tcca ssgrraca "sar-cMtpH 'iTT5; - 5?l?2r 0SBI j . i SECOND PART. T TIieFirst of ffis Series of Euro pean letters to The Dispatch. OBSERVATIONS AT AIX. Utility of the Crowned Heads of the Continent as Adver tising Agencies. PLEXTT OP FULL-GROWN 50ISES. Disappointed With the Prince of Wales' Favorite Game and the Happi ness of Gamblers. FXrERIEXCE IS TUB DOUCHE-BATH. k rmcnpticn ef DrintJnf TTstcr That En calM the Banal risceof thsArnrjcf One of the Cssars. TBB rtriECKES OF A TEIT TO tlKE AX5ECT Letter No. 1. rnp-mEM-o-cDTVcE or the BnrATCa.1 -ArX-LES-BAIXS, FKJUTCE. Oct. 23. EKTAINYY Aix-les-Bains is an enohant ing place. It in a trong word, but I think the facts justify it. Trac. there is a rabble of nobilities, big and lit le, here all the time, and often a king or two, bat sB these behaTe quite nicely and also keep mainly to themselves, they are little cr no annoyance. And then a tint; mates the bct advertise ment there is, and the cheapest. All he costs is a reception at the ctation by the Slayer and the police in their Sunday uni form, shop front decorations along the route from station to hotel, brass band at the hotel, fireworks in the evening, free MARK TWAIN Off bath in the morning. This is the whole ex pense; and in return for it he goes away from here with the broad of his back meta phorically stenciled overwith display ads., whieh shout to all the nations of the earth ansisled by the telegraph. Rhenmatlsm routed at Alr-lei-Ualns: : : Gout mJmnnisl'ed, Serves braced no! I All niseaes welcomed, und ttuisfac- : tlon gi en or the icoucy returned at : the door! "We leave nature's noble cliffs and crags nndefiied and unii.sulted by theadiertUer's paint brush. "We use the back of a king, which is better and propcrer, and more effective, too, for the cliff stays still and few ece it, but the king moves across the fields of the world, and is visible from all points like a constellation. Mark's Compliments to the Czir. "We are out of kings this week, but one will be along toon probably his Satanie Majesty of Russia. There's a colossus tor youl A mysterious and terrible form that towers up into unsearchable space and casts a shadow across the universe like a planet !n eclipse. There will be but one absorbing spectacle in this world when we stencil him and start him out. This is an old valley, this of Aix, both in the history of man and the geological records of its rocks. Its little lake of liourget carries the hnman history back to the lake dwellers, furnishing seven groups of their habi ations, aud Dr. William Wakefield says in his interesting local guide book that the mountains round about furn '''. "geologically, a veritable epitome of the globe." The stratified chapters of the earth's history are clearly and permanently j written on the sides of the roaring bulk of the Dent du Chat, but many of the lavers of j rare, religion, and government, which in turn have flourished and perished here be- ' tween tt.e lake dweller of s-cveral thousand 3 cars ago and the French Republican of to day, are ill-defined and nninforming by com parison. Changes With the Fleeting Tears. There were several varieties of pagans. HERE'S MARK WI I They went their way, one after the other, down Into night and oblivion, leaving no j account of themselves, no memorials. The Roman arrived 2,300 years ago; other parts of 1'rance are rich with remembrances of their eight centuries of occupation, but not many are here. Other pagans followed the Romans. By and by Christianity arrived, some 400 years after the time of Christ. The long procesion of races, languages, re ligions and dynasties demolished each other's monuments and obliterated each other's records it is man's way always. As a result, nothing is left of the handi work of the remoter inhabitants of the region except the constructions of the lako dwell ers and some Roman odds and ends. There is part of a small Eoman temple, there is part of a Roman bath, there is a graceful and battered Roman arch. It stands on a turfy tevel over the way from the present great bath house, is surrounded by magnolia tiees, and is both a picturesque and sug gestive objee. It has stood there some 1,600 years. Its nearest neighbor, not 20 steps away, is a Catholic Church. They are symbols of the two chief eras In the history of Aix Tes, and of the European world. A Boman Arch Wllhoot a Sign. I judge that the venerable arch is held in reverent esteem by everybody, and that this esteem is its sufficient protection from in sult, for it is the onlr public structure I have yet seen in France which lacks the 6ign: "It is forbidden to post bills here." Its neighbor, the church, has that sign on more than one of its sides, and other signs, too, forbidding certain other sorts of desecra tion. The arch's next nearest neighbor just at its