Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-09-12
AMAZON COLONY
 IN UNITED STATES
AFTER 90 YEARS OF EXISTENCE ITS MAN-EATING MEM
 BEERS ARE HAPPY
Marriage Regarded as sin--Neverthe- less There Have Been Six Elopements of the Community Children


 R. Franklin Hoover, Philadelphia ho
 tel clerk, broke into the Amazon colony
 in Washington few days ago and stole Miss Adah Pratt, one of it's daughters
 ters, he threw the man haters into con
 sternation which has aroused the entire
 sect to renewed warfare on the oppo.
 site sex. Efforts to guard the remain.
 ing three marriageabe "'sanctifed sis
 ters, as the man haters call them.
 selves, have been redoubled. No man is
 allowed sight of the marriageable
 ones.
 America, the ''paradise of women,
 possesses the only known colony of
 Amazons in the world today. A com.
 munity of women, twenty-two in num-
 ber has existed in the heart of Mary.
 land for the last, thirty years. and Is
 increasing in numbers every year. Dur
 ing that time the Amazons have lived
 together happily and at peace, like the women in Tennyson s ''The Princess. '' They have not exchanged one word of | personal communication with any man. l Not one of the women who joined the community voluntarily has ever desert. ed. Miss Pratt is the sixth "commun- | ity child to elope.
 The creed of this ''Woman s Com monwealth" is that for men and wo. men to live together is sin. even under the marriage tie.
 '' He that soweth to the flesh shah of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap eternal life, quothed one of the sweet-faced women of the colony to reporter yesterday. "Our ideas are too pretty to talk about,' he went on. 'They must be lived. Life and health on earth and peace in heaven are to be gained only by purifying the body and subduing the lusts of the flesh. That Is why we gave up the sin of men.
 This great truth was revealed in vision to Mrs. MacWhirter, our found CT, thirty years ago All of us who have sseE the light have followed her. Since then We have lived without sin. We have been well and happy, with no man to tempt, and God has prospered us. We expect to live as long as no fieshly lusts gain foothold in our lives to destroy our souls.
 Tbe community, officially called the Woman s Commonwealth, is situated l near Eolesville, Montgomery county. | Maryland, thirty miles from Washing | ton. It has l2l acres of farm. orchard and woodland, with big house. three barns, windmills. cattle and horses. and | the latest farming implements. Here the. celibate women live and work to- gether. They till the soil themselves and manage the business of their estate. | No man is allowed on the-grounds. In Washington the commonwealth owns and operates big two-story boarding U house. from which it gets a fat profit. II In all, the community is said to be Il worth S250,000, all of which the women have made or contributed themselves.
 Of these "sanctified sistersp there are at present twenty two; nineteen are elderly women who have had real or imagined grievances against men-their mostly. Mrs. MasWhirter s vision is said to have sprung from quarrel over the insignificant sum of sl5O. She died some years ago and was succeeded by Miss Fannie Holze law, who is said to be even more rigid Tn her views of men than the founder. There remain but three of the young women whose mothers brought them in .o the community as children. Once here were nine. And there is one small 'oy of ten. What his excuse for exist 'nce is, or what is to be done with him when he grows up, is subject for peculation. Thus far he is treated with III kindness. He has no playmates. so le just works on thefarm with theold 
 The girls brought up in the commun- ty are taught to believe that to live in 'unholy matrimony' with man would 'e like the prodigal among the swine nd husks. It only means misery and epentance in the end. Six of these .irls, like Tennyson s "Princesss. ,, ave found woman s instinct and wo- 'oh . NuiiOSity JUL great to De eUucat- d out by the experience of others, nd have run away to learn of them elves if men were all "betrayers. o And they have made good wives. '' aid a member of the comunity naive 7. "They have never come back to s. l suppose they were so glad to nd nice men, after all they had been aught about the general run of men, hey were only too happy to try to de- erve them."
 Are men all despised as inferior to she was asked.
 "No, not exactly" she replied hesi- atingly; "but you know we have all ne daily papers, and every time there an account of divorce scandal or roken-up household the older ones will ay, 'There is some more of the married liss you hear about. 70
 But the younger ones?"
 Well, they don t say so much. You se, many of the older ones had quite lot of married bliss before they had ,me quarrel and joined the common cath. y
 Mrs. Pratt, the mother of the recent