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The Argonaut.
VOL. XXII. No. 13. SAN FRANCISCO, MARCH 24, 1888. PRICE, TEN CENTS.

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PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. - The Argonaut is published every Saturday,
at No. 213 Grant Avenue (Dupont Street), by the Argonaut Publishing Company.
Subscriptions, $4.00 per year; six months, $2.25; three months,
$1.50; payable in advance - postage prepaid. Subscription to all foreign countries
within the Postal Union, $5.00 per year. City subscribers served by
Carriers at $4.50 per year, or 10 cents per week. Sample copies, free. Single
copies 10 cents. News Dealers and Agents in the interior supplied by the
San Francisco News Company, Post Street, above Grant Avenue (Dupont
Street), to whom all orders from the trade should be addressed. Subscribers
wishing their addresses changed should give their old as well as new
addresses. The American News Company, New York, are agents for the
Eastern trade. The Argonaut may be ordered from any News Dealer in the
United States or Europe. Address all communications to "The Argonaut,
No. 213 Grant Avenue (Dupont Street), San Francisco." No traveling
canvassers employed. A. P. STANTON, Business Manager.

ENTERED AT THE SAN FRANCISCO POST-OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER.
FRANK M. PIXLEY, EDITOR.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITORIAL: The Improved Manner of Celebrating St. Patrick's Day⁠—The
Vice-Presidents at the Grand Opera House⁠—The Irish as a People and as
Politicians⁠—The Rumored Danger to the New Emperor's Life from Poisoning⁠—
The Really Important Men of the Empire⁠—The Eastern Railroad
Strikes⁠—How they Interfere with the Mail Service⁠—Postmaster
Dickinson's Suggestion⁠—The Contest between Political Authorities at
Washington and the Central Pacific Railroad⁠—Senator Stanford's Review
of the Controversy . . . . . 1 - 3

A MODERN PROTEUS: Some Account of a Mysterious Gift of Personation.
By Robert Duncan Milne . . . . . 4

AT THE FRENCH CAPITAL: "L'Américaine" writes a Fashionable Hôtel,
Fires, Cafés, and Trianon⁠—The Impression the City makes on a Visitor⁠—
The Sombre Exterior and Luxurious Apartments of an Aristocratic City
Home⁠—The Town Life of the French⁠—The Night-Scenes in the Streets⁠—
An American's Experience at a Fire⁠—A Visit to the Home of By-gone
Rulers . . . . . 5

THE ALLEGED HUMORISTS: Paragraphs Ground out by the Dismal Wits of
the Day . . . . . 5

THE WILSON TRIAL: "Parisina" gives some Account of the Principal
Actors⁠—How the Public regards Daniel⁠—His Own View of his Offense⁠—
His Accomplices⁠—An Impudent Rascal's Sallies in Court⁠—His Description
of the Methods Employed⁠—The Women in the Case . . . . . 6

EDITORIAL NOTES . . . . . 6

VANITY FAIR: How Mrs. Cleveland assists the President at Receptions⁠—
Some of Miss Adèle Grant's Striking Directoire Costumes⁠—The Utility
and Plainness of Men's Dress⁠—Ladies' Sledge Races in St. Petersburg⁠—
Novelties in Silver Bric-à-Brac⁠—A Ladies' Corps de Ballet in Paris⁠—The
Latest Fad in Footwear⁠—A Maidens' Ball with no Men Present⁠—The
Truth about some Alleged Russian Ideas⁠—How the Gay Benedict eludes
his Watchful Spouse in New York . . . . . 7

SOMETHING TO STARE AT: New York's Raging Mania for Street Sights.
By Alfred Trumble . . . . . 8

OLD FAVORITES: "Gentle Alice Brown," by W. S. Gilbert . . . . . 8

AN ARISTOCRATIC SCRAP: "Cockaigne" describes the "Knock-out"
between Lord Howard de Walden and Major Burrows⁠—Who the Combatants
are and how the Row originated⁠—Two Ladies and a Lordling Concerned⁠—
How De Bensuade brought Lord Lonsdale into Court⁠—Violet
Cameron's Villa in St. John's Wood⁠—Some Interesting Revelations . . . . . 9

