The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 25, 1904, Page 8

———————a—— mo’s Excellencies. BY W MATHEWS T n Mus History of Music.” et *op ght, 1004, by B. Bowles) or | vibratory apparatuses in- ed man for musical purposes, and mily are the most e the slender body of is up under tension and Jess variety of musical tone for centuries to- aling a mere fabric of thin wood sgether by glue. I do not even care to gn to the violin a back seat in comparison with nature’'s woek in such musical compendiums as those | of the little brown thrush; the bob-o- | Jink, the meadow lark and the mock- ° ing bird: the’violin has greater range, highe »tability in tonal de- tlasts I know not how erations of the delightful the bird tribe. Yet the ow much the birds do get v jers of - fr pir violin 1 place the mod- When the piano is ern conce played by a - great master, of | the masterly teck > which had taken the trouble to rub off the traces of art, as Godowsky, for -instance, and one sits i away from the instru- ment, the result is beautifully spon- aracter. The instrument .seems to be guite as willing to thun- der as to sing sweetly and melodious- Iy, and it wes all the way from one extreme he other by all those gradations of emotional »n which distinguish our mod- tless ern mu Grante “tonal_r fordit a scale capable of refined and a construction af- everything else Here is where a fine system The commercial artist many measurements he can; but the result is E greatly matter of chance. It claimed the late musical savant, J. J. Fetis of Brussels, that Stradivarius in selecting wood for a violin was in the habit of testing its ¢ibratory qualities by taking a pencil- like stick and drawing a bow over it and listening to its tone. There are many who think that Fetis probably this peint than boar was nore upon Stradivarius have a ion gnd great sonority hers, &lthough’ the young- -est of them are now, 200 years old. The violin has the advantage of the plano in that it ean be taken apart and glued up over again without feel- ing insulted. It is possible to renew the sounding board in a piano, but it ie rarel done, because it involves re- constructing the instrument; it is nearly as radical as replacing a few of the dorsal vertebrae in man. The sounding beard of an ordinary upright piano is a thin spruce board about a quarter-inch in thickness and measures about four feet by five, glued together in strips, out of the heart of the Sounding boards used to be sawn in the piano factory out of logs of spruce lumber, care- fully seasoned for many years; they are mow, by a very few, bought by the hundred from planing mills built expressly for handling this kind of lumber. It is doybtful whether there i a person who can accurately predict e 1 qualities of a sounding beard while it is still in the lumber; and it is quite certain that any pos- sible excellence of selection might be ruined by bad handling. of which let us speak. But first I will say that vyoung Albert Weber once told me, when he was in his prime, that when- ever he had to start a particularly im- portant instrument, an art piano or a test instrument, he used to select a certain kind of grain in the wood and a certain tint, which he showed me. There was no actual testing for tone; that was left for the wood to answer for. Now a piano sounding board labors under the following difficulties among others. It has to be free to vibrate and it must be amiable enough to vi- brate easily, so that a lady can play it with pleasure. Yet the thing has to be fastened tightly to a frame and so braced that it can endure a crushing strain of from one to two tons from the strings for years together and #well up and shrink_back again un- der the influence of moisture in the @ir, for there is no way of making wood entirely insensible to moisture. I think a few makers have ways of protecting their boards so that they reduce this element to a minimum, but it is evident that a board four feet wide, fastened at the sides and “crowning,” i. wood. : F EZEi i il il {trate the refinements here possible 1 will or | thing else turns upon the | of guesswork | vet the fact remains that | all its vibrations in all states of the weather. Thus there are always up- ward of 250 steel wires pulling down upon the bridge as they cross it, firmly | enough to dnsure most of the vibration | passing directly into the board. To re- sist it the board is arched and strength- ened upon the back by means of ribs,, Nttle strips of spruce, some of them pearly an inch in one dimension, and the art is to place these ribs where they will do the most good. To illus- | mention an incident told me of the first | producer of commerclal pianos, or one ! of the first. He desired to make the best | small upright possible for the money. ' Accordingly