The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1903, Page 32

A Dash Into Africa. BY WILLJAM S. CHERRY, (Atrican Traveler, Explorer and Big Game Hunter.) (Copyright, 1903, by Joseph B. Bowles.) So long as there is anywhere on God's earth a single spot marked “unknown,” | somebody is going to find out what is in it. Arctic exploration will not be given up till some fortunate mortal straddles the north pole. The woice that calls some men to go forth into the unknown and blaze a way for the oth- | ers to follow is the voice of destiny. | This voice came to me early in youth. | When I was about nine years of age| Stanley had just returned from his ex- | pedition of 1877 down the Congo and | across Africa. The world was excited | over his discoveries and the greatness of his achievements. He had given to civilization the knowledge of the Congo | basin and its boundless resources. In| liscovering the Congo he has found a| new highway into equatorial Afriea. | I remember with what interest I lis-| tened to the reading of his book, and | how I spelled out its contents labor- ionsly for myself. It made my youth- ful blood run faster. I resolved to see those wonderful things in the heart of Africa. As the yvears passed I made every- thing cohform to my boyhood's resolve, nd at last, in 1889, I found myself at e mouth of the Congo. I was then 22 years of age. I had| v little equipment, but I had a store of knowledge gleaned from every Afri- can authority I could consult. I imag- ined I was well prepared to meet all emergencies. ¥ Looking back at my start for Africa I rather pity myself. I can see that| American boy on the Liverpool landing stage, without a friend on that side of the Atlantic and without a single letter | of introduction, but with infinite faith| that no matter what came he would ac- complish his end in some way. That| inflated confidence soon was punctured. I talked with several Englishmen who were supposed to know the coast of Af-| rica, and they all discouraged me. At| last I visited Dr. Guiness at Hull| House, who had lately returned from a | trip up the Congo. I'told him my plans, and he said that I could not live there | three months without medicine, Euro-| pean food and backing from the civil- | ized world, and that it was simply sui- cidal to go as I expected to. No con- vict ever heard his sentence with great- er despair than was mine as I listened to Dr. Guiness exploding my pet theo- ries It was just before Christmas of 1889, and on Christmas day the Volte, a boat of Elder Dempster & Co., was to sail| for the western coast of Africa. I had | taken passage on her, and though it seemed very impractical to go and com- | mit suicide, as every one thought, I de- termined to accept my fate. I went aboard the Volte with a pack of clothes that I could carry and a 44! Winchester. It was a nasty voyage. I was the butt of all the jokes. The idea of an explorer with only a& many clothes 2s he could carry and a popgun for big game! I tried to explain pioneer life in_America, and that all the cow- boys used 44 Winchesters, and that a 44 was a big gun compared with the old mugzle-loading, patch-bulleted Boone rifie and that the Americans used small bores and shot straight instead of using a big gun and shooting anywhere, There were several old comst traders on board, and what fun they had with me! They were going out for three years for a large coast trading com- pany, which furnished everything to its employes—European food exclusively, two or three bottles of beer a day, a few botties of seltzer water and as much brandy and wine as they wanted; and notwithstanding all th's, these men had tons of luggage of their own. They laughed at my ideas of making Ameri- can pioneer life practical in Africa. What was I going to do for “medical comfort,” as they called their cham- pagne and cognacs, Madeira wines and liquors? I could not live without it to put blood in my veins, they said. But before I arrived at the colst it was the opinion of the people on board that I knew what I was about; that there was some mission I had been sent on and was just going this way as a blind; that my luggage was ful} of gold, ete. So the teasing stopped. e s e When I arrived at Boma, the of the Congo Free State, I had nt:’lhm“l to go. There was a two-story hotel, used for housing the agents of the Con- go Free State Government, but it cost $5 a day to stay there, and that was as far beyond me as a million. But soon I found employment &s an engineer with the Congo Free State, and then I board- ed at the hotel with the rest of the | before it RUCTIVE_JTUD OTERMEN A S S it to form a number to designate the body. This state of affairs made the men take more and more “medical com- fort,” and it is a wonder to me why many more of them did not die. . e e 1 did not know what to think of many things, and great was my surprise to find that my ideas of the new country were wholly different from the reality. At a distance the follage looked the same