INDIVIDUALITIES: Notes about Prominent People all over the World . . . . . 9

LITERARY NOTES: New Publications⁠—Personal and Miscellaneous Gossip . . . . . 10

STORYETTES: Grave and Gay, Epigrammatic and Otherwise⁠—A Strange
Experience with a Neapolitan Pick-pocket⁠—A Bishop sent to Hell for his
Luggage⁠—A Florentine Street Urchin's Joke⁠—General Humphrey's Profanity⁠—
The Senators and the Sarcophagus⁠—Lord Palmerston's Objection
to the "Garnish"⁠—An Adventure in a Hat-store⁠—A Tale of Two Travelers⁠—
Red Tape in Washington . . . . . 10

MOVEMENTS AND WHEREABOUTS . . . . . 11

TO THE MAN WHO PUNS . . . . . 12

DRAMA: "Betsy B.'s" Letter⁠—Stage Gossip . . . . . 14

St. Patrick's day passed off splendidly, and just as the
Argonaut desired. When we began, some ten years ago, in
our modest way, to suggest that it would be more becoming to
celebrate this anniversary of Ireland's patron saint by meeting
in churches for mass and religious ceremonial, in some great
theatre for literary exercise, and in banquet hall for convivial wassail,
rather than to have a tatterdemalion parade, with marshal,
aids, and imitation cavalry on sorry Rosinantes; ancient Hibernians
in ancient and tattered livery; priests and politicians
in open barouches; freckle-faced boys of parochial
schools, and along the kerb-stone a dreary mass of male and
female mugs, we were somewhat blamed by the more interested
and ignorant of the Irish, and it was most wrongly
assumed that the Argonaut was prejudiced against the celebration
of the presumed birthday of Ireland's adopted patron
saint. This misconception of our views deeply wounded our
feelings, and not till on Saturday last did we feel emancipated
from the burden of this unjust suspicion. The day was more
than usually calm and bright; the air was soft and balmy;
nature, who usually scowled and shed tears upon the Irish in
parade, smiled as she saw them kneeling around their altars,
and meeting for eloquent speech and merry song in the Grand
Opera House, and gathered for feast of fun and frolic, meat and
wine, in banquet halls, and for merriment in dancing and music
at social gatherings. It was a rational display of religious and

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patriotic sentiment on the part of a people with whom none who
differ from them in religion, or politics, or place of birth, can
have any right to find fault. None was offended by their
church emblems; none offended by having a flag that represents
no nationality flaunted in their faces; business was not
interfered with, nor the streets crowded with a shamrock
procession on a day that was not and never will in America
become a national holiday. The Irish did just what they had the
right to do, they kept their religion and their politics for once
out of sight. The Irish are wonderful people for having vice-
presidents at their meetings; every time there is a home-rule
gathering, or any anti-English demonstration, or an Irish
demonstration of any kind, the same set of citizens are made
to do duty as statuary on their platforms. All the prominent
Irish, every priest and monk that wears a gown, and every
Democratic politician that holds an office, every coward demagogue
that is presumed to want an Irish vote is compelled
to see his name in print as a vice-president even if he
does not sit upon the platform, or consent to the use
of his name in print. At the Grand Opera House meeting,
on Saturday, were two hundred and twenty-two vice-presidents,
of whom forty-nine were office and ex-office-holders, thirty-
three were priests, and, of the remainder, fully nine-tenths were
politicians. In the entire list we recognize but seventeen names
that can not be identified with any political aspirations, men
who have not held office, or been candidates for office; these
are, of course, exclusive of the priests. We are sorry that our
American candidate for mayor felt it necessary to perform the
unpleasant duty of participating in this politico-religious celebration
of the Irish saint, lest, in event of his ambition for a
higher office, he may run counter to men of unrelenting prejudice
against the Irish and unforgiving memories of any act that
seems to pander to them. We hope the better sense of the
Irish themselves will realize, in time, that their demand of political
service from public men and men in public station injures
their cause, and works ruin to the friends from whom
they exact it. If the Irish who are Catholics would keep their
priests, and their religious dogmas, and their church ceremonials
to themselves and within their church edifices, and keep
the whole business out of politics, there should be no active
resentments in operation against them. If the Irish choose to
favor home-rule and an independent parliament for Ireland, to
hate England, and vote the Democratic ticket, let them do so
in a more rational way than by calling public meetings to raise
money for the election of Irish members of Parliament, and
in a less criminal manner than by the use of dynamite, and in
calling their meetings, let them cease to resort to the offensive
custom of using the names of officials and prominent citizens
for vice-presidents, who are ashamed of the false predicament
in which they are placed, yet who know, if they refuse, they will
be punished by the active resentment of the Irish at the ballot-
box. This display of vice-presidential names at Irish meetings
of men in public station is a fraud, and is resorted to by the
Irish as a menace to keep these men in alliance with them. The
Republican party has had the courage to break loose from this
tyranny; the Democratic party will do so in a short time.
The Germans have, as a rule, given the Irish to understand
that they will no longer stand this nonsense. Mayor Hewitt,
of the city of New York, has had the courage to snub this
Irish insolence, and thousands of Democrats all over the nation
will take courage from his example and follow it. If
things move on at this rate much longer, the Pope's
Democratic Irish will find themselves without political allies or
friends. It was a serious undertaking for the Argonaut to
endeavor to reform all the abuses of Popery and Irishery, but
we have succeeded so far and so well, that we will not take
our hand from the plow, or look back until no Pope's priest
shall be called upon to do duty at an Irish political meeting as
platform statuary, and until the name of Protestant German,
Israelite, or citizen of foreign birth, or any native-born
citizen shall not be used, except by his approval and consent.