elbow, like the church is the telegraph office. So there you have the three great eras bunched together the era of "War, the era of Theology, the era of Business. You pass under the arch, and the buried Ctesars seem to rise from the dust of the centuries and flit before yon; you pass by that old battered church, and are in touch with the Middle Ages, and with another step you can put down 10 francs and shake bauds with Oshkosh under the Atlantic. Well, all these eras above spoken of are modern, they are of last week, they are of yesterday, they are of this morning, so to speak. The springs, the healing waters that gush up from under this hillside vil lage, indeed are ancient; they, indeed, are a genuine antiquity; they ante-date all those fresh human matters by processions of centuries; they were born with the fossils of Dent du Chat, and they have been always limpid and always abundant. They fur nished a million gallons a day to wash the lake dwellers with, the same to wash the Csesar with, no less to wash Balzac with, and have not diminished on my account ASmall Quantity of Water. A million gallons a day for how many davs? F'ures cannot set forth the number. The ..ilvery, in the aggregate, has amount ed 'ja an Atlantic And there is still an Atlantic down in-there. By Dr. Wakefield's HIS TRAVELS. calculation that Atlan'io is three-quarters of a mile down in the earth. The calcula tion is based upon the tcmrjerature of the water, which is 114 to 117 Fahrenheit.the natural law beinz that below a certain denth . heat augments at the rate of 1 for every 60 feet of descent. Aix is handsome and is handsomely situ ated, too, on its hill slope, with its stately prospect of mountain range and plain spread out before it and about it. The streets are mainlv narrow, and steep and crooked and interesting, and offer considerable variety in the wav of names: Rue du Piiits d'E ifer pit of Hades street. Some of the sidewalks are only IS inches wide: they are for the cats probably. There is a pleasant park, and there arc spacious and beautiful grounds connected with the two great pleasure re so'ts, the Cercle aud the Villa des Fleurs. The town consists of big hotel, little ho tels, and pensions. The season lasts about sx months, beginning with May. When it is at its height there are thousands of vis itors here, and in the course of the season as many as 20,000 in the aggregate come and go. The Gambling nd tho Climate. These are not all here for the baths; some tuuic iut mo gauiDiing lacintles and some for the climate. It is a climate where the field strawberry flourishes through the spring, summer and fall It is hot in the summer, and hot in earnest; but this is only in the daytime; it is not hot at night. The English season is Mnv and June; they get a pood deal of rain then, aud thev like that The .Americans take July, aud 'the French take August. By the 1-t of July the open air tnusio and the evening concerts and operas and plays are fairlv under wav, and from that time onward the' rush of pleasure has a steadily increasing boom. It is said that in August the great grounds and the gambling moms are crowded all the time and no end of ostensible fun going on. It is a good place for rest and sleep and general recuperation of forces. The book of Dr. Wakefield says there is something about this atmosphere which is the deadly enemy of insomnia, and I think this must be true, for if I am any judse, this tswn is at times the uoisiest one in Europe, and vet a body gets more sleep here than he could at home, I don't care where his home is. Now we are living at a most comfortable and satisfactory nensinn. with nrHn nt shade trees and flowers and shrubs, and 'a 1 1 " ' . . THE PITTSBURG DISPATCH convincing air of qniet and repose. But just across the narrow street is the little market square, and at a corner of that is that church that is neighbor to the Roman arch, aud that narrow street, and that bil liard table of a market place, and that church re able, on a bet, to turn out wore noise to the cubio Yard at the wrong time than any other similar combination in the earth or" out of it. A Great Place for Noise. In the street yon have the skull-bursting thunder of the passing hack, a volume of sound not producible bv six hacks anywhere else; on the hack is a lunatic with a whip, which he cracks to notify the public to get out of his way. This crack is as keen and sharp and penetrating and ear-splitting as a fistol shot at close range, and the lunatic clivers it in volleys, not single shots. You think you will not be able to live till he fets by, and when he does get by he only eaves a vacancy for the bandit who sells Le Pitit Journal to fill with his strange and awful yell. He arrives with the early morn ing arid the market people, and there is a dog that arrives at