RBsMJIRKJIBLE LIFE WORK, of a BLIND SJLN FRMCISCO .ICJIPITOM 'Lost His Eyesight. While a Poor Lad But Set Out to Make His fortune ONI* of the most remarkable success- es In life which can be found in the State is that presented by the life story of a blind capitalist living in Ban ' Francisco. Many thousands with sight and health and opportu nities have struggled through life about him with rarely a $20 piece to put by. He has had no opportunities that were not open to others, but triumphed from the first in the face of appalling dif ficulties, and is now evenly rounding out a picturesque life career that points a les- son. He is Frederick A. Chandon, who. pen- He is "Frederick A. Chandon. who. pen- niless and blind when but a boy. is now an old man and worth a quarter of a million of dollars, all of which he has earned him- self. ' Although he was born in Missouri, he "..though he was born In Missouri, he fw.is but a child when his father, thinking to crease his wealth, with his family joined a party of emigrants and crossed the plains to the gold lields of California But the gold was not put there for the >""handi>n family. One misfortune followed another, until three years after their ar- rival in California the father died. In 1851, leaving no estate over which his heirs might quarrel. Almost at the start of his frontier life young Chandon was taken with the symp- toms of failing vision. Medical attention was neglected for two reasons— were almost unknown here then and he was poor. Each remedy by inexperienced hands served about as oil upon a fire. His condition went from bad to worse until In a verj short time he had lost his sight _. forever. Chandon. though a boy. knew that he Chandon. -hou^h a boy. knew that he was doomed to .1 life -if darkness, but he would not allow himself to become dis couraged. Other blind men had earned a living before him. and he considered him- self as gooel as any unfortunate like him -If. The making of brooms and baskets be- lns: the stereotyped occupation of the la- boring blind at that time. Chandon quite naturally turned to that occupation. Brooms and baskets were high in those days. He acquired great skill in their manufacture, consequently he made good wages, out of which he contributed to the support of his widowed mother. "The knack of saving money." said Mr. Chandon. "was a. virtue of which I knew f nothing and thought little of until I had lost my sight. With me 'to see was to want, and to want was to have.' Without my eyes I could see nothing, and seeing nothing I wanted little; therefore my earnings were saved." Tiring in a few years of working for others, he saw. or rather felt, an oppor tunity to "make a deal," as he expressed It. On a ranch In the vicinity of the broom factory in Marysvllle, where he was em- ployed, a farmer had a crop of broom corn. After an examination of the field with what faculties he possessed Chandon made an offer to buy the crop. His offer was accepted. Unassisted^ with his own hands he gath ered the corn; with his own hands he made it Into broom.'-, and with his own hands the brooms were solei and delivered to the "government." The "government" SHE WAS A MEMBER OF QUEEN ISABELLA'S SPLENDID COURT Pathetic Ending in San Francisco of a Refugee Who Fled to Escape the Hatred of the Queen. f I \HE alley in which we found the I ex-member of Queen Isabella's THE alley two entrances. Being ex-member of Queen is .India's rt has two entrances. Being ■ on Union street, we plunged, as 1 directed, into the opening which led under the tall builaing, In whose first floor second-hand coeds are sold. Emerging from t«e boarded tunnel Into the open air, we saw on our left a row of half a dozen rickety two-story cot- tages, on our right the rear of certain Chinese tenements with their strips of gardens. Before one of the dilapidated cottages §sat an old man, sewing buttons upon a ragged but evidently newly washed pair of trousers. Beside his backless chair and crouched upon the broken step leading up to the | one room called borne was a Shape— rag- j ged, unkempt, with lashless eyelids, red and swollen, ' and features distorted | through that destroyer of beauty and reason, paralysis. Over the eyes, with pupils faded to a nondescript color, were a pair of huge silver-bowed glasses, and In the hand was a book. It had been a beautiful book when dis- played in a Madrid shop half a century ago, with morocco binding and gold clasps— such a prayer book as a lady-ln- waiting should carry when accompanying her queen to the cathedral, attended with all the pomp demanded when royalty worships. To-day tho book is like its owner— an ugly thing, the golden clasps gone, torn from their fastenings and sold to buy bread, and the ■.pp. part of the volume V^nrned away through being dropped from the palsied hands Into the fire. Yet the Shape was reading the unburned por tions of the prayers it contained, mum- bling over them with twisted lips, indif- J ferent to our approach until my compan- ion spoke her Dame and inquired— oh, mockery!