The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 13, 1898, Page 6

THE SAN RANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 1898. Address All Communications to.W. S. LEAKE, Manager. ;t and Third Sts, S. F. PUBLICATION OFFICE......Market and Telephone Main 1868, EDITORIAL ROOMS..........2I7 to 221 Stevenson Street Telephone Main 1874. | THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL (DAILY AND SUNDAY) is served by carriers In this city and surrounding towns for I5 cents a week. By mall $6 per year; per month €5 cents. THE WEEKLY CALL. OAKLAND OFFICE... Eastern Representative, DAVID ALLEN. NEW YORK OFFICE. ..Room 188, World Building WASHINGTON (D. .....Riggs House ...One year, by mall, $1.50 .908 Broadway C.) OFFKCE......... C. C. CARLTON, Correspondent. | BRANCH OFFICES—527 Montgomery street, corner Clay, open until 9:30 o'clock. 339 Hayes street, open until | 9:30 o'clock. 621 McAllister street, open until 9:30 | o'clock. 615 Larkin street, open until 9:30 o'clock. | 1941 Mission street, open until 10 o'clock. 2291 Market street, corner Sixteenth, open until 9 o'clock. 2518 Mission street, open untll 9 o'clock. 106 Eleventh street, open until 9 o'clock. 1505 Polk street, open | until 9:30 o'clock. NW. corner Twenty-second and Kentucky streets, open until 9 o'clock. AMUSEMENTS. Baldwin—* Mysterious Mr. Bugle," to-morrow night. Columbia—Primrose and West's Minstreis. California—*" Town Topics. Alcazar—+A Gtlged Fool." Morosco's—“The Woman in Black." Tivoli—"The Geisha.” | Orpheum—Vaudeville. | Olympia, corner Mason and Eddy streats—Specialties. | Auditorium, Mason and Ellis_sireets—Recitals of Scottish Song and Story, Monday Evening, March Metropolitan Temple—Lecture on Phrenology. Monday night. The Chutes—Chiquita and Vaudeville. | Coursing—Ingleside Coursing Park, this morning. | California Jockey Club, Oakland—Races 10-morrow. | GAS BANKING AT @N END. UDGMENT having been confessed in the suit d brought by Henry James to recover a $5 meter deposit from the San Francisco Gas and Elec- tric Company, it is now in order for all depositors in the carbon monoxide banks of that_corporation and the Pacific Gas Improvement Company to apply for their money. The offer of the Gas and Electric Com- pany to return Mr. James’ deposit is equivalent to a confession that it never had any right to exact !hei security. Such being the case, it has no right to hold | the deposits of its other customers. | Concerning the abstract justice of permitting a corporation to exact security from its patrons for | its bills nothing need be said. A sufficient answer to any argnment that may be made in support of such'a contention is found in the Civil Code, section 629. That section declares that gas companies must on demand supply consumers with meters. It was evidently framed to prevent the exaction of déposits. The privilege of getting a meter was probably es- teemed small when compared with the privilege of laying ‘gas pipes in the streets confetred on the cor- porations by the people. We trust that the two companies affected by the principle now established by Mr. James will promptly, amend their rules. It is not right that they should compel their customers to put up a money guarantee of their ability or willingness to pay their bills. In- deed, that is an unwarranted reflection on them. It is desirable that the gas companies should dwell in peace with the community. Gas is a very necessary article and people who use it are generally glad to pay for what they consume. The companies have a lien on any property of their customers not exempt from execution, and there is no occasion for them to carry on a security banking business in connection with the manufacture of illuminating commodities. In short, the carbon monoxide banks should retire from the field. We sincerely hope the Gas and Elec- tric and the Pacific Gas Improvement companies will AUCTION SALES. { March 14, Silks, ete., at 116 Grant | By T. McDonald—Monda THE COMING OF MELBA. | ne, atlla. m. and 2 p. m.’ EPORTS to the effect that Mme. Melba, with a | distinguished company . of operatic stars, is t¢ make a tour of this coast will be received with | siderable gratification by San Francisco. In the | first place her coming will please our musical people by reason of her excellence in opera, and in the sec- ond place it will be gratifying to the citizens gener- | evidence that San Francisco is becoming | a city of such importance that it can afford the best | of everything and is so regarded by those who have | to stake money on the venture of bringing it to us, That Melba will be well received here goes without | saying. This city has been called a “jay town” by | many celebrities of third rate importanc of the first magnitude has ever had occasion to com- | plain