Evening Star Newspaper, November 17, 1894, Page 19

—_ THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1894—TWENTY PAGES. 7 o JAPANESE GIANTS The Famous Wrestlers and Their Queer Method of Training. THEY ARE GREAT EATERS AND FAT An Account of a Visit.to a Native Wrestling Match. PHYSICAL DEVELOP MED vy (Copytighted, 1894, by Frauk G. Carpenter.) SEE THAT THE “YndSt famous wrest- Jers of Japan have of- fered their services to the emperor in the war with China. They have sent a delegation to him at Hiroshima, asking that they be sent to Corea and be given’a place in the Japanese army. ‘These men have done @ great deal in the crude wars of the past, but it Is doubtful whether they will be of much ‘use in eonneetion with Gatling guns and Winchester rifles. They form a curious class of the Japanese people, and they are Mke no. other- athletes on the face of the globe. They have entire- ly different methods ‘of training from our prize. fighters, and) John Sullivan or Corbett would laugh at thelr cor- pulent frames. They would think them puf- fy and flabby, and would expect to see them go all to pieces at a blow. Still, I venture the Japanese giants could stand several rounds with either Sullivan or Cor- bett, and they could probably throw either of these muscular Americans in a wrestling Carpenter, Wrestler and Interpreter. bout. ‘Thay seem to’ be of a race of their own, They are taller and heavier than the ordinary Japanese, and many of them are over six fest in height. The Japanese man is no taller than the average American girl. He has a long body and short legs. He ts as Straight as a stick, put he ts stocky rather than tall. These wrestlers weigh from two to three hundred pounds, and they are moun- tains of fat and beef. They eat quantities of meat, while the other people of Japan live largely upon vegetables, rice and tish. ‘They drink soup and beer by the gallon, and Professor Burton of the Imperial Universi- ty, who has taken the best photographs of them, told me how two wrestlers whom he Was entertaining one Gay in order to get their pictures each drank two dozen bot- tles of beer and great quantities of soda witer, ginger ale and claret. These wrest- lers have features much the same as the ordinary Japanese, though their heads are much larger, and’ more like cannon balls than anything else. They wrestle almost stark naked, and the only hair I could see on their bodies was under their armpits, and that which was put up in th? old Japa- nese style on the tops of their heads. They shave their heads frcm the forehead to the crown, leaving that over the ears and at the back to grow long, and tying it up on the top of the head In a queue like a door- knocker. They are by no means fierce look- ing, and when I visited the wrestling matches I was’ taken among ¢ and chatted with some of them through my in- terpreter, I felt their muscles, and they were as hard as iron, and what I had svp- pcsed to be great lumps of fat I found to be bundles of muscle. How a Wrestling Match Made an Em- peror. These wrestlers date back almost to the beginning of Japanese history. The Dai- mios kept a corps of them about their per- sons, and when the princes traveled over the country they always had some of these men ‘with them. They gave exhibitions at funeral and wedding processions, and they are men- tioned im Japanese ‘history as far back as twenty-four years before Christ. About five hundred years before Columbus and his band of Spanish pirates discovered America the throne of Japan was the prize of a wrestling match. The emperor had two sons. Whether they were twins or not I don’t know, but they both aspired to the throne. Their father told them to each pick out a champion wrestler, and the one who backed the victor should be emperor. The boys agreed to this, and the successful backer succeeded his father. From that time to this wrestling has Bone on all over Japan, and Japanese his- tory is filled with the exploits of wrestlers. There are regular matches held every year in the big cities, and those in Tokio and Osaka last for weeks, and the champions of the eastern and western parts of the empire are pitted against each other. Not long ago wrestling became a great fad, and one of the cabinet ministers, I am told, entered the ring, while the noblest men of the empire were ready to meet all comers. In 1888Count Kuroda, the prime minister, gave wrestling am great boom, and during the past year some of the most famous matches ever held in Japan have taken place. A Great Wrestling Mateh. I saw famous matches in both Toklo and Osaka, and I spent one day at a wrestling match tn the Japanese capital, in which one hundred and twenty of the greatest wrest- lers of Japan struggled together. The wrest- ling began at 10 In the morning and lasted until 5 in ‘the afternoon, and there was not a minute during this time that wrestlers were not in-the ring. But let me give you some idea of one of these Japanese prize fights. Imagine the biggest circus tent you have ever seen to be spread out upon a net- work of bamboo poles so that It covers about ople. These sit on the ground e$ or on platforms which are built ten feet aluye the ground, and er of the crowd there is a little ion about twenty feet square, supported r posts as large around as telegraph up perh ¢ pavilion is trimmed with red, and its sts are wrapped with red cloth, while about its top there is a curtain of blue. It has a raised foundation perhaps two feet high and a ring of rice bags runs around Its floor, inclosing a ¢ircle twelve feet in diame- ter, which is floored with black earth. This Js the famed wrestling rin of Japan, and in such rings all these matches are ‘fought. ‘The giants struggle inside the rice bags, and if one can throwjthe other over these or can fling him to the‘earth he {8 proclaimed the victor. At each corner of this pavilion, against one of thé re@ posts, sits a sober, dark-faced, heavy-browed Japanese, dressed in a black kimono. He is raised upon cush- ions, and. sits cross-legged, and he forms one of the four judges in case there 1s a dis- pute as to the decision of the umpire. In the center of the ring stands the umpire, wearing the old brocade costume of the days of the Daimios. He has a black lacquer fan in his hand, and he looks like a chump. He screeches out his voice as though he had the colic and was screaming with pain, but his shrill cries penetrate to every part of the circus, and he is a man of great importance and long training. ‘The spectators squat on the ground back of the ring, and-on these platforms. Each has a little tobacco box before him, with some coals of fire in it. All sit cross-legged, and nearly all smoke littie metal pipes with bowls as big as a thimble. One Hundred and Twenty Naked Giants. But let us take a look at the wrestlers. There are scores of them squatting about the ring, just outside of the rice bags. They are entirely naked, with the exception of a band of blue silk, four inches wide, which runs round their waists and between their legs and is tied in a Knot at the back. This * 4 wi a Waiting for the Signal. has a fringe about four inches long, which falls to their thighs, but further than this they have no more clothes than had Adam when he was gardening before he had eaten the apple. Here come two into the ring. ‘They are the most famous wrestlers of the east anil the west, and the people receive them with clapping. What giants they are, and how queerly they act! At the.corners there are buckets of water. ‘Fhey walk up to these and gulp down great swallows. ‘They fill their mouths and squirt the fluid into the air so that it falls back in a spray over their cream-colored bodies. They take bits of paper and wipe themselves off, and then they look about on the audience and show off their muscles, while a yell goes up from five thousand throats. They pound their naked chests with their tists. ‘They siap their brawny thighs. They lift their legs up as high as their shoulders, and they stamp their feet down on the Well- packed earth so that the pavilion trembles as though a cyclone were passing through it. Look at that man’s arm. It is as big around as Grover Cleveland's thigh, and the belt of the champion weuld loosely fit the waist of Wilson Shannon Bissell. He looks more like a man with the dropsy than a great athlete, and his body seems to be padded with great bunches of fat. He has a front 1ike a saloon keeper and his face shines like a butcher's. He is the champiou of the east, and the man from the west is al- most as .arge Now the two giants walk to opposite sides of the ring. They bow to the umpire and judges, and then squat down on their heels and look at each other. They come to the center of the ring. They bend over and rest their fists on the floor. They poke their great heads to the front, and their big almond eyes almost burst from thelr buttonhole sockets. How they glare at each other! They are watching for the signal to close. Now they rest for a moment, picking up the dirt from the ring and rubbing it under their armpits and over their bodies. Then they kneel and glare again. The umpire watches them closely. He waits until they breathe together, and then gives the signal. As he does so, they crouch like tigers and spring into each other's arms. Each tries to grab the belt of the other. They wrap their arms round one another, and you al- most hear their ribs, crack. ‘The bunches of fat have become mountains of muscle, and both arms and legs lcok like iron. Thei biceps stand out. Their calves quiver. Their paunches shrink in. New the giant of the west has reached over the straining back of him of the east, and has grasped the band of blue siik ‘which runs round his little plowing. Merchandise 1s carted through the cities by men The boards used by the carpenters are all sawed by hand, and mighty temples costing millions of dol- lars are now being made in Japan without the use of machinery. Logs which are used as beams are carried up by an army of men along a road which has been built up to the roof for this purpose, and which will be taken away when the building is completed. All classes of workmen use their toes al- most as much as their hands, and the cooper holds his tub between his feet while he squats on the ground and pounds on the hoops. In mountain traveling you are car- ried by men, and it is only along the rail- roads and in the cities that you realize that Japan is fast becoming a modern machine- ry-using nation. The rice fields are all cul- tivated by men and women, and the tea which we drink is picked and fired by hand. Nearly every leaf of tea is picked over care- fully, and a pound of tea, which, I judge, contains at least a thousand leaves, has had each leaf handled by a Japanese girl about a half dozen times. It is first picked from the bushes. It is then dried in the sun. It is next put into great basins of clay or fron, with fires under them, and is rubbed about again and again by hand by a half- naked, sweating Japanese girl, whose beady drops’ of pergpiraticn now and then fail down and soak into the exhilarating leaves. After the firing it is in sorted, and all the poor leaves are picked out and put into a lower grade of tea, while the others are carefully examined and each given its proper place. It is again handled when it is packed, rehandled by the grocer until each leaf has had a chance at the baciili of about a score of mortals on this continent and Asi: I hope some day to write a let- ‘Tea Without Frill when I will describe some other little appetizing mat- ters in connéction with the Chinese and In- dian tea, which may add to the gusto with pace it is partaken of at our afternoon Japanese Massnge. Speaking of the physical development of the Japanese, they understood massage long before it was brought into America or Europe, and nearly every Japanese work- man Is shampoogd two or three times a week. Every wife is supposed to know how to knead the muscles of her husband, and one of the most affecting stories of Japanese fiction {s about the dear little girl who leaves her play and her companions “Downed at Last.” ) press her little fingers all over the skin and squeeze every bit of the meat on her grandfather's bones. A large part of thi shampooing is done by the blind. ‘Th men make a profession of it, and there are no blind asylums required in Japan. They go about with pipes in their mouths, on which they whistie, and in the past they were the money lenders of -the country hey had a blind man’s union, which, I be- lieve, still exists, and they shampoo both women and men. I took many shampoos during my stay m Japan, and it is wonder- ful how it takes the tired feeling out of you. I usually stripped myself and put on a long cotton Japanese kimono, and then sent my servant for a shampooer. He would bring in a bald-headed fellow with a door-knocker cue fastened to his glistening crown, and with eyes which were almond slits with no light behind them. The man was always dressed in one of these night gown-like kimonos, and he would pull his sleeves up so that his arms were bare to the shoulder He would be led over to my bed, or, in the country, to the place where I lay on the floor, and would at once begin to pass his hands over my body. He would gouge my nerve centers with his thumb, and my whole frame would quiver. He would stretch each of my fingers and toes until it cracked, and he found out hundreds of “They Tug and They Pull.” waist. He lifts that three hundred pounds as though tt were nothing, and he throws him with a jerk over the rice bags. How the people yell! Some of them tear off their clothes and throw them into the ring, which they will redeem with presents of money at the end of the day. They call out the name of the victor, and some of them hug each other in their delight at the success of their man. There is no sign of pool selling, though I am not sure but that some betting goes on. The defeated gathers him- self up and walks away with bowed head. ‘The victor goes to one side of the ring and squats down on his heels while the umpire holds up his hands and proclaims him suc- cessful. The prize ts awarded and the apron of silk embroidered with gold is shown to the people. The victor receives it, and with his seconds behind him he marches away. ‘Then another couple enter the ring, and the same sort of struggle goes on. Some matches last no more than a minute, and some are so evenly pitted that they strain for a quarter of an hour before one is vic- torlovs. The snakes of the Laocoon never gripped their victims more tightly, and ribs are often broken, and men have been killed in these terrible struggles. Some wrestlers throw their opponents from one side of the ring to the cther. Now cnd then one sities a post and his skull is cracked open. There is no striking or hitting, and the rules are as rigid as these of our prize fighters. There are forty-eight different falls, and the um- pires stop the matches at a single mismove- ment, and they now and then call a halt in order that their belts may be more tight- ly tied. Museular Japan. ‘ The Japanese have very queer methods of physical training. @ wrestlers pound their muscles to make them strong. They butt with their shoulders against posts, and they stamp the earth to strengthen the muscles of their legs. They have a wonder- ful strength of back and wrist, and a com- mon test of strength is what Is called wrist wrestling. ‘wo of the men will sit opposite each other, with a little table between them. On this they will rest the bare elbows of their right arms, and grasping each other's hands will twist and turn, and see which can break the hold of the other. The acro- bats can bend themselves into all sorts of shapes, and their little boys go about through the streets and perform acrobatic feats which would be considered wonders in our circuses. The jinrikisha is used all over Japan, and this ts always pulled by men. It is, you knew two wheels, and t rate of five hour. I have had some is which could make six miles | an hour without turning a hair or outside of the shafts. I went twenty miles in four hours 1 ummer, with two of these men to pull me, and we stooped for lunch on the way. The road was paratively level, but we had some hills, on a day’s ride these men could make bet- ter time than a horse. I have heard of their making seventy miles in lve hours, and they do this not on meat and milk, but on rice and fish. Their calves are wonderfully developed, and they sweat pro- fusely. How Haman Muscle Runs Japan. It is, in fact, human muscle that. still runs the land of Japan. There are few cat- tle, and outside of those used by the caval- ry there are few horses. The fields are cul- tivated with a hoe, a soft of a spade-lke implement with a hve handle, and you see muscles which 1 never knew existed. All of his motion comes from his wrists, and he pounds the flesh again and again. He continues his work until every molecule of your frame has been put into action, and you feel at the time as though you had been run through a corn sheller. At the end, however, this sensation passes off and you are a new man. All your tired feeling has gone, and you are again glad that you —— on THE CITY'S ROAR. How It May Be Notated and Used in the Coming Years. from the New York Sun. “I see,” said a well-known musician, ‘that the Sun has been publishing the opinion of some artist fellow that each city has its color tone. I suppose he's right; I don't know much about red splashes and green smears. But the publication of that item brings up to utterance point some- thing that I've had In my mind for many years, and that is the actual tone, the sound tone, the keynote of cities. “You know every sound of nature has its notation, whether it is the buzz of insect life in August or the roar of Niagara in late April. So, too, I belleve that every city has its especial sound, and that the roar of its trattic could be reduced to no- tation and individualized. I am_ positive that the roar of no two cities is alike, any more than the roar af two lions is alike. “Of course, the roar of a city differs in depth and intensity according to the time of the year, week and day. The roar of New York on Sunday morning in August, for instance, is a very different thing trom that of New York on a Saturday morning in October, and again very different from that of any time in the dead of win when all the streets are covered with snc But these different sounds could b logued, and herein will lie the practical utility of the thing. Travel and warfa’ in the air are bound to come, you know, and when they do the catalogue of city notes will be as much of a necessity as a com, and barometer. “Take an example now. ing in a balloon and the blowing a gale for a week. The c doesn’t’ know how much he’s out in his reckoning, when he hears a loud-booming note coming up through the clouds. ‘What note is that? he asks of the mate. The mate puts the electro-tuning pipe to his ear and hellows back that it is BBB flat below the staff. ‘Triple B flat below the line,’ says the captain, ‘and this is Sunday, November 4. Why, that's New York. Let out the gas there, my hearties.’ And in five minutes more you're safe at the Cen- tral Park Aerial Landing Enclosure. Why, sir, it’s the thought of the age.” New to the City Man. From the Lewiston Evening Journal. ‘A gentleman who went Into the woods region on a hunting excursion and “put up” at a farm house in a remote clearing, was annoyed during the daytime with the abundance of flies that found access to the house. But when twilight of evening came he was treated to an exhibition of fly catching that more than repaid bim for his vexation. The windows were opened as the darkness settled down, and the hostess’s tallow dip only partially dispelled the gloom in the old-fashioned kitchen, when he suddenly: became aware of odd atures darting to and fro in the room, You are trave wind has b on ptain often coming almost into his face, while a queer little noise of “snip, snip, snip,” seemed to follow their velvety fluttering motions. For an instant he was startled, not knowing what to make of such in- truders. “Its only the bats,” said the landl. , as she pursued her work. ‘ g flies. Don't you hear em 5 wings? There'll be hundre their s wings on the floor here in the morning.” The gentleman arose early and looked for the wings, and sure enough the floor and tables were littered with them, on Anticipating the Result. From Puck. Tom—“We haven't settled about our wed- ding trip yet. May prefers to go to Europe, but I have always intended to travel in the United States. Jack—"I see. Well, I'll give you letters of introduction to friends #@ mine in Lon- don.” THE IRON MASK MAN te eS ont Some New Evidence in Regard to This Historical Puzzle. n RESULTS OF FRENCH WRITER'S STUDIES sor The Unknown! Believed to Be an Italian Minister of State. a A FASCINATING SUBJECT re Special Correspondence’ of The Evening Star. PARIS, October 30, 1894, OR ONE HUNDRED and, fifty years . the curious . world has been tormented with the desire to know who was the Man of the Iron Mask. Enough —books—his- tory, controversy, ro- mance—have been Written on the sub- ject’ to fill a library. Sober-minded people had given up the question as one of those riddies of the past which can now never be solved. But, in these days when all the old state papers are open to ex- amination, and the least bit of register or manuscript is studied by professional his- torians, the exact truth is almost sure to come out sooner or later, and M. Funck- Brentano has found it for the Man of the Iron Mask. In a few weeks he will publish all the known documents in the case, with the story year by year of how the various suppositions about it grew up. The gereral reader may make up his mind in the matter from the following summary, which is the first to be published. ‘The main fact is best told in the words of the register of the Bastille, containing the entry made at the time of the «mys- terious prisoner’s commitment: “On ‘Thursday, the 18th of September, 1608, at 3 o’clock of the afternoon, M. de Saint-Mars, governor of the chateau of the Bastille, arrived for his first entrance into office, coming from his government of the islands of Sainte-Marguerite, having brought with him in his litter’ a former prisoner of his at fMignerol, whom he obliges to keep himself always masked, and whose name is not told.’ Musked and Nameless. ‘The mask, another passage of the prison register notes, was of black velvet. ‘his prisoner live: in the Bastille as he had entered it, masked and nameless, and communicating with no one, under the governor's special care, until the 1th of November, 170, when he died and was buried in the cemetery of Saint Paul. Liven the officers of the Bastille had no | knowledge of who We was or why he had been contined. ‘théy only knew he had been long subjected to this strange con- for M. dé Saint-Mars, “wh isoner he had af¥#ady been at Pignerol, left that place in'Abgust, 1681, seventeen years before his copfiing to the Bastille. The curiosity of the officers regarding | the man whom tte King kept so jealously separated from thé“rest of men naturally mmunicated itkeff’ to the public. Louis XIV diec in 1715, Mfter a reign of more than seventy ygafs, and tongues could wag more freely, At last, in 1745, an in- triguing lady of! tHe court printed an- onymously a book, ‘whose scandals were | thinly disguised undér the name of * Memoirs to Serve 'for the History of Persia.” She set’ down openly the names of the courtiers’ of the preceding reign. According to het, the man of the mask was the Duc de Vermandois, the ilegiti- Tate sop of Louis X1V by the beautiful Louise de la Valhére. In a moment of temper he struck the Dauphin, the legiti- mate son and heir to the crown, and had been punished with perpetual confinemeat. Voltaire’s Account. Voltaire, who had all the instincts of a sensational journalist before journalism was invented, saw at once the profit to be de- rived froa the story of the man with the mask. He had himself just been shut up in the Bastille, so that he was something of an authority on the famous prison. He was then bringing out his work on the ‘“Cen- tury of Louls XIV." He put into his book a@ paragraph about an event which, he says, “is without example and, what is no less strange, all historians have been ignorant of it.” Without troubling himself to give any authority for his story, he went on to say that it happered shortly after 1661, when Cardinal Mazarin died and Louis XIV took the government into his own hands. At that time a prisoner, of greater than ordinary stature, young and of most handsome and noble form, was sent under strict secrecy to the Island of St. Margue- rite. He wore a mask, with steel springs-| at the chin-piece, allowing him to eat with the mask stili covering his face. Orders had been given to xill him on the spot if he unmasked himself. The king’s minister, Louvois, went to see the prisoner on the island, and spoke to Lim standing, with every sign of respect. In 1600 Saint-Mars, an officer of confidence, brought him up to the Bastille. Voltaire left his readers to imagine who such a mysterious prisoner could be. As will be seen, all the dates of his story ut- terly disagree with the official register of the Bastille, which, of course, was not then open for inspection. His clever addition of the steel springs to the mask gave the name to the prisoner, which has lasted. The Man of the [ron Mask had now become a puzzle to the world. The Various Theories. Voltaire took advantage of the growing legend, and, in his next book, “Questions on the Encyclopedia,” he insinuated that she only reason for keeping the prisoner constantly masked must have been that his face wore a dangerous resemblance to some one interested in securing his disappear- ance. In the next edition of his book he wrote openly that the Man of the Iron Mask was the half-brother of Louis XIV, the son of his mother, Anne of Austria, by Cardinal Mazarin, France was now in the midst of Louis XV's dissolute and unbelieving reign, and the tide of public feeling was already turn- ing against the Bourbon kings. The en- cylopedists of Voltaire’s set were the chief agitators of public opinion. A pamphlet soon apoeared in which it was roundly asserted that the mysterious prisoner was the legitimate son 6f Anne of Austria by Louls XIII, whilet‘Louls “XIV was the spurious offspring, mibstituted by Cardinal Mazarin and the.grring queen for the right- ful heir. This wasyja direct attack on the king's legitimacy,,,and it was continued under his succegsg¢ until the revolution broke out. Siar aor But it was whej the young Napoleon Bonaparte appeaxed,,cn the scene that the legend, invented, ag,we have seen, by Vol- taire, reached ita,peight. The story was then spread among fhe people that the Man of the Iron Magieshe who was the true heir to the throne of France—had been married ‘n the isjayd of Saint-Margurite to his jailor’s daughter, From this union a son was born whoffad been smuggled over to Corsica with the mysterious charge that he “came from‘gpad past,” which in the | Itallan of the isjanq is “Buonaparte.” Un- der this name tHe child grew up, and the | rising Napoleon’ ionaparte (as he still | spelled his namey"Was none other than the | grandson and heiriof the Man of the Iron Mask, true heir of the Bourbon blood. Damas’ Celebrated Romance. It is difficult to decide whether Napoleon | himself covntenanced this legend of his | origin. His enemies. were certainly afraid of its inflvence on the people of France,who still cherished the memory of Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon kings. The Roy- alist Chouans in Brittany thought it neces- | sary to put out a manifesto, warning their adherents not to’ trust the gpneral If he promised to restore the throne to the Bour- bons. ‘Everything shows that he 1s walt- ing only for the general peace to declare himself, and that he wishes to found his own claims on his birth from the child of the ‘Iron Mask.’ | by S ‘| <2) cI a Rs A, Xa] HE greatest food’ex= hibit in the world is that of the sweet, deli- cious and wholesome bread, biscuit and cakes _ thatcome upon the table .. in every house where ROYAL BAKING POW= DER is used exclusively as the leavening agent. PIS ADIS EA a O other aid to the housewife so great,no other agent so potent in relief for the dyspeptic has ever been devised. ROYAL BAKING POWDER is simply indispensable where the finest, purest, most wholesome and eco= nomicai foods are desired. WDER CO., 106 WALL ST., NEW-YORK. ATIC RDI ATIC a DIC AD BE CRIA DIS BLISS DIS SOIC A DIG 8 DIC 8 OIG S DIC DIC A DIC 8 DIT ATIC ATIC, anid) <> ie <> DIT @ SIC, ak cs aaa varying the original suggestion of Voltaire ‘The Man of the Iron Mask was represented sometimes as the elder, sometimes as the twin, and again as the yourger brother of Louis XIV, haviag for his father, as_the case might de, either King Louis XIII or Cardinal Mazarin or even the English Duke of Buckingham. In the Erglish literature of the subject the most popular supposition