Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1918 — Page 3

Beauty Spots of El Salvador

EL SALVADOR, the little republic on the southern coast of Central America, is not behind any part of the world in the matter of the picturesque and the interesting. It has its natural phenomena, its beauty spots for tourists that should he double starred in travelers* guide books, its relics of ancient races, its quaint and busy cities with their artistic wofks of architecture, writes Hamilton M. Wright in the Bulletin of the Pan-American Union. In the world there is not a more wonderful volcano than Izalco, which, more than four generations ago, ascended from -the plains and has since remained active. There is not a more wonderful lake in the world than Ilopongo, distant about ten miles from San Salvador,' the capital, and connected with It by a splendid highway. A fine national road which, at one point, cuts the mountain side 800 feet above the surface of the lake also comes in from San Vicente. Hopongo is an alluring spot for- bathers, for the people of * the republic thoroughly appreciate the charms and advantages of their own country. It Is the watering place for • San Salvador. with hotels, bath houses and launches. The surrounding ridges and mountains, are beautiful and colorful and dip into the lake steeply., Viewing this superb sheet of water, with the nearby eminences verdure-clad or colored by past volcanic eruptions, with drifting clouds casting their fleeting shadows upon its surface, one has a feeling that he is far from the haunts of man, until perchance his eye lights upon a launch far below, sending its ripples over the expanse of waters. Fine Mountains and Climate. There are in the world no finer mountain peaks than those of El Salvador. The volcanoes. Santa Ana, San Miguel, San Vicente, Usulutan, Zatecoluca, ,and San Salvador, rising from Santa Tecla, and half a hundred others have all the characteristic

beauty of' the symmetrical volcanic eminences elsewhere in Central America. In the healthful Uplands or mountain basins, where a larger part of the population ‘ lives, 2,000 feet or more above sea level, are to be found treeshaded cities and rich country districts that in charm and interest will repay richly every moment the traveler will spare them. The healthful climate gives rise to a vigorous and enterprising population. This little country has a record of having produced 75.000,000 pounds of coffee in a single year. 1916, perhaps more in earlier periods. We did not stop long at La Union, but continued from, the port up the coast to La Llbertad, the nearest seaport to San Salvador. There we anchored out in the' open roadstead, a mile and one-half from shore, and took ' a coffee barge to the pier, where we arranged for a conveyance to San Salvador. 40 miles distant by automobile road but less than 30 for mules. It is a very short trip up to the capitol. but . the traveler beholds the varied re- * sources and climatic changes of an entire continent within the brief Journey to the uplands. This part of the coast 4s a center for Peruvian balsam, a remedy for pulmonary complaints and so called because in early days it was • first shipped from Salvador to Peru before being reconsigned In through packets to Europe. The tree is found over an extended strip up and down the coast Highway* Are Excellent The Journey from La Libertad to San Salvador is .a fine one and the road is good, tn fact there are 1.800 , miles of through national highroad* of San Salvador are national

Lake Ilopango.

institution. Great work has been done in grading and bridge-building. Some splendid permanent concrete bridge have been constructed. La Llbertad, which is also reached by road from San Vicente in the east central part of the republic, is the seat of the cable station between North and South America, where messages are handled with great dispatch. The roads leading into La Llbertad are much traversed by oxcarts, as La Libertad is a great port for San Salvador. The mountain scenery on the way to Santa Tecla, 2,650 feet above level and but 11 miles from San Salvador, is inspiring. The great coast range of mountains sends out giant spurs and hogbacks to the very shores of the Pacific, and between these lie numerous watercourses that run to the sea. The region, of which the extinct volcano, Quetzaltepeque, is a magnificent feature, is very mountainous and rugged and is Intercepted by magnificent and fertile valleys. Santa Tecla, also known as Nueva San Salvador, lies at the base of the mighty volcano San Salvador. It is connected by railroad and also by a fine avenue with the nearby capital; It will be the most Important city between San Salvador and La Libertad when the railroad spur to that port has been constructed. The city is well Illuminated at night, has attractive drives, fine public buildings, churches, barracks, hospitals, beautiful residences, villas, and suburban homes and estates, magnificently kept up, with fine lawns and gardens and all the appurtenances of fashionable country homes. From a social viewpoint it is almost a part of San Salvador. The city has a population of about 12.000; it owes its origin to an earthquake which overwhelmed the capital about two generations ago. San Salvador a Handsome City. There is nothing of the “dolce far niente” type about San Salvador which, with its environs, has a population of

