The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 2, 1898, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY ) - 1898. 21 WILL TRY ASTONISHES DOCTORS WITH HIS LEARNING. WILLIE GWIN, The: Pihengmenal Five-Year-Oild Boy Who Holds a Ceriificate of Ana‘omy in ’ £ S:veral Medic:l Colleges. ITTLE. Willie Gwin of Chicago is the only child who holds a certifica of-proficiency in anatom 's of recognized medical colleges ly little tot 5 year ge and no taller than a table, thi is perfectly fa i with the human skeleton and the work of the dissecting- ro0m. ki, . ed nearly every capital operation known to sur- | ECrY-in the New lle, New Orleans and Chicago hospitals. | The youn rvel of precocity, and knows every bone in the | huniik body- as well as does a medical student at his final examination. That | is"npt He can tell you with equal ease and accuracy everything that is to b kninén ‘ahout- the heart structure and its complex functions, so that, were it not-for the sweét little face and the fresh, childish smile that illuminates h bright features; and the childish prattle that follows on the heels of his Wisdom, one might imagine him a little automaton of anatomical wisdom. Little Willie Gwin has been in Chicago about a year. His father, Howell Gwin, M.D., of 206 Wentworth avenue, is a physician, who about that tiriré located there. To his professional brethren in Chicago he introduced the it -and -Surptiséd them.on veral occasions by asking them to question the child about the @natomy of the human body. It was then the little rellow became a propounced sensation, for he made his wise questioners and hearer ¢pen their, eyes and marvel, that so 'small a head could carry and accurate I all abeut ostealogy, and, -in fact,"about the various systems of the human « He is already the.talk of meiial circles. He was quizzed by Dr. E. Fletchér Ingalls, Dr. Rhodes, Dr. Arthur, and Ivean Beaven, professor of anatomy af the Rush Medical, and displayed such cnomenal familiarity, acciracy and\readiness with the subject that Dis. E induced the father to have the little fellow appear before Alumni As$ociation of the Rush Medical, which met at the college hall. Willie Gwin has two certificates in anatomy. One was given him by Pro- fossor Edmond Souchon of the chair of anatomy, Tulane University, New Or- and Rhod, leans.” Professor Souchon examined the ¢hild and certifies that he found him the most thorough anatomist of his age in osteology and conformation of the heart. I e | | mania. OLDRIEVE AS HE WILL LOOK IN'HIS WATER EOOTS WHEN HE STARTS TO WALK ACROSS THE ATLANTIC OCEAN. - HERE is one variety of crime which most certainly does not flourish here. The professional op lifters, the bane of all re- stores in other large cities, are unknown in San Francisco. are idently not indigenous to climate, and the few representa- of th special department of arious industry who have visited have done so at rare intervals and brief ms. e our for Our merchants do occasionally suffer from the small depredations of dis- honest persons, but almost all the cases of shop lifting which occur in our stores are the bungling work of suddenly tempted persons who, trust- ing to the apparent preoccupation of th round them, yield to an irre- impulse to appropriate some stible is seemingly unprotected. An instance of this kind poraneous thieving occurred of extem- in one of our large Market-street stores a day or two since, when a young man of previously excellent reputation, well dressed and decorated with a genuine diamond ring and ecravat pin, with over $15 in his pocket, and holding a position paying him $100 a month, was | seen to deliberately steal a package of lady’s face powder and conceal it in his overcoat pocket. He had not been drinking and he | i eant have been found to contain de- appeared to be perfectly sane, and his only remark when he was forced to acknowledge his guilt “didn’t know why he took the thing, but he did.” To this class, too. belong the here- | tofore respectable and upright women who suddenly horrify their friends and disgrace their families by being caught in the act of taking articles which do not belong to them. There is generally some small shadow of ex- cuse in the charitable mind for these offenders, since the petty crime—petty in all save its consequences—is usu- ally the result of a starved life. A woman who. has little money to spend, and perhaps many to spend that little for. may have a longing for luxurious trifles of silk and lace and ribbon which amounts