Bellefonte, Pa., May 3, 1912. The Awaking of the Older Nations. The Spirit of Change Has Reached the Holy Land and its Famous Capitai— Religious Sectarianism Has Crowded Holy City With Rival Establishments. By WILLIAM T. ELLIS. Jerusalem.—Of three holy cities that are popular places of pilgrimage, Jeru- salem, Mecca and Benares, the Turk- ish empire has two within her borders. The Holy Land, as Christendom calls the little strip of territory along the | Mediterranean coast nerth of Egypt, is an integral part of Turkey. It has always been famous for the persist- ence of its ancient customs, so that hundreds of clergymen travel over it every year, to get light on the Bible. A generation hence, that search will not be so successful, for it is patent that Palestine is sharing the awak- ing of the ancient east. Not only is there a railway from Bei- rut to Damascus, and from Damascus to Haifa, and from Damascus to Me- dina, and from Jaffa to Jerusalem, but there Is also projected at the present time a new rallway that will go down the coast from Beirut through Sidon, Tyre, Acre, Haifa and Jaffa, clear to the Suez canal. Improving on Solomon. The ancient City of David has come under the new influences of modern times. Negotiations are at present pending for several radical and trans- forming innovations. The first of these to be pushed to early completion will probably be the water system. Jerusalem still depends on the collect- ed rain supply in cisterns for its wa- ter. The very pools built by Solomon are still in use, although the munici- pal system has greatly deteriorated since his day. Now it is proposed to bring water from two sources, in Fara, north of the Mount of Olives, and Fawar, an- other spring in the same valley. It has been found that this water is pure and sufficient for the city’s needs. When this has been put into water old bazars, widening the Street of David, carrying passengers past the Mosque of Omar, which is the site of the ancient Temple of the Jews. Imag- ine the worshipers of the Temple dis- turbed by the clang of the bell of the electric car! At present most of the streets are as narrow as footpaths. When the soft-stepping camel comes along, as he does every few minutes, all pedes- trians must stand aside in the re cesses of the bazars, or against the walls, to make way for his passage. Even the plodding donkey, who, still as of yore, Is the favored beast of bur- | den, takes nearly the whole street when he passes. These electric lines will vastly en- hance the comfort of the city, but they will play havoc with its historical as- pect. Can sentiment survive the con- | ductor’s call, “All out for the Holy : Sepulcher!” “This way for the Jews’ : “Wailing Place.” “Next stop the Tem- ple Area.” “The Damascus Gate,” and | “Via Dolorosa!”? | New Lights for Old Streets. - Jerusalem is not so dark as some Oriental cities, for the municipality placed a thousand Kerosene lamps along the principal highways. Now it is on the program of the government to install an electric lighting plant for the streets, and for the stores and houses. A telephone system also is on the docket. At present practically all the modern business of Jerusalem is done outside of the city walls. Messages can be carried from one part to an other only, as in the time of David, i by foot messenger. Soon the tinkle ! of the telephone bell will rival the | more musical notes of the camels’ bells. A Pauperized City. Religion has blighted Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul could repeat here his famous words: “I perceive that in all things you are too religious.” One looks in vain for the smokestacks of modern industry, and for great warehouses, or temples of business. | He sees scores of expensive modern buildings, but all in the name of sec- tarian religion. Old Jerusalem, as viewed from the 2ills, presented one outstanding build- ing, the Temple of the Jews. Today the approaching traveler is confused by the multitude of the spires and tow- ers and noble edifices. Missions of all kinds, and hospices and convents and monasteries and asylums abound. | | ready to be seen at work. striking contrast to the famous Chris tian shrines. A Nazareth Carpenter's Views. The changes tnat are bound to trans. form Jerusalem and Palestine are al In the ba- zars of an older day are exhibited for eign styles of dress, and goods of American and European manufacture. The stream of tourists from the west hes effected changes in fashions. The economic conditions of the land have altered gravely. That this has penetrated to the smaller towns and villages, I learned in Nazareth. Here, seated amid the fragrant chips of an old fashioned car- penter's shop, I talked with the car- penter, at work on the floor, hewing out a wooden plow. He complained bitterly of the general advance of prices of living, so that the 80 cents a day, which used to be a good wage for a