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COLONEL SHORT OF TRINITY CENTRAL Made drunken, tottering with lime; Made drunkec, garrulous with years. He spake, spake as a broken rhyme; He heard, heard as a baby hears. Colonel Short of Trinity Center had a very long name to begin with, but as he was a very short man and, like all small men, was disposed to maKe a big showing, the boys soon found out his weakness and he was simply "Short" after that. This obese, rotund and obtuse man had also a very short memory. He kept a store and the postoffice at Trinity Center and he had gold enough to buy— but goodness! this was away back in the fifties. Jones, now Senator Jones of Nevada, was Sheriff of Trinity then, had a pack train, a share in the store, gold, a share in almost every thing all up and down the Trinity rivers, and, next to Colonel Short, the best story- . teller and most popular liar in the mines. Handsome, too, was Jones, and proud. Give him full credit for all that. He needs it now, the poor, rich "United States Senator. r'v'vvti Jones could cinch a mule. He says he could work, swing a pick or ply the shovel. Maybe he could, but we never saw him try. Perhaps this was only one. of his many little stories. But cinch a mule! You 6hould have seen Senator Jones of Nevada cinch a mule, the big bell mule. ' The big canvas cinch-band that goes un der the mule's belly, and almost cuts the creature in two has a long cinch-rope on one end; the other has a big oaken hook. " You gather the whole long rope in your ■ right hand, throw it away, away out full A ; -ngth back past the mule's tail and heels, row the hook and canvas girth under the ' mule's belly to the man on the other side, throw a fold of the rope over the pack, lay tne "diamond hitch" across and about the top of the pack as the other man makes fast in the hook, and then pull, pull and haul and haul and pull as the mule sets her four feet wide out, takes in her breath till her girth is like unto the girth of Saturn, and then she grunts, and grunts, once, twice,, and then rip! The third grunt you do not hear, you feel; the long neck and head sweep around with the swiftness and velocity of a 1000-volted electrode, and while you don't so much mind the wear and tear in the rear of your overalls you really don't like to sleep on your face or stand up at a stump to eat your beans for a month or two at a time when it can be avoided. _ . Senator Jones always wore a "Tomrim, that is a great flat sheet of perforated stove piping, after his first experience with that old bell-mule. He would lash it on the lower end of his back with a rope when he went to cinch her— sort of breastplate, as it were. " Sometimes a fresh young packe/ would come from some other camp and want a job. "Can you throw the diamond hitch? Train goin' out Boon as we pack up— might give you a job. Start in on old 'Billy' there, you and Bell Boy." . „ And Jones would bite an inch off his cigar, wink at his Bell Boy and the crowd and then begin to shake and shake away down to his boot-tops. Well, to cut it short, the new man wouldn't stay long enough in Trinity Center to sit down as a rule. Ah, these were the good old days when Red Bluffs was the head of navigation and ' the one single, narrow iittle pack trail to Trinity Center was simply an endless, tor tuous, tiresome, braying, yelling, cursing, moving corkscrew of mules and Mexican packers, all knee-deep in dust. Dust on the mules and Mexican drivers till all were ©I the came color of clay; dust on the, bacon, dust in tho oeuii-.. .... . i .... . some dust got into the sugar mats too. You see, we used Kanaka sugar— put up in mats — entirely in those dear "good old days," and surely the wind must have heen blowing always very hard in the sandy Sandwich Islands when the good mission ary sugar merchants out there were put ting the sugar up in the mats. And per haps they untied the mats in San Fran cisco to dry the sugar with the most honest intentions toward the honest miner before sending it up to us; and maybe the wind in sandy San Francisco was blowing awfully at the time. This sugar was then sent up by boat to Sacramento, another sandy place. Maybe the sugar got damp on the boat and had to be opened and dried there, too. Anyhow, what with the sand of all these sandy places, sand and dirt and dust, dust and dirt and sand, there was never less than half an inch of grit on the bottom o f the "THE LOST FBENCHMAN WALKED IN." tin coffee cup after dinner in "the good old days," strain it and dram it through your teeth as you might, grit and dirt that cost just even its weight in gold "in the good old days." No reproach on Colonel Short now; no reproach of Senator Jones. They loved their joke, their gold dust, too, but they in jured no man. In