The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 4, 1906, Page 26

26 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY MARCH 4, 1906. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL FOBN D. SPRECKELS.......,.... st+cssssccsscssesss-=--s..Proprietoe ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO McNAUGHT. .. ¥OHN - .Manacer THIRD AND MARKET STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO N OFFICE. vesseess. MARCH 4, 1906 THE ROUTING CASE. 1e Court can only interpret and apply the law as not change nor amend a statute nor the law of com- ion that fruit shippers or other shippers, elsewhere. control the routing of their | necting with the line on which original ship- | > law as it stands. ed by railing at the court. Congress makes laws nstrues and interprets them. The fruit’ shippers of | under obligations to the court for its timely the law as it is, and of course, incidentally in- es that are necessary in the interest of shippers. wers conferred upon the Interstate Commerce Com- | President’s bill, now before the Senate, will probably | mple to cover the points made by the directors Exchange in the protest against the court’s re always finally adjusted to their equities. Its dec can er ficiently 2 sa world. Our output of fresh fruit goes into A slight delay in transit, giving time for the difference between profit and loss to the ed that, given the control of routing, the physical pool in fruit transportation, which adds | six days to the time used up in transit, and that this| 1 $100 to $300 per car by decay of cargo. At $150 per car that means a total loss of $840,000, s shipment of 14,000 cars of citrus fruit alonc | from the producer and may spell ruin for him. This | oses the equities of the producer. Railroads get their | cash, whether the property reaches its destination | tion or not. The carrier stands no part of the t stand it all. If the shipper can contro! | 1d loss result by reason of his bad judgment, he will | int to make against the carrier. ons, inherent in the transportation business, why is*of California have not beén inclined to heartily ent of fresh fruit. At its season it is largely a > of the return cars for general carrying of ing easy. This of itself operates a hardship upon their freight naturally includes part of the| pties to the State. As our commerce in-| essary to load more of the return cars, | and should be reflected in the progressive de- e a s going on should encourage the fruit a betterment of their condition, The tendency y is toward the control by overland lines th the leading commercial centers of the| ready reaches Kansas City and Chicago direct | Southern Pacific is toiling to secure its own | go and New York, and the Western Pacific by e Gould system will give our shippers direct entry and B ore. The producers of California have a ish, ir >st in the several consolidations or mergers, t you please, that will secure these direct connections | interest of our roads with terminals here to keep Is on their own tracks clear through to the final market. r congratulation that necessary changes in the law are in sight, and that the law of gain will join | ute for the more prompt carriage of our perish- | S ectors of the California Fruit Exchange in their protest Government ownership and operation of railroads is But is it? That experiment before it is tried has ge of all prospective things, of being a prophetic panacea t But. Government ownership and operation of n means that, like all things political and governmental, policy of the country will be entirely under political will be dictated by that part of the country that has the political majority. This will mean that the fruit im- | 1g evils. iterests of the fruit growers of California. after a fight that the long haul clause got into the | tate commerce law. It has been a sore spot with the | The fruit growers of Nebraska, Towa, Michi- » Southern States saw California fruit carried past their | a less rate per ton per mile than they paid and they | Iroads for what they denounced as discrimination. Tf| > iment own and operate the roads, does any one believe | those producers will be so exceedingly unselfish that they will | competition with them in the Eastern markets? are, it will be because a miracle has been worked upon I'he. political majority will assert itself. Crying out for the | good to the greatest number, they will invoke the political majority for their own protection and the last state | rnia producers will be worse than their first. r policy of the fruit shippers is to uphold the hands | aid him in his determination, once far all, to fix cers. esident an ies of transportation where they rightfully belong. Gov- control and not Government ownership is the real remedy evils that are disclosed by the court’s construction of the t is. DIAZ HAS A NEW IDEA. RESIDENT DIAZ is semi-officially reported to have under consideration a new land law, which is expected to have the effect of breaking up large estates and causing them to be cul- C P tivated in small tracts by home makers. It is designed to be a bless- middle class, giving them a chance to become self-sup- porting and