he bought a small Stein way upright and imitated it as closely as he could. The result was a surpris- | ingly good instrument for the price. | About a year later the late George W.. | Lyon chanced to mention this piano to | William Steinway, whereupon they | sent for one and went over it carefully, | recognizing the excellence of the in-| jstrument. They then notified the maker | that ®e would have to change the num- ber of upright supports at the back of | the instrument or else change their po- | sition, as the Steinway held patent rights upon . the combination of five supports of these parflcular distances. When he had made this change his lit- ' | tle piano was a Samson whose locks | had been shorn. The posts behind had been related to the ribbing of the! | sounding board, and if the copying me- | chanic had knewn the principle he | might still have accomplished his ends | | by changing both to correspond. But| he did not. | 1 When these improvements in pianos | | first began Helmholz had not yet pub- | | lished his results concerning the vibra- tions of wires. But already an inven- tion had been patented intended to use | what we might call a by-product of the | string vibration, namely, that part of | | it which ‘gets past the bridge toward | the end of the wire. The Steinways put another bridge farther on, at just | the distance to make an octave with | the fundamental tone, or a fifth, ac- | cording to the range where they need greater strength of one harmonic or another. _This adds to the sweetness | of the tone. And it is further encour agement of investigations not always sclentific, but primarily by ear and for | | art purposes, that when tHey sent one | | of the best instruments to Helmholz | | he wrote back that he had been obliged to revise his theories concerning the | | vibrations of steel strings, as they had secured subdivisiens which he had| found impossible. There is this curious thing about piano tone. I suppose that six pianos | by the best makers might be placed | side by side upon the stage, and if | played impartially by the same player no person at the end of the hall, or even fifty feet away, could pick out the makes by the tone. This has been tried over and over again, and, so far | as 1 know, it has never been done. We | always have to fall back upon the In-l fallible criterion mentioned by a blind | St. Louis tuner who had just failed | in such an experiment. He wagered | that he could name a test which would ! classify them every time. Upon nd-] justing conditions he named it. It wi “the price at which they were sgl Now the question arisés' how it is pos- siblé for a particular make of piano to sell invariably at a price not simply a few dollars higher, but generally from { $100 to $200 higher, and still not be dis- | tinguishable at a distance from anoth- er sold at the lower price. This is a nice question and ‘reputation” does not satisfactorily soive it. If I am buying a piano I want it for | the music. I expect to play it myself; or I am buying it for some one who | will play it personally. Therefore, 1 | want to please myseif or please the player. Now pianos differ as much as pecple. Some are stolid things and | will never respond to anything short of a good pounding: others will smile sweetly and look lovingly even at a | bunch of violets. “The latter is the kind of piano which gets popular. As | the older William Knabe cnee remark- | ed to me, stability was not enough; he | had that. What he wanted was (this was in 1860) responsiveness, the qual- ity which pleased a lady, so that she could get the music without forcing the | plano. So, while either for lack of | sufficiently masterly ears or something, | the half dozen best pianos cannot be | distinguished when played by a third person, there are great differences to | the player himself in the responsive- ' ness they show to the delicate shades of musical feeling. It is a great pity that this element ' in plahos is not better understood, be- | | cause it influences the*musical life and | the taste of pupils educated upon the | 1 ! piano. With a really musical and| | sensitive irnstrument all fine music | sounds vastly better. The delicate | fluctuation of come and go in the mu- sical tensions is responded to by the piano and the player feels it and is stimulated by it This quality is what we call “sym- pathetic resonance,” and in plain Eng- glish we mean by it the willingness or tendency of strings not played | upon to vibrate sympathetically in harmony with strings whiclf are act- ually played. It is unfortunate that in | music teaching the formation and edu- catian of the ear is ns ed.” If It were otherwise I think we would hear easily these differences between instru- | ments which we now find out slowly and by use. It is not generally known to the musical public, as it ought to be, that there are, reughly speaking, three rather broad grades of commerclal rank in pianos. The first-class produce the finest piano they how. I think some of them are successful in the these one make at a higher price, about an ecual level ‘Then there is a second of superior quality—really sold at lower prices than first rank. Below 1] L i £ : 41 i H a2 | E § 8 i A THE SA fR‘AN(' 1SCO CALL, WED ESDAY 'VMY 25, 1904. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL IOH!XD.'MS,W..........MMMMM“JOH McNAUGHT, Manager <. ......Third and Market Streets, S. F. WEDNESDAY AY 25, 1904 NORMAL SUMMER SCHOOLS. SIGNIFICANT sign of the progress of the times is the attitude of the public toward education. Education used to be static in meaning. Young men were sent to college to finish their education. Now | they are sent rather for the purpose of exciting the desire } and obtaining the material for education. Even the teacher, that old-time essence of learning completed, feels that the best incentive to the progress of his pupils is that which comes from his 6wn progress. In recognition of this fact several of the greater American universities—Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and Chicago, not to forget our own University of California— have been offering summer courses specially planned to suit the needs of teachers. Recently the leading normal schools of the Eastern States have provided more tech- nical lines of work for them. ¥ Last year the Pacific Coast was represented in this training of teachers in the profession as well as for the profession by the San Jose State Normal School. It was one among the nineteen normal schools in the country doing summer work. The hearty response of teachers from various sections of the Pacific Coast proved con- clusively the understanding in the West of the active ele- ment in education and gained for the teachers and their fellows the privilege of another summer session. This ! session will begin June 29 and close August 6. Courses will be offered in all lines of primary and grammar school work, special emphasis being put upon those nfost difficult for the untrained teacher to work out for herself, such as drawing, manual training, nature study and music. . That some form of systematic and continuous work is needed by our teachers is shown in the growing dissat- isfaction of the county teachers’ institute ~held yearly from three to five days in each county. A number of the counties have passed resolutions voicing the sentiment that these institutes be abolished. Some of the reasons given for this action are that the time given to the meet- ing is too short for serious work to be accomplished, that the subjects discussed are too numerous and varied for even the most earnest and attentive teacher to be greatly benefited, and that much of the work presented is not of interest or value to the whole number assembled. The summer school courses cover several weeks and a teacher may register for as few or as many of them as he feels she can well carry. The institute seldom pro- | vides more than one or two instructors. The mormal summer school enlists its whole faculty, each member of whom is a specialist in some one subject. € This “teachers’ school” is almost as cosmopelitan in its nature as the university. . Here are gathered together men and women who have been widely separated by dis- tance and experience. The college graduate comes fresh from the lecture-room to learn the best ways of present- ing what is already known. The primary teacher from a far away mountain district comes to gather material for presentation. The county superintendent, holding a life diploma, comes to get a different point of view and to broaden his horizon. Aside then from the work of the school itself much is to be gained from the infurmal. ex- change of ideas of peopl®whose minds are so differently conditioned. When one considers the marrow setting of the lives of large numbers of our well-meaning but not truly edu- cated teachers (there are 4000 teachers in California who have no professional training of any kind), when one thinks of their lack of books, of their inability to make use of the wealth of material all about them either for their own benefit or that of their pupils, of their linrited appreciation of music, literature, art, nature, of all the great number of petty worries and hali-formed, unful- filled desires that go to make up the bulk of their daily thought, one cannot but feel that this opportunity, this helping-hand stretched out willingly to all, but especially to the untrained teachers, of our oldest normal school is a movement in the right direction. Six weeks of the sum- mer spent in learning to work more effectively, to see farther, to think