The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 17, 1897, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO JALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1897. [} < 1 7T ‘e T A I BOR.N | OOUBRETT, ” [z gy ttempt at speaking with her. “Shedoesn’t know it’s cold.” *‘Course she doesn’t,” he said, *‘orshe’d know wedon’t want her here— and there are others. *‘Ob, you needn’t look back,’”” he said, as I stumbled steps where one cannot pass without a bit of cardboard when y ison. “You'll see her again. She'll be there all day.” ‘Do they stay ‘all day?'” ““Well, most of them haven’t lost all their senses,” he admitt=d, ‘so they only drop in now and then to assure us that our fondest hopes not realized and the earth has are not opened and swallowed them, They are mostly all married women or very young girls, you sez,” he said, in an apolozetic tone, “and there’s so many men about here that they m no: doit. Itdoesn’t look well even if it wasn’t unpleasant for us. **How about the men?” ventured the artist, who bad grown visibly impressed 1n the last ten minutes of conversation with the importance of mankind. bey torment us to death with plays,” he said. *‘Plays written on all subjects that you can imagine. There is scarcely a mechanic, ora sign-painter, or a butcher in town who hasn’t at one time or another brought us a play and offered to paint the scenery if we would produce it. Some of them assure us it would be worth no less than millions to us, and even condescend to act as stage manager during the preparation of it.” I felt deep reverence for the man who has lived to tell tbe story of all this. Why, half of our editors lost their tempers irrevocably years ago, and with cause, we thouglit, and tiey have only half the misfortune of life to face. R P T O The Alcazar is smaller and cozier and there is an air of friendliness about it, although I always feel a desire to be elongated when I enter the manager's otlice, for the ceiling goes way up into a dome ana the e “l don’t know. I was afraid to let her try,”” he said, ‘‘for fear she’d break through the floor. I kmow the stage wouldn’t hold her. She’s married, 100, he went on, when we could stop laughing. “'Got several children, and she’s been here every day for two yvears, ex. cepting when she's been in the country for her heaith. She stands around tnere in the corridor for two and three hours at a time, and then she’ll go upsiairs and visit the school.” “What school 2 ““Why, the school for actine. I remembered her. dressing-room. “She was a great aciress years ago in London, but now—well,”” he said, “vou can’t teach people to act any more than you can teach them to feel. If they won’t begin at the lowest round of the ladder and climb up they'll never get anywhere. But you shouald 80 upstairs.”’ We started for the door. *‘Oh, but wait a minute!”” he exclaimed, and he disappeared, returning almost instantly with a young fellow at his heels, whom he introduced. *So you want to go on the stage.”’ “Yes,” he replied, dweiling long upon the s and in a voice that had been strung up to high C, but had flatted with the weather. *I intend to emulate the example of James K. Hackett.”” 1 think 1 lost consciousness for a moment. A peculiar sound brought me to my senses, and the ludicrous was forgotten in the pathos of it all. It would not have bsen more absurd if he had said he intended following in 1he pathway of Apollo. Not that Hackett is a god; but be isa man, and one of taleat, and this poor little life-wasting being could not even comprehend the manhocd, let alone the talent, of him. “It will take a long time,” I saida. “Not whben I get taken on,” he said. “Have you tried?”’ He looked down at his shabby clothing and at his rusty shoes and the worn straw hat in his hand, and put his Land up to the jauntily fastened blue tie at: his his throat and raised bis head with its thin, un- kempt bair. *No,” he said; “I'm waiting.” And then, as he turned to shamble out, he lcoked back and took from his breast-pocket a photograph and handed it to me. “Got it for two-bits!” he said proudly. handsome, unresponsive features of Mr, knew whether to laugh or— *“There's a bad case,” said the manager. Mrs. Bellew is the teacher.’’ She it is who presides over the Baldwin Theater “It’s easy.” And as I handed the Hackett back to him I scarce “Don’t you know,”” said he, “I hated to see them go off hand in hand so disappointed, because they don’t know any better, and it means something 10 them. It's kind of sad, don’t you know 2" Ana I did know, for the capacity for their feeling may not be great, but it is equal with their knowing, and if they suffer with ali their mightis not their suffering as ereat as ours who can understand all the wild hopelessness of despair? “And now?” “They are on the farm, I guess,’’ he said. them any more.” By the way,” he said as westartedout. “I just had a play handedin to me. I told the fellow that we never used melo- dramas, but he said this was mild, so I read it. There are exactly five murders, a hanging and a suicide:n it. -Want to read it? Ob, it's mild.” I heard bim laugh as I made my escape. * “I never see & et “I think,” said the artist as we climbed the stairs to the “School of Dramatic Art,” *‘that the safety of our nation has been endangered on account of carelessness inregara to duty.” I bate pclitics; but [ asked what he referred to because it was necessary. “Why,"” hesaid, “'he who is supposed to rule on the Ist of April seems to have completely ignored his duty in this part of the country at least.” ¢ Oh, that's crosl’’ t vou'll allow it'’s horse sense,” quoted he of the brush and pen as we passed into the presence of the stagestruck. There was one man—a little, short fellow—rather practical-looking, with a flushed face and mustache, and the rest were ladies, or rather girls in their teens, with clean, unresponsive faces and brilliant belts. Perhaps I could have stayed longer 1f they had begun with the girls— with one in particular, with a wealth of dark-brown hair and a face full of expression and a lithe, slender figure. I feit that she might learn to act sonce day, and would have become interested had 1 been able to endure with more fortitude. He stood in the middle of the room and his two. arms hung limp at his two sides respectfully and he began. Shades of the immortal Shakespeare! I haveentertained a sort of proper rtespect for Othello heretofore, but I'd never heard him talk that way. “It is the cause, 1t isthe cause, my sou!,” he thundered in exactly two different keys—for he has a voice that would be a fortune to a temperance leciurer—and if I had not known the lines I would have * o It was with a laborious earnestness an fatlure that I b sure just where to go, but that the theaters it seemed, I'might mention that i is with laborious earnestness that I am trying not to find them now. Some way, once on their track they haunt vou. They peer from beneath la ats; they glare Ophelia-like from wreaths of chemically blonde b ness I nt fli b, m heights born within them conception of any idea possib as any LA cold outside, but Grand Opera-house. ’ won't find er near the box Are there any ?" Any!” here,” office wi. I asked. 1 never knew any like a groan that g me, deep iurrows coming into his question had provoked. ‘s say 2 i relived at that. myself, ion of being both. infriendly marble of t he cold my search for “‘aspirants for the stage.” in might be the proper place. Tney laugh with childish artiess- no conception of the idea of the eternal fitne , I am led to believe that there 1s no 0@ Who ‘‘want to goon the stage it was colder within the portals of the said the artist, as I discovered the dow and started toward nim. how short and sharp and at the same time itt'e word could sot ere anything else 1t 1 hoped so, at least 1 assured him of my “There are some hanging about. e he indicated and saw a woman neither tall nor short, d a frown indicative of heart I was not trend of things, Without anticipating the logical and bread ths that are amazi f nd. “Any!” he reg ace with the tho ated, its my There's She he floo: ood with her two feet g and stared with two ey at the glaring post that disfigured the walls of the entrance. He nodded with a deep-drawn sigh. “She siid she could play anything if we'd only put Ler on, and when we wouldn’t, why—she j came day after day and watched the people and ;i But walls are can vou do? 1 can’t put them out when they stand guiet like when it 1 can vou? Though, eoodness knows, we'd like to weil enough.” Ioen I turned and walked toward the woman who could “stand a place where she was a cold place, too! The h ceilings stare urinvi quiet like that” not w is no wi ed and had no rights. mth from the marble, to the w OF BER_ BEAVUTIEUL FORM., I paused at the entrance. v in the way. 1 to ma2ke rcom for u: occupied already by one who is large enough for two. I didn’t like to leave the artist outside. Come 1n,” said Mr. Tha!l cordially, as though there were no diffi- And we crowded in and stood uncomio Tiis lady,” he said, speaking of the large woman who stood close , “has just been asking concerning her s0 narrow that there's scarcely rcom for two, and especially avly. a y, and the mirrored wa 3 s ing in the opposite direction, which is about what y chances ior an engagement.” should be doing. And I was shivering wten I came up to where We thought he was joking, the artist and I, and when we caucht siood. = twinkle