prosperous citizens; and also to build up the wealth of the republic, give steady employment to many more wage earners ing to th: and create numbers of new villages. The idea in the Diaz decree is that the burden of the land taxation shall be so proportioned that it will be much more profitable to the large owners to cut their es- tates into small holdings and have them cultivated than to let the land lie idle. The importance of the proposed move to the prosperity of Mex- ico is shown by the statement that while the republic has 15,000,000 of population, a few thousand people own nearly all the land. It is much to be desired that some stroke of statesmanship should cause the immense holdings of the haciendados to pass into the possession of actual farmers. Cultivated land will have to bear a portion of the new land tax, but it will be so much less than that on the idle land that the self-interest of the land owners will impel them energeti- cally to get the big tracts divided up and tilled. Friends of the measure believe it will prove one of the greatest reforms ever made ip Mexico. If the law can be made practical and fair all round, if its pro- visions will enable the act to avoid coming too close to virtual con- fiscation of property, the decree should have the indorsement of civil- ization. The improvement in the condition of some 15,000,000 Mexi- cans could not fail to bring an indirect welfare to us. According to General Booth of the Salvation Army, who is very high authority on the subject, the problem of the world’s poverty will be to a large ex- tent solved if we can bring together the unemployed and the land that is lying idle. ; Cure for a wife who has only “thought kisses” for a husband—“stage money” on salary day.—New York Herald. —_—— The statehood question is like a piece of tripe. The longer it is chewed the bigger it gets.—Enid (Okla.) Eagle. “W st and the-Eastern fruit growers will be coldly | ¥ i s NOW WA LR it TCH HIM GROW. i 7 /%7 i/ ’ Baron Takaki says if the Japanese will eat greater quantities and varieties of food they will soon be as big as Caucasians. —CHICAGO CHRONICLE. LITTLE WASHINGTON STORIES HY does Representative John Wesley Gaines of Tennessee get so many things from the House if he is so obnoxious to every- body?" asked a constituent of Representa- | try, but said not a word about the hogs. tive Hepburn of Iowa, says the World's | By the next mail from Washington he re-, Washington correspondent. “Suppose you were a business man hav- ing business to attend|to and a man came |in and sat down next to you and began to flle a saw,” answered Colonel Hep- burn,” “‘wouldn’t you give him what he wanted?” A slightly intoxicated man sat listening to an argument being made by Repre- sentative John Sharp Williams before the committee on ways and means for regu- lating express companies acting as sales- men for liquor dealers in prohibition sec- tions. “I am a Democrat,” -the citizen said, walking up to Mr. Willlams. “I always thought you were a Democrat, but now 1 see you are a Prohibitionist.” Representative Butler of Tennessee re- | celved this letter from Representative Butler: “My Dear Sir: 1 am very much obliged | | — cently wrote a constituent of his asking him how the Butler hogs were doing. The constituent, a minister, wrote back a long sermon on the duty a man owes his coun- | to you for your sermon on duty, but I would much prefer to hear about my hogs.” Ollie James of Kentucky and Repre- sentative Seréno E. Payne were fussing | around a bit over a proposition to consoli- date the port of Paducah, Ky., with some other ports “The gentlenian from New York:seems to have a natural antipathy to water,” James suggested. “Then the gentleman from New York ought to be popular in Kentucky,” Payne answered. “Not at all,” James said. “Not at all. We in Kentucky only use water to float boats on.” SEEING A COUNTRY ! e + HERE are two ways of sceing a T country; to see it in bits, or to see it as a whole. The former is the old way; the latter is the automo- bilist's way. In the old way, you took a train to a certaln spot and went to an hotel. Next day you walked or cycled or drove to the various sights of the neighborhood—on one day, to the cathedral and a picture gallery or two; on the next to some churches and the museum, and bought the local curiosi- ties; on the next to the ruins and a waterfall, and so on. In the evenings you listened to the band, or danced, or Played at petits chevaux. Almost all your meals you took at the same hotel. Pérhaps you repeated the process at an- other place or you may have gone from place to place, with two cabs and a raflway Jjourney, during which you read the papers between each. All the time you were surrounded by your own compatriots doing the same thing. Then you came home and said you had spent. your holiday “in France,” or “in- Ger- many.” Not at all. Practically you had spent it in several little bits of France or Germany, under the condi- -_— GAMIN'S FLING. Jean Gerardy, the well-known ‘cellist, at a dinner in Philadelphia, praised Amer- jcan wit. “You are all witty,” he said. “From your milllonaire down to your gamin you are quick, nimble and