of our audiences. Every artist of the first rank has found in San Francisco a reception worthy of his has been gener- ally a true appreciation of his work. Mme. Melba, therefore, has only to bring with her a company | equal to the task of fitly supporting her in order to win a brilliant success here and make her visit what | her manager announced it to be, “‘a triumphal tour.” | From the very character of its population San Francisco ought to be the most artistic city in the | world with the exception of Paris. Next to that bril- | liant capial San Francisco contains the most cos- | mopolitan population of any large city on the globe. | Its society is infused with the blended tastes and | «lents of men and women representing every highly | artistic_race. English, French, German, Italian and Spanish are all with us in numbers large enough to | exert an influence on the general culture of the city, and among each there are persons of sufficient emi- | nence and brilliance to make their racial influence an | elevating and illuminating factor in our social life. The excellence of our local artists is an evidence of the carefulness and talent with which music has | been studied in this city, and the liberal support | nearly always given to good musical entertainments | proves the popular delight in it. In one thing only | are we likely to fall short of according to Melba a reception equal to her worth and our appreciation. We have not in this city an opera-house on a scale commensurate with the importance music holds in our civilization. That, however, will come in due time. This is destined to be one of the artistic centers | of the world, and every star of the magnitude | of Melba who comes to us aids in the work of edu- cating us to that standard and hastening the realiza- tion of the destiny THE FERRY DEPOT SCANDAL. Tcn!\trzct< for work on the new ferry depot have been manipulated constitutes a serious scandal volving the Commissioners to whom was entrusted the duty of erecting the edifice. As was stated in the story, “there is reason to believe that the State has been deliberately cheated. Every apparent evidence | tends to show that while certain materials and work | were contracted for other materials and work have | been utilized, these being of inferior quality, but paid for as though of the higher quality.” Evidences sufficient to raise a suspicion of bad and dishonest practice are to be found in several depart- ments of work. The greatest single item of the kind | thus far disclosed is that of the flooring, where the substitution of the expanded metal floor for the terra cotta arched floor called for by the contract seems to have netted a profit to somebody of more than $30,500. Another job appears to have been per- petrated in the substitution of Tennessee marble for interior finigsh in place of the enameled brick speci- fied in the contract. On this deal there was a rake-off of about $13,000, and there is no evidence that the State got it. From these instances the manner in which the work as a whole has been carried on may be judged. It is not likely that the jobbers confined their job- bery to the particular parts of the work to which The Call has directed attention. It is more reasonable to suppose that the same kind of manipulations of con- tracts were practiced to a greater or less degree everywhere, and that in almost all departments of the work of construction there has been some scheme de- vised by which the State has paid for good material and received something of an inferior quality. The subject is one for the Grand Jury. That body should make a thorough investigation into every con- tract let on the building and a careful examination of the work done under it. The story is a shameful one, but it would be more shameful still to permit to pass unpunished such offenses as seem to have been com- mitted. The people of California have paid a large price for the great depot now so rapidly near- Ang completion and have a right to hold in strict ac- rountability all who have had charge of the work. The Grand Jury should enter upon the investigation ally as an but no star merits, and, what is more, there HE story published in The Call yesterday of the manner in which some of the most important | in- | East, but it maintains exorbitant rates for passenger return the money of their customers without delay. Ii they do not somebody will surely make them further trouble. Some meddlesome attorney and an inconsiderate court may find a way to make it cost | them a good round sum for willfully violating the | law. CINCHED AND SIDETRACKED. : CCORDING to the Riverside Press there were ‘ shipped from Southern California during the | first week in March 550 standard cars of | oranges of 336 boxes each, as against 