Folks, Facts and Fancies

1916

Henry Wheeler, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, predicts 75c. for fresh eggs in Boston this winter.

Henry Ford, the Detroit automobile manufacturer, announces that he and "his neighbors" will support President Wilson for re-election.

Horace White, for many years one of the Country's foremost journalists and an authority on financial subjects, died at his home in New York after a long illness. He was 82 years of age. Born at Colebrook, N. H., in 1834, Mr. White was educated at Beloit college and Brown University.

George W. Perkins finds that Maine progressives "almost unanimously" supported the republican ticket, and predicts that all progressives in the country will follow their example in November.

Theodore Roosevelt and William H. Taft, have accepted invitations to attend a reception in honor of Charles E. Hughes at the Union League club, Oct. 3. Elihu Root, president of the club, will preside.

The spire of the old Congregational church in Greenwich, Conn., whose peak is the highest point between New York city and New London, has been condemned. The church, it is said, is the richest in Connecticut. Its spire has been used for years as a steering guide by vessels.

With a crew of one man aboard, the 40-foot sailing launch Sir Francis, bound from San Diego, Calif., for the St. Lawrence River, cleared from Colon, Panama, for Jamaica and Key West.

"Mary" the big circus elephant which killed her trainer at Kingsport, Tennessee, Tuesday was hanged at Erwin, Tennessee. A railroad derrick car was used in the execution. The animal was forced to the tracks by other elephants, heavy chains tied around her neck and she was hoisted into the air. She was valued at $20,000 by her owners.

Ka-e-na-gi-wes, an Indian chief of Cass Lake, Minnesota said to be 128, and a heathen all that century and a quarter, won't be buried in the Spirit Land of the Chippewas' Happy Hunting Ground. He has taken the name, John Smith, and turned Christian.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.

India's New Year Days; Celebrated Frequently

1915

INDIA'S NEW YEAR DAYS

They celebrate the occasion frequently by knocking off work and holding funerals. Some bury their dead, some burn them and some feed the corpses to buzzards.

India beats the world for the number and variety of its New Year days and this is so because of the large number of races and religions.

When a traveler who expects to spend some time in the country goes to the bank with his letter of credit, usually a card is handed him on which is printed the various holidays. This is for his convenience, so that he will not let himself get out of funds and go to the bank in a hurry, only to find it closed on account of some holiday. The holiday may be Christian, Mohammedan or that of any one of the numerous Hindu sects.

"When the usual card was given me in Bombay," says a writer, "I noted the number of these holidays which were ascribed to New Year. They did not exactly bear out the humorous description of every day in the year as a New Year day, but there seemed hardly a month of the Christian calendar which did not have at least one New Year designated, and in some months there were more."

Kaleidoscopic Bombay observes all these New Year days because the stream of Asiatic life which circulates through it includes all the civilization and all the races and legions of the Orient, with some additions from the Occident. The spirit is one of catholicity.

All the races and all the religious sects observe the New Year of the Christian calendar, because British rule of India is reflected in this day; but they also observe the New Year of the different races and religions among themselves, at least to the extent of knocking off work.

Whether in Bombay or Benares, the monkey temple has its throng of Hindu worshipers, and the Mohammedans often are not unwilling to share in the observance to the extent of foregoing their business activities. The Hindus on their part are apt to think it a shame to work on a Mohammedan New Year day when the Moslem population may be thronging the Jumma Musquid mosque. So it goes all round the circle of New Year holidays.

There is a simple arithmetical method of calculating the time from the Hegira in the terms of the Christian era, but the easier way is to accept Without question the fact that such and such a day is the New Year of the Mohammedan era. Similarly, the New Year of the Buddhists and the Brahmins and the Jains and the Sikhs may be accepted without bothering about the calendar.

The British New Year in Bombay or Calcutta, or Delhi is much the same as in England

While the Christian New Year is formal and stately on account of British authority, it has less standing than the New Year of the Parsees, because it is a single day's observance, while the Parsees take two days. The year I happened to be in Bombay was the Parsee Yazdezardi, 1276, and the New Year days came on September 13 and 14.

