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A PERSIAN RUG WEAVER AT WORK.
•^^■^HERE, that’s a rood picture of
■ nn oriental rug weaver,”
2 rail th*- editor. “And speak-
* ing of rnr.i," continued the
editor, ”I lira: d Murnford, the expert,
lecture last night on oriental rug'. Ke
must have had $20,000 worth of them
with him. I never raw such roods,
thh it, nft. fin* and exquisite In color
ing. Murnford said one might examine
a hundred of tliem, and he would never
And any that vtat quite regular In
shape or design. The orientals have a
superstition that a rug of perfectly
regular pattern bring* bad luck,
whether to the owner or maker he did
not s.:y.”
"The maker's bad luck would be rot
ting: a small price for the rug, 1 should
■ay.” remarked the scribe.
"Tho maker doesn't rot much for It
In any case. In orient, as in Occident,
the one who docs the work does not rot
the money. Some of these beautiful
oriental rues take the lifetime work of
•everal persons, and they sell for thou
sands of dollars each, many of them to
American multimillionaires.”
K *t
•The designs, though, are often made
In America," said the scribe, with
patriotic pride. "They are made here
by young women from the schools of
applied design and sent to the orient
to be fabricated there — brains in
America, fingers in Asia.”
"yes," replied the editor. "Murnford
Bald so, and he said, too. It was the
ruin of the oriental rug artistically. It
Is tho same old story everywhere—com
mercialism destroying art. The designs
sent over from America are Incongru
ous and Inappropriate applied to orien
tal rugs. For uges these have been
made on patterns significant and sym
bolical. Many had Mohammedan aph
orisms and pious sentences wrought
Into their texturo. The weaver wove
his thought and soul into the work.
Tou can seo the man in the picture is
doing that.
"Murnford showed us Mohammedan
prayer rugs with one place for the
forehead to be bowed upon quite to the
ground, another spot for tho knees, an
other for tho.feet.’'
"I suppose It would be black magic,
devil worship, like saying the Lord’s
prayer backwards. If the true believer
happened to get his head where his
feet ought to be upon the rug,” said
the scribe.
"No doubt. And hundreds of Ameri
cans tramp over these prayer rugs In
their Yankeo homes every day and
don’t know or care what they are.
The true follower of the prophet car
ries one of them with him on his
travels, and when the muezzin cries
| the hour of prayer down the rug goes
anywhere Its owner happens to be and
i down he ‘flops’ upon it and mumbles
the words for such occasions made and
j provided.”
"Oh. yes." said the scribe. "I remem
ber in ’Kim’ how Mahbub All. the
* Afghan horse dealer, used to take some
j hours ofT when business was slack and
put in the time praying with sundry
I ‘bellowings and dry washings.’”
I "Just so. But the old scheme is all
! going to pieces now under the present
j rampant commercialism. Even the
j soft, durable vegetable dyes used
i through all the ages by eastern carpet
■ weavers are being abandoned for ani
line colors."
"And the costliest Persian rug will
fade as rapidly as a girl’s red straw hat
under a July sun. In one day It will
[ he done for,” said the scribe, with rue
ful recollections of delicate mauves and
blues which appeared and were not like
Jonah’s gourd.
"Just so again. It wjll hardly pay,
then, to tie 50.000 knots by hand into
every square yard of rug. as the man
in the picture is doing. Murnford
showed us how each knot is tied, one
at a time, and how the ends of the
threads are cut off and all done so
rapidly that the eye of an outsider can
hardly follow the process.”
"How Interesting that lecture must
have been.”
“I should s.iy. And yet numbers of
my respected fellow citizens, wealthy
merchants, sat there and slept through
it all.”
"But the women didn't go to sleep?”
The editor smiled.
“You bet they didn't," he said.
*t *
Probably the most famous floor cov
ering in the world, certainly one of the
most beautiful of all, is one now' shown
in the South Kensington museum. Lon
don. It is a prayer carpet, 33 by 20
feet, from the Persian mosque at Arda-
bil. An inscription woven into the rug
says, "The work of the slave of the
Holy Place, Malisoud of Kaslian, in the
year 942.’’ Mahsoud of Kashan was
the name of the slave and -the year 942
of Mohammedan chronology is 1535 of
the Christian era, so that this precious
prayer carpet is 372 years old. William
Morris, the poet, who did so much for
art in England, discovered the carpet
and assisted by several wealthy per
sons purchased it for the South Ken
sington museum. Its cost was $12,500.