383 cars for the ‘ same period last year and 231 cars for the first week of March, 1896\. The total shipments for the season | have been 5824 cars, as against 3845 cars last year to ‘ March 7, and 3363 cars to March 7, 1896. There are | now 6000 boxes of foreign oranges afloat, as against i 55,000 boxes on March 7, 1897. | Upon the showing of these” figures the season should be one of unusual prosperity in the orange | producing counties. There should have been larger | profits than in the past for the average orchardist | and the aggregate revenues of the community should | have been vastly increased. The prevailing tone of | of sanguine hopefulness should be everywhere ap- parent. Unfortunately it is not so. The increase in the crop seems to have served no other purpose than to augment the income of the railways over which the oranges are sent to market. The competition between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe, which in the past has been of so much benefit to Southern Cali- | fornia, has given way to some kind of traffic agree- | ment between them and the rates charged the ship- | pers-of oranges are so high that scarcely any profit remains to the producer aiter their payment. The situation in the south has its counterpart in this city. The Southern Pacific Company not only | holds up the cost of shipping California products | travel and freight from the East to this city. Thus while we ought to have received something like a‘, business boom from the Alaskan rush we have gained | but a comparatively small increase. The trade has | been largely carried to northern ports, and San Fran- 1 cisco has had to make her fight for Alaskan business | not only against her natural competitors, but against | the opposition of the road that should have worked | energetically on her side. | With the southern counties cinched and San Fran- | cisco sidetracked California has good reason and just cause to complain of the manner in which her great | railway lines are conducted. It seems as if the man- | agers of these roads are doing everything they can to retard the progress of the State and are more eager to grasp a few cents of undue revenue to-day than to build up a trade that would bring them in dollars in the place of cents in the future. There can be no question of the folly of the tac- tics practiced by the monopoly. It would pay the transcontinental roads to build up California and promote every industry of its people. Such a course would lead to the more rapid settlement of the State, an increase of population, an expansion of industry and a larger amount of business for the roads them- selves. Some spirit of perversity, however, has much keenness as if they were animated by a feeling It is a bad situation, and one whose problems are time. The competition of that road has already} traffic across the continent. in an effort to induce the Legislature of that swindling or fake advertising, which, from compara- terated goods. swindlers who resort to it are not willing to pay the a species of cheap publications common in the East and which for the most part are made up of these fake York contemporaries points out, are sach transparent There are concerns that offer gold watches for $2 s0; at once and proceed upon the motto of Grant, “Let no guilty man escape.” dominated the minds of the monopoly managers andi of hostility to the people rather than a desire to do hard to solve. The advance of the Valley Road, how- broken the monopoly cinch in the San Joaquin, and | DISHONEST ADVERTISING. N State to enact a law designed to protect honest tively small beginnings, is rapidly becoming almost One style of the advertising complained of rarely cost of such advertising even if the proprietors of the which have cunningly obtained the privilege of trans- advertisements. humbugs that nobody would be deceived by them that will sell diamond rings “to introduce the goods” they follow the policy of cinch and sidetrack with as | business. ever, gives promise that the solution will come in it may eventnally do so for the whole State in the EW YORK merchants are at present engaged deaiers and the general public from the effect of as great an evil in this country as the sale of adul- appears in legitimate newspapers. The fakers and papers would accept it. They have recourse to mission through the mails as second class matter Some of these advertisements, as one of our New except the man to whom you could sell a gold brick. for $5; that have substitutes for diamonds, plated with | real carbon and warranted to resist abrasion, which will be sold for 75 cents a karat; that will give a splendidly primed set of Dickens for $3; that will send you a whole greenhouse full of palms for a dol- lar; that will supply you with a silver soup