Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-06-13
CHILEAN BEAUTIEs.

great skylights and furnished with leather-cov-
cred armchairs and the plainest of desks and
tables. The large cool semicircular senate
chamber has an area of about 230 square meters
Uncle Samuels capital. When visiting this Chill
ian fog bank have found 1t easy to imagine
myself at home gazing down from the gallery
upon DOING bald heads set in regular rows
Ike the cobble stones of a street. listening to
some droning Senator who has apparently no
other listeners, while the stenographers sleep
NY scribble, and the presiding officer, yawning
behind his hand, makes a shallow pretense Of
paying attention.
THE HALL OF DEPUTIES.
The hall Of deputies is good deal larger
than that of the senator's and its members are
more lively and quarrelsome. but the galleries
are so few and cramped that it is evident the
dear public are not expected to attend its ses-
slons. There are forty-two senator's in
the CHILEAN congress and one hundred and ten
deputies. Among other pecuiiarities / no.
ticed that no member rises to his feet when ad-
dressing the house. but indolently keeps his
sittin';' and in their most exciting differences
OF opinion and widest flights of vituperation
(which frequently ends in duels outsde), they
never depart from the strict rules of Spanish
etiquette, but 'cuss' one another in politest
terms.
The small park in front Of the capitol was
formerly the site Of the Jesuit church of La
COnpania, which was burned on December
night OF 1868. Though Santiago has held an
important place in Gillian history for three
hundred years and more, no event that ever
transplred here sent such a sensation through
out the civilized world as that holocaust, in
which upward Of two thousand worship
pers, mostly women. out of an audi
ence OF about three thousand. persisted in the
names The calamity, which plunged the
nation IN mourning, is concentrated by q
nf hrn 4.
which bears an inscription on the pedestal
informing the stranger that 1.-TWO thousand
victims, more or less, miserably persisted, and
that the love and grief Of the Santiagoans j.
inextinguishable.
TERRIBLE HOLOCAUST.
1t seems there was grand fiesta, and La
Compania was decorated for the occasion
and packed to its utmost capacity with the
wives and daughters of the wealthiest
families Of the capital for this was the
fashionable sanctuary. Thousands of lamps.
candles and glass vases containing paraifine
were lighted all over the walls and
cornices to represent stars, amid clouds
OF gauze, while miles upon miles of
paper roses garlanded tlA whole interior.
Nobody knows how the confederation began
probably from the overturning of a lamp, but
IN moment the entire roof was mass of flames
and the floor a sea of fire, In which human be-
ings were screaming and struggling, as repre-
sented In old pictures OF purgatory. The fright
ened women crowded against the doors. which
opened inward, thereby forming with their own
piled-up, scorching bodies an impossible bar
ricade against outside rescuers And when all
was over, when the shrieks of agony were sue
ceeded by silence even more CHASTITY and the
fires that leaped TO the skies gave place to faint
blush flames. fed by the gases exiIaled from dead
bodies. the Mortified city whose every family
was bereft of one or more members beheld rows
OF carbonized human heads, piled one above
another IN almost symmetrical rows, to a con-
siderable height. The scenes of grief that fol-
lowed cannot be described. There were chill
dren whose parents were destroyed; men left
entirely alone, having lost wife and children
and other houses that remained closed, for mas
tiers and servants had dined together.
FANNIE Is. WARD.