The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 11, 1896, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUN k4 OCTOBER 11, 1896 You May Shoot Ducks Next Thursday The wild ducks on the marshes in differ- ent parts of the State have only a few days more to fly about at their own sweet wills, for on next Thursday the shooting season opens—that is, for sportsmen. The mar- ket hunters will have to wait another month, and so will all people with duck sppetites who are not hunters and have no friends who kill duck and are willing to send them a few. All through the valleys of the interior end the marshes along the bay shore preparations are going on to give the ducks a warm reception. Early Thursday morning shotguns will commence to “bang’ and the ducks to fall. The bang- ing will be kept up as long as there is a duck in sight, and when night falls there is likely to be a big decrease in the duck census, There is also likely to be sport of an- other kind. It will all be the result of the old feud between the sportsmen who think it their right to hunt wherever they can find ducks and the men who lease a por- tion of Iand and “‘preserve’’ the game on it. Both are right according to their own ways of reasoning and non-shooters can o hope the others will not use their ghotguns on one another. There is a possibility, though, that the peace will not be kept, for both sides are determined. Asifto *‘beard the lion in his den” a big ark has been towed from Ala- meda to the Suisun marshes, and all sports- n are invited to come and have a day’s sk It is said there will be arrests an 1its and an awiul lot of trouble, but a which will in no way interfere en who go only to piaces 3 welcome. And there are of such places not far from San co where good sport can be had ger of unpleasantness. 1any sportsmen think it their d their rights and will go to e. according to ould come out victorious. Men her they are battling for a nation. ve arrived on the marshes ier than usual, possi- ie that to upho! It | They are fighting for | history | bly on account of the late spell of warm weather. They can be seen in many parts of the State flying over the marshes in large flonks ready for the hunters, who are likewise ready for them. From the oatlook it is likely that shooting will be godd this year. Ducks are plentiful and the weather promises to be just the right kind to make it pleasant to go after them. Bat there is no telling what a week will bring forth, and it may be by that time the game will bave all gone to some other locality. For the last two weeks the hunters have been visiting their arks, cabins and lodges, putting things in readiness for the open- ing of the season. The methods of going after ducks vary with the different local- ities. In the San Joaquin and Suisun marshes arks are used, while in the Alviso and other marshes along the bay shore the hunters camp in small cabins built and maintained for the purpose. For the last six months these places have been deserted by their owners. The Irying-pans have rusted on the walls and | rats have run about as they pleased. The | big arks were towed from the marshes in | the spring and laid up in some place where they could be taken care of. Numbers of these were in Stockton and Sacramento harbors and at the cities along the bay shore. There they Jay, drying up in the hot summer scn, and all the while their owners were waiting anxiously for the season to reopen. The real duck- hunter does not care much for any other sport. He may take a sort of interest in almost anything else, but his heart is on the marshes. He longs for the crisp morn- ing air that gives such steady nerves, and the beautiful fat birds that look so tempt- ing when served broiled, fried, stewed, or, in fact, any way. Nearly all of the Stockton arks have been towed to the shooting grounds, where they are being put in order for the season. They are generally laid up in some *‘good” place, not far from town, so the owners can get to and from them | without much trouble. Many of these | arks are as cozy as a biz ocean steamer and !are, of course, not likely to be shaken around in such a way as to destroy all ap- petite for ducks. But duck-hunters usually have good appetites, and no case is known of where a man failed to take one with him., ¢ The most popular duck-shooting grounds around San Francisco are on the Alviso and Suisun marshes along the bay shore. Theformer is, of course, the easiest to get to and must be considered one of the most unique places of its kind in the country. It 18 reaily a duck-shooting village as there is no other business carried on there, and no inhabitants except huntersand the men who watch the cabins, The Alviso marsh duck-shooting village is known as “The Bridges,” for it is close to the bay shore, three miles from Alviso, and the railroad crosses numerous sloughs at that point over trestles and other structures of a similar kind. In all there are twenty houses, owned by men in this City except two, which belong to San Jose people. It is here that the duck- shooters go for a good day’s sport. They are sure to get it because nobody in- terferes with them. In fact, every induce- ment is held out for them te go there. The syndicate that owns the marsh aliows anybody to shoot over it, and the owners of the cabins have to pay only $1 a year ground rent. Special trains are run for their benefit, and on many occasions last year there were over 200, men on the grounds. Everybody respects everybody else, and if a man fixes a place for himself he can feel sure that nobody else will in- terfere with it. At least, such a thing has never happened so far as known. The