about the same time and barks steadily at nothing till he dies, and they fetch another dog just like blm. The bark of this breed is the twin of the whip voller, and stabs like knife. By and by, what is left of you the church belfgets. There are many bells and appar ently 6,000 or 7,000 town clocks, and as they are nil five minutes apart probably by law 'there are no intervals. Some of them are striking all the time at last, after you go to bed they are. There is one clock that strikes the hour, and then strikes it over again to se if it was right Then for even ings and bundays there is a chime a chime that starts in pleasantly and musically.then suddenly breaks into a frantio roar, and boom, and crash of warring sounds that makes you think Paris is up and the revolu tion come again. And yet, as I have said, one sleeps here sleeps like the dead. Once he gets his grip on his sleep, neither hack, nor whip, nor news fiend, nor dog, nor bell cyclone, nor all of them together can wrench it loose or mar its deep and tranquil continuity. Yes, there is indeed something in this air that is death to insomnia. The Style or Entertalment The buildings of the Cercle add the Villa des Fleurs are huge in size, and each has a theater in it, and a great restaurant, also conveniences for gambling and general and variegated entertainment They stand in ornamental grounds of great extent and beauty. The multitudes of fashionable folk sit at refreshment tables in the open air, afternoons, and listen to the music, and it is there they mainly go to break the Sab- uuiu. j.u tv wie j'riviisgc ui entering inese grounds and buildings you buy a ticket for a few francs, which is good for the whole season. You are then free to go and come at all hours, attend the plays and concerts free, except on special occasions, eamble. buy refreshments, and make yourself sym metrically comfortable. Nothing could be handier than those two little theaters. The curtain doesn't rise un til 8:30; then between the acts one can idle tor half an hour in the other departments of the building, damaging his appetite in the restaurants or his pockekbook in the baccarat room. The singers and actors are from Paris, and their performance is beyond praise. I was never in a fashionable gambling hell until I came here. I had read several mill ions of descriptions of such places, but the reality was new to me. I very much wanted to see this animal, especially the now his toric game of baccarat, and this was a good place, for Aix ranks next to Monte Carlo tor high play and plenty of it But the result was wht I might have expected the interest of the looker-on perishes with the novelty of the spectacle; that is to sao, in a lew minutes. A permanent and in tense interest is acquired in baccarat, or in any other game, but you have to buy it You don't get it by standing around look ing on. .;,.. A Flexible Oar In Baccarat The baccarat table is covered with green cloth and is marked off in divisions with chalk or something. The banker sits in the middle, the croupier opposite. The cus- We always carry your account through sick ness or loss of employ ment; we never grind an honest man down. Household Credit Co. NOTE THE PRICES I TERMS CASH I CHAIRS . AS LOW AS 35 CENTS. CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them. DO NOT HsSEEOUR $15 $15 $15 Chamber Suit. Cash or Credit. Household Credit Co. Buy This Week fr ! M , i i i - - " ' - . ' ,i ' , i i - . ' '" '1 PITTSBURG STJNDAY tomers fill all the chairs at the table, and the rest of the crowd are massed at their backs and leaning over them to deposit chips or gold coins. Constantly money and chips are flung upon the table, and the game seems to consist in the croupier's reaching lor those things with a flexible sculling oar, and raking them home. It appeared to be a rational enousjh game for him, and if I could have borrowed his oar I would have stayed, but I didn't See where the entertainment of the others came in. This was because I saw without perceiv ing and observed without understanding. For the widow and the orphan and the others do win money there. Once an old gray mother in Israel or elsewhere pulled out and I heard her say to her daughter or her granddaughter as they passed me, "There, I've won six louis, and I'm going to quit while I'm ahead." Also there wa this statistic. A friend pointed to a young man with the dead stub of & cigar in his month, which he kept raunehing nervously all the time and pitching $100 chips on the board, while two sweet yonng girls reached down over his shonlder to deposit modest little gold pieces, and said, "He's only fun- JVvV.rjJi. lC?l &y(0 . y?f arra three aces. ning, now; wasting a few hundred to pass the time waiting for the 'gold room to open, you know, which won't be till well after midnight then you'll