The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 23, 1898, Page 20

20 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2 DUCKS AND RABBITS BY THE CARTLOAD Lively Scenes in the Game Market Before Sunrise, When the Peddlers Gather to Bid for O pickee, no pickee; take 'em straight. One dollar a dozen; take ’em straight.” TLus the game salesman shouts, as he mounts guard over a huge pile of very dilapidated-looking hares, heaped up anyhow on the dirty board floor. istant, cutting open sack after s constantly adding to the furry mass. All around swarms a crowd of rather disreputable-looking foreigners. There are black-bearded, voluble Italians, swarthy Greeks and Portuguese, vivacious Frenchmen, men of every southern nationality, all.show- ing signs of poverty in greater or less degree. The stentorian cry of “rabbittee” is heard constantly through the Latin quarter, where the people, 1f they must have cheap food, like it to be savory. And probably you can get more satis- faction for your money, that is if you are not very particular, out of a rab- bit at fifteen cents, or two for a quar- ter, than from anything else. But you must not attend the sales in the morn- ing and see the manner in which the game is handled. Just now, owing to the long spell of hot and dry weather, -all kinds of game are scarce and of poor quality and the odor arising from the heap of hares is not of the pleasantest. Hence the anxiety of the buyers to make a good selection; hence the watchfulness of the salesman. To the purchaser the mat- ter is of the utmost importance, for to him it means a livelihood, the scanty daily bread which he must earn by a long day’'s we: tramp through the crowded streets of the quarter. And the margin is §0 small that two or three unsalable rabbits, left on his hands at the close of the day, would absorb all his profits The price remains pretty steady at a dollar a dozen, and each nerant ven- dor is usually content with a dozen These he retails at fifteen cents each, or two for a quarter, so that his earn- ings cannot at the outside exceed eighty cents. If he makes fifty or sixty he will be well content, for life is cheap in the district and scanty food and lodging can well be supplied for this sum. ! “We have to have eyes in the back of our head here,” said the salesman. “They're up to every trick you can think of. Look at that fellow turning over the heap. Watch him and you will see the game he is up to.” I saw a dark-complexioned, ragged man examining the condition of the heap. But somehow, as he continued | bis investigations, certain hares would, | in a mysterious way, apparently of | their own volition, deta themselves from the center of the pile and slide to | one end. It need scarcely be added that these animals were the largest and freshest in the whole assortment. When the process was complete the man, having arrang: matters to his own gatisfaction, offered innocently to take a dozen from the end of the artistically prepared pile. Of course he didn't get them, but he was not in the least dis- | concerted at the discovery of his trick. | At last, after a great deal of hag- gling and compromising, the buyer pro- duces from some hidden rec in his | ragged clothing a gre: dollar, and, | packing his dozen hares into a sack, | departs to enliven the morning air with his cries. The pile of hares gradually disappears, and I have fime to take in my surroundings. Two policemen, having apparently nothing better to do, laugh and joke with the odd collection of miscellane- ous humanity. They have met them every morning for months, if not years; they know the peculiarities of each of the ragamuffin vendors. “Steal?” id an offi ; “why of course they will if they get the chance. But we watch them too closely. Some- times we t left, though. Only the other day neat trick at this place. dozen rabbits, put them in a sack and left the sack leaning up against the wall. As if by accident, the sack was | next to another containing three dozen | mallard ducks, worth, say $15. I do| not know how it happened, but when the Dago returned for his rabbits a fit of absentmindedness overcame him and he picked up the ducks by mis- take. Not a bad exchange, was it? And we haven't caught him yet.” | It is not yet dawn, and outside all is | chilly darkness. Within the electric light casts a glare over the busy scene. Early though it be, there are men who get up every morning of their lives at this unearthly hour, in order to secure a supply of game for the dainty citizens | of San Francisco. Outside the street | is crowded with wagons. A delivery van rattles up every few minutes and deposits sacks of game. These are cut open quickly and the contents dumped on the floor. It is a miscellaneous col- Jection, for the consignments are most- ly from individual market hunters and each man sends down whatever he can sucat or snare. It goes something like this, as an attendant rapidly counts them ove: Eight sprig, ten teal, two small; three white