Denote
Belletonte, Pa., February 6, 1914.
———
PRAYER.
At times I wonder if I ought to pray
Beyond the greatest prayer, “Thy will be
: done;”’ .
For less than this I would not, dare not, say:
And all my prayers are gathered in this
one.
‘What prayer of mine can alter His decree?
What fool would speak the prayer which had
that power?
If He the track and haven cannot see,
What sight have I to steer where storm
clouds lower?
Yet steer I must, and will, with might and
main;
Come storm or sunshine, forward will I go;
And sing or sob, as maybe, this refrain:
“Thy will be done,” the only prayer I
know.
—London Chroricle.
A COUNTRY Y. M. C. A. STORY.
(Published at Request of the State College Y.
M.C. All
Bob whistled gaily as he finished split-
ting a generous pile of kindling wood.
He felt the muscle of his right arm and
tried to dent it without success. “Some
strong man,” he said aloud, smiling at
his own conceit. :
A voice came from the door of the
house. “Robert, you'll be late for that
train if you don’t hurry. It’s due in ten
minutes.”
“All right, mother,” he called back.
“I'm just ready to start.” He gathered a
big armful of the wood and carried it to
the woodbox in the kitchen, where he
dumped it with a crash that made the
family cat dozing on the hearth, jump
for her life. Then, grabbing his cap
from the hook where for once he had
actually hung it, he bounded off down
the road toward the station.
Bob Reynolds was a dark-haired, well-
built lad of about fourteen, well-liked by
all in the little village of Crestfield where
he lived. He was expecting on the train,
his cousin, Paul Adams, a boy of his own
age, who lived in a large city several
hundred miles distant. Paul was com-
ing for a two-week’s visit.
The train whistled just as Bob reached
the station platform and presently the
counsins were awkwardly greeting each
other with mutual pleasure. A clean-
cut, athletic-looking man of about thirty,
who had also alighted from the train,
paused a moment to greet Bob, who
showed his delight.
“Oh, Mr. Clayton! We didn’t expect
you tonight. You're coming to the meet-
ing, of course?”
“Yes, Bob,” was the smiling reply,
“that is just what I came for. I want to
find out how you fellows are getting on
with your Y. M. C. A,, this month.”
“You can see for yourself, to-night,”
Bob said. “We've planned a mock trial.”
“Good! Your leader is certainly keep-
ing things humming. See you later.”
With a wave of his hand, Clayton walked
briskly up the street.
“Who's that fellow and what’s all this
talk about Y. M. C. A. and mock trial?”
asked Paul, as the two boys started off,
each carrying a suit case. “You don’t
have any Y. M.C. A. in this burgh, do
you?”
“Surest thing you know,” Bob replied,
proudly. “We've got a dandy. That's
our county secretary I was just talking
with. There are sixteen members now
—only one boy in town who hasn’t joined
and he’s got the scarlet fever and can’t
yet.”
“Do we pass the building on our way
home?” queried Paul. “Have you got a
swimming pool and a gym?”
Bob threw back his head and laughed,
“The trouble with you is,” he explained,
“that you don’t know what a Y. M. C. A.
is. You just wait till to-night.”
With this statement Paul was forced
to be content, Bob smilingly refusing to
make any further explanations.
After supper that evening, Paul in-
quired, “What time are you going to the
YMC A»
“Meeting begins at 7.30,” Bob answer-
ed. ‘Better start pretty soon, now.”
As they walked down the street, they
overtook a group of other boys and greet-
ings were passed. All were aiming for
the same place it seemed. Laughing and
joking they moved on. At length they
came to a small building, from the win-
dows of which streamed a light.
“Here we are, Paul,” said Bob, as they
entered.
Paul’s amazement showad itself all too
plainly as he surveyed the interior. “Why,
_ this is a school-nouse,” he said, wonder-
ingly.
“You bet,” replied Bob, “and it’s also
the Y. M. C. A.”
“But where’s the gym and the—"
“Haven't any of those trimmings,” his
cousin answered. “This is just a country
Y. M. C. A. You mustn't expect us to
rival your city. We just go as far as we
can with what we've got to work with.”
