Miscellany

The New York Sewing Bureau.

The sewing bureau of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor is a place of much interest to the woman visitor. Women applying for relief are given plain garments to make, and for their day's labor—which is very light—are paid eighty cents either in clothes or groceries. The garments, such as underwear, baby clothes, sheets, pillow-cases, aprons, etc., are cut by a professional cutter and given to needy women to make at the wages learned. The women take these garments—all of which are made of muslin, outing and Canton flannels, and ginghams—home and are allowed three orders a week or more if need be, according to the amount they need to tide them over the week. They are allowed to sell them, if they can do so, among their neighbors in the tenement district at a small percentage above cost, which they may keep. In the sewing-rooms plain and substantial garments are sold to all kinds of people, and they cost only the price of the material to the purchaser, the money for the material being contributed by charitably disposed people to the association for this particular work. From the sale of garments in the bureau last year $1,753.39 was realized and 1,074 women—almost all mothers—were given work. Constant effort is made to improve the work of the less skilled.

In connection with this work the association also conducts the industrial rooms at Hartley House, the annual report of which is just out. The rooms were opened November 1, 1898, and closed May 23, 1899. During this time 2,573½ days' work were given to 389 women, and for this they were paid $1,027.10 in groceries and $259.65 in clothing. in addition to their dinner every day they worked. The women sent to the workrooms are less skilled than those receiving work from the sewing bureau. The work of making bed "comfortables" seemed most attractive to them, and they were always pleased to take them in payment.

New York Evening Post.

Cost of Big Guns.

A single big gun of the many now being put in place for the protection of the seacoasts costs a large sum. Some interesting figures on this subject have just been submitted to General Wilson and will be by him transmitted to Congress. A 12-inch breech-loading rifle, with its disappearing carriage, costs $141,000; a 10-inch, $99,250; and an 8-inch, $72,000. The figures show that modern high-powered guns cost immense sums of money, and the cost of firing them is proportionately as great. The report of experts who have inspected these guns and the devices for securing an accurate aim show that there is an immense saving effected by possessing modern-range and position-finding devices. "The demoralizing effect of a hit as compared to a miss," said one of these reports, "cannot be reduced to a money value, but it costs big money to shoot a big gun and then miss the mark. Take, for instance, the 12-inch gun. To miss the mark is simply to throw away $561.70. With the 10-inch gun the loss is $322.40. and with the 8-inch rifle it is $164.65."—Boston Transcript.

Water which Chokes Infidels.

Toward Mecca the thoughts and aspirations of all pious Moslems are turned, and at least once in his lifetime the good Mohammedan is expected to make a pilgrimage to that city. One of the duties of the pilgrim, immediately after arrival, is to make a journey seven times round a holy portico outside the mosque.

"We went at a great pace," says an Englishman, who, disguised as a Mohammedan, paid a visit to Mecca at the risk of his life, "and the day was growing hot. When the procession was over we came back to the mosque, and were each given a bowl of limpid water. I was so thirsty that I drank mine down at a draught, and asked for more, which, I noticed, produced a very good impression, for, as I afterward learned, this was the sacred water of Temzen, which an infidel cannot drink without being choked.

"This was supposed to be the water which was supplied to Hagar when she was perishing in the desert."

Christian Endeavor World.

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