The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 17, 1904, Page 8

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, How an.Author 11 orks. Special Correspondence of The Call HEADQUARTERS OF THE CALL, | § HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT| GARDEN, LONDON, Aug 4—A. E. W.| Mason is interviewed so seldom that| 1t s pleasant to be able to give here the results of & recent talk with him, | “especially the conversation wul‘} mostly. about his work and his ideas, en literary topdcs. The young author ef “Miranda of the Balcony “I'he | * and Four Feathers” Is comparatively dom i London. He ie almost as con- | stant & traveler as Cutcliffe Hyne, | “Captain Kettle's who makes & point of covering 10,000 miles of new ground every year. On getting back from & trip, too, Mason generally has | & new book to write. For this purpose | be goes away to the country, where he finds ideas come best, and the result is that his friends here see little of him. However, since his recent return from Morocco Mason has been taking it easy tor a few weeks in his flat in Queen Anne's mansions, which is the scene of the opening chapters of “The Four | Feathers,” and he consented tp see the | fnte there & day or two ago. Masop really i= 39 years old, but never | would be taken for more than 30. He = of about the average height, lithe creator tewer . £nd active of frame, with dark hair, a | broad. forehead and unusually refined teatures. | After telling of his rather discourag- ing early attempts ai writing, the au- hgr gave an especially interesting ac- count of how 'he Courtship of Mor- | race Buckler,” which.was his first novel, | Came to be written. “First of he said, “it started with a sort picture in my mind Ihere is a scene where two men are | fighting together in & room, and a ~oman walking in her sleep comes be- twgen them. Well, this was the picture that presented itself to me, and from it 1 worked backward, askmg myself why they should be fighting, what were all of thelr relations to each other and to the woimén, and so on, gradually weaving al yund the incident. But, of course, thods change. I do mot work from detached pictures mow, but start from a central idea and a group of people, and let the scenes and incidents develop out of that conjunction. It takes me about a year to write a book, &nd 1 do mot begin until I have the whole scheme absolutely fixed in my “mind—beginning, middle and end. I am & somewhat laborious writer, and write put each chapter two or three times over.” Mason's fine story, “The Four Feath- with its acute study of how its hero's original timorousness developed into bravery, s too well known at home to need any description. Ques- tioned about it Mason said: “I have al- wa been attracted by the idea of a ‘man with a great deal of imagination weighed down with the idea that he yvas going to shirk his duty, and since the book has been written soldiers have corroborated my view. I mean to say ‘have you any fixed hours of work?"” ~ ] pegin about 11,” Mason replied, “after coming in from a morning ride and then work on very often till 4 or 5 in the afternoon, avoiding going out to lunch., Bat I have not any def- inite hours of work. Of course, when one is writing a book one keeps going at It until it 1s fimished. I work a lit- tle more, perhaps, when I am in the | country than in town, because then I ke a spell at night, too.” “You do not belleve in waiting for inspiration?"” " When you have got the whole thing in your head you must sit down and go on writing steadily day after day until you get it done, especially if you are u slow worker. I rather shrink from using terms like inspira- tion. But it what you will, it's not much without a habit of work."” Mason, by the way, is now correct- ing the proof sheets of his new noval, “The Triflers,” which after serial pub- lication Is to make its appearance in volume form early in the fall. HAYDEN CHURCH. use T'ree Planting in Kansas. The great need of the Western farmer is more molsture. Happlly in that agricultural section the rainfall is =0 distributed that most of the an- nuel precipitation Is during the season | when most needed, the time of matur- Ing the growing crops. What the West does In the way of cereal other production is well known. great and ble moisture conditions it is difficult to imagine. But the farmers have in their own hands the possibilities of vastly improving conditions. They may not be able to Increase the amount of rainfall, but they can pro- tect and conserve It far better and make It much more useful than at present. They can do this by shield- ing it from its enemies, wind and sun- light. The | What it might do under more favora- | Bureau of Forestry has been | working on this problem in an entire- | ly practical way. Its agents have been and still are scaitered through the Western States, studying the existing tree growth and the conditions of to- pography, sofl and climate. All this 1s for the purpose of determining if trees can be generally grown, where they can be best grown, what are the most suitable species of trees, how most successfully to plant and culti- vate them and what yesults may be expected. The conclusions drawn from studies in Western Kansas, & small part of Northern Oklahoma, a and & portion of Southwestern Nebras- entitled “Forest Planting in Western Kansas,” which will shortly be ued and can be had upon application to the Forester, United States Department of Agriculture. In Western Kansas the topography is such that little or no ald can be se- cured from