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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1931-08-13, Page 3THURSDAY, !AUGUST 13, 1931 THE SEAFORTH NEWS. Time: 5 p, tai,.. Sunday. Place, Kingston Road, 15 miles out of Toronto, coin- ing west, 'about half a ',mile of cars moving very slow- ly and More carts ;Paining the pro; icession every minute. Brakes screech- ing,' horns honking, heads thrust out of windows. II flashed up to'. the head of the, :line . ': and got him with the goods. 10 miles 'an hour he was driving.' tI steered Dim onto a wide spot off the road and I told him . . ,pderrtylll Says I "IIow do you know there Wasn't a doctor in that line going on `no emergency call?" "Anyhow, what's the idea of holding up several hundred people -just 'be- cauise you want to dawdle along 'till Church time?" Funny thing was he didn't realize he was doing wrong . they never do. Didn't know he tvas insulting every other del er on the road , . they don't think bf that. But I'll bet he will give others a little consideration hereafter. If he doesn't . . 'well, for his sake,. and the sake of all the rest of us, let's be hopeful. SAN FRAANCISCO. 'The San Francisco of the slays be- fore the fire was alight -hearted city, possibly the lightest -hearted in the world. I'f some also called her a roar- ing city, little umbrage was to be taken, for San Francisco was proud of the swiftness of her life. There was 'everything in San Francisco's heritage to make her pleasure -loving. She bad been cradled as a drowsy Spanish pueblo, reared as a child of the mines and fed on all the exhilarations of the .gold spangled days of the Argonauts.' So the present-day Cha,mber of 'Cont-' amerce puts it. The dons and the al- rcaldes who for seventy years ruled .the hamlet 'among -the hills and dunes of the .peninsula had, paid more heed to ':the social life at the Presidio'and the .bear baiting, bull fighting, horse rac- ing, cock fighting and dueling in the yard of the old \'Iis'sion 'Dolores than . to the ranches and the harbor that sus- ltained :them. And the forty-niners when they slapped their nuggets on` the bars of a town become American were care'free to the point of :reckless- ness. These miners, who could laugh, at death in the gold fields, could laugh. alto when earthquakes visited the .town and could help rebuild when !fires destroyed the frame shacks amid' the dunes. By 1906, it is true, the lush. .:days of the mines werelover, but mine money was still afloat and the mint was hard at work. One could hardly ,get a San Franciscan to accept bank :.notes in lieu of silver and gold, and• there were still tetany who never both-� ,ered with nickel and copper. If this) ;metropolis of the Test was, frons net -i ural habit, the financial centre of the •(Coast, it was also the shipping centre.: Through the Gate which let in the fog, every. morning and the golden sun at: dusk, steamers and windjammers clove is pathin ever. .increasing number, bringing the produce of the Seven; (Seas and sailors from all ends of the earth. Lascars, Alaskans, South Sea 'Islanders, Australians, 'Chinese' in junks, Ne'apol'itans from around the Horn, all joined to make the, pierser- rated Enrbarcadero a jumble of noise and color, They early demanded out- lets after long restraint on ships and :San Francisco as early decided they should have then, ,Barbary (Coast tame into being—three solid blocks of dance halls where sopranos at sea- men's tables pried to ' otit shrill the steam pianos: (Foreign colonies 'took. definite 'form, On one side of Barbary 'Coast' was. the Latin Quarter, where the French celebrated their tBastile (Day and where ,Spaniards and Mexi- cans built balconied houses on the Elopes of Telegraph Hill. From shades ,t..Tichcd crudely atop that hill the ,Neapolitan's carate down to sail their. .fishing boats, to get fresh grapes for their wine presses and "'to march on Columbus Day, n he opposite side of lhai Coast was Chinatown, • ten 0.arY lylo'ck$ Inc'25,000 descendants of men who had helped to "build the first transcoatinentad railroad. It had its ,bird's nest soup, its theatres and 'baz- aars, and its underground labyrinth of opft.unt dens 'to which knowing tourist guides, could lead the paying stranger f throw Within a stone's o Chinatown were ether initeresting places; sn alley of stalls where. women of many na- tions lived; a thriving Japanese quar- ter, and Portsmouth Square, where a •manu�men.t stood to -Stevenson,: who had once lived in .Sen Francisco arid. called it tie smelting- pot of the races. Tt would be error to say that the for- eign influence predonsinated in San (Fan cisco, which was, after all, an American city with American sky- scsapers,,American women smartened by American 'tail:Ors, and an American populace addicited,to baseball, picnics and the beginnings of golf. But cos- mopolitanism certainly was encourag- ed by hos'pital'ity. "If our' sand fleas will let you stay, so will we," was the saying, and it was added that the fleas would stop chewing as soon as the victim }rad become one with the town, T'he hotels were as famous for their hospitality as for their ornate archi- tecture. In the cafes and restaurants one could buy a dinner of airy: nation- ality, for a dollar or much less, and could drop in after a theatre to enjoy good music With a snack. 