The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 27, 1896, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1896. 15 I[N A WORLD OF REALISTIC ROMANCE An Afternoon With the dostling Growd| at the Gitg‘of Booths Black and White Pen Pictures of the Marvels to Be Seen at Mechanics' Fair A jostling mass of humanity 1n a city of booths; troops of children in holiday dress besieging prettily decorated windows, where pretty girls are tossing out tiny samples of tempting wares; regal pavil- ions of paper and glass; electrical displays that recal! stories of the wonders of Alad- din’s palace; aisles along which vast, com- plicated machines are whizzing and whir- _ ring and speediug in the manufacture of fabrics of one kind or another; milling ‘and mining plants running 1n fuil career; towers of fancy bottles rich with their con- “tents of fine native wines; a great orches- _tra blowing out a weaith of harmony in seeming competition with the general din - and noise around on every side; long gal- leries hung with the rarest works of the : Occidental princes of brush and palette; miuiature warships and steamboats rep- .. resenting the triumph of Western brain and muscle; grottoes wherein sparkle the mineral waters fresh from mountain springs; rows of glass - sided tanks, where fish from our rivers irisk about safe from the lure of hidden dangers in juicy worms; exhibits great, and exhibits small, all of which you can- not begin to see, so as to appreciate, in a single day—all this and more gives only a faint idea of the Mechanics' Fair. If you would see the exposition when . excitement there is at its height, a Baturday alternoon, when the school children, ac- companied by elders asinterested as them- selves, swoop in and take possession for a couple of hours, is about the time you should select for a visit. By the way, let us pause to remark the difficulty of the task of enumerating the muititude of benefits that must necessa- rily resuit irom such an exposition. Itisa lucid informant of the industrial progress of the City and of the State; a liberal education on California’s adyancement in science and art; a museum of mechanical | devices replete with useful and valuable ‘suggestions to the active mind. Wise and most praiseworthy was the move of the directors in giving up special days to the * free attendance of the school children of the City. Here, where they receive so many first impressions, the bovs and girls manifest the liveliest concern on every hand; and the evidence they uncon- sciously farnish of their enjoyment, and the certainty that from n2 books of in- struction in months of time could they - obtain a tithe of the knowledge of the greatness of their own State, compared to - what knowledge thereof they will absorb at the Larkin-street institution, are in themselves the strongest commendations of the excellent good sense of the manag- " ers of the big Jnir, But to return to the children. They are ‘an army cf question marks, They want to know what the machinery isfor and wlere the raw materiul that feeds it is ob- tained. The cordage booth is parucularly attractive, with its blonde hempen wigs hiding the bald heads of its corner-posts and with its variety of products, ranging from the most delicate cord to the strong- est hawser. Curiosity is awakened, and then comes the inquisition. The children learn that California factories make these ropes and that not a little of the hemp that goes into these ropes is grown in California fields. The truth is brought home to them that the Golden State can discount any of her sisters in patural wealth. The cotton- weaving and rubber-manufacturing de- partments are side by side. From the pair of them together we get, among other things, a California rubber-lined cotton fire hose. Sometimes the children throw in an opinion by way of no harm, and some- times a bit of street-phrase is pressed into service. Yesterday afternoon, for in- stance, a ruddy-faced, sharp-eyed youth stood for a moment gazing at the minia- ture of Smith’s flying machine. Itlooks like a torpedo with wings. “Will you please tell me what that busi- .ness is?"” he queried of the man 1n charge, ' ©A flying-machine, my boy.” * Can that thing fly ?”” the lad asked, in credulously. “No, but a larze one made after the same design can be made to fly, 1 believe,” “Did you ever fly in one?” “No, but I hove to.” “Got wings, like a bird, hasn’t it?"” our | “Yes, and also a tail, like & bird.” “And vou think one of the big kind'll golike a bird ? *‘Possibly one may.” And the boy closed the brief interview by murmuring, a3 he winked an eye and turned on his heel, “I don’t think.” The boys linger a great deal about the Oalifornia fresh-water-fish exhibit, going from tank to tank and studying the vari- ous finny species there imprisoned. The trout hatchery, with its thousands of baby trout frisking around, wins much of their attention. Boys are eager, as a rule, to know what the different kinds of fish look like, and