geese, five gray geese, and so on.” “Hullo! What's this?”’ cries the sorter, suddenly pausing in hig task; “two tame ducks, fine large birds, too.” The man who sent the ducks must have been an enterprising gunner. Doubtless in his rambles he had come across some farmer’s poultry flock, and as nobody happened to be about had bagged a couple of the finest birds. Then, again, there may be mallard, or canvasback, or widgeon, or red- heads, quail and snipe, doves and larks —all in small numbers and assorted Jots. It is the commission agent’s busi- ness to reduce this confusion to busi- nesslike order, and he does it with the ease of a practiced hand. His sales- room is little more than a shed, open along the whole street front and stack- ed with a miscellaneous. collection of articles, all of which he is anxious to dispose of. The beams of the roof are 4 a Dago worked off a very He bought a Was Used An Incident of the John Brown Raid. Where a Human Hide Was Turned Into Belts and Slippers After the Methods of Some of the Society Girlé of This City, as How the Union Soldiers Avenged the Barbaric Told in Last Sunday's Call. Act Is Told Below, * \ HE publication in last Sunday'’s | Call of the story on “The Traffic | in Human Hide” has brought to| light a histbrical incident in that line which has never before been published. The facts all hang around the revenge taken on old John Brown and his family of abolition fame. The outrage was perpetrated by medical students on the body of young Watson Brown, son of John Brown, who fell during the raid on Harper's Perry in October, 1859. It was in the fullness of time avenged by the burning of the famous Winchester (Va.) Medical College, ghortly after the Supplies. bare and unadorned, the whitewashed | walls are scribbled over with crude car- icatures and sarcastic comments on the habitues of the place. rough and unfinished, not to say dirty, but evidently the people of the place have no time to spare for useless dec- oration. They must be, if they wish to succeed in the face of pressing compe- tition, smart business men, and nothing else. Just now, because it Is early morn- ing, the salesman is giving his whole Everything is | In the absence of any claimants they were turned over as the bodies of fel- ons to the representatives of the medi- cal college located at the town of Win- chester, thirty miles distant. .All the bodies were subsequently devoted to purposes of dissection, except that of ‘Watson Brown; his body, being a good specimen of physical development, was reserved and prepared for permanent use in the demonstration of anatomy. Had the medical men stopped at what was only necessary to effect this object the whole matter might never have be- come known beyond the walls of the college. Watson Brown's body was flayed and the skin cut in pieces and distributed | tc a number of the students as souve- nirs of the most exciting and memor- | able incident of the time. Some had their pieces tanned and made into purses, belts, suspenders, shoestrings and other things; one had a hunting belt made from the skin off the back, another a riding whip from the untan- ned skin of the right leg, and yet an- other was said to have had a pair of | bedroom slippers made from the skin of the feet. The more or less. open exhibition of these things by the students of course = 7 soon noised the matter well abroad in the town of Winchester and the country around. The better-minded people of the community were shocked and con- demned the act itself, the instincts which prompted it and the spirit in which it was done. Many a young man attending the college afterward found the doors of hospitable houses closed in his face. In March, 1862, Stonewall Jackson fell back up the valley from Winches- | ter and the first Union treops, under General Banks, entered the town. They came direct from Harper’s Ferry, the scene of John Brown's raid, and Charlestown, where he had been im- prisoned, tried and hanged. They had | been over the whole ground, where the | memory of every incident was fresh- | ened, every sympathy was quickened, | and the opportunity for vengeance was | before them. Yet they left the family | of Captain Avis, Brown's jailer, undis- turbed. The courthouse in which his trial was held and his death sentence pronounced and the jail from which he wasg taken to the scaffold were left un- touched. They passed the houses of the jurymen about Charlestown who convicted him and the house of Judge Parker, who sentenced him. None cf them called for retribution in the minds (WY LR\ W2 LIWQ% NN L, 32 f =38 1898. of the Northern soldiers, violent aboli- tionists though many of them were. The medical college stood within the corporate limits of Winchester. On the hills along the road on which it stood the major part of Banks’ army was en- camped—men from Massachusetts, Con- necticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. The road be- tween the camps and the town was thronged with them all day, pass- ing