The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 28, 1906, Page 7

D DS DI s P RIIIN0S0000005000 - ttor should have e can write no s that will Jle ed smile—eyes of ate-like bri :tness and Bo infamy ean theme—cheeks that will rise m a ook murder and not baggnrd. msn say mot tiis young is tor; 1 bax the face that wo Lim the if e b more mperieet heart of one, tther xt be kas a beau- more nor ormed with rich thas will be mour- by food and kecp its color hout much help of virt He may have the heart I aver Ask Eero along with it; nothing ‘te the contrary. Dom o the if the daries can alwpys tell a by tire sight alone was arrested s e of one se £ many wom oil sh: ey Goose t exist for money i freest from prejudice Mrs. Adelajde Lioyd rd looks bad; that, e no evil, she has very not refrained from the ap- pretty nce of evil I #it on the hard bench be- Prison, I acknowledge dy little bank full of eness and the as the City f 1 had & & bulging sto wed away ¥ make two do ay in unfruitful Smith could beg m me as eas! king ars le where silence before e my as easily money as Mrs away taking candy from & baby Hav tion for accumul ng no money, and even less ambi- Iem sa nd Mrs. Adelaide Lloyd Smith a attractive little woman, most engsging and her company exceedingly pleasant nE n & quite uu ssical, un- tragile, dainty, birdiike, trank eyes seeking yours spontaneous, infectious her piquantly uneven, well- tiny, soft whits s and quietly clasping her Pi ag er trig littie figure in its wine-red tatlor her be pleasing e degree of e of in other Kly hersel: delightfully in- in the beauti- that shows ed langua servar excellent good manners, quite bearing the cachet t, she is unquestionably a lady. to be & lady, whether by and education or innate eapacity How she came lever adaptability, I don't know, any and o 1 know how she camie to be a swir ng lady. But in the highways and byways of the world it\is as easy to know a lady as It is to know an apple. coarse and vulgar woman, however however attentive to detail, how- lied in the art, can fool you by ing to be a lady. To be accepted as oge she must be one—in fiber as well as preten: he Cassie R Tt Ty B e e s e e e o e aaaaaaa s e % AR L& V72 X W as really he apple must be an le and not wonderful colored wax imitation unde a glass case. The apple may be.a bad apple, ‘with a worm at the core—but it IS an apple. And Mrs. Bmith IS a lady—a ingenious, rapacious, swindling lady, per- haps, but still a lady, the sort any other crafty, lady would feel no hesitation in opening in an overland an gcquaintanceship with Pullman. As we sit talking on the bare prison bench the magic of her personality sur- rounds us with a boudoir atmosphere, be- yond the outer rim of which the painful, sordid incidents of the prison go on—the booking dirty, Dbattered, maudlin a ks at the desk; the searching of re- sentful, newly arrived prisoners; the sup- pressing of nolsy, shameless girls from the streets. All this pagses by on the other side, as it were, and Mrs. Adelaide Bmith might be facing me on one of the red plush dlvans of the St. Francis or the fat brocade chairs of the Palace, or in her own little drawing-room (which would be dainty), giving me a ocup of tea and the latest gossip, so perfect are her manners, so entirely does she shut of surely out her surroundings from our conversa- tion \ Mrs. Smith has no objection to being in- terviewed. She raizes no wall of “my at- torney’s Instructions” between herself and my professional curiosity. Indeed, I see her before she has an at- torpey at all. She has sent for one, and none has responded. She is nervous and genulnely glad to see me, for she tells me: “It is a relief to talk to some one.” There is a little catch in her voice that she tries hard to control, but she is volu- ble in spite of that, and ready and plausi- ble. She shows mé with much circumstantial detail how In her every transgression she 1s more sinned against than sinning. She uses against every charge and ac- cusation the shield of femininity. It is her reason, her excuse, her palliation. “I @ian't know. How could a woman know?” \ “I did what any woman would do.” “I went to her—because she was a woman." “I wished to help her—becduse she was a woman in trouble.” DLLOEONNENONN, OSSOSO, — "i\\\' S=. > trugted heér beca use she was a woman.” “l1 wanted to do business with women use I am a woman.” ““A woman can’t do business with men, you know. They always want to make love or marry her.” And—just get away from the foree of this argument if you can: “I am in trouble now because I tried to_do business with women instead of with men.” b She Is always a woman, intensely a woman, a fragile little woman not a shade over five feet high—and In trouble. She is a woman making her way alone in the world for gierself and her three sons—the eldest now twenty-one. I marvel at this, she looks so young; somewhere In the early thirtles I should have guessed. She tells me with- out & simper: “No, I'm forty-one.” One of