Evening Star Newspaper, May 15, 1897, Page 16

16 ee THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, MAY 15, * ; PROGRESS IN CHINA The New Minister Talks of the Changes Being Wrought. ee DING RAILROADS AND FACTORIES importance of the Civil Service and the Literary Examinations. -- -- RACIAL STRENGTH a ee GREAT by Frank G. Carpenter.) ing Star. HE EFFECT OF LI Hung Chang's trip around the world 1s en every day in the new foreign pol- icy whitch has been adopted by the Chi- nese emperor since Li's return home. A general change is taking place in the diplomatic circle, and (Copyrighted, 189% Written for The Ei new ministers are being sent to the leading courts of Christendom. First, !t was announced that Lo Feng Luh was to be minister to Great Britain. A week or so ago a commission was lered to go to England to represent the emperor at the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, and within the past few days a new Chinese minister has arrived in Washington. The striking peculiarity of the new appointments is that the men chosen are those who are up to date in for- ign affairs. Lo Feng Luh was educated in London. I think he studied law there. He has spent some time in Germany, and he speaks the English and German lan- guages almost as fluently as the Chinese. When I met him in Tien Tsin a year or so ago he quoted Shakespeare in his conver- sations with me, and gave me his opinions of Huxley and Darwin. He was then sec- retary of the navy of China, and was the istant of Prince Li Hung Chang The New I met country last night, and had an hour's chat with him about himself and other things. ‘hinese Minister. the new Chinese minister to this He also speaks English fluently. He told me that he was educated in England, and that he was a member of the English bar. studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London. and after that returned to China and prac ed at Hong Kong. It was at this time that Li Hung Chang, who keeps his eyes the brightest young men who know about foreign affairs, discovered d later on called him to the service and it is largely through that he now comes to rep- interests in the United The new minister's name is Wu Ting Fang. He ts, I judge, a man of fort! five years of age. He has pronounced Chi- © features, having high cheek bones, a ught brown complexion, and eyes which are even brighter than those of Li Hung wharg. He is seldom at loss for a word, and is a man of ideas and actions. The tour of his room at the Arlington Hotel was opened for me by his little son, a Chinese boy of about nine . Who was dressed in a long red gown ing to his feet and a little black skull ap, which fitted well down over his head, ning features as sober as those of the When the minister came in he took hand in American fashion, and then ed and drew on a plum-colored sack over his long silk gown, as he asked me to be seated. A Few Questions. excellency opened the conversation self by asking a number of personal questions. He picked up my card and read the names of the several newspapers print- ed at the corner. “Ah,” said he, “I see that you write for many papers. Do they all pay you foi your letters? You must make a great deal of money.” I modestly replied “that I was able to live.” Whereupon he very politely askea me a number of other questions about ‘wspaper work in the United States, and specially as to the profits which are to be derived therefrom. After a few such questions I saw that I was the man be- ng mterviewed rather than the inter- jewer, and I adopted the plan that I used nm my interviews with Li Hung Chang of acking a question on the end of each of y answers, and in this way was able to urn the conversation to Chinese matters. \mong other things I asked the minister £ he had passed the literary examinations at_ Peking. “No,” replied his excellency, “I have not. . of course, spent years in Chinese . but a large part of my time has . devoted to English and to foreign ranches. It was born in Canton, and 1 irst studied English at Hong Kong. Then | went to London and spent some years here. I see you have the idea that the nly Way of getting into office in China is through the literary examinations. This fs “t altogether true. Most appointments are made in that way, but when a high official, such, for instance, as Li Hung hang. sees a person whom he thinks will »@ valuable to the government he calls nim into his service. He can give him # lace without such examination. It is the iesire of the emperor to get the ablest men * can to do his work, and it was in this at I became an official.”” The Chinese Civil Service. ‘How about those lterary examinati-ns, your excellency? Are they fair, or is there not a great deal of fraud connected with way sppose there {fs fraud in all things,” ied the minister, ‘but I think that our tions for office are just about aa S such examinations anywhere ali the world. It is almost impossible or a student to cheat his way through You see a man has to go through a num ner of different tests before he can become a hich official, First there are examina- tons in the district city near the home ot the student. Here the boys from all parts of the district meet. They answer ques- sions, write poems and essays. The test ts so rigid that out of perhaps 2,000 stu- dents not more than twenty