The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 24, 1904, Page 8

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, THURSDAY MARCH 24, 1904 — the Book World. How many of the literary lights of ys gone by have left behind them ng shadow of s 88 of a character or a bonmot from & book of theirs, Willlam Combe, the creator yntax,” is ene of these. Some bookworm on the Lon- ug down into the present day perhaps. of "Dr S, to v sketch of thisquondam ¢ Laurence Sterne e was born in London 1. His parents were of dubious character wealthy ple (according to one account), who took 1 rest in their boy, but sent course to be thrashed at thence, with some rud: and Latin, to the Uni- of Oxford. At college he dis- himself by his vicious a time when vice was too Oxford to its followers. sing the night owl in eek With wine hs at Oxford with satis- self, though his sudden e college, in 1761, points corded prompting from wthority. He left England at this juncture to in Fr and Italy, where he water-color sketches (all brown and bitumen, according to the of the time), and met Laur- then upon his “Senti- nee fashi. ence rne, Jou menta set up as a man of b a certain sum of purse, and, jve read of E as one of the most ex- of the bloods there, going ele- antly in flowered silk. He was tall d of ex * beauty, a dark, hard- some fellow of a commanding pres- ~nce. He was a brilllant talker and it 21l points “the fine gentleman.” He kept always two carriages and a host of footmen. His sword, no doubt, was a dainty thing in steel and silver. His wer was the Rape of the Lock in human terms. Dice and the giving of bouquets, wine #nd the paying of the reckoning, at last sent his laces to pawn and the giit e tablishment to auction. There was nothing else to be done. The money was gone. And the fine friends, no ubt, with the scented perukes drop- ping powder upon the silken coats, rept away upon tiptoe, with thin lips urved in a sneer, glad that the golden zuineas had come to them from one so spendthrift wasteful, Combe had been. Evidence shows that the smash was like the breaking of poreela complete and final, and Combe’s conduct appears to have been branded with severzl ugly terms— “fraudulent,” “dishonorable,” “dastard- 1%, etc. We see a very frightened and frowsy William Combe dodging down the hedgzerows toward the sea, toward some Calais packet, out of reach of clutching catchpolls, out of reach of the grim haunts known as the Fleet, | the King's Bench, the Marshalsea. There was to be no more scent and silk and delicacy for many years. Nothing but a grim and bitter drilling in the ranks, in a red coat, with floured hair stuck down with candle grease, carry-| ing a firelock in a line regiment of the King of France. Whethér he tired of glory, as glory showed to a private soldiér shortly be- fore the Revolution, we do not knew; but he found means to lay aside his share of it and to become a waiter in a tavern. This proved to be a step to- ward promotion as a cook, and as a cook he worked for several months, finally returning to London, to spend various years in prison for debt. We do | not know when he began to write as a journalist, though no doubt it was be- fore the end of the century. It was in 1812 that his writing began to be known, for in that year Ackermann, the print and book seller, bought a se- ries of plates from Rowlandson repre- senting the travels of a quaint clergy- man through various parts of the country. Ackermann cast about for some one to write a tale in verse to fit ihese plates and hit upon Combe, who wrote “Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque,” a poem of many thou- sand lines, without seeing the artist who had created the character. Combe was at that time living “in the rules” of the King’s Bench. - The success of the book was imme- dimte #nd great and was followed up by the production of similar books, “The Dance of Life” *““The English Dance of Death” in two volumes, “The History of Johnny Quae Genus,” “Dr. €yntax in Search of a Wife” and “Dr. Syniax in Search of Consolation.” All of thege were illustrated by the coarse, Jiving pictures of Rowlandson, and all sold well, though none so well as the first book Of the series. The series came to an end in 1821, when Combe was in his eightieth year, ahmost worn out by the adventures of his manhood. His verse grew mare mworal as he grew older, and, as his carly books were of a deadly ortho- doxy. his later hooks tend to the dull. They are in the four-footed couplet, I'ke the jogtrot ambling of a nag, a meter and manner no longer popular. William Combe died in 1823, an old, tired penitent, “inm the rules” of the King's Bench. Hijs, verse is still read Iy hunting pareons, old fiery squires, port wine and gout men. It is easy, it i not thoughtful, it is the versified ° | represented on the stage. draw much | >ms to have passed some | as William | { thought of its readers. And, by for-! tune, it is most admirably illustrated. b § J. M. Barrie of “Little Minister” fame, took occasion to give his views or the modern drama at the annual| dinner of the Playgoers’ Club recentiy. | He