the sons, the youngest, a fair- hafred boy of seveliteen, with his youthful brow all knotted and wrinkled over his little mqther's troubles, comes in to see her while I am with her, and interrupts us to ask her what he shall do for her and how he shall do it. He kisses her tenderly and she kisses him fondly and protectingly, although she but comes to his shoulder and his Mr. Jerome ®sald a number of good things during the recent campaign in New York, but none better than thi “What we need is more goodness, just simple, old-fashioned, Sunday school goodness."” Amen to this sentiment! What a year it has been as.respects revela- tions of badness. We have stood aghast before the -disclosures! Badness in places wh we least expected to find badness spreading” like gangrene throughout an entiré eommercial or po- litical system, polsoning everything that it touches. Goodhess remains, thank God, in hundreds of concerns, in thousands of indlviduals, but there is not enough to go around, not enough active, aggressiye goodness to counter- act the rampant badness. What is the matter with the fnstitu- tions supposed to make for goodness? Aren’t they doing thelr work properly? How about the American home—is it no longer the chief fountain of good- ness? Surely it often s, but how much does the Jvehes home to-day exalt of goodness? at are the ideals held before the children? To get as many good clothes as possible, to get into Chaowich: broad back hides her tiny figure from me. . She tells me with a sigh what I can see' for myself, that she has done so much for her boys and stood between them and the world so firmly that they are quite helpless without her in an emergency. She is a woman and in trouble. She has all the arts of a special pleader. So well does she w the picture that I am indeed sorry~for hep ~—genuinely sorry. 1 am almost forgetting the French woman who runs the little restaurant on Ellis street, whose $2140 she has got; and the Greek waiter whose la- borlously hoarded $190 she has got; and all those feminine buyers of Grey Goose oll stock whose good red- gold and greenbacks she got. I ask her about them. “The French woman,” she says, “the woman who runs the restaurant, lent good soclety, to have a good time— these ure the main ambitions of all the members of many & home. Scant em- phasis is placed on being good. Of course, parents may sometimes err in prodding their children too often. They may make prigs of them, goody-goody anemic youngsters. But where one home errs in this particular ten are at fault In'minimizing the worth of simple goodness. ‘And haw about the schools, that other - supposed nursery of virtue? x a powerful factor' in producing cl i ter, and yet they may exalt their func- tion of making good scholars above that of making good men and women. The curriculum may be g0 crowded with studfes that the supreme art of living well_will fail to be taught., And even the churches come sh being power houses for ‘the mani turing of goodness. Creeds and rituals, ofganizations and propagandas, they are prolific in, but one sometimes fears Mount. e ner money of her own free will. I gave her my noge for it, and the note is not due until June. So—" 80— Here with fine feminine skill she leaves a conversational gap through which I can see for myself, of course, how absurd that charge is “This is the way that happened,” she goes en. “I was taking my meals at her restaurant, and of course grew friendly with her, in a .way. One day when I went in to dinner she appeared to be In trouble, and I asked her about it, merely in kindness. She came into the booth where I was eating and told me her hus- band had run away. Then it was that she told me of her money in the bank, "because she was afraid he might have got it. Bhe was so troubled about her husband that I told her to go to the clafrvoyant I had visited—the one'I am SUPPOBED to have asked to urge her to invest in stocks.” that they fail to produce a type of dness. which In its scope and texture serves as the pattern of the finest virtue to be found anywhere in the world. Homesg, schools, churches—they are all fountains of goodness, but the inner life of all these anclent and venerable institutions needs to be cleansed and deepened to the end that those who come within thelr influence may feel a lift toward goodnesa. And you, an individual, wherever you are, why wait for the home, the school, the church, to get In their work? Goodness 'can never be Injected into you by any outside agency. Nor does good- ness come while we walt for it in easy chatrs. Up and goodness. Effort will tell, provided it be effort toward a Certain men in public life to-day serve as jdeals for thousands of ‘which for twenty centuries has commanded the r and stimulated the efforts of unted millions. 