sparkling in retort. “Your gamins' wit is sometimes cruel. It caused a friend of mine to flush and mutter an evil oath one day last week in New York. “My friend, in a hurry to catch a train, ran out of his hotel toward a cab, and a ragged little boy opened the cab door for him and handed in his valise. “He gave the boy nothing. hurry, you see, he forgot. ““The disappointed urchin smiled sourly, and called this order to the driver: * ‘Nearest poorhouse, cabby.'” Detroit Journal. UTO DIARIES. The latest development in the diary line is the auto book. It 15 handsomely bound in leather and contains a number of pages, which, with an enthusiastic motorist, are speedily fllled up. Every other page contalns blank lines to be filled in with such detalls as the date, length of run, destination, stops, speed, guests and other items of interest, while the succeeding page is left blank for a brief story of the trip with emendations or comment by the guests. This second page, owing to the very nature of a swift auto trip, s apt to be far more interest- ing than the bare record of the speed per hour and the number of miles reeled off— New York Press. 2 In his tions of life, and for much of the time hearing and speaking the language you had left behind at home. The new way is absolutely different, both In object and in method. You do not go to “do” places or picture gal- leries; you go to see what a foreign country really is, how it differs from other portions of the earth's surface, what its topography makes it, what its industries and crops and architecture and climate are, how its people live, how they differ from one another in dif- ferent parts, what are their manners and thoughts and interests. Instead of the dull monotony of the rallway, you have the life of the Open Road, you pass through hundreds of villages off the main track and through a score of lit- tle towns where the foreigner i§ almost unknown; you stay in hotels where you meet only the people of the country, and if you know their language you learn more of that country in a month than a year in its cosmopolitan capital would teach you. Instead of detailed recollec- tions, you carry away broad ideas of land and people—From “The Flowing Road,” by Henry Norman, M. P., in the March Scribner. A SUPPOSITION. “Suppose,” said the wise orator— ‘though 'tis a thought stupendous— “Suppose a baby one year old with arms of the tremendous “Length of ninety-three-odd million miles, “Should, in a freak of fun, “Reach up and touch the sun. “That child would be £ 233 “Years old, “I'm told, “Before it learned “Its hand was burned.” FROM GEORGIA. This old world is doing Its best.to roll on to the brighter day. It blazes beau- tifully in the path of the sun. Though many tell you this world is a fleld of trouble, there are mighty few that would refuse a- gift of ten acres. Liverpool Post. The way of the righteous is peace, but | srl when he's sick he sends for the doctor | just like ordinary mortals. 1f life is but a fleeting show we should all hasten to get front seats at the cir- cug.—Atlanta Constitution. ' WHAT'S WHAT? A lovely girl, A crowded car. “Please take my seat,” And there you are. A crowded cdr. A woman plain. She stands, and there © —New York Herald. f _ Pt BUT HE SWUNG HIS LANTERN e T N T EPRESENTATIVE JOHN SHARP R WILLIAMS tells a tale of the days when he was counsel for a railway line in one of the Southern States, It appears that, at one point on its line, the company had stationed an old negro watchman, whose duties consisted in warning traveiers down a highway cross- ing the tracks when a train approached. One night a wagon belonging to a, farmer was struck, resulting in a bad accldent. The company was, of course, sued for damages, and, at the trial, the old darky was the principal witness for his employ- ers. He repliea to the questions put to him In a clear, direct fashion. Among these questions was one as to whether he was sure that he had swung his lan- tern across the road when he perceived the train approach. The negro replied: “I shorely did, sah!” The trial resuited In a verdict for the company, and Mr. Willlams, as counsel, took early occasion to compliment the aged negro on his excellent testimony. To which the latter replied: “Thankee, Marse John, but I was sorely skeered when dat lawyer man begin to ask me about de lantern. I was afeared, for a minute, dat he wag goin’ to ask me if it was lit or not. De oll done give out some time befo’ de accldent!”—Success Magazine. STARTLED THE RECTOR The rector returning from his holiday heard that a parishioner had “lost his old Betty,” and at once hurried off to console him. . d “I'm grieved to hear of your loss, Giles,” he began.. “Oh, well, sir, thankee,” replied Giles, “it's a.pity, of course; but she was a rare lazy jade; she would never do any- thing unless she was well thrashed.” “Tut, tut: dear me—" “It's true, sir. She was a bad bargain. Thank goodness, the fair's next week and I'll pick up a better one there, I hope, if I don't get suited before.” “But don’t you think, even for appear- ances’ sake, you had better walt a little longer?” urged the clergyman, getting rather annoyed at his tone. “On, no,” responded Giles. “I've had my eye on one for some little time, and what I get for Betty’'s skin will go toward it. I tell 'ee what, sir! I wouldn’t mind having one of your young 'uns, if you're agree- able.” “I won’t stop to hear another word of such abominable talk,” said the disgusted rector. “There wasn’t a better woman in the village than your wife Betty.” “Wife! Who's talking about my wife!"” said the astonished Giles. “I'm talking about my old mare that died yesterday.