in his eye, we both smiled appreciatively and looked up into ‘It is cotd,” 1 ventured. her fa She looked at me and smiled wanly, and, oh, the tragic incom- “What part did you say you would like?”’ questioned the manager. pleteness of that face! There were lines there; but they seemed to be too e ntly for our benefit. *“The soubretie!” There was silence for dr: 10 no purpose; as though time had been disapvointed in his a second. *‘The child’s parts,” she said, “and I'd like to do a song and search for an emotion 1o trace, and like a mischievous schoolboy with dance.” a smoothness. She turned her eyes ac poster in which a whiskered individual frown a tragic posing of two gaunt arms, *Quite a picture!” ‘Ain’t it magnificent?’’ she whispered. And she clasped her two thin ungloved bLands blac plete as ever, oaly not closed tightly. that her eyes were whitewashed wall had marked all sorts of ways to ma n to the brilliantly red and yellow sleeves slipped away from her lean, bony wrists, and her long neck siretched iiself away from her collar, but her face was as incom- te pounds of deficd the elements with a There!” entirely convulsing. avoirdupois would aliow. exclaimed the man *Can she sing?”’ “Must ’ave cost alot.” together, and the open and her thin lips were I never heard ber.” groaned the manager, with an inflection which meaot that he never iniended to. Sne’s going to the country for two weeks for her health, and then she's coing back and going to work seriously.’” He sighed deeply “But can she dance?’ I asked, rer in a serio-comic manner that was en seriousiy she bowed herself out as well as her three hundred 74 I CANPLAY TAE GLADIATOR? N = “Worse than a matinee girl?” ““There’s another you, I thought I'd die a-laughing. 1f Ididn’t take her—that all the theaters were clamori ng for her.” And then we laughed. one around here sometimes. She came alone first, down from the country—a more rigiculous figure vou never saw. He assured me that I'd lose $20,000 i O "%; \ = INGENUE PARTS, sworn he was addressing his there. or other a wiid screech: “Mylord! My lord! It was too much, too much, led him to the Columbia. to pass the time. 1asked her know. 1 asked her what she did think And she said 2"’ What ho, my lord! “Isn’t that al.?"’ pleaded the artist. “Why,” said our friend, ‘. here was one here to-day. band was away most of the time and her children didn’t need her— obliging children, weren’t they ?—and she thought she’d goon the stage “‘sole,” for he pointed there and looked But I did manage to endure it until there came from some region My lord!” and I left without “‘good-by." Ishook my head resolutely and Said ber hus- what she could do. She said she didn’t She couldn’t sing; she coulan’t dance;she'd never recited, so of.” “She wanted to know if I didn’t think sbe could get 2 chance to She couldn’t de anything that she knew of, but she had recited at church She offered once, but I was busy. socials in the couniry, and she thought she'd like to try. Then when X 2 we refused to put her on she brought her father down. He was a The artist hurried me away. ; typical farmer, and when they came into the office hand in hand, mind “Now you'll allow it's horse “Yes, indeed.” What else could any one say ? 20 on in the Tivoli chorus not to sing, but—well, just to fll up, you know, and increase the attraction.” *Whatd.d you say ?"’ questioned the artist. 'L wasn’t competent to judge,” said Mr. Friedlander, sense, won't you?'’ asked he. MURIEL BATLEY. , IN THE MYSTIC MAZES OF A CALIFORNIA COTTON MILL Over in Oakland taere is a veritable ma- i ’s cave, True,itdoes not look much Jike a cave on the outside—in fact, it ap- pears to the eyes of the ordinary passer-by y Lks a iong, low, red brick build- ith a wide avenue bordered by locust trees on one side and a tall brick chimney in the background which seems to raach nearly up to the blue sky itself. A magician | lives there just the same, however, and a very powerful one, and for sixty hoursout of ‘every week he performs the most wonderful feats in the way of sleight-of- band and the transformation of cne thing into another, To' explain matters prosaically this magician’s cave is krown to those of us who know anything about it at all as the California Cotton Mill-. The magician is that all-powerful sorcerer of modern times—machinery—and the ticns effected are the changing of raw cotton from the bale into such a bewild- ering number of different articles of beauty or utility, or of both combined, as to make the onlooker almost beiieve that the whole thing isthe work of witcherait rather than that of human brains and fingers alone. Once inside the building, I sit w. in a tig, sunshiny office until some onc can be found