The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 8, 1903, Page 26

| 1 o + ight With a Swordfish. BY ELGIN R L. GOULD, PH. D. [City Chambes ew York; author of T *The f Labor,” etc.] It was d in the summer of 1892 that the first part of this odd ex- perience of mine was ecnacted. 1 was rather a spectator than an actor in its earlier stages, and of my share In its later developm I have nevef heretofore sed. Now, however, it van do no The principal characters are elther will not be recognizable (except conf. to their former intimates) by the pseudo- nyms 1 give them It was off Block Island, as T sald, that Four or five of us—good the story begins. friends ali—had been whiling away two drowsy weeks in that treeless lotus land, the island whose sole claim to modernity is & “street” railroa of two antiquated horse cars. We were all New York and busier society women, and the restful old-world sicepiness of the little island had lured us to prolong our stay be its original bounds. And therein lay : the trouble that crowded after. For two weecks we roamed about the island, spending our days loafing on the eliffs, bathing or exploring the richly fur- mished, plain.exteriored cottages of the thrifty fishermen (for it 1= no uncommon thing to find that a weather-beaten cot- tage contains lace curt Brussels car- pet and a piano on that isle which nu bers not one pauper, not one eriminal not one jail in all its population). busy men At length, through much grew restiess. At les nd as cc st to the fortnight one of th o days of sword f peace, ne outnumbered all of t bent on trying i . but it is not the jaunt on - women When womer to be nbarrassing » both h behavior. But unhapny with h other t among us cculd not ul woman, nd was ambitious ambition. Her husband belonged to the silent, bookish type of man. He had married her because he had adored her and was dazzled by her. She had married him because she hed at the time been very young and be- ceuse she had been urged thereto by her mother. Ten years of married life found them ehildless, far apart in tastes, and living in different spheres. Phil Solliday still worshiped her, but there was a sadness in his worship and a dumb reproach in his every look. To make matters worse, a raflroad accident the previous' year haa | kept him for monthe in a hospital and | bad turned him out in the spring with a permanent limp and the fingers of his left hand hideously misshapen, intertwisted and crooked. Instead of being drawn closer to her husband by his misfortune, the man’s de- formity seemed to disgust and repel his wife. Do you wonder the pair jarred on our ony ? ol R It was § o'clock on a chilly August mortning when we set out—four men, the two women and the boat-owner, “Cap'n,” s he was locally known. Solliday had begged his wife to abandon the trip. She had first laughed at his objections as cowardly, and had at Jast calmly over- ridden them. So, with her liege lord limp- ing in her wake, she boarded the Polly of Nahant with the rest of us and thank- lesely suffered Phil to arrange a sea rug about her. But as he went about to seat himself at her side she waved him back and beckoned to Penfield to take the place. “T'd rather listen to hunting stories than to leciures on my imprudence,” she said airfly. Phil winced, but retired to whe other end of the boat without reply. Sword-fishing, as managed off Block Island in those days was done somewhat on this style: When a swordfish was sighted a sort of herpoon was thrown at him. It stuck in his body and he usually dived or else made off at a terrific rate. To the har- poon was attached a long cofl of light rope, the other end of which was tied to @ keg. This keg was watertight and large and was tossed overboard as soon as the fish was speared. Away would dash the fish, dragging the keg after him. The boat would follow in the ‘wake of the keg. At times when the fish divcd deep he would pull the keg clear under water. But its buoyancy al- ways brought it up agaln and the fish with It Or the keg would sweep along the surface, as iIf impelled by electrieity, casting cp great clouds of spray and im- peding the fish’s progress. Finally the great guarry would tire of the race and would fall an easy victim to the men in the boat. The only real element of dan- ger came in those unusual instances when the maddened brute somehow connected the boat with his misfortunes and at- tacked it. Then, if he was big, a lively fight was Itkely to ensue. g As we tacked out of the quaint old har- bor and salled into the sunrise, the “cap'n” pointed out to us a school of ‘Whales, themselves less than a mile away. There must have been twenty of them, ranging.anywhere from thirty to sixty feet in length. Some lay with a third of their huge black bodies ®ut