The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 7, 1903, Page 6

T HE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1903. and the woman will be unknown who does not wish to marry. l ‘About Pipes. | BY MALCOLM MeDOWELL. l “Shop Talk on the Wonders of the Crafts.””) (Copyright, 1963, by Joseph B. Bowles.) i Christmas shoppers, novelties, paused before the | wreathed placard, the center of attrac: tion in the window display of the to. ) dealer, which read: “Hydrated cate of magnesium pipes—the new Within the store a long showcase was filled with polished, carved cream-col- | ored pipes, all of them beautiful speci- | mens of the pipe carver’s art. Some were labeled “hydrated silicate of mag- | nesium,” others “seafoam,” “ecume de i B g | mer” ana “sepiolite.” Woman's Viewpoint. | “Why, they are all meerschaum,” | claimed the man whose curiosity, ex- (Author of —— e * | keen-eyed for’| ex- | Y MORRELL. B. Bowles) | ot marry because | their individuality, |‘ they wed. They do| e their entire scheme | t some man. They are Perhaps, but at least \hey\ e else the wictim of their! »s 80 diserin it is an ar- | those who the wort she will not n her earn- ok well of a| the injustice fld willed aw better reas husband | or proves an hild is the moth- gives children to | h to make | e would keep any ing, but they have marr t woman loves her free- more that it is realizes as no man « gs which ve been his f rk as he will and climb ads, and she longs to 1 to climb, to make her- to the big world, and ittle circie which is se loves the possibility of well that she will not an unworthy claimant. have so long been forgiving | u'wF that it may be sur- that they have kept ving, vet the state- | There ‘are women who | called instinctive virtue | no comprehension and of the average man's To such a one it is mon- | man can be untrue to her age as after. She knows | why he more than she should | icit pleasures, and when she at he has such a wave of dis- trous t before r no reason seek | gust sweeps over her that it carries | him as far away from her as if he had | never live Such women are mot so | rare as once they were, and in this is the explanation of many a marriage put off on the wedding eve itself. A woman sometimes forgives because she loves much, but she no more continues to love in the same way than does the | man who forgives the woman who has wronged him. As her sense of justice and of personality develop in the com- ing years she will forgive less readily. o A There are always in womanly 4vomen two motives for marriage strong with- in them, and it is often an actual pain to act counter to them. First of all is the desire for children. After a woman has reached 30 years, unless she is a shallow creature, she regrets that she does not know motherhood. Something says to her plainer than any person can that in missing this highest glory of womanhood she has lost more than she can gain. There is an aching in her heart which nothing stills and for which petting of animals and other people’s children is a poor substitute. Then another inducement to the self-supporting woman toward mat- rimony is the desire to belong to somebody. It is not that she wants a home.of her own—she has it as the fruit of her lebors and the in- dependence for which she pays the price: it is not even for the sake of man’s soclety, for that, too, she has if she is a woman of intelligence and womanliness; she finds men enough for companions; it is not that she wants to be supported—quite the con- trary—probably she has earned her own money so long and spent it so freely that she would be somewhat awkward about using any other per- son's. The influence that draws her is simply the desire or the need to have an owner of herself, some one to whom she is of the greatest im- portance. Perhaps the instinct is merely a survival from the primitive dnys when the woman without her master and his club was an abnormal product. These two influences within womankind fight for man, and either or both is often stronger than her pleasure in her work, her Jove of independence and all the reasons combined which keep her single. Then weigh the balance yet more with a man whom she admires, hon- ors and loves, and there is but one reason why woman does not marry— she cannot. Therefore, if man wishes the data concerning matrimony and educated women to change he has simply to make himséif the man | You thought it was only meerschaum. | baggy | ging with pickaxes and shovels. cited by the window placard, had led him into the store. “That's right,” cheerfully responded the tobacconist, “they're all meer- | schaum. You never knew before, did you, that the bowl which you have been trying to color for a year is only a | chunk of hydrated silicate of mag- nesium, a bit of sepiolite, a pléce of | ecume de mer, a fragment