seems to have been that he was the twin brotker of Louis N1V, suppressed from his birth to avold the difficulties of a double | rule. This view was the one taken by the novel- ist Alexandre Dumas. In his “Vicomte Je LBragelonne” (ene of the sequels to t “Three Musketeers”), Aramis, who has be- come an Intriguing Jesuit, obtains secret admittance to the Man of the Iron Mask, disclores to him his identity, schoolmasters him ard finally substitutes ‘him for a day in the place of the real king. The school- mastering includes a good knowledge of the faces and characters of all the courtiers ani ladies about the court, and a promise to make him—Aramis—secret prime min- ister when the substitution shall have be- come an accomplished fact. How the plot foiled by another of the three musketeers, how Louis XIV escapes and reimprisons his unfortunate twin brother, must be look- ed for in the pages of the greatest novelist France has produced. But the last reap- pearance of Dumas’ Man of the Mask is when the young Vicomte de Bragelonne— son of the third musketeer—finds a silver plate fall at his fest beside a prison-castle’s walls in a remote part of the country. What the Iron Mask had written on the plate, I think Dumas has never told. Attempts at Identification, A half dozen of historical etudents, who looked into things for themselves, declared from time to time that the mystery of the Man of the iron Mask was not so romantic after all. They agreed in {identifying the Man of the Iron Mask with Mattioli, an Italian minister of state, who suddenly and utterly disappeared in 167), and was never heard of more. It is known that Louis XIV had peculiar reasons for desiring his removal, which he could not secure open- ly, as the minister was not his subject. This view of the case was exposed in the popular Chambers’ Miscellany many years ago. The identification was far from being complete. The French General Jung even thought he had discovered proofs that Mat- Uoli died in prison in the Isiand of Sainte- Marguerite in 160i—four years before the Man of the Iron Mask was brought up to the Bastille. ‘wo other investigators, as late as last year, 18%%, laboriously tried to prove, from the state correspondence in cypher of Louis XIV, that the prisoner was simply the French’ officer Bulonde, who had displeased his master by his conduct during a siege. Popular belief settled back into the pleasanter and more romantic conclusion that the “grand monarch” had somehow suppressed his brother behind the black velvet mask with its steel springs. What is now disclosed for the first time completes the final identification of the man, It comes from new knowledge of the prison registers, especially that of Pignerol. It agrees ‘with other testimony which has just come to light in the inces- sant gleaning of last century documents, The Mystery Revealed. The man of the fron mask was indeed Count Ercole Antonio Nattioll, secretary of state of Charles IV, Duke of Mantua, His story, with its proofs, is briefly told. Louis XIV was steadily advancing his conquests on the frontiers of Savoy and Piedmont. The annexation of these prov- inces, half French in language, has been a | century long dream of the rulers of France, | cnly partly realized in our own day by the cession of Nice and Savoy to Napoleon HI in return for his services to United Italy. Pignerol had been gained for France by ardinal Richelieu, whe fortified it strong- It has now long been restored to the alian possessions, and is known as Piner- olo, the last town before reaching the Val- ley of the Wildenses, It commands Turin, the capital of Piedmont, at a distance of not twenty miles from’ the west. Louis XIV was anxious to secure a corresponding stronghold on the east of that city. Casale, which Is half as far again distant on the river Po, fulfilled the condition. It belong- ed to the dominions of the Duke of Mantua, Charles of Gonzaga, who was a notorizus spendthrift in the pursuit of his own pri- vate pleasure. All his affairs of state were left to his secretary, Count Mattioli. Louis XIV concelved the plan of buying up both master and man. He began by the latter, to whom he sent his ambassador in Venice, the clever Abbe d’Estrades. Mat- tioll agreed to everything, persuaded the duke to consent and came on himself to Paris, where he received his full price from the King and signed-the act of cession in his master’s name. Then he hurried back to Mantua. Louis XIV sent a special envoy from Versailles to secure the ratification of the treaty and occupy Casale. He was thunderstruck to learn that his envoy had been arrested in Mantua. Italian Minister of State. Mattiol had simply sold himself over again to the king’s enemies, Austria, Spain, Savoy and the republic of Venice. He had informed each of these states, for mo.ey down, of the proposed cession of Casale to the King of France. Of course, this was now at an end and the frontier of France was likely to remain permanently where it was. The grand monarch had been out- itted by the wily Italian. He was not a man to devour his mortification in sile without trying to revenge himself. It is known that on the 2d day of May, 1679, Mattioli was lured into the environs | of Turin, where he disappeared finally. From a recently discovered account, writ ten two years later by an Italian in a posi- tion to know, we learn what had happened, “The secretary (Mattioli) was surrounded ten or twelve horsemen, who seized him, masked him and took him off to Pig- nerol.” Catinat, the leader of the enter- prise, wrote in his rep to Louvois, min- ister of Louls XIV: “No one knows the name of this scoundrel, not even the offi- cers who have helped to arrest him.” Even so mighty a monarch as Louis XIV could not hope to escape the indignation of all Europe, if it were once known that he had