The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 26, 1896, Page 17

The One Trolley-Gar Without a Fender The guardless cars of the Market-street | cisco streetcars, as a rule almost, are pro- Railway Company are adding to their list of victims right along and still the shock- ing fatalities do not seem to have the least effect toward inducing the corpora- tion to adopt measures that will make its cars less of a standing menace to life and limb. The accident of last week, wherein John Figone, an Italian boy, was run down and mangled to death by a Kearny- street electric-car, was only one of a score of lessons of a like nature which, while appalling to the public of S8an Francisco, | | tant and closely related to San Francisco have been allowed to pass by practically unheeded by the streetcar company’s officiais. of them—but the company is very hard to be suited. It doesn’t seem to be biading for any of the fenders now in existence, although cities on this continent larger than San Francisco have long been used to the sight of life-saving guards on street- cars. The illustration below shows the car which ground John Ficone to death. The reperts of the matter agree that the board shelt that serves asa ‘‘guard’’ on the front of the car caught and held the child’s body until the wheels cut it almost limb from limb. Such a contrivance as that is not a safe- guard. It does not throw off a body, but rather serves to make death surer forthe victim than if the board shelf were not | It crushes the victim into there at all. unconsciousness before he reaches the finishing grind of the wheels. It seems strange that Sau Francisco streetcars should be run without safety- fenders, or with the barest excuses for guards, when not only public safety de- mands them, but the interests of the cor- poration would be largely aided by the in- troduction of proper guards at the earliest pessible moment. It would save the com- pany many a heavy lawsuit if its own selfish interests be taken into considera- tion; but it would save lives, and for this reason the authorities should take such action as will necessitate compliance by the streefcar company with the demand for safety-fenders. In Philadelphia the newspaper illustra- tions bear witness to the common use of a streetcar fender there which has some re- semblance to a proper gunard. “Look upon this picture, and on that,” and observe that if young Figone had been thrown in front of & car with a fender such as that shown in the second picture he might to-day be telling the story of how he escapea death. Philadelphia streetcars are supplied with guards that offer some cbance of escape 1n case of accidents; they are intended to avert fatalities. San Fran- Fenders have been tried—dozens | vided with so-called “‘gnards’’ that cut off the chances of escape,1f anything, and render death a certamty to the unfortu- nate individual whose fate throws him in front of the flying fenderless thing of de- struction. But we need not go to Philadelphia or the East to find guarded cars. The City of San Francisco is put to shame in that matter by little municivalities that lie within the scope of her gaze. Alameda, only a quarter of an hour dis- in a social and business sense, has ample fenders on her electric-cars. Alameda is only an infant of a town in comparison, but her people and her streetcar company seem to have comprehended the idea that contrivances for the public convenience should be freed as far as possible from the character of death engines. - There was never any agitation in Alameda over the question of streetcar fenders. The street- car company gave no cause for agitation, for it started its line in reality as a penefit to the public, from whose patronage it was to receive its reward, and it adopted precautions at the beginning to minimize the dangers'of the swiftly flying car. In San Francisco to be siruck by an electric-car means death almost inevitably. In Alameda the streetcars are not Jugger- naats. If achild runsin front of a mov- ing streetcar there it receives a rough lesson, but it ‘isn’t mangled beyond recog- nition. 1t is shaken up by the fender, but it is not necessarily maimed for life. Alameda parents, whose children have thus been snatched from a thrilling prox- imity to death’s door, may bless the providential car-fender for saving them irom the horror of having their chila brought home to them, only a bloody heap, in the morgue wagon. If they lived in San Franiscco the story would be dif- | ferent, as the score of deaths before al- luded to give evidence. Fenderless cars! It is almost unaccount- able that they should have been allowed to run their barbarous, death-dealing course here so long. There are a hundred dangers in this City where there is one in Alameda. San Francisco is a network of streetcar lines, and dangers lurk at every crossing. Parents who Kiss their children good-by at the sound of the morning schoolbell must feel nervous till the little ones return, for the fenderless car has no choice of victims; accidents sometimes occur even when care is exercised, and there is no telling what child will next be slaughtered