The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 10, 1906, Page 8

FRIDAY EDITORIAL PAGE AUGUST 10,1906 The San Francisco Call .....Proprietor weveeess....General Manager .....Managing Editor . .Business Manager | JOHN D. SPRECKELS.. CHARLES W. HORNICK. . ERNEST S. SIMPSON C. Address All Communmications te THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL. TELEPHONE—Ask for The Call. The Operator Will Commect You With the Departimeat You Wi USINESS OFFICE..............Market and Third Streets. San Fraccisco Open Untli 11 O'clock Every Night in the Year. EDITORIAL ROOMS... ..Markct and Third Streets MAIN CITY BRANCH. 1651 Filimore Street, Near Post OAXLAND OFFICE—1016 BrosdWay . ....c.coeoee-s Telephone Oakland 1038 ..Telephone Alameda 569 ...Telephone Berkeley 7 ALAMEDA OFFICE—1435 Park Stre BERKELEY OFFICE—2148 Center Street.. CHICAGO OFTIICE—Marquette Bidg. George Krogness, Representative NEW YORK OFFICE—30 Tribune Bldg...Stephen B. Smith. Representative SURSCRIPTION RATES. 20 Cents Per Week. 75 Cents Per Month. Coples § Cents. (Cash With Order; Del‘vered by Carrier, Single Terms by Mail, Including Postage CALL (including Sumday), 1 r CALL (including Sunday), CALL—By single month AY CALL. 1 year... 2 WEEKLY CALL 1 year : ke rorErcx | Delly 08 Por Year Extra POSTAGE. | Yeekly 100 Per Year Extra Entered at the United States Postoffice as Second-Class Matter. ALL POSTMASTERS ARE AUTHORIZED TO RECEIVE SUBSCRIPTIONS Sample Coples Will Be Forwarded When Requested. Mai) subscribers in ordering change of address should be particular to give both NEW AND OLD ADDRESR IN erder to iasure a prompt and correct compliance with their request. FOLLOW UP TIMBER FRAUDS. is drawn to the valuable and important work nal Forest Service by the action now in hand e vast number of putative mining claim locations in 1 other reserves of the Sierra Nevada. These to be made for placer mining, but their great subject them to just suspicion. If they cover ind that should be easy of proof and it should . that all work done upon them be in the nature 1ent as a condition precedent to counting it as The making of roads, for instance, or the| may not j v be counted in the way of | 1ent ir sites 1 be treated in some quarters| estern Pacific, owing to Mr. H. H. | Mr. Yard has made a| ca ned. 1f they are made in good | have v in demonstrating as much. His is or that corporation should cut no figure in the Id be ins hat the work shall not be con- ocations. It is notorious that the vast majority ining locations made in Northern California vears past are tainted with fraud. If the work of the| confined to the operations of a single man there will ng malice fer of the reserves to the Forest Service was made t year and receipts have grown under its manage- investigation ck on the W with that corporation. or suspe: r the last fiscal year. The system has great elasticity. purpose to shut off the people altogether from the t is not the ties as hall consist with preservation of the forest growth. safety in the interest of future generations, which mber and water for irrigation. ts will probably increase enormously under thi provision of law 10 per cent of them shall be dis- among the States in which the reserves are situ- his law California will receive $8192 this year, to e Legislature shall prescribe for the benefit of the s and roads of the counties in which the reserves are This distribution is made in recognition of the fact that which the reserves are carved are considerable taxes. a measure TOM WILLIAMS' GENEROSITY. HE ion of Thomas H. Williams in giving the use of the Ingleside race course and buildings to shelter the refugees great scale is an example of fine and enlightened public hat cannot be too highly commended. It serves to pull committee out of a bad hole. There are some Mr. Williams and the institutions for which he stands upter of youth and destroyer of the home. There are l ho look on him only as a necessary and inevitable evil, the exploiter of those pleasant vices that sometimes make whips to We shall not venture on this thorny field of contro- just to say that Mr. Williams is always ready to 1 his pocket in a splendid and generous way to help location of the permanent shelter for refugees at Ingle- > has some admirable features. For instance, it will weed out the mps and loafers who have taken advantage of the city’s hos- to take up their quarters in easy reach of the saloons other resorts of the new business sections. We do not believe there are many such, but whatever