The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 6, 1898, Page 23

LOOKS TODAY SKETCHED FROM LIFE w g to ording to be wrong, of a hermit in County redwood Abbott ago he ir f thirty years ¢ redwood ionely 1ode not His of name g gair y Mar with ad tk ac The Stc told me by . . was talking | with a companion one day, when the latter suddenly remarked at 1 had a strange experience > 1 saw a man alive who died he was superinténding some old Abbott?” he an I do. He has b a k for Ci of m Ni- trouble- I opine and went to wc the oth f th Ab- story d worked for pickets on s Geronimo he S. P. Ta wood irteen ye g pickets on Until left he rmed by the the lived tree things about old iter here at one time,” “and told d a —— sight ngly added Steadman, in « 1 was a hard 1 ever run across | ) vt In Nicasio Abbott now 1f n an old weather-beaten ut which 5 1 ry gust of d shingles rattl 1 dead gras: whistle a mournful tune. Abbott as he appeared on his own | doorstep is tall and slender, but a glance sufficed to show that he was muscular and hardy. His head was surmounted by an aw hat, in which a hole d with a rag. His face -d with a scanty gray beard, overed the sides and grew somewhat longer under the chin. An o0ld black shirt hung nearly to his knees and his trousers were tucked into the tops of his boots. 7 re was a plece gone from his left over which was or a long time t answered qu ture, bu cabin wh an ugly gash. e old man simply ions of an ordinary pa- t he invited me into his he made supper. »unty about | jorts. At first he was ith rage and said it was lies, but I stuck to him s he got quieter and ad- | all 1 had heard. He ad- > had left a lot of prop- h and Pacheco when he didn’t know what had hardest worker for | : ZZ > 7 "' , ABBOTTS OL RED WOOD TREE IN A BMEE e T he finally sald, without looking up. b Is it true?” Again he relapsed into thought and then buried his head in his hands. “Is it true?” I asked again. “Partly,” pause. “My side’ of the story I have “Why did you leave Pacheco in 1869, Mr. Abbott?” ked. The small gleamed a moment 1 then hls nged until it was s a slate, ard that story, too?” never told.” F7 LAYy D HOME AND HIDING PLACE IN A HOLLOW MARIN COUNTY ' FOREST: - he answered, after a long | to himself. e 189 ) 2 ' he answered, and after a long pause he added, “She’s dead.” Somehow this thought seemed to rouse up the old man and he chuckled Then he burst out laugh- ing. “What State were you born in?” I d. Vermont,” he answered. “You see it was this way,” he began, after a long pau ‘My brother and I came to California about ’'55. Both of us did well. He was County Surveyor of Contra Costa County and I was his assistant, Poer John, he died about 1863. The next year I got married. Just why I don’t know, but we never got along. Wife and I quarreled all the time. Finally she left me and I got a divorce. About 1867, 1 think Itewas, I met a B Troy, as pretty a girl as ever lived. She was everything to me and A and had property I asked her to marry I was to her. 1 was very successful me. | too.” As the old man became thoughtful again, I asked *Did she accept you?” “No; but you never can tell why a woman does things. She threw me over. “I felt badly over it. I must have o' reckless. Anyhow, in good terms with a anish woman. Her not care a cent for her, so she and 1 saw a great deal of each I meant to do the right thing, 28 THE LAST SEE OF ABBOTT IN FINDING THE BoDY THAT WAS (DENT! FIED AS ABBOTT S, other. Of course I know it wasn’t just right. “Things went on this way for about a year, when one day I was surprised to get a note from Miss Troy. She was willing to accept me for a husband. “Of course I was willing. But what could I do with Mrs. Gilchrist? I thought of taking Miss Troy and going away, but I was afraid. Then I made up my mind and told Mrs. Gilchrist that I was going to marry Miss Troy. “She flew into a rage and threatened to kill me on the spot. I guess she would have done so if she had had any kind of weapon. She ended the matter by telling her husband. He shot at me once, and then I got In behind a wall. Guess he was afraid to come after me. “It was then that I made up my mind to become a hermit and quit the world. I had all the world that I want- ed and was miserably tired of every- thing. The money and property that T had in Pacheco, some $30,000, was noth- ing to me, and I determined to disap- pear in the woods. “From that time until a few days ago I never heard a word about any of the people in Pacheco. Iam very glad they thought I was dead. But it's all right now. I have spent thousands of peace- ful and happy days in the forest. All's well that ends well. I have got more out of the world during my thirty vears in this lonely forest than I ever aid out of the thirty years I spent in cities and among the people of the world.” FRANK PERKINS. . —_— e OUT OF SIGHT. _The 800-pound man was doing his best to get through the row of crowded seats to the chair which his own cou- pon called for. Naturally he found dif- ficulty in making his way over all sorts of humanity, and he had such a time that nearly every one in the theater stopped watching the play to look at the performance in the audience. Suddenly he stepped on the foot of a small man who was trying to hide himself behind a pair of opera-glasses. “Demme, sir, can’t you see my feet?"” expostulated the little man in a loud whisper. “Impossible, sir,” replied the fat man, stopping for an instant as he prepared to sit down. ‘You've got your shoes on.”