said that there was no reason why the inore igncble and mean side 6f man uld not be treated on the stage as | well as any other. There was hardly | any subject unfitted for treatment on | the stage. It all depended how it was | done. But it so happened that nearly {all the recent plays which had been { performed had been plays that treated | | gho ! lot man from that point of view, and | | | the result Kad been that all the im- | |itators that had sprung up had been | I'serious from that point of view also, |and that serious plays had come to mean in the minds of many persons plays dealing with rather unpleasant | | | subjects. One might also come to think | | that 2 man would be rather uninterest- | | i {and that 2 woman would not be very | | if she had retained much | modesty. {not st all sure that when the really | big dramatist for whom they were | !and show to them that people were not, | | perhaps, quite so bad—even serious ing if he did not give way to passion, | charming | It seemed 2 pity. He was | waiting appeared, he would not find ! | people—as they seemed to be when} | e | In issuing the second six volumes of | | bis edition known as “The Stage | Shakespeare,” Austin Brereton, the! | London man of letters, reminds us that | | “there is always room at the top." l’ Crowded as the booksellers of the worl ! may be with editions of the poet-dra- matist, whose vogue is an eternal ons, | and whose sacro-sanctity is secure | from higher criticism and from illiter- | ate neglect, there is good cause and | reason for adding to the existing sup- | ply so handy and attractive an edition | | as this one.” The text, which is clearly | | printed, is taken by permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., from the ;Globe edjtion of 1900. But Mr. Breretos | | has approached the plays from a stand- | point that is of very actual interest. In the introductions, marked by charm and scholarship, for which he is re- sponsible, Mr. Brereton lays most stress on the stage history of the plays. He deals with the characters fully and | with excellent judgment, and gives ex- | tracts from many sources of Shakes- | pearean criticisms, while the stage his- tory of each play is treated with care and liberality. But perhaps the moat | interesting feature of this edition is ' the series of illustrations. These are | taken, for the most part, from photo- | graphs of those who have appeared in | the plays on the modern stage. But | the older actors are not left out of it | altogether, and reproduttions of well- | | known pictures give the necessary | variety. The present set, complete in | a handy little case, comprises “King | Henry V,” “King Henry VIII,"| “Twelfth Night,” “The Winter's Tale,” “Othello” and “Much Ado About Noth- ing.” A warm welcome =hould be as- | sured for these and the remaining vol- umes. They are not to be despised by ! the student and they will attract thoso | who do not claim =o high a distinction. | 5 e e | | The Book Monthly is of the opinion | that the growth of the custom of liv- | ing in flats is a blow to the book trade Tts reasoning is as follows: There is | no room in the average flat for book- | cases. Consequently people who live | {in flats cannot keep any large num- | ber of books. They therefore cease |to buy books and depend for their |reading on the circulating libraries. | This may be true, but surely thereq are not enough people living in flats | in all England seriously to affect the | book trade. Besides, if it be true that | | there is not room m flats for libraries, ! why should not the flat dwellers buy | pocket editions that will take up very little room? Perhap®, now that we think of it, the recent multiplicity of pocket editions is due to the exigen- cies of flat life. The pocket edition is, of course, a misnomer. No man | carries books in his pocket, for the sufficient reason that books so car- ried utterly spoil one's pockets. More- |over. no man wants to have a book always at hand, so that he can read it while he is waiting on the corner for | | 4 bus, or having his boots blacked on | the sidewalk. Pocket eflitions must be published either in the interest of aculists and opticians, who reap a har- vest from the owners of eyes that have been injured by reading fine print, or they must be designed for people who live in flats. It really looks as if the latter were the case. ®78 Margaret Sutton Briscoe, the au- thor of “The Change of Heart,” “The Sixth Sense” and other books of short stories, published by Harper & Bros., is one of the writers of short stories who began her literary career in quite an accidental manner. It is related of Mrs. Briscoe, or Mrs. Hopkins, as she is known in private life, that on re- turning from a visit to a back country farm she desired to jot down an amusing incident related to her by her | farmer host. She began in the even- ing and wrote for a long time, scarce- ly conscious of the length of her nar- rative until finally as she penned the last line her lamp flickered out and she discovered that it was daylight. A successful short story was the result. Mrs. Hopkins is