Alviso shooting village is located in such a position that it is not far from the bay shore, and is on a slough that empties into that body of water about one mile from the place, It is very handy, and makes thing equally convenient for hunters who have boats and those who prefer to walk over the marsh land and shoot what- ever they can see. All during the summer the cabpins at this place have been vacant, but within the last week have been occupied by those who were putting them in shape for the coming season. This made things quite gchange after next Thursday. HUNTER’S VILLAGE ON ALVISO MARSH, WHERE ALL IS IN READINESS FOR THE OPEN SEASON. lively down that way. There is a grea deal to be done before a duck-shooting cabin is ready for occupancy, although all of them have been left in tue most perfect order. But a great many things may happen in six months, Very likely the sheetiron stovepipe has rusted away and a new one must be putin place. The hunting clothes must be hung out and aired and consider- able cleaning must be aone. But the boys work with a will, foritis a job they like | in view of the amount of fun they know they are likely to get out of it. As well as getting the house in shape, it is necessary to overhaul the boats that have been drying during the summer. ‘These must be put into water and sllowed to soak until the cracks in them close up, after which they must be hauled out and allowed to partly dry, and then be given a coat of paint. All this takes time, and at least a week is necessary to get things in shape around a moderate-sized cabin. Another thing to be done is to build “blinds’” out of which the ducks can be shot as they fly overhead. These are gen- eraliy made out of an old hogshead and covered with brush so as to conceal them from view. The barrel is partly buried in the ground so that little of it can be seen. The dogs are taught to lie close to the barrel, out of sight, until the game drops. Itis while constructing these that the builder is sorely tried. The builder is sure to be a hunter end while at work takes his gun with him to be reaay for apy curlews that may fly near. At such times fine fat ducks are likely to tly overhead. It looks such an easy thing to drop a couple of them and nobody be any wiser. But the game warden is a close watcher and has a most inconve- nient habit of turning up when he is not wanted. [tis very inconsiderate of him, to be sure, but that does not stop his coming. And when he does come Mr. hunter who is unable to tell a duck from a curlew is likely to pay about $25 for his fun. Asaconsequence tke ducks fly by without striking danger. But things will o 7 v g U 4., ] v % 7 % >3 Houts. of Temptation and Anticipation—Will They Fly So Close After the 15th? Telegraphing Without Wires The great need of the commercial world is an enlarged facility of communication between commercial centers separated by large bodies of water. The valueof a tele- graphic cable between the United States and the Sandwich Islands cannot be over- estimated,” The letter that goes by the fleet greyhound of the seas travals all too slowly to meet the requirements of the pres- ent men of business. Commercial trans- actions between the Unitea States and the continent of Europe, which a dozen years ago were conducted by written corre- spondence, are to-day entirely entered upon and consummated by means of the Atlantic cables. Theextra expense is more than compensated for by the expedition of the business transaction. So emphatic is this condition that there is now under grave consideration the laying of addi- tional cables and the emyloyment of te le- phone cables, although competent elec- ‘Wornen With Shattered Nerves and the Medicine Habit Scarcely a paper appears without the cf a suicide or some insaneactofa ouswoman. They seek the unknown e of death, or send another to find it, for reasons too trivial to notice. Someone loves man too well, another not enough; a parent has spoken harshly toa ghter, or a daughter has failed in her to bher parent; something has hap- sed or something has not. The only dy is suicide or the murder of an- ! There must be a desperate condi- n of mind when a woman deliberately her soul from her body, or else there the causes alleged the latter seems re often than the former. It has ly advanced that girls all have e for self-destruction; thatitis with them and stays with them until Why twenty-five? born so more than is all moonshine. never has ary idea of leaving th 1d until she must. Sometimes 1t is , sometimes 1 and oilener than me work. There was who w. ¥ Teaso; about her misera Le chol rable herself, from no who made every one A fond father took to Europe, brought about her all the nd from its slough of de- without awail. spond, but 1 never thought of her or saw her | hing to take her away from her beautiful home, and her s, and put her where she bor for her daily bread, and help L oue else who had none. Work, an object in life, and wholesome self-sacrifice uld soon have driven away the mel- ancholia. Fresh air and exercise are wonderful cures for low spirits. In fact I feel sure L hat half the biues, despondency and its of death are caused by lifeless uggish liver and laziness. Women are not as a rule victims of the liquor habit, but they have some little habits of their own which work sad havec with nerves and their bodies generally. The very worst one 1s the medicine habit. How many women of your acquaintance, when they feel ill, look at their own habits and food to see what they have or have not done to upset nature? Do they not, all of them, fly to a medicine bottle, and that without knowing whether the medicine is good