The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 4, 1904, Page 6

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, MONDAY, APRIL 4, 1904. : > | i | | | Harbin The great war shadow which for weeks has overhung the turbid waters of the Ye Sea is at last beginning move across the frosty Manchurian low plains, and bit by bit comes the news which enables us to guess something of the strategy of the coming grand en- vs of Manchuria T on the map of t top part crosses e Siberian Railway ostok on the right, s the upright ter. The ra th ntry. The f the province from t » Via th middle drc the left t on stalk, 600 miles g. which leads to i Art At middle point, in e very center of Manchuria, stands Har re lexieff will go on conce reat army till the n a move in the spring to the sea are wo lines ¢ both of them a all the way. The 600 es Port Arthur has no Lra re than 1 in 114, and the ' adivostok have no point steey 7. Up both these . s cle Japan is prepar- ssian center s vostok and also ng i ing at the railway 1 from Possiet From Taku- the Kgprear she is seek- isolate Po ur by cutting ne of com- he Russian troops on ch leaves the railway at t the Russian vancing gayly concentrate »in and awalt foe. The siege of thur will be but an incident Russia will rt to drive We have all rful way in which up the cities of and Viadivostok, places are on the sea, where er may mote their progress. been told of Harbin, the cen- point where Russia has with won- resight been creating the cap- tends shall one of mark of all the fertile ago, when a army of Ru an and native rs were unrolling the Manchurian tailway over the plain so fast that the onstruction train hardly came to = when each day found the r four miles nearer the Not even It she ix there was no Harbin. village marked the place. Pacific, . native was merely a point on the banks of the Sungari River running northward to- ward its junction with the mighty Amur. But when Russia threw across the stream a many-piered bridge of stone and steel and the railway began to move forward in two directions, scuthward as well as to the east, the nction soon became a place of note. . It was a site for a great city which even Ebenezer Howard would have en- vied. For hundreds of miles round about the great j n teemed with wealth of many kinds—wheat and oats and barley tobacco and timber, wvegetables and fruit. There was abundant grazing land, and coal and minerals were within easy reach And all this wealth naturally found its entrepot and common market just at this point. The three railways, one to Russia, one to the Pacific and one to the Yellow Sea, made the whole province natural- ly feed the trade of Harbin. Besides this there was the Sungari, its winding course through the plain navigable for 200 miles above (or south of) Harbin, and during seven months of the year giving access to the Amur, Asia’s great watery highway to the east. Russia promptly set to work to see that Harbin should be buiit on sensible lines from the outset—should be planned before it was built. She deter- mined that the town should be purely Russian—and already it is being called | the “Moscow of the East” For miles around the land has been secured, and only Russians or Chinese may own land, make buildings or carry on any permanent business in or near it. In 1901 the Russian population was 12,000; in Mav, 1902, 44,000, and last October, 60,000, without counting soldiers. Jap- anese, Austrians, Greeks, Turks and * all other races only numbered 700. The Chinese population totaled 40,000, in a separate settlement. And the flow of Russian population to Harbin is no mere transient thing. Nearly a third of the 60,000 Russian civilians were women. A fine church has been built, a number of hotels, an imposing railway station, Government buildings, hospitals, a magnificent bank, fine business streets, and even such adjuncts of higher civilization as a school of commerce and a women's college! More than £3,000.000 has been spent on the public buildings alone, and an electric tramway, an automo- bHe line and electric lighting have been provided. Like the London County Council, the Russian Government re- tains the land in its own hands, and lets it to builders on a lease of a littie more than eighty years. One of the | features of the town is the Russo-Chi- \ele Bank, an institution energetically worked in the interest of Russian trade. Liberal loans are granted to Russians doing a genuine and prudent business, on the security not of land or buildings, but of the enterprises them- selves. A system of letters of credit to Chinese merchants for the purchase of beans and millet and hemp, | = | Russian goods is rapidly _increasing Russian exports to Manchuria, en- abling the Chinese to carry on the commerce, for which they are so emi- nently fitted, among their own country- {men, and at the same time securing the Russian exporter against loss. The | bank ailso facilitates the export of Manchurian products, but will do noth- | ing for foreigmers. All classes, both