The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 13, 1903, Page 2

THE SUNDAY CALL. )' éu\'}i robs you. Labor enriches you 4 5. % 4&{:“’- Be generous, and if you keep out of the poorhouse be blooming lucky. i flicted with a loss of memory. Be good, and y 1 bore every one till they feel like old-fa §NarN=4 2204 ~—< =% o === o BNk 3 3 morse. Be confidential, and people will call you the worst old gossip that ever * bappened 5 - T Be economical, and people will say you are too stingy to live. ST eR Be philosophical, and people will call you a regular old fool. , to be.” . i B . Mind your own business and peopl: will call you “so mysterious.” « Be chic and stylish, and your frltnd: will wonder who pays your bills * * ake it for wisdom. s ® Be candid, and your (r:zndn.vill call you ill-bred. Be pious, and pe'ople.wfi] Sall you a hypocrite. Be virtuous, l.nd.you.: (ric:!dn will be suspicioup, Be quiet, and people will think you are hatching mhchi‘el. . Be talkative, and they will criticize Be silent, and people will ou 4 - - o Be attractive, and women will be jealous, and seemingly wonder what men can see in y 9, Ty Be independen you put and people will say - . body will avoid you as being so depregsing. THE ORACLE OF ~ MULBERRY CENTER By S. E. KISER {5, ULBERRY CENTER, Sept. 10.—Is there goin’ to be war over China or ain't t}wre? Some folks < says yes and some says the last great war has been fought. This is a \question that ought to N\ be understood by the whole civilized world. I will explain it. What nearly e‘:crybody wants }:n V% China is the open door. John Bull wants the open door there so he can slam_i in it and nu;lh the other people back. Uncle Sam wants the open door and is goin’ to have it or a fight if the “\ other boys don’t say they are sorry they can't let it be open. Germany wants the open door in \ 5\ China, but has a back door at home to watch purty close so as to keep the Frenchmen from sneakin’ in. Japan wants the open door, too, because the Japs have got so they can stack the JY cards and beat the Chinamen nearly every time now, so they think it'’s no more than right to have a chance to set in the game Russia’s the only one that doesn’t want the other foreigners to go over to China and sell the people thert a ings they don’t want. Russia has a warm place in her heart for the Chinese. She wants to give the Chinamen lesome, civilized government so they can be shot and burned if they don’t give up their fool of a reli- ve as the Russians tell them to. The old way of runnin’ the government in China makes Russia sad every time she thinks about it. “Sergius Petrovich,” says the Czar to one of his right hand men. Chinamen and it makes my hart aik. Think of them bein’ about nine hundred and twenty-seven years thing to help them up in the human scale.” LPR op a lot of them up to Siberia,” says Serge; “that’s purty high. says his Majusty, “you don’t understand me. I am thinkin’ of the way they are robbed ernment hey say mearly every official gets a rake-off and don’t try to deny it. That's wrong. It all go to the head of the bizness. 1f he wants to pass it around after gettin’ it that's a different thing. eceived any joint protests from the powers to-day?” ys Serge, “here’s one that says we must give up Manchuria right away.” 4 ‘ Vhen did we get the first note tellin’ us to haul up and pull out of Manchuria, Sergius Petrovitch?” “I think it was six years ago last December,” says Sergius. % “How many times have England and the rest of them asked us to git out since then?>—My! I wish the help around this pall vouldn’t slam the doors so blamed hard. I thought that was a bomb. Get me the camphor bot- tleanda b Sergius Petrovich. I'm dizzy.” 4 After while when the Czar’s braced up again Sergius says: “I haven’t kept track of how many times they've told us we can’t have Manchuria, but I think the average has been nearly one warning or joint note a month.” “Are we enny farther out than we were at the start, Sergius Petrovitch?” Serge wir and Nicholas says: “Sergius Petrovitch, the diplomacyof Russia is the wonder of the world. Reply to this note from the powers at once. Tell them Russia is glad to assure the other enlightened nations of the earth that she has no intention Then send a few more warships and regiments over there and tighten things up. wherever need it. The great thing about diplomacy is to know when to take advantage of it. When you say g out, push your way a little further in. The other fellow won’t notice it or he'll be so glad to think s are good and honest that he will let it pass. The diplomat who starts to come out when he says v pay from Russia. I think if we keep up the gait we will have Manchuria good and solid for- y the tme we gt about six more protests. How I long for them days to come when we can rescue the poor Chinamen from barbarism and give them good, old, solid Christian civilization.” “Why,” savys‘AScrgius. “are the Chinese a barbarous race?” o I dunno,” Nicholas answers, “butt they are. I've heard it from more than a2 dozen sources.” “Because,” Sergius tells him, “every Chinaman has to be able to shave the other fellow’s head.” Then Nicholas has one of the epileptics he is subject to and by the time they get him out of it England’s just had another disagreeable argument with the Mad Mullah and forgot all about the open door. The luckiest thing that ever happened to Russia is that all the rest of the countries have other troubles, If any citizen and taxpayer lied the way Russia lies, he would get licked so he couldn’t walk about the first day he done bizness, and if he went right ahead and done things he'd just promised not to do, the way Russia does every day in the year, they wouldn’t ennybody else jbe on speakin’ terms with him. That's where it comes in