Evening Star Newspaper, January 15, 1898, Page 17

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1898-24 PAGES. MOVE ALONG. THE GREEK COLON es Picturesque Hellenes Who Make Washington Their Home. ee IN THE FRUIT AND CANDY BUSINES As a Rule They Are Rather a] Thrifty People. NO DESIRE TO GO — BACK Written for The Evening Star. | MONG THE VARI- ous foreign peoples that are to be found in Washington are a number from the ib land of ece. The Greeks, ke the Italians and the Chinese, consti- tute a very pictur- esque element in the populatios not many ber, but work compe ir time on th they m Ta in emselves: and it is not as easy to point y one or two places where their lif. nese or th variably are a num gate in cc tlement Is hey co: Quite number: a und in Cox a D and h and 7th there is colony in Hall alley. above Pennsyly also a numt are ston, a to be street ju avenue, but the settleme kson Hall alleys are the larg: Most typical. ecks and Italians. in the popular mind be- s and the Itali . from a c Many imagine t rt peddlers. who carry d candy on the streets i rises | of p altoge hile the fruit f the large Greeks, part of to side of teet are moved back and forth andi lown by natives from the ly. Greeks | of town, | to be fou n ckson Hall hey ma were piled up in a heap. card playing being cne of the favorite amusements of the Greeks. Pulling Taffy. After the candy had been worked for awhile on the marble slab the whole mass, which must have weighed twenty-five pounds, was thrown over a large iron fork and_pulled. Pulling a lump of candy of this size is fer from a parlor amusement. ard those who have occasionally labored with a piece of molasses taffy no bigger than one’s thumb can imagine what it n.tst be to pull twenty-five pounds in one piece. The two Grceks took turns at pull- irg, spelling each other every few seconds. Several kinds of candy were to be made be- fore they turned in that night, and they were obliged to work herd and fast. The Greeks make all their own “bum- bum” and “chung” candy. They also make peanut taffy and candied almonds. One of the most popular brands scems to be their pink, white and chocolate candy, is often to be seen in great piles cn their carts. This is a pulled candy, but its texture is soft rather than brittle on account of its being boiled in milk. Just at present the candy business is very dull. The big time for that passed : Christmas, and many who were sell- at that time have now taken up the fruit trade for a change. “Where do you buy your fruit?” I asked bing around a well- cart. vtime T fruit here—sometime , buy in Baltimore—wherever I get it cheapest— in spring it cost too high here—in summer it_cheap—now it cheap.” and other fruits are sold at the commission houses on nue to the push’-cart men. The latter @ on the lookout to jay in a stock in trade cheaply, and will in whatever kind of fruit’ they can frem the wholesale han- Bananas tion by uisiana av No Women Among Them. pec! feature of the Greek set- in Washington is that no women - found there. Among the Italians m to be about an equal number men and women, but the Greek colonies pe y of young men, for hall wherever they hap- f the 15,000 or — 18,000 in the 1 States it is said that » net mor n 109 or 150 women. here naturally hr egiance , although no organ- at denomination ex- ton. Bome of the down- of various i Greek Su are taught influences of American - number of Greeks at- . however. war the ks here ted in the struggles of their and s teen of them left in a bod up arms her behalf. M however, ex- desire like it ant to too much differe have no m ae Here not that way. back.” press 4 “No, doen't to e to live. in Americ "said one. “I ck to my country. There If a man is poor, he not speak to him. don’t care to go 1 —_.___ Why Poets Are Thin. From the Indiai is News. the “accident of pig and little, thin and fat. The er is whether that particular the poctic, whether in it- self or in its prac s to fatness. It asy enough to see why our opera singer rows adipose. He or she has not to un- than exercise of > singe point to dis phase of gen , and those singers who raps grow fat from imi- the candy j tation. Poets, , cannot grow fat of a few persons. | in this way; ot love one anothe: sist them in making enough to meet very frequently. The: it. The eandy makers in Jack- | do not even feed together. Beyond thi ley live in a small row of brick | similar conditions ought to produce similar not bad of their kind, at about | result r of the block. Their carts may | The post does not do any great physical at one end of the y in large | labor unless he produces his poems on the on Su and when the | Greeba castle method by the consulting of ather prever taking them out on es3 volumes. His work consists of After dark the savory smell at a desk and writing what has