The Volcano Izalco

65,000. With the exception of Panama City, San Salvador has more automobiles than any other Central American city. Moving pictures, too, are popular in the capital and throughout the republic. The city attracts by its beautiful, shaded parks with their fine sculptured monuments, the splendid national palace, the cathedral, the -National universlty % and the Polytechnic Institute.- * The cathedral presents perhaps more the typical French renaissance style than the typical cathedral In the capitals of the new world, though it is a most ornate and beautiful work of architecture. Altogether San Salvador has a distinct European note in the air of i|s shops and stores. The broad streets, fine cement curbs, the ornate, low-lying buildings with their handsomely grilled and latticed windows,the beautiful, semitropical parks with their luxuriant foliage and comfortable seats, where the visitor may watch the parade of fashion and the many cosmopolitan elements of the city, engage irtsedtal chats, make new acquaintances, and listen to an excellently rendered concert —all these render a stay in the capital a pleasant event. Forty miles to the northwest is Santa Ana. second city of the republic and rightly accounted one of the leading cities of Central Aiqerica. Santa Ana will be the first important city of Salvador to be reached by rail from the north when the line to connect with the Guatemalan systems is built. The city has a population of between 45,000 and 50,000 and an elevation of 2,100 feet. It is a lively, prosperous, well-ordered community, with an air of assured stability. Its business' houses are many. -X

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN. RENSSELAER. IND.

At the Garden Gate

By GEORGE ELMER COBB

(Copyright, l»lt. Western Newspaper Union., Bruce Tyrell and Aida Wrenn were acting out a sweet little love story dll by themselves. So far they were only friends they told themselves, but their inner consciousness revealed to them that they were fast drifting into that delightful phase of super-exist-ence where life is one rose-tinted, delirious whirl of ecstatic joy. Aida was a schoolteacher. So was her sister, Marcia, ip a rural district fifty miles distant. The family was a pleasant one, the mother of the oldfashioned, fast-disappearing type, indulgent and sympathetic, the father a storekeeper of the town with trade enough to keep things comfortable. He was content, and pot willing to jovet business expansion at the cost of risking, his little capital and passing sleepless nights worrying over it. It was by mere chance that Bruce had become acquainted with Aida. The biggest rainstorm Hillsboro had ever known was on the program in active display, one warm spring afternoon, when he was absolutely , marooned upon a rise of ground near the roadside, with no shelter except an open stock shed. He was rather glad of the company of two horses which crowded out of the drenching rain with him. They were docile and friendly. It had begun raining just after the bell of the little crossroads schoolhouse called in the odd two dozen scholars from the playground. There was no afternoon recess, for the rain never let up until four o’clock. By that time the roadway was a rushing torrent and the water was up over the steps of the little frame building. At its open doorway stood the pretty schoolteacher, with a dismayed face noting the grewsome. prospect, while at the; windows the pupils crowded generally, very much entertained by the novelty of their situation. Conditions were less discouraging at the, roof shelter. The water had been over shoe tops for an hour, but a run of a hundred feet ire knee-deep water would have landed Bruce on the higher level. A sturdy framework of planks, apparently used as a bridge across some creek or ditch, had been swept from its moorings and had landed directly against the side of the shelter shed. There came a fihal fearful downpour, resembling a cloudburst, Bruce saw that the water had come up clear over the threshold of the little schoolhouse and was pouring in over the floor.

6 , “Something ought to be done for those refugees. They’ll begin to get frightened soon. There may be no danger, but there will be some walling among those little tots when It begins to get dark.” . I Bruce studied the watery waste between the shed and . the schoolhouse, and then tried to calculate how far the 'floating, but stalled platform might be utilized as a raft. When he waded around jo it the water was up to his knees, and he doubted not that it was waist high farther down the slant in the direction of the marooned pupils and their teacher. Across one side of the shed was stretched a long pole beyond which a food trough had been placed to contain fodder for the horses. 1 It was thick, staunch and secured by nails at both ends. “The very thing,” decided Bruce, tore it loose, waded to the platform and got upon it. Then using thfe pole as deftly as he had manipulated /it when a lad playing the castaway afloat on a home pool, he started his bulky bark in the direction of the beleaguered ones caged within the little schoolhouse. He was inspired mightily to diligent effort as the schoolmistress appeared at its door, waving her handkerchief encouragingly . The little ones clustered aborit her and at the windows, keeping up a babel of excited cries and cheers. The experiment was a rare success, and as, for the first time close at hand, the eyes of Bruce rested on the lovely face of Aida Wrenn, he felt all his trouble well recompensed. In the three groups the little ones were . rafted across the expanse to where Miss Wrenn, fully familiar with the topography of the vicinity, pointed out a rising bluff path. Dry shod and fluttering with rare excitement, the little ones dispersed, able to reach their homes in safety. Miss Wren insisted on remaining behind until the last of her charges were safely delivered from peril and discomfort. “How can we ever thank you for your wonderful w’ork?” she fluttered, as she stepped upon the raft. “What is that?” she added, with a quick backward glance. Then she shuddered. A grinding creak had sdunded out; the underpinning of one end of the schoolhouse had giveh way. Lopsided, the structure toppled and-rested four feet deep in the water, crushing the door and windows out of shape, a wreck. Bruce Tyrrell found himself quite a hero in the eyes of the little community after that. But, still better to his method of appreciation, he became a welcome visitor at the Wrenn home. Alda’s face was radiant whenever he appeared and all the world seemed sunshine to Bruce, subject of a first attack of that incurable disease —love. There came a cloud over the spirit of his dreams one day. As he was passing through a little park square, he diverted his course, but his gaze was fixed on Alda, seated on a bench beside a young man, a stranger. They