of water, some played about like awk- _— INSTRUCTIVE ST UD N A with a rolling stock | ration may be | accomplishment | THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, ward kittens; from all of them, one after another, formations of spray -would rise several feet in air as they “blew.” “Whales never interest me,” yawned Mrs. Solliday, as her husband timidly di- rected her attention to an espacially large cne; “they always look so disgustingly much like their pictures.” o use lookin' fer swordfish so near them whales!” grunted the captain, as he altered the course of the boat. “You're mistaken, captain,” cried Pen- n | “Where?" chorused the rest of us. H “He's gone! 1 just caught a glimpse of | ; him as he rose. He wasn't twenty yards | from the boat. I'm sure he was a | swordfish,” answered Penfield, beside fn: with excitement. He was play- | | { 1 ing nervously with the harpoon which he | had grasped. It struck me even then that for a would-be sportsman Penfleld showed a | lamentable lack of that coolness and pa- | tience which is €0 necessary to the true | hunter of big game. “That feller,” muttered the “‘cap'n” un- | der his breath, “is liable to harpoo mackeral or a minnow if he don't ¢ hisself.” Ten minutes later a low wall of mist that had swept up from the north with all the incredible speed so common to that { vicinity swirled around us. | *It may hol hold all sponse to our queries. | & bit and sce.” We seemed cut off from the whole world. So dense was the sea fog that we could scarce sce from one end of the boat to the other. About us at varying dis- tances we could hear the whales blowing and splashing. ) The mist (as every woman who read this will understand) took the curl out Mrs. Solliday’s hair. 1t hung in strin down her face. Also the choppy m ot the fog-blanketed scas did not improve | her looks or her temper. 'm “cap’'n” in re- “Best flcat around | “Are you nervous, dear?’ murmured Phil, sitting down beside her as she c roubled look about. He was steady self by holding one hand on the It was his right hand. To soothe her he laid his maimed left hand—twisted and misshapcn like some hideous bird's W—on her arm. The sight and touch of it were too much Solliday’s for Mrs. overwrought nerves makes me . 1 never want to see you a you Caliban!" ming, M Now. in h. such a look h as that on he bellowed. a whale!” shouted the | cut rope and keg as he the pain-crazed whale dived, striking huge tail as he plunged beat rose almost clear out of the d sharply in such a way as away and scrambied The confusion that Il party was unspeak- =0on as he could recov- n hither and thither, adding : colliding with every one. 3 1d <t into a fit of shrieking hysteries. The captain’s pouring garments | | drenched all who came near him. | | Al right?" he velled at last, when he | could free his mouth and throat from s water. “All here? Was I the only one | that went over?” | We glznced about from face to face. | Then from every throat went up a simul- | Solliday was not in the boat! “Tumbled overboard same time T did, most likely, and sank,” muttered the cap- | tain. “We'll cruise around and see if we | can’t pick him up.” “He could hardly have drowned,” said one of the finest swimmers | | | kne nocked on the head most likely suggested the captain. “Hit his & against the side of the boat as h~ fell.” { For hours, in that awful fog, we cruiged | about, now scanning the waters within the narrow mist ring until our eyes | ached: now ehouting ourselves hoarse in the faint hope of getting some response from the missing man. Mrs. Solliday | went from one violent fit of hysterics to {another. I think, remembering her last words tos her husband, we none of us pitied her as we should have done. At last the sun burned up the mist and the face of the waters grew visible once more. But no sign of the missing man. Nor was his body ever cast upon any beach. H Two years later his widow married Pen- | field, and a charmingly well matched couple they were. So said the world in | all seriousnces. So said a few of us in | ®ad frony. For Solliday had been’ our ! friend, and I do not think I was the only {one who hazarded a fearful if secret | guess that his death was not wholly ac- | | cidental. i i o S Three years ago I landed at a South- street pier from a Florida sea trip. It | was late when the boat got into her New | | York-dock. I could not get a cab, so de- | | cided to walk across that somewhat slum- | ridden section of town to Broadway. It was Saturday night and South street was alive with saflor folk and market- ers. As I turned off into the first side | etrect the gloom of the ill-lighted, half- ! deserted thoroughfare showed all the | more darkly by contrast to the gayly illumined water front I bad just quit. “““Trouble you