Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-09-08
A CHANCE TO SOAR,
Men Of Learning Attend the
Worlds Congresses,
AND ALSO MEN WHO HAVE WHEELS.

AND ALSO MEN WHO HAVE WHEELS.
Efforts to Draw Aside the Veil Whicl,
Hides the Impenctrablc and Intangible
"A Visit to the Javancsc Thcater in the
Midway Plaisancc-Allcgcd Fun of tho
Savages.
WORLDS FAIR, Aug. ST. Especial. -
Some amusement and a great deal of in.
formation is furnished by that remark
able series Of worlds congresses running
concurrently with the Columbian exposi-
ton. They are held down town in the
great Art institute. and of late the largest
hall has been packed by those anxious to
hear men of worldwide reputation on all
the higher themes. But it is a rule i in
these United States that w~henevera grand
discussion is advertised on finance or re-
ligion, spirits of grain or of Just men
made perfect, or any other exciting topic,
the great army of the queer and crazy
make haste to rush in. Every man with
a bug wants to be heard and every man
with wheels in his head, be it on finance,
the social evil or the future of the human
soul, wants to show the meeting how the
wheels go round.
And really there are more learnea men
who have bugs" than I had suspected. I
heard one of them the other day in the
African congress. He demonstrated to
his satisfaction that the whole hui
man race was once black, and that the
whites, browns and reds are merely off
shoots or modified types. Another speaker,
a colored clergyman, took up the old-time
southern view and demonstrated it from
Scripture: That the black people are the
descendants of Ham, and added that civil
ization took its rise among the Hamites
and that Greece and Rome learned the
best part Of what they knowfrom the peo-
pie who We're the ancestors of the negroes.
1t was a very encouraging address. Fred
Douglass very appropriately wound up
the African congress, which excited more
interest than any other to date, with a
savage onslaught on the Worlds fair au-
thorities for Excluding the negro from
the exposition"
Over n hundred congresses will have
been held when the fair closes. July was
given up to education; August, law,
science, philosophy and architecture; Sep
TENDER to labor and religion, and October
to public health and agriculture. The
largest halls in the Art institute seat 1900
each and there are many smaller halls, so
several congresses are usually in session
at the same time. All last week was
given up to the Psychic congress and a
very remarkable affair it was-so interest
ing that it was actually painful. Men and
women of profound learning, whose lives
have been devoted to matters beyond the
scope Of sight or other sense, scared after
the infinite and dived after the u%nfathom-
able and strove to draw aside the veil
which hides the impenetrable and the in
tangible. and as to the result Professor
Elliott Coues, chairman, made this conf
dent prediction: sit is expected that
psychical science will be stimulated by this
congress and a close comparison of the re-
suit obtained by different individual OBJ
servations will serve to encourage all alike
to renewed effort. The authoritative pro-
mitigation of facts by this congress in
pSSSb4SoA oSACuSO AAuSU dCO DIS al CUuCd.
tional lever of great power for good and
react upon many popular errors. 1t is
probably not too much to expect from this
congress a marked effect upon human
morals and social ethics with even a
remedy for many existing ills and
wrongs"
I thought I could afford to wait else
where for these grand results and went for
a rest to the Midway plaisance, rs I gener-
ally do when l grow weary of science and
high art. And every time l go there I am
the more constrained to say, how very
much like children all these uncivilized
people are. They have much the same ca
prices as boys, yield to similar impulses
general code of morals. AS 1 look on the
gambols of the Dahomeyans and Javanese
my own boyhood comes bach to me. ''The
past rises before me like a dream" The
whole Javanese village, theater and fence
included, is built of w~ickerwork. The
theater is a really commodious affair and
well arranged, yet all the walls and
screens are of plated stuff, black and
white mingled to form amending varieties
of squares, diamonds and notched work.
The taste of the race is shown in every de-
tail. Even the post which holds the cleo
trio light is wrapped in matted grass and
the water pouring into the central tank is
made to turn a bamboo wheel and pro-
duce a monotonous music on two wooden
drums.
In the theater a dozen musicians pro
duce a continuous din which is at once
varied and regular, the effect being of the
plaintive or melancholy sort. The female
actors, dressed in most gorgeous robes,
moved in such a gentle and gliding way
that it scarcely seemed like acting at all
till the first act closed with a sudden out
burst and by pantomime we were made to
understand that the crisis demanded the
appearance of the gods upon the scene.
First came the chief deity with an i'm
mense white mask and took his throne,
with inferior deities on each side, all sit
ting cross legged. Then the devils came,
with hideous black. yellow and green
masks and then the comedian dwarfs.
There was q cnrf ne <r;o1 ;J.,oo,k 49,.