The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 4, 1897, Page 26

S It 1s been truly said that every tic e daily newspaper has a special charm for some person or ci of per. and that there is nota line printed e largest blanket sheet that is not with interest by some one. Advertisaments are generaily looked at an extremely practical light. Those buy, sell or exchange }rop- hose who wish to work, o0 wish to employ bLelp; those who have lost articles of value, and those who have been fortunate enough to find the same and hope for a reward—in fact, } all those who bave any business interest | in their fellow-b peruse the advertis- | ing columns carefully day after day, and would think the paper worthiess without | them. | There son in in who wish to erty o and those w yk ever, who read | view to the ad- | hov not wisk are ersons, ad vertis derived therefrom but | the drollery often to be found | therein. Of course the individuals who part with hard cash for the sake of making | public their wants, or the fact that they wish 10 rent, sell or exchange certain ar- les have not the slightest intention of anything funny in the srace pur- them. They are strictly busi- ness and in dead earnest, and it is this| very fact that often makes the result of their liter: labors so comical. Advertisements which are intended to be funny are generally flatter than the eastern shcre of North Carolina, which is said to be so flat that a spirit level sags in | the middle if laid on the earth’s surface | where east of the risin’ ground. Itis unint onal fun which counts, and r eye discovers enough of this ntcomm tions to the ¢, both in newspapers and in | 1a street signs, to lighten many dull and cheeriess b 1 the most sober-minded can scarcely see the us side of such fre- rtisements as the | its Luside,” a the observix | se ludier ze what impressions their | to the strictly gram- They wouid indignartly THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, UNDAY, JULY ¢4, 1897 LADIES” } ENTRANCE larger crowd than usual would certainly bave been attracted there, “Unshrinkable ladies’ underwear’ is often offered for sale, and we are con- strained to wonder if the intrepid women for whom it is intended would not forget their bravery and shrink quite as much as | the generality of their sex in the presence of a mouse or a tiger or any other equally ferocious and danyerous creature. The use of the infinitive often leads to ambiguity, as is evidenced by the adver- riiced,”” “Kan- | tisement which frequently appears: | Boots at Half Price” and | ““Wanted, a woman to wash.” A person | Ladies’! and Gents’ Cloth- | unaccustomed 1o *“reading between the | { Sold.” Most certainly | lines” might think this the “aa’’ ofa | ple who place these and | bathing establishment appealing es- | dred signs before the public do not in | pecially to the feminine portion of the | “great unwashed,” but experience has taught us that the advertisers really quire a woman to perform their laundr. b hand” or| work. “Wanied, a woman to cook,” ke are included | sounds cannibalistic, but to the cuisinere | but the fact re- | in search of employment it is quite the r prarently desirous | opposite of alarming, since she under- P s of trade. stands it meaning perfectly. advertised Not lone since some one advertised for | embossed tin chil- | ve purchased in their t for an insignificant sum. ave convinced the public that s the “embossed tin children” were on exhibition in their salesrooms an even Vs trays” ablishme could | | s vampire for shoes,” but as this might e been a typographical error it is well | to give this advertiser the benefit of the doubt. “A man about the place and wife’’ is often inquired for through the columus of CLEANLINESS 3 NexT |y (3 To GOOLINESS | ¢ = HEen {cookery™ is a sign displayed by a person | would much preier to engage one who had among her other recommendations the great one of good health. Tne admonition displayed in some of our streetcars, “Do not geton oroff the cars while in motion,” places the would- W, Call o to 12 at G the daily press, and the reader is lostin a maze of conjecture as to why the adver- ticer should be desirous of having any thsr man about his wife—the contrary | being generally the case. “Special attention given to invalid | who proudly declares herself to be a “cooking teacher.” Now all 1nvalids need a gooc deal of attention, and *‘in- valid cookery” probably reguires more than a little; but how a teacher who is herseif going through the paintul process of teing cooked is able to attend to such duties is indeed a puzzle. “Invalid” and *‘sick nurses” often seek positions, though 1t would seem that those needing the services of a nurse | ANTED—INVALID AND SICK NURSES., 00d Hope Hospital. t F be obedient passenger in a peculiar posi- tion. It is hard to see how the mandate isto be cbeved unlessthe company pro- I OR SALE — EMBOSSED TIN toys. Broad OME OF THE AMAZING THINGS THAT ARE WANT vides conductors muscular enough to. eently liit their charges from