ee 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
9 
ped of every bit of vegetation by 
the protracted drowth. But you 
can see just as far as you want, so 
you can look over into Mexico and 
see the outline of the Santa Rosa 
mountains a fuil hundred iniles. 
And then you dro; down from the 
divide, and there aimost hidden by 
the bluffs is Comstock—that little 
desert cow town on tle Southern 
Pacific, and one of the pioneers of 
Sunset route. 
There is not and cannot be obtain 
ed a drop of water in Comstock or 
vicinity. For years they have been 
trying to find water, and they are 
still at it. I went out to a well the 
railroad is drilling, one of a score 
or more that has been forced down 
through absolutely solid rock, with- 
out an inch of dirt, for hundreds of 
feet. 
Every drop of water is freighted 
into Comstock, and it goes without 
telling that baths are barred in this 
cow town. The little dump of a 
hotel so called because it has a sign 
and a $2 a day rate, does not have 
a public wash stand. If you want 
to get the alkali dust out of your 
eyes and ears you must become a 
$2 a day man, when the Mexican 
boy will show you to an eight by 
ten stall and bring you in perhaps a - 
quart of water in a pitcher. 
I asked a cowboy how they wash- 
ed their clothes and took baths 
there. 
“Don’t know, brother. Reckon 
they passes it up ’till it done rains.”’ 
Every house in town has its cis- 
tern and eve gutters running into 
it, and when it rains, as it sometimes 
does, they catch enough water in 
these holes in the ground to last for 
two years. If you are going to stop 
off here, come soon after a rain, for 
a year or so after the fluid gets a 
little thick and is rather hard to 
swallow—although soap makes it 
spread beautifully. Would state it 
has been 18 months since a shower 
has wet the shingles of Comstock, 
and you may guess of how many 
millions of wigglers are daily boiled 
into coffee. It takes a fool tender- 
foot or a nervy man to drink it 
straight. 
The cowboys in these back towns 
have almost a dialect. In localities 
where there is very little going or 
coming and where a section is large- 
ly a community of itself, many ex- 
pressions are used and words coined 
that are as Latin to a Yankee. Then 
too the accent is so different, the 
words carrying with them the Span- 
ish idiom, and it is really hard to 
understand these full- blooded Amer- 
icans of the saddle, or the little Am- 
erican children of the homes. 
And just below Comstock I came 
to the Rio Grande—the muddy, 
treacherous, historic old river that 
separates two countries, running 
shallow in its yellow bed and across 
which I ean almost throw a stone 
into Mexico. This is the stream that 
Mexicans hate, because it marks 
the boundry of a great tract of land, 
that was the price of defeat in the 
war with Texas, and a boundry that 
the Texan hates because it separates 
him from the richest of grazing 
lands, which it covets. 
If it were not for running this 
into politics, I would state that Am- 
ericans along the Rio Grande (and 
perhaps some of the Americans far 
off in Washington, D. C., as well) 
are biding their time impatiently 
waiting until age shall have loosen- 
ed the grip of the iron hand of Diaz, 
and when border troubles and in- 
ternal revolutions will have furnish- 
ed sufficient excuses for interven- 
tion and assimilation, and when the 
Rio Grande will no longer hold Am- 
ericans back from a land they covet. 
And now for ancient old Mexico 
and its people. 
Comstock, Tex., Feb. 4, 1910. 
OE ai Seas ae BEA BEANS 
j Real Estate :: 
fi oss And Super dnemvntasd 
De meensgy Paro roe mecca ad 
Estimates are RAR: made and are 
supposed to be submitted early next 
week for the new mansion to be 
built at Beverly Farms for Mrs. Levi 
Z. Leiter. The house will be mainly 
of brick. Work on it will be started 
very shortly and will be rushed with 
all despatch, as it is to be finished 
by early September of the present 
year, with a forfeit attached if the 
time limit is overrun. On account of 
the conditions, a numbr of the North 
Shore contractors are not submitting 
estimates. 
ae 
In our item last week we said that 
J. Harrington Walker had bought 
the Sargent estate at Magnolia, 
through the ageney of Jonathan 
May. We were in error in this. The 
sale was made largely through the 
efforts of Manager Chas. EK. Phenix 
of the Oceanside Hotel, through the 
agency of H. L. Hannaford of Mag- 
nolia. 
rank A. Allen of Boswell, Penn., 
conveys to S. Ella West and Edith 
M. Allen of Chelsea, 4 acres of land 
with buildings on Summer street, 
Manchester, also 4 acres of wood- 
land on Gloueester roid, Manches- 
ter, also 84 acres of land near Mag- 
nolia depot, Manchester. 
3 Auton Notes 3 
Secccccocooccececessc000ees 
After much hard work on the part 
of the promoters, the secretary of 
the Florida East Coast Automobile 
association has announced that 
March 22, 23 and 24 have been se- 
lected as the dates for this winter’s 
speed carnival on the Florida beach 
at Daytona. 
o—0o 
Expressions of regret are general 
this week among automobile enthus- 
iasts over the probable abandon- 
ment of the ‘‘Motor King Cup”’’ run 
from New York to Boston, 
March 5. 
on 
0—O 
The trees are beginning to bud, 
the crocus and jonquil are peeping 
up through the grass plots and 
springtime will be here in full bloom 
at Mechanie’s building tomorrow 
for the opening of the big automo- 
bile show. The decoration scheme 
this year is a glorious springtime 
effect, and Mechanie’s building is 
undergoing a wonderful transform- 
ation. As usual, Wednesday will be 
society day and Thursday will be 
Motor Cycle day. Among the inter- 
esting exhibits will’ be that of the 
Ajax Crieb Rubber ‘Co.;' who-> will 
manufacture every afternoon and 
evening a complete rubber tire, 
showing the entire process. 
ff Gere and There 
And Evuerumbere 
GS SOOSSOSS OOOO OOSS OOOTDOSOHOLETOOLE > SCHHEOOEORPOOECOOOS & 
G0000ces 00000000 00000000 00000008 09000000 00000000 pcaeccce 
The Burgess Aeroplane was suc- 
cessfully tried out on Chebaco Lake, 
Feb. 28. It flew 126 yards. The 
object of the test was to ascertain 
the reliability of the motor. Owing 
to the shape of the lake it would 
have been impossible to cirele with- 
out endangering the operator. 
The telephone books for the pres- 
ent quarter, beginning Jan. 1, are 
out, and show a great change. The 
pages are arranged in three columns 
almost exactly like the telephone 
books used in New York city. We 
notice that the book for the North 
Shore district has been arranged 
with the Boston section in the front 
part of the book, which-is' a great 
improvement and will prové a pop- 
ular idea for North ‘Shore’ people, 
as many have occasion ‘to use the 
Boston, almost as frequently. as the 
local book. 
Virtue is its own reward, “but a 
little cash helps out. 