truth, they helped many a miner when he could not help him self — "staked" him, sent him forth, and also, too frequently, if, like the dove, he found no place for the sole of his foot, he came back, and , Colonel Short put forth his hand and received him again into the ark; and if, on the other side,* he found "the waters abated from off the earth," or, in other words, he "struck it," he, too fre quently for the upbuilding of faith in man, never came back till time, convenience or old age made him "an.te up." There was a Frenchman and the French man had a wife, and the wife had a garden all full of old prosnect-holes — holes as deep and dark as sin. The two didn't get on very well, and one dark and stormy night the man, half drunk at the time, Colonel Short said, disappeared. He had been last seen in the garden of dark and deep holes. The water was booming over the whole place by morning, and as it abated the poor, lorn French widow went from one prospect-hole to another and wept and wept. She could not decide in which one of the three deepest holes her husband was buried, and so she planted flowers and shed tears on each one copiously each day. This touched the heart of Colonel Short; and as she, like all good Frenchwomen, was a good cook, he furnished supplies, and she set up a little resort, or restaurant, which soon became the very heart of boom ing and beautiful Trinity Center. It was there that all the high-toned and first-class poker games were played. It was there that Sheriff Jones and Colonel Short told their most brilliant tales and "were wont to set the table in a roar." And so it was that the widow prospered amazingly; but she did not forget her buried lord in the vegetable garden or neglect the triangle of possible or probable graves. So far from that she went to Shasta City with her very first money and ordered three marble tombstones. It looked odd, this triangle of tearful tombs, to Sheriff Jones in that pretty garden down the sloping hill be yond the festive door, and he : told the widow so in the gentlest terms possible. There were likewise many other men in Trinity Center, mischievous persons, and clearly not of the aristocracy, but voters, who did not like this profuse display of tombstones, , and Jones ', threw himself at their head and once more ] made solemn protest with the widow. "This three-cornered grief, madam," he said one day as .he stirred a spoonful of sand and Kanaka sugar in big — ; "maybe THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 28, 1895. acute, a sort of acute triangle as it were, but one don't like it spread all over crea tion for breakfast and dinner and supper." She did not quite comprehend, and to make himself clear he said, still more sol emnly and slowly, as he stirred up the sand and took a swallow: "Madam, the square described on the hypothenuse of a rightangled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides ; therefore, why not focus?" These terrible and mysterious new words convinced her. In the dim poetical and • Ireamful twilight of that same afternoon she and the obese, obtuse and rotund part ner of Sheriff Jones, Colonel Short, silently and solemnly carried two of the tomb stones into the little restaurant. Fancy the dismay and horror of Jones on discovering, after a hurried breakfast next morning, that he had taken his meal on a marble table— a tombstone upside down! He simply roared at the obese, obtuse i Short when he cot back to the store and told him he could have the widow, tomb stones and all, entirely to himself there after and forever. The tombstones were carried back into an old shed, but they had already created a coolness between the two that never to this day has quite thawed out. Some of the custom fell off, too, and there were those who hinted that the spouse was not dead at all, notwithstanding this profusion of tombstones, but had picked up a big nugget in China Camp j Gulch while prowling through the chapar- r al with his shotgun in quest of jackrab ! bits and had gone to 'Frisco to have a good time. Years on years rolled gently and swiftly along. Jones and many good men went away, the pack trains went; stages, freight wagons, immigrant wagons, women, all these things came, and still the platonic and obtuse colonel and the pretty widow staved. The colonel had become a doctor, doctor of both law and medicine, for he wa3 now "the magistrate, with fat, round belly." He performed all the marriages, and in cases when he thought the tie not quit* so fast as the Gordian knot, he kindly decreed an occasional divorce, just to oblig*. In medicine he never lost a case. This, perhaps, was due to the good French cook ing, the pure water and the tine air as much as anything else, for he rarely ad ministered medicines. Stop a minute. Let