The San Francisco call., 1909-11-14

Passing by the perennial subjects of old maids,
womans suffrage and whisky it may be OF interest 70
the plain comedian" sang of them. The streetcars
are noticed twice, about free rides and again
about running up to the moon, this last probably
because cable cars had begun running IN MaTEet
street but short while, and the city was still proud OF
It's greatly improved service.
Pay" in the first stanza had to have rhyme,
references to smaller towns always bring laugh and
here was good place to bring IN San jose Dude
was new word which had into general use
topical song writer of that day. Charley had song
about the dude, called Butterfly Dude" few lines
OF which went like this:
Dude dude, butterfly dude
He walks like a dolly talks like polly,
He's sweeter than honey, he amt got no money;
Say what do you think this butterfly dude?
The chorus of "In 1907 was made up of a line
from each OF three popular songs It is long time
since the trade dollars mentioned in verse have
been heard Of they coined by the government IN
the seventies for special purpose They were not
legal tender, and would take them at any
value The reference street sweeping is probably
about of the sweeping contract scandals which
often.
The Sweet Bye and Bye" of stanza was one of
the most popular Moody and Sankey hymns; every
hand organ played it and it got so tiresome finally
that any one attempting to sing It almost risked vio
be mayor of sweet Mooneyville" requires explana-
ton. Soon after the Haight street cable line was
built & steam road WA was 5 run from Hht and and sanyan
fore been reached only by Vehicles, became at
popular resort. There well known saloon
keeper and sporting man named Con Mooney who
got the idea that the beach the foot of the incline
to the Cliff house government land, so he squatted
on it and built shack there. immediately Dennis
Kearney the sandlotter, and number of others fol-
lowed him and the beach for quite distance
covered with shacks in which saloons restaurants and
various amusements installed. The town took
Mooneyville, as it was called, a huge joke and
crowds used to go out there every Sunday to enjoy
the fun. You may be Charley Reed did not
neglect this chance for his show One week he played
an afterpicce called 'Mooneyve. The city authori-
ties, after several months of trouble, evicted all the
claimants.
town and had there been rubberneck wagon then it
certainly would have gone down TO the water front
police station, and was fat enough for Job in
sdeshow. Whenever there unusually high
tide iokingly said that the captain had gone in
swimming Another story that he after
malefactors-he lay down and rolled after them.
Beautiful Snow in the last stanza popular
poem attributed to number of well known authors
Curiously enough Mark Twan's book on the author
ship of Shakespeare okngy aludes the authorship
of this poem The idea of wrestling match between
Muldoon and Sharon was almost as funny as the
auson to Captain Kentzell and Mooneyville. Sharon
Senator Sharon, who was being sued by Sarah
Muldoon the same Muldoon who now has physical
culture santarum for broken down New Workers,
had to the coast playing Charles the wrestler
in Modjeska's production of AS You Like It." He
stayed here and drove the town mad over wrestling
matches with Donald Dinnie and Clarence Whistler.
There was as much excitement over these wrestling
matches then there is over prize fights today, and
the big Mechanics pavilion generally packed to
the doors.
Dear old Charley Reed best loved of all the stage
folk in this actor loving town, will there be
another like you? To you of the younger generation
who read this doggerel OF his and who wonder how
could have enjoyed such trash who knew
him and who week after week, roared at his tomfoo
cry and delighted in his magnetism that reached
the footlghts and made each one of us feel that he
was acting for particular benefit, only answer
"You didn't know him.