The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 30, 1898, Page 19

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JANUARY 30, 1898 HERE is a man in New York | who wakes up $41,095 richer every morning than he was when he arose the day before. If he stops on the corner and waits for a street car he knows that for ev- ery minute he stands there his fortune is running up $28 60. He doesn’t have to stand by and give it a boost. It sim- ply climbs itself, and it climbs day and night pretty much as Jack’s bean stalk did Spending this enormous income doesn’t trouble this modern Croesus here nedr as much as taking good it. How much this man is real- th nobody knows exactly. Very he doesn’t know himself. When a fortune tops the $20,000,000 mark it requires a deal of time and pa- tience to figure out the exact valuation of the schedule of assets. When the £ said to be about $200,000,000, at chance there is to name the gures in cents. In round num- - is exact bers, then, $200,000,000 is the estimate that experts put on the fortune of John kefeller, the Standard Oil ma If this estin is within ten ions of the mark it's fairly close ering the way certain stock val- aes ictuate nc K The tabulated income of this twen- tieth century Midas has been figurec American old, has busine lives and acts | ordinary business ipt of a good round ps climbing twenty years the $500,000,000 | if they conver , may ‘live to s for goal of the billion dollar 2 plain ily its MONTEREY HAD THE ! GOLD. FEVER. effective though not the first i in California, to the diggings, 1d the wonderful are mong the ed by that observant eve- Walter Colton, the first | rgyman, judge and editor " The following typical about the gold rush are ) his diary of fifty years | —Our town (Monterey) | f its drea to-day by | that gold had been American Fork. The | alked and the women lieved. wother report reached from the American that several work- ST ed it the genuine incredulity re- | e 20—My messenger sent has returned witn speci- the gold. He dismounted in a of upturned faces. As he drew forth ellow lumps from "his pockets and ed them around among the eager wd the doubts, which had lingered | now, fled. All admitted they were { ne old man, who still per- nkee invention, people to the excitement produced \d many were soon busy preparations for a de- > for the mines. The family who ad Kept house for me caught the mov- g infection. Husband and wife were th packing up. The blacksmith dropped carpenter his plane, his trowel, the farmer his baker his loaf, and the tapster All were off for the mines— some on horses, some on cart some on crutches, and one went in a litte merican woman_ who had nt a "boarding-house here and was off before en time to pay tors ran, of course. 1 havi ty of women left and a gang of ith here and there a soldier, | give his captain the slip at the | irst chance. N aturday. July 15—The gold fever has ached every servant in Monterey. his the e ¥ickie, © his bottle. hammer, B ittempting to drive fish into a an before them. Gen- and | a house | aratus requisite, after espair. thought would | us from laziness if for no other -, Tan last night, and this morning we had to take to our_own breakfast. A general of the United States army, the commander of a mar f-war and the Alcalde of Monterey in a smoking kitch- 1, grinding coffee, toasting herring and i ! These gold mines are t all the domestic arrange- /, turning the head to for the fortieth time the kitchen and co 3 < ments of soci the tail and the tail to the head. Tuesday, July 1S—Another bag of gold from the mines and another spasm in the community. It was brought down by a ailor from Yuba River, and contains 134 | It is the most beautiful gold that | ared in the market; it looks like | the vi v scalés of a dolphin passing | through his rainbow hues at death. My | i work on the schoolhouse, w down their saws and | d their picks and are off | seamen ran away from rfeiting their four years' pay, and a whole platoon of soldiers from the fort left only their colors behind. w . August 16—Four citizens of lonterey are just in from the gold mines on Feather River, where they worked in company with three others.” They em- ployed about thirty wild Indians, who are | attached to the rancho gwned by one of | the party. They worke precisely seven | weeks and three days, and have divided | 6! Off on the Glock Earns Him Nearly Fifty Gents. | ognize this tall man of Pennsylvania | Dutch descent, whose face shows the | heavy lines and prominent nose that | are characteristic of that ancestry, as he walks up the best known thorough- fare in America. Yet he is by common | consent the richest man on this conti- | nent and one.of the four richest in the world. He controls the doings of a veritable army of men, fixes the price of such staples as oil and iron, manip- \ ,\)\\ T MORNING ORIVE INCOME UP 70 $1500 .. 