of boiling candy is apparent in the neigh- | come to him during the night or on top of borhood of their houses. and must now | an omnibus, or whcrever it may be. Physi- and then ize the colored people who |cully ic docs not appear to be wearying next to them. In the Candy Business, H One man in Cox alley, who has lived in shington for a number of years, and made considerable money in his way, does a la fruit and candy bust . His candy n de at night, ome of the Greeks working aw at it until the wee hours of the mori if when the demand r candy is running high. I dropped in one night to watch the operations, cy. ght naturally suppos The house » two room: in front is us would is a small or on the ground floor 1 as a store room for the candy and other suppl Here I saw bar- rels of gum drops and figs, together with s of sugar and other materials in the raw reom. The room behind is the candy work When they are at work inside the blinds are kept shut, and the front door locked to d rage the curious and in- sure the work being uninterrupted. When I entered the work of candy making was full blast. The contents of a . which had been boiling on the d just been emptied out on a wide Lleck of marble, and two Greeks were en- ergetically working it with their hands, while another was attending to a mixture en the stove. Great disorder prevailed in the room, but the Greeks seemed to carry on their work cleanly, es well as expedi- tiously. In the backyard barrels which had been emptied of their contents were piled work. Poets ought to get fat, but they do not; andthe only conclusion I have come to is that mental work keeps the bedy thin just as readily as muscular labor. ——_—_~+ e-+—___ Famous English Drum Horses, From the London Sketch. The English love thei and in the jubilee proc most noted took part. the 17th Lan old drum horses, jon many of the The drum horse of is of interest, for he, to- er gether with his rider, has been in service twenty years, and Is the dean of the drum- horse corps. He steps out as though he Were a four-year-old instead of an old Stager. He is of Hanoverian descent. His owner has taught him — several tricks, which he performs with the kitte ish grace of a youngster. Another famo steed is the drum horse of the 9th (Queen Royal) Lancers. In 12 King William IV presented the regiment two cream-color colts for the use of the band. In 1842 t regiraent went to India, and came back after the mu in 1859. For many years little was heard of the drum hor: but after the regiment came back from Af shanistan the queen, King William's wir a beautiful cream-color anim: known as “Queen Adelaide ddely known. When the re led to South Africa recently vas returned to the royal + e+ -__ Can You Pronounce These Words? Fiom the The following paragraph contains ex- actly one hundred words, and, if you wish to have a little ‘pleasurable excitement, you will find it comparatively safe to offer al- mest any one $15 or $20, that is to say, fif- teen or twenty cents a word for each word in the paragraph, if he will promise to pay you $1 for each of its words that he fails to pronounce correctly: “Cleopatra, isolated in the oasis, soon be- came acclimated and had ample leisure to contemplate all the economic details of her inextriceble sword. The wound resisted the allopathic misogynist, who gave a cour- tecus diagnesis and humbly craved pre- cedence for a tiny idyi in the form of a vase with an aesthetic, acoustic apparatus. This told the news like a book, but it might have been a dog living in squalor, from the look she launched at him when he wrote down his address. She ate her breakfast and then fraternized with a national expert in appendicitis, who attended the obse- quies.” Criterion. ———-+0e : ‘The blushing bride-elect was rehearsing the ceremony about to take place. “Of course you will give me away, papa?’ she sald. “IT am afraid I have done it already, Car- up in wild disarray, and clothes were hang- ing out in the air to dry. On the table in the back room two or three decks of cards oline,” replied the old gentleman, ner- veusly. “I told your Herbert this morning you had a_ disposition just like your mother’s.” —Tit-Bits. —— THE OMAHA FAIR to Be the Keynote of the ~ Exposition. - Prosperity A-GRAND TRANS-HISSISHPP SHOW Mining,. Farming, Logging,-: Indian, and Cowboy Life. BIG CROPS AND FEW DEBTS (Copyright, 1898, by Frank G. Carpenter.) OMAHA, Neb., January 11, 1898. HE TRANS-MISSIS- I sippl ex position which is to open here in June will show a development of our western country which will be a sur- prise to the rest of the United States, During the last two months I have visit- ed all the big cities between Boston and Denver and I find more money and push in the west than ever before. There is undoubtedly a revival of business. The hotels are full