for that reason they spend con- siderable time in scrutinizing the yellow verch, the black bass, the Rainbow trout, the Dolly Varden trout, the Eastern brook trout, cutthroat trout and.Loch Leven trout. They adwmire the green sunfish and spend a while watching the antics of the chubs, shiners and minnows. Boys want to know what they are hooking when they go out after piscatorial sport along the streams freshly stocked by the State Fish Commission. And then comes old Tom Hatch—frank- featured, good-natured—known by nearly all the school children, and known, too, as the man who knows more about the native woods of California than almost anybody else. He has an exhibit of our native woods on the south sideof the main fioor. Nearly every afternoon he gives a lesson to the school children—a lesson that can- not be gained from books. It may be ob- served that Madison Babcock, the Super- intendent of Schools, warmly commends this instruction. Children, it is said, learn more at this booth ina few minutes than they could find outin any of the bulky encyclopedias. The fancy woods of this State were never shown at all until they were prepared and introduced by Mr. Hatch at the Mechan- ies’ Institute of 1884. He has a collection of gold and silver medals won by his fancy wood exhibits every year since then. At the late World’s Fair in Chicago Mr. Hateh’s display beat the world, and he was awarded a cash prize of $500 by this State. So confident was he of winning that he offered to forfeit $500 if he could not excel all other exhibits of the kind. Prominent in Mr. Hatcn’s booth is C. A. Hooper’s fine sample of a superbly polished rediwood burl. It is 514 feet long, 414 wide and about two inches thick. An Eastern clergyman took such a fancy for this burl that he wanted the owner to fix a pricefor it. It was not for sale, how- ever. “Itisone of God’s own paintings,” T2 LT, exclaimed the preacher; and he went away disappointed in not being able to become its possessor. Near the veneered burl is a piece of wood that came from the heart of the famous “‘mother of the forest” (Sequoia). That tree was 2500 years old when America was discovered. It had reached the thousand mark when the wonderful Star in the East proclaimed the birth of a king whose inspirational teachings were des- tined to revolutionize the ages. It began to grow at about the time of the founding of Solomon’s Temple, and hundreds of dynasties and nations rose and then crumbled into dust the while the head of this glantess was rising to the clouds, But we are getting on very siowly with the lesson that Mr. Hatch declares he has taught to 25,000 school children. He brings out a specimen of bird-eye maple, and it is examined on every hand. It is the common betief that the bird- eyes on the maple are as natural to the tree as the sap. It is astonishing to learn that this pird-eye appearance is nothing more or less than the work of the wood- pecker, known as the “'sapsucker.” This bird punctures the wood to get the sweet sap; the bark grows into the little hole thus made, anG the bark 1s the mold of the wood. Mr. Hatch has a gallery of figures de- scribed naturally in wood. No art is L3737y = P ADVOCATES HOME IRDUSTRY ,»V\éi < '-*—fi] 521 4 "HERR RASCHEN used except that of sawing the wood up and down and not across, for no figure is obtsined by cutting crosswise. In this gailery the children find pleasure in study- ing the heads and forms, some of which l scem perfect enough to have been painted on the wood. A section of a hollow tres is placed before the boys and girls. “Do you know the cause of the hollow tree?”’ asks the old gentleman. “Itis a limb that rots into the tree. If the rotten limb had been cut off in time there would | have been no hollowness.” What a rare life-lesson this is for the children. Itapplies 10 them both physi- cally and morally. Then Mr. Hatch brings out sections of a good, solid tree, showing where branches have been lopped off and the body has remained intact. Had the rotting limb been allowed to con- tinue on the strong tree the rottenness in time would have eaten clear to the tree’s heart and killed it. The damage to a big tree that can be be done by a number of very small rotten limbs is demonstrated in a way that every child can undersiand. A piece of tree, used in this example, is apparently healthy from an exterior view, except that a number of very small limbs nave rotted. One would hardly believe that these little limbs could make any material difference with the tree’s growth or longevity. But they do. The many little limbs rotting soon spread disease through the body of the tree. Had they been lopped off the tree would have lived and would have been soiid when cut down, But the small rotten limbs play havoc if left untouched by the surgeon’s knife, and they eventually bring about the downiall of even the big- gest oak., The woodpecker gets into trees ISE IN TOown R through the small holes left by limbs that bave decayed. “Every defect