The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 3, 1906, Page 7

whatever valuable conclusions d by arrived at. is may have ¢ almost a speaking the ‘penny “What's a penny? ns a penny Ordinaril e or nothing 5" for a nny?"’ are expre: often heard. Yet the little copper cent that you give to a child without thought or toss to the beggar boy as he ses s one of the precious’ drops making up the financial wealth of the country. But for the penny there would be no sovernment, no W street, no finance 'in other words, no business; and civiliza- tion would return to the aboriginal sim- A N of the Digger Indian. greed day each of the ty million inhabitants in America W to throw a a penny it would be considered nothing—no more than toss- ing pebbles into a brook; it would mean @a loss of nearly three-quarters of a million to the country, and to carry the plicity If on a ce in sever “MYSTERY ENVELOPS FATE OF TWO GREAT SOLDIERS ortraits pf was a to be con- same rentage, in sted in 1870 in Highlanders, jeutenant for $1, where ign of artialed, 1t was mself, and that away the day fol Lady buried the « the time #t Paris throughout the sgestive of the goaded on by saehery his fel- c step dis- month April 14 yalz, and ob the sad in the three General Sassulitch’s ¥ | July | twenty-five 009 ‘men Kuroki toc vance “which culminted around Liao and Mukden in the most sanguinary series of . conflicts that the world has known our own war between the States 21 Kuroki’s army on the right w. miles from Lisoyang. Sep vang since tember 1 he was across the Taitse Rive risking his own destruction, leading in a wide tu ning movement to cut off the en- sian army, his forces for twenty- z almost without drink or to 18 kis troops were ost constantly engaged at the Shaho. » Kuroki was given the honor of firlng Zuns renewing the campaign February 19, 1905, and beginning the bat- tle of Mukden. He defeated General Ren- nenkampff ‘on’ the 24th, and March 1 flanked the Russian position at Da Pass; and finally formed the wedge that pierced the Russian left March 19, resulting in a capture .of at -least 20,000 prisoners. Without attempting to reflect upon the brilliant achievements of other Jdpanesc commanders, all this is_indicative not only. of extensive and thorough wmiltary training, but suggests experience in European methods of warfare. There may be something, 100, in the literal meaning | 8Scotch | 5 ijament, who witnessed the affair, says names: Macdonald in the vern means the son of a proud chieftain; while Kuroki, in the Japanese means the black or defamed spirit. Aside from the mysteries involved there are certain resemblances in the lives of thse two generals. Michael Ney, like Hector Macdenald, was of humble parent- age. His mother was Fretich, but seems to have been related to the Scotch Stuarts, and his father, Nicholas Ney, was a cooper residing at Saarlous, where Michael wgs born January 10, 1769. He « largely self-educated and worked as k to a notary and ag a mine-boss « age of 19, when he joined a Hussar He was made a lieu- tenant for bravery in the campaign of nd rose rapidly, receiving the rank sdier general in 1796 for his servces of the a ol till the regiment at Met bri; for the passage of «ne Rednitz. For captaring Manheim in 1799, he was made general of division; and his career for the fifteen years following from Hohenlinden to Waterloo justly earned for him the title which Napoleon himself bestowed of the bravest of the brave.” it is doubtful whether any one can carefully read the argument of Rev. James A. Weston in his book. “Historic Doubts,” to prove thut Peter Stuart Ney, who died in Rowan County, N. November 16, 1846, was arshal Ney of France without Heing convinced that such was the fact. Boufienne, referring to Ney's éxecution in the latest edition of his work, says: “It wasg impossible to get the public to be- in storming the citadel of Wurzburg and | the lead in the ad- |have had Juie 17 he capturéd Motien Pass. | lieve that Ney had really been killed in Fenghwangcheng, June 23, with 100,- | this manner, and nearly to this day we recurring of the | resh stories real Ney being discovered in America.” Of the 156 vot t by the Chamber of P determining Ney te, 17 were for hment and 139 for death; but a majority of the latter “conjured the Prime Minister (the Duke de Richelleu) (o solicit from the King exile to America for the condemned i ad of the affo! e King refused, but every e connected with the execution narty w a friend of the marshal's; and. according to Jomihi, a very large purty of Ney' friends, both soldiers and civilians, had sworn—many of them publiely— {that he should not dic by the hands of [ | | i i | three | lacre by an officer an Frenchmen. = Wel was in commond of the troops in Paris with authorit enough to execute the King if necessary and at the earnest solicitation of Mme. Hutchinson, he went to the palace and King not to 1 requested tl sxecute Ney. Wellington by both Dbe- 1 report of his execution de- it as an al with many troops draw - speech from the condemned, and that he fell dead instantly, plerced with twelve balls, nine in the breast and three in the head; but Quentin Dick, a member of the English action Ney the whole tran minutes did not oecupy was