On this day I was afforded the opportunity of witnessing the Parsee religious observances, or Zoroastrian services. It was in the Allbless Bagh, on the Charni road. Their churches or temples of worship are free from architectural pretensions without and within. They are more like an ordinary hall.

In this temple the women were gathered at one end of the room and the men at the other and in the space between was a stand holding a lamp with the eternal fire under glass. The flame was very clear. A venerable bearded priest stood beside the lamp. His discourse was earnest and solemn. Both man and woman hearers were very attentive.

The ceremonies of worship are quite simple, but the mysteries of the faith may be less so. The Parsees who have been educated in England and many of those whose English education has been obtained in Bombay resent the designation of fire worshipers.

One of them gave me a monograph, written by a Parsee barrister in London, which explained the creed of the followers of Zoroaster as one of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, with the sacred flame as a symbol of the effulgence of the deity. It is not denied, however, that contact with Hindus and Mohammedans has caused corruptions to creep into the creed. The Hindus and Moslems regard the Parsees as fire worshipers.

It was on a New Year day that I drove out to Malabar hill, where are located the Towers of Silence, or the Parsee cemetery. Every traveler takes his drive. It is past the other cemeteries, Christian and Mohammedan burial grounds and the Hindu burning ghat. The cemetery of the Christians is no longer used, but on almost any day there will be Mohammedan funerals and Hindu cremations.

On this day there were two Mohammedan funerals and three parties of Hindu mourners, with their respective burdens at the burning ghat.

Malabar hill is the choice spot overlooking the Arabian sea. Within the cemetery grounds are flagstone steps, shaded walks and arbors and bowers, luxuriant vegetation covers the rocks, and there is everything that goes to make a beautiful garden of flowers.

The towers of Silence, of which there are five, are hardly towers at all. They are about 275 feet in circumference and perhaps 25 feet high. The material is whitewashed stone and cement or mortar. A near approach to the towers is not allowed strangers to the Parsee creed, nor entrance permitted to the fire temple, where the sacred fire is kept alive and seven kinds of incense are burned.

A model of the towers is shown in the registry room and an attendant explains them to visitors. The attendant explained to me the circular rows which the bodies were placed — one for the children, one for the women and one for the men. When the bodies have been stripped of their fleshly covering by the vultures, which takes perhaps half an hour, the bones remain for a while, and are then dropped into a well in the center, which is provided with drains and water flushes. Charcoal is the chief purifier.

On this New Year day there was a Parsee funeral, which could be observed only at a respectful distance. There were the four professional body bearers, with the bier on their shoulders, and a procession of perhaps fifty mourners in their white robes walking two abreast, each pair holding a handkerchief. The Parsee accounts say that the body is received by two bearded attendants at the entrance to the towers, and that by them the shroud is removed and then vultures do the rest. This is probably what happened that day.

All I could note on this occasion was a sudden movement of the vultures in the palm trees. There seemed to be hundreds of them. They paused for a minute on the outer edge of one of the towers and then disappeared within. In a few minutes they reappeared.

The Parsee method of disposing of the dead is, perhaps, as the Parsees say, more sanitary than the Christian burial in the earth, or even than the Hindu cremation. It meets the tenet of their faith that fire, water and earth are too sacred to be polluted. But the western mind cannot become accustomed to it.

In conclusion, it may be said that there are other New Year observances in India besides the New Year of the Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus and Parsees. There is a Chinese colony in Bentinck street, Calcutta, and the Chinese there observe the New Year as they do in the United States, or in any other section of the world in which they are found.

India Feels the Effect of Woman's Forward March

1895

Dropping Old Forms

In an interesting article lately written Mrs. Ernest Hart says: "I had the pleasure of meeting a large number of Brahmo-Somaj ladies in Calcutta and seeing a great deal of them. They are highly educated, many of the younger women having been trained in England, and some of them having passed the ordeal of university examinations. At home they live like English women.

"My husband and I were entertained at parties at their houses and I attended the service of their church on Sunday. They interested me deeply, and I sincerely trust that the acceptance of an exalted faith and a high civilization will not separate them in sympathy from their Hindu sisters, of whom they are the natural leaders in matters of reform, education and in the bettering of the position of women in India.