'Music itself was a vital part oif the town.. Its_niost noted monument, in the, heart of the bus'in, s••district, was a fountain erect- ed by Lotta Crabtee, whose songs had won the acclaim of the Miners. Around ILotta's Fountain, on typical, snowless 'Christmas Eves, grand opera stars sang carols. Close by were the stands of the flower vendors, where one could buy great bunche's of golden poppies for a dime. All this was to the north of...Market' street. To the south was the Mission, a district of factory smoke. and humble homes wooden homes with bow windows and ginger bread fronts, aping the better hones to the west. Front the Mission came games J. Corbett, Jintmy Britt, Willie Ritchie and Abe Attell, fighters each in their turn. The fight game—they called it boxing to get around the li- cense law—was, with racing and 'base- ball betting, something .to worry a small reform class in the year 1906. An additional worry was Abe Ruef, the city's Boss Tweed. Abe's supervisors were out to get a wide open town, and they had slowly, and very extrava- gantly, completed a new City Hall. 'On the night of Tuesday, 'April 1t7, the city's tempo was at its swiftest. Easter had just passed. Dinner ;guests crowded the restaurants. The Poodle Dog '(fourth of its name) and other places of its ilk- were filled—on the. first floor, where one could drink and dice publicly, on the second floor, 'where one could drink and dine priv- ately, and 0/1 the upper floors, where. the circumspect never went. The the- atres disgorged their thousands into eating houses. Enrico 'Caruso, after singing in Carmen to aro overflowing audience at the Grand Opera House, expressed wonder that all' men were not fat, with such excellent cafes. It was late, as usual, when the trolleys. and cable cars carried the night owls home lover the hills to their 'close pack- ed frame houses. There was no clos- ing law, and all ni,gh'ters in saloons quoted Stevenson, (Kipling, 'Mark' Twain and other quondam San Fran- ciscans whose lines were quotable by the maudlin. Especially did they quote 'Bret Haste's popular couplet: 'Serene, indifferent of Fate, Thou sittest at the, (Western Gate. 'Bret Harte had once predicted''a dire quake disaster for his city of serenity. At dawn of April 144 came catastrophe even beyond his vi's'ion, A decided but gentle swaying mo- tion, growing less and less, rocked the city into wake'fuloess just before 5:1'3 a,m, "Just another earth.quake," mut- tered many tired ones, accustomed to th.e w•rithin -s of the San Andreas fault to the west and south of their. town. (But a sidewise jolting brought them out of bed,. Another 'tremor fol- lowed, heaviest of a series that was to come. Finally there was a grinding merry go round as the land and sea bottom to the west of the fault shifted suddenly to' the north. Doors left hinges, pictures turned faces to walls, pianos rattled, chimneys crashed through ,roofs, dwellings twisted on foundations. People ran into .the streets in the minute those things. lasted. They heard cries .0f humans and animals pinned in, wreckage, ex- plosions , x -plosions. of gas retains, fire bells and more fire bells. When they returned to their chimney'less houses to cook breakfast they found they could get no water, no gas, no telephone service.. ,Laborers and office workers, starting downtown, .found street cars stalled'. •Crowd's of refugees from the lfissiop soon streamed past, propelling Wag- ons, wheelbarrows, sewing machines, all piled high with;bel clothing. 'They were heading for openspaces at the ,vest, and they shouted that fires had forced them to flee. More than fifty fires had started simultaneously when chimneys toppled and ,gasescaped: from broken . mains laid in filled ground. These fines soon nter' g �ed into o. two migthy conflagrations, one on each side of Market Street, near the bay, and creat up tow'arct-the (Peaks. Firemen 'boldly attacked therm but the water pressure, at first weak, became' no pressure at all; the mains had been broken by the earthquake. By mid- night all of the Mission from time wat- erfnonit to aoint opposite It p epos e ih•e slt•at-. tered 'City 'Hall—a slice a toile; long and. nearly a mile wide, including the Grand Opera House and the sky- scrapers on the south side of Market' ISbreeit--tad been devoured by 'fire or tlytllamited away''by soldiers, On the PAGE THREE e hiwe them qour 29.4. 