The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 24, 1897, Page 17

@all SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY MORNING, OCT OBER 24, 1897. In the out of do brightly, with a benign a which eases one’s heart And I t of the Alameda City Hall that Fallmer m have been glad tumnal warmth and makes life 7e come cut into the sunshine, even to | at ber own preliminary examination for shooting and killing the man she loved, which perhaps is a merciful but it must be admitted a somewhat startling 1ent. crowd at the onter door—a d at me and wd at the crowc ner door—a crow of wome: standing restiessly on the bare stone floor of the | and they stared likewise and over the words, “Closed doors, And then a gen oned and held tleman came and beck- en the door, and-the close as I passed in and into the courtrcom with moanlike sounds of sstistaction. They all knew the 16-year-old girl, no doubt, for I heard them speak familiarly and c eighbors probably living door by door with the wretched, senseless mc and the brutal father, and s e growing of the they shouid not go. And that they counld mnot stand close and see whatever agony might | be this child by the repeatal of the details of her crime. But saving now and then a nervous twitching of her hands, and that must have come from physical weakness, and once that she asked for a drink of d the room was very warm, Clara Fallmer betrayea no agony what- soev tell how she stood on ihe corner with aree companions and waited for Charles La Due tocome from the train; how she crossed the street and paused in front of . the drugstore, ana pulled from beneath her cape a pistol and shot him, and watcbed him fall, and then fired a shot at Lierself. She <atas immovable as astatue, with her eyes down and lips lightly closed. And one couldn’t heip but pity her, for she is fair, and the iliness has re- fined her face and made it more beautiful than before, and she is young—so very, @ Very young. 1 doubt not the pen was still damp with the ink that the Recorder had used to trace a ‘‘sweet sixieen” in the Book of Life, wnen he turned back the leaves to place the charge of murder there. I spoke to the rict Attorney. asked, “Will she be She will not,”” he replied. * to-day nor at any time, but you ber at her homs,” R e A little cottage, brown as to color, with the sun shone | ght as I passed up | , even when she heard the witnesses | |noTHER - Il to closely drawn blinas and a set-apart look | The garden had been trim, but the flowers missed their former care and threw their | blossomed beads upon the earth in desc- | late abandon. The dry leaves ou the walk rustled stilly as I passed in and up the siteps and into the presence of sorrow. Mrs. La Due was ill. She has been ill ever since uner son was brought home to her wounded and dving, on the 1st of last | Angust. She asked me to pardon her ap- | pearance; sbe had not been zble to leave her bed, Lut there wasno one eise to open | the door. A man’s biack hat hung on the rack in | the ball, and I fancy it was as he hung it | there the lzst time he wore it before he | was brought home dying, in all his youth ! and strength. I looked from that to the woman who | walked before me with weary motion, and there came for the first a bint of the axony she must have felt. “It is cold here,” she said, motioning me to a seat. “And dark,” I said, glancing at the closely drawn blinds. “1t elways wili be dark,” she snid, seat- ing herself with a dn!l icok in the eyes that were fixed on the floor. “Always it bent head and | will be dark and blinds are down or up, whether it storms or shines, it will alvays be dark and cold.” “But there is light and warmth under | the broad, open heaven.” “There is no heaven,” she said; *‘there is no earth; there is nothing now. 1am ill and I cannot take care of the little neme that Iloved when there were two of us here. dark and lonely, and I lie awake here in the dark, and co!d, and loneliness, and listen, and when 1 go to sleep I forget and | | wake up suddenly sometimes, and get half way to him in. “I have had nothing to say,” she said, “all along, and now I do not want to talk, but it seems so awful—too far beyond my understanding to comprehend a rea- son for it. 1s it my weakness entirely,’ she asked, “that makes me long for a little kindiy sympathy? If he were here he would talk to me. I know just how he would talk to me, but—but my heart the door, thinking to let | aches so.” And she rested her white, drawn face, which is still younz and fair, on her two arms, and there settied down upon us heavy, leaden, the atmosphere of the desolation of ner life. There