The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 16, 1897, Page 27

3 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MAY 16, 1897. | DEATH MASK OF SUICIDES' GRAVES | AT MONTE CARLO EMPEROR NAPOLEON 3% - I In only one place in the world does a graveyard devoted entirely It has just become known that one of -the most valuable Napo- to suicides exist. This is at Monte Carlo, the only place in the leonic felics in existence is in the possession of J. M. Woolworth, an world where a special graveyard for suicides could be necessary. attorney of Omaha, Nebr. It is nicthing less than one of the five Many travelers deny that there is one even there, but there is, Its! casts taken from the original death mask made by Dr. Francois An- location is not easy to find, It is not desired by the Monte Carlo tomarchi, physician to Napoleon I at the time of his death. This cast, which is of bronze, is one of five that were made from the original reople that it be found at all by any one save old Gilbert, the mysterious charac'er who attends to it. This is, so far asis known, | the first article on oli Gilbert that has appeared in an American | newspaper. The accompanying picture of him was drawn from life | Probably you have heard of the sui- cides’ cemetery at Monte Carlo, but the chances are that you have never heard of thie man who digs the graves there. Very few persons hav been one of the Nevertheless he has | attaches of the insti- | | T ha i | tiful sights on the face of tha earth. “What matters it how a man leaves the | world?” he said in perfect Italian. “When his time comes he will g0 and not before.” | “Don’t tell me that there is no knowl- | edge of what is to be. In some book, | mask as soon as Cr. Antomarchi returned to France. Shortly after it was finished it disappeared as completely as ii it had beea thrown into the sea, and ali efforts to find it until now havz provad fruitless. The bistory of this cast is one of ex- ceeding interest. It has always been known that five casts were taken from the mask, but what became of the fifth was, until the existence of the cast in the pos- session of Mr. Woolworth became kuown, cated. He was als) an enthusiastic ad- mirer of Napoleon and a strong Iriend- ship consequently sprang up betwesn him and Dr. Antomarchi. ““The country in that section of Mexico is exceedingly mountainous, and the tution for many years—ever since its | somewhere, it is wr.tten where youand 1 i a mystery of whose solntion there seemed | Indians were very hostile to travelers at indation, he say : | willgo. The place where we will sleep is to be no hope. There'is not the slightest | the time at which the episodes of which I . Various travelers have denied the exist- | marked. What matters it to know where | doubt of its genuineness, for thereisample | write occurred. Dr. Antomarchi had | yard, but it does exist find—after you know where to look for it. Do not expect to find it near the grounds of the whirring ball mingles with the palace, where the sound | itis. It may be here in this peaceful spot; | it may be in the wilds of Africa. We may g0 to-morrow and we may not go for | years. | “See,” said the old man, going to the | edge of an open grave, ‘‘this is ready for proof at hand to prove'it to be iust what it is represented. It is owned by Captain Guy Howard, U. 8. A, to whom it was vresented by Dr. C. MacMenus of Matamo- ras, Mex., in March, 1892. The accom- panying «illustrations will show to the three trunks, or boxes, wkich were very heavy and difficult to trsnsport on the packmules, which formed the only metnod of freighting in that country. It became evident that only two of these boxes, or trunks, could be taken by the doctor on chiok of gold. Ask nei_mer the croupiers | somebody. Who? It may be me; it may student of Napoleon that hereis a treasure | his journey, and so he left the third in mor the porters about it. They will only | be you. It may be somebody thousands such as no one dreamed existed in the | the custody of Don Antonio. The doctor smile incredulously and shake their heads. | of miles away at this moment. But no | Western hemisphere. | and his escort then set out for the city of Do not expect anybody about Monte Carlo 10 tell you where itis. Nobody will do so. books do not mention it—the in- ion looked cut for that. ut g0 to the old priest in Monaco and #sk him where his cemetery is. He will tell you gladly. ree miles from the gam- b ho! 3 bronze gates open to it | through the trees here as there. They are | a consequence the death mask was taken. | tend to nor talk of anything else. from the beautiful drive. Gorightthrough | happy and at rest. i Dr. Antomarchi