—Washington Post. —_—————————— Minister—My little man, do you know where bad boys go to? Johnnie—Ma says they go in swim- ming when their mothers say they mustn’t.—Philadelphia North Ameri- can. | O0CO0000000000C0O00000CCO0000000000C000C000000000000000000000000000ODOOCOO00000000000000C000Q0CCD Uncle Sam Is After His Share of the @Great China Trade ears ago. That may seem | strange, but it is true. The man was d to have been buried. I will u all about it.” ich this friend then un- the effect that about had lived in An- County, and was i with the County Sur- x bbott, and his brother, Henry Hazen Abbott. The latter filled position of deputy to his brother ther wild nature, though age. One day a talked to ¢ years ago I ‘ontra Costa 1 acquain eyor, James with his wife revolver and hunted uf shet . was Tunning away t of his ear. Abbott 3 or hi a man v the irnento River, 4 s that of Abbott. His funeral from that day :nt has had is resting auietly the surprise the sod. What 3 and bewilderment of tk »ss Abbott 1 the Lagunita K two es south of Camp Tay The old fellow professed to be glad to see and said he v or thirty ev n de bu being told this and remark = might be buried but he was “lor from being dead, and would probably live to hear of the death of many that thought him out of the way.” 1 determined to see the old man In i learn his past history from 1 ed for the spot on described by the hun- eached the wood-cutters’ Sure enough there s his ow 0od ' the tump, the stone fi. ce and the s of Abbott’s shanty. It had evidently been torn down but a short perfod before in order to let the road be constructed onward up the canyon. 0ld “Steve” Steadman, the foreman or “boss” of the Howard Shafter & Com- He is preparing a big book to give merchants valuable suggestions on the best way to capture the oriental m’quet. Special to The Sunday Call. ASHINGTON, Nov. 5.—The Yankees must invade China; there is no longer any doubt about it. However, the in- vasion will. be a peacefil one, of a commercial nature, and in- volving no grab of territory. This Gov- ernment is determined that the United States shall obtain a share of the trade of the Middle Kingdom, for which four great European powers are now con- tending. Accordingly, the Department of State is on the point of publishing a very important and elaborate docu- ment, taking the form of a volume of 800 pages, which shows just how this result is to be accomplished. The book will afford mighty interesting reading for every merchant and manufacturer, big or little, in this country. No step will fail' to be taken, no stone left unturned, in the competition for a fair share of the trade of the 500,000,000 people. It is not merely China. Rus- gian Siberia, Japan, Korea, Siam, For- mosa, the Philippines, Java, Borneo and a multitude of islands, great and small, constitute a vast field which has been termed the “‘Pacific opportunity.” All Eastern Asia to-day is trembling .with the outcoming trend of progress, and when once these uncounted hosts realize that old conditions of sloth and inaction must yield to the invasion of new ideas, then the movement all along the line will astonish the world. Those countries which have prepared to con- trol the Asiatie trade will naturally take the lead in the division of spoils, while those who are laggards will be pany estate, came over from a shamyl forever relegated to the rear. Korea, Java and the Philippines have as many accessible inhabitants as Africa, while Siam has as numerous a population as Australia and the lesser islands of the Pacifle. A century hence the Chinese empire will be gridironed with American rail- ways traversed by Yankee locomotives drawing trains of cars built in United States factories. These trains will carry not only Oriental passengers, grown in- different to the sacrilege of running over the graves of their ancestors, but coal and iron from Chinese mines. The mines will be controlled mostly by American capital, and their machinery will be of American make. There will be other mines, too, of gold, silver, lead and various other valuable metals and minerals derivable from the bowels of the earth. For, if the testimony of many American experts and explorers is worth anything, China embraces some of the richest and most extensive mineral producing regions of the world. Hitherto the development of China’s mineral resources has been studicusly discouraged and opposed by the author- ities. The first thing required is per- on to the people to avail them- s freely of their untouched wealth underground. The absurdity of the present situation in this regard is fairly illustrated by the fact that steamboats at Ichang, 1000 miles inland on the Yangtse River, are compelled to burn costly imported Japanese coal, although Ichang is