was a voung girl once, and in the firs: flush and gladness of her youth she married the man she loved. He was baud<ome, they say, and gay. A child was born 1o them, a boy, and when he was scarce six months of age she found herselt compelled to care for its life ana her own by her own efforts. sewing and again by turning her hand to | whatever she could accomplish with best results for her boy and herself. And tue chila grew day by day at herkn e and she ught him his first lessons, as she sewed itch by stitch—eased Ler youug heart which was breaking beneath the burden she had to carry by lavishing her whole life’s bope upon the child. lonely, whether the | I come home at night, and it is | CLARA FALLMER, She did so at first by | That woman was Mrs. La Due. from the babe to the schoolboy, learning his daily lessons, playing bis happy ‘games and getting ready for the battle of life. In spite of all pain and sorrow, in the face ot all unkindness and bitter opposi- tion, wanting, strusgling, hoping, fear- inz, she knew not what, this mother lived on throvgh a!l this time umniil her boy grew up to mankood in the likeness of his father. | Thbey tell me, those that knew the boy, | that he lovea his mother, and that he was kind and gentle, and that they were work- ing together 10 keep their little home for the pre-ent, and own it in the future that Charles might have a fit piace for the home of his wife when the patient and | earnest little mother couyld not longer keep 1t for bim. Tiey never dreamed, either of them, | that one duy before his youth had been half lived cut he would be brought | home to her to die and she should lay him away and try 10 find hope enough to keep Jaughter and fooisteps and manly voice still echo, and where his hat hangs in the hall as though he bad just come in. - Oh, mothers, when your only one leans his curly head against your knee and hisps his simple guestions of the things his little mind bas not learned to grasp, or when he comes in madiy from school with glowing eyes and rosy cheeks and siams down his books and rushes out again into the free air to vlay, drop a | tear of sympathy for this mother whose only boy once did the same, and who was kilied—shot in the street while on his way bome to her, for no unnatural fault of his. Mrs. La Due raised her head presently and looked through the few bitter tears 1 that had been wrung from her soul by the | thought of it | “He was a good boy,"” the said. | boy in the world, young and headsirong | and impetuous, has not his fault-? He ‘ had his, no doubt, but he was kind and | thoughtful and generous—at least I thought him so, an¢ 1 was his mother. THE SLAYER. Meeld Yehngon. | Whatever his mistakes, whatever hissins, | if vou will, he was all I had, my love and | my life. | It is true that I didn't want him to | marry. We mothers fee! some way that | We want our son’s wives to be perfection, | and anyway he was too young. I thought | be could wait a while. 1didn’t think he knew the girl well. I told him so, and he listened respectfully. The girl wrote | bim letters and followed him about. I did not think it serious; why, she always eemed like a child. Everybody in Ala- | meda knew her and her companions. We i never know until too late. When they brought him home—" She stopped suddenly and looked at me. knew stie was suffering mentally ana phy ically and I rose to go. ““And the girl,”’ I said, and I felt it was crucl and heartiess to speak of it there, |1 | | And the long dsys passed and he grew | her alive in the brown cottage where his | “What | *“Clara Fallmer—you will not prosecute her?” She, too, stood up then and threw back ber head proudly. *No,” she said. “My son had nothing to say and I have nothing.” It was like a benediction. I accepted it as such and passed out. But she called to me as I paused on the walk, with the dry leaves fluttering idly about my feet, and the first bitterness came into her voice and the first strangeness into her face. ‘“Let them have their own wa: said. “lshouldn’t want her to might go and meet him—on the other side—somewhere.” And that was quite true; one couldn’t be certain, bui there was a chance of it. | She closed the door, and shut all the light and sunshine out again, and I was i glad to be out with it, though my soul | ached for her when 1 thought —— “Wny, he was the only son of his mother and she was a widow."” | PR R The keeper of the keys at the Alameda | County Jailinformed me that *‘Clara” had a visitor. “Tnen I will wait,’” I said. “H’'m!” bhe announced, proceeding to unlock the inner door. *‘She's liable to | stay all day. You’d better come up—the girl’s pretty weak. Her mother was just bexe to see her and we had hard work to get her back upstairs.” 