The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-23
Where the Women Wear Trousers l.



 , walt upon them. The husband is ex- pected to furnish a dover for each wife, and If he is rich, he must give from 5000 to s10.Ooo to get her. This money goes to the girls family, and a quartet of wives, so paid for requires a large sum. With people less rich, the dowries are less; but every husband must pay something for his wife, even down to the porter, al.nough the latter may get bride for s5 or $10.
 In Women's Quarters.
 As e rule, the Mohammedan husband makes his matrimonial Investments after the old fashion of buying a pig in a poke. He seldom sees his bride before he is engaged to her; and, if he is young, the parents make all the contracts. There is no place upon earth where the women are so much secluded; and there are now millions here who are never seen by any other men than their husbands. In the city of Tunis the ladies never go out on the street except in closed carriages. They know nothing about shopping, and never visit the bazaars or stores. The carriages are brought into the court yard of their homes, and, after they have been put in by their servants and the doors tightly closed, the grooms come out and hitch up the horses. If they are calling upon @ lady friend, the carriage is taken into the courtyard re- stricted to the women of the household, and there the horses are unharnessed so that the men take them away before the ladies step out.
 Every fine Mohammeda house has It's women's apartments. The rooms are built around courts and there Is usually one court for the men and another for the women. In the latter only the mas ter of the house Is permitted to enter and in less pretentious homes a male vis- itor will always make himself heard be- fore he comes in in order that the women may flee. The women have their own private staircases to the roof and the roofs are their special quarters. They are usually flat and form the loahng and gossiping places for the females of the household They are surrounded by walls, and one cannot see the girls at all from the street
 Millions of Yelled Women.
 Here in Tuns the women of the middle classes go out so wrapped up In wells that not bit of their faces Is to be seen. Over their heads they have long scarfs which fall to their knees. These scarfs are black, embroidered with red and white stripes, and so thick that 1t is impossible to see through them. The women hold them up with their hands as they walk looking out for step at a time They sometimes wear shawls over the veils Such women seldom visit the stores and, if on tn streets, they are probably on their way to the mosque or to the cemeteries or to visit their friends
 The women of the common classes look stranger still. They dress in white gar ments of cotton or wool, which cover the whole of their persons, excepting their faces. The latter are wrapped around with a thickk, black crape in which two holes are cut out for the eyes. In the distance they look like the blackest of negroes, with features wrinkled like a washboard. As they come closer their veils are masks and their black eyes may be seen shining out of the darkness.
 The woman of Algiers wears wide white band across her face to conceal 1t; i; sometimes a veil of white Is fastened tightly over the bridge of the nose, the upper part of the face being hidden by the haick or blanket-lke shawl which Is common all over that country. In Morocco and in western Algeria the wo- man holds her haicl1 tight over her face leaving a little three-cornered hole, not much bigger than a finger ring, out of which one eye peeps as she goes waddling along
 Where Women Wear Brooches.
 It is impossible to see how the fair sex is dressed in Morocco When they go out into the streets they bundle themselves up in blankets so that they look like bags walking on slippers. In Algeria and Tu- nisia nearly every female wears trousers of one kind or other, and their over gar ments are so arranged that these can be easily seen. It takes fourteen yards of stuff to make a pair of brooches for an AIUartan ladX ThaW e. ly full, and are so tied in at the instep that they hang down like bags. The haiok or head shawl does not fall far be- low the waist, and these enormous