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Show Woman Exponent 9 3 The Ballot in the Hands of the Women of Utah should be a Power to better the Home, the State and the Nation. Vol. 31 SALT LAKE CONTENTS. Extracts from a Letter. . Sandford W. Hedges 33 Relief Society Report...... M aria Hutteballe 34 A. Wadrop Ladies' Meeting 34 Interesting Visits and Meetings, M. B. Eyring 34 Notes and News 34 Utah Woman's Press Club. . . Lydia D. Alder 35 B. R. 35 Hints to Housekeepers Relief Society Conference ...E. B.Wells 37 : Semi-month- ly International Declaration. 39 Woman Missionary. 39 Items of Interest 40 Officers and General Board Editorial 3 Three Quarters of a Century 3 A Book for the Holidays 3 of Revolution the 3 Daughters A Work of Art 36 Poetry Ah! If We Knew.. Lydia D. Alder 33 A Mount Hood Ellis R. Shipp 35 CITY, UTAH, OCTOBER ! ! ! Oh if we knew if we knew We'd love our fellow man, We surely then would nothing rue, For 'tis the better plan. Ah if we knew, no jealousy, Would e'er corrode the heart, Abiding love 'twixt you and me, Would bind where now we part Ah ! if we knew the heavy cross. We each bear day by day; As traveling on through trial piercing by the way We'd gladly let the go, Be strangers ne'er again, Ah, me Ah, me could we but know, 'Twould still this bitter pain. Could we but know, how plain 'twould be, We ever love could trace; Such loving thoughts we then would see, Smiles e'en on sorrow's face. Ah ! we shall know some gladsome day, Ah ! ! ! ! ! loss-Th- orns by-gon- es ! ! In doubt ne'er sigh again; Know love was with us all the way, Through all the tears and pain. Lydia D. Alder. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER. SANDFORD V. HEDGES. The Japanese theatre claims a peculiar importance, as the only place where the life of old Japan can be studied in these ( radical latter-days- . It can be traced back to religious dances of immemorial antiquity, accompanied by rude choir songs. An improvement, however, has taken place, and the result is strikingly similar to the old Greek drama. There is no scenery, but the dresses are magnificent. Even the audience, composed chiefly of noblemen and ladies of rank is a study. They come, not merely to be amused, but to learn, and they follow the play through, book in hand. The music is well, it is Oriental, nevertheless, when due allowance has been made for orientalism and antiquity, it has a certain charm Each piece takes about an hour to act. So, you see, for a play to last for days is nothing unusual, and between the intervals they fill up the space by comedians, whose broad fun, delivered in & 15, 1902 cold parchment colloquial, serves as a foil to the classic severity of the chief plays. Oddly enough, though the founders of the modern Japanese stage were women, men alone have been allowed to act at the chief theatres, the female parts being taken by males, as in our own Shakespeare's age. One excellent arrangement is a revolving center to the stage which allows of a second scene being set up behind while the first is in the course of acting. On the conclusion of the first the stage revolves, carrying away with it actors, scenery and all, and something entirely new greets the spectator's eyes, without a moment's waiting. We happened to arrive at the time the comedians and magicians were holding forth. The tricks some of the magicians do are very clever and would outdo some of our best men of "Black Art." They seem also to have a master of ceremonies, who when he wishes to introduce a new feature rings a hand bell and makes a two or three minutes speech. We stayed long enough to see a dance, which appeared to me to be nothing more or less than a man who had gone bad in his upper story. He yelled, twisted himself into all kinds of shapes, and at last, to the satisfaction of all, ended his dance by thrusting his sword into his breast. It was the dardest dance I ever saw. I forgot to tell you, in my description of the theatre, that there are no seats. They all sit on the floor with a little box filled with dirt, except a small hole in the center, where there is some burning charcoal with which the Japanese lights his pipe. Their pipes only hold enough tobacco for two puffs, so you see they would run out of matches in no time, as they smoke constantly. Lunches are served during the pla)', and after leaving the theatre you would say "it was the greatest thing you ever saw." Perhaps you would be interested in the architecture of Japan. Well, I will try to idea from some my personal you give observations, and a little of what I have read. To my observation the Japanese genius I do touches perfection in small things. not believe any other nation ever understood half so well how to make a cup, a tray, even a little kettle a thing of beauty; how to transform a little knob of ivory into a microcosm of quaint humor, how to express a fugitive thought into a half dozen strokes of the pencil. The mass, the spacious, the grand is less congenial to their mental attitude. Hence they achieve less success in architecture than in other arts. The prospect of a Japanese city from a height is monotonous; not a tower, not a dome, nothing aspiring heavenward, and in rare cases a painted pagoda half hidden amidst the trees, which it barely tops, nothing but long, low lines of thatched houses, even the Buddhist temple roofs being but moderately raised above the rest, and their curves only quaint and graceful, in no way imposing. The ordinary Japanese house is a light, hose thatched, frame work structure, . AH I IF WE KNEW. Ah if we knew we'd meet no more, That ere the summer's sun, Its radiance cast o'er sea and shore, Our earthly course was run, How kind, how gently would we speak, How clasp the proffered hand Ah me our spirit would be meek, For we would understand. 1 -- I Nos. 9-- 10 shingled or tiled roof, very heavy in proportion, is supported on stones with slight- ly hollowed tops, resting on the surface of the soil. There is no foundation, as that word is understood by an architect. The house stands on the ground, not in it. There are no walls, at least no continuous walls. The sides of the house, comat posed night of wooden sliding doors called amado, are stowed away in boxes during the day. In summer everything is thus open to the outer air. In winter paper slides called shoji wooden the sliding doors during the replace day. The rooms are divided from each other by opaque paper screens, called fusuma, which run in grooves at the top and bottom. By taking out these sliding screens several rooms can be turned into one. The floors of all the living rcoms are covered with thick mats made of rushes, perfectly fitted together so as to leave no interstices. The mats in my room are six by three feet in size, which is always the size they make them, so you see it is usual to compute the area of the room by the number of its mats. The kitchen and passages are not matted, but have a wooden floor which is kept brightly polished. The passages are few, for as a rule each room opens into the other on each side. Furniture is conspicuous by its absence. There are no tables, no chairs, no wash-standnone of the thousand and one things which we consider we cannot do without. The necessity for bedsteads is obviated by quilts, which are brought into the room at night and pbced down wherever they No table is rehappen most convenient. member is each where a in family quired on a little served separately lacquer tray. These details will probably suggest a very uncomtortable sum total, and Japanese houses are supremely uncomfortable. Nothing to sit on, nothing but a hibachi to warm one's self by, no solidity, no privacy, the deafening clatter twice daily ot the opening and shutting of the outer wooden slides; draughts insiduously pouring in through innumerable chinks and cracks; darkness whenever heavy rains make it necessary to shut up one or more sides of the houses. To these and various other enormities Japanese houses must plead guilty. Two things chiefly may be said on the other side. These houses are cheap, the essential point in a poor country. The people who have to live in them do not have American ideas with regard to comfort or discomfort. They do not miss fireplaces or stovts, never having realized the possibilities of such elaborate arrangements of heating, and many other things which are a necessity to us. But physicians who have made a study of Japanese houses from the point of view of hygiene, give them a good, clean bill of health. semi-transpare- nt s, Tokio, Japan, September, 1902. Mrs. Cornelia Miles, principal of a Den- ver school, was recently elected president of tne Colorado Academy of Science. |
