The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 12, 1897, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1897. 19 Opiatés Sold Openly in San Francisco. San Francisco has an ordinance pro- bibiting, under penalty of heavy fine, the sale of morphine, opium and cocaine, ex- cepting upon the prescription of a physi- cian. There are druggists here who daily, even hourly, violate that ordinance. While waiting for a car one evening last week, I observed a yoang man lounging | in the semi-shadow near a grocery, at ti:e door ot which were grouped such edible bargains as the thri'ty housewife is ever ou the alert for. Close by him was an assortment of hams, piacarded in black and white and jumbled in a mountainous heap of uncooked provenaer. Suddenly he darted forward, a swiftiy noving silhouette against the. light, crabbed one of the porky prizes and fled up thestreet. 1 fled in his wake. Tt of the ham did not interest me, but bis motive for stealing it did. After a detour of several blocks, the man with the ham disappeared in the back door of a restaurant. When he emerged a few minutes afterward, be had GIVE ME | pinched outlines with cruel mockery of | them. His dull eyes turned for an instant | 1o mine while he gave speech to the thought behind them. “For God's sake,”” he said, “‘never get | the babit. It is the curse of curses.” * * Under pretext of waiting for a friend, I seated myself onastool near the prescrip- tion case of this samedrugstore. Hall an hour further traveled the hands of the w no more significant sales to s than soap, perfumery and pare- AsI wasabout to go, aslim, brown- who might have been 20, but inger, advanced to the counter nervous tread, and paused vithin three feet of me. Her cheap, tawdry clothing and bold air proclaimed cial and moral status at once. From cxetoi a once light-colored jacket, goric. eyed v now darkly soiled atseam and sleeve, she arew a small, round tin box, such as oint- men resold in. Acrossits coverin white son a flaming scarlet ground I read thel +Poison.” “Give me 10 cents’ worth of m.”” she whispered, so softly that 1 could scarcely bear the words. Ina moment the dime and the box were exchanged and the owner was lost in the SOFTLY. shed his burden, curiosity, and again followed him. a brief if breathless chase. He m. sort of line known as ‘bee’” for nearest drugstore. It was the Through its brilliantly lighted windows 1 | saw him address a clerk, who served hi with a tiny package. As he hurried by me I intercepted him. Wait a moment,” said L teal that ham and sell it to buy medicine with the money ?”’ The unexpectedness of the question amazed him into stupid silence. As he rccovered his wits and started on I spoke avain. I’'m not going to tell on you. nlv want an answer to my question.” He looked 10 see if I meant what I said, then glanced furtively about and replied in a low, cautious tone: +1d:d it to get the m.”” *“The m?”’ I repeated. Yes—morphine. it. T'll be all n I cet a sh His pale face the elec ri I was nearly crazy t in a few minutes took on a ghastly hue in glare that seemed to seek its but I still retained my de the | “Did you | sidewalk’s swarm of humanity. i P . . . * T It was but a block to the next store. Here for more than a half hour I waited for the materializing of my mythical friend. In the ensuing fifteen minutes I | saw ‘“‘m”’ retailed to fifteen men in twenty- | five and ten-cent quantiti | town I resumed my vi gantly equi floor, Farther own- | vizil in a large, ele- | d place, with smoothly tiled | checked, polished mirrors, | ative glass, and all the glittering ! paraphernalia that make the modern drug- | <tore an abode oi beauty for the passing | chaser. minutes elapsed before a ‘‘fiend” | eared. { was beginning to detest the | species now, for the characteristics are al- | ways the same, differingonly in degree as | the habit tightens its hold upon the hap- | brightl, less victim. An old man, quivering as to voice and legs, was the first applicant; | | the secon a boy of 18 or so, upon | whose young face the preiiminary lines of | ‘‘the curse of curses’’ were already trac- | in rway. Each asked for "m,” and | | each received a firm no for an answer. | In two other drugstores I heard the same I | overtook her in the darkne: | of color, contour and expression. Her list- | to take an eighth of a grain, then a quar- request denied. If there be druggistsin ! San Francisco who defy tbe statutes, there are likewise those who honestly abide by them. Wi e o Two girls of unguessable ages passed me, their sailor hats at an aggressive angle over their noses, their skirts sagging away from belt control, their bizarre shirt waists topped by collars that fenced in their thin necks with a starchy aitempt at style. Scarely had they brushed by me when | one of them caught her companion’s arm and jerked her back so quickly that the three of us narrowly escaped collision. *I'nere, Jess!"” she exclaimed, pushing her behind a post. “Where are youreyes? Didn’t ycu see Jim ?” ““Where?’ she asked. “Down Market, Lucky we didn’t o in. If he ever catches you buying the dopeit’s good-bye Jim.” “‘Is there another place near?” A couple of blocks." | 1 walked the blocks with them. The | clerk coming forward to serve me first, 1 | made a trifling purchase, then opened the | directory. Jess leaned over the counter. | *Two bits’ worth of ‘m,’ "’ she said. e T e e iy One store in particular enjoys what I should judee is a steady trade in the way of supplying deathful drugs to such of the public as crosses its threshold with a crav- ing for them. During the hour that I sat therein no less than five persons—three women and two men—were turnished with cocaine and morphine in varying amounts, YR R L * purchasers of the former asking for “c.” | One of these cases was so evidently the hardest of all that had passed me in review | that I urose wnen she left the store and | She had been handsome at another and better period of her career—:it was not dif- ficult to see that. Even “the curse’’ can- not destroy features, though it rifle them less eyes, biue still, thouz dly sunken, ! met mine sullenly at first. These **fiends’’ do not like to have their weakness known. | Still less do they like to talk about it. I commenced two years ago,’’ she finally said. “My husband and I were prosperous until he took to the drug. He’s dead now, but he left mea legacy in the morpbine habit, and it will stay with me until some nizht, when I can’t get the stuff, 'Ll turn on tie gas. At first I used ter, then a grain. Now it's four gramn’s, twice aday. I buy 500 half-zrain pills at a time—when [ have the money. Noj; I couldn’t quit and don’t want to. But take my advice and leave the cursed thing alone.” S el W = Leave it alone! Ah, it is easy enough | foryou and me to do that. But what of those who are tempted? The law would save them from themselves were it not for the cast-iron consciences of those who break that law. LiILLizN FERGUSON. am H. Crane, in this world of is sus- by the ed knowledge that there 1cbro- neusly upon the same ea ) him an- ther being of exactly shape and | substance. Though hLe may wayside be will leave a counterpart to| carry on through the world the work of fall by the resembling his photograph before the QRAN'E, THE AGTOR, HAS A DOUBLE | eyes of an admiring constituency. 1 Mr. Crane was first apprised of his sin- | gu'ar fortune several vears ago in this | City. © description of the circum- stances leading up to it and of the inci- dent itse.f is worth repeating, albeit the charm of rhe narrator’s manner must be lost in transit through so prosy an inter- | | mediary. A photograph which hangs in his room is the inspiration of his narration. It | shows two men standing side by side. Oue of the men is Crane and the other is George Barrett, brother of Wilson Barrett, the English histrion. But which is Crane is more than Barrett can tell, and which is Barrett is a problem equally perplexing to Crane. They know themselves apart, but not their pictures. Crane thinks he remembers that Barrett stood behind him when he posed, but there is a vagueness in the expression of that thought which falls considerably short of implying that be knows now where he stood, or that he ever did know or ever could understand The occasion of the memorabie visit was the presentation of “The Senator,” then at the dawn of its popularity. Oune day while Mr. Crane was standing in the lob- by of the Baldwin Hotel a big, hearty- looking Englishman, very much out at elbows, struck him a powerful blow on the shoulder, nearly dislocating that member, and shouted out with a voice equally as strong: “George, old man, how are you? I'm devilish glad to see you.” “You have the advantage of me, sir,” ! said Crane, *‘I don’t believe I know you.” “Come now,” said the Enghshman, “you are going it & bit. You were always a pretty good play actor, but you shouldn’t try to come it over an old pal like me; it won’t do and I won't have it.” The more Crane protested that he did not know the man the more violent the latter became, and for a minute or two it looked as if small portions of the actor i CLASSIG MUSIG RENDERED INTO RAG TIME “Why, sir, that is the mausic of the Egyptians of to-day and the Ethiopians of a thousand years ago,” said William Greer Harrison the other nigit as Staniey Whiting played some of his compositions at the Press Club. “Yes,” was the answer, “but it is the ‘rag ime’ of the negroes of America, too. What is more, it 1s music that I will defy any composer or music-writer in America to take down properly, unless he makes a special stady of 1t.” It seemed very easy. Thers was the rhythmic swing and the odd cadence common to all negro singing. *It has a charm of its own,” said H. M. Bosworth, our noted local organist and composer, as he listened to the exposition of a music that was new to him, though be had spent his life as a student of St. Cecilia’s art. “Its charm is peculiar— the charm of a sucgested savagery. The music carries with it the picture of the negro's half-shuflle, the accentuated walk that accompanies iis singing.” ““There is the whole secret of rag time,” Mr. Whiting asserted. *‘The negro strikes the keys of the piano in the same time and measure as he taps the floor with his heels in dancing or ‘pats juba.’ This results in a peculiar movement that interested me because itevaded me, and later because I found that no white man had ever writ- ten it, though many bad tried. “#It was down Mobile way that I was first interested in rag time,” Mr. Whiting explained. *I had played the first move- ment of Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedaing March’ for a big ‘buck nigger'—one of the burly water-front roustabouts, barefooted and with shirt open to the beit that fastened | stronger. locality had its distinctive movements. “The primitive negro music is essen- tially religious. The negro gave expres- sion to his feeling of reverence and ex- altation in song. So Ifound in the music nigger of of the ‘Way Down Souf' Assyria of 4000 B. C. and the music of the , man wearing green glasses sees every- | twentieth century. | thing of an emerald hue, so all music, to | It was in Louisville I met ‘Syncovated | the negro, bas the odd syncopation. Sandy.” MENDELSSOHN’S () - 1 . “WEDDING MARCH” SR IR, 7] [ oSG wdE P P = A o D 51 I . 8 A N 7] EBENE VN 05 A T, 2 U O ) 5 T~ £ G He was a red-headed negro who | bad been given his name by some musical | Look Alike to Me.” A white man piays it admirer, who percsived that the odd mu. | this way”; “Now, take that coon song, ‘All Coons STRAIGHT. MENDELSSOHN’S ¢ WEDDING MARCH” IN RAG TIME. New Orleans and Alabama the jubilee character. It was more or less solemn with the distinctive swing of the earliest ‘jubas’ that were brought to the North by the first bands of traveling negro musi- cians. “About Memphis, achange becomes per- The influence of the white is New and varying mugical sen- ceptible. sical effects drawn from the piano by the negro were due to an equaliy odd method of syncopation. Sandy was an origmnal genius and his improvisations were of great interest—the more so to me because they were essentially the rag time in its most unconventional form, “It was from my study of his work that I evolvea the song ‘Syncopated Sandy’ Here Mr. Whiting played the familiar air with a smoothness that was still full of vigor. Butwhen he said, “Now this is the way a darky plays it,”’ he filled the melody with a spirit that marked it as in- dividual. It was merely by the introduc- tion of the peculiar syncopation that is first nature to the negro. “The ‘rag-time’ effect on some of our { ure. were to be distributed all over the lobby. Before the man got started, bowever, a newcomer to the rapidly increasing throng aroumd the pair recognized the obstreperous one and calling out *Dick,”’ asked what was the row. When the big fellow saw who addressed him he changed color. The newcomer was George Barrett and the stranger had mistaken Crane for him, something that was not remarkable even when the two men were seen side by side. Apolozies were in order, and Barrett, who was appearing in the city with his brother, and Crane became such good iriends and were so struck with the resem- blance they bore to one another that they had themselves photographed shaking bands. Unfortunately they forgot to iabel the figures and now they have to de- pend upon their memories to tell their friends which of them is which. s ragged trousers above his hips. He | had the hoarse, foghorn voice that still was full of music—the voice you can find only in this class of negro—and it wassaid he could play anything he ever heard. “‘Ya-as, sir, I kin play it,” he drawled. ‘But it scems toe me it’s jes’ a beat too fas’, mistah.” ““Then he asked me to play 1t again. Idid s0. That negro then sat down. He had absorbed Mendelssohn’s idea, digested it, and when it was produced it came in rag time, this way’': Here Mr. Whitney played a bit of music. It had the soul of “Darkest Africa” in it, with a reminiscence of the modern. Know- ing whai it was, the musical auditor could toillow and detect the motif of the great German composer disguised in its Ethi- opian garb. “I tried to play that march as my negro collaborator did and failed. I had him play it acain. Again I attempted it, to find that I had beinre me a musical puzzle. “As I had received a good musical edu- cation, my interest was aroused. I set to work for a soiution. “Again and again I had the negro play his march. There was the repetition of several movements that seemed very sim- ple. But they were as elusive as they were simple. “ It was evident that the effect was ob- tained by syncopation, but I could not es- | tablish just where it occurred. For sev- eral days I siudied with my cclored ac- quaintance and then light came. “The movement was not completed in one measure as in the music of the Cau- casian. It took two bars of rag time to complete one movement. The syncopa- tion beginsin the latter partof the first bar and continuesinto the second meas- The odd part is that not only 15 the time syncopated, but the accent is synco- pated also, being