street to car and back again, since the slightast bodily exertion on the part of the passenger d ur- ing the process of embarking and disem- barking is expressly forbidaen. ““A gentleman and wife can secure apart- ments in a strictly private family con- sisting of two well-furnished parlors and a small kitchen with a separate en- rance,” was the rprising statement which recently appeared in an Eastern basement.” description was evidently found very quickly, since the ‘‘charming cottage” was soon rented. Not long since, too; a real-estate firm | tried to secure a tenant for a house which they asserted was “newly painted and papered inside and out.” A house pa- vered on the outside ought certainly to attract the curious, and probably the notice would have drawn many sight- seers to the spot had it not been generally Silvér Rule Bazaar, 20 ‘EH".DREN'S paper. Another read: “Charming 5-room cot- tage to let toa small fam:ly with a high understood that the advertising clerk of | that firm by no means meant what he had | | caused to be printed. A “painless dentist’” asserts his im- munity from the physical sufferings of this mortai life in large and striking let- ters on one of our busy streets. Couid he | guarantee a like condition of nerves to those who sit under his ministrations he | would, beyond doubt, be wonderfully | | popuiar, since to be *‘painless” is a bless- ing vouchsafed to few. A modest sign on one of our suburban dwellings declares that “Eating and S:t- | ting Ezgs” can be procured at low rates | | from the proprietor of the place. Cer- | tainty, born of past exverience, however, | teaches us that the provrietor does not i of the surprising curiosities in which he professes to deal. A certain well-known ccsmetic adver: tised itself for years ae being *‘the least harmless” of any beautifier on the mar- ket, and persistently stated’ in nearly every paper of tae civilized world just the contrary of what its proprietors wished the public to believe. Oue peculiarity of a certain class of ad= vertisers is, however, to allow no changes to be made in the copy which they bring for publication. The man who wishes to ED IN THE EAST) A family answering to the ymean what he says and k: eps the passerse ! by from rushing in and demanding a view: offer a reward for the raturn of ‘“‘a crop-. eared lady’s Scotch terrier’” or a ‘maltese baby’s kitten’’ resents decided!y any at- tempt on the part of the aesk clerk to put his advertisementinto more pleasing-and conventional form. He insists upon ex- pressing his ideas in his own way, atd since he *“‘pays his money” lie is perforce allowed to *‘take his choice.” Of ‘course, there are mistakes in our | papers outside of the advertising columns: “Reporters’ English” has 1ts idiosyr- crasies everywhere; but when we con- sider under what pressure of haste and circumstance reporters’ notes are often turned into copy the wonder is not that { they do not do better, but that they mane age to do so well. The society editor, however, who is popu+ larly supposed to occupy in elegant leisure a plane far removed from the ordi- nary workaday people in the office, often bewilders us with some singular statés ments, among which the most frequent are variations on the following: “The wedding of Miss Mary Smith; daughter of the late John Smith -and Henry Jones will take place at high nooa | to-morrow.” Custon-House Receipts. For a real, downright money-making concern nothing can beata Custom-houses Our own British one does not apptoach those of the United States and ‘other foreign countries, owing to our free trade principles; but wouldn’t you like to-be the recipient of its takings? In London the amount of customs taken in the year is £9,500,000, or about £30,000 per working day. Liverpool comes next with the sum’ of a little over £3,000,000. Bristol follows with £1,500.000, and then comes Glasgow. with £1,300,000, and Belfast with® some- what over £1,000,000. But at the.other enda there are ridiculously small receipts: At Lerwick £13 was the sum total of:the customs paymecnts during the past five years; at Stornoway the payments forthe same period amounted to £11 all toldj while at Westport the officer has taken £2 in the five years.—Ti'-Buts. AErET s A man breathes twenty times a mintte, or 1200 times an hour. USS That Is to Wreak Destruction on the World’s Navies e Russian Government i: about to ubmarine boat-destioyer, which t of its kind ever con- ntion of a Russian ine architect, and this secret of his brain is rded by the Czar's officiais as hoards his gold. at he has a craft- which will place ne torpedo-boats of the United French Governments at his the submar and Itisa ites meicy ed. wce the submarine torpedo- es mentioned have teen pon with something approaching val officers everywhere. There d to be something uncanny m darting about under the sur- the waves, and apparently the great warships of the world’s navies were practically helpless against the attacks of these artificial marine monsters. The completion & few