handy to be a nation instead of a man T don’t think they are goin’ to fight over there about Manchuria. Yours, for the protection of the honored heathen, JEFFERSON DOBBS. “I been thinkin’ about them poor devils of behind the of seizing Masdchuria they seem to Wear diamonds, and your friends will ruin your reputation by wondering (out lod) how you got them. - - If ,ou get into hard luck, don't A jackass with a megaphone attachment is an awful combination. * * L Be cold and stately, and people will wonder if you area victim qf re- Be dignified, and people will call you uppish. * * - Be sincere, and people will be sure you have an ax to grind. * * Be cautious, and people will say “you are no better than you ought Be jolly, and people will d:nb yQu as “Swift.” - Be honest, and your friends will call you rude. * * * A woman always judges another ored woman is found guilty every time, . x ge be surprised if your friends are af ” * * * AP ¢ woman by her clothes. A badly tail- s 2w Get into trouble, and every one will sy, “1 toldmm"{. L) - d people will or worse than Be uncoaventional, ! wonder if you are b you seem. * - . Speak kindly of others, and people will say “You judge as you want to be judged.” LR - - . Never think yourself indispensa- ble. It is surprising what wretched memories people have when it comes to the question of forgetting those who have favored them. - - * It's a queer old world of folly and sin, Where fools step in and often win— Where wiser folks such failures are, ‘Twould seem the fool were wiser far, The wise one stops too long to think— The fool, he F{vu a knowing wink, And rushes in to win the prize— The wise one wakes to rub his eves, And wonders why such fools as he Could get ahead of such as me— Which proves that hustle versus mind Is where the fool's not left behind— So comfort take and rush right in, For fools oft have a chance to win. - - If you want to cool off a lover, ridicule him or his friends. - » Never gush over a2 man when he's tired or hungry. - - - It is not the things that we have, but it is the things that we have not, that keep us on the anxious bench, * * » The man who never kicks often stands still ta’ be kicked. PEAKING of bull-pups that turned out to be terriers, naturally calls to mind the case of my old friend Jere- miah Simpkins’ son. There isn’'t a solider man in the Boston leather trade than Jeremiah, nor a bigger scamp that the law can’t touch than his son Ezra. There isn't an ounce of real meanness in Ezra’s whole body, but he’s w just naturally and unintentionally a maverick. When he SN ss came out of college his father thought that a few years’ experience in the hide department of Graham & Co. would be a good thing for him before he tackled the leather business. So I wrote to send him on and I would give him a job, supposing, of course, that I was getting a yearling of the steady, old, reliable Simpkins strain. I was a little uneasy when Ezra reported, because he didn’t just look as if he had had a call to leather. He was a tall, spare New Englander, with one of those knobby foreheads which has been pushed out by the over- crowding of _ the brain, or bulged by the thickening of the skull, accord- Ing as you like or dislike the man. His manners were easy or familiar by the same standard. He told me right at the start that, while he didn’t know just what he wanted to do, he was dead sure that it wasn’t the leather business. It seemed that he had said the same thing to his father and that the old man had answered, “Taut, tut,” and told him to forget it and to learn hides. % ~impkins learned all that he wanted to know about the nacking industry in thirty days, and I learned all that I wanted to know about Ezra in the same time. Pork-packing seemed to be the only thing that he wasn’t in- terested in. I got his resignation one day just five minutes before the one which I was having written out for him was ready; for I will do Simpkins the justice to say that there was nothing slow about him. He and his father split up, temporarily, over it, and, of course, it cost me the old man’s trade and friendship. I want to say right here that the easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire friends. I lost sight of Simpkins for a while and then he turned up at the office one morning as friendly and familiar as ever.- Said he was a reporter and wanged to interview me on the December wheat deal. Of course I wouldn’t talk on that, but I gave him a little fatherly advice—told him he would sleep in a_ hall bedroom all his life if he didn't quit his foolishness and go back to his father, though I really didn’t believe it. He thanked me and went off and wrote a column about what I might have said about December wheat, and somehow gave the impression that I had said it. The next I heard of Simpkins he was dead. The Associated Press dis- patches announced it, the Cuban Junta confirmed it, and last of all, a long dispatch from Simpkins himself detailed the circumstances leading up to the “atrocity,” as the headlines in his paper called it. I got a long wire from Ezra's father asking me to see the managing editor and get all the facts for him. It seemed that the paper had thought a heap of Simpkins and that he had been sent out to Cuba as a correspondent and stationed with the Insurgent army. Simpkins in Cuba had evidently lived up to the reputation of Simpkins in Chicago. When there was any THE STORY OF A “SCOOP” By Old John Gorgon Graham -rYS LA e — Treat your friends, and if you get down in the world people will say you deserve exactly what you got. & e Be successful and people will say you're putting on airs and your head needs manicuring or any old thing. ol Be kind and attentive to some rich old fool, and people will call you & mercenary wretch. & - 