The Ketchikan miner., 1907-03-16
KETCHIKAN
What Her busy Citizens are doing Local Happenings of Va.
 iOuS Kinds

heaily louf years Miss Edith Erich ard, now Mrs. F. M. Loomis, ha.
 been quietly and effectively workins among the native children as teacher in $. Johns Mission school What has been accomplished under hel gentle but firm influence any ob. 'erver during these four years well knows. She may, with good conscience leave her work with the satisfaction If having done well. To see the stream of children pour out of the school on almost any day Is an evi- dence of how much affection the children have for her. She has had no law Of compulsory attendance be- hind her, hence her work Is the more marked. The children evidently go to school because they like to do so. anc working as she has under no iron clad contract OF restriction, she has been free to employ those methods that best suit the conditions, and to keep the children as long each day as she thought their little wild open lir natures would stand It would be | hard to find a more cleanly, tidy. respectful lot of native children in Alaska. Each year has reduced the traunt list, and regularity of atten- dance has uniformely increased. The new school and it's later addition cor roborates these casual observations. It would be a most happy farewell which she doubtless reluctantly makes. for her to know that the present indebtedness of S250,0 00 on the school building was wiped out. We can ill afford to lose such model young woman, from our midst,
 Some overwhelmingly funny chap hcked up ruction in town the other day by concocting and placing n the bulletin board of the Admiral billiard hall, what puported to be a .elegraphic dispatch stating that Japan had declared war against the United States. The perpetrator of the hoax probably didn't mean any harm, but it had such an effect on the patriotic fervor of naturalized American citizen of Teutonic per Suasion, who happened to be in town from Hadley. that he started out at once to prosecute the war by the ex termination of all the Japs he could ind in town. After he had assaulted several little brown men. and while } vent his patriotic wrath, the chief of police undertook the task of stay ing the fellows onward victorious march. to accomplish which he was obliged to use his club and call to his assistance half a dozen or more bystanders. It was with great diff .ulty that the patriotic German Americans ardor could be quenched, md then it was only after the chief and his assistants had succeeded in throwing him to the ground that he could be secured and taken to the fed aral bastile. He was given a hear ing before Judge Stackpole the follow ing day, and by that official committ- ed for twenty days, pending prob able inquiry as to his sanity.
 Looked at from the deck of a pass ing steamship the site on which the town of Ketchikan is built does not readily commend itself to strangers IS an altogether eligible location. First impressions are, however sell 1om confirmed by subsequently, attained knowledge of the exact truth So it is in this case. What appears viewed from the deck of passing steamer like practically inaccessible heights are, in fact, only gentle emi- nences all, or nearly all, of which can be, and are being to some extent, util- ized for building purposes; with one exception, they are only such emin- ences as afford ample drainage, while all are capable of street improvement at less cost than obtains in the metro polls which now styles itself the "Queen city of the Pacific Coast. " There is, in fact, room here fora city of several hundred thousand inhabi- tants, in the building of which that which appears to the superficial be- holder an obstruction would be found natural advantage rather than dis advantage. It is not probable that a great city will ever be built here, but certainly there is nothing in the site itself to prevent such a consum- nation.
 Chris Hoover is having his old building on Front street, just above the Stedman, torn down preparatory to repaciny it ith new two-story structure 25xl0o feet ground dimen- isons. The old building is one oi the earliest land IT arks of the street, in fact one of the very oldest frame buildings in the town, having been erected when the streets of Ketchi- kan were undistinguishable except il may be on paper or in the minds eye alone.
 A Fast Ship. The Alaska Steam