Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-04

ing priests or monks, followed by men car
rving torches and candles, winding slowly
through the darkness to the dismal Campo
Santo or "Field.ot Saints" as the cemetery
is called.
Among those who can afford it the fash
ion prevails of holding kind Of funeral
reception during the week following the
burial. Formal invitations are issued as if
for a ball or a wedding. The guests gather
at the appointed hour, eat, drink, gossip
and have good time generally; discuss the
gotten, as happily, is the casei in all lands);
speculate upon the property he may have
LETT, and if the deceased were married
man, upon the probability of his widow
marrying again.
Meanwhile the dead mans family sit in
a room by themselves, arranged in the Or
der of their nearness of relationship, and
all the guests come in, one by one, to con-
dole with them. At the conclusion of the
entertain ment every picture in the house is
turned with its face to the wall, the piano
is locked, the harp and guitar swaddled in
black cloth, jewelry is laid aside. not even
natural flowers are permitted In the rooms
or on the person as decorations, the house
is shut against all visitors for SIX or eight
weeks, and during that time not one of the
church or elsewhere.
SAME OLD SERVANT GIRL QUESTION.
If you were living in Ecuador and wished
to hire a servant, you could hardly get one
bv himself or herself, but would be COM
PEELED to take up with drove of them. With
a cook for example, you must receive her
husband and the rest of her family into your
house, to bed and board, and they will bring
along their numerous collection of domestic
pets, pigs, dogs, rabbits, chickens and other
'Iive stock" and portable property. The
husband may have some trade which he fol.
lows during the day, but when night comes
and at meal times, he returns to the bosom
of his family and yours. The children of
the pair may be utilized for light services,
such as running of errands, wedding the
garden and watching the baby; but they are
apt to be "light-fngered" and are always
lousy and dirty beyond degree. There is
no help for it, however, and ior every SER
want you hire, you must expect at least
dozen extra mouths to feed.
Nor is this the worst of it. Sometimes
.he cooks relatives come to pay her visit
week or two-men, women and chill
. en-, more dogs, pigs, rabbits and chickens
which must all be housed and fed. For
tunately they are not accustomed to "high
living" or downy beds and consider them
selves in clover, if provided with plenty of
beans, corn-cakes, and potato soup, while
they sleep on the straw of the stable or the
stones OF the patio. The danger is that
some of the stranger hangers-on may not be
as honest as the cook herself is supposed to
be; and cases are known where thieves and
even murders thus gained admission 10 the
inside OF the casa with most disastrous
results.
The capital of Ecuador, which lies di-
rectly over the equator and whose origin is
lost in the mist of centuries, is one of the
highest cities in the world and is sur
rounded by no less than twenty volcanoes.
Three of these are active, five dormant and
twelve extinct Cotopaxi is the loitiest of
the active volca noes, but in destructive
energy has long been rivaled by several
Others. Those who have seen Vesuvius can
form some idea of Cotopaxi's grandeur by
imagining volcano 5000 feet higher,
shooting fire from crest covered by 5000
feet O! snow! FANNIE B. WARD.