was 100 patriotic to wish | *All effort to inducs the doctor to en § this cemetery and climb the hill behind | ‘‘Am I happy? Certainly. HaveInot to confine the possession of a correct cast | gage in labor proved fruitless, and after a e graves are few. You will come to { | | 1 | | | a rough stone wall, and if you look care- | 1 ¥ will fiad a gate through it that leads to a rough, stony path, Up this path t 300 feet is a rude stone dwelling, into the bhiliside. Here lives the gravedigger of the suicides cemetery, and he knows all about the place—more than any other man living #nd more than he will ever tell. The suicides’ cemetery of the cemetery of Monaco, but has been detached from it, as suicides may not be buried in consecrated ground. 1e necessities which called for its n were the unknown suicides that T ere the institution couid not permit to be | d in the potters’ field. Consequently was found for them where they a. be buried until claimed by relatives. lead to identification is filed away ina grave. Y. . o ;,) Interred in the suicides’ cemetery bave Jand now sleeps peacefully. remaived undisturbed. The man who has charge of this grew-|inquiry in many places. But not at Monte some place is known as Gilbert. If he has any other name he keeps it to him- self. Where he first saw the light of day mystery. He claims to be French, ora Spaniard, He speaks the three lan- guages perfectly, and has & smattering of English. Gibert appears to be about 80 years of ege, but is strong and wiry and climbs in reality part | ny marked clothing or token that might | v room n the gambling-house and | labeled with the number of the nameless | But all the bodies tuat have been | ks GILBERT, THE GRAVE-DIGGER OF MONTE CARLO. [Drawn from iife.] | has more the appearance of an Italian | over the mountains with the ease of a| young men. For his services in caring for and digging graves for unknown sui- cides he gets his house rent free, his food supplies and 120 francsevery three months. | «] am the greatest man in the world,” said oid Gilbert them—all mine. 1 spend my days here, and sometimes my nights. When another friend is ready to come anid sleep in my hous: they send for me and I go bring them. and three women. —ah, so sound! s 50 long since I dug the first grave in the corner that I almost forget. But I remember it was a young man—an Englishman. elf through the heart. He was a brave man snd well deserves to sleep in this beautiful place. “The ladies? No; they were not beau- nor young. Ugly, mean looking. All of them took poison. One man who killed himself had £100 in his pocket. killed himself in -the beautiful park for some reason of his own. Heis there in No, 20,” 0!d Gilbert leaned on tbe handle of his ehovel and looked across the blue waters of Lé Mediterranean at caeof the most beau- And they sleep sound in describing himsell. | All these forty graves I have dug myselt. | I ney are all mine and so are the people in | Forty brave | cople haye I buried, sir—thirty-seven men | He iose all and shoot hiw:‘ He had not been playing, | | matter who, the person for whom I dug the grave will ocoupy it and nobody else. “This is not consecrated ground, you say? W, matters that? Do not they who bravely ended their own lives sleep as soundly here as those in the other place | on the hillside below us? Iknow they | do, and the wind whispers just as sweetly | all that I can ask? Am Inot doing good in the world? This is my duty, and itis | written that I must do it, and I must. I am a great man. “We cannot guide our own lives any more than we can guide the ball that) whirls in the roulette wheel. All lifeis | written, but. to us it must appear as only chance. We love chance and stake our | lives on it. If we win, we are happy. Ii we lose, we weep; or like my friends asleep here end our lives bravely. *'Was not the young Englishman who killea himself a brave man? Think of | the trouble he may have saved others. He left home to travel, and his passion | went with him. He could not help it; his passion was born in him. His people thought be was traveling througa art xalleries and churches. Instead, he was gambling away his money at Monte Carlo. “He staked his all on the roll of the wheel and Iost. That meant ruin, dis- grace and endless troubte for bis relatives. By shooting himseli he ended everything | When his relatives did not hear from him they made Carlo. Ob, no. He was of their flesh and woanld not venture near such a place. So they conclude the poor boy was foully murderea for his money and revere his memory as if he were a martyr. Itis bestso. They have their cherisbed memories—he sleeps peacefully in my house.” I