the wife of Professor A. J. Hopkins, who fills the chair of chemistry at Amherst College. Their home iz described as 3 most delight- ful place set in extensive grounds and commanding a superb view of the vast range of the Connecticut Valley. - - - The split infinitive has always had its sturdy advocates, but the weight of opinion has been against it, and proofreaders and editors have generally had their way when it came to ex- cising it from manuscripts and proofs. Professor Lounsbury of Yale has taken up the cudgels in behalf of the prac- tice. He declares that it has survived the assaults of flve centuries, more or less, and he is confident that it will prevail. Iman article in the April Har- per's Magazine he takes the ground that the split infinitive adds both clear- ress and force to expression. This is a controversy which is not likely to be settled by even so weighty an au- :'horlty on English as Professor Louns- ury. = 7 —THE' SAN FRANCISCO CALL JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . . . « « ++ » . . Address All Communications to JOHN McNAUGHT, Manager Publication OffiCe s....ceeeeressscossscsncnncsns THURSDAY... ....MARCH 24, 1904 T | that is impressive. THE CANAL COMMISSIONERS. HE country will be gratified by the brief and pointed instructions given by the President to the Canal Commjssidners. Their work is the greatest that man has undertaken, and its prompt and proper per- formance is to be the test of American capacity and en- ergy. We were the pioneers in difficult railroad con- struction. Qur first transcontinental line preceded the Kussian project for the Siberian road by thirty-six years. The Hoosac tunnel was finished before the Alpine tun- nels to connect France and Italy, and these got their | spiral form for overcoming grade from the Tehachapi loop on the Southern Pacific. In all that branch of en- gineering and construction that concerns railways we led the world, and accomplished what had been held to be impossible. All great canal construction heretofore accomplished has been easy compared with that to be done on the isthmus. Some of it has been conspicuously slow. The Corinth canal was begun Before the Chr.itian era, and was finish®d in the last five years. The Suez canal was an easy construction, and its principal difficulty was political, rather than in its engineering. The nations concerned had to make sure that all interests, in war and peace, were balanced. The isthmian canal which we now undertake has been the victim. of politics. One hundred and forty-two years ago the King of Spain instructed his colonial governor on the isthmus to rigidly exclude all Englishmen from that territory, lest they see the vast advantages that would follow the digging of a canal. That was a political reason, and from that time until the Panama revolution put isthmian politics on the side of a canal international politics has been an obstruction. The downfall of the French project was due to the domestic politics of that republic. De Lesseps had to bribe and buy his way through the antagonism of parties nd officials, and lost in these corrupt subsidies the cap- ital intended for the completion of the work. Our posi- tion is happily different from his, and we have taken all the preliminary steps in cleanness and propriety. Not- withstanding ill-advised attempts to rob one party of honorable participation in the matters introductory to the great work, nearly half of its Senators broke away | from fauity leadership, and took for themselves and their constituency a due share of the honor. The enterprise is launched in the name of the American people, and every citizen has a right to feel his proper share of the re- sponsibility. The President’s instructions to the commission dis- miss partisanship utterly from the work. The Commis- sioners were selected without seeking knowledge as to their partisan bias, but only for their fithess for the work. No men were ever left a freer rein in a great work than they. Only the President can remove them, and he told them that they are to be judged solely by their work, and if any fail he will be removed no matter what political in- fluence he may bring to bear. He admonished them to follow the same rule in selecting their subordinates that had gnided him in selecting them, and to make unfitness the sole cause for removal. This gives a free hand to the commission. The President’s instructions will bear many readings. They form a business document that should be posted in every executive office in the Union, whether it be the office of a Governor or of the president or manager of a corporation or a great business enterprise. The docu- ment will enhance the reputation of the President as a man of business and of action. It has a moral feature Instead of lecturing the Commis- sioners on the need of honesty in the work, he said that if any of them needed such admonition he would not | have been appointed. That is a very high expression and opens a new thought applicable to the discipline of those who hold trusts. Perhaps many lapses are due to harp- | ing upon honesty, that would not