who has time to guide me through the aifferent workrooms; and as I sit there the noise thav comes to my ears is asif a mighty giant on the other side of the partition were stamping his weary way up a mountainous treadmili and pufling and panting astumatically the | while. We begin at the very beginning and isit first the wide yard, where waiting | ars stand on the railway switch andall anner of big and cumbersome boxes and bales and bundles lie about. go into the room where a man with an ax is breaking and entering bale after bale of fleecy cotton, which expands and over- ows its Wrappings, as if taking a Jonz breath of relief, when the tight 1ron bands which have held it for so long are cut awav. There is a kind of a hopper at one side of this apartment into which the cotton, pulled lightiy apart, is put, a small quan- titv at a time, and it hops merrily along into an inner chamber, where the iron transforma- | ing | And then we | 1 s of the macbine tear it apart, and it ¢ down a chate a stream of fluffy | whiteness, to reappear in the next room | spread evenly over massive rollers from which it winds smoctbly and slowly into great soft cylinders of “batting. In another depariment thin, almost | diaphanous, streams of cotton flow over roliers, and at heir outlet become downy | | ropes of over an inch in thickness, that coil th-mselves softly away inio tall re- ceptacles, which when full look as though beaped with lightest swansdown. The sight of these yards upon yards of snowy *“rolls” reminds me of chiidish days spent on a certain Southern planta- | tion, so remote from social and business centers that ante-bellum customs stiil | prevailed there, though the *new South’’ | was rising from the ashes of the old al- | | most everywhere else. | Here old Aunt Betsy ‘‘rolled” her cot- | ton witk hand-cards, with which, by the | | way, she usea also to vigorously card her own gray wool whenever her chevelure | needed rearrangement under her gay tur- ban, and spun it on a tall spinning-wheel beside which her clumsily shod feet had worn a path in the pine boards of the | floor. But, much as she priced berself on | | their being *‘eben an’ smooy,” even Aunt | | Betsy’s skillful fingers never turned out a | | roll as perfect as these which slip, hour | after hour, turough the iron hanas of these | smootuly working and tireless machines. | Later these downy ropes are drawn out | into attenuated threads, and these threads | sgain are twisted together into cord, and | | twine, and cotton rope, or are woven into | bagging, and cloth, and duck, and towel- ing. Some of it even goes into those | | coarse checked table-cloths which: occa- sionally masquerade as linen before the uncritical eves of credulous customers of | ucreliable stores. I follow my guide about everywhere, | caretully keeping my skirts away from the whirling belts, whick are always on the watch to snatch at passing garments and vlay havoc with them and their owners, end the tall young feliow who | | has been detailed to take charge of me does his best to amuse and instruct me during our promenade. I can see his lips move almost constantly and occasionally expand into an ingenuous and pleasing smile, and I discern that he has good teeth and that they are well cared for. His hands lift up bits of candle-wicking, | cord, twine and other things for my in- speciion and consideration, and now and then touch sections of the machinery with the casual 2nd assured touch of familiar- | 1iy. Of a certainty he 1s describing to me the various vrocesses of manufacture which we areobserving, and of a certainty he is describing them well, too, since he is a bright and well-informed youth, and is exeriing himself most kindly to be amiable and entertaining. But he might as well be rehearsing a voiitical speech, or chanting the praises of the heathen gois for all I know 1o ihe contrary, since 1 have not been taught to | read the movements of the lips, and my ears are utterly useless in the overwhelm- ing din which surges all around us. To tell the truth, I do not mind this so very much. I am far more interested in the individuality of the mill itseld, and its | workers, than I am in processes and prod- ucts, though the processes are undonbt- ealy worthy of admiration and the prod. ucts of a surety most excellent of their kind. I have visited mills of this kina in the South and in the New England States and every one of these visits has left be- hind it something of heartache and futile rebellion against existing conditions. I have seen sallow, tired and discour- aged-looking women and girls walking wearily up and down Letween rows of macbinery placed so clogely togetner that Deuth himselt w: cluiching constantly, and not