4 ‘“He was a good man,” declares the Acts of Apostlés, artlessly referring to Barnabas. ‘What an epitaph for any of us. “He was mot a -goody, but was i, clean, stralght, fine, true. He kept Ten Commandments. He prac- S ANSSIS S SS ‘There is scornful emphasis in Mrs. Smith's tone. “It Yas only to try to comfort her that I sent her to the clairvoyant.” “And her money?" “Oh—about her money. She told me she was getting only 3 per cent from the bank for it, and T told her it was a shame for her to get such a small return when she could get more. I told her I would give her 10 per cent a ygar myself; and she Jet me have it. No; I didn't sell HER any stock, and I didn’t. give her any ses curity. I didn’t have any to give. “As_for the Greek walter—why, HE' owes ME money. He wanted to make money with his savings, #nd L sold ‘htm $200 worth of mining stock in the Original Bullfrog Mininz and Milling Company. He brought.me his $1%; and T told him I would trust him for the other $10.” “And the mining stock?” “No—1 haven't been to Topovah or Bullfrog, and I haven't seen the mines. Perhaps T should have gone, for my law- yer once told me that was where I made my mistake with the Grey Goose stock— that T should never sell anything unless T had seen with my own eves that the property existed.”) Nothing could be more artless and truly feminine than this admission of careless- ness. “This mining stock was some planning to go to New York with—to seil on Wall street. I got hold of it by ad- vertising. I put a little advertisement in the paper, saying that a lady going east would like mining stocks to put on the market there, and this came to me thfough that advertisement. “As for all that has been sald about me, and the trouble that has been made for me about that Moxey business and the Grey Goose oil stock, just let me tell you” (nothing could surpass the appeal- ing frankness of her manner) “the whole story of how I came to go Into such a thing.” % “You were,” I say in appreciation, the stage.” “Yes. as a singer, with Emma Abbott; nine I was won but only for a short time, for months.” she retaliates. *“T didn’t lke the stage. “But about the ofl stock—do you know how I ever came to have anything to do with stocks at all? After I came to Call- fornia, and’ my husband dled, I came into an inheritance from my grandmother— $60,000! . “I had never had a hundred dollars all at once in my life before, and it seemed “as i£ T could do anything in the world with that much money, and buy every- thing that I wanted. L had plenty of friends around: me while it lasted. I wrote checks for 3000 and $2000 and $3000 withiout a thought. I have a plle of promissory notes so thiek,” measuring the thickness of a fat volume between her Nittle hands, “to shew for it. I In- vested in anything I was told to. I gave one man $3000 to invest for me, and while I was wailting for returns he came to me and, lighting a cigarette, he told me between puffs that he'd gambled it away instead; that he was sorry, puff! puff! and that maybe, puff! puff! I'd get it again and maybe I wouldn’t. Puff! puff! «“That's ONE of the things that bap- pened to ME. “] was living in Pasadena then, and the ofl boom broke out. ' “I put $1000 in off stock, and in a few days I had $5000 back. I'd made $4000. That was the first money I'd ever made that way, and of course I was excited. T told all my friends about it, and they wanted to know how I aid it, and wanted me to show them how. So I helped them buy stock. I dldn’t know anything about commissions or anything like that then. But after a while I learned, and I got the chance to sell that Grey Goose ofl stock. *“When I saw how easily I could do it, I cornered the stock, and sold it on my own account instead of on commission. I took & friend in with me, and money came In go fast hers and in Seattle that after a day’s work we'd have our laps full of gold, and I'd take it by the hand- ful and pour it from my lap into hers when we were dividing. “Of course I didn’t know that the stook was no good. How could I she de- mands with & most becoming injured air. «I went by the prospectus. I belleved what the prospectus sald, OF COURSE. “And then, when it turned out not to be good, oh, what a fuss thers was! “I was arrested, and it has cost me all I made In the Grey Goose to carry on the case. It was continued and con- tinued, and I had to keep going to Seattle to appear; and they would never bring it to trial, and at last the Judge—a new Judge—dismissed it, threw it out of court. And THAT is what came of THAT trou- ble! % “So far as that Moxey business was concerned I had nothing to do with that. A friend of mine, a lady, who was help- ing me sell stock, brought that young Moxey to me. I was living at the Palace then, and he came there to see me and told me he didn’t want to buy stock him- self, but he would bring & rich woman who would, and who would put in at least $10,000. That looked good to me, of course. The lady who brought him to me sald, laughingly, that I'd better take him East with me instead of her on the trip T was planning to make to sell stock. “What was my surprise when the morning after this 'visit I found a card slipped under my door asking me to wear my best dress and all my jewels when he} the writer called that evening with his rich old woman friend, and signed .by Moxey. “He followed that up by coming himselt in the afterncom and asking me not only to do that, but to repeat what we had said about takipg him East with me as my secretary. He said it would help him get the position as secretary to the rich old woman hé was bringing to me to buy stock. . “I did as he asked, and that was all there was to tbat. I thought I.gould do bim & favor In return for the one he was doing Ane.'