The San Francisco call., 1906-11-22
OH NE, OH MY! HOW
He DEPICTS Us
Consul General of England
Says Funny Things About
Conditions In This City
PENS SAD, BAD TALE


His Majesty's Consul General, Courte-
nay ". Bennett, C. 1. E. has been at
his old tricks again. Once more he
has been saying unkind things about
san Francisco. This time il is in an
article in the London Times of Septem-
Der 13. in which Bennett represents
this city as gone entirely to the demni-
tion bowwows.
Here and there in the article is a
Jettisoned fact, not particularly flu
minative nor above the rank of table
talk but the broad assertions of bank
ruptcy and stagnation of trade make a
sad picture.
Luxuries cannot be obtained. Men
who smoked shilling cigars now smoke
3-penny ones" he wrote.
What viii the London Board of
Trade think of that? But the Consul
was in an unhappy state Of mind and
determined to tell the whole story. So
he goes on:
Men who wore six or eight suits
OF clothing, made to order at $40 or $50
a suit now buy ready-made clothing
az about SIS TO $50 SUIT and order
half the number or less" .
II is not quite clear from the context
whether London is TO understand that
the fire so changed the climate of San
Francisco that men who formerly were
In the habit of wearing six or eight
suits of clothes now managed to keep
warm with half that number or less.
but il is plain that there is calamity
in IL somehow.
Had not labor troubles come, in an
acute form on top of a disordered
commerce. things might have righted
themselves more quickly. There was
hope once, but it is gone" the Con-
sui laments, and the London Board of
Trade is 10 remember that San Fran
cisco gentlemen no longer wear half a
dozen suits nor smoke 25-cent cigars.
The mass of debris. millions Of tons
OF II, remains more or less where II
was" he continues Five months have
elapsed since the earthquake and there
is very little sign OF any permanent
construction. Speculative trading has
caused further losses. No firm knows
exactly where il stands This applies
also to capitalists, who before the
earthquake were millionaires. San
Francisco Is thrown back practically to
the days OF 1Sz9. with this one excep-
tion-she has now transcontinental
communicati ton with the Atlantic States
and steamship service on the Pacific"
The Consul seems in earnest and he
sends with his letter clippings from
the San Francisco Chronicle TO prove
his narrative Of woe.
These are only some OF the obserya-
tions which the British Consul tells
afar. He describes at some length a
financial process by which the man
who owned a house and lot lost one
in the fire and the other when the in
surance was paid. and asserts that
large sums formerly invested in Cali
fornia have been withdrawn and that
it is feared that much more may be.
AS TO the number of class A build
ings now under construction the Con-
sui is apparently ignorant, although he
admits that some OF the main streets
are cleared sufficiently TO allow of the
passage OF electric cars and wheeled
traffic so there would seem TO have
been no excuse for his not going about
bit 10 have a look at what was in
progress. He is silent, too. on the mat
ter Of bank clearings. These are minor
details compared with the missing
shilling cigar" and perhaps the Lon
don Board of Trade would not have
been interested in statistics. Tt Is
enough for them to know that the
commercial banks are extremely chary
as TO making loans which everybody
wants"-even II they cannot buy any
thing better with the money than
3-penny cigars and ready made suits
The cost OF living, the Consul says,
has increased fully 90 per cent since
the fire but his readers must surely
think that il would be a bad bargain
at any price
All this information. together with
the clippings from the Chronicle, is
on file al the Commercial Intelligence
Branch OF the Board of Trade, 73 Bas-
inghau street, E. c., London.