and repassing the college. One morning about a week after their arrival a. large crowd was seen to gather in the street and about the col- lege grounds. The story of the indigni- ties that had been heaped upon the body of Watson Brown had been learned by some of the soldiers from a negro in the neighborhood. The scl- diers stopped before the college and gazed at it. Others came and the tale was repeated again and again. Soon the crowd had swelled to hundreds. A rush was made and down went the fence. The doors were battered open and in & moment the torch was laid in twenty places—and the college building and furniture paid for the outrage upon the body of young Watson Brown. Judge Parker's residence stood but a few hundred feet away, yet was not harmed. He had acted under the law and had not outraged decency and humanity. BY AN EYE-WITNESS. A scheme has been worked out in Stock- holm for - the utilization of part of the | 100,000 horsepower running to waste in the | waterfall of Elfkarleby, 100 miles distant | from that city. The idea of transmittin; this power to Stockholm has exercised | the minds of the citizens for some time | past, and has within the last few months assumed a more practical form, several | engineers and electricians having been commissioned to work out a detailed scheme. i & . ‘-'. ‘ / | S Street Peddlers Crowding the Game Market Before Sunrise to Get the Pick of the Invoices. attention to game. Later on it will be fruit or vegetubles, or md;-j, ‘:,r any: T4 4P PP LT PP PP L L4444+ 4+ 4+ 444+ 44 title, Deacon Victor—without self-con- which may b other salable commodity be sent in by his country customers.4 A little knot of buyers, representing the LbmiErede s COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS game, gathers round the birds. These ¥ are the men who rise early in the s morning in order to get the pick of the + market. They all know each other + and watch each other's movements+ with the jealousy of rivals. Long ago4 % they have been down to the dock or the depot and have ascertained exactly + what game has come in, and which of+ the many commission houses it is con-4 + signed to. Then they make their round of the sales, buving ducks here and teal there, anything and every-+ thing they can get hold of at a reas-4 onable price. “It s one of the worst seasons wet have had for years,” sald a leading¥ marketman, as he pointed to his scant-4 ily covered counter. “Look at those canvasbacks, dried up and miserable, ¥ New process invented and patented that gives remarkable results. being made for exhibition at an early date. + + + Elaborate views are YOUNG San Francisco genius, | sary to understand this process to com- | hills green and the valleys red, with® who has for years been secret- ly struggling with the baffling problems of color photography, has just received a patent for an invention that is a notable Any other time I would be ashamed#advance in this fleld. to show them, but we must have some+4 game to sell, and this is the best ‘We cany, do just now.” If is the same story everywhere. Lack * of water and food has driven the birds+ from their accustomed haunts, and in+' many cases has preventea them from 4 breeding. Then the cold weather has not fully set in up north, so that the migratory birds have not yet sought# refuge in sunny California. J. F. ROSE-SOLEY. for Purses. advent of the first Federal troops into that historical town. Watson Brown, some 25 years of age, and his younger brother, Oliver, were members of the party which. their father led to Harper's Ferry at the time of his famous raid on the night of October 16, 1859. In the fighting which ensued between the citizens and the raiders Watson Brown was mortally wounded and his brother killed instant- ly. Both were carried into the engine- house, where their father and the main body of the party had taken refuge. ‘Watson expired a few hoeurs later. The two bodies, with others of the party who were killed in the building, were found when the place was carried by assault by the Tnited States marines. Some specimens of his photography in colors has been exhibited” among prominent local amateurs within the past few days and they have excited wonder and astonishment, not because they are fine photographs in color from 4an artistic standpoint, for there Is some rudeness about the color work, l_mt because they are real photographs in color, not hand painted, and because “#of the possibilities this achievement of S0 e i e AT 8 b s o gl ot - o 6 0 1 s g a R LT Watson Brown’s Skin genius suggests. he young man’s name is Corwin Gitchell, and it seems probable that be- fore a very great while his invention will enable the enthusiastic amateur photographer to easily and cheaply re- produce the blue of his sky, the green of his woods and fields and the red of the roses in his foreground, and this in the natural tints of these colors and with the taking of one print in a usual way, He will be able to do this by buying a certain new kind