for them or not? ‘Find me a woman who does not dose herself promiscuously and I will show you a strong woman. It is worse in the coun- try than in the cities, or else I have noticed it more. I nave thought it comes partly from the absence of a near physi- cian. The country is the faker’s paradise. He can sell anything if he only puts diseases enough on the wrapper. Why I have seen shelf after shelf full of medicine bottles in farmhouses, full of more kinas of messes than I ever knew were brewed. All these remedies were swallowed, too, and the swallower lived to tell the tale. The stories told of the cures would fill volumes, and each season calls forih a new one. I have been advised to kill myseit with hundreds of medicines while my health has been perfect. After a hard day’s work, when fatigue caused pallor £nd heavy eyes, whose remedy is sleep, I ve been pressed and imporiuned to take ittle of Somebody’s Invigorator, with the assurance that if I took it regularly I'd never become tired like this. It must be rare medicine to overcome the effect of cause. But I never tried it. You need medicine in the spring to " thin your blood after the cold of winter. A bealthy | nd strove in every way | It may be cruel, | | You need more in summer to keep your | strength during the heat. You need a | fall cleaning, and of course you need a | tonic during the cold winter. In a word, | you were created that you might take | medicine, and medicine is made that you may have it to take. *‘My dear, you look yellow and peaked and all run down; you must take some- thing. They say tbis new liver medicine is wonderful for cases like yours.” And my dear obediently opens her | mouth and swallows the dose, though |'there is nothing the matter with her ex- cept laziness and need of sunlight. She | is pale—as grass is pale which grows in | the dark. All the doses she can take will | never make up that lack. She will simply join the ranks of those women and men— there is a great army of them—who take medicine instead of taking common-sense care of themselves. The medicine habit grows and fastens itself on one as fast as any other pernicious habit. We all know those who have lost faith in their, phy- gician because he gave them so little for their money; *‘‘just talked about diet and baths and exercise! Never told mea thing | to take!” . | These people, some from notions of | economy and some from a mania for tak- |ing something, begin to try every new medicine, begin to read the symptoms on | the bottle and the wrapper and to find they have them. If they are ‘“run down,” and most of them are, from the hetero- geneons messes they pour into tender stomachs, each new remedy will for a | time stimulate. When the effect wears off the victims look about for bottles new. | They grow to watch themselves and those | about them for the slightest look or change to warrant a dose of the reigning mess. A spoonful in the morning to wake them is as necessary as a spoonful at night to put them to sieep. Each meal must be either preceded or tollowed by a dose, ac- cording to directions, and never day or night is the tortured stomach free to do its own work. A woman works all morning in the house, among the stuffy airs and odors, and when in the afternoon there comes a time for rest she sits behind closed win- dows and sews or reads, and to make up for the air she has not breathed all day she takes some medicine. The genius sits humped over a aesk half the day, writing, and sits humped over a grate the rest of the day, reading, and de- pends on eveglasses and medicine. The young lady of fashion dances and flirts in a heated and lifeless air all night, sleeps in a close room all morning and wakens herself like a toper after a spree with a selzer, ‘Who would not need an invigorator of some kind i! the glorious sunshine and the life-giving oxygen were denied us? It some one could and would only bottle a little fresh air and call it by a nice long name, to be taken three times a day! Once one gels the medicine habit the power of endurance is lost. There are pains we must bear and expect. There are aches and stiffnes after unusual fatigue, there are headaches from over- eating or from worry, there are wakefal night hours. They cease with rest and nature’s care, and what a weak will it is which resorts to a little black botile rather than face a few hours of wakeful- ness. Better get upand do something or watch the quiet stars than to put a demon into one’s mouth to steal away the will, Many and many women grow 8o used to exaggerating their ownills that they grow ill and die from their own imaginations, and many more who areill from top much of their own medicine become convinced | of a danger which does not exist, and with the example before them in every news- paper they take one final dose and need the Coroner. Medicines are necessary; doctors are necessary; but nature is a powerful old dame still, if she be given a fair show. Men smoke; women drink tea. It is hard to tell which habitshatters the nerves more. No one denies the existence of tea topers. They endure tortures if kept twelve hours without their stimulant. More women' than realize the fact are on the road. If one gets to the place where she has a headache if- she misses. her tea for a meal it is time to take heed. If the first thought wheu a little tired is a desire for tea or coffee iastead of food the. evil has begun. Theat woman need never say a word to the male relative who must smoke after each meal. Of course, each one of us hugs her own pet vice and says the others are worse, yet the effect follows cause. Itissomuch easier to cure other people’s bad habits than our