Indianapolis Journal, Volume 49, Number 1, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 January 1899 — Page 9

=Part Two

PRICE FIVE CENTS.

AMISE.MEM'S. r ==isPsr<t> jui sh’sil] j January 2-3-4 j v TWO MAJINEES —Monday and Wednesday j oMr. “dan7dSaw" ! Itt the New York Casino’s Gorgeous Gaiety, Vhn ' Nearly Two Hundred Nights j j j lilt; PCI It; | --- At The Casino- ..J| I Os New York | 100- Celebrities. Chorus ad Ballet—TO $ i ... .'Monday Matinee: Low or Floor, *1.50, $1: Balcony. *l. 75c, 50e; Gallery, i , - V\ i diu'B(lay Mat: Lower 1 loor, *l, 75c; Balcony, 75c, 50e, i'sc. HEATS NOW <>X HALL. ' | Sir” THURSDAY, Jan. 5. HE" I —Engagement of the Favorite Comedian— * J ..DIGBY 15EEE.. Supported, by L.VI BA JOYCE BKLL, in Augustus Thomas’s Domestic Comedy Drama, s The Booster Doctor-; Now itt its Third Successful Season. 5 PRICES, 25c, 59c, 75e, |I. Seats on sale Monday, 9a. m. J 5 BJXTRAi UXTKAI 15XTKA! EXTRA! 5 j f January 6 and 7 SA ™^ E j Frank L. Fcrley Present* the J | ALICE NIELSEN OPERA CO. j | The = Fortune = T eller j ! Music by VICTOR HERBERT. Book by HARRY B. SMITH. The most perfect * Light Opera organization in the world, 5 ALICE NIELSEN, Joseph Cawthorn, Marguerite Sylva, $ Eugene Cowles, Frank Rushworth, Jennie Hawley, } Richard Golden, Paul Nicholson, Billie Norton, s Joseph Herbert, W. F. Rochester, May Boley. 5 ! n>o People *tn the Stnjge. Complete Drum Corps, Hand of Trumpeters 5 ' Speoia.l Orchestra, I nder Direction of Paul Stelndorlf. * J s PltU’ES—Nights: Lower Floor. $1.50, fl; Balcony, <l, 75c, 50c; Gallery,2sc. Matinee: Lower 5 , 1* loor, >1; Balcony, 75c, ; >oc, 25c. Heats on sale Tuesday, oa. m. s s _ _ <* j Notice! j a n 9. 10 111 Hednesday Matinee S) *''9 ** 5 ! Present their superb production of Barnet & 5 ' <li rltinirer S Roane’s Fairy Extravaganza, s : the strange adventures of ; % % | JacknlJJeanstalki With the Largest Company and Best Cast it has ever had. ; i PRICES Lower Floor $1.00; Balcony, $1.00,75c, 50c: Gallery,2sc, Matinee: Lower Floor 75c* ' * Balcony, dOc, 25c. * * J GRAND-TO-MORROW-(New YeaFs)^^^ And All Week. Regular 25c Matinees Wed. and Sat. GRAND STOCK COMPANY, IN j i Secretary” j Brightest and Best Comedy Ever Written. PRICES- Evenings and New Year’s Matinee—Lower Floor, 50c; Balcony, 25c; Gallery, 15c. < Regular Matinees, Wednesday and Saturday, 25c. Seats on sale two weeks in advance. > Seats can now be reserved for the entire season by leaving name and address at box office. I Next Week—“THE BANKER’S DAUGHTER.” j

VVI SUM ENTs. PARK-Morrow * I'Uc world's best and moat refined Vaudevilles, Hopkins’Transoceanic STAR SPECIALTY CO. I leaded by KA BA, greatest of Jugglers. Eight wonderful star acts. 1 ■ Jo, 30c. Everybody goes to the Park. N-w 5 oar's matinee prices same as night. Empire Theater ( or. W abash and Delaware Sts. ONE WEEK—Commencing MONDAY, Jan. 2. Matinee Daily Every Night FRANK —WILI^S-JOHN “IN ATLANTIC CITY” 1V f Admission 10c, 13c, 25c, 50c. m. 1", It—" Night Ov Is.” .1 !<► Returns of Mu oy and Sharkey fight. Use Judgment First All t lose people who are studying the question of paints, should use judgment in making thtir choice. With all the grades of Painss to select from them is no reason why yon should put the wrong paints upon your bo o. Our special grades for special purp"v will fill your wants and give vou satisfaction. Indianapolis Paint and Color Cos. PAINT MAKERS, 240 to 248 Massa< husetts Avenue. Oifr TITLES. THEODOR; 5 aTEIN. ABSTRACTED of TITL.ES SSB? "Jfir IS! % ‘■‘SSg; Lemcke.” T|legho C . Flooi * ™