the number the sooner are got rid of the better. The Ingleside ‘buildings will provide comfortable accommo- lations for large numbers of laboring men who are unable to pay 1 rents demanded since the fire. It has not been announced er the intention of the relief committee to exact the payment rent from refugees who are self-supporting, but even after meeting this charge and paying carfare substantial relief will be afforded of a kind that was badly needed in a hurry at a time when there was little prospect of deliverance had not Mr. Williams so graciously come forward. INTERESTING BUT INCOMPLETE. . greater Ruef is troubled in his conscience, but the diffi- y is chiefly arithmetical. His conscience comes higher since the fire, but the trouble can be assuaged by a larger tee. e complains that the liquor dealers, while paying him $500 a year for his services, wanted $20,000 worth of work. By way of specifications he declares that the liquor men asked him to use his influence with the Mayor to have the saloon license fixed at a lower figure than $500 a year and to obtain other concessions. Ruef did not think it could be done for the money and was heard té declare that his liquor clients were a “lot of nuisances.” Mr. Ruef’s confessions are interesting but incomplete. He ought to file an open tariff or fee bill for the use of his inflence with the municipal. departments. HI cu The Salvadorans have promoted an ancient lumber tramp to the dignity of man-of-war. It was an easy transition from service with the lumber pirates. g Oakland is going ahead in the matter of providing a salt water supply for extinguishing fires and sprinkling streets. San Francisco has been talking of the same thing for years, but talk won’t put out fires, 73,276 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, to| o gt Must This Be Tolerated? . Squatfed on the. Poef's Claim | Japan has stolen his theory earthquakes, which one learns are position or redistribution of matter, venient theory because it serves at tion. sun and here is his theory in full: These violences are not nature's way. Shall take new wrinklings. | Are folded in the earthly cuticle. A | T see the world, in countless trembling vet, and timber, but to allow such a wise use of the|Catch up its lurching seas before they spiil; | But the prophetic needle weighs its mass while the young sun, | And notes the unequal balance; | Whips up its speed, breathes on il Lifts and lets fall its waters till Which smiles though planets dlp,[mkes it his toy, ey | Mountains to sand; When Of oceanic building. Change with the tropics. Engulf creation. (this work done) Let the poles December 28, 1901. haps in the dim romantic distance. with assorted catacylsms. shals in his prophetic eye. or transfer the difficulty, although it leaves us in the dark as to what power ar agency dbnducts the distribu- Mr. Wheeler is more explicit. Fear rather, for to this all omens point, Lest the well-wrinkled face of this old world Not the wisest knew How many futures to how many pasts life or death, and rivers ‘with the grist | Burden the strong arms of the busy tides To build in silence the new continents, Oh sun, our sourte of all things, bring the day earth staggers with the welght Make the land-the sea. They thy finished plains, Parting the vell of waters, shall arise Stainless of man and bridal to thy beams, This is the poetic way of saying that the earth will go belly-up some. day, not yet perhaps nor soon per- A mere earthquake is a small thing alongside the array of catastrophes that he mar- But one wonders why he singles out Omori as alone obnoxious to the charge of plagiarism. front of science. of the origin of due to the redis- a sufficiently con- least to postpone for Wheeler. passer. He blames the line: What if the sun should suck up all the seas And leave the earth all caverns like the moon? It s cataclysms. line. He slumps. Mr. Wheeler is grind poets. And notes the unequal balance; the economy of worlds. By Edward F. Cahill. R. ALFRED A. WHEELER, a poet of some local fame, complains that Professor Omori of His poetic scatter-gun covers the whole Lawson, Branner, Knopf and all the other high lights of geologic scierice had better look out He might even wing Dr. Jordan as a tres- One forms a higher opinion of Mr. Wheeler as “scien- tific gent” than as a poet, possibly because one knows less about science. They are rough in quality and there are faults unpar- donable in a blank verse poety.. Take for instance this Mr Wheeler's verses do not