The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-21
DUSTY TONES,
YELLOW MAPS
AND LAWYERS
No Lobby .Graces the
Water-F ront Case.
PATIENCE ON THE RACK
EXHIBITS ENOUGH TO FILL a
FREIGHT CAR.
Desultory Evidence, Day After Day,
and No One Dare Predict
When It May
Cease.
PATIENCE ON THE RACK
EXHIBITS ENOUGH TO FILL a
FREIGHT CAR.
Oakland Office San Francisco Call,
onS Rrna dWav Oct %

90S Broadway. Oct. 20.
Exhibit No. 442, if it please the court 3"
and Clerk Robinson brushed the dreary
look from his eyes long enough to enter
in the record that exhibit 442 in the appa-
rently interminable water front case had
been duly registered.
Six attorneys, two or three witnesses,
Judge Ogden and a vast mass of dusty
and musty old tones and stained maps
have been occupying a small portion of
Department of the Superior Court for
some weeks. There is never any one in
the lobby and consequently no incentive
TO argument among the learned counsel.
''Win this case be finished by Christ
mas?" asked one attorney to-day OF an
other.
''Of this year?" was the reply. And
nothing more was said.
The proceedings to-day were just little
less dull than those of yesterday. Har-'
vey Brown occupied considerable por-
ton of the time by reading from ancient
assessment books, showing that year az
ter year the Water Frant Company had
paid taxes on large parcels of the land
in dispute. There were many entries to
a page, many pages to a book, many
books and many piles of books, and as
Mr.. Brown read on and on, he did not
stop to comment, but merely called the
courts attention to the fact that he was
reading from such page of such a liber.
Judge Ogden nodded good naturally to
the counsel as he paced restlessly to and
for on the rostrum, thus giving Mr..
Brown assurance that the court was cog
infant of the fact that he was still pre-
Senung evidence.
City Clerk Tompkins. who had been
Subpenaed to give some evidence regard
ing books of ancient record in his control
as City Clerk, sat in a chair with his back
toward everybody and INDUCED in an
afternoon nap. EX-Assessor Leckie, who
handles assessment books as readily as
q Cuban a machete, passed the old books
to the counsel so as to avoid any break
in the proceedings. Attorney Powell
looked on and apparently listened, max
ing notes occasionally, all the while Mr..
Brown was patiently reading. Mr..
Browns evidence that he presented was
not particularly sensational A sample of
hundred acres, beginning at point north
of the Peralta Grant line on Eighth street
running northeasterly eight hundred feet
thence sOutherly to a stake situated" etc.
etc-and at the end of each recitation Mr.
Brown would say, "All of which was
amount to such a corporation, which af-
terward became merged in the Water /
Front Company.
Attorney A. A. Moore, If the case lasts
much longer, should provide the county
with a new width of CARPET for his con-
lion in a cage has left a permanent i'm !
preston on the courthouse floor. No one
expects the case to end for some weeks |
as 1t is said to be necessary to have the
record absolutely straight The keeping
straight of the record seems 10 troi1hIe
1t would seem to be of secondary irnpor- |
lance, because the record is getting so !
lengthy that whether it was Straight or |
not could hardly be determined in one
ordinary lifetime.
Mr.. Brown will continue his recitations