USE SUNDAY JOURNAI

j BLOCK’S I Our Store will be | Closed Monday . . j Best Wishes j j .for the. | New = Year | The Wm.H. Block Cos j • • • I Touchstone OF BUSINESS success is knowing what people w ant and giving it to them at PROPER PRICES. You will want your Catalogue or Circulars for the first of the year. We will do them artistically and to your satisfaction. . . We are fully equipped with the latest style faces in type for fine Job Work of all kinds. Don't forget the TELEPHONE No. 1220. Indianapolis Printing Cos 41 and 43 Virginia Avenue. The Marion Trust Cos. Notice is hereby given that on and after Jan. 1, 1899, the rate of Interest, to be paid on deposits in the savings department will be reduced to 3 per cent, per annum. On all interest contracts expiring after Jan. 1, 1899, the rate of interest will be reduced at the time of expiration of contract. By order of the executive committee. P. C. TRUSLER, Secretary,

INDIANAPOLIS, SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 1, 1899.

ARGENTINE LOW LIFE PIIASF.S OF EXISTENCE IN THE REPI lILIC SOUTH OF THE EQUATOR. The Uourentillo* of Bueno* Ayrcn, Tlieir Bnd Snniiution Features ami Curious Inhabitants. FACTS'AS TO TRADES-UNIONS * THE FEMALE SCHOOL TEACHER AND THE TELEPHONE DIPL. - The Gauehos or Cowboys of the Pampas: Who They Are, How They Look and Live, and Their Fighting. (Copyrighted, ISPS, by Frank G. Carpenter.) BUENOS AYRES, Nov. 25.—1 have written of high life in the Argentine Republic. The country has its low’ life as well. Its poor are in the great majority. It has tens of thousands of people who live in zinc sheds, arul there are courts in Buenos Ayres about which men, women and children swarm as thickly as they do in any tenement section of New York or London. Rents are very high in Buenos Ayres. Only the rich are able to have houses to themselves. The well-to-do live in flats, and apartments, and the poor are crowded into conventillos. Conventillos are a peculiarity of Buenos Ayres. They are immense buildings of one or tw’o stories running around narrow passages or courts and containing .scores upon, scores of one-roomed homes. Mach room is the living place for one or more families, and in most cases it has so many inmates that the washing and cooking must be done outside in the court. These one-roomed homes are without ventilation except from the front. They have no light but that which comes through the doorway, and their sanitary condition is bad beyond description. IN THE CONVENTILLOS. You find these conventillos in every part of Buenos Ayres. They exist under the shadow of the government mansions. Some are to be found on the by-streets of the business sections, and there are others back of the palaces of nabobs, each of whose incomes runs Into more dollars per week than any one of the inhabitants of the conventillos receives in a year. Take one, for instance, which I lately visited under the shadow of the Grand Opera House. I had just come from the box office, where I saw a score of men paying SIG a seat for the next night’s entertainment, and where one man had laid down a thousand dollars to pay for his family box for the season. The conveutillo was entered by a door from the street. Passing through this. I came into a court, six feet wide and about two hundred feet long. This was walled with a twostory building, made of rooms about twelve feet wide and not much more than twelve feet deep. There was a gallery along the outside of the second story, and the two opposite walls were so close together that the stone flagging of the court oozed with moisture. It received but little sun, and there was a damp, green mold on the stones not tramped by the tenants’ feet. Opening upon the court from each room was a door, and the rooms had neither