40 $6.50 PATHFINDER TREAD THE tire with high price quality in the low price range. Anyone can afford it. Price your size. Save On a Pathfinder Tube! A. W. DUNLOP S'EAFORTH, •ONT. northsideof Market Street the second fire was eating through the wholesale, financial and 'business districts and a third, caused 'by a housewife cooking ham and eggs despite a damaged,flue, was gnawing at residences, a college and the remains 01' the City Halls. Around its monument to Stevenson, Portsmouth Square became a melting pot beyond rthe aut'hor's meaning. There, when the Barbary Coast was laid low, its sailors and sopranos gath- ered in fighting clusters. There the yellow, men fled when their :Chinatown joined the flames,' There, too, flocked the Latins from that part of their quarter nearest the burning Tender - lion. iIt was a night of general bivouac, on the ills; in the parks, in cemeteries. The glare ,of fire was everywdhere. Hot, bitter fumes 'made breathing' difficult. By dawn of Thursday the ruin of the business district was complete. The two fires n'or'th of Market Street were joined and were beating to westward over a ten -block' front, 'T'he fire in the Mission crept steadily toward the Peaks. There followed another twen- ty-four hours of struggle, of dodging walls loosened by fresh tremors. By dawn of Friday the Mission fire had been halted after a three mile advance. T'he 'fine north of Market Street had been checked after a further half mile march Co the west, but it had dashed northward to the 'bay and threatened even the waterfront that once had been saved by tugs. It was late on ,Friday when soldiers rode through the streets announcing to the refugees that the {flames were under control. The fires had cut a wedge If nearly 'five square miles, with its apex toward Twin Peaks, and had destroyed all that was most important to the city. Perhaps 350 -persons had been killed At least half the population had fled, and many thousands of others were livingin tints in the parks. All hotels, all the- atres, all main businesses. were gone. In money the loss was $350,000,000, The fire had been greater than Ch•i- cago's. Could the city :emulate' its phenix once more and rise repewed? That was a sober question of tlte_day. T'he women in the breadlines asked it, and their husbands replied by hunting for work. Merchants looked at the unburned piers a'skd smiled; then they cleared a path through the hot cinders of Market Street and hung such pla- card's as; this over debris: "Forced to move on account of alterations, April 18; will be back:" Six month's after April 18 sone 6,000 new buildings stood where 25;000 had burned. Fire- proof structures, which constituted only 2 per cent of tike whole before the fire, ,reopened with new interiors. Run- aways returned, 'bringing others with then; `Comp'ared with its pre -'fire pop - elation of 380,000, the city boasted 417,000 in 1910. Five years later San Francisco gave the world the Panama - Pacific 'Exposition as a token of the Phenix new -risen. The San Francisco of today is greater in all externals than the city that was. ,S'he has added two-thirds to her population. She has tunneled through the Peaks, reclaimed her dunes and spread out twice as far. Her skyscrapers loom thicker and taller. against the sky, the highest ones thir- ty stories. A new Civic Centre has replaced the burned City Hall. Busi- • SPECTACULAR BEAUTY A summer trip to the Far West offers spectacular'sights and unusual opportunities .to enjoy oneself. It is the premier vacation choice of the season—a few weeks of rapidly changing scenery, of new friendships an new experiences. eriences. You LI see p beautiful Minaki the Prairies .. Jasper National Park ... the Canadian Rockies ... the Pacific' Coast... Vancouver and Victoria ...and Take advantage of the low fares—go west -this summer. Full information and illustrated booklets from any mea structures have 'been built . to end against quake aid lire; they have pressure tanks ivi 1,outside pipe attachable to fire hose. Local cisterns have been strengthened high pressure reservoirs have been dug at high points; new water supplies at -e on the way. Becat,se of the large influx of residents from the Bast, the