never think of to-morrow,” old Gil- bert said, taking a piece of bread from his I collectible. THE SUICIDES’ -CEMETERY AT MONTE CARLO. vocket; “if Iam to suffer I will suffer; if iamtobeglad I will beglad. After all it matters little in the end. Thatis the same in all cases. But I wonder where | the man 1s now who ~will fill the grave | I bave justdug. Perbaps he is ready for | me.” WicL SPARKS. Mythical Fortunes. | Every now and then paragraphs appear in the papers telling how some hitherto ob- scure and usually proverty-stricken person | BY TROLLEY. Imagine the spectacle of a ship | having its cargo seat to it from | land along a trolley wire, as your purchases in toe dry-goods stores are sent swinging along overhead In former years vessels were loaded at these “landings’’ by means of a long chute, Jowered from the whari or biuff, to | the vessel's deck and down which the lumber was slid piece by piece. But this was not only slow, but dangerous owing to the necessarily near approach of the vessel and the possibility of fouling the chute. Now, the vessel, while her moorings at a safer distance from the | rocky shore, receives her cargo in sling | | 1oads of 2000 feet or more by means of a | | By g 5 [ gr b : ofia | hus ‘unexgiestealy: fallén heir'to s fortune | 10 the cashier’s desk. That'xs how ! troiley dlmve.hn, . over a : \.\\rbe cab'e : left him by some relative in foreign lands. | ships are loaded along the inacces- | stretched between her and the shore sev- | The estate in question is invariably large, eral hundred feet away. And by the so that even if the newly discovered heir1s entitled to but a part, that share is enough to make him a Creesus. among his humble | neighbors. - Bui somehow the account | never gets so far as-to describe an actual | 1aking possession of -the fortune; itia | lated that this proceeding is delayed only until certain formalities have been com- | plied with, or until be crosses the Atian- tic, or until the next steamer arrives and | brings him the titles to the property, but ior some reason he sinks immediately into his former obscurity, and if he really gets the money the public never hears of it. It is probable that such tales are some- times put into circulation by crafty per- sons engaged in prosecuting so-cailed claims against other mythical estates of fabulous vaiue in order that the hopes of the victims may be stimulated; but when | they bave a foundation in truth the chances are that :ihe proierty inherited amounts to little compared with the im- posing figures published. | Asshowing how such things are exag- gerated, a case just reported from a| | Pennsylvania town1s in point. In this | instance the estate is on this side of the | Atlantic and the claimants on the other, | | and is that of 2 deceased Hungarian, who | migrated to this country some years ago. | He was iudustrious and frugal, and, be- fore he died, was classed by his simple- | minded neighbors as wealthy. The re- | port grew as i: traveled, and his heirs in | the cld country heard that he left large | manufactories and property valued at 1$4,000,000. “Ewminent lawyers” were en- gaged to look after the matter, and they, by correspondence with the Consul at Philadelpbis, have learned that tne | reputed millionaire left an estate val- ['ued at exactly $1715, oi which $907 is un- | The castles built by the expectant Hun- garian relatives wili fall with a crash when they get this news, and their last estate will indeed be worse than their first, for $808, the collectible balance, will hardly suffice to pay the eminent lawyers for their trouble in fiuding how little money there is. Possibly, however, their hopes will be | sustained by the belief, cunningly instilled | by *‘promoters,” that they are being de- ceived and the estate really exists and be- longs to them. In this case they should have the sympathy and encouragement of Anneke Jans' heirs, who bave allowed themselves to be deceived for 80 long that they rather like the experience and are wil.ing to pay liberally for it, even though there is not $308 in sight at the end of the rainoow.—Indianapolis Journal, (I I 'F.