The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 28, 1897, Page 20

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1897. 28, BARBARY COAST FAST BECOMING A RELIC OF THE PAST: Is the Barbary Coast as black |as it is painted? An unvrejudiced investigator would be compelled to answer the ques- tion in the negative. In fact, like many other institutions, its reputation is basec not on what it but on what it wa That it once was the foulest, most wicked spot on the peninsula of San Francisco none who know it will deny. In the dis- SN NS OGN BARBARY COAST tN DAY3 GONE BY - trict bounded by Stockton, Kezrny, Broadway and Washington sireets and down Pacific street to the city front were to be found all the dancehouses, dives, underground melodeons and cutthroat drinking houses in the city. Now they are scait.red all over San Francisco and Market street can boast of a much larger proporiion of them than can the coast- Speaking on this sutject the other day | a veteran police officer remarkid: *“The palwy days of the Barbary Coast, if such they can be called, were in the early sixties. Then every officer who patrolied a beat In that quarter carried his life in bis hand. Pacific street, from Stockton to the front, ana Kearny street, from Broaa- way to Washington, were crowded with dives that were patronized by the lowest of the low, and woe betide the drunken sailor oreven tne sober civilian who pene- trated its borders if he were known to have money in his possession. On the corner of Pacific atreet and Sullivan alley was Allen’s Bull Run saloon, with a saloon in tlie basement, another on the ground floor a few steps above the street, and a rooming-house on the upper floor. That was undoubtedly the worst place in the city. Then there were others nearly as bad, bearing such names as ‘Hell’s Kitchen,” ‘Cock of the Walk’ ‘Louisiana.” On Kearny street the old Bella Union (the entrance was then on Washington street), the Pacific Melodeon, the Olympic, Canterbury Hall and other allegea theaters were to be found. The performances for some time were the vilest of the vile. Innuendo was not in- dulged in, and language and action left nothing to the imagination. “Murders in this delectable locality were of frequent occurrence, znd assaults to murder, robberies and kindred crimes were of every night occurrence. The streets were after dark filled with the lowest of drunken men and women, and cerious crimes were of such common oc- bother with simple drunks. Broadway, opposite the County Jail, was lined with Mexican fandango houses, and Waverly place, Clay and Sacramento streets were given up to houses of ill repute, where painted women displayed themselves to the passers-by. Women in short dresses and othersin full tights danced and drank | in the basement saloons of these houses and the | carrence that the police bad little time to | with the visitors, and the keepers of tae dens made money rapidly. Quincy street and St. Marys place to-day ure decorum personified compared with what these i old-time streets were. Montgomery avenue and the expansion of Chinatown. Pacific street above Kearny, Clay, Washingion and Sacra- mento streets and Waverly place were gradually filled with ‘the Chinese hord=s, and the white inhabitants were driven out. T e residents of North Beach used Montgomery avenue and Kearny street on their trips up and down town, and vice was slowly but surely tnrust into the backzround. ““Walk along the ‘coast’ to-day and note the change that has taken place ¢ven in the past ten or twelve years. Ask the special and regular officers and they will tell you the Barbary Coast is dead and lingers only as a remembrance, Occasion- ally dark deeds are committed there, but not oftener than they are in other quar- ters of the city. The tenements of Hinck- ley glley and Pinkney street still swarm with the poorer elements of society, but they have lost their prominence in Yolice Court reporis. The Mexican houses of ill-fame and the fandango dens have disappeared from Broadway and the upper eud of Kearny street. The Bull Run has been pulled down to make way for a three-story brick building swarming with Chinese. ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ has been transformed into a Chinese hospital, and might, therefore, well retain its old name. The Pacific Melodeon is a memory. On the ruins of Canterbury Hall stands the International Hotel. The 3ella Union, aiter making the fortunes of some and ruining others, is now given over to the rats. Two or three dives on Kéarny street eke outa precarious existence where there were once five times as many in every block do- ing a rushing business. Every other saloon bears the sign ‘To Let,” and the | owners of those still open are barely mak- ing aliving. Down oa Pacific street a few dives still remain that are patronized by negroes and drunken sailors, and where white and colored women of the lowest class are empioyed as waitresses; but even these places, bad as they are, no longer bear the unsavory reputations that «they did fifteen or twenty years ago. ‘fhe ‘‘Then came the cutting through of | &reaier number of arrests in all that sec- tion aow are made for drunkenress and vagruncy. In fact, the true Barbary | | | BeRBART Z~* CoAsT i (BH7N Coast—the Barbary Coast of Captain Dun- levy, of Ofticers McNamara, McDonough, Parrott, Aiden and Sullivan—ox sts only as a remembrance.” accident or their position of | to a favored become manner, the pre laces’ corner of Six-, il sircels who has Haaty to remain un. | on 1o a posi- | Le bhas the un-| ng no less than | d that man—arara | —is the recently installed | of our town who were well ok when he pretentious, ap- of the Sc- | of Crue n exira 1l during s clapsed since he ssion_frem our tru And I mvself am wili- he has amiab preserved his | manner aud his | an ordeal | n trying to the nd ous e be it known, are just over in to well regu- , the reign of r partof July and I September in tates. Our glo- | | teeth, the question of possession 1n re- | | remon-~trances against the decrees of fate | when there was no danger of impound- | : star was | ment few cared to buy tags just for the [ to be turned by him ove the ascendent here from the last of il to the fourth week in November. During these long seven months the most singular state of things has existed in the city and county of San Francisco. Tagless and homeless dogs have swarmed n our streets, besieged our markets, our | buicher-shops and our back gates, and pubiicly settled by force of arms, or rather | gard to food bestowed upon them by ten- der-hearted human bipeds or stolen from poorly vrotected bases of supplies. Va- grant curs have comfortably pursued and demolished the ubiquitous and annoy- ing flea in the sunlit recesses of the door- ways of cur most pretentious buildings. They bave napped unmolested wherever and whenever they would; they have rambled about at their own sweet will; they have obtruded themselves into our most select and fashionable neighbor- hoods, and made the day unpleasing with public exhibition of their woes, and night miserable with their loud:but unavailing as exemplified in their unhappy condi- tion. When it is realiz d that twenty dogs a day is the average capture of the pound men when in successful and glorious oper- stion, it is easy to see that we should soon nave rivaled Constantinople, and other cities of the Orient, in the number and diversity of our canine population, had not the deadlock between our municipal rulers and the cfficials of the society come to a conclusion. Our city treasury has been yawning vainly for the dollers which used to insure the safety of dogs whose owners valued them encugh 1o pay out ba:d money for | their protection. No one stands in awe of alaw that ias no penalty attached, and principle of the thing. The erstwhile noisy and overpopulated ‘‘Animals’ Home” has been one of the most sweetly peaceful retreats to be found in our suburbs. For although every now | and then desperate citizens, under cover of night, have brought four-footed nuis- ances and thrown them over the fence, tied them to anything that came handy in the vicinity, or made canine May- baskets of them by attaching them to the door knobs, their number has been so comraratively few that their occasional presence has not appreciably disturbed ihe solemn silence which has brooded over the place since Mr. Osborn first sur- prised and disappointed his colleagues by showing a mercenary spirit, and *flocked by himself” in consequence. Now, however, all this is changed. Our conscientious Supervisors, after giving the matter seven months of serious con- sideration, have at last spoken some magic words which have had the same effect on the *“home’ that the Prince’s coming had on the occupants of the “Sleeping Beauty’s” palace. The stag- nated current of life has begun to flow limpidly once again, indeed almost fever- ishly, and *“Jack,” the huge brindled cat, who has for more than half a year held undisputed sway over the solitudes of field, and barns, and sheds, is forced to take reiuge in high places from the con- fusing rush of hurrying feet and realize that his quiet reign is at an end. Mr. Holbrook is now the Poundman, and he wears his new honors modestly, though there is a certain glint of seif- satisfaction in his kinaly eyes which seems quite warranted under the circum- stances. The position brings him no ad- ditional salary, since the $75 & month, which was the bone of contention between | his predecessor and his