3/_\“i'l AT BREAKFAST TIME, INCOME REACHES #1.284 AWAKENED AFTER A THREE YEAR ulates sugar and natural gas commod- | itles, changes freight rates and steam- | ship fares, builds universities, immo- lates rivals of the most potential sort all over the world, including com- binations of men and millions that have tacit state aid abroad, owns pal- | aces In the metropolis, Cleveland, Ohio, and up the Hudson, steam yachts cost- | ing a fortune to construct and another | | fortune to maintain, horses ad libitum, | a private outdoor skating rink next | door to his residence on a fash- ionable street, private swimming pools, race courses, golf links, tennis courts, Turkish baths in his home with mas- sage attendants—all like a veritable prince of the realm. Yet so quiet, so exclusive, so abhorrent of no- | - — L TNOTING MORNING MAIL INCOME CLimBS T0$4362. HE IS WORTH $200,000,000. toriety is he that not one of the hun- dreds of thousands who know his name knows the man. He is wholly unassuming in dress and manner—alm: sepulchral—and always speaks in low, well-modulated tones. His close-cropped hair reveals a head of the bullet mold; his well- kept hands show Strength and -ca Among his intimates, although they are very few comparatively, he is cor- dial; among business acquaintances firm, self-reliant, resourceful, domi- nant. No jewelry to speak of, the plainest of plain dark cravats, neatly polished shoes, a black derby hat, set | & little back from the high, broad fore- head, and drooping eyelids, along in a determined way, neither fast nor slow. His vast pos ons no man can reckon except in the most general He strides way. One reason why no one, not even I 4 4 AT LUNCHEON ™~ | | IncomE ROVNDS THE] $6075 MARK. HERE'S A MAN WHO EARNS $23.60 EVERY MINUTE. Every Secand That Is Ticked His Immense Fortune Is Piling Up at the Rate of About $12,000,000 a Year. | Midas himself, can tell how much he is worth is because of the fluctuations of his various stocks. For instance, last May sugar jumped to 300, making $40,- 000,000 profit in three months. The ofl men—meaning the Rockefellers prin- cipally—had been getting into sugar, buying out the Havemeyer Interests after Theodore Havemeyer died, so it is fair to assume that most of the tre- mendous profit went into the pockets of William and John D. Rockefeller. The daily life of this man of many millions is as regular as clockwork. He rises at 6:45 a. m. A few minutes later his barber taps on the door, and in fif- | teen minutes pockets 15 cents for the | Pay | shave. A rule of Rockefeller is: a fair price to everybody; be just, but |LEAVING T | | | ! F‘IIISI‘!N& OFFICE WORK, 189,510 INCOME don’t let anybody overcharge you sim- ply because you can afford to pay. When the shave is completed Mr. Rockefeller knows his daily income has passed the $477 10 mark. Then he breakfasts, breakfasts plain- 1y on a chop and potatos, as plain, but better served, as those munched by his thousand and one clerks. . If the morning is pleasant one or two of his daughters accompany him on the drive in Central Park. He goes a bracing pace till 10 a. m., when he is off G e OFFICE| INCOME (R2ADY For BinneR /AN THE DAYS (NCOME. 16,359, Strange condition into which William Gipp, 20 years old, fell after murdering his mother and shooting his father. o overcoat. His mother left her bed to ad- mit him, and when he had the coat and was going she followed him into the kitchen, intending to lock the door aft- er him. loving, Then, behind him, s worked abnormall; Up to that moment he was the Iwart son. > kitchen in brain hen a well o dered machine ved by a d fectiveboltorcog. Suddenly he turned, drawing a_ pistol, and without a word shot her through the head. So suddenly was it done that the woman THE DOCTORS RAN TO THE COT WHEN THEY SAW HE HAD AWAKENED AFTER HIS THREE YEARS' SLEEP. ILLIAM GIPP of Buffalo . was practically dead for more than three years, and when he awoke the other day from the long dreamless sleep which was so near an approach to dissolution memory brought back to him no suggestion of the terrible day when he murdered his mother, shot his father and became a child, a simple child, who had lost his hat, and was