on the altar of neglect and heartless inaction. THE PHILADELPHIA TROLLEY-GAR 1000 4 IR PHILA TRA & o | maiden THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 26, 1896. THE KIND OF WOMEN THAT MEN LIKE BEST My lady spends days and dollars for the whitening of her skin, the polishing of her nails and the fitting of her frock. In triumph she exhibits the result in the sight of him she desires to charm, and oit and often sees him led captive by a with freckles and a snub nose. The intelligence in her eye and the pleasant charm of her voice bhave made my lord blina to freckles or features, Or my lady sees him appar- ently lost to the world in deep discussion with a woman who, as far as the dictates of fashion are concerned, is hopelessly old- fashioned. Faulty as her outside garb may be, there are inner adornments that balance things to my lord. She knows something and she knows how to tell it. When I read—as a penance—long pages in magazine or newspaper about the toilet; how, by half a day of hard manual labor, we may make ourselves physically lovely for the other half as long as we neither go into the sunshine or face a wind; how the hair may be tortured so that a wisp may do duty for a mass; how to take sun baths, moon baths, milk baths and baths without end; how to live in a constant stew in a laboratory of drugs and instru- ments of torture, I do not wonder society women look worked to death all the time. And then—these two words are a fearful test—beside the most lovely manu- factured beauty, the result of ten years of hard labor, standsa girl who has had to work for her living, and has only leisure enough to be clean in person, neat in dress and progressive in ideas, whose eyes shine clear and bright from a busy brain, whose plain serge dress is strictly for use. Which is sweeter, more wholesome, more satisfying? It is like putting side by side a lovely satin rose from the milliner's and a sweet wild rose from the woods, and seeing which the bees will seek. It is getting to be the fashion to dress the inside as well as the outside, for the same poor little reason it used to be proper to be pretty and imbecile—men like it. The stuff we hear about men preferring silly women is only stuff. Silly prettiness bores them dreadfully. Men of culture and wealth in increasing ratio are taking unto themselves wives who are workers and thinkers, and more and more society girls are realizing that they must work themselves up to the standard of the working girl or be left behind. As they need not work for bread | they work for play, or *'go in” for some- thing. I do not envy the woman who has never | had to do a day’s work. I pity her sin- cerely. She has missed the best of life. | What excuse can one have for living with- | out work? She has lost all the independ- ence, the self-reliance, tne feeling of being worth the space she occupies in the world, | that comes from eating the bread earned | by one’s own hands or head. This does | not include the woman who has “‘only” | kept house and raised a family of children. She has earned more than she has re- | ceived. { them, as well as to think of them. The word man seems- fo imply one who does something. There are men,and then there are those other things that have exquisite bachelor apartments, give pink teas, and/have their pretty pink nails manicured. They do not mix. It takes a greater I suppose there are men who bhave never | worked, but I always forget to mention | some clothes that are better, and leave their old ones for any woman foolish enough to wear them. They are not per- fection by any means. Woman'’s clothes are more agreeable to the eye and offer greater advantages in the way of concealing defects than do those of her brother. It would be an ex- cellent object lesson if we were compelled to wear male garments long enough to display the pigeon-toes, knock knees and bowed legs, which are the result of cen- turies of skirts. ‘We like our skirts, the diversity of color is dear to our hearts and we cling to soft laces end shimmering silk. A crowd of women, seated or standing, is a pleasanter sight than a crowd of men. Our garments are hard to manage, but we can do it, and we do not sigh for the anxieties of trousers that will bag at the knees or to wear tomb- stones, minus the inscription, over our chests. We can even resist that most lovely bit of masculine adornment, a silk hat. Our clothes are growing plainer and a little more sensible year by year and we are learning to adapt the dress to the oc- casion, that is all. Bioomers are going out, you know. You know it because the Sunday papers as- sure it is so, not because it is true. Society has discarded them. Of course. There is nothing flattering about bloomers; they are regular searchlights. Society is not going to exhibit its defects to the scorn of the urwashed. Last yexr bloomers were a fad. They were worn because it was the thing, and worn alike by the snowy lamb and black | sheep. This year both extremes of so- ciety have discarded them, the lower one because the upper one did. Society is not consistent, though. The lowest of the low wear skirts to-day