“But what do you do?”
“Oh, you'll see; we have a good time,
all right.”
Other boys were coming in meanwhile
and finally the man whom Bob had call-
ed the county secretary, entered, accom-
panied by a pleasant faced man, some-
what older in appearance. They were
greeted with whoops of delight by the
boys.
“That other man is Mr. Atkins, our
leader,” explained Bob to his cousin.
“He’s superintendent of the creamery.”
Mr. Atkins caught sight of Bob and
came towards him. “Is everybody here?” | CHILD LABOR LAW. glass blower unless he was able to bring
he asked, after a hearty handshake.
“Everybody except Art Wood,” answer- | The defeat of the Walnut Child Labor
ed Bob, “and he never was known to be | billl in the Pennsylvania State Senate
on time. Let’s get started, fellows,” he | last June, was a bitter disappointment,
said, raising his voice. ' not only to the Child Labor Association,
“I've got to sit at the table, Paul,” he but to hundreds who were watching the
whispered. “You don’t mind staying | efforts of the Association in their fight paid the parents a regular weekly sum.
here, do you?” for the children. The responsibility There seems no lack in the supply in
“Of course not,” Paul answered. “Why for the defeat is placed on the Senate our own times, for when the public
didn’t you tell me you had a job?” | according to the President of the Asso- : schools opened in Philadelphia last Sep-
tember, a small army of boys and girls
developed in consequence of this, where-
by men wishing to keep their own boys
out of the factory, secured children from
orphan asylums, or took the little boys of
Italian emigrants, boarded them, and
seated himself beside Mr. Atkins.
rapping for silence.
It was the first time he had ever fully
realized that the Y. M. C. A. was not nec-
essarily a big well-equipped building, but
could be a group of fellows banded
together to help themselves and others.
Bible study was announced and he
covertly looked around to see how many
of the boys looked bored. Instead he
found them all keenly expectant. He
understood this later, after Mr. Atkins
had gotten into the lesson. For they
were studying about the heroes of the
Old Testament and the boys entered into
discussion and asked questions with the
utmost freedom. In fact the twenty
minutes allotted for this prat of the even-
ing went all to quickly and it was with
genuine regret that Paul saw the lesson
brought to a close.
Then came the mock trial. Of course
Paul knew they had such things in his
own Y. M. C. A. Boys’ department, but
he had never paid much attention to any-
thing but the physical activities, and thus
he had never witnessed one before. The
boys themselves carried through the en-
tire program, except that Mr. Atkins
acted as judge. There was a lot of fun.
Some of the witnesses got tangled up in
their testimony, a fact of which the law-
yers took quick advantage. Other wit-
nesses would throw out humorous re-
plies that made even the prisoner smile.
After the verdict was brought in and
the prisoner was sentenced with due
solemnity, the county secretary was call-
ed upon to address the group. Paul was
much impressed by his remarks. He
congratulated them on the fact that they
were going along so successfully and
paid a tribute to the leader for his in-
terest and ability.
“I was over to Delham yesterday,” he
continued, his voice deeply earnest, “and
the leader there told me of an incident
which happened at the baseball game last
Saturday when their team-played yours.”
He turned to Mr. Atkins, “probably what
I am going to relate is news to you, as
you weren't present. But this gentleman,
who was umpiring, told me thaton a
Bob Reynolds, immediately stepped up
and said that he didn’t touch the runner.
Consequently, the decision was changed
and Delham finally won the gameby a
score of 7 to 6.”
He paused and looked around at Bob
whose face showed his embarrassment.
“That’s the spirit the Y. M. C. A. aims to
put into a boy. Winning a game is a fine
thing, but losing one under those circum-
stances, is a million times finer. I'm
proud to know such a boy as Bob. But
I also believe there isn’t a boy here but
what will agree with me that Bob's act is
the kind of thing we stand for and be-
lieve in.” He sat down amid loud ap-
plause, the beaming young faces around
him aglow with pleasure.