it be explained that there was, most likely, one death; but hear the facts and you will hardly blame his want of skill, but rather his want of memory, for this one fatal termination. Thejpatient waß a poor leprous loafer, repulsive from sores and want of soap, and also sadly in love with the widow. Colonel Doctor Judge Short believed in simple remedies. He nearly always, for example, applied moist, clean earth to all sorts of bruises and broken limbs, and with marvelous results. And to show how nearly right he was in this primitive method let it be mentioned that the French surgeons of the army used this same simple remedy continually in their late great war. This most remarkable Judge of Trinity reasoned that if a little earth will heal a little bruise or break, a lot of earth ought to heal a lot of big sores as well ; and so he had a pit dug away up on the hillside, and one pleasant twilight stood the man in there with the dirt packed tightly in about him up to his very chin. He wanted a drink then, the poor leprous and soapless loafer, and so the generous widow went to her restaurant, returned, got down to him on her hands ana knees and filled him half full of gin. It had been hot work in the sun, and so the men drank heartily all around of what, was left, drank twice three to his good health. Then they filled his mouth with tobacco, put a lighted clay pipe in his teeth, and, as the long, dark shadows of the lordly pine trees came down over the kindly and humane group of sympathizers with the poor fellow, they, one by one, melted away down to the com mon center, the widow's tables. The doctor was the last to leave. He could not feel the patient's pulse, but he got down on his hands and knees, as the widow had done, and took a good look at his tongue. As he arose and brushed the pine quills and fxesli, sweet earth from his knees, he heard the howl of a wolf far away on the wooded mountain top, and, knowing how timid was the widow, he hastened down to where she stood waiting and took her home to where the hungry and merry crowd was already waiting for supper and the usual game of poker after. There had been a big "find" that day, and so the game was unusually steep, pro longed ana absorbing. Besides that there was a sensation. A half-drowned China man, one of six who had suddenly disap peared a few days before, taking one of their number in a handcart, fast on his Dack with innumerable broken bones, so they said, has returned. True, they had not* called in "doctor" with his earth and other simple remedies, but they had taken pains to tell everybody that they were in great haste to get the dying man, who had been crushed in a landslide, out of the moun tains before he died. The stage driver had remembered that when he met the little Sarty near Shasta City they had a yellow ag displayed above the cart, indicating smallpox. "Well, the story now was that the hand cart had held the biggest nugget in it that had ever seen the light of day in Califor nia, besides a lot of other and smaller nuggets, all taken the week before from China Camp Creek, near town. The half drowned uhinaman had begged his way back from where he had scrambled out from the overturned canoe in the Sacra mento River, leaving his dead companions, and now was compelled to tell the truth to the magistrate in the hope of getting back his abandoned claim and cabin; a hopeless hope. But the sensation of sensations took place next morning at about daylight, when the great poker game was at high water mark. The lost Frenchman, the man who once had three tombstones when he was not entitled to even so much as one, walked in, sat down in a corner with a shotgun on his lap and waited, but waited not long, to see that crowd melt into thin air. Jones had long since gone far, far away; had become Senator, a great and greatly honored United States Senator. Colonel Short was a man of resources, when not blinded by the little blind boy in his pure platonic lbve. He did not wait to see the crowd go. He set a virtuous example, and was first to leave. He bad business at his store. Later, as the gray dawn came, the late widow saw that he was burning at least two candles, and, maybe, many letters. The stage left at sunrise each morning. A mile from Trinity Center, in the midst of a cloud of dust, the horses were thrown back on their haunches and a man clam bered up without a word and took his place with the driver. Certainly Senator Jones would give his old "pard r> of poker and Trinity a great place. The country needed him abroad, and abroad he needed the country. Did you ever know a man to go to Jones and get the promise of a place? or, rather, did you ever know a man who didn't go to Jones and get the promise of a place? One year, two years, five years, ten, fif