occur if men holding trusts were told that they had been chosen because they needed no admonition to be honest. Now the work begins in the plans which will be under way while the Government is completing the acquisition of the rights of the French company, and is settling the subsidy payment with Panama. When these financial arrangements are finished the commission will have its plans, in condition for disclosure to the country. We are not aware that any decision is made as to whether the canal shall operate with locks or be a tide level water- way. If it can be made the latter we are sure that the people will be better satisfied.” Locking delays the tran- sit of ships and adds to the cost of administration. A sea level ditch will cost more and take more time in con- struction, but it will save more than its cost. It will be more satisfactory to ship owners and masters, and will better serve the purposes of commerce. P the present war in the Far East upon the diplo- matic balance of Europe credit France with a strong desire to co-operate with Great Britain in the offer to patch up the broil in the Orient. While the German Emperor seems to feeling the itch of the war bug with every report of a Russian defeat, Russia’s ally is do- ing everything in. its power to get Russia safely out of the war even if honor alone remains. - Continued strife in the East, no matter upon which side the scale of vic- tory be turned, is a grave menac: to the welfare of France. With the forces of the Czar in retreat, as they seem to be at present, and with the Japanese fleet supreme in the China Sea, France is brought to face a peril perhaps greater than\any she has had to cope with since the Treaty of Versailles. For France is at the present mo- ment endeavoring to perform the difficult feat of carry- ing water on both shoulders. By the articles of the dual alliance with Russia, France is bound to see to it FRANCE UNDER THE SWORD. ERSISTENT press reports concerning the gffect of that Russia does not have to oppose Japan and England combined. On the other hand, the growing entente cordiale between herself and her neighbors across the channel, a circumstance which has allowed France an easier feeling than she has had for many a year, makes it almost imperative upon her that she preserve the present comfortable status. France’s Russian alliance is indispensable, since, as Sydney Brooks says in the cur- rent Atlantic, the bond gives France “security” among fhe powers. The arbitration treaty between France and Great Britain is too manifest a token of good will to permit of any doubt of the desires of both governments. The tide of victory which has carried Japan into an almost undisputed possession of Korea would seem to guarantee that Great Britain will not be called upon to become an active ally in the field. The letter of the dual alliance does not stipulate that France is in duty bound to bolster up Russia by force of arms, for when the con- vention was consummated such a need on the part of spirit of the alliance certainly does convey the note of moral obligation on the pa-t of France if only for the reach a dangerous crisis in the present war and France be tardy in her offer of aid, as surely as the ice pack tween.the channel and Alsace-Lgfraine, utterly alone. With ‘this serious problem to face, it is certain the A misstep in either direction might mean war. The third republic has never had the test of war save that Bourbons hovering about in the near foreground, the republic might not have the strength to withstand the POSTOFFICE HISTORY. NO compilation has been made of the history of the branch of the public service is just now so much in the focus of attention that some enterprising pub- history of the origin, rise and progress of that depart- ment of the Government, with a sketch of the scandals William ‘Penn established the first post routes and pos- tal facilities in this country, and the Pennsylvania legis- in 1700. It is interesting _hat this was eleven years be- fore the British postoffice was created by act of Parlia- nel John Hamilton securdd a royal patent to establish, for his own profit, a gerywal postoffice for all British and a postmaster for Nor':h America was appointed. In 1753 Benjamin Frank}in was appointed to this office, the two, “if they could get it.” Instead of getting it, Franklin got into debt £900 in keeping up the service charge the round trip from Philadelphia to Boston took six weeks and he reduced it to three. He was removed Continental Congress in 1775, with a salary of $1000 per annum, and held the place until he was sent as embassa- age, and asked Congress to order that only specie be taken and this was done. Letter postage then ranged In these days of graft and corruption incident to the administration of this essentially business department of Isaac Briggs. In the early organization of the postoffice a class of officers called surveyors general was employed, order to determine the mileage charge for carrying the mail. Isaac Briggs, a Quaker, was one of these survey- Orleans. The work occupied him and an assistant four months. He