The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1892-01-18
LIFE IN ASSYRTA
Quantity Described by Native
Of That Land.
Girls Bought and Sold for Camels and
Sheep-Cheapness of the Prod
ucts of Nature and
Labor.

Men live on six cents day in Assy-
ria. Assyrian women, after one hun
bred years of Christian labor, are
bought and sold; are made to work
with oxen at the plow, and have as
title liberty as in the days of Cadmus.
Men who pay six dollars day to live
and the ladies who ride to shops in
victorias thought over these things as
they left the Lincoln Park Congrega-
tional church the other night, says the
Chicago Herald. Amen Rasi, born on
Mount Lebanon, told these things in
broken English. Amen Rasi is tall,
handsome Assyrian with skin as rich
as the cinnamon silks made at the foot
of the mountain on which he was born.
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; that they could
neither receive nor make call among
women without their husbands con-
sent, and that if at any time, even by
accident, they were seen by any man
or in any way recognized one, no one
would marry them. He said that once
wo couples, a tall man and tall
woman and a short man and short
woman, stood before a priest to be wed.
The priest placed the tall man and the
tall woman and the short man and the
short woman together and none of the
four knew whether 1t 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 con-
tracts were made. He left the pulpit
and presently man wrapped up in
rich Assyrian raiment went up and sat
upon the floor. Mr.. Rasi came back
and squatted beside him. 81 would
very much like" he said, ''for a girl
who is yours to be wife to my son
Isaac" 81 would be honored," re-
turned the man, with a very unmis-
taxable American accent. "How many
have you?'' Three ''How much
years have they?' Zone is fifteen, one
talk to me about the twenty-five, nor
the twenty; they are never fit to mar
ry. How much do you charge for the
little one?" give camels, four horses,
three sheep and fifty dollars" '.Bahl
buy one hundred women for SO much"
But not little ones" ''Oh, I think
So "Well, you can't have mine for a
cent less" II pay" But even len
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 young
men whose patent feathers cost them |
seven dollars and told them that people |
IN Assyria paid fifty cents for suit of |
clothes. The common people, he said, |
paid twenty-five cents a day for house
'ent, three cents for twenty-five pounds
If cabbage and four cents for fifty |
pounds of turnips. Fifty loaves of bread |
we're turned out at baking and men
sometimes ate four and five at a meal |
lie waited for a moment, and then turn
ng to blackboard behind him said:
They are so big" and he drew cir
lie that would inclose a Thanksgiving
,latter.
Speaking of Assyrian cities he said
hat when in the gardens of Sidon the
ain fell upon the orange and lemon
rees and knocked the fruit upon the
round a hundred could be purchased
Or five cents. He said that in Damascus
here are one hundred and thirty thou
and Mohammedans, one hundred and
fly thousand Christians and five thou
and Jews. In the city there is a build
lg haunted by John the Baptist's
host. The door of the room in which
e is said to have been beheaded is
ever opened. The Mohammedans
~ that once long ago some one opened
and the Baptist's blood flowed out
yer the city to depth of five
lches. 1t was the custom for worship
IS to leave their shoes outside the {
ample. There were sometimes three
/, four hundred pairs standing in arrow,
nd the poorer people hurried through
leir prayers first and then carefully {
elected the finest footwear in the row, {
hereby illustrating the great clever
ess of the fssyrians. S
Samoan IuxurIes 7