more deeply, to live upon a higher plane, will be returned to the teacher during the following year in many an hour of active pleasure or quiet satisfaction. A Colorado family feud, dignified by age and enriched by exceptional bitterness, ended the other day in a double murder. The affair, by a strange trick of fortune, has become a subject for congratulation to the district in- | volved from the fact that nobody immediately concerned in the quarrel remains to be murdered. It is always grati- fying to know when our friends, in their efforts to punish their enemies, accomplish enough to permit the neighbor- hood to live in reasonable pursuit of peace and life. —— I world’s greatest nations comes like a comic inter- lude the barking and snapping of Peru and Brazil over a little piece of disputed territory away off some- where at the headwaters of the Amazon. We read that Peru has sent armies to Alto Yurua and Alto Purus; that Brazil is rapidly assembling forces dignified by the same title on the western boundary of her repubfic, and RUBBER AND A COMEDY. N the midst of war's alarms and the trembling of the | that war to the knife is soon to be grim reality. It seems that the same elusive needle in the haystack that “has caused solemn threats of war, exchanges of notes diplomatic and high conclaves between contract- ing powers in the heart of South America for the last fifty years is again the fly in the ointment. The wooded country, rich in rubber, that lies along the banks of the Yurua and Purus rivers, tributaries of the upper Amazon, and which constitutes the indeterminate state of Acre, has been the subject of separate dispute between Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru since the first Para gum was drawn from the trees. Thete have been conventions between Peru and Ecuador, Brazil and Bo- livia until now the contest has narrowed down to the final grapple between Brazil and Peru. Not only does all this moil and trouble have to do with the cornering of the rubber market, but the finer ques- tion of open navigation of the Amazon is also to the fore. The father of southern waters is open to naviga- tion by ocean-going vessels throughout the whole of Brazil and up to the flourishing Peruvian towns of Nauta and Iquitos in the state of Loreta. These points of departure, situated on navigable water, though a com- fortable 2000 miles from the Atlantic, are, nevertheless, the chief points of shipment for the crude rubber from the interior forests and constitute a sore stitch in the side of Brazil. By assiduous jockeying and shifting of the balances Peru has succeeded in laying claim to them as the outposts of her territory. Can Brazil only plant her flag there, the Amazon, in so far as it is a navigable stream, will be a closed Brazilian river. It is instructive to recall the Colombia to the effect that as a result of the severance of Panama all southern republics would unite in indis- soluble bonds against the United States. Colombia would have us believe that at a signal every soldier from the isthmus to Patagonia would arise to the common ) defense of the continent against the aggressions of the porthern republic. And here two of our respected sister republics are on the point of war about a shadowy boundary that has never known a surveyor's transit. While the Scuth American republics persist in their pas- time of fighting one another with each recurrent summer solstice, Uncle Sam need not worry about drawing up a call for volunteers. | The discovery has been made again that certain of the dives, which by grace of the police are permitted to flourish on Market street, are selling intoxicants without | L the formality of protection granted by a liquor license. It is strange that the police have found out that these dens exist on the greatest thoroughfare of the city in open defiance of decency. And it is stranger still thal' anybody pretends that whisky is sold in these pitfalls of the town. T OHIO CONSERVATIVES. HE compound, complex, comminuted fracture Democratic politics is exhibited in Ohio. The party there is divided into Hearstlings and Conservatives. [ in But Buckeye conservatism is a different article from that known by that Johnsonjsm and State platform on which Johnson ran for Governor. name in New York. It means Tom its tenets are found written in the last It includes. all the:creed of Populism and Byyanism and So- cialism. It demands government ownership and opera- tion of all public utilities, the substitution of direct leg- islation for representative government and the judiciary, through the initiative and referendum, and free trade fof protection, ]'ust why that kind of conservatism should oppose Hearst is not explained. The Ohio'Democracy does not | take kindly to Judge Parker nor Olney. It has part