whilom friends, is T to the society intact, but it does bring with it many ad- ditional responsibilities and worries, and the hardest thing which he has had to encounter, so far, has been the “standing off"* of the swarms of aspirants for “jobs’’ under his administration. To the uninitiated it would seem that the position of dog-catcher, or “deputy | poundman,” as it is more euphoniously called, would be one which it would bs difficult to fill, even when there was a scarcity of work in all other lines. The person who makes a business oi gathering in unlicensed animals is a kind of pariah in the eyes of the general public, who really owe him a debt of gratitude for the disagreeable but necessary labor which he periorms for the benefit of the municipality,. We had an object lesson as to what the city would be without him and we ought, to appreciate him—but we don’t. Men, women and children fairly hate the sight of him as he pursues his daily rounds; dogs who are secure in the possession of up-to-date tags bark defi- ance at him, and in sections of the town where conventionalities are at a discount, and the residents believe in simple but direct outward expression of inward feel- ing, he is made a target for any old thing in the way of missiles, verbal or material, that comes handy. | He occupies much the same place in the | estimation of the community as the em- balmers did in ancient Eeypt; but they | were born to their bus iness and could not | escape from it, while dog-catching is not, hereditar; No one is obliged to ‘go on the wagon,” as the professional phrase is unless he wants to, but I received one of the surprises of my life when a visit to the po und, before matters were quite set- tled there, showed me how many persons there are who are wildly eager o occupy | such places in spite o f the aggressive un- povularity, present and future—for to have been a dog-catcher isscarcely a first- class recommenaation when in search of other employment—which its occupancy entails upon them. I went over to the home because an | Eastern visitor, who is an authority on such subjects—by the way, our visitors always find out more about us than we know ourselves—told me that it was the best arranged place for the detention and disposal of vagrant animals in the whole country, and I wanted to view it for my- self before it was inhabited by pathetic- eyed creatures sorrowing over present captivity, or drooping under the shadow of coming tragedy. All that my Eastern informant had said I found to be strictly true. I found commodious yards and comfortable shel- ters provided for the larger animals, and the dog rens cf wire netting in the inte- rior of a light, well-ventilated building, where every possiblearrangement is made for the well-being of the innocent prison- ers while they are awaiting extradition or execution. I saw the beds, which are folded against the wall during the day and let down and filled with clean straw at night, the big cans in which their food, regularly contracted-for scraps from downtown restaurants, is broughtand the troughs in which it is served. Isaw the lethal chamber and the gigantic butterfly nets and the gray circus wagon which are the scepter and throne ot the “‘catcher,” and 1 saw the $2500 ambulance for sick and disabled animals, which is, as it de- serves to be, the society’s pride. All these I beheld, and more—the dor- mitories for the employes, their lockers, and the well-furnished kitchen, where, if they choose to "*bach it,”” they may cook theirown food snd eat it in peace andjquiet. And through all that long morning which I spent in investigation and admiration | BROOK. THE NEW POUNDMAN, BEGINS HIS DU the clang of the doorbell interfered with and dominated everything. It is.a very disconcerting bell, that one at the home, a regular ‘“‘wild alarum,” even when touched by the gentiest hand, but when it is assaulted and battered by 2 sturuz wward heeler” in search of a ‘'soft snap the sound which it gives forth is one that might strike terror to the stoutest beart. Again and again its loud and in? stent summons pealea out upon the quiet air, and each time the affable gentleman who was assisting Jack in performing the hos- pitable duty of showing me about the premises excused nimsef and leit me with his four-footed friend, while be par-| leyed with the stranger at the cate. Mr. Holbrook was away for the time being—I fancy he had gone into temporary retire- ment for the purpose of restand recuper- ation—but each and every one of the callers wished to see him, and bhim only, | and every one of them was animated by a fierce desire to get “on the wagon.” It has been like this ever since the ap- pointment was msde,” said the affable gentieman wezrily, after-he had made the