Paul and Bob walked home by them-
selves, the former secretly a trifle awed
by the honors which had come to his
cousin. At length he queried, “Do you
always have such good meetings as you
had to-night?” !
Bob chuckled. “Better, from my stand-
point,” hesaid. “We really do have some
peachy times. And no gym, either,” he
added, teasingly.
“What are some of the other things
you do?” asked Paul.
“Oh, debates, spelling matches, game
tournaments, ‘eats,’ free hand drills, box-
ing, social evenings, any number of
things. Once a month we have a talk
by some business man. Last week Mr.
Spaulding, the Methodist minister, gave
us a dandy talk on his western trip. He
had a lot of pictures, too.”
“How often do you have your meet-
ings?” Paul inquired.
“Regular meetings once a week and
generally one or two special meetings
every month. Then, of course, Saturdays
we generally plan a hike or some games.
Mr. Atkins has the afternoon to be with
us. And we have a baseball league and
are going to have a hockey team next
winter and—"
“Enough!* shouted Paul. “You make
me dizzy. Why there’s no end to the
things you can put over, without a regu-
lar building, too. You bet I've learned
some things to-night.”
“There’s one thing sure,” said Bob, as
they reached their home and turned into
the path, “we fellow’s wouldn't know how
to get along without our Y. M. C. A.
now. And the funny thing about it is,”
he continued, “that we have always had
everything here that there is now. It
just took that county secretary to get us
moving.”
——“The very sound of some people’s
voices is exasperating.”
“Quite sure, especially when they say
‘Move on!’ or ‘Pay up!’”
——Assume in adversity a countenance
of prosperity and in prosperity moderate
thy temper.
|
Bob walked up to the little table and | ciation, who says that after its almost
“The | unanimous passage by the house, the bill
meeting will come to order,” he said, | went to Senator Snyder’s committee on
April 15, and although one of the most
To Paul the evening was full of sur- : important measures of the session, a
prises not unmixed with pleasure. He | hearing was not granted until May 14.
listened with interest to the responsive | After a hearing, when a great fight was
exercises as they were read by the boys. | made on the part of the friends of the | trial world. In one day working certifi-
| who had been compelled to start to
school, applied for permits to work in-
stead of going to school. During the
first three weeks of September, 933 chil-
dren took out working papers, and left
school to wedge their way into the indus-
‘States, and our Club should be one to
boys with him. A regular system was '
stand by them, when it comes up in the
Senate again, as it is bound to do. Only
‘those who have made a thorough study of
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Child Labor cause to consider this bill | cates were issued to 135 children. That
upon its further merits, and without the means that 135 children, without any |
slightest excuse for delay, the committee | knowledge of working conditions, with-
refused to report it out until June 3, | out any equipment for life, with an im-
thus cutting down to a minimum the | perfect knowledge of English, and little
time allowed for the necessary confer-
ences between the two Houses. Before
the bill came to a vote it had been sad-
dled with so many objectionable features
that the sponsor for the measure in its
original form, Representative T. Henry
Walnut, who is a director of the Child
Labor Association, voted agaiast it.
Among the backward steps contained in
the mutilated bill was the introduction
of a vicious and universally condemned
exemption for canneries, of an exemption |
| into school until he is sixteen years old
hitherto unknown in this Stateto permit
children to be worked 2} hours overtime
for three days in a week as a penalty for
a holiday, also a new and special unlim-
ited exception for the stoppage of ma-
chinery during the same week; and the
removal of all restrictions from the em-
ployment of children by their parents.
Furthermore the clauses providing a rea-
sonable protection for messenger boys
against the immoralities of night work in
cities was largely destroyed. As to the
great and vital principle in the reduction
of hours for young children the Senate
was content to strike out the eight hour |
law, and to restore the present ten hour |
limit with exceptions.
Far from being discouraged the Asso-
ciation immediately began a new cam-
paign, and with public opinion, regard-
less of politics, united as never before in
the cause of the children, they have no
doubts for the future.