brought in a two sergeants, the picket guards, at the gate of the Luxem- bourg Gardens were beckoned to the spot, the men loaded their own guns and fired at ghe order of the marshal himself, who fell on his face, No coup de grace was given and no amination was made by any surgeon. ‘he body was replaced $n the same flacre, and was driven off before the nurses and | : on a smooth wall like a fly; can live and | children—who constituted the spectators— could realize what had happened. body was given to Mme. Ney and con- veved secretly to the cemetery, the burial occurring ‘at 6 a. m. She was a devoted wife, but she gevinced no signs of grief, and no clergyman was at either the exe- cution or burtal. His grave was neglected and no monument erected there. Mrs. Mary C. Dalton of Iredell County, N. C., who was a pupll of P. S..Ney for several years, says that lie made the fol- lowing statement to her. “My name is not Peter Stuart Ney. 1 am Marshai Ney. History states that I was executed, but 1 escaped death through the 2id of my friends and others: On the day appointed for the execution I wie told my life wus to be spared. I was in- structed to give the command to fire pnd to fall while giving it. so.the bals might | pass over me. 1 carried out my instrue- tions, In battle T never knew what fear was. but when ! took my position in (ront @ the soldiers and gave the com- The | money in pennies from the Mint to the Sub-Treasury would keep seven thousand men busy half a day—each carrying a load of seventy,pound: Tt is an old saying, “Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves.” One of the first lessons in finance, home thrift and future prosperity taught a child is when his father gives him a little tin savings bank to drop pen- nies in. Everybody is giad to give a youngster a copper coin. You accumulate ten bright new coppers and nothing wil please you better than to hand them over to some boy or girl who will find a me- diugn for disposing of them at the notidn or candy store around the corner.. Those pennies are really the beginning { If the child will save its money {it will need a two-horse truck to carry |its savings some day. After the little tin | box is put away and the voungster dons {long trousers he starts a fund in" the fam- ily savings bank, where pennies count as s other form of money as far v go. Four per cent does not seem much to pay for the use of a dollar a whole year. The shiftless, unthinking boy looks with contempt upon what he calis the whole “slow” scheme of amassing wealth by getting only 4 per cent a year on deposits. But the figures printed annually by fhe The Basis of it is the little penny. Un- like people, the penny does not change. Wher: your clothes are dilapidated and you grow thin and pinched and bad luck stamps sofrow on your face, you get snub- bed right and left and only a few friends, tried and true, stand by you. But the little copper cent, no matter how moldy, battered, greasy and begrimed it may be, goes for its full face value, and a hundred of the meanest looking coppers {you ever saw will get you a beautiful, | brand new dollar bill at the bank or the Sub-Treasury, with the greatest govern- ment in the wotld at the back of it and the pictures of your favorite statesmen who have saved the country so many times smiling at you as you fold the crisp note and tuck it away in your pocket- book: Great is the power of the penny. If you don’t believe it, ask the Aladdins who own the subway and the department stores of New York and frequently visit San Francisco. “All day long men file into - the - small !¢hange department of the Sub-Treasury with valises filled with pennies. Usually the load is about all they can carry. It is curious how pennies . disappear during winter seasons and come out of their when the summer months arrive. As business slackens out come the copper cents to be exchanged for bills and larger ooins. As Thanksgiving and Christmas draw near the demand for pennies in- creases until there is a scarcity of the humble coin. Last season, just béfore the holidays, a single departnient store in New York gave a standing order for 100,- 000 pentties to be delivered every Monda morning. | According*te the New York Sub-Treas- ury figures an average of one and a half million of pennles is received over the Lcounter a week. million six hundred thousand pennies. weighing 46,200 pounds, is the record there a month. Until recent- ly the tradition extending back to the 8004 old days of Alexander Hamilton re- quired all coins to be counted by hand, and yet it is impossible for any human belng to count money without making now and then an error. ‘When counting machines were Invented |even the barnks were slow to patronize |them, and for a time the Government | would not dccept machine counted mone An odd thing about this kind of money is that any onhe should attempt to counter- feit so.insignificant a coin as a copper cent, the baby coin of all the money in America. . Yet there are men in the peni- tentiary for imitating the coppers. The counterfeits were made of the real stuff, and it was imagined that no one would hesitate to take copper money. So a'lot of it s put into circu- lation, notwithstanding the Indian head was poorly executed. The Government detectives were awake, however. and did take the trouble to in vestigate the penny counterfeiters, who were duly convicted and seat to prison. As a pound of copper costs only 16 cents | savings banks tell a wonderful story of and you can make a hundred and thirty the financlal Niagara of accumulated pen- pennies out of it. the industry was con- nies that pour unceasing floods from year sidered quite profitable by. the counter- aults, all to be returned with interest compounded to those pa- tient, poorly dressed. scrimping .people vou see lined up at all hours of the busi- ness day in the great savings ingtitutions of the country. ’ to vear into their mand to fire, ‘bedoust’ "—that was very word he used—*I was almost fright- ened to death. I was taken soldiers”’—I think he said they belongad to his old command—"and carried to the hospital. That night I was disguised and went to Bordeaux. From that place I sailed to the United States. landing in Charleston the latter part of January, 11816. The next few years L spent in se- | clusion, and prepared myself ior eaching by studying the classics and the higher | | mathematics." He made similar confidentlal statements | partly because it was so difficult be- | jto others. He resembled Marshal Ney in personal appearance, manner and bearing, |and his handwriting and that of the mar- | shal submiitted to am expert, David N. Carvalho of New Yotk, were pronounced | the work of the same individual. He wrote in Mrs. Dalton’s album: | Though 1 of the chosen the choleest * ¢ To fame gave her Joftiest foud, Though 1 'mang the brave was the brayest, My piume and my baton are gone. In reading the “‘Memoirs of Napoleon,” he made coplous notes on the margin, nd on page 315, where the author says Ney he might have secured this position,"” P. 8! Ney, wrote: “Delay! say the Em- peror took away my reserve.’ Marshal Ney was wounded in the foot, knee, thigh, Fand, arm, chest and neck. | Scars were found en the body of P. §. Ney | corresponding to all of these and ome more |on the side of the face, which he once ex | plained to a friend as having been re- |cefved at Waterloo, where he killed his | English opponent. In the delirium of his last moments Peter Stuart Ney said: “Bessieres is dead and the Old Guard is defeated, now let me die.” PEDESTRIAN FiSH. Axolotl, or fish with legs, is ihe name given to a queer creature of Maxico and Texas, which can swim like a fish or run row when kept constantly in water like a true fish, and yet can uve and grow {entirely away from water (excepting a little to drink like & true air-breathing animal.. All this he can do because nature has given him two seats of breatlhing power. He has gills, looking like branches of soft | coral, growing from each side of his thick | neck, which enable him fo breathe in the | water, and he has lungs which, like those lof a sheep or a squirrel or a man, pan | breathe only in the free, clear air of [ heaven. Rither set can be used as he pleases. 2 Fish are drowned when taken from the water into the air, and antmsls when pit even for a short timeé under water, but | the axolntl cannot bé drowned anywhere, Yet he is nowhere safe; {or the inhabi- tants of the places where he is found think that his flesh {s very good to eat and catch. great ninnbers, which th y ¢ook in various wa Y - the up by the | Had it not been for the delay of Marshal | feiters until they were put in jail. It is getting to be a fashion for big city concerns which do business with the public to reduce expenses for bookkeepers and cashiers and make the public drop | pennies and nickels into slots, buy tickets hiding places and go to the Sub-Treasury | Government | for soda water, ice cream and other things {in a drug store, with prices going up and | quality going down every hour in the | blessed vear. It Js surprising how rapidly the avoirdu- |'pois of pennies Mcreases. Ten -dollars | weighs seven pounds; a thousand dellars, |70 pounds. Consequently if a man were going to elope with the daughter |of the president of a penny in the. siot machine company he would need several automobiles or a chartered train to carry | off the honeymoon loot. | It is surprising how muech old iron is smuggled into the penny-in-the-slot ma- | chines in place of mone: There are lead | disks, aluminum disks. iron washers and | every conceivable kind of substitute for the real thing, all at the expense of the | penny-in-the-slot machine. It is esti- | mated that from 1 to 2 per cent of the receipts. in these machines consists of metal washers and other forms of bogus | money. Uncle Sam will make his own pennies in future. The Treasury has taken over the business from the private concerns which for many years manufactured these small coins for the Govermment, and in- tends for all time to come to turn them out with its ewn machinery. | | The Treasury has always stamped its own pennies with the design of the In- dian’s head and the wreath on the reverse énclosing the words “One Cent’’; but the coins, lacking only this finishing touch, have béen made for many years in | Waterbury, Conn., whence they were shipped in the sihpe of “blanks” (other- | wise known as “‘planchets”) in strong wooden bhoxes. They used to cost the ffovernment, in this form, only twenty- four cents a pound, whereas today. owing to the rise in the price of copper, théy canmot be manufactured, even when home-made, for less than twenty-nine cents. A pound of blanks represents 146 pennies. If a cent a pound be added for the ex- pense of stamping them with dies, it will be obviqus that Uncle Sam is able to manufacture 486 pennies for a dollar—a very profitable enterprise, inasmuch as he disposes of this number for $4.86. During the last year the Treasury minted 80,719,163 pennies, of which New York State absorbed about 15,000,000, the demand from Illinois being next in point of size, w Massachusetts was third and Pennsylvania fourth. To make this number of cents required 325,28 pounds of copper, 16,5% pounds of tin and 11, pounds of zine, the two latter ‘metals ens tering into the composition of these coins to the extent of 3 per cent and 2 per cent respectively, for as a matter of fact the so-called copper cent is in' reality a bronze cent, the alloy employed having! | the advantage of hardness, durability and sati§factory retention of polish. It thus appears that in the last yéar the Government used somewhat more than short tons of copper in the manu- facture of pennies. All of the metal comes from the mines of the Lake Superior region and from the nelghborhood of Butte, Mont. It is pur- chased through dealers In the shape of bricks, or Ingots. which are cut into slices, the latter being rolled to the exact thickness of a cent and thén passed be- neath ‘punches. These punches, working rapidly. up and down. .cut out-the little yvellaw disks, which thereupon drop into receptacles beneath - to undergo a Sub- sequent and final polishing by subjecting them to thé:friction of basswood saw- dust in a revolving cylinder: Tliree years ago there was started, onf 4 copper basis, 80 to speak, one of the most remarkable -hoaxes in history. A ¢lothing firm in Washington, D. €., ad- vertised that it “would pay eighteen cents for 1002 pennies.” Generally, the offer did mot elicit ‘much_attention, - probably . be- cause its absurdity was. t00 obvious, but in some parts of the country, mere espe- cially in North and South Carolina. .t caused immense excitemént. A repert was: widely circulated 1o the effact that, in the minting of a batch of gold coins, a" quantity of the preci motal had found its way by aceident into the coppers of 192, and that on this account the Treasury was antious to call in as much as might be recoverable of the issue of cents for that year. It would bé impossible to imagine any- thing more nonsensical. yet at Charlotts, N. C. pennies of 192 were soid and bought in large quantities for three and five cents aplece, and in Alexandnia, Va., some are said to have fetched twelve cénts. In.each of a dozen of the. biggest cities a supply of coppers is kept on hand at the local sub-treasuries, which furnish them on demand in bags. of one thousand. The binks - all -over - the - country are constantly nding. them - in te the Treasury .'at Washington . far redemption just. - to get rid of them, gnd ‘at the Treasury, as fast a& they arrive they are counted by skilled women, who rejéct incidentaly all of the piéces that are mutilated or rounterfeit. Also they ‘throw aslde évery cent that is much Wworn. = The- counterfélts. .dre deé- stroyed, the worh pennies go to the smelts ing pot for reminting and the good ones are done up again in .sacks for further circulation. How many cents are.lost. may. be judged from the tact that of the big and ciumsy old copper pennies- familiar to the child- hood of the people ‘now . middle aged 118,206,100 are still outstanding. Somewhere they must be, but it is-only very- rately that one of them is seen outside of éoiy cabinets. Of the old-fashioned haif-cerits, which corresponded in value to English farthings, "ST8.&3200 have hever been re- deemed. W) samie qu bronze two-¢ three-cent’ piec hat has become of them? The might be asked about ths nt _pieces. and the " niekel < i of the former are still extant. i 28868, and 20,6497 of the latter As for the-old:time copper nickel pannfes, | with “the fiyng eagle (they were 35 per cent copper and ‘12 per: ¢ent. nickel), there are 120357.500 of themi wnaccotnted fov. Nothing: more indestructible than a cop~ per ‘cent can wall be imagined. What. then, becomes of -all these- littie eoing? Nobody can say. the Treas- ury considers it But some of them antly fnding their -way Washing« ton through - thé banks ahd these are melted- for nage. the Fequisite 3 peér cent of tin and-2 per cént of zine. being added te the oid-fashionéd coppers’ te make the fiecesary. alloy for the modern bronze cents. | Now and again in the course of her | more or less checkered career the wo- | man artist had been proud, but never so proud as when she tamed the land- | d. Partly because many another "MRa attempted the feat and failed and cause of his inaccessibility. in a fashionable street, and that no'v the street was devoted to business and who had turned the It was in sible landlord, basement into a barroom. | the barroom that he had imself behind the bar. As a matter of fact, appeared te be amiable, most amiable. | His rosy German face was continually | wreathed in smiles, and as for promis- ing! country. Was When the woman took the studios on the top floor with windows giving on the park she sald /to him: ! known to be. Now, vou will clgan up the stair- way, won't you?” { With a radiant smile he had an- | swered: “Why, certainly.” It was not until she moved in that | the others, her neighbors on the top floor, revealed the truth to her. “When two blue moons come to- then. We have been here nine years. We know."” The stairway was impossible. The walls needed papering, the wood needed paint and the carpet! Another was needed entirely. The woman's friends came to see her one by one. They shook sad heads. | “You have a lovely place,” said they, | “after you get to it, but that stair- | way! Those palls!” . As if she didn't know! bootblack. The woman enlisted his at- She €ent him in for the land- igrd, who came smilingly out and made Cantine : s | 1t must be explained here that the | house was once a fashionable dweliing | the house was leased to the inacces- | intrenched | the landlord | He was the best promiser in the AR WAY OF TAMING A LANDLORD more which he failed fulfill. promises to The bootblack had a little- room un-| der the steps where he s! shoes. The woman her shoes blacked 1 women's was forced to have in this little reom so often that they got to be nothing E time, shé started out the bootblack iuoked hard at her shoes, on account of having gone in for the landlord for her. Then she had to have them blacked. | but shine. ery MStill nothing doing in regard te the stairs. She got the flock of newsboys |abéut the barroom door interested. One by one she sent them in for the landlord, paying them a cent each. Sometimes they brought him out. Then again they came back with the word that he was bus Once she sent half a dozen in at a time. The landlord came out, still smiling, but with rather a flushed face. He promised to clean up the stairs. She waited. The stairs remained the same. | The bootblack and the newsboys to- | gether were costing her a good deal by this time and accomplishing noth- | ing. She bethought herself of another %mrkA | She wrote a little letter to the land- | |lord. She said how beautiful her |rooms were, how happy she could be {in them if only the approach was goed, | gether,” said they, “the landlord will| taking it for granted in the letter thaw, clean up the stairway, and not until| he cared, beseeching him té clean up | | the stairs. | Her neighbors laughed again when %lher heard of this note. | “You are wasting your paper and | time,” they told her. “We have been here nine years and all that time the | stairs have been like this. One artist | offered to pay half, but mo. The lind- {lord was ebdurate. The artist moved {out in despair.” | The note had no effect. no answer. There was The woman's friends wept Out in front of the barroom was a over her and her stairs. There were but you! | times when she wept over herself. | Then she placed & terra cotta head, one of lter best, in a niché at the head of the stairs, hoping azainst hope that this feeble attempt at decoration might |avail semething in the direction of cleaniiness. It availéd nothing. One day It was missing. going up or dewn had taken it away. - At thi§ ‘she became so. despairing that- in a fit of helplessness she did a reckless thing. It was dark. The streets were not filled. She thought !nobody saw. so she rushed boldly inte the barroom and bearded the landlord in his den. The men about the tables looked amazed. - The landlord smiled at her from across the bar and promised to cléan up the stairs. Few things happen this worfd that people do mot see. On the mext after .that the woman received a printed circular which contained “this large #nd black headline: “Can drunkenness be cured?” And the yvisit had had no effeet. Meantime her friends had enters . tained her to so great am extent that she felt it behooved her to make some slight return.. But how? With those |stairs, up which she must ask.them to come? She sat down and wrote another ndte to her inaccessible landlord. She wanted fo have a little party, she told him, but she was ashamed to ask her friends to climb those terrible stairs in their white shoes. Would he bave them freshly carpeted for her and the walls repapered, and alsoe thé wood- work painted? Would he, please? | It was a touching little note with a good deal of heart in it, for the halls and stairs were beginning to get on her nerves. There was no reply, but she was surprised when on the following Mon- day she heard a brush sweep up and down her door and upon opening it [found a painter there, painting it | white 4 ! Then, lo and behold! came the paper | Some one in hangers and the tearing up of the old carpet, getting ready for the new, then when at the end of some weeks, for great bodies move slowly, there came {a sound of tacking all along the line of hall and stairway, the tacking déwn |of the beautiful new carpet her inac- | cessible landlord had taken pains to | provide, her neighbors ran out of their |dens and gazed at her in awe. | “We've Mved here for nime years.” | they ecried. “and it has been thé same, Now, veu! How did you | tame him?" R | “I don’t know.” answered she. “un- ! less it was because I treated him a8 if ‘e were tame already.”