The morning call., 1893-04-16
A MYSTERY STILL.
Who Put Those Papers in
the Cabinet.
Mahatmas and Mime. BIavatsky Now
Relied on to Solve the Problem
of the Transfer.

City officials are proverbially skeptical,
but number of them are now beginning to
couple the visit of Nine. Besant TO San
Francisco with the unaccountable freaks
played by the commitment papers In the
Antoine case.
1t will be recalled that early in March
one Antoine was charged with an aggraya-
ted criminal assault in Police Court 3, and
WINS committed to await the action of the
Superior Court. The transcript Of the Ievi-
dence duly found its way through the County
Clerks Office to the District Attorney, but
the papers. where were they? Somehow or
other they were lost in transit, I" "mislaid,"
or otherwise unaccountably missing, and
Antoine's attorney, Pistolesi, made an an
plication for dismissal which District A tor
ney Barnes-without the papeIs-was una
bic to resist.
Antoine has since been Indicted by the
Grand Jury, but this is no consolation to
Clerk Mahoney of Police Court 2. who is an
aDpointee OF the Board of Supervisors.
The Finance Committee of that body
resumed its inquiry yesterday afternoon,
and Messrs. James and Denman asked the
witnesses number Of very delicate ques-
tions.
They we're unwilling to believe at first
that documents, letters, etc, can be de-
materialized by occult agency. then waited
lnvislbly through space, ard pumped down
noiselessly by unseen hands in some spot
where the Mahatma or the adept ha pre-
Ylously expected them to appear. Nine.
Besant MADE all these impossi bilities clear
to the people of San Francisco, and when
Supervisors James and Denman crept down
stairs after looking at the mysterious clbi-
net where the missing papers were found
they were, evidently. half converted TO the
Mahatma theory. Indeed, there was no
other available, for all the witnesses testi-
fed the same way.
What made the Supervisors n little sus-
picious was that the papers were missing
Just long enough to enable Antoine to be
released. and materialized in the wrong
pigeonhole of the cabinet Immediately alter
ward.
Clerk MahoDey. ex-Deputy Clerk Hawkes.
and Attorney PIst0lesi were all present to
endeavor to explain the disappearance aud
reappearance of the papers without the
BlaVatSky-Bes ant precipitation hypothesis.
Deputy Clerk Hawkes., who was as nerv-
Gus as ayoung mother at the vaccination of
her first baby, but palpabiy straightforward
In MS declarations, was examined and
eross-examined at great length to show that
there might have been loose clerical methods
the County Clerks Office. He created
laugh when, after stating that he had vol
unfairly resigned, he admitted that even
clerks were not by any means worked 10
death" Clerk Haley looked significantly
at the Supervisors as if to intimate that
further reduction Of his staff might be in
order.
For fully an hour Clerks Mahoney and
Hawkes. were at work in the effort to trace
uD the somewhie missing papers from the
Police Court 10 the County Clerks office.
Both grew warm and then Attorney Pis-
tolesi took his turn.
That there had been a light load of sus-
plclon resting on MT. Pistolesi also was
evident from the flush on his cheek as he
rose to narrate the facts In the case as he
knew them. He spoke of the defendant
(AntOine) being held to answer, and said
that he himself was very anxious about the
missing papers, because there had been an
erasure and substitution of date, which
would have reduced his clients offense from
felony to minor charge. Mahoney told
also the stenographer's notes of the testi-
mOny. On subsequent inquiry he found
that the latter had been filed and was in
possession of the District Attorney, but
where were the papers? His own idea was
that some clerk. believing the case had been
disposed OF, had put them away in the cab
met out of place.
The County Clerk wished Mr.. Plstolesi
to remember that there was no file mark or
record OF the papers having been tiled.
After triangular argument between
Hawkes., Mahoney and Pistoles the COM
mittee gave the thing up as bad job and
went down to look at the cabinet.
The latter was not made after the ortho-
dox eon1uror's pattern. but as place in
which papers ran bs made to appear and
disappear at will it is novelty and q revela-
tion. No further action was taken