situated on the borders of one of the richest coal fields in the world. The coal deposits of that region are so remarkable as to arrest the at- tention of casual travelers, but the Gov- ernment will not allow them tg be worked. If these mines, with the in- cidental iron ores and petroleum springs, were permitted to be exploited there would be such a trade that the avallable steamers and junks would hardly be able to carry it all. A gold mining company was organ- ized in 1896 in this province (Szechuan) by a Chinaman named Tong, who stud- ied mining in the United States. He got the sanction of the Viceroy to buy ma- chinery, but the people petitioned the latter official to stop the work. Samples of gold from the mines had been shown to the Viceroy and the petition was not granted. Szechuan has a popula- tion nearly equal to that of France and an area about as great. Shantung is described as one vast mineral fleld. Gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, coal and even diamonds are found. The gold mines have been worked by Californfa miners, but they had to abandon the task, owing to the ob- structiveness of the native officials ten Yyears ago. It Is expected that with the advent of the locomotive in the near future great activity will be shown in exploiting gold, coal and other miner- als. Were this province under any other rule it would be one of the greatest mining sections in the world. It has a population of 29,000,000—about the samé as that of Spain. This is one of the northeastern provinces of China proper, and through it runs the famous Hoang-Ho or Yellow River, known as “China’s Sorrow,” by reason of the @estruction of millions of people by its frequent owerflows. In this province China’s two great sages, Confucius and Mencius, were born. Outschang, capital of Houpe, the “Chicago of China,” will soon be con- nected with Peking by rail, the road being now under construction by a Bel- glan syndicate. This city has 1,500,000 inhabitants and is the central market for about 70,000,000 people—a population equal to that of the entire United States. A point like this merely illus- trates the vastness of the possibilities of China 8s a purchaser of American goods. The very magnitude of the pop- ulation of the Oriental empire well nigh exceeds the scope of the human mind to realize. At least five times that of this country—there has never been a census of the “Cehtral Flowery Land”— the wants of its individual components will grow rapidly with the development of the civilization which is to be forced upon these people who have stood still for thirty centuries. How strange it seems, by the way, that so much of the knowledge from which modern civ- ilization springs has been derived from the Chinese. 2 i During the last few years, however, China has undergone wonderful changes. On every side in that country one sees evidences of new-born ac- tivity and enterprise. The old-fash- foned, conservative Chinaman with his cry of “foreign devil,” is being crowd- ed to the rear. One hears much talk of railways, of mills of various kinds and of enterprises of all sorts. The na- tives have suddenly become progres- sive; they want to learn about modern inventions and scientific discoveries. At Wei-hsien a Chinaman is engaged in making bicycles. This genius is able to turn out a fair wheel, but cannot master the pneumatic tires. He solves the problem by covering rope with hides, coloring the leather to the proper hue and fastening it to the rims of the wheels. The missionary, always the pioneer of commerce and the mer- chants’ most useful advance agent, can now travel up and down the coun- try on his wheel, and the sight is so common that it attracts no remark. Just at present there is a reactionary movement in China, but the Empress Dowager has no more power to stem the tide of progress in Kingdom than had King Canute to pause the progress of the waves. She is a mere pebblie on the beach, notwith- the Middle standing any impressions of her own to the.contrary. Foreign influence s too much for her. Take a figure or two for {llustration. In 1890 there was only one mill in China using foreign machinery. In Shanghai alone to-day there are over 100 such mills, and scat- tered all over the empire tall chimney stacks loom on the horizon. Iron millg, paper mills, cotton mills, all sorts of mills, are being created. In 1890 not a steam vessel of any description was al- lowed to run in any waters except at the treaty ports; now the rivers are covered with small steamers and steam launchés. Telegraph lines run through the most anti-foreign provinces. In 1890 a high native official, who had tried to establish a telegraph in the Hunan Province, was obliged to fiee for his life, all of the apparatus and ma- terial being destroyed. To-day this province is eagerly pushing forward enterprises of all sorts; schools for teaching English are found 1000 miles from the coast, the electric light is used, bicycles are common and the for- eigner is no longer stoned or reviled. Of course, it is very necessary that American dealers and manufacturers shall know exactly what {s demanded by these