as in the temperate zone. From all T had read I had expected to find great tropical forests, crowded with palm, cocoanut and banana trees, with dense undergrowth. Now, the palms are comparatively scarce in Africa and the cocoanut and the banana must be planted like the orange. And where were the crocodile, snakes and large animals familiarly associated in our minds with Africa? I saw noth- ing that had a tropical look but parrots. Once I did see a few monkeys which a native brought in to sell. There were also a few crows with white spots on them and a few vultures, very lame. The natives were not ferocious. They wore the orthodox breech clout and in looks they were as negroes in Ameri- ca. They all spoke a pigeon English, Portuguese or French. And why should they not, seeing they had been used to | the white man for the last 200 years? All along the western coast the prevail- ing speech is English. The heat was not, oppressive, being at the seaboard, the air was balmy and pleasant. And right here under the equator, where I had expected it to be unbearable, I suffered less from the heat than I have often done in my na- tive land. I was much disappointed to find things so tame. Look where I might, there were no big animals, not even little snakes. There were not gven active insects to be enthusiastic over. I had to keep still and wait for de- velopments. One might stay on the coast, as some men have done, for vears without. seeing any of the won- ders of this great country, and these are generally the men who give infor- mation and advice. They have made up 4n imagination what they lacked in experience and have helped the world to form an erroneous opinion of Africa as a modern inferno. There was one thing I found that I was not looking for—namely, the fever. I had not been there three months be- fore my first attack. It was not serious, but, of course, when a man has the first attack he always imagines he is going to die. He laughs about it afterward, but he does not laugh at the time. The fever is generally caused by biliousness, and in this country it would not be looked upon as serious, but it is gener- | ally serious enough in its results. Homesickness and an excited imagi- | nation have much to do with bringing it about. At first my fever did not amount to much, and there were inter- vals of some two weeks between at- tacks. Then they became more fre- quent and at last the fever lasted all the time. My temperature was.pos- sibly only a fraction of a ‘degree above normal in the morning with an increase of one or two degrees during the day. Some days it would run to three or four degrees above normal. I gradually lost my strength, and in the course of three months was nearly a wreck. The doctors said I must go home. Dr. Guiness was right, then, and all those years of planning and preparing were to be thrown away. I believed im- plicity in the Congo State doctor, and he said I would die. It was easier to die than to return and admit failure. The English boats came in once a! month. One was almost due. The day came I decided - not to be taken aboard, determining to stay at all costs. I stayed and got well and found out that I had not been taking enough quinine. There was nothing wrong with my constitution, as has been proven since. For, after learning how to dive in Africa, I never had an- other attack of fever during the whole of my first trip, although exposed to the worst hardships. ‘When I recovered from my acclima- tization I had an offer from a trading company to go to the Upper Congo. was to take with me some heavy loads of a section steamer that had been de- serted and left behind by the carriers and construct the boat on the Upper Congo, above the rapids, on Stanley Pool, the other part of the boat having been carried up to the pool. This work would take me 300 miles farther into the interior. It-was just what I want- ed and had been looking for, so I ac- cepted and went. At this stage the Upper Congo was little known to the civilized world, and there were many of the tributaries of the Congo with only a portion of their navigable water explored, while the inland was -totally unknown. After finishing the steamer I ran her on her first trip to Stanley Falls, which was a place of importance to the Arabs. Van Kirchoven was north of the Aruimmi at the time with a big expedition, and the Hodister expedition was being or- ganized. Tiputib was on his way to Zanzibar, having just left the falls; and Rashid, his nephew, had arrived with 1 | THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1903. THE SAN FRANCISCO CAIL.L JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . . - . . . . . . Address Al Communications hm.mvflmlflm PaBIOEIon OLB00: ... ... ... syamsssohins e bes siiss + .e, ———— SUNDAY . ...iisiiimneteceeruninnssantatsaesiiriaieses o MISTAKE ABOUT THE TREES. ENERAL ‘GREEN in the Colusa Sun. writes G about the effort to acquire for preservation and public use the Calaveras grove of big trees that: “The