everywhere. I find it hard to get good accommodations on the sleeping cars, und the army of commercial travelers is greater than ever before. I was told in St. Paul that the jobbers there had never done so much business as they are now do- ing. The Chicago merchants are expecting a heavy spring trade, and at Omaha, Den- ver and Kansas City I have found the peo- ple alive and most of them making money. The basis of the prosperity has been the big crops. Here in Nebraska Senator Chas. F. Manderson tells me, 35,000,000 bushels of wheat were produced last year, and the corn crop now en hand amounts to some- thing like 500,000,000 bushel Senator Manderson says that the agricultural prod- ucts of this state last year will foot up something like $500,000,000, or a capital value of about $600 per family. In this he worth of hay evéry. fear The packing in- terests-are . : ‘The -:center..of the -packing industry is mdvirg-weetward. Oma- ha, Kansas City erd St. Joseph now kill eLormous quantities pf live stock and new racking houses are peirg built here and aso. at St. Joseph. : “As to minerals. the west produces $100,- 000,008 worth of gold and-silver a year, and its:production of,copper and other minerals. amounts. to more. than. that sum. Why, seme of the richest coal fields of the coun-~ try are in the west, Colorado claims to shave more coal than Pennsylvania. ‘There. is coal in Montana and Utah, and we pro-. duce now something like ‘20,000,000 tons an- nally in the trans-Mississippi states. We have good fron,-and there -will-be great manufacturing ,centers fn some of the western sections in the future.” : “How about the mortgages, senator?” “A great many of the farm mortgages have already been paid off, and another year or so of good crops will put Nebraska and Kansas square with the world. The terrified banker of the east need not be afraid of the west. Our people will pay all that they owe, and if the present con- dition continues we will be soon sending money east to loan. This is the grainery of America, and, as long as the people of the east want to keep themselves fat they must pay us for our corn, wheat ard meat. We have in Texas the greatest of Almost Completed. the cotton producing states. We produce more than half the cotton, I think, every year, and we will always be furnishing the rest of the United States with clothes, for our woolen product is equally large. We will always furnish the money in the shape of precious metals, and I don’t see how it is possible for us to be otherwise than extremely prosperous in times to come.” A Great Show. Leaving Senator Manderson, I next called at the headquarters of the Trans-Missis- sippi exposition, and had a chat with Mr. J. B. Haynes, one cf the secretaries, as to the progress of the work. With Mr. Haynes I took a street car ride out to the exposi- tion grounds, and made some photographs of the buildings as they are now in process of erection. The site of the exposition is within the city limits. The ride to it from the center of the city takes about ten min- A FOREST OF LUMBER. . includes the packing products, of which there is an enc :mount in Nebraska. He tells mje that the farmers are learning how to ue their crops. ‘They do not seil their corn, did they in the past, but y feeding it, so 3 r bushel for it. s told in Denver that the banks had money than they knew what to do Senator Mande s that the deposits here in Om will approx 900,000, and T learn that a similar exists in Minneapolis and St. The Great West. il within a few years the west has re- led on its corn, wheat and meat to pay the greater part of its expenses. Now the farmers An immense amount is going into are diversifying their crops. of mone sugar beets in Nebr: a, Utah and Colo- rado. There is a sugar beet factory at and and another at Norfolk, in which are producing thousands of sugar every year. Cla has established immense fac- in Californ » sugar makers believe that the day will soon come when we will make out of beets the hundred million dollars’ worth of sugar which we now import from other countries. I am told that we have better land for raising such sugar than can be found in Europe, and that factories will soen be established in many parts of the United States. The beet sugar industry will be shown at the on. Another industry which prom- to be worth much to Kansas and Ne- braska is the utilization of the pith of the lk for various manufacturing pur- . They are now making a_pasteboard something like linoleum out of this pith. ed for other things, and there are which make from it packing to be placed Letween the outer ard inner walls of our war vesse's. This cornstalk pith sucks up water like a sponge. It swells the moment the water touches it, and a hole made by a cannon ball will be soon corked up by the swelling produced