markets, and informd®ion on the subject is given in much detail by the State Department book quoted. It seems that the demand in China for Yankee drillings and sheetings 1s rapid- ly growing. The Celestials want Ameri- can stoves, foodstuffs, small wares and notions, clocks and watches, confec- tions, groceries, butter, locks of every kind and hinges and ‘fastenings for doors and windows. They Iike our canned vegetables and fruits, and our condensed milk in tins is to them a positive dream. Into Shanghaf alone there were imported during the last twelve months more than 40,000 cans of condensed milk, There i{s & market in China for many millions of bushels of American wheat and corn annually. The rich Chinese prefer wheat and flour from the United States to all other brands. Clocks, watches and lamps from the United States, and likewise our axes, are at the top of the market. Scattered all over the empire, in Chinese employ, are Yankee engineers, mining experts and high-grade steelworkers. Indeed, Amer- jcan influence in all branches of busi- ness is felt in China to-day as it never was before. In 1880 China sold to the United States $6,000,000 more worth of products than she bought from this country. Six years later her imports from America had trebled, the balance of trade In favor of the United States being half a million gold dollars per annum. From this statement it will appear that we are already getting a grip on the trade of China. And, by the way, a Philadelphia firm has furnished the locondotives for the Tientsin-Peking railroad now in process of completion. Already we are sending enormous quantities of flour and Kkerosene to China. The Chinamen have a way of refilling the empty American oil cans with a wretched quality of stuff from Russia_or Sumatra, and this does the trade damage. It is recommended by the State Department that the oil pro- ducers in this country should take mea- sures to prevent this. They might es- tablish at a profit oil depots in China at points sunitable for distribution, and it would be a good idea to give to each considerable purchaser a cheap, non- combustible lamp. Many fires are caused in Chinese cities by defective lamps. It ought to be mentioned, inci- dentally, that experts in this country do themselves muych injury by sending low-grade wines and ‘“‘rotgut” whisky to China. A Chinaman knows what good whisky is, and the same remark applies to wines. In one respect the United States holds a unique position in the view of those Chinese officers and people who know anything of the outside world. More or less in dread of all the Euro- pean powers, they fear nothing from us. We are known to be rich and peaceful, and nothing we have done ex- cites suspicion in the Chinese mind. ‘We are regarded as friends, and in so far as that is concerned what we have to offer will be welcomed. But, as to commercial methods in the Orient, American merchants have a good deal to learn. For one thing, they ought to send agents with samples, and not mere illustrated lists of goods and prices. All over the immense oceanic area called Polynesia there are markets for American goods. It is not a question merely of the Philippinés, but of a hun- dred other groups of islands. Samoa is a promising field, and so likewise is Fijl. The trade of Fijt to-day is second in the Pacific only to that of the Ha- waiian Islands. Immense quantities of kerosene are used in Polynesia, and all of it comes from this country. Other articles imported largely from the United States into the scattered lands of Oceanica are flour, canned and dried fruits, canned fish, lobsters and oysters. American textile fabrics, on the other hand, are practically unknown in that part of the world. There is a great American opportun- ity in Siam, which is a much bigger country than most folks realize. Larger than Japan, it is the third independent kingdom of Asia, having 8,000,000 in- habitants, with an area about equal to that of Texas. The city of Bangkok has a population of 600,000. However, the market is peculiar, demanding cheap things, without regard to qual- ity. Flour, canned goods, watches, clocks, sewing machines and electrical machinery are already largely imported from America. One suggestion offered is that one or more vessels might be equipped as floating expositions and sent to visit various ports in China and elsewhere in the Orient, in order to show the natives samples of the various manufactures of the United States. This would be a convenient and comparatively cheap method of bringing American products before the expected consumers. Every available scheme pointing to this end is well worth considering, inasmuch as this country is to be no longer a “her- mit nation,” but has definitely decided upon an entrance into rivalry with European powers for the trade of the world. g RENE BACHE. —_—————— ‘Wife—Who was that who called? Husband—One of my tenants called to pay me his rent. “Did he pay it?" “Yes. “Then, why do you look so gloomy?” “He didn’t say a word about wanting fifteen or twenty dollars’ worth of re- airs.” “What of 1t?” “That shows that ke’ deave."—Exchange. going to