The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 2, 1897, Page 27

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 2 27 hed as rapidl mit upon the gr as me arest Itis is the minetec the pine board ay possibl the sort sugeested is World’s Cotum , or rather yme eto, an idea some- as resulted in the was broached. al experts wh idea lau, even in thisera Devallos see clearly practicable, and his seesaw prom- oveone of the greatesg, if not the at the Tennessee cen- b sho achine engage lhe contractors promise to have the finished early in May, for the ex- May land c ntil ovem b T indi- task y b ¢ leted, ven haerewith itis likely the time this reeches its maXimum | the publicthe first trial will have taken the earth. 'place. There is no reason to d the time | the seesaw will be an entire succe: ent from | els which are exact duplicaies 1n detail of t and | the towerin ure have worked per- s fectly. Al sorts of experiments have t the | been tried with them for the purpose.of | f the | meeting in advance anv difficulties which | This is | wouid b likely to & the combination at stands on Vanity Fair in the exposi- r that very many per- a journey into the air of this | tion grounds. to annoy with nauses | The only se ternal dis- | entire success ned from rdinary i ning impedimert to the great popularity of the seesaw seems to be that on the face of it | is what the Te: essee mountaineer calls battlefield of | > When one stands on the gronnd pa up at the top of the tower and | former home of | remembers that the swing of the great | ie, the fam s | truss-beam would take him 200 feet from essce, and many oiner | the earth, with nothing bur air between him and terre firma, he is apt to hesitate. uere really will be no danger,but the ngers, as e the buge of the | trouble is it is ely to seem as if there house | were, and to most people that is as bad as s ower and | if what was feared really existed. ss beam are monsters of their It the career of the seesaw at the Ten- ate will be the nent | nessee Exposition is a success, it will mean of -the machinery ving | 8 new era in amusement enterprises, for tively ea Eve: re is no reascn why these mechanizal ers cannot be constructed on a much er scale. There are a great many peopie who possess so many years that ,and this | sn < how ne it was should be nicely bal- | they cannot bring themselves to confess anted nee or upon whatever | that there still clings to them that innate s its central point of support. iove of teetering which, when children, | ded- which has been observed | they were able to gratify. If the sec et of the gi: seesaw makes its appearanca in the great cities, It scems wonderful when one thinks of | the chances are that there will be no age o great an afair as this could be | Jim on the passengers. | Siissingham's boarding-house; it was a | There was no register in this top room—it [any of the rooms the vccupants of the | PRINGE OF SLISSINGHAM TERRAGE. By Madge Morris. Everybody knew everybody else at Mrs. | comfortless, but it overlooked the city. terrace, and terraces are great fer tnat | had not been designed by the architect for sort of knowledge. When one spoke in | a bedroom. Soon aiter his removal to the “sky par- neighboring rooms would know that. he | lor,”” as the boarders called it, it was no- | spoke, and when he turned over in his | ticed that he came only to breakfast. The | chanced to be in the hall took the letters bed they beard him. The beds at Mrs. | young girl who sat at the table where he Slissingham’s were folding-beds, =0 everv- | ate waited upon one and another pretense body knew when eyerybody went to bed— | of daliying until the dining-room doors likewise when everybody got up, and also, | were closing. The Prince had spoken through his transom, could tell to a miu- | kindly to her once when she was unhappy, ute bow late his gas burned. | be had bean courteously polite to her at | reg | ing through the transom as she went up We were representatives from almost | every Siate at Mrs, Slissingham’s; the | most of us had come to the high altitude and dry atmosphere of Denver for our health, and Mrs. Slissingham’s was not expensive. One day there came to the terrace a new boarder. He was of middle | age, a fine, strong face, sympathetic, biue eyes, and such soft, clingy, curly, brown | hair; oneof the lady boarders was heard to say that she would give a nickel to slip her fingers through it. His bearing was | so courtly, and withal so kindly—when | their notice was forced upon him—that | some of the boarders christened him *“Tae | Prince.”” He wore a decent though rather old suit, a soit slouch hat, ate his meais