of seafoam? And you didn’t know that your favor- ite meerschaum pipe came from the bowels of the earth, dug 150 feet under ground by a red-fezzed Turk in Asia Minor. And you never would guess that in Morocco ‘the boys, with the | | trousers use meerschaum for | soap and that in Madrid they build | houses of the same stuff. I didn't, | either, until last summer when I was in Constantinople and was told they dug ‘ham-tash’ out of mines not far | 7, and that if I went to a town Shehier over in Asia Minor I could buy the raw | schaum direct from the mines. I had been selling meerschaum pipes for rs and had always believed that the clay—as I thought it was—came from Vienna. Since my visit to Eski Shehier my respect and regard for the | meerschaum pipe have greatly in- creased. “I was told that meerschaum had been dug from the ground around Eski | Shehier for more than 1000 years and that there was an inexhaustible sup- ply of the magnesium. In one district | over 8000 mines or pits have been| o;.s-ned and in another district the num- | ber of holes in the ground from which | meerschaum has been taken run over 20,000. The meerschaum is found ln1 a layer of red clay all the way trom twenty-five to 180 feet beneath the 5“1'-1 face. The Turks do not use any up-to- | { date machinery to dig the chunks of meerschaum. They pick out a likely | epot and then a dozen or so begin dig- | They keep digging—not a shaft, but a pit— until they reach the red clay. Them | they tunnel in, sometimes as far as a | quarter of a mile. They work night and day extracting the blocks of meer-| schaum. These blocks are scattered through the red clay, the lumps rang- | ing in size frqm pieces as big as a small ‘ egg to chunks a foot cube. The lumps | are kidney shaped and when found are | covered with a thick envelope of the red | clay. They are carried out to“the pit.‘ lifted to the ground and stacked up, |in the huts of the miners. They are | taken to Eski Shehier every Friday, where they are sold to agents who con- gregate in the town every week. & w e “The nam-tash, as the rough, un- treated blocks are called, is white, with | & yellow tint, and so soft that it can be | easily scratched with the finger nail. The red clay is removed and the meer- schaum dried before it is shipped to Constantinople. In summer the blocks | are exposed to the sun for five or six days, but in winter they are d®led for eight or ten days in a stove-heated | room. When dried the blocks are| rubbed with wax and each is carefully wrapped in cotton and packed for ship- ment. Most of it finds its way to Vi- enna, but lately Americans have gone to the mines to buy direct from the | miners, for the meerschaum is growing | in popularity in this country. The fin- est of the kidney-shaped chunks event- vally find their way to this country; not in the rough, however, but in the form of fine pipes. Almost 200 tons of meerschaum is mined in the Eski She- hier each year. “The best merchaum pipes are made in Vienna, and there tHe pipe bowls, after being turned or carved, are pol- ished and then boiled in wax or some preparation of paraffin. The bowls are again polished and then are ready to be colored by the smoker. 3 e “‘Of course the only kind of a mouth- piece to use with a meerchaum pipe is amber. The principal source of supply of meerchaum is in the country border- ing the Black Sea; the principal source of amber is on the shores of the Baltic Sea, where the fossilized gum is dug out, sometimes one hundred feet below the surface. After heavy storms on the Baltic, pileces of amber are cast ashore by the waves, showing that the amber vein extends under the water. The am- ber blocks are sawed into pieces suit- able for pipe stems by an extremely thin saw. The blocks are sawed on a taper and are four-sided. The beauti- ful translucent material is worked up into pipe stems by a ‘bernsteindrech- sier,” or amber worker, and the best of them are in Germany. “The amber pipe stems and mouth- pieces are made in a foot power lathe and much skill is required to shape, twist and drill the brittle Amber will crack if a hole is bored straight through in one direction. So the amber turner bores a hole In from one end and then finishes the operation by boring in from the other end. As the boring is done without measuring tools, the workman must be an expert to bring the two bores exactly together. “Some amber mouthpleces are curved, | and this is done after the amber is whom a woman of mind, heart and: character will desire, and surely it is better to be chosen as a fine type of higher manhood than as the payer of bills. The man, not his money, is the compliment such a woman pays him when she ceases to be the woman who does not wish to marry. Let there be more men of that stamy shaped and bored. The straight mouth- piece is put in hot oil until it loses its stiffness and it then is bent to the re- quired curve. The long twisted amber mouthpleces are not twisted In the sense that the amber is twisted; the spirals are filed to then polished. "harmless. material. |. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL . Address All Commanications to JOHN BIcNAUGHT, Manager [ Publication Office Third and Market Streets, S. F. IMONDAY ... .54, .DECEMBER 7, 1903 | | 5 THE READJUSTMENT. !; HE readjustment of trade conditions' to a more { T formal basis than has prevailed for several years is | going on apace. Both capital and labor are receding | from high planes and adjusting themselves to new terms. Mills are closing down and others which have been closed are rcopening. Thus a number of paper mills in so ago have just resumed operations. In the iron and steel trade conditions are irregular and unsettled, but reports to Bradstreet's say that the shutdowns more than offset the resumptions. | Some 200,000 industrial employes have suffered a cut | in wages of 10 per cent or more and preparations are | being made to secure a similar reduction affecting 300,000 more by the 1st of January. In some other parts of the country wages have been advanced, but the reductions | are more numerous than the advances. It is trying to the wage-earner to have his wages reduced, especially at this time of the year, but thus far no trouble has re- sulted from the cuts, as the wage-earners are said to realize that with the gradual decline in prices for many and in fact most commodities the returns of capital are smaller and growing still smaller. The textile mills of Philadelphia are running on half time, window glass fac- tories are reporting competition by foreign importations and the footwear factories of New England are turning out less than for some time back. Winter weather, while | improving the jobbing and retail trade in holiday novel- ties and winter clothing, is cutting down building opera- | tions and restricting the demand for lumber and struc- tural material. Against this, however, there are increas- ing small orders for iron and steel products. Woolen goods sales are falling short of expectations and the silk factories report business thus far this year below earlier estimates. The Christmas business of the country is reported fully up to the volume of last year. Provisions have kept up their slow decline at Western packing centers, but during the past few days the Chi- cago market has been showing increasing strength, with speculative activity growing and packers and operators more confident of the future. The San Francisco mar- ket, however, has become dull during the past week, and hams and bacon have been marked down in consequence. Taking the country as a whole, while commodity prices have been steadily settling, some lines, such as cotton and dairy products, have risen so sharply that Dun’s index number has actually increased to 9B.223, against 97.825 a month ago. The sensational rise in cotton is probably the cause of most of this increase. This advance in cotton was the feature of the week. At New York, New Orleans, Liverpool and the large English manufacturing towns the excitement was intense. The Government report, showing a decrease in the cot- ton output, sent prices soaring skyward and caused con- sternation in Lancashire, where it was regarded as a public calamity. Ihlu ase is a two-edged sword, however, and while ' b!noudy damaging the mill opera- tors and their operatives in England is enriching the American planter, who is making more money now than in many years. In consequence the South is sending in rosy reports of activity and confidence in trade, with' | plenty of money in circulation and collections easy. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The railway earnings of the country are steadily fall- ing off. As far as reported in November they were only 4.86 per cent larger than during the same time in 1902, and when the increased cost of material and the higher wages are considered it is doubtful whether there was any real increase. The bank clearings for the week showed 2 loss of I1.1 per cent from last year, with the gains and losses about evenly distributed among the leading cities. The failures for the week were 331, against 204 in the corresponding week last year. This latter item makes a poor showing for business in 1903 compared with pre- ceding years, especially as the failures of late have been running large in liabilities. The New York stock market continues quiet and Liquidation has apparently run its course and there are signs that a portion of the public is gradually returning to the speculative arena. Most of the im- provement is shown by the railroads, as the industrials have been more or less weak and in disfavor. This is attributed to the