— " Are -ou well to-day?' Then the Shape made use of its half- dead tongue, and, mocking back, said: "Si. Si nora." This Shape, declaring itself, in spite of the evidence of our senses, to be quite well, was once a beautiful and courted woman— Donna Mercedes Pervla. ;■■=. ■'■'■■ We gave her the clothing we had brought for her comfort and decency and food to satisfy the hunger she often knows. She grew suspicious of our kind- ness. "I am well and I will not go away!" we "I am well and T will ne,t go away!" we gathered from her broken sentences. "I will not leave my husband— he is so kind; so kind." The old man laid down his needle and stroked the twisted hand with his clumsy one. "No, no," he said, in his hearty American voice, "they don't want you to £•■ away. You sha'n't leave me." lie looked up at us with his honest, kind eyes. "They have been talking of sending her to an institution," he said, "and ""be doesn't want to go. We've had to have some help since my horse died, and I've had to go round for junk with a sack instead of a wagon. So they thought i she would be better off away from here. But I'm doing better now than for the v • few months, and we'll g.et on some- w." V^--'-> - patted his wife's hand again— wife whose real history he has never known. She has carefully concealed that from every one except the friend who gave her shelter when she earn** to the! coa_,t ii homeless wanderer in IS6D. Her J was- a man who kept the pern store and who was looked upon bj the mining and farming community as a sort of deity. Fortune favored Chandon, and it was a question of but .1 short time when he owned the ranch and raiseel the corn him self. Buying out hi.- employer without competition he operated the "broom fac tor." of Marysville."' Little by little his profits were Invested in land adjoining his farm. New machin ery to meet the increasing trade was put Into his factory. His business grew until other than his own personal supervision was necessary to conduct his affairs. Then he employed the services of a young man named Roberts, whose sole duty It was to "see" fcr ndon, and It is to the eyes of this youth that Chandon owes a brain, like, her tongue, is now warped, and she could not tell the story coherent- ly if she would. But up in a narrow house overlooking the bay lives another woman who relates the story Intrusted to her thirty years ago when she opened her door to a richly dressed but penni less fugitive, who declared herself to have been a child friend of the hostess in their native city of Cordova. "I never called her a friend; I knew her only as a playmate," said this lady of old Spain. "Our garden? adjoined, and the governesses permitted us to visit each other while they chatted with their admirers. Her father removed to Madrid before we were grown, and I seldom saw her afterward, though rumors came to us ! of her having rejected the suit of a great | French general and subsequently marry ! ing a petty tradesman at Madrid. We also beard that she was at court and had become a great favorite with Christina. the Queen's mother. This came with the news of the revolution In 1868, in which Generals Prim and Dulcc figured so prominently, and it reached us after, we had, for political reasons, taken up our residence here. "In those days when a boat came in j people talked about it. One daya steamer i arrived from Nov.- York and one of my : friends called to say that among the passengers was a Spanish lady suspected ] by her fellow travelers of being a politi | cal refugee. She had scarcely finished : her story and left the house when, answering a summons at the door, I was j confronted by a fashionably dressed lady ! whom I could not remember having seen ; before. " 'You do not remember me," she said. ; 'I am Mercedes whom you knew long ago In Cordova and to whom you once gave this,' and she showed me a little ring I had presented to her upon a birthday when we were children. "I was glad, so glad, to see some one from my old home. I embraced her and welcomed her, but before she ate or drank In my house she Insisted on telling me why she had crossed the sea to the new land. " 'My home is gone— my jewels, my hus- band, all. The Queen hated me— Isabella, who is now In exile at Pau— but I swear to you that I have been wronged. 1 ! have not brought misfortune upon myself; It has been brought upon me by the malice of others. It has followed me since first I entered the Queen's court. Would I had never left my childhood's home!' _."/.v '• 'In misfortune one should seek one's parents. You are far from home,' I re minded her. " 'Home!' she said. '1 have none!— nor parents, for they are dead." " 'And your husband? Is he. too—* "She interrupted me: 'He is not dead. No, no; but he grew tired of me. At that corrupt court I was robbed of his love. I reproached him with his infidelity, and to be rid of me he fostered the suspicions of the Queen that I was in love with her favorite, Marfari. " 'I felt the shadow of her dlspolasuro even before the end came at San Sebas tian, where we were when the revolution broke out. Ugh! 1 hated him, with his airs over the order of Charles 111 be wore , so conspicuously, which she had made them bestow on him as well as raise him : to the peerage— vile opera singer! "'1 was one of those who braved the j * : ':■'-. ':* • --■.