were so very close rug tiier that he seemed to whisper to htr at times. TJhen as they arose to separate, seized both' hands of the handsome young fellow and held in a fervent clasp, meanwhile looking earnestly into his eyes. “Who can he be? And she?” reflected Bruce in a troubled way; “Can it be possible that her’ heart is already engaged and that I am blindly hoping for a love that can never be mine?” Bruce grew depressed and was half minded to cease his visits to the Wrenn home. He was magnanimous concerning Aidii,'for although their relations had been friendly she had really never given him any definite encouragement as‘a suitor. She was no coquette, he was sure of that, and he blamed his own sanguine nature for the daring presumption that Aida’s handclasp had at times been lingering and tender, and that her eyes responded sympathetically to his own ardent glances. “I can hardly break the engagement/ for this evening,” meditated Bruce, “but tomorrow!” Alda and himself were to attend a party at Wildwood, a few miles distant on the trolley line. Bruce called for her that evening. Never had she looked so beautiful. A pretty locket and chain he had never noticed before were her only jewelry adornments. Bruce sighed as he recalled that but for his discovery of the day, he intended to present her with a friendship ring he carried in his pocket. Her acceptance of it would have decided him as to the fact that there was some real depth to the interest she had manifested in him. And, further, never had she been more charming in the kindly, pleasant way in which she received Ids attentions. He partly took heart of hope that he might be entertaining a suspicion without foundation. Still, he was constrained and unhappy all the evening. As they left the trolley car on the return trip and proceeded towards Aida’s home, the latter paused abruptly with a little cry of dismay. “Oh, dearl” she exclaimed, her hand to her throat, “I have lost the locket.” “Are you sure?” questioned Bruce solicitously. “Oh, y£s, I had it when I got aboard the Car.” She shook her dress and they retraced their way to the trolley station. It was bright moonlight, but -their searching eyes discovered no trace of the missing article of jewelry.

“You had better let me see you home,” suggested Bruce. “Then I will return and wait till the car comes back on its return trip. It-may be that you lost the locket on the car.” “I shall wait up for your report,” said Aida. “I am very anxious about the locket.” Bruce signaled arid halted the car as it returned. At his first question regarding the locket and chain the conductor produced the lost article. “Just found it under a seat,” he explained, and Bruce hastened to impart the glad news to Aida. He turned the. locket over and over in his hand. Its upper case came open. “It is as I feared!” he half groaned, and well he might, for a bright ray of moonlight revealed a circular photograph within the case. It was that of the man he had seen with Aida that afternoon. Oh, there was no doubt now of the existence of a rival! Bruce had one thought only in his mind —to return the locket to Aida and forget her. “Just a minute, please,” spoke a voice behind him as he neared the Wrenn home, and Bruce faced a new, astounding circumstance. Turning, he confronted the original of the photograph. “You are Mr. Tyrrell,” spoke the other. “I have heard Aida —that Is, Miss Wrenn—speak of you and have seen you once or twice before this. I also know you are her close friend. Will you do me a great favor? Are you going to her home?” “Yes,” answered Bruce, and gruffly, and darkly suspicious. “Will you hand her this note?” and the other tendered a folded paper. “Why should I?” resented Bruce, drawing back coldly. “Must I tell you?” questioned his companions “Yes, I will. Aida says you are a man to trust. Well, then, I am secretly married to Aida’s sister, and the note tel'-s her that Marcia will be here in the morning to break the news to her parents.” “Oh 1” It was passed by as a mere coirrfnonplace aspiration by Alda's brotherThzlaw. For Bruce it expressed relief? and hope and joy. With alacrity he accepted the commission and with delight. He listened later to Aida’s explanation that her sister had left the locket at home on her last visit, and Aida had borrowed it for the occasion of the party. And then Bruce felt that he should also unburden his heart, which he did, and graciously Aida listened to him. and the white moonlight irradiated two glowing, happy faces as Bruce kissed his fiancee good night at the garden gate.

Too Familiar.