by the water flowing in. I found Senator Manderson at the general offices of the Burlington railroad. He is, you know, th? counsel for this item west of the Missouri river, and he has I do not know how many thousands of miles of road under him, including connections with all great States of the west. He is thoroughly posted on the condition of the west, and uring the chat he gave me some striking figures showing the s s of the trans-Mis- sissippi region. Said he “The people of the east do not under- stand us. They have no conception of the extent of the western country nor of the business we do here. I believe New York utes. The grounds are upon a broad pla- teau, lying along» the Missouri river, so that you see the buildings as you come in on the railroads. There are something like 200 acres in the exposition grounds proper, with additicnal territory on the opposite side of the road. Gne of the most beautiful features of the grcunds is a wide lagoon 1 walling the sides of the pit ‘The lagoon is, I judge, about at one endsand léss than this It was covered with ice dur- ard hundreds of boys and girts wer ing to and fro upon it. ‘The boarded walls are to be hidden by staff, so that they will look like marble, and orna- mented With clectric lights, transforming it into a beautiful waterway, upon which gondolas, canoes and other boats of va- rious kinds will ply from one building to another. At the eastern end of the canal the ground will be built up in terraci adorned with shrubbery and flowers, end- ing in a great stairway, crowned by kiosk. There will be a number of grotto built here, lighted with electric lights, with boards. 400 fect wid at the cther. ing our visit, a in which the blue grotto of Capri and Mam- moth Cave will be reproduced. Work Done. Along this grand canal or lagoon all the main buildings are located. Many of these are almost ccmpleted. The manufactures buildings is still a forest of rafters and other kinds of lumber. The framework, however, is up as high as the roof and a portion cf the roof has already been put on. ‘There were perhaps a hundred carpenters at work on it during my stay, and the sound of the hammer was to be heard in every part of the grourds. This building covers ral acr It will, when finished, look much like one of the Chicago world’s fair buildings and will be finished in the way. agricultural building {s almost com- pleted, and all of the buildings with the ex- ception of the government building are well under way. There are, I judge, at least half a dozen great structures already ready for roofing, and I am toid that the work will be rapidly pushed In the spring. The go ernment building, for which Congress appropriated $200,000, is by no means advanced. The foundation has been dug, but little more than tnis can be done be- fcre spring. 'Dhis building will be at the head of the lagoon. It will cover about three-fourths of an acre and will be a beau- tiful structure of the Ionic style. It will have a dome, which will be capped by a figure repfesenting liberty enlightening the world. The figure will be lighted by elec- tricity and the torch in the hand of the atue will be 178 feet above the ground. GRAND CANAL, and Boston are the most provincial cities of the United States and that our exposi- tion will be an eye opener to the rest of the country. Think it. More than one- fourth of all the people of the United States live west of the Mississippi. We have about twenty million people and we are by no means so poor as is commonly supposed. The assessed valuation of the property held by the trans-Mississippi states aggregates more than six billion dollars. This valuation is not more than cne-fourth of the actual value, so that we have all told real and personal property worth at least twenty Dillion dollars, an average of one thousand dollars per capi- ta. We are fast becoming a great manu- facturing section. Missouri, Kansas, Ne- braska, Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon and Washington are rapidly growing as manufacturing states, so that the products of our factories and mills now amount to more than a billion dollars a year.” Rich Farmers. “Your chief products are, however, agricultural, are they not?” c “They are both agricultural and miner: but the agricultural far exceeds the min- eral. Our corn crop is annually worth over two hundred million dollars. It “exceeds the annual gold output of the world by a number of millions, Our wheat crop amounts to something Ike 300,000,000 bush- els a year and we make about $150,000,000 = Near this is the fine art building, already half completed. Mr. Haynes tells me that the exhibition of Amertean pictures will be very large and that ‘many of the finest paintings owned in the west will be loaned to the exposition... There are some choice art