official and commercial, seem to work together with a feverish desire for | Russian control, and Russian trade is | rapidly driving other commerce out of ! the ficld. The foreigner, trying to work THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . .. . . .. ... Address All Communications to JOHN McNAUGHT, Manager Publication Office MONDAY .o iiuttaientecssssstsssessnssssnanssasnnssnsscesssctttccsnnscssanaseansassasnssass . APRIL 4, 1904 CONDITION OF TRADE. A ing as good a showing as 1903. S the year advances it is becoming apparent from the usual commercial reports that 1904 is not mak- There is a de- crease almost everywhere, and while it is not large it is sufficiently general to establish the fact that the ten- dency in 1904 is toward quieter markets all along the line. How much of this loss is attributable to bad weather yet remains to be determined, but it is indisputable that the weather is responsible for considerable of it. Tem- peratures have ruled low and at times have been so over an unfriendly railway at exorbi- [ ceyere as to almost suspend business in the northern tiem of States, while bad roads and snowdrifts have hin- tant rates, deprived of banking facili- | ties, subjected to special taxation, and not even allowed the possession of a dered wagon and rail transportation. Scarcity of cars, foothold in the town, has no chance | too, is reported from some sections. Again, the season against hig rival. . . . Flour-making is Harbin's great in- dustry. Already there are eight mills with modern European and American machinery, and two more are being erected, which will bring up the pro- duction to nearly a million pounds a day. The wheat area is practically unlimited, and corn is delivered at the mills at fifteenpence to eighteenpence a bushel. Brickmaking is another busy industry, two hundred plants being at work. Good red bricks are turned out at about thirteen shillings a thousand, the Chinese workers get- ting a wage of ninepence a day. Next among the industries of Harbin comes the making of the Russian spirit “vodl Owing to the absence of the heavy Russian tax, the spirit is less than a quarter of the home price in Manchuria, and there are eight dis- tilleries; which do an enormous trade throughout the province. A glass bottle factory is being built in Man- churia for this trade. Three brewer- ies are being built, and with barley at almost neminal price no doubt M huria will soon be flooded with beer as well as vodka. With its splendid grazing land and cheap corn for feeding, Manchuria supplies fine meat, and there are several companies at Harbin curing and packing hams‘i bacon and smoked meats. Altogether | ! has been very backward, to the marke spring trade, and altogether the elements d detriment of have conspired to set 104 back in comparison with 1903. With clearer and more seasonable weather throughout the country business may revive and possibly overtake the record of 1903 later on. But it must not be inferred from the foregoing that American trade is dull. Far from it. The whole country is doing a large business, only the activity is not as pro- nounced as in 1903, while the margins of profit are not as wide. after week irom the preceding year, th The bank clearings continue to show a loss week e decrease last week being 22 per cent, with all but three important cities—St. Louis, New Orleans and Kansas City—in the wrong column, while the aggregate cl earings fell to $1,708,480,000. The loss at New York was 28.4 per cent, 2* Boston 19.3 per cent, at Pittsburg 31.9 per cent, and so on. small. ranging from 38 to 4.9 per cent. for the week were 208, against 173 for The gains of the three citics mentioned above werg The failures the same week last year, and included a very large trust company at Cleveland. The staples make only a fair showing. returns are conflicting, some sections Manufacturing holding their ground, while others report idle mills. The Minneapolis flour mills have been obliged to close down for a few days several times of late owing to the poor demand for flour, the cotton and woolen mills have much idle ma- Harbin is a marvelous example of what | chinery, while the New England footwear factories, re- pert a natural reaction from the abmormal activity of an be done by a great nation bent on commercial éxpansion and bringing | ts concentrated forces to the help of | s citizens. With millions of cheap | Chinese laborers, great mountains of iron and copper, limit-| less® forests and agricultural land | producing the cheapest food in the | world, Russia seemed but vesterday have untold wealth within her grasp. To-day it seems that she may not pos- sess all without a struggle, and Har- bin, the magic capital city, summoned as by Aladdin’s lamp out of the air, | bids fair to be the scene of one of the greatest military struggles that hls-| tery has known.