The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 4, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, NDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1898 23 NEW TERROR OF THE SEAS AS IT WILL APPEAR IN ACTION. This New Invention Is a Tribute to Ericsson’s Genius, as It Is Modeled on the “Old Cheese-Box” Pattern, but With All the Known Defects Remedicd and Some New and Pawerful Contrivances Added. Special to The Call. HE war established the useful- n of the monitor type for the offshore line of battle, -or for with squadrons detailed sault points at moderate distances from an equipping base. Even before the war the monitor's want of speed and its defects as a gun platform were fully recognized by all naval offi- cers whose opinions are entitled to any conside! Owing to fleet deficiencies we crui tion. were compelled to utilize the type on several expeditions. On these the behavior of the ships was exactly as expected, and, as they retarded the fleet, and by their small coal radius and defective speed could not fight their guns in an aver- age sea, Rear Admiral Sampson and other officers were compelled to give their reputation for such work a blow which ought to silence even the few zealots who are more strenuous than Jjudicious in their advocacy. It is quite another story, however, when their employment for harbor and coast defense in moderate weather is considered. Here their inherent good qualities are most highly developed and their inherent bad qualities do not play an overmastering part. Recogniz- ing their fighting value, and also, to some degree, their extraneous value as schools of instruction for the proposed naval reserve, the Navy Department was directed last year by Congress to submit plans for four single-turreted monitors. These were adopted, and contracts were given out in September for their construction. After more ma- ture consideration, however, it was dis- covered that by the expenditure of the money originally voted, or, at most, by a slight increase, larger and more pow- erful ships could be built. Some opponents of the type went so far as to declare that the boats pro- vided were really inferior to the older monitors then in service and that if these vessels were to form part of the fleet their fighting value could be al- most doubled by increasing their dis- placement about twelve hundred tons, giving them one knot greater speed and substituting four 10-inch guns, pair mounted in two turrets disposed fore and aft. in lieu of the two 12-inch guns 0000000000000 00000C0000D000000000CO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGOn;oumed in a single turret, as origin- ©ally ordered. OSAGE INDIANS ARE THE WEALTHIEST PEOPLE 3 Per Garpita, in America, JLUSTRATING THE DIFFERENCE IN WEALTH BETWEEN THE OSAGE AVERAGE LABORING MAN. to-be-envied” United States. This statement is based on the report that General Pollock has just made to the Interior Department concerning the redskins of Indian Ter- ritory. He says that they have the largest per capita wealth of any class of people in our country. It is;about fifteen times the per capita wealth of all the people in America, which means that in reality it is about 100 times that of the average workingman. Truly the redskins are to be envied. And in addition to the wealth the In- dians have a freedom from care that comes to very few white men, even those possessed of thousands. Our friend the Osage Indian leads a jolly life in many ways. He doesn’t work, and if the tobacco Uncle Sam gives him is not to his liking he sends it back and gets better. He is a pam- pered pet of the Government, and thou- people, in the INDIAN AND THE Mr. Lewis Nixon was particularly anxious that t_ is view showd be con- sidered, and after his alternative plans were submitted to the Board of Con- struction it was determined to recall |!18 contracts and to ask permission of Congress to substitute plans and bids ©Ofor the new type. 3 HE Osage Indians are the “most-¢ 000000000000000CO sands of our best citizens would be glad to exchange places with him. To begin with Mr. Osage has plenty of good farming land secured to him by the generosity of 'Uncle Sam. Each man, woman and child in the tribe has 800 acres, which at the low estimate of 25 cents an acre makes a total of $200. In addition to this each receives an an- nuity of $200 in gold from cur Govern- ment, as well as certain other per- quisites. The food and clothing given is worth at least another $100, making in all $500. Of course all this cannot be consid- ered'as per capita wealth, because the greater portion, like that of the plain American workingman'’s wages, has to be spent as soon as it is received. But $200 worth of farming land can be put down, as well as the clothing and the interest on $200—leaving a good, broad margin. This would foot up to at least $260 as actual per capita wealth of the Osage Indian tribe. The per capita wealth of the Ameri- can people has never been placed at more than $27. It will thus be seen what an entrmous pecuniary advantage there is in favor of the Osage Indian. An estimate of the average amount of goods and coin possessed by 10,000 of our poorer class of citizens was made in New York about two years ago. This showed the astonishingly low figure of $3 40. Over 5000 of these people