larly, and as regularly came and went—somewhere; and that was all we | could find out about him, notwithstand- ing one sympathizing lady, whose room was above his, lost no opportunity of look- or came down the stairs. The days came and went; the beautiful, golden fall passed by, and stiil the Prince | came and went his way. His step iost some of its buoyancy, his face some of its bopefulness. The snow began to fall and | th= white winter was upon us. The seams in tbe Prince’s coat grew shiny. and he | did not get him an overcoat. The Prince’s rousers began to look a suspicion shabby his shoes leaked on warm days when the snow melted, and he did not buy him a | pair of rubbers. He was considered ec- centric. Some thought him miserl others that he had come from a much coldef climate. A change came gradually upon the Prince. The sadne:s grew in his f The tinge of gray became a de- cided whiteness. The chambermaid con- ially told each lady boarder that he V't a thing in his room except an old a violin case and a little tin box, which he kept locked, but that s table was littered with drawings ana curious maps of mountain ranges with holesin | the sides; that all his papers were some- thing about mines; that he spens hours in the night mak ihem. She solemnly averred that tuey were ‘‘beautifuller” than the maps in the geography. The | andladv was seen to intercept him in the | as he hastened from his early break- fast one morning. He was moved to the top room of the terrace. Ii was small and | { and the third. | wept. | playing *Home, Sweet Home,’ the table, and that was all. She was a gentle little creature with a timid manner and a face like a new wild rose, the kind ot half-scared face behind which the bravest braverv is often hiddeh. She watched for tue Prince from asheltered eor- ner whicth bad the door in view. He came in wearily; she saw him ascend the first flight of stairs, and heard him the second She went to her room and A strange thing happened that ni-ht. The boarders all came out in the hall to listen. Down from the “sky parlor” came softly, falteringly at first, then with a mighty strength of rhythmic powera wave of sweet m=lody. mote corner of Slissingham Terrace; the Prince was playing h.s violin. He was played it over and over and over again, played it as none there had ever heard it before. The next day the girl with the wild-rose face dallied at the table again. She ate little, and when she could wait nolon er | took the daintiest parts of herdinner, that which she had not touched, roiled them in her napkin, and carried them surrepti- tiously away. That night again the Prince went heav- ly, wearily up the stairs—it was always dark now when he came in. The young girl watched him with teary eyes. * That night again the music of ‘‘Home, Sweet Home'' flooded the terrace and the peopla stood in the ball and doorways and lis- tened. When the Prince litted his pillow to tury down the cover there was a dain- | Lily folded napkin under it. He picked it up to remove i, then dropped it in its place and looked at it. A flush spread over his face and a mist before his eyes; but he knelt beside the bed and on his Enees ate. The next night and the next it was that way and for a week the same. The people left their doors njar that taev might hear at its best the Prince's “*Home, Sweet Home.” He never played anything else, d when it would cease the air would swish with signs. The young girl prayed every night for the Prince; every night the Prince, on his knees by his bed, ate the bit of luncheon that was under his piliow. One grampy man was heard to say he “was tired of that ‘Home, Sweet Home" It rolled into every re- | business,” and he went in and shut his door, but he listened. It was a Friday morning when two let- ters came for the Prince. One was an ordinary letter, and the other was large Innd bhad a legal look. Anybody who The carried the Prince’s She looked | from the postman at Slissingham’s. | pretty, young giz! letters up to the sky parior. quickly about, kissed the letters and slipped them under the door. The Prince climbed the stairs that Friday night more wearily and heavily than ne had done be- fore. He was decidedly shabby now, notwithstanding his carefully brushed clothes; his hair, for want of barbering, | curled 1n mutinous freedom to his neck. | There was a long silence—a half hour passed, another znd another. The grumpy man said, “We’ll not have thai ‘Home, Sweet Home* business to-night,” and bLe shut his door with a bang. He wanted to hear it, he knew be did, but he liked not | to see the ladies listen so absorbedly to | anotler man. The young girl was listening; her room | was