The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-09-18
ITEMS FROM EVERYWHERE.

Plain girls, according to an exchange
get married as easily as pretty ones in
France, that is, If the dowry be suffi-
cient; in support of which statement
witness the following little incident Of
recent occurrence. The girl involved
was particularly plain, with elongated
nose and retreating forehead. But the
prospective bridegroom's protestations
of affection and admiration were not
lacking in ardor, nevertheless, for her
dowry was altogether desirable. This
was duly delivered to the devoted lover
on the eve of the wedding ceremony
in the form of check. The bank on
which this was drawn, however, stop
ped payment, as i'll luck would have it,
two days after the marriage took place
and before the portentous little bit of
paper had been converted into hard
cash. Thereupon did the irate husband
ship his homely Wife, bag and baggage,
back to her father, swearing that not a
days support would she get from him
until the amount of the check was put
into his hand in hard cash.
Sir Edwin Arnold's reply to the ques-
ton lately sent to q number of well
known literary men, What do you owe
to the Bible?" is of considerable inter-
est as coming from the man who has
so sympathetically interpreted the sa-
cred writings of other peoples. His
brief answer was, Everything" But
he went on to elaborate. 81 owe my
education as writer more to the Bible
than to any hundred other books that
could be named. 1t is, together with
our Book of Common Prayer. the
grandest possible school of style, let
ting alone all that it must ever be on
the moral and spiritual side"
Thousands of primitive hand looms
worked by women are in use in the
Philippine islands, and the materials
manufactured from the fiber of plants
and trees are almost infinite in variety,
despite the crudeness of the machines
available Chief among the f1bers in
favor with the natives is that of the
pineapple. The pima" gauZe, made of
the pineapple spikes alone, Is as deli
cate as chiffon and far more durable.
1t seems like fairy tale that lot OF
little brown barbarians should be able
to fashion fabric rivaling the finest
output of French factories, and from
nothing but a heap of prickly pineapple
tops and a few rude tools. To do this
they use only the best leaves, and these,
firmly tied into bundles, are placed I'M
der heavy stones in the bed Of run
ming stream. After two or three days Of
this treatment they are exposed for a
time to the action or sun ana air. Eacn
piece is closely inspected to make sure
that the process of decomposition was
thorough, and If II was not the leaves
are subjected a second time to the OPP
Grafton The fibrous threads are at last
wholly separate from the cellulose and
lignose particle, and cleaned from the
sap and gummy substance. The whole
is then beaten with rude sort of
wooden mallet, grooved on the faces
like a fiuting machine. The threads are
kept moist while this beating is in
progress, and the separate threads are
thus blended into one mass. In color
these fibers vary from cream and light
gray to pure white. After this 'pineap-
pie cloth, is finished figures are stamp
ed on it with blocks, and afterward
worked or embroidered by hand.
Miss Kate Augusta Carl. an Ameri-
can artist living in Paris, is to paint
the portrait of the empress dowager
of China.
According to Henry Labouchere, the
English editor, the American woman
has made a success of her social con-
quest of Europe. "She has that in
stinct for the class above which only