pos- sessed less than an average of §1 apiece, while a good many had nothing. A family of seven recently assisted by one of our charitable societies had chattels that could not have been sold for 50 cents. Of money they had not a cent. And while these people, who turned out to be worthy, were struggling along on the verge of starvation, the good- for-nothing Osage Indians were strut- ting about in lordly idleness paid for and secured by our Government. The payment of moneys to these In- dians is made to the head of the fam- ily. If he has eight children and a wife he gets $2000 a year and is virtually the owner of 8000 acres of land. The birth of a child is regarded as a blessing by the Osage tribe. Mr. Osage does not take amiably to the soothing joys of rural life. Not he. That may do for a poor white man who has to work for a living, but for a big, plump Indian who receives an In- come and tender care from our Govern- ment there are other things more suit- able. For instance, there are saloons and It is a tributte of Ericsson’s genius that the main features of the monitor of 1862 are still the main features of the new ships—that is, they will be flat bot- tomed vessels, armored on the sides and on the deck, which is slightly elevated above the waterline, and will carry tur- rets. The designs for the new ships were prepared by the chief constructor of the navy, who decided that, with the appro- priation granted by Congress, the best results would be obtained by building single turreted vessels, the turret to be of the elliptically balanced type, such as had been designed for the recent battle ships, mounting two 12-inch guns of the latest pattern. The remainder of the armament is to consist of four 4- inch rapid firers and a secondary. bat- tery composed of three 6-pounder rapid firers and four 1-pounder automatic guns. The armor is to be noticeably heavy, that attached to the hull having a max- imum thickness of eleven inches in the ‘wake of the machinery, and then taper- ing at the ends to flve inches. The width of this belt is to be five feet. The barbettes for the protection of the base of the turret and the turret machinery are to be ten inches thick. The turrets will be nine inches thick and carry their front plate or face in- clined at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The decks are to be one and five- tenths inches thick, the conning tower seven and one-half inches, and the communication tubes through which the wires connecting the conning tower with all parts of the vessel will lead will be three inches thick. The protec- tive deck is to have a maximum thick- ness of two and a half inches. The new monitors show perhaps the most marked improvement over the old in the motive power. In the latter the single simple engine of the grass- hopper type was capable of developing only 340 horsepower and a speed of eight knots, while the new \rkansas and her class of ships will be driven by two engines of the triple expansion type, capable of being worked up to over 5000 horsepower and of driving the monitor at a twelve knot gait. There will be twin screws, of course, and many other internal arrangements which were not to be found in the sin- gle turreted monitors of the '60’s, such for instance as electric lights, steam steering gear and mechanical service ot the guns. Habitability will also be decidedly bettered and the sanitary im- provements will be a feature. The time allowed the builders to com- plete the ships was fixed at twenty- seven months, and in this there is a great increase over the time given Ericsson. He was granted only 100 days in which to construct the Monitor, and yet his work was completed in the time set, and a month later his unique craft, with Worden in command, passed out of the harbor of New York to meet her foe. . 000000000000 0C00000000000000000C000C0000000000000000Q00 dance halls of the Territory. Here he spends his time singing, dancing, smoking and drinking such beverages as he is permitted tc buy. The fact that the law prohibits whisky cuts very little figure, as any one can ascertain by a visit to one of the villages shortly after payday. And so he passes his noble life. His farming land is scarcely worked, but stock are pastured on it, and the money derived from their sale, together with his: income, enables him to: “roll 'em high” all the year around. He always has plenty of money. and. desires his children to grow to be no more indus- trious than their parent. That is why our Government has had such a hard dime to get the children to attend school. And all this while thousands of de- serving white people are in actual want and would be only too glad to get a hundredth part of those 800 acres the Indian possesses, even without a cent of income from the Government. —_——— ENORMOUS COST OF WAR. ASHINGTON, Nov. 27.