directly under the Prince’s. She was | happy; she was sure that legal envelope | had brought the Prince a fortune—she | | knew he was reading the lstters. She | heard the Princs tuning his violin, and the strain of listening loosed its tenseness in o sigh. Never had the Prince played as he played that night. Those who heard it | | will remember that music until they aie. | It was the lost chord in the soul of music, | |it was a living sound. TLe terrace vi-| brated with it, the shadows trembled on | the walis. The people crept out into the | halls and huddled together and bowed | their heads. The floodgzate of harmony | | was suddenly slipped wide, and all the | heartaches of ail the world that had gone up to heaven in prayer issued forth from that one sweet, wild wail of “Home, | Sweet Home.” A siring snapped; they | heard it, those peovle that listened below. The silence that followed hart therr ears. | They stole away to their rooms without looking at each other. | | When the chambermaid went to the | | Prince’s roem it was late—she never got | to that room early—the lamp still burned. She turned 1t down quic The Prince lay on the bed asieep; be bad his clothes | on, his right arm was crooked over his | eyes. The littie roil of iuncheon was | under his pillow, the vioiin with its | broken string on the chair. She tip-toed across the room and looked at him, and | toen fled shrieking down the stairs. | The Coroner’s jury opened the little tin | box and read the few letters that 1t con- | tained. They were several months old | and were monthly requests for money or | were reproaches. The two letters that ame on the Friday morning were laid on | top of them. The ordinary one was signed | 191 i i | Prince in his ragged glory lay by the elders of a church far away in the indolent Sonth. It wasa cutting request that he witbdraw his name from the church. They opened the legal document last. It was a notice served upon him of an application for divorce on the ground of ilure to provide.” In the inside | pocicet of his coat they found a photo- graph of a family. When they had all gone away and the straight- esel upon his bed the young girl, whose face had been like a new wild rcse, came into the room. Her eyes were swollen and red. She came timidiy to the side of the bed and looked down upon the Prince's face. She siid down on her knees and hid ber face on the bed, then arose calmly and went away. A woman paused before the entrance to ingham terrace and looked at the number. She wore a long black cloak and hat with ing plumes. A statu- esque shadow in black she looked, but her face pale as the new-fallen saow, and it shone through the meshes of her thick, black veil a saintly beauty. She asked to see the man who had been found dead thzt morning in his room. When they showed her to the door and would have entered with her she said: “I would be aione with him,” and she closed the 1 door and locked it. Long she stood beside the Prince and gazed down on the sileut, | straightened form. The sorrow of her eyes was sadder than tears. She took | from her cloak a white rose—it was warni | from Iying o her bosom—and laid it on his breast. “I wonld have divided my last cent with you if 1 had only known. I would have given my life to save yours.” The photograph of the family lay on the table. She picked it up and looked at it a moment—a strange, unreadable expres- sion flitted over her face. She stooped | and slipped the photograph nunder the | Prince’s vest nearest the heart that could | never again throb a response to its touch. A tear fell on the white rose. She bent lower, her beautiful moutb touched the Prince’s ear; her lips moved in a whisper. Sue lifted a lock of his silken, curly hair from his temple and kissed it. x w e * x * T When the first newspaper reporter came o take an exact copy of the contents of the little tin box the white rose iay on the dead man’s breast, the phorograph lay against his heart, the violin with its broken string was on the chair—but the box and its contents were gone. And the Coroner and his jury were mer- cifully silenc. MapnGe Morris 'GREATEST SUBMARINE TUNN The British Government now has under | project was carefully considered, for the | isno®at present enjoyed and never can | | consideration a plan for the greatest sub- | marine tunnet which the mind of men | ever conceived. It provides for a pas- sageway, to be lighted by electricity, be- neatl the Irish Sea or North Chanuel, as it is called, from a point in Scotland just | orth of Point Patrick to a point in Ire- land just west of Carrickfergus and sev- eral miles north of the arm of the sea stretching up to Belfast which