will pass. This amination is not for office. Those who pass it, however, have the right to enter @ examinations for the second degree. hese are held at the capital of the prov- ince or state which the student lives. ‘They are held once every three years, and there are thousands who compete in them. The examiners are noted scholars, and those who pass have the right to go into the great examinations at Peking. If they pass there tl have a good c! of recelving an jclal tment. sreat honor to pass all the examinations, as very few of the thousands who enter 2re able to do so.” Will China Last? As the minister thus referred to this cdu- cational system of China, which has been in use for hundreds of years, I thought of the enormous number of poeple which he represented, comprising about one-fourth of all in the world. I thought of the age of the Cainese and of their civilization, and said: “I have oftened wondered, your ex- cellency, what one of you educated Chinese think of us and our prospects. .Your na- tion is gray-haired beside those of the west. You were a people in the dayswhen Egypt was the center of western learning. Your nation was in its prime when the Greeks were the great people of the Mediterranean. You have existed while Rome rose and fell, and even today the Chinese are intellectual- ly and physically strong. What ts to be the future? Will our civilization pass away and that of the Chinese still live?” The bright light went out of the Chinese | minister's eyes, his face 6 sober and, after a moment's thought, he replied; _. “Who can tell? The Chinese may last. They are a people of wonderful race strength, and it remains to be seen whether they will be swallowed up or changed. by the new civilization. As for me, I look for great changes. We have preserved our in- stitut‘ons and customs throughout the past because we have been walled in, as it were; from the rest of the world, At the west we had the high plateau of Asia to keep out invaders, and on the east there was the sea. We had little communfcation with the outside world, and their customs and ideas did not affect us. Now the doors are thrown opens and the new elements which are coming in may make great changes. We may lose something of our individual- ity, but we shall probably hold our own.” The New Movement fm China. “But, your excellency, is China now real- ly open to the world?” “Yes,” was the reply. “Can you notice any material changes going on?” : “I think so," replied his excellency, “‘but you must remember that our country is very large. We have an enormous number of people, and it takes time to move such great masses. An attempt to change mat- ters quickly would be very likely to create a revolution. You will understand the dan- ger when I tell you that there are tens of ndilions of Chinese who have neyer seen a foreigner, ana who know practically noth- ing about foreign matters. The only way to make changes in China is by education. It is by this means that China may be led to adopt modern methods. Such education is not a matter of days, but of years. I be- Heve the time will come when our people will select from your civilization the best things in it, end will add them to those which we now have. The bad elements of our civilization will be eliminated, and it may be that the new civilization, the Chi- nese civilization of the future, will be bet- ter than anything which exists today.” The Railroad Movement. “How about the building of railroads in China, your excellency?” “We are pushing right ahead along such lines,” was the reply. “The road from Tien Tsin to Peking will be completed in June, and you will then be able to go from the seashore to the capital by ral “Where will the Peking road end, your excellency?” “It will go to the very gates of the city. The distance is from eighty to ninety miles, and fast trains will probably take you from Tien Tsin to Peking in about two hours. At present the journey requires from one to three days, according to the route, whether by river or by land.” “How about other railroads?” “We have, you know, a very good line from Tien Tsin to the Shanhaikwan, on the edge of Manchuria. This is well built, and the trains run regularly.” ““tow about the line to Han Kow?” “Phat line is also being pushed,” said Mr. Wu Tss Sang. “It will rsa through one of the most populous parts of China, and will &0 south through some of the best of our touching large cities at every There are now great car works at Han Yang, a little bit above Han Kow, and all sorts of railroad macliinery are be- ing made there.”