collections in St. Paul, Denver, St. Louis, Kansas City end Omaha, and many pictures which have never been shown to the public will bechere exhibited. Choice Pictures have been loaned by the Chicago Art Museum, the Detroit Art Museum, the St. Louis Art Exhibit, the St. Louis Art Museum and the art gaileries of other cities. Mr. Haynes tells me that one of the directors will scour Europe for the purpose of having a good representation of foreign ert, and that the best foreign artists will be asked to send specimens of their work. The Different States. I am told that all the states west of the Mississippi will participate in the show. State buildings are already going up in that part of the exposition grounds which lie opposite the park occupied by the main buildings. The Nebraska building is al- ready finished and other buildings are about to be erected by Illinois, Iowa, Mon- tana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Utuh and South Dakota. The Mlinois building with its ex- hibits will cost $45,000, and of this $20,000 will go into the building itself, The plans have already been made and the struc- ture is a combination of Greek and Byzan- ~tine architecture with a dome on the top. Ilfinois-has engaged already about 50,000" }; square-feet of-space. It will have a large agricultural exhibit and also the biggest exhibit of foreign implements and manu- factures that the state has ever shown Attempts will be made during-the next session of the Iowa legis~ Jature to -add - $50,000. to its appropriation .for the exposition.” The Wisconsin build- ing: has. already been planned and it will be under way before spring. Wyoming ex- pects to spend something like $40,000 on her exhibit, and Colorado in addition to a large .amount of. space already given in the various buildings will have a_struc- Both of the Dakotas have-made appropriations for exhibits. and Montana has a fund half of which was subscribed by the state legislature and,the other half by Marcus Daly, the millionaire show what that state is doing in fruit raising and min- Louisiana has about an acre of ares ts products, and Texas expects to give a big ‘Applications for space, I am told, are coming in very rapid- ly from private parties, manufacturers and parts of the United States and the indications are that the exposition will have a good represen- in any exposition. ture of its own. copper miner. California will ing. in the agricultural building to show exhibit of its resources. commercial firms from all tation of the industries of the whole coun- try. Some Queer Features. Among the curious features of the exhi- bition will be a representation of our American Indians. The idea is to have the government send here fifteen Indians of each tribe, and to have each tribe have its own little camp or Indian viliage, so that by walking through this exhibit one can get a knowledge of the Indians of the United States. These Indians will have their feast days. They will go through their various games and the show will be both instructive and interesting. Such a thing has never been attempted in any other exhibition. It will probably be carried cn by the government, and will form a part of the general show, so that there will be no extra charge. The nearness of many of the reservations to Omaha will make this part of the exhibition cost comparatively little. At the same time the government will probably send its wonderful collection of models, showing the Indians engaged in their various occupations, which may form a part of this special exhibit. Among the other queer things to be shown will be Daniel Boone's cabin. This will be brought from Missouri! and will be rebuilt here. After Boone left Kentucky he moved to Missouri, and there spent his last days. There will be a representation of the Egyptians of the Soudan and c:her shows, something after the fashion of the Midway Plaisance of Chicago. A day in the Alps will be the titie of a department showing life in Switzerland. This will be made up of real people, of paintings and of scenic effects built up to repr: the reality. The Alps and their gla the tourists climbing the mountai. -» Will all be shown. Then there will 1 OWS depicting life in the west of the dime novel description, or of the Buffalo Bill ord: Shows containing Indian m 2s a re-enactment of the Cu of 1877, and other scenes of they formerly took place in the representation of mining at Cr will be giv depicting life in camps and also other queer features, as the Sherman umbrella, in which gers are sent flying aroun car which -d to a height of 300 feet above the earth. FRA AN AUDIENCE OF THRE! How Artemus Ward Excaped From an Awkward Situation. From the New York Times! Before Artemus Ward went to London, where the English fell in love with nim only to mourn his premature death