teen. Short grew short in every sense. Possibly he was as tall as ever, but he seemed' only about half his usual height and twice his usual thickness. He had thought he could play poker. It cost him much to find out that he did not know the first thing about that delusive chimera. He had believed he knew a little bit about politics. Fifteen years taught him he knew less even about politics than about poker. At last, grown desperate by disappoint ments, be made open quarrel and protest with Jones. Jones blandly referred him to the Civil Service examination commit tee. "Me! mcl Hell and blazes! Did Bay ard have to put up with that Civil Service examination?" At last, word came that the übiquitous Frenchman had kindly laid aside his shot gun and consented, so far as he could con sent, to let the tombstone still standing in the garden, with some alterations of dates, record his many and manly virtues. "Jones is not a bad man, except that he is such a dreadful liar about offices," said the retiring colonel at the Palace, as he drew out the little check from a Washing ton letter with the Senator's name at tached. "Yes, boys," he cried to some old cronies, "back— goin' for old Trinity. By George, I can see the stately old sugar pines nodding their plumes to welcome me. I can see the rabbits dancing in the dusty road as the partridge whistles at sundown from the chaparral hill for him to dance. lean seethe large-eyed, timid deer step daintily out in the dusty stage road and look up and down, and then pass across unharmed. I lan hear the rustle of the cool, sweet waters over the cobble stones and sands of gold; and I am going to get gold, gold, gold, as of old. Come along with me, boys! Why, bless me! it used to cost a month to get there, and all sorts of trial and privation, while now we can go in no time, live on nothing and be like lords as of old. Same skies, same mountains, same rivers, same sweet air and spicy smell of wood and carpet of pine quills. Glad I didn't get a place after all. We will open the old China Camp Creek with a grand sluice! We will— goodnesss! what will we not do?" And so the little fat Colonel Short pulled together a few of his old companions. They, too, thought the mines of old Trinity still* the sweetest, healthiest, happiest, dearest place on earth, and so had only wanted a leader and some one to "put up a stake " And what a happy, hilarious old party it was that trundled out of Redding in the old stage drawn by the six dusty old horses! Let who will rebuke the obese and short old man with his short memory and all other sorts of shorts. He was a pure and clean old fellow from the first, entirely platonic in his love, for his heart was in his stomach, as with many another man, and the widow knew it. And all those old fellows, now his following, knew that his love for the rotund little old woman, now so old and fat you could scarcely see her little black eyes, was from the first en tirely chivalrous and platonic, else they had not been at his side. Let us rather honor his loyalty to the old love, the old mountains, rivers, pines and all that makes old Trinity a paradise. She was fixing things up as the stage was nearing Tiinity. The marble tables? She had not only the two from the shed, but the one from the garden. God bless her! for it had fallen down soon after they had dug the new grave by it. They chatted of the widow and her waste of tombstones. The merriest stage ful and stagetopful of old boys that the world ever saw or heard of. Old heads, hatlesß, hairless, bobbed in and out and about each window and blossomed on the top as thick as they could stick, while hats swung in the air and the old fellows vowed with one voice to live and die in dear old Trinity, tombstones or no tomb stones. The very trees, they declared, were glad to see them back again ; for in their years and years of absence the forests had grown up and the road had become so narrow that in places the pleasant, cool boughs hung over their heads and reached out merrily as if to shake them by the hand in welcome. At Trinity Crossing they saw little farms on either hand, and fruit trees laden with rosy apples. Pretty girls, rosy aB the ripe, red fruit, stood out on the low, vine-cov ered porches, and showed their pretty teeth with pleasure, as the old heads bowed and bobbed, and hats went high in the air in happy salutation. Too old to be scandalized now, the two rotund lovers reached out in the won drous moonlight that poured a path of silver down the hill for them to walk upon. They ascended toward the great sugar pines that had cast their lordly shadows over them that last twilight when they had been together in Trinity Center. As they approached the spot where they had left the man buried to the chin, with a pipe in his