Vignettes Of San Francisco | Page 3

in town, and I have a fancy the
big cars humor it a bit and give it first place. Besides, it goes anywhere
in the city, Chinatown, the Hall of Justice, the Chamber of Commerce,
the Barbary Coast, St. Francis Church - sinners, saints and merchants
may travel its way - Portsmouth Square, Telegraph Hill, Little Italy,
Russian Hill, Automobile Row, Fillmore street, the Presidio and I
expect with a little coaxing it would switch about and run over to the
Mission. It has actually been known on stormy nights to take its
constituents up the side streets to their very doors.
It is a surprising little boat which looks like nothing more than a bug
crawling up the backs of the hills with its antenna of khaki-wound legs
sticking out fore and aft. Those who have traveled in Ireland tell us that
it is much like the jaunting cars, and it is not unlike the Toomerville
Trolley.

One night I set out to find the little thing to take me home. I was in a
strange part of the city and when my friends told me to get on and get
off and get on again I did as I was told. With blind faith I told the
conductors to put me off and they did. I continued in this way until
long after midnight when I found myself at a lonely corner with no one
in sight. I waited and waited and was getting nervous when I spied a
blue uniform. I looked sharply to see if he were a motorman, a fireman
or an officer from the Presidio. I am careful about these matters since
last summer when I was coming North on the President, and asked a
naval officer for some ice water. I rushed up to him and told him,
which was true, that it was the first time I had ever seen a policeman
when I wanted one. This led him into a defense of the San Francisco
police, which I told him was quite unnecessary with me for I thought
them the finest policemen in the world, probably because they are so
Irish.
"Irish," said he with a twinkle, "I'm not Irish."
We chatted awhile until the Union street car came along, and then that
policeman who said he wasn't Irish leaned over and whispered
confidentially, "If you miss this car, there'll be another." I suppose they
get lonesome.
You see how I am wandering away from my subject. That is because I
followed the Union street car. It switches from subject to subject just
like that. It begins with the wonderful retail markets of San Francisco,
and then changes abruptly to all sorts of sociological problems, then
before we know it gives us a beautiful marine view, and then drops us
down where the proletariat lives, then up to the homes of the rich and
mighty, and ends in the military.
Everyone should sight-see by the little Union street car.

The Latin Meets the Oriental

In that spot where Chinatown merges into the Latin quarter there must
be, I think, a Director of Delightful Situations who holds dominion
there. For instance, can you imagine anything more subtle than a group
of large fat women haranguing, in Italian-American, a poor thin
Chinaman over some bargains in vegetables?
In a place which marks the line of cleavage between the two quarters is
a picture store containing in its window religious pictures, enlarged
family photographs of Filipinos, and, of course, views of the Point
Lobos cypress. There is something very appealing about that window.
Pictures of Jesus, no matter how lurid they are, never fall short of
dignity. And it seems not at all incongruous that He should be there in
the midst of all those strange human contacts.
There are not only contacts between the Latin and the Oriental, but
anything unusual may come to light in that particular neighborhood. A
buff cochin rooster was wandering about the street the other day.
Stepping high and picking up choice tidbits and showing off before his
harem of hens who peeked at him from their boxes, he strutted about
exactly as though he had been in his own Petaluma barnyard.
One day I saw an enormous negro running through the streets with a
piece of new, green felt bound around his stomach. Now why should a
huge negro run through the street with a piece of new green felt around
his stomach? No one knows. And another time a small Chinese maiden
bumped into me because she was so absorbed in that great American
institution, the funny sheet.
On one of those side streets, in there somewhere, one of those streets
untoured by tourists, I saw some Chinese boys, dressed in American
"Boss of the Road" unionalls,