Another historic rug carpet is that
which was shown for the first time in
England at the Crystal palace exposi
tion in 1851. It belonged to Maharajah
Goolab Singh, the ancestor of the pres
ent distinguished Anglicized Hindoo
family of Singh. This carpet was made
wholly of silk and contained 10,000
knots to the square foot.
* «
To account for the high price, rare
coloring and wearing qualities of these
oriental rugs it must be remembered
that they are made entirely by hand,
the workman tying knots one at a time,
in rows across the web or foundation
threads, which are stretched In the
loom above and in front of him. The
woolen threads for the knots hang in
reels above the workers. They snatch
a thread from the reel, cut it with a
knife, hook it through the strong
threads of the web. tie it, cut the'ends
the right length' and on to the next
knot. Many of the most valuable Per
sian rugs are made by boys eight to
twelve years old. They sit in rows and
knot, knot all day. Many poor Per
sians begin this knotting in earliest
boyhood and keep it up till they die
of old age. They have knotted their
lives into fabrics which the careless
feet of the rich and arrogant crush in
to the dust and grime. ,
X *
About rug and carpet making in
America.
The less said of it the better, some
aesthete will exclaim. Well, one
doesn’t know about that. We must
have carpets and rugs both for com
fort and for appearance. If American
inventive genius gives us sightly and
serviceable floor coverings at prices
w’ithln reach of all. then welcome car
pet and rug machinery. It has already
wrought a revolution in the prices of
floor coverings. Those who remember
twenty years back will recall that
brussels, axminster and velvet carpets
are now much cheaper than they were
then. Tho reason is that American
machinery, yes, and American com
mercialism, if one desires to call it so,
are now turning out the above carpets
equal in all respects to those formerly
imported at high prices. Indee'd we
may rest assured that in all kinds of
floor covering except those considered
strictly “high art,” the American ar
ticle is as good as the best and as
cheap, counting in import duties. And
no foreign land, not even. Japan, has
produced anything handsomer than the
Minnesota grass carpet.
ȣ tr.
In the way of American art rug work
the most interesting and significant is
that resulting from the movement
which is restoring to us the handmade
vegetable dyed rag and woolen floor
coverings which our great-grandmoth
ers made and which wore forever
Nothing will ever be more serviceable
or appropriate, more attractive look
ing even, for the kitchen and dining
room of a country house than theso
same rag carpets. The vegetable dyes
tho pioneer women used wore made
from the same varieties of plants as
the Persian rug dyers employ.
t» »
This movement to restore pioneer
feminine handicrafts and elevate them
to the dignity of art began at Deerfield,
Mass. A number of ancient dames who
had not forgotten how to spin, weave,
knit, dye and braid rugs were found,
and they were quite willing to teach all
they knew to the younger women. Tao
aim was commercial as well as artis
tic. for it was hoped the resurrected
industry might be placed ’on such a
footing as to make it remunerative to
farm women who have little money in
the course of their earthly pilgrimage.
In both respects the enterpri e baa
been successful. It soon spread to
other localities. At Cornish, N. H.. the
country rug makers have a flourishing
club and clubhouse of (heir own. It
was furnished from the proceeds of
their rug making, which has paid them
well.
X X
The home rug industry was inau
gurated by women from the largo
cities who were accustomed to spend
the summer in rural Now England.
Seeing how successful it was a firm of
manufacturers induced some of the
mountaineer women of South Carolina
to make tho oldtime rugs and cloths,
offering at the same time to take all
their product. There, too, rag rug
making proved a paying occupation.
But if any man wants to have his
wife regard him as a superior being
throughout the remainder of his pres
ent incarnation, let him make her a
gift of a good sized, really truly Per
sian rug. HELEN BARNABY.
SHORT KINGS.
There is hardly a king in Christen
dom whose, wife .does not overtop him
by a head.
King Edward is quite six inches
shorter than Queen Alexandra.
The czar, a little man. is overtopped
a full head by the czarina.