light nor ventilation but that which came from the door. Just outside each room in the court was a bowl or box of charcoal. This formed the cook stove of the family within. Upon some of the tires rested pots of steaming soup, with ragged Italian women bending over them. There was a portly, gray-liaired Italian dame in one doorway, cleaning a cabbage, and next to her I saw a lean woman with u Spanish face cooking macaroni. Further on a girl mother of, perhaps, fourteen, was washing clothes, while under the tub her dirty baby sprawled on the stone and squalled. The most of the people in the court were Italians, and many of the women were very young. The Italians of Buenos Ayres develop young, and you may read any day in the papers the records of marriages of girls of fourteen. Big families are tho rule, and several of those in this court comprised, I was told, as many as ten children. Father and mother, grown-up sons and daughters, children and babies, all sleep in a space not over fifteen feet square. Many rooms have one bed, which is occupied by the parents and as many children as can crowd in, and the rest must sleep on the ffoor. There is no way of heating the rooms. They made mo think of caves rather than the homes of human beings, and most of them were quite as dirty as the average cave. Notwithstanding this, the children seemed to be generally healthy, although I heard one mother crooning away over her sick baby, her sad lullaby mingling with tho strains of the singers who were practicing a comic opera in the great theater over the way. The death rate, however, is not so high as it is in some European cities. The climate of the Argentine is excellent, and the last general census taken showed that there were then living 234 persons wdio were over one hundred years old. A large proportion of the population is made up of Italians, Spaniards and French immigrants, the Italians predominating. The latter have an annual birth rate of sixty per one thousand, which is 50 per cent, higher than the average birth rate of Europe. TIIE POOR OF THE ARGENTINE. The working classes of the Argentine Republic aie largely foreigners. The native poor do little more than herd cattle. The real work of the country is done by the Italians and the Spaniards, furnished by the stream of immigrants which is always flowing from Italy and Spain to the lower parts of eastern South America. Within the past twenty-four years about 2,000,000 emigrants have been imported from southern Europe, and to-day out of the 4,000,000 people in the Argentine Republic it is estimated that more than one in every four is a foreigner. The railroads are built by the Italians, although the English furnish the money. I am told that they make splendid workmen. They are thrifty, economical and generally happy. They send a large proportion of their wages back to Italy, just as our Irish do with their wages in the United States. The Italians are also the small farmers. They work on wheat lands, many of them taking tracts to farm on the shares. They are as a rule thrifty and accumulative, and many who have come poor have amassed fortunes. The fact that a man lives in squalid quarters is not a sure sign that he is poor, for in these very convcntillos I am told there are Italians who have nice little properties, but w’ho prefer to save and starve for the time in order to be the richer hereafter. The Italians are the masons, the carpenters and the mechanics of the Argentine. They are very apt at trades and will work for much lower wages than those of the United States. They can live more cheaply than our people. Many of them virtually have but one meal a day, which is eaten after they have stopped work in the evening. They take nothing but a cup of tea and a piece of dry bread