in the sapling is found in enlarged form in the oak,” exclaims Mr. Hatch, peering over his spectacles and pausing for a moment to let his words sink deep. No: many people know that the bark of the Calaveras big trees does not grow equally thick all the way around. It doesn’t, though. The bark is caught in bollows. Late in fall and winter the bark grows fast to the trees. When the sap comes up in the spring it stands the yearlv growth of bark off; but there are places in the tree where the sap cannot accomplish that work and where the tree is parkbound. In the latter case an unusual thickness of bark results. On the big trees, where the bark is 31§ feet thick on one side, it may not be more than three inches thick on the other side. “A limb never gets hicher from the ground,” ‘is a peculiar lesson that Mr. Hatch teaches at the Mechanics’ Fair. “It isthe rotting off of the limb, and the tree growing over, that makes the long stem.”” The life is in the inner bark and the sapwood. The heartwood is dead- wood, being without any growing sub- stance. The heartwood is added to just about as fast as the sapwood, and it soon reaches the end of the limb, which carnot get any nourishment and must fall. Go into a forest and the under limbs wili bg found dead. Those limbs that keep a slant in the live wood live longer. When planting a tree outof a flowerpot, the roots should be straightened out or they will grow in a circle and become a deformity. Mr. Hatch has an example on hand to fit the advice. ' The cause of a large burl is simply a wound in the tree, where the outer bark is knocked off by falling imbs. The life grows out over the wound. Whatever figure you find in the bark will be found in the wood of the tree. All this and a heap more is learned, and learned, too, in a way never to be forgotten. This is the most practical lesson the children receive at the Pavilion. How the free samples of home produc- 224 RTGALLERY tions suffer when a couple of thousand youngsters are turned loose at them! In one booth a new kind of mush is served with cream and Sugar; in another tiny biscuits, made with somebody’s baking powder, are handed out gratis. Then you can get, without expense, some fancy crackers here and a taste of syrup there and a cup of coffee somewhere eise. In addition to all this there is free candy and free mineral water and free other things too numerous to mention. Nobody kicks at the children, but the booth people register a whole lot of excep- tions® in adult cases. “Wou!d you believe,”” said one lady in charge of a booth, “‘there are people who come daily, and somectimes twice a day, and make the whole round of the bootus where free zamples of goods are given, seemingly intent on getting a square meal every time they visit the Pavilion.” The fair is a glorious place for the economical young man and his girl. It takes the place of a theater, and ,at a big saving of expense. The couple promenade in the art gallery (which, by the way, presents the best ef- forts seen there in years). saunter up to a soda-water grotto_and sip from the sam- pling glasses, move over to a candy booth and get a toothsome morsel to chew on, and then settle down for a half hour on a bench to listen to the music of the band. After this programme has been gone through with it may be repeated, just as if the art gallery and the soda-water grotto, the candy booth and the orchestra benches were unanimous for a grand en- wlrz:t children are found, now and then, at the fair. In the rush and crush the little one suddenly awakens to the alarm- ing reality that his mother or guardian is nowhere in sight. The mother or guar- dian explores the east side of the Pavilion for the child, while the child takes the west mde in his own tearful hunt. An hour or two afterward we have the scene e Ruer F Swnp of a mother in hysterics and a child ex- hausted by howling and otherwise nea:ly dead with terror being brought together by a sleek-headed policeman, whereat there is crying and hugging and kissing and mumbled explanations, until the un- sympathetic crowd pushes the pair of celebrants into the street. Herr Raschen is not one of the sights of the 1air, but he has arranged many of its scenes. As manager of the art depart- ment he has achieved success. In former years many artists refused to exhibit paintings because the canvases of rivals held the choice positions. Nobody kicks this year, and the art gallery is better and more complete than before. The fact is that Herr Raschen, who ranks among our leading painters, started the gallery of 1896 by hanging his own best work in the poorest places. In assigning pictures he placed the works of others to suit his iancy. Then, if an artist suggested that possibly his pictares could be displayed to better advantage elsewhere in the hall, Herr Raschen, pointing to his own can- vaes, remarked: “Yours show brighter than mine; still, T prefer this subdued lizht.” The scheme worked. The art gallery is a success. So is the