The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 28, 1897, Page 27

THE SA FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1897 THE BANDIT OF THE HILLS. andit of the California Hills §OT long since a young coyote| o Was captured in the foothills Yof California and taken into nearest town to be photographed. ! the firm persuasion of | to induce the frizhtened | ai to face the dangerous look- | ine aimed at him with deadly His terror is increased when he| recognizes his worst enemy peering at him through the fol is of a hideous biack flag that means “‘no quarter.” is an ordeal that rarely comes to an v, sedate coyote. cks of this little, king creature are interesting. come down from the hills to the grounds of the wila geese, innocent, f way I slowly circle arou: ed on some ima; His pace eases, the awkward geese be ward a common center and tr is movements by turning the they forget to fly as the wily 2 ws his circle and increases his pace. | idenly the coyote is seen flying up the | iliside, and firmly ciutched in his strong, arp teeth is a helpless goose, t00 dizzy with an ence w look of ind d ill ranches in early days the against wild | he trunks of trees, 1 the chickens roosted, witn old when, as ol e, the hen | st the same, the old rancher | onlight night to see how it w Mr. Coyote slowly cir- tree, pursuing the same a fat goose. | ¥ tumbles a ben, her cap- | r closes bis teeth on her neck and is off | e a flash. “And me a-settin’ there like I hadn’t no | mo more gumption than them hens, while | that pesky critter playec h a trickon | the owner of the hens sheepishly ad- ed. | in the Sierra foothills I once lis- ed to a coyote concert that made the umer boarders at a lonely ranch thank nals by covering e was accidentally killed and s was le!t in a meadow about e wast of the house. That sam ile the chiidren were out i ying, a cry, or rather a serie f cries, howls and wails suddenly floated down from s hill to the east of the hcuse The chldren flew into the house, decl ing e **cold streaks run up a to bear all the grizzlie screech owls erying at once.” Our old ho: and said, “It's come out and hear 'em sing.” eat waichdog, fiercely barkin; up the hill, only to be greeted | p.screams of defiance, and theu | < neared the lines of trees; | ack, confident that he | quelled the outbreak, but, as he bed the bouse, that weird chorus broke e dog, by this time in & g madiy up the hill, only y > So the ntest went on until midnight, snaps, snaris and blood-curdling cries from the t izing creatures on the hill, and m the beffled dog savage barks as he y protested against an invader who & to outwit his every move. The next morning our old bost ex- plained ¢ 1usual entertainment, for it was the only time during a stay of two montbs that we beard a coyote, | “I've been out to the medder and there left of that horse but the singin’ on the hill last night the dog while the other bones, Tk was jist to fool kiotys et.”” Tue old man knows the question the are going to ask and he answers, 1 eckon they took turns singin’ an’ eatin’.”’ Some years ago a white coyote was nd in the foothuls wedged between two ks. The animal was unburt and was sented to Woodward’s Gardens in San -ancisco. The coyote is called a coward. He is brave enough to lead a forlorn hope! Think of this Iittle coward (?) calmly “playing dead” in the presence of his two most dangerous foes, man and dog. A hunter who had slightly wounded a coyote was much surprised to ses it fall perfectly limp on the ground and apparently dead. The dogs looked at the coyote and then at their master with an inquiring expression. Not.a quiver of the eyelids, not the slightest rise or fall ot the chest, nor the tremble of a limb, betrayed this little creature in his wonderful play of death. The hunter gently prodded the corpse, lifted the limp legs, but they fell without a twitch. Then the hunter started slowly down the hill, taking the dogs with him. A few feet away, he cautiously turned to look at the coyote. There was a gray shadow fleeing up the hillside with a speed that meent sudden deliverance from a dreadful death. The coyote is easily trapped by fasten- ing & prece of meat just out of his reach. In jumping for the meat his hind feet are caught in a trap hidden under leaves, What wonder!ul things the coyote might tell us if he were ever allowed to speak for bimsell, How he eluded the cluich ¢ the giant cliff-dwellers, now happily eftinct, the crunching jaws of savage ani- Is, or deadly arrows of the Indian. In the palmy days of placer mining he ust have witnessed certain social func- tions among the miners that taught him to dodge an enemy who hangs first and talks afterwaid. Native Sons of the Golden Westare wont to indulge in rabbit drives, which is a ruthless invasion of the coyote's vre- serves. Hunted, hated, pursued by man and dog, there is nothing left to the coyote | but to **move on.” He suffers the igno- miny of having a price put upon his