Calaveras big trees got into private hands through the fraudulent use of the United States land laws, and now the owhers are busy getting up all sorts of petitions begging the Government to condone the fraud and per- jury by which the land passed into private hands and in addition pay a vast forpune for lands which cost $2 50 per acre. We have a circular letter from Mrs. White telling us all about the danger of the destruction of the big trees. Mrs. White could not be used directly in the premises, but she is being used all the same by these speculators.” Now we think this is all a mistake, an honest mistakef but its ‘effect may be deplorable. Long years ago the Calaveras big trees passed into private ownership and became the property of Mr. Sperry, and there was no taint nor shadow of fraud in the transaction. He owned them at least thirty years. Financial necessity caused him to mortgage the tract for a large sum of money. He persistently and repeatedly tried to sell the property. He proposed that the State should purchase it, and there is evidence that he made every effort to get out of his pre- dicamerit in such a way as to free himself of debt and preserve the trees for the public. But he met with no response from any quarter. Of course it is unfortunate that at that time public sen- timent in this State on the subject was not at concert pitch and there was no such organization as the Waters and Forests Society or the Outdoor League to take ad- vantage of his offer and secure the grove at a nominal price. - Failing at every turn he finally sold the trees, embodied in a large lumbering tract of yellow pine and | sugar pine timber, to Mr. Whiteside of Minnesota. After this was done public sentiment was aroused and an ef- fort began to acquire the trees from Mr. Whiteside. Instead of being used by a speculator to sell back to the Government at a great price lands acquired by fraud and perjury Mrs. White has labored ceaselessly to make the best of a situation created by the past neglect of our people. This effort has attracted interest and enlisted effort far and wide. In New England and the Southern States it has the benefit of the splendid rise of public feeling for the guarding of the forests of the country. It has sécured the co-operation of economists who know the value of forests as related to the conservation of moisture and to the permanence of a timber supply, and {it has the cBncurrence of sentimentalists who see the scenic value of saving the forests and their relation to the esthetic life of the people. Now if the idea got out that at the base of it all is a fraud akin to the land frauds that are now attracting so much attention and are under judicial examination for punishment by the courts all of this support will be alienated and the last state of the big trees will be worse than the first. For these reasons we ask that General Green revise his conclusions in the light of the facts as we have stated | them, for he is loyal to California and to the purpose of Mrs. White’s efforts. He will see that if it be true that the old patent to these lands be vitiated by fraud, as the statute of limitations does not run in civil cases against the Government, the lands can be resumed to Federal ownership and no appropriation. for their purchase is necessary. If this idea become current among members of Congress their aversion to appropriating money for such a purpose will have an excuse which cannot be suc- cessfully answered. We are warranted in assuming that when *Mr. V\'hitesids comcmplate{? such 2 large invest- ment in real property he secured an abstract of title which showed that the fee simple was actually and law- fully and equitably in the man from whom he bought. This being the case there can be no legal ground for voiding the title which he purchased and paid for. The matter is of too much importance to be left where it is and we are sure that General Green will give it his im- mediate attention. In his article he says: “There is no danger in the wide world. of the destruction of those treces. There is no known machinery that will cut them into lumber, and if there were the grove is worth more for a resort than for the lumber. If the petition asked the Government to take up the matter of fraud in connection with the title, and if that should be found good to fix a price at some reasonable advance on the purchase price and take the groves, we would sign it and work for-it, but as long as it has all the earmarks of being got up and pushed by the so-called owners we beg to be excused. Granting that the trees are worth more standing than felled and sawed, they should be held by the public and not by the private owner of a resort, subject to the muta- tions of his fortune, as they were in the case of Mr. Sperry. With the element of alleged fraud eliminated the “earmarks” suggested are non-existent. The tract which it is proposed to purchase is heavily timbered with other trees of.high commercial value, and we are told that the land so timbered is worth' the money pro- posed to be paid for it even if the Government werc moving in the matter on purely commercial lines. L e o —— I Impelied by the stress of competition the Pacific Mail Steamship Company recently reduced the stecrage fare from San Francisco®o China to $2. The officers of the company committed a grievous error of judgment. They a convoy of newly raided slaves and | should have reduced the fare to nothing and earned a a great quantity of ivory. 