Ylpon rising, and this lasts them until dinner, although they may have another cup of tea at noon. As to the markets, meats, with the exception of pork, are exceedingly cheap, but other things are high. Mutton brings almost nothing, and beef costs about half its value in the United States, Very little pork is used by the laboring classes. Most families buy their broad, as the poor have no facilities for baking. Licensed bakers supply the demands, and the bread man on horseback, with his panniers lilled with rolls, goes from house to house daily. The bread sold in Buenos Ayres is as good as that which is made in our cities. Cornmeal is not used, although hominy is common. Onions are everywhere eaten, and a frequent sight upon the streets is the union peddler, who goes along carrying strings of onions, the bulbs being braided into straw so that they can be thrown over the two ends of a pole and thus carried upon the shoulders. Out in the country the laborers live almost entirely upon meat, and, although they could if they would have garden patches, they seldom care to undertake the trouble of raising vegetables. TRADES UNIONS AND WOMEN. The different classes of laborers have their own unions. I have been told by railroad men that they seldom have a strike among their employes. There is no great variation in wages from year to year, and in all branches strikes are almost unknown. The most of the employers prefer to get their work done as far as possible by contract or by the piece. This is especially so in railroad construction, where excavation is done by the cubic yard, and other things in the same way. One man will hire a gang of men to help him, and he will be responsible to the contractors or their officials. T'pon all the largo estaneias or farms the proprietor has a store and furnishes the goods to his hands, deducting a certain amount from their w’ages to pay for them. The railroads often carry provision cars with them and sell at a little over cost price eatables and other goods to their workmen, fui'nishing wine and clothes as well as all sorts from Ixmdon jam to hardtack. Neither in the country nor in the cities do tho laboring classes seem to care for comforts as our laborers do. A galvanized iron shed forms the home of the farmer, and a room in a conventillo that of the city workman. An American mechanic would not live in this way, and 1 do not think ho would make enough money in the Argentine to enable him to buy the comforts he has at home. The Argentine laborer has to pay more for his clothing, and he has nothing like the educational or social advantages of his North American brother. There is, in fact, no chance in South America for North American laborers. As to the women, those of the poorer classes have a much worse chance in the Argentine than in the United States. There are but few female clerks in the stores. Women are not generally employed in the government departments and the professional typewriter of the Argentine has yet to be born. In the government telegraph office there are a few women operators, and at the telephones there are girls to answer tho calls. They are not “hello girls,” however. The Argentine man, when he calls up “central,” yells out “oilu” to get the young lady’s attention, and often talks to her a moment before he begs her to have the graciousness to connect him with his butcher, baker or candlestick maker. I am told that It was flrst thought the girls would not serve as telephone operators. The young Argentina dandies who were among the patrons of the institution made love to thorn over the wires so that severe restrictions had to be imposed before the service could go on without clogging. FEMALE SCHOOL TEACHERS. There are a number of women employed us school teachers in the Argentine Republic. This is perhaps the most respectable profession a young woman can have. A former President, named Sarmiento, introduced the first female school teacher. He had been minister to the United States, and had there met Horace Mann, and through him became interested in our system of education. It was through him that a number of American school teachers were imported and normal schools established throughout tho whole republic. There arc no better equipped schools of the kind anywhere than the Argentine now has. They have some of the finest buildings of the republic. They are found to-day in nearly every province, and many young Argentina girls are being trained in them. The native Argentine women make excellent teachers, but there are not enough schools for them in the cities in which the'normal colleges arc located, and it is not considered just the thing for a young lady to go away from her own town to teach. The result is that most of them remain at home and stand in the doors or lean out of their windows day after day gazing at the passers-by. This is the chief occupation of the middle class girls of the Argentine cities. As to factories the Argentine Republic is yet in its infancy as a manufacturing nation and the females employed are comparatively few*. There are some glovemakcrs, capmakers and umbrella sewers, who are paid from 50 cents to a dollar of our money per day. There are some good seamstresses and milliners. In private families women are used as house servants, but about the hotels and boarding houses all of the scrubbing and cleaning and much of the chamber work is done by men. The washerwoman and the laundress has not the chance in the Argentine that she lias in the United States. All families have their washing and ironing done out of the house, and it is customary for one set of women to do the -washing and another to do the ironing. The washerwoman never irons and the ironer never washes. The corrugated zinc washboard is not known. The clothes are usually taken to the banks of a stream and rubbed with the hands on flat stones or upon boards in the publicwash houses, where for a small sum for the week a woman can get a place at the trough and use of hot and cold water. There are many families who do nothing but iron, one wpman employing from live to ten helpers and paying each about 50 cents gold per day. The ironer usually arranges wffh liis or her customers for both washing and ironing, and lets out the washing to the washers. Ihe prices charged at the hotels are by the piece, and they seem to me very high. I have had to pay 13 cents apiece for linen shirts, 10 cents for night shirts, 3 cents for handkerchiefs and 20 cents per pair for pyjamas. These prices are, of course, reduced to gold. THE COWBOY OF THE PAMPAS. A letter upon the poor of the Argentine would be incomplete without the gaucho. The gaucho is the native Argentine of the country. He is the cowboy of the pampas, a man like whom there is lm other in the world, a peculiar product of South America. The gaucho is a cross of the Spaniard and the Indian. If any part of his blood predominates it is that of the Indian, although his Spanish traits are always to be seen. The gaucho will not farm. He will not work in the cities, but he is at home upon horseback, and is always ready to ride over the plains and to watch or drive cattle. He does not like to tend sheep. He is a nomad, and prefers odd jobs to steady work. You may see him anywhere outside of the cities and wherever you meet him he is the same. Hia complexion is usually of a light 'coffee txffor. H© looks, in fact, like an American nidian bleached, lie bus a full black and A rather heavy