— Chicago Jour! TOUGH AS SHEEPSKIN. brides take the married state serfously indeed, and little Mrs. Nixon is of the order. She was not a good cook, and she knew it, but after marriage she studied at a cookery class to such good effect that in due course she carried off a diploma. “Yes,” she said enthusiastically that evening. “I've got the loveliest diploma. It's on a sheepskin parchment with a big red seal. And just in honor of the occa- sion I cooked that dish you're eating now. It's my own idea entirely. Now, just you guess what it is.” » Nixon went on masticating in silence for a moment. Then he looked up with a wry Some young n. : 2 “I don't know,” he said, hestitatingly. “Is ft—er—is it the diploma?'—Punch. Cl}AWFORD‘S ENDEAVOR “W. B. Yeats, the English poet, got off a good thing when he was at the Franklin Inn for lunch the other day,” said the Literary Man. “Of course he's all for art for art's sake, but he told of a woman who once sald to Marlon Crawford, the novelist: ‘* ‘Have you ever written ing that will live &tcr. you have gone? ** ‘Madam,' Crawford replied, ‘what I am trying to do is to write something 0 il enable me “rt"" while I am ere. z " THE GOD QF THE HAMMER By A. J. Wateshouse. SONG, if you please, to an old Norse god Who hasn’t found sepuiture yet, For multitudes still are heeding his nod And. oft at’his altars have met; And the god whom I mean, as perhaps you surmise, The one whom this paean is for, Who lives through all changes and nevermore dies, Is the God of the Hammer, or Thor. Oh, Thor, wonderful Thor, Whose going we could not regret, The ages have fled to the ranks of the dead, But your hammer’s in evidence yet. LD Odin, the mighty, sank down to his rest, And Baldur, the beautiful, passed; Death’s cup to the lips of mad Loki was pressed, And Ty is the peaceful at last. But though all thy mates are but fallen and dead, Dim shades in a fabulous sphere, The man who now lifts o’er his neighbors his head Still feels that thy hammer is here. Oh, Thor, wonderful Thor, Thy mates are a shadowy band, But that hammer of thine, it is fair to opine, Does business yet at the old stand. $ D OES your neighbor do something that you cannot dol= Here’s to your health, mighty Thor!— Then get out the hammer, make use of it, too, And teach him what neighbors are for. Does he show inclination to mount rather high?— Who said, charming Thor, you were dead?>— Why, a hammer will show him the place he should lie, Make him eat of humility’s bread. Oh, Thor, wonderful Thor, Perhaps you are dead as they say, But if it is so here’s one thing I know: Your hammer descended this way. + LARGEST WOMAN'S CLUB HE largest woman's club in the Twnrld1s in Sierra Leone, gn the west coast of 'Africa. It is called the “Bundu” and has 11,000 members. Before ever a woman's club was or- ganized in the United States, says the Chicago Tribune, the Bunda had obtained entire and absolute control over the fe- males of the tribe, established the code of morals and was in practical control of the education of the children. It es- tablished and enforced the segregation of the sexes during the educational period, compelled the men of the tribe to obey their rules concerning marrfage and di- vorce and gained almost an equal voice in the tribal government. Thelr madam president,.although they do not call her that, acts as the Bundu devil, and attired in her robes of office exerclses her power over spirits, good and evil. A couple of years ago one of the leaders of clubdom in Chicago suggested that children should not be raised in the home at all, but should be placed in a sort of asylum, where they would be assured of scientific feeding, care, education and protection, trained in the domestic arts and sclences, and taught their responsi- bilities toward their fellow. Her ideas created quite a sensation, yet she was proposing exactly the thing that the Bundu voted upon perhaps 200 years ago and has done ever since. The mother who is a member of the Bundu keeps her young children at home during the time that her care is essential to their well being. After that time they are sent away. If there are boys they are sent into the “Poro bush,” an encampment in one of the beautiful dells in the forest. There the boys are under the charge of the anclent and wise men of the tribe, and there they are trained in hunting, fight- ing, dancing, singing, cooking. The Poro bush is the man's college of Sterra Leone. It the child is a girl she is sent into the Bundu bush, a hidden and secret en- campment In the forest, whers the old women and strong young women, slaves or pald workers, care for them, and edu- cate them in the domestic arts. No man may approach the Bundu bush