reported that it was just nine hundred and house to New Orleans, and he made a map of the road. In his final report Isaac deplored the enormous cost of self and assistant through an attack of yellow fever, and the whole expense was $300! They had to swim all the storms to pass in order to get solar observations to fix latitude and longitude, and it all cost $300! If the depart- large profit. In 1839 the total roster of persons employed in the was only 113. In 1831 Return Jonathan Meigs, Postmaster General, was investigated by Congress and found delin- ury. This investigation was brought about by the de- tention of a letter mailed by a member of Congress, but wrath he went for the Postmaster General.. That inci- dent reminds one of current events and seems to affirm < The department’s history shows the difficulty of gov- ernment carrying on a business, and instead of the scan- are not more and worse. F of ' treasure trove more dazzling than any of the Thousand and One Nights. A party of British and pation of driving stakes for a survey in the mountains of Bolivia, suddenly struck the usual “hard object which they had uncovered $16,000,000, the buried treasure of the Incas. For 370 years this mass of glittering wealth many a treasure-seeker’s rainbow, and now it goes to a few men who happened to have luck. Russia entered not at all in the calculations; but the sake of expediency. Should the affairs of the Muscovite moves down the Neva would France find herself be- government of M. Loubet will move with great caution. which gave it baptism. With the Bonapartists and the shock of conflict. ' General Postoffice of the United States. That lisher might benefit himself and the public by giving a which have made it notorious. lative assembly authorized his postoffice in Philadelphia ment in the reign of Queé’. Anne. Soon after this Colo- America. This patent he{afterward sold to the arown and was given a deputy, 2%d a salary of £600 was given and giving fast mails. He boasted that when he took from office by the Ministry, and was reappointed by the dor to France. He refused shin-plaster money for post- from 11 cents for sixty miles té 33 cents for 600 miles. the Government, it is interesting to read the report of apparently for the purpose of surveying mail routes in ors and was sent by Jefferson to survey the route to New seventy-nine and five-tenths mjles from the President’s the survey, which included medical treatment. for him- streams, and sleep in the night dews, and often wait for ment were managed on that basis now it would pay a Generai Postoffice, including the Postmaster General, quent for two years in payment of funds into the treas- which he forgot to frank. It made him angry and in his the unchangeability of human nature. dals common to it being wonderful it is a wonder there ROM out the mysterious south there comes a tale American engineers, while engaged in the prosaic_occu- gave forth a hollow sound,” dug it up and found that had lain undiscovered, though the pot at the end of Besides uncovering a comfortable store for the old gray stocking, these engineers also unearthed a golden truth, these many times exhumed: How cheerless and to what little profit is the lot of the professional treasure- seeker. With all their willow wands, their divinations and their occult whisperings, hapless wights have been seeking this buried treasure of the Incas for three cen- turies, wearing away their lives in an effort to find the golden secret of the Andes; when along come mere en- gineers with their wooden stakes and they plump right into the Midas store with not so much as an effort. What count the tears and the sweat of three hundred years before the blind, clumsy luck of these fortunate Surveyors. . For the man who puts his all into the Andes or South Sea treasure hunt, who is willing to back with his last penny some hoary-headed old sinner of a sea-dog who has a mysterious chart up his sleeve, the little Jtext un- earthed with _fllf Inca treasure should have an -appealing sound. Captain Kidd may have buried ingots like a tur- tle buries her eggs, but they are not for some small tradesman or householder of this year of grace to find. The South Seas may have richness greater than that of Tnglia's coral strand, but the race for it is not to the swift. Let the past be keeper of its segrets. Fortune hunters should remember the old fable of the sevén sons who dug diligently the length and breadth of their orchard for gold and found their treasure hanging from the laded boughs of the trees, = | ot (| At the word handspike - TALK OF The Magic Word. An insane person is hard to handle. particularly when the poor creature happens to be violent. To subdue one whose mind is gone is sometimes a | dangerous task and one that often re- | quires the combined strength of three or four men. RQuite frequently, how-| ever, one mentally deranged can bel quieted by a single person who has a; slight knowledge of the mania of thel unfortunate. | This. was exemplified the other day | at the hospital for the insane at the | City Hall. In one of the cells was a | young English sailor. He was, to use | a common expresion, “as crazy as .