—London News. | The Valley of Death. The famous Valley of Death in thel island of Mindanao, in the Philip-| pines, has at last been compelled to | give up the rich treasure which for ages it has successfully guarded by its| 1 of death-dealing gases. This val- | ley, which, true to its name, has dealt death to many a venturesome search- er for the precious metal, is located | in the mountain fastnesses of the isl- and, and, according to the theories of scientifts, it is the crater of what was once a great and violent volcano. Vol- th- past four or five years. The iron and are sending in fair reports, though they tivity in this line. steel industries are often con- coalfields, | tradictory, and do not therefore indicate any especial ac- Provisions are apparently getting quieter and the tendency in prices for pork products is creasing. to | downward rather than upward, while the output of hogs | is much larger than that of last year and apparently in- The packers of Chicago and other Western centers have succeeaed in loading up the provision trade with a large quantity of stock which they are now trying to work off, while the packers embrace every opportunity to ladl~ them out some more. in their operations, as already mentioned, High prices for cotton | have rendered cotton manufacturers extremely cautious while firm wool markets have also tended to restrict the purchases of woolen manufacturers. is slight, being only 1.2 per cent in M a falling off. But thee are yet favorable features. taking the belt as a whole, is in fair The railway earnings are still | running behind those or 1903, .and though the falling off arch, it is still The crop pros- | pects are good all over the country and the winter wheat, condition, with | better crop weather reported in many regions during the past few days. Agricultural implements have thus far canic gases of a most poisonous na- | this spring made the best showing on record, and lumber ture still rise from the depths of the valley and hang over it like a pall, | | never passing asay, and many na-) tives, who have attempted to go down into the valley from the mountains, | | say that never before has any man | who ventured into its unknown depth!l returned to tell of its secrets. The! distance across the valley is only a| mand. Stronger and more active hide The cotton plante: | and other building mecterials are reported in better de- markets in the | West reflect more movement in the tanning industry. end the South generally have reaped a rich harvest f;om the enormous advance in prices for cotton. The banking interests throughout the > country report few miles, but the botttom of it is con- | funds in arge supply, with interest rates normal, and the bankers themselves arc sanguine of the future, while those of New York are persistent bulls on general trade stantly concealed from view by the dense cloud of poisonous vapor over- hanging it. An American named Rudy formed a party at Manila, consisting of himself and two other Americans, and, em- | ploying three native guides, proceed- ed to the mountains enclosing the val- ley, where one of the Americans with the guides were left in charge of the outfit, while the other two entered the valley with their heads completely | covered by an apparatus similar to that worn by divers. Carrying on their backs small tanks of compressed air for breathing purposes so as to avoid inhaling the deadly vapors, the men worked in the valley. for months, | carrying sackful after sackful of gold- bearing sand and gravel up the moun- tain side. This work was continued until both were almost worn out from the depressing work and the fumes of which they were forced to breathe a portion, but never once could any of the natives be persuaded to venture beyond the outer circle of the poison- | ous gases. Brainy Policemen. Emperor William is inaugurating at | Hanover a scheme which cannot fail | to commend itself to the attention of | the entire civilized world, and which marks an altogether new departure. it is nothing more nor less than a I-pede- of high school for the training | of police officials. He has long since realized, like s0 many others, that, whereas the most dangerous criminals and anarchists are, as a rule, men who are not only of a high order of in- tellect, but, moreover, frequently pos- sessed of all the advantages of the most advanced order of education, many of them being university gradu- ates, equipped with all sorts of scien- tific knowledge, and their mental faculties rendered acute and keen- edged to the last degree by study, the police, to whom is intrusted the re- eponsibility of protecting the commun- ity from their evil designs, have been recruited from an entirely different class of society, inferior, not merely in inherited intelligence, but likewise in all those accomplishments which education of a high order and rear- ing among people of culture can alone bring. In this way the police have been terribly handicapped, and it is only now and again that the Govern- ments are able to find a man who is so exceptionally keen-witted and bril- liant that his gift in this respect, in a measure, atones for his