for a light, sir? asked a voice at my elbow. Rough as the tones | were, with the harshness born of years before the mast, the intonations were thoge of a gentleman. I eyed the roughly | dressed man who had accosted me with | more than ordinary interest for this rea- | son as I held out my cigar to him., He | tried in vain to light his short pipe from | it, and meantime I tried in the dim ll‘h(i tc make out more of his figure, which somehow struck me as familiar. -~ “Try a match,” T suggested at last, of- fering him one. He thanked me, struck it, and held it to his pipe, shielding the blaze from the wind with both hands. “Solliday!” I cried. The clay pipe fell from the nerveless, misshapen fingers and broke on the ground. 4 s For a moment he eyed me in. silence. Then he sald very calmly: 4 = “‘You are mistaken, sir. I am Jack Me- Gill, able seaman. 1 was picked up by a Hallfax bark off Bark Island eight years ago. A man named Solliday jumped over- board and swam away from a fishing boat near by, but by the time the bark e'lll'll’ be“h:d - his identity. And o stay changed. That is all, Good night, sir.” ; g ! garded by the far- SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1903, THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL JOBN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . . . Publication Office. --Third and Market Streets, S. F. SITNIMAN s THE NEW STATE. HE event of the week is the bloodless revolution by which the new state of Panama prepares| to become a member of the family of nations. She is a small member, it is true, but in some respects promises to enjoy elements of importance which many larger may envy. From the time that the isthmus uniting North and South America became known to explorers and geographers, that part of it that now seems sure to an independent state has been re- ighted as one of the most important pieces of land on the planet, because some day field, jumping up excitedly. “There's one | it would be traversed by a waterway carrying the world's commerce between the two oceans. Paterson, ; ! the Scotchman who founded the Bank of England, had that view of the isthmus country as a whole, and sought by his Darien scheme to locate there a state which, by controlling the short transit of com- | merce, would dictate to the trade o : = . Spain, when she owned all that territory, as part of the empire of Philip II upon which he| boasted that the sun never set, took a narrow view of the splendid poss f the world. sented. In 1788 Jefferson wrote from Paris to Mr. William Carmichael at Madrid: “With respect to the Isthmus of Pa cable; and that the idea was abandoned for political reasons altogether. FHe has seen and minutely examined the report. This project is to me a vast desideratum, for reasons political and philosophical. That was one hundred and fifteen years ago, when Spain was one of the strongest of the powers, and had the rescu to conceal the capabilities of the isthmus, and neglected the conquest of the Indian tribes that inhabited it, preferring to leave them as #n obstruction to exploration. the Spanish Government with the importance of the prize it Humboldt attempted to imp TCS held in the sovereignty of that territory, and, addressing Charles 1V, said: “Moreover, no political eon- sideration should oppose the progress of population, agriculture, commerce and civilization, in the Isthmus of Panama. The more this neck of land shall-be cultivated the more resistance will it oppose to the enemies do so with the 1d them. seductive nature. tined by through a j has so Jong kept the world in ignorz ance.” of Spain. If any enterprising nation wished to becofne possessed of the isthmus it could itest ease at present, when good and numerous fortifications are destitute of the arms The whale and cachalot fisheries, which drew in 1803 sixty English vessels to the South i for the Chinese commerce and the furs of Nootka Sound, are baits of a very| They will draw sooner or later the masters of the ocean to a point of the globe des- ire to change the face of the commercial system of nations. The time is past when Spain, sus policy, refused to other nations a thoroughfare through the possession of which she; 2 | chewing toothpicks. .NOVEMBER 8. 