Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-08-25

states but the facts. Far western people
occasionally indulge in sarcastic remarks
on the propriety of having such a struc-
ture here in view Of the administrations
present attitude on silver, but unfortu.
nately very few of them are here. An
other object of great attraction is the pict-
ure OF a prairie farm, composed of grain
and grasses, in the Illinois building, and
people from that state tell me that the
original design was by an Illinois girl of
II, who did considerable of the work.
In the Anthropological building are
some rare curiosities of ugliness. I do not
refer to such common things as masks
and mummies, skulls, skeletons and abo-
riginal drawings. These are just ordinar-
lily ugly, but the Indians of the far north
west have sent some totems and funeral
poles which are superlatively hideous.
Among these sits an old Englishman
named John Dean, who passed forty years
of his life in British Columbia, Alaska
and thereabouts. His collection comes
chiefly from Queen Charlotte's island, and
everything in it is ugly beyond the power
of language to describe. When a man
dies on that island his relatives hollow out
a tree trunk and slide the corpse, enclosed
in many bark wrappings and a rude box,
into it and then plant the trunk on end in
the ground. They cover the top to pre-
serve the wood and on that place an image
to scare away the evil spirits. If those
shown here do not scare them, they must
be spirits Of some nerve.
1t would be rude, if not unmanly, to set
down the board of lady managers among
the curiosities, but it certainly fills more
space in the city papers just now than any
other exhibit on the grounds. 1t has
shown more kinds of hysteria than a man
can understand or describe, has displayed
a marvellous variety of tears and kissing
and making up preparatory to quarreling
again and has outdone the Irish parlia-
ment of 1859 in vituperative eloquence.
One of the ladies says she will compile
and publish a work on the boards trou-
bles. If she writes as she talks that book
will sell. The public is all the more in
terested in it from the fact that nobody
understands what the trouble is about.
1t certainly began in dissatisfaction with
the juries of awards, but the present con-
ditions and merits of it is zone Of them
things no fellah can find out"
Another popular curiosity is the babies
annex to the Woman's building. Twas
attracted into it by a series of unearthly
yells and supposed all the infants had
turned loose at once. It was all the doinps
of n little darby. He was in q rallied
space by himself and no one paid the
slightest attention to him. All the pretty
playthings and the nice clean bottle Of
warm milk had no charms for him. He
wanted to get u He would crawl
around, lay hold of the railing
and make a desperate effort to
raise himself, then failing would
fall back and give vent to yells that made
the observer wonder how so much cry
could be evolved in the little corpus of a
baby not a year old. It was symbolic of
the plant of a race, for all the other kids
were happy as clans at high tide.
Everything was so neat and so nice.
The little cribs, the clothing, the soft ma.
terials on which the infants tumbled
about and the nursery bottles were as
clean as cart could make them and the
children were certainly an assorted lot,
they. looked SO pink and bright-eyed and
rosy and healthy. All the latest and best
appliances for the care and nurture of
children are in use and each child receives
two meals and the best of care all day for
the trifing sum of Is cents. Yet very few
visitors avail themselves Of it. Weary
women carry their infants around, or d.
vide the task with their husbands. Occa-
sionally in any building one hears the
wall of q wearied infant, though not often.
for nearly all children are good when car
ried about to see things, and very often
n sees q wearied mother stretched out
on the grass while the baby plays about
her. Perhaps it is sentiment which
makes most of these retain their infants
and perhaps they do not know how very
safe and happy the darlings would be in
the public nursery. J.H. BEADLE.