tureén for $2, and so on. A man of ordinary intelligence of course would not be deceived by such offers as these. A law to pre- vent them would therefore be a law for the protec- tion of fools and could be justified on the precedent of laws that punish the selling of gold bricks. The merchants of New York go further, however, in their demands, and ask a law to prevent another form of false advertising, which would not be so easily sup- pressed as a cheap fake business. They complain of deceptions which consist in offering alleged bankrupt stocks of various kinds at a great sacrifice and at prices far below cost when there has been no bank- ruptey, no sacrifice and the price is all that the goods are worth. This phase of the issue shows that the merchants are trying to establish honesty by law, and that they aim at suppressing not only swindling in the goods themselves, but false representations to induce per- sons to purchase goods worth the price asked for them. In this respect the New Yorkers seem to have gone too far. It is one thing to punish a man for selling a piece of brass at the price of gold, but it would be too much to expect a Government to pre- vent a man from selling brass at the price of brass simply because he claimed to be doing it at a sacri- fice. The movement is interesting as another illustra- tion of the growing tendency to seek reforms of all kinds by means of legislation, and if the bill should be adopted by the Legislature the working of the law would be studied with considerable attention throughout the Union. the official account of his Mexican tour Mr. Bryan says: “Mexico is a delightful place to visit. Travel on the main lines is as safe, as comfortable and as cheap as in the United States.” That he did not diverge from the main lines is quite evident from his conclusions. He found many | people there from the gold standard countries en- gaged in business of various sorts. He does not re- port finding many laboring people from this country there, and the reason is obvious when he comes to discuss wages. On this subject he says that wages | are better than in 1873, when the Mexican silver dol- lar was at a premium over the gold dollar. From this the inference is plain that it is a bad thing for labor to have silver equal to or a shade better than gold at a ratio of 16%5 to 1. No one disputes that the Mexico of to-day is more prosperous than the Mexico of the past. There is no sorcery in the reason for it, and conjuring.is not necessary to discover it. Mexico was for years the scene of constant revolutions; her property was raided by rapacious chieis who competed with each other in despoiling her industries. The rights of person and property were insecure, and, where that is the rule, prosperity is but little known. Beginning with the firm administration of the great Juarez, this | the people should be one of contentment and a spirit | spirit of violence and spoliation was gradually | checked; Diaz has long conquered it entirely, and | foreign capital has laid lines of transportation. Prop- | erty, being safe, has some reason for being sought by | industry, and compared with her past Mexico has progressed and her prosperity has improved. Mr. | Bryan attributes this not only to the silver stan- dard, but apparently to the depreciation in the value of that standard. Mexico was a silver country before | Juarez and when Diaz became President, and if the mere adhesion to that standard will produce the con- | ditions present in Mexico they should have been there long ago. When he considers wages, however, he flinches, de- claring that “it is not fair to compare wages in one | country with the wages in another country without | first making allowances for differences in efficiency, differences in climatic- conditions, in habits, etc.” This, then, is a confession that the silver standard may not be counted on to favorably affect wages, which depend on quite other things. It will be seen that this is squarely contradictory of his contention that the silver standard must be credited with the present improved conditions in Mexico. Logic and consistency, however, have no place in Mr. Bryan's system. An observer who saw Mexico at the time Mr. Bryan did, but who was not a guest of the Govern- ment and did not confine himseli to the “main lines” of travel, investigated his way to quite different con- clusions. This gentleman, Dr. Van Ness Standish, says that he found two-thirds of the people without shoes. He found the laborers living in huts eight or ten feet square, with no chimney, the fire being on a hearth in the center and the smoke ascending through a hole in the thatch roof. In these huts there is no floor, table, stand, bed, candle or lamp, and at night the peon wraps his zarepa about him and