Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1910 — Fate of a Merchant of Fez [ARTICLE]

Fate of a Merchant of Fez

The merchants of Fez are to be found all over Morocco. In due course All Mahmoud launches out into business on a large scale, says the London Graphic. He prospers exceedingly and presently purchases a black female slave to assist his wife in her duties. All Mahmoud takes a house in the pleasant olive groves. In course of time he buys two more slaves and is fairly set up as a householder. When his first daughter is bortt there is great rejoicing. The baby is immediately stained all over its little body with henna and then smeared liberally with butter and wrapped in woolen clothes. On the seventh day these are removed and the child is washed for the first time. When the girl has reached her first year her head is shaved, leaving a little tuft by which Mohammed could catch her up to heave* If he were so disposed. In her seventh year her hair has grown long again. She is then veiled, and her proud father sets about looking for a husband for her. It is still the custom to betroth children from infancy.' All Malmoud prospers, and. save for a few domestic troubles, his life runs smoothly, in the evenings All will sit and smoke in the bosom of his family. On Thursdays and Saturdays he visits hie friends. They pass

the time in simple games of cards or in listening to the weird efforts of itinerant musicians. Our merchant gets stout as he approaches middle age. One day his world tumbles about him. Such I^the uncertainty of fate in Morocco. He was serving in his shop when the customer suddenly raised his voice and cried out that he was getting false weight. The accusation was terrible, and All vehemently protested his Innocence. It was an arranged charge by an enemy of the merchant, who philosophically bowed his head with this saying: •‘Kismet! Mine enemy has found me, and the serpent requires milk.” The arbitrators were called, and, having been bribed previously, they find Mahmoud guilty and sentence him to the usual punishment meted out to givers of false weights. He Is dragged to the southern wall of the ctty.to a place where a tall gibbet is erected. By the irony of fate it is within sight of his own house, it rope is made fast to,hfs right wrist and hoisted up until his toes can just touch the ground. Here he is left till sunset. The Idlers jeer at him and the gamins of the quarter pelt him with stones and refuse. At sundown his friends carry him home. Broken and disgraced, thus ended his career a< a respectable merchant