The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1882-04-22
[rRoM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
SAN FRANCISCO, April 10, 1882.

[FBoM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.
SAN FRANCISCO, April 10, 1882.
"Veto," in large letters, is written upon
everybody's face, and the State Is in a con-
dition of indignant sorrow. On the fourth
instant President Arthur sent back to the
Senate the Chinese bill, with n lengthy
message explaining why he could not APP
pend his signature to the document. The
message amounted simply to "A Teiteration of
the platitudes which the "brotherhood-of-
man. sentimentalists of the Eastern States
have urged against it all the way through.
The popular Indignation it excited here
may be imagined. The demagogues made
it the text of loud denunciations the tele-
graph wires were burdened with outbursts
of popular feeling from all parts of the
State; the newspapers WED with each
other in editorial denunciatiOns, and there
was the very old nick to pay generally, for
a time. And justifiably, for the reasons
an analysis has clearly shown. Commits
siOner John +. Swift, of this city, who was
one of the three who made the treaty of
1881, states, IN a published card, that the
Chinese Government fatty agreed to n sus-
pension of immigration for a period aslong
as thirty-three years, which removes the
Presidents main objection. The Oriental
trade amounts to but little for us, as we buy
five dollars worth off China where she
buys fifty cents worth from us. Attached
to the message was n memorandum from
| the Chinese ambassador, which stated just
the objections that the President urged,
and which wa an interference in national
legislation by a foreign representative as
unheard-of as it was unw~arrantable, ac-
cording to diplomatic etiquette. Altogether
the Presidential action is dissatlsfying in
the extreme, and not so much on account
of its result as because of the weak, I'M
necessary and alueless reasons upon which
it assumes to be based. 1t reveals Mr.. Ar
thur in his true light, that of the typical
- -, one ~ n.IEn tVannagsnN n"l
whatever be his published opinions, the
handspring of his action lies concealed IN
derneath, and will be revealed when time
exhibits the plans of the best politician of
the Union. 1t is generally believed that
the quiet, but strenuous, opposition which
has carried the day centered in the Six
Companies of this city, acting through
their agent, Colonel +: A. Bee, who, by the
order of Chinese nobility.
OSCAR WILDE.
The best advertised man in the world just
now has come, has seen, and has partially
conquered. He lectured three times, to oneA
OVERLOOKING house and two fairly attended.
In person, he is over six feet high, and has
a heavy, large-featured face, will large
blue eyes of a fishy expression, a we'll
marked nose, rather effeminate mouth and 4
heavy, womanly chin. L had the privilege
of several conversations with him, and
found him, outside of his vast fanaticism,
to be admirably cultivated, a keen critic in
literature, from the Swinbourne-Rosett
standpoint, and well stored in literature
and art. At his lectures and at dinner at
the Bohemian Club, where he was the guest
of one of the members, he wore his famous
velvet suit,of cut-away coat, knee-breeches,
black silk stockings, low-necked shirt, with
a voluminous white lace neck-tie, and his
hair, his distinguishing feature, parted OH
the left side, and falling in a huge mop of
straight, non-curly locks, upon his shout
ders. His would be a remarkable appear
ance even without the hair, and with it he
appears so much of a "guy" that he at
tracted the ridiculing interest of the mob
whenever he appeared in the street. His
ordinary costume is a double-breasted coat
of gray velvet, pants of the same, which
betray a dislike TO his ankles, since they
rise so far above them, and a sage-green
bilious-loOking neck-tie of the real South
Kensington ugliness of hue. Whatever be
the eccentricities of the young gentleman,
he is entitled to what credit may lie in sin
cerity, for he believes firmly in his dogmas
and tenets of 3stheticism, and maintains
them with much argumentative skill. The
most interesting feature of his visit to the
club was q hot argument over the moral
mission of art between him and Judge
Hoffman,, the erudite Justice of the United
States District Court. 1t lasted for hours
and resulted in nothing, as the two men
could not get upon the same plane, and the
mental combat was merely a series of chal-
lenges, without any actual SCATTERING of
lances. Wilde is modest, unassuming, and
extremely affable. His aVowed principles
do not hinder him from INDUCING in the
roses and raptures of this world, and he
evinced a friendly interest in and apprecia-
ton of the seductive gin-cocktail and the
.bubbling champagne. Several of the
&c rapid" young gentlemen of the club, by
the way, proposed to feed him so gener-
ously in stimulants as to place him hOrs du
but though the aesthetic young
gentleman partook largely, he showed no
signs of ~succumbing, while his tempters
metaphorically fell by the wayside. The
most remarkable thing about the whole
career of Wilde is the fact that a dan al
most unknown in England should create
a sensation in a foreign country.
When Edward A. Freeman, the historian
and famous LondOner, arrived in New
York, a short time since, SOMEBODY said
about Wilde. "Who is Oscar
Wilde "' asked Freeman. 81 never heard
of him." And yet Freeman has been in
during all of Wilde's career tR9re.
The fact is that Wilde, made famous by the
caricaturists of Punch and the s%atirist 6f
Pdtfencej advertised and written about by .
the American press, while the Englie'
press snubbed and suppressed him ut II
nobody and a fool is ten tiasrOiera'e II
known in this country as M
has made many dolls "fgzE2nLs.I ia
eminent weakness "c1Sfm"
their curiosity. NNr