lack of the higher order of education. conditionz zrd encourage by all possible means the ex- pansion of all legitimate and reasonably safe enterprises. banking interests were contracting loans | When it is considered that only a year ago these sam: and discourag- ‘ing and actually <hecking expansion in every form, this turn about on their part is not only significant but highly reassuring. The situation in Wall street shows lit values on the whole are improving. tle change, but It is recognized by everybody in touch with the financial situation that the monetary conditions of the country are on a most excel- lent basis and that the standard stocks on the present plane are as good investments as can be found anywhere, but still the people are not taking hold of the market as freely as further rest and more complete recovery could be wished. They apparently need a from the great losses sustained in the enormous shrinkage in values of last year. It is expected, however, that chasing capacity of the public is once when the pur- more restored renewed activity in the stock market will be witnessed. With the Northern Securities decision at last out of the way, with plenty of money on hand and stock quotations comparatively low, there is no reason w! hy such expan- sion in investment buying should not occur very soon. In California the prospects for the coming year con- tinue brilliant. floods, but the main portion of the State There have been some losses from is enjoying an excellent trade outlook. The central and northern por- tions have been thoroughly drenched by the heavy rains of February and March, while even the south, where the prospects for several months were ext remely dubious, has now received sufficient rain to practically,irfsure at least fair crops. The season, however, is backward, as the incessant storms have checked farm work, and in many sections some weeks must elapse before the lost time can be recovered. Almost all farm products are bringing prices very remunerative to the farmers and fruit-growers, and the city and interior funds very plentiful. banks report The export and local trade of the apprehension, and, taking the sittation as a whole, it is very cheering and full of promise. FRANCE SEES ViSIONS. A S the speed of the Japanese-Russian war slows down and there is less news of fighting the Rus-, nihilated a band of Chinese brigands and the heart of sian press supplies the gap in news by chewing | the Czar is gladdened by the acclaim of triumph. But and Great Britain combined can rule the world. stead of making an unfavorable impression upon France, as might have been expected, this proposition seems to have moved the French to unfriendly demonstrations Even such a soundly sea- soned politijian as M. Hanotaux says that we have been in Russia and that “on account of business against the United States. sticking pin: interests we are willing to risk the peace of the world.” All this is because neither Russia nor France under- Continental diplomacy has so long been sin- ister, covert, selfish and false that Continental statesmen comprehend no other and very naturally ascribe fto us the same motives that actuate them and the only motives They find no difficulty in under- such stands us. of which they know. standing Russian diplomacy, for it is gilded lying, To be direct, frank and honest is of as they all use. course to stick pins in any nation that is tortuous and false in its international dealings. in sympathy with Continental diplomacy. The French press is The Echo says: “If the Russian bear should show his teeth both English and Americans would soon think it best to be good.” assistance. The best test for that is for Adam Zad to show his teeth. We would proceed to pull them out without | Of course it is the manifestation of friendship and re- gard for our feelings that lead Russia to boast of her | intention to chase our commerce out of the Pacific by dominating Eastern Asia. It is friendly for a Cossack to pull down our flag from our consulate at Newchwang. It is friendly to repeat, at this late day, the falsehood that our naval commander refused to rescue the Rus- sians from drowning when the Variag was sunk. Our people note all these things and-are patient and approve the wise neutrality of their Government. after Russian bear have any teeth leit But if the Japan gets through with him let him show them to us if he think it wise. According to the ubiquitous correspondents of Europe the Moorish pretender is again active and disquietud: rules the councils of Morocco. that blood has flowed as rivers, that lives We will probably hear far in excess of the population of the,country have been sacrificed, and then the pretender will disappear and the quillsters will | rummage for a new sensation. A “DEVELOPMENT DINNER.” I sources of the State and bringing portunities before the eyes of the East. HE California Promotion Committee is nothing if not whole-hearted in its work of developing the re- California’s op- It has an- nounced