trip to the door a dozen times or so. “The idea seems to have gone abroad that we are going to employ 600 men instead of six, and I do believe if we wers we could get the outfit without stirring outside this plac “The men must be very hard up who would seek such employment,” I said. But my companion laughed =2s he answered: *“Look at the advertisements in the ‘want’ columns and see if it is lack of work elsewhere that drives them here.”” Then he supplemented this with a piece of information which must be specialiy pleasing to those who have not forgotten the horrors which marked the merciless career of Buckley’s protege, in days not so very long gone by. “The kind ¢f men who like the job for | the job's sake won’t have any show with the present ‘poss.” He will employ such | men as the society emplioyed formerly— | decent fellows, who will obey orders and | treat people civilly under all circum- | stances, and he will look afterevery detail | of the business personally. The pound is to be a shelter and a refuge and a release from suffering, instead of a place of torture.” | Whien I took my departure there was a | small crowd. of men leaning against the | fences and squatting about on convenient | protuberances in the immediate vicinity | of the home, waiting patiently for the re- | turn of the “head man.” They looked at me curiously as I | passed, possibly thinking that I was “new woman,” who, being anxions open another avenue of employment f my sisters, had put in an application fc one of the positions which they coveted. | Oneof them, arodent-faced youth with |a craity smile, being bolder and more business-like than the res:, followed ma | for a little distance down the street and then accosted me with humble deference: “Begging yer pardin, lady,” he said, “have yer got a pull wid de boss?” 1 hesitated. Here was a chanceto shine by reflected glory if my conscience would it—but 1t wouldn't. No, 1 answered trutifully, “I | haven’t.”” And then he squirmed insinu- | atingly, looking up at me sidewise under hissandy eyelashes. “I'm a poor voung felly, lady, ‘n I've got a mudder ter look out fer, 'n I'm just dead stuck on animels. I’d do’em upin | pink cotton and feed ‘em on porter- | houses, if I bad my way, 'nI wouldn't even hurt dere feelins if you'd pay me ter. 1 wish you’d just speak a gooa word fer me anny way.” - He gave me his name and address and extorted a promise that I would “think about it.” Iam thinking about it yet. FLORENCE MATHE: HOW THE COST OF LIVING The opening of the Mills Hotel in New | Yoik, which took place on October 27, strates the attention which is being vaid to the lowering of the cost of life among the common people. The Mills | Hotel will accommodate 1500 guests, all of whom must be men, being in this respect a contra to the A. 1. Stewart lodging- nhouse, which was intended exclusively for women, and a mod.ficition of the Pea- body lodging-houses in London, which are designed for families. Th 1500 guests will pav a unpiform 20 cents a night for their lodging; s will cost from 10 cents to 50 rat o | cents. The breakfast will be the unit, the calc on being that for 10 centsa whole- | some and suiflicient meal can be supplied, which may be duplicated at lunch. 1t is ved that & nutritious and ample din- ner can be furnished for 25 cents. Thus a man of limited means can live at the Mills Hotel wi for 65 cents in a day, otver words, for $1950 a n be comiortably lodged and s fed in a building constructed I attention to salubrity and comfort. This brings the contentments of life w 1 the range of a clerk receiv- ing a salary of §300 a year. This is a matter which deserves atten- tion and study from San Franciscans, be- cause the whick this city has grown up deprived its peaole of the apprenticeship which deni- zeus ol other cities have gone throuch in the struggie of life. To the founders of San Francisco money came so easily and in such profuse amounts that they were never tempted to siudy economy and fro- gality. Wages bave always been higher here than anywhbere el e, food has been cheap, a mild climate has minimized the necessary outlay for clothing. If these advantages were to last forever the San Francisco workman might continue to aismiss from bis mind thoughts of the cost of living; but it is becoming omi- nous!ly obvious that our peculiar advan- tages are likely to prove transitory. Food will probably remain as cheap asitis, and the workman will not need 1o spend for clothing more than half as much as his brother 1n the East. But the leveling process which is going on throughout the world must have a tendency te equalize adequate with spec exclusive of | veculiar circumstances under | = | of that problem Gail Nichols, with other | very far. | der the management