is known as Belfast Lake. ‘Lhe total estimated cost is §35,000,000, and the plan which the Gov- ernment is considering is that submitted by a syndicate which agrees to bind itself plishment. Englishmen are supposed to be exceed- ingly wary of anything that savors of the illogical, but the ideas of the syndicate | wh proposes to build this tunnel are anything but chimerical. It is argued that the traffic which would surely seize upon this avenue of commerce between the iclands that constitute Great Britain would ce more than suflicient to pay a handsome rate of interest upon the in- | vestment—not less than 6 per cent. This would require a net profit of $2,100,000 a year. and when one considers those fig- ures, in comparison with the returns from the freight and passenger traffic between Fngland and Ireland, it is easy to se where the syndicate finds basis for its be- | lief. Itisalso stated that tne syndicate | has asked for a Government guarantee or | beidy, but this siatement has not been | verified. ‘l This is not the first sazgestion of & sub- | aqueous connection Letween the divided | portions of Britain. The previous plan | contemplated a tunnel beneath what is called St. George’= Channel, this being the | southern entrance to the Irish Sea. The | ' The Pla ying—Cans’ of bestowed the | designs of suns, ioons, cushions, crown: ot Paritans f ¢ Picture-Books'’ upon | ha rps, letters and swords. -cards; they have survived the There is a pack of Hindustan: cards | ide as a means of | preserved in the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society. The cards are circular tors in the | in shape, the diameter of the largest | ng of d some antique re- | measurin > and three-quarter inches | productions by modern s bear deli- |and of the smallest two and an eighth | borateness of detail | inches. The memorandum accompauying | c for sale | these caras states them to be made of or A No definite proof what canvas, but the materia! has rather the | pearance of veneered wood as thin as & wafer. i, but China triuraphantly claims | One of these packs belonged to Captain according to tradition, | D. Cromline Smith, to whom they were | ng the reign | presented in 1815 vy a distinguished Brah- devised for | min, who believed them to be ten centur- | | ies old, and therefore a great and curious treasare. A pack of cards purchased by Lockwood Cashmere within recent erica. s been country wive! of his rese card is long and narrow and afinger. The cards are | printed-in black on very thin cardboard. |de Ferest in and there are thirty of them in a pack, | years bear a close resmblance to those 8¢ suits of nine cards | now in the possession of the Asiatic three single cards, which are | Museam. Their appearance indicates | améd respectively: Tseen-wan, mean- | that they were hewn from thin layers of | 4 thousand times ten thousand”; | wood, but their original material is con- | he red flower,” and pi hwa, | ceated. under a thick coat of paint and e white flower.” These three cards are | venesr. . The pack contains thirty-six parded as superior in demomination to | cards,. of three separaté suits. A large Lothers, purple flower on & red ground, traced It is stated by some authorities that | within x disk of orange, embellishes the i3 are played by the lower class of | backsof the cards, and, although the de- e only, and that the aristocratic | signs barmonize. they are so irreguiar induiges in the play of kew-ms- | thatan apt player could ‘readily distin- r chess, only, baughtily disclaim- | guish one {rom another. knowled of plebeian cards: The backgroundsare brilliantly painted. + a conflieting report, howewer, | Exch suit is uniform in color and design. is is'a popular game with all Chi-| Upon the “pip” cards are represented b-and low degree. tiny figures of men wearing loose red gar- | became a nation of card-plavers | ments and cardinal turbans. They aré v ‘date, and there are amon= | grouped and face each otherin kneeling an curio collections packs of | attitudes, as if in prayer. Another suit is Hindoo antiquity which are | identified by a dark blue background, on really works of art, Some of these are | whicn are painted.smalil yellow disks, sur- painted upon ivory, with gilded backs. | rounded by circles of red. This desien is They number seven suits, which bear "hsl similar to the money emblem as shown | some E cards of = : ) e, o = oo | are thickly coated with paint and enamel | | e There is | on Italian and Spanish card ancther suit with a ‘*‘moon” mark, a| Hindustani emblem, which has also | been traced on the wooden cabes of the | Alaska Indians exhibited now in the | National Museum in