The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 25, 1901, Page 7

HE Prince of Washerwomans Bar lies death in the royal sick w residence be moved idence, although nd seek in and door and cer- ss way of ovisions that Prince, being nue at present, has & dwelling near him, lazy i the cuss officer of the nt for the ¥ to take him away t even the bulldog, the officer, who in- the best intentions in ight into the carying him off, when* the Hospital k matters » his own hands, s m ¥ bed ar t off the in- w Kk should have been ul name. Tt sounds some- —as for instance ri, which a college yel wo for glory a “Rah!" g-out Or, better 4 a story? Aupi Maru Mori, Washerwomans since anybody can re- been old enough to e. He is Aupl to and everybody nt like a car- along with his creeping & Now that he has reached the time when the has become a burden— n this evidently be- wh h is like little brown helpless, simost . angd people neighborhood bring e way for h to ge g a his friends proposed and over in the way hospital ked Iike re being fence, thr , to the entrance of the the door and entered in joy- ad come to the Prince with proud greeted bis Highness what he must want; he wa cheerful and he Here we are, Aupl. Come on. You're What? Who are you?” Aupi mumble a turmoil the City and County Hospital You're ck, Aupl, to be taking a trip & ave ho, there!” pair of sturdy arms into heaving ho he re- sick 100k up his only somewhat ricket, point of death, sprang up ratory fo 1 The upi stone 1 and at the gether with all the gunnysacks, flour « and carpeting that covered and seized his stick. It is as long as hold and as stout as a It came down over the shoul- s of the well-meaning officer. Whack! and it descended on his head. hack! once more and it struck only epace. The officer was outside, recalling & law which nted itself to him some- If a man does not want to leave his home you are not obliged to oblige him He was very glad of that law. It com- pelled him to return promptly to the wait- ing ambulance on Gough street. He drove away report to his heagauarters and dropped the The hospital denv matter. people can do nothing. They are rendered helpless in all their at- tempts to aid Aupi by the law which says that no one can compel a man to leave his own home against his wish. That settles it For Aupi’s wish is not going to change. He bas ilved in that among the ashes and the jun these two years and in the same neighborhood in another cabin for some half a hundred years before that ered his cabin and you could no more transplant him than you could the Charter Oak. He won't go. For it is too late to return to his people. His idea of a hospital is that it is a chamber of tranquillity. He is firmly con- vineed that his days are numbered if he enters there, and as it is, being not a day over 130, Aupi looks forward to being here when wirel elegraphy connects us with Mars. He isn't going to be duped into dying, not he. His age is something that nobody is quite sure of, but it is certainly not over 13 It is anywhere between that and 1 He lived here the ber him before pioneer days, before s came, and those who remem- then say that he was a very old man at that time Thirty yvears ago he had a sickness and people said then that it must be his last, for he was too old to withstand it butcher, noticed that he was Convey. th® not able to earn his own meat. Convey the butcher has a kird heart and he said: “You can't pay fcr your meat, Aupi, and you don’'t need to. You come to me every week and I'll give you meat as long as you live. “Thank vou, papa. thank you,” said Aupi, just as does now. “And you won’'t have to come but once or twi more,” Convey added. “You see, papa; you see.” And he did see. For thirty years Con- vey the butcher has furnished Aupi with meat, pending the time when he doesn't need any more. Since has been con- fined at home Convey has sent it to him cooked. Aupi speaks very little English, for he has lived mostly among the Mexicans in California. When we went to see him and took along a Spanish interpreter he sat up in bed In his eagerness to talk Span- jsh. He was so cold when he sat up that he had to wrap a flour sack about pim, put on a hat and light his pipe, but sit up he would, so that he could gestic- ulate the better while he told the story of nis life. The first part of it Is so dfm to him now that it has to be gathered from the neigh- bors who heard it in early days. It runs that %e is an East Indian Prince who was kidnaped in a very faraway youth and taken to the South Sea Islands. From there, where he worked as a slave for colonists, Le broke away and made THE SUNDAY CALL. his way to Californfa. Tn his rambiing talk he told us that Calcutta was his first home, and then he drifted so far afield that we couldn’t pump another fact about hig boyhood. save that all his family wers dead when he left India except a sister, Yyounger than he. He knows nothing about her. There can’t be a doubt as to his nation- ality. Little and withered as he is now, he looks like the photographs of famine sufferers in India. He is dark brown and tiny, with clawlike hands and feet. His short white beard fringes his face like the beard of a marmoset. The point at which he begins to remem- ber is when he went to the California mines in '49 days. There he made his money—his $1200. ““All gone—all gone.” It is on this point that the tragedy of his life hinges. It seemi that his one ambition upon reaching California was to gather togeth- er enough money to return to India. There he would take up the life that he i I @«uuulfll\}‘, ;\li!z\l!lfll'.l\\l!ll!lflfllm\l{“ nau left. There he would be a Princy, in« deed, ruling over people who honored him as they had revered his father. There “‘Aupi” would become “Prince Aupi Maru Mori,” and men would salaam before him. So he treasured his money and eagerly sought for more. *'All gone—all gone.” He ran off into an excited mumbling, in which a little English was mixed with much Spanish and more Indian. “All gone—no more—no left,” came out of the heap of word His wrinkled brown hands were flying about his head. His voice rose to a cry, to a shriek. He broke into a cough that stopped his words and racked him, leav- ing him clasping a mighty pain in his poor old head. ‘When he could talk again he went on Avrzr Tsz HA1s SToRY p il FPoyvAar L STDENCE ¢0 tell the story of the loss of what was the beginning of a fortune to him. “T put five hundred dollars into a bank in Victoria,” he said, “and seven hundred into Duncan's Bank here. Both the banks failed and there was none of my money left, not a