Petaluma High School - Trojans Yearbook (Petaluma, CA)

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®mu ilnhnathau limit iftsilnttij OHNATHAN, my son, hast thou purified the abode of the sacred fowls?” “Nay, verily. Father, I have not.” “Then take thyself directly to the task which hath been assigned, to thee. Verily it grieves me greatly to see such negligence on thy part, for know ye not that cleanliness is a virtue, on an egg producing plant, which can not be neglected.?” “But, Father, only yesterday did I promise my friend, Abraham, that I should take my¬ self with him to yon rippling brook, there to angle for the finny inhabitants of the wa¬ ters.” “Even so, my son, but thou shalt firstly cleanse the residence of yonder birds ere ye go nigh unto the pool.” So Johnathan betook himself away mut¬ tering words, under his breath, upon the head of the paternal author of his existence, which thou shalt not find in the latest volume of Webster’s Unabridged. While Johnathan was toiling wearily at his hard task, he heard from among the euchalyptus trees a loud, shrill whistle. He straightened up his weary back and thrust his head out of the open door of the chicken- house, and gazed longing towards the trees. It was Abraham, without doubt, waiting there for him with a fishing tackle and lunch ready for a day’s sport. Just then Johnathan heard the loud clang¬ ing of a closing gate and looking toward the road saw his father driving to town with a load of eggs. An evil thought crossed his mind. Why not skip out and leave the old houses go dirty, his father would soon be cut of sight and his mother was busy v the house? Another loud impatient whistle from the trees decided him, leaving no chance for thought or after consequences. Dropping his shovel he ran toward, the trees and soon joined his waiting comrade, who greeted him with a tragic whisper from the branches of a tree. “Ha! friend Johnathan, hast thou escaped the tyranny of the villains?” “Yea, and it does my orbs of sight good to see thee here.” “Come, let thy foot-steps follow in mine, but step lightly lest the inhabitants of yon village harken unto the voice of our de¬ parture.” So commanded Abraham and with steal¬ thy tread led. the way through the trees and over the back fence. The way to the brook led over a hill, across a road., and then through a wood and over several hills. Upon reaching the road Abraham left Johnathan behind the hedge, while he care- ) fully looked up and down the road, to see if anyone was in sight, but as the way was clear he beckoned to Johnathan and the two boys quickly crossed the road and dis¬ appeared into the wood. It was a prime day for fishing and the boys selected their favorite place under an old oak and threw out their lines and wqre soon engaged in the exciting sport. How¬ ever, they soon tired of this and so Abra¬ ham dove into the inexhaustible recesses of his pockets and procuring a bunch of good dry corn-silk proceeded to make big fat cigars for himself and companion. “Ha! friend Johnathan, now wilt we in- | dulge in a specie of the fragrant weed,” said Abraham. “Yea, but what will your father say.” “Ah! thy Dad hain’t going to see ye.” But Abraham was mistaken for Johnath¬ an’s father, upon returning home, at once set out in pursuit of the truant, and at this moment arrived upon the scene. “Ah! Ha! thou imp of Satan, now I have thee, and I will teach thee a lesson thou wilt not soon forget,” exclaimed the angry parent. “Ouch! X—XOOO-1—X Help! — ! X — Zip! — X-OO — Bang! — Z — O — Murder! — X !-Oh! Pa!-OO —’ — X — etc.,” filled the air. And then Johnathan went sorrowfully home. —“COMUS” ’09. — 28 —

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P. H. S. ENTERPRISE ’08. When two months later he emerged from the sick room, the first thing he heard was a roaring cheer and the first thing he saw was a group of nine grateful faces and the first thing he realized was being carried on the shoulders of his partner in the pros¬ pecting trip, who told him that the shaft sunk at Dead Man’s Shack was turning out one hundred dollars daily, and that his share was awaiting him along with the contribu¬ tions of his grateful friends. —GEO. SKILLMAN ’ll. OUBTLESS many people have seen the tops sold at nearly ft 43 Yl all toy stores, consisting of a metal disk mounted on an axle in a ring; but probably very few realize of what importance it has become of late. It was first used in the early part of the last century to illustrate certain things about the seasons, substituting a small globe for the disk. When its peculiar properties were discovered in 1832 by Prof. W. R. Johnson, it was called the rotascope, but now the gyroscope. Its most important property is that when the disk is whirling rapidly, the axis can not be moved from its first position without difficulty. This may be easily illustrated by standing a bicycle on its rear wheel and on rotating the wheel as fast as possible, trying to turn it by means of the handle bars. While this property may seem very im¬ portant, it was not put to use to any extent till the invention of the torpedo. Each one of these conta’ns two near the motor, one to keep the torpedo at the same level and the other to keep it going in the same direc¬ tion. It has also been used in ocean-going vessels to reduce rocking; but was not a success, since the gyroscope could not get a leverage on anything solid on the earth. But its most important use comes later. Many men have tried as many different ways to eliminate one rail of the ordinary railroad track. Some have one rail above, and one below with a guide on each side, and one is running in Germany, where the trains are suspended from the rail. Also there are the systems, like that in Chicago, where the cars are hung on a cable. In Eng¬ land, however, Louis Brennan, who has studied the gyroscope for over thirty years, and is said to be one of the three men in the world who really understand it, has applied the principal to a mono-rail car. The car used at present is about six feet long, and about two and a half feet high. In front is a small covered space for the con¬ trolling apparatus, and air brakes. This also holds the gyroscope, which consists of two wheels revolving in a vacuum in opposite directions on frictionless bearings. The car is run by two electric motors, using cur¬ rent from a storage battery in the rear of the car. The freight in the car can all be put on one side, and the action of the gyroscope will raise that side. It also tips the car in the right direction when it is on a curve. Another great advantage is the ease with which temporary bridges can be constructed, the inventor having one on his place made of a wire cable stretched between the two rail ends. Tremenduous speeds are expect¬ ed of it, such as 100 or 150 miles per hour. The British government is so interested that is spending $25,000 on a car twelve feet wide. Still the car has its difficulties. The gyroscope wheels must weigh 5 per cent of the weight of the car. With an ordinary passenger coach, this would mean three tons, and a wheel of this size going at 2,500 or 3,500 revolutions per minute would be liable to explode. This probably can be overcome by casting the wheels in one piece of metal. Sir Hiram Maxim calls it a “highly scientific toy” which will not work on a large scale. The result of a large car is, therefore, un¬ known, but if it is a success, it will certain¬ ly bring about a great revolution in the art of railroad construction and operation. —C. H. GREEN. — 27 —