even as do those who float on the froth of exist- ence. Those who wear bloomers now wear them because they fit the occasion. Books and piles of books may be written to prove that skirts are not in the way on'a wheel, and still the skirts will clog and impede, get on one side and crawl up. For the one who wheels around the block once or twice to show a natty suit a skirt is good enough, but for the girl who rides to go somewhere, and must do it side by side with her brother whose limbs are | free, a skirt is a serious handicap. Even in taking a long walk the extra weight carried and the extra resistance | overcome by the wearer of skirts is equal | to half the labor, and in going up and | down hill and up and down stuirs they add materially to the fatigue. g Half the diseases peculiar to our sex might truly be labeled ‘‘skirt trouble.” But it spoils the form to make dresses 8o the weight comes on the shoulders. Let us have form by all means, by any means, Let us form ourselves into middie-aged women with drawn skinny faces, hands like bird claws and a propen- sity for failing over in a faint. But let us have form! Who cares for an inch or two inches more waist? If vour friends love you for your waist they are not worth wasting your breath on. Probably no one gives the matter a thought uniess to wounder why the tip of your nose gets red and why you cannot walk without puffing. The girl who has waists on her skirts {and coesn’t wear a stiff corset has just as | many friends and they like her just as well as her squeezed and genteel sister. Thinking too much of one’s selfand one’s appearance engenders a selfishness and a narrowness that more than undoes all the good impression made by looks. 1 have noticed that the plain girl, who has accepted the fact that she is plain, and by quiet, unobtrusive neatness has drawn attention from her looks to herself, is often considered pretty. And she is pretty. But where did I leave my bloomers? The girl who undertakes to drag a heavy mass of cloth up a hill when sheis out climbing is both foolish and culpable. That is one time when bloomers fit the oc- casion. : There is a girl on our street who wears her gymnasium smt, blouse, trousers, cap and all when she works among her flow- ers. She became tired of snapping off plants with the sweep of her skirts. I’ve laughed to see her run up and down the steps. Every time she goes up force of habit makes her clutch the bloomers at the knee, and going down she tries to hold them up behind. Isn’t a garden an ap- propriate place for bloomers? I wouldn’t have her wear them to an evening reception any more than I would have her brother waar his sweater and cap; but to hear, or rather to read the comments, you might think that trousers once put on could never be taken off. The same pretty miss may be sensible in bicycle suit in the morning and a vision of girlish loveliness in white lace in the evening. The light in her eye and the smile on her lip will be her own, too, and the boy who sits beside her will find she knows plenty to talk about. The expression ‘“‘well preserved” is a horrid one., 1t sounds like a mummy. The well-preserved woman is something like a mummy, too. Under the cracks made by years of powder, under the faded hair with the life burned out of it,is an old woman, older really than her years. The very .adornments draw attention to her age, while we think the fresh-cheeked motherly woman grows younger every aay. Save us from being well preserved. Some day, when we take ourselves as God made us, live for what we can do on earth, cultivate the divine spark that is alike in plain and beautiful, cease to worry and to rage and learn to be entirely selfless and all-charitable, we will all be beautiful—no matter what clothes we wear. Onive HEYDEN. Last N16HT there was a sound of ‘‘Juba’ on the ferry-boat leaving the City at 6 o’clock for Oakland. A long-neckea banjo, shiny-rimmea and resonant, was picked, whacked and thumped while the welkin rang with that time-honored song about “tapioca’ which was once the fashion for negro minstrelsy, and the lively accom- paniment evoked by a ‘“‘thimble.” The singing was about average and the banjo playing not much higher in the scale, but “de juba” was immense. Sedate citizens crinkled their faces up into corrugated grins and showed sympathetic “‘ivories.’’ Mechanics crowded to the front with their tin pails. Capitalists risked good clothes and silky tile hats in the jam. *‘Br-r-r-r-r"’ chertled. the singer; chink, chink, chank went the banjo. The reason for the popnmlarity of the old-time negro minstrelsy was apparent to any one. There were no songs in a dicky- bird voice about ‘Mother’s Old” or “‘Pick the Flower Be- expenditure of nerv- ous energy and tear- ing down of brain tis- sue to evolve a ball |dress which will make a beauty out of | a plain girl than it takes to balance a year's books. And | every woman who sees her can figure lout exactly how mueh is dress and how much is girl. Men are growing wise in thatdirection, too. They know the aif- ference between a girl who is pretty at 8 in the morning and one who is lovely at 8 in the evening. The girl