Kaiser Wilhelm is of njedium height,
but the German empress is tall, and
that is why the proud kaiser will never
consent to he photographed beside his
wife unless she sits while he stands.
The king of Italy, short and squat.'
hardly comes up to the shoulders of the
tall, athletic Queen Helena.
The. king of Portugal, though fatter,
is less’ tall than his queen.
Even the Prince of Wales is shorter a,
good four inches than the princess.
And the young king of Spain is sev-,
eral inches shorter than his queen.
E verything is changing for
the better, several pessimistic
women writers to the contrary.
Tho cities are growing in
opportunities and in variety of employ
ments. as well its In size.
Small towns are developing indus
tries wild are giving chances to women
as well as to men.
Country life is no longer narrow.
Good libraries, good entertainments,
golf nnd country clubs are doing their
share to take the place of narrow
mindedness and gossip.
Plenty of trains enable suburbanites
to go to the theater in town and stay
until the end of the play.
The experience of a suburban dweller
In the old days will show you what a
tragedy this used to be. She wont to
see Salvinl In "Othello” and had to
■curry out of the theater just as he
was smothering Dedesmona!
X X
The newspapers and magazines are
changing, and for this woman Is large- |
ly responsible, for she herself Is en
tirely different.
The managing editor of a big New
York paper said to me several years
ago, "The woman’s page is doomed!”
I wanted to say “Yours is!” but .1
politely refrained.
I understood what he meant for all
that; but, excuse me for flattering my
self, I think I saw further than he.
Being a woman, it is not much credit
to my cleverness that I did.
The old fashioned woman’s page is
indeed dead, as dead as the sleeves of j
three years ago.
Need I say more? ;
But women will never he tired of |
reading about themselves—never, so
long as there is a woman left.
X »t
Do you remember the time when it
was the fashion for us to be strong
minded? There were practically only
two kinds of women in those days—
those who read beauty recipes and
those who wore bloomers. At least
you would have gathered that im
pression from seeing the woman’s
page of any great paper.
If you wanted to read anything in
teresting you had to go into the men’s
section, so to speak, and then you got
not what you wanted, but what was
The managing cilitor gices his opinion.
w
MRS. STEVENS, WIFE OF THE FAMOUS
John F. Stevens, in
oa duty, Is a born
■ooBsUmes keep him
Stevens meantime
6h» was Miss Harriet O
The eldest, De!and, is twenty-three years
The second son. John F„ Jr., expects to
youngst son Is Eugene, nine years old. Mrs. Stevens
society.
ENGINEER.
handed out to you. The editor of.whom
I speak was that kind of man. He ad
mitted the dullness of the woman’s
page, but since that was all you could
put into it to fit the inferior mind of
woman, why, he only saw death for it.
That was all.
X *S
He could not foresee that there would
be a reaction In matters feminine.
Eut that reaction has come, praise
he! We are now healthy and well bal
anced and domestic and at the same
time interested in everything on the
face of the globe and—well, breath fails
me.
But I think the woman of 1907 is just
about right.
Woman is mora like the sphinx than
ever, or the chameleon, if you want to
put it that way. She has two or three
sides to her, and she is interested in
everything that concerns those two or
three separate individualities. She
may be a scientist, who is fond of read
ing about how other women are pro
gressing in her particular branch, and
yet she does not disdain information as
to the best floor polish that will en
able her house to look spick and span.
She is interested, too, in the latest
ideas on how to bring up children, and
she has her own notions on social re
form. She—
But if you really want to know what
she reads and what she is, go to the
nearest magazine stand and buy seven
or eight of those publications devoted
to woman. You will be surprised at
the variety of subjects treated. The
fact that these magazines have enor
mous subscription lists ought to show
you that women are getting what*they
want and that woman lierse'.f has
changed, has broadened and become
versatile to the point of brilliancy.
Yes, we still have fashions and
beauty recipes, but the beauty recipes
are fast growing into health recipes,
and the fashion articles show you how
to make clothes in the easiest as well
as the most effective way. Besides,
both of these subjects occupy one-half
the space they used to.