lies down in the corner to rest. Dr. Standish at Laredo exchanged one United States dollar for $2 15 in Mexican money. A few days later he got $222 in the same exchange. The rate of exchange is the difference between gold and silver values, and prices go up and down with that fluctuation. To-day you buy an article at one price, to-morrow at an- other. Asking the reason, you are told “the rate of exchange governs these things.” That is to say, every day’s price is as much silver as represents the actual value of the article in gold. He says that living is high and wages low. Street laborers get 30 cents a day. The clerk of the Ameri- can Minister hired laborers on the grounds of the legation at 37 cents a day. It is true that the salaries of skilled men are liberal. Railway men, bookkeepers and those in similar kinds of employment are well paid, but Dr. Standish says this is offset by the high price of living, whether measured in United States or Mexican money. ‘We have a letter from a skilled bookkeeper em- ployed in the City of Mexico asking for a position in California in which he say “I am not satisfied in this country and long to re- turn to the States. The salaries paid are liberal enough, but it takes $2 to Buy here what costs in the States just half that much.” Finally, if Mr. Bryan found such superior condi- tions in Mexico there would pour into that country a great stream of immigration from here. . Men change locations and countries to better their con- ditions, and superior conditions so near at hand as Mexico would not lie unimproved by our people. An Idaho woman was married just as the man of her choice was starting for the penitentiary for a twenty-five year stay. Whether she is entitled to congratulations, and on what ground these should be based, is a delicate question. Spanish papers speak of the American flag as ob- noxious. Perhaps the Spanish will get to seeing it so, much before long that this feeling of evident un- friendliness will grow to actual hostility. B EEEREGESESRREENSRRNNERNENNRRRNNRY 3 WITH ENTIRE FRANKNESS. = s By HENRY JAMES. 881 gfifi&fifi‘Bfififi&fifiB&ifiQ!fl usnuus&auusafiusfi:’ ‘While the German Empire is a long way from us_and its affairs not partic- ularly our concern, we have at least the right to wonder how it permits its des- tiny to be guided by a man who bub- bles over so frankly with the symptoms of lunacy. The Kaiser can in a meas- ure disguise his game arm, but his game intelligence is something not to be hidden. While he sends to jail such subjects as may speak or write disrespectfully of him, his course would seem naturally more objectionable to his subjects than to outsiders. If they choose to endure it, when they have the privilege of coming to America, perhaps it 18 as well that a few thou- sands of them should be locked up. But the exuberant Willlam must not at- tempt to lay down the law for the folk he is pleased to term “Yankee.” These do not recognize his jurisdiction mnor stand in awe of his God-given wealth of nerve. It seems to me that Boast- ing Billy in attending to his own busli- ness would find his time amply em- ployed. That man Waller of the Board of Education needs sitting upon. Why he cannot do the public the small favor of keeping out of sight is a mystery. He annoys the senses. When an offi- cial is under indictment for attempted bribery and the opinion that he isguilty finds so many enthusiastic supporters as this community affords, it is not too much to ask that in the name of de- cency he assume an air of modesty, even if the genuine arcticle is absent from his_composition. Waller now seeks to have new text books intro- duced in the schools. Coming so soon after the late outrage in the same di- rection, this is perhaps as striking an instance of cheek as has been thrust into notice. Not long ago pupils were obliged to load themselves with worth- less but expensive books, since thrown aside. Now Waller wants them to re- load. If Waller had as much judgment as a clam or the sensitiveness of a mud turtle, he would be now in con- cealment within his shell. It is not to be expected of him that that shame will prompt him to resign, but the most distant recognition of decency would cause him to keep silent unless he had something to propose besides a new scheme of robbery. Were I engaged in compiling a list of local rogues I would turn to the Board of Education as of- fering rich material to draw from, and first on the list of W’s would be the name of Waller. During discussion in the House of the war appropriation at least tw) gen- tlemen fell Into poetry, mixing the feet sadly as they alighted. Both tried to quote some lines almost as familiar as if taken from a Mother Goose melody, and each made a mistake. However, they voted better than they