skilled carpenter, is now inade- quate. solved the problem by emigrating to America, and he inquired concerning the feasibility of doing likewise. The world currents of today are pouring the warm ctream of transform ing life against the ancient east. All that centuries have falled to do in Palestine, the present decade seems destined to accomplish. Paradoxically. the Holy Land has furnished the awak ening motive that has made western civilization; but the land itself has re mained largely untouched. Now Pal estine's turn seems to have come. (Copyright, 1911, by Joseph B. Bowles.) HOW BIRTH WAS ESTASLISHED | Some of his relatives have | Calf's Birthday Was Recorded, Thus the Age of the Human Being Became Known. Dr. Cressy 1. Wilbur, chief statisti cian of the bureau of census in Wash- ington, tells a story taken from court records which, according to the Wo- man’s Home Companion, fairly typifies the national attitude toward vital sta- tistics. “Farmer Hadley,” he said, “of In- diana on dying left his valuable farm in trust to his unthrifty som, to be- come the property of his granddaugh- ter on her twenty-first birthday. “The girl had been told the date of her birth and when her twenty-first anniversary, as she supposed, came around, she claimed her inheritance. But her father refused to surrender the farm, asserting that she was only nineteen. “The dispute was taken into court. The family Bible was appealed to, but the page for births and deaths was | blank. The father had rendered no re- | port to the town authorities; the fam- | ily doctor was dead. Finally a neigh- , bor remembered that a certain cow, | | much prized by the grandfather, had Si! given birth to a calf on the very day Bl when the girl was born and he could swear to it. “Perhaps, the court opined, the grandfather had recorded the birth of the calf! The old farm book, careful ly preserved in the family strong box, sustained the judge's theory; all the circumstances of the calf’s birth were fully recorded. And thus the birthday | of the human being was at length es- | tablished. “Talk about the registration of births in the United States!” exclaims Dr. Wilbur, “why, for not much more City of Palestine. mains, and all the residents have been Practically ail of these are supported | than one-half of the total population is compelled to install it in their homes, from abroad. Concerning the Jewish there a fairly accurate registration of it will mean a revolution in the hab- | organizations and Jewish problems | deaths, to say nothing of births, of its and the life of the people, and, it | here I shall write in another article. | Which we have nowhere in the country is hoped, a revolution also in the mat- | At present I deal only with various | reliable or complete information, and ter of personal cleanliness. | Christian churches: The Greek, the i many of the states are so little con- Where Foreign Governments Interfere. | Armenian, the Roman Catholic, the | cerned about human life that they In order to meet the expenses of | Syriac, the Coptic, and the Protestant. | make no more account of the deaths the installation of the water system | There are literally hundreds of relig- | Of their citizens than of the trees they the government decided to take, as a fous institutions in Jerusalem. One | burn to make clearings. special tax, the hides of the animals | Sect alone spends 6,000,000 francs | t 3 _ | every year for the upkeep of its mon- | sino EE a A oom asteries and other institutions. | HOOCO00S OF WALL STREET | Men Who for no Apparent Reason sidewalk outside the butcher shop, The Rivalry for Sacred Sites. awaiting its turn. As this bore hard- ly upon the butchers, many of whom are registered at the various consul- ates as citizens of foreign countries, these representatives of the powers objected, so some other means of financing the new water system will have to be found, Men seeking the concession are on the ground, and the government seems determined to carry the project to an early settle. ment. Allied to the water question is that of sewage. Jerusalem has something in the way of an antiquated system of sewage, but the visitor would never suspect it. Travelers talk of the filthiness of the streeis of Jerusalem —and the listeners understand them in the terms of the west, which gives no inkling of the real situation. The proprieties of western life do not per- mit one to speak freely on this point. But the streets of Jerusalem are as bad as those of the Chinese cities, if not worse. The marvel is that pesti- lence has not swept away the popula- tion. If, along with the proposed new system of sewage, there go vigorous police regulations, a most welcome change will be effected in the sights and smells of Jerusalem. Down David Street by Trolley. Until recently it was impossible to! travel anywhere in Jerusalem by wheel. ed vehicle, but various streets have been widened, thanks