tempi, is now more nearly that of other Ameri- can cities: 13ut San Francisco still bas .a lilt of her own, manifest, for in- stance in the vigrant quality of Uar- ket Street. Legal mority, impinging on what the natives choose to call li- berty rather than immorality, has snuffled butnot stifled the old-time roar, The saloons have been driven off the streets into 'fiats and cellar,. Barbary Coast and Bartlett Alley are no more; but police,' when pressed, occasionally raid other tenderloins Milled with "a strange backwash from Hollywood. The foreign colonies moved back to their old settings after the ifire. Extreme artists and literati joined the Neapolitans on Telegraph dill; !the better to hurl defiances at the large number of less extreme collea- gues down below. Little Italy spread down the slopes and kept alive the arts 01 fishing and .wine making, 5 Angelo Rossi, 1talian florist, is now 'Mayor. "Sunny Jim Rolph, who dur- ing nineteen years in that post turned out motorcycle escorts and •bands for every one. from . movie stars to Irish .hurlers, has moved up to Sacramento —'San Francisco's first Governor in decades. The anti -prohibitionists elect- ed' him and his home town led. Cafes and restaurants, in as wide variety as ever, still serve 'food to make 'Caruso's fat. Night clubs filoom, in a gaudy profusion: Cafeterias were resisted for long, and then adopted when they installed orchestras, Music and the opera still play a large part in the city's life. It is a vigorous town; the climate makes it so. In their houses—still mostly of wood, often with false fronts of brick or stone -San Fran- ciscans seldom turn on the heat, ex- cept to take the chill off the morn- ing fog. Like their predecessors, they have accustomed themselves to an indoor and outdoor temperature almost always between 50 and 60 de- grees. The daily combination of fog and sunshine 4s bracing for outdoor sport, in which San Francisco still leads the Coast, It lends zip on the golf courses, extra sp.eed"tliat makes ten- nis champioos. It helps to explain the crowds at baseball games—and the hot tamales they eat. Easter falls in the chillier time of the year and passes with little osten- tation. The true fashion parade occurs ;di the warmer, sunnier month of No- vember, on the day of the "big game" between Stanford and the University of California, On such days the sta- dium at Palo Alto or Berkeley holds 80,000 variations of style and color, all lending credence to the fact that San Francisco leads American cities in per capita wealth. Only one thing has arisen to near the serenity of thiscity at the West- ern gate: 'That thing is Los Angeles. Old-timers have it that ;the sand fleas were perhaps overactive, that they got to meeting the western travellers at junction points in Utah and driving the retired dirt farmers toward the south. They failed against the young- er, thicker -skinned mets. and 'women, who scratched and kept heading west. San Francisco proved only slightly restive when Los Angeles outgrew her. Would she not always remain the West's port of Commerce and fin- ance? But .a few years ago, ' when business and manufacture started to follow the population trend, the youn- ger factions organized. For the first time the city cif indifference teetered on the edge of'boosterdont, San Fran- cisco united and kept Los Angeles from .taking away a $5,000,000 dirig- ible base. She won the establishment of two army air bases across the bay. `She obtained government sanction to erect an 18;000 -loot bridge and via- duct to the east of the bay cities at a cost of $72,000,000 and voted $35;000,- 000 in bonds for an 8,900 -foot bridge across •tire Golden Gate. Most recent- ly her: interests won the contract to build the Hoover dam. "This is San Francisco's year, this silver jubilee year," one is told with a trace of feeling. "She still sits at her Western gate, all right, but now- adays owadays she keeps her hands 4busy and her brain working." • Good-bye Asthma. Persons suffer- ing from that extremelytrying trY ng trouble known as asthma know what it is to long with all their hearts for escape as from a tyrant. Never -duo they know when, `an.attack. may come and they know that to struggle unaided is vain. With Dr. J. D. Kellogg's Asthma Re- y at hand; ho'weve'r; they good-bye to their enemy, again. It helps at once. r. Beard—�T want around the dormitory, '.Salesgirl—How large is AgentofCanadianNationa1Railways. 