among them, he had conquered the respect and af- fection of his own countrymen by his quaint and kindly humor. The itinerary of one of his tours led him to a town in cen- tral Pennsylvania. It was about the mid- dle of January. The day of the lecture came, and with it early came Artemus. Be- fore noon a tremendous snowstorm broke over that part of Pennsylvania and raged sly all day and night. There are some ons yet living who remember that term, and hew regretfully, in view of its sage ferocity, they gave up the idea of hearing Artemus Ward. All special trains were abandcned. When the lecturer ap- peared on the stage that night and looked about him, in all the large theater he saw men, each in the seat his coupon all three, as it happened, being far to the rear. The three men looked lonely and uncom- », As one of them said afterward, y net think there were enough of them to de justice to the cccasion, and they felt the awkwardness of the situation and wondered what the outcome would be. Keeping that solemn face of his at its sol- emnest, Artemus advanced to the footlights and beckoning to the three men, said: “Come up closer, gentlemen. I want to peak to you.” He had to repeat this invi- ion before his auditors understood that he meant what he said and mustered cour- e to go forward. When they had vr in the front row, now, that’s more sociabl He pauscd a moment and went oi “Gentlemen, you are entitled to see my cw and hear my lecture, if you are so Risposed. But I understand that under- reath this hall there is an excellent cafe, and I sugzest that we spend the evening there, you Ss my gue: Though reluctant to forego the show and they saw Artemus had no mind the three agreed to his proposi- lights were turned out, and the arty descended to the cafe, where for hours they made merry, and whence one of them at least was most reluctant to start for . He says he never had a more enjcyable time in his life, and that if Artemus Ward was not at his best then his Lave been “past all whooping.” ories he told and the way he told »m made them forget time and circum- stance and ccmpletely banished any linger- ing regret for what they had not received upstairs. —___-+e-_— THE BICYCLE AND THE TROLLEY. t) Statistics of the Falling Off of Rail- road Travel. From the Electrical Engineer. That the habit of bicycling tends to cut down the use of strect cars has long been known, and occasional estimates have ap- peared as to the loss of revenue thus in- flicted on trolley companies. The subject has just been specifically investigated by Major I. B. Brown, chief of the bureau cf railways-of Pennsylvania, who had noted a general falling off in the income of street railroads throughout the state. “It cannot be assumed,” he says, “that this decrease in revenues is due to the ie- pressed condition that has existed the last few years, as on all sides there are signs of improvement that ought to have swollen the receipts of the street rail ys from operations. The cause must, therefore, be attributed to something else. In all prob- ability, the use of the bicycle py busine: people and pleasure-seekers is the prolifi source of the reduction in the receipts of many street railway companies. In cities where favorable conditions do not exist for the use of the bicycle—where the hills are steep and not easy of ascent or descent— the railway companies have probably not been affected by the use of the wheel to so great an extent; but in cities like Har- risburg and many others it cannot be gain- said that the bicycle has become a most scrious competitor of the street railway. The fact remains, however, that many more’ persons travel the streets of Har- risburg, for instance, on bicycles than pa- tronize the cars.” As proof of this view, he cites figures from: observations made in Harrisburg dur- ing October on two days by no means favorable to wheeling. The time daily was from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. During that period 6.078 persons passed a given point, of whom 1,962 were in the cars and 4,115 were riding bicycles. We must confess that the showing is a bad one, on the sur- face, but October is rather a favorite month for bicycling, and, on the other hand, it is well known that the street taliways, even more’ than steam roads, reflect the average conditions of prosperity, so that two days next October or in nor- mally active seasons of trade and industry might find a large percentage of increase in the patronage of the cars. —____+o+___ Nancy—“There goes Miss Gloria; she's the greatest girl to get herself up.” Fanny—“Get herself up! H’m, she does nething of the kind. Her mother has to call her a dozen times every morning of her life.”"