irrigation. The rellance of water supply by fighting off as as ef- fectually as possible the waste inci- dent to evaporation. The seriousness of this waste is apparent in the fact that the annual evaporation from & water surface 1s about 54 inches. This very high rate is due to the excessive- ly dry atmosphere and the burning winds that pretail throughout the summer and, unimpeded by obstacles, sweep with accelerating velocity over a vast treeless area. The Interposition of trees will effect a radical change for the better In the rate of evaporation. If every farmer will plant a wind- break or shelterbelt, very much of the force of the wind will be con- quered and the evaporation rate will who thus plants will insure local pro- tection for his own crops, and will thus improve the yleld of his flelds. that I have had letters from 'distin- guished soldiers, some of whom person- ally 1 don't know, men who have won the Victorta cross and have a great ‘reputation for bravery, and those let- ters have all been sympathetic. Nowa- @ays there are many men with highly developed Imaginations who have to go . through much more than the merely ' wtupid people who do not realize the ,dangers, and 1 was very glad to find .my idea confirmed, as it is one I bave . miways been rather keen on.” Mison's travels must have made him te some extent an authority on the emotions of courage and fear, for there has been plenty of excitement - mixed up with them. He has had sev- . eral close calls while mountaineering “in the Alps, not to mention some rough experfences with the North Sea fishing fieet, especially once when, on @ fish cutter, the main fleet missed the appointed place of meeting—the Dog- &er bank—Dby 100 miles. “His last trip through the Soudan, taken to gather material for “The ¥Four Feathers,” was no picnic, either, .for his only companions were Arabs s ignorant of English as he was of their language. The course taken, too, was from Suakin to Berber, so that the friendly Nile, with its fertile Panks/ was left far behind and the <Journey made through the heart of the waste. “And when 1 went through Meroc- ©g, at the time of the revolution,” Ma- son said, “I nearly got killed. The Sultan was very good to us and al- dowed us to travel under the protec- «%ion of a body of soldiers who were soing along the route which we want- ed to take and which was closed to tourists then. i « "One day the soldiers and the cara- van, except one man who stayed with s, had gone on a little way in front .while I stopped at the bank of the |y river te give my horse a drink. I saw @ map behind the prickly pear hedge with a gun and as I rede up the ford 1 said good morning to him and hel reiurned the salutation. 1 was going zlong at a walk when I heard a shout @nd turning round saw this man bis knee with his gun #mall of my back, i The more general this planting the more far reaching and important will be the change effected. Added to the agricultural gain, these shelter belts will furnish an inestimable advantage in providing wood lots, from which may be se- cured fuel necessary for domestic and steam power purposes, fence posts and general farm repalr material. It is wasteful for the prairie farmers to be buying coal when they can, at little expense and while improving their general farm conditions, grow the fuel they may require. And while the price of lumber is constantly soaring higher, it is a wise thing for these farmers, at a small cost, to raise their own lumber, especially when by means of these shelter belt woed lots they are effecting at the same time an im- mense improvement of their farm lands. - The bulletin which the bureau will shortly issue discusses the existing conditions, the need and advantages of tree planting, the kinds of trees best suited to the locality, and why certain kinds should be chosen for different kinds will thrive, .furnishes planting plans for wood lots, shelter beits and wind breaks, and describes how planting, cultivation, pruning and thinning can best be done. It is a practical handbook, and should be in the possession of every farmer in “What do you call your population now ?* “Two millions.” “H'mph! That's an increase of only 1 per cent l:r‘ f=n't it? Why, .-.'xm' l.‘m.- be materially cut down. Every farmer considerable strip hflt Eastern Colorado ka have been embodied in a bulletin | the people must be In conserving their | O THE JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Proprietor . - . . + . . .. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1904 SAN FRANCISCO CALL . Address All Communications to JORN McNAUGHT, Manager Publication Office. . sevceesec....Third and Market Streets, 5. F WEDNESDAY .... -AUGUST 17, 1904 THE RIGHTS OF COMMERCE. UR merchants have awakened to the fact that, under the Russian declaration of contraband, our entire trade in Eastern Asia is slipping away from us. If flour, meat and cotton, not consigned to the mili- tary depots of a belligerent, are to be put on the contra- band list, our trade disappears. If Great Britain firmly continue her refusal to recognize the right of a belliger- ent to rewrite international law, the British ports on this coast will take the trade. Russia may have as an ulte- rior motive the aiding of her ally, France. It is worth noticing that neither in the Red Sea nor elsewhere has a French ship been halted or seized. English ships have been searched off the coast of Portugal, and American cargoes have been destroyed in the Pacific, but French commerce has not been disturbed. We are interested in the