scan. while the young sun. an abominable Alexandrine that looks as if it had been hit by some one of the poet's wild and whirling If I may be permitted a theory of my own—not scientic—it is that Mr. Wheeler was seduced by the intoxication of his opening line, which might have been stolen from Swinburne. live up to his blue china or fulfill the promise of that Unhappily he was unable to greedy of calamity. He invites the sun to hurry the day when the staggering earth shall go reeling through space like a drunken sailor upsetting If the earth is preparing to in- | dulge in any further excesses I am ready to go and live in Berkeley and let my hair grow long among the There is no objection to Mr. Wheeler assert- ing a right of private ownership in the earthquake, and Mr. Wheeler deals if Omori is a squatter let him be driven from the claim with contumely, but when the poet proposes to rehabili- tate the glacial epoch, the mastodon and plesiosaurus, he exceeds the limits of poetic license. the earthquake freely if he will spare us. alarm is unnecessary. knowledge of science is no better than his poetry. We give him But perhaps It may be that Mr. Wheeler's — % +_'.° The Smart Set . | RS. PHEBE A. HEARST, M who is making her home in | Paris, having taken an apart- | ment there for two years, recently has been traveling in Holland. SR e Mrs. Breeze and Miss Louisa Breeze, who are spending the summer at Menlo, expect to return to the city about September 1. ] * from an- Letters have been received Miss Grace Llewellyn Jones nouncing the safe arrival in France of herself, hér mother and her uncle, Lieutenant Jere Burnett. e ) * Mrs. E. J. Ives and Miss Florence Ives, who have been at the Henry Crocker country place at Cloverdale for several weeks past, are now at Del Monte, where Miss Ives will com- pete in the g(;lf logrnan:ent. News comes from London that Mr. and Mrs. D, T. Murphy of this city left there last month for Ostend to witness the polo * matches. They will return lat*cr to‘lkmclon. Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie Dunn are spending the summer at Blithedale. They will return to the city in about a month. e R Mr. and Mrs. George Armsby and Mrs. J. K. Ar‘msbl; are zt Del Monte. Mrs. James M. Goewey left the city a few days afio for Monterey and Paso Robles. rs. Goewey had made her home for a number of years at the Occidental Hotel, but the destruc- tion of the well-known old building has compelled her to seek another dwelling place. She will go to the Knicker! ockc‘r for‘!he v‘vinter. Every one at Del Monte is look- ing forward to the automobile meet which will take place there on Sunday and in which more than a hundred machines are expected to take part. On Friday the autoists will leave here and on Saturday there will be a pro- gramme of races and speeding. All will go over the Seventeen-mile drive on Sunday. A number of automobile parties have been at Monterey this week and a number of these will re- turn for the meet. George A. New- hall went down from Burlingame; C. O. G. Miller made the trip in his car, accompanied by Misss Albertine De- trick, Miss Marian Miller and Paul Miller; Walter Hobart took down Major Rathbone, Harry Simpkins and J. Frothingham of Boston; and sev- eral others. * * * Mr. and Mrs. Clarence King, the latter of whom was so well known here as Mrs. Gertrude Haight, and who have made their home in Boston for the past two years, are rejoicing at the arrival of a little son, - on July 31. * Miss Helen Scharlach and Milton Moser will be at home to their friends on Sunday afternoon, August I2, at Goeppert’'s ~ Villa, Escalle, Marin County. 2 ..Answers to Queries... 5 ’— CLEANLINESS—O. T. R., City. The phrase “Cleanliness is next to godli- ness” is not of Biblical origin. Cham- bers' “Book of Days,” volume II, says as to the origin of the phrase in an article on Rowland Hill: “That noted preacher said that 'good Mr. White- fleld used to say, cleanliness is next to godliness.’" 