head, | which places him on a level with the| | the Industrial Farm Colony at Duxhurst, | | the working class. | movementin England, thought out a way | fertile mind gave birth was the Industriai Where Abject Vice Gives " Place to Honest Womanhood ADY HENRY SOMERSET is en- raged in developing a class of new ) women which is likely to have a marked effect on the part of the world in which they reside. This fact 1s clearly demonsirated by the report of what has been accomplished during the first year of Encland, the only colony of the sort in | the world—the only farm colony which is | ruled by a woman and populated by her own sex. The original cause of the inception of the project whose fruition has been 50 grateful was the fearful prevalence of the love of liquor among the women of Eng- land located in the cities, who belongea to For many years it has been the custom in England for a labor- er's wife, for the wife of the artisan to in- dulge in her pot of **’alf ana 'alf’’ without | eriticism. Itis this practice that brought | about the state of affairs lamented. Lady Henry, as the chief of the temperance in which the women who had succumbed not only to the influence of drink so far as becoming greatly addicted to it is con- cerned, but who had, by their love for iiquor, fallen to the lowest depths, The plan to which the philanthropist’s Farm Colony. There were croakers in plenty who prophesied all sorts of evil and the direst of failures. Happily, they have all proved false prophets. How thoroughly 80 is demonstrated by Lady Henry Som- women. The spirit of reform is in the air; | groups, each circle occupying its own par it affects all our views and must necessa- rily soon alterour methods. We have hith- erto relied on penal treatment, now we are beginning to see that we need educa- tional methods. The prison has failed as a deterrent to the habitual drunkard, but we believe the hospital will succeed, and it is essentially on the lines of u hosvital that we have opened our work. Our | medicine is fresh air and bard work, kind- ness, sympathy and above all the atmos- phere of nome. We have found that the cutdoor employments in whicu most of our patients are engaged have a curiously exhilarating effect, both mentalty and | physically, and the trim forcing-houses, | neat gardens and weli-grown fruit and flowers testify to the power of women to carry out this work with a large measure | of success. The hothouses, which have been from first to last cared for entirely by the women, have done 50 well this first year that we are justified in erecting other buildings on the same plan. The enthu- siasm the gardening has awakened among those who are engaged in it is another hopeful sign. Our women were as intent on sending their crop of early vegetables to the London market as any professional market-gardener in the lang, and as proud of their handiwork. I was speaking a few days ago to the medical man who visits us periodically, and he told me that he could not have be- lieved that such good physical results | this ticular cottage with a nurse matron at its head. The institutional spirit has been entirely removed in this way, and the pride that the women take in ‘our little homes, as they call them, is testified by the spotless cleanliness of the interior of each dwelling. 3 “The great difficulty hitherto attending reform work has been that when women are dismissed from ‘homes,’ the first day of freedom seems to bring with it also the first struggle sgainst tempta- tion; but I have a strong conviction that this course isa mistake and that the moral nature of the woman should be strength- ered by degrees in order thatshe may be prepared to meet the trial which she must | necessarily face when she goes out from our midst. “Joy isa necessary part of healthful life, and it was & problem to us how we could bring it to women isolated from their families and burdened with a bitter past; but the children have answered this question for us. They come to us from the London slums for a brief, bliss- ful holiday, and we make a point of tak- ing those who are so poor that they are in- eligible for the children’s holiday fund. Thbis home is cared for by Sister Kathleen. She has made children’s work a special study, and has written several most inter- esting accounts of her experiences at the Bird’s Nest.” " Of ail the work which Lady Henry has sccomplished in the cause of temperance /ENR _é OMERSET: — ZORKING N Hor “WE- se bandits of early days in Californi The coyote is the proud possessor of one gift of which neither man nor dog can rob him—his wonderful speed. G him one jump as a starter and he can | urn on his pursuers with fine sarcasm | and ask, “Why don’t » . Hartseon, | concerning the work of the institution which she planned and caused to be es- | tablished : | “It is encouraging to believe that we, at | any rate, are feeling our way toward a solu- | tion of the difficulty that has vexed us | sorely—how to deal with our