export of flour, meat, cotton and horses, all of which we have in surplus, and none of which is contraband by international law. This coast is interested in them all. It was supposed during the Boer war that we were violating neutrality by selling horses and mules to Great Britain, and the administra- tion was hotly criticized. But Solicitor Penfield of the State Department published the history and the rulings of our Government back to the time of Jefferson, prov- ing that we had always treated those animals as non- contraband, and then the clamor ceased. A country must protect its commerce, and not permit its destruction because two distant nations, having some sea power, and being at war, assume to say what is contraband and subject to seizure. Japan has done us a friendly service by riddling the two Russian fleets of Port Arthur and Vladivostok. Togo and Kamamura were putting the trade of the world under obligations by putting the Russian war ships out of commission. Those ships had shown far greater capacity for harrying trade and sinking defenseless merchant ships than for fighting an armed enemy. Cargoes for Asia are held on our docks and in our warehouses that should be at sea on their way to the Asiatic market. Already one of our fine liners, the Korea, has run the gauntlet, thanks to the courage and seaman- ship of Captain Seabury, but the risk of losing such costly carriers as the Korea, Siberia and Mongolia is too great, and they are idle, as far as the purposes of commerce are concerned. The merchants of San Francisco have taken steps to let our Government know the needs of our commerce. Of course, before acting, the Government has to look into the future. It must consider the effect of a deci- sion made now upon our interests in the event of our be- ing involved in a foreign war. But this is to be consid- ered, that, as far as the future is concerned, no nation in Furope can long subsist without resorting to our sup- ply of food and fabrics. We have not only that safe- gvard against war, for our prestige on sea and land dis- inclines any nation to attack us. It is likely that in the future there will be no more imminent cause of war than that which may arise against Russia because of her insufferable assumption of the right to dictate to us in the matter of contraband. So, though the question is serious in all its aspects, we have reason to believe that our Government will con- sider its most serious phase to be the immediate protec- tion of our commerce. If proper representations are made to the State Department, it will be made plain that a trade carefully built up for years may be destroyed in a month, to be recovered with great difficulty. Every American ship that floats on the Pacific, except in the coast lines, is there because of the trade furnished by FEasgern Asia. Under the Russian definition of contra- band there can be no neutral cargo, and under her in- flated idea of the war zone, our commerce is excluded irom Chinese ports as well as from those of Japan, and our commerce has come to a dead halt. Not only here, but everywhere in the country, pnbli; opinion will support the administration in any measures it may deem necessary to speedily terminate this condi- tion. If Russia insist, in the face of proper diplomatic representation, the proper course will be to send a naval convoy with a laden fleet of our Pacific liners to protect them against all comers. If Russia have any warships left in a seaworthy condition to attempt the seizure of our merchantmen the provocation will be hers, and she will have to take the consequences, no matter how unpleasant they may be. —_———— The sporting blood of San Francisco was fired re- cently by the well advertised report that one of the pugilists who is soon to “contest” for uncertain honors and very certain cash has a blister on his foot. If the accident had happened to his tongue what a serious jeo- pardy the game of which he is so forceful an exponent would have been in. And how fortunate the public would have been in the concessidn of a brief respite of silence. l of the United States, Commissioner North of the Census Bureau has transmitted to the Department of Commerce and Labor a compendium of facts upon “Ne- groes in the United States.” This volume, comprising some three hundred pages of tables, statistics and com- ment, contains practically all that there is knowable about the present condition of the black race in this country—its numbers, educational status and economic condition. Many are the theories concerning the ne- groes that will be upset by the facts herein set forth. The negro population is not a migratory one. The census returns show that of the nine and one-fifth mill- ion residing within the confines of continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and Porto Rico nearly nine- tenths are still below Mason and Dixon’s Yine. Along the lower Mississippi alluvial region, where the colored population has always been the most dense, the prepon- derance of the black over the white remains practically unchanged. Issaquena County, Mississippi, with its pro- portion of fifteen negroes to one white person, is the blackest spot on the topography of the South. The cen- ter of the negro population of the United States has moved but 476 miles since 1790—from Dinwiddle County, Virginia, to its present point, De Kalb County, North- western Alabama. From a purely economic standpoint the ratio of in- crease between the nmegro and the white population in the South probably has greater significance than any