largely to the ! visit of various royal personages. But on the whole, the streets of the city are parrow and unfit for vehicle traf- fic. Many of them are vaulted, so, that they are really tunnels, and while | picturesque to the last degree, they ; do not lend themselves to the purposes of modern streets. Now the reform government pro-: poses to install four or five lines of | electric trolley cars, all of them cen- | tering at the Jaffa gate. They will connect the neighboring villages with | the city, so that one may go to Beth- | iehem for a nickel, and in less than | half an hour. One line will invade the Every holy sight imaginable has been possessed—and many beyond the | imagination of a mcre student of the | Bible. Some have even heen manu. | factured, so keen is the rivalry of the | old churches to possess the holy places ! that attract the pilgrims. The situa- tion has come to such a pass that vis- | itors are scarcely shown the real antiq- | uites of Jerusalem, so popular with the professicnal guides are the legend- ary ones. There is now afoot a plan for an American institution of popu- | lar Biblical archaeology, supported and | controlled in the United States, which | will provide visitors from the west with the information they really de- sire The overlay of superstition and com- mercialism and professional ecclesias- tical rivalry which one finds in Jeru- salem is quite as bad as may be seen at Benares. It has become necessary to station Turkish guards in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and in the Church of the Nativity at Bethle- hem, in order to keep the rival churches from coming to blows. The incongruity of Moslems with guns standing guard in the birthplace of the Prince of Peace strikes an Amer- ican visitor with greater force than any sanctity the spot may possess. The vast pilgrimages from Europe | and Asiatic Russia are very profitable: | and as they promote national prestige, | they are encouraged by the various | governments which have a stake in the | future of Turkey. Russia maintains a huge system of buildings, including a large hospice for visitors. There are also Austrian, German, French and Ital- ian hospices. Many of these pilgrims are ignorant | peasants, who see nothing discordant in the hanging of paper flowers and gilded glass balls amid the carvings and ornamentation of the Holy Sepul- chre, The simplicity, dignity wor- | shipfulness and real beauty of the | Mosque of Omar. which is in the | keeping of the Moslems, oresent a' Do Not Make a Success in Business. Wall street people are superstitious. They will deny it when told so, but if you ask any one in the street if he ever knew a hoodoo he will say, “Yes, many a one.” Such a one was a cotton expert who, highly recommended, applied for a place with a Stock Exchange house that had bought a cotton exchange membership and needed a man to open a new field of speculation to its clients. The applicant was in every way de- sirable save for the fact that three houses with which he had been con- nected had failed, though not one for a dishonest reason. He was rejected as ! a hoodoo. Shortly afterward he made a connec- tion with another house to fill a simi- lar want and proved a very valuable man in his sphere, but within a year the fourth house failed. The hoodoo is often a man whom everybody likes, speaks well of and recommends to every one else, with : the one reservation—he is a man who i unaccountably has not succeeded. There is nothing whatever against ! him; he is honest and shrewd and all that, but—unsuccessful. Once the hoodoo becomes known as such he must attach himself to the newcomers—those who do not know, have not been warned or who are so new and confident as not to care. Each connection he makes is a little less de- sirable, until he finally reaches the stage at which he is ashamed of his associations. Sign of Popular Affection. “Weren't you indignant when peo- ple you didn’t know called you by your first name?" “No,” replied Senator Sorghum; “but I've worried a great deal since they've shown a disposition to stop i CURTIS Y. WAGNER BROCKERHOFF MILLS, BELLEFONTE, PA. Manufacturer, Wholesaler and Retailer of Roller Flou Feed : Corn Meal and Grain ARTE Sa ee WHITE STAR OUR BEST HIGH GRADE VICTORY PATENT FANCY PATENT The place in the county where that extraor- ER are. al Catto SPRAY can be secured. Also International Stock Food and feed of all kinds. All kinds of Grain bought at the office Flour exchanged for wheat. The Pennsylvania State College. I FAT AT ATAU LV LT LT LMT a TLV AT AYATALAVAVAY ATV.AYA vi. A Set of Harness in Nickle or Imi- tation Rubber, at........... $12.88 This harness is equal to any $15 set on the market. Genuine Rubber............ $14.88 which has no equal for less than $17. To insure shipment money, should Address all communications to E. N. 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