"In the Brahmo-Somaj church in Calcutta there is a screened gallery where sit unobserved ladies who have not yet made up their minds to 'come out' of the zenana. The step is a great one for them to take, and even when the husband and father approve, there is much hesitancy. Some women have been influenced by Christian teaching, others by the doctrines of the Monotheistic faith, but I was informed in Calcutta that every year ladies come out of the zenana and join no church. I met several of these ladies; they had a self-assertive manner which was not pleasing.

"The ladies of the Brahmo-Somaj wear a graceful dress. Over a close-fitting bodice and straight skirt, the soft silk or muslin sari hangs in folds and is gathered up on one shoulder. Out of doors a low bonnet or toque is worn, which is frequently trimmed with gold lace.

"There are a large number of native women studying medicine, midwifery and nursing in the medical schools of India. Of the two hundred and twenty- four women returned as studying for the year 1893 no less than one hundred and thirty-six are native women. Among these are eighteen Hindus, twenty-eight Bengalis, sixty-five native Christians, seven Karens, nine Burmese and one Shan." — London Queen.

Easter - The Good News in Church This Week

1908--

Easter Sermons in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Universalist Church - "The Easter Alleluia," Rev. W. A. Pratt.

First United Presbyterian Church - "The Glory That Followed the Sufferings of Christ." In the evening service, "Sadness in the Midst of Joy."

Westminster Church - "Like Unto the Son of God," Rev. Geo. W. Bryant.

Bethany Congregational - "The Risen Christ," B. H. Morse, minister.

First Lutheran Church - "Glory of the Empty Tomb."

The other churches, and these as well, have numerous Easter anthems, recitations, hymns, cantatas, and special programs.

Musical selections from around town include, "From the Depths," "Let Mt. Zion Rejoice," "To the Hills I Lift My Eyes," "Mary's Offering," "As Panteth the Hart," "Unfold Ye Portals Everlasting," "Welcome Happy Morning," "See, the Day Is Dawning," "They Have Taken Away My Lord," "Christ Is Risen," and quite a few others.

The First Baptist Church's recitations are "Christ the Lord Is Risen," "What Does Easter Mean to You?," "Easter Bells," "The Light of the Easter Morning," and, by the class of the primary department, "How Daffodils Come Up."

--The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, April 18, 1908, page 11.

Boy Victim of Cult is Lost; The Zoroastrian Connection

1912--

BOY VICTIM OF CULT IS LOST

William Lindsay is Stolen From the Custody of Court Officer

CHICAGO, Jan. 4.—A second disappearance of William Lindsay, 13 years old, heir to the fortune of his uncle, Charles R. Lindsay of Philadelphia; the appearance on the witness stand of a cult leader, and the introduction of testimony controverting the latter's assertion that the boy and his mother held places in the cult different from other members, were the features of today's hearing in the juvenile court involving the Rev. Dr. Ottoman Zar Adusht Hanish, head of the Mazadazuan cult here.

The proceedings are the outgrowth of the uncle's attempt to remove the boy from the cult's "temple" here, where he was living and where, with his mother, he was receiving "treatment" in accordance with the Mazdaznan belief.

Attorney Oscar Brecher, to whom the boy has been entrusted by the court, reported that an abduction plot had made it impossible for him to keep his promise to have the boy present today.

Hanish denied knowledge of the whereabouts of the boy or of his mother. He declared himself of royal descent, and said that he was known by the term "master" to his followers; said he became a doctor at a Chicago medical school and was characterized as "reverend" by his own society. He told of trips about the country with the Lindsay boy at the mother's expense; told of visiting Mrs. Lindsay at her New York apartment and denied that any improprieties took place at the temple.

Mrs. Alma Reakirt of New York, sister of Mrs. Lindsay, said her sister had told her Dr. Hanish was considered the reincarnation of Christ. She also described mystic rites of adoration performed before pictures of Christ and Hanish by Mrs. Lindsay and the boy. Mrs. Lindsay, she said, told her Hanish said she was a princes of France and that the boy was the "lost orphan of Louis XVI."

Mrs. Asenth Cochran of New York, a friend of Mrs. Lindsay, said the latter had told her of the discovery of Christ in Hanish and gave as proof the statement that the cult leader "told her all about herself."

--The Billings Gazette, Billings, Montana, January 5, 1912, page 1.