The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-02-04
over THE LAND
DFImm8T'S Data on Swing
Around Circle.
KNOWS ALL TOWNS WELL
Points Out PeculIarIties of Each.
New OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Iena-San Francisco.
washington STAR

w dSuluSL0n STAR
One OF the most widely known -:
American commercial travellers found
himself the center Of group OF
Washington business men az n hotel
cafe table the other night. He had
blown into Washington early in the
afternoon, had had a good dinner. was
smoking a big black cigar. and was
talkative.
\ Ask me some hard ones. he said,
The whole country's been my terri
tory for fifteen years past, and is yet.
| know the United States like a book.
That's my particular graft-the Uni
ted States and the cities thereof. and
the folks that live in them. Put some
extremely difficult propositions TO me
in the shape Of questions. Ask me
what l think about things. l know
ST all
= What's the swiftesJ town in this
country. them" asked one of the local
business men, at a venture. Better
than that. name the three swiftest.'
san Francisco. New Orleans. and
Helena" replied the commercial trav-
eler. with no more hesitation than il
he but answered an inquiry as to the
! price of goods. san Francisco first.
though. by about a thousand miles.
San Francisco is perhaps the swiftest
town in the world. let alone the Uni
| ted States. It's a city of high-hyers.
People out there just commence to- get
/ out of bed for the days fun along
about or Q o'clock in the evening.
| New York thinks itself warm. So
does Chicago. But neither New York
nor Chicago is in il for a minute with
San Francisco for swiftness. | sup
pose more people go broke out in San
Francisco in chasing after fun than
anywhere else on the globe. They find
the fun. but slathers OF them make
Garrison finishes of it before they have
entirely finished the pursuit.
There's something in the California
atmosphere that conduces to- n rapid
way of living-to the burning-the-Can-
dle-at-both-ends habit. But you've got
to have a lot of money out there to- be
| in the push. San Francisco's main
bunch is an aristocracy of wealth al
most exclusively: If you haven't got
the coin out there you have got to re-
sign yourself TO figuring amOn- the
| also rams
It's the coldest-bloOded town on
earth in which to go broke. You often
oil no Lavish
pitality of Californians.' Don't believe
Z word of it. CALIFORNIA; a heart
break for a man up against il. and san
Francisco particularly so. I've seen
men with bum silk hats on their heads
working at street cleaning in san Fran
cisco-fellows that have gone out TO
California from the east. with the idea
of making ten-strikes and getting rich.
When they went broke they had 10
take the first thing that came along.
There's an asOnishingly small middle
class in San Francisco. II always
strikes me out there that the folks
that haven't got money to burn are
fiat broke. Its a big gamble. somehow
or another, the game OF life out there
on the Pacific slope. But the folks
that live there take it as it comes.
and they surely do spin around a heap
while their velvet lasts. \ New York
or Chicago man has got to be in good,
hard training if he expects 10 keep up
with the procession out in san Fran
cisco, and even then he's a good one
If he lasts the route. san Francisco,
in fact, is such a clipper that it's de-
moralizing When you add 70 this
the fact that the climate OF san Fran
cisco is the most atrociOus known on
. the face OF the inhabitable world-oh
well, we'll say in the United States
. then-you've got San Francisco about
at its correct proportions. I wouldn';
care TO live there"
Well, how about New Orleans? .
asked another member OF the party
There's a popular theory that New
Orleans is rather dead one"
Popular fallacy, you ought TO say
replied the commercial traveller. New
Orleans is the most animated dead on,
I've ever walked around in. and ".
hay my twenty or forty hacks at al
, OF them, in this country at least.
hope there's no one from Louisiana il
) the crowd, FOR l want 20 say that Their,
is more drinking done in New Orleans
than in any town I ever saw. don
say drunkenness, understand. I sa,
L drinking. The people down there hav,
: got the science OF holding their drinl
down very pat. and you very rarel.
see an intoxicated white man on tn
streets of New ORLEANS. But, gee whiz
how they do drink in that town: morn