El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-07-14
For the Better Half

| dictionary. But Sousa's marches are
| being whistled, hummed and played In
every corner and highway and by way
of the gay city and 1t is even said tn at
Parisians are trying to do the cake
walk.
The women of Sedslia, Missouri
have organized a village improvement.
association to the end that the beauty
of IL cir town may be heightened.
They have offered a ten dollars prize
for the finest lawn exhibit of plan.s,
flowers, shrubs, and vines; the Capital,
an energetic newspaper, has ffered a
five dollar prize for the cleanest al
leyway abutsing the competing lawns,
and various citizens and business firms
have entered into the spirit OF the
thing and have offered prizes, for the
neatest house, the tidiess lawn, for the
finest flower beds and for the most
attractive back yard. None of the
prizes are more than ten dollars ano
none less than two. Probably the
young folks Of Sedalia will be the
hardest workers for the prizes. But
Ii would be possible for one house and
lawn to take them all and win conside-
rable money if 1t could make itself not
only superlativeiy clean, but superla-
lively attractive. Whatever happens,
the city gets the direct benefit.
reports be worthy of credit, Tsi
An, TO abbreviate her sesquipedalian
name, the dowager Empress of China,
has stirred up the world as tremend-
ously as did Helen Of Troy, Cleopatra,
Catherine de Medici, Catherine
the Great of Russia, Maria Theresa
and Queen Elizabeth. And history
credits her with some of the character
istics of each of these tremendous
women, except that of Helen. Helen's
and sent brave armies and gallant ships
to battling for ten years, but Isl Ans
beauty, though 1t may be irresistible
to the celestial eyes, has not
been chronicled as intoxicating to
the eyes of Occidentals. But for in
trigue, lust of power, and triumph over
her enemies by fair means or foul she
has had no superior.
Her history is one of rapid rise.
According to reliable accounts, al
though of Manchurian birth and good
education and admirable figure,
she was yet a slave girl. Her parents
died in her early youth and she was
sold to a wealthy merch aut and grew
up in his household. When it was
proclaimed that the emperor would
choose from the young women OF the
land ten concubines che presented
herself before him and WAS among the
chosen. From the first day of her life
in the castle at Pekin she intrigued
and plotted and it is said h. 3 been b
successful at rdering those who have
stood in her path as ever Lucrecia
Boreia was. The dynasties, compli-
cations of the Chinese succession and
the status of Chinese wives and the
rights of their children is quickly for
1ri- m cd On tn
say that Isl A n has got rid of ons set
Of courtiers after another and of one |
emperor after another.
Today she stands the survivor of
three reigns, the empress OF one fourth |
Of the worlds people, the slave girl
queen who has out generated her
generals, outwitted her statesmen, and
n her vast provinces. Besides some
hing of the stuff that other great
queens have been made of, she has
something of Napoleon in her relen tless
Lmb ition and her powerful strokes OF
policy. Besides the eunuchs no living
nan except Prince Henry of Germany
las ever seen her face. Ii Hung Chang
: her adviser and chief help, but she
always holds audience with him with
la impenetrs ole screen between herself
lnd her minister.
1t is rather bewildering to have the
great woman power OF our day spring
10 from China. Those who have
the increasing opportunities
and powers of the woman of the west,
would have prophesied, that If our day
was to see any shake the country and
iistur intern ational peace and under
standing it would be q woman of the
west, but no, from the expressions
and iron bound prejudices and conven-
localities one woman frees herself
from her station and by her indomita
BILE will rises to tyrsnt empress.