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Anreatora Stemeweb S ETALUMA has been distin¬ guished by being made the center of a big novel by a prominent author—Ancestors, by Gertrude Atherton. But distinction is not always honor. Among many other complimentary things the auth¬ or states that Rosewater—with this name she has graced our city—“of late years has become virtuous to excess, and almost blind and deaf with local pride.” Our banks are sound and safe, but they are so full of petty jealousy that they have prevented the growth of our city for many years just to spite one another. Our women neglect their homes, husbands, and social duties to in¬ dulge their insatiable craze for card playing. Our Woman’s Club devotes a large part of the business meeting to a serious and open discussion of a bit of rank gossip. Our schools alone seem to have found favor with our notable visitor, for she lets the heroine of Ancestors tell her English relatives that “there are very good schools in Rosewater, particularly the High School.” The story is one of the improbable, I might say impossible, kind. The heroine, brought up in Rosewater (Petaluma) and descended from noble Spanish and English ancestors, is traveling in Europe. Her fath¬ er was a drink-besott ed law r yer, but he died at last, and she is now free to lead her own life. She is a graduate from our High School and she speaks several languages, we are informed. On a visit with some distant English relatives she meets an English lord, thirty years of age and not married, who by some strange coincidence has talent and progressiveness as well as money and a title. The English press and other flatterers of nobility have made him believe that he is the coming man of England. But he has progressive ideas. Now his title makes him a member of the House of Lords and he feels that his genius will surely be smother¬ ed and crushed among that set of political deadheads. As he owns an estate of 19,000 acres in California near Rosewater she ad¬ vises him to go to America to develop this estate, drop all his English titles and then just as a common American citizen enter on a political career here. He accepts her ad¬ vice, settles on his estate two miles from Rosewater, and studies law and politics. At first he is discouraged by his new surround¬ ings, then he becomes disgusted with our political corruption, and finally he begins to dream of a political career at the head of a new reform party. The earthquake comes, and the Englishman rushes to San Francis¬ co. A millionaire friend gives him an auto¬ mobile and for two days he acts as chauf¬ feur, transferring dynamite for the fire-fight¬ ers. The novelty of doing useful work makes him enthusiastic and he decides to devote himself to the making of the new San Francisco. That is the story interwoven with a multi¬ tude of exhaustive and exhausting descrip¬ tions of scenery, houses, parties, dinners, and club meetings. A chilly love affair runs through the book and ends fittingly with the decision of the heroine that after all per¬ haps maybe she will be able to stand her fiance as husband. At any rate, she will marry him and risk a trial. If we look for local color of Petaluma, we search in vain through the seven hundred laborious pages of the book. A true and graphic description of the lay and build of the town and the mention of the White Leg¬ horns with red combs,—that is all we can recognize. Even the time-honored allusion to the fabeled “golden eggs” seems out of place when the author applies it to the cheap snow-white product of the Leghorn. If any of the local characters have been described in the book, they have undergone such changes in the mind of the author that we can not recognize them with any degree of certainty. The incident of the Petaluma club women engaging in an open impromptu, though eloquent, debate on a bit of scand¬ alous gossip is grotesque as well as prepost¬ erous. Such may be possible in some idle gossipy English town of the author’s ac¬ quaintance, but in a busy commercial, cos¬ mopolitan town like Petaluma it is absurd and inconceivable. The description of the earthquake and fire in the last sixty pages of the book is well worth reading. Yet, considering the auth¬ or’s descriptive powers, we can not help but feel that she might have surpassed Bulwer’s — 29 —