3 MINTS—R. M., Grayson, Cal. The first United States mint was estab- lished at Philadelphia April 2, 1792 In 1835 branch mints were estab- lished at New Orleans, at Charlotte, N. C, and at Dahlonega, Ga.; in 1852, at San Francisco; in 1864, at Dalles City, Ore, and in 1870, at Carson City. Assay offices were established at New York in 1854, at Denver, Colo., in 1864, and at Boise City, Idaho, in 1873. These were considered as branches’ of the parent mint until 1873, when the coin- age act of that year made separate branch mints and assay offices. The mints at Charlotte and Dahlonega were suspended in 1861, the omne at New Orleans from 1860 to 1879, that at Dallas in 1875 and the one a. Carson City in 1885. The mints at Carson City and at Denver are now equipped as as- say offices, d— Rector Sells Burial Plats in His Gardcn! ONDON, July 24—England’s quaintest and perhaps oldest church came into the limelight of news last week through an eccle- siastical suit brought agfinst the rec- tor, who is charged with selling burial plats in his garden and pocketing the money. Perivale Church is near Ealing. It is a tiny structure, built soon after William the Conqueror landed in Brit- ain. Its records run from the twelith century. There are only five houses in the entire parish and the popula- tion, including the rector and his fam- ily and servants, numbers only forty- six. The rector’s garden adjoins the little cemetery, which has room for 362 graves, all of which have been filled and 302 of which are distinctly visible. There is a little story connected with one of the graves. "A Countess of Castle Bar, who lived some hun- dred years ago, was a decidedly lively woman. In fact, she was called wicked and all the people said she — would never reach heaven. On her deathbed she ordered a tomb of a| huge block of stone to be constructed | oversher grave and told her freinds to | watch it. If messages could be sent| from the hereafter she would signal | them by means of the tomb. If she| went to heaven it would remain intact, | but if she got to hades the tomb | would split asunder. The tomb is still to be seen in the churchyard, but it is | a ruin. The gigantic stones are split asunder and trees and shrubs are growing in the cracks. According to the tale, these cracks first appeared soon after the wicked Countess was buried. The case of the rector and the graves came before a consistory court held in St. Paul's Cathedral by Dr. Tristram, chancellor of the dio- cese. of 'London. The charge was made in a most roundabout way, for it "brought out in an application to ¢dnfirm the grant of a burial space in Perivale churchyard to Madame Emily de Romana, a non-parishioner. The rector proved that ;he custom of allowing _ non-parishioners to be buried in Perivale dated back several hundred years. ‘ Fair Authors Nof in Accord 1 on Question of Tifles. NDON, July 25.—Mary Chol- mondeley, it is safe to say, will not be found clamoring for a copyright law to protect her titles, as her fellow-authoress, “Rita,” is at present. A new novel from her pen, entitled “Prisoners,” is to be issued next month. Probably that title has been used a score of times before by authors of the unknown class. There is nothing remotely suggestive of originality about it. But Miss Chol- mondeley’s name is sufficient guaran- tee that anything she writes, whatever title it may bear, will be worth read- ing. She does. not giltter on the forehead of popular magazines, and she is not given either to interviews or_paragraphs. When she publishes a book, then you hear of her; nat at other times. She is too busy. She is one of the most painstaking and conscientious of modern writers. The book that first brought her into prominence, “Diana Tempest,” took her three and a half years to write and on revising the tale she reduced it by a'sixth of its length. “Red Pottage” occupied her almost as long as “Diana,” and it is not sur- prising to learn that her new novel has also gaken her years to complete. The opening scenes are laid in Italy and the scene is afterward transferred to England. The theme is the revival of an early love affair by the heroine, after her marriage. No one has a more acute literary conscience than Miss Cholmondeley. No “offer can tempt her to publish anythm; that she is not satisfied rep- resents ‘the best that she is capable. When her father, the Rev. R. H. Chol- mondeley, was compelled some ten years ago, because of ill-health, to re- sign his living and sell Condover Hall, the stately Elizabethan mansion in Shropshire, in which she had been reared, she burned all her early man- uscripts “lest she should be tempted to publish them.” Lest she should be tempted! Most modern authors would regard such an act as flying in the face of Providence, which has ordained that when a writer has achieved fame anything that bears his name will sell—for a time. They would eagerly have availed themselves of the opportunity to get square with the publishers who had rejected their earlier efforts. There is something of the “noblesse oblige” in Miss Cholmondeley’s