•-:■• 'i ,"■ THE SAN IfKA-N CISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 1899. great pari of his success. Roberts mm si If is to-day a wealthy man, but he owes his fortune to the early training he re ceived from his blind employer. On a hot June day In 1863 a teamster threw on the brake of his heavy wagon and at the sound of his echoing "Whoa!" the eight mules, which had great respect for the word, came to a halt in front of the general store, In Marysvllle. Clumsily climbing down from his lofty scat, the driver nailed a sign on his wagon: "THIS OUTFIT FOR SALE." And without more ado proceeded to paint the town red. The "government" sent word to Chan lon of this chance to capture a bargain. He knew Ch'andon was ever on the alert for an opportunity to buy, sell or trade. danger of going with Isabella to Biarritz in disguise that night, when she went to implore the Emperor Napoleon to aid her against the revolutionists, for she was sure he would not refuse because of his love for his wife. Eugenic de Monti jo, who had been her subject. "'The Emperor, however, would not risk interference, and she was prostrated with the disappointment. We returned from Biarritz, still disguised, in the gray of morning. Marfari met us as we were gliding in by the side entrance to the royal apartments. , " 'In the dim light and changed by dis- guises he "very naturally mistook me for the Queen, and think;:-'.,- to console for her disappointment; news of which had been whispered to him, ho raised my hand to his lips. '• 'Her badly concealed anger showed , him his mistake. He soon made his peace 1 with her, but she still doubted mo and dismissed me from her suite, though that was unnecessary, as she was compelled to leave San Sebastian at once and could no longer maintain a court. "'My husband professed to believe her statement. I was humiliated In the eyes lof our world. My parents, who were aged, had both recently died" 1 had no separate fortune, and the law of our country did not compel my husband to maintain me. No woman's condition was ever more pitiable. " T sold my jewels and wardrobe and i went to Paris. What was there in that gay city for me now. forsaken, friendless, poor? I remembered the little girl with whom I used to play when our govern esses talked with their sweethearts. 1 had heard that she was happily married and far away from the scene of all my SUPRISING ROMANCES OF STRANGE COINCIDENCES FEW things In life are more surpris ing than its coincidences, some of which are so startling and. improb able as to assume the appearance of fate. Charles Dickens was dogged throughout his life by the most perplex- ■nd his death completed Ing '>_______________________■_____________! one of the most remarkable of them all. On the Sth day of June, 1865, he escaped death by a railroad accident as by < a miracle, and in commenting on his escape he wrote: "I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers forever than I was then until there shall be writ ten against my life the two words— 'the end.* " These two words were written by death five years later on the same day of the same month. A more remarkable coincidence still was noted in the death of Mr. Potter, the free trade champion and friend of Cobden and Bright,' who died at the same day and month as his wife, who had preceded him by twelve years. It was a strange coincidence that led to the identification of one of the most skill ful burglars of recent years. The criminal had been arrested on suspicion of having committed several daring burglaries In the Midlands, and was lodged in Hollo The blind man hurried to town. The owner of the outfit was found, a bargain whs quickly made, and for $1000 the team and wagon became the property of the blind man. Leaving his ranch and factory to the can of a trusted employe, Chandon launched out upon another enterprise. Second thought was not necessary to him. Before sunset of the same day the wagon was loaded to Its utmost capacity with hams, bacon and provisions, and with Chandon and his "eyes" upon the high scat went rumbling over the rough moun tain road, headed for "the mines." There was no difficulty in disposing of the goods or getting a load of lumber for the return trip to Marysvllle. Trading was both pleasant and profitable to Mr. sorrows. I felt In my heart that she would not refuse me a refuge for at least ( a time So I sailed for America, to the city with the dear Spanish name, to beg shelter with you. Do not turn me from your door." „ ■■I did not doubt her story.