cent.” This, then, was the end of the princely dream. The money was gone, the sum which was nearly enough to take him back to India with the dignity befitting. He was too old to begin over. The prince- ly dream was ended. “Then how did you make your living?” “I washed in Washerwomans Bay.” The old residents who remember back to the time when Washerwomans Bay was a bay in reality, not a drained dry, empty lot, as it is now, and who remem- ber the Mexican colony that used to live roundabout it and the Mexican women who used to go down to its shores and wash clothes in it, these remember Aupi among the circle of washers scrubbing clothes with what strength there was in his wizen little brown arms. In this way - N ) he supported himself, for he was too old then to do a man’'s work. The majority of Aupi's neighbors can't remember when ne 23 young enough to do any work at all. He has lived on char- ity so long that he accepts it as a matter of course. Mrs. Canty carries him his meals and has done so for years, and if she is late by so much as a quarter of an hour he threatens her with his treasured stick. “You bad to-day, mamma, you bad to- day.” He blinded himself when chopping wood several years ago and this increased his helplessness many fold. During the time that he was able to walk out his friends used to carry him over the ditch that was near his home. Even little girls would pick him up as easily as if he were a doll. At this time, when he could not take care of himself, boys began to torment him and this fact may be responsible for his very bad temper. They infuriated him by calling to him and throwing stones and ne made himself master of a complete vocabulary of swears in three languages which he could hurl at them in return and which he applies now to anybody who crosses his fancy. His friends and defenders bought him a police whistle and tied it about his little pipe stem of a neck and he had the com- fort of trilling the whistle whenever a boy came near him. There never was a po- liceman who heard, but the whistle served to frighten the boys. “Were you ever married, Aupi?” He went off into a cackle of laughter. “It was all I ever could do to support myself,” he wheezed. It appears to have been even more. Two vears ago, when he had left a lamp burn- ing in his cabin and returned to find a pile of ashes, Captain Canty built him a new cabin and there he is now. It is cer- tainly not large enough for a wife. He gave up long ago any desire to return te India. It was too late, he said. Those who knew him were gone. The royalty of his line might have faded. His rule must have passed to another. He wants to stay here. So this prince who planned once to return to his people and rule over them lies old and sick in a shanty that charity built and ekes out the little life left him with food that charity furnishes. It is charity that needs relief more than he, for his care has fallen upon the shoulders of a very few and he is more to take care of than an orphan asylum. He was growing tired of us as we stood there talking him over, and he dismissed us after his customary fashion, which is as gracious as it is final and in both quali- ties savors of rovalty. “You must go? Too bad. good-by."” And as we closed the door upon him he burst forth into a cracked, cackling song in his native tongue, the weirdest chant that mortal ever heard. Feed him, then leave him alone and let him sing, and he is content. Thus royalty. A Fall From a Great Height Will Tear the Shoes From Your Feet. ASKED the men on the new East River bridze if any of their mates who had fallen from the top of the tower had lost their boots in the de- scent, said an old engineer. “They all declared that they had net, but I belleve that they did. If they didn't, East River bridge builders are selting a new stand- ard for the workmen of the future to fall by. In the past the men who fell from great heights were pretty sure to lose their boots before they reached the ground. Miners who fell down deep shafts struck the earth barefoot, and the builders of high towers who were so un- lucky as to lose their footing reached terra firma in the same ndition. Of course there were exceptions to the rule, but in all these exceptional cases the footgear was laced skintight, and the general conditions of the fall were such s to prove the rule of loosened shoes This subject always held espeeial in- terest for me, but nowhere have I fourd a satisfactory explanation of the phe- nomenon. In the summer of 1856 I was on an Ohio River steamboat plying between Cincinnati and Cairo. Once we pulled out from Cincinnati about 10 o'clock in the evening. By the time we reached the lower bridge we were making pretty fair headway. I was standing on the upper Jeck, about two feet from the railing, looking up into the network of the bridges’ wires. Just as we entered the shadow I saw something large and black fall from the railing above and shoot down toward the water. For a few sec- onds I held my breath, and not until I heard a thud on the deck beside me did I collect my wits sufficiently to realize that a man had fallen off the bridge and that I must give the alarm. Even them T picked up the object at my feet before calling to the rest of the crew. The thing that had brought me to my senses was a boot—a high top boot of fine leather and small size. My mates had been aroused by a splash in the water at the stern of the boat and we put quickly about and summoned aid, but although boatmen beat about in the river half the night they found no trace of the man. “Most people inclined to the bellef that he had escaped, for an examination of the boot revealed that he had good reasvns for avoiding pursuit. Inside the lining of the boot were found important docu- ments that had been stolen from a promi- nent business man of Covington. At first it was believed that the boot would prove a valuable clew whereby the thief might be traced, but it was destitute of telitale marks and was utterly useless so far as the clearing up of the mystery went. The papers were the thing coveted, however, and once they had been restored their owner did not feel inclined to spend mueh time and money in trying to answer the questions. ‘Who was the thief?” ‘Where was he? and ‘Did he fall from the bridge by accident or design? But although those problems are vet unsolved the ad- venture demonstrated to my satisfaction that boots do slip off feet in a swift de- scent from some great height. and the next time some poor fellow tumbles from East River bridge I hope his friends will pay particular attention to his boots.” Good-by,