The record-union., 1896-08-23

express contempt for their want Of
| principle and sense has become a popu-
lar amusement. The workingmen, who
regard the ordinary commercial news
paper as their enemy anyway, are with
US. We are bound to win
There is confidence at Democratic
headquarters, too, that everything will
eventually be arranged with the Popu-
lists for fusion on Bryan, SO that no sill
yer vote will be lost to him.
| The truth seems to be that no more
is known at the headquarters of either
party as to the actual situation than
! can be picked up from any intelligent
| and observing man who interests him
self in the state of public opinion.
| Major Mclaughlin read me a letter from
a visitor to Bartlett Springs who had
sounded hundreds of strangers, and
found that the proportion of boiling
Democrats was much greater than the
proportion of boiling Republicans. Like
| letters from other interior points to Mr..
Afford gave reports the other way. Up
| to date it is campaign of straWs. 1
asked the editor of a prominent Republi-
can newspaper yesterday what he
thought of the outlook. L don't know
| anything about it," he said. Pretty
| nearly everybody connected with the
editorial and local rooms in our office
| is for Mckinley, but the silver craze has
| got hold of the printers and pressmen
! and they're shouting for Bryan" A
druggist, who is for gold, tells me that
nearly all the Democrats who come into
his place are for Mckinley. Per contra,
Bryan grocer is patronized chiefly by
rabid silver Republicans. make it my
business to inquire of all sorts of people
about how opinion is running in their
circles of acquaintance. These men
| live in all parts of the State. My own
| judgment, which is worth no more than
| another's, of course, is that If the cleo
tion were to be held this month Cali
fornia would be carried for Bryan and
silver by a large majority. But there
are a great many voters who have not
made up their minds, and everything de-
| pends on how the developments and ar
| gumentS of the campaign will affect
these. John d. Spreckels wired Mr..
Hanna the other day that the silver
sentiment is rapidly dying out in Cali
| fornia"; the Democrats believe it is
| growing vigorously. The gold Demo-
Gratis, who had a meeting at the Palace
! Hotel this week, could muster only
| thirty-one Clevelandites. That has an
adverse bearing on Mr.. Spreckels' view.
| Bohemia is chuckling over Mrs. Ger
| trude Atherton's letter to the London
Chronicle in which she swats Ameri-
can men, and asserts, in effect that she
never met one who was not more or less
of barbarian and fool. Mrs. Atherton
| is lady who after reading much erotic
fiction began to write erotic fiction her
self, and faithfully echoed Amelie
Rives and Edgar Saltus. She used to
be good looking, assured and what is
known as brilliant-which means usu-
ally that one has the gift of loquacity
and turns off epigrams while you wait,
! with a look out of the corner Of the eye
to see how they take. Mrs. Atherton
had a salon here. A female Bohemian,
who hasn't a salon, is disappointed in
her dearest ambition. She is always up
in the social history of France, and
identifies herself with the grande danes,
! and the danes who were not grande, to
whom the world is indebted for it's
wealth Of members. She lounges about
in her den in loose garments, smokes
cigarettes, talks of art, letters, morals,
and the detestableness of Philistia with
the air of one who has squeezed the
orange of life nearly dry She is vain,
conscious and fully as feminine as
her maid who brings in the tea absinthe,
cocktails, cigars and the banjo, though
she plagiarizes all the cutting things she
can remember that witty Frenchmen
have written about the sex, since it is
supposed to be clever and piquant for
woman to laugh at women. She is flip
pant about the conventions, looking
down on them from her enlightened
Bohemian mountain as the prejudices-
possibly useful, since there are so many
commonplace people in the world-of
the bourgeoisie.
The female Bohemian has no preju-
dices herself, at least none that grow
from modesty or the desire to be
thought the sort of woman who would
make good wife and mother. She is
painful to normal men and diyerting to
Bohemians. Not having the honor of
knowing Mrs. Atherton personally, l
won't say that she is this kind of Bo-
hemian. But she had her salon, and
the Bohemans who visited and lolled
there and drank her drinks and ate
her food and smoked her cigars, and
exhausted themselves in trying to talk
UP to the level of their really bright
hostess, naturally made her tired. They
were Bohemians from the Bohemian
Club mostly, gentlemen in trade and
patent leather shoes and creased trou-
sers, who play at being dissipated and
cynical, and form themselves on what
they have read of English club life and
fts,,-r hn ssxr~if nd l.
ness of which charms them who never
saw it, as ii does Ouida. Such writers
as sauntered in were also nearly all
from the Bohemian Club, and by pro-
cess of imitation had learned to waste
their earnings on patent feathers and
creased trousers, and their best intel
lectual energies in copying the manners
of the pecunious gentlemen In trade. ]
don't wonder that the recollection of
these bogus Bohemians fills Mrs. Ath
erton with wrath now that she has met
some genuine men of brains in London.
No woman, no matter how advanced
and emancipated and brilliant she may
be, likes to be taken in. But had she
met the real Bohemians of San Fran
cisco she would have been no better
pleased. The real Bohemian, here as
everywhere else, is a young man who
dreams dreams of his future and whose
present is marked by an equal dis
taste for ladies' society and a fondness
for the beer saloon and conversat ton
chiefly relating to himself Sometimes
he has talent, oftener not, but always
he possesses genius for good-fellow-
ship and an early Christian disregard
for the morrow. The pleasures of the
salon, barring the drink and tobacco,