The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-11

council, its bosses and its juntas, its socio-
logical free lyceums and its midnight
GROWER soirees, are henceforth to be
recRoned only among the dim and dusty
memories of the things that have been.
Dumpville has been effaced.
On Saturday night the doom of Dump
vile was sealed. 1t came almost as sud-
denly as the fate of Herculaneum and
Pompeii, and its effect was as disastrous
as the midnight raid of the Persian Cyrus
upon the feasting Belshazzar of Babylon.
In one night was the thing done, and when
the big round sun began to grin through
the trestles of the shipways of the Union
Iron Works not pole was standing-not
piece of tent cloth or Chinese mating
was left.
Captain John Spillane and a score of
stalwart policemen from the Southern dis
trict did it. They marched out Sixth
street late in the evening of Saturday and
the work of invasion and demolition be-
gan. Only two of the Dumpville folk
were there when the police came; the
others had made themselves absent, per-
maps because they, having been notified
beforehand, were afraid of a possible ride
in the patrol wagon and the consequences
of being "vagged."
With lusty "Yo, heave-hop' the burly
policemen RACED the crude dwellings
to the ground by means of ropes,
thrown into a pile and set on fire. The
two Dumpvlllers looked on mournfully,
and when the big bonfire was over and
nothing but dying embers and smoking
ashes were left of the homes of $50 men,
they gave last farewell look at the scene
and sadly and silently walked away never
to return. Dumpville was scene of deS-
olation in a few hours.
The great trouble with Dumpville was
that it happened to have been located upon
land belonging to the Southern Pacific and
its citizens had no real resources of their
own. Now and then something would be
missed from freightcar of the railroad
company, and once in while some lum-
Der would disappear from the lumber
yards of lessees of the company's property
along Channel street. Complaint was
made to the police; hence the march of the
twenty stalwarts out Sixth street and the
destruction of Dumpville.
Dumpville had been in existence for
much more than year. 1t was practically
started by Stephen Maybell and his
'Heaven-at-Han Army. Maybell and
his wife camped there-just across Chan
mel street and near the Sixth-street
bridge-about two years ago.
One night the Heaven at-Hand'' COM
munity got into free fight. The patrol
loaded with human freight to the Folsom
street station. Court was held right in the
station, the police officers assuming the
judiciary for the nonce, and the Heaven
at-Hand" squatters were sharply repri-
manded for their sheol-like doings and
allowed to return to their abodes. "Cap-
tain" Maybell and his army in time disap-
peared.
Then when Generals" Wiley and FRYE
were dispossessed of the Postoffice site at
Seventh and Mission streets their followers
began seeking for place whereupon they
could fix their habitations, and where they
might feel free from annoyance. The
stencil from the dumps they were willing
to endure if only they might feel secure,
bit. They were penniless and homeless,
and so they moved to the dumps with
their frying-pans, old kettles and coal-oil
cans, and thus was Dumpville started.
Houses were constructed of tent cloth,
tea box mating, bits OF worn-out carpets
and oilcloth, stretched on poles, and
floors were made of stone and pieces of
brick fireplaces, and it was not uncommon
TO see piece of rug serve as carpet for
what was parlor, drawing-room, library,
dining-room kitchen and bedroom all in
one. The piles of rubbish at hand fur
nished means of subsistence. Ola scrap
iron and pieces of brass were gathered and
sold to Chinese near by, and everything
on the dumps that possessed any measure
of value at all was utilized. Sometimes
food could be obtained there, such as it
was-stuff that was refuse In the ewes of
more prosperous people.
The population of Dumpville reached
about $50 and afterward huctuated more
or less about that inquire as the unfortun-
ates came and went, IT was distinctively