beard. His eves are coal black, bright and fierce, and his form is often short and wiry. He dresses in a curious way. His black head is covered with an old skull cap, or a soft slouch hat. Upon the upper part of his body hangs a blanket, often striped in bright colors, through the center of which his head is thrust. Another blanket is w-ound about his waist and pulled between the legs and fastened. Out of tiffs lower blanket white drawers extend down to his ankles. These are often edged at the bottom with lace, while bright red or blue slippers may cover his feet. He usually wears a belt of chamois leather, which may be decorated with silver buckles and bangles. He is fond of silver, and decorates the trappings of his horse with it when he possibly can. He has the best horse he can buy, steal or borrow, and his saddle is often adorned with sliver stirrups, while the bit of his bridle is often sil-ver-plated and usually of great size. A gaucho is never without a horse. Even if he has to beg for enough to eat he will stick to his horse, the Argentine being one of the few countries of the world where the beggars really go about on horseback, Y'ou will see the homes of the gauehos scattered over the pampas. Let me describe one. It is a mud hut fifteen feet square and so low that you have to stoop to enter the door. The floor is the earth, and there is no furniture except the skulls of bullocks which are used for seats and a table made of a board or two, which the gaucho has probably stolen from some rich land owner near by. The only table furniture to be seen is a couple of tin pans. The gaucho does not need cooking utensils. He roasts his moat on a spit over the fire he makes outside the door. As the meat cooks ho bastes it with the juice which he catches in the pan, and then cuts it off, a slice at a time. He does not need a fork, but holds one end of the slice in his hand and clinches the other end between his teeth, while he draws his knife across within one-sixteenth of an inch of his nose at every bite. His favorite dish is carne concuero. This is meat cooked with the skin. The meat is wrapped up tightly in the skin, and thus cooked over the coals. The skin keeps in the juices, and the result is delicious. HOSPITABLE BUT DANGEROUS. The gaucho is very hospitable. If you come to his hut he will take you in and give you the best he has, although he may intend to stab you in the back as soon as you have gone a few’ rods away. He cares little for blood letting and is always ready to fight. Every gaucho has his knife and is seldom backward in using it. Sometimes ho acts like a demon, stabbing without cause. I heard of a gaucho who came along one day where a woman was working with her little boy beside her. As the gaucho saw tho boy he said: “I feel like killing someone.” And with that he took up tho boy and stabbed him. I heard of another gaucho who shot a boy* with no more provocation than the above. Neither of these men wore hung for their murders. Tho gauehos often have duels. Their favorite method of lighting is with knives. The duelists upon some such occasions have their left legs tied together, each kneeling upon his right knee, so that they face one another. Each man is now given a poncho or blanket, which he throws over his left arm and uses as a guard, and a knife, which he holds in his right hand. At a word from tho principal the two men begin to stab at each other, and they cut away until one drops dead. And do such men have wives and families? Yes; but they do not often waste their money on weddings, for weddings, you know, come high in all South American countries. They are performed by the priest, who must have his fee before he will tie the golden bands of matrimony. The gauehos are good lovers as well as good haters. They are said to be affeetionato husbands and good fathers when they are sober, though verycruel when drunk. Almost all of them are drunkards qt times. They like to gamble and play billiards, and scattered over the pampas you will find here and there little saloons, which are kept up by tho gauehos. They do not think it wrong to cheat at cards, and the man who can cheat best is considered the most skillful player. These gauehos make good soldiers and some of the best fighting of the Argentine has been done by them. To-day the bravest men in the army come from this class, tho Argentines of the city not comparing with them in activity or bravery. FRANK G. CARPENTER. THE JEWS' WAILING PLACE. Goal of the Jewish Pilgrims’ I*ll- - riiuage. Charles E. Hands, in London Mail. lou leave the beautiful, softly glowing Kubbet-es-Sakhrah, or Dome of the Rock, more famous by the name of the Mosque of Omar, feeling that you have seen one of the perfectly beautiful sights of your life. Round about the great rugged bowlder upon which the altar of sacrifice in Solomon's Temple rested, some conquering khalif more than twelve hundred years ago set a domed shrine. The holy rock itself was. as it is now, a j rugged, shapeless bowlder; but its history j went back to the day of Solomon and its traditions went far beyond, to the very be- I ginning of things, and the pious Moslem, assimilating its holiness t- the greater -glory of Allah, made it one of the places from which the true prophet ascended, and in- : closed it in a casket which is in itself a ! jewel. A jewel because its beauty seems in one piece. It has a singleness of design, which has been worked out in perfect symmetry, and the symmetry has been overlaid with exquisite ornaments and glowing color. Metal has been wrought in intricate shapes, porcelain tiles upon which a fantastic pattern wanders white over a field of lovely turquoise blue; exquisite marbles have been shaped and polished to cover the walls upon which the dome rests. And the design and the building and the incrustation and the ornament and color seem all to belong to one another, just as if it all had been designed and executed all at once by one artist hand. And the marvel is that, just like every other great old building, the Mosque of Omar is the achievement, not of any one man. but of many generations of men, and even of many peoples. In its construction has been untllized bits of architecture belonging to all the conquering races who in turn have captured, held and built upon Jerusalem. Massive Jewish smoothly-hewn stones, Corinthian columns Roman porticos, bits of Arabian work touches of the heavy Egyptian hand—everything that the Moslem found which Ids predecessors had left behind he turned to his own account, and fitted in somehow to his own scheme of beautv. Omar decreed the dome supported on the columns the Romans had left behind; another Khaiif added an outer concentric circle of pillarsstill another generation later added the outer octagon wall faced with polished marbleSoliman the Magnificent tore down part ol the marble paneling and replaced U with the exquisite turquoise porcelain tiles which make the mosque glow like a jewel. The gold and arabesque and mosaic ornamentation of the interior shows a thousand patterns. The fifty-two windows which pierce the dome—some stained glass, some glass mosaic—are no two of them alike, and yet everything seems to come into the scheme of unity. You descend the broad flight of marble steps from the raised platform upon which the dome stands, cross the cool stone courtyard, leave the Haram inclosure by the covered street of the cotton merchants, and tome again into the midst of the squalor and filth and stinks of modern Jerusalem You take the steep, downhill road, and when you come to an alley which descends more steeply ym uua late tt.mud jtt atjw

into one still more stee -- > • defend the streets grow- narrow *: Ithler, *o that you have to hold ' and carefully pick your footstep’ ou turn and comer into a narrow p t veen high wails built of great su . com* 1 out into the little quadratic known as "The Jews’ Wailing Pie This is the goal of * pilgrim’s pilgrimage. For the ha ligh, bare wail, which makes one * inclosure, is built of enormous sti and blackened by time, and chip* at the corners so that the wall is imb< and with little recesses, but still firmly and closely ujon one anc c -. . the great worn stones make it •• ce, for they are the remains of S< Temple. 'Tho Jewish tradition is ited by the archaeologists. And ii nee of these sacred rocks the Jew T the eve of their Sabbath to wee ent over the fall of Jerusalem, t ction of the temple and the dis the nation. Beating their heads ; g the stones, they rend their garmi >ut ashes and things on their head' east, the authorities declare, and in loud, despairing tones implo Almighty to restore to His people ritance. When I visited ih< Place it was, unfortunately, not - ernoon, and I am bound to say th was not up to expectation. As so i . ned the corner into the inclosure -t rnp of beggars who had been ch , :ther separated and spread them along the line of the sacred w; v r ged old woman in a hideous blac’ a kissing one of the stones like .*■ * us she managed meanwhile to ke< 'ring gaze steadily fixed upon n was a lop-sided, half-souled air a mentation which considerably dot m the effect A picturesque old i a gray, unkempt beard, long mat iris, a greasy fur cap and a frow* fuberdine made a great, show of p .• l p a fold of his robe and rending it. ’ 1 not rend it more than a quarter h, and 1 was not going to give him ig for that. The stones were there, big enough and ancient enohgh, and the battlemented Crusaders’ wall, to which they served as foundation, looked genuine enough. But the wailing was far from being soul-satisfying. When I came to think of it, on the way back through the foul garbage-strewn gloomy lanes. I did not see why the Jews should wall there any more than is demanded by the forms of their religious ceremonies. On Friday afternoons tne waiting is the correct thing, an ancient religious observance which a conservative and seemlv people naturally like to keep up. But if they went wailing there too fervently and too often tHeir lamentations might lie regarded and their displaying prayers for the return of Israel to Jerusalem might be granted. The Zionist movement is very interesting, and the dreams and the prayers of many generations of pious Jews may one day come, and the people he restored to their promised land. But when that day comes I thuik the wailing over the stones in the \V ailing Place will not take place onee a week—on Friday afternoon. It will go on ali day, and all night, and all the year round, and will be pieteous and heartbreaking in its volume and sincerity. Jerusalem may have been very well to ancient people of small requirements, but it is a town standing amid hills of bare rocks and valleys of loose stones; and the greater part of the country surrounding it is in the calcined region which slopes down to the Dead sea. The only hope for the future of the country is that someone may sometime discover deep down beneath its basalt and limestone and bitumen abundant formations of gold-bearing quartz. And that, unfortunately, is against all geology.