purposely misplaced and thus giving a striking individuality to the negro melody. “*Once interested I began to look into the ¢ ISABELLE ”” -STRAIGHT. ¢“ISABELLE” IN RAG TIME. that I use in my act every night. I am [ popular songsis very odd,” Mr. Whiting forced to play my own accompaniment, | continued, *‘and itis given to everything because the music cannot be orchestrated. | the darky plays. | “This seems odd, but it's true. Rag| “Take thefamiliar air of ‘Isabella,’ for | time requiresinstruments with a comnplete | instance. Put it into rag time it would go this way’’: sations implant themselves on the negro { musical mind which translated into Afri- can melody come out in new aud chang- ing variations of rag time. “These intricate arrangements find their highest expression about Louisville, Ky. | register, such as the violin, the viola, the | thi i : | In that city, partaking as it does of much | tubas, etc., to bring out the effect. As| Then came ISgbnl_lfl. the girl who was of the activity and feverish progressive- | these are the weak instruments of the |one of the boys,” with a cake-walk swing ness of the North, there are hundreds of | orchestra they are lost in the ensemble, | that could make one see the darky sing- “SYNCOPATED SANDY.” | negro musicians who, while a page of [and all that is heard are the emphasized | ing it. Mr. Whifing sketched out the “‘rag- matter of ‘rag time’ in earnesi. 1 found | music would be as unintelligible to them |drum taps, that make the music seem a time”’ score of this song and it showed in it wherever there were negroes. They are | as the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mum- | drum solo with orchestral accompani- [ this form: ill yet make music that any | ment. A xylophone or piano or a brass| “Rag time is, of course, only a mare natural-born imitators, as well as natural- born musicians. So I found that all the negroes of a certain locality played the same kind of rag time, but that cach‘ SOME NOVEL FACTS CONCERNING LLAMAS Most of us who have made a casual study of natural history know something of ths llama, but very few have the faintest idea of the importance of this animal to the people of South America. And fewer still know what the animal really 1s. The accompanying picture, which is drawn from a photograph brought to this City by Mr. Bacigaluoi, shows what a llama corral looks like. The rancher of South America looks upon one of these as the most vaiuable possession he can acquire. And when it is considered what a valuable creature the llama really is this fact is not to be wondered at. Many travelers who have been to South America and made a study of the llama state that the llama is most useful to man of all living creatures. Certainly no other creature possesses the great variety of valuable points, and it would seem as if a greater number could not be combined in one animal even if that animal were made to order. In Peruvian domestic economy the llama takes the place of horse, ox, goat and sheep, and meets all requirements. Some even state that it takes the place of the dog as a guardian of buildings at night. It is a very sensitive animal, easily awakened by the slightest noise. And when once awakened it sets up a wild bleating sure to arouse the inmates of any ranchhouse near by. In some respects the llama, individually considered, is more valuable than the animals mentioned. Compared to the horse, the llama, while not quite as equal as abeast of burden, more than compensates by the small quantity of food required to keep it in condition. For instance, more freight in small packages can be moved by a ton of hay if fed to llamas than could bs moved if the same quantity of hay were fed to horses. Compared to the ox, the llama furnishes equally as good meat. Compared to the sheep, it furnishes better wool. Compared to the goat, it furnishes milk and wool and has all the hardy qualities, and can live on almost nothing. In fact, the llama is just what ranchers want. It has several good qualities combined in one. What is the llama? Most peopls think it is a shezp, but there can be littls doubt but that it is a cam:l. That it belongs to the same family, just as the tiger belongs to thetcat family. Structurally the llama is almost identical to the camel. It has the same shaped skull, the long neck and the same kind of legs. The principal difference is in the Of course thz wool is longer and very much finer. But in the manner of walking and living the two creatures are identical. k In the accompanying picture the resemblance to the camel’s face is very strong in some of the animals that are looking straight forward. my case, artist would appreciate and marve! at the f band can bring out the effect perfectly. musical curio to-day,” he said. “Itisa more because it would be so evidently tue “Every negro who plays, plays rag time. | bit of ancient history transplanted into step that intervenes between the music of l It1s the way he learns music. Justas a | America. We had it on the Midway. hoofs. A PERUVIAN LLAMA CORRAL.