The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 30, 1902, Page 4

THE SUNDAY CALL SERIES of hoarse barks, alternat- ing with a shrill shriek, followed now and then by a splash as of a ing into water, are al sounds that come ess of the Orpheum stage commotion does not pre- sage the subve of rollicking slapstick vaudeville into ranting melodrama. It is tain Webb's seals enjoying a e big portable tank placed in now nsformed into a temporary the engagement of these the seca. queer denizens To see them there in the half-light of upon six slick-shining, fur- 2is in no wise different from that disport themselves on the Cliff House for the edi- ement of the Eastern ally, the aggrandize- s golden West. But to age during a perform- a transformation that six furry beasts peculiar alone to t talk, and they are con- strenuous efforts to add plishment to the very many w is a clown whose fun- died with profit by a alled comedians of the ty. He is the spolled, apered star of the strang- s that has ever n at the Orpheum, and he wears f clowndom with the assurance wit and wisdom. y flippers to supply ce of skilled juggle everything in sight, ssing their performance THE STERANGE IXSTRU~ HENT THAT ands and feet, these{ unless “Young America” has lost the cu- riosity, the enterprise and the imitative- ness of his race, we may expect to see poaching parties at the ocean beach lay- ing spares to entrap the inhabitants of Beal Rocks for private theatricals, And the feat is not impossihle if “Young America” possesses the skill and patience of Captain and Mrs. Webb, for the seao— An Easy Lesso lions used in thelr performance are from our own Seal Rocks and Monterey Bay. Indeed, Charlie’s story reads like an extra romance by Ernest Seton Thomp- son. It is delightfully interesting to know that this strange creature of the sea, who looks over the footlights with such glo- rious, great sad brown eyes, and includes jugglery, ball playing and musical feats in his incongruous repertoire, has many of the foibles and eccentricities of the petted human star. Those who love animals and wonder at their training will joy in the pretty story 0ddest Band Instrument 10 Be Found in the World, . ‘Those who go to see Ellery’s Royal Ital- fan Band at the Mechanics’ Pavilion will no doubt be much puzzled and not a little overawed at the strange instrument used by one of the players. It ls an immense ‘brass horn that looks like a combination saxophone, trombone and French horn. It is as high as the player himself and is fitted with a double row »f keys for each hand, while its great round bell- like tube is thrust out straight before his face like the serried colls of a huge boa- constrictor. No such strai Instrument ever been seen here before. In point of fact, there is not such another in all the world. It doesn’t need any name, therefore, because it could not be mis- taken, no matter how large the band. It is doubly interesting, not alone be- cause of its curious and fascinating mel- ody, but because it is the invention of the great composer, Verdi, who, when he was &t work on one of his later works, was extremely desirous of producing a certain tone that was unlike any that could be e with any single instrument, but which would yet be a combination of sev- eral, And so he set to work anpd the re- markable horn shown in the picture on this pege is the result. With it Ellery’s band has produced the strangest musieal effects imaginable, as anybody who goes to the Pavillon will soon discover. SHARSHOT BY BUITITNELL - FHFoTos of Charlie’s babyhood and the develop- ment of his character dince ‘‘going on the stage.” His mother was captured In the bay of Monterey, near Pacific Grove, In 1898, by a fisherman, who shipped her to London. There she was purchased by Captain Webb, and two months later Charlie was born, the mother seal dying and leaving ‘her baby to the tender mer- cles of the world. The tender mercies of the world as pro- vided by the captain and his wife, wko performs with him here, proved wonder: fully gentle. The motherléss creature was comforted not only by his human guardians. however, for one of the big sea lions took upon himself the adoptiom and education of the little fellow. He taught him, as a nurse teaches a baby to suek his thumb, to try the solace of his (the sea lion's) ear, and to this day, as a child goes back to an old habit, so Charlie at times edges over to his old friend Nero and takes his ear in his mouth. Mrs. Webb raised Charlie on a bottle, and so he has never known any wildness, By Mrs. E, P. Schell. HE novice at the whist table finds the vernacular of the whist expert somewhat perplexing and these are a few of the questions they are apt to put to you. What is a slam? What is a Yarborough? A Bath coup? An Albany lead? A fourchette? And a number of others that are Greek to ‘them. I will answer a few of these, trying to make them -clear, and answer them in rotation as above listed. “Slam,” the word used for taking all thirteen tricks. Relnhardt gives the fol- lowing derivation of the word '“slam’: Slam (m), Iceland slamra, Northern Eng- land, “to beat or cuff one strenuously.” As English beat and German sclagen pass from “strike” to “conquer,” slam came to mean “to beat or win” at cards. Webster says “as it were to take all at'a strike or dash,” which is possible but not necessary. A “Yarborough” {s a hand contalning no card higher than a nine. It 18 w0 named on