The herald., 1896-01-15
TALKS WITH Travellers
Men of Standing Now in South
ern California
AN INCREDULOUS CRITIC
Mrs. Brown Potter Talking French and
Ex-Empress Eugenie Scotch
Picking and Preserving In Southern Caifor-
nia-Cyaniding and Chiorodining With
Electricity in Minlng

Robert Tyler, well known dramatic
critic who writes for several of the London
weeklies, but who in consequence of ill
health often spends his winters with friends
at Santa Monica, arrived yesterday. He
said
The drama in London, and indeed all
over Europe, appears in hopeless rut of
dullness and mediocrity, though at some
of the provincial theaters the revival of the
old standard English comedies has n ct
with surprising success. The great music
halls in London are doing large business,
and the talent seen at many of them is of
a really high order. The Empire never has
an audience of less than 1000 nightly, a
number of West End swells from the most
select dinner tables, and even royalty
itself, being frequently seen in the boxes
and stalls. Carpenters clever coster-
mongers' songs, and the warbling of the
wonderful tenor, Sims Reeves, whose voice,
though he is over 70, is as true and sweet
when he sings My Pretty Jane, Come Into
the Garden, Maud, and other old favorites,
as when with Jenny Lind he sang at dis
tinctively ballad concerts. and people
fought for admission.
We have had great fun over a ridicu-
lous story in q Boston paper, recounting a
visit said to have been paid by Cora Urqu-
hart Potter to the royal yacht Osborne. 1t
seems almost impossible to believe that
this clever actress could have spun such a
yarn, unless, indeed, to some childlike re-
porter as a joke. The skittish Cora's
quiet life in her girlish days IN the old
house in Washington square, her ears rare
ly hearing foreign tongue except the
broad Scotch of her sanity papa, pre-
cludes any possibility of her being able to
converse with the ex-Empress Eugenie, or,
indeed, anyone not speaking her mother
tongue; for, although when the eX-empress
was simply the Countess Montijo, she was
for some time in a boarding school at
Bath, she speaks English as the majority
OF English or American ladies speak
French. From what castle Cora stepped on
the "launch placed at her service" is
not said; it could not have been
on the Isle of Wight, as there 10 not sin
gle one on that lovely spot. Her reception
lat the. great decks gangway' by the
prince of Wales, and her Immediately find
ing herself the center of party of crowned
heads, viz, the king of Greece, the crown
prince of Austria and the king of Portugal, :,
Is astounding enough. but more wonders
were to follow. The sad-eyed but beautiful
Eugene did homage to the reciter of 'Ostler
Joe. Meals succeeded each other with
marvellous rapidly. according to Mrs. Cora
Urquhart Potter, who at that time was
known as Mrs. James Brown Potter, and
tea being served an hour after luncheon,
the actress. who says she was in the habit
of reciting for the princess of Wales, at ur-
gent request recited characteristic poem,
The Kentucky Belle. She is in haste to
add, what is quite needless, that she was
not a bit nervous, followed by the assertion,
Il saw the tears gathering in her great, sad
eyes, and fall silently down her pale
cheeks.' Whom she had spoken her piece
she was hugged by the weeping Eugenie,
who. kissed her, led her away and talked to
probable than any other part of this extra
ordinary story. 1t must have been huge
fun to have heard the actress trying to talk
French and the ex-empress Scotch"
Several meetings have been held during
the past few days of some large capitalists,
including member of one of the largest
firms of pickle and preserve manufactures
in Europe. Henry Armstrong, who is in
terested in the canning business at Balti-
more, Md, said:
The idea is to establish large plant in
or near to Los Angeles for pickling and
preserving the fruits and vegetables of
Southern California and utilizing the enor-
NOUS waste of these frui of The earth for
the benefit of the crowded manufacturing
centers in the old country. California
fruits, dried, canned, or fresh, are more
popular than those of France, Spain, Por-
tugal, the Azores, or even Italy, and if they
can be put on the market at moderate
price the consumption will be enormous.
Last season fresh fruits from America sold
at Covent Garden at such prices as these,
for instance, retail: Peaches, ~ cents to
20 cents each; apricots, 8 cents to Is cents
each; pluris. especially the large green
and yellow egg plums, q cents each, or so
to 70 cents per dozen; fresh figs, either
white or black, if in nice order and of good
size, 80 cents to 81 cents each; grapes
sold readily at 81 to $1.50 per pound {;
oranges, fine large navels or choice seed
lings, 6 cents to u cents each; water
melons, $1.25 to So each; canteloupes, %
cents to rs cents each, aad raspberries in
good order, especially nice red or yellow
ones of fine flavor and fragrance, very
fancy rpices. English people of all classes
are passionately fond. of fruit, especially
greengage and yellow plums, apricots,
named for stone fruit, then raspberries and
grapes of all kinds. AS soon as location
can be secured and the Southern Pacific
will care for us in the matter of trackage,
sdings and freight rates we will go ahead
and will employ many hundreds of men
and girls.
A. Ashman, lessee and manager of the
gas works at Tombstone, Ariz., whose pres
ent visit was occasioned by his daughters
marriage to d. r. Hawkins of orwalk,
CAL, last Thursday, said: 'Minng is very
dull" Mr.. Ashman is free silver man
and sees in the passage of a free silver bill
the only incentive to the development of
riches which yet lie untouched below water
level. The South Spring Valley mine, he
said, has just been sold to eastern parties
for 100000. The Pierce claim has also
been sold within few days. An entirely
new era in mining has commenced. Cya-
hiding and chlorodining, with electricity as
an adiuvant, is rapidly replacing old and
expensive methods. The exploitation of
dumps is the order of tho day, and syndi-
Gates like the Scrivener and Barron, who
have just leased the Grand Central dump,
which is aurferous, but despised for years
on account of the smallness of the Weld.
shows how practical is the revolution in
mining.
Speaking of illumination, Mr.. Asbman