always vainly, at garments ana hair. I have seen these women and girls prisoned and half-smothered unaer low ceilings, with only narrow and dingy windows at one side to admit light ana air, and working twelve and thirteen hours & day for wages so low that it seems a wonder how they can liveon them atall, Here I see lizht and airy rooms where avenues of safe width run beiween the dungerous machines, and busied there are | workers neat in attire, alert and cheerful ot aspect, and with pleasant faces which tell by their very expressionsof good food and good air, and consequent good health. Some of the more careful oues affect be- coming ‘'sweeping caps'’ to protect their hair from the constantly settling dust, but others, wearing their luxuriant locks |in the latest mode, look piquantly pretty, as if they were just preparing for a cos- tume ball, as the featnery powder lends lits own juaint charm to bright eyes and | dimpled taces. None of them look up from their work to stare rudely at the unusual sightof a visitor serenely trotting about where vis- itors are never supposed to gain admit- tance, but now and again one of them meets my eyes frankly with her own, and, seeing nothing but gooa-fellowship in my expression, returns my friendly smile in kind. They are nearly all American born and bred, these girls, thongh many differ- ent nationalities are represented among them, and they have one and all a certain proud independence of feeling and man- ner which grows and flourishes under our | gracious skies. | When the factory is run full-handed | over 350 persons find employment here, of | whom at least 225 are women and girlé. No Chinese are employed and no girl or boy under 14 years of age. No strikes ever occur, for the grievances which oc- casionally, but very rarely, ruffie the smooth current of mill life are carried di- | | rectly and quietly to the superintendent, | who, being a good judgze of human nature and a man besides possessed of much na- tive shrewdness and a good store of hard | common-sense, combined with a kindly disposition. generally manages to arrange matters to the satisfaction of all con- cerned. Five years agzo Commissioner Tobin saia | of this factory: “It is a remarkably well- | managed institution. M is a pleasure to | see how the girls there are treaied, and the effects of it are very noticeable. “They are treated as if tkey were all young ladies, and the consequence is they are. If the manacersof a factory treat their female heip as if they were all hood- lums they will get only hoodlums to work | for them, and if they treat them as nice voung ladies they will get the better class. 1 sincerely wish that we had n this State fifty such factories af the California Cot- | ton Mills.” ‘The Commissioner’s remarks are as true now as they were when they were first made. To those who have been inter- | dignified seniors. occurrences at the closing hour of someY of the large mills elsewhere a few minutes the vicinity of this factory is a revelation. In many other localities the ovening of | learn some things of their work and of the | the great gates is the signal for a wild | mill itself, after I escape from the fas. stampede of long-prisoned humanity. The | small minority of naturallv refined and | would-be quiet workers are swept along in the resistless tide of the rude-minded, | ioud - mouthed and coarse-mannered | majority, that indulges freely ia rough horse-play, vulgar jests and impudent verbal attacks on those pedestrians who | are 0 unfortunate as to be caught in the unpleasing rusk. Nothing of this is seen here, however. The operatives leave the building as quietly and decorously asif it were a co- educational college, and they were all There is no crowding, no quarreling, and no “joshing”; only a separation into frienaly little groups, chatting cheerily as they walk along, and parting with pleasant good-nights at the cars and the corners of the streecs, Moreover, it is worthy of note that no gaudy *'gin palace” flourishes in the vi cinity of the miils, and that the few | saloons in that portion of Oakland are neither large nor prosperous look.ng, al- though from $8000 to $10,000 is monthly paid into the hands of the cotton-mill peovle. Perhaps the fact that the pernicious “factory boarding-house” and tencment system is unknown here hasnot a little to do with this state of things. The ma- jority of the factery employes live in cozy cottages, not uniform rows of ‘*‘corpor: tion houses,”” dreary and utterly unhome- like in expression and surroundings, but cheerful little dwellings scattered about on wide and pleasant streets. Most of them bave lace curtains in the front windows, and callas and carnations and roses and heliotropes and