1 foliowed as he led up to the back top part of the building and entered the women’s ward. It was a larze room. A good fire was burning in a stove at the further end. Clara Fallmer’s hat and coat lay on the bed near by, some papers lay on the table, and Clara Falimer herse.f, | her pretty brown hair braided in two | tight braids, leaned agamst the table and | talked to the “‘girl friena.” | She turned when I spoke to her, and smiled pleasantly. “1 don’t look very presentable,” she | said, glancing at the brilliant green skirt | which she wore and the loose red waist, | | “but it hurts me to move my shoulder. | I can feel the bullet, you know, and it’s hard for me to comb my hair.”’ *'I told yez to' crimp yer hair, darlin' said a voice from near by. It was a woman standing inside of the inner cell, and leaning half way toward us —a woman with gray bair and drecping | eyes and a seamea and scarred face. Clara nodded her head and smiled at | | her. ! | Over in the further corner by the win- | dow China and Japan had hung uv a flag | of truce, and the Chinese woman patiently | smoothed the straight black hair of the | | other. | “The Japanese woman's here for beat- | ing her children,” explained this youth- | ful inmate of a prison cell whom I bad | come to interview. “The Chinese girl | | they hold because they think she has been sold into slavery.” 1t must be awful here!"” i She shrugged her shoulders. *Can’t helpit. I have to stay.’" This was certainly philosopbical, and 1 suppose it is wisest tolaugh and look pleasant and make the best of it, only— well, fear is a good thing sometimes and | despair over one’s misdeeds sometimes | purifies. “They tell me,”’ 1said, “that youdo not regret what you did.” | She opened her eyesand just glanced my | way with a little half smile of surprise. | “I1don’t know why they said that,” she replied. “‘Of course anybody would be sorry to do a thing like that.”” Sorry? A word so weak and incompe- tent that has ceased to convey anything more than a pleasant sound to our ears. Long ago it was divorced completely from the s:ill sad thought of sorrow and it has nothing left more effective than the im- press of flippancy. | “Life s all we are sure of," I said. *It is hard to go intoa place we know noth- i » | \ i “Where we will have little wings,” Clara said, laughing lightly. “I can’t talk much,” she aaded, “and people seem to think I ought to tell them everything, but my iawyers have told me not to make statements and so of course I can’t. And I don't want 10 talk of him,” she said; “'he is dead, and they testified that I killed him, and that’s all.” All? God help her if it only were all. But there is so much more—so much. Aund the woof being broken she musi worry with the bligated web untii she dies—until the warp 1s woven out. She moved her shoulder, itis the left one that holas the bullet, and her face changed with the pain. { I sball have it taxen out,” she said, “be- fore the trial,” and sitting there composed and quiet, she might have been speaking of a party rather than achance for life or death. “Do yvou dread it?"’ “No,” she said; “the operation will not be dangerous, as it isso near the surface. It was funny, when 1 shot myseif I didn’t | feel anything. I fell down and then I tried o get up, and found I couldn’t. But 1 felt it afterward.” And she laughed again, just pleasantly. The girl is not leaden with despair, but there is no mirth in her. 1 think there never bas bzen and I know there never can be. “Bat the trial,” Isaid, “do you dread it?” Her face sobered then. *“Yes,” she said. “1 don’t like the people and I don’t like the horrible details to be tod over and over, and it will take a long while.”” Her friend leaned forward and put her arm about her 1n a pretty way. “Butit has to be,” she said, brighten- ing up again, “and it can’t be helped.” “And if you could help it, if you could bring him back to life, back from the grave in which he islying?” She turned away from me. she said, “and thatisal.” I wonder if she loved him and what kind of love it was? Some one who talked with her told me that <he cGid love him desperately, even yet, wi'h the kind of love those peopie are capable of. Irose to go and turned to say good-by. I felt like a wratch. It seemed to me that it must be exquisite torture to hear such things as I had said. But she had already forgotten and was talking eagerly with her girl friend, and o “I can’t,” she bade me gcod-bv as cheerfully as though [ bad said nothing out of the ordi- nar: No; she