The Portland daily press., 1896-04-14
THE WORLDS wcKsDEsT CITY.
Said to be Port Said on the suen Canal.
(Fron the New York Journal.)

(From the New York Journal.)
| On the baking sands at the southeast
corner of the Mediterranean, just where
the Suez canal gives berth to tons OF
steamers, ships and every sort of craft.
lies Port Said, the wickedest city in the
whole world. 1t is not lightly nor vain
ly that this dirty, unattraotive town on
the borderland between Asia and Africa,
half mud walls and half prick, has been
given this name for if ever locality de-
served such an opprobrious designation
1T is this same Port Said. Not In any
single particular has Port Said any ad-
vantages, commercial or atmospheric.
Seven months in the year it is piping
hot and breeding, the other five
months hardly less dan gerous to health.
Trading or business there is almost none
in the ordinary way, not even of the
oriental sort. Few cities, indeed, have SO
little to offer in the way Of shops and
goods for sale. Port Said's sole business
Importance, in fact, is simply that it
serves as port of call for the vessels just
going in or just coming out Of the Suez
canal.
There are 10, 600 or 10000 people in the
town who are permanent residents, but,
there not being any business to speak of,
four-ffths of these lead idle, wandering
dissipated lives. Their numbers are
constantly added to, for with the arrival
of each ship in the roadstead-a ship is
always bound to stay there ten or doz-
en- hours at least-crew and passengers
come ashore for strolls through the dirty
streets, and the lower-minded of them
drink and gamble in the dens that dot
the town on every hand. Under these
conditions there has sprung up most
alarming state of continued and con-
stant immortality. which never lessons,
but increases yearly. No law, no regula-
tions, no police hold any of these de-
baucheries in check. All is open and
free; Vice not only exists, but faunts
itself on every hand.
No other city offers like soil for vice
to grow in. Irregularly Port Said has
sprung up ever since the opening of the
Suez canal, when it was only handful
of mud huts ON the Mediterranean shores
until the present time when it is popu-
lous city, while still struggling oriental
row lanes with many a turn lending
for the most part in oul de sacs, and
grim looking by-Ways, between dirty
walls. Hardly a street in the whole
town can boast of such thing as pave
ment. Even the chief avenue, the Rue
de Commerce, is ankle deep In dust aud
sand, and seems more like slum quart
er of European oi5y than the chief ar.
terry of any metropolis however small.
In all OF Port Said there are only two
buildings that command attention from
the visitor-the Casino and big mosque
in the Arab quarter of the town. The
Casino is the great gambling hell of this
end OF the Mediterranean'ss shore, and tc
1t flock all the gamblers of that part OF
the world, gathering there In the dirty,
gaudy hall to put down their ill-gotten
gold pieces upon the faded green cloth.
It Is Monte Carlo, with all the charms
of its sybaritic luxuriance and elegance
gone; tawdry place, frequented by the
lowest types. 1t is there that the street
beggars, of which Port Said is full, come
to squander away what they have gained
from the palms of sympathizing visitors.
The mosque in the Arab quarter has
but one really interesting feature, and
that is a feature filled with unpleasant
ness. The traveller who goes to visit it
needs necessarily to take off his shoes, in
accordance with the Moslem rite, and his
ders about For the pilfering Arabs in
this quarter of the town think nothing
OF purlolning the foot coverings of any
one, and there is many foreigner who
has had to hobble back to his ship in
pair of uncomfortable shoes of oriental
manufacture, purchased speedily and at
a dozen times their actual value in some
shop near the mosque.
Two things go to keep Port Said the
WlckedeSt city in existence. one being
the climate, which makes hard drinking
a necessity for the residents, and the
other the fact that for some reason or
other the off scourings of all the nations
near by pour themselves into it. Ital-
ians, Russians Austrians, Turks, Abys-
sinians, Egyptians, Arabs, Spaniards,
Frenchmen and even a few degraded
Britishers are to be found in every COR
| ner of this profigate settlement, all of
the worst types their respective nations
can produce, blacklegs, swindlers,
gamblers. forgers, murderers and profess
sional beggars, whose arts have failed
elsewhere. With them have come the
hundreds of women of precisely the same
| type, whose one aim is to steer clear IF
any sort OF decent living, and whose one
doctrine dav by day is to prey upon in
| nocenE tourists.
| The dens are innumerable, and as can
we'll be understood, they are always we'll
patronized. The climate causes men who
take up residence on these burning
sands to drink to avoid the fever, which
is always a present danger. Somehow
the degraded and vicious of the popula-
tion-or about four-fifths If the inhabi-
ants-manage to stand this climate and
1--we year after year, but the decent people
who have to stay in Port Said for bust
ness reasons find it impossible as gener-
al thing to keep both sober and healthy
Tney have to choose between the two,
and it is common saying that five out
Of every six mon who go to live at Port
Said die either of delirium tremens or
fever within a few years.
Tho most Of them succumb quickly to
the temptations Of the place and join III
the great professions Of dissipation and
riotous living. The vice is just the re-
verse Of gilded, but after a time a man
gets used to that, and does not mind it.
There are, it is true, many respectable
people living in this town, but they
make no impression on the great un-
| leavened mass
| The officials of Port Said either do not
care or else they have determined that it
Is better for them financially to take no
notice OF the evils around them. Ger
/ toi- Al