2 . Many of the slaves died here on ac- count of the failure in crops, and of smallpox. Some twenty a day were dying and were pitched into the river. All the horrors pictured by the other explorers were enacted here. I made the acquaintance of some of the great Arab leaders of the Lamomi and Ny- angwa, among whom were Tiputib's brother and son. On my return to Brazzaville, on Stanley Pool, - we reputation for what they have not—a desire to rid the country of undesirable coolie: ——— O whose leisure hours are devoted to the writing of elaborate treatises upon abstruse subjects has set FANATICISM IN AMERICA. himself to the task of preparing a monograph upon fanati- NE of that noble band of English college fellqws learned of the massacre of Crampell, a | Cism in the United States. Among the many phenomena of French explorer who was trying to get through to Lake Tehad from the Mob- angui River. Crampell had - several white men with him, also a troop of a government men. Here I had a chance to study the question of making American pidheer life practical in this country. At first it did seem as though the chances hundred or so soldlers. They were all killed excepting one of the white men, who escaped and brought the news to Brazzaville. Anjexpedition was organized to chas- were | tise the Arabs between the Mobangui and Lake Tehad, with M. Duboscy at luhud.lnd.llmehlerl_mmdpp the Mobangul with part of it. I got @s far as the first rapids of the Moban- gul, where the French post, Bangui, is now situated. Then it was omly a few huts. Here the steamer counld go no farther, the current over the rapids be- ing too swift for dny stern-wheeler. | The expedition debarked and I went back to Brazzaville. When I returned I was sent up the -+ |nights with an ear listening for the sudden trump of j these American States which impress his English mind is the prolific character of our freak religious sects. He sees in the many queer sports of religious sentiment existing. here an odd twist in the American character which he would ‘con- strue into an innate predisposition upon our part to fly off at a sudden tangent upon anything new and bizarre in the spiritual line. -He is assured that the followers of Joseph Smith, “Elijah” Dowie and other leaders of the kind are merely proofs which fix his theory. That any new thought proclaimed from the housetops with sufficient zeal can find its quota of enthusiastic followers causes the English phil- osopher to sigh for the future of American mentality. We freely admit all the evidence submitted by the prosecu. | ion. We have people who bar physicians from .sick beds. Others there are who disrobe themselve$ and run through the streets, praising the Most High in their nakedness. A number favor keeping a harem. Not a few lie awake of ” ment. We have our Holy Rollers, Dowicites, Mormons, Theosophists and, as Mr. Venus would say, ‘“specymins warious.”. Each and every allegation of the English gentle- ! man is true, but we cannot agree with him upon the deduc- tion that these are the symptoms of a coming attack of national paresis. Our constitution and the spirit of our laws guarantee abso- lute religious freedom. A man may set up a golden calf in his back yard and bow down to it thrice daily without let or hindrance from the law. The Puritans came to Massachu- setts to gain religious freedom; the Lutherans left the Palat- inate, the Calvinists left France for the same purpose. For the same reason there come to our shores to-day subjects of the Czar and vassals of the Sultan. In these United States there is in fact so much toleration that freedom has become license and waxed into such luxuriant growth that it has de- yeloped characteristics which are unique. Every country has its class of individuals erratic in a2 more or less virulent form. In Russia such people are hotsed in | prisons to rot. In France and Italy they are shadowed by | the police. Such repression develops religious fervor into | nihilism and anarchy. In our country, where there is no repression, the erratic spirit assumes some most bewildering forms, but our freak religionists are in the main harmless. Our nihilists and our anarchists are all made abroad. PP — A few days ago General Bell, operating against law- lessness in Colorado, received a threatening letter wrap- ped in a human finger that had recently been cut from a | living body. The subordinates of General Bell by some process of reasoning unknown to logic construed the in- cident into 4 joke. If