blood. She belongs to the yoanger branch of that aristocratic house—a branch which separated from the Mar- quis of Cholmondeley in the reign of James 1. Bishop Heber, the great hymn writer, is one of her forbears. A nearer ancestor went to America in 1854 and become an intimate friend of Thoreau. She began writing in the nursery. Before she was fifteen she had compiled a history of Greece and half of England's history. Her first romance, “The Danvers Jewels,” the scene of which is laid in Condover Hall, was published anonymously when she was not long out of her teens. It was Miss Rhoda, Broughton who persuaded her to publish it. To return, however, to “Rita’s” grievance, which, Rita-like, she is ventilating. Two years ago “Rita” published a novel on which she be- stowed the title, “The Silent Woman.” Previously to this publication she serialized it in several weekly jour- nals. It is soon to be issued in paper cover edition. In its earlier forms it was extensively advertised and re- viewed. From which, she argues, the title could not well have escaped the notice’ of those who deal in literary wares. Despite this, to her sorrow and amazement, she discovered that the same title had been appropriated and advertised as that of a serial which is soon to begin in a cheap weekly publication with which authors who nave “arrived” would scarcel- care to have their titles or their names asso- ciated. She wrote to the editor of the cheap weekly, calling his attention to her prior use of the title and sug- gesting that he should invent some other for his serial. He replied that there was no copyright in titles and refused to alter it. She then wrote to the Society of Authors to see if she had any legal redress. She was told there was no absolute copyright in a title, but there is a right of property. And if any one could prove loss or damage by another person’s use of it, one had a claim against the user. “Was anything ever so preposter- ous?” asks the indignant “Rita.” “If the book is the author’s property, surely the title which really constitutes the existing form of the book and is is exponent to the public, should also belong to the author. The fact of its being a portion of his or her published work should include it in legal rights with the work published. o prove damage or loss is a different matter, entailing also the publication of agree- ments and statements. To damage speaks for itself, I should say, in the stealing or appropriating of what is another’s, and the consequent vexa- tion and confusion caused by the theft. “Cannot Miss Corelli preserve her right to ‘God’s Good Man’? Can Hall Caine lay no claim to ‘The Chris- tian’ or John Strange Winter to her well-known ‘Bootle’s Baby’? Have Dickens and Thackeray or Miss Brad- don or Wilkie Collins no right to hold their celebrated titles as their own if some penny journal or provincial serialist chooses to steal them? It seems indeed as if the idiotic law of copyright was sorely in need of re- vision, and it behooves all authors to cambine and insist upon such a revi- sion of that law as would keep their property in their own hands.” On the face of it, it would seem that Rita makes out a good case for the granting of a copyright in titles. But there is another aspect of the question which, when considered, will probably deter well-known authors from responding to her appeal to join her in taking some steps “to amend this very serious wrong.” Such a copyright would apply equally to the works of all authors—the stories of the obscure as well as the novels of authors ofwestablished reputation. And the difficulties which the latter now have to contend with to invent a title that has not been previously used by some popular writer would be infin- itely increased. They would have to make sure that it had never been used by any of the vastly larger number of authors who never achieve reputa- tions. It would necessitate a search somewhat similar to that which now has to be made before a patent can be obtained. Of the making of books there is no end, but of the making of titles—new titles that is—an end would be speedily reached. The result would be that novels would have to be issued with no other titles at all than the names of their authors. The remedy would prove worse than the disease. Besides the really great authors stand in no need of such protection. The veriest hack would never dare, for instance, to appropriate one of Kipling's titles—“The Light That Failed,” for example. As for Dickens, or Thackeray, “Rita” has really no need to worry lest the titles of their books should be stolen. “Great Ex- pectations,” “Vanity Fair,” and all the rest of them are assured of protection against such desecration for all time. LR —— Phlegmatic Brifishers Think Americans Senfimenta. "BY HAYDEN CHURCH. ONDON, July 21.