The record-union., 1895-12-13
SAN FRANCISCO GOSSIP.
Passing Events in the Pacific Coast
Metropolis.
The Individual Communion Cup and
the Drinking Cups at the
Various Schools.
Especial Correspondence of the Record-Union.,

Various Schools.
Especial Correspondence of the Record-Union.)
SAN FRANCISCO. Dec. 11.-There is
clergyman living in Oakland who con-
ceives that it is his mission to bring
Christians to realizing sense Of their
own uncleanliness from a strictly physi-
cal standpoint. We are accustomed to
hear ministers of the gospel assure us
our being is stained to an alarming eX-
tent, and most of us seem to bear the
accusation with a considerable degree
OF fortitude, but when one of them
charges that certain of our customs are
little better than those of barbarians,
why, that is horse of another color.
The gentleman referred to has pat
ented what he calls an individual COM
munion cup, and as his imagination
conjures up the pleasing picture of his
invention in use in every house of wor-
ship in the land, in his mind the germs
which are conveyed from lip to lip as
the wine is now passed in the sacra-
ment exceed in number the sands of the
iouSnesS the great red dragon of seven
heads and ten horns.
With persiStency which might be
commendable if employed in his legiti-
mate vocation of snatching brands
from the burning, this clergyman trots
cut his hobby at every ministerial
synod, conference and assembly that is
held in the neighborhood, and he has
been successfully Though not success
fully sat upon by every Board of
Health in the State.
| But after all there is a principle in
this matter that is worthy of considera-
ton. There may be but little danger in
the. communion cup, for it is used only
at long intervals lin most churches but
once in every three months), and the al
| cohol contained in the wine is itself a
germ destroyer. But there are other
| things than communion cups.
| short distance from where I am
writing, there is schoolhouse which
mere than thousand pupils attend,
and there are perhaps twenty drinking
cups for them all. These children are
| from the homes of virtue and of vice, of
health and of disease, and they are US
| ing those cups again and again day
after day. Here there is no alcohol, or
other antiseptic, as in the wine-cup, to
! destroy the lurking microbes nor is the
| cup merely touched to the lips for in
quenching the eager thirst of childhood
the tin rim is generally pushed into the
mouth until that feature is expanded to
| twice its normal size.
| Why not do away with the tin cups of
the schoolyard, and have every child
keep in his desk his own drinking cup.
Again, there are the public drinking
fountains. They cannot well be
abolished, and yet if one accepts the
germ theory Of disease one cannot but
! believe that each of them must be a
very indus of bacilli. Stand with me
awhile on the corner of Market and
Kearny streets and let US watch those
who stop at Lotta's fountain. 1t is not
the lame, the halt and the blind that /
mind, nor the outcasts, rag pickers
and scavengers who stop here to Quench
their thirst l could drink after these,
but 1t is the long procession of the
| tuberculous, the scrofulous, the Syphi-
litic-those l cannot stomach. BAIL
drink if you will; L shall go elsewhere
| for mine.
The dramatists and novelists are all
wrong. Men do not clinch their hands
and give forth black looks and mutter
under their breath when they are I'M
dergoing terrible mental strain. On
! the contrary, they are quits scrupulous
as to the little amenities of life. l know,
for l was in the courtroom when Dur
rant was condemned to death. | saw
| the lawyers greet one another with
/ smiles. l saw the prisoner and his
father talk together with as much ease
and naturalness as if they were dis
cussing the political outlook in Turkey,
and / saw Judge Murphy, just after
| sentence had been pronounced strug-
Cling with a cigar and a refractory
match with far more emotion depicted
in his countenance than he had dis
| played when on the bench.
The evening before | had attended
| the commencement exercises of the
! Cooper Medical College, and many of
the young men showed more nervous
ness on receiving their diplomas than
| their claSSmate did on receiving his
death sentence.
! Durrant has been described as in
significant in appearance, but a
physiognomist would never say so.
The pictures which the newspapers
have had of him do not do him Justice.
1t is not particularly intelligent face.
and it is not a good face, but it is a
Strong face. There is determination in
the long, firm jaw and physical courage
! in the deep-Set eyes and widespread
nostrils. l predict that Durrant will
| go to the scaffold denying his guilt and
! face a murderer's doom with hero S
4 1CrtltuOe. Men with races ike Dur
rants make good soldiers Had he
| been born under a different star he
would have been one to have headed
a desperate charge or to have led for
! lorn hope. Net many men could have
stood as did that STRIPPING and listened
to the scathing words Of Judge Murphy,
more terrible to a guilty heart one
might think, than the belching of can
non or the scream of bullets, with
never the qulver of an eyelash nor the
! tension of a muscle. With one hand
thrust carelessly into his trousers
pocket and the other grasping the
morning paper, Durrant heard the
words hanged by the neck until you
are dead and if his attitude spoke at
all it was of one who was slightly
bored, other wise unruffled.
| 1 attended the Horse Show. The
horses were beautiful, the women were
| lovely, and the men-well 1 don't see
why they don't hold a donkey show
! here. FREE LANCE.
OF the 1000 soldiers lying in the hos
pitals of Madagascar great many suf-
| fer from assesses on the legs, caused
by grass seeds having sharp barbs
which enter the flesh. This is news,
though it is not new. Before the war
many Creoles, working in the gold
mines there, lost some of their toes,
and sometimes half the foot, in conse-