Washington. A recent traveler and archmologist brought from Persia six tablets which add | an interesting souvenir to the cards of | | different nations. The cards are described | as “layers of pasteboard, some as thick as | two ordinary playing cards and some | almost doubie that thickness.” They are an inch and an eighth wide by two inches long and bear marks which in- dicate them to be of different packs. They and the backs are uniformly painted | biack. They are remarkable chiefly on account of the queen, or courtesan, repre- sented on the court card, a figure that makes them differ not only from ail other Eastern cards bu: from those of every Western nation aiso, excepting France. | Seated in a chair of state this female fig- ure is pictured as holding a young child in her iap. There are two queens in this pack of cards; one on a red, the other on a yellovy background. These cards all have ex- quisitely ornamented corners, and the figures on them are delicately executed, showing in their delineations the touch of an artist. Various games of instructive cards were used by the younger Puritans, and one quaint pack of ‘‘educational cards,”’ whnich are supposed to have originated in New York, is still preserved by Dr. Rich- ard Derby in his ancient family mansion on Lloyds Neck, Long Island. These c-r\is are bound togetner with a crumpled grebn ribbon, and on the back of the knave of diamonds is written: *“To An- geiina Lloyd. From her affectionate uncle, Henry Lioyd.” Apa L. HALSTEAD. | were emphatic in insatiable commercial eye of this country overiooks nothi Marine engineers who were questioned concerning the matter eir statemen's that of the exceptionally stormy nature and powerful currents of St. George’s Channel. For this reason the first suggestion has been held in abeyance until the fate of ti.e second one ¢hill be decided. It may now, nowever, be said to be practicaily dead, as the plan which tne Government | is considering seems entirely feasible. Tue quickest way to get from England four miles. | London to Liverpool is 138 miles. From | would be necessary would Cork, which is prsctically Queenstown, to Liverpool it is 283 miles. Oa a basis of miles the land and tunnel route according be by a water route. | | The members of the syndicate who are | willing to discuss the matter say they | | have reason to believe the passenger traf- | | any such idea was- impracticabie because | fic would be a very considerable item in | the vrofits. With reasonable railroad | | fares and an all-land passage, it is de- clared the travel between England and Ireland would be at least fifty per cent | greater than it is at present. The Irish | | Seaisat no time a gentle body of water | and one is almost as certain of a vioient | | attack of seasickness as when crossing | | from Dover to Calais. The raiiroad lines | | | to bring the project to successful accom- | to Ireland at the present time is from |of England and Scotland run direct to Holyhead to Dublin, a distance of sixty- | The direct route by rail from | therefore the only raiiroad building that | venture by comparison with the great Point Patrick, or at least some of them do; | be the exlen«i not at present | proposed tun- | engers from London would of | | sion of such lines as do | reach tbe terminus of the nel. Pas EL EVER PROPOSED railroads that gridiron the Emerald Isle would carry them. Such a tunnel would undoubtedly give a tremendous impetus to railroad building in Ireland, conserva- tive business men say, and tais would mean the infusion of a commercial spirit which is at present sadly lacking. Inas- much as close commerciai ties generally become sinews of friendsh®g the advocates of the tuannel declure that their plan is well worthy of patriotic support as a pos- the solution of the Irish sivle key to problem. The statement made in the beginning this article that the tuanel is the larg- est conception of the sort 1n the histor; af the world is shown beyond perad- tunnels complet:d or in prospect. The tunnel between Dover and Calais, or England aad France, would be no more of an undertaking, so far as the building to the proposed plan would be somewhat | necessity have to traverse almost the en- | of the tunnel is concerned, than has been Ionger than the more direct water route of to-day. Considering the fact that no storms would be met with and that stress of weather would at no time intertere with | traffic, this apparent drawback disappears. Not only that, but it is far easier to ship | tire length of England and ride over a bit | | of the southeastern portion of Scotland, | but that 1s not such a long jouraey. | Emerging from the tunnel in