‘ i il uuwfl [ it D i i 4 o' Ln'mrm.ffiu,fl i o - o AL il 1"" \ ‘u AN il | sible coasts of Mendocino, as the | | following article graphically sets| pussengers are iransferred to and from the forth by the ad of photographs. | In the great redwood sumbering in- dustry of Northern California one may find many startiing innovationa in the application of machinery and mechanical power to the operations. The employ- ment of cable railroads in getting the logs or raw material out of the forest, as described recently in THE SuNDAY CALL, is one of these noveities, but what is per- baps equally novel is the use of trolley systems for loading the finished product (lumber) into vessels on the seacoast. These troliey systems are in general use on the coast of Mendocino County—a county that has more seaports and fewer harbors than any other in the State. From end to end ils coast is doited with sawmills, and each one isa shipping point in itself, yot not one can boast of anything more than an open roadstead for a Larbor. At a few of the ports the nature of the coast has permitted the building of wharves out into the ocean, alongside of which, in calm weather, vessels may lie, and while rising and falling with the ocean swell, have their cargoes lowered aboard by derricks on the wharf, Most of the ports, however, have not even this small advantage, and where there 1s a wharf it is usually a bigh structure built out over some reef of rocks which vessels dare not approach too closely. In many instances there is no sign of a whari, the Iumber for shipment being taken to some | high projecting bluff, whence it must be lowered to the vessel bobbing about in the ocesn below. These last described ports are called “landings,” which is evidentiy a misno- mer, for in the common acceptance cf the term a vessel never “lands” at one of them. Oa the contrary, the mariner's chief concern is to keep as far away from the “landing’ as possible, and accordingly his vessel comes to anchor several hun- dred feet away from the wharf or bluff. But the vessel’s anchors are not to be re- lied on alone to keep her from going ashore, and, therefore, to make her posi- tion more secare, mooring lines are car- ried out in all directions and fastened to spar buoys provided for that purpose and firmly anchored in suitable positions. Sometimes as many as siX mooring lines, extending in as many different cirections, are required to makeahe vessel secure and keep her in the position best suited for taking on her cargo. same means, using a large box or cradle, hore. In rigging the trolley for use all of the work is done aboara the vessel and the | maintenance of the cabie in position is en- | tirely under control of the crew. Thisis made possible by having the cable in two | parts and making the only two fastenings | necessary with triphooks. Neitner part | of the cable is in eviderce when the ves- | sel arrives, one part being at the bottom of the ocesn, with an end securely ap- chored, while the other part, with the trolley apparatus, is safely stored in the | little donkey engine house standing at | the end of the wharf or perched on top of the bluff. The part in the water is usually about 200 feet long, and as the vessel comes up to the landing she picks up its loose end, the position of which is marked by a buoy. The lumber to be shipped from these | “landings”-arrives irom the milion cars, each car carrying about 2000 feet of | | boards, so piled that sling ropes may be | passed around theload. All that is neces- sary then is'to-run the car under the cable, | fasten the sling ropes and attach them to the traveler hook, and with a pull or two from the endless cable the load slides off the car and starts on its way to the vessel. Arriving there, it is lowered to the deck by lowering the cable from the freight boom, and while it is being stowed away the trolley is returning for another car. ioad. In this way 150,000 feet.of lumber can be transferred in a day, which amount represents a fair cargo for one of the sail- ing schooners and about balf of that car- ried by the steam schooners. W. H. GALLAGHER. Chances for Success. In solving “Problems of Young Men” Edward W. Bok, in the Ladies’ Home Journa!, repiying to an inquirer, contends that opportunities for promotion (in busi- ness) are more numerous in large cities than in smaller communities, but they are not better. “‘There are more chances in the larger cities, but likewise there are many more applicants for the chances. Salaries may be higher in the centers, but s0, too, is the cost of livine. Things al- ways equal ze themselves. To my way of thinking, a moderate business success in a small community means more to a man in point of living and absolute satisfac- tion than a greater success in a larger city.” Dr. Francois Antomarchi was the phy- sician who closed the eyes of the great leader of Frenchmen when death finally claimed him at the isle of Elba. Dr. Antomarchi had been a devoted adnerent of the Little Corporal, and when life had | left him determined that there should be a correct representation of his features. As of Napoleon’s features to himself. There- fore, he caused to be made from it five bronze casts. Four