crying because he could not find it. . “Willie” Gipp was 20 years old when something in- his brain went wrong, three years ago, and when he awoke on January 8 he believed he was only 20 still. As far as can be learned there is no taint of insanity or epilepsy in the fam- ily. Well reared by loving parents, the boy, when he was grown, obtained em- ployment as a car inspector for the Le- high Valley Railroad. He worked hard and steadily, and assisted in support- ing the home which he shared with his parents. But the boy of 20 fell in love with Miss Mary Drews, who was 23. There was some talk at home about his being too young to devote serious attention to a woman, but the boy was deter- mined to marry, and knowing his pa- rents thought he was too young he an- ticipated trcuble when he told them of his decision. The matter weighed upon his mind. He was firmly decided to marry, but he feared the consequences of announc- ing it to his parents. 2 It stood thus when he went to his work on November 1, 1894." It was cold, and at 1 o'clock on the following morn- ing he told his companions that he would go home and get his heavy was dead before she could scream at the horror of reading murder on her boy’s face. The report of the pistol brought the father to the kitchen. His son stood above the mother’s body, pistol in hand. One glance and the elder Gipp ran straight at the pistol. The maniac's aim was true, and a bullet penetrated the father’s cheek, but he closed and seized the weapon. . There was a brief struggle, in which the young man lost the pistol. Then he dashed through the Kitchen door, scaled a fence and ‘was gone in the darkness. The father gave the alarm and the city was searched, the police by hun- dreds looking for a desperate murderer. They found, after twenty-four hours, a forlorn human beine crouching in a barn, a man in frame, a child in intel- lect. Murder frenzy, fear, childishness —these had come in turn as the poor wrecked brain worked on like a crip- pled engine. “T've lost my hat,” he said, piteously, as they rushed upon him: “Please find it for me.” And he fell to mumbling incoherently, The expression on his face was that of a troubled child. Later it became less intelligent. The lines which made the face seem firmly molded appeared to relax and to give the effect of nabbiness. In the face there was no trice of hor- ror at any time, only one of trouble and bewilderment. “Willie” Gipp ex- isted no longer. e Some mental derangement had slain him before he killed his mother. In law, there was no one to expiate the crime, so they moved the helpless creature to the State Hospital for the Insane and waited for him to die. They who wonder about the soul may wonder about -the immortal part of Gipp during the long trance which was 8o like the sleep of death in its destruc- tion of memory and unconsciousness of surroundings. From the moment of his apprehension he relapsed quickly into coma, as one who is utterly weary and must rest. They lifted him into a cot as if he had been a patient under ether, and thenceforward volition seemed to have left him forever. He never spoke. He never moved, except when the attend- ants forced him to and guided his limbs. For perhaps half of the time he lay on his back, his eyes fixed upon the ceiling, but with vacant gaze. A child would have follesved with his eyes the strategic marchings of flies upon that ceiling, vaguely, but consclously. Gipp, it seemed, saw nothing—certain- 1y not the kitchen of his home, from which they had carried out his mother. No; he had forgotten even the hat he lost when he became a child that day. ‘Wonderful as it appeared to the doc- tors, who expected that he would waste away and die, he neither lost nor gained weight. Physically he remained what he was when they carried him to his cot. In the matter of food he swal- lowed what was placed In his mouth and ceased to swallow when they put in no more. That he had any feeling in the matter no one could say. Some who saw him held the theory that his sense of motion and speech was chained, but that he was aware of all that passed about him, remem- bered the killing of his mother and lay there day after day, month after month, going over and over the ter- rible events, unable to do anything but think. This the doctors said was not possible under the circumstances. He did not think at all, they said, his con- dition being one of anesthesia, due to shock. On January 8, last, three years and two months after the tragedy, “Wil- lie” Gipp awoke. The brain for a