drunken to the patients at Duxburst. He bad seen women v hose health seemed to be perma- nenly injured entirely recuperated with- in a few weeks, latent disease overcome in others, and new health and vigor restored to them. Specially successful has been the system of dividing the patients into little | erset herself, who has made this statement | could have attended the treatment given | there is none which has shown such bene- ficial resulls, as far as that section of the public which she strives to reach is con- cerned, as the Industiial Farm Colony. So strongly has the wisdom of ihe experi- ment appealed to the originator’s native land that the colony 1s likely to find sev- eral rivals before many months. | surface of the index and middle fingers | BRAIN CELLS RAIN CELL~LIKE NERVE INBLIND MANS IN THE FINGER TIPS. Eyes in the Tips of the Fingers ’Y addition to our knowledge of the | % anatomyof the blind has just been | ALY made by Dr. 8. Millington Miller. Every one knows that the blind man is | in & small degree compensated for the | want of sight by acute sensibility in the | finger tips. The fingers of the blind can never see, but with rractice they come pretty near it. They can read raised let- ters with inconceivable rapidity, and they arrive at exact measurements of form | | simply by passing their fingers swiftly | over the contour of an object. Sanderson, the blind professor, could detect a spuri- | ous Roman coin by feeling it over care- { inlly with his fingers. A smart blind man | can read character by touching the hand | of a stranger. By the combined senses of | touch and hearing he can form a shrewd ides of the stranger's age, temper, ability and stature. Chris Buckley once said that | he could always tell a man’s age by hold- | ing his hand and letting him talk fora | moment. There have heen blind weavers | whose touch was so keen that they could weave a rug of colored wools embracing | every variety of scroll work, and blind | mineralogists who could identify a speci- men by the feel. Whether the blind can tell colors by the touch has always been a disputed ques- | tion. A very intelligent blind official of a | nd asylum once said: "I kuow the dif | ference of colors because 1 remember | them, but I can't distinguish them by | touch, nor do I think that any blind man | in the world ever could or did.” Blind | people in the schools can tell the color of | their rods, but they Go =0 by putting their | tongues to them, and distinguishing those | which have been dipped from t ose which bave not. Indecd, the closest scrutiny has failed to detect any difference of tex- ture between a piece of cloth or paper | which has been stained red and another which has been siined green Locke's | story thata blind man told him the feel | of scariet was like the blast of a trumpet | is obviously a flight of fancy. Prescott, the blind historian, once said | that a blind man’s knowledge of things | which were ‘within his grasp was more | thorough than that of a man who could use his eyes; but objects at a disiance Le not only could not see, but could not con- ceive, nor could he realize their working. Holman, the blind traveler, exaited in the rush of stimulating air when he stood on the top of Adams Peak in Ceylon; butas he cou'd not see the foggy depths all round, he could not be made to under- stand the consequence of a false step. His eyedid not see, and therefore his mind did not fear. Still, the blind man’s finger tips are so far superior in sensitiveness to those of the man who sees that the contrast has pro- voked inquiry among anatomists. Dr. Miller undertook to unravel the mystery with scalpel and microscope. The inner of the corpseof a blind man were carefuliy | sliced off, and sections of perhapsa six- | teenth of an inch in thickness were placed | under a powerful microscope. In these | numbers of Pacini’s corpuscles were dis- covered. (For the benefit of the non- medical reader, it may be explained that a | Pacini’s corpuscle is the infinitesimal body or atom in which a nerveends.) Here Is the Auto-Car Which Promises to Be a Dangerous Rival of the Bike == HE bicycle will have a potent rival | 287 S s M) for the tourist now promises.to teke | to the auto-car and leave thecycle to rust | and decay. Thereis in London an organi- zation known as the Motor-car Club, and | ts members are devoted to the one idea of | developing and populurizin in every way possible those curious inventions which | are like and set unlike the horseless car- | risge. Dr. Carl Seeliz. a leading ciub | member, who is the tourist’s guide, phil- | osopher and friend, has taken up the mat- ter of motor-car excursions and will devote | his time entirely to the project this next season. | The auto-car which he has in view for general use by the tourists is seven horse- | power and will carry six people. Dr. | Seelig declares that it will go up hill and | down dale faster then any team of horses can travel, and besides, all