a human head had accompanied the missive these ponderous advisers probably would | have considered the affair a bigger joke. e ———i UNFORTUNATE CRIPPLE CREEK. S in the case of the Coeur d’Alenc mines in Idaho | A it has been found necessary by the Governor of Colorado to declare martial law in the Cripple Creek district. Acts destructive of life and property have accompanied the strike of the gold miners belonging to the Western Federation and the lawful authorities of the State are compelled to invoke the stretching of the mili- tary arm to preserve and enforce the rights of person and property. * 6o Every one knows that the conduct that has made this extreme resort necessary has no right nor proper nor reasonable relation to the principles of organized labor. | They inhere only in the impulse to make unlawiful use of } physical force. i The wisest men in organized labor know | that industrial peace can never prevail as lonig as men are taught that they are in a class by themselves and that every other man’s hand is against them. At a recent meeting of the Engineers’ Union a member, Mr. Cecil B. | Smith, read a paper on this subject that may be bene- ficially studied by all workingmen and employers and by the citizens who constitute what President Roosevelt called the “third party in interest”—a party that suffers all the cost and consequences of industrial warfare and has no organization through which to assert .its rights. Speaking of union labor as a union man Mr. Smith said: | “The demagogue must be purged from its ranks and the walking delegate who traffics his position for boodle | and becomes a mass of corruption, a parasite who sucks the very life blood out of the movement and makes it an easy prey.to its enemies.. Methods of intimidation and coercion belong to the past and should be buried with it. There are plenty of capitalists and corporations too, for that matter, who, if they were approached in a proper spirit of fairmindedness, would only be too glad to meet the demands of labor in an open, honorable, straight- forward “manner, perfectly willing to live and let live. But when organized labor acts the demagogue by making arbitrary and unjustifiable’ demands it simply plays the better spirited employers into the, hands of those capital- ists and_employers who would not concede to labor the right to live only that it may be exploited of the fruits of its industry. : “No man in his right senses can deny that -many of the acts which have latély been made public as perpe- trated by organized labor have been little short of fiend- ish; acts which seemed to me incredible, for in my eight or more years' association with organized labor I have never personally encountered such conditions and could not believe them to exist until convinced by sheer weight of evidence. I refer, for instance, to the practice of arming’ a-walking delegate with the authority to call a strike on his own initiative. Just fancy walking up to a workman, who is perhaps entirely oblivious to there being any trouble whatsoever between himself and his employer, and demanding that he quit work! So a strike is declared and in many cases when the workman de- murred at what he justly considered such tyrannical measures of procedure he is met by a shower of abuse mingled with threats. If this is freedom then what under the sun would constitute tyranny or slavery? If it be- come a recognized fact that a necessary qualification for membership in a union is the surrender of one’s manhood | to the -arbitrary demands of an official bully then trades unionism will have to go, and the sooner it goes. under | such conditions the better for all concerned, for instead of pr“omoting progress such methods retard it and place us in the status of the dark ages.” Continuing, he said that the' labor unions must in- crease their strength and become a force to be reckoned with on the lines of reason and justice and that the union should be the workingman’s college, schooling him in tie knowledge of economics. Referring to the internecine wars between unions he cited this case: During the con- struction of a large building a walking delegate appeared declaring that though thie whole job was unionized some of the work had been done by the wrong union and im- mediately called a strike on the whole work. Subse- quently he found that he was mistaken ,and that the right union had done the work and ordered the men back and ordered the contractors to pay them their wages for the time they had been idle. The amount was 36000 and the contractors demurred, but under the walk- | ing delegate’s threat to renew the strike,compromised b paying $2500. Tt Characterizing this, Mr. Smith as a union man said: “If this was not a clear case of exacting money by blackmail and intimidation then it would be well to know what constitutes such an offense. Such an act ought to be punished by imprisonment, and a union which backed up such methods will either have to change its policy or be exterminated by outraged public sentiment.”’ That the paper was received with every evidence of approval by the union men to whom it was addressed | seems to indicate the speedy instaliment of conditions which will make impossible these destructive industrial ;w;,r"g and will make unnecessary such estm‘tf-n’mmu for the enforcement of the law as Colorado has been for “Ben-Hur.' " director is Pernette, a capable, horsey AY A A Budding Magnate. Although Cap*-'n John Anderson, of- ficlal regulator of affairs on the Pa- cific Mail whart, did not see the play of “Ben-Hur” the subject is to him still & sore.one. “Here, boy, takeé this money, go to the Grand and buy me two seats for to-morrow night.” Thus the “regula- tor” addressed a diminutive messenger in the early part of the last week of the play. “Aln’t got no time,” responded Mer- c“xere‘- carfare. There’s a car. Jump now and you'll be back in ten minutes.” Captain Anderson knew nothing of the long line of humanity extending for several blocks’ length from the opera- house box office window. When the small boy told him of it and of the ‘walting the purchase of tickets might | involve, the mariner was Incredulous and credited the youth’s yarn to a de- sire for additional remuneration. “Here's two bits for yourself. hustle.” “That ain’t goin’ to pay me if I have to wait. I can do better 'n that sellin’ poipers.” Then Anderson called what he thought Now, OF THE TOWN O - or partially frozen over. These inge- nious people long ago realized the need of a vehicle capable of traveling on either ice or water safely, and about thirty years ago they launched the first “scooter,” a boat constructed to travel on both ice and in water. It on the ice and rowed on the water. This crude mode was the boy’s bluft. “You go ahead and get the tickets and ! I'll pay you $1 for every hour you have to walt.” That satisfled the youth, who trotted | away, and Anderson, interested in his official duties, forgot all about the transaction until several hours later,| when he was called to the telephone, where the following conversation took place. “Hello! That Captain Anderson?” | Yes; what is it?" | “This is the boy you sent for tickets | “Well. Get the tickets?” | “No, sir. Want some more money." “‘More money! Didn’t I give you $47” | “Sure, you did. But you said you'd| pay me for waiting. I've been paying myself out of your ticket money and there’s only $1 left. I'll earn that be-| fore I reach the window.” Warm Reception. Thanksgiving day did not bring hap- piness to four guests of a swell Sutter- street boarding-house. The other guests | all enjoyed the day, however, and a | great deal of their enjoyment was due| to the fodr unhappy ones. | It seems that Mrs. George—Smith— and Mrs. George—Robbins—were each | expecting her husband to return from a business trip Thanksgiving eve. The respective husbands had been away for weeks, and naturally enough the two wives prepared to give them a| warm welcome. | Just about dusk and shortly before| the hotel was lighted Mrs. Smith, all anxiety, was waiting the arrival of her | hubby. She heard some one in the hall| say, “Hello, George.” Out into the hall | she rushed. With almost a yeil of de-| light she threw herself into the arms of | a man. “Oh, George,” she gurgled, clinging to him most lovingly. Just at that moment oyt rushed Mrs. Robbins from her rooms across the hall. She also had heard the salutation, “Hello, George,” and jumped to the| conclusion that it was her George who | was spoken to. It was her George, | but— Coachmen’s College. ! By day and night 15,000 cabs ply in the streets of Paris. A few hundred of them, blue, drawn by young, mer- curfal horses, driven by liveried coachmen, bearing neither numbers | nor placques, make snobbish pretense | of being private carriages. Of the others the greater part belong to the three great companies—the Compag- | nie . Generale, with its blue-bellied cabs; the Urbaine, with cabs decorated with vellow lozenges; the Abeille, with its cabs stained a dull green. In ad- dition there are scores of small sta- bles, whence three or four cabs are | sent out. Many cabmen, too, own| their own rigs. On the whole, how- | ever, the “Three Companies” are mas- | ters of the trade. Is it a trade? Upon my word, I hink it is a profession and one of the ncient and honorable. The casual rogue has no chance of making him- self free of the guild. He must, in the first place, be a “college graduate,” duly provided with a diploma. The | most notable coachman’s college is in the rue Marcadet, yonder on the flank of Montmarte. Officially the college is known as the “Ecole d’apprentissage des coches de flacre de la ville de Paris.” The A half dozen hostlers, man, a famous whip. professors aid him—vets, grooms.