of printing paper at any dealer’s. 5 Mr. Gitchell’s invention is a success- ful mutiple-printing paper. It uses ordinary negatives taken in the “ordi- nary way. The printing is done about as.in_the well-known carbon’ process, an old process which has precently been revived with improvements and which is one of the latest photographic. fads of the day on account of the beauty of the work and the opportunities for the play of skill. Used in this way, Mr. Gitchell's invention' produces photo- graphe in two, three or more colors, and furthermore—and this is the most im- portant int—it produces tints and shades of these colors. This is the theory. The process is odd and simple, but dependent on much skil! and delicacy in the preparation of the paper and to a considerable extent in the process of printing.. In‘the process of printing the paper is used quite as in the carl process, and ft | prehend Mr. Gitchell’s invention. In the more usual processes of these days a sensitized paper is used and the pic- ture I3 the result of the light affecting the color of this paper as it passes through the negative. In the carbon process the paper is not sensitized and merely serves as a back- ground and as a backing for the pic- ture, as a canvas serves a painting. In the carbon process what is sensitive to | light and what serves to make the pic- ture is a thin layer of soluble gelatin | resting on the paper and adhering to it. | This layér of gelatin is translucent and sensitized. It is not transparent. When the negative 'is lald over it the light passes through into the gelatin in vary- ing degrees of intensity and so gradu- ally affects it in varying degrees. The effects of the light may be said to eat their way down through it. The light turns the gelatin dark, but it also makes insoluble the parts it has af- fected. The portions underneath not yet changed by the light are soluble in warm water. - When sufficiently ex- posed the paper with its gelatin film is placed in warm watér, when two results follow—the film floats away from the paper and the lines, flakes and patches .of it not made insoluble by the light are quickly dissolved. The film is floated over another paper,. to which it ad- ‘herés when dry, bottom side up. Al- though the eye cannot detect it the surface of the film is a mass of peaks, slopes and valleys, with here ana there holes through which the paper shows Wwhite. The darkened film shows llgu and tones, which depend on its thick- ness, as the tone of a wash drawing depends on the amount of ink lald on. Now what Mr. Gitchell does is to dre- ate a gelatin film just like this, except that Instead of one homogeneous stra- tum of gelatin he makes a gelatin film containing colors in strata. For In- stance, on top is a layer of blue pig- ment, then one of green and then one of, perhaps, brown. The three together are not thicker than a very thin card- board. To quickly comprehend it one should imagine a rough country built up of three main strata of rocks of as many colors. Then the mountains and table lands might appear blue, the foot- elevations and depressions displaying4 the color of the strata exposed. The light affects this stratified gelatin exactly as in the carbon process, and¥ the soluble portions are similarly. washed away. The “high lights” eat to the lowest stratum and when the light¥ is faint the top stratum remains. From+¢ top to bottom the stratified film is af-4., fected exactly in proportion to the 1n-¢ tensity of the light. All this implies great delicacy of skill4 somewhere, and that is what Mr.y Gitchell attained after four or five years, of devoted labor. He found a way as Edison found a way to makethephono-+ graph delicate enough. A similar ideay has been tried before, but in a different and in an unsuccessful way. One fea- ture which Gitchell has originate way to get the plgments distributed in regular strata through a homogeneous mass of gelatin without putting down one layer over another and having a sharp line of division between them, and so giving a sharp transition from one color to another. With monumental patience he has worked out a way of so selecting and grinding the pigments that each will settle in its own stratum and yet blend with the next one, as do the colors of the spectrum. It is to this arrangement of the coloring matters that his success in obtaining tints and shades is due. By thus inventing a paper which de- velops various colors under an ordinary negative Mr. Gitchell gets true color effects without accomplishing true color photography. The colors produced are limited to the colors in the film. He hopes to be able to use five or Six in- stead of three. He has never experi- mented with portrait work, but judging from his other work his paper ought to show the red roses and green birds on my lady’s hat, the hue of the toper’s nose and the blue eyes of the blushing ‘maiden. * But this Is only a step toward the goal of Gitchell's ambition. He is wrestling with the real secrets of color