of Miss Mary Very, a IS BEING REDUCED wages, and the time is approaching when the value of labor will not vary much with longitude. No serious attempt has yet been made | by our miil.onaires to work out a compre- hensive plan for the lowering of the cost of life to the working class. In his ex~! uberant moments the late Senator Fair | used to tell me that he contemplated | building an immense caravansary for workmen on his large lot on the corner of California and Powell; but the idea never took tangible shape in his mind. The college settlement founded in South San Francisco by James Reynolds, afier the model of Miss Jane Addams’ settlement in Chicago, is a step in the rizcht direction, though it does not go Itisnow partly or altogetherun- | lady of broad mind, thorougkly conver- sant with the problems of sociology and :mbued with noble instincts. Herinstitu- tion, liket e Samaratan Home which has been established by Rev. Mr. Kip, is do- ing good. It coacerns iiself with the minds as well as the bodies of working people, and is an oasis in a desert. The fundamental problem in the case is what is the minimum sum on which life can be sustained with due regard to health nd proper enjoyment? To the solution intelligent and energetic young men, is devoting enthusiastic industry and is testing the various theories by personal experiment. Four of them are co-operating. They have lived ina flat of six rooms and a bathroom for $16 3 month. Their allow- ance for food is $30 a month, distributed as follows: Milk $4, butter $4, bread $5, meat (beef or mutton) $5, bacon $1, fruit and vegetables $4, groceries $7. They allow $5 for gas fuel, which serves for warming and cooking. No allowance is made for laundry work, on which each may spend what he chooses, or may if he likes, boil his wwn shirt. Footing all these items together, the product is $51, or $12 75 per man. Oune of the four, however, con- tributes his share in labor, so that the expense of the jointestablishment falls on the other three, and amounts to $17 per head. This is $2 50 less than the estimated exvenditure of a resident of Mills’ hotel in New York. For this sum each of the four gets a breakfast of milk, mush and bread and butter; a lunch of bread and butter, fruit, baked potatoes or macaroni; a dinner of one meat dish, steak or ragout, potatoes and one other vegetable. Asa rule, milk is the only liquid consumed; but some- times cocoa is introduced by way of variety. All the meals are cooked in the flat. Each man makes his own bed, as at West Point. The non-paying member does the sweeping and cleans the windows. At a superficial glance the plan seems to be a reproduction of the phalansteries of Fourier and Brisbane, which were tried in this country at Brook Farm and Oneida; but it differs from these in the essential particular that the association merely covers the lodging and feeding of the as- sociates, and does not concern itself with their employments. Brook Farm broke down because its members undertook work to which they had not been trained and which they were unfit to accomplish. A novelist like Hawthorne or a journalist iike Dana was naturally a failure when he undertook to grow potatoes. Gail Nichols and his co-operators have nothing to do with the employments in which each may engage outside of the joint lodging. Their efforts are confined to demonstrating how young men of limited incomes can live decently and comfortably and save money by the use of a common purse. Cheap restaurants aim at the same re- sult, though by a different road. In this cily at the present time we have nothing which approaches Duval’s cheap restau- rants in Paris, but 1here several, such as the restaurant in the California Market, the Quaker Dairy, the Creamerie on Mar- ket street and others, where the calcula- tion is that a consumer can be fed for less than 50 cents a day. For this he gets a dinner of soun or salad, meat or fish, potatoes or other vegetables, bread and butter and a cup of coffee, 25 cents; a breskfast of mush and milk, bread and butter, 10 cents; and a lunch of fruit and bread and butter, or coffee and roils, 10 | cents. There are places where for 15 cents you can get an ample meal of coffee, fruit and bread and butter, or 2 meal of meat and potatoes with a cup of black } f:offee: and there are cheap eating-houses I in the side streets where they furnish a | Cux} of coffee with bread for 5 cents. | Even these prices are too high for the |-poorest paid working giris. They buy a 5-cent loaf and a 5-cent quart of milk, which serve them for two meals, making each meal cost 5 cents. They have not | vet reached the extreme economy of the aris ouvriere, who buys a l-cent loaf | and a 1-cent mug of milk and makes a hearty breakfast for 2 