almost to a To such a person the tempta- tion of tables and counters and bas kets, full to overflowing of the things of which circumstances sternly de- prive her, is actually cruel, and the wonder is not that an occasional irl or woman takes advantage of what scems to her an opportunity to se- cure some of the things which she so hungrily covets. but that so many resist the temptation and preserve their integrity in such surroundings. T'nhappily, the first theft if unde- tected emboldens the offender to make further raids on the property of others. Having eluded obseérvation once the feat seems easy and the results desira- ble, and the next pilfering is the out- come of plan and not of impulse. Wo- men of this description are unpleasing- ly numerous and cause our merchants and their employes no little trouble, the actual arrests made bearing but small proportion to the number of cases where, for many reasons, mercy has was that he | | | walk. PROF WO men on the Eastern sea- board have planned to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a novel man- ner—one will sail in a new four- teen-foot boat and the other will Captain William C. Old- of Boston has planned to acros the an next July. will begin h journey ° July and be accompanied by Captain rieve walk He 4, TO WALK ACROSS " THE W.OLDREIVE WHO WILL ATTEMPT TO WALK ACRoSS William A. Andrews, famous by reason | of his voyvages across the Atlantic in a small boat. It is nothing new for Cap- | tain Oldrieve to promenade the waves. | That has been his pleasure and profit | | these ten years. The seagoing shoes of Mr. Oldrieve are the most wonderful part of the whole affair. At first thought they seem as fabulous ¢ six-le b of fairy lore. Yet they are enough when understood. They are really a pair of cedar boxes five feet long, with fins on the bottem and side They are very light and capable of sustaining 140 pounds, but Oldrieve weighs only 130 they are good to him a steamer’s deck. a Into each of these wooden shoes the water-walker's feet are thrust down deep and a rubber garter-like affair is fastened to his leg, thus effectually keeping out the water. Rubber boots reaching to the thigh are also worn. When thus equipped Oldrieve is able to waik many miles and to travel over chopp and even the heavy swell of the “I have perfect confidence of being able to walk a great part of the dis- tance across the Atlantic. I shall keep an exact record of the miles walked ans each d Of course, I shall sleep and take my meals on board with Captain Andrews. But I shall stick to the water-walking feat during most of my waking hours. You see I want to make a world’s record that shall never be beaten. I am young and strong and in the very best of conditicn, and now is the time for me to attempt this great thing, if I ever do. I have had it in mind for years.” William C. Oldrieve is a sturdily built young man of 29 years. He but five feet four inches in height and weighs 130 pounds. Every pound of that. however, is hard muscle and bone. His strength been devel- oped..too, in actual walking on the water, which he has been doing since | 1887. In November, 1588, he walked | Mass. T WiLEowiNwiol INGENIOUS TRICKS OF SHOPLIFTERS. down the Hudson River to New York City from Albany, a distance of 160 miles. A week later he walked across the choppy River. In Januar: 1889, he walked through Hunts Falls, on the Merrimac River, at Lowell, In February, 1890, he is ! walked i | to Boston Light. through Lawrence Rapids, on the Mer- rimac. In December, 1891, he walked to Minot's Light from Boston, and then started to walk back, a distance of twenty miles, but a thick fog having set in. he lost his way and drifted in Massachusetts Bay for twenty-seven hours. He was picked up in an ex- hausted condition by the United States revenue cutter Hamlin. In June, 1892, he walked across the Niagara River, three miles above the falls. On one of the coldest da the .winter in January, 1896, he a walked from Boston down the harbor Amid floating ice he performed his nine-mile walk with comparative ease. Captain Oldrieve had the idea of walking across the ocean forced upon him. A few years ago he gave an ex- hibition of his water walking off Pablo Beach, Fla. A sqguall came up and he was driven out to sea. A surfboat was manned and the crew put out to his rescue, but the surf was so high that the boat was capsized. The m shoes of Captain Oldrieve served him to great purpose then. To those anxiously watching him from the shore he seemed to step