1903 i sticklers for discipline in | him, as was recently shown at Mare McCalla’s Discipline. Rear Admiral Bowman H. McCalla. commandant of the Mare Island Navy Yard, is known as one of the greatest the United States navy. An order is an order with him and when he issues one he must be obeyed. Excuses are of no avall with Island when he caused an order to be is- sued absolutely abolishing the much valued privilege of smoking in the yard, even during the noon hour. Now the noontime smoke of a certain ibilities that the isthmus pre-:’ a 1 am assured by Burgoin that a survey was made; that a canal was practi-ihe entered McCalla’s office. - He intro- { noon hour. ces to have immediately begun and speedily finished the great work. Spain sought rather | |times and the cierk was already congratu- That was written in 1808, ninety-five years ago. The last clause was rather a flattering ascrip-| tion to the Spanish Kir h time that s! tion and a ha in the attitude of Colombia in ref 2 than a stateinent of fact, for the narrow policy of Spain continued up to the lost her continental possessions in this hemisphiere. That policy has -descended as a tradi- to the Latin-Ainericans who dominate her former territory, and it became recrudescent 1sing to ratify the canal treaty made by Mr. Hay and Senor Herran. Polk made the treaty of 1846 with New- Granada as a foundation for a canal policy, and American statesmanship has patiently sought to induce the foolish successors to the foolish policy of Spain to conse to the use of the isthmus for the great purpose to which it seemed dedicated by nature. There- fore the events of the past week are the most important that the world has yet seen, in respect to the change they promise to effect in th among American news When the treaty sional govern construction of the canal. 8 ic ! mmercial geography of the planet. The Call, originally, and first apers, indicated and predicted that our Government intended to adopt the Pan- 1 t ailed three months ago we foresaw this revolu n the opportunity and has promptly taken advantage of it. The administration has notifiel Bogota d Panama that ‘.'hcy must make “peaceable settlement” of their differences. Marroquin and the pro- ent both know that this means permanent independence for Panama and the speedy ion. Our Government has Notwithstanding the adverse views of Senator Morgan, we have acted strictly within our rights. sumption that rece His nition of the new republic is a matter for Congress to decide is a mistake. It 1 matter for the executive solely. The constitution says the President shall receive foreign Ministers. | When the Spanish colonies that now make up the Latin-American states became independent President ilonroe settled that right of recognition as an executive prerogative, and that settlement has never been disturbed. The President, either in the session or recess of Congress, can receive the Minister from Panama, and that is the recognition of the new state. A TIMBER RIVAL. | about ALIFORNIA is arranging for an exhibit of forest resources at St. Louis. \What rivalry we| may expect to meet there is set forth in this item of information in Harper's Weekl “When Columbus discovered America there stood in a remote mountain gorge in Cherokee County, North Carolina, a tulip poplar tree that -vas then 400 vears old. For four more centuries it grew and flonrished, and was recently felled for exhibition at the St. Lowis World's Iair. The tree was thirteen feet in diameter at the base when it was cut. The gorge in which it grew was so inacces- sible, being forty miles from a railroad, that it was impracticable to obtain a section near the base. Forty feet up, where the tree was a little more than six feet in diameter, a disk was cut. This has been e Jlished and will occupy a place in front of the hunters’ lodge. On the polished disk have been engraved the important his torical events of the old north State from the time that Sir Walter Raleigh took posses- sion of the land in his sovereign's name on July 4, 1384, through the colonial days, during the revolu- tion and up to the present time. Another section of the tree will stand like a monument in the forestry exhibit. It is ten feet high. A portion has been dress 1, polished and varnished, while tl}e lower portion covered with bark.” This induces a smile. A tree thirteen feet in diameter is a sapling compared to the sequoia and sugar pine and Douglass spruce of this State. As for history, we have trees the record of whose annual rings will show them older than the species of the North Carolina tulip. Though their diameter ex- ceeds forty feet. a disk cut from them is hardly large enough to have inscribed the history that has passed since their life began. Nineveh and Babylon were Assyrian capitals then. They were growing before the Patriarchs, before Egypt was, before the Greek commonwealth rose. They show scars made by the lava streams that flowed {rom volcanoes that lit up the inland sea whose tides rose and fell in the San, Joaquin Valley. They are contemporary with geological periods, and prehistoric animals now long ex-| tinct snuggled in their shade, the Elphas primogenius scratched himseif against their bark, and the hard headed Bos primogenius bellowed around them and butted his head against their columns. In