Arch PArchitecture in the Heart of San Francisco It frequently happens that men do good things without knowing it, and also that people will pass these same things and not see the beauties in them. There are num- erous instances of this kind in San Fran- cisco, but one of the most pronounced is that of an arch that crosses an alieyway that rups through from Bush to Pine i streets, between Kearney and Montgom- ery. 1’: is many years since this arch was built and the pame of the architect has been forgotten, but he certainly “builded better than he knew.” Tbe location of | the arch makes it a little difficult to see, but that only adds to its artistic effent, All of the surroundings are also just right | to produce the appearance of an old street | in Algiers, In fact there are a number of | so picturesque, and vet dozens of artists paint pictures of them every vear—and | sell them, too. Seen at any tine of the day the beauti- | ful proportions of this arch in comparison with the surrounding walls are apparent, but it is only 1u the glare of the noontide sunthat the Algerian effect is visible. only ds the shape of the arch responsible for this, but the surroundings are also in- cidental to it. Add to this the fact that the walls are all whitewashed in true an- cient style and as dirty as any Oriental could desire, and there isnothing wanting. The best place to see this arch is to look at.it from Bush street and at any hour be- tween 11 and 2 o’clock during the day. The eastern wall will then be in shadow, as will be also the whole inside of the arch. The sunlight will fail on the south- ern portion of the wall and make it daz- zlingly brilliant.’ The roadway between the arch is made of wood and of course does not look as bright as the walls, but it has just the effect of the mud streets of the far-away orient. To look through the arch to the street beyond the effect is most pleasing. An iron gate partly fills the passageway and throygh this can be caught glimpses of bright-colored vehicies and a few green palms. The white walls of the other buildings only tend to add to the general effect of artistic picturesqueness. Occa- sionally the Algerian effect is inereased by a few rugs being suspended from the windows of the buildings on either side of the roadway. Of course this street is not Algiers and many things are required to make it so, but it is undoubtedly one of the most artistic bits of San Francisco. A Quaint and Picturesque Bit of | streets in Algiers that are really not half | Not | | | | ?,fi ( WING'S CABTLE ‘ IN THE AIR | Built on —S‘tfi;s Beside a High Bluff A Hunters Point Residence ']'l\at‘{ Is Proof Against Dogs | | } { | | i and Burglars i { Charley Wing, a Chinese, is more afraid | of dogs and burglars than any other man | in San Francisco. Not that Charley has | anything to steal, or to eat for that mat- | ter, but there is no telling when he may | have. And besides he don’t like either | dogs or burglars as a matter of principle. Charley’s horror of these two adjuncte of modern civilization is so great that it has induced him to build one of the most curi- ous houses in California, which must be | conceded to be a land of curious houses. | In general appearance Charley is just like any other Chinaman, and he lives in that locality so dear to his kind—Hunters Point. But Charley has many {riends down that way, and all are engaged in the | same business—fishing. | Charley owns a good boat and he also owns the house that has just been men- tioned. He divides his time into three | sections. One part he spends in his boat, luring the finny tribe from the depths of the bay. Another section he spendsin a place where he expects to win the money | he is afraid the burglars will get. The | other part of bis time he spends in his | home. | It follows, as a matter of course, that rmost of the time Charley spends at home he is asleep and cannot hear the burglars when they come. But he has no fear since he built his house in the place it is | and the way it is. And all who see the house must admit that Charley knew the disposition of burglars when he contrived | to xeep them away. Chbarley risks his neck every time he enters or leaves his home, and no burgiar would do that for the sake of all that Charley has. Charley’s house could just as well have been in & convenient place, but instead he has put it on top of four poles at least | forty feet high. It is net more than fifteen feet from a cliff that rises from the beach. The top of the cliff and the floor of the house are of about the same level, but the only means of communication between them isa piece of eighteen-inch beam. Charley says that he built the house all by | himself. He even drew the vlans. It is | true that several men helped him put the posts in position, but he don’t count that of any importance, At high tide the waves wash around the posts that support the house; but that makes 1t & convenient place to tie his boat. When Charley comes home after a hard day’s fishing he climbs the cliff beside his house, crawls across the beam, opens the #oor and goes inside. [ 3 Jo& STees AND HIS HouSE BoAT A COCK. THAT DRUMS TR.ADE Tricks of a Galifornia- Street Rooster By Standing in the Market and Growing He Attracts the Gustomers There is only one rooster in town who devotes himself to soliciting business. He belongs to Leon, the poultry-dealer on the Pine-streét side of the California market, and is known by a variety of names, the most commeon of which is “Bob.” In appearance Bob is not a beauty; nor is be a thoroughbred, in spite of the fact that he has all the indications of being a gamecock. And he is game when it comes to fighting. Noliving being hasany terrors for Bob. He will throw hiwself into posi- tiou for man, dog, cator rooster. Bob is always willing to fight, but he is also pos- sessed of a great deal of discretion, and kpows when he has enough and hastily deserts the scene of conflict. But, as has already been mentioned, Bob’s strong point is soliciting business for his owner. He likes the work and is said to be very successful at it, possibly because he employs a great many different meth~ ods. It is many years since Bob started in the soliciting business, and ke seemed to take to it naturally. He was brought to Leon’s in a coop with a lot of other chickens that haye long since been converted in soups, broils, fricassees, etc., but somchow he seemed different from the rest of his tribe and Leon concluded to keep him. One day after Bob had been in the mar- ket & month the door of his coop was acci- dentally left open and he walked out. In- stead of trying to leave the neighborhood as fast as possible, as most other healthy roosters would have done, Bob went on a promenade up and down the aisles of the market. Every few steps he would stoon and crow as if to say that he knew his business. When he got tired he went back to the coop, where there was plenty to eaty and took a rest. From that day he has been allowed his liberty and is the pet of the market. When business is slack at Leon's Bob goes out to the sidewslk and crows. Naturally a crowd gathers, and then Bob leads them into the market and up to his owner's place of business. Many siop to ask about Bob, and before they leave will make purs chases. Another method of Bob's isto take one of Leon’s business cards in his bill and walk up and down the sidewalk where people can see him. He attracts a great deal of attention. As long as Bob confines his field of oper- ations to the vicinity of the market he is all right, but he occasionally thinks he can catch more customers on Montgomery or Kearny street. CHINAMAN'S CAJTLE INTHE AR NEAR