—Outing. Rroun’s Fortune. A remarkable collection of material relating to the history of Rhede Isl- | and has just passed into the poneu-l sion of Brown University. For some fifty years Mr. Sidney S. Rider ofl Providence has been collecting every | book or manuscript bearing on the history of his State. Many of the books, ts, pamphlets and doc- ument by no possibility be re- placed. Many of the manuscripts have never even been seen by a histo- rian. In order, to insure {ts permanent preseravtion this most valuable col- lection, through the generosity of Mr. Marsden J. Perry, has been presented to Brown University and has just been formally transferred. The col- lection will rapidly be arranged on the shelves, catalogued and thus ren- dered accesible for historical purposes. This collection of Rhode Island ma- terial, coupled with the famous John Carter Brown collection of Americana, will make Brown University an unyi- valed center for historical studies | derfur of travel with the wind against or across the boat made the trip one of tremendous exertion. In the course of time a sail was tried, at first square- rigged and very small, but it was used only when the wind was fair. Then a special boat was built, which was par- tially decked, and the sled was made lighter until at last the scooter of the present day came about, with nothing left of the sled but the bottom of the runners, shod with iron, or, better still, as experience has shown, with brass. And so has developed the won- ‘“scooter” of the Long Island lakes and bays, a swift ice-boat that will sail in the water and from one elemént to the other quickly without a jar.—Country Life in America. New Light on History. The Pilgrim Fathers were about to land. “How lucky,” they. exclaimed, “that there aren’t any customs duties!™ Hereupon they disembarked from one to two million original pieces of furni- ture that came over in the Mayflower. Roger Williams had founded Rhode Island. “Yes,” he acknowledged afterward, “it was a mistake to start at Provi- dence; I might as well have made it Newport, and hobnobbed with the 400.” Perceiving his lost opportunity too late, he turned his attention to the In- dians. Peter Stuyvesant was congratulating himself on his wooden leg. “It makes me such a typical New Yorker,” he explained. “Folks will think I lived in the Auto-Trolley-Sub- way age.” Proud of this distinction, he rejoiced to be ahead of his time. The Indians had just perpetrated the Jamestown miassacre. “Yes,"” admitted Opechancano, mod- estly, “I think it was pretty good for an amateur. Of course, if I had wanted a major generalcy, I might have done better.” In his simple savage way he pondered on ambition as a spur to success.—New York Sun. Up to the Architect. “Talk about standing on the corner watching the houses go by, walting for yours to come along,” said a San Fran- cisco young man, “that’'s easy com- pared with finding your own room after the hotel does arrive, the way they're building them at present. Every floor's the same and each cell is like its fellow. I was staying in a hotel on Bush street a year ago and one evening was called to the telephone. They had phones on every other floor, and as my floor was an odd one I had to ascend one flight. “Well, I finished my talk, and being in a hurry to keep the da—well, any- how, being in a hurry, T very naturally forgot the floor and went straight for what appeared to be my room, opened the door suddenly and entered. Say! There was one screech, a splash of golden hair, a disappearing female— and I was out. I never knew how. Re- flex action wouldn't work quick enough to leave an impression. You can bet I rushed to the office, though, to 'fess up and head off the police. ‘Grandma,’ the landlady’s mother, squared it for me, but if I hadn't a reputation that won't shrink, rip or fade I never could have explained it away. And yet, it was all the fault of thelarchitect!” World's Fair Pointers. History of the Loulsiana Purchase told in flowers. Approximate cost of the exposition, $50.000,000. $319,999. Palace of electricity, 526x750 feet, cost $399,940. Towers on palace of machinery are 265 feet tall. Forty thousand horsepower for expo- sition uses. b Largest silver nugget ever mined; weighs five tons. Falr opens April 30, 1904; closes De- cember 1, 1904 An 3000-horsepower turbine engine in power plant. Size of grounds, 1240 acres—nearly two square miles. French Shipping. The French people face much the same problem as that confronting the United States in respect to their mer- chant marine. Ships are more expen- sive to bduild and operate in France than in almost any other European country, and to overcome these ine- along these special lnes. Ingenious Life-Savers, * qualities a policy of direct subsidies to certain of the more important lines, and of premiums based upon service 10 other lines, has been in force many years. S ee——— Townsend's California glace frults and a und, in artistic fire- N R s ket st., above Call blds. S—— e ®pecial information supplied daily te howuses and public men by the Bureau (Allen’s). 230 Call- street. Telephone Main 102 was a small boat, made fast to a sled, P | which was pushed - 4 A A Palace of education, 525x750 feet, cost M