who stands the test and the one envied by the gas- | light beauty is the | one who can wear a ten-dollar ready- | made suit and round |hat month after | month and always look dressed. Dress yourself as vou will, wrap upand bind down, drape, fold and puff, but the woman in theclothes makes or mars the whole. | There is a.lot of cheap wit wasted these days about women in men’s clothes. I should think those same wise and keen-edged giants would design THE SAN FRANGISGO TROLLEY-GAR fore It Withers”— nothing but rough, racy Africanism dia- lect, movement, horse laugh,vigorand the subtie appeal which good humor irresistibly makes to the wholesome and happy. There was a song about “de old farm,” but no one wanted it. ‘“Laugh,” said one. Back went the black head, wide open sprung the mouth, and from it came a laugh so iree from care, responsi- bility, timorousness or conventionalism that every auditor smiled again and again. After all, however, this was not a South- ern negro. He was born in San Francis- co, and lives some- where on XKearny street. His name is William Jackson,and he says that he laughs because he cannot help it, which is also the reason'he gives for playing the banjo and singing. Jackson is a typi- negro minstrel, and though he may be a little shy on philoso- phy he knows that the world laughs = with him, and he o < D '\‘\‘ & acts according to his x S el knowledge. In the Bay of Gibraltar, in the miast of a furious storm, I was upset out of a canoe and picked up in an unconscious condi- tion. The experiences of those few moments are fixed more vividly in my memory than those of any other period of my life. Upon striking the water I was whirled about in a vortex that speedily, through dizziness, robbed me of all my wits. When the whirling ceased I found myself choking and gasping for breath that I could not get, writer in the Philadelphia Times. The first feeling of abject terror must be experienced to be realized. When one is being overcome an almost unnatural phy- sical fear paralyzes the functions, cramps the limbs and causes the mind to take on abnormal conditions. This terroris the worst agony of it all—the choking sensa- tion when the water rushes down the throat, the blood flooding to the brain ss if it would burst are nothing to the awful dread of being consumed and overcome by 1he monstrous element about you. I was surrounded by boats and steamers at anchor and when Irose upon the crest of a iremendous wave these vessels seemed to be at a no!n distance aud as large as mountains. 1 remember gettin, this view of them twice, then my flflnfi l seemed to suddenly become introspective and was taken up wholly with fantastic scenes, in which strange people figured among friends of childhood long since al- most forgotten. It was as if important events in my life were being relived in a dream, a dream in which the body played no part. When once the great fear and choking sensation had passed a feeling of perfect repose of body and peace of mind possessed me. Although I had be- come helpless and was being buffeted about by the waves, every mo- ment gliding farther and farther out to sea, I was conténted and free from any unpleasant sensauions; fairy forms seemed to surround and beckon to me; there was music as of vibrating winds and rushing water, and I found myself in the midst of flowery vales and quiet mead- ows, but I can well recall the placid indif- ference with which I looked upon these things. Isupposed that hours were pass- ing, but had wholly forgotten the fact that 1 had fallen into the water. In this state, no thought of having a body came to me at all, yet sensation was alive and I saw with my eyes and heard with my ears, with never a notion that I was under the water and slowly dying for want of air. I passed through scenes of dream one after another, each, exquisite and peaceful in the extreme, filled with soft The Pleasant Sensations of Drowning radiating lights of many colors, but all presenting no meaning. The power of thought did not seem to fabricate tangible 1deas. 3 Suddenly I heard a loud voice calling to me, and it seemed to grate on the quiet tenor of my consciousness and surround- ings. It was a voice with little music in it, and as I reglly believe belonged to a dif- ferent world than the one into which I had been ushered by a watery path. Then a peculiar experience took place. I felt as if I was light as air, but carrying a heavy load, of which I could not rid myself. The voice, in which I couid distingunish no words, seemed to be associated and belong to this burden. Other beings were help- ing me to carry it, and we struggled to- gether, though it seemed against all odds, as I felt that what I was trying to carry at each moment grew heavier and was slowly but surely dragging me down. At last I thought I had lost consciousness, but still felt a miserable weight of dull pain in every nerve, muscle and limb. Sick and faint, I opened my eyes and found myself aboard a coal barge. Then 1 recalled that the burden I had been helping others to carry was my own body. Iam convinced that with mental and spiritual powers I had been combining with