\; loon,” He yelled and yelled, and the stewards could not make him keep quiet, though they tried every means within their knowledge. Even \vhen‘ they strapped his arms and legs and threw a blanket over his head he yelled. Finally, when every one about tl.le place was worn out, Deputy Sheriff Tom Whelan, who has been handling | maniacs of every description for years, came in. “Why don’t you make that fellow stop velling?” he asked the stewards. “We eannot,” they replied. “Who is he?” asked Tom. “A yvoung English sailor,” was the response. With only this slight knowledge Tom walked into the seaman's cell. He stood over the cot occupied by the | unfortunate, raised his hand in a threatening manner, and in a voice | that would have done credit to the | biggest bully on a windjammer shout- | ed: ! i “Shut up, blast you, or I'll crack | | your skull with a handspike.” the loud yells of the young sailor ceased. He | whimpered and with a very subdued “Aye, aye, sir,” turned his face to the | wall. For hours after he did not ut- | ter a sound and when late in the af- ternpon he commepced yelling again a | repetition of the deputy sheriff's threat caused him to become quiet immediately. | A Leap Year Conspiracy. A prominent member of a publish- ing company of this city Is paying the penalty that attaches to one popular | | with the ladies and incidentally is be- ing initiated into some of their ways in leap year matters. It appears that | the gentleman is not entirely unlovely | | in the eyes of a very charming young |lady of San Francisco, who knows her | }rights and intends to exact them. For | some time past he has been receiving ‘Hr(vm many of the silk houses in town | samples of very expensive silk. Think- !ing it was intended for his sister, fe | paid little attention to the matter. The | samples continuing, he finally asked | | his sister why she didn’t have her | things addressed in her own name. His | sister, who is a close friend of the first | | young lady spoken of, then confessed | | to a dark and deep laid conspiracy. She told her brother that if he were at all observant he would realize that it is leap year, and that all girls have | an unwritten law that if a man re- | | fuses a proposal he must send as balm | to the rejected one a silk dress; also that her girl friend had him under | | serious consideration and ordered the | | samples sent so that the penalty would be ready for selection if he refused. | The victim gasped, but not to be out- | done said that he, too, had a little con- spiracy and it was that before he would be mulcted for the dress he would ac- cept the proposal. The samples are still coming, so evidently the end is not yet. } Arbutus. Amid the slush and mud and noise That choke the city’'s thoroughfare, They hawk these bits of fragrant joys: | Arbutus blooming everywhere. Rude Winter struts the icy street. The wild March gusts howl to and fro, But clear. though faint, a perfume sweet Proclaims Our Lady of the Snow. From some wild Carolinian wood ‘Where Spring has paused and wild bee hums, A gladness scarcely underst To our chill North she comes—she comes! Her timid tints have brought a smile To Nature's face, long white with woe; Our hearts sing “Ave!" all the while: Hail, little Virgin of the Snow! The Aryan in us makes his hymn For allnter'u passing. in a tongue Forgotten since the ages dim hen all the flowered- oung. 014 falths Fevive, new doubts recede, Strange voices whisper soft and low, And every soul of every ereed ‘Worships Our Lady of the Snow. —Smart Set. world wi Useless Old Age. | “One of the saddest things in the life | of the tenements is the position of the | grandmother, and every temement mother looks forward to that position,” said Mrs. Alexander Ewing, at one of | the monthly conferences of the Charity | Organization Society, held yesterday morning in the Assembly Hall of the United Charities Building. i “If you try to encourage a tenement | mother by saying that her children will | soon be grown up and able to help’ her,” proceeded Mrs. Ewing, “she,will tell you that when her children are grown up they will not want to be bothered with her. As an almost in- variable rule, the children do not want the old people around. They are ton cranky, thev say, and the life of an aged grandmother in a tenement home is so intolerable that she is ready to do anything to escape from it. The ' people of the tenements seildom make any provision for their old age, but I know one woman who was so im- pressed with the horrors of the grand- mother’s situation that she brought | her small savings, about 25 cents a | week, to a missionary, and asked not to | be allowed to have them again, no | matter how bad she might want them. | “S86 unwelcome are aged parents in tenement houses that we seldom find them there. They live by themselves or entirely alone, if only one survives, as long as they are themselves, and when so they go to Blackwell's Island. If they have to live with their sons and daughters their lives are made a bur- den to them. I know one