doeen’t think of Charles La Due—she never thinks at all excepting, perhaps, that “anybody would be sorry to do a thing like that.” Alas and alas! Pity for the mother, alone aud heartbroken; pity for the girl with her youth and her beauty and her | load of crime, and pity for a world in which such things can be. MuRrcEL Barny. GIRLHOOD OTTO LCOEBERTIN’S LATEST This picture is taken from a photograph of Otto Dobbertin’s latest creation. some it is considered to pe his masterpiece. adequate means of judging of its impressive beautv. been a lover of children and to his latest werk has imparted all his skill and genius. Hundreds have visited his studio and have been profuse in their expressions of de- light. beautiful face it seemed to touch and two tears rolled down her cheeks. CREATION By To see the beautiful statue is the only Mr. ‘Dobbertin has always A few days ago a lady visited his studio, and as she gazed on the sad but a tender chord in her heart. Her eyes glistened, Without uttering a word she extended her hand, grasped that of the sculptor, shook it and passed out. In speaking of this in- cident afterward the sculptor said that that was the only time in his career that such honest appreciation was shown. Girlhood with its flower face, Wistful lips and trustful eyes, On whose brow the angels trace Messages from Paradise, Is a binding link between Earthly things and things unseen. Girlhood with its simple love— With its spirit free from fears, All unconscious of the part It must play in later years, Is a .blossom which the sun | Lingers on, yet has not won. Girlhood with its simple love— Love so holy and so pure— For the grace of God above Is a chalice, made secure, That is why a girl’s eyes shine With a light that is divine. Another Intercepted Lietter. DEAD DUCK GULCH, Arasga, S:pt. 24 —Oh, the glory of labor! Oh, the dig- nity of manhoot! Oh, the mightiness of beautiful brawn! Iam here in the palpi- tating heart of the damp diggings. All around me are men—masculine, male men—and they are working hard. They dig, they sitt, tney lift, they sweat and they swear. Oh, speech that passes human un- dersta ng! While they labor thus, 18 also labor. Isiton a rock and write my etier, fitling it with great thoughts. Oc- casionally I tell tbe men how things should be did (should this be ‘‘done”? 1 have no dictionary handy). Ohb, the dig- nity of hard work! Theair hereis so sweet, especially when it is flavored with the onions little Liver- nash fries for supper. God made the onion, even as he made me and Livernash. Thereforeit is good. L ke the warhorse oi old, I can smell them from afar with these nostrils of mine, and I'm alwayson hand for meals. Itis cold here. “Blow, blow, thou win- try wind,” as Shakespeare says. ‘*‘Snort, snort, snortin the cloudy <kv, oh bre=ze,” as I say incne ol my own ymmortal poems, AsIwsitethis I keep the fingers of my left hand in my mouth, that they may not become frostbitten. my peacetul little potato patch in tne How often I think of | Oakland hills and of the little potato-bugs that dwell therein! Do you miss me, ob my buglets, Oh. poiato bugs that am Unrestricted in your freedom Like the unresponsive clam? Do you think of me, God’s poet, In this awful northern place— Writing letiers on a shirt caff, With my whiskers on my face? In case I aie let that be my swan song— my beautiful eiderdown swan song. I bave just sentan Indian nobleman to the river to find me another cuttlefish, my inkwell having given -out. I wonder if that is why so much that is written now- adays is so fishy ? Snow, snow evervwhere, but nit a drop todrink. The mountain fastnesses are as stilly, chiily, hilly as they were the last time I wrote. Occasionally [ cough;and the echoing echoes remind me of God's thunder. Iam the tallest man up here, and were it not for my modesty they would crown me King. King Miller, How well that wou!d sound ! ButIam content to be & king of song. From afar off comes the call to dinner. “Farewel),”” T say to the toilers, ‘‘ta-ta; dig, dig, dig.” Then I leap away with all the joyousness of my giddy manhood, and their gluttonous eyes follow me as I has- ten to the festal board. There all the Monarch’s hungry talent is congregated and we fall to. J. MILLER. P. S.