montbs ago of a sub- marine torpedo-boat for the United States at Baltimore, in this country, excited the. liveliest interest among naval cfficers here. Following this the success of the Holland submarine torpedo-boat, news of | which was immediately cabled here, set the wits of every one to work and resulted in the presentation of the plans of the strange craft that is now being con- structed. The inventor's name is Sergius Ro- kopisky, and be is a member of the corps of marine architects the Russian Govern- ment employs, with the rank of lieuten- ant. He has long studied the problem of submarine navigation, his calculations being based, strange as it may seem, upon some of the principles lzid down by Jules The Czar feels | these boats that the new | IA'S NEW SUBMARINE BOAT Verne, the novelist, in his description of that famous vessel known as tte Nautilus. | Lieatenant Rokopisky told no one but an | intimate friend of bis plans and his ideas until the news of the success achieved by the suomarine invention in America and France excited such marked alarm. Then, upon advice of his friend, he laid the whole matter before the Czar’s Ministers of Marine, and within forty-eight hours his idea was indorsed and an order siven | for the construction of a submarine vessel according o his pians. Thus Russia proposes io make its own position superior to that of other Govern- | ments by placing ‘in commission as soon | as possible an engine of destruction that will cause the objects of its attack to sink | ! to the bottom of the ocean justas the sub- | marine torpedo-boat now seeks to blow up warships that lie helpless and unaware of | its attack. To be sure, it has not the con- solation of being altogether unseen in its warfare upon the submarine torpedo- boats, but it has one tremendous advan- tage and that is that1it has no defensive armor to contend against, as the sub- marine torpedo-boat is made to destroy ships and not armed to delend 1tself. The strictest secrecy 13 maintained in naval circles here concerning the precise method of attack which will be adopted by the new craft. It .s said that this Rus- sian ierror of the seas will ram its antae- onist, and then dart away, leaving the crew of the shattered submarine cratt to perish in their coffin of steel. The one important detail of the construction and operation of the Russian boat which it is believed is not definitely settied 1sthe discharge of the torpedo at short range. | seeks, Waves Between the Russian Destroyer and the United States Submarine Torpedo-Boat. This torpedo is so constructed, and its explosive force so nicely calculated, that the explosion will not injure the Russian boat in the least, even though it be in| close engagement. | The task of locating a submarine tor- pedo-boat, which the officers of the pro- posed destroyer will have to face, seems as ditficu!t as that of locating the proverbial needle in the baystack. Science, how- ever, has contributed its quota to the makeup of this enemy of navies, and an apparatus has been invented the delicate ciectrical attraction-needle of which, superlatively sensitive to the medium of steel, will at once impel the Russian craft toward the submarine victim which it The new boat represents as a whole the most modern thought relative to subma- rine warfare and all that can possibly ar- ply thereto. This much is known defi- nitely. Every apparatus that can possi- biy aid the accomplishment of the purpose of the boat has been utilized. Even now the keenest minds are at work striving to improve, just as the most skilled work- | men attainable are constructing the craft, all the appurtenances thereof. The pres- ent calculation is that the boat will carry a crew of four seamen and Lwo officers, in addition to a torpedo expert. Qadly enough, in many details, the submarine | wonder will be very like that United States marvel known as the Holiand, and the accompanying illustration shows its possibilities of terrible execution. Primarily, it will be an artificial fi<h, modeled in longitudinal sections very much like a whale about fifty feetlong. The interior is to be almost entirely taken up with the operating mechanism, very little room being provided for living quarters. While simply moving about from place to place its deck and the smail conning tower in which the commander stands will be above water. Above that | tul curiosities is John L. Bardwell, well | the skill of a connoisseur and abundant is to be perhaps a foot of the deck, turtle- back in fashion, and about tnirty inches of the conning tower above tbat. While a portion of the craft will thus be | visible to vessels on the surface the means «f propulsion are a naphtha or gasoline | engine operating an ordinary small screw | propeiler. When it is desired :0 sink the | boat for submarine operations water is to | be let into trimming or ballast tanks in the bottom in sufficient amount to reduce | the buoyancy toa few hundred pounds. | 7 2 ;" YUY in 9 22\ ,zfl '.Mfi\‘-\? R Bardwell Gives His Treasures