* “How about factories? Are many new ones being built?” “Yes: but these are constructed by the Chinese merchants and business men, and not by the government. There is a large cotton mill at Han Kow, hundreds of miles in the interior. There are other mills at Shanghai, including silk mills.” “How about the Japanese. At the close of the war they expected to do a great deal of manufacturing in China, did they not?” “Yes, I know they did,” replied his excel- lency, Wu Ting Fang. “They investigated the situation gnd made many plans, but so far they have not carried them out. I do not know what they will do in the future.” “But, your excellency, do you think the Japanese could do much in China? I have always thought the Chinese superior to the Japanese in business ability.” “There is little doubt of that,” replied the Chinese minister. ‘The Japanese are very quick to grasp at new things. The Chinese are careful about going into anything they do not understand. Still they are very de- termined and sure. They are reliable and safe, end such progress as they make will be permanent.” The Missionaries and the Chinese. ‘What are our missionaries doing In Chi- na? “] think that the medical missionaries are doing great good,” replied the minister. play their former inventive power. I don't see Why not.” ‘How could such laws be séoured?” I ‘asked. ¢. “Very easily, replied the minister. “Any of our great statesmen might suggest or memorialize the emperor. If it seemed good) to him he would put out a decree estab- Mshing a patent law, and the law would be enforced.’ The Woecden War Horses of Ch “Have you seen many evidenées of in- ventive genius existing among the Chi- nese?” «No; I cannot say I have,” replied the minister. “But our people are, you know, @ very ingenious people, and I have no doubt that many wonderful inventions have been ¢reated in the past and lost because ‘there ‘was no patent law to foster or pre- serve them. We have instances of such things in our history. You are now talk- ing here of your vehicles which go without horses and other such inventions. Now, it fs a fact well known to every Chinese geu- tleman that one of our great generals of the past who lived during the latter Han ‘dynasty, about 220 A.D., invented wooden horses and buffalces to be used for mili- tary purposes. These horses were worked by. means of machinery placed in thelr in- sides, and they moved rapidly over the earth, carrying men on their backs. They were used in battle, and it was by means of them that this general conquered the enemy. Every Chinese boy knows of that invention, but the details of it have been lost and never rediscovered. I have no doubt that we have invented many other thirgs which have met with a like fate” At this moment one of the Chinese sec- retaries called upon the minister and our interview closed. Upon leaving the minis- ter gave me his latest photograph, writing at, my request his autograph in English and Chinese upon its face. The photo- graph was made by a Chinese pho- tographer at Shanghai, and is as good as any of the photographs which are made in America. FRANK G. CARPENTER. pecs a eas PROFLIGACY OF WRITING. “They are earnest, able men and women. ‘They heal the sick, and they are introduc- Ing modern medical fdeas among the peo- ple.” “How about about the other missiona- ries?" co replied his excellency, “they are lke all other kinds of men. Some are good and some are bad. There are black sheep in every flock, dnd the missionaries are no exception. Still they do some good. They teach the practice of morality and virtue, and people who teach such things will al- Ways make some converts.” “Will they ever convert the whole Chinese nation?” replied his excellency, with a “Do you realize how many people we are, and how long our religion has last- ed? Such a conversion will be impossible.” May Again Become Inventors. “I have often wondered, your excel- lency,” said I, “whether this great Chinese brain which invented gunpowder, printing, the mariner’s compass and other things may not turn beck to invention again. The bringing in of our ideas and civiliza- tion may stimulate it, and it may vroduce many new things.” “That may be so,” was the reply. Some of your scientific men who have lived In China say that our people are great imi- tators, that we can copy anything, but that we cannot invent or originate. Now that may be so, but I doubt it. The trou- ble with us today is that we have no in- centive to inventions as you have here in America We have no copyright laws and no patent laws. If a man writes a book he does not want to publish it, for any printer near by can get out an edition and compete with him. If a man has an idea for a labor-saving device he keeps it to himself or perhaps makes only one or two machines. If he tried to sell the machines other men would copy them, and he would have no protection. If we had patent laws I think the Chinese would dis- It is No Longer a Distinction to Befwn Author. From the New York Advertiser. This is an age of vigorous intellects, but not of great minds. This is as evident in science as in the arts. It ts the motto which every publisaer should paint over his door. There were never #0 many vigorous intellects. The schoolgirl has one: your of- fice bey affronts you with his vigorous in- tellect. It is the stigma of the age. The result has been a general leveling up—and Gown. There is less scholarship and more intelligence. There is less genius and more talent. Fifty years ago it was in the way of be- ing a distinction to have written a book. Authors were pointed out on the street; poets had hats doffed to tnem. The femaie novelist was an exceptional person. Amaze- ment waited upon her public appearances, 4s though she had been a waite crow. To- day a far surer anodyne to oblivion is to be nodded at as the man who has never written a book or a letter to a newspaper. The cause of all this profigacy of writing is not far to seek. The world is democrat- ic, education of a sort is universal, tne printing press has become a fecund and im- ersonal