account of the fact that Lord Yarborough offered to bet 1000 to 1 in- definitely against such a hand being dealt. ‘While there are mamy Yarboroughs on record it is doubtful if their occurrence would average one in two thousand deals, A Bath coup is a tactical stratagem which originated with the coterie of experts who practiced the game in Bath, England, durmng the time of Mathews. It consists in holding up the ace, from a hand of &ce. jack and others, upon a lead of king from king, queen, so as to secure tenace over the leader. It is not usually considered good play. ‘With strength in trumps, however, the fourth player may sometimes by this means effectively de- lude the leader into the belief that his suit is established and induce him to lead trumps on account of it. An “Albany lead” is somewhat out of date, but there are players who still play it. What is generally known as an Albany lead 18 an original opening with a strengthening card by a player holding four trumps. In addition to announcing this fact it sig- nifi¢s that the .leader is willing to have his partner assume the direction of Uoth hands. -This léad did not originate with the Albany Club, but gained its name by reason of the fact ‘that their celebrated team brought it into prominence during a series of important matches. It is said to have been - introduced to American players by John Reinhardt of Milwaukee, who was a pupil.-of Deschappelles, from whom he presumably learned it. ‘‘Four- chette” Is a term used when you have the card next above and that immedl- ately lower in value than a certain card led. such as king, jack form the four- chette to the queen, or jack being out kifg and ten. An ‘imperfect fourchette™ consists of the card next above and that next but one below a certain card, as Jack and 8 to the 10. ‘‘Portmortem,” the examination of deals which have been played. This is a very useful and commendable practice if it Is deferred until the close of the sitting, but is highly objectionable if allowed to interrupt the course of a series of deals. “Re-entry card”—Any card which by taking a trick will secure the lead to the holder of it. Before a deal is opened the only cards which may reasonably be de- pended upon for re-entries are ace and guarded king in plain suits and any trump in excess of four in one hand. At a later stage of the play any card save a plain suit duce may re-enter a player. merely petting, which 1s the reason of his present happy, spoiled nature. His first dramatic appearance was in Copenhagen before the royal family and the present King and Queen of England. Bince babyhood his right of ascendency has never been questioned—he is the lead- er in everything. Full of whims and mceds, sometimes he gets out of tem- per and they can do nothing with him for days. The other evening at the Orpheum, ‘when catching the ball, it happened that another seal.in the company took it into his head to flop down off his place and catch the ball before it reached Charlle. The star instantly rose upon his wounded Gignity; he grew haughty, and as sulky as any New York matinee idol whose nose has received a niff in the joint, he retired and wouldn’t do a thing for the rest of the entire performance. But he is more affectionate to his mas- fer than any dog could be, and frequently flops his great seif into his trainer’s arms, ‘where he lles loving her with those won- derful sad brown eyes that seem to hold a great longing for the deep sea life he has never known. There is something inexpressibly pathet- ic about a domesticated seal. According to Mrs. Wehb, in their wild state, they are the most vicious of all animals; once tomed they become the most docile and are absolutely human in their affections. “Everybody knows,” says Mrs. Webb, “what a'pitiable object is a sick monkey. A sick seal is worse, and if he is in a dy- ing condition he simply will not be left alone for a minute. I once had a dying geal guard the door to keep me from leav- ing him even to go to my meals, and he crept up in my arms, although he weigh- ed tully 20 pounds, and laid his head on my arm like a little child. “They crave attention and you can do ten times as much with them through kindness as fear. They are not jealous of each other except on the stage, and there they show as much professional jealousy as Is said to exist among opera singers. It one gets thore applause than another there is sure to be war in the camp, but once they are off the stage they are most affectionate toward each other: I have had to separate them sometimes by send- ing this or that one to some other road show. When the traveler returns he gets a warm reception from the others, and they will crowd around to kiss and caress him for a half hour. “l use = good strong broom in first training them. When they make a lunge at me I stick the broom in their mouth and their teeth crash into the straw, which doesn’t hurt them, but is a sensa- tion they dislike. I have seen a seal shake a new strong broom into tiny bits and then throw the handle with a crash through the window. Once they are do- mesticated they are easy enough to train, but the reason they are so scarce is be- cause they are so hard to raise. Captain Paul Boyton has lost at least 320,000 om seals. He had twelve last summer and only bas two left. They cannot stand the different waters. 