to the Park There will be placed on exhibition at the Golden Gate Park Mnseum to-day the finest collection of Japanese ivory and wood carvings in the United States and | one which will take high rank among the | most valuable collections of these curios in the world. There are 700 pieces, repre- | senting forty years of painstaking care on the part of the curio-hunter. Some of the single pieces are worth from $500 to $1€00, and the whole collsc- tion is valned at $25,000. Cnarles P. Wilcomb, curator of the park museum, who has visited all tte impor- tant museums in the East, says that there is no other collection in this country which will bear comparison with this. George Vincent £mith of the Springfield Art Museum, Massachusetts, who is an adept in curios and an extensive traveler, | prenounces it one of the best collections of rare specimens of this wonder!ul art to be found any where. The generous donor who has enriched our museum with these rare and beauti- known here since pioneer days. Heis a man of wealth and leisure and for half of | a long lifetime he has amused himself | gathering the most exquisite specimens | of Japanese skill in carving that could be | obtained by tact and gold. The mere | matter of cost never stood between him and the possession of a coveted carving. Long experience in the purchase of the best things the ships brougkt from over the seas developed in him rare skill in the art of selecting. He learned to know ata glance the difference between live and dead ivory, to judge the color and grain of the best qualities of elephant tusk, to swiftly detect attempted frauds in the way of tea-steeped modern work, made tosimu- late the rich coioring thatage gives the che's d'ceuvre of the old masters of Japan, and to appreciate exuberance and humor of fancy and dexterity of execu- tion. ‘Thus with the double advantage of means, he has been enabled to secure a treasure of a collection. Interesting almost as the collection itself is the loving way the old gentleman handles these pets of half a lifetime and exclaims enthusiasticaily about their ar- tistic merits. As one watches and listens the man becomes more than the things. It is a bachelor’s fad, which he frankly confesses has been a most absorbing one. To be able to measure the generosity of the gift, one must observe the attachment of the giver to these ivory treasures. John L Bardwell has been the most mu- nificent of the benefactors of tha museum. This latest donation is but one of a long series which he bas been constantly be- stowing. His w.sh is that the public may share in the pleasure he bas derived from these marvels of art. The most interesting and valuable arti- cle in the Jot is a sword with a most elab- orately carved ivory sheath. It is the re- sult of long months of toil by the most patient, painstaking and fanciful skill. It is nearly a thousand years old, and is worth mors than $1000. Munechika made it in 986A. p. He was one of the most famous sword-makers of Japan at a time when sword-making was' one of the most exalted of her arts. An examination of the sheath creates astonishment that so many designs could be crowded on the solid piece of ivory of which it is made. Every detail is firely finished. A thou- sand dollars sounds a biz price when you pick up the sword to examine it, but when you lay it down that sum has dwindled away to something out of all proportion to the exient of the skillful work done on it. Some of the figures on the hilt and sheath represent Rakans, the saintly apostles of Buddha. There is the sea goddess riding upon the sea dragon. She has taiken away three of the seven evil hearts of the dragon, and is bearing them to her keeper of the dragon’s hearts. One of the best executed figures on the scabbard is 1hat of Bepton, the goddess of love, who, unlike our Venus, is a pure be- ing. and bears in her hand lotus flowers, which to the Japanese are emblems of purity and immortality. At the bottom of the scabbard there are some beautiful lotus flowers and leaves. Oneof the fig- ures is Dioa, who was once so wicked that his heart grew square, but, beinz con- verted by the Rakans, it grew plump and round again, and he is making an offering of his altered heart. ‘I'ne steel blade within this msrvelous scabbard is a thing of rare value like its covering. ‘The armorers of old Japan were exalted personages, and the making of swords was a deeply studied art. The steel in them is of finer tamper than that of the famed Damascusand Toledo blades. A French writer says that the swords of the modern French army are toys by com- parison with the products of the old Japanese armorers. They spent months in making one blade, and even then they selected one success out of many failures. The blade was formed by laying several flat pieces of steel together. These were welded, drawn out and doubled again and again, until the finished blade finally con- sisted of four million layeis of steel. Many of the Japanese ivory carvings represent old legends, and the story