Tribune Tuesday: Refugee Is Insane

From: The Oakland Tribune, 26 April 1906

REFUGEE IS INSANE

BERKELEY, April 26.-Wildly tearing her hair and shouting at the top of her voice, Mrs. Jordan, a fire refugee from San Francisco, went temporarily insane at the North Berkeley Hotel last night during dinner hours. The loss of her pretty home in San Francisco and the hardships she underwent in fleeing from the burning city was too much for her tired brain, and the result was a total collapse.

Just before dinner, Mrs. Jordan took some headache powders to ease the pain in her brain. But the powders had a contrary effect and the unfortunate woman went wildly insane.

Dr. Kelsey was called and diagnosed the case as one of temporary insanity and the patient was at once removed to the Alto [sic] Bates Sanatorium on Dwight way. It will be some months before the woman recovers from the shock.

California Quotes: A Sort of Aquatic Temple-bar

"Opposite the Bay of Sausolito [sic], in a north-easterly direction, lies the island of De los Angelos, much the largest in the Bay of San Francisco. Its shores are bold around, but on the south and west rise abruptly to a giddy height. It is covered with fine pasture, possesses good water, and a sufficiency of firewood; but as yet has not tempted a wooer to its angelic embrace. Were I to remain in California, I should choose it as my head-quarters, for, over and above the properties I have mentioned, its picturesque situation is pre-eminently attractive, reposing under the shelter of the coast range, and commanding a most expansive view of the bay; from its south-east cliffs you see through the gullet of the harbour the undulating bosom of the broad Pacific; immediately opposite, the more elevated terraces of the city sweetly challenges the view; and beyond its jutting extremes the southern portion of the bay stretches beyond the limits of vision, to receive the waters of the Santa Clara, on which stands the embarcadero of the capital of San Jose'; while towards the northward is discernible the great entrance to the Strait of Carquines, with the city of Benicio [sic] on its shores--a sort of aquatic Temple-bar, where vessels, boats, and barges are jostling agains each other as they pass and repass in crowded throngs through this narrow thoroughfare."

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From: An Excursion to California, Volume II, 1851, p. 266. Photo by Telstar Logistics, available via Creative Commons for non-commercial usage.

Tribune Tuesday: Five Are Killed

From: The Oakland Tribune, 18 April 1906:

FIVE ARE KILLED

Five people were killed in the Empire Building on Twelfth Street, near Broadway.

The dead are:

Otto Wisher, forty-five years of age

Amelia Wisher, thirteen years of age

Edward Marney, about twenty-five years of age

Mrs. Edward Marney, twenty-five years old

Unknown man, about twenty-five years of age

John Judd, dropped dead of heart disease

Scripophily- Your Friendly Neighborhood Collecting Craze

If you are looking for an interesting browse on the stranger side of the historical, check out Scripophily.net, or Oldstocks.com. Defined as the study and collection of stocks and bonds, scripophily is an interesting trip into the business successes and failures of yesteryear. Take, for instance, the New England Breeders' Club (illegal horse-racing anyone?). And many of the certificates are beautiful!

Ah collecting. I have to say that I had no idea that people collected old stock and bond certificates. What's next... collecting the names of dead people and putting them in a database?

California Quotes: These Learned Statesmen

"The farmers have set up a wail here and described the difficulties they have had down in these valleys in establishing homes. The miners themselves, many of them, have sailed clear around the horn, and many of them have been balanced upon the point of a horn ever since, in an honest endeavor all the time to find something that would add to the wealth of the State, and certainly they have succeeded, because I see that during the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven they have produced nearly nineteen million of dollars; and yet these learned statesmen want to go to work and impose this onerous tax upon the men who are endeavoring to bring this wealth to the surface. It is the only industry to-day in this State which pays to the laboring men three dollars and four dollars a day. In my county the ruling rate is four dollars a day for miners. Now the laboring men cut up so about wages down in San Francisco that they have got the wages down to nothing. The only men who pay them full wages in this State are the miners, and yet the Workingmen stand up here and vote to tax them out of existence, and prevent the organization of companies which will pay them better wages than they can get in any other place."

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From: Debates and proceedings of the [California] Constitutional convention, Volume II, 1881, p. 911

Tribune Tuesday: Prefers Whisky To Wife

From: The Oakland Tribune, 31 January 1906, p. 1

PREFERS WHISKY TO WIFE
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This Woman Gets a Divorce For Her Hubby's Habits

Two bits worth of whisky before breakfast, two bits more for a "chaser" after breakfast; two bits worth of beer for lunch and two bits for whisky in the evening--$1 a day for liquor for 365 by actual count was the record of Peter Keogh, according to the testimony of Julia Keogh in her divorce action in which she was granted an interlocutory decree this morning by Judge Ellsworth on the ground of Keogh's habitual intemperance.

They are an aged couple and have made their home at Seventh and Adeline streets where Mrs. Keogh conducted a little store. She is 72 years of age and he is 74, but she says he made life so unbearable for her finally that she had to leave him.

LOVES HIS LIQUOR

During the last five years, she testified he had hardly been sober a day and when she refused to give him money for liquor she says he would beat her.

She said that she had to stay out in the street much of the time to get away from him and at night she used to have to sit up. She said she did not go to her neighbors because she hated to let them know of her troubles. Six months ago she says she left him.

Around the Web Today

* New digitization of the Domesday Book from King's College in London.

* The Quilt Index (a collaboration from Michigan State University and other institutions) has photos, provenance, and maker information on quilts from a number of states.

* Whole lotta Mathew Brady photos online from NARA... now with geotagging!

* Mark Kleiman at The Atlantic talks about the use and origins of you, thee and thou and legacies of class distinction.