see him betl He won 14,000 there last night. They don't bet anything there but big money." No Candidates for Suicide. The thing I chiefly missed was the hag gard people with the intense eye, the hunt ed look, the desperate mien, candidates for suicide and the pauper's grave. They are in the descriptions, as a ml", but they were off dutv that night All the gamblers, male and female, old and young, looked abnor mally cheerful and prosperous. However, all the ations were there, clothed richly, and speaking all the languages. Some of the Women were painted, and were evident ly shaky as to character. These items tallied Willi me uesuripuuua itcn cuuugu. The etiquette of the place was difficult to master. In the brilliant and populous halls and corridors you don't smoke, and vou wear your hat no matter how many ladies are in the thick throng of drifting humanity; but the moment you cross the sacred thresh hold and enter he gambling hell, off the hat must come, and everybody lights his cigar and goes to suffocating the ladies. Hunting Oat the Right Bath. But what 1 came here for, five weeks ago, was the baths. My right arm was disabled with rheumatism. To sit at home in Amer- WE Our Holiday Goods are now arriving and we need the room to show them off to an ad vantage, so for the balance of the month we inaugurate the Greatest Sacrifice Sale of our entire stock of FURNITURE, CARPETS, STOVES AND BEDDING eybb zEcrowisn WARDROBES AS LOW AS $9. $9. $9. CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them. MISS THE GREATEST SACRIFICE itSEE OUR $9 $9 $9 Bed Lounge. Cash or Credit Household Credit Co. While the Stock NOVEMBER 8, 1891 fca and guess out the European bath best j fitted for a particular ailment or combina- tion of ailments, it Is not possible, and it would not be a good idea to experiment in j that way, anyhow. There are a great many curative baths on the continent, aud some are good for one disease, but bad for an other. So it is necessary to let a physician name your bath for you. As a rule, Amer icans go to London to get this advice, and South Americans go to Paris for it Kow and then an economist chooses his bath him self and does 1,000 miles of railroading to fet to it, and then the local physicians tell im he has come to the wrong place. He sees that he has lost time and money and strength, and almost the minute that he re alizes this he loses his temper. I had the rheumatism, and was advised to go to Aix, not so much because I had that disease i s because I bad the promise of certain others. What they were was not explained to me. but they are either in the following menu or I have been sent to the wro'ng place. Dr. Wakefield's book says: We know that tho class or maladies bene fltedby the water and baths at Aix are those due to defect of nutrition, Jebillty of the r.7Xv-v vS.- nerrons svstem, or to a gonty, rhenmatte, herpetic or s rnfiilousduithesis all diseases extremely debilliatlnirand requlrtnga tonic, Hiid not a depressing action of the remedv. This it seems to find here, as recorded ex perience and diiiK notion can testify. According to the line of treatment, followed nnrticulatlv with tiue reznrd to the temner- atutc, the action ot the Ait waters can be mnde sedative, exciting, derivative or alter ative and tonic. The Temple or the Baths. The" "Establishment" is the property of France, and all the officers and servants are employes of the French Qovernment The bath house is a huge and massive pile of white marble masonry, and looks more like a temple than anythingelse. It lias several floois, aud each" Is full of bath cabinets. There is every kind of bath for the nose, the ears, the throat, vapor baths, tub baths, swimming baths and all people's favorite, the douche. It is a good building to get lost in, when you are not familia- with it From early morning until nearly noon peo ple are streaming in and streaming out with out halt The majority come afoot, but great num bers are brought in sedan chairs, a suf ficiently ugly contrivance whose cover is a steep little tent made of striped canvas. You see nothing of the patient in this diving bell as the bearers tramp along, ex cept a glimpse of his ankles bound together and swathed around with blankets or towels to that generous degree that the result MUST HAVE THE RQQ PARLOR SUITS AS LOW AS $24. $24. $24. CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them. &S-SEE OUR $2.50 $2.50 $2.50 Plush Rockers. Cash or Credit Household Credit Co. is Complete I suggests a sore piano leg. By attention and practice the pall bearers have got so that they can keep Out of step all the time and they do it As a consequence their veiled churn goes reeking, tilting, swaying along like a Dell buoy in aground swell. It makes the oldest sailor seasick to look at that spectacle. The Details