of a soft side for ex-Attorney General Harmon, but seems to prefer a favorite son in the person of Judge Kilbourne, who is unknown to external fame. sonal choice in Mr. Polk of St. Louis. Johnson has a per- Polk is the young District Attorney who found Democratic management in Missouri so rott even hooted the The morality have been wreck volved in alum. Mr. Johnson. where. en that he became famous by sending a job fot of his fellow Democrats to the penitentiary. He Lieutenant Governor out of office. of the Missouri Democracy seems to ! ed on legislation concerning alum in bak! i ing powder. The question was of sufficient financial im- portance to warrant the Missouri mazuma in expending large sums of money and the statesmen fell in shoals. Even United States Senator Stone was said to be in- Having taken a rise out of baking pow- prosecutor, but one fight against alum does not make a man of Presidential size. It is after all probable that the Ohio delegation, when | “sermons in stones (not by throwing it gets to St. Louis, finding Ohio conservatism not fitted to any other candidate, may settle on Hearst. His meth- ods are like unto those of Johnson and these two could | join forces without doing any violence to their principles. There is a perceptible check to the Parker boom every- It is not going forward as was expected after the New York convention. This may be due to the lead- | ership of Mr. Hill, who has never been a favorite with the | party outside of conceded, but even in the South, whcre_ the people are willing to spell success with any letters, he failed to gain a foothoid. New York. That he is smart and sly is | { From the present outiook the Democratic leaders seem | win now. the plea that th without delay in than this ' v with tw hour. A month grisly record of battleships Retvizan and Cesarevitch and the protected cruiser Pallada, to be rather sparring for position in 1908 than trying to There is a deep-seated conviction that the de- feat of Roosevelt is impossible, and that the best that | can be done is to build fences for the next time. of municipal life can demand higher recommendation effort to make the School hygiene is of more vital importance than scholar- ship or even morals, for both depend intimately upon the health of children for their development™ Good health is the keystone in the arch of education. ~~The Grand Jury has added its voice of suggestion to | e public schools of this city be placed | a sanitary condition. Surely no feature public school healthful. | WAR AND ITS ENGINES. HILE cruising in the offing at Port Arthur the Japanese first-class battleship Hatsuse collided o Russian mines 4nd sank within half an | ago the first-class Russian battleship Pe- sudden extinction are added the Russian | all seriously torpedoed by the Japanese | on the first night of the war, and the Russian Boyarin, blown up by one of its own mines, and the tale of de- struction by these two terrible forces alone is complete | | up to present time. Not until the outbreak of hostilities in the Far East and the strife that has waged both on land and sea since that momentous first ized to what deadly lengths of perfection the arts of war have progressed. The modern torpedo-boat was used night at Port Arthur has the world real- | for the first time by the Japanese against the Chinese fleet at the mouth of the Yalu with telling effect during the war of ten years ago. the torpedo-boat and its complement, ti:e destroyer, played In our own war with Spain | bat an insignificant part, as the bleached bones of the Furor and Pluton, sunk by the converted yacht Glguces- ! ter, attest. In the strife now waging, however, the dead- ly sea dart has proven itself to be an engine of destruc- tion more potent than the battleship. The hidden mine, an important factor in naval warfare for the last fifty years, has now demonstrated its capacity for havoc more conclusively than ever. On land and sea the Japanese are using the deadly ex- plosive recently invented by Professor Shimose, so rend- ing in its force inch and a half thick and exploded will drive mfirely‘ through the metal and scatter splinters broadcast. The Russians, according to the latest press dispatches, have succeéded in getting a war balloon through the enemy’s that a handful laid on an iron plate an ! lines’into Port Arthur and have given it out that a battle in the air will not be an unexpected feature of the land fighting around pedoes and mines at sea, the rumored the beleaguered ci Thus, with tor- ent of submarines beneath the waves and balloons and deadly explosives on land the present conflict is typically the twentieth century struggle vy ot threat o b wres for et Ml ted by dreamers and years. . | cloisters. Curing Fits. There is a peculiar belief among cer- tain classes