fair of 1896. A TALKING FROG Remarkable Intel ligence of a San Francisco Groaker This is a wonderful tale about a real frog. Some people think that frogs can’t think, but that is only because they never knew Al Martin’s frog and never saw it think, The frog is dead now, rest his bones; but the story of his freaks of intel- ligence and domesticity will live long after him. There are but few in San Francisco who do mnot know Al Martin of the Golden Rule Bazaar, but there are many who know nothing about his passion for frogs, his diamond ring, the curious air-sac, the diminutive phonograph and all that. During the week, when passing his pri- vate office, I discovered him busily en- gaged in patching up the anatomy of an imported Borneo frog toy, which had suif- fered from a severe fall. “I suppose you think it strange,” he re- marked, “that Ishould throw away valua- ble moments in patching a cheap toy. But when you know of my experience with frogs you will readily understand a cer- tain tenderness of feeling I have for the species. “It 18 something like fourteen months since I discovered on my doorstep one morning an unusually large builfrog, which betrayed not the slightest fear at my presence. At first I was prompted to drive it away. but on second thought de- cided to treat it more generously. So I called my little aaughter, who took the frog indoors, where it received a great deal of considerate attention. “A diminutive skye terrier had served as a pet and watchdog for a long time, and before very long it was noticed that when astranger came up the steps and the Skye commenced barking the frog would cfoak ominously with a ‘ya-kunk, ya-kunk’ sound away down 1n his throat, which could easily be distinguished at the head of the stairs. “One nnfortunate day the Skye went to his doom under the wheels of a milk wagon and kLas never been replaced—that 18, not by a dog. “The frog sat by the hatrack in the front ballway and wWhenever a stranger ap- proached his peculiar cry echoed lugubri- ously through the hall. “Almost invariably when the frog croaked he nopped along to the foot of the stairs, and I noticed ere long that a strange growth—evidently the result of friction against the carpet—was forming under the frog’s body, causing it to tilt forward. ‘“‘As this growth increased his voice be- came noticeably louder, and it seemed that tte wen-like appendix was merely a hollow sounding board, with most remark- able acoustic properties. In fact, before Ileft for Europe the frog’s voice could be plainly heard in the most distant part of the house. ‘A watch-do g could not have been more f aithiul. *Our family physician made quite a thorough study of the case, and stated that, while the growth appeared to be a wen, it was really nothing more nor less than an abnor mal development of one of the air cells in the lung of the frog, and it was best to allow it to remain. If it were to be punctured the frog would lose in strength, because the air, which in its natural process would be expelled from the mouth, would then be diverted through the new passage. ‘A puncture was made in the air sac, which instantly collapsed, and four or five days later, after the puncture had healed, the sac refilled. “I had taken close observations of this unique feature and while in Berlin con. sulted an old German professor regarding it. On my return to San Francisco I Jbrought a miniature phonograph and immediately set about fitting it into the frog’s ‘anditori um.’ ‘‘Before placing it there,however,I talked into the machine, ustering many trite say~ ings besides calling the names of a number of people, in fact, had his frogship primed for an evening ’s entertainment. “Then I sentout invitations to @ number of friends to come and spend the evening, The frog actea admirably, and when L assured my guests that he could talk they intimated that 1 was stretching the long bow. “However, it was not long before they were convinced. “I placed a saucer of water on the table and asked, ‘Will you have a drink? ‘Ishould croak,’ replied the frog. Then he blinked comically at the guests and looking to the left said, ‘Aleck Badlam.’ ‘By Jovel' said Alex, ‘the snake's got brains.” Y “Well, we had a great evening, and An. nesley Davis offered me this diamond ring for the frog.. At first I objected and then decided to accept his offer. He took the frog away with him. It wasn’t lony after that, one cold night, Annesley placed the frog in tie warming oven, so he would have a comfortable bed. I suppose the warmth caused the air to expand, because in a shert time there was aloud explosion, and they discovered the frog had passed in bis checks. ‘‘Annesley said he never knew before then that a frog had brass insides. Well, next morning the cook put acouple of fried frog’s legs on the table and Annesley ate them; but, say, don’t you think he paid a trifle high for that delicacy ?” Ana Mr. Martin twirled the costly diamond ring so that it glittered in the rays of the electric-lamp.