their time new stars have blazed in the heavenly constellations, lived for ages and faded away.1 Since their evergreen branches sheltered birds now extinct as the doro, great languages, spoken by mil- lions, have come into being, have been the vehicle of vast literatures, have died and are forgotten. Com- pared with them that North Carolina trec is a sprout of yesterday. One of these trees feduced to lumber will furnish boards and joists to build a whole town as large as the average town of North Carolina, with all its buildings, publi NEED FOR A VOTING MACHINE. URING the municipal election on Tuesday last there was made a practical test of a voting' machine which proved to be eminently satisfactory. The machine was installed in a special hooth on Hyde street, near the City Hall, and during the day 576 voters showed their interest in the test by registering sample hallots therein. At the close of the polls the record was talen from the machine and was in the hands of Registrar Walsh within five minutes of the hour when the day’s voting was suspended. This test and others which bave heen made in Eastern cities demonstrate the fact that it is time for the registration of votes to be made through mechanical means. By the voting machine the cumbersome system of counting and counter-checking of ballots by a corps of inspectors and party tally-keepers would be greatly s cut down two-thirds. mplil l. The possibility of fraud would be minimized. The time now spent in counting hallots at the booths and in footing up the totals in the Registrar’s office would be, The evils of marked ballots and of erroneously séored ballots, which now give rise to so much confusion and partisan strife at every election, coul: be absolutely eliminated by the use of a machine,- Fven the illiterate citizen who persists in stamping his slip of paper by something which cannot be con- strued into an X and who therefore loses his chance to register his political wishes must be cfedited with the modicum of intelligence sufficient to enable him to push a button on a voting machine. The fact that more votes were registered on the machine used for a trial on ‘Tuesday than were cast in any precinct in the city show needed to make our clections things of m ward and demand that the votin. the future. s that the people are interested in the experiment. All that is now echanical speediness and precision is for the voters to come for- g machine be made the medium for the registration of votes in | light regarding the comparative per cap- and private. Talk of timber! When tall and large trees are wanted, nearly as old as the world since it got hard enough to bear timber. come to California. { tor lunch and one not guilty.” clerk in the storehouse was something that he felt he could not do without. Therefore as soon as McCalla's order was posted up he hied himself to the admin- istration building and requested an audi- ence with the commandant. Permission to appear was readily granted him and duced himself and then presented a let- ter, signed by MecCalla's predecessér, giv- ing him permissicn to smoke during the | Ah!” said McCalla, “you desire that T give you a sim privilege, Mr. Blank?"” “Yes, sir,” said the clerk. *“I would ap- preciate it very much.” McCalla turned the letter over several lating himself on the success of his mis- sion. When he had about concluded that the rear admiral was a most graclous in- dividual, McCalla turned round in his chair and said: “Mr. Blank, I believe you served during said Blank, unconsclously attention. ““With Lee sir; for ' sald McCalla, “Lee had a great army, Mr. Blank. Do you know what made it great, sir?"" he clerk, slightly puzzled, stood on one foot and then another and prepared to answer, but’ he was prevented by Me- Calla. “I'll teil' you,” the latter said, handing Blank his letter. “His soldiers obeved orders.” Blank is now spending his noon hour A Good Juryman. “You talk about jurymen,” said an ex- bailiff in the Sheriff's office a few days ago. “There was a man who served on a jury in the court in which I was the bailiff about twelve years ago who was certainly the best ‘sticker’ for a verdict that I ever saw or heard of. He was a German, and every time I hear of a jury I think of him and take off my hat.” “It was a ‘framed’ jury. You know that means that some of the jurymen have been ‘reached’ and were ready to render a verdict of not guilty at any stage of the game. The German was one of the ‘framed’ and he knew for a cer- tainty that another one of the twelve was ared to give a verdict like his own. the jury went out about 11:30 on the second day of the trial. They delib- erated for about an hour and then one of the jurors, the professional kind, who always likes to get his meals at the ex- pense of the litigants, suggested lunch. ““They had their lunch and returned and 30 announced that a verdict was ready. It was not guilty, of course, and as socn as it had been reported to the! court and the prisoner discharged the young man who had been on trial rushed up to my German friend and throwing his arms about his neck thanked him in a most fulsome manner, ‘You are all right, Nick,” said he, with a hug; ‘that's what you are.’ “Well, Chack, maybe I vas,’ said the German, ‘but dot oder feller vas not so gcot. Vy, der first ballot it vas eleven Sad Duties of Prophet. The functions of the Weather Bureau are known to be, numerous and diverse, but surely the sapient founders of the great institution would never have dreamed that its sphere of usefulness would extend so far as to become a court of last appeal for consumptives. Never- theless Professor McAdie, who observes astronomic, atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena from the tenth floor of the Mills building, is besieged with prayers for assistance from friends of sufferers from various pulmonary troubles. Grave-faced fathers, weeping mothers and grief-stricken brothers and sisters come constantly to ask him where loved ones whose lives are gradually fading away may be sent with the possibility that they may recover. One desires to know if the mountain air will revivify his son, another if a voyage over the seas will give a new leasze of life to a patient. The professor recommends the foothills a few miles from the coast of Southern California for some. Others he directs to the high Sferr: Still others are toid to g0 to sea. The master of meteorological phenomena is incidentally a student of hyglene and he tells his patients what varicties of food will win half the battle. He is also able to supply accurate infor- + complete collection of the flora and fauna of the country. Ode to William. Mr. William Berg of Sausalito, after a residence in this country of over twenty years has just taken out naturalizalion papers. —Exchange. The Greatest “German Traveler' that ever trod the earth Has now foresworn allegiance to the land that gave him birth. It took twenty years of thinking as to how he should decide, So he has given up the Fatherland and with us + will reside. Oh! Wilheim Imperator—do you realise your loss? Of those fitty million people, all of whom you are the “bos Not one has ever added such luster to your name As has this “German Traveler” by his bright and well earned fame— = Over “Greenland’s icy mountains,” on “Afric’s burning sands,” He has chased the nimble reladeer and Bas tamed the savage 5 He has climbed the Cordilleras; he has sailed the Spanish Main— : Where anybody else has been he's been time and again. He found and climbed the North Pole, though the fact was never known To any but the polar bears within that trigid zone. Should balloon or even auto ever reach that sought for spot, b They would find the “German Traveler™ ‘d bufit a fence around the I Nalled to the pole a notice: “No Trespassing owed!'” Which action he deemed requisite for keeping out the crowd. Who was Livingstone or Stanley? Who was Peters, Rohlfs, or Kane? Who Du Chaillu, Feary, Andree? Indeed *tw be in vain To seek for one whose glory could Billy Berg'a surpass— And, if any one dispute it, you can write him down an ass. And so the “German Traveler” will rematn the “Traveler” still. X But posterity will know him now as “Our ¥ Bil T —HERMANN OELRICHS. 0dd Crafts in Paris. It is astonishing with what zeal every means of earning an honest pemny is plied in Paris. No city in the world has s0 many queer little trades by which those practicing them scrape together enough sous to make a living. The king of this class is, of course, the ragpicker. He starts out before dawn armed with a lanetrn and a long hooked piece of iron and explores the rubbish boxes placed outside every door in the capital before the municipal carts come to carry off their contents. Then there is the man who goes around with the spiked stick picking up the cigar and cigarette stumps which lie around the Paris cafes. There are men, too, who search the streets for fallen money and who generally find enough to keep them from starvation. One of the most characteristic of these strange tradesmen is the dog barber. The favorite dog of the Parisian is the French poodle, or “mouton,” as he is popularly called. It is chiefly for his benefit that the dog barber exists. His headquarters are the banks of the Seine. Here the main body can be found at all times, though in the summer some go about the city carrying on their occupation from house to house. In the hot days one con- tinually hears the long drawn out cry, “To-o-odeur de chiens!”