teeth, the colonel seemed to remember, and suddenly asked, as if for the first time some dreadful idea had come to his obtuse mind, "Did — did he get well?" "MonDieu! Mon Dieul I no bin see he! He nxt bin see me!" The colonel groaned. He fell on his knees at the spot. There was a little de pression in the ground — a foot or two of soft, sweet-smelling pine quills. That was all. He felt about in the leaves a little— for the bowl of the pipe, maybe — but soon he rose up, cheerfully brushed his knees with his two hands, and as they sauntered back to the "French restaurant" he proved to »the widow that the man had, of course, got well and got out, for as he fa3ted and convalesced he naturally grew very thin, and so, of course, crept out as beautifully as a butterfly from the chrysalis. And she believed it. Indeed so did he. for, in fact, it is quite possible, although it is said by the miners that the wolves ate his head off the first night. Joaquin Millee. A SALVATION WEDDING. The Army Also Celebrates Its Twelfth Anniversary. Friday night the Salvation Army cele brated its twelfth anniversary on this coast by a rousing meeting at their headquarters on Market street, the event of the evening being the wedding of Captain Thompson and Lieutenant Rosa Harrington. The bride, a very prepossessing young lady, 19 years of age, is a native of San Francisco, and has been stenographer to Brigadier Keppel of the army for some time past. Her father is a gentleman of some means, and she also has two brothers living here, one of whom is bookkeeper for the Produce Exchange and the other an employe of Mr. Kaufman, the grain-broker. The groom, who recently had charge of tbe army's work at Fresno, is a tine-look ing: young man of 27 years. The hall was filled to suffocation. When the bridal procession marched ud the aisle to the air of "The Secret Is HisXiOve" the hallelujahs were impressive. Numerous songs set to popular music were rendered with piano and trumpet accompaniment, and one set to the tune of '"Whoa, Emma," and sung by Captain Gardiner of San Jose, with a banjo accompaniment, was applauded to the echo. The marriage service is ver} r original and differs from the orthodox form greatly, fealty and allegiance to the Salvation Army being exacted. After the ceremony and congratulations the meeting continued until a late hour. AGAINST THE FRUIT RING, United Action of the Growers the Only Thing That Will Do It. Secretary Fllcher of the State Board of Trade on the Fruit Question. There seems to be only one thing for the fruit-growers of this State to do to break the power of the combines in New York and Chicago, according to the views ex pressed yesterday by Secretary Filcher of the State Board of Trade and A. T. Hatch. This one thing is to stand together to a man and crown with success the efforts of the California Fruit Growers' and Ship pers' Association to bring about the estab lishment in each of those cities of a con solidated and open auction-room. Mr. Hatch has the utmost confidence in President Weinstock. It is due to the pluck and persistency of Mr. Weinstock, Mr. Hatch recalls, that Washington Porter was secured as the agent in all the terri tory east of the Mississippi for the growers of California. Previous to that time Mr. Porter had been a very successful manipu lator of the market, not, however, for the best interests of the California growers. Parker Earl was always friendly to the interests of the producers here, and the co-operation of these two giants of the fruit trade meant great things for Cali fornia. It now remains for the fruit-growers to study their own interests and to ship only to the open auctions, if possible, though it may be that their transportation arrange ments might possibly conflict somewhat with this- Otherwise, if the fruit of Cali fornia is sold in both the close and open auctions it is brought into competition with itself. Said Secretary Filcher: One auction in each city, and that an open one, is what the fruit-growers must, have to keep California fruit from being brought into competition with itseh, ana that they will have if they will only all pull together. The close auction is a regular robbing scheme— a sort of buyers' union to which only those can be admitted who are willing to pay for the privilege. H. E. Parker of Placer County went to Chi cago a little while ago and made an investiga tion of the way the market was run. He saw peaches bought in by the members of the com bine for 75 cents, and afterward sold- to retail ers at $1 25. Here was a clear profit of 40 per cent made by the man in the combine on just one turn, arid with not an iota of expense. It costs money to raise fruit and if anybody at all should get the bigger share of the profit it should be the producer. A. T. Hatch