time almost readjusted itself into the per- fect machine it had been before his crime. . An attendant busy in the dormitory at 5 o'clock in the morning heard an unexpected noise behind him and, turn- ing suddenly, saw Gipp walking toward him. His face wore a bewildered ex- pression. His hands ran through his hair and rubbed his eyes. His glance swept the room wonderingly, as one never seen before. T The attendant gazed at him in won- der and fear, he was so like one risen from the dead. The boy's eyes fixed themselves upon the nurse’s face, and S Gl EEP he said in a low, hesitating tone, as one unused to speech: “Where am I?” The attendant ‘made no reply, but ran in search of Drs. Frost and Bow- erntan. All three returned in a minute and found Gipp walking about the room, examining its contents with in- terest. The physicians led him to his cot and seated him upon it. “Do you know where you are?”’ a doctor asked. “No; but I guess I am sick,” he re- plied. “What is your name?” Rubbing his head as if to refresh his memory, Gipp looked at the doctors for a few seconds and then replied, “Willle Gipp.” “‘How old are you, Willie?"" “Why,” he said, “I'm twenty.” He appeared to wonder why they should ask him these things, and vet he had difficulty in finding a reply. He is twenty-three, but his mind had taken up life some time before the tragedy when he was twenty—before the sequence of events In his life was broken by the brain lesion which made him an insane matricide. Again he dropped off to sleep. The physicians issued orders that no one should disturb him or attempt to test his memory further lest what nature herself had done and the hope built upon the momentary lifting of the cloud be destroyed by untimely inter- ference. But on January 10 the doctors thought it well to admit the boy’s anx- ious sister, Gussle, and she was al- lowed to go to his bedside. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, in complete apathy. “Willie!” the.girl said, eagerly. He looked at her, but in his eyes there was no gleam of recognition. “Don’t you know me, Willle?” asked, brokenly. He did not know her, and the fact seemed to trouble him: He searched her face long and sadly with question- ing eyes. Then he shock his head. “I am your sister, Gussie,” she said. “I am your sister,” he repeated, mo- notonously, as a child repeating part of a lesson beyond its comprehension. He could talk, but memory had fled again. His father and brother came, but he did not know them. To the rel- atives the physicians said they could net decide for a week or more whether there was a chance of permanent recov- ery. Medical men have been keenly inter- ested in the case. What puzzled them most is the prolongation of the state of anesthesia, for it was their belief that the boy would recover complete consciousness or die in a few months. Dr. William C. Krauss, an eminent alienist, who has watched this case with interest, said of it: “Gipp was undoubtedly insane when he killed his mother. It was a sudden seizure, prob- ably brought about by worry over the interference he expected from his pa- rents in the marriage upon which he proposed to enter. “He passed from the violent state into anesthesia, a condition usually due to some injury or great shock. The shock may have been a momentary re- alization of his crime. That would be sufficient to throw him into the condi- tion in which he has existed ever since. “I think it is questionable whether he will ever recover control of his facul- tles, and he seems to be relapsing into a state of coma once more.” she to his downtown office. walks for the exercise. Once seated at his office desk ha plunges into work, the work of making his giant income pile up faster. At 1 o’clock he trots out to luncheon and eats with a zest that shows he has enjoyed his morning's work. Well might he, for his income has been romping skyward the while. Then comes more office work till 3:30 p. m., when the multi-millionaire is helped on with his top coat and starts to walk home if the weather is pleas- ant. Dinner is announced at 7 o’clock. Not a drop of any alcoholic liquid is served, for the family is rigidly opposed to wina and every sort of intoxicating drink. Only a plain dinner is had, cousisting perhaps of oysters, soup, a roast, vege- tables and pudding, with coffee and Very often ha | iced water. It is 8 o'clock when the family risa and go into the drawing-room. There are four pianos in the house, for Mr. | Rockefeller is fond of music, and no one could charge him with extrava- gance