from the top ©f one wave to another, as if leaping from one rock to another. In this hop, Kip and j as d 3 p manner he came ashore s if the whole performance were a stage scene set for the occasion. It was this successful experience that first gave him the idea that he could walk across the ocean. His theory of midocean walking is to slide down the side of a big swell and wait for the next one to lift him up. In this way, he says, it really requires less exertion to walk on water far out at sea than it does in a sheltered bay. The hardest work of all, he says, is to o in choppy water, as he did in the East River. He thinks he will be able to walk from 500 to 1000 miles of the way across the Atlantic in a period of forty to ninety days. As the course taken will be in the path of steam- ships, he expects to speak many pass- ing vessels and send back letters writ- ten while walking in midocean to his friends in Boston. Captain William A. Andrews, who is going to accompany Oldrieve in a small boat, is a hardy, wiry man of 54. He is about six feet in height and weighs 180 pounds. He is inured to in doing something adventurous and out of the ordinary. After having ac- complished his proposed trip he in- tends to exhibit the boat in which he crosses the Atlantic at the Paris Ex- | position of 1900. | are cheering me, and | pleasant little diversion on the voyage. hardship, and his greatest pleasure is | ATLANTIC OCEAN. ONE. OFHIs WS?AP}&N;R\“" S wfiov&u\, ACGOYME‘“?" = PROF. OLDREIVE ACROSY THE ATLANTIC INHIS BOAT “THE PHANTOM SHIP" He ~xpects to make | won't get me. a patriotic start on July 4 next splendidly. This keeps me feeling Every man has his specialty these | “At first T shall put right out into days,” said Captain Andrews at his | the Gulf Stream. This will keep both pretty home in Cambridge, Mass., the | Oldrieve and myself warm and help other day, “and my specialty is in |us along a mile an hour, at least. crossing the ocean in small boat 1 shall get acr all right this time, if the Lord is willing—and he will be “I make one observation a day, at noon, by the sun, to get my latitude, and I rely on passing vessels for my more willing than ever before, because | longitude. I can keep that in mind I shall take more precautions. I am |pretty well for days at a time, because now going to begin to build .with my | I can tell about how fast I am sailing. cwn hands the finest little boat that a man ever sailed in, to be called the Phantom Ship. It will be fourteen feet long and five feet beam, flat bottomed and square sided. I shall make it of | half-inch spruce covered with canv | legs for getting most of the - way made to fold up four inches thick. I | acros: can then carry it under my arm and anywhere T want to go check it like baggage. I make it in this way so that I can travel and exhibit it at small cost after I have made the trip. That is how I make my expenses in travel- ing around the world. 1 shall act as father to young Oldrieve on this voyage. 1 will go ahead and show him the way and take _him aboard at night and during storms; but he has got to depend on his own —_————————— REMARKABLE INVENTIONS. Some of the inventions recently pa< tented in Washington are as eccentric as they are ingenious. An odd if use- ful invention consis “My boat will carry fifteen square s of a frame from vards of working sails. It will be | Which corks are suspended by means: oop rigged, with mainsail, topsail | Of strings. As.the hour for waking nd jib. The mainsail and topsail are | draws near this framework is grad bent together. I can carry all my sail in a squall or T can drop it all in a second, as I work it with one halyard and a single bloc! “There will be 330 pounds of lead in the keel. I shall put in a flat deck and five compartments, one on each side for grub, two at the ends for clothes, and another for instruments, a quad- rant and a sextant. We shall carry our clothes in water-tight tin case boxes. “I shall carry a three months’ sup- ply of food : everything canned, there will be no need of cooking. There will be canned chicken, beef and beans, oyster crackers for bread and dried prunes to chew for dessert. I never cook even tea or coffee on my trips. - 1 drink simply water, which I carry in bottles. As fast as the bottles are empty 1 write a message, put it in | them and throw them overboard. “I shall carry fifty yacht cannon ss lutes to scare off whales and sharks. After speaking a steamship I fire a parting salute ‘while the passengers this makes a ally