cents. So far as the women are concerned, this | auestion ot feeding nas moral as well as physical aspects. A young girl will not allow herself to starve to death if a smile will procuro her access to well-supplied tables. And with her, raiment is as per- emptory a necessity as food. Several years ago, it fell to my lot to probe this question of female labor in San Francisco, and I derived much instruction from the wise talk of Mrs. Bacon, who had made the subj:ct a life-study, and was a clear- headed and sagacious woman. She said that American-born girls were too proud to go out to service; that they would rather accept employment in a store or factory at §5a week than work in a pri- vate house for the same pay, with board and lodging thrown in. They wanted to be salesladies, not servants. *The conse- auence,”’ said Mrs. Bacon, ‘‘was that it was always with them an alternative whether to stint their back or their stomach.” In fact, girls who are workine for $2 or $5 a week must stint both, and it is amaz- ing under the circumstances that so few of them accept the helping hand which is stretcLed forth to succor them. Most of them bave found that they can fight the battle of life to more advantage il they share their room and their fortune with another girl. But two girls can bardly live for less mouey than twice one. The benefits of association can only be realized when it embraces several—half a dozen or a dozen. to house two girls will shelter four. Six girls can establish a mess like miners or soldiers, and the food which would be bought for three will satisfy the whole varty. When there are only two in the menege, cooking is often a bore, and the zirls go out to a restaurant, where, for the sake of economy, they eat 100 little 1o kesp them in health. Doctors say that working girls are generaily imperfectly nourished. When a party of werking girls under- take to live together the question of lodg- ing is always embarrassin-. In the Greater New York the eastern end of the Quarters which are required ! Borough of Bronx is 1o be set apart for the working class, and vast edifices, like the Mills Hotel, are to be constructed especially for clubs or communities of working women; the elevated railroads have agreed to carry them back and forth | from the borough to the hives of industry, | morning and evening, for a nominal sum. We have no such buildings here. In parts of the Mission and South San Fran- cisco rooms can be hired for $2 a month; but they are small, iil-lighted, ill-venti- lated and in a miserable neighborhood. A well-situated room, with a ray of sun- light for an hour or two, a few sticks of furniture and large enough for two girls, costs about §5 a month. To this must be added carfare, which will amouant for each lodger to $250 a month and will swell the rant, if there are two girls in the room, to §10 a month. Thus one-tourth of the income of the two giris is con- sumed by rent, leaving not much over $26 or $27 for food, washing, clothing, light and fire for two persons. The case would be different if ten girls associated themselves together to hire a cottage or small four-room house, which can be obtained in the Mission for §10 or §1250 a month. Such houses are not being frequently built now, but the new houses with modern improvements are causing the old houses to be vacatad, and very snug cottazes can be got for $12 50. By alternating, each girl taking her tarn in kitchen and laundry, the whole party would be independent of the restaurant and could iive well on a moderate sum. The essential articies of food — milk, bread, mush, macaroni, beans, the fore quarter of mutton and stewing pieces of beef—can be bouzht cheaply by one who knows how to market, and can be made palatable and nutritious by one who knows how to cook. In France, where dietetics have been carried to perfection, the main article of food Is soup, made of beef and vegetables, often without the beef. A French soldier speaks of dining as manger Ila soupe. In Boston restaurants have lately been started where they serve noth- ing but soup at 5 cents a piate—a plate is a dinner for a bricklayer. Here, where some kinds of fish and almost all veget- ables are very cheap, a chowder is made by cooks who possess the art. A bowl of it would have satisfied the hunger of Gar- gantua. Being Dblessed with a superfluity of vegetables, San Franciscans regard them with contempt. There are more vegetables thrown away out of the great [talian market than the city of Chemnitz con- sumes. I remember that once upon a time, when the cry of the unemployed pierced the ear of the humane, I feebly suggested that the waste of this market would fill many empty stomachs, where- upon I was denounced as a brutal pluto- crat who desired the poor