Ireland, a | short distance north and east of Car-| rickfergus, to which town they would pro- | accomplished half a dozen times. Be- sides tnat the Dover-Calais tunnelis in statu quo. In 1881 some 2000 feet of ex- perimental borings were made through the chalk and marl, beginning at Folke- stone, but that is about all that has been goods by rail than by water. The saving | ceed by rail, passengers could journey |accomplished. of time in loading and unloading is tre- {down to B:liast, to Armazh, Dundalk | We have our tunnels under the Mersey, mendous. Again, there could be a regu- | and Dubiin, or if preferring 1o go west or | the Severn and the Thames, the second larity in the transhipment of freizht, no north could travel to Londonderry, Done- & N being the greatest of the three, but the | matter what the amount might be, which | gal, or 10 any othar direction in which the | building thereof was as child’s play com- ypared to this. These tunnels and tha one in the United States between Port Sarnia and Port Huron and under the | Detroit River, comprise all the sub- aqueous under:akings of this sort of any note. Of course, there are the Mont Cenis, | 8t. Gothard and other tunnels, which are 1 both under ana over ground, but the diffi- | culties in their consiruction were hard oi the sort to be compared with those | which eonfront the builders of the pro- | posed tunnel between Scotland and Ire- land. With only the methods of a quarter of a | century agoto depend upon, the construc- tion of so great a tunnel benesath a vast body of water would have been simply im- possitle. Modern genius, however, has rendered the performance of a seeming miracle not only possible but compara- tively easy. The Tallest Railroad. The Peruvian Ceniral Transandine, or Oroya Railroad begins six feet above tide-water at Callao. From Lima, eight miles ahead and 500 feet higher, it winds up the narrowing valley of the Rimac, past great haciendas and forgotten ruins. At Chosica, thirty-three miles from the sea, it has gained but 2800 feet in elevation; but within the vard [ limits of that siation bezins the 4-per- cent grade, which is steadily maintained forseventy-three miles. The Rimac’s gorge becomes deeper and more contracted, ihe little boys and benches of cultivable land rarer. At the hamlet of San Bar- tolome serious enginesring begins. The overbanging hillside on the right displays the first “V,” the characteristic device so frequently necessary to overcome the headlong valley. The maximum gradient (allowed by contract) of 211 feet to the mile has in many places been stretChed and tne atual gradient is some- times nearer 5 per cent. But even this was imsufficient to meet the exigencies of the quebrada, whose floor often greatly excels that slope. The only way to get aheaa was to run back a few furiongs or miles at full grade, and then to shoot forward on the upper arm of the zigzig. Some of these “V’s” ran back and forth like slop- ing sheives in th'e high wails of the main gorge; some double and twist far up lateral valleys. Not to confine the matter to single polnts, where the road has to give five miles to gain one, the total per- centage is astonishing. From Callao to Roya the length of the track is 13 kilo- meters: of these 7614 (one mile in every three) are consumed in overcoming the rise—and this beside the unprecedented maintaining of such a maximum grade. Four miles above San Buartolome and its tropic side valley is the great bridgze of the Agua de Verrugas, or water of warts. This noble cantilever, built in New Jer- sey, has a length of ieet and a height of 260. The old bridge was, in its day, the highest 1n existence—and was meant to be. To that cnd the center pier was sunk in a twelva-foot pit. This pier was washed out by a cloudburst in 1859, and for a year traffic was maintained by a cage swinzing on cables across the gap. The present structure has been left far behind as to height by the briige over the river Loa, on the 660-mile Antofagasta line in Chile—the longest of narrowe cange railroads, and, with its thirty-inch track, the tipsiest. The Agua de Ver- rugas is not to ve laughed down as a su- perstition. Of the grim reality in these poisonous springs, which fill the unweary drinker with frightful goitres, one may see visible proofs of plenty. The building of the Verrugas bridge cost a terrible mortality, and the cemeters of Bellavista is full of its victims. This strange and frequently fatal “disease of the warts,” which haunts many corners of the Cordil- lera, seems to have relation to certal mineral stra It is alike unknown in this part of Peru below 6000 and above 9000 feet.—Harper's Weekly. 3