The Washington herald., 1911-04-18
GOSSIP OF THE
HOTEL LOBBIES
Life at Gibraltar.

Life at Gibraltar.
Hobart A. Harkness, of San Francisco,
Cal, who has just returned from an ex-
tensive business trip through Spain.
Portugal, and adjacent countries. gave
his impressions of Gibraltar at the New
Willard last night
Until few years ago Gibraltar was
an island at high tide and a peninsula
at low tide said he: for a narrow
strip of soil which connected the rock
with the mainland of Spain was covered
with water twice a day. But that has
all been changed. The peninsula has
been made permanent. the tide has been
driven back by dredging and by masonry.
and the swamp has been lifted above
high water and laid out as a park, a
rifle range, race track, a polo field
and Is the scene of other athletic sports
Beyond the area of British jurisdic-
tion Is strip Of neutral ground a half
mile wide. which is unoccupied by either
nation. and Is allowed to grow up in
weeds. II is the common impression that
parallel trenches filled with explosives
and other subterranean mines have been
placed along the British border of the
neutral strip as a protection from inva-
sion. and the strictest rules are enforced
against the Spanish population. No
Spaniard is allowed to live in Gibraltar
or even to spend the night there. AL
though many men and women of that
race are employed on the British side
Of the neutral strip during the day. they
cannot enter before sunrise, and when
the signal gun is fired at sunset every
mothers son and daughter of Spanish
blood must be on the northern side of the
boundary. This rule does not apply to
other nationalities"
Burial of Sailors at Sea.
Every now and then there has arisen
in one quarter or another a protest
against the practice OF burial at sea-"
said Capt. B. N Davis, of Portland.
Me-. who was seen at the New Ebbitt.
'and one is led to believe that there may
be more than a spontaneous and natu-
rally growing objection to it. Doubtless
some very interesting arguments against
such burials may be advanced, but for
one reason or another they do not seem
to be so convincing as they might be.
time ago undertakers committed them
selves definitely in convention to a fight
against sea burial, the real basis for the
opposition may be imagined. Undertakers,
like other business men, dislike very much
to see good money lost, and II steamship
companies can be prevailed on to bring
to shore the bodies Of those who die at
sea, that much will have been gained to
the business generally.
1T Is difficult to understand, however,
why there should be any great public
movement against a custom which has
prevailed so long Surely there could be
no more fitting way TO dispose of that
which was once a human being than to
sink II into the ocean. 1t is not unsani
tary, as burial on land is. and. properly
weighted, the body will never rise to
the surface. There was poetry in the
command Of the old Roman that his body
should be burned and the ashes scattered
in the Tiber. and there is poetry in the
thought OF going to ones final rest in
the bosom of the ocean. in its unruffled
depths to sleep the last long sleep"
Lord Richie.
Lord Ritche. of Dundee, who recently
passed through this city on his way to
Mexico, and was at the Shoreham, is
married to a daughter of the late Louis
J. Jennings. for a number OF years one
of the editors of the New York Times
who died in England, where he was as
ISOLATED politically with Lord Randolph
Churchill. acting for a time as the lat
ter's private secretary and campaign
manager. The widowed Mrs. Louis Jen-
nings-that is to say, the mother-in-law
of Lord Ritchie-was famous in her
younger days for her beauty as Madeline
daughter Of David NJ. Hen
riques.
Lord Ritchie is the second holder OF a
peerage which was conferred upon his
father for his services as chancellor of
the exchequer, and as the author OF more
social legislation for the benefit of the
laboring classes, and especially for Brit
ish seamen, than any other statesman of
his day. 1t was bestowed upon him at a
time when he, along with Lord George
Hamilton and the Duke of Devonshire,
withdrew from the Balfour cabinet in
token of his disapproval of Premier Bal
four's adoption of the tariff policy of
Joseph Chamberlain. He was the young
est brother of Sir Thomas T. Ritchie, who
was lord mayor of London in 1904, and
was a member of the great jute con-
Germ of Ritchie & Co.. to which the pres
ent lord also belongs.
One of Lord Ritchie's sisters. Mary by
name, is married to the Hon. Frank Rus
sell, son of the late Lord Russell Of Kill
owen, who died while lord chief justice
of England. Frank Russell often visits
America. and he has been here on sew
eral occasions as the legal representa-
tive of Sir Thomas Upton in connection