thus violated international right by selzing During all this time writers of prom- inence, romancers and dramatists went on his enemy in the territory of another power. The king's order for the arrest, | Known that one died in 1686, dated April 28, 1679, has also been dis- covered. It says explicitly: “It is neces- sary that no one should know what has become of this mat We must now go back to the register of the Bastille, which declares that the man with the mask had been a prisoner of M. de Saint-Mars at Pignerol. Now Saint- Mars was transferred ffom Pignerol to Exilles (near Mont-Cenis) in the August of 1681, and we have the list of the five pris- oners then under his charge. ‘They were a crazy Dominican friar, who died in 1693; two domestic servants of Foucquet (an- other of Dumas’ characters in the same “Vicomte de Bragelonne”), of whom it is while — the other continued in Exilles; so that from the only two remaining the Man of the Mask must be identified, as the register of the Bastille says that he was taken to the prison of Sainte-Marguerite. One of these two was Dubreuil, a common enough spy, captured on the still unsettled frontier of Alsace, lately won from the Germans; about him no mystery has ever been made. Mattioli was the other. The Conclusions Reached. To sum up, the man of the mask must have been at Pignerol with Saint-Mars and afterward at Sainte-Marguerite before he came up to the Bastille. Now there were five at Pignerol, of whom only two went to Sainte-Marguerite, and of these one could not have been the man of the mask. There- fore, he was the other, who was Mattioli. yencral Jung, who was not aware of this mathematica! proof, admitted that Mettioli was indeed confined at Sainte-Marguerite, but he thought he had found proof that he died there in the year 1694, Further inves- tigation has lately shown that this was a mistake, resulting from confusion with an- other prisoner. Still other proofs are forthcoming. It it known that the Man of the Iron Mask was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, in a nameless grave in the cemetery of Saint Paul. M. Pierre Bertrand, librarian of the French ministry of foreign affairs, has dis- covered, in an official register of burials for that date, the name of Hercule-Antoine Mattioli. Evidence From Royalty. Again, when the court of Louis XV was whispering strange things about the mys- terious prisoner's connection with the Bour- bons, Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress, made bold to ask him what he knew about the matter. The king, who had succeeded Louis XIV, his great grandfather, when but a child, naturally had no personal knowledge of the affair. He could only say what he had been told, that it was an Italian minister of state. This is vouched for by his own minister, the Duc de Choi- seul, to whom La Pompadour confided it. In the next reign, when che legend had in- creased yet further, Marie Antoinette ques- tioned Louis XVI on the affair. The king answered that the only information that he ever had received came to him from the eged Maurepas, long secretary of state of the king’s household. It was to the effect that the man was “a very dangerous pris- ener on account of his intriguing spirit; that he was a subject of the Duke of Man- tua, and that he had been seized on the frontier and confined, first at Pignerol, and afterward in the Bastille.” It should be noted that, at the time of these declarations of the two kings, no pote had yet spoken the name of Mat- tioll, * It remains to be seen, however, whether all this evidenc:, from what is now known history, from prison registers and state ccrrespondence, and from parties who, it must be confessed, were interested in the matter, will satisfy the public curiosity which has s» long found agreeable pasture in the story of the Man of the Iron Mask. STERLING HEILIG. +o SERGEANT LAU THE HED. So Did the Reporter and the Pick- pocket, but Not the Officer. From the New York Sun. When they searched the prisoner at the sergeant’s desk they found in his pockets three watches, four silk hardkerchiefs and two of linen, a copy of the works of Rabe- lais, a bunch of cigarettes, a small piece of ‘Turkish rhubarb and a wad of greenbacks. “Thim's from some women’s purse,” said the officer who had made the arrest. “How do you know that?” asked the re- potter. “Well, you see,” said the officer, who had read Conan Doyle, “a man do always dib- ble up his ncotes’ warce, or twish at the moast; but a woman do Creash thim up in a little bit of a rcund-lukking wahd and drrives thim into her little dam fool of a purrse. Yis, sorr,that money do come from the pokkit of some poor faymale that may- be now is crrying of her eyes out owver the loss ov it.” “Ig that so?” asked the reporter of the Was this money stolen from some woman The pickpocket, who was a little viclous specimen of the cockney lag, contracted his monkey face into a hundred wrinkles, “I giss it's Gawd’s truth,” he snickered. “I nipped the flimsies out of that ‘ere wery copper’s pocket ven he was harresting me, and we vos “2vin’ a little bit of a rough and tumble, doncherknow , oe ——____ Oregon Claims a Record. From the Morning Oregonian, Oregon has long been celebrated as the land of big, red apples and red-cheeked children, and the supply of both is pretty well maintained. Some do more in keep- ing up the record than others, but a couple on the east side, Jarrett by name, have, {t-ls believed, broken the record for Ore- gon, and are probably world beaters. ‘They have five living children, born to them within a period of one year. The triplets, two boys and a girl, are about three years of age, and the twins, a boy and a girl, fre less than a year younger. Mr. and Mrs. Jarrett came, from Missouri to this state. FOR OVER-INDULGENCE Use Hersford’s Acid Phosphate. ‘Think