The San Francisco call., 1895-11-25
ALONG THE WATER FRONT.
The San Bias Arrived Yesterday
and Was Sent Into Quar-
antine.
DEATH OF HER FREIGHT CLERK.
A Scurvy-Laden Ship Gets Into Port.
The Ranger and Her Hoodoo
Propeller Again.

The Pacific Mail Steamship San Bias ar
rived yesterday morning, twenty-six days
from Panama, and was ordered into quar-
antlne with her passengers by DR..
Chalmers.
While the vessel was leaving Mazatlan
on her way north Freight Clerk Clark
Parker, living at 1911 Green street, died of
the isthmus fever and was buried at sea.
He was about 26 years of age, unmarried,
and had been in the employ of the Mail
company little over year. There was
no disease on board of the San Bias, but
the Quarantine Officer deemed it judcious
to fumigate the passengers and mails be-
fore permitting them to be landed. OF the
former there are thirteen in the cabin and
thirty-two in the steerage.
The British ship Ancaios, Captain Full
ton, arrived yesterday, ia days out
from Swansea, with coal. Five of her
crew are down with scurvy, and several
others have been attacked. The names OF
the sick men are Abram Denman, Charles
Hooking, John Burns, John Stewart and
otto Heel. IAey are covered with sores,
which exhibit all the indications of scurvy,
and the crew attributed the presence of
disease to the impoverished quality of
food. Everything given the men was
barely eatable, and, in the language of one
OF them, lit was take it or starve, and
scurvy was the natural result
On October Z Peter Peters, a seaman,
jumped overheard and was drowned. He
had dbeen acting strangely, and was prob
ably suffering from temporary insanity.
He was a native OF Germany, aged 81
years.
Jack and James Murray, two ex-con-
victs and 9ll-round tough characters, were
o1rr aSta Not11 11rdo ,,ir rnl,h ,hn- "A
beating a Chinese laundryman, whose
place of business is at 1924 Battery street.
The precious pair, to whose general
worthlessness is added the opium habit,
went into the wash-house and demanded
yen-shee. They were refused by the Chi
| naman, who drove them out OF mis- place.
Soon after he started down the street and
was assaulted by the Murrays, who were
watching for him.
The Mongolian fought his assailants,
and would have got the best of Jack Muir
ray, but the brother jerked him to the
ground with a strong grip on his queue.
They then beat him numerically, and
robbed him of 81 30. The Murrays were
arrested by Officers Dillon and McGrath of
the Harbor police, and locked up in the
| Central station.
The Pioneer Yacht Club will incorporate
| this week with Charles Trumps president;
David Dean, fleet captain; Albert Can
| field, secretary; William Ressland, treas
urer. The following yachts will compose
the club: Volunteer, Pride of the Bay,
| Ella, Dreadnaught, Pride, Majesty, Clara
| s., Ethel s., Nellie and Spy.
Al White has received a letter from an
| officer aboard of the Charleston al Naga-
| saki in which the writer states that the
warship has been lying in that harbor dis
abled ever since the close of the Chino
Japanese war. She broke piston-rod on
her way across the China Sea to Japan,
and barely managed to get to an anchor
age in Nagasaki. a new rod was ordered
in the United States, and the great mod
| ern cruiser, with her 800 men and a gang
| of idle officers, swings at her moorings and
| waits.
! This little array OF facts shows how
efficiently the Navy Department, especially
! the Bureau of Steam Engineering at
| Washington, is keeping warships in a state
of usefulness. The steamer Ranger, now
in this harbor, is going up to Mare Island
| for repairs, etc., and she is another sample
OF navy-yard work. Her propeller shaft
/ has been ricking and humping in its
! bearings, clutches, straps, etc, and for
! years the shops at the navy-yard have
| been treating that big, sick bit of steel. 1t
| has been taken out a number OF times,
| but no cure has been found for the invalid.
| The engineers dare not turn the pro-
| peller more than siXty-two revolutions per
minute or the shaft would kick the whole
stern out of the old craft. Successive chief
| engineers have tried their hands in expel-
| ling the hoodoo that fits through the dark
shaft-alley, but without ridding the Ranger
of the uncanny inEabitant. One engineer,
after worrying over the mysterious dis
order, resigned and became insane
haunted, it is said, by the nameless and
unknown thing whose enmity he incurred
when he tried in vain to exercise it.
The vessel will probably 90 out of COM
mission, be repaired and sent East when
she will possibly be presented to the State
of Alabama for schoolship.