Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-03
In the Government Offices.

IN the government OmceS.
1t took me some time to find the offices of
The new province. Saskatchewan is not old
enough 10 have a state house or parlia-
ment building. The government Is now run
in rooms on the second stories of the vari-
Gus buildings throughout the town. The
most of the provincial business is done
above the Bank of Commerce, little vel
low brick structure with retail stores on the
ground floor and government offices above.
The new province already has its different
bureaus, and it is rapidly acquiring a good
sized civil service. | spent some time in the
agricultural department, and learned that
a government farm is in existence near In
dian Head, where all sorts of experiments
as to grains and vegetables are being made
with view to developing the province.
The new state has its weed inspectors who
so over the country and warn people to cut
down their weeds. If they do not obey the
government will destroy them and the men
refusing Will be prosecuted and fined. Laws
are already being enacted as to clean seed
and the state is protecting the farmers in
every possible way.
I talked with one of the members of the
agricultural department as to the wheat
yield of Saskatchewan. He said: Many
of the figures published are extrava-
giant. We know through the threshers
returns just what We get out of the
soil, and while we have many farms
which yield twenty bushels of wheat and
upward per acre there are very few whi N
yield more than thirty There may be q
pdJcU now ana tflGn winch Will turn out
forty bushels, but when it comes to hun
dred acres or thousand acres giving any
such yield you must take the statement
with considerable salt
Independent Landlords.
I arrived in Regina to find the hotels
packed This had been their condition for
the past two or three years, and in the
spring and summer it is not uncommon to
find the halls filled with cots. AS it is. /
have to sleep IN a room with two beds
and my companion shores so that he shake;
the door open night after night The land
lords are sometimes insolent. If you COM
plain, they will tell you to go elsewhere
and they know very we'll there Is no else
where. All the hotels are full. tn is so
throughout the new Canada. 1t is aeces-
sary during the summer season to tele-
graph ahead to get quarters, and one must
be content to rough 1t. The hotel rates
are about the same as in the United States
or if anything little cheaper. Outside
Winnipeg and Montreal, the ordinary rates
are from 81 to So day for room and
board, but the So rate should include q
private bath. Very few of the country
hotels have baths, and they are not so
we'll managed as our hotels.
Almost every hotel in Canada has
saloon attached to 1t. According to the law.
liquor cannot be sold outside hotels. ard
the result is the hotel and bar go together
This raises the standard of the bar but it
lowers that of the hotel. There is consid-
| cradle drinking both before meals and be
tween them.
Pretty Hotel Walters.
I like the hotel walters. The swallow
tailed negro. with his hungry eye and iJch-
| ing palm has not yet crossed the inter
| national border. and the fee demanding
white waiter is absent The service ct the
dining rooms is through fresh young girls.
who do their business rapidly and well. l
wish / could introduce you to the Inter
national Hotel force the 500. Every
waitress there is just under six feet in
height so stately that one almost fears
| to give extra orders; and 1t does ones
soul good to see the Amazons stalk to the
dining room door, throw 1t open with
stately swing, while in dulcet tones hay
| calculate:
Soup and fish twice, In a hurry
Some of these girls are very sympathetic.
! the soft-boiled egg she had furnished this
| morning plaintively said:
You don't care for your eggs?'
/ AS much as to say that 1 was not In
| love with them and had rejected them,
/ AT most of the hotels the head wait.r
| is a ripe old maiden, who dresses in black
| silk, ard whose lips LOOK as though they
| had been formed by saying plums, prGnes,
prisms. The other walters are younger.
| They all dress in black for breakfast and
| luncheon. wearing little bib-like aprons
| about as big as a handkerchief pinned to
| their waists. At dinner the walters come
| forth in gowns of immaculate white as
clean as new pins. Here in the northwest
many OF the waiter girls are Danes Ice
| landers. They receive from $50 $50
| month and board
Municipal Ownership.
/ I find these new Canadian towns decidedly
| in favor of municipal ownership. Regina
owns its electric light plant and it has a
/ good system of street lighting. Two years
ago the light was furnished by a private
company, which gave a poor service at high
| rates. The city has reduced the rates. and
| 1t Is already making money. The reduction
/ has been more than twenty per cent. The
| waterworks also owned by the municip-
| ality, which is now building dam across
j Doggy Creek to furnish water and power.
I The dam is seven miles away and ninety
feet above the level of the city streets. The
| pressure in the pipes vii be such as to fur
/ nish protection against fire, and It may be
that the water viii also generate the cleo
tricity.
j Regina has now just under ten thousand