my rescuers to save my earthly body from a watery grave. Any one can tell the nature of almost any pain or disease by merely watching the gesture with which a patient describes it. Whenever any one is asked to tell where he feels pain his gesture uncon- sciously describes not only its character but its intensity and distribution. . A writer in a recent number of the National Board of Health Magazine argues that the pain gestures are always perfectly descriptive. With - a. little practice any- body can make a diagnosis with remark- able accuracy in this way. Every one should be familiar with these pain gestures. They enable one to detect the real trouble even though the sufferer may be entirely mistaken as to its cause or its nature. ‘One of the most easily recognized of these gestures is the one used to indicate pains of any kind in the chest. It is no- ticeable that when, for instancs, the pain is widely distributed over the whole chest the patient locates it with a circular rub- bing motion of the palm of the hand. This gesture always meang that there is a diffused soreness. But if the pain comes from serious inflammation it is always de- scribed by first drawing the hand away from the body, and then, with the fingers closed together, or perhaps witk the index finger pointed out and the rest flexed, the hand approaches the seat of inflammation cautiously. These various gestures may be classified in such a way that they can be very easily remembered. There is but one disease in which the patient does not touch the skin | when asked to locate his trouble, and this is appendicitis. Any one suffering from this tronble simply holds the palm of the hand over the diseased area when asked where his trouble lies. g All these gestures can be explained on purely scientific grounds, but the person who knows them can detect disease almost as well as the doctors by this curious short cut. The most familiar of all these gestures are probably those used to describe the various kinds of stomach pains. When a person is suffering from a very violent ab- dominal pain which is not inflammatory he indicates it by slapping himseli vigor- ously across his stomach. It often happens, however, that a much more serious trouble 1s taken for an ordi- nary, harmless stomachacne. If a child, for instance, refers to a persistent pain of this kind and does not show by gesture thay there is any tenderness or pressure there is probably some disease of the spine. In almost all diseases the gesture indi- cates pain in a more or less extended area. THE. ALAMEDA i il Nature of Disease Shown by (esture It is easy to remember that in contrast to this any hip-joint disease will be referred to as a point inside the knee. Other diseases of the leg are indicated in an entirely different manner. When one suffers from an acute diffused pain in the leg, which is due to inflammation, the patient grasps the leg firmly. But if on the other hand it be a darting or lancinat- ing pain it will be indicated with only one finger. Itis very curious, besides, to find that certain diseases are invariably denoted with some one particular finger, and that the patient never makes the mistake of using another finger. The pain of ‘“shingles,” or hepatic neuralgia, is sl- ways indicated with the thumb. A pain caused by the descent of renal calculi, or gall stones, 1s always pointed out with the top of the thumb or the in- dex finger. The patient in this case fol- lows their course with his finger. In contrast to this, any joint pains are shown by a gesture in which the hand is spread out and approaches the seat of the pain very cautiously. The degenerative pain of locomotor ataxia is invariably described by grasping the affected area firmly, indicating a hand like pain. Any change in the nature of this pain is also shown by unconscious gesture. 1f the pain be sharp and light- ning-like in the leg the pain gesture is per- fectly descriptive. It consists of an ener- getic downward motion. At the same time the hand is twisted as though it were manipulating a corkscrew. A stiff neck is indicated silently by a gentle pressure of the tips of the fingers, the hand remaining meanwhile extended. The hand is held in about the same posi- tion to indicate & sharp pain in the head, except that in this ease the palm of the hand is pressed against the temple. The gesture denoting toothache also more or less resembles these two. It consists in placing the extended hand against the cheek with considerable pressure. A little practice will make it very easy, however, to distinguish between them. A tender muscle is indicated by pinch- ing it gently with two fingers. A hip bruise, on the other hand, is shown by a pressure of the closed hand. A pain in the side due to inflammation or bruising is.indicated by a pressure of the tips of the fingers, the hand being kept meanwhile rigidly extended. The gesture for any pain in‘the heart also consists of a firm pressure, but in this case only one finger is used. In pointing out rheumatic pains in the shoulders the hand is partly closed and the painful area is pressea slightly with two of the fingers. TROLLEY-GAR