ot the Course. The "course" is usually 13 douche baths and S tub baths. You take the douche three days in succession, then knock off and take a tub. You keep up this distribution through the Coarse. If one conrse does not cure voUjyou take another one alter an in terval. You seek a local physician ami he examines your case and prescribes the kind of bath required for it, with various other particulars; then you buy your course tickets and pay for them in advance f 9. With the tickets you get a memorandum book with your dates and hours all set down in it The doctor takes you into the bath the first morning and gives some in structions to the two doucheurs who are to handle you through the course. The p'our boires are about 10 cents to each of tho men for each bath, payable at the end of the course. Also at the end of the course, you pay 3 or 4 francs to the superintendent of your department of the bath house. These are useful particulars to know, and are not to be found in the books. A servant of your hotel carries your towels and sheet to the bath daily and brings them away again. They are the property of the hotel; the French Government doesn't furnish these things. You meet, all kinds of people at a place like this, and if you give them a chance they will submerge "you under their experiences, for they are either very glad or very sorrv they came, and they want to spr.ad their feelings out and enjoy them. One of these said to me: Had Inflammation of the Sihi!. "It's great, these baths. 1 didn't come here for my health, I only came to find out if there was anything the matter with me. The doctor told' me if there was the symp toms would soon appear. After the first douche I had sharp pains in all my muscles. The doctor said it was diflerent Varieties of rheumatism, and the best varieties there were, too. After my second bath I had aches in my bones, and skull and around. The doctor said it was different vnriet'es of neuralgia, and the best in the market, any body would tell me so. I got manr new kinds of pains out of my third douche. These were in my joints. The doctor said it was gout, complicated with heart dis ease, and encouraged me to go on. Then we had the fourth douche, and I came out on a stretcher that time, and fetched with me one vast, diversified, undulating con tinental kind of pain, with borizo s to it, and zones, and parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude, and isothermal belts, and variations of the compass oh, every thing tidy and right up to the latest devel opments, you know. The doctor said it was inflammation of the soul, and just the very thing. Well, I went right on gathering them in, toothache, liver complaint, soften ing of the brain, nostalgia, bronchitis, oste ology, nts, coieoptera, hydrangea, cyclo- fiedia britannica, delirium tremens, and a ot of other things that I've got down in my list that I'll show you, and you can keep it if you like and tally off the bric-a-brac as you lay it in. "The doctor said I was a grand proof of what these baths could do; said I had come here as Innocent of disease as a grindstone, and inside of three weeks these baths had sluiced out of me every important ailment known to medical science, along with con siderable more that were entirely new and potentable. Why, he wanted to exhibit me in his bay window." There seems to be a good many liars this year. The Baths Are Taking. I began to take the baths, and found them most enjoyable; so enjoyable that if I hadn't had a disease I would have borrowed one, just tohave a pretext for going on. They took "me into a stone-floored basin about 14 feet sqnare, which had enough strange-looking pipes and things in it to make It look like a torture chamber. The two half naked men seated me on a pine tool, and kept a couple of warm water jets j OR CREDIT! CARPETS AS LOW AS 15 I5C I5C CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them. SALE OF RELIABLE GOODS ON HsSEE OUR 98c 98c 98c Chamber Stand. Cash or Credit Household Credit Co. The Opportunity May Never Mmm as thick as one'swrist playing upon me while they kneaded me, stroked me, twisted me, and applied all the other details of the scientific massage to me for seven or eight minutes. Then they- stood me up and played a powerful jet upon me all around for another minute. The cool shower bath came next, and the thing was over. I came out of the bath house a few minutes late feeling yodnger and fresher and finer than I have felt since I was a boy. The spring and cheer and delight of this exaltntion lasted three hours, and the same uplifting effect has followed the 20 douches which I have taken einte. After my first douche I went to the chem ist's on the corne-, as per instruct! ins, and f Royal Billboards. asked for half a glass of Challe water. It comes from a