It is very evident, when one carefully
considered the conditions which lead up
to the necessity of child labor, that there
are good reasons for the opposition of
laws excluding the child from the indus-
trial world, and until there is some way
of overcoming those conditions, the
necessity will always remain. The awful
fact of poverty,—a fact which the chil-
dren are forced to recognize as soon as
| they are old enough to feel the bitterness |
close play at home plate, he called one | of hunger, and the lack of sufficient
of his own players out and your catcher, | clothing, makes their small earnings a
seeming necessity. From their point of
view they cannot see that, if it were im-
possible for children to enter the ranks
of the workers, there would be more
| room for the fathers, whose duty it is to
take care of the children. They feel the
need of money and it is no wonder that
they are anxious to take their place in
the industrial world, and earn something
to relieve the present wants.
Parents who are willing to work and
support their children, but who find it
impossible to meet expenses because of
low wages welcome the chance for the
child to have an opportunity to help them
out.
Employers who find competition driv-
ing them sees in the cheap labor of chil-
dren, the solution of the problem.
These three are most intimately con-
cerned and they are too closely concern-
ed to be able to give the subject a fair
investigation.
And so all over this United States the
little children are taken from schools and
put into factories, mills, stores, and other
industries, and great armies of unem-
ploved men in every city are trying to
get work.
It is not difficult to understand the
manufacturer’s interestin Child Labor,or
their opposition to all efforts to legislate
against it. Cheap productions is the
maxim of success in industry, and a
plentiful supply of cheap labor is a pow-
erful contributor to that end.
It is an axiom of commercial economy
that supply follows demand, and it is
certain that the constant demand for the
cheap labor of children has had much to
do with the creation of the supply. The
system of prodution for profit must be
held responsible for child labor. We read
of manufacturers in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania getting children from or-
phan asylums, regardless of their physic-
al, mental or moral ruin, merely because
it pays them. When the glass blowers
in New Jersey went on a strike in
1902, the child labor question was one of
the most important issues. The expos-
ures made of the frightful enslavement
of little children attracted wide spread at-
tentions. There is very little in the his-
tory of the English factory system which
excels in horror the conditions which ex-
isted in that little South Jersey town at
the beginning of the 20th century.
When the proprietor of the factory was
asked about the employment of young
boys ten and eleven years old many of
whom fell asleep and were awakened by
the men pouring water over them, and
at least two of whom died from over ex-
haustion, he said, “If two men apply to
me for work, and one has boys and the
other has none I take the man with boys.
I need the boys.” In actual practice that
meant that no man could get work as a
or no solidity to their education have
deliberately chosen the store, the factory,
the workshop the mill or the household
instead of the class room.
While the department of the bureau of
compulsory education puts whatever
barriers are legal in the way of the child’s
retirement from school, the authorities
are not empowered to offer any sugges-
tions as to the future of the boy or girl
who leaves the office armed with work-
ing papers. It can hale the child back
if it discovers he is not working, but
nothing is being done to stop the flood of
Child Labor into the market in which
skill is at its lowest ebb, and wages are
so low as to be the subject of continual
investigation.
A brief study of the returns published
in the bulletins and reports of the vari-
ous Bureaus of Labor, and the Labor
Unions will show that child labor tends
to lower the wages of adult workers. |
Where the competition of children is a
factor, wages are invariably lowest. The
Labor Unions have always opposed child
labor for the reason that they know
from experience how its employment
tends to displace adult labor, and to re-
duce wages. Such competition as that,
if extensive, must result in the gradual
displacement of men, and the employ-
ment of children, accompanied by the
reduction of the wages of the men fortu-
nate enough to be allowed to remain at
work. In their turn, the unemployment
of adults and the lowering of wages are
fruitful sources of poverty, and force the
employment of many children.
The Pacific coast was the scene of a
great mass meeting of the unemployed
on Christmas day. In Seattle, Washing-
ton, 1300 men applied to the city for em-
ployment on work specially provided to
aid the destitute. Out of this number
only six were members of Labor Unions.