BENARES ORDEAL. BV FIRE. Hindus Walk Unharmed Over u Bed of Live Coals. Lahore Civil and Military Gazette. A controversy having- arisen in some of the papers about the recent performance of the tire ceremony at Benares, an account of what actually took place by an English onlooker may be of interest to the readers of the Civil and Military Gazette. It was during the recent convention of the Theosophical Society that, a good many of us who are interested in the life of India below tho surface being present, some Hindu friends arranged with a certain sect of Shivaite Hindus who claim the power of rend ‘ting (ire harmless to give an exhibition of their powers. Accordingly a trench was dug in the grounds of the Tagore villa about lifteen feet long by four, and tiiis \yas filled with logs of wood, which were left to blaze all day. In the evening the trench was filled by a thick layer of glowing coals giving oft a tremendous heat. At . p. in. we repaired to the scene of action. Our party consisted of Mrs. Besant, Counters YVachtmeister, Dr. Richardson, late professor of chemistry at University College Bristol; Dr Pascal, a French doctor of medicine; Mr. Bertram Keightley. barrister-at-law; Miss Lillian Edger, .M. a'.; Colonel Olcott and others. Chairs were arranged for us on a kind of dais formed of the earth thrown out of the trench and about eight feet from it. This was the nearest point, to the big fire at which one could bear the scorching heal. At our back and surrounding the trench was a dense but orderly crowd of hundreds of Hindus. Ail waited with eager expectation. At last i hubbub approaching from tHe gates of the villa announced the arrival of the procession. If consisted of a chief priest, who presided, carrying a sword, two others who W'ere going to pass through the flames and an image in a glass canopy borne along by others. The leader intimated that his two colleagues would pass through the fiery furnace. and afterward anybody who liked of the male persuasion might follow them through unharmed, but no women w'ere permitted to go through. Then ensued a most extraordinary and in some respects painful spectacle. It is a doctrirte of Hinduism that all tile functions of nature, lire, rain, etc., are presided over by nature spirits. This particular sect of Hindus claims to have preserved the secret of being able to control the tiro spirits so that for the time they are unable to burn. Whatever may be the explanation, these are the facts. Certain mystic ceremonies having been performed and cocoanuts having been tossed into the flames, the two junior priests apparently became possessed. With frantic shrieks and cries they passed twice round the blazing trench, preceded by the chief priest with his sword and followed by the brilliantly illuminated'canopy. Then, slill In a frenzy painful to behold, they plunged up to their ankles in the scorching furnace and passed backward and forward several times, the recihot coals and sparks scattering about their feet. The crowd followed jin their wake, first one er tw r o individuals, i until the others, gainijw confidence and caught by enthusiasm. lushed through in j hundreds, even little children of four and l five years old running up and down the I trench over the burning coals exactly as if ; it had been a soft carpet. All were unhurt. . Among those who ventured was a brother I of one of our party. This gentleman, whose : name 1 am prepared to give prlvatelv. j walked through the trench twice very slowly, and described the sensation afterward as having been like walking over hot sand. A skeptic among us having propounded the theory that the feet of natives were covered by an integument so dense that it was proof even against live coals. Dr. Pascal carefully examined the feet of this witness immediately after his performance and found the skin of the soles was of the normal thickness of European feet and that they wrere untouched by the fire. I saw one man deliberately pause in the middle of the trench to nick up a handful of the flaming embers, w’hich he then carried through to the side. A linen turban which fell from some one’s head lay on the coals without igniting, as did the cocoanuts The priests remained on the scene for about twenty minutes, during which time the two apparently possessed men were held by others. After they left the crowd was advised to cease experimenting with the fire and no more passed over. At this stage Dr. Richardson and myself left our seats and attempted to approach to the brink of the fiery gulf, but the heut was so great that we had to turn back. How Manic Charmed Our Soldiers. J. F. J. Archibald, in Leslie’s Weekly. Some of the regimental commanders thought it best to take the instruments away from the band, and either arm them or make them litter-bearers, but. happiiy, many commanders were far-sighted enough to see that the men would need music far more than they would the help of the bandmen in any otht*r capacity. There was no time w'hen the men actually needed music as they did during the period of truces, for when the fighting would cease and the excitement of the. w’ork would die out. it was than that the men would think, and it was then, if ever, that their spirits would droop. No matter how wet and cold they w'ere, whenever the "wind-jammers uniimbored” their spirits would rise immediately and In an instant they would be singing in the chorus. The men of thf> regiments that had left their instruments behind on the transports w'ould crowd to the end of their line, as near the music as possible. "There’ll Bea Hot Time in the Old Town To-night" proved to be a perfect battle tune, and the men were never too tired or too hungry to stand up and yell themselves hoarse over the song. It was the marching song. It was the song of the trenches, and it was played at the flagraising in Santiago. The afternoon concerts always ended with the national hymn. "The Star-spangled Banner.” and until one ha a heard that grand anthem where It means so muefe he

