The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 15, 1897, Page 18

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 1897. — Not is than San more ing Francisco’s ciaim to be called a co:mo- apparent politan city, yet few of her citizens are aware that within the radius of a block of a narrow street over twenty different languages are spoken, and eight of these g ed as Orlen It proved to be well worth v iting this block where conventions did notappear to | and musical instruments in various stages | hamper, yet where good will and neigh- 0 mpathy seemed to abound in | he diversity of tongues. glance one was inclined to nro- nounce 1t a community of idle neer-do- weels, for women with contented blinking | babies on their arms are.lounging a or gossi from opposite windows, | while a few sit upon doorsteps languidly preparing vegetables for the noon meal, their dingy-faced two or three year vlds | ler, comprising gold-embroidered jacket | were almost forgotten, and we thought of | side them crunching siices of cucumbet | or bits of carrot passed 10 them upon ihe | which is composed of tiny pointed gores. | music filled the place. | | business of costumer rooms or lofts above the family apart- men's brexd-winrers who show no dispo- sition to be idle. 0a going up a flight of narrow creaking stairs we entered a smail apartment at the top and found ourse n the quaint workroom of Boatros Helwic, “the forest artist,” as our guide de: him. He was .a picturesque e In bhis Syrian robe of striped purple and white, confined at the waist b A ro ike cord. His long blac | loose collar4in au his keen brizht eyes lookea kindly at us from beneath shaggy, projecting brows as, in spite of the e nce that he was ex- ceedingly busy, be assured us that we did not disturb bim in the Tre room and the lc rk table con- tained a cbarming 1 mosaic bits, bandsome carvings, Oriental inlaid tables ter of of construction. We were inclined to believe that the ided to that of v of various wood-carying, as a I national costumes depended from the wall of an inner room. Among them we wers shown the long, vointed-sleeved linen robe and shawl headdress of the Arabian woman, a Turk sh lady’s dress | and the complete costume of & Greek sold- and legging, with the full skirt worn T | il | Upon the wall also hung some swords | | and shields; detecting a glance in their | direction Boutros Helwic remarked: { "I am an expert fencer—see,’’ =znd | showed upon his right hand the tattcoed | des of a scimitar and shield. He also proved that he was a fair musician, for | after calling our attention to one of the clumsy Egpytian mandolins and declar- ing that ujon such an intrument King | David had played, the question was asked | nd taking up a slender, b mandolin, from which of coins and ornament: a s arkling, dancing melody, | rung in the ears long aiter he had | bowed us courtecusly from his crowded | but exceedingly interesting quarters. We could hardiy call the two workers | in wire— who spoke respectively Slavonian and Danish—interesting types; but they | welcomed us cordially, and civilly an- | swered our questions about the great pile | of wire bangings, baskets, bird cages and strings which i basement. We have notalways lived in | arrived from Salonika. usic?”’ w se of your m Do you make no u i we demanded, almost indignantly, arose from the piano-stool. I sometimes sing in'the theaters,” she | said, quietly, “but I cannot always play arm. because cf the rheamatism in my o not think it is healthy—living in this such a place.” | The great, blonde, smiling Frenchman, | who stopped his work a moment to chat | in his native tongue, was & manufacturer | of metal utensils and ornaments. Fancy- | ing that bis daughter was the proper per- son to receive’ callers he ushered us up- | stairs to the rooms ahove his th]e_fout" dry and introduced us to a youne girl—in face Lis exact counterpart—who was act- ing as housekeeper and qpurse to a brood | of clinging, clampering children. who, | she informed us, were her nieces and nephews. A The snave Syrian greeted the Greek | family next door in their own tongue, his “Kalimera krea” falling more musically | than our cold *Good-morning, madam. t | But one of the three women could be called a perfect type, and that was the pretty, dimpled girl, who gave such gestion of glittering blackness, so intense was the color of her eyes and hair. We were toid that sbe s the step- | danzhter of the elder womanand had just I ch a sug- | At the suggestion of my companion, they brought great, thick, well-worn vol- umes, from which he read marked sen- | tences, then iranslated them for American | | the squirrel trap, upon which the Sla onian was putiing the finishing touches, with the he'p of copper wire, fine white curled up from bis | Wire and a pair of pincers, and as we de- | found the Ttalians represented by sisters e the artistic way, and | Scended the steps they sent after us a | of10, 12 and 14, who tut for their various | hearty *Cali again.” “We will call upon my neighbors now,” | aid the obliging Syrian guide, as we en- tered a basement room crowded with | handsome furniture, a great square pl1ano almost filiing one side. We found the at- mosphere of the room almost