of these speedily foupd owners. The fifth cast seemed to vanish, no one knew where. fn 1836 Dr. Anto- marchi left France and came to the New World, visiting New Orleans and the Mexican republic. Months were spent in traveling about the land of the Montezumas, among other places visited being the mining towns of Guadalupe y Calvo and Guanecevi, ia the States of Chihuahua and Durango. Here he was attracted by having read the Durango, where they were the guests of Judge Bracho, a learned lawyer of that place. Here they remained for several months, the doctor being constantly solicited to practics his profession. But he was so thoroughly imbued with Na= poleonic histozy and legend that he and his companion as well would neither at- time he and his companion journeyed on- ward to Mexico City and from there to the Huasteca Vera Cruz, where both be- came ill with malarial fever. After a time they recovered. and then, during the last of March, 1833, the doctor and his companion, Calleros, separated, the latter returning to his home at Guanecevi. while the former sailel for Cubi. Tt was Dr. Antomarehi’s last voyage. Heaied at sea and was buried off San Antonio, the west cape of Cuba, April 3, “For many years after Dr. Antomarchi’s death the great box that he had left in Don stories of travels written by Humbolidt | Antonio’s custody remained unopened. and Ward, who, at the end of the first third of the present cerntury, did more t In fact, Don Antonio never opened it. After his deatb, it was deemed advisable than all else to make famous what we all | to investigate the contents of the box’ know now as Mexico. Dr. MacManus, | which was done, and everything that was who presented the castin the possession ' found taken to San Miguel Durango, after of Mr. Woolworth to Captain Howard, is which they came into my poassession. particularly well informed on the subject. | What was my amazement to find among Like the great French doctor, Humboldt | them a cast made from the famous ceath and Ward’s narratives were what attracted | mask of Napoleon, and accompanying it to Mexico. him marchi’s visit to that section of the Ameri- can continent Dr. MacManas says: “Dr. Antomarchi was well received when be visited Mexico, At the town of Guadalupe y Caivo he was feted by Wash- ington Kerr of Baltimore and by the very liberal cosmopolitan population, famous for its hosvitality. The doctor, iipon bis arrival at Guanecevi, not far from Batopo- las, stopped at the howse of Dion Antonio Calleros, my father-in-law. Don Antonio was a miner, keen, shrewd and well edu- LOADING SHIPS BY TROLLEY ON THE CbAST OF MENDOCINO. Writing of Dr. Anto- | were letters and other documents proving SIDE VIEW, SHOWING THE STRONG LINES OF THE LITTLE CORPORAL’S FACE. its genuineness beyond all question. “Being something of a student of Napo leonic literature, I at once reahzed the value of the discovery, although I made no special effort to spread the news of my find. In these davs of fictitious relics, t is well worth one’s while to take every precaution thathe may thoroughly prove, if necessary, the genuineness of that which he claims to be a relic of great value. This is what I have done with the cast of the Navoleon death mask. The discovery of this cast and its final location show conclusively how little cre- dence there is to be placed 1n many of the minor theories which the allezed histo- rians of Napoleon have hastened to ad- vance about the missing cast, now no longer missing. Various persons have been charged with its theft. It was sol- emnly averred that one very well known personage, with a hatred for all things Napoleonic, stole the almost priceless treasure from the home of an acquaint- ance and destro; it for the avowed rea- son t hat he believed the hated face of the dead leader should be effaced from mem- ory, if possible, instead of being perpet- uated. ‘There is no relic in the United States of Napoleon, so those who are in authority to speak say, which equals this. It is likely that some doy it will find its way into the custody of one of the great his- torical museums of the United Siates. In fact, a movement to that end is already in progress. A e e Liberty Tree of Newport. The famous Liberty tree on Thames street, Newpor:, R. L, whicuh ap to this dste Las been carefully preserved by its proud possessors, has been transferred by them to the Historical Society of New- port, which body will take effective means for its protection. It was under its shade that the Sons of Liberty met, in 1766, to protest against the stamp act, which finally resulted in the National inde- pendence.—Meehans’ Monthly, | i ke ——————— A Tt e e - e o e RN >