In Los Angeles a meeting of the unem-
ployed was broken up by policemen only
after a vigorous fight in which the leader
was shot dead by a policeman, and twen-
ty were arrested. When men are fight-
ing and pleading for a chance to work,
does it seem necessary for children to be
taken from school, and put into shops
and factories, where their growth, phys-
ically, morally and mentally is stunted, in
order to produce wealth sufficient for the
needs of society? When there is not an
unemployed man, when there is nota
man employed in useless, unproductive
and wasteful labor, if there is then a
shortage of the things necessary for so-
cial maintenance, child labor may be nec-
essary and justifiable.
Children have always worked, but it is
only since the reign of the machine, that
their work has been synonomous with
slavery. Under the old form of simple
domestic industry even the very young
children were assigned their share of the
work in the family. This form of labor
was a good and wholesome thing. The
child was kept under the influence of its
parents, and its work constituted a ma-
jor part of its education. And it was no
mean education either, which gave the
world, generation after generation of
glorious craftsmen. The seventeenth
century glass blower of Venice, for in-
stance, learned his craft from his father,
and in turn taught it to his son. There
was a band of interest between them; a
parental pride on the part of the father
infinitely greater and more potent for
good than any commercial relation would
have allowed. On the part of the child,
too, there was filial pride and devotion,
which found its expression in a spirit of
emulation, the spirit out of which all the
rich glory of that wonderfully rich craft
was born. In that age child labor was
child training in the noblest and best
sense. The training of hand and heart
and brain was the end achieved, even
where it was not the purpose of the
child labor.
With the coming of the machine all
this was changed. The craftsmen were
supplanted by the tireless, soulless ma-
chine. The child still worked, but in
a great factory throbbing with the vibra-
tions of swift, intricate machinery. In
place of parental interest and affection,
there was the harsh, pitiless authority of
an employer or his agent, looking not to
the child’s well being, and skill as an ar-
tificer, but to the supplying of a great,
ever widening market for cash gain.
Thn Child Labor Association is up in
the heights as it were, where they can
look at the subject from all points of
view, and they are trying to bring about
legislation that will work for the better-
ment of the child, the parent and the em-
ployer. Their efforts are recognized and
approved by Women’s Clubs in all the
AIT
the subject can suggest remedial meas-
ures. It is a problem which must be
worked out step by step—so many argu-
ments against it must be met and set-
tled. The Utopian condition would be
where every man was employed at wages
which could comfortably support his fam-
ily, and every child could have the chance
of an education which would fit him for
the battle of life. Pennsylvania provides
the education, free of charge, and com-
| pels the child to accept it, but makes no
provision for the children who have not
sufficient clothing or nourishment in the
way of food to take advantage of the
wonderful chance. In some cities phil-
anthropic societies are furnishing meals
for children who are too poor to get a
midday lunch. In some countries such
lunches are provided by the government,
and the result is, little bodies are well
nourished and the brain more readily ab-
sorbs the instructions given in school.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox has written this
suggestive little poem.
“In this boasted land of freedom; are bound-
ed baby slaves.
And the busy world goes by and does not heed.
They are driven to the mill, just to glut and
over-fill
Bursting coffers of the Mighty Monarch Greed,
When they perish we are told it is God's will,
Oh, the roaring of the mill, of the mill!”
PUBLICITY COMMITTEE,
Bellefonte Woman’s Club.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
Its Ralation to Working Women and
Children.
BY FLORENCE KELLEY.
Never before in the history of the hu-
man race have children and young wom-
en formed, as they do to-day, an impor-
tant part of the working force of great
industrial communities wholly apart from
their parents and the family life.
In the telephone and telegraph service
something like a revolution would be
caused if suddenly all the young people
under the age of twenty-one were with-
drawn. In retail trade the cash children,
bundle-girls, wrappers and junior clerks
are an extremely important part of the
whole working force.
Every improvement in machinery and
in industrial organization tends to sum-
mon to the ranks of industry an increas-
ing number of young recruits.
How long these young workers shall
be employed in a day may be literally a
matter of life and death for them. With-
in my own acquaintance more than one
young girl has died of pneumonia, rheu-
matism, tuberculosis, due directly to
overtime work with the accompanying
exhaustion and loss of power to resist
disease.
Now the health, morals and intelligence
of the rising generation are peculiarly ob-
jects of solicitude of women. To deprive
women of an equal share of power to
determine the laws for these young work-
ers is to give cruelly unequal power to
sordid employers.
In manufacture, older men form a
larger part of the total working force
than in retail trade. And the older men
are voters. Factory laws are obtained,
therefore, with greater ease than work-
able laws for safeguarding the health and
welfare of children and young girls.
A sinister chapter to which too little
attention has hitherto been paid is the
failure of our Legislatures and courts to
afford to young girls protection from
seduction, assault and enslavement in in-
famous houses. The difficulty involved
in obtaining the conviction of malefac-
tors is known only to the few faithful
souls who have attempted to obtain due
punishment of these grave offenses.
Mothers in any community are more
deeply stirred by these offenses than by
any others, but judges and juries vary
beyond belief in their treatment of crim-
inals guilty of crimes against girls.
In one Western State a woman worked
fourteen years to obtain the enactment
of a workable statute to punish crimes
against female minors. At last such a
iaw was passed and rigorously enforced.
Fourteen criminals were sentto the peni-
tentiary. Then a young lawyer offered
his services to one of the criminals to
free him by showing that the law was
unconstitutional, because the title should
have read “to define and punish crimes
against female minors;” whereas in fact
the two words “define and” were missing
from the title, the necessary definition
was contained in the body of the statute.
Upon this frivolous ground the Supreme
court of the State held the statute in-
valid, and nine of the fourteen criminals
were forthwith freed. The remaining
five were too poor or too ignorant to ob-
tain counsel and remained in the peni-
tentiary. The patient woman whose
work was thus frustrated continued the
agitation. The Legislature, after great
effort on her part, re-enacted the statute
with the title complete. But the nine
criminals could not again be tried for the
same offense, and remained at liberty. It
is hard to believe that such weary effort
would be needed if the mothers and the
teachers were a part of the voting con-
stituency upon whom judges and legis-
lators depend for their political careers.
It is the children of the pour who form
the working contingent in retail trade.
It is the daughters of the poor who chiefly
fall victims to the basest crimes. Poor,
young, ignorant, unorganized,they depend
for protection upon laws framedand en-
forced by persons older than themselves.
It is safe or sane to exclude from a full
share of power and responsibility the
mothers and teachers, the older women
whose first care is for the welfare of the
young?
—Woman’s Club, Publicity Committee,
You take a bath for the outside of
your body to remove accumulations and
dead matter. Does not the inside of the
body need an occasional bath think you,
to help rid it of clogging and effete ma-
terial, —Nature’s waste which has lodged
in some canal of the body and is poison-
ing the blood current with its corrup-
tion? Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Dis-
covery cleanses the inner man, purifies
the blood, strengthens the stomach,builds
up the muscle. The same invigorating
results which follow a bath, follow the
use of “Golden Medical Discovery.”
Don’t suffer with constipation. Use
Dr. Fierces Pleasant Pellets and be
cured.
~——Subscribe for the WATCHMAN.
FROM INDIA.
By One on Medical Duty in that Far Eastern
Country. Commemorating the Death of a
Saint. Christmas Day at Benares Was Warm
and Dusty.
JHANSI, DECEMBER 25th, 1912.
Dear Home Folk:
On Friday afternoon the Y. M. C. A.
secretary came in and I borrowed a
wheel and down the street we went,
through crowds and crowds and crowds,
all fantastically dressed, in the various
rainbow shades; this time green, for
mourning, of the emerald hue, predomi-
nated. Orange, yellow and royal blue
held their places, but red was lacking.
The streets were so full that finally we
had to dismount and walk; we were a
bit too late for the parade but saw the
folks coming back.
Along the edges of the road were sell-
ers of all kinds of sweets, toys, and in-
stead of balloons were birds stuffed,
made from paper and fastened on sticks.