to feed on gar- bage. Yet this garbage contained more starch, which is the true staff of life, than porterhouse steaks. Association among females who have or who choose to earn their own living is be- ing rapidly adopted in the East, and will some day be the fashion here. penniless, or girls who chafe at the re- straints of a parental home, are clubbing together as bachelor maids, and living economically by aividing the expenses of a household. Typewriters, cashiers, clerks, forewomen of stores, artists, actresses, tenchers and dressmakers can hire an | apartment for two or three, and make their incomes go much further than they would if disbursea singly. If their means allow, they can hire a Chinaman, and en- tertain; if their resources are more lim- ited, they can occupy a bedroom and par- lor, make their breakfast and lunch in their own rooms and dine at arestaurant | for 25 ot 50 cents. The result isequivaient to an increase of salary, and the material gain is sweetened by a feeling of perfect liberty. Time was when landlords would have given sucn bachelor maids the glassy eye. A man who did so now would be ssen to be behind the age, and would inspire his acquaintance 1o put the toe of a boot toa use for which it is admirably adapted. Economy is the lesson of the hour. The struggle tor existence is bound to become more and more desperate as the vears roll over. The army of workers all over the world is growing faster than the volume of work, and, though here and therea community mav barricade itseif against the competition of rivals, labor, like water, will in the long run flow into every hole that is left open. You can no more dam it ount than Mrs. Partington could check the flow of the Atlantic with her broom. Demagogues and fools fancy they can suspend the laws of nature and the laws of trade by empirical statutes, but there never was a law yet which could maintain the rate of wages when three men stepped forward to do the work thai had always been done by two. All over the world, but especially in this country, hard times and flush times ebb and flow with monotonous regularity. Before the war the merchant in New York brought up a family on $2000 a year, and had a York shilling lett to put in the plate at church, Presently the war came, and Girls left | the same merchant spent his §10,000 a year, and acted as if he had been 0 the manner born. The war ended, specie payments were resumed, wheat fell to 50 cents a bushel at tbe place of production, the supply of young men seeking empley- ment exceeded the supnly of piaces seeke ing occupants, and hard times came again with their old grim force. It wasa grind. Itis always a good deal pleasanter to ex: pand than to contract. A man can swell | his expenditure with a smiling face, but when he finds that he must cut down his expenses he tastes the bitterness of des- tiny, and if his head is not quite level he is apt to impute his enforced economy to the demonetizaiion of siver, or some other rot. We in San Francisco were born wita a silver spoon in our mouths and we de- cidedly object to taking 1t out. It is not 80 very long since the carpenters and painters got their §5 a day, and gentiemen smoked 50-cent cigars, and the normal price of a drink was a quarter. 1Itis hard to convince ourseives that this was an ex- ceptional state of things; that we were taking a flight into the blue empyrean, and that sooner or later we were bound to come down to the ground. Yet why should we suppose that providence has conferred upon us especial privileges which it has denied to other branches of our race? Germany is a pretty good country to live in; but there a graf or a baron thinks himself well off when he has $600 a year, and he lives and smiles and struts on his 1 $12 a week, as if ior himn fortune had nothing more 1n his gifi. At Beriin thare are nochgeborne prin ce- lings who make a fine show in the Unter den Linden on less money thana grip- man on a cable-car gets nere. Of course in the privacy of home liie they adjust their expenditure to their income. Tuey eat the beef which has been boiled in the soup. Tuey limit their outiay for beer to a kreuizer. They wear a suit ot clothes for a year or more. They inhabit a smail cramped flat on the thira story of a house wuich was built in the time of Luther, They smoke cheap tobacco in a cheap china pipe or those German cigars at four for 1 cent. But they are jolly and happy and, if it may be said without risk to life or Limb, they often know so much more of science and art and music and political economy and the law of life than the aver- age American that when a comparison is instituted the laiter feels like crawiing un- der the table, JoHN BoNNER. Railway —tramfluugary costs about 1d Ior three miles. \