other fact of the census returns. Despite the prevalent THE NEGRO POPULATION. N a recently published extract from the last census crease among Southern negroes was 93.4 per cent, that of Southern whites 134.9 per cent. It has been in the cities alone that the respective rates of birth of negroes and white men have approximated uniformity. The economic conditions of ante-bellum days have left a permanent stamp upon the nature of the pursuits followed by the black of to-day. Agriculture is still the mainstay of the negro wage-earner. More than three- fourths of them live outside of cities, while the white residents are about equally divided between plantation and town. Strangely enough, the census reports that 45.2 per cent of the whole negro population come under the title of bread-winners and that of the entire ‘white Diplomatic. His name is not Pat, but he is given that nickname by all the passengers on the owl car of which he‘is con- ductor. The name Is not misapplied, for Pat is Irish from the soles of his feet to the top of his iron gray head. As a usual thing Pat’s passengers wear a smile, for he is continually making remarks that fairly reek with humor. They aré always witty, and Pat’'s rich brogue but makes them the funnier, population 37.3 per cent only merit this denomination. When we read in further proof of the thriftiness of the blacks that one-fourth of their women who are wives and’ two-thirds of the widows report themselves as being engaged in gainful occupations, we are prone | to look askance at alarmist theories concerning the | threatened subversion of present day economic condi- tions in the South through negro non-productiveness. With Hampton Institute and Tuskegee yearly adding the leaven of skilled labor to this latent power of pro- duction the Southern States need have no great fears of economic decay in the near future. A startling discovery has been made that schemers in New York are engaged in a traffic of fraudulent naturali- zation papers and that probably between twenty thousand and thirty thousand voters in the metropolis have no right to vote. The inquiry should be prosecuted with vigor until every foreigner not entitled to his papers is deported and the rascals that have committed this gigan- tic fraud upon the Government are in prison. The Ameri- can franchise is held too lightly even by those who have a right to exercise it for the American people to con- template with indifference any such outrage as this upon the privilege. THE CALIFORNIA REDWOOD PARK. HE excursion to the State Redwood Park in the TBig Basin, successfully carried out by the State Board of Trade, is the first move toward bringing that interesting region before.the public. The tract owned by the State has in it about 4100 acres, mostly primeval forest of a majestic character. It is a genuine forest in which the redwood predominates, bul! the tan bark oak, Douglass spruce, wax myrtle, madrone and live oak also abound, giving a great and interesting variety to the place. The redwoods are very large, ex- celled in height and diameter of their columns only by their near relatives, the big trees of the Sierras. They are the striking features of the park, while the other trees, with their variety of foliage, gentle the scene and give it an indescribable grace. It was the judgment of the excursionists that the State had driven a good bar- gain in the purchase, and that San Francisco has a very vital interest in that forest. If the proposition to recede the Yosemite Valley pre- vail, the money now appropriated to it by the State may well be diverted to enlarging this State Redwood Park. It is now accessible over an excellent stage road, but is deficient in radiating roads and trails to its whole area. When it may be reached more easily and quickly it is bound to become known as the greatest forest park in the world. As a scenic asset of the State it is invaluable, and the State Board of Trade has the credit of making the first effort to bring it into notice. In a little while it will be a standard trip from this city and our other centers of population. Thousands of tourists will come | to see it. and the story of its wonders and beauties will | be spread abroad. It is watered by clear and beautiful streams, abounding in trout, and is plentifully supplied with deer, mountain lions and dther wild animals and birds. The predatory carnivora will ultimately be exterminated, but the deer, probably re-enforced by a herd of elk, will always be an interesting part of its sights. The park is capable of enlargement to twice its rresent area and this should bg provided for by the next Legislature. No Californian can see this impressive forest without raised pride in the natural capacities of his State, nor without swearing allegiance to the policy of developing this great forest and preserving it for all time. ‘ The protection of levees along the Sacramento and the San Joaquin and the reclamation of low river lands have finally received expert and thorough discussion by men qualified to inquire and to report remedies. While California suffers little from the breaking of her river bounds and the flooding of her low lands, that little is material where so much has been granted us by nature. As a measure of self-interest, therefore, we should afford | every facility to make this official inquiry absolutely thorough. T above Knights Landing, that the committee that has taken char@e of the flood problem is informed | as to only one branch of it, and that concerns the lower reaches of the river. Probably