We note, with surprise and incredulity, the news statement
that the daughter of Queen Victoria, and new Empress of
Germany, while at San Remo, in wifely attendance upon her

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husband the Crown Prince, feared for him lest his life should
be destroyed by poison; that, she prepared his food with her
own hands; that she tasted it before she allowed him to partake
of it; that she maintains the same personal vigilance and
care over him in Berlin as while at San Remo; that there is a
bitterness in German political circles against the English party,
amounting to a conspiracy; that, for safety, the German physicians
have all been dismissed from their attendance upon the
emperor; that for safety, as well as convenience, Sir Morell
Mackenzie, the English physician, has been assigned apartments
on the same floor and adjoining those of the emperor;
that, until this arrangement was made, the palace was so
filled with spies and informers that free and unreserved
communication in the palace was impossible; and we
read that, on one occasion, the empress held an audience
with the English surgeon in the open garden⁠—the
month was March, and the weather inclement. We do not
accredit these things, nor any part of them; we do not
believe that secret murder, armed with the stiletto and the
poison-cup, can exist in this, the nineteenth century, nor walk
the corridors of a royal German palace; we do not believe
that this class of crime has survived the midnight age, nor
been transferred from Spain and Italy to the German
Empire; we believe the time has gone by when political ends are
accomplished or accomplishable by such infernal means. If
this condition of things were possible in Germany, and while
the dead monarch lies in state before his burial, it discloses a
phase of political affairs in that empire that ought to bring
red blood to the cheek of every honest German. More
likely this is all in the imagination of sensational news
reporters, endeavoring to satisfy the diseased appetites of
criminal journals, rivaling each other in the production of sensational
lies. The death of the emperor at the advanced age
of ninety-one years is not a matter of profound political regret,
for it has been understood that, for some years, he has
been intellectually incapable of the performance of any serious
public duty; he could go dressed to his palace window; receive
the homage of the crowds assembled unter den linden;
he could ride on horseback, or in his royal coach, on occasions
of military reviews or public display, and could look
wise when diplomatic affairs were explained for his approval,
or state papers presented for his signature; beyond this, he
must have relied upon the wise counselors whom he had
drawn around him. Had Germany depended upon the emperor,
unaided by Prince Bismarck, Von Moltke, Von Roon,
and other able men in military and civil councils, in financial
and diplomatic service, Germany would not to-day have
been an empire at peace with all the states comprising it,
dictating peace to the colossus of the north, and holding in its
firm grasp the leash of all the fighting war-hounds of Europe.
With this imperial daughter of England's empress-queen, all
good men and good women will sympathize, and with her all
will rejoice that her husband has, by her wifely care, been
nursed beyond the emperor's death, that upon her brow may
repose, for a time at least, the imperial diadem of the German
Empire. Further news details come from Berlin informing
us that the English physician is restrained from visiting public
places, or being seen in the streets, for fear of mob violence;
that the feeling is very pronounced against the English; that
the Crown Prince has had an angry interview with the Prince
of Wales, his mother's brother; that he has treated his mother
with insolence, and angrily refused her his arm, but compelled
her to walk behind him. If the future Emperor
of Germany is a man of this character, it will be a misfortune
to that empire when the present ruler shall die
and give over to so unmanly and unnatural a person
the imperial control of the German Empire. We recall
the name of no successful ruler, nor of any great man
who has ever made an impression upon the age in which he
lived, who has been unmindful of his duty to his mother.
The civilization of Germany, and of the age, and of universal
humanity, would pronounce such an emperor unworthy to
rule, and no human beings can control an European state in
this nineteenth century who does not command the respect of
some part of his fellow-men. We are disposed to look upon