Vignettes Of San Francisco | Page 8

I chose the other I don't remember.
But cafeterias are very fine for those who have cafeteria sense.

The Open Board of Trade

Months ago one of The Journal readers suggested a story to be found

down on Market street near the Hobart building. Many times since
when passing there I have thought that those street hawkers must have
a certain picturesque and even humorous value, and hoping to find it I
have stopped to listen. But the moment I stop they win me with their
everlasting logic, and then blessed if I can write them up. They have the
same effect upon others. I have seen chambers of commerce and stock
exchangers and professors from Berkeley passing with a supercilious
glance which did very well so long as they kept moving. But once let
them step into the magic ring and they too became mesmerized and
stood there gaping in spellbound interest. "Logic is logic, that's all I
say."
Those hawkers are artists, skilled in the arts and wiles of
persuasiveness. There is one with a long, horse-hair wig which he
occasionally brushes back from his eyes with a dignified flourish. This
man has found the supreme elixir and the secret of perpetuity. He is the
only man in the world, this modern Ponce de Leon, who knows the
secret. Surely we need not blush to listen to its exposition, $2 is a small
sum to pay for such a bonanza. Forty thousand people have used it in
the last thirty-nine days. Think of it. "Take it right out into the crowd
and sniff it for yourself," he urges and somehow that breaks the spell,
and strong men look foolishly at each other and move a-way.
Horoscopes, suspenders, iron watch charms, brown cakes that may pass
for maple sugar, ironing wax, laundry soap or penuchia, a book on
Prohibition, mending wax and books of magic are all there. They are
not things which we particularly want, but that's the point. Anyone can
sell things that people want. But these men are professional persuaders
of men against their will whose mission it is to make people want what
they don't want. That's Art.
The horoscope seller must have taken his degree from some college of
venders, his call has such finesse. I cannot reproduce the lilt of it -
"Here's where you get your horoscope, a dime, ten cents." It is
suggestive of the midways of country fairs, shooting galleries on the
Board Walk, and circuses in the springtime. "Here's where you get your
horoscope, a dime, ten cents."

The little, old, blind man sitting there with one hand outstretched and
the other holding a book, his white hair and beard neatly combed,
reminds me of something Biblical and prophetic like pictures in old
churches. Alas! no one seems to buy his story of prohibition. I think he
would do lots better in Kansas or Iowa. A particularly fascinating one
is the man of mending wax who stands before his table like some
professor of chemistry with a tiny flame and saucers of mysterious
powders and, I almost said, a blow pipe.
But, pshaw, I can't write them up. I take them too seriously. "Logic is
logic, that's all I say."

The San Francisco Police

The San Francisco police are the handsomest and most-willing-to-flirt
policemen in the United States, if not in the world. What a surly lot, the
New York policemen. They treat one as though he were a blackguard
for merely asking some direction.
"What car shall I take for the New Jersey Central Ferry?" we ask.
"Zippity-ip," he snaps, moving off.
"What did you say?" we ask in timid desperation.
"Zippity-ip," he yells, shaking his fist at us.
But ask a San Francisco policeman the way and how different. He will
take your arm and smile down at you and even go away with you
chatting all the time - "Stranger here? Well, you'll never go back East
again." And somehow after that you never do.
Of course, the San Francisco police are many things beside being
handsome and willing to flirt. But these are important qualifications
which, up to this time, have never had their place in journalism. Ah,

many a Raleigh and Don Quixote in the roster of the S. F. police.
A policeman is all things to all people. What a policeman is depends
upon what we are. To those who are fast, either in reputation or driving,
he is a limb of the law to be either evaded or cajoled. To the small boy
he is a hero to aspire to become when grown. To the public-spirited
citizen of the reforming order he is a piece of community linen to be
periodically washed in public with a great hue in the papers