—Uncle Sam’s expenses for the Spanish war sink into insignificance when compared with the cost of the conflict between the States. Thus far the war with Spain has cost $187,- 529,941, or a fraction over $1,000,000 per day since the beginning of hostilities, April 21, against the enormous sum of $3,065,413,415 during the Civil War, on an average of $1,685,156 per day. The largest amount paid out in a sin- gle day during the war with Spain was $4,110,000, July 28, or nearly enough to construct and equip a first- class battleship. The next highest days were September 19, when $3,775,000 was spent, and July 19, with a total of $3,770,000, but the daily expenses fre- quently ran above the $§3,000,000 mark. The budget for the four months of the present fiscal year was $125,112,540, while the expenditures for the whole fiscal year of 1897 were only $83,511,713, and for this month the average of $1,- 000,000 per day was maintained. The total disbursements of the Gov- ernment for the four months of the present fiscal year, which included the civil list, pension payments and inter- est on the public debt, was $223,587,114. The total receipts were only $153,754,445, showing a deficit of $69,000,000 for the fiscal year. —_———— An‘engineer declares that 50,000 feome now do the work with the ald of ma- chinery which needed 16,000,000 persons to 1do a few days ago. & HERE' was a man and his wife and a Tertium Quid.” The man discreetly withdrew from the . game after opening the jackpot, the edge having been raised $4. The man’s wife stood pat, presumably with a flush or a full house, but, to the Tertium Quid, it was certainly a straight, for .she has betrayed a womanly weakness for that costly piece of gambler’s bric-a-brac so sure to be shattered in a game. The Tertium Quid drew one card, and, after seeing and raising numerous bets, he shoved in his remaining pile of blue chips, capped with a $5 bill, and called, smiling complacently as he did so, into two sober black eyes that had been tantalizing him with pretty surrepti- tious glances during the brief three hours they had known each other. A moment later he experienced the mental sensation of falling 300 feet without having the advantage of a patch of Indian corn at the bottom, as did his prototype in Kipling’s tale. ‘When the Tertium Quid reached his hotel he was restless. He tried to.in- terest the night clerk by mentioning, as a little joke on himself, that he got “bumped for a few” in a friendly game. Then he strolled across the lobby like a man who seeks company and finally came back and addressed the clerk confidentially. “I can’t hélp thinking I was taken in by that little woman, and the worst is, I won't have a chance to get éven.” This time the clerk brightened up. “A woman,” said * a woman know how to play poker?” “It looks suspicious, anyhow,” con- tinued the Tertium Quid. ‘““You see, her husband has been buying a line of me for three seasons. But I never met her till to-night. He and I were in several friendly games downtown last spring. He lost every time I chaffed him about it when I called on him last week for a holiday order. We were in a game Tuesday night and he lost again. 1 cashed In $15 and remarked it was a very satisfactory game, very satisfactory, indeed, but it is too bad that Kansas City people neglect the great American game. He was good- natured about it and invited me to take dinner with him at his home. ““He has a charming wife; only been married two years. She is as full of Afun as a child; piquant; an art stuflont[ KNEW-HOW TO_F’LHY POKEK HERSELF. in the Corcoran School when he mar- ried her, and she has the genuine bo- hemian temperament. She suggested a game of draw instead of three-handed high-five. She used to play with the girls in their rooms at school and liked the game. I confess I was more in- terested in her than the cards. “I held big hands. Never drew better in my life, but I couldn’t get action. I had to lay down a flush. Once I won a dollar on four treys. Whenever I had a big hand they would drop out. I tried checking it, betting easy, raising didn’t make any difference. “It was getting late and we declded to finish with a jackpot around: J won a small pot on four sevens. Wheg she dealt again I drew four treys for the second time. It was my third hang of fours. I had twenty minutes in which to catch the last car. Her hus- band hadn’t taken much interest through the whole game, and I remem- ber he didn’t cut her cards often. But this time he opened for the size of the pot, $4 25. “She had stooped flirting with me and was looking serious. I called for one card; she was:about to throw her hand down. Then she examined it again. That puzzled me, I sized her up for a straight. I had noticed her hold- ing up four cards before, frequently dropping out after the draw, and once she won on a straight. Now her face betrayed nothing. We had it between us. Her chips went to the center and she borrowed $12 from her husband. I called. She had four sevens. I was $40 loser. “As I bid them good night she re- marked naively ‘Very satisfactory game, very satisfactory, indeed. Noth- ing I enjoy better than a little game of draw.’ “And the worst of it is‘they didn’t invite me to call again. and I won't be able to get even with that little wo- man.” The next day the Tertium Quid learned that a rival house had sold his friend a hill of holiday goods, and thus he was lowered into eighteen inches of water instead of the twelve to which ha had at first objected. B — It is computed that when at rest we consume 500 cubic inches of air a minute, If we walk at the rate of one mile an hour we use 800; two miles, 1000; three miles, 1600; four miles, 2300, If we start out and run six miles an hour we con- sume 3000 cubic inches of air during every minute of the time.