The San Francisco call., 1906-07-01

1t was but the other day in a Bos-
ton courtroom that the impossibility
of cohceaIing anything was demon
strated by the introduction of phono-
graph. a photometer and an oscillo-
meter
An elevated road was sued for dam
ages owing to the annoyance caused
Hy passing trains. The phonograph re-
produced the noise. q photometer
showed the diminution of light while
the trains passed. and the oscillometer
discovered the frenzied air waves.
The jury-a Boston jury-promptly
and appreciatively brought in ver-
dict of $4,000 with interest, making
a total of s5S267.
In law, of course science will be
made to prove things that never hap
pened. Ballot boxes are juggled with
and wires are tapped today, so il is
not likely that our new inventions will
be allowed to work honestly.
On the contrary they will breed a
new race of criminals-scientific sec
ond story men, who viii carry electric
know all about ohms and volts. The
burglar will have laboratory instead
of a den, and his kit of tools will be
chest of chemicals.
We shall in the new epoch lose sight
of that divine madness that the poets
call love. We have lost sight of it now.
for that matter, and in the novels and
newspapers and plays little senti-
ment is used as an attraction because
1t is so foreign to real life.
Scientific advance has electrocuted
sentiment, and the love songs rendered
by q pianola are about as inspiring as
the chug of a hydraulic pump. Think
when the hand of the wandering min
strel swept the strings and the king
and his court hearkened to the lay.
How many painters chose to put
upon canvas the going up and the
going down the stairs? The bride and
groom, the princess. the knight, the
Pope, the cardinal? II was at the turn
of the stair that they seemed most In
teresting, far more so than If seated
in a chair of state.
But now the stairs. in our desire for
more room, are all but eliminated.
Electric lifts shoot US to the roof and
the cellar There is the changing of
bolts and bars. We are living in a
boiler shop-a wonderful one-but still
boiler shop. And If we leave it for
minute then we are running for a
train. How horrible life is getting
to be?
Who talks of the sunset nowadays? +?
Soap makers and other advertisers. To
others of US the sunset is a bore-too
long drawn out and far too snowy
as though nature in her old age were
putting on thick rouge and penciling
her eyes in the effort to hold us from
the exquisite impressionistic things the
scene painters are giving us under
Belasco lights.
There is no let-up in progress. We
get 1t at our breakfast table-cowless
milk and henless eggs with wheatened
sawdust and cream, for, bark you, it
is hygienic. 1t doesn't taste good, it is
true, but is one going TO admit a fond
ness for the grilled microbe or the
scrambled germe Remember the pto-
maine.
A primrose by the rivers brini-what
is It? Something simply awful when
you dissect il and photograph II In
color and find how many kinds of drugs
are In 1t. Keep IL in your room at
nights and you will get some kind of
an tits Moral---do away with flowers
except for dead ones, and even then
stuffed dove is safer; or a pillow of
antiseptic immortelles with twenty
three" done in yellow. Let US be up
10 date or die.
Some OF US are taking to the woods
at this stage of the game. We are
getting afraid of ourselves We have
discovered that. according to Lombroso.
we have the wrong kind of ears. The
very word heredity sounds like an in
clra BILE disease. 1t may be mitigatcd
by living in the country without tele-
phone or can opener
OF course the real cows that we meet
there will not be half SO clever as the
real cows we have seen on the stage
and everything will be comparatively