as its latest project a “development dinner” to be held at the Palace on April 30, whereat representatives from all sections of California are to entertain and be entertained by a review of the material development of the State and suggestions for its increased prosperity in the future. The chief object of the Promotion Committee’s dinner is to bring into touch with one another the various civic and trade organizations now working throughout the State with a view to securing unity of independently action and harmony of ideas on the part of all associa- tions which- have the common end in view, the ad- vancement of the material welfare of California. At present time there are promotion clubs in vari- ous cities, boards of trade, manufacturers’ associations and chambers of commerce, all working for the special interests of their respective communities and thercby doing incidental good to the State as a whole. The Cali- fornia Promotion Committee, which has no exclusive alliance with any one community or section of the State, but gives its endeavors for the well being of the whole - commonwealth, is in a position ‘to serve as the rallying point for a united endeavor on the part of all the sec- tional associations in the general interests of the State. Neither desiring nor assuming any leadership over these organizations, the California Promotion Committee seeks merely by this dinner to bring upon a common ground workers in 1119. same cause from every portion of California. The “development dinner” should be productive of re- sults profitable to every community and large. ress. to the State at California is rapidly dcvclgping a broad and lib- | eral spirit of unanimity in the cause of the State’s prog- } It is not now the booming of Los Angeles or the colonization of the Sacramento Valley which is the de- sideratum, but the development of California, the ex- ploitation of its resources throughout the East, the im- provement of its opportunities at home. The Promotion Committee’s symposium should plant the impulse for a united endeavor in this direction. The Emperor of Korca, essentially unwise in his gen- | eration, has seen fit'to send presents, various and costly. to the Mikado of Japan. It is harrowing to contemplate | what a package the Emperor of Korea will receive one | of these fine days from the Czar of Russia. In making} hould give due re- flection to the fact that he is the fellow that will have | his bed the simple man of Seoul to sleep in it. PRI ER e R The Board of Education has made demand upon the Supervisors for funds necessary to improve the sanita- tion of school buildings, which are, from a health point of view, in a wretched condition. This is unquestionably one of the worthiest appeals ever made by the school board and, .if experience be a teacher, will be one of the few that will not be honored by proper official in- dorsement. \ The Board of Public Works has decided again that the streets and sidewalks of the city must be cleared of obstructions, particularly in the business district. The gravity with which this admirable department of the municipal service resolves upon this measure and the complacency with which it accepts persistent abuse of its orders have become the most eagerly repeated jokes of the town. There is a movement now on foot among the gov- ernors of our public schools to introduce methods of whole coast is active, there are no large failures to excite tdm\‘:nistufion that have been found advantageous in the schools in cities in the Eastern States. Let us hope that some kind fate will direct our educators to discover that | Eastern methm'i, so thoroughly to be commended, that bars politics from the conduct of piiblic schools. Things do move in ... Orient. The Russians have an- its thump at the United States. Oflif.hl and semi-official | what in the world did even Chinese bandits expect to get papers in St. Petersburg are cooing softly to Great | from Russian soldiers? TIft fichting men of Russia do Britain and making faces at the United States. The solicit a British alliance with the assurance that Russi - them in their onward march to the foe. y | not appear to be even carrying their reputations with In- TALK OF THE Justifiable Felony. ] An occurrence that never was pub- lished took place in the early sixties, in which figured Lillie Hitchcock, now Mrs. Howard Coit. It was one night | when an alarm came in from a box on Howard and Spear streets. Miss Lillie heard the alarm in her father’s resi- | dence on Sutter street and, jumping yout on the sidewalk, she speeded along | to and down Montgomery street in the | hope of meeting the engine coming from the exempt headquarters on i Brenham place. | Missing the engine, she ran as far as Washington street, where she found {a horse and buggy belonging to Dr. i Toland hitched to a post. She unhitched ! the animal, jumped into the buggy and drove &s fast as the horse could igo till she arrived at the scene of the fire, where she lent a hand to the boys in working