quoted, and all is forgiven. It would be a boon to this community to observe an instance of the death of a rich man not followed by the up- springing of a surprising widow with a lot of brats trained to call the lamented “papa.” In cases where the widow gets premature and announces herself be- fore the grave has claimed her lord and master the period of annoyance to which the public is subjected is merely lengthened. As Adolph Sutro lies in mental darkness on the borderland, the inevitable woman appears. Perhaps nobody would go so far as to say that Sutro’s life has been faultless, but for one I believe the woman hovering with her brood awaiting his death is on the moral plane of the buzzard, a bird of carrion prey which has no morals at all. As if to add to the gloom naturally following an event so somber as the destruction of the Maine, George Par- sons Lathrop wrote some poetry about it. This poetry, it is safe to affirm, is the worst the occasion produced. It lacks every element of song save the one of sentiment, and this is marred by the crude form of expression. Doubt- less any writer of less renown would not only have been refused space for it, but would have been advised by an ed- itor of average discernment to essay no literary work higher than the com- pilation of daily reports from the stock yard. ‘One verse of the stuff I quote. There are several others as bad: Men of the Maine, O, men of the Maine, Sad though your fate beyond words, Still your true souls 'mid the fire and the pain Rose high with the wind and the birds. I do not profess to be a literary crit- ic, but the ability to detect such rot as this on sight is not denied to any man on whom heaven has bestowed intelli- gence which has enabled him to mas- ter the alphabet. Last week a man in Oakland beat his wife so that she had him arrested. ‘When he appeared in court the Judge at the tearful solicitation of the beaten, let the prisoner go free. I think that in doing so the Judge erred. Wife- beating is not a pastime which appeals to gentlemen. A lady belted by the conjugal fist may, with a fair show of reason, deem herself wronged. But when she appears in court to beg for the brute who has bruised her, my sympathy vanishes. The error of the Judge was in not punishing the fellow for letting the wife off with so mild a correcting. There are all sorts of excuses ad- vanced by people who get into the po- lice court. However, it is seldom one more peculiar than that advanced by a man recently arrested for assault has come to notfce. He "admits having “soaked in the jaw” the gentleman who made the complaint, but has a plea to advance in mitigation. He says the assaulted person had an aggravating habit of taking out a pencil and sharp- ening it when engaged in conversation, and that it was for this he soaked him. ‘Whether the plea will be deemed ade- quate I do not know. I had supposed that any male owning a pencil and a knife had a right to whittle as often as he wished. Of course, had the owner of the utensils been a woman, the case would have presented a different as- pect. It is a matter of common knowl- edge that no woman has any right to try to whittle a pencil, and yet the ut- most violefice that would be justifiable would be the depriving her of both pencil and knife, doing it, however, with all possible gentleness. Something ought to be done to the Bret Harte of the present day in the direction of reproof. He seems to as- l | was reproduced in this paper. sume that his identity is one with that of the Bret Harte of long ago, and | takes liberties with the work of the lat- | ter. All the world knows that the orig- inal Bret Harte has passed away. He acquired anglomania in acute form and | so perished from the field of letters, leaving behind him a noble mosaic tab- let. Now comes the English Bret Harte, and with vandal hand is clipping this memorial tablet away. As an Ameri- can, proud of the work of an American, devoted -to admiration of John Oak- hurst, believing the “Outcasts of Poker | Flat” to be one of the best short stories ever written, T object to the modern Harte. He ought to read the creations | of the old Harte and be ashamed. In | my humble estimation nobody since the days when the original Harte's inspira- | tion, born of the wild life of the West, savored of its balsamic pines, vivid with its coloring, was taking the form of tales, each in its way almost fault- less, has there been a man who could approach him until the peerless Kipling was crowned king of the realm of fic- tion. Certainly the present Harte is not in the same class of the one-time Harte. The old Harte stands alone, as distinct a figure as Kipling himself. The new:Harte is one of many, none of them great. Lately I have been re- reading the familiar stories which are recognized as classics. There was “M’liss.”