no citizen of California and no engineer in the country has more knowledge of | the river and valley than General Green of Colusa. It is his opinion that the study must cover the various watersheds, from which four separate floods come, all to be combined below the confluence of the American River. One of these originates in the region north of the confluence of the Feather, another in the drainage that combines in the Feather, and a third in the wide watershed of the American. From the west side a fourth flood comes through Cu:he‘i and Putah creeks, that is gathered from an ex- tensive watershed. The source of these floods, the height from which they are precipitated, and their effect ! when combined, seem to be important elements in the problem. If the study be entirely confined to the lower reaches and to relief by spilling these combined floods into the San Joaquin, it appears that the data will be | insufficient for an entire solution. The engineers will have the benefit of the experience and conclusions of Eads, Williams and many men emi- | nent in their profession, who in past years have made a study of the situation, and doubtless their report will | quite fully cover the scientific part of the problem, leav- | ing the practical matters, such as providing the money, to others. When that branch of it comes into focus, | the fact that all the land to be reclaimed is in private ownership will present a difficult question. If the land will not stand the imposition of a tax sufficient to | RIVER IMPROVEMENT. HERE seems to be a feeling on the Sacramento, | passengers do. Pat has one bugbear—Devisadero street. He cannot for the life of him pronounce the sirange name as his He knows it, and will not try, his one attempt having taught him a lesson. k He tried it one night when first he took the late run and the roar of laughter that greeted the attempt told him he had made a mistake. Ever since then his life has been made a burden, as he carries almost the same crowd every night. Many and varied are the attempts made by the pas- mengers to get Pat to try to call out “Devisadero street,” but all they get is a wide grin and a twinkle fr Pat's merry blue eyes. Recently one of the regular passen- gers got on the car at Powell street. He settled himself in a corner of the car and closed his eyes. He aroused Just as the car was turning from O’Farrell street into Devisadero and peered out Into the darkness. The car was going at such a rapid rate that he could not locate himself, so he turned to Pat and sald: “What street is this?" Pat looked at him and smiled. So did all the passengers. Then Pat reached up and gave the bell cord a vigorous pull. As the car stopped his grin became almost a laugh, and lean- ing over toward the passenger he said: “It's the strate where you get off.” Retrospect. An April day, can I forget When Rose and I together Searched for the first violet That braved the chilly weather? I wove a fillet for her head And kissed her 1ips of crimson, Until she slapped my face and sald: “Now you just stop, Jack Simpson.” Since then, alas, the years have flown, And Rose has wed a farmer. She wears an old red cotton gown, And six kids call her “mommer.” I met her only yesterday; She talked of “Aunt Elizer,” And what would be the price of hay— Perhaps fate was the wiser. Belgrade’s Secret Passage. In demolishing the palace at Belgrade, where the murder of King Alexander and Queen Draga took place, the work- men came acros a secret stairway built in the walls and communicating with a tunnel of great length leading to a re- mote spot outside the city precincts. Inquiries have developed that King Milan had caused this secret staircase and subway to be constructed years ago to provide him with a means of es- cape in the event of a military revolt, such as that which brought the reign of his {ll-fated son to so tragic a close, but that just two months before the as- sassination of Alexander the latter, convinced that he had nothing to fear | and looking upon the tunnel as afford- ing opportunities to thieves and burg- lars to rob the palace unperceived, caused the opening in the wall to the secret stalrcase and also the entrance to the tunnel in the basement to be bricked up. This was done so quietly that not one of those members of the royal household who took part in the massacre of the King and Queen were aware of the existence of the subway. By having it bricked up the unfortu- nate Alexander shut off what would otherwise have proved a road to safety, since if he could have secured access to the tunnel he would, with Queen Draga, have been able to reach the riv- er's edge and probably transportation across the stream to the Hungarian bank, on the other side thereof, before the assailants had realized the direction in which he had flown. No trace will soon be left of the palace where the crime took place. Its site will have been converted into a garden before the return to the capital of the new King. Nihilism and War. The assassination of Minister von Plehwe, following so closely on the heels of that of General Bobrikoff, re- calls the days of the great Terrorist conspiracy which culminated in the assassination of Alexander II. There is an evident relation between war and revolution in Russia. Immediately after the Napoleonic wars which had a profound effect on the life of Rus- sia, involving as they did not only the invasion, the burning of the Kremlin and Moscow, and the calamitous re- treat of the French army, but the re- turn tide, which carried the Cossacks to the banks of