™ and meets the familiar figure of the dog barber, with his box of instruments slung over his shoulder. Many of them have their reg- ular customers, whose houses they visit at stated intervals to make the tollet of tkese privileged poodles—for the Parls mouton is the “spoiled child” among dogs. He 1is clipped, brushed, combed, perfumed and generally has his topknot fastened with a pink or blue ribbon. Some even wear gold or silver bracelets around one paw. The result has been the development of the dog barber as an artist. He clips and shaves his customers’ dogs In most elab- orate fashion. Some are left shagsy mation as to the expense attendant upon any of the varlous trips recommended. What the World Drinks. A writer in the current Harper's Week- Iy calls attention to some interesting facts which have recently been brought to ita consumption of alcoholic beverages in various countries. France, it appears, manes, with a tuft at the end of their tail, to imitate a lion. Others, again, are clipped in stripes, making them look Itke black zebras, and others have their faces clipped, and nothing but a pair of flerce mustaches left with fluffy bracelets of hair round each foot. At any time of the day, as Igng as daylight lasts, the dog barber will be found at work on the Seine embankment, Seated on a camp stool, and senerull’f surrounded by an admiring crowd, he clips and shaves according to bears off the paim, with a record of 18 1-3 litres (a litre is a little more than a quart) per year; Switzerland consumes 13% litres; Italy and Denmark, 10 litres each; England, Germany and Austria, 9; Holland, 6; the United States, 5, and Canada, 2. There may be hope for France's future, though, for England, where there is a special effort now to re- strict the indulgence of the drunken, has in twenty-five years reduced her annual per capita allowance from 10 litres to 9. The great trouble at present in France seems to be that the Government is nol strong enough to restrict the manufacture and sale of liquors.: There are very nearly half a million wine shops in France, and last year, In spite of repressive legisla- tion, there were 1,137,328 private distillers who made alcohol or brandy from their own produce for their own use. Still Lives. The London Westminster Gazette records the remarkable record of a Frenchman for ecigarette smoking. It says: - “An inveterate cigarette-smok: lives in the little town of Cayes (5,'....‘_'."3 Marne), declares, .according to Le Jour- nal, that during the last thirty years he has smoked 80 many cigarettes that if placed end to end they would cover thirty kilometers-—nearly twenty-three miles, Ha reckons that during that period he has consumed 300,000 cigarettes, or, roughly speaking, elghty per day. The strange thing is that this veteran smoker has re- cently given up this habit in obedience to th-dm:wr-.nndhefindahtmullmmm worse for the change.” Interesting Exhibit. The Amazon Valley will ha; Louis exposition a m“.‘mu the directions giyen him by the owner. The banks of the Seine have been select- ed for his operation because the river is bandy to bathe the animal after he has been clipped and combed. Unique Library Gift. The library of Brown University has re- cently been enriched by the gift of a col- lection of newspaper clippings. The col- lection contains about 200,000 cuttings, all of which are caretully credited, dated and folded for reference. It covers a period of about twenty years and relates to nearly every question that has been before the public during that time and has been the subject of newspaper discussions. There 1s a record of nearly every important la- bor strike that.has occurred® since 1883, taken from the newspapers in the city where the strike occurred, affording a record from which nearly a complete his- tory of labor troubles could be written. The progress of city transit and the controversies between the authorities of citles and street car corporatioms is in- cluded. About 10,000 cuttings relate to journalism. There is also a newspaper aeccount of the Spanish war, gathered day by day. On most questions the record is exhaustive. The collection was made by ‘Walter C. Hamm, now United States Con- sul at Hull, while he was a member of the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Press. When fully classified and arranged it will form one of the most interesting features of the university library and be invaluable to students and investigators.— Springfield Republican. ————— Selling out this week. 31 4th st front of barber. Best eyeglasses, specs, 20-50c.* —_——e—— Townsend's California glace fruits and w”fio“c lA m‘:‘ld in .;t::uc fl:r: n present fo East m fi.ilrlct st., above Call bidg. * it AT oo Special information supplied daily to Press H”ll: m:-‘.- (Allen's) flPyCm: . iy By fornia street. Telephone Main 108 * 4