““Pages 9 to 16==

Pit ICE FIVE (ENTS.

ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPING — JOHN Bl LL’S DWELLING AMI HOW IT IS FITTED AMI IT RMSIIKD, Shortcomings in Light and Heat, nnd a Lack of Other Thing* Which American* Deem Essentia 1. Convenience and picturesqueness, under most conditions, seem to be. incompatible. The grey, many-gabled, ivy-clad country house, it will be found, lacks the comfort that the less interesting modern villa possesses, and it is apparently Impossible to supply, afterwards, those necessary inventions which builders and plumbers should adjust at the beginning. London, and, indeed. many of the larger provincial towns of England, are being modernized at an alarming rate, and in especially, whole districts like Chelsea are being torn down bodily to give way to what are comprehensively termed "modern improvements.” These are lofty apartment houses where rents are excessive, and are described by the agents cither as "mansions” or “this desirable residence.” Those new structures spring up in a night almost, after our own mushroom fashion, and are fitted out with hardwood floors, electric bells and baths, with hot and cold water. In the case of a fashionable apartment house, a "lift” is added which moves with true. English deliberateness, and is still on its way skyward when a moderately active person has reached to top floor, scaling the half dozen flights of stairs on foot. Perhaps this may be a trifle exaggerated, but it is literal tru h to one who is in something of a hurry to b® set down at his own "landing.” In London both gas and electric light ’o little moru than make darkness visible; both are very bad and are husbanded with extreme frugality. In the older houses when* gas was "laid on,” to use the English term, after the house had been built, perhaps a century, tiny lend pipes, not much larger than a quill, run up the corners and around the door and window frames, connecting with the burner. The meter is in the basement and the supply for the whole house is turned on from this lower region, in lodgings this prudent arrangement makes one entirely dependent upon the landlady, and the unfortunate lodger has no choice but to sit m the twilight or firelight until she secs fit to turn on the gas. Where everything is “extra,” however little gas may be consumed, and however useless to one who wishes to read or write, it varies upon the weekly bill from one shilling to three. Those who object to a dull light buy kerosene lamps, but they are then charged for oil and cleaning a.id nothing is gained financially. although it is a decided improvement, both in comfort and in economizing eyesight. Furnaces and steam have both been introduced somewhat cautiously and reluctantly, but the heat from cither source is rather uneven and rarely quite sufficient. The English protest against the high temperature of American houses, in which they gasp arid perspire and suffer, and they are probably justified in some of their animadversitics. But their houses, on the other hand, stem to an American damp and cold, with a penetrating quality of cold that chills one to the marrow of the bones. Furthermore, the English absorb caloric in their food and drink; they are prodigious meat eaters, and in most families the daily use of spirits, ale, wine and beer in enormous quantities is a matter of course. The older houses are sti:i luated with grates, which are a continual trouble and a prolific source of dust and soot, it is the daily duty of the housemaid to bkreklead every grate, after which the fir- 4 ere "laid” and lighted. Very few people, even among the well-bred, have fires in their bedrooms, this being considered rather an effeminate habit, although so tiny are tt o bedroom grates that they do little more than, appeal to the imagination. Small as they are, it is a common custom to make them still smaller by placing in either end a brick, that considerably diminishes tho space left for the fuel. In all lodging houses "coals’* are also tn extra, and will be found charged in the weekly bill at tho rate of sixpence (IJceifts) per scuttle. BEDROOM “TUBBING.” The English cling tenaciously to their old fashion of “tubbing” in the bedroom. It, has much to commend it, being hot a cleanly and convenient. But this also makes much work for the servants, who must usually carry tile water, both hot and cold, up several (lights of stairs, and then carry it down again. An English bathroom, even if constructed on what passes for modern principles. may be partly responsible for the perennial popularity of the tin pie-plate or the other species which is shaped like an inverted silk liat. At any rate, an English bath loom is usually dark and rarely heated, except by a villainous stove or lamp. Occasionally, as a measure of unusual precaution, the bathroom is buiit where the kitchen chimney passes behind one of the walls; this may or may not raise the temperature to 1) degrees Fahrenheit, as may be discovered by pressing the palm against the plaster—and by no other means. In one house where l lived for two years I daringly defied the cold, still patronizing the frosty bathroom as tha autumn merged into winter. Finally, at tha er.u of November I announced that I would be obliged to give it up, not wishing to die of influenza or consumption. The landlady said with delightful ingenuousness: “O if it is too cold I will have the gas jet lighted for you at eight; that will make it quite warm enough.” But the prospect was not alluring, and the tin pan was brought forth from its lurking place. Whether they realize it or not, the English are gradually becoming more and mor* Americanized. In the newer houses it is now’ quite customary to have the drawingroom on what they cal! the "ground” and we call the first floor. This, however, is never in the front but always in the rear of the house. They have never y< i acquired our national taste for publicity; they are not interested in the panorama of th* streets; in seeing people pass. They love much better the bit of lawn and shrubbery and the bright flower borders which even the poorest householder contrives to have. The windows, usually French windows, look out into this quiet little retreat, and here during the summer when it is practicable, tea is served; here the family assemble, with books and work, shutting out the world with its glare and noise. An Englishman can do more with a little plot of twenty feet than can an American with three times that space. Bed chambers in the rear of the house are always considered more desirable than those in front, because of the quiet. The old fashion of heavy bed hangings has been practically abolished, although this, too, has been difficult to supplant. A modification has been substituted—a narrow canopy over th© head of the bed with scanty draperies depending from it on either side, hangings either of chintz, moreen or silk. It has been agreed that brass or iron bedsteads, the latter enameled and with btass decorations, are both room sanitary’ and more artistic than the old fourposter. Os course, there are no roekin® chairs, but easy chairs, roomy and comfortable, are a good substitute. There is also a lounge, placed always, for some mysterious reason, against the foot of the bed, Tha dressing table stands with Us back ciaea