breeding monster. Of old it sat ike a hen and hatched out a dozen novels in a twelvemonth; now it is an incubator, which has practically no limitations. It can hatch its thousands as easily as its scores. Production is at the cheapest. The most anaemic schoolgirl can publish her novel for a few hundred doilars, even if the spec- ulative publishers reject it. And hterature —who used to be a retiring and august dame —has gone down into the highways and by- ways. She may be found in the boudoir and in the nursery, on the race track and in the barber shop. If you are beset now ard again by a curious, eager wish to look into the future, you have often asked your self what the outcome of this is to be. It ig evident that literature {e coming home to men’s bosoms and business. There can be no question of this fact. Most of us write, and ail of us read. The wisdom that used to be kept in the jars of the pundits has been spread thin over the whole generation. No one of us is very wise, but, taken all together, we know more than our ances- ters. Wisdom was a £5 note, which one man carried in his pocketbook; today it is changed into coppers, and each one has his tuppence. e Books are cheap—even good books are wantonly cheep. For $50 you can buy a better classical library than Christopher North could have bought for $500. More than that, for a few cents you can buy a newspaper containing more sound litera- ture than your granéfather could have got for twice as many dollars. The populariza- ton of literature is the mest notable fact of tcday—more notable than the mechanicai Progress of which it is the exponent. It is irevitable that the average should be low. You cannot get quantity and quality. The machine which makes things cheap and plentiful makes them insignificant. Books are set up and printed by machinery. Some of them arc not even written by hand—Mr. Howells uses a typewriter. This is natural. There is an immense market, which can cnly be supplied by tireless machinery. In this race to supply a demand the man of | a goes under. There 1s no place for him. Nore of the books written today will sur- prise posterity. We are a happy, intellec- tual and mediocre generation. We are prod- igal end fecund, but we lack distinction. Tdtercture has become a trade, in spite of scme desperate endeavors to raise it to the dignity of a sport. This result 1s perfcctiy logical in an age the shibboleth of which is the greatest good of the greatest number. It is better that every man should have a Waterbury than that one man should have a Tobias. What is true of literature {s equally true of the arts. One reed not assuine the airs of a prophet in foreseeing the time when cil paintirg will be done by machinery. The statue makers have already shown the way. Democracy demands the merely clever workman, because it is he—and not the man of genius—who contributes most to the general comfort, physical or intellectual. The tendency is easily Giscerned. Books will grow cheaper and more plentiful; little by little the line between journalism and literature will be obliterated; the state of literature will ccrrespond to the social state. . The tendency is not deplorable; it is, in- Geed, the most hapeful sign of the Gay. ‘The greater danger of the future lies in the greed of the unintelligent rich and the despair of the unintelligent poor. The hest weapon against this danger is the printing press. For it is only unintelligence that is dangerous. ———_——+e-—____ Teaching a Lost Art. From the Chicago Post. “A New York woman,” he said, looking at her over the tops of his glasses, “has gone into the business of teaching women how to wal! Somehow ts seemed to strike her as a joke. “Think of it!” she said. “Just when the price of wheels is coming down, too. I be- gan to think yeu were right, John, when KING GEORGE FREDERICK ALBERT HANDY. AMERICA’S ONE KING Queer Fate of the Ruler of the Mos- quito Coast. DEPRIVED OF HIS HEREDITARY PENSION —_.__— He Abandons His Throne for the Time Being. Se NOW LIVING IN JAMAICA ree tego. Written for The Evening Star. Tost his pension, and ’ port. A few weeks majesty on condition T needful allowance. As (Copyrighted) T= KING OF THE now America’s only Yhonarch has no vis- @go the Nicaraguan republic, which holds ‘of the annual pay- ;. HHent of a pension, a result the king ‘has? ¢omplained to his old friend, the tis government, and Mosquito coast has ‘© fhle means of sup- suzerainty over his fipaily withdrew this temrorarily abandoned his dominions to sojourn,.in . Jamaica, under the, pro- tection of John Bull, Complivations are feared, as fn 1960 Niéaragua agreed, in tredty ‘with England and the United States, to pay the Mesquito sover- eign and his successors $5,000 per annum forever.. This treaty was broken in Feb- ruary, 1894, when the Nicaraguans invaded the Mosquito cozst, and John Bull and Uncle Sam were forced to interfere once more. Since then a bare .remnant of the pension has been pald yearly to the Mos- quitoes, and now Nicaragua, in defiance of England, has flatly refused to disburse fur- ther. This announcement has caused a flut- ter in British Honduras, and it is highiy probable that trouble like that of 1894— when a war was only averted by skillful diplomacy—may ensue. Meanwhile the king of the Mosquito coast has, as has been