—Boston Transcript, >» PLAN OF PARS TOWERS OF SILENCE ee | How the Parsees of India Dispose of | Their Dead. The District About the Dakhmas is a Veritable Paradise. ee STRANGE BURIAL SERVICE ———— ma. oceident roastrians or H secs and the ion of r Dakh- more fic e peculiar structures appeared in a n publicati The most unique and impressive feature of Zoroastrian customs is their method of disposin of the dead. According to their religion, earth, fire and water are sacred EE TOWER OF | move or Pars the mourning re’ or the deceased in cou h couple hold- ing the opposite ends of a white hand- chief. All the participants are attired in new white robes which are ver worn atterward, 0 carriage or other wheeled Vehicle $s ever and the procession marches slowly, in silence, from the Parsee quarter of the city to Malabar hill nd up the long flights ef stone steps to garden on the summit and to a point within thirty feet cf the particular | tower selected for the expe Here the mourne mobeds and khandias leave the Lody und retire to a sagree or prayer tem- r the entrance to the garden, where fed with sandal wood and kept antly burning. While sare being said for the safe pal departed soul over the “Chinvat ive,” th is taken into the tower two cfficis s, culled nassasalars, who =! sit it naked in one of t scles. all this evide: the watchful observer tement among perched among near During Will notice the nume s of ex: vu resses the tower utter no cries move restlessly bs and indicate plainly their impatienc t prepared for them. A Clond of Vultures. The rs having performed their t - from the tower, closing the sharp bang. ‘The instant this sound 1s heard there arises a lou whir of wine 2 low roar as of a fierce wind through forest. A cloud of vultures da the air and settle down n | upc In from one to two hours the 1 t the dead 1 re picked clean d birds fly ack to their or roost apon the parapet of the with their is turned inward as ontempla erfully the remains heir recent banquet. . upon leaving the tower, re- inclesure near by, remove E their » eeremon. rden, and th to be polluted in any strictly enjoine 1 that de be thrown into the sea, burned in fire nor be buried in the earth. ‘Ther > the practicable course open to t pese the naked bod open air, so that they ate under the erdi ements or be devoured & This exposure, however, confident expectation t be speedily eaten by vultures, numerous and voracious oriental coun- tries, and especially so in the vicinity of a tower of silence. But Few in Use. towers are not as numerous as is y supposed. Outside of Persia and ja the only ones in use at present are those in Bombay and one or two in China. Those in Bombay are located on the sum- mit of Malabar hill, a picturesque eleva- | tion on the eastern boundary of the city, frem which a magnificent view of the sur- rounding country can be had. The Parsees own about fifteen acres of the hill, and have transformed the place into a veritable paradise. There is nothing suggestive ot death about the place. It is a luxurious garden of flowers, ornamental shrubbery, palms, cypresses, bamboo and other tropi- cal tre laid out with smooth, well-kept gravel walks. There are comfortable benches in snady nooks, secluded trysting places and fragrant copses, where birds of brilliant plumage sing and mate. Vigorous, exuberant life is manifest everywhere, while all nature seems to deprecate fune- real thoughts and to encourage dreams of earthly joy ard beaut: But these dreams are, in a measure, dispelled when one sees a tower of silence nesiling among the trees and recalls the purpose for which these round, whitewashed piles of solid masonry were built. There are six of these towers located within less than 100 yards of each other, and partially hidden by the overhanging foliage of palms and cypress: Five are used for the exposure of the bodies of Par- sees in good standing in their community, while the sixth receives the bodies of crimi- rals and outcasts. The first was built in 1669 and the second in 1756. On the Inside. The accompanying diagram, made by Pestougee Dadabhoy, a Bombay Parsee, is the first ever made for publication and presents a comparatively accurate illustra- tion of the details of construction. Each tower is about 30 feet high, 150 feet in circumference and constructed of blocks of trap rock and sandstene cemented closely and covered smoothly on ihe outside by a heavy coating of chunam or stucco. A gone parapet about three feet high rises ve the three concentric circles of corpse receptacles which slope sharply toward the central well and seem to be hewn out of solid rock. Every feature of the structure represents a Zoroastrian principle or tenet. The three circles of corpse receptacles—A for males, B for females and C for children —stand for the three fundamental precepts of Zoroastrianism, i.e., “Good words, good thoughts and good deeds.” There are seventy-two receptacles, representing