One of the moat delightful things
about these pages devoted to women is
that they show su<*h a burning desire
on the part of the, entire sex for im
provement—mental, moral and physical
—together with such pluck and such
energy it Is no woricler that the Ameri
can woman is the winder of the world.
There is such optimism, in those
pages that it fills one with admiration.
Only the other day I read a woman’s
account of how she had supported and
educated three small children, learn
ing a trade for herself at the same
time, and I tell you. newspaper woman
though i am, it fairly brought the tears
to my eyes. It was so clever and so
plucky.
*5 •?
In the old days this woman would
have allowed herself to he supported by
those same children. She would not
have struggled like a man. They would
have been put to work early and would
have received little or no education.
Now they are all educated and settled
in life, and she has a tiny home in the
country bought by her own efforts.
I happen to know the truth of this
experience and of several others which
have recently been published. Editors
? toll me they are
But there are no longer any old peo- | erness would not allow her to play with
pie in the old fashioned sense of the
word.
There are, to be sure, men and wo
men more or less advanced in years,
but class them as old people and
watch how indignant they will get!
No, indeed! They are just as lively,
just as independent, brighter, perhaps,
and more capa
ble than they
ever were.
They have
their hopes, am
bitions, interests
and occupations,
Life in most in
stances is too
short for them
all to be carried.
The modern
aged woman re
sents the idea
of being treated
like broken chi
na, with “rev
erence.”
In most cases
There ore no longer ang she receives ad-
old people. miration instead
for her capable
qualities, and her death is mourned as
that of a useful member of society.
Bless her!
X X
I am not a Christian Scientist, but I
believe with them that disease and
weakness and old age, whether mental
or physical, may be overcome glori
ously by every single one of us.
The world is coming rapidly to that
belief, and when we are all imbued
with the conviction that we must all
continue bright, energetic and useful,
all over the | w ith a distinct part to perform^ in this
country. In
fairly swamped
with good wo
men’s matter
sent by women
The fashion teas
strong minded.
of this
can not have
enough of it,
for women are
eager to read it.
It is the re
naissance of wo
man, not mas
culine and not
mushy, but as
she was meant
to be, inter
ne ested in her
home and in
matters outside
spite j world up to the very last day of life,
they -what a glorious earth it will be!
The woman's part of the newspaper
dead? !
Not a bit of it! It is more alive than I
it ever was—or rather, it is alive for i
the first time. Women all over the I
country are writing 1 letters and arri- |
of her home, but, above all, bent on
getting the best there is in life for her
self and those about her.
One can’t help but admire her!
X »S
The old proverb about the clinging
vine and the oak still holds true. The
husband should in every sense of the
word be the sturdy oak of the family.
I but when misfortune, illness or death
| cripples him the modern vine
j that she is of the variety that you see
j in South American jungles—so strong
' that it can be used as a ladder, which
will not give way no matter how great
the weight it bears.
* at
Some one bewails that this genera-
| tion has no longer any regard for old
I people.
New York.
A CLEVER CHILD.
Lady Jane Grey was the most learned
child of which history has any record.
Before she was nine years old she
wrote a beautiful hand and was able
to play on many different instruments.
She could speak several languages,
both ancient and modern, besides being
well grounded in philosophy.
When other children were playing,
she would amuse herself by reading
writings of the philosophers in the orig
inal Greek
She led a very lonely life when she
was a child, as her mother and father
hows j were often away at court. leaving her
to the care of her governess and her
schoolmasters at the gloomy family
place edd
why she 1
The b!g, square house was buil
the edge of a great forest
by acres of uninhabited 1
were very few books and not any news
the servants' children, and there were
no others suitable for her companion
ship within miles. Poor little thing!
She would have been happier with a
little more love and a little.less learn
ing.
THE TERRORS OF INSOMNIA.
While there are hundreds of. suggest
ed remedies for insomnia or sleepless
ness, not one is likely to be found ef
fectual. in all cases, because the ail
ment, if so it may be described, arises
from differerit causes. One authority
says a remedy is to be found in puffing
at a clean empty tobacco pipe—wooden
and curved. Having got into bed, the
sufferer should lie flat on his hack with
out a pillow and puff steadily at the
empty pipe until he feels drowsy. It
is said that from sixty to a hundred
puffs will superinduce drowsiness. .Puff
slowly, with a deep inhaling move
ment. The expelling motion must be
made deliberately, with narrowed lips.
