The San Francisco call., 1907-03-05
Gossip of the Doings
of Railroad Men

The Southern Pacific had a cleaning
up day of its own last Sunday in the
freight yards of the city. Orders were
sent out on Saturday afternoon not to
receive any freight for San Francisco
except perishable goods and livestock
and Saturday night, all day Sunday and
all Sunday night an enormous force
was assembled to clean UP the yards
There were $500 cars in the yards, In
all conditions. Some were too crippled
for use; some were loaded with rail-
road material, but the greatest number
had commercial loads The crippled
cars were hauled away; the cars with
railroad and commercial freight were
quickly unloaded. This morning the
yards were clean for the first time and
500 cars were brought in. The work
of unloading was commenced under
the supervision of railroad officials 1t
is hoped that this will relieve the con-
gestion, and If the merchants will as
sist the Southern Pacific officers say
that the freight situation will improve
rapidly.
NJ E. Cute. chief travelling agent of
the Southern Pacific. has returned from
a long ramble through the United
States, saving dollars for Hartman,
sending scalperS to jail and frighten-
ing conductors who think 1t Is right to
share passenger receipts with Harri-
man. Clute has brought back with
him an alligator as souvenir of his
travels. Yesterday morning he gave
lecture on natural history to the
small boys in the building.
AN alligator is an animal which has
long life" explained Clute, 'and it
is different from other animals. Now.
Johnny, when a man gets old he gets
smaller. He shrinks and gets shorter.
The alligator don't. He gets longer.
This alligator is a baby and so is only
foot long. 1t keeps on growing so
long as 1t lives, and some live to be
500 years. When this alligator is
200 years old you will find when you
measure 1t that it will be exactly
eighteen feet long
Say, Mr.. Clute," chirruped boy
from the telegraph room, do you in
tend to measure it?"
why, of course" and then Clute de-
tected a smile and. broke up the lee
his work and not rob Hartman by
stealing time.
The foreign railroad Offices, includ-
ing the Southern Pacific are regretting
they listened to the persuasive elo-
quence of a furniture drummer from
Kansas City and gave orders for their
sented. The drummer explained that
his company had unrivaled facilities
for the making of furniture, and that
II would be out here before the offices
were ready. None of the furniture
that was ordered from this firm has
arrived and the furniture people in
this city are enjoying the discomfort
that the railroad people are enduring
| because of their want of faith in the
home concerns. All the furniture that
was ordered here has been delivered
while the enterprising Kansas City
| firm has done nothing beyond dis
patching soothing replies to angry
complaints.
George w. Fletcher Of the Southern
Pacific and r. r. Ritchie Of the Chicago
Northwestern were discussing furni-
ture, linoleum and cleanliness gener-
ally yesterday. when Fletcher declared
himself in favor of white Ritchie OBJ
! jected and then Fletcher told the fol-
lowing story:
When the Del Monte was built there
arose a great dispute between the chef
and the architect as to whether the
kitchen should be painted white or red
| The chef wanted it red to match the
brick work; the architect was in favor
of white. The quarrel grew so bitter
that at last both men decided to pre-