of Masamune, who was the greatest of all their swordmakers, is very cleverly told by the chisels of the artists. The myth is that the fox is a supernatural animzl, and his wisdom is beyond the wisdom of man. One day as Masamune was busy at his anvil, « fox ran up and leapt upon his head and disappeared through the old man’s skull as if he had burrowed a hole for himself. From that day forth Masa- mune could temper # blade with more than mortal skill. This explanation of how the armorer acquired his art is illus- trated with the most daintily wrought ivory image of the old man and a little fox entering his head. This story is a sample of the deep mean- ing attached to a great many of the Jap- anese ivories, which the thoughtless ob- server would be apt to dismiss with a single glance as not worth studying. The Japanese legends, proverbs, jokes 2nd much of their history is 1llustrated in these daintily carved little statuets. 1t they coula all be traced and set down in a book with number corresponding to a catalogue of the ivories it would make a very interesting and instructive study. Doubtless when the literature and folk- lore of the Japanese come to be better known many of the curious carvines in this big collection will, in aadition to the interest aroused by the marvelous ingenuity dispiayed in their cutting, have another from the historical events, the myths, the proverbs, the witticisms they were intended to perpetuate. Another valuable piece in this collec- tion is a large group, representing a ven- erable old man on a horse, a dragon ard a man kneeling with a shoe in his hand. It illustrates a legend of how a man be- came Emperor by the lucky, or heroic, recovery of a great. man’s shoe. This group is of most elaborate and beautifu] workmanship and is worth $1000. It is a specimen of an art that has practically passed away, for the modern artists do not now produce anything ot equal ex- cellence. The old was the product of rar talent joined with almost infinite patience. Now time has become valuable even to tae Japanese. The handsome vases carved out of the big butts of elephant tusks are worth careful examination, There are a aum- | ber of netsukes, or artistically carved but- tons. Some of these are of great value, and the Japanese bloods used to wear them as costly as our diamonds. The carving of these artistic netsukes became a great industry in Japan in the sixteentn century, when tobacco was introduced. They were worn principally to attach the 1obacco pouch and thesmoking apparatus to the girdle. The profitable market thus afforded gave a great stimulus to the art of carving, and the skill acauired by prac- ticing on them was used for more impor- tant work. Among the smaller figures there is Raiden, the god of thunder; Shian-Ro, the patron saini{ of longevity, with the stork by his sile, which is the sym- bol of - longevity; TFuten, the wind- god, with a sack of impriconed tem- pests on his back; Dia-Koku with a ham- mer to strike his sack every time he wants rice, food or money; goadesses of the sea, of flowers, of medicine; and immenseiy amusing is the god of contentment, with his fat jowls and his enormous stomach, whom the Japs call Hotei. There are many mzidens with faces oval as a melon- seed and eyes as narrow as an almond edgewise, which is the Japanese standard of beauty., There are devils so bumor- ously hideous that one can imagine the Japanese hell must be a good place to laugh in. There are many Japanese lao- coons which do great credit to their art. As might be expected, there is much of the grotesque, but the range of fancy in grotesquaness in this big collection is as- tonishing. Among the masterpieces of bideousness perhaps theclimax is reached by an image of a woman in the power of an octopus and compelled to suckle a baby octopus. It would be interesting to know all that the carver meant by this last. He may have been the equal of some of our great cartoonists, like Thomas Nast, and the skillful carving may be a masterpiece of political satire. g1 F g It is strange how little aitempt at beauty there is in zll this vast collection. it has been said that the Japanese have tion of the chief aims and triumphs of ours, and one can well be searching over these marvels of grotesque faucies and manual dexterity. The pure pose seems to make you wonder, t6 make nothing more. % lose because we cannot look through Jap- anese eves, for there is a story of a little Japanese girl which ence in our syesight. A white - man showed ner some pictuies of European beauties. “They dou't ook bui,” she said, “but their eyes are 100 bie.”’ A p.c- ture of a rural scene was shown her in a New York periodical. “‘Is it really true that there are any people like those jic- tures?” she asked, in amazement. “Yé's; they are farmesrs”” “Farmers? They look like Oni (demons),” wus her repiy. - ~" never souczht to aevelop art in the direc-. - lieve it-after " - you shudder, to make you laugh—but Thess may, however, be a beauty we - llustrates the differ-