82N people will wondeg at. Be tactful, and what you are driv news he sent it, and when there wasn't he just made mews and sent that along. The first word of his death had come in his own letter, brought across on a flibustering steamer and wired on from Jacksonville. It told, with close attention to detail—something he had learned since he left moe—how he had strayed away from the little band of insurgents with which he had been out scouting, and had blundered into the Spanish lines. He had been promptly made a prisoner, and despite his papers proving his American citi- zenship, and the nature of his job, and the red cross on his sleeve, he had been tried by drumhead court martial and sentenced to be shot at dawn. All this he had written out, and then, that his account might be complete, he had gone on and imagined his own execution. This was written in a sort of pigeon, or perhaps you would call it black Sgamsh, English, and let on to be the work of the eye-witness to whom Simpkins had confided his letter. He had been the sentry over the prisoner, and for a small bribe in hand and the promise of a larger one from the paper, he had turned his back on Simpkins while he wrote out the story, and afterward had deserted and carried it to the Cuban lines. The account ended: “Then, as the order of fire was given by the lieu- tenant, Senor Simpkins raised his eyes toward Heaven and cried: ‘I pro- test in the name of my American citizenship!"™ At the end of the letter, and not intended for publication, was scrawled: “This is a bully scoop for you, boys, but it's pretty tough on me. Good-bye, Simpkins.” The managing editor dashed a tear from his eye as he read this to me, and gulped a little as he said: “1 can’'t help it; he was such a d d thoughtful boy. Why, he even remembered to inclose descriptions for the pictures!” Simpkins’ last story covered the whole of the front page and three columns of the second, and it just naturally sold cords of papers: His edi- tor demanded that the State Department take it up, though the Spaniards denied the execution or any previous knowledge of any such person as this Senor Simpkins. That made another page in the paper, of course, and then they got up a memorial service which was good for three columns. One of these fellows that you can find in every office, who goes around and makes the boys give up their lunch money to buy flowers for the deceased aunt of the cellar boss’ wife, managed to collect twenty dollars among our clerks, and they sent a floral notebook. with “Gone to Press,” done in blue immor- telles on the cover, as their “tribute.” I put on a plug hat and attended the service out of respect for his father. But I had hardly got back to the office before I received a wire from Ja- maica reading: ‘“Cable your correspondent here let me have hundred. No- tify father all hunk. Keep it dark from othets. Simpkins.” - I kept it dark and Ezra came back to life by easy stages and in such a way as not to attract any special attention to himself. He managed to get the impression around that he’d been snatched from the jaws of death by a rescue party at the last moment. The last I heard of him he was in New York and drawing ten thousand a year, which was more than he could have worked up to in the leather business in a century. From ‘Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son”* by George Horace Lorimer. By Permission of Small, Maynard & Co., Publishers, Boston, Mass. + 4 THROW RUBBISH HERE = By The Parson N many of our large cities we are beginning to see about railway stations or in parks or in other public place- barrels on which are painted in large letters these words: “Throw rubbish here.” They are put there either by the city government or by some private society or- ganized in behalf of greater beauty and cleanliness. They are a welcome sign of the deépening public interest in matters pertaining to our common life as citizens. To be sure a great many persons pay no heed to the injunction. - The presence of these barrels does not make it unnecessary longer to employ street clean- ers. But on the other hand many persons do respect the advice and il_l- stead of leaving their egg shells and banana.peels to litter up the public picnic ground, and instead of emptying their pockets of old papers on the street, they make proper use of these barrels as they come in their way. Thus the habit is established and grows. : 1 sometimes wish there were moral rubbish barrels here and there in conspicuous places to exert their silent but potent influences in behalf of ] 1 | | moral purity and decency. They would have to be pretty big barrels to hold all the stuff and nonsense that would prqperly belong in them. First of all we should have to reserve a big portion of the space within for the gossip, the slander and the mean stories that are floating about the community. If instead of being handed from lip to lip the first man to whom they iare told should make straight for this moral refuse barrel and dump the truck there, what a saving of time and thought of his fellow citizens he would bring about. Or if we could get back of this secondary agemcy to the man who originated the tale and persuade him before he opens his mouth to any one to ask himself if the best place for the idle tattle which he is about to set going be not the refuse barrel—why, that would be bet- ter yet. Most talk of this sort is the fruit of envy or malice, and has little basis in fact. And if in those rare cases where there i8 ground for the story set in motion, the man who gives it circulation may well ask him- self what is_to be gained by spreading the knowledge of the situation broadcast. of which may blight his whole after life. B He may be doing a fellow man a grievous wrong, the effects |