A country hotel, a good deal frequented by motorists, took in a showman and his performing bear, and one morning tire bear escaped from the stable. Everybody fled before the animal. The hotel man, however, pursued it courageously. It entered the hotel, mounted the stairway, pushed open a bedroom door and vanished. The hotel man. close behind, heard from the bedroom, an angry exclamation in a feminine voice and the words: “George, dear, how often have I forbidden you to come into my room without knocking—and in your automobile coat, tool" _ -

Are Economizing On Dressmaking

New York.—A man who likes statistics has given out a statement that more spools of thread have been sold since America went into war than ever before in its history. This is taken to indicate that there is an important revival of home dressmaking. It is difficult to prove this condition of. affairs, a prominent fashion correspondent writes, but the spools of thread are good enough evidence that the women on this continent are employing seamstresses to make new gowns for them or to alter old ones. And they are also doing their own sewing. *On the other hand, the shops insist that the sale of ready-to-wear garments'has been immensely stimulated by the war; Women who are giving their time to war relief work are willing and anxious to get costuipes with' the least possible expenditure of vitality to /themselves, and this can be achieved through the ready-to-wear departments. Those who keep shops also claim that women of small means are buying better materials and paying inore for their clothes than they have ever done in the history of American commerce in apparel. Those who think out the situation say that this is due to the employment of thousands of women in new ways. Instead of these women purchasing cheap, tawdry things, they add $lO or sls to the price of a costume and buy a gown that gives steady service. America Has Done Her Part. The one outstanding episode in the Interesting and important movement of spring clothes, is the Immense stride in designing that America has taken. All that has gone before was experimental, but this spring the clothes are good. They make no pretentloif of changing the silhouette as laid down by the Paris designers; the only drastic revolution in silhouette which has been attempted by this country, took place last summer, when the nar-

Doeuillet of Paris builds a black satin evening gown Into something extraordinary by using tinkling strings of jet from shoulder to knees. The -Egyptian girdle is of velvet

row skirt which pulled upward from the knees to the back and finished with a bustle effect at the end of the spine, was thrown into the arena of clothes. It not only won out, although it was the work of one designer, but it coincides entirely with the clothes that Paris sent over last month. This season the two countries go hand in hand. The silhouette is the ,same —narrow, with floating draperies. Take that one condition as the foundation stone and then build as you please is the slogen given to every woman. American Design* Preferred. One is immensely proud of American clothes this spring. Our designers have had the courage to show them in connection with the French gowns, and it is easily proved that in several*lmportant houses the American woman chooses her entire spring wardrobe from American designs, rather' than French ones. , One of the reasons for this is that Paris has not laid unusual stress upon the tailored costume, and the American woman had reverted to It. She wants to appear in a simple but distinguished costume when she is in the

street. The American tailoring Is the best in the world, and the American designer contrives to get the best effect out of tailored material, whether he Is making a frock or a coat suit. France does not care for such clothes, her women wear them only under protest, and there Is always a sash, or a piece of embroidery, or an unusual addition of lingerie, or a

Bias tunic ia a chosen drapery. It is shown in this gown by Premet of Paris, in biscuit-colored gaberdine with deep collar of'brown faille. It is soutached with brown braid.

bizarre splash of something that change* the mannish severity of the American national coetume into something with melts into the personality of the French women. Seeing their opportunity and grasping it as they have never done before, the American tailoring establishment*, havd worked wonders. They have kept to the request for the elimination of wool as far as possible, and they have achieved costumes that are eminently fitting and distinguished on the American figure, and for the personality of the American woman. More power to them! The New French Draperies. The severity that America lays down for us In the moyning Is easily changed into a floating gracefulness as laid down by France for the late afternoon and evening. It Is yet to be seen whether America will go in extensively for afternoon gowns, according to the French custom, but there is one thing of which we are quite certain; If the American woman likes an afternoon gown, she will wear it through the evening, unless some formality of entertainment demands a more ornamental frock. France has cut her silhouette as slim as the American designer has cut It for tailored costumes, but France gives a note of the First Empire in the seductive way in which she drapes this narrow foundation with floating, transparent material. The trick is not confined to house costumes; it playa a good role in street gowns also, in a modified and demure manner. A tunic of Georgette crepe, for example, will be dropped over a slim underxlip of silk or satin, and the sleeves will float away from the arms and come back suddenly to the wrists, where they are tightly caught in. But this gown will not be accepted by the American woman for the street. There is a strong note of economy struck In these new French clothes, which is’heard by the woman who is hiring a seamstress, to build up her spring wardrobe at home. It shows the way to alter old gowns into new ones. The majority of women own evening frocks that have good foundations. the skirts a trifle too full, it i* trpe, but otherwise ready to serve as the beginning of a new frock. The alteration in the skirt is a simple one. It consists of straightening out all the seams, so that there is no flare from the hips down. (Copyright, 1918. by the McClure Newsp* • per Syndicate.)

~ Drapery seems to be the order of the latest spring fashions. ■ I ■■ I I HI Smart military frocks are very much Id evidence for children.