- Who does not remember the delight of it. But the English Harte has taken that story and spoiled it ut- terly. He has robbed it of beauty, of deliéacy; has shorn the climax away and substituted an unsatisfactory finish as crude as any amateur could have de- vised in a maiden effort and an effort sure to be rejected on the ground of un- worth. The English Harte has no right to despoil the work of the American Harte. That has become the common property of us all. He is not capable of improving it; he should train himself to let it alome. As well might a fresh voung art student take a master’s can- vas and bedaub it, imagining that his ruinous touch had added to its value. A man who had seven wives, and for the matter of that has them yet, has from his retreat in a prison cell been telling the less successful lover how to woo. The information he gives is valu- able to the student of human nature, demonstrating what an absolute fool a man can be and yet escape being im- mured in an asylum for idiots. The much-married man needs to be receiv- ing advice rather than to be giving it. Somebody ought to give him instruc- tions on the subject: How not to woo. Last week I made a few pleasant re- marks about an Alameda minister. Ob- jection has arisen to the tenor of them., It is not necessary to state from whom these objections come, but if the minis- ter will promise to behave himself hereafter I will freely promise to let him alone. There are other topics more to my taste. It has been my duty recently to take a fall out of the gas company. So far as I am concerned, the sum involved was trivial, but the sum belonged to me, and the company had to acknowl- edge a readiness to surrender it. The matter has been so thoroughly exploit- ed in the local columns that there is no need of reciting it here. Enough to say that every person from whom the moncpoly has exacted in advance $5 or any other amount has only to go to the | office and ask for his money. If he meets with refusal he can present the Jetter the company sent me, and which I cer- tainly do not merit any favor above that due any other customer. A correspondent whose writing sug- gests the lovable and superior sex noti- fies me that the slang in this column is objectionable. I am truly sorry to hear it. If she has a better style of slang to propose I shall be happy to adopt it. As it is, I am doing the best 1 can. What does she expeet a man to do? Swear? From present appearances the State is being robbed blind by somebody who has to do with construction of the ferry building. According to the accounts published, it would seem that the mon- ey placed at the disposal of the Harbor Commissicn was ample, and yet with the edifice cheapened in every way, the | cash is falling short. Where are the sums which have been “saved” by the cutting out of expensive detail? If contracts were let for a certain floor and then the floor changed so as to cost nearly $40,000 less, who got the differ- ence? I understand that the Commis- sioners are public servants, and as such their accounts are open to inspection. It is my suggestion that the inspec- | espectally. tion be made by the Grand Jury. It this body can find nothing mtten in the deal then the vindication of the Com- missioners would have &n official welght and dignity not to be found in their unsupported denia_!sA The interest taken in prizefighters i a mystery to me. With few ¢xceptions the men are brutal, with & leaning toward crime. They have in them the elements of the footpad, tempered and sweetened by the instincts of the va- grant. They are brutal, useless and lazy. They will not even fight fairly. Taking this man Sharkey as a sample the whole lot ought to be attached to gunnysacks filled with stones and thrown into the bay. Sharkey, I hear, claims to have been robbed in his latest ring affair. As to the truth of this I do not know, but I hope he was. That he was in a conspiracy to rob Fitzsim- mons I never had a dqubt and perhaps he has been given a dose of his own medicine. The only prizefighter for whom I ever had a shade of admiration | was old John L. Sullivan and about | half the time even in his palmiest days John deserved to be in jail. But he would fight and until whisky and time, but mostly whisky, had sapped his mighty strength he could everlastingly wallop anything on two feet. I have noticed that when pugilists engage in a genuine fight, as occasionally hap- pens in a bar-room, they fling “gcience” to the winds and throw cuspidores and bung-starters. Their so-called science is a delusion. They employ it only at the times when there is a purse in sight and I will admit that then their trade becomes not alone a science but an art. To know just when to be knocked out 80 as to