—Are Ameri- L can playgoers unsophisticated? Do they delight, in other words, in what English audiences would re- gard as ultra-sentimentality,” and thrill over “situations” that would arouse only amusement on this side of the water? This is a question which has' been raised here a good many times in the last year, and it occurs to one again in rgading the London critics’ opinions on “The Prince Chap,” which has just been produced at the Cri- terion Theater. Really the situation was one of some delicacy, for this is the first Transatlantic play to be pr: duced in London since the recent di cussion over the attitude of British critics toward American pieces, and as a result practically every reviewer seems to have been on his best be- havior and prepared to recognize any and all good qualities that the Peple comedr might possess. So it is rather striking to notice with what unanimity this play, which, by all accounts, was an eighteen-carat success in America, is described by the London newspapers as entirely too naive, old-fashioned and artificial to please British audiences.” “In America,” says one writer, “where ingenuous sentimentality appears to be in some demand, it has had consider- able. success.” Another, after ob- | serving that “perhaps it is our fault, perhaps we are blase, with the well- springs_of our humanity dried up,” adds, “if that be so, it is our misfor. tune, too, for a nation among whom “The Prince Chap’ was a great success is to be envied. It is very, very And for a_closing instance W. L. Courtney writes in the Tele- graph: “If it is true that the piece has achieved success im America it speaks volumes for the ingenuousness of theatergoers on the other side of the Atlantic.” All, you see, harp on exactly the same string. and so the question na- turally arises, Are we “ingenuous” as these critics allege? Was it, in sooth, because we are less critical than the English that “The School For Hus- bands,” “The Gilded Fool,” “Shore Acres” and other pieces which had been successes at home were mildly guyed and consigned to limbo when produced in the metropolis recently? In specific cases, it is true; even Am- ericans in London have failed to see what their countrymen found in cer- tain plays which had apparently scored at home, “The Climbers,” for instance, and “The Sword of the King,” both of which had short and inglorious careers in London. One would imagine, however, what a difference British andAmerican act- ing may l'xave made in the two plays last mentioned, and as to the charge of ingenuousness that is laid at our doors the answer is to be found no farther away thaa the London Comedy, or just around the corner irom_ iccadilly Circus itself. For here is “Raffles,” which was originally acclaimed by the same “ingenuous”™ Amenczq' audiences, drawing the blase Britishers like a veritable mag- net and breaking all records at the theater which is its London home. And even if “The Prince Chap” should fall‘—as we al} hope it may not—there is no reason for regarding it as absolute proof that the American critical faculty is less keenly de- veloped than the British. There have been too many instances of “theatrie calism” in which Americans may be said to have reveled and which have also proved highly to the taste of the English for such a hasty verdict. There was “Sherlock Holmes,” for in- stance. which was no classic, but which could hardly be plaved niten enough to satisfy Londoners. There is “Monsieur Beaucaire” which, like Charley’s Aunt,” is still running, not to recall many other examples of unanimity of opinion on the two sides of the Atlantic. Np, just as it was no indictment of Bntlshflhnn}or that “Beauty and the Barge,” which had tickled audiences in the metropolis, failed to amuse Americans, so there is no call to hide our diminished heads because one play or a score of plays that have hit American taste do not go in this country. For “ingenuousness” and most other qualities audiences in the two countries seem to be on a par, and :vhzn"all ls‘ said and done it is‘lillst _matter of a given play’s appeal on either side of 8t’he J:.e{—afdp about that, as Bernhard Shaw says, ‘You Never Can Tell” Townsend's Cal. glace fruits and can~ m-:mm:fuuuu Val st *