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


 Though more than three hundred and fifty years old, this quaintest of Chilian cities shows few signs of age. Its casas built low and solid with an eye to earthquakes-are fine samples of Span- ish architecture, but so monotonously alike. except in size and color, that it is easier for a stranger to lose his bear ings here than in London. All are about twenty feet high, of one story only. built around one or more patios, or court-yards. The universal building material is sun-dried bricks, which are so soft that they absorb water almost as readily as sand. and consequently are plastered, inside and out, until they become hard and firm as stone. In Conception the law compells house. owners to keep the exteriors neatly painted. The favorite tints appear to be sky-blue, pink, purple and pale yell low; but few indulge in green, gray, crimson and orange. Every house is topped with earthen-ware tiling. rusty red in color. deeply imbedded in mud which was soft when put on, and when dried holds the tiles securely? This lsort of roofing is extremely picturesque, especially as it immediately takes on coating of moss and ichens; but it is no end of trouble to keep in order, and must be repaired every year before the rainy season begins. It is odd how iso- lated from the world, though living in the heart of a city, man may be in one of these great adobe casas. Many of them have no windows that look into the street. and when the one big door is shut and barred, outsiders can form no Iidea of what may be going on within. When the front laws, back yard and kitchen, garden, parlor, sleeping apart ments servants quarters, store-rooms, stable and chapel are all enclosed with in the same wall and under one roof the master might be murdered a dozen times a day, if that were possible, and securely hidden away in his own house, and the nearest neighbors be none the wiser.
 | Conception is eminently city of sur prises. For example: She is entirely out of debt, but water is still peddled about the streets on the backs of don- keys, as in early colonial times. She has fewer than nine magnificent church. es, Gall Roman Catholic), but no system of sewerage whatever. Handsome car riages roll about the streets, belonging to wealthy citizens, but the wooden blows used on their suburban estates are as primitive as those of the ancient 1 Egyptians She boasts of four banking houses, and the largest Jesuit college in South America, maintains a costly the ater and fine band to play on the pla- za-but on "Beggar's Day" (every Sat urday), the streets literally swarm with licensed mendicants, until it seems as if half the population are out soliciting alms
 1 There goes a public institution" and a very necessary one--a bare-footed, shock-headed fellow, following half a dozen slim-legged donkeys, each don key with two small barrtdls on it's back. He makes his living by selling water from house to house, at the roate of one icent CT bucket. His only competitor is another fellow, who perambulates the town with one barrel-ful from the Bio Bio, loaded in cart drawn by very small mule, to which very large cow bell. is attached.
 Here comes scarcely less common 'institution"-the turkey eddler. He drives a flock of shrill-voiced young turkeys before him. from street to street, until all are sold. Ask him the price of them, and he will probably re- ply, "Diez pesos cada una, Senor''-ten dollars apiece, sSir. Turn away, and he shouts after you, T will take seven dol- lars, sir.' If you still remain obdu- lrate he will follow you with importuni- lties till he has dropped to five dollars, land even down to two. He has been a Hong time raising those turkeys, or rath- fer his wife has-at great labor for a zI IChilian ''roto." When sold, if all the money does not go down his throat at once in the form of chica he will take the remainder home to his family and they will feast like lords for day or two, till every cent is gone. Then his wife will go to market in the morning. lcontentedly as assheretofore, and buy three cents' worth of flour, two cents worth lof beans, one cents worth of potatoes and four cents worth of fuel to supply
 the household for a day.
 The COncepcl0n market-hOuSe was fitted up by the authorities It occu- Ipies an entire square, and within it country produce of all kinds is bought land sold. The producer brings or sends
 his fruits, vegetables, butter and eggs,
 beef, pigs, fish. clans, etc, and barters
 them off to the best possible advantage There is no fixed price for anything
 oh, no! for in this country locating
 down. is the life of trade. Take, for
 example, the popular article of sausage
 which sells here by the vara, or Spanish
 yard-a vara being about three-quar-
 ters of an English yard. As you are a
 foreigner, you are not likely to get a yard of sausage for less than fifty cents
 though a native is not expected to pay but twenty cents per vara The mar
 ket-house generally overflows, especial
 ly in fruit time so that the sidewalks
 all around the square are blocked by lsquatting women with their wares spread out on the ground for sale. En.
 tering the building, to the left you fin6
 the butchers, who cut all their meat UT
 into long strips as if they would sell it also, by the yard But they don't; they sell it by the chunk, and guess at the
 weight. Porterhouse, surloin, rum
 steak, roasts-it is all the same to the
 butcher; into strips the whole creature must go, to be chopped off in chunks tC
 suit the purchasers needs.