danger of a | runaway will be avoided. This auto- car will be fitted up in a luxurious man- ner and will be ot sufficient size to accom- modate six persons, or st a pinch seven, though the former number is the one which the constructor of this autocar cal- culated upon. There was a quiet experiment made last vear with one of these vebicles, although the invention had not been perfected to the extent it is at present, anc the result was surprisine. It is almost like having your house along with you. A stop could be made at any time and no one had to stay in the car 1o hold the horse, It was demonstrated on the trial trip of the machine last year that the great fear of both the inventor and the buiider was in no danger of realization. It was be- lieved by both of the gentiemen mentioned that whilo the car would move briskly along on roads that were fairly decent, when it came to genuinely rough travel, | such as tourists who traverse the Conti- nent must of necessity often experience, the greatest difficulty would be found in making progress. So the car was taken to Bwitzerland and from there to France tbrough the passes and over the rough roads with which the country lying on the borderland of the two nations abounds. What was tho surprise of the four per- sons occupying the vehicle, all of whom | induced six young ladies to take tbe trip [ iste. | heretofore to prevent the auto-car from | purchase an anto-car and utilizs it for lit- than when they had traversed the country at the mercy of the diligence. These things were kept quiet until this season, but now those who experimented are re- lating their experiences (o all who care to listen, and the result bas been that Dr. Seelig, alter making a series of experi- | ments, bas reached the conclusion that he will devote his attention to the auto-car, because convinced that by means of it the | tourist can really see the country to better advantage and with infinitely more en- joyment than by any ctber means yet devised. The first of these tours, sccording to rresent plans, is to be made in June, and will embrace England and Wales. Among the mountains of the latter sections of Britain the auto-car will receive as severe a test as it did last season. Dr. Seelig has and he will accompany the car on horse- back. One of the young ladies will be taught how to manage the vehicls, for that part of it is simplicity itself, and so it will bein a way, an excursion of new women, although under the protective eye of man. The accompanying illustration shows how the excursionists wlil appear when seated in their queer vehicle and spinning along the roads of the tight little The one question which threatened becoming vopular as a venicle for persons of ordinary means is that of expense, It has been believed and openly stated here- tofore tuat the invention wou!d cost a largs sum of money, and that it was im- possible to make it less expensive, Now, however, there has been a revolution in the opinion of the makers of the cars, They say that 5o lonz as present prices for material and labor rule, there will be no difficulty in making a complete auto-car, and placing it on the market fully equipped at a cost far below that of the ordinary carriage. The word ordinary is used advisedly, the high-priced carriage not being meant. This statement has filled the bicycle- dealers with alarm, as’ now a fanily can tle more than the cost of a high-grade wheel. The auto-car can be used by one had made the trip before by other con- veyances, 1o find that locomotion was | easier and attended with much less danger | person or half a dozen, as may be de- sired. Itis not difficult 10 keep in repair, cated. It is safe, 80 those who have used it claim, and there is no danger of ex- piosion. So it is not at all improbable that before many months the bicycle girl as its construction is not at all compli- B girl, like the young women in the accom- panying illustration, and speed over the boulevards with rapidity ana safety. There are few modern inventions which will have boen evoluted into the auto-car ! can be devoted to so many uses as the auto-car. It has long baen considered one of the coming adjuncts of the armies of the world, and now is to be the means of whirling the pretty girl over highways and byways and in all coantries, Starting from these corpuscie , a complex ramification of nervoas filaments spread in every direction, like twigs in a thickly branched tree. In the ordinary finger a single nerve extends to the tip, with a few branches at the extremity, each of which ends in a corpuscle. In the blind man’s finger the branches were past counting, and they began to be thrown off from the main nerve long before the ex- tremity was reache: It was evident that the sense of touch in the blind man’s finger was kept in such constant em- ployment that a flow of blood into the finger was induced, and the crowth of ths nerve system was consequently stimu- lated. Dr. Miller goes so far as to say