unpleasant developments in the steel and shipbuilding trusts, which gave the public an un- pleasant shock and did much to shatter confidence. There is now a general inclination to thoroughly explore the status of corporations before investing in them, and until most of the great combinations have been thus in- vestigated not much new money will 80 into them. The public has a good deal of money left, i in Bplte of the heavy shrinkage in values dunng the past year, and is ready to invest it if it cafi be assured of a reasonable amount of safety. The money market has thus far been an agreeable surprise all around. Instead of the marked stringency anticipated earlier in the season we are having a com- paratively easy market for this time of the year, with gold flowing into the country from Europe and Austra- lia, not to mention Japan. This influx of gold has been an excellent cure for the blues into which the country had been steadily drifting and reports from New York say that not only is the spirit of despondency and pes- simism disappearing, but the country is actually getting optimistic again. This is an excellent illustration of the homely old admonition not to cross a bridge before you get to it. To summarize, the business of the country, while un- dergoing a great change from the recent boom to mod- erate and normal conditions, is in excellent condition at bottom and is like a great ship promptly obeying its helm in gusty weather. We are still all right and nobody has any cause to be alarmed over the outlook. EE— THE BACKBONE OF TRADE. HE annual report of Secretary of Agriculture Wil- son reviewing the production and exports of agri- cultural products shows that the favorable credit in the balance of trade for the last decade is due entirely to the farmers. According to Secretary Wilson’s report the balance of trade in favor of farm products during the last fourteen years aggregated $4,806,000,000. In prod- ucts other than agricultural for the same term of years the balance of trade was adverse to this country to the extent of $865,000,000. Thenaunolexmefm products for the last fifty years ending in 1901 he shows to have been from $147,000,000 to No more auspicious augury of the eontmued welfare of the country’s trade interests could be found. The fact that the favorable balance of trade of the nation depends not upon the manufacture of imported material or the fabrication of home stuffs, but upon the actual produe. | uuuafthenwwvhl—ne@phfi ;&e—-fim oty | the State of New York which closed down a fortnight o\ strates that the potential strength of our trade is where it should be—in the soil. With our financial prosperity builded upon this rock we have naught to fear from the combinations of trade which may be made against us by any of our commercial rivals across the seas. The complaint has been long and persistent that our agrarian interests were being swamped in these days of steel kings and oil trusts. Figures have been ad- vanced to show that whereas forty years ago the agricul- turists possessed 55 per cent of the wealth of this coun- try, they may now lay claim only to 21 per cent. But does this prove anything? The foremost interests of any new country are the simplest agriculture. Then when men commence to devote the money they have earned from the ground to the building of ships, the laying of railroads, the digging of mines, does it not fol- low that though the percentage of agricultural wealth over all other wealth will decline the actual amount of such wealth must increase with the increasing market | due to the development of every branch of industry? It is not the question then of what proportion of the wealth of the country is held by the farmers, but whether or not their wealth is increasing at an appropriate ratio in re- spect to that of the shipbuilder or the mine owner. No interest in the country has a brighter outlook than that of agriculture. It is only within the last twenty years that farming has been conducted upon anything like a scientific basis. Formerly the squatter on the plains worked his land with no concepuon-pf the proper rotation of crops or of the rep]emshment of the hidden springs of production; now by the aid of agricultural col- leges in nearly every State in thg Union, by the co-opera- tion of the efficient Department of Agriculture at Wash- ington and the application of modern farm machinery, the farmer is enabled to double his gains from the soil. ‘What with the new methods of farming and the miles upon miles of land in our great West which needs only the magic touch of water to burst into magnificent frui- tion Secretary Wilson’s report bids fair to remain the keynote of American prosperity for years to come. A three-inch rapid-fire gun is favorably under consid- eration by the military authorities at