photography and he displays the in- ventor’s sublime devotion to a purpose. He has been a writer for photographic magazines and has been wrapped up in photography for years. B | A rosy-cheeked, therry lad, suggesting | 4good Father Matthias, WILL TAKE THE PLACE OF FATHER DAMIEN Brother Vietor on His Way to Do All the Good He Can on the Leper Isle of Molokzai. IX priests and lay brothers of the S provincial and provictor, who is in Congregation of the Sacred Hearts'of Jesus and Mary have just arrived here on their way to various mission- ary posts among the islands of the Pacific. The Rev. Father Matthias, charge of the party, has labored twen- ty-eight years among the natives of the Hawaiian Islands. They' are fired by holy enthusiasm to devote their lives to the amelior- ation of their fellow men. Oneé of them, Brother Bernardinus, will go to the wilds of the Marquesas, there to teac! Victor will live among the lepers of Molokai. sire for years to do this, and he goes may be. The others are Brother Ulr Brother Aloysius, sub-deacon, and Bro AM no lcathsome me.” He Is worth looking on, this Brother Victor, who is immolating his fresh, comely youth to follow in the devoted steps of Father Damien. leper, look on a “mother’s boy” of seventeen despite his twenty-three summers, looking as if life's cares and sorrows were beyond | his ken, he is the very last person you would think of as companion and nurse to the “loathsome leper” of Molokal. Yet Brother—or, to give him his real sciousness or self-pity, without a pang of regret for the glad world he leaves behind him, is taking his joyous inno- cence to the Isle of Sorrow, content if he can bear the sunshine of human sympathy to those who sit in the shadow of death. Verily, as you look upon him ycu realize the power of a religion which secures such cheerful, unhesitating self-sacrifice. You cannot do more than look, unless you be an apt German scholar, for this young Victor, of Alsatian birth, speaks neither French nor English; but his boyish face talks clearly enough as he hints to the father provincial that there are excellent gastronomic reasons why an interview should not be unduly pro- longed. “See what it is to be young,” says the shaking his head. “These young folks of mine are everlastingly hungry. To be sure they have had a rough time of it lately. We came through America without sleeping cars. Why not? They are all strong, healthy lads, and I thought a little hardship would not harm them.” The father quietly ignores his own maturer years and somewhat worn physique. “But it was not a luxurious journey,” he continues. ‘“We picked up what food came in our way, living principally on h and catechise the islanders. Brother It has been his earnest de- with a full knowledge of what his end ic, deacon, and youngest of the party; ther Theophilus, sub-deacon. not only a fine American city to admire, but also a fine American menu to study, 1 assure you my lads never overlook the dinner hour.” And the father smiles his quiet, in- dulgent smile, the outcome of that broader paternity which is the only family affection allowed to the Catholic priest. There are five of these “strong, healthy lads” under his sheltering wing, all bound on & career of island useful- ness. Young-Father Bernardin, a Ger- man who has resided in Spain and picked up a little French during a six months’ residence at the “mother house” in Paris, goes' to the Mar- quesas, where, thanks to civilizing in- fluences, he will find few natives left for him to devote himself to. Three others, Deacon Ulric and Sub- Deacons Theophilus and Aloysius, ac- company Father Limburg to Honolulu, where he has already spent twenty- seven years of usefulness among the affectionate, gentle Kanakas. There are twenty+one of these missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the Sandwich Islands, and, curiously enough, though their “mother house” is in Paris, their na- tionality is by no means mainly French. Germany, Belgium and Holland are equally well represented, though the headship of France is upheld by the Archbishop, who hails from Brittany. Sixty-one years ago the fathers first attempted the conversion of the Sand- wich Islanders, only to be persécuted and driven forth with ignominy; but in 1840, thanks to the efforts of Captain Laplace, they were enabled to return, establishing themselves on a firm foot- ing, wnd ever since they have gone on their gentle way, doing what they could for the natives and keeping clear of conflict with the whites of another persuasion. On the question of annexation they decline to have any views whatever. “The church bows to the powers that be and does not meddle with politics,” is the firm answer of Father Limburg, or Father Matthias, as the provincial is sometimes called. But he owns that his sympathies naturally lie with the Kanakas, to whom he has so long min- istered, and that it is a sorrowful thing to see the race dying out, as dark races invariably die out under the influence of