of people that when a dog or a cat is subject to fits the cause of the trouble is the squirming of a worm in the animal's tail. It is believed that the only method by which the quadru- ped may be cured is to have some one bite off a portion of the tale and pull out the marrow. It is said that several men made money in San Francisco years ago by biting off the tails of cats and dogs to cure them of fits. Secretary | Holbrook of the Humane Soclety is au- thority for the statement that a certain “Chaw’ Murphy earned his sobriquet in this manner. A little girl who had evidently heard of the strange treatment has sent the following letter to Secretary Holbrook: “We have a cat that has a worm in its tail. It always runs around after its tail and then lays down in a faint. I have heard that there are men who ite off the end of a cat’s tail and pull If there is any ome out out the worm. at the Animals’ Home who will do this { for me, please let me know by return | mail.” | A Reply to Dr. Bane. To the Editor San Francisco Dear Sir: May I resent some state- ments made by one Rev. A. C. Bane anent the wickedness of the stage and published in your paper of May 23? I think the statement that “no church member would feel pride in having a son or daughter keep company with an actor or actress or even be- ing seen in public with them” is unworthy any “man,” much less an alleged apostle of him who said “He that is without sin cast the first stone.” My father is a clergy- man, who at present is serving a splen- did people In a prominent church in the East, and both he and they thor- oughly approve of my vocation. I am fortunate in numbering among my best friends members of the Methodist clergy, four of whom are now at- tending the General Conference in Los Angeles, but will be my guests “at the California Theater” next week. Mr. Bane attributes his present views to his work as a reporter. Why does he | not give the real reason? 1 would i suggest more brotherly love in his | heart, plenty of fresh air and sunshine !and a geod digestion medicine. To my mind the man who disgraced(?) the Methodist church by losing his life in | the Irooucis Theater fire was worthy {of more commendation than he who Call— der Mr. Polk is considered to be of Presidential size by | condemns those who are carning their He is no doubt a faithful and fearless | living by honestly using the only talent that | | glven them. Mr. Bane asserts | Shakespeare was a libertine, but he | might well emulate him by finding them) and good in everything.” Very | sincerely, TERESA MAXWELL, Morosco Stock Company. Edgemere Hotel, San Francisco. Monday, May 23. 1 The Nippon Fisherman. | Where now the brownie fisher-lad? His hundred thousand fishing-boats | Rock idly in fhe moats; His baby wife no more is glad. But yesterday, with all Nippon, Beneath his pink-white cherry tr In chorus with his brown. sweet bees, He careless sang. and sang right &n. Take care! for he has ceased to sing; | His startled bees have taken wing! | His cherry blossoms drop like blood: His bees begin to storm and sting; His seas flash lightning, and a flood Of crimson stains their wide, white ring: His battleships belch hell, and ail Nippon is but one Spartan wall! | Ave. he, the boy of yesterday, Now holds the bearded Russ at bay; . While, blossom’d steeps above. the clouds | Wait idly, still, as waiting shrouds. —Joaquin Miller, in the Century. London's QOldest Church. Horses are stabled in London’s oldest church, such is the unfashionable state into which this holy edifice has fallen. Most London visitors know Smithfield and the venerable church of St. Bar- tholomew. This ancient pile once in- | cluded a great priory and a hospital— built nearly eight hundred years ago. Its founder was Rahere, a witty cour- x 2 = | tier of Henry I, who, in his advancing tropaviovsk struck a Japanese mine laid outside the harbor | at Port Arthur and turned turtle in two minutes. To this years, became a pious canon of St Paul's. Rahere raised money for his church by telling the story that St. Bartholomew appeared vision in Rome and bade him raise the church, and pointed to the spot on the marsh at Smithfleld. At the dis- | solution of the monasteries by Henry { VIII the priory and the cloister were abandoned. The citizens preserved the hospital, which is flourishing in these days. But of Rahere’s old church only the choir and the cloisters remain. All that is left has, thanks to the present rector, been restored excepting the west Some £30,000 has been spent on the pious work, but another £1500 is needed before the west cloisters, now used as a stable, can be restored. The old Norman arches are now bricked up, but when the restoration work is done, !as it doubtless will be, London will have one of the most interesting groups of ruins in England. The old church where Sunday service is yet held has seen the martyrdoms of Smithfield, the death of Wat Tyler and the execution of the great Sir William Wallace, and in earlier centuries the tournaments of Edward III and of Richard IL A Tiger Biuffed. 