the hand pump. In the meantime Dr. Toland missed his { horse and buggy and, hastening to po- | lice headquarters, he informed Captain Douglass of his loss. Douglass detailed one of his men to find the horse and its purloiner, if possible. The officer who was detailed learned who had taken | the anintal and, in pursuance to orders, he brought Miss Coit back with him to the doctor’s office, where a good laugh was indulged in and the matter ended in praise of the heroine who would purloin any man’s animal to be on hand at a fire, . His Mistake. The use of slang, while not elegant, is at times permissible if it fits the case, but there are occasions when it is decidedly out of place, as was instanced a few days since when a local stock broker approached another in the same | line of business and accosted him with the latest, “Well, how’s the boy?"” In this instance it happened that the person spoken to had but a few days before buried his only son, who had been the victim of a lingering illness. ‘When his friend accosted him thus, his mind being still on his recent sorrow, he supposed that the inquiry was as to the condition of his boy, so, with tear filled eyes, he replied, “The poor boy died last Monday.” The broker noticed that he had made a mistake, offered an apology and sym- pathy and vowed to discontinue the use of slang during the balance of his life. The First Easter Egg. Mrs. Lou Wallace, the wife of the au- thor of “Ben Hur,” tells in her book, “The City of the King,” how the first | Easter eggs came to be, according to legend. Says she, “The Syrian bulbul (nightingale) has the loveliest voice of all God's creatures and the saddest | song ever heard. Shady coverts fring- |ing the Jordan still shelter the bird 1 that ‘sings darkling.’ “There is a legend that the bulbul sat in the olive tree in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, and, the night | before the Resurrection, through the | darkness’ poured out her soul in sor- | rowing plaint above the still sleeper lin the tomb wherein was never man |laid. When the first Easter morning | broke over the Eastern hills the eggs | in the nest of the broedling bird spar- kled with gold, blue, orange and crim- son: and so we color eggs at Easter | for a memorial of the lone singer who sang by the Holy Sepulchre nineteen hundred years ago.” Philippine Railroads. Sir William Van Horne has given | some very good advice touching pro- jected -railroads in the Philippines, drawn from his experience in Cuba. Sir” William declares that the success which has attended his efforts in Cuba is largely due to the methods employed i in dealing with the native inhabitants. | Had he and his colleagues been guided by a short-sighted policy of chipping off a little here and a little there at the expense of the native, in Sir Wil- liam's opinion he would have been doomed to failure. Seeds would have been planted which would have borne bitter fruit for generations. He en- deavored not only to obtain, but even more, to deserve, the confidence of the natives from the very outset as the basis of operations. He employed only native labor in constructing the 400 miles of the Cuban railroad, and awarded no building contracts. To. have done so would, in Sir William's view, have been suicidal. His success in Cuba convinces him that the same policy should be followed in the Philip- pines if the dual object of the Ameri- can Goverfment—to educate the Fili- pinos in respect for the Americans, and confidence in them, and at the same time to bring about the industrial de- velopment of the islands—is to be se- cured. The Government has three alterna- tives in constructing the projected Philippine railroad—it could either build the line with its own forces, or it could let contracts for construction, or, thirdly, endow with sufficient power some company whose interests would be the same as the .Government's in- terests. The annual cost to the Amer- ican Government of providing for 800 miles of Philippine railroad would be i no more than the annual cost of main- taining a single regiment, If by the constructing of the railroads the neces- sity of a standing army should be re- moved and a native constabulary es- tablished the inestimable benefit is ap- parent.—Harper's Weekly. Danish Humor. Viborg is a little town in Denmark. It has a chief of police who is pos- sessed of stamina. He is also face- tious. Not long ago the city authori- ties decided that the security of the population demanded the services of another policeman. But the chief stood up in meeting and made a few re- marks. “If you desire quiet,” he said, ‘“better have more than one new po- liceman. At least a dozen will he necessary—two dozen. Y cannot en- gage to handle every criminal who en- dangers our commonwealth and the state of our nerves by sneezing with- out the aid of at least that many men on my force. Their equipment need be slight. We have no hoodlums, and clubs and revolvers are never called for. Instead T would recommend that| ‘every man on the force carry a hip - pocket full of katzenjammer. e should also wear white kid gloves, in order not to soil the dress suits and top hats of those who would be the usual—the only—quarries of a force or= dered to act with the severity you de- sire. And I might also say that it would do no harm if each of the new men were a qualified physician—that is, if it is the nerves of the town that you would protect. If it is omly our usual peace that Is to be preserved L shall continue to maintain osder by myself as before.”