The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-07-27
LIFE IN ASSYRIA.
Girls sold to the Highest Bidder
Cheap Products and
Labor.


Men live on six cents a day fin
Assyria. Assyrian women, after 100
years of Christian labor. are bought
and sold; are made to work with oxen
at the plough, and have as little lib
erty ms in the days of Codmus. Men
who pay SO a day to live and ladies
who ride in victorias thought over
these things as they left the Lincoln
Park Congregational Church Sunday
night. Amen Rasi, born on Mount
Lebanon, told these things in broken
English.
Amen Rasi is a tall, handsome As
syrian with a skin as rich as the Gin
namon silks made at the foot of the
mountain on which he was borne. He
looked into the curious, bright eyes of
girls and told them that, had they
been born Assyrians, in Assyria, they
could not go upon the streets unless
their faces were concealed; they could
neither receive make a call among
women without their husbands on
sent. and that il at any time, even by
accident, they were seen by any man
or in any way recognized one. no n
would marry them.
He said that once two couples-a
tail man and a short woman and a
short maj and O tall woman-stood
before a priest to be wed. The priest
placed tine tall man and the tall
woman and the short man and short
woman together, and none OF the
four knew whetherit was right or not,
neither of them knowing the other.
But the parents hastily objected and
placed the tall man by the short
woman and the short man by the tall
woman. as that was the way of the
contracts.
Then Mr.. Rasi showed how these
contracts were made. He left the pull
pit and presently a man wrapped up
in rich Assyrian raiment vent up and
sat upon the floor. Mr.. Rasi came
back and suuatted beside him.
II would very much like he said,
for a girl who is yours to be wife to
my son Isaac
II would be honored, - returned the
man, with a very unmistakabie Amer
lean accent.
How many have you !"
Three
How much years have they y
Zone is fifteen, one twenty and one
twenty-five"
Don't talk to me about the TWEEN
ty-ffve o the twenty; they are new
er ft to marry. How much do you
charge for the little n y
Five camels, four horses, three
sheep and $50"
BAIL l can buy one hundred
women for so much
But no little ones"
'Oh, | think so.n
well you can't have mine for a
cent iess.p
II pay"
But even then Isaac did not get the
little one, because a few minutes
later Mr.. Rasi returned as another
man, and by doubling the price
secured the girl for his son Jacob.
Then Amen Rasi looked at the
young men, whose patent feathers
cost them 50, and told them that
people in Assyria paid fifty cents for
a suit OF clothes. The common peo-
pie, he said, paid twenty-five cen
a day for house rent, three cents for
twenty-five pounds cabbage, and tour
cents for five pounds of turnips.
Fifty loaves of bread were turned out
at a baking. and men sometimes ate
four and five loaves at a meal. He
waited for a moment and then, turn
ing to a blackboard behind him, said:
They are SO big, n.-and he drew a
circle that would enclose a Thanks
giving platter.
Speaking of Assyrian cities, he said
that when in the gardens of Sidon the
rain fell upon the orange and lemon
trees and knocked the fruit upon the
ground a hundred could be pur-
chased for five cents. He said that
in Damascus there are $50, 600 Moham-
medans, 100. 900 Christians and 5000
Jews. In the city there is a building
haunted by John the Baptist's ghost.
The door of the room in which he is
said to have been beheaded is never
opened. The Mohammedans say that
once long ago some one opened it and
the Baptist's blood flowed out over
the city to a depth of five inches. 1t
was the custom of worshipers to leave
their shoes outside the temple. There
were sometimes three or four hundred
pairs standing in a row, and the poor
er people hurried through their pray
ers first and then carefully selected
the finest footwear in the row, there
by illustrating the great c~leverness of
the Assyrians.-ChicGgo Herald.