Washington. The | popular size in San Francisco for pocket use appears to | be seven inches, if recent gun practice among our militant citizens be any reflection of vogue. - e s = H Hamburg-American Company, one of the lar‘gest: of German steamship corporations, through the New York Herald made an earnest plea to the American people to abstain from granting subsidies to American shipping. The plea comes strangely from an official of a company that has long received a very | large subsidy from his own Government and whose pros- | HERR BALLIN’S ADVICE. ERR 'ALBERT BALLIN, director general of the§ recently | | TALK OF THE TOWN Making Grounds. The title of official peacemaker given to Judge Graham because of his habit of refusing to divorce couples with a large family, unless it 1s shown that it is absolutely impossible for them to get along In peace, usually rests lightly upon the Judge. yThere are times, however, when he does not think so much of it. . A few days ago he was just about to leave his chambers, when a big, wild- eyed German rushed in. His head was swathed with yard after yard of band- age stuff, and his face was alinost cov- ered with plasters of every size. Point- ing a shaking and badly scratched i finger at the Judge, he shouted: “You did 1d, Chudge, you did 14.” o “Did what?” said the Judge, stepping behind his desk and touchirfg a button that summoned his baliff from !hel courtroom. + > opinion, prove to be, when properly officered, one of the most efficient constabulary ever shaking his dilapidated finger and head, “I am broke all over. and she say to me: separati grounds. to-morrow. Unprofitable Sympathy. ‘Willlam McKenzie, superintendent of Southern Pacific Company, tells a good story of the way he outwitted some of during the great American Rallway | Union strike in "94. At that time McKenzie was master ;mechanlc of the western division of the Southern Pacific Company, withal one of the railroad’s most popular offi- clals. But the strike fever was at high pitch and Oakland as the terminus of the brunt of it. battle was at its height McKenzie sauntered into a big restaurant at the “Point,” where many of the striking railroad men had boarded. Stepping to a place at the long counter, McKen- zie called for his meal. “You can't eat here. blandly an- nounced the proprietor, pointing to a large sign that hung in the window. “No scabs fed here,” was the legend | that greeted the astonished McKenzie's | eyes. Out of the place he stormed. In five | minutes McKenzie was in communica- | tion with the general office. | utes Ten min- later Division Superintendent Wilder had received orders. By the following noon McKenzie had a res- perity was virtually built up by governmental aid, but it is not altogether unnatural. The fact is that Herr Bal- lin’s company gets a large share of the American carry- | ing trade and would lose it were we to have a merchant | | marine of our own. When those facts are taken intoi' consideration it will be seen that the plea of Herr Ballin | is nothing more than a suggestion to the American peo- | ple that they leave their trade to foreign ship owners and be content to pay the tribute, which of late years has averaged about $200,000,000 a year. Senator Frye, whose attention was called to the state- ment of the advice-giving director general, has re-| sponded to it, citing the reports of Frank H. Mason, our Consul General at Berlin, upon the means resorted to by the Berlin Government to build up the German merchant marine. These reports show clearly that the great success the Germans have achieved of late in for- eign commerce is due almost wholly to the measures adopted by Bismarck to provide liberal subsidies for ships engaged in foreign trade. The example thus worked out in practice is much more worthy of American attention than the advice of Herr Ballin that we do the other thing. ‘ In reviewing Consul General Mason’s report Senator Frye says: “Mr. Mason states that twenty years ago, on the initiative of Prince Birmarck, then Chancellor of the German empire, the imperial Government bound itself to pay a subsidy of 4,400,000 marks ($1,047,500) a year for fifteen years to the North German Lloyd Steamship Company for a line to Australia and the Orient, com- posed of vessels ‘to be built in German yards of German material and manned throughout by German subjects.’ Our Consul General goes on to show how this truly ‘extraordinary’ subsidy, and the accompanying require- ment that the subsidized ships should be built in German yards, so stimulated construction in the empire that Jboth the North German Lloyd and the Hamburg-Ameri- can companies were enabled to order home ships like the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Friedrich der Grosse, Koni- gin Luise, Augusta Victoria, Furst Bismarck, Patricia and Palatia. ‘That they did this at all,’ Consul General | Mason declares, ‘was mainly due to the fact that they were forced into it by an act of legislation.” And this opinion that the celebrated German liners are thus the direct fruit of state aid to German shipyards is con- firmed by. the specific statement of the report on steam- ship subsidies submitted to the Reichstag in 1808 that ‘all experts assert that without the influence of the Govern- taurant outfit in full commission oper- | ating down in the railroad yards, and | 500 men a day were eating there at fig- ures so far below the rates charged along Seventh street that the “scab signs” disappeared like magic. A Judicial Horse Trade. The following is told on the Ilate Judge Campbell when he was Police Judge of this city. A prisoner was be- fore him for some petty érime, but had no attorney. The prosecution, not wishing to take undue advantage of the prisoner, moved a postponement till he could get a lawyer. Judge Campbell said, “Oh, that's all right. small case. Let it go and I'll see that the man’'s interests are protected.” During the trial the court undertook to examine the defendant as follows: The Court—What is your business? - Defendant—Horse trading, Honor. The Court—Ah! Have you any horses at present? Defendant—Yes, your Honor; two. The Court—Well, say, I have a pretty good horse myself; how'd you like to trade? But before the defendant could an- swer the prosecuting attorney inter- vened: ‘“Just a moment, if your Honor please. As I said, I do not wish to see any advantage taken of this man and I insist on a postponement until he can secure counsel fo protect him.” Speaker Joe. “Speaker Cannon is the “David Harum’ of the American House of Representatives,” says a writer in Review of Reviews. “He knows the foibles and the weakness of human nature. He is ‘up to’ the tricks of all the legislative horse-traders and ap- propriation log-rollers. He watches everybody else and is thorough master of himself. derstands at every turn and play, but he doesn't preach or moralize about it or imagine himself so much better than any one else. It amuses him and he likes to see the wheels go around, but you may be sure he takes good care they do not go too fast or too slow. To act as a sort of governor upon the big, unwieldy machine of ment ocean mail service such a steamer as the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse could not have been built’ And this is equally true of Herr Ballin’s great Deutschland.” The direct subsidies do not by any means constitute all the aid given by the German Government to German shipping \lines. Among other means of promoting the shipping industry of the empire the Government has given orders that all material used for shipbuilding in German yards shall be carried by the state railroads at bare cost of transpottation. That of course means a considerable bounty and is equivalent itself to a liberal subsidy. Having profited by such subsidies and other govern- mental aids, the German shipping companies are now in a position to compete with the British as carriers of the world’s commerce. They have carried the competition so far that the British in their turn have had to grant heavy subsidies, such as that recently given to the Cunard line. It is under such circumstances Herr Ballin advises us not to protect our ocean industries as we protect those on land. Doubtless the American people, will perceive the significance of the advice and know how to draw the right conclusion from it. - —__—_.__— The attachment levied by Federal authorities upon Zion City marks the collapse of another absurd altruistic utopia h:heud by a schemer and supported by dolts. Tt wm Mflm“mu & -mmamgmmt M the House of Representatives is noth- ing new for ‘Uncle Joe.' This has been his role for lo! these many years.” Healthful Discipline. Moro youth may be led, within a generation, into a broader conception of life than the Arablan prophet ever gained or “revealed.” Manual train- ing schools, experimental farms, the making of highways and railroads, the introduction of agricultural imple- ments which can cope with the cogan grass, the reclamation of vast tracts for the cultivation of hemp, coffee and sugar and the establishmient of mills and factories—these will work ‘wonders. It was said last year that Moros would not work. More than 2000 of them have been employed in Minda- nao alone during the year 1903. It cannot, of course, be maintained that these men are efficient laborers. Effi- ciency comes by training. Real labor is something unauthorized by tradi- tion or‘custom for any Imt slaves. Every Moro who has wielded a pick and shovel this year has done what his ancestors never did. This depart- “Ach,” almost yelled the excited Ger- | bodies of native man, coming closer to the Judge and the ferry and river boat service of the | the largest division on the system felt | One day when the This is a | your | All that goes on about | him is a game which he very well un- organized.