said : I can't think of anything better than Mr. Weinstock's plan. Of course if all the auctions were open and the sales were at different times, so as to give all buyers who wanted to bid a chance, I wouldn't care if there were two places of sale. Some shippers may be so Ritu ated that in sending fruit to New York they can only ship to the Erie pier, and others, like wise, to the Union. Now, supposing both sales were open to everybody, and there could be a sale on the Erie for one hour and another at the Union the next hour, this would give the fruit a fair chance of obtaining good prices in the market. Whatever Mr. Weinstock endeavors to bring about is all right. His record In the past has shown this. lam satisfied, if the growers will co-operate with him, it will only be a question of time when we will have a fair market with out opposition. Every grbwer who ships to the clo. c «-auction companies at present con tributes to the strength of the opposition and weakens tne movement in behalf or the pro ducers. £ome temporary benefit or advantage might be derived by this, but a much greater benefit will ultimately accrue to tne individual grower if all turu in and recognize only the open auction. D. E. Allison, the local fruit merchant, looks at it in the same light. He said : I believe In the open auction and the concen tration of fruit all In one place, so as to give everybody a chance to bid on it. An open auc tion of this kind means a greater demand East for California fruits, and the more fruit sent East, the better It will be for the merchants in the City. Our prices will be improved, as a matter of logical consequence. A. T. Perkins has gone East to put his new process of shipping fruit into practical operation. By his process the ne cessity of ice will be dispensed with, a con stant flow of dry sterilized air of even temperature being the means he proposes to use to keep fruit in good condition while in transit. Mr. Hatch is of the opinion that by this process fruit can ( be sent East for half of what it now costs refrigerator companies for ice. THE CALIFORNIA REGATTA A Yacht Race Oft* the Narrow-Gauge Wharf— Movements of the Clubs. The second regatta of the California Yacht Club for the season of 1895 will be run to-day off the Alameda mole. The course is across an imaginary line out from the southerly pierhead of the nar row-gauge wharf, thence to and around Blossom Rock buoy, thence to and around a stakeboat four and a sixteenth miles to the southeast and across the line of finish ing. There will be three classes of boats, and it is expected that all the craft in the club will be in the race. Prizes will be offered for each class and the Walter cup will be awarded to the yacht making the fastest time over the course. The prepara tory gun will be fired at 12:55 p. m. and the smallest class will be started five minutes later. Classes B and A will be sent off ten and twenty minutes later respectively. The San Francisco Club will take an outside sail to-day, starting by signal from the flagship. The Corinthians and Encinals will have open dateß to-day, and the rule for both clubs will be "go-as-you-please." Shrewd once signified evil or wicked. Thomas Fuller uses the expression, "a shrewd fellow," meaning a wicked man. HOW THE COMBINE COSTS, Mr. McDonald Confesses the Price of Rock Has Gone Up. TWENTY PER CENT HIGHER. A Few Instances of Paving Cited Where the Difference Is Thou sands of Dollars. J. W. McDonald, president of the City Street Improvement Company, has given the taxpayers much food for thought in his little mathematical demonstration pre- sented before the Street Committee of the Board of Supervisors last Thursday by way of showing that 14 cents per square foot was not too high a price for paving Van Ness avenue. As previously stated by The Call, they will serve a valuable purpose by merely standing for reference and comparison. For instance, take the price of bitumin ous rock. A few montha ago, when the order cre ating the bituminous-rock monopoly, of which Mr. McDonald is so pronounced a factor, was up before the Mayor seeking his approval, Mr. McDonald made a speech in its favor, in which he declared that the price of the rock was $4 25. Everybody not interested in creating the monopoly declared at this time that the price of rock would immediately go up once this order became a law. Mr. Mc- Donald and others interested declared the contrary. That was only a few months ago, but Mr. McDonald, careless of the effect of his figures and only intent on making another plausible appearance in public, on sustain ing another false position, declares that the price is now $5 45 per ton. Here, then, we have in a brief interval of the existence of the combine an increase of $1 20 per ton on bituminous