except on pain of death, so the female seminary of the Bundu goes unmolested, no man daring to approach. The parents of the children must pay for the care and training and feeding of their children. Occasionally there is a public exhibition of the girls from the Bundu bush, a sort of commencement day exercise. The girls are handsome if rather barbaric looking. The dancing costume consists of short white cotton skirts, draped with palm leaves, and from the edgés of the skirt are suspended thin pleces of fron that Jjangle musically as the girls dance. They not only dance cleverly in ballet formations, but they execute difficult pas seuls in creditable and graceful manner. The women of the tribe, members of the club only, often show great enthuslasm over the grace of some exceptional dancer and show their appreciation by rushing forggard and embracing her. After the dances the girls are led backdto thelir secret retreat. The clubwomen of Sierra Leone are re- sourceful. They have made possible the education of all the girls of good familles, even when the familles are not able to pay the expenses of sending their girls away to the college or convent in the bush. In such cases the parents arrange the girl's betrothal to some wealthy young man, or to a child whose parents are wealthy, and the betrothed pays the expenses, claiming her when her educa- tion is complete. — |~ THOSE o= SOCIAL philosopher has discov- A ered that an act very commonly regarded as an affectation of gen- tility, as found in the manner of hold- ing a drinking glass when drinking from it, is not an affectation at all, but really an unconscious, automatic act. This supposed affectation consists in extending the third and fourth fingers of the hand clear of the glass when it is lifted and tipped forward with its brim to the lips and while the glass is held there in the act of drinking. No doubt it would commonly be considered that people do this for the sake of greater elegance, or at least from an instinc- tive desire to give to the hand such an appearance, which it would not possess if they closed the entire hand around the glass—if they clutched it, so to speak, a manner of holding that would seem to savor of rudeness. But this observer says that really people hold those two fingers clear of the glass in drinking because that is the way that is most convenient. If, he says, a person should grasp the glass with the whole hand closed snugly around it he would find that the act of tipping the glass so held required more EXTENDED FINGERS | muscular effort, for the muscles extend- ing from all the fingers would then be called into use. Whereas if the person drinking holds the glass between the thumb and the first two fingers he not only rellieves entirely the tension on the muscles of the two other fingers, but also in a way he pivots the glass and makes it easler to tip on that ac- count. Thus the separation of the two fingers from the glass is a perfectly natural aet. This philosopher concedes that the act may be exaggerated; that fingers thus extended might even be seen ralsed and extended more than was really comfortable for the better display of rings adorning them, and he concedes that sometimes when we see our fin- gers thus raised as we lift our glass, in clear view of all, we may seek to crook the fingers in attitudes dr curves of greater grace, and so he concedes that in some cases the ralsing of the fingers in lifting the glass may show affectation in some measure; but his point is that in its original Inception and In its practice by the many th elevation of these two fingers is not a: affectation, put an act quite uncon- scilous and automatic.—New York Sun. *— 3 WOULD BE A HERO. Jacob Rils has been ill at his home of angina pectoris, and his physician ordered him to cancel all lecture engagements. Notwithstanding this Mr. Rils was re- cently approached by an emissary of a certain church, who pleaded with him to deliver a lecture. . “But,” sald Mr. Riis, “my physician has told me that If I lecture again this winter it may kill me.” “Well, then,” replied the churchman, not a whit abashed, “you will dle in a good cause.'—New York Sun. . THE LIFE STORY. Den you roll down ag’in! 1L Now it's de shadder. Then it's de sun; One day ¥ou in clover, gl e Dat’s des de story— All you kin say! Et we all gits ter glory We'll holler “Hooray!™” ANSWERS TO QUERIES. A WILL—Reader, San Jose, Cal. In California a will, except a holographic one, must be witnessed in order to be valid. A holographic will, that is one written wholly by the testator, need not be witnessed. In such a case It is only necessary to prove the handwriting and signature of the party. COMMUNITY PROPERTY—Reader, San Jose, Cal. Upon the death of the wife in the State of California the entire prop- erty without administration vests In the surviving husband. In case of the death of the husband one-half of the property goes to the wife and the remainder is sub- Ject to testamentary disposition. FIRST COUSINS—N. S. H., Napa, Cal. The marriage of first cousins is not pro- hibited in the State of California, but it is prohibited in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois,