The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 1, 1906, Page 3

s cstimated that t ihe debris in the devastate ' S 5k 3 z brass, iron and steel, which i Collars. If this enormous § great junk mzrket of the w * Ii transported weigh ihem down unti sent East by rail, allowing a train of 40,000 cars, anda t £00 miles. age man can lift 160 p cisco. One horsepower is 5 readily haul it. E 2 But there were also many hun- dreds of smaller ones. Therefore it is Be . i the value possidle to strike an average of a five- - i S : lot. The Story bu.ding in considering the com- S s bined brick area of 13,000 structures e s e o purchise this mar-|g.giroved, Multiplying. 75,000 ‘bricks t ebr s profit of |y 35,000 we have a total of 1,125,000;- 1 of 000 bricks that are either standing in : o t dismantled walls or have - fallen inJ E iy & heaps of ruin. | v .. Of this vast number of bricks, how- t w w g itlever, ont per cent are usable. 2 % = That giv bout 281,250,000, b ; facts on j Ic Now. though there is no actual mar- e faogs Sittabe con- | ket for these bricks at the present time E > e Coap | they sical value of at least 1 dealers. ) The owner of the-lot nd material thousand for them, but s ose -combined worth that to San g ong knowledge on the set enabled me in - second-hand X 3 = it i i e p iterfals are merely offering . to reach 1d comprehensive esti- ay the brick, saving the , ruin ¥ we an estimate of ners he lots the expensé that ) Sk G i res of brick in | Would otherwise be incurred in remoy- s & ing the debris. The cost of the cart- is about $2 a thousand, and it costs c at f fore e very t $1 a thousand to r K w San res 1 think them, or it will cost that when ‘ v U & b o whiEhiiaat of tha 11 ers and material dealers begin & A to clean them in great quantity, as city to the fact they will do when the big construction | w t were more b he w. f operations get under way. | | % ot {Ban Francisco than Ih any ODEs of _ Having established this . value, we | = 2 e find that the 281,250,000 bricks are » ; . worth $£8,437.500 at the present time. \ £ for this was that it has I'nder ordihary clrcumstances second- | : r istom here to construct handbrick fs worth about §5 a thou- with indtviduel & hiae nd, but it will not have any such o S Sraiaeant i in San Francisco for many e A e ; e, pa to come. 3 . ¢ 1o | T CTe rarely used, though it has been & | muough thers in s faP grodtervolunie € ) pom J to biild with them in all of the |of brick in the ruins than any other 3 f s € n - of the country for many nm:e‘:m!. it can hardly go 'undeér the s e h specific category of junk. Generally o A PRty wall ssvea WEBSLIc ancing, Sunk is; eupDORT 58 AtkoEL ] A twenty Inches front footage to every a conglomerate of all sorts of materfal, 3 |Luilding, s6 that meny thousend feet|ilough as far as the go-calléd junk r‘ o, | ot Ble, 1eak ey becs. wibibi m\dtf’:erni:. :;onr:r:e:} (lhonly includes - isco by the use of 1hatvidual | puriea and piled. 1 e priab, motal ' land is worth $9000 to | there is foot waste of ©Of the total wreckage. # Tirrmly copy Dealers in scrap metal have been i fortung 1n every | oring the Falits. for seekas SDh It is being point- have made estimates lot by lot on al » S ty wall the 460 burned blocks “of the Buin e o Doos Skt o5 Though It would be impossible to figure - - et s down very finely, an approximateaver- ( : ke bt oy age of the tonnage of all the cast iron N 0 A » individual wall e and steel that is being purchased mere- | - er building is erected ly as junk is 400,000 tous. % nat work generally results.| This includes steel girders, beams, 5 3 ide what js | Cast iron and steel ‘columns. sheet . Sk [sTapon ak old sort of | Metal, joints, spikes,. rivets, window- » 3 =ity sh weights, angle irons, gusset plates = on which bulldings| Tt NNt e e i and all the great tangle of scrap tha g s been followsd, judging{€aD be seen in a journey of many| S ANSEIRER | pection of the ruined walls | miles over the burned area. The cast| ok Sank. axt Acisco a five-story brick | iTOD is bringing from -$8 to $10 a ton| Ehe San Francisco has a frontage of about forty | When it ‘is merely scrap'and can only g . srithis tis Gy th of ninety feet con. |be used for reforging into steel. No ' nte s hhan was dug from the| 00 bricks. Of course,| Matter how it has been broken up s and cracked it is always good for this - purpose and is worth on the lot about $8 a ton. It costs sbout-$2 a ton to haul it, so its physical worth to the city in present state of ruin is all The scrap steel, in ..e shape of bent . = v Aot SEEerDE: A "he same advice is givin in a st | and twisted girders, Is worth only half E A L sty better form by tie Armenian, who ob. S Much 2s the scrap iron, but there a aify " serves, “If you send & messenger on an | (hOusands of tons of steel that have - much the | orrond go with him~ And the astute | 1Ot been greatly damaged by the fire. san ising inde- | unbelieving Chinaman, ‘who, like his| This iS worth more than scrap iron. The hs ed nations Proverbial image maker, puts no faith|5i¢¢l that was melted or subjected to o= PR e i in the gods or the messengers|intense heat lost its temper and fine- b sually de_ of the gods, “for he knows what.{nay | B€SS and can only be used again in the : “from the 4re made of,” sums up the situation in|MAanufacture of inferlor grades of rive Mbeople @ Way that is perhaps as correct as it |Mmetal. This sort of junk is bringing . . is sweeping: “If you want a thing about $4 a ton on the Ilnt and costing " he says, “go yaurself; if nnt, about $2 a ton to cart, giving it a pres- in ‘ can't get beet, or 7 { rendered ; e sumpkin B bash.” ing before the d the West expressions, for avs of a friend that e latter observes ta - e sisterhood to take which make regard them The ive out k and she many. a negro as the fol- necessary but a pretty The idea 1St go whom niversally recog he stom- The empty d upright.” express In the words rer knows where the nveyed quite as aptly his proverb, “Only where the grave afaring tribes say ship knows best " Our familiar say Lning after two hares” between (wo stools™ are and capped by the ‘The rider of two under.” of setting forth often " on our homely pro- glish saying, “Don’t do do as I tell you,” is good, but eled yver, i ¢ goes one do the Dut e monk preaches against thieves with the goose in his larder,” or American “When the lawyer gets fowl stealer acquitted he is paid is better. But the Spanish pareliel 1s quaintest of all, “The friar condemns the thief with the pudding s sleave” Where we say “If you West Indiaw gets a shade ahead of us with the advice, “Send a dog, and the sog will send his teil” Six hundred thousand tons are 1,344,000,000 pounds. o 000 horses to move this'mo eps the birds | want 8 thing done do it yourself,” the | 5 ¥ 3 AR & (e 515 ere are 600,000 tons of junk, exclusive of the brick, lying in It consists mainly of copper, h d district of San Francisco. , when marketed, will net the junk dealers many miitions of amount of scrap metal were to be shipped to Hongkong, the orld, it would reguire a fiest of between 100 and 200 great in sailing vesse!s it would need a fleet of 1000 fine sailers | their gunwales were awash. [f all this wealth of junk were n average of 39,000 pounds to {he car, it could be carricd by a rain of 40,009 cars would stretch aloag the rails for about oot Estimating that the aver- s, it would take 13,440,069 men fo lift the junk of San Fran- 50 pounds per second, so (hat it would take morc than 2,000, untain of sk for one second, though 600,090 horses counld 1 er area of brick billdings and helght than gres ent value to the city of $6 a ton. The steel that was not badly dam- aged in the fire and the columns and here is probably no better proverb the English la than “Still waters run deep Ne other” nation | Eirders that were not bent and twisted “goes one better” tham tmis theugh|In dynamited and wrecked buildings many come near It The Turk eers |¥aries in value from $10 to $20,a ton, %o that in the aggregate all of the stee! is worth about $10 a ton. This will bring the average value of the entire 400,000 tons of scrap fron and steel up to about $10 a ton, or $4.000,000. Therefore, the brick and base metals that will be reclaimed from the ruins are worth $12,437,600, and they make more than £0 per cent of the bulk of all the ruin. But there are other metals of far greater value, though of much less bulk. These métals are copper, brass and lead, and there is about $3.000,000 worth of It being gathered together and sold as fast as the insur- “Distrust the water that does not war: ble and the bird that does not chirp.” This lacks the element of paradox which occurs in our English rendering. The African parailel has more of that element “Beware of the silent man,” it ru “he has a brass band in his| mouth and a more southern tribe puts the idea equally well in the shape of “Silence hath a mighty nolse.” { On ithe subject of woman it goes without saying that all the nations of the earth formed the same opinion of | the fair sex long, long ago, and up to| the present none | s Tt A o foeen a1 | ance companies make their adjustments whether the opinion In which they all | O7 the lots In the burned area. concur is concealed or revealed in pro- |, COPPer has lost very little in value Tergs, 1t would be an insult to the|from:the fire. It is selling on the mar- resder's reason and common sense lojkpt in bas at_the prebent time &t 15 state. As for the proverbs which can|Cth!S & pound, and 1t is being bought readily be distinguished at sight as !N San Franclsco as junk at 14 cents a true or false by the clever student of (POUNd. The junk dealer can either feminine human nature, they yield a melt it into bars agaif and secll it at its market value or turn it over to a smelter. The smelters purchase it by the ton and pay 16 cents a pound. Fully a score of dealers in scrap copper and East immediately after the fire. A few are still here waiting for the insurance companies to allow caused by the methods of compantes. Al Ferge The greater part of LhE copper junk consists of electric wires and electrical | appliances and fixtures. the insurance 8 the insulation w: wire and much of it was melted or oth- erwise injured, it can only be sold for 14 cents a pound. It will, If used again for wire, have to be melted down and redrawn. The same is true of other kinds of copper fixtures, used in plumbing or for ornamental purposes. Brass is about | half as valuable as copper, the yellow brass selling for 8 cents a pound and | the red for 10.cents. There are a good many hundred tons of this brasd in plumbing material, gas fixtures, gas pipes, door knobs and some varieties of electrical fixtures. Little of it has been recovered from the ruins, except on the few lots in the business district that have been | cleared. Scores of temporary buildings have been erected- over uncleared lots and will remain. thefe for a year at | least. Therefore the junk dealers will be purchasing scrap copper and brass | for several years to come. They are | purchasing this junk in advance, how- ever, making prices on the uncleared |lots. They estimate the tonnage of this sort of material in the ruins by | getting data from plumbers and other fixture contractors on the amount of brass and copper that was put Into the buildings. Often there is a good deal of specu- lation of the value of the junk in a lot, but the junk dealer is the one who makes on the speculation. In fact very little junk is being bought by the ton except from the owners of big build- ings that were destroyed by the fire. They find it more profitable to clear the Jots themselves-and then sell the metal by the ton to the junk man. ‘When an estimate is given on the scrapsi in a lot the purchaser has to figure on the cost of clearing away the debris and disposing of the brick. These dealers have had vedrs of ex- perience in purchesing this sort of material. They or their representa- tives are on hand at almost every fire, and are even more expert than fire in- surance adjusters in reaching an esti- | mate on the value of the junk in the destroyed or fire-gutted structure. Whenever there is a big conflagra- tion they race to the stricken city to get in their bids. Many of them are representatives of great iron and steel manufacturers, who buy millions of dollars’ worth of scrap metal every year. There are junk dealers in San Francisco now who have’ come from different countiies in Europe; several from Japan and China. One London junk man got an option of $100,000 ‘worth of scrap iron two days after his burned off of this | D000 25 BEZCATHN G- T LISTINCE OF ZEOTT 800 MUES WOLZ2 BE TFEQIIRED 70 fHdZ THUS 2RSS OF JUNK. arrival in the city. These European | dealers rarely 4o business with the owners of the lots, but make some sort | of a bid to the big local junk dealers, the lots to be|junk. cleared of junk, but the majority re- ?Franrl!co that has bought up about all turned East, disgusted nt the delay the window sash weights on the four its weight in copper at the junk rate of | who czn handle the scrap and store it | braes came to San PFraneisco from the | until a ship is found to carry it abroad. There are -dozens of dealers who ake specialties of particular lines of There is one cencern -in San m: square miles of the burned area. So far 600 tons of sash weightt have been aken from the ruins. When new these sash weights are worth $21 a ton. They In some of;were hought as junk for $10 a ton, but burifed and piled in the burned area|the big buildings that were gutted by | as they are for all material purposes as tbout 60 per cent of the value|the flames there are five and ten miles | good as neW they will be sold again at of copper wire, most of it of small size. | the usual market price. In order to make a profit of 50 per cent on these window sash weights it has only been necessary for the pur- chaser to get them out of the debris | and sort them into various sizes. They have lost no weight and the temper of thé metal is of no moment, nor does it matter that they have been scorched | and blackened in the fire. They will never be ‘seen after they are once dropped into the window sash. It is estimated that there are 5000 tons of | sash welghts still buried under debris, or $50,000 worth. One big concern bought thirty tons of Winchester repeating arms as junk, paying $4.75 a ton for it. These weapons | were destroyed in burning of the Win- | chester Company’'s warerooms on First street, near Mission. They include all sorts of repeating arms, rifles to repeating shotguns. Many of | the rifles and guns were worth $75 and $80 each before the flames burned off their stocks, rnined the locks and drew the temper from the barrels. The loss on these arms is great, for they were worth between- $4000 and $5000 a ton and now only bring $10 as junk. The profit that will be made from this junk, however, will be greater probably than from any other scrap metal, as it will be:'sold in small lots to dealers as souvenirf. The twisted and nielted barrels will be sold all over the United States to souven| hunters for anything the dealers cal get for them. On the little stands and booths about San Francisco they have| the been selling for $1 and 32 each to in- | coming tourists and when shipped East they are sold for as high as $5 each. This meags enormous profit for both the purchaser in the first instance, who bought the whole lot by the ton, and the souvenir dealer, who bought by the hundred. Between five and ten tons of these fire rulned weapons have been shipped out of San Franeisco up to date and the demand for them is in- creasing. There is one kind of scrap metal in the ruins, especlally in the residence lots, that there is no market for These are bed springs, and there are a great many tons of them. Not only will the junk dealeérs not buy them, but you can't give them away. They will not even allow their drivers to throw them in with other junk, as they are bulky and tangly. They are Included in the same category of worthless metals with wire and iron nalls. They are made of cheap wire and cannot be melted up with any other sort of scrap. Having accounted for $15,000,000 worth of junk we come to the scrap metal that is really not scrap metal. good harvest of parallels. “A woman, a dog and & walnut tree, the more you beat them the better they be” Is a remark upon which no two sane persons can hold different opinions, and the same may be claimed | for the Central African saying, “A man is not obeyed by his wife in his own house, nor does she conmsider him her husband, unless he beats her—thwack!" or for the Corsican assertion that “Just as a good horse and a bad horse both need the spur, 80 a g00d woman and a |bad woman both need the stick.” The Spaniard says: “Were a woman as little as she is good, a pease cod would make her & gown and a hood.” | The Italian leaves off killing his kings |to whisper, “If a man loses a woman and a farthing he will mi the far- thing”; the Frenchman pauses be {tween his absinthes to remark, °* | wom of gold 18 worth a man of | straw. The negro medicine man swears to his tribe that “Women words, deeds are men” The Petsian asserts that “Women and dragons are best out of the world.” The German contends that “Wherever there is mis- chief brewing & woman and a priest In this connection it may ter- are at the bottom of it" and that esting to state a !-wkcun:;t’:on “There are only two good women in the | Brown that are not generally ‘known. Curious things are coming to light every day. Among many interesting relics of the civil war is a huge iron |key more than a foot long, which | turned in the lock and made old John |Brown a prisoner in Charlestown Jail jat the time of his great raid in Vir- ginia and call for the negroes to ri and fight for freedom. This key is now in the hands of Dr. Alfred B. Tucker of New York, and it pleyed a vital part in the history of events leading up to the great war. When General McClellan marched through Charlestown after the battle of Antietam his troops burned the his- toric old jail, whence John Brown went to the gallow: Later, when the ashes cooled and boys began poking among the ruins, the quaint key was found almost unharmed, the fire having only twisted the handle a lttle, which was easily restored to its proper shape. | [ world—one is dead, and the other is|After his career in Kansas, received the 1 | “o.nwuuw}: mmm KEY TO JOHN BROWN'S PRISON Brown,” the old revolutionist, with acivil war ever known, with the emanci- fervor amounting to what he consid- ered religion, resolved to begin work in a practical way for freeing the slaves. He went about his task deliberately and with quiet preparation. To the negroes he was known as “Captain Brown.” He began his campalgn by settling In Charlestown, Va., now in| ‘West Virginia, and not far from Har- pers Ferry. He opened a shop, over which hung the sign, "J. Brown, ‘Watchmaker.” Here he ostensibly pur- sued his calling like other business men of the place, only he spent his spare time in visiting the various negro quar- ters of the town and ighberhood, urging them to organize and strike for freedom. It seemed a hopeless task, not only absurd, but it was against the laws of the country. From Brown's standpoint, however, both he and his !flrtlldl oomldurgr n;- ‘movement a comp] ’t« success, % roused the b\'&‘m:l on con- 0 the pation of four millions of slaves. Charlestown is situated on the main road, the grand highway running from Harpers Ferry down the valley of the Shenandoah to Winchester and other points in that glorious valley. A more beautiful part of the country is not to be found. The soil is extraordinarily fertile, the climate like that of Italy, the landscapes as rolling and wooded as the finest parts of England, while lovely blue mountains stretch away on either side of the valley. The people are most hospitable, and it is here, in a region of enchantment almost, that the old Washington man- slons were erected, and for years were the scenes of festivities and peaceful, happy life Here the best familles of Europe, and even members of royalty, came on their visits to the Colonies be- fore the revolution. So when old John Brown of Ossawa- tomie selected that from small | ST HOLZD THAZE 2,000,000 HORSES TO LLFT 77 is machinery, both steam and elec- trical, that was badly damaged by the flames, but not sufficiently injured to put it in the class with junk that is sold by the ton. There are dealers who make a specialty of this sort of dam- aged machinery. They are employved by big concerns that buy many million dollars’ worth of machines that are | 80ld out of fire-swept bufldings. These | concerns have forges where they make | over these engines and boilers and | motors, selling them again for practi- | cally what they cost when new. Of course there are a great many | machinery manufacturers with ware- "rnoms in San Franeisco who recover their own machinery and send it back to the forges and workshops to be re- | paired. Then there is much‘of this ma- chinery that can be repaired in forges near at hand. Gangs of meehanics have been brougiit on to San Francisco to dosthis work. Hundreds of pumps that passed ‘through the fire have been re- paired and are again in working order. Hundreds and even thousands of elec- trical motors are being repaired in shops all over the city and In Oakland. In the case of armatures and field coils that were burned out they are being rewound and used again in the lighting of temporary buildings. Down in the machinery district neighbering about Howard and Main streets the estimate is given that about $4.000,000 worth of machinery of various sorts either has been or will be rescued from the ruins. Some of the motors in the | | | “Do you know that the red skinned, wild and untutored Indian beats the | city circus goer all to pieces for loyalty and enthusiasm?’ remarked a veteran canvasman. “He will put up with all kinds of hardships to get the price, and travel or walk for days to reach the place. “Every circus man knows that the negro would sell the roof over his head |to get money to see the elephani, but | the Indian will barter his papoose, his | squaw, or even his most cherished pos- session—hlis horse—to get a ticket. “After the negro comes the China- |man. The shdwy things about the .cir- cus hit the yellow skinned laundryman right where he lives. He will look up all his relatives, line them up in a single file and then march out to the | show lots as happy as a kid on Chris | mas morning. “The Mexican, too, is a warm baby when he hears the toot of the calliope. The laziest Greaser on the Texas bor- der who never paid a bet in his life will show up on circus 8ay with 50 cents in his hand, though nobody knows where he got it. But the Indian is the greatest flend of them all. “In some places, like Mlissvula, Mon., fully one-half of the circus audiencs is made up of Indians. They come from as far 200 miles on horseback, and even on foot, starting an fhair long journey days before the circus date and arriving promptly on the morning of the day of exhibition. “On circus days it is a case ~f every man for himself with the Indlans. The lord of the tepde brings enough trin- kets to peddle around town, and in this way he gets enough money for his own admission ticket. “The squaw brings little baskets and has to hustle for her own ticket. They generally come in couples astride a pony, and if the market is overcrowded with Indian rellcs, they will sell the n."‘imr the show is over the chiefs proceed to flll their skins with the white man's fire water, and the squaws with the papooses walt on the lumber piles or sand heaps until the gray streaks begin to spread over the hills, and then As a Circus Man e unsteady Stream winds money looks like power plants that were burned down have been very little damaged and are worth about $30,000 each. The copper alone in some of these big electric engines is worth a fortune. Adding the tonnage of the copper and brass junk (taking into comsideration the vast amount of cast iren and steel in the electrical machinery) to the ton- nage of the cast iron and steel already figured in as junk a conservative esti- mate of the scrap metal contained in the devastated area of the city Iis | 600,000 tons. |71t this stupendous weight of feial were all to be shipped to Hongkong, the great junk-market of the world, it would require a fleety of between 100 and 200 great steamships. If trans- ported in sailing vessels San Fran- cisco’s junk would load a fleet of 1000 fine sailers and weigh them down until their gunwales were awash. If all this wealth of junk were sent East by rail, allowing an average of 30,000 pounds to a car, it could be carried by a train of 40,000 cars, and a train of 40,000 cars would stretch along the rails for about $00 miles. Six hundred thousand tons are 1,344.- 000,000 pounds. Estimating that the average man can lift 100 pounds it would take 13,440,000 men to lift the junk of Sam Francisco. One horse- power is 550 pounds per second, so that it would take more than 2,000,000 horses to move this mountain of junk for one second, though 600,000 horses could readily haul it. Sees Us | men make the circus coming an event. They turn out of their holes, decked in their best bib and tucker and quit business as if it had no interest for {them. In this eity fully 25.000 China- mensaw one circus last season. TI'Il wager that half as many passed the | @oor of the ‘big top’ in Portland. Ore. “They are not mean, but buy pop- corn or lemonade as well as the best seats. Some of them came in coaches dran by handsome horses. - Chinese merchants gave matinee parties, the men wearing richly embroidered gowns, the women clad in eostly silks. At one matinee given in a California town |there were 6000 Chinamen and 2000 & s. When a circus tours the Southern States the cotton fields are deserted. | Every negro within a radtus of 100 miles has.to see the performance if he White folks the | sells his shirt to do it. usually go at night time | negroes in the daytime. “In some towns in Louisiana, Mt sippi and Alabama the big tent looks as though it were in courning. Hers and | there a white face looms up. “The clowns are their favorites. Strange to say, too, in view of the bad name ahe negro has for forgetting the ownership of things he likes, he never tries to ring in any of his family on the ‘under 12' clause. If his éhildren |are a day over 12 he pays without a murmur, and 1t is often no small drain on his finances, for he sometimes heads a procession of youngsters the length of a city lot. _“The Mormons are great circus goers. BEntire families will travel for 100 and 200 miles to see the circus in their country. They come in wagons over |mountain and valley, and camp out | until the show comes. Sometimes they are a day or even three days ahead. The hill cabins are empty, so are the mining boarding houses. “When a show goes through Quebec Province the factories close |down. They might as well. The Eng- lish side of the audience loiters about the menagerie until the last call, and and the vaudeville part of the programme are on. S “Prim New England takes to the cir- cus like a duck to a millpond The Harvard boys like the girl bareback riders and the trapeze “In Middle