Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1882 — Sights on a Road in Palestine. [ARTICLE]

Sights on a Road in Palestine.

Congressman Sunset Cox writes as follows from Jerusalem : The old maratime plain of the Philistines (which is another name for Palestine) lay along this coast, from Gaza northward, and it was considered a land worth struggles. This Joshua found. But in vain do we look for the “roses of Sharon and the lilies that grow ” in this land so renowned once for jts roseate l>eauty. Still, we are told that in the vernal season it is carpeted like a Texas prairie with flowers of various hue and loveliness. Along the dusty afternoon road we pass innumerable caravans of camels, led by Arabs on donkeys. The Arab generally sits on the remote point of the es cocyyis of the animal, and without stirrups. He swings his bare brown feet and legs, while the little Least, like Julus, alongside of his father, trots inc.qvo pede. Plenty of women, with faces here apparent, and in long, blue, cheap cotton mantles, and sometimes with head crowned with burdens of fruit, pitchers, straw or wood, are met in the way. Some ruins, mostly of churches, here and there appear, while square, windowless, Turkish guardhouses are seen at intervals, at whose doors are the wlrite-dressed, fez-capped Turkish soldiers with guns and cigarettes. These are the police who are supposed to guard the road ; but to our observation no gpard is needed, except in the dark mountain passes, and there Turkish engineering has been careful to have as few guard-houses as possible ! Tnere is not much to see on the road until you come to Ramleh. Beggars and back-shish, and some old relics as crusading reminders are here, add one very conspicuous object. The latter is a square tower and winding staircase. It is off the road, and has a fine view of tho surrounding country. It is over a thousand years old, and has many Moslem associations. Ramleh has been the scene of much contest. Indeed, every little spot here in Judea is full of memories, from the time Israel came down from the Moab Mountains into the Jordan Valley. The road is hot to be mentioned for its convenience and perfection, only for its historic, religious and {esthetic interest. Il was built in 1869, by forced labor, and indeed its rough and stony incompleteness looks like anything but' the result of cheerful work. It is supported by tolls, so much per head, on every animal on the road. One should not complain of the road when it is remembered that before 1869 there was not a bridle-path to Jerusalem. It is said that tfie-Hultan promised the Empress Eugenie to build a road to Jerusalem if ’she would come that way, and this royal courtesy is the origin "of the road.

Can Electricity Be Used as a Motor! Though no great feat of hauling, or heaving, or pushing has yet been performed by electricity, we know the force can be made to push and haul and heave. A man has driven about Paris n an electric tricycle; a girl has sewed a shirt with sewing machine moved by. the same power; a bit of rock has been attacked by an electric borer ; a toy boat runs about in a lake, driven by electricity ; and, best of all, Messrs. Siemens are now carrying passengers in a “tram,” which has no other motor than the electric “fluid,” or modification of motion, or whatever it ought to be called. It is not only probable, but certain, that many of the difficulties now impeding the application of the force to heavy work will be dissolved, under the pressure of the brain-power now applied to them from every corner of the civilized world; and quite possible that m a year or two a cheap method of generating eleetr city vill b-> applied—not drcovered, for we know already that falling rater, in governable masses, ijwhat

is wanted—and that the storage of the force will not only be a credible, but an easily accomplished process. That is not supposing more than has occurred in the application of electricity to messagesending, and that accomplished, and cost reduced, as science always’reduces it, we ‘should have from the new agent at least two things—a light, full, permanent and cheap, to be used wherever wanted, in the street, workshop, and house, as in the mine; and a motor, manageable, tireless, light, and as effective for small work in the hands of the individual as for great work in the hands of a mighty company. That which will drive a railway train will drive a girl’s sewing machine or a boy’s mechaui< al horse ; that which will urge a rock-borer will help to carve a sixpenny bloodstone seal. Electricity can be maae to perform all tasks that can be performed by unintelligent force.