the white man. “A lovable, child- like, soft people,” he says tenderly, “easy to manage, easy - to teach, in- tensely musical and emotional. Suited to the relieicus life? Oh, dear no, we should never think of allowing such a thing; it would inevitably mean fail- ure.” “But it has been successfully tried with -the Samoans,” we urge. “The Samoan nuns are exceptionally, devoted and single-minded.” “T know,” he -Answers, - gryely; *T" have heard of them; but the Sumoans are a finer, sturdier race with consid- erable character; théy can be depended upon. Our Hawaiians are Jlovable, without stability or backbone. We take them as they are, but we dare not per- mit life vows that would only be brokeg.” After all, though, in these days of missionary ease and consideration, our main interest does not lie with the priests laboring in the sunnier Sand- wich Isles. It centers around that plague-stricken spot for which yon happy-faced lad is bound, and we eagerly evoke Father Limburg’s rem- iniscences of Molokai and Father Da- mien, he of the athletic frame and un- flinching nerve, who won his martyr- dom by his determined, sympathetic humanity. Two priests devote themselves per- manently to the work with the assist- ance of four brothers. A fifth helper claims the spciai interest of Americans; of their own kith and kin the so-called “Brother” Joseph Dutton went to Molo- kal twelve years ago to nurse Father Damien. There he has remained ever since, held by no vows, for he took that of brotherhood for one year only and never renewed it; but devotion to the ostracised binds his heart to the Isle of Sorrows, and he is noted among all that little band of unselfish workers for his loving self-abnegation. Even in Molokai, however, sunshine slants across some lives. Lepers who marry to share their misery frequently become parents of happy, healthy chil- dren, and these, in the case of girls, are forwarded to the Receiving Hos- pital at Honolulu, where the good Franciscan sisters train them and send them out into that world irom which their parents are exiled. Neither are the young folks left in Molokai, with the hereditary taint upon them, wholly. to be pitied. Kindness and thoughtful intelligence do much to brighten their lives, and there are gladsome traditions of the day when Robert Louis Steven- son, Father Damien’s brilliant apolo- gist, landed on the Isle of Sorrows, romped with the boys, taught the girls ericket and left memories behind him of a laughing, sympathetic holiday. He seems to be the only Protestant who has had the nerve or the will to bring sunshine to the Molokai leper; so far, the Catholic alone, priest or nun, has landed on that dreaded isle for un- selfish ministrations; and with loving thought of the boyish hearted writer who played with the Molokai leper we give one last glance at the boyish faced deacon, Victor, who is also taking youth and joy to gambol on the stricken biscuits and fruit, so now that we have disat++ttEtttetebr et isle. ROSE DE BOHEME. P T s Porto Rico Women Make Beautiful Pictures O one ever walks in Porto Rico. The mule’s the thing there. The women ride & great deal. The bet- ter classes use the English side- saddle, although a few prefer the more picturesque and safer but less graceful Sphnish saddle. In the coun- try districts the pillion is occasionally émployed, while among the lower classes many women ride astride with- out exciting comme..t. When the na- tives are both pretty and geod riders they display considerable coquetry in the saddle. I noticed one rider near Juana Diaz who took my mind back to the old days of chivalry. She was a lovely girl of about 15 or 16, with a face lilke a Ma- donna and a figure like an. artist’s model. One little foot crept out be- neath her silk riding skirt, and to my surprise it was devold of hosiery. The skin was like polished velvet, and was of a pinkish gold of an exauisite tint. It was shod with a slipper of satin er arched instep which made the foot all the more charming by its setting. The time to see the women at their best is on Sunday morning, When they ride from their homes to mass in the nearest chureh or cathedral. On one Sunday morning, while riding leisurely into a small village on my way to this town, I met a crowd of worshipers on their way to mass. Nearly all the women were on muleback and sat or lolled as if they were in an easy chair in their own homes. A few, probably wealthier than the others, or else deli- cate in. health, were accompanied by little darky boys, who held over them a parasol or an umbrella. On Sunday each woman wears a huge rosary, sometimes so large as to be un- comfortable. I saw several that were so unwieldy that they went over the shoulders and formed a huge line, larger indeed than a string of sleigh bells: These are ornamental rosaries and are not used for prayer. The pray- ing rosary is as small and dainty as those used by fashionable women in our silk, embroidered In color, and had an It L own Roman Catholic churches.