'FRISCO TOWN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 240, 3 July 1908, Page 6

'FRISCO TOWN.

THROUGH A NEW ZEALANDERS' EYES. GRAFT RAMPANT. Mr. H. 11. Dix, of Wellington, who was for many years connected with the Adams "Star" Bicycle Co., has returned from San Francisco, where ho went a year ago with tho intention of settling. Mr. Dix comes back with very definite ideas on life in the city inside the Golden Gate. "So you'vo como back." "Yes," said Mr. Dix,. "I have lived too long : in New Zealand to waste time in acquiring a new way to live. It was the living conditions that brought us back—tho absence of anything resembling decent home life."

" But can't you make your own home life? What's the matter with getting a cottage in tho suburbs and living as you like?" Mr. Dix 'was asked.

"Everything's the matter with it," was the reply. "Nobody does it, and if you want such a thing you have to go to an undesirable suburb too . far out—but you havo to bo there to know how impossible it is to lead our sort of life. People looking for home lifo do not take a house —that would take them too far from town—they hire a flat wherein to live the simple ( life. But even then they mostly go out to meals to cafes and restaurants. When you.go to a restaurant in 'Frisco you don't merely have to pay for the meal. At an ordinary dollar cafe, the waiter expects a 10-cent tip; if you go to a better cafe you give a better tip— or you got left. I was warned that this was so, but thought it an imposition, so passed o.ut without appearing to notice the outstretched hand of. the waiter. The next timo I went to that cafe I never received any attention at all —they sorved people sitting at the same table as I was, but tlioy would not take my ordor. So I had to do in Rome as the Romans do, whilo chafing under the imposition practised." "And 'Frisco itself—is .it being built up again?" . _ "Yes," said Mr. Dix, "they're making a start, but for some time after wo got there there was nothing much doing in the building lino, and tilings were very bad. It appeared that the banks would not advance the money—nobody seemed to havo any confidence' in tho place, but before wo left thero was a turn for the bettor, and a good deal iof building was in progress. But the place is as bad as ever—'graft' everywhere. You can't do anything without greasing someone's palm. That, sort of thing is a cancer in the community, and its introduction into Now Zealand should bo carefully guarded against. Tho working man is well paid there, but I doubt if ho is bettor off than in New Zealand on account of tho high cost of living. I kept a storo there for a time, and did fairly well, but tho hours—from G' a.m. to 11 p.m.—wore hardly in accordance with our ideas of a fair tiling unless you looked on storo-keeping as a pleasant recreation. I have come to the conclusion that, thoro are worse places on the Pacific coast than New Zealand."