The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 14, 1904, Page 10

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. < heathen abre at there travel on t ibuting the fu E £ t women argue © the part of the heat s himse!f to be saved on a r basis. A glance at the mis- \keg one mighty sorry for crank pu. up. She has a streak of insanity with a green mugic and slow lights and mel- ancholy in that is more hysterical than It is sometimes hard to separate cant — NEW FABLE FOR THE FOOLISH | nd trip us up when t do something 1 the theory ose name. might night -have been large, adult and theory that deman three times a day and that would r keep out of gight when there were It was to the effect that to people respect you it is necessary unto yourself a job lot of extra large caliber. bad noticed that the street tors, and policemen, and gas ectors and other representatives of are setdom addressed unfeeling tones, and be de- rom this the coniclusion that the was to cllmb to height of power and sit and people would forth- vn and worship. remarkable than jail, most of the time, eir taxes, when they couldn’t swear them off, were treated with scant courtésy by the common herd. Therefore he said to himself: go forth and make myself mighty in the land, so that all wiu tremble at my name and bow the knee at my ap- proach. Iam weary of the insolence of the hoi polloi, of the impudence of the men who insist on competing with me for standing room on my own feet in the daily and deadly street car, of the too friendly friends who slap me on the shoulder and disarrange my cervi- cal vertebrae. I would that all men would treat me with respect and rever- ence and that I be allowed the free and inalienable ptivilege of standing on my own feet without let or hin- drance.” To that end he launched himself into the giddy political whirl anc gained at one supreme leap the haughty pinnacle of a seat in the Board of Aldermen, Now, he murmured to himselfy the be- ginning has begun. Surely the servant of the city will be treated with proper veneration. The first newspaper that he pleked up on the morning after the first meeting of the board knocked ail his illusions into something that would have made & cocked hat look like a meeting of the Law and Order Society. The board had passed an ordinance to allow ,the Cranberry Street Rallway Company to put In a new switch at least twenty-five feet long at the cnd of the line and the journalistic censors in town roge somewhat as one man and demanded to know how much they got for it. To add to the sufferings of the belabored Aldermen they hadn't re- ceived a cent for that particular piece of business and so were reduced to the extremity of paying for the music with- out having had the pleasure of even one small dance. But the Man took himself aside and Whispered to himself once more, The tion of a United States Menator was on trouble, as he analyzed his case this time, was not with his theory but with the office that he had climbed into: wasn't high enough avove the crowd to dazzle the humble people. What was wanted was something that would be s0 far in the air that it would be diffi- cult to make the voters belleve that it the Man was really a man and not a little tin gpd that they saw, and the Legislature, affer at least an hour and a half of caretul deliberation, decided on the president of the Shalke- as 5 Immediately the newspapers blossomed out with violent attacks on again, who had made the mis-- there was no hope of reclaiming take of yoting for the president afore- 3 im of most of the ial benefit, - n he was forced to & conclusion that didn’t seem to quite square with his beloved theory, but he wasn't pre- pared te throw the latter in the scrap heap just yet. He would have one more throw for his meney, if it was This time it was Con- Therefore he broke out of the aldermanie corral and sought shelter in the State Legislature, last, thought he, the goal is attained. As some oné has remarke to have remarked if he didn't, life is composed equally of going to sleep and waking up again. The Man was asleep when he butted: into the Legislature aforesaid, but it didn't take him more than three days to wake up. An elec- said, accusifig crimes in. the the last ever, “Ghe @omar @ith, a Oission OLONEL KATE from soulful piety. Every one with the right moral strain loves and respects the truly good man or woman, hut when good- ness becomes perverted and degener- ates into something both offensive and aggressive, and above all things meddlesome, it is too hysterical te be either good or anything else bearable, much less praiseworthy. Such people overreach themselves in the striving. The woman' who imagines she should have a “career” and should have been at the head of an orphan asylum, luna- gress that he prepared to hide be- hind. Everything pointed to fine weather and 2 lovely voyage when the man Jjourneyed to Washington and took his seat in the halls of Congress, or in the Shore bar, as the case might be. That venerable institution was engaged in the time honored task of revising the tariff. By institution we Tefer to Congress, of course; the tar- iff at the Shoreham is never revised. The Man at once took strong ground in favor of a higher duty on peanuts fn order to build up one of the mest promising industries of the. country. He had no sooner done what he con- sidered was a highly laudable and pa- triotic act than every newspaper out- side of the peanut belt began to belt him, He was assailed in display type and e@itorial brevier, in cartoons and special correspondence; his past life was raked over with a fine toothed comb and the fact waa recalled to the memory .of a horrified constituency bor's orchard at the tender age of 12. 1t was evident to all that Ne was a be- ing of depraved instincts and m from his wicked ways. But he still held to the théory that there must be some point wher® he wauld be so far aboye the, crowd that even his enemies would look upon him with bated breath: But where was H g it? It would never do to get away that people would not be te ses him. Then a heavy th landed on his cerebellum with a sickening thud.” He would be dent; that was clearly the berth HE T tic asylum or any other crazy exhibit generally has @ few specimens at home in dire need of strezuous soap and lather treatm ‘We all know women who keep up a steady chase after clubs that “better” everything under the sun and who could not darn a pair of socks decently to save their Hves. ‘When sensible people hear these freaks ranting about narrow spheres, contracted livgs and a few imbecilitles, and then on top of it boast that they could not sew on a button or darn a stocking yet who think they could run anything from a limited express to an ice cream scda féuntain, we feel that screws need tightening somewhere. 