stifling with | | the musty odor of damp walls. { A handsome Spanish woman came for- | ward to meet us, and in an adjoining | room we saw several men evidently en- | gaged in tailoring. | “Will you not play for us, senora?” | | said our companion, after a few mouwents’ | | conversation, and the handsome woman | in the rosty gown seated herself at the | piano and obligingly played ard sang. The stuffy room and the woman with the evidences of kitchen-work about her | | concerts and ringing applause as the ears, which ambition hsd not caused to wmaster the enphonious langusge. ‘ We next dove into a narrow court and | sizes could not be distinguished one from another, each having the same heavy dark | eyes, the same cast of features and ex- pression, the same lifeless hair, the same tone of voice; and they all giegied in uni- son as we turned to leave the ceurt, which reminded one of pictures of European city scenes—square tower-like buildings rising on every side, pierced by windows where pots of blpoming plants stood in the sun- shine and cats rubbed their laces wuhl‘ their paws, sitting on window ledges far; above our heads. | The Armenian was a sort of nurse-man with six cherub children clambering | about his bulky form. He sat regarding | us with mild and stolid fixidity, through which a gleam of pity stole at last, pos. | sibly because I did not understand the language he bardly exerted himself to | speak. The numerous children and the pres- {ence | formed wvart of | pipe and greeted my | dition, I8 called William. | rally partial— \ of several feminine garments upon a chair dencted that a woman the household,.but she failed to appear and her absence was not exnlained. Up a flight of those regulation, narrow stairss crowding pa-t a baby buggy and generous-sized trunk, we found a house- bold where Hebrew was spoken in its purity. The hostess who smi‘ed a welcome was a decided Oriental figure, her sad, large- eyed face rising above a necklace of great yellow beads, graded in size from a piceon’s egg to a rea. A younz man sitting upon a gay divan stopped the hubble-bubbie of his Tuikish companion with much respect. A voung girl with a large, flat face sat holding a child whose seventeen-month | head was made enormous by a heavy shock of curling, jet-black hair. This little Hebrew, contrary to all tra- face he might be any age from 5 toa wrinkleless 100, in spile of mamma’s as- sertion to his year and a half of existence. Aside from ternal declaration—natu- William is one of the most interesting babies that ever toddled uoon two aturdy feet. - He slid irom his nurse’s {lap ana stood upright, a queer little, top- heavy figure in a sort of dragoon jacket and clumsy velvat skirt, at once intent upon_ tome mischief beside a table of bric- a-brac, for which he brought upon him- self punishment in the form of a sound- ing slap upon his pudgy arm. Instead of crying, as one naturallyjex- pected, Wiliiam bent his red lips to his mother’s disciplining hand and mur- mured in his mother'’s tongue, *‘Ha baba” | (my love). We were entertsined by a display of finely illusirated Hebrew and Arabic vol- umes and hospitably served with Turkish coffee. The Turkish pipe, washed and re- filled, was placed at our disposal and an urgent invitation extended us to testits excellence. | The Hindoo brothers were at their work Judging by his | | “CarmouL THE COOK " | In some factory, as were also the Japanese, we were informed, and “Mike'’ Sullivan’s wife assured us he would not return until 6 that evening, so we were deprived | of listening to a specimen of Gaelic | speech, which language—doubtless in- | spired by the babel of tongues about | him—Mike has been trying to teach his | Syrian neighbors’ children. The otber dwellers of the block, though | mostly foreigners, were not especially in- teresting, save tae family of our kind en- | tertainer, Solomon Rahy (Rye). There | had just been a marriage in his house, and | the groom, a great, easy-going feliow, as- | | sured me that the weading iestivities were | not yet over. * We,celebrate our weddings | | for at least eight da¥g,”” said he. | Thebride, whom IA\ introduced, was a little, dark. nonentity, and the mother-in- | | law was in evidence as a sl nt figure with a face like the mothers of ancient Egypt | | and hands on which the bones were out- | | lined by broad, tattooed designs. | | Turkish coffee and sweetmeats were | brousht and discussed, while the hostdis- | | coursed upon tue antiquity and historical | | order 0! the various languages of the world, assuring me that Chalaean wasthe | language in which God conversed with Adam and Eve—Adam being the term for | earth in that tongue and Eve for life. | “Do ycu like America? Shall you re- main here?’ I asked. SYRIAN Boy. Ishail vote. Syrians like America,”” he said, dden flash, *‘they bave the warm- gs for the people b:fore coming In 1860, when the Turks persecuted merica sent us aid, so did s, but we understood their motive. Euocland wanted to grasp usin her already full hand, and it was the same with other European nations.” At my departure he escorted me by the ‘‘short way” to the business street I sought, and as he leit me with a courteous *‘good- by,” the thought flashed through my mind: “Foreign emizration would not be so bad after all were those who come to our shores like this learned Syrian with his citizen. “All here. the Syrians other countr “Ab, yes, madam. I intend to live and | die here. In anotber year,” he added, | proudly, “I shall become an American | unquestioning belief in sacred things and his enthusiasm regarding America and Americans.” CLARA IzA PRICE. AVISIT TO SOME OF THE PROSPEROUS FARMS I went out along the highways and by- | tween the buildings like a furrow. There |in this City who cultivates fresh vegeta- ways of San Francisco to look up the farms and farmers of a great metropolis. Bome time ago THE CaLL told all about the desert region of this City by the se which has so much diversity that they who know it best have yet only a very in- <omplete knowledge of its almost infinite sing along California street I heard a jargon of warring tongues, and it seemed as if not Birnam Wood but Babel haa | come again. One may not expect to hear | the low of kine cn the city’s thorougLfare that aspires upward toward and to the summit of “Nob Hill,” but even before the Bank of California had been long past I was sure that I detected the bleating of the “Lambs.”” California street ran be- | N N~ By I | Herzer is was no song of birds, but clearly there | was on the baimy air the smell of aromatic | herbs—possibly mint. Possibly the | “lamb’’ that bleated loudest was browsing | upon miat, in pastoral innocence, not | knowing that it had a julep attachment. | Jim Dockery came down the furrow | a-picking his teeth, and 1 had, of course, a dim sort of realization, in common with | the rest of the town, that he has a knowl- | edge of California cows, their ways and | habits that is well-nigh encyclopediac; but | he looked so much more like a field | marshal with all his finery on that I/ cou'd not imagine him “shooing” a cow | but they really don’t know peas from | people seem to with anvthing less pretentious than a | field marshal’s baton, and even with my slight knowledge of things bucolicI knew | that was not a symbol or symptom of the | simon-pure pastoral life for which we have | sought “‘and sighed because we found it | not.” “Jim,” I said, putting one hand athwart | my eyes to protect myself from the daz- ziing sheen of his two-inch deep banas of | gold lace that surrounded his hat, just like the self-luminous rings about the planet Saturn—f they are seli-lnminous— “put me in the way of seeing the farms and the farmers of San Francisco.” *'Go out to the City Hall,” he said, “and | ask Deputv Assessor Herzer for a map. | a great agriculiurist, and 1 don’t know of a more enthusiastic rancher | al THE PERPENCICULAR FARM ON TWIN PEAKS, | after I have made the rounds, I believe | thinking was that the ranches of the City bles than Herzer. Oh, his potato paich alone would ba enough to show old Pin- gre>, back in Detroit, that he isn’t in it with Herzer for one shake of alamb’s I had to smile approval at this phrase of Dockery’s—for it showed me that he had studied tbe habits of lambs and knew | that they really do shake their tails. | “But tell me,”’ I pleaaed, **did I not | hear a lamb bleating near here a little | while ago?” *Oh,”" he admitted, “that mizht be the grain broker in the Produce Exchange; | beans, nor wheat from barley, not when they sse it growing. But Herzer—there isa real enthusiast. He has ruta baga trees, and his watermelons that he grafied are doing great.” Now, I don’t pretend to know much | about farming, but I knew that Dockery | was joshing me. BSo I left him on a corner chewing a straw and went out to | the Hall to look up Herzer. He really looked to me like a typical farmer when I made my business known—so much so that fora minute I was tempted to see if 1 could yuload a goldbrick on him; but something in his weather eye told me to drive my steers a little slow when plow- | ing over his mental field. He gave me a | map of the City and told me that all property set down as “other than town and city lots’’ was really agricultural land. I believed him then, and now, him still. ‘What Herzer told me that started lively were assessed at the handsome round figure of $3,189,240, and the improvements on the farms are valued for purposes of taxation at the very respectable sum of $798,210. With his map, I easily learned SUTRO, ON& OF OUR MOST PPROSPEROUS FARMERS,. | never, until the cows come home, as Her- | real Hunters Point is reached, and here how to locate the Uity farms. They are on the way to Ingleside, via the otd Alms- house road, over in South San Francisco, outin the Bay View neighborhcod, on the wind-swept slopes of Hunters Point, and largely in tbe lordly domain of that prince of the rake and the hoe—Adolph Satro. The map shows sireets and ave-| nues galore on the slopes of the point, but zer might say, will any one be able to find one of them, There lies midway between Butcher- town and the Teal extremity of the point a semi-amphibious region where be cultivating clam- beds with a hoe, thereby raising anew the time-honored question, whether digzing clams is really agriculture or fishing? But when this region has been passed the is without any chance for a question, the largest sheepwalk, if