1 have discovered a remedy for this, but, of course, that Is my trade secret. “The discovery that seals and sea lions could be taught anything at all was as truly remarkable as it was purely acei- dental. My husband, who is a mechanic by trade, was in very poor health about five years ago, when a friend who was in the whaling business sent us a baby seal. To keep it company we succeeded in puying another, and from those two baby seals has grown the four troupes numbering nearly fifty animals in all, which we now have performing in various parts of the world. “At first w» admitted only our friends, who came to see the seals out of cu- riosity, but as their fame grew we found that we should have to charge admission. Even that didn't keep the crowd away, and then it was that my husband real- ized that if so many people would pay just to see the animals how much more interesting they would be if they could perform even simple tricks. “Their ability to catch fish thrown to them was the forerunner of the baton juggling trick, which they now perform with such astonishing speed and accu- racy. From that it was an easy step to induce them to juggle a clown’s cap and then a double ender lighted fireurand. “In -like manner their propensity for flapping their finlike flippers in satisfac- tion after every morsel of foed given them was quickly rendered serviceable for beating the bass drum, playing the cym- bals, picking the banjo strings and jing- ling the tamborines, while Toby was soon taught to blow the French horn, while Charlie twirled the baton as the major domo of the band, and there you have a whole orchestra. It required two years of constant training, however, to teach them these human feats. “Then came the heavy task of teaching them to juggle balls, which is the most remarkable performance ever accomplish- ed by any animal, and truly wonderful in a beast that is half fish.” In this feat a big gas ball i3 tossed to Toby first. He deftly strikes it with the point of his nose and it bounces in the air straight about his head. Thus he keeps it bouncing, striking it more gently each time it descends, until he has it poised absolutely still on his nose. Keeping it balanced in this position, he waddles across the stage, mounts his little white- painted wooden pedestal and at a signal tosses it clear across the stage to Nero, the cleverest and funniest of the lot, who stops it as deftly with his nose and, bouncing it straight up in the air in the same manner, keeps it bouncing until “the cat dies out,” as the children say, when he tosses it back to Toby again and then to his mistress. In like manner these wonderful seals juggle a small globe no larger than & tennis ball and it is nothing short of a revelation to see them “swipe” the ball from each other and keep it poised on the tip of their nose, even in the midst of a wild scramble—and all for the taste of a little fresh herring. They accomplish tricks indeed which few human beings could do. North. B—A, 6 4 3 South. 8—J, 6. H-K, A, J, 7, 5 C-8 .17, 48 Nine of spades trump, North te lead. Tks. N. B. 8. W, 1 6 8d Qd *Kd 2. 7d *10d 5d a 8. *Ac 6c < 3c c 4 4d Ad *5s 24 5 *Ah 4n n 3 6. 3s 8s Js *Ks 7. 2h *10c 4c 9c 8. s Je 7e sc 8. *As s “Te 2s 10. sh oh *Qn 6h 1. 94 Qs Kh 10h 12 Jd *9s 5h Ke 13. 6s s Th 2¢ North and South 6, East and West 7. Trick 1—East can tell ‘that South and ‘West have no diamonds higher than five; uth and West can place North with hree higher than the six; North cannot place ace or ten. Trick 2—1It is not West's play to start from his four trumps; although it is his original lead, it is not the original lead of the hand. From the fall of the cards West has the advantage of knowing North's best suit, therefore he can lead through it, whereas If he had been the original leader e would not have had n TN the Scientific Game of Whist. that to guide him. It is in situations like this that beginners, and even moderate players, confuse the rules. Although sec- ond hand of diamonds East does not play the ace, as South has denfed the Jack. North is matched with jack and nine of diamonds and may have one or two lower; the ace is with East or West, and South has no more, Trick 3—With East's club holding, as many lead ten, as fourth best, in this case the result would be the same. Trick 4—South being out of diamonds, North forces hin¥, for West holds two. As East's lowest was the eight, North holds the two remaining diamonds and he most likely holds four trumps, as he forced South. Trick 5—North's play of the ace is not usual, but he wishes the lead. South has at least five hearts, Including king and queen. South can place the two with North, and he is unblocking. Trick 6—North does not wish to be forced and as no one has Indicated strength in trumps he leads them, hoping to make either his own or partner's es- tablished suit. Trick 7—By West’s return of the nine ot clubs East can read him with one re- maining and South with two; that is, If South’s jack of hearts was a regular lead. East takes West's nine to insure another lead, in order to force North. North passes this trick, as it Is doubtful. Trick 8—North cannot gain by passing this trick. West is out of clubs. Trick 9—North does not dare even the risk of leading a low trump, as it would blank his ace, and he might be forced to trump with i#t. North can place the queen of spades, the two remaining clubs and a heart with East, four hearts with scuth: therefore West must have two trumps and hearts. North leads a heart before an adversary can discard ome.