The pipe should not be removed during
the entire operation, each displacing
and replacing movement tending to
wakefulness. The assurance is given,
that nervous people need not fear dan
ger in falling asleep with the stem of
a curved pipe between the teeth. Sleep
will relax the jaws, and the pipe will
drop out. The empty tobacco pipe rem
edy may or may not be effectual, but
at any rate the practice is perfectly In
nocent.
WHY THE SEA SHELL SINGS.
•Children for many generations have
listened with wonder mixed with awe
to the booming sound produced l>y
placing a sea shell close to the ear
which has been explained to them as
the "roar of the sea.” In reality this
sound is caused by the polished surface
and hollow form of the shell enabling it
to receive all sounds in the air about it
and return the muffled echoes.
OWNER OF THE MOST VALUABLE COLLECTION OF PEARLS
IN THE WORLD.
No queen or empress, not even the czarina of Russia, posses-
d BradgaVe" Perhaps that is | and beautiful a collection of pearls as one American woman, Mrs. S.
ecarne so learned.
■s so costly
imuel New-
house, does. She now lives in London and seme say is a member of the British
on! court circle, though others say not, that she is only trying to be. Her history
surrounded j is full enough of romance and incident to make her sufficiently Interesting of
ad. There herself, without any aura of "sassietv” glamour. She married very young a
poor Colorado miner who struck it rich and made an immense fortune. While.
paper
Grey
a't the castle, and Lady Jane: he was developing his claims his wife, greatly to her credit, did her house-
had no playmates, as her gov- I work and kept boarders.
ITEMS GATHERED FROM THE WORLD
Mme. Curie, discoverer of radium,
who is now a full professor at the
French university of the Sorbonne. is
to have a laboratory of her own. mag
nificently fitted up.
Women in Europe are largely claim
ing the highest educational advantages.
Quite a number of them are studying
In the German universities, either as
bospitanten (special students) or a:
semester 211 matriculated in tne uni
versities of Germany,
dents 10S are taking
cine. 66 in philcsopl _
matics and the physical science
sociated charities
ly adopted twenty-three
Mrs. Helen Avery TIar>
maulcuiants. During the last summer i Yale college dramatic club boys
There
syste:
on the
houses
Lewis-:
dotv me:
Locgir
widow
last public
to man-
low to loo!:
r men. Mrs. Ada Hannah
!I gave $J39.00G for the en-
of the Ada Lewis Women's
Houses. Mrs. I. •••: was the
Ham Lewis, a famous money
lender, who left an estate of $13,000,000.
cf which over $5,000,000 was left to
charities.
Overdressing and poor ventilation
are the causes of many colds among
children as well as babies, and mothers
ought to understand this. In a way it
is quite as bsrl to have a child too
warmly dressed as not sufficiently so.
composed of 400 female warriors. At
the age of thirteen they enter the
royal service and remain in it until
they are twenty-five, when they pass
into the reserve. Their weapon is the
lance, and they are splendidly trained
in'the use of it.
?>Iiss Annie Kenny, one of the English
north, who will confront the ministers ! walk further or endure more. She
on the floor of the house of commons. J thoroughly understands the proper
“Have you heard of the story about ; method of walking, and there is so
the empty box?” asked a woman of an much in that, because one docs not
acquaintance. “No.” “Ah, well, there
was nothing in it!”
A Baltimore teacher of physical cul-
tire so readily then.
I A woman is the originate
of the new ideas in lamp :
ture, who has given interesting lec-: are seen each season, and
_ suffrage leaders, who has been im- tures upon the subject, demonstrates
in the first case he becomes too prisoned three times, declares that if: her theory. She is seventy years old.
to cold by the women suffrage is not granted during and yet is straight, slender, supple and
.arm and is susceptibl
r.r? fact that the pores are too open.
The king of Siam has a bodyguard
she has no small part
i the fashion in these articles.
At the marriage of a Britisi
honor, if the queen consent.
this session she will march a thousand graceful. No girlish figure is more ^
women cotton operatives from the i beautiful, and no one of twenty can i ceives $5,000 as a bridal gift.
INDISTINCT PRINT