said, been welcomed to Jamaica by Eng- land, and there enjoys a British allow- ance of $7.50 per diem, on which he man- ages to have a good. time: “ It is the popular belief that, since the star of imperialism paled in republican Brazil, no monarch has ¥eigned in all America—that from’Bering straits to Tier- ra del Fuego ever¥ royal throne on the continent has been swept away. Andeyet on American soil’at the present day there dwells and rules aking, the heir of a line of potentates which extends far be- yond the Ken of the chronicler. This sov- erign is almost ignered in. American geog- raphies, but in English and throughout Europe generally he is described as “his majesty, George William Albert, king of the Mosquito coast.” His Kingdom. eae “Mosquito coast” sounds ‘iincomfortably. It suggests torridityand mosquitoes. As a matter of fact the little nation over which King George -William Albert rules is no better or no worse than any other Cen- tral American state. The kingdom lies to the eastward of’ Nicaragua—which country exercises over it a protectorate. It is a nar- row strip of territory, about 220 miles in length, stretching along the Caribbean sea. from north to south;between latitude 15. degrees and latitide 11 degrees. The pop- ulation at present comprises 2,000 souls, 500 of whom.reside in the capital town of Bluefields. To the westward, the Nicara- guan mountains divide it from the repub- le of Nicaragua. Before the white man came with his two destructive agents, gunpowder and fire- water, the ancestor of King George was indeed a mighty monarch. He ruled all the Mosquito Indians, whose happy hunt- ing grounds extended ‘from Mexico on the north, far into South America. The only Indian tribes which the Spaniards were un- you said that women had no business | Able to subdue were: the Arucanians of sensi “I wont to put an ad. on your drop eer “AN Tight. halt ‘the 6 Weciere®«\9 207 set So AL Pica e espa oy eae palate NS hile and the Mosquitoes. ~The latter con- tinued in absoluté''indéfendence. Pizarro and other great cdptaing notwithstanding. In the days of the’ buccaneers, those dare- devil rangers of dee found precarious shelter along the Mosquito coast; and to their seductive flasks may be traced the first downward tendencies of the warlike Mosquito. # A During the early “portion of the last cen- tury a Spanish slave ‘ship was wrecked near Bluefields. The Indians slew all the white men, but the ba slaves they wel- comed as brethreii. These Africans set- tled down among them’ ‘and married Mos- quito wives. Hence the. mixed negro and Indian blood of the present Mosquitoes, among whom very. few of pure descent from the primeval red-man can be found. The Monroe. Doctrine. The first white wan whom the Indiags permitted to dwell among them was Robert Handy, a shrewd «Yorkshire ‘tyke, who had gone thither prospecting for mahog- any. The Princess Chuquiza,- heiress of the ancient Mosquito royal house, fell in love with and married Handy. Their eld- est son, George Handy, became king of Mosquito coast, |, a8 such, was recog- rized by England and Spain. His son in Robert Charles Frederick Bay, Sad taece solcmaly‘ctewocd uy: the see ere solemnly crown: y the Eng- a governor in. ‘1826. ‘This crowning and e att J it in orleans a 1 as.the “Monroe mi with: the memory of a great President and suzerain over King Robert Charles Fred- erick, but that dusky sovereign was per- mitted to retain his rather dilapidated royalty, nor, indeed, has it ever been formally taken from the hands of his suc- cessors. Nicaragua is over-lord of the Mosquito coast, just as Turkey is of Egypt. Morcover, the republic paid annually until # few years ago the sum of $5,000 for the use of the king and his numerous family. This pension has been discontinued. King George Charles Frederick, who suc- eceded his father, King Robert, was a faineant monarch, who contented himself with his Nicaraguan pension, and drank himself into an early grave. The independ- ence of Mosquitoland would have complete- ly passed away but for the cunning of the King’s prime minister, a young Irishman named Patrick Waiker, who secured the succession to the Princess Victoria, a dusky belle, who had been united in marriage to her cousin, George Handy. The issue of this union is the present king, George Wil- Nam Albert. The King at Home. A description of the only existing Ameri- can king, by one who knows him intimate- ly, may prove of interest. Arthur F. Sand- ham of Roxbury, Mass., has recently re- turned from a sojourn of years on the Mos- quito coast. In speaking of King George he says: “I know the king well. He was born in ’47, and is a really intelligent chap. ‘The Indian and the negro are about equally strong in him, while there is just a faintly discernible leaven of white. His palace lay just out of Bluefields, but at present he lives in Jamaica, on $7.50 a day from Great Britain. “The king resided, when at home, with his wife, mother and grandmother. The center hut was reserved for George Fred- erick Albert and his dusky consort. The cares of state (which in truth are few) the king left to his prime minister, an Ameri- can named Cuthbert, but in all cases of litigation among his subjects the monarch acted as supreme judge and jury. When holding court he reclines in a hammock under the trees and