1 am old-fashioned enough to have little patience with a woman who can- not use a needle. Needles were masle long before woman's clubs, and the management is certainly more in woman's line. The woman of limited means can gratify many seemingly ex- pensive tastes if her “career” runs in the needle lines instead of wheels in her top. A woman who can sew, alter and renovate is independent and Iif she wants anything for a speecial occasion it takes much less time to do it her- self than to hunt up a dressmaker, with the chances of not having it done ac- cording to her own ideas and of being disappointed at the last minute. I do not mean heavy gowns to which only a skilled tailor can do justice, but the pretty, soft, lacy affairs for dinner and evening wear, which if a woman can fashion herself she is sure to make more becoming and better suited to her particular style than a modiste will take the trouble to do. There is more art in gowning one's self in a manner that will bring out une’s best points than in the selection of materials. A woman who studies herself can stamp her individuality on everything she wears. But the woman with a mission or career thinks the neeale too insignifi- cant for her lofty aspirations and slumbering capabllities. She wants something that will make a greater noise in-the world and bring her more into the limelight. She is not content to blush unseen if she blushes at all, nor does she propose to waste her, sweetness on a home atmosphere. The warped mind of such a woman is By Nicholas Nemo an incubator for all manner of eccen- tricities and maudlin sensibilities. It is the woman with a mission w makes a hero of a jallbird, and stead of letting him feel that he is un der a ban through having outragea cemmon ¢ ney by breaking the laws of the land, she makes of him & mar tyr on whom to lavish a lot of cheap sentiment that is a disgrace to wo- manhood Perhaps no more pertinent illustra is can be found than the ex a Jot of these so-callea moralists and mis fng in a Ne b became so gusted that they refused to allow the to be present and the court ordered the room cleared. The testimony was most revolt but these women, former & prits, w school teachers of the cu there in force to do a sort of martyr sympa act. Other respectable w men would have been ashamed be seeri there, but, if you notice, you saintly ~eople rush in where fools an angels would not dare to show faces. And girls, let me tell you a secret that may or may not serve to keep the crank microbes out of your bonnets. When a woman begins that sort o thing she begins to get ugly. The woman th a mission seems to shrink and shrivel and get out of shape. The beautiful girl who pores over crank literature soon imbibes crank notio at obscure all the daintin of her countemance. Later on she adopts freak clothes and cultivates a superior disdain for pretty things, and when a girl gets to that stage she is hopeless. The man who has the courage to marry a woman with the mission mi- crobe will need a few missionaries to reform him before he gets through. There is nothing that will convert a first-class lovable old sinner into a hopeless reprobate so quickly as a plous crank continually praying over him and insisting that he needs re- forming. The wife and mother who is always lamenting that she is a misfit an? should have wider scope for her won- derful executive ability seldom . has sufficient ability to make home happy The lovellest mission for any woman, no matter how able she may be, can be found in the home, whether it be zs daughter, sister or the holier province of wife and mether. So girls, don’t bother about a mis- sion. POWER AND POPULARITY him. He knew that any one could be President if he had had the good sense to have himself born in the United States, particularly in Ohio; his school teacher had told him that a great many years ago and he had often wondered that so few men had thought of taking up the President business as a steady thing. He had read@ many histories of his beloved country and he noticed that they al- ways spoke with praise of the chief magistrates of the country, at least of those who were dead. Therefore, he argued, this must be the cinch that- he had been looking for se long. He would go forth and round up the elec= toral college and have the proper de- gree awarded to him, honoris causa. It was no sooner said—at least not Very much sooner—than done. In the course of a few short months he found himself duly installed in the White House with three typewriters and two encyclopedias working over-- on his first annual message. He time ‘*hadn't discovered that any one had Accused him of murder or wife- beating yet, and the outlook seemed to be promising for a peaceful reign. The day had come when. he could sit in proud contemplation of his own great- ness and receive the plaudits of the natlon, surrounded by fourteen secret a squad of spectal policemen. ‘While he was thus drawing large sight drafts on the future he was awak- ened by a secretary, who announced that a new republic had been found In & back alley in South America. What ‘was to be done with the helpless or- phan? “Call it after me and I'll send - it a silver spoon at Christmas,” said the President as he reached for a fresh cigar. His enly idea was to get the poor thing properly christened be- fore Germany or some other relic of barbarism could grab it up on the ground that they had been the first to see it. But what happened after that was to be listed among the unexpected things that are happening so often: one would think that people would get into the way of expecting the unex- pected after a while. Every news- paper on the other side of the politi- cal fence and some few on his own side rose up and lambasted him for a JDirate and a robber and an inciter of revolution and other dire things too blood-curdling to mention in polite society. His position was about as much protection to him as a silk handkerchief in a blizzard, and his dignity received no more consideration than if he had been an ordinary crim- inal. It was the way of the world, but it was not the way that the Man s 1 s is only a sample of the w: that he was treated throughout t:: rest of his administration, and when he retired‘at the end of his term, tired, but happy—that it was all over ~—he announced that he was going o ralse mules for a change. When g man is kicked by a mule he generally knows why, and besides he can get away from it if he doesn’t like it. Those wha have accompanied us thus far through the chronicles of the Man and are inclined to £0 on to the bitter end will discover that the flerce light that beats down upon a throne was designed by beneficent the p of tm e those who are ch at the occupant of m (Copyright, 1904, by Albert Brit:. 2