old woman who was tossed back and forth con- dnually between the home of her son |one she went | other grandmother was compelled to | claimed the v | up-to-date automobile, | John Kean, THE TOWN and her daughter, in one of which her only bed was a quilt on the floor. When she could no longer stand to the other. An- sleep in the same bed with three chil- dren of the family: but she was finally restored to a position of importance and honor in the family by means of the workrooms for unskilled women. The groceries which she carried home every night as the price of her labor | made her daughter-in-law regard her with new respect, and when her son lost his employment and the family be- came for a time entirelv dependent upon her, she was treated with all the deference that naturally goes to the bread winner.”"—New York Tribune. Niagara in 1812. How of the thousands of visitors who stand in awe beside the roar of Niagara's cataract are aware that the ground upon which they walk was the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting which befell in that brief and stubborn conflict known to history as the War of 1812? The Niagara fron- tier was debatable land all through that struggle and hardly a foot of ter- ritory on either side, from the brink of the falls to the limits of Lewis- ton, is free from a record of patriotism many | and valor. There were many fights along this narrow strips of gorges and rapids, but the dark and bitter struggle at Lundy's Lane shows up the reddest. Both sides tory after silence had fallen upon the field. The tall shaft which Canada has erected to the mem- ory of the men who fell there sumes the palm for England without reserve. Historians, however, are in doubt, and when the element of pa- triotic pride is eliminated, the battle s written down as a drawn engage- ment.—Four-Track News. as- A Coming Divinity. The young Crown Prince of Japan has developed a very pronounced taste for motoring and may be seen flying about the suburbs of Tokio in a very being so thor- oughly acquainted with the mechanism thereof that he is able to dispense with the services of a chauffeur. Indeod, most of the time he is accompanied by a Frenchman named Sarrazin, who was formerly his French tutor, but whom he has now attached to his household as one of his gentlemen-in- waiting and the only foreign member of his establishment. The Crown Prince is much more up to date than his father. Whereas the latter speaks no foreign language, the Prince is flu~ ent both In English and French, and while the Emperor or “Tenno” has a large seraglio the Crown Prince hae but one wife. Moreover, he ig very ap- proachable, enmtirely devoid of affec- tation, genial and familiar with his many friends and thoroughly in touch with the people, who owing to this will experience when he succeeds to the throne some difficulty in attribut- ing to him the species of divinity which | they accord to the Mikado. Answers to Queries. AN OLD DATE—C. C., Oakland, Cal. The 24th of January, 1841, fell on a Sunday. SENATOR—E. J. K., Grants Pass. Or. The list of United States Sena- tors of the present Congress does not reveal the name of “Senator Jim Kean,” but it does show the name of a United States Senator from the State of New Jersey. GOLD CERTIFICATES-K. A. P, Burnt Ranch, Cal. The United States gold certificates issued by the Govern- ment are of the following denomina- tions: $10,000, $5000, $1000, $500, $100, $50 and $20.° Such certificates are in use, particulariy the smaller denominations. CABLE CARS—H. McG., City. The application of an underground cable as a motive power for propelling street cars was first made by the late A. S. Hallidie of San Francisco, whe ob- tained a patent for the device. The first road of that character was built on Clay street, San Franciseo, from Kearny west, the work being com- menced in June, 1873. The first car was run over the road at 4 a. m. on the 1st of August of that year. COLLEGE FRATERNITIES -8 s, Berkeley, Cal. There are more than twenty college Greek letter fraterni- ties in the United States that claim to be the greatest. The Alpha Delta Phi claims a membership of %000: Delta Kappa FEpsilon, about 15.000: Phi Delta Theta, 13000, and many others that have a membership of 3000 and over. To ascertain if the prominent men named in letter of inquiry belonged to anv of these fraternities write to each such in- dividual and ask the question. TRESPASS-C. W. A, Novato, Cal. It does not follow that in order to be suilty of trespass on the property of another the individual trespassing com- mit an act that damages the property. The mere entering upon the Jand of another without permission of the owner is a trespass. If an individual enters upon the inclosed land of an- other for the purpose of fishing in a stream that runs through the land without the permission of the owner, that is trespass. e ————— e i— Townsend's California Glace fruits and S R R X n or ds. 715 Market street. above cuxb-uursn:, . —— information supplied datly to houses and public men the Clipping Bureau (Allen's), 230 Cai~ ifornia street, Telephone Main 1043, *