1909 S. F. Examiner

I was finishing up the last of the demo in the bathroom and I found some parts of the August 12, 1909 edition of the San Francisco Examiner. I had always speculated that the room was first modified in the teens, but it seems it was a few years earlier. There was a sink of some sort in the corner of the room and when they pushed the back wall out 1-foot the sink was removed. The water pipes came up through the floor and they plugged the holes with rolled up pieces of 1909 newspaper.





In the images above, you can see that the newspaper is still in the hole on the right, and then the plug after it was removed. I only got two good pages, and using the word “good” here is a bit of a stretch. This is not anything close to the good condition of the 1915 San Francisco Chronicle I found in the house. The two pages, one sheet front and back, are mostly readable, but there’s not much worth reading really. One side is the sports page and the other is the society page.





I can tell you that Ralph Myers has signed up with the Senators to play for the rest of the season. Johnny Murphy is in the last stages of The White Plague. The popular local fighter has been in Ukiah recuperating. Finally, Los Angles wins it’s first game of the series with the Seals.

The best things are a the 2 full length comic strip on the sports page, and a racy drawing on the society page. The most readable comic has 7 panels and it’s about a man who is trying to quit betting on the horses and is afraid to tell his wife. The language is great.

Man standing on said walk: Well, my horse was scratched yesterday so I didn’t get any action on my coin. I’m gunna quit racing and go home to my spouse – Right now!

Now he’s at home in the kitchen with wife and child.

Man: (Holding a shield in front of himself) Now my dear, let’s arbitrate before you crown me with that rolling pin. You lay down your weapon and I’ll drop my shield. Just one minute, please.

Boy: Give the old man a chance, Ma.

Woman: (holding rolling pin)?

Man: My Dear, I admit that I have been dallying with the races but I’m done and I want you to forgive me. I have $657 and you can take care of it yourself.

Woman: Oh Augustus. I believe you are on the level with that talk.

Boy: (Hiding to one side) She’s falling for it.

Woman: (By herself in the kitchen) I really believe Augustus has quit for good this time. Poor old boy. I’ll hide this bankroll in the sugar jar.

Man: (crawling through the kitchen window) I love my wife, but oh you bankroll.

Man: (Grabbing the sugar jar) Hither, little cuties. Come back to papa.

Man: (racing to his bookie) $50 bones on “Personal” and $50 on “Stanley Fay” to win!

The image on the other side takes up almost a half page. The title is “Marooned” and there is a story that goes with it. There are 6 beautiful young woman in bathing attire, scantly clad for the time. They are on a row boat rowing away from shore. There is a lone man sitting on the sand of a tiny island. The caption underneath says, “I want to see the pirate crew maroon the bloody chief of the pack on a sandy island, a yard square, when it’s low tide, with his arrows left beside him for a mockery”

The first paragraph of the story is ruined, but the second one is in quotes like it is someone talking. It reads, “You see, what with the Suffragettes and the girls getting in on all the jobs there are, and the cleverest ones, too, by gee! and the way she’s coming to boss the whole earth and sky and the water and the land, the crown of the ruler growing right out of the curls of her silken head, maybe, when the stars are a little older my debonair Lady will be getting to see something funny and pitiful of the Love that you know she has never been able laugh at yet or pity or defy.”

The rest of it pretty much reads like that. I think it is a serial story about a band of woman pirates.