There isn't any doubt, though, that the people of San Francisco are going to have their hands full when the exposition visitors begin to pile in. By that I do not mean that the housing and feeding accommodations and the transit facilities will be deficient; but it is going to be a most overpoweringly big job to educate the pilgrims up to the point where they will call San Francisco by its full name. All true San Franciscans are very touchy on this point—touchy as hedgehogs, they are; the prejudice extends to all classes, with the possible exception of the Chinese.
I heard a story of a seafaring person, ignorant and newly arrived, who drifted into a waterfront saloon, called for a simple glass of beer and spoke a few casual words of greeting to the barkeeper—and woke up the next morning in the hospital with a very bad headache and a bandage round his throbbing brows. It developed that he had three times in rapid succession referred to the city as Frisco, and on being warned against this practice had inquired:
"Well, wot do you want me to call her—plain Fris?"
That was the last straw. The barkeeper took a bung-starter and felled him as flat as a felled seam—and all present agreed that it served him right.
An even worse breach of etiquette on the part of the outlander is to intimate that an earthquake preceded the great fire. That is positively the unforgivable sin! In any quarter of the city you could get many subscriptions for a fund to buy something with silver handles on it for any man who would insist upon talking of earthquakes. To make my meaning clearer, I will state that there are only two objects of general use in the civilized world that have silver handles on them, and one of them is a loving cup; but this article would not be a loving cup. A native will willingly concede that there was a fire, which burned its memories deep into the consciousness of the city that recovered from it with such splendid courage and such inconceivable rapidity; but by common consent there was nothing else. It does not take the stranger long to get this point of view, either.
If I were in charge of the publicity work of the San Francisco Fair I should advertise two attractions that would surely appeal to all the women in this country, and to most of the men. In my press work I would dwell at length upon the fact that in this part of California a woman may wear any weight and any style of clothes—spring clothes, summer clothes, fall clothes or winter clothes—and not only be perfectly comfortable while so doing, but be in the fashion besides; and to be in the fashion is a thing calculated to make a woman comfortable whether she otherwise is or not.
To see a group of four women promenading a San Francisco street on a pleasant morning is to be reminded of that ballet representing the Four Seasons, which we used to see in the second act of every well-regulated extravaganza. The woman nearest the walls has on her furs—it is always cool in the shade; the one next to her is wearing the very latest wrinkles in spring garniture; the third one, let us say, is dressed in the especially becoming frock she bought last October; and the one on the outside, where the sun shines the brightest, is as summery in her white ducks and her white slippers as though she had just stepped off the cover of the August number of a magazine. There is something, too, about the salt-laden breezes of San Francisco that gives women wonderful complexions; that detail, properly press-agented, ought to fetch the entire female population of the United States.
THE WOMAN NEAREST THE WALL HAS ON HER FURS—IT IS ALWAYS COOL IN THE SHADE