The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-20
HUMAN FLOTSAM IN PERU.
AUNI0UEASYLUM--HOWFOUND- 4
 LIHGS ARE PROVIDED FOR.
Iut.rssting Facts About an Interesting
 system.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
Arequipa, Peru, May l5, 1908.

Especial Correspondence or the Journal
 and Courier)
 Arequipa, Peru, May 15, 1903.
 In the center of this old city. nearly opposite the ruins of what was once the Woman's hospital. which was shaken down by the great earthquake of a quarter of a century ago. is very an- cient-looking structure, spreading over an entire square, whose closed doors and small heavily-barred windows give no hint of what may be going on with in. My attention was first attracted by it's appearance of antiquity, the utter . silence that broods over the locality, and the numbers of black-gowned priests and blue-gowned Sisters of Charity who are constantly gliding in and out its worm-eaten portal. One day, having extended. my walk to the farther side of the enormous building oughfare, I observed something which aroused my curiosity to the highest pitch,--merely kind of wooden cage or turnstile set in the wall, shaped like a circular box with two compartments. which chanced to be slowly revolving as passed. What could it be?-anoth- CT mystery of the Monkery" or relic of Inquisition days? While I looked the box slowly turned again and pre- scented its blank side to the street. so exactly like the surrounding walls that one might pass a thousand times and never notice it. But a little groove re- 1nained into which fingers might be fit- ted; and of course the spirit of Mother Eve impelled me to try it. Pulled one way, it refused to move; pulled the other, the cage swung around with rheumatic creaks and turned its empty Compartment to the view. Journalistic enterprise demanded solution of the riddle, and forthwith became a walk ing interrogation point until the bottom facts were attained.
 The ancient edifice, which is now ] about three hundred years old and for E more than two centuries served as convent for the nuns of Santa Catarina ---is one of the several founding insti- ~ tutions which have long fiourished in Peru and the swinging box, like those we read of in France and Italy, is set : every night with it's hollow side out ward. for the reception of any infants that may be placed in it by unknown hands-a perpetually open door for the shelter of those unwelcome Waifs who are immeasurably worse than orphans and whose acknowledgment brings ruin upon their erring parents. The mother Or her emissary, stealing along that de- serted street in the darkness, has only to put the newborn citizen into the box, give it the slightest impetus, and around it turns, affording immediate protecton. to the tiny occupant, while no eye inside the building can see who placed it there. A Sister of Charity is stationed on the inner side of the wall, whose sole business it is to watch for new arrivals at all hours of the night, to receive and care for them.
 < A newspaper column is not the place for discussing those social questions that have perplexed the wisest heads and noblest hearts ever since this sinful world was young-those saddest pro- blerns that seem to thwart the plans of the Almighty and to almost make one doubt his over-ruling care. am only totrelate what exists in Arequipa, as in many other parts of South America, leaving my readers to approve or con- denln, according to their individual convictions. Certainly Catholic Peru is f,, nr ,,oAck TJrafaCfonf aNtInt1ipc in having almost entirely eradicated the crime of destroying infants before their birth, by rendering it possible for ,tlnWedded mothers to dispose of the proofs of their shame, without commit ting murder and possibly suicide. In communities which are perhaps more civilized, the impression appears to pre- vail that if provision is made for the fietsam and jetsam thus cast up on the sea of human wickedness, 1t would be an encouragement to vice-as if the , young women of the land would flock to vntlyail themselves of the privilege.
 md IT due time we obtained permission tnd avisitfhis unique asylum, which like znow other benevolent institutions Of .wibuth America, is conducted under the "drect auspices of the Church of Rome. ivHowever Christians of diverse sects who are travelling the many routes to heaven, may differ on dogmas and doc trina1 points, all not blinded by bigotry must yield the palm for unselfish living and tireless practice of charity, the greatest of Christian virtues, to the un- counted army of Catholic devotees, male and female, who have given their lives to the care of the sick, the indi- gent, the helpless and the so-called "heatfen.'' No spot on the earth's sur face is too bleak, insalubrious or for bidding, no human being too degraded, and no depth of crime or misery too dark to be penetrated by the ministra- tions of learned Monks and gentle Sis ters of Charity-not merely by the easy method of sending Bibles, tracts and the contributions of other people, but by going to live among the objects of religious solicitude and devoting toil- some years to bettering their condition. \ Led by the matron, we went first to inspect the mysterious hole in the wall. Close to Its inner opening stands little iron bedstead with a cross at the foot ofit and picture of the Mother of Sor- rows at its head, where rests a good Sister whose nightly business it is to watch the revolving cradle and to take