994. Adams & Company (San Francisco, CA)

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TOPICS IN CALIFORNIA. THE ALLEGED PLAGUE OUTBREAK RARE RELICS FOUND-NEW NATIONAL PARKS [BY TELEGRAPH TO THE TRIBUNE.} San Francisco, May 26.-Some uneasiness has been caused here this week by rumors that the city would be quarantined because of the reported presence in Chinatown of the bubonic plague. The local Board of Health and Dr. Kinyoun, the Federal Quarantine Officer, both declare that there have been nine fatal cases of genuine bubonic plague in Chinatown since last February. They diagnosed these cases as plague, and cultures taken from these patients killed guinea pigs and rats which were inoculated with the bacilli. Other experts, who are competent medical men, declare that these patients died from pneumonia, induced by neglect while suffering from a loathsome blood disease, and that cultures from such patients would prove as deadly as from real bubonic plague victims. Last week the Health Board began inoculating the Chinese and Japanese in Chinatown with Haffkine serum, sent out from Washington. The Chinese objected strongly, closed all their places of business and defied the Health Board, swearing they would shoot the officers who attempted to enforce the injection. Their attitude was so menacing that the Board has confined operations to inoculating all the Asiatics who attempt to leave the city by ferries or trains A house to house inspection was begun in Chinatown on Thursday but though many of the worst alleys were examined no cases resembling plague were found. The Chinese and Japanese have protested to Washington against the inoculation as a race discrimination and an injunction case against the Health Board is being heard before the Federal court here Dr. Kinyoun, acting under instructions from Washington, is inspecting all outgoing vessels, causing much delay and annoyance. Meanwhile the city was never in better sanitary condition, and the theory *that the plague is in Chinatown appears to be upset by the simple fact that there has been no spread of the epidemic, as would have been the case in that crowded quarter had the disease actually appeared. In clearing away the débris of the old Adams Building, at the southwest corner of Montgomery and California sts., many interesting relics of 1849 were found. Among the articles in the cornerstone were fifty-dollar gold slugs, which are now very rare, and a gold plate on which were engraved the names of the contractors, masons and blacksmiths who worked on the building Adams & Co. did the heaviest banking business in those days. and their disastrous failure was one of the sensational events in the fifties. The lot is to be covered by a fine ten story office building, to be occupied by Alvinza Hayward. The local Supervisors decided this week to close all poolrooms and prohibit all kinds of bet ting on sporting contests. It is probable poolroom proprietors will get an injunction and carry the matter into the courts One Supervisor is even anxious to make it an offence to visit poolrooms, and his ordinance to provide a penalty for such visits may be adopted in the present reform mood of the Board. The Oakland School Board decided this week that consumptives cannot teach in the public schools. It also took a vote on the successor to Edwin Markham, author of "The Man With the Hoe," as principal of the Tompkins School. Professor Markham obtained a year's leave of absence soon after his poem made a great hit and went to New-York. He then intended to return, but recently he decided to make his home in Brooklyn. The old Calvary Presbyterian Church, on the northwest corner of Powell and Geary sts., opposite Union Square, has been sold for $240,000 to the agent for the Agars, of New-York, who are interested in the MacDonough estate. The site is a fine one for a hotel or a theatre, as it has a frontage of 137 1/2 feet on Powell-st., by 971/2 feet on Geary-st. Calvary Church will have six months in which to remove the present at building. A new church will be erected Jackson and Fillmore sts. Old Calvary Church scenes, but the has witnessed many exciting most sensational was the forced resignation of Dr. W. A. Scott in the early days of the Civil War, because he prayed for two Presidents Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. The Northern ment in the church revolted and compelled the pastor to preach the next week under draped Union flag and then to retire from the pulpit. The trouble at Stanford University, which threatened to call off all the students' class day exercises, has been adjusted The faculty of fered to bear the expenses of the students' events, and the senior class then agreed to drop from the cast of the farce the suspended man to whom the faculty objected. The University of California will soon acquire the Hillegass tract of 140 acres adjoining the present grounds This increase of area is necessary in order to carry out the plans for new college buildings. John Drew has had exceptional success this week at the Columbia Theatre in "The Tyranny of Tears. The house has been packed every night and at two matinees, although the price of orchestra chairs was raised to $2 The total receipts for the week will amount to $9,000, which is a record breaker at this house for several seasons. It pity that Drew couldn't stay longer, as he could fill the house for three weeks Next week Nat Goodwin and Maxine Elliott appear for a two weeks' engagement in "When We Were Twenty-one." The Grand Opera House will close for several weeks at the end of next week Comic opera, which has been produced for two years at this house, will now give way to melodrama, with the Frawley company. Active efforts will be made to convert into National park 35,000 acres of virgin redwood beforest, in what is known as the Big Basin, tween Santa Cruz and San Jose. The fine redwood trees have been saved from the lumbermen by their Inaccessibility, and the park would be a splendid pleasure ground for San Franciscans as well as great object of curiosity to tourists, as it includes a small number of giant redwoods that are not inferior in size to many of the sequoias, or big trees, of the two Sierra groves. A meeting will be held here next month to organize the Semper Virens Club, which will work for the proposed park. Ar other great natural curiosity which will soon be added to the National reservations is Palm Canyon, about one hundred miles east of Los Angeles. This is a small grove of natural date palm trees, which are over two hundred old. It is estimated that seeds of these in the canyon are from but many have their years palms followers. feet by fires high were built The dropped against trees been trunks sixty by badly by Coronado's to Indians and injured eighty Dr fenced in, The grove has recently been