own. There is another litile habit which makes us bundles of nerves, ready to do desperate deeds—eating. Now eating is somewhat neceséary and may be quite beneficial if one does not overdo it. We all eattoo much. You know the worn phrase, living to eat. We may wish to live to eat, but there is certain machinery ‘within us, fitted to do a certain amount of work and no more. If we.make it do double work to obtain scant nourishment, we must pay the bill: and if we provide good material, but too much of it, the machine exacts pay for overtime. Many a tragedy was caused by indiges- tion, many a violent quarrel might have | been traced straight back to pie. Laziness, which is only another name for selfishness, is a fast growing habit, It means nursing your own fancies and morbid ddeas in solitude and inaction. Idle purposeless leisure is Satan’s own time. Itisa bad sign whena woman with nothing tokeep hand and brain busy stays at home. She would far better be talking about some one else than brooding about berself. Can selfishness go to greater lengths than this morbid brooding over one's own trouoles anda pitying one's self? If we could realize, each for herself, how smal] we are and that each drop in the ocean of humanity has the same fate some time or other, we might see the ab- surd geotism of trying to be the one to escape its share by fleeing to the un- known. A healthy body is the first requisite for 8 healthy mind. Given a healthy normal appetite, plenty of air, a purpose in life, and something to call out self-denial, the result will be a woman who dares to live and would be ashamed to think of escap- ing her share of the work and tears by the path of suicide. The bicycle is a moral agent. By taking girls out in the air, by occupying their minds with outside things, by causing healthful fatigue, and tearing down old tissue in body and mind it does the work of a reformer. The coroner would come nearer a true verdict if he would ask about the suicide’s habits of eating, drinking, sleeping and reading, and while the family might ob ject toa verdict of suicide from selfish- |- ness, or overeating, or overindulgence in patent medicines, the number of suicides might decrease. Ouive HEYDEN. whereby a charge of electrical energy of a trical engineers estimate the cost of a telephone cable between Valentia and Hearts Content to be not less than fift een million dollars. Every device that prom- ises increased speed of signaling over the present cables is exploited in the hope of enlarging the capacity of transmission and thereby increasing the re venue of the cable. Unfortunately but very slight im- provement, if any, seems probable in this particular. In the meantime, increasing business and expanding markets clamor for greater facilities of ocean telegraphy. Peculiar interest therefore attaches to the announcement that there has been discovered a means whereby telegraphic and telephonic communication may be had between distant points, as New York and Liverpool, without the use of wires. A number of inventors in the field of applied electricity, among whom are Hughes of England, Biemens of Germany and Calahan of New York, have experi- mented upon induced currents, in the hope of solving the problem of telegraph- ing without wires. One of these devices was exploited by Edison in his attempt to telegraph from a moving train. Buu the cumbersome character of the machinery and its unsatisfactory results relegated it to the domain of scientific toys. Very pretty, but commercially impracticable. The latest in this line is based upon the assertion that the earth is surrounded by acurrent of electricity thoving from west to east; that this current is. fairly con- stant at a certain altitude, and that its potentiality increases toward the equator and diminishes toward the poles. The discoverer has been for some months past engaged in a series of experiments conductéd from the summit of Longs Peak, a mountain of some 14,000 feet eleva- tion, located about eighty miles north of Denver, Colo. Another station is located upon one of the high peaks of the Uintah range in Utah, immediately west. The discoverer claims that messages bave been transmitted between these points. The next trial will be had using Longs Peak, and the top of Mount Shasta, or some adjoining peak, which is nearly upon the same meridian of latitude as Longs Peak. The technical description of ihe ap- paratus employed is kept a secret, but its operation is understood to be an affair certain potentiality is liberated at th place of sending in a series of inter- mittent pulsations corresponding to the dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet. This certain charge of electrical potential is carried by the natural electrical strata current in the same manner as the wiresat present used perform their functions, and is received at the objective station by a specially constructed electrical condenser which operates a magnetic balance. The transmission of electrical energy without wires across a considerable body of water was accomplished in Europe some years ago by a wealthy dabbler in experi- mental science. But for some unexplained reason no practical application has been made of his labors. In this case a lot ot wires were stretched along and parailel to the coast of a strait several miles in width. On the opposite side of the strait were stretched a similar line of wires. Upon charging the first set of wires with astrong current of electricity a current was mani- fest upon the wires on the other side of the water. Should the discovery of the Colorado genius préve to be what is claimed for it, oceanic cavples will be things