even if he had a piano in every room, and an organ, too. After his daughters have played several classical selections Mr. Rockefeller will take up his violin. He is no mean performer, though he makes no pretense of being a finished musician, and before one is aware of it the clock in the library has tinkled 10 on its sweet cathedral chimes. This is bedtime. The mem- bers of the household bid one another an affectionate good-night and retire to their several rooms. Each year Rockefeller gives most- generously to the poor, to the cause of education and so forth; dissipates enormous sums in maintaining and im- proving his estates, enlarging his vast business enterprises and so forth; yet | the golden stream rushes on, threaten- ing to encompass him, a veritable gla- cier, imperious, overawing omnipo- tent. “God gives me wealth’” he says. Then he adds, “Wealth does not bring happiness, for many reasons.” Then men whose fortunes have been wrecked to multiply Rockefeller’s riches, the crippled rivals, the poor deprived of sustenance through mills. refineries mines, railroads stilled by the power of this one man, without title or throne or scepter, smile grimly and think of Midas and his fate. WHAT HAS PHOTOGRAPHY ' DONE? Has photography accomplished any- thing? = Yes, it has cheapened art greatly. It has lowered the standard with a public that instinctively pre- fers the sham and the machine made and the microscopic; it has reduced the artist to a demoralizing struggle with the amateur simply to get his bread and butter. In the beginning of the century England was ‘celebrated for its beautifully illustrated books, in which the greatest artists, engravers, and printers collaborated to produce a perfect whole. To-day the place of these books has been taken by The Strand Magazine and The Sketch, thanks to the service of photography. In the making of books, however, the tendency has always been toward the survival of the cheapest, and the cheapest—usually the newest—has al- ways interested artists for a while, though for other remsons than its cheapness. Steel engraving succumbed before wood engraving and lithography, and they, in turn, have succumbed to the cheapness of the process man. In many ways, until lately, process was a great advance upon any other form of reproduction. Now, process-block makers are mostly photographers, who are killing each other in the race for cheapness. I do not want any one to think I would imply that photography is not useful to the aruist. On ‘the contrary, it is, and especially in illus- tration, since it preserves the illustra- tor's original design for him. It en- ables the architect to get, at small ex- pense and without the trouble of go- ing to see and draw them, bits of de- tail in foreign lands, though this is a questionable advantage. The world's greatest architects managed very well without it. Onme critic has said that if photographers would turn their at- tention to the recording of historic events like the Jubilee, «r of vanishing buildings, they could do an immense service to art. In one way this is true; in another it is not. Surely this critic would be the last to suggest that the cinematographic “pictures”’—the whole 22,000 of them, shown at the Empire, I think—are equal to one picture of a procession by Carpaccio, painted centuries before we had any photographs. No doubt 22,000 artists would be required to secure as many views of the Jubilee procession as were obtained by the cinematograph and their employment might have been too much of a good thing. But if, say, half a dozen accomplished artists had been commissioned, and allowed to do what they wanted, might we not have had a record of some artistic impor- tance? As to the photographing of old buildings, which would the archi- tect rather have, an etching by Pi- ranesi or a photograph by one of the most revolutionary of the “Salon” pho- tographers?—Joseph Pennell, in Con- temporary Review. —————— The most remarkable railway in the world is the one designed by Mr. Nesom, an electrician, for use in the Chilcoot Pass, and mountainous dis- tricts generally. By its means the loft- jest precipices can be skirted, the steep- est mountains scaled, and avalanches and snowdrifts rendered powerless to impede locomotion. The track, instead of being carried over bridges or through tunnels, is projected by stout girders from the very face of the mountains, and from it the car is suspended in mid-air. The wheels on which the car runs and the motor which impels it are inside the track. \