—I recommend Dr. Cinchem'’s liver pills for indigestion. DEATH QF FProbably the tall- est woman in Amer- SONORA’S ica has just died in the City of Mexico. FAMOUS Her hLeizht was 6 fezt 9 inches. She was born in the | GIANTESS' State of Sonora and in no way remarkable except for her ual beight. For the last ten years she %5 been a familiar figure on the streets of the capital of Mexico, where she attracted agreat deal of attention from strangers and travelers and was pointed out to hem with pride as one of the curiosities “1 the nation by the citizens. She died at the age of 43, leaving a husband and thiree children. Her name was Magda- lena Cicuta. She was uneducated and talked the Spanish language with diffi- culty, bui the faiue of her size was widely known, The anomalous spectacle of a large gang of penitentiary conviets working in the open with no «flicers or armed GUARDS force 1o guard them d is presented every day at Yuma, Ariz. They are camped on the Colorado River a little above Yuma, 10 be ecxact, and they are engaged in cut- ting wood for the Territory. None of them escape. None try to escape. Why do they stay? Because each man guards the other. Each manisa *‘short-termer,” none of them having more than a year yet to serve. All are allowed a rebate for the work they do. When a convict has cut two cords of wood he has earned a day’s rebate on his term. But shonld one escape all lose rebates. Thus each man becomes nis brother's keeper, YUMA CONVICTS NEED NO ME OF THE STRANGE F | | | | In Southern Ari- zona the jail and prison officials have their hands full in irying to prevent the smuggling into their institutions of DREAMS OF BLISS. tie seductive mari- gusna. This is a kind of Joco weed more powerfu! than opium. Itis a dangerous thing for the uninitiated to handle, butihose who know its uses say it produces more :ravishing dreams than opium. The Mexicans mix it with tobacco and smoke it with cigar- ettes, inhaling the smoke. When used in this way it produces a hilarious spirit in the smoker that cannot be equaled by any other form of dissipation. When smug- gled inside the prison walls the Mexicans readily pay $4 an ounce for it, but free men buy it on the outside for 50 cents. IT BRINGS RAVISHING REAK Ll In the far north- ek eastern corner of STRANGE Arizona Territory, that is to say in Navajo County, a young man was bit- CASES OF POISONING. [n'z % Sis mon- mostat the same timz, at Yuma, 1n the ex- treme sovthwestern corner of the Ter- ritory, a little girl ate some ot the ber- ries that fell irom the umbrella trees which grow s0 plentifully in Southern Ar.zona. The youne man lived, but the little maiden died. The latter case1s the most remarkable, perhaps, for until this instance, not even the medical profession suspected that there was anyining pois- onousabout the umbrella tree.. The child’s name was Dora Lynch, her father being well known in Yuma. The lucky young man in the northwest was Orrin Barney. A SAMPLE In Mexico the law’s delays are less OF vexatious than in the United States. MEXICAN Indeed, one hea nothing at all about J’USTICE. delay in the ad minis- tration of MexicnnI justice. A short time ago a paymaster went down into Sonora with between $6000 and §7000. He stopped over night at a ranch, where he was robbed and mur- dered. The robbers were caught by the local police, but the magistrate discharged them. Then the Government took a hand in the affai. The robbers were caught again and shot immvdiately. The magis- trate who had acquitted them was also shot. The watchman at whose house the rohbery occurred was shot. Some distant accessories after the fact wereshot. In all sixteen men Were shot. EAT The longest fence in the world is prob- ably that which has just been finished by the Erie Cattle Company along the Mexican border. It isseventy-five miles in length and sep- IN THE WORLD. prlleal_ex.c“l}yt for the two repubdlics of North America. The fence was built to keep the cattle from running across the border and falling easy prey to the Mexican cow-punchers. Al- though it cosi a great deal of money it is estimated that cattle enough will be saved in one year to more than pay for it. Itis 8 barbed-wire fence, with mesquite and cottonwood poles, and for the entire length of it runs as straight as the crow flies, LONGEST FENCE HWEST GOING Arizona’s ex-Uni- ted States Marshal, W. K Meade, has decided to go to the Klondike a: the one TO THE KLONDIKE ime of fhe year {IN WINTER, the suthorities. no one should think of entering. Mr. Meade will make tl:e jour- ney in the dead of winter. He will leave San Francisco in November and will go at once to Dawson City. Mr. Meade is an old Alaska pioneer, having piloted the Spangenberg party into the interior in the early '80's. Next to midsummer he be- lieves midwinter is the tinze to travel in Alaska. His former successful trip was maae in the winter. “Tnere are no mos- quitos then,” he says; ‘“no mud, no slush—nothing but cold, againsj *which one can always fortify himself.”