rock. Of course, this increase is only im aginary. Nothing has occurred to make the rock more valuable — only the members of the combine have been placed in a posi tion to ask all the people will pay. Public work is no longer put up for bids. These few tractable contractors do the work, nobody else is given a chance, and, what ever they fix upon as the figure, it "goes." The last work done under the old speci fications and for which bids were called for, was a stretch of four blocks on Twenty-fourth street, between Castro and Dolores, which included five crossings. The City Street Improvement Company secured that work, being the lowest bid der. That was before the price of the rock had gone up to $5 45, and Mr. Mc- Donald could bid low like the other con tractors. His bid was 18% cents a square foot for paving and 65 cents for curbs. Re member, that included all the work — getting the street ready, laying concrete foundations, and putting down the bitum inous rock. The majority of the Board of Supervisors at the last meeting directed the Superin tendent of Streets to "enter into a private contract" with Mr. McDonald's company for doing precisely the same kind of work— 23}^ cents for the pave ment and 85 cents for curbing— a clear in crease of 5Vg cents per square foot for the paving and 20 cents per lineal foot for the curbing. In this interesting little bunch of figures which Mr. McDonald presented to the Street Committee he says his profit on the Van Ness avenue job was 1% cents a square foot. He said that he was a pros perous business man and rejoiced in the fact. He accounts for his success by the fact that he knew his business and always figured "safe." He accounted 1% cents a square foot a good, safe margin then. That margin must certainly have been in cluded in his Twenty-fourth street bid of 18% cents a square foot for paving and 65 cents a lineal foot for curbing. When to that is added by B cents a square foot for paving and 20 cents a lineal foot for curbing — how many safe margins is that? Come, boys, figure it out for Mr. McDonald; how many times 1% cents is that and how many thousand dollars does it come to in five long b locks of the width of Twenty-fourth, street? Ah! This is a very expensive luxury having a bituminous-rock monopoly and street-paving combine in one's midst where there is so much street work to be done. And at a time, too, when there is such a clamor about a proposed big tax levy, insomuch that the School Directors must be refused money which they deem necessary to carry on the complete werk of the department; when the Supervisors are hesitating about providing Chief Crowley with the new policemen he is demanding; when the proposed boulevard and other improvements are in danger of being post poned all for lack of money. A monopoly is an expensive thing at any time, and when it accomplishes no good, when it is ornamental not useful, it should not be allowed to prosper and be "success ful" at the expense of the City's best loved and most necessary institutions. It will not be allowed to do so. Here we have a few figures showing the difference in the cost of street work between the time, some few months ago when Mr. McDonald bought bituminous rock at $4 25 per ton and the combine had not been formed, and to-day when he figures it in his estimates at $5 45 per ton and the com bine is in full bloom, figuring more than "'safe" and being especially "successful." Under the old regime when it had to bid for what it got, the City Improvement Company paved with basalt blocks a portion of Steuart street at 17 cents a square foot and 65 cents for curbing. Since the combine was formed the same company paved the same street between Fulton and Grove streets at 22 cents a square foot and 85 cents for curbing— an increase of 5 cents for paving, and 20 cents for curbing. No bids were called for— the Superintendent of Streets was simply directed to enter into contract, etc. Under the old regime of bidding against competitors the City Street Improvement Company took a contract for paving Jack son street between Steiner and Pierce with bituminous rock at 18^ cents per square foot, and 68 cents for curbing. Since the combine was formed the Super intendent of Streets was directed to enter into private contract with the same com pany for paving the adjoining block — Steiner street, between Washington and Jackson— at 22 cents a square foot, and 80 cents for curbing. Since the new regime the same contract ors secured another contract for the same kind of work in the same way for paVing Clay street, from Steiner to Pierce, at 85 cents for curbing and 23 for paving— an in crease over the preceding contract, not withstanding that the character of the work of preparing the street should have made it cheaper. Since