the Seine, came a revolutionary period in Russia. which culminated in the December outbreak so vividly indicated in Tolstol's great ncvel, “War and Peace.” In the same way the Crimean war was followed almost without interval by a period of moral and social revolution, the mest remarkable event of which was the emancipation of the serfs in 13861, two years before Lincoln’s famous procla- mation. But the freeing of the serfs o 4 cause of the cost of the fence, but because of the value of the squars inches the posts and pickets would con- sume. If a border is desired around a field, It is customary to plant mulberry trees. The total area of ground in Japan thus devoted to the silk-worm tree, which otherwise would be taken up with fences, amounts to about a hundred and ninety thousand acres. This has no reference to the mulberry farms and groves, the area for which is over three times as much. The fact that a Japanese farmer is forced to figure on the amount of ground a fence-post would occupy, and the in- teresting fact that the Government, in its statistical enumerations, has had the areas covered by individual mul- berry trees on farm boundaries care- fully computed, demonstrates the great value of arable land.—Booklovers’ Magazine. He Got His. According to Lippincott’'s Magazine, Edwin E. Lee of Baltimore, manager of a wickerware house, is a flend after coupon collecting. He had been collecting all kinds of tags and coupons bearing premiums for some time, when he one day no- ticed an advertisement of a New Jersey | firm that upon receipt of fifteen of their tags they would forward one chance of | & series of prizes, the first prize being | & borse and a runabout. Mr. Lee began industriously to get all the tags he could find until he had ths requisite number, which he forwarded. A few days later he was notified that he had won the first prize. ly following this letter rocking horse. | He sat down and wrote a sarcastic letter to the firm: “I beg to acknowledge receipt of tha | horse,” he wrote, “but you failed to in- close the runabout.” In an early malil he received this let- ter: “Dear Sir—We have your letter ac- knowledging receipt of the horse. As for the runabout, go chase yourself. Yours truly, ——" Immediate- came a tiny Distinctly the Lesser Half. In any Swedish restaurant of the old fashioned sort a woman's meal can be had for much less than the charge for what would be served to a man. The theory is that woman fis physically unable to eat so much as a man. In traveling a husband and wifs are charged at hotels as one and a half persons. On any railroad train their fare is for one and a half per- sons. Sweden, therefore, is the one re- maining spot where no trace of fiction lurks in that antiquated epithet of “the better half.” It is even said that in Sweden woman is happy to count at all Answers to Queries. PAT ROONEY—J. M., City. Pat Rooney, the actor, who was in this city in the paimy days of Billy Em- erson, made his first appearance in the Standard Theater on Bush street. EUCALYPTUS—M. E. C, City. The eucalyptus is such an absorbent of moisture from the ground that fruits, vegetables or flowers planted in the im- mediate vicinity of a hedge of such trees will not thrive as well as when planted a considerable distance from it. The roots of the tree will run for a long distance in the direction of mois- ture, and in its course will absorb all that it can find. DIVISION FENCES—Loch Sloy, Oakland, Cal. The following is the law of California in regard to division fences: “Coterminous owners are mu- tually bound equally to maintain (1) the boundaries and monuments be- tween them: (2) the fences between them. unless one of them chooses to let his land lie without femcing, In which case if he afterward incloses it he must refund to the other a just pro- portion of the value at that time of any division fence made by the latter.” SMALL GOLD TOKENS—W. M., Bishop, Cal. The answer given some time since by this department to the effect that the United States mints never coined any smaller coins in gold than the dollar piece is correct. The fact that you are in possession of “a 25-cent piece, zold, issued out of Car- son City Mint in about 1363 does not was only one among many reforms |change the fact that the United States which broke/ up the old order and in- { Government troduced the new. The whole fleld of | education was similarly affected, the doors of the schools and colleges being thrown open to classes that had never hitherto profited by them, and even- | tually to the sons of the emancipated serfs. The education of women also entered on a new and more lberal phase than ever before in the Russian | empire and the new woman made her[ appearance in the land of the Harper's Weekly. Where Inches Count. Czars.— pay the enormous cost of the work, a test will be made of the policy of improving private property at public ex- - It is not to’ antagonize any proposition that we In Japan, when a ‘armer permits ' never authorized the ) coinage of “25-cent pleces, gold.” Pos- | sibly some one in the mint issued tok- jens as described by you. but such wera i without authority. Gold de- nominated as quarters, halves and dollars, bearing close resemblance ceins authorized by Congress were sued by private mints up te abou {1875. These possessed weight and th fineness approximate to legal issues jand they were curremt. Theveafter followed base representations, charms, old coins. nor deait in dy them. —————— ‘Townsend's California Glace fruits 'n artistic fire-etched boxes. 715 Marist st* ————