avoid the appearance of fak- ing requires study and practice. There could in my estimation be only one per- fect type of prizefight. In this one prin- cipal would kill the other and be hanged for murder; the seconds and promoters would be sentenced for life as accessories and the spectators fined for the benefit of the widows and orphans. An Eastern legislator has in his head a plan for the regulation of marriage. He might as well keep it there. Mar- riage will not be regulated. This legis- lator would have aspirants for the holy state of nuptial felicity examined as to mental and physical fitness, their pedi- gree subjected to scrutiny, the fact that the grandmother on one side died of fits and the grandfather on the other was hanged laid before an unsympa- thetic world. This would not work. When a man and woman make up their minds to wed nothing short of a decree of Providence taking the form of Kkill- ing ome or both can more than delay the ceremony. California has in a modest fashion essayed to regulate the conditions surrounding the wedding, and Cupid, watching his arrows quiver in the hearts of his vietims, has simply given California the laugh. If the law forbids a union the pair go away just long enough to evade the law. The Eastern legislator if really anxious to make a record might try the invention of some law to change the movements of the tide, but the people determined to be tied are beyond his reach. FEL TOWER. The lightning rod on the summit of the Eiffel tower is constantly moving, de- scribing every day a ten-centimeter cir- cle. This movement is due to expansion and contraction, and has been studied by Colonel Bassot, who recently explained to the London Academy of Sciences that the expansion of the metallic components of the structure produces a torsion move- | ment from sunrise to sunset, which tra- Verses a curve of ten centimetérs. Tots movement is repeated in an inverse direc- tion during the night, as the column & comes_cooled. Colonel Laussedat, direc- tor of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metfers, being appealed to for confirma- tion of Colonel Bassot's statements, stated that he had carefully followed Colonel Bassot's investigations, which ex- tended over ten years, and that the re- sults given were perfectly exact. The laws of the expansion and contraction of iron by heat and cold are well known, and the tower simply obeys the physical law of temperature influence. In summer the expansion is superior to that in win- ter, and the movement reverses at night, owing to contraction due to the cooling down of the mass. Yet this twisting, this torsion, in no case compromises the solid- ity of the structure, which is absolute. —_— ee———— E. H. Black, painter, 120 Eddy st. —_—e———— A choice present, Townsend’s California Glace Fruits, 50c 1b, in fire-etched boxes. * —_—————————— Special information supplied daily to business houses and public men by the Press Clipping Bureau (Allen’s), 510 Mont- gomery street. Telephone Main 1042. * —_——————— One of the most remarkable gifts that ornament the home of the Rev. Dr. Tal- mage since his return from his recent wedding trip is a Russian tea service of gold and enamel, a personal token from the Czar of Russia. —_———————— Drs. Bush & Son have removed to 206 Kearny st., Adams Building, rooms 310, 308, 30S. Dent- istry in all its branches. Teeth without plates Telephone Red 1226 The well-known orientalist, Professor ‘Ahlwardt, has at last completed his task of cataloguing and describing all the Ara- bic manuscripts in the Berlin library, a task to which he has devoted twenty- four years. ADVERTISEMENTS. SHIRT WAISTS! Our 1898 stock is in store. It is fine, it is cheap, it is pretty, it is the latest style. We did not have a single garment in shirt waists from 1897 stock. That is the way we do business. We sel 1 things out, and buy new ones; always ready for new goods at the low prices now prevailing. Come early and take your choice from 50 cents up. Little dresses frcm 35 cents up, all new stock. We do not buy out 10-year-old stocks of goods that have broken the owners— it is not wise. The buying public shuns such goods at any price. ‘FOR THE KLONDIKE ! We offer the finest values on the Coast either to prospectors or trade dealing in Alaska goods. Fine Ham or Bacon.. Salt Pork, to take alon Lard, pure, in 5-1b tins Sleds or Sleighs... Granulated Potatoes to the Finest fur suits and sleeping bags at half what cthers ask you. Have a talk before you decide the matter with the house that has no runners on the streets to pull you here or there and no house-to-house can- vassers. You save this expense. Back. LI MARKET The Livestand Liveliest Store in the City ‘We guarantee all the goods we sell—they are money IBERALITY our motto, STREET, S. F.