I could readily imagine I was seeing a
| crowd at home returning from a circus.
They were a happy, good natured lot of
! people. All had on some sort of cap and
| nearly all the men had on their white
! shirts, tail outside, “cloti” of white, bare
legged, but nearly all with shoes of some
_ sort on their feet. They had silver but-
| tons on their shirts; plenty of older, fat
| men had big, gold beads, bigger than the
| end of my thumb, in strings, about their
|
throats and nearly all wore the gold em-
broidery on their caps. That means
| money, for it is made in Delhi by the jew-
i elers and is very beautiful. These are
holiday clothes and only worn on such
; days as Friday.
There were ox-carts with wheels high-
ier than I am, with dozens of gaily clad
' children on them and in nearly all in-
‘stances I saw the cart had a double-
; decked arrangement and in the under
: part (that made me think of the way the
| hucksters carry chickens at home) one
| saw peeping through the meshes of the
rope many more little bright-eyed gaily
covered heads, while the top bunch sat
with their feet planted firmly upon these
self-same heads, and _all looked happy. I
admired their courage for I remembered
my attempt at being happy while on an
ox-cart.
There were whistles and small drums
and then along came four men with what
looked like a headless pony, balanced on
a platform on their shoulder. This pony
had two great ears where his head should
have been and on its back was a big
double-decked affair that looked like a
Chinese pagoda made of brilliant colored
paper stretched over a frame and made
a shade more brilliant by an immense
amount of tinsel. All of this was crude,
so much so that it looked like a child's
work, but it represented the cradle or
bed in which this particular saint hap-
pened to be murdered, and was looked
upon with great awe. :
A little farther on I saw a seller with
white wooly monkeys ona stick, but with
) faces as black as ink could make them;
then more ox-carts and more green “sau-
ris” over the women’s heads, then a big
camel carrying his burden of children,
plodded silently and indifferently past us.
More cradles, then a tomb almost like
the cradle, perhaps a trifle more elabo-
rate, and with sides so closed you could
not see inside. All were carried back to
be used again in next year’s pageant.
This was the end of the ten days set
aside for this particular saint and last
night the drums were silent. The dust
was so thick I was almost choked and
over head the sun shone hot and bril-
liant from a cloudless, indigo blue sky.
How can one get the Christmas spirit un-
der such circumstances. I want snow
and fir trees, brilliantly lighted store win-
dows and cold hands and feet, to make
®
me rush around and get busy.
My guide and I turned away from this
noisy, jolly crowd under a broad, beauti-
ful old gate-way and came down a wide
road edged with trees, with great hedges
of cactus, shutting off the green grass
behind. Riding for a short distance past
this loveliness we came to the railroads,
where we dismounted and walking across
an elevated bridge found ourselves with-
in a very short distance of home. I shall
try to see it all next year if I can man-
age to do so.
BENARES.—London Hospital, Christmas
day. Truly this is a strange Christmas
day. It is night and Iam going to dress
for dinner. I came down here yester-
day and although but an eighty-four mile
journey, Istarted at six-thirty in the morn-
ing and reached here at eleven, so tired
and feeling so much like ship-board I
had to spend the rest of the day in bed
—my first off day since coming into In-
dia. I got up at seven o'clock in the
evening):and helped to tie strings on
dolls, cards, boxes of beads, etc., until
eleven o'clock when I went back to bed
and to sleep, but the nurses belonging
here started some Christmas hymns at
five o'clock in the morning and having a
drum for the day the noise began early,
and how could any one sleep.
At eight-thirty I went to service, which
was held in the Church of England edi-
fice and said in Hindustan. The place
was very nicely decorated with some
stuff that looked like laurel and chrysan-
themums, but oh, the services were long
and when the nurse, with whom I had
gone, decided to come home it was ex-
actly two and one-half hours later. But
woe me, we had to trim the Christmas
tree, since the Christmas festivities at
this house were not held until four this
| Ritson, I wish you could have seen
[Continued on page 7, Col, 3.1