smokes cigarettes. His wife, Queen Elizabeth Victoria, 1s addicted to the use of clay pipes. “The king's costume is, except on ultra- state occasions, very light and airy. A pair of white duck pantaloons and a webwerk shirt form his everyday dress. On grand occasions he dons a somewhat faded, but still gorgeous uniform, once worn by ex- Prime Minister Patrick Walker, when color sergeant of the Royal Kilkenny militia, and bequeathed to King George as a voken of affection. Likes Rum and Ale. “The king is not a drunkard, like his un- cle, King George Charles Frederick, but he likes rum and does not abhor whisky. His favorite tipple is English pale ale; casks of which are smuggled to him from British Honduras. As I was anxious to secure mahogany concessions, and willing to pay for them, the king and Premier Cuthbert were quite friendly with me, and I was a guest at a dinner of honor. I wrot2 out the menu of that dinner in exact order that same evening. ass ieee le \e Chickeif Whi Hérbs. Rum. Fricassee of Young Monkey. Rye Whisky. Green Turtle with Broth. Brandy and Soda. Oyster: Pale Ale. “It will be seen that the ingenious chef on this occasion inverted the usual order of menu procedure—beginning with the roast and ending with the oysters. “After dinner we sat and enjoyed a smoke under the trees while two servants kept off the insects with long palm branche: “The Moravians and Catholics have mis- sions in the king’s territory, but they can- it be sald to have ch progzes: Pd set eae Tat nat iaeahd superstitions rule among the Mosquitoes, mixed with a little Voodoo from their ne- gro forbears. Children are betrothed at ten or cleven years, and married at thirteen or fourteen. I witnessed a Mosquito funeral, with its curious attendant ceremonies. The dead man was ‘Prince’ Willian Henry George Handy, a cousin of his majesty. He was interred in almost indecent haste; and all his live stock—dogs, cattle and ponies, were killed over his grave. It is the na- tional creed that the deceased will need all his earthly belongings in the next world. After the slaughter a cotton thread was fixed to a wand In the grave, and stretched thence, despite every obstacle, to the dead man’s lt. No person was permitted to touch that string during three days and nights, that time being, it was believed, the space allowed to the ghost of Prince William to do his last earthly visiting. The string was intended to guide the spirit to- ward his earthly habitatign. On the fourth day the string was cut down, and on the fifth the supposedly disconsolate widow be- came the wife of the deceased’s brother, according to a Mosquito law. With the wedding, which was performed by his ma- jesty, the funeral celebrations ended, and every one made haste to forget the de- parted ‘Prince’ William Henry George.” The Royal Line. Such are the king of the Mosquito coast and of his people as Mr. Sandham has learn- ed to know them during a long residence. The king. has been said, is fully recog- nized by the British government, as also hy Spain, France, Holland and other European powers haying colonies in the West Indies. President Diaz of Mexico also dubs him “kin, and even“his suzerains, the people of Nicaragua, admit his sovereigaty. The only nation whtelr refuses to-style him any- thing more than “chief of the Mosyuito tribe” is the United States. Yet iheve is no nation which the king respects more than ours. His present prime minister is a Louisiantan, and he is particularly friendly to visitors from thé land of Uncle Sam. The King’s. heir, according to English records, is His eldest son, Prince Robert George Augustus. This young man prom- ises well. He has been educated by ihe Moravians, and is not addicted to any of the ancestral vices of the Handy dynast In appearance he is more Indian than ne- gro, and it may be thet the old glories of the Mosquito nation will be revived under his rule. At present he is living in British Honduras, where he has married a white woman of respectable German parentage. The king owns a gaudy coat of arms and crest, which were designed for his grand- father by Patrick Walker, the Scotch-Irish prime minister of that potentate. The arms read heraldically: “Azure, behind a mesquite rampant sable, the setting sun in splendor, over a hiil vert.” ‘The erst ts "a Mahogany tree, proper.” The supporters are an Indian chief in full war paint, and an English sailor. And so the last remain- ing American king dwells peacefully, !f bar- barously, in his little realm on the Carib- bean sea, where his faraway ances‘ors ruled supreme long before Columbus came from Castile. Surely he is as much of a monarch as any of the petty Gernan princelings who lay claim to and are ac- corded that dignity in the pages of the Al- manack de Gotha. IE GROWS FAT ON BAKED BANANAS. Here’s a Man Who Has Had Little Else in Twelve Years. From the New York Press. For nearly*a dczen years Cricton Camp- bell has lived almost entirely upon baked bananas. Not only has he saved large sums in grocery and hotel bills, but he has grown fat and robust on his diet, and de- elares that he has scarcely known a sick moment since he discarded other food and began living on the tropical fruit. Mr. Campbell is a clairvoyant, and ha: delved deeply in occultism, but he insists that that has nothing to do with his baked banana diet, and that any ordinary per- #on can Ive and prosper on it. Mr. Campbell learned the nutritive prop- erties of the fruit when baked while study- ing in India. He noticed that all the labor- ing men seemed remarkably strong and vigorous, and upon inquiry found that they subsisted altogether upon baked plantains. He tried them himself, and with such good results that he has been a stanch advocate ef them ever since. “Take ordinary bananas, said Mr. Campbell to a Press reporter, “don't peel thém, but cut the ends off a quarter of an inch.’ Fhen lay them on a tin platter, and without any other addition, bake them fifteen minutes in a hot bake-oven. “When the bananas are soft the skin will burst open like a baked apple. Then turn them over so that the under side ome perfectly soft, and bake five longer.” ‘The bananas, according to Mr. Campbell, should be served extremely hot, and on the same as i hich they were baked. Sat the Juice which bag run ou! t hanakee: then cat the Rat of the teat out of the skin with a teaspoon, together with graham bread and butter. “Bananas cooked in this way are intense- ly fattening,” declared the clairvoyant. “Three bananas,” he says, “weighing one pound are equal in nourishment to twenty- six pounds of bread. The true banana is a small variety of the plantain, and ts never shipped to northern countries. buy as ‘bananas’ are the larger speci plantains. “Humboldt calculated that the enormons food product of the plantain is to that of the potato as 44 to 1, and to that of wheat 32 to 1. Baked bananas are easily di- 1 never eat raw bananas. They are in- digestible and should never be eaten by any one, especially not by children. Where they grow they are considered to be full of anima’ germs. “The fruit makes the cheapest food In the world. Bananas are the ideal poor man’s food, becavse meat may be dispensed with when baked bananas are on the table. They make a deticicus breakfast dish, and should be eaten at least three time a week. “The ‘Latin name of the banana Is musa sapientum, signifying ‘of the wise men. and being Intended to allude to a statemen by Theophrastus concerning a fruit which served’ as food for the wise men of India. “In winter time when you buy bananas be sure that they are not frosted.” Se LOST FOR 1,000 YEARS. A Great Find of the Highly Prised Thesxalian Marble. From the Philadelphia Reccrd. The quarries from which the ancients obtained their highty prized Thessalian or verd marble have been discovered, and are again being worked by an English com- pany. The quarries, which have been lost for more than 1,000 years, are in the neigh- Porhood of Larissa, in Thessaly, Greoce, The ancient Workings are very extensive, there being no fewer than ten qufrie each producing a somewhat different de- scription of marble, proving “Withort a doubt that every variety of this marble found in the ruined palaces and churches of Rome and Constantinople, and likewise In all the mosques an ssums of the world, came originally from these quarries. In fact, the very quarry from which the famous monoliths of St. Sophia, Constanti- nople, were obtained can be :dentified with absolute certainty by the matrices from which they were extracted. In modern times verd antico marble has been obtainable by the destruction of some @icient work, and it has, natura! commanded extraordinarily high prices. As a consequence, a number of ordinary mod- ern greens of Greek, French, Italian and American origin have been dessribed and sold as verd antique marble. No one, hew- ever, who is really acquainted with the ais- tinctive character of the genuine material could be deceived by these inferior marbles. Thessalian green is easily distinguished from any other green marble by the fo! lowing characteristics: It is a “breccia’ of angular fragments of light and dark green, with pure statuary white, the whole being cemented together with a brighter green, while the snow white patches usu- ally have their edges tinted off with a delicate fibrous green, radiating to the cen- ter of the white. The cementing material is also of the same fibrous structure. a Delicate. From Life. Prospective _ Tenant: “I’m afraid this “Pshaw! You won't notice them _ 's all right, but my wife never could stand the sight of blood.” —_+22—___ If you went anything, try an ad. in The A Fortunate Escape. ¢ A Burlington Young Lady Telle the Story of Mer Rescuc. From the (tipper, Burlington, Vt. A reporter called upon Mins Lillian Warner at her home, 415 St. Paul strest, Burlingten, Vt., and begged the favor of an interview ‘The young lady ts a musician and a panist of considerable renowa, and tas her time fully pied DY engagements to play at con <btertatements that the city, amd th . Bervous energy of the pianist can be easily tm “ erts and arty taking ploes in Rever could have stoc something now," sald Miss Warner (> “thet braces me for my work. So ago I was utterly unable to attend to owtug to a disarrangement of U: that affected my eves with all the came 30 weak and troublec me so that went away inte the country to re obtained from the from care was, li upou my return to work I raps bad xatned and mo “But did you consult a decto wit myself mnder the tried um ry ‘They 1 i of * recommended for « had no lasting x >be my thi portion, “L was about a dogs’ when