1 fined can sa CAN ABIAN in: and en' J lifee. • NATIONAL something - 3, wear. n1 - R A I L' A Sa your don itory, SURVEY NORTH ROUTE Blazing a trail for a possible air maid, passenger and express route from Detroit to Copenhagen Den- mark, through Canada and the Arctic wastelands, Parker Cramer of Ci trier P^, was in the far north p;epa;ug, for the final stages of a -i„309 utile flight, 'The flight was started July 27 from Detroit, to survey the route for the Tian,-IAme ican Airlines Corpora- tion of Cleveland. 'Crauner, who. had with hint Oliver I'acquette, Canadian Government radfil operator, Was to have flown .roughly, over Cochrane, 'Ontario;' Rupert House, Quebec; Great Whale, Quebec, Viakehain Bay, .' Quebec; Pan.gnirtuu, Baffin Land,' Holsten'borg, Greenland, and Angma- g'salik, Greenland. Cramer stopped at 'Greenlnd to refuel and stake a sur- vey of the land .From there he was to fly to Isafjord to Reykjavik, Horn- afjord, Thorshavn, or Tranagisvaag, Lerwick, Bergen and Copenhagen, .Plans for the survey, under process of development for the last six. months, have been kept secret by the sponsors who wished to be sure of its ,access before making an announce- ment, The sponsors said that Grain- er's flight is the first effort of an air mail and passenger carrier in the United States toward establishment of air mail services linking Europe and the United States through the northland, 'The transoceanic air nail question has been held in abeyance by the Post Office Depar'tnient for some time, W. Irving Glover, acting Post- master -(General at Washington, said. Bids far contracts on a southern route to Lisbon through the Azores and Bermuda had been advertised, but they were withdrawn because of ambiguity in the• advertisements, Glo- ver said," Glover predicted that if weather studies now being made by Cramer in Canada and Great Britain' prove satis- factory the northern route would lie developed before the southern. The route 'being flown by Cramer was sel- ected as the most nearly ideal for the avoidance of fog, a large amount of precipitation and great changes in te'nrperature. Two planes were held for emergency at Detroit and are to fly over the satire route as covered by Cramer, as soon as he returns. Trans- American officials said, Whether Cra- mer will return by airplane will not be deterniined until he reaches Cup- en'hagen.11eantv'hile the names of the pilots of the other survey plane's was withheld. .RUS'SIA'N WHEAT FLOOD:S MARKETS Grain spouts leading from the wheat fields of Russia poured addi- tional millions of bushels into already oversupplied worldmarkets during he week, submerging prices again to ew low levels. Little export de - nand and the 'big onrush of Soviet �.nd other shipments sent nearly all' tarkets and all grains downward. Tit hicago wheat, oats, rye and most of he corn futures were traded in at he lowest level's of the season. The large Russian shipments con- nued to be the leading factor at Liv- -Pool. The week's total shipment was iven as $3,080,000 bushels compared with 912,000 bushels the precious. eek. Argentine exports were also' eavy with estimates at 1,250,000 bu- hels. n n ti e g t' Each of the Big Four railway cons- •panies in ,England has now a complete and up to date chemistry department, necessitated by the continual and in- creased use of that science in railway work. For years, of course, chemists', have had their place on the railway` staffs, but within the past few yeah" there has been such a huge growth in their work that their positions are no'w amongst the most important. In- creased traffic in gases and explosives for industrial purposes has been one cause. Transportation of foodstuffs anoither. Tests and experiments are constantly being made with special containers and packings for these goods, and this is one ,of the chief functiois of the chemistry depart- ments. epartmerts, The growth of the' traftic in • gases and explosives for industrials purposes has ,been tremendously .ra pid, Thirty years ago the railways were scarcely concerned with them, but now over four hundred 1ifferent kinds of explosives, together with many tons of ammonia, oxygen and acetylene gas are dealt with every year. r T est. arc also carried out 'x tttnth c material's ter els used by the companies. (Samples of lubricating oil:., signal oils and fiiei' all find their way to the la- boratories for analysis. Everything that the companies use has to be up to standard. Drinking water and boil- er water are also tested, and efforts are constantly being made to improve Phe n atural strpplie, in certain areas. Frequent inquiries are made at the chemistry departments as to the ex- termination, of rats, mice and .other vermin, and any railwayman who finds a snake in a cargo Of tropical fruit knows exactly what to do with it— "send, it along to the chemists,"