spring 16 miles from here. It was furnished to me, but, perceiving that there was something the matter with it. I offered to wait till they could get some that was fresh, but they said it always smelt that way. Water of Shady Reputation. They said that the reason that this was so much "ranker than the sulphur water of the bath was that this contained 32 times as much sulphur as that It may be true, but In my opinion that water comes from a cem etery, and not a fresh cemetery, either. History says that one of the early Roman Generals lost an army down there some where. If he could come back now I think this water would help him find it again. However, I drank the Challe, and have drunk it once or twice every day since. I suppose it is all right, but 1 wish I knew what was the matter with those Romans. My first baths developed plenty of pain, but the subsequent ones removed al-nost all of it I have got back the use of my arm these last few days, and I am going away now. There are many beautiful drives about Aix, many interesting places to visit, and much pleasure to be found in paddling around the little Lake Bourget on the small steamers, but the excursion which satisfied me best was a trip to Annecy and its neigh borhood. You go to Annecy in nn hour by rail, through a garden land that has not had its equal for beauty, perhaps, since Eden; and certainly not Eden was cultivated aa this garden is. The charm and loveliness of the whole region are bewildering. Picturesque rocks, forest-clothed hills, slopes richly bright in the cleanest and greenest grass, fields of grain without fleck or flaw, dainty of color and as shiny and shimmery as silk, old gray mansions and towers half buried in foliage and sunny eminences, deep chasms with precipitous walls, and a swift stream of pale blue water between, with now and then a tum bling cascade.-'and always noble mountains in view, with vagrant white clouds curling about their summits. Mask Twain. M JUST AS YOU LIKE IT, SIDEBOARDS AS LOW AS $10. $10. $10. CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them. HESEE OUR $15 $15 $15 Couch. Cash or Credit Household Credit Co. PAGES 9 TO 20. E WILLS, Thomas A. Edison BeHerea Every Particle of Matter Is Intelligent, MAN IS A COMBDfATIOff Of Conscious Atom3 and Lives as Long as They Are in Harmony. DEATH IS A SORT OP REBELLION. A KoTel View of the Great Problem of Ufa and Comments on It. THE VITAL E5EEGT OP ELECTKICm rWWTTET J-OR THE DISPATCH.1 The remarkable views of Jlr. Thomas A. Edison, printed below, are supplemented, by way of illustration, with brief inter, views from distinguished men whose special studies have led them to look at life from an individual standpoint Taken apart, these opinions may seem to occasionally di verge; considered collectively, they present a rema'kably consistent, if many sided, view of a great problem. "With regard to Mr. Edison's contribution to this remarkable symposium comment is useless. The wizard has his own peculiar way of discussing any question, and in doing so he seldom fails to turn a flood of light into many a dark corner of thought Although he picks his way through the many pitfalls of speculation with charac teristic modesty and caution, who shall say he makes his bow as a philosopher in vain? The leading question addressed to Mr. Edi son was: "What is Life?" His reply iol. lows: VIEWS OP THE WIZARD. Every Particle of MmttPr, He Says, Is Imbued With Consciousness. "My mind is not of a speculative or der," said Mr. Edison; "it is essentially practical, and when I am making an experi ment I think only of getting something' useful, of making electricity pertQrm work. "I don't soar; I keep down pretty close to earth. Of coure there are problems in lif I can't help thinking about, but I don't try to study them out It is necessary that they should be studied, aud men fitted for that work are doing it I am not fitted for it I leave the theoretical study of electricity to the physicists, con fining my work to the practical application of the force. It is my belief, however, that every atom of matter is intelligent, deriv ing energy from the primordial germ. Tha intelligence of man is, I take it, the sum of the intelligences of the atoms of which he is composed. Every atom has an intelli gent power of selection and is always striying to get into harmonious relation with other atoms. The human body, X think, is maintained in its integrity by tho intelligent persistence of its atoms, or rather an agreement between the atoms so No house ever did nor no house ever will sell you perfect goods at as low a price as the Household Credit Co. ROCKERS AS LOW AS $1.50 $1.50 $1.50 CASH OR CREDIT. Easy terms, as you like them, RECORD - SSEE OUR ENTIRE STOCK. Cash or Credit r Household Credit Co. Occur Again! ATOMS Hft 4 1 4 M m 4.9H