of your head in the morning after a night’s hard jabor, avd take Lorsford's “Acid Phosphate for speedy relief. CALLING A HALT ON PICKLES, Boston School Girls to Be Deprived of Their Favorite Lunche From the Boston Evening Transcript, Considerable interest is being manifested in regard to the luncheons now provided at recess time for boys and girls in the nigh schools. At almost every high school in the city the majority of-the pupils buy their luncheons from the Junch counter kept by the janitor, and the food so pro- vided consists largely of pies and cakes— bakeshouse stuff,” as some, people call it— and pickles. The janitors keep that kind cf food because the pupils will buy it in preference to other more wholesome kinds, and also because there is probably more profit in it. Nevertheless, the parents of the pupils are anxious that some different system may be adopted in ‘the matter of furnishing luncheons. “They think it higt time that something was done about it, for in schools where there are no lunch coun- ters peddlers of cheap candy, cocoanut cakes and other unwholesome compounds make their appearance at ‘recess, and are generally well patronized by the hungry boys and girls. The first official step toward bettering this state of things was taken yesterday, wher an order was passed by,.the school board providing that all luncheons sold in the pub- lic schools should be such as are approved by the committee on hygiene and physical training. Moreover, the committee was in- structed to report at the next meeting of the board a plan fer providing suitable luncheons at proper places for the high school pupils. SESS Just what the committee intends to do is hard to say, but severatpersons inter- ested are hoping that it will be able to make some arrangement with the New England Kiteben whereby goups, sand- wiches, milk and other wholesome articles of food may be furnished directly fo the pu- pils at moderate prices. The kitchen bas its main station-on-Pleasant.street and an- other station at the North End. It is thought that” Soups-mtghtebe cagried from the kitchen to the schools in tanks, just as coffee is sometimes transported, and in that way might be served hot. Such a system of providing -luncheon$’ woul be*more favor- able to the health of, the pupils, and there- fore more acceptable e parents. As for the old system, the janitors are not thought to merit any blame, for they simply pro- vide what the pupils would buy;, but now that the committee has taken matter in hand, it is likely that most pupils will have to give up the practice of makiag a = on an eclair,~g@-piece ofpie or a je. —____+es__-__—— WOMEN IN WALL STREET. a They Are Not as a Rule Successful as Speculators. From the New York Herald.” "* “Women customers? No!” said a mom- ber of a well-known Wall street firm, “we have no women customers, and do not de- sire them. Up to two years ago we had a few women in town dealing with us, and received orders by telegram from women living out of town; some came from the west, but more came from up the Hudson, but now our books are closed to the fair sex. ‘What caused you to discriminate against women customers?" I asked. “Well, it is a Jong story, but {f you care to hear it I will tell you. First, Jet me say this. New York city is full.of men who know how, who are always making ironey out of those who don’t know how. Women who go into stock speculating, as a rule, do not know how, and ‘Instead of being willing to ust to honest and reputable firms to do business for them, they think they know it all, so they go into bucket shops to speculate, Where they have as much chance of success as a hayseed has in a gambler’s den where the dice are loaded and the cards stacked, “No! Women had better keap out of Wall street; they are either joo timid or too reckless to be successful stock specu- lators. Members of the stock excnange do not care to deal with women, and no firm belonging to the stock exchange has a pai- lor for women customers.” “Do you know of any women who are successful operators on the street?” was asked. “Yes, one, Hetty Green; but she is net a gambler in the sense that Other wo'nen are. The difficujty with most women is that they do not know the trick of the trade, so to speak, while the secret of Hetty Green's operations is that she comes and pays tor what she buys and does not hold on mar- gins for speculation, She deals in very few stock nd in those only where she knows the inside. “She has the knowledge of a large stock holder, and always calculates the effect of every event on the market. Her holdings enable her to control certain prices, the same as Jay Gould:did. But Hetty Green would make money anywhere. She has not only the money making, but the money keeping nature. While she, with her keen insight, has mate money im stocks, many another. woman has taken her husband's hard aecumulated earnings and sunk them all in bucket shops. In spite of all thé discouraxzing senti- ments expressed by the member of the stock exchange agaltist women's success speculating, there are many wo- ens, deal successfully in Wali street, as well as In the uptewn offices. It is a well-known fact that T. Brigham Bishop, Who fitted up the first bu in New York for women eight y. failed through the shrewdness of his wo- men customers; they beat him at every point. Tt 1s said they began joing to this beautifully appointed establishment in Wall street by the stréet cars, but before long they drove in cabs and carriages, aud used to order from Delmonto’sexpeasive luoch- eon, with champagne, &c. —— see A Delicate Questo: From Life. Father—“I do not require that the man who marries..my daughter shall be rich. All that I ask fs that he be able to keep out of debt.” Sultor—"Would you consider a man in debt who borrows mohey from his father+ in-law?”