Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-14

the northern telegraph office, the headouar-
ters for the Superintendent of Police-be-
sides being the Chilean Treasury and the
place where all the nation money is coined.
Probably the most conspicuous edifce in
4 the city is the Capitol, 1t occupies an en-
tire square, and its walls, which look brand
new, are coated with a browffish-yellow
stucco and have great rows of columns and
| many chaste ornaments. 1t is a combina-
tion of the Doric and Grecian architecture
and beautifully-kept garden spreads out in
! front, not unlike that around the Treasury
/ at Washington, which the building family
resembles There are three extensive halls
inside, of the Senators, the Deputies, and
that in which the President takes the oath
| of Office They are plainly finished in white
stucco, with few simple frescoes on the
ceiling, illuminated with great sky-lights
| and furnished with leather-covered arm
chairs and the plainest of desks and tables.
The Senators and the Deputies.
The large, cool semi-circular Senate.
chamber has an area of about 230 square
metres, and looks as inviting to repose as our
own, in Uncle Sans Capital. When visiting
this Chilean fog bank i have found it easy
to imagine myself at home, gazing down
from the gallery upon doing bald heads,
set in regular rows like the cobble-stones of
a street, listening to some droning Senator,
who has apparently no other listeners
while the stenographers sleepily scribble,
and the presiding officer, yawning behind
his hand, makes shallow pretense of pay
ing attention.
The Hall of Deputies is good deal larger
than that of the Senators, and its members
are more lively and quarrelsome; bat the
galleries are so few and cramped that it is
evident the dear public are not expected to
off TO
in the Chilean Congress and 40 Deputies.
Among other peculiarities L noticed that no
member rises to his feet when addressing
the House, but indolently "keeps his sit
TIM" and in their most exciting differences
of opinion and widest flights Of vitupera-
tion (Which frequently end in duels out
side), 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
Compania, which was burned on December
night of 1868. Though Santiago has held an
important place in Chilean history for 300
years and more no event that ever transpired
here sent such a sensation throughout the
civilized world as that holocaust, in which
upward of 2, 900 worshipers (mostly women),
out of an audience of about 5000, perished
in the flames
Chile's Greatest Calamity.
The calamity, which plunged the nation
in mourning, is commemorated by grace
full monument of bronze and marble, which
bears an inscription on the pedestal inform
ing the stranger that $1,000 victims, more
or less," miserably perished, and that the
love and grief of the Santiagoians Is mex
tinguishable.
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
paraffine were lighted all over the walls and
cornices, to represent stars, amid clouds of
gauze, while miles upon miles of paper
roses garlanded the whole interior. No
body knows how the confagration began,
probably from the overturning of lamp,
but in a moment the entire roof was a mass
of flames and the floor sea of fire in which
human beings were screaming and strug-
Cling, as represented in old pictures of pur-
gatory. The frightened women crowded
against the doors, which opened inward,
thereby forming with their own piled-up,
scorching bodies an impossible barricade
against outside rescuers And when all
was over. wher the shrieks of agony were
succeeded by silence even more CHASTITY and
the fires that leaped to the skies gave place
to faint blush fames fed by the gases ex-
hailed 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 considerable
height. FANNIE B. WARD.