.‘ Mrs. Smith’s eyes appeal for sym- pathy and d6 not leok for increduljty; although the Moxey incident as fold by Mrs Gage Phillips’ - (the righ wo- «man’s) friends makes the plausible Mrs. Smith a co-conspirator with thekvoung Mr. Moxey, who dérged her to“idok her prottiest. B “All this didn't drive-me away..I have Temained ih San Franciseo ever since, and I am going to remaln. “This trouble that this restaurant woman has made over- Ner littler bit of money has done me great harfa just at a time when I needed, most tq be let alone. 5 te : “My one hope sineé Ilost my inheri- tance has been to win Bgck my fortune. I thought I could do it when I made that first clean up on ofl. Them again when I was sélling’ the Grey Goose stock. And now I Rave another plan that I'm afraid Bas been ruimed. I know-of a woman—and she Wwas a washerwoman only & few years ugo— who got rich on 4 townsite propdsition, and I determimed to ‘try that’deheme. “1 found the land, 200 acres, In Santa Clara County, between Morgan and Gilroy, with the road to' Monterey run- ning through it, dnd the Southern Pa- cific on the other side, and I got an op- tion om it to buy it for $30,000, “ALL I needed was «the momey—the $20,000. “L was doing my best to'raise it. A certain well-known gentleman in this city”—Mrs. Smith’s history of her trou- bles scintillates with “a certain well- known gentleman” here, the and everywhere—"“was considering .c.ting me have the money for a half intgrest when this thing—THIS dreadful thing happened. “The money I got from the French woman and the Greek waiter? Oh, no; that little bit wasn’t for this town- site scheme. I borrowed the Krench woman's money because’ I needed it, and she and her husbarl worried me g0 for the return of it—although it isn't due unt!l pext Juné—that I actu- ally got out of a sick bed during last week's raln fo try to get it for them. I aid get together §35°to pay’ thelr gas bUL” she confides, Wirthously. What .an injured little woman it is, I catch myself thinking. AlmaSt T am sorry for her agals, ‘wAtil T Temember in time to be sorry for the Fremch woman, too, and the Greek waliter whose $190 savings—probably an ac- cumaulation of ten-cent tips—have gone glimmering. “Just think what that townsite prop- osition would have meant. Two hun- dred acres for $20,000, divided up Into town lots, say six to-an acre at- 3300 a lot—or more! Just think of it I can’'t—my weak point being mathe- matics—yet it looks even at a half glance as alluring as the Belglan hare industry. Mrs. Adelalde Lloyd Smith is not nearly so lavish with The circumstan- tial detalls of her history as she Is with those of her wrongs and her financial operations. Her “grandmother in Philadelphia,™ who died and left her $60,000, was dim- ly “a Mrs. Guest.” : She and her husband andiher boys came here “from the East,” and she files the point of greater geographical definiteness with skill. They came that her husband might take a position In “a bank on Montgomery Street” as bookkeeper, and alas, the husband caught cold and the family lingered some threeé years on “the desert.” “Your husband?” “He was an Englishman. He received & remittance from his family. He is burfed at Pasadena.” : “His name was——?" My curiosity seems to myself almost indecent. I'm half ashamed to press the point agalnst such fine reserve. “Smith,” says Mrs. Smith “Henry John Smith.” Almost I giggle—Henry John! The combination carries the flavor of the impromptu, hurried, desperate, rattled. And yet “Henry John” may be the absolute trutb. I recall, to chasten.my spirit, the folly of the old woman who swallowed all the sailor yarns except that of the flying fish. However, a trifle like that doesn't matter, after all. The thing that does matter is this: Here is a woman, obviously a lady, with —let me give her so much recommenda- tion as this—certainly, none of the ear- marks and seemingly none of the Instincts of a Delllah. She is pretty, charming, well bred, clev- er, intelligent, with real abllity, with good address and only in need of money. ‘Why does a woman lke this engage in the selling of bogus stocks when she could sell the genuine as successtully and with safety? I ponder it after Mrs. Smith has given me her little lady’s hand in farewell, and sald, “I hope we shall meet again under pleasanter conditions.” ¢ T ponder it after I have said, with gen~ uine enthusiasm, “T hope so, teo.” And I ponder it still. Don’t you? sweetly.