The San Francisco call., 1906-06-05
LUR|D BOOKS
LIBEL THE CITY
Pictures Exaggerate and
Are Misleading to
Outside World.
x
SANDERS So Amusing as
to Lessen Extent
of Injury.

San Francisco is just now suffering
from a calamity that might be more
serious than seismic disturbances or
big fires were it not softened by a
humorous phase that is as funny as the
remarkable book English as She Is
Spoke"
The city's latest disaster is pest of
authors whose lurid and ludicrous
vaporings are as serious and as funny
as any chapter of English as She Is
Spoke" In brief, the East is now sHf-
fering from a flood of fan1boYant sub
scription books, all of which are dis
figured by crude wash-drawings of
scenes that never were seen and of
happenings that never happened. The
illustrations run all the way from pic
lures of the Claus Spreckels building
leaning at an angle of As degrees, rent
by crevices, to crude representations
of the Cliff House floating, ark-like, in
the Pacific.
BUILDINGS NOT KNOWN HERE.
One of the worst Offenders in this di-
rection is a work published by the
John c. Winston Company. Buffalo. N.
Y. 1t is difficult to say just how bad
the ull-grown book will be, but the
prospectus challenges description. A
copy of this lurid bait for gullible
agents reached A. Jurgens of Oakland.
AS he looked over 1t he first got mad,
then was seized with fit of laughter
which made him sore for a week. He
patrioticaIly refused to handle such a
libel otherwise than with tongs.
One of the first wash drawings, The
Burning Heart of San Francisco"
shows the following prominent struc-
lures lined UP in a row, enveloped in
smoke and flame: THE Berkeley build
ing, the Oakland building, Postal Tele-
graph. three morning newspaper build
ings and the Grand Opera House" The
fact that there are no such structures
as the Berkeley building and the Oak
land building in San Francisco made
no impression on the artist. The pic
ture had to be made to convey the
idea of great devastation, as if the
burning of the buildings that actually
were consumed were not more than
enough for any artists theme.
Throughout the book are fake pic
lures which give q false idea of the
city and its disaster. In every instance
the drawings are exaggerated, inaccu-
rate in every detail, and often so far
from the truth as to be laughable.
This, however, would not be known to
thes stranger whose eyes had never
beheld the city. and the book as a
whole would have a sinister influence.
BIBLE HOUSE EHRS.
A similar work is by Marshall Ever
EFT, published by the Bible House, Chi
cago The only evidence of the Bible
in the book is the inevitable, conclusion
that the men who made the pictures
must have known sand emulated the
weaknesses of Ananias.. In one picture.
a distorted wash drawing from a photo
graph many years old, the Claus
SpreckelS building is shown in flames
with a rent from the fifteenth story to
the base as if the earthquake had
shattered the noble structure which
withstood the temblor and from which
The Call is today published, as it has
been for two weeks.
In the preface to- this remarkable
work the author says he was urged to
do the deed "by the survivors of the
dread catastrophe" Nowhere does he
explain why the stricken public wanted
a third affliction. In the next sentence
he speaks of "the devoted masses of
humanity who met DEATH and says
many-things which lead to. the belief
that nobody wass1eft in California to
write the history. SO the Bible House
sent Everett.
Mr. Jurgens refused the agency of
the book, as others have refused it.
1t is safe to say there is no one in
California who would seriously under
take to sell such books. and nobody
would buy one unless to save it as a
souvenir of the worlds ignorance and
to show future generations that there
was some sense of the humor of things
left in !Californians.- even after earth
make 6ro and hooks of this type