Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-15

TUNIS.
Uncle Sam should send his commercial
travellers to Tunisia and Algeria. These two
French colonies rapidly increasing in
population. Tunisia has doubled within the
past ten years. and Algeria is growing both
by immigration and by it's increased num-
Der of births. If it were not for the divorces
both countries would be more populous than
they are now. The most of the people are
Mohammedans and their marriage laws are
such that a man get rid of his super
f1uouS wives far more easily than the Amer
lean can divorce his only one in South Da-
kota or Oklahoma. There are now about
fifteen thousand divorces in Algeria every
year, and this is almost half the number
of marriages. All that Mohammedan has
to do to secure separation is to
point his wife to the door and say
Il divorce you! 1 divorce you'll! 1 divorce
you.!.'' and out she goes. 1t is not much
better with the Tunisan Jews; the chief diff
ference being that the Mohammedan has
the right to four wives. while the Jew can
have but one. At present plural marriage is
declining in popularity among the Moham-
medans. With the Influx of Europeans liv-
ing grows more and more expensive, and it
costs too much to keep up harem with
more than one mistress.
African France.
Notwithstanding all this, African France
as these two colonies are called, has more
and more people from year to year. 1t Is
a big country. Algeria. outside the vast ter
rftories of the French Sahara. is as large as
all New England, with New York, Penn
sylvania. West Virginia and New Jersey
added thereto and 1t has population
Larger than any of our states outside New
York.
Tunisia is just about the size of Ala
ga oama H.. and d,, IT has rs as many people
the two countries is fully one-eighth
that Of the whole United States, and
the most OF the people might be
our dear Uncle Sam seems to be running
his consular business here on the cheap
we have poorly paid consul in Algiers
and within the last few months we have
reduced the vice consulate at Tunis to a
consular agency. This means that the
man who represents us here in this city of
2oo,UO and country of 2.0U.OO and more
receives practically nothing for Office ex-
penses. and that his fees amount to only a
few hundred dollars a year. This is so,
Notwithstanding We are paying our consul
general of Morocco several thousand dol
lars year and have recently raised his
predecessor. Mr. Gummere to the rank
of minister with a salary several times
as large.
Altogether we SpenQ only three or four
thousand dollars in pushing our trade in
these two rich provinces belonging to
France. where the market is worth many
million dollars year. and waste three or
four times that on the wilds of Morocco
from which We get nothing now and cannot
hope for much until far in the future Sim
liar conditions prevail in some other parts
of Africa.
Up-to-Date Africa.
Tunisia and Algeria are part of up-to-
date Africa. They are still behind the
times, but they are rapidly introducing all
modern improvements. Life and property
in them from the Mediterranean to far
down into the Sahara are safe; there are
police everywhere and the people are pay
ing less taxes than ever before.
The facilities of communication rap
idly growing. The two countries have in
the neighborhood of three thousand miles
of rail- lad, thousands of miles of good
country roads, and hundreds of miles of
through Tunsia and Algeria for distance
as great as from Washington to Seattle in
an automobile, and that over roads better
than nne-tenths of the country roads of
the United States. The soil is largely I'M
derlaid with limestone. and the roads have
been macadamized from one end of the
land to the other.
AS to the teIegraphic possibilities. the
wire now in use in Algeria would make a
girdle around the earth, and the telegraph