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Show M MAKES TROUBLE FOR CHRISTIAN MYOMRi f . I Hot Work Trying to Find Accommodations for American Delegates I London Letter. At present It looks at It two extremely ex-tremely powerful force, Provldenco and the llrltlsh government, wero dead against the first world's convention of tho Young People's Society of Christian Chris-tian Endeavor, arranged to open hero on July 10, This convention promises to bo tho greatest on record, 10.000 Americans, tho largest delegation that ever crossed tho sea In a body, aro expected ex-pected to be present, and with tho Endearorrrs tn tha United Kingdom and those from the continent and other oth-er foreign countries, the totnl number hero will probably reach 50,000, representing rep-resenting 4,000.000 members, Naturally, tho thought of gathering together such n host In Ixmdon made the Christian Endojvor lenders In lln visited was working overtime-, and to great was the pressure that the bt Iness offices of the company had been derertcd by the regular clerka and "occupied" "oc-cupied" by the stitchers and binder Bo. as If the reverend gentleman of the Christian Endeavor Society hadn't already had trouble enough In reserving reserv-ing 25,000 beds In the city of London, they had upon their ahouldern the additional ad-ditional Job of scraping up 1,000 tents, literally from nowhere. They sro d-lng d-lng It by tha burdensome mean of lo-rttlng lo-rttlng little tcntinakers. too small to bo pounced upon by the government nnd ordering from them n many teats as they can make by the required time. ' All this ought to have been enough trouble. Hut there was mora yet In lot ot prosaic soldier down to Africa od bring back again some thnt the Beers haw disabled Then, most of the American Endeavorltes are nut Men Some of them, lu fact, have been saving up for a year to come tcrntt the Atlantic to be present at tblt convention. Hut now along comes ths exhibition, thoutandt uf people. ho are well-to-do are fighting to took their pnssage aboard such tienra-en tienra-en at the Knglltli ruvernment has been good enough to leave on the tiorthern oeeau, rates havo mounted up to the tklet, and In many easel tbtl sum that the Amerlran Endeavor-Ite Endeavor-Ite haa been able tit srrnpe together wouldn't begin to take him acrots, to tty nothing of getting lisck. At least that Is ths story told by tho letter! which the llrltlsh committeemen has received from the would-be voyagers themselves, Those committeemen ity, however, that the minimum number ot American Ameri-can who will come ctnnot fall ti reach 4,000 anyway Preparation! are being made to give them a famous greeting, too. In tact, the Ilrltlth i I , , ALEXANDRIA. TALACE, WIIEIIE T HE ENDEAVOI13 WILL MEET. England uncommonly proud, and they went to work light-heartedly, but to far, deaplta ths religious nature of their talk, particularly annoying difficulties diffi-culties have cropped up on every hand, and the last ot them, the blggett. It not tolvod yet The convention la to be held In the Alexandra Palace, a great Madlton-Bquare Madlton-Bquare (larden sort ot a place. Just out of London proper, and hers It Is Intended In-tended to lodg and board 5,000 of ths Endeavorltes. There was as other way to do, for hotels, boarding houtet and tho private homes of Endeavorsrs had been canvassed and every bed In them engaged for the eventful week, and still 5.000 expected gussts would have nowbero to lay their heads, to lay nothing ot inline their stomachs. But the Alexandra Palac has a great banqueting hall, and this largs room will be divided off Into dormitories, enough of thorn to bold LJOd young women. That left 3,500 young men to be sheltered, shel-tered, and for this army the managers planned to erect a mighty encampment under sanvas, like any othsr amy's. They decided to put five men In sacb tent soldiers squeexe eleven la, but as the Hei. Knight Chaplin, secretary secre-tary ot ths society's Hrltlih council, remarked to me, "you can't pack Christiana away like soldiers" and they reckoned upon about 100 tents. Feeding tl 'campers' would be easy enough, for the Alsxandra Palace hat a huge kitchen In It bsaemsnt, and 2,500 people can alt down In Its dining room and be sorved at once. So Mr. Chaplin went to tho largeet tent manufacturer In England ana said he'd like 1,000 tents, please, as aoon aa they could bo got ready. The man-ager man-ager of the company listened to this request, which would havo been a mere flea bite at any ordinary time, and told the clergyman that he couldn't havo them not from his company, at any rato and added that ho didn't bclleva any othor company could supply sup-ply tho Chrlitlan Endcavorcrs with any tents at all, let alono 1,000. Ho explained to Mr. Chaplin that ono "Oom Paul" was to blame, for this extraordinary ex-traordinary atato of things. As everybody knows, when Mr. Krugcr thought ho was about ready to go to war with England, England wasn't ready at all. She needed a lot of things that sho hadn't on hand, nnd one of tho things was unlimited tents to house tho braves of Uuller, Moth-ucn, Moth-ucn, White, ct al. Tho first thing she or rather tho war ofllco did was to ransack every nrmory.barraeks.etc. In tho United Kingdom and "command' err" every solitary tent that was lying ly-ing around loose; the second thing was to place orders for tents galore with nearly every tent man In tho country, and tho third to tell these tent men thnt after they got through making the first hatch. to turn In nndmako another to replenish the stock ot the. various armories, barracks and storehouses that bad been despoiled, aturally, the tentmakers set to work tooth and call. The big factory that Mr. Chap- store for the Christian Endsnvorers. Every yesr there Is In England a groat shooting match at lllsley, the winner of which receives a prlit, supposedly given by Her Majesty, and becomes known thereafter as the Queen's prlie-man prlie-man for that year, Thlt, ot court, necettltatet sn encampment at Dlsley, and the date set for this encampment was the week upon which the Christian Chris-tian Endeavor people had pitched for their convention. Of sours that meant still more trouble, for about half the little tentmakers that the En-deavorers En-deavorers approached were busy making mak-ing ready for Hlslty, In comequence of which the C. E. managers don't yet know where their tents are coming from, or If they really are coming at all. Hut they do know that not one ot their guests will be left out In tho cold. From letters from America It Is beginning be-ginning to look as If by no means tho whole American contingent could get aeross to occupy the tents that as yet are not. In the blame for this tho llrltlsh government again figures largely, but has a partner In the shape ot ths Paris exhibition, Ordinarily every American delegation sould do what ons from Hoston has done that Is, charter a ship and come aeros rejoicing re-joicing and In Chrlrtlan unity, but the Ilrltlth government has gobbled about half the passenger steamers to ship a committee has gone so far as to request re-quest that the lord mayor hlmsslf give a reception to ths American contingent contin-gent at the Mansion House. Furthermore, Fur-thermore, It Is expected that the blih-op blih-op of London will make an address ol welcome at the Albert hall the day bo-fore bo-fore the convention. |
