The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-23
,NGDEN N
~ DEpHR TMENT
Ogden, March %.
A QUEER CORNER.
The Joss House on Lower Twenty
Fifth Street and What Goes on
There.
Ogden, March %.

Down Twenty-ffth street. door or
two west of the Catholic church. is an
ordinary low building with the sign
of a Chinese merchant painted on one
window and with numerous olfactory
evidences of the fact that it is fire.
quented by Chinese. The merchandise
establishment has long since sought
other quarters and from appearances
the place is a kind of Chinese lodging
house. In this building, however, as
any faithful celestial will tell you, is
the Chinese joss house. The Herald
man has seen worship of many men,
of many climes, but never till yester-
day was he permitted to enter the
portals of a real joss house.
The sanctum itself is in the back part
of the building. To reach it the re-
porter and his companion-a genial
young fellow of whom the Cinnamon
think a good deai-were compelled to
pass through several other apartments.
In the first room was a number of
Cinnamon playing cards in genuine
American fashion. In the next were a
number of hunks with here and there
a sleeping son of the fiowery kingdom.
Back of this was a kind of cook house
and one or two faborers were eating a
meal Of rice which they had evidently
just cooked. All these rooms were
cluttered and untfdy but not so with
the next room, for this is the joss
house where the sacred candles burn
and burn and watt the prayers of the
penitent to a mighter joss than the one
that is carved from wood and placed
back in a, dim recess of the room. This
place is scrupulously tidy. The big
joss is a figure placed at the north end
of the room behind a lot of ornamental
carvings and colored wood or metal
work. Tall brownish sticks stand be-
fore him and at the appointed times
these sticks burn slowly. In a well
regulated joss house these fires it is
said are supposed to never go out, but
the attendant explained that this was
a kind of "alle same mission joss
house."
The joss himself is not handsome
from the standpoint of an ordinary
Utah man, but at his right shoulder is
placed a figure as much more hideous
than the joss as are the pictures of
Judas than those of the other dis
ciples. On the left is figure much
more benign in the reporters judg-
ment than either of the Others
Tidy benches are ranged round the
walls and on some of the walls are
, placed pictures of josses of a lesser de-
gree than the one in the place of honor
Flaring posters announce the name of
some noted deities. Most of these
names are in Chinese characters, but a
reporter noticed one sheet of paper on
which were written the following we'll
known names in clear English hand:
S. S. Schramm. George F. Brown, F.
3 Sfah,4
Adams, w. T. Beardsley, L. H Wal
lace, a. G. ellison, E. A Gilbert, A. c.
Bishop, E. T. Morton, John T. Smith
and d. c. Mulpill.
On questioning the attendant as tt
when these saints were canoniZed thu
reporter learned that this was simply
list of those who had donated fund:
to aid in establishing the joss house.
Side by side with them were Ions
rows of names of Chinese donors
/ Some on yellow slips of paper indicated
that the. party named had contributed
to the support of the house. after i
was established, but the red slips Dor,
the names of charter members, as i
were
The finance committee of the houst
/ have all the accounts ready for in
spection in neat and orderly manner
On one side of the wall was tackled ;
bunch of bills from ogden merchants
all in order and all receipted Thes
were there together with all other &C
counts of the house for the inspection
of the patrons of the place wheneve
they choose to look them over.
About fifty men pay their devotion
in that little room where the smok
from the red and green and yellow
sticks curls all day and night under tn,
| nose of the big all seeing wooden loss