* the gentle old lady declared. "The favors of royalty are fleeting and husbands are sometimes cruel when they cease to love. I was not poor In those good days of California. and my husband as well as myself made her welcome. "Why did she marry the man who is so poor, si. far beneath her former so cial position? She desired a heme of her own. and when the news of her husband s death came we a .vised her to marry again. There wen no Spanish dons seek ing wives in San Francisco, but the American senors brought gold from the mines and won wives by displaying their wealth. The American with his bags of gold dust met and loved her. Then my husband died, and l learned that I should be very poor and could not give her a home any more. s^ "Ah, how his gold disappeared after : they wore married! He denied her noth- I ing, while he speculated in stocks; and at last It was all gone. lie was not a good ; business nan and he had no profession. Then from constant grief came illness— that awful stroke which '->ok away her beauty and strength, which made one half of her dead while the other half was living. "They had doctors at first; but doctors i must be paid, and they soon had nothing with which to pay. No, she never told him who she was, how far above him she had been reared, and he believed her to be but a poor Spanish widow, eared for by friends, and was glad to think he could give- her a home. He was very sorry for her sake when the money was all gone, though, but for himself he never appeared to mind. Whatever he may have lost, he still had his heart left. . Yes, Jesu Maria, his heart is still left," We thought of the room which had formed the background to the woman on the step— room with its bare floor, its j rusty stove, its table with broken dishes and the bed in the corner with its ragged coverings— as contrasted with the splen dor of a Spanish court and with the gen tle old lady thanked Providence for that compensation of a faithful heart. way prison. Although it was clear that the man was a practiced burglar, it was found impossible to identify him and thus trace his career In crime. Fate or coincidence, however, did what Scotland Yard was powerless to do. One of the warders of Wormwood Scrubbs, who had served in the Scottish Borderers In India, saw the prisoner and recognized in him an old soldier comrade named Hely, who had been imprisoned fojr felony at Calcutta. This clew was followed up, and led to the disclosure of a long list of crimes and convictions. An almost incredible triple coincidence was noted in France a few years ago. In 1894 the deputy for the Ardennes was a M. Ferry; for Loir et Cher, M. Brlsson, and for the Vosges, M. Hugo. In 1793, 101 years earlier, each district had been rep resented In the chamber by a man of ex actly the same name. By a happy coincidence the three sons of a Birmingham man named Howes all returned from different parts of the world unknown to each other on the same day. - One son, who was in the Capo Mounted Rifles, had started home without his father's knowledge, and to the latter's in tense surprise met him on his return from business in the eveuinc. Father and una Chandon. There was money in hauling freight. With two teams more money could be made than with one. A second team was bought and pressed into serv ice; then a third, and so on until be had five teams trading and hauling in the im mense district of which Marysvllle was the hub. For seven years he conducted this ex tensive and profitable business when in creasing competition so reduced his rev enue that he disposed of his teams, one of which he traded for fourteen tons of broom corn, which he utilized to a profit of $250 a ton. i Then he sold his broom factory and de voted Ids whole attention to the develop ment of his farm. ,* When Chandon planted potatoes the had barely reached their home when a knock at the door heralded a second son, who had unexpectedly come from India; and later in the evening the family circle was made, complete by the arrival of a third son from London. In no case had either the father or sons any suspicion of the strange chance that was bringing them all together from the corners of the earth.' A very touching coincidence recently brought his two long lost daughters to the deathbed of a man named Nails, in the Bloomfleld Hospital, New. Jersey. During the Civil War Nails had fallen into the hands of the Confederates, and after a long term of Imprisonment had been sentenced to be shot. neighboring farmers took It for a never failing sign of a high potato market. When onions were planted on the Chan don farm the inevitable jump in onions was looked for' by all. and somehow it usually followed. When Chandon stored his barley every one stored his. and when Chandon' sold his wheat his example was followed by the other farmers. Somehow the blind farmer seemed to have a keener perception than his neighbors of what At the last moment he escaped, and for several years wandered about the States in fruitless search for his wife and daugh ters. He finally settled down at Bloom- j Held, a broken-hearted, man, and lived there for many years, until a serious ice accident took him to the hospital to die. j He had not been In the hospital a day I when he recognized in a lady visitor an | old Virginia neighbor of his, who knew : the whereabouts of his lost daughters. Within a few days the daughters were at his bedside, ministering to the father they ! had lost for thirty-five years. It was almost more than a coincidence which brought together a few months ago two lovers wno had been parted for near ly fourteen years. In 1886 .