chrysanthemums and other lovely flowers that run riot in the open air under our California sunshine, in the front yards, and in the back yards there are often plamp hens and chickens, or well-tended vegetable beds, which add their mite to the general good. And best of all, not a few of these men and women whose skilled fingers easily | spent at the close of the working day in | families. ested but awe-stricken spectators of the | solve for them the problem of living own; their own small homes, and are bringing up therein happy, healthful, industrious So much I learn of the workers; and I| chinery, and find myself once again in a place where people talk with voices. The factory is the only one of its kind on this coast, and is just beginning, as it were, to sit up and take notice after being balf asleep for some time past. During | the *‘hard” years it ran short time and | shorthanded, but now the powers that rule its destiny are talking of putting in a new engine and making several other im- provements to keep step with the march oi “good times.”” It was built fourteen years ago of Pleasanton brick and Puget Sound lumber, and is a distinctively coast | institution, only such machinery being | brought across the mountaius as could | not possibly be produc:d here. The owners have not become multi- miilionaires during the brief period of its existence, for it bas been obliged to hold its own against cheap foreign products and compete with mills whose hours of | labor are longer and rate of wages less, but it has always done reliable and satis- factory work, thus building up a zood reputation, and has helped California by giving many of her children and step- children decently paid employment. It was hoped when the idea of having such a manufactory crystalhized into a reality that California would raise cotton enough of her own to supply the raw ma- terial ne'ded, but suc: has not been the case. Oddly enough, thongh a most ex- cellent quality of this product can be raised as far north as within the borders of Shasta County and as far south as the State line, the cotton used here is brought mostly from Texas and the Pacific islands. That it can begrown here successfully has been proven. The plant thrives and grows into a giant of its kind, flowering profusely and producing cotton of fine, long fiber and great strength. Indeed, even in Atlanta, where they know all that is worth krowing about this special sta- ple, California cotton won prizes and praise of the most gratifying kind; but the troublesome question of competing against | cination of the seemingly sentient ma- | | | sections where the rate of wages and the standard of living are much lower has made California cotton-growing on alarge and practical scale an uninviting invest- ment iu the past. Less than a dozen years ago a wealthy firm—Haggin & Tevis, I believe it was, but am not sure—planted acres of cotton in Kern Coanty, and brought a company of genuine plantation-raised neeroes from the South to care for it. At first the ex- periment promised to be 2 wonderful suc- cess, and in one year they sold §24,000 worth of their output to the home mill, but differences with the imported help arose, strikes followed, and at last, dis- gusted with the bother of it all, the pro- moters of the enterprise gave uyp the plan and put the land to other uses. The Buckley brothers also raised a good crop on Kings River in 1884, and a good many ranchers were turning their atten- tion to cotton culture when the *fruit boom” struck this part of the country, and everything was made subservient to that idea. To thos: who believe that Cahfornia’s future solid prosperity lies in her unex- ampled capacity to proauce a diversity of money-making crops, the subject of cot- ton-raising seems to ‘bs one that sliould receive serious and careful consideration. The comparatively recent demonstrations of the utility of all the products of the cot- ton plant make it a far more valuable property than it was in the old days when the fiber alone possessed a market value. Whiie none of us wish to see cotion “king” of our State it seems certain that the question of how to grow it profitably here will be answered before long. The time may come, indeed, and in the near future, when even the small farmers of thrifty ‘mind may find it advisable to fol- low their Southern brothers’ example and raise, every one of them, u bale or two of cotton, if no more, along with their other crops, for good cotton is practically ready money everywhere ii is rai ed, and 1eady money is a very convenient thing 1o have. FLORENCE MATHESON. Railways in Holland are so caretully managed that the accidental deaths on them average only onea year for the en= tire country,