the seventy-two chapters of the Yasna of Zoro- aster, a portion of the Zend Avesta. ‘The central well, where the bones of the dead are finally thrown, is about ninety feet in circumference, and the sides and bottom are paved with stone slabs. There are holes in the sides of this well, near the bottom, through which the rain water flows into the four underground drains at the base of the tower. These drains connect with the underground wells, the bottoms of which are covered with a thick layer of sand. Pieces of sandstone and charcoal, placed at the end of each drain and re- newed intervals, filter and purify the rain water which passes over the bones in the central well before it enters the ground, thus observing the tenet: “Mother Earta shall not be defiled.” . , The Burial Service. a ‘When a death occurs the body is wrap- ped in a white sheet and placed on an iron bier. Within twelve hours thereafter it is taken in chage by official corpse bearers, called khandias, and a proces- sion is formed, headed by one or more way. OF TOWER. s for each funeral. As these bear- rs are supposed to contract impuriiy in the diset > of their dut y are forced to quite apart from the Par- commu! and are therefo! w ones of the deceased are allowed n exposed in the receptacle from i two to four weeks. Then the nassa: 4 with gloved hands and implements resem- | bling tongs, throw them into th antral well, where they ultimate umble and into the undergtou: ins. *“Thus,” s the Parsee, “the rich and the poor meet together on one level of equality after death.” eee THE FILTRATION OF MILK. at Upward by Pressure Through Layers of Sand. From the British Medical Jornal. The control of the milk supplies at its source is a subject which is engaging much attention at the present time; but, while something has been accomplished, nobody can really answer for the cleanliness of the cows and the milkers at 5 o'clock on awin- ter morning on small homesteads in the country, The more conspicuous objects, as cow hairs, and indeed removed by straining through coarse musiin, but a quantity fine dirt, which would suffice to render transparent liquid visibly turbid, will prob- ably remain. Some of the dirt to be seen at the bottom of j of a pail, jug, or even a ¢ sists of mineral dust, but the greater part is neither more nor less than cow dung, a act which furnishes an obvious exp ion of the myriads of bacillus coli pr in so many samples of milk; yet, strange to say, no one seems to think it necessary to filter milk, though it always contains a vast number of the bacilil, a fraction of which would be deemed sufficient to con- demn any water as unfit for drinking, and the known outbreaks of typhoid fever traceable to milk are far more numerous water elent than those attributable supplies, for milk pres: to public nts an culture fluid for the bacilli of the bo’ on Sand filtration of milk whether by road or rail pot has } some cities, as by_the ‘i Company and by . Bolle of Berlin, whose arrangements, alike for the purity of the milk and for the physical and moral welfare of the persons (over 1,000 in num- Ler) in their employment, are well worthy of imitation. The filters used in this dairy consist of large cylindrical vessels divided by horizontal perforated diaphragms into five superposed compartments, of which the middle three are filled with fine clean sand sifted into three sizes, the coarsest being put into the lowest and the finest into the uppermost of the three chambers. ‘The lowest of all is partly occupied by a perforated, inverted, truncated cone, which assists in supporting the weight of the fil- tering material. The milk enters this low- est compartment by a pipe under gravita- tion pressure, and after having traversed the layers of sand from pelow upward, is carried by an overfiow to a cooler-fed with ice water, whence it passes into a cistern from which it is drawn direct into the locked cans for distribution. It is the rule of this dairy, also, whenever any epidemic or epizootic occurs in the dis- tricts whence its supplies are obtained, to subject the whole before admission to the filter to temperatures first of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, and then of about 220 degrees Fahrenheit, in two apparatus interposed in the course of the pipe supplying the filter. The filtered milk is not only freed from dirt, but the number of bacteria is reduced to about one-third, without steril- izing; the loss of fat is in new milk ted to be small, but the quantity of mucus and slimy matter retained in the sand—whici is, of course, renewed every time—is sure prising. a, Advice to Pocts, From the Atlapta Constitution. An Arkansas poet was robbed in a hotel recently. Poets should be careful to leave their manuscripts with the night clerk be« fore retiring.