not the oniy sheep- walk, existing in any of the large cities of the world, apart from park areas. Bleai- ing herds wander here freely and undis- turbed, the sheep being lea around by tricky goats that complacently will guide the sheep without a pang to the sham- bles of Buichertown and extermination. These old bell-wethers are wool kings holding the lives ot their subjects abso- lutely at their command. When their comrades are turned into mutton they willingly return to the point to find new ones {0 betray. . There, as elsewhere, the sheep have rea- son to be pleased at the prospect of a future time when there shall be a separation be- tween the sheep and the goats. As this sheepwalk has the distinction to be made up exclusively of unused City lots 80 it is unique in being a semi-marine farm. Fancy the shepherd of the modern time, the city shepherd of San Francisco that is, and see how different are his sur- roundings from those of any described by poets when their wits went wool gather- ing. On one side the lambs could wander off intoa shipyara, where flat-bottomed bay schooners are attended to after they have “mussed up'’ the bottom of the bay, if it were not for a fence or two. On the other, namely, toward the soutb, isa “salt lick,” fifty miles extending southward, to wit—the blue bay of San Frarcisco. The whole point, with the exception of that part where the drydock is, while it is mapped into blocks, streets and avenues, Hundreds of sneep have been is all open. 1 This is the San seen there at one time. Francisco sheep ranch. Next I went out into Bay View. #Oof, oof.” A spotted sow with a litter of pigs dis- puted the way with me as I walked along | astreet (7). Allaround were large areas— | comumon lands they seemed like—with | houses set down here and there, seemingly in accordance wich the caprice of the householders. On these areas browsed cows, calves, horses, goats—really quite rustic and farmlike it all was. There were acres upon acres of land over which cattle were staked out. Hay- barns, stacks of milkcany, these and other signs betokened milk ranches near. Enough whirling windmills were spinning dizzily in the air to pump the water out of one-oi Holland’s dykes. Where the streets were and which were building lots at Bay View could not wholly be made out. Frowning bills toward the west loomed up. These were haunted by cattle. They were farm lands—by the league as they looked. Then, just to give a pastoral tinge to the coloring of a traveled and well-defined street, there came tramping, lowing, per- spiring out Kentucky street as I made my way back toward the center of the City in cearch of more farms, long- horned and suort-horned cattie—one, two, | three, four heras. Vaqueros wearing sombreros urged them on, riding su- perbly; men with handscme eyes and white teeth. From the wayside ducks and chickens flew as the hoofs of the berds rattled along the pavement. The herds were going to the hills to get fattened. A whole flock of lambs moved in the other direction toward the slaugh- ter-houses, Here and there pigs stolidly grunted and would not budge until they were forced to move. This phase of the DEPUTY ASsESSOR HERZER Preks . FEAS IN oecenée& bucolic people who rode in the electric cars could see. Along the Mission road came in farm wagons, and a perfect procession of dairy carts was under way, going in or going out. Before the San Mateo line was reached there loomed up the large orchard of Mr. Meussdorffer of many acres, orchards and garaens with fine fruit trees. Near by was the home of Deputy As- sessor Herzer, Mr. Herzer was not at home, but Ilearned that what Jim Duck- ery said was all nght. Mr. Herzer enjoys a rural life, and knows how to doit. He has green peas in December, and other things ‘accordin’.’” Down that way, still in the limits of San Francisco, the | farms at a glance seem almost as near endless and boundless asthey do in the agricultural sections in the interior. Peo- vle should go down there to understand what a very large town this really is. On the way to Ingleside and along the old Almshouse road there are miles of tarming lands; great fields of potatoes; ranch after ranch devoted to market gar- dening. Enough green stuff is raised every year there to ward off the scurvy from the Klondyke for a generation, if only it could all get to that cold place. Then it was up the Twin Peaks to the highest dairy farm in the City. The cows and their owners on the siope just below the peaks are real g it o 1 L . 9 o ~'> IN SAN FRANCISCO mountaineers. Cows being milked in one lot, if thay should slip, might fall over a fence into the next lot below. Take the farm lands of San Francisco and cultivate them all asthey are now, placing enough of water upon them for thorough irrigation, and there would be littie doubt that if the City were cut off from the interior it could independently feed a large share of its hungry people, withous aid from any one, for quite a long period. The lands in the City used for grazing, gardens,and lyingidle, all capable of yield- ing fine crops, must be equal to the area covered with houses, especially if Adolph Sutro’s great forests are thrown in. Deputy Herzer could not give me the acreage. WiLLie WiNkye.