The San Francisco call., 1899-04-16

dividua1 tastes all californians must
feel something of qualification III the
report that two such artlsuc Ml4leis
! are going to make the producUior u
| high literature the serious WORK VI tHeII
! lives.
When all is said and done nothing
else produced by a community is OF
such permanent and precious value as
! its literature. 1t is full time CahIorlld
were adding more to the world S STOCK
Of this pure gold of the intellect Inc
degradation of the American magazine
to advertising has closed that avenue
which was once open to the advance OF
true literary workers, and the only way
now for the writer who has an artlstlc
conscience is to turn to the practice OF
the old Grub-street days-get hllnsell
to a. garret. live on crust, write BOOKS
| and appeal from the publisher to the
big public. Mr.. Morrow and Mr.. Bleroe
have chosen we'll and wide constltu-
ency will wait with impatience the
forthcoming Of the first fruits OF lIle
new labors of each.
Chinatown is not only corrupt 1tseit
! but the cause of corruption in otheIS.
1t is something like a municipal Verml-
form appendix, and it might be worth
while to subject the city to surgical
! operation and cut it out For the whole
week the Examiner has been reiterat-
| ing the charge that the sum of not
| less than $2500 is raised weekly in
| Chinatown for the purpose of bribing
| the police department to permit. the
carrying on of gambling games and
lotteries" The display of knowledge
! of this secret corruption should not
subject orr contemporary to unworthy
suspicious of sharing the spoIs for the
very intensity of it's language is proof
that it is getting none. While the cor
ruption fund is generally known as
hush money, it does anything but hush.
1t has been squealing for weaks like
baby at the dead of nights deaf to
! lullabies and won't take soothing
syrup.
| In all this racket my sympathies are
with the police-with both factions of
the police-and with any individuals of
| the police who may belong to neither
faction and cherish a desire to run both
! of them in. In a community so admin
! /
| to suppress iniquity and fill the city
with sweetness and light? With judges
| on the bench who make a jest of law
and turn test cases into comic operas;
with Police Commissioners who If they
do not violate the law are at least re-
puted to do so and are certainly not
much above their regulations; and with
! angry journals hunting for the needle
~tI-s. nd
| looking the haystack OF vice all around
it-there is hardly anything of genuine
virtue the police could do short Of
clubbing everything in sight Of the
| City Hall and arresting all who protest.
The cause Of the fire which burned
! the "palatial cottage" of Idle Hour,
! where the high contracting parties Of
! the Vanderbilt alliance were
! spending their honeymoon is reported
! to be a mystery. There are some who
| think it started by an incendiary burg
| lar, and there are some who regard it
as the result of a defect in the heating
! apparatus. There is another theory
worth consideration-the building may
have been fired by the happy pair
| themselves 1t is fairly reasonable to
suppose that a rapturous couple, hav-
! ing dazzled the world by a display Of
| a million dollars worth of Ostentatious
wedding presents, may have thought it
appropriate to cap the climax by ap-
plying the torch to the honeymoon hall
! and showing the Astors that the Van
derbilts have palaces to burn.
Before public interest in the grand
wedding passes away and is lost from
memory along with the vanishing
smoke from the ruins of Idle Hour. it
is worth noting that while the press
gave so much of it's energies and its
space for weeks to the gorgeous event
it overlooked one important thing-a
thing so very interesting indeed that its
| omission from the pictures of the vari-
Gus features of the scene can be ac-
counted for only upon the suppositien
that every newspaper in New York is
guided and managed by a journalistic
paresis club. 1t was stated that Mrs.
O. H. P. Belmont presented the bride
with a quantity of gold plate blazoned
with the Vanderbilt arms, and yet not
q single journal, yellow or legitimate,
published a picture of the arms to
satisfy the eyes of a gazing world.
There will be more Vanderbilt cere-
monies in the future and it is to be
hoped that omission will never occur
| again.
1t is not easy to understand the mo-
| tives that have prompted either the
| actions or the talk of Governor Gage
Of late, for the workings of mind
like his can be discerned clearly only
by those who are practiced in micro
! scopic examination. 1 think. however,
he was aiming at economy and desired
! to impress upon the commission an-
pointed to erect an executive mansion
| at Sacramento that it need not go to
| great expense for him. If so he was
| successful. From the record as made
up, it appears that to provide an ample
! home for Gage the commission will