—From “Progress Among the Moros,” by Cephas C. Bateman, It s your in the American Monthly Review of fauld. My vife to-day vas mat because she did not vas get a divorce by your court. She came by the house back, ‘I bet T get dot I make der Reviews for December. Crop of Pennies. According to advices from the Treas- | ury Department the Government mill | at Philadelphia will cease to grind out | pennies for a time, there being now a | surplusage of this kind of currency in the country. During the past flve years 3,000,000,393 pennies have been shipped from the Philadelphia Mint, which is the onfy one that coins the one-cent ithe West Oakland strike sympathizers | pleces, to various parts of the country. Between July 1, 1902, and June 1, 1903, | 89,600,000 cents were coined. If this five-year output were collected in a heap it would make a sizable stage- mountain at least. Placed side by side in a straight line 3,000,000,000 pennies would make a ribbon over 23,000 miles long, and would come pretty near gird- ling the earth. Piled on top of one another they would reach up toward the stars for a distance that would take a good many Eiffel towers to equal, for it would be not less than 2400 miles—far out beyond the point where the force of gravitation is sup- | posed to be very active. Since, on the ordinary basis of computation, there are supposed to be about 290,000,000 chil- | dren in the world under ten years of age, Uncle Sam would be able from his present stock of pennies to give |each child on the earth ten copper keepsakes and have enough left over to fill a good-sized savings bank be- sides. So much for the penny crop.— Leslie’s Weekly. High Speed. | Speed is likely to be the great dis- | covery of the twentieth cemtury. In- deed, motion especially adapted to | transportation seems to be our great- | est aim. We still remember the thrill with which we heard of the sixty- mile an hour train. It was nothing short of wonderful. Thén came seventy miles and ninety miles. Barly this year a mono-railroad between Manchester and Liverpool, England, put the record up to 110 miles an hour. We had hardly become accus- | tomed to this, hardly passed the stage of regarding it as a freak, when from Germany came the news that on the Marienfeld-Zossen Mili- | tary Road an efectric car made a speed of over 125 miles an hour. The news came with the statement that even | higher records were expected, an ex- ‘pectauon that was realized a few days later in the highest record yet obtained—130 2-5 miles an hour. Though this record stands at the present time of writing, it is not at all unlikely that before this appears in print a new one may be estab- lished. The engineers of the above road have declared 150 miles per hgur as their goal. In light of pre- us results its consummation is not incredible.—Current Literature. Fanciful Artist. A well known art critic in the East has written the following trite review of the work of a famous painter of the impressionistic school: “Camille Pissarro, the French painter, who died recently in Paris at the age of 73, was a native of the French Antilles, byt went to France at an early age. He was a favorite pupil of Corot, but about thirty years ago he became one of the leaders of the impressionistic school. Pissarro’s early work was idealistic, as was natural to one who learned of Corot, but his later development would have much amazed that soul of sim- plicity and poetic vision. With Monet and Sisley he led the vagary of rest- :lessness and discomfort, with nature |in theatrical poses, trees as tremu- lous as reeds, water on the verge of catching fire, buildings as fragile as | dreams, and the earth a hysterical phantasmagoria. Pissarro was neither so able as Monet nor so incoherent as Sisley, but he made one note in -t cacophony of so-called impressionism.™ Drain on Charity. Managers of the New York charita- ble institutions are expecting to be called upon to meet greatly increased demands for help this winter. It can scarcely be otherwise, owing to the fagt that at least 50,000 men of the b&¥lding trades were idle during most of the summer, that probably 100,000 more were out for a long period be- cause of lockouts or strikes, and that some 15,000 are still without work. Thus the workers were obliged to draw on their savings, or run up bills, because any allowances from the unions were wholly inadequate. Pres- ent earnings must go to meet current bills, and very many will have nothing to fall back upon when snow comes. 3 ————————— a 3 c ched b A nice present for “ 716 Market st., above Call bidg. * information daily to Bureau (Allen's) Cali- Pn—Cl!nhl u (. 4 M