3 A writer in the BombaylGazeite de- scribes the rare experience of seeing the charge of a famous man-eating tiger, which ended harmlessly. * camel with a slipping load had,” the writer says, “been halted not far from the worm. The worm s, of course, only ! to him in a| | i L into the jungle. The camel man was either so frightened or the whole thing from beginning to end had occu- pled so short a time (less than a min- ute, I should judge), that he did not stir from the place where he was when the tiger made his first attack.” The Four Fingers. No better epitome of the late Henry M. Stanley’s career has been concelved than that given by himseif in his “story of four fingers.” On his return.from finding Livingstone, he said, he had the honor of a public reception by the Royal Geographical Society, and the especial honor of being presented “to an exceedingly distinguished personage in the scientific world,” which regarded him with condescending favor and even went so far as to shake hands with him. “He gave me,” said Stanley, “one finger!"” After his second and third ad- ventures, his exploration of the lakes and his opening of the Congo to clv- ilization, he was again publicly re- ceived, and this distinguished person- age regarded him with even more favor than before. Again he shook hands with him. “He gave me two fingers!"” Once more Stanley went to Africa, to rescue the faithful Emin, and on his return he was a third time publiely re- ceived. A third time the distinguished personage condescended to smile upon him, still more approvingly than be- fore, and a third time to offer him his hand. “He gave me three fingers!™ Yet once more Stanley appeared in publie, with a fair companion, Miss Dorothy Tennant, who a few months later was Lady Stanley. There once more the | distinguishéd personage was present, lland so far condescended as to beam upon him with unreserved approval. “The throng was too great for me to get near him,” said Stanley, “but I have no doubt that had I been able to do so he would once more have of- fered fhe his hand, and on this occa- sion he would have given me all fou fingers!” In this tale were set for perhaps with all-uneonscious frank- ness, the weaknesses as well as the strength of his character, the changing aititude of the great world toward him and the steadfastness of his own soul When he concluded., “Gentlemen, the story of those four fingers is the stcry of my life” the listener feit that he knew him then as never before.—New York Tribune No Boer Trophies. The London County Council, as might be expected of the representatives of a peace-loving community, does not ap- preciate war trovhies. It recently com- sidered the proposal of the War Office to accept two guns to be displayed in the Embankment Gardens or in one of the London parks. One of the guns was brought frem China and the other was captured from the Boers. The British people have no pride in think- ing of the South African war, mor in displaying in Loandom a wretched “trophy” taken from the people who are now their feillow-subjects. Anstoers to Queries. A PASSED DATE—M. S, City. Jan- uary 24, 1877, fell on a Wednesday. THE TESTAMENT-—Subscriber. Pi- nole, Cal. There are 593,493 words in the Old Testament. GIVEN NAMES—S, City. Charlotte means all noble; Thecdore, gift of God; William, defending many, and Michael, the one like unto God. GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT-Sub- scriber, City. The following sentence is grammatically correct: “There are a woman and a chi h me; they are waliting outside. I —_— TWICE IN JEOPARDY-—B. N., City. An individual once acquitted of a crime charged against him, cannot be tried a second time for the same fense: in other words a person accused cannot be twiced placed in jeopardy. VISITING CARDS—Subseriber, City If Miss Mary Jcmes marries John Smith, while she is his wife she should have her cards read: “Mrs. Jobhn S " but if she becomes a wideWw, hef cards should read, “Mrs. Mary Smith.” HOUSES—Subscriber, City. Ore way ! to ascertain “how many brick, stome (and frame buildings there are in San Francisco™ is to g0 over the block bock of an insurance company and count each class. CASINO—Nomalas, City. If in a game of casino the players agree that on the last deal the count shall be cards, spades, big casino, little casino and nces. the one who hoids cards is entitled to count first, and if he has sufficient to g0 out. he wins. PROMISSORY NOTE — Constant reader, Oakland, Cal The life of a promisscry note in California is four