that the Pacini corpuscles are the blind man’s finger-tip brain, and he implies, under some reservations, that the finger tips are eye and mind to the blind, con- taining the same gray matter as the brain. This theory would imply that the organs ot perception and reasoning are not con- fined exclusively to the interior of the skull, but may exist in other parts of the body, and that Shakespeare may not have been so absurd, after all, when he said that the live. was the seat of love. We know a great deal more about the blind than our ancestors did in the Inst century, and yet we have still muck to learn. A popular impression prevails that when the sight 1s taken away nature offers compensation by strengthening the other bodily and mental powers, o as to make up for the deficiency. This notion is unfounded and probably was conceived in order to mitigate the horror of & hope- less misfortune. There is no reason for supposing that the other senses of the blind—hearing, touch, taste, smell and comparison—are more acute than in peo- ple who see. On the contrary, incurable blindness is apt to break down both body and mind, to destroy hope and spirit, and to lower its victim below the normal level of humanity. Among the rich tender care and affection often mitigate the misery of the afflicted, but among the mass of mankinia person wio is hope- fessly blind is treated asa belpless infe- | rior, thrust into isolation by his infirmity. He 1s an incumbrance to be neglected and indulged, so that he grows up to be little better than the lower animals—vicious, mischievous, lazy, apathetic, crouching in moral as_well as mental and physical darkness. Poor blind children ar- oiten moody, selfish, irritable and discontented. 8o far from redeeming their afiliction by a higher development of the vther senses they seem to be drifting into a condition in which pertial paralysis will overtake them all. Of course there have been signal excep- tions—Miiton, Sanderson, Dandolo, Zisc: Gower, Moyes, Salinas, Huber, James, Stanlay, John of Bohemis, Fielling, Arago, Fawcett and others—whose career demonstrates the truth that the loss of sight does not necessarily and in all cases impair the quality of mind. But the vis- itor to our modern blind asylums cannot avoid the conclusion that as a rule blind- ness impairs all the faculties and that 1t thers is anything in D-. Miller's theory of | & branch brain in the finger tips it ought to be studied with a view to the develop- ment of its possibilities. For it must be remembered that in the ence of mind and the nerves we are Il groping in the dark, and those of us who see best do but see through a glass dimly. Not long ago Dr. Hammond, who knows more than anybody upon the connection between mind and matter, said in a pub- Lc lecture that he did not know what a mind was, but he had a vague idea that its manifestations, as embraced in percep- tion, intellect, emotions and will, were dependent upon the operations of cells of gray nerve tissue, which are chiefly found in the brain but are likewise present in the spinal cord, the heart, stomach, lungs, liver and other organs. Not to the brain alone do we owe the evolution of mind; the sympathetic system of nerves is also concerned in its production. The pri- mary manifestion of mind is pereeption, which, in the case of things seen, is per- formed primarily by the retina of the eye, from which it is conveyed by the optic nerve to the ganglion and thence to the gray nerve tissue in the brain. Butif there is a gray nerve tissue in the finger tips and this can receive impressions of ocutward ‘objec's through th- sense of touch, mind can be set to work without assistance from the brain, and the latter may for the moment abdicate its cogni- zance or superintendence of the actions of the body. Here is where the theory of a brain finger tip may perhaps be turned to prac- tical account. Blind people acquire ex- treme sensitiveness in the ends of their fingers mechanically by exerting an in- voluntary instinci. Suppose the faculty which comes to them almost without ef- fort were cultivated by education. Micros- copy has shown us that ther: s an extraordinary development of the nervous system in the fingers of the blind, and that the nerves are centers of gray matter. ‘Would it be possible to cultivate the sen- sitiveness of the skin 80 as to increase its perceptive capacity? If that could bg done, the blina might be supplied with a pair of eyes at the ends of their finger: not as efficient as natural eyes, but still capable of seeing mueh within a limited sphere, and of arresting the tendency of their possessor to degeneracy and torpor. We supply the halt and the lame with artificial limbs, which, if they are not an adequate substitute for the limbs fur- nished by nétare, still render locomotion practicable. Why cannot the power of vision be evolved in a new organ? JoHN BONNER. Fifteen per cent of those eneaged in war are injured on the field of battle.