of the past. Electrical communication will then be had between points by eitbher employ- ing as the stations of {ransmission and _receipt natural elevations, like the tops of mountains, or, where such are lacking, the erection of lofty pole-towers. Itis claimed for the transmitting and recéiving instruments that their mutual électrical balance is self-maintaining. So that if the balance of a transmitter ex- posed on the summit of a mountain be disturded, every receiver on every other mountain situated within a belt say of two miles in width upon the same lati- tude will instantly be thrown out of bal- ance and indicate the signal transmitted. This occurs when transmitters and receivers are adjusted each and all to, the same balance. Were their mutual balances to differ, there would be no ‘response; and in this is a most valua- ble feature, as thereby a million trans- mitters may be placed at each station and a corresponding million of receivers be- sidethem, and if the electrical balance of each set—i. e. transmitter and receiver— be changed in the slightest form from the other sets, it will be possible to transmit and receiy, ‘million separate and dis- tinct mes¥ages without interference. Such are the possibilities of the new discovery. TF. M. Crosg, D.Sc. | must have looked like after being hurled In the workshop of the museum in Golden Gate Park there has been working for ‘some time a man who has accom- plished wonderful results. He is a hard- working, conscientious artist, a Parisian by birth, whose name is A. Barthelet. Seen in his “atelier,”’ as he calls his work- shop, he is surrounded by a great mass of bric-a-brac, bisqueware, wood-carving, ma- jolica ware, ancient pottery and curios of all kinds, all in a demoralized condition, looking . very much as if they had been struck by a cyclone. There is a marble bust of one of the monarchs of England whose nose is so badly shattered that it looks as if it were beyond repair. There are the broken bits of afigure of Marcus Manhus, who saved Rome during the terrible Galiioc siege, and which is a sample of what that individual from the Tarpeian rockfor having aspired to the monarchy. Oa atable 1s ashat- tered statue of victory crowning a hero with a crown of laurels, but the crown is lacking; there remains only a fragment of it. Against a wall is a very ancient paint- ing from which partof the coloring has peeled off, while at the bench where the artist sits is a one-legged and one-armed equestrian figure of Napoleon I, showing the result of careless handling. To the ordinary onlooker these and the ' THE BRICA-BRAC DOCTOR IN HIS WORKSHOP. many other cracked and broken articles appear us 8 mass ofv useless truck fit only for the ashman’s cart, but not so to the bric-a-brac doctor. “My dear sir,” says he, pointing to one or the other of these articles, “these will be put in such condi- tion that it will be impossible for any one to detect where the break ended and the repair commenced; but to be able to ac- complish this one must be gifted with a great amount of patience, +a perfect knowledge of sculpture, wood-carving, pamting, color and an imitative faculty which, I believe, is inborn. Take this figure of Victory, the ecrown in her hand, you see, is shattered, leaving only & piece half an inch long, just enough to give me an idea of what it had originally been. Well, I will have to drill a hole in what remains (for you notice it is china- ware), insert a wire and on that build an- other crown of plastic matter in imitation ' A Bric-a-Brac Doetor of the pattern remaining, and then the uicety of coloring will hide the lines of old and new. This piece I am working on now requires a new arm and a new leg and when I getthrough with that I will take up the fragments of Marcus Man- litsand make a new man of him. “‘One of the most difficult features of the art of restoration is that of reproducing the effects of time upon articles, as, for in- stance, op this picture;”” and he holds up the one from which a patch of color has disappeared. “This will have to be matcbed so that even the most expert can- not tell that it has been ‘touched up,’ as [ callit. The colors I put on wid have to be mixed to the shade that the original that has been on for 200 years has turned, and that is where a knowledge of coloring comes in. The work that Ido 1s the de- ception of art,’”” and he draws attention to a very pretty ornament. ‘“What do you think of it?” he says. *‘What is the matter with that?’ I ask, for it looks as if there were nota blemish on it. “There is not,” says C. P. Wilcomb, the curator of the museum, who is standing by, “‘bu you ought to have seen it before it was repaired. More than a quarter of it has been built on.” ““The ability to become an adept in the art of doctoring articles of vertu is not acquired in a day or a week,’”’ says the bric-a-prac doctor, ‘‘but it takes years of close study, and hardly a day passes but that I discover some means by which I can improve on my methods. Particular cements bave to be made to suit vparticular articles, non-shrinkable plastics have to be made and there must be a study how to deceive the eye. In marble it may not be sufficient to simply cewent on the piece that was fractured, but it may be necessary to increase the original fracture, and by manivvlation, after restoring the piece broken I, give the fracture the appearance of » aatural «vein in the block.”” This peculiar art is & wondertm one, and by its craft collectors may restore many damaged beauties they would like to pos- sess. It offers to many tbe opportunity to restore treasures which have becoms | the victims of age, accident, or mischief,