the new regime the City Street Improvement Company got a private con tract in the same way for paving Vallejo street, between Octavia and Laguna, at 21 cents a square foot, and was allowed— this is essentially the City's part of it — 27% cents a foot tor paving the crossing at Val lejo and Lacuna. Under the system of calling for bids a contract was let to the San Francisco Pav ing Company for paving the crossing at La guna and Octavia streets, one block dis tant, at 19% cents. Work was done by public contract on Haight street, from Lyon to Scott, at 18% cents per square foot and 70 cents for curbing; on D street, from Fourth to Eighth avenues, at 18)4 cents per square foot and 68 cents for curbing. This is all work in the sand neighbor hood and of the same character. There are no big cuts or fills to be cited as accounting for the great difference in the figures. The City's portion alone of the work named will, under these high prices of the combine, cost s9ooo more than it would in aa open market with contractors at large per mitted to bid. What are the people going to do about this? NEW TO'BAY, 111 THE OWL ftfi DRUG CO., |||| THE OWL DRUG CO., CUT-RATE JSL : DRUGGISTS! 1128 Market Street, SAN FRANCISCO, 320 S. Spring Street, LOS ANGELES. WELL, SOW, DIDN'T YOU KNOW WE SELL MRS. GRAHAM'S Curate -ail Her Flower Cream AT 40 CENTS. MRS. HARRISON'S Lola Montez Cream at 65_CENTS. Loudens Rum and Quinine Hair Tonic 600 liouden's Cherry Tooth Paste 25<5 Loudens Cucumber Cream 250 LOWS LAILINE CREAM Guaranteed to remove Tan and Freckels. ' At 50 Cents. VERONICA WATER 40 Cents a Bottle. SLAUGHTER SALE OF TOILET SOAPS. Families, Hotels, Clubs, Attention! Kirk's College Soap Per box 10c Kirk's Mikado Soap.... Per box 100 Kirk's Country Club Soap, 10c a cake.Per box 250 Kirk's Scotch Oatmeal Soap, 10c a cake Per box 25c Kirk's Juvenile Soap, 20c a cake Per box 50c London Glycerine Soap, 10c a cake — Per box 250 Colgate's Honey and Glycerine Soap.. Per box 350 Pears' Glycerine Soap, 15c a cake Per box 45c Kirk's White Oatmeal Soap, 5c a cake.Per doz 600 ROGER \W GALLET'S Extract Pean fle Espagne, 85c per bottle. fine UQUORS FOB ■ MEDICINAL AND FAMILY USE. Canadian Club Whisky.. $1 00 Jockey Club Rye Whisky 100 Blue Grass Bourbon Whisky 100 Cutter's A No. 1 Whisky , 85 Old Pepper Whisky 90 Allen's Pure Malt Whisky 85 Stanford's Vina Brandy... 1 20 HOFFS EXTRACT MALT, 25e a bottle, $2.85 per dozen. PACIFIC. COAST AGENTS FOR DR. EDISON'S OBESITY GOODS, BELTS, PILLS, SALTS. Catalogue mailed free. Country orders filled at our regular cut-rate prices. PHILADELPHIA SHOE CO, I S STAMPED ON A SHOE MEANS STANDARD OP MERIT. V \ v£iUU Tearing-down Sale SALE NOW GOING ON! We are the only tenants left at Third and Market sts., and as the sale of our store has virtually been completed we expect to remain only a few days longer. We have therefore marked down every pair of shoes in our store and are making prepara- tions to move. Remember we are not selling odds or ends, but ■ new goods and every pair at reduced prices. We also wish our friends and customers to know that we are not retiring from .business, but that we are forced to move on Account of the erec- tion of the new building by Mr. ClausSpreckels and that we are now in search of a good store in some cen- trally located place. In the meantime we will con- tinue our monster clearance sale, and will endeavor to reduce our stock. This week we are making a special drive of Ladles' Extra Fine Dongola Kid Button Shoes, with either cloth or kid tops, circular vamps and heel foxlngs, and pointed toes and patent leather lips, which we will sell for $2.35. These shoes are the very latest in style, and arc guaranteed for wear. The cloth is a fast black, and will not fade, while the soles are pliable and require no breaking in. These shoes sell elsewhere for 3. We are making a special drive of a Ladles' Fine Dongola Kid Southern 1 ie, with black cloth tops, pointed toes, patent leather tips and hand-turned soles, for ■■-.■••. / 61.50 ■ That cannot be bought In any store in this city . for less than $2 or $2 50. These Southern Ties are being told below cost. ti on C^f We have reduced all our lines, and this week will make a special sale of Men's Fine Calfskin Shoes, in either Congress or Lace, and with broad, pointed or medium square toes and tips. These shoes are great values, but as we must reduce our stock we have placed the selling price at - 51.90. Remember these shoes are made of calfskin, not buff or split leather, and : they are McKay sewed 1 and - are easy on '. the feet. ; ,They formerly sold fors2 50. ... ,: . j(SJ-Country orders solicited. J69"Bend for New Illustrated Catalogue. Address >::■ ...■■.-.-..,■_■. . - B. KATCHINSKI, 10 Third Street, San Francisco. PHILADELPHIA SHOE CO. 13