The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-16

half a pint of cherries. There are heaps of ripe figs, each the size of your fist black, shining and luscious, five cents per dozen. Watermelons are piled up | by the cord-and such melons. Thirty pounders are common fruit and fifty | pounders not unusual. There are fine l potatoes, but the htaps of green peppers | are higher, indicating that the latter are i in greater demand; apricots, peaches, l oranges, lines. black olives, cabbages; | geese, ducks and chickens. alive and cackling; bleating kids and long-nosed black pigs; strange earthen-ware, cdarse boots and ox-hide sandals; cheap handkerchiefs, lace and printed cotton; enormous quantities of fresh fish of various kinds, sea-urchins (which are hereabouts highly prized for food), ocean crabs and river camarones; infe- rior wines, and stalls where steaming stews of chile-con-carne (peppers with meaD, are waiting to scar the inner man" or whoever is hardy enough to devour them.
 This province of Conception is of un- told fertility. It produces immense quantities of wheat of the finest quality, besides barley, beans, corn and vegeta- bles of every description, as well as fruits and wine, cattle and sheep. A great deal of wine called musto, which resembles burgundy in flavor. is made in this part of Chilli. From the forests Iof apple-trees that grow without culti- vation, and also from grapes, the fla- tional beverage called chica is made. It
 differs as much in taste from the chica
 Of Peru (which is made from corn), as from the pulque of Mexico, which is the
 fermented juice of the agave America no. though the effect of all are about the
 same.
 As in all Chili, the police regulations of Conception are admirable. An aver
 age specimen of 'the finest stands in
 front of my window-a half-breed Indi- an, dressed in full military toggery. He is under-sized, stoop-shouldered, slouch- ing in gait, with general hang-dog air, and countenance ugly enough to stop a clock; but somehow he and his Iequally hang-dog fellows manage to preserve perfect order whatever betide.
 Perhaps this is largely due to the great body of secret police, who, uniformed
 and unknown, constantly patrol the city In every part. But more likely it is due
 to the medicine which an apprehend-
 ed criminal is forced to take. For pet ty larceny-the commonest crime-he is bound to post with good stout rope and given hundred or more quick 1 smart strokes on the bare back, we'll l laid on by a burly man who seems to enjoy his business, the muscles of whose arms have become wonderfully developed by this sort of exercise. The 1 instrument of punishment is short whip-stock, to which is fastened leather strap as wide as the palm of yaur hanr, having the end cut into many strips An English sailor who re- ceived this dose the other day for steal l ing a ham, was heard to solemnly de- clare that he would rather starve to
 death, or stand for the same length of i time meek deep in hell'' than take the
 medicine a second time. Each police
 man carries small bone whistle, whose 1 shrill blast can be heard mile or more;
 and he is required to execute a pigeon
 wing on it every fifteen minutes
 throughout the night, to let the world hlioW tiiut lic tS Hut SlcSplllS Ut HIS post.
 The educational system of Chii is
 something of which any country might
 be proud. Early as 1883 there were
 seven hundred and fifty-four primary
 schools in this little republic giving in-
 struction to about one hundred and thir- 1 ty thousand children. A few years agd
 the national congress appropriated one
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
 introduce the best method of teaching,
 and sent a learned professor to the i United States and various parts of Eu-
 rope to study the systems of those lcountries and decide upon the best,
 1 Public education is divided into three 1 lgrades-the higher the intermediate and
 the primary. The seat of learning is the
 National University at Santiago, which has a council of education whose duty lis to superintend all the higher and in- itermediate schools of the country They are all free, the government own ling the buildings and paying the teach
 CTS. In order to meet the demand for lthe best instructors the government maintains number of young men, at
 great expense, at some of the most eel ebrated colleges in Europe to educate them for that purpose while the fe- male teachers are trained in the excel- lent Normal schools that have recently
 been established in Chili.
 FANNIE B. WARD.