—Boston Transcript. Bunyaw's Warrant. The announcement that the original warrant on which Bunyan was arrest- ed when he wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress™ will be sold shortly at Sotheby’s re- vives a romantic story connected with its last appearance in the same auc- tion-rooms. The warrant, which is written on a half-sheet of foolscap paper, had been for more than twa centuries in the possession of tha Chauncy family, and was offered for sale with some valuable old manu- scripts. It was catalogued thus: “Bunyan—Letter to the Constables of Bedford relative to the imprisonment of John Bunyan for preaching. Auto- graph signatures and seals, March 4, 1674"; and was on view at Sotheby's for two days previous to the sale. In some inexplicable way this treasure completely eluded the vigllance of some of the keenest eyes among the antiquaries of Europe. The only man who recognized its value was the late W. G. Thorpe, F. S. A, who telils the story in his “Still Life of the Mid- dle Temple”, and by “lying low and saying nuffing,” he managed to buy the document on tHe fateful day of sale for a few sovereigns. Great was the dismay of the big-wigs when Mr. Thorpe triumphantly explained what a treasure they had allowed to slip throagh their Gazette, Ftrtili:’erTmm Air. The problem of obtaining nitrogen from the: atmosphere for fertilizing the land appears to have been solved. at least from a scientific point of view, by Doctor Erlwein, a German experimenter. His method is first to separate nitrogen from oxygen by passing an air-current over a red-hot copper, when the oxygen combines with the metal, leaving the nitrogen free. Then the nitrogen is caused to combine in an electric furnace with a mixture of powdered charcoal and lime. The product is a black sul stance suitable to be spread on t land, and possessing the fertilizing properties of Chile saltpeter and pot- assium nitrate. It remains to be dem- onstrated that the new fertilizer can be produced on a large seale at an economical cost. -— Answers to Queries. THE GREAT STRIKE—A. R. U. Oakland, Cal. The great strike of 1394 commenced April 13 and was declared off August 5. ST. LOUIS—G. D. K., Los Gatos, Cal. The average annual precipitation in St. Mo., is 48.8 inches and the average temperature 56 degrees. FIVE HUNDRED—W. C. G.. Con- cord, Cal. Any book store can furnish the rules and cards for the new society game called “five hundred.” This de- partment has not the space to publish the rules of the game. CITIZENS' ALLIANCE—Subscriber, City. For information relative to the class of men the Citizens’ Alliance of San Francisco would be willing to give employment to send a letter of inquiry or call on the secretary of the organiza- tion. AFFILIATED COLLEGES—R. C. M., City. The buildings in San Fran- cisco known as the Affiliated Collezes are so called because there are three colleges, namely, dentistry, pharmacy and medicine, in one group. These coi- leges are under the auspices of the University of California. What is taught in these colleges appears from the names of the different ones. For information about admission. etc.. ad- dress a letter of inquiry to the.record- er of the University at Berkeley. IN TIME OF WAR—E. B. M.. Reno. Nev. In time of war the bellizerents have a right to ask those of their citi- zens residing in a foreign country. and who owe military service, tq return to the home country and complete that service, but no right to o into that foreign country, and, as it were, take such delinquents by the back of the neck and force them into the army. A person so notified, who failed to obev the order to present himself for mili- tary duty, would, on return to his na- tive country. be dealt with by the au- thorities as the case would demand. HOMESTEAD—H., Tulare, Cal. In California, if the homestead selected by the husband or wife, or either of them, during coverture and recorded while both were living, was selected from the community property, or se- lected from the separate property of the person selecting, or joining in the selection of the same-it vests on the death of the husband or wife. absolute- ly in the survivor. If the homestead was selected by either husband or wife without his or her consent, it vests on the death of the person from whose property it was selected, in his or her ——— Townsend's California Giaecs frufta and QST o N St 715 Market street. above Call mw:; s ———— tion supplied ml informa dally to R e B i Y 4 hands.—Westminster