i Wills for Vale * was the next bie w ness part of the city or, Williams? the aysc vly a fietitions: f la grippe, p and sallow complexts elther in male or fem by ull dealers, ur will be of price, 50 cents a box, or (they are never sold in bulk or b dressing Dr. Williams’ ) tady, N.Y. A WOMAN MINER. She Thinks Her Sex Is juccess in That Cal From the San Francisco Chronicle. During the last few days Mrs. Rikert, known as the woman miner A. K of Tuolumne, has been visiting friends here and at Redwood Ci For fourteen years steadily has she been prospecting and de- veloping different properties, and in that time she has discovered some of the most famous mines of Califoraia, from One or Wo of Which nearly $2,000,000 has been taken. Among these mines ts the rich Al- hambra of Calico. This was a great sil- Yer mine, but Mrs. Rijccrt does not mine for silver alone. Mrs. Rikert has also been singularly successful in mining for gold. She was one of the first who went to the new Alamo diggings in Lower Caliturni, where she developed valuable properiies. The woman miner who has had such a remarkable experience has also discover- ed and developed the Pino Blanco gold mine, rear the Rawhide in Tuociumne county, which now an cnormoy ledge of quartz, aud from which she ‘dently believes millions of dollars w be taken. 2 Mrs. Rikert told the strange story of how she happened to go into mining for the first time. She is a southern lady, ant has that dislike which many of the souvh heve to being prominently thrust before the public. She is tall, has dark, some- times flashing, eyes, and has the enuncla- tion which tells where her early life was spent. am the daughter of a cotton plant near Vicksburg, and was early taught how to ride a horse, shoot and do many of the things which only a young lady's brothers tre svppcted generally to’ do,” said she “My father was a wealthy planter, and owned slaves. As Annie Kline I will be recalled for the part I took in the war, as will my sister, for we were both imprison- ed. I think sometimes when I am worth 2,000,000 or $3,000,000 I may write a book end tell all about this. “Fcurteen years ago I came to the new mining camp of Calico, determined to make 2 fortene if it was to be done. To this end I began to carefully study mining. It was a very rich silver camp, and I soon learred to find mines by the outcroppings, and to make tests of the ledges which I kad found. “I acsure I am very much more par- ticular when I go out to prospect than many men are who go to look for indi- cations. Often where men walk right over, the ground I stop and stay a whole day, examinirg particularly every part of the ground, chopping away brush and using pigk and shovel freely ‘j Tt was while ospecting in this way that 7 Tound the famous Alhambra mine, which proved to have such a large body of rich ore. This mine was bought by the late W. W. Stow of this city, and became @ part of the great Silver Odessa, of which everybcdy has heard. “Anong the mines was the enormous borax mine bought by William Alvord and Jerome Lincoln, and managed b: vm. Coleman. Its output since it came into the-hands of Alvord and Lincoln has been increased year by year, until now the works erected on it are the largest of any either in Europe or America. “At the time of the rush to the gold fields of Alamo I and my daughter were among the first to go there. I had become weil known in Calico, and many of the miners believed from my successes that luck fol- lowed me; in short, that I was a mascot. They often wanted me to make locations for them. f was two years at Alamo and did pretty well, securing some good prop- erty. “However, hearing of the interest that was being taken in the mines of the mother lode, and wanting, like the typical prospector, to be in on the rise, I came three years ago to Tuolumne county. We struck it just in time, and got in before the rush. We drove all the way trom Alamo to Tuolumne in a little wagon drawn by two ponies. “Going eight miles west of Sonora, near Columbia, and only a short distance from the Rawhide mine, I came across the Pino Blanco, then idle, and we bought it cheap. It was before the boo ‘and we had ail the advantages which such opportunities presented. “The claim had a little old tunnel run on it and some surface diggings. Th e mine was all grown over with a kind of greasewood. Through this croppings were found on in- vestigation to extend over a space 160 by 410 feet in extent. I began a new tunnel east of the apex of the hill. “At sixty-three feet we tapped the ledge. Then we ran west and cross-cut for sixty- six feet, and have not got through yet. It it a solid quarts ledge. The ore has been Star. If anybody has what you wish, you | carefully tested several times, by spread- will get an answer. CROSS COUNTRY AFTER THE HOUNDS. From Li°2. ing a plece of canvas and carefully pick- ing cut ore all over the face of the work- been found so satisfactory — millions are estimated to be in the ine. “I know no reason why a woman may not learn mining, and make as great a success of it as any man. The information is open to all. I think a woman may be as a ing camps I ways been treated with great courtesy by the miners.’ Written for The Evening Star. An Urban Bower. wilding spot, a corner dim, weeds, and moss, and stumbling Tknow a or :