lowered over the heads of sleepers. until, as the hour strikes, the corks - perform a tattoo on tmne noses and - faces of the sleepers until they awake: Another invention enables the farmer: to feed his horses and cattle in theif.: stables without leaving his bed. - He simply pulls a cord, dangling at -the head of his bed, and forthwith valves . are opened and the proper allowance | of fodder falls into the troughs. The burglar-alarm is sufficiently in=": genious to deserve success. AS . SOOT s the would-be burglar steps on- the mat in front of the safe or strongrooii, his weight closes an electric circuit,” a: flashlight is ignited, the cap removed from a cameta, and the burglar's pho- tograph taken without charge, for use | as evidence against him. A really sensible and useful inven: tion is one which dispenses with. tha ponderous and expensive machinery in use for tower-clocks, such as the clock at Westminster. The time-keeping.is done by'a small master-clock, which is electrically connected with motors:in the tower. so | These motors move the giant hands and strike the hours by means of - & “make and break” mechanism in.the “I take my sleep quite regularly at night, for the squalls in the summer | usually occur in the daytime. When | the wind goes down during the day I | master-clock, which may be take a plunge into the water and |enough to be carried to the clockm been extended to pe the first time in the act of purloining small articies. Where arrests have been made the goods taken have been of value, or investigation has shown that deliberate preparations have been made for the carrying away of pros- pective plunder. The golf or “long cape” has proved itself a great help to dishonest shop- pe and a great nuisance to shop- keepers. Its width and length admit of many things being slipped under it, | and when it is lingd and a slit is made trifie which lies conveniently near and | in the. lining in both sides near the front, an “all around” pocket is se- cured, in which enough articles of small size and comparatively large value can be concealed to make a putative shop- ing expedition almost as remunera- Sn'e as were the cr es of the sturdy buccaneers of old. Satchels with the linings cut just at the top edge are also convenient, and can be opened and their interiors ex- posed to the view of suspicious eye if necessary, while inside the lining var- jous bits of desirable property lie un- seen. 5 It is a sad commentary on warped human nature to know that the harm- less and necessary baby is quite often used to help defraud vur stores. The long cloak and skirts of an innocent posits of ribbons, laces, gloves and jewelry, placed there under a clerk’s very eyes during the processes of tuck- ing and cuddling which are supposed to be necessary to the well being of the babe in arms. There is one woman who went shop- ping during the last Christmastide ac- companied by a little child about 6 years of age. This child while her mother was busy pricing articles in dif- ferent establishments made herself equally busy in picking up whatever | came. conveniently to hand and placing it for safekeeping under her coat. She was caught doing this several times and the property which she supposediy took in infantile innocence of heart was taken away from her. But in each case it was found that she had been attracted not to toys but by things of real value, and it was quite evident by the bearing of her companion that the poor little thing was actually “acting under instructions” in the matter. One young woman from the country recently made the rounds of some of the stores with a large telescope bas- ket, which she filled to the brim with stolen treasures hefore she was stopped in her career. She also wore a golf cape, and between the outside and the lining she had a $10 ostrich feather boa, besides a few other articles for luxur- ious feminine adornment. The culprit last arrested wore a large wide-mouthed canvas bag in place of a bustle, but as she wore it on the out- side of her dress under her concealing cape (the golf cape again) and there was a bottle of cologne and a number of yards of ribbon in it, which she had not gone through the formality of pay- ing for, the eccentricity seemed scarce- ly pardonable. She tried to explain ons detected for | matters by she was dressed in her best she had been engaged in washing, and taking a fancy to go down town after she had put her clothes out had inadvert- ently taken her clothespin bag, which she always wore in that peculiar place, “for convenience,” along with her. And as for the cologne and the ribbon she was sure she “didn’t know at all how they came there, unless by magic.” But these women with a mania for “unconsciously picking up things” in stores are always ready with simple excuses for their extraordinary con- duct. LUCKY GUESS OF A LOVER. With a gesture expressive of firm resolution, as if the affair were quite settled, the Countess Madeline pointed to her lacquered Japanese cabinet that shimmered in the lamplight and said, very gravely: “Open one of those three drawers, Valentine, and be sure that you choose | Each drawer contains | the right one. an answer to the prayer which you have addressed to me for the past six months. If you open that which con- tains the answer ‘Yes,” I will be yours and will marry you as soon as you please. But take care that you do not get the wrong answer, for if you do you will never see me again.” “Alas!” said Valentine, ‘‘there are two chances to one against me. How cruel you are, my darling!" “Well,” said the Countess, “if I marry you I can at least lay the blame on Fate.” The young man hesitated a long time. His hand wandered from draw- er to drawer, not venturing to touch any, and his heart sank with the fear of choosing wrongly. At last he shut his eyes and opened a drawer at hazard. Oh, rapture! the little piece of pink paper, when unfolded, disclosed to his glad eyes the exquisite word “Yes.” In ecstasy he clasped the blushing Made- | line in his arms and covered her face with kisses. She could not deny him now without a disgraceful violation of her promise. But Madeline was an up- right person who always Kept her word, and so he was soon able to call her his wife. Still, even amid the raptures of the ‘honeymoon, Valentine was not entirely happy. At times a gloomy expression appeared on his brow and in his eyes. “Ungrateful man!” sighed Madeline, “you are not yet satisfied. What is the matter?” “I am troubled about something.” “About what?"” X “I owe my wife to chance, not to her own inclination.” He remained pensive for a time, while she looked smilingly at him. Suddenly she broke into a merry laugh. “Stupid man!” she cried. “Don’'t you see that 1 put ‘th same answer in all three drawers? —_——— Doulton teapots, sugar-bowls and creamers, in cased sets, are convenient for presentation purposes. asserting that although climb right back again, so sharks | for any necessary repairs. oo e—y LITTLE BYRON GILBERT, WHO HAS BEEN ADMIT FED PO THE \BAR: BYRON GILBERT, A Seven-Ycar-Old Boy Who Has Successfully Passed an Examination Before:the Kansas Supreme Court. HE youngest lawyer in the world.is Byron Howse Gilbert of Atchison, Kan. At the tender age of 7 he has successfully passed a rigid examina- tion before the Supreme Court Justices, and is the proud possessor, of = certificate of admission to the bar, to také effect when he shall reach his ma- Jority. The precious document, to which is attached an immense golden seal, is guarded with the most jealous care by the infantile -barrister. Little Byron is a son of Judge W. D. Gilbert, who astonished. the learned jurors the other day by leading the boy before the Judges of the Supreme Court and requesting that he be examined for admission. They all took the proposition as a joke, but Chief Justice Doster fired a simple question at him, and he answered it so promptly and with such a confident air that the Justices were startled. 4 3 By degrees more profound legal subjects were led up to. For about an hour the boy withstood a cross fire of the most technical .and perplexing ques- tions from all three Supreme Judges. His ready and correct answers caused the greatest surprise. Time after time did the Justices endeavor to trap the boy lawyer, but every such effcrt was futile. Not only did the questions em- brace fundamental law, as treated by Blackstone and Cooley and as made by the general trend of decisions, but they also covered the technique of the law practice. The boy was asked how he would handle different classes of cases, being given statements of facts. Either by intuition or actual knowledge he seemed to readily or clearly grasp the case, and his idea regarding the propér mode «f procedure was in every instance concurred in, not only by the Judges but by the lawyers present. His judgment, as well as his knowledge of law, seemed infallible. By a unanimous court the boy lawyer was granted a certifi- cate of admission to the bar, which was duly drawn up by the clerk of the court.