HEAD WORKS, BEAR RIVER CANAL, UTAH. tary of the Interior, under this Act, to cause proceedings to be commenced for condemnation within thirty days from the receipt of the application at the Department of Justice. "Section 8. That nothing in this Act shall be construed as affecting or intended to affect or to in any way interfere with the laws of any State or Territory relating to the control, appropriation, use, or distribution of water used in irrigation, or any vested right acquired thereunder, and the Secretary of the Interior, in carrying out the provisions of this Act, shall proceed in conformity with such laws, and nothing herein shall in any way affect any right of any State or of the Federal Government or of any landowner, appropriator, or user of water in, to, or from any interstate stream or the waters thereof: "Provided, That the right to the use of water acquired under the provisions of this Act shall be appurtenant to the land irrigated, and beneficial use shall be the basis, the measure, and the limit of the right. Section 9. That it is hereby declared to be the duty of the Secretary of the In A MODULE THROUGH WHICH WATER IS MEASURED. terior in carrying out the provisions of this Act, so far as the same may be practicable and subject to the existence of feasible irrigation projects to expend the major portion of the funds arising from the sale of public lands within each State and Territory hereinbefore named for the benefit of arid and semi-arid lands within the limits of such State or Territory: "Provided, That the Secretary may temporarily use such portion of said funds for the benefit of arid or semi-arid lands in any particular State or Territory hereinbefore named as he may deem advisable, but when so used the excess shall be restored to the fund as soon as practicable, to the end that ultimately, and in any event, within each ten-year period after the passage of this Act, the expenditures for the benefit of the said States and Territories shall be equalized according to the proportions and sub ject to the conditions as to practicability and feasibility aforesaid. "Section 10. That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to perform any and all acts and to make such rules and regulations as may be necessary and proper for the purpose of carrying the provisions of this Act into full force and effect. "Approved, June 17, 1902." The literature on irrigation is now so extensive that few persons can claim a detailed acquaintance with it. Valuable material will be found in the following works: "Irrigation in the United States," by F. H. Newell. "Manual of Irrigation Engineering." and "Irrigation in India," by H. M. Wilson. "Irrigation and Drainage." by F. H. King. "Reservoirs for Irrigation." by J. D. Schuyler. "Irrigation Farming." by Lute Wilcox. S BY MRS. HERMAN J. HALL. UPERSTITION, born and bred in the African race, is stimulated by the proximity of mountains and forests where echoing heights and musical streams suggest the supernatural. Therefore it is not strange that in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica one finds not only the choicest of coffee in the world but the wierdest of folk lore. While sojourning in Chester vale, it was our delight to waylay some wrinkled, brown, old man and coax him to tell us about the duppies in the thick wood of the island. The ghost or "duppy," as it is termed by the natives, most dreaded is the Rolling Calf, the sight of which predicts dire misfortune to the witness. Those who affirm that they have seen the apparition describe it as a huge animal spouting fire from its nostrils and clanking chains of iron as it rolls down the mountain while burning the bush in its wake. Others are depicted as a cat "as large as a goat" and a dog "the size of a donkey," with eyes that burn like vast lamps in the woods at night fall. Some of these tale bearers will eat a rat raw before relating the ghost or duppy stories as one old negro declared, to give him a "sweet mout." Every Jamaican having a drop of negro blood in his veins fears the obeah or local spellbinder. The word obeah means poisoner, and secret methods of getting rid of or tormenting an enemy by the influence of witchcraft are practiced in spite of the most carefully framed laws. When we remember that the local judges, police and other officials in the mountains are themselves negroes, we can realize how easily the culprit may be shielded. One of the well known poisons used is the juice of the casava plant, which the negroes squeeze on a copper pan and place in the sun. The most horrible insects are the result, which are dried and ground to a powder. The obeah drops into the victim's coffee or soup a tiny particle of this powder, which produces death without leaving a trace of the drug. Other poisons induce insanity. All manner of curses are invoked on an enemy by the obeah, who goes through a form of incantation by the aid of blood taken from a white cock, bits of bones and feathers from the native buzzard called Jim Crow by the blacks. A favorite prevention against thieving, the resort of some plarters, is to take a large black bottle, partly fill it with some phosphorescent quid and place within it a buzzard feather, the quill uppermost. They fasten the bottle to a tree on the outskirts of a coffee or barara patch, where it is a certain protection from demolition, the darkies firmly believing it to be the tool of the cbeah. The sick are often cruelly neglected, the in combating it. Recently, an aged fieldhand was attacked with disease. The squire of the plantation ordered especial food to be cooked for him and delegated a servant to bathe and otherwise care for him. Later on when the squire made a personal visit, he found that no one had carried out his orders. The result was that the master of the house and his wife took personal charge of the sick man, even to cooking the food they carried to his bedside. Subsequently he died, and then was displayed the unique inconsistency of the race. Former friends of the departed flocked to the house and not only insisted upon the remains being laid out in a fine new suit, including white gloves, but they held a wake for three nights when they consumed enough red and tea in the celebration to have supported the poor old man for several months during his lifetime. In cases of fever the favorite mode of treatment when any is given) is the bush bath. This consists of equal proportions of the leaves of the following plants, boiled in water: the ackee. sour sop, jointwood. timento, cow foot, sage, elder, lime leaf and Houorice. The patient is plunged into the superstition being that when they begin to bath when it is very hot and is covered with ail it is the will of God and there is no use a sheet. As soon as the steam has pene trated the skin the patient is lifted from the bath and covered with warm blankets, leaving the skin undried. A refreshing sleep invariably follows, accompanied by a decided fall in the temperature. The coffee pickers are usually the least intelligent of the blacks, from the fact that they live in the mountains far from the towns where education may be in part absorbed without effort. The language of these mountaineers becomes a dialect, quite unintelligible to the city natives. As the coffee pickers are paid by the bushel they receive higher compensation than the cane workers, the majority of them earning two shillings a day. The coffee bush shows the blossom as well as the green and ripe berry, which makes it difficult for the pickers. On arrival from the fields the hands pour their gathering into the measures of the overseer, and thence it goes to the pulping mill for the removal of the thick outer skin. It then is spread out upon the barbecues, which are huge floors of cement, generally on the hillside, that the sun may have full play upon the berry. After drying, the women sort the berries to size, and later the parchment skin and silver skin are removed, when the produce is ready for bagging. The work is so clean that it is quite the fashion among the natives for the women to wear their best clothes when coffee picking and sorting. A refreshment often provided for the hands after the day's work is called matrimony and is made of equal parts of the pulp and juice of the orange and the star-apple mixed with sugar and a dash of rum. The favorite confection is a paste made of brown sugar and grated cocoanut. Sexual morality is at an extremely low ebb, though some negroes are induced by missionaries to marry under the assurance that the names of their children shall be placed in the parish register. This honor is coveted by the better educated negroes and is influencing to a considerable extent those whose intellects are still so clouded as to see no reason or necessity for marriage rites. JAMAICAN COFFEE SHRUB. are Some of the baptismal names are most pretentious. Among those registered at St. Peters on Ginger Piece Mountain Jetorah Alvira Industry and Almahene Leminia Delight. Inter-marrying with the whites is constantly increasing, and there are innumerable families of good position in Jamaica where several shades of skin are visible. Deceitfulness and untruthfulness are the besetting sins of the race, though the educated are bravely struggling with their less enlightened kinsmen, and each year witnesses some forward step taken by these people so lately freed from bondage. LIKIN ABOLISHED IN CHINA. In the edict published August 29, abolishing the likin throughout the Chinese Empire, that government has done more to open its country to the modern progressive influences of western civilization than it has ever done before. By this system of inland tolls on passing goods China has hitherto shut out foreign commerce most effectively. As an accompaniment to this edict, the Chinese government issued also the declaration that, in the negotiations for the new commercial treaties with foreign states, an understanding had been reached for an increase of the import and export duties, and that the ministry of finance was authorized to set apart a proportion of the surplus receipts resulting from the increased duties in the place of the likin revenue. This declaration, taken together with the foreign influence brought to bear in the military operations of the recent Boxer War, makes it look probable that the edict will be carried out. It must be remembered that in the past similar provisions have been made by treaty with China which that country afterward brought to naught, like the treaty of Tientsin of 1858. Furthermore, however this new AngloChinese treaty may be hailed as a signal triumph for British diplomacy, and however praiseworthy may be the achievement of Sir James MacKay in persuading the Chinese government to remove what has been heretofore the greatest obstruction to foreign commerce with the Celestial Empire, it must be recognized, in addition to any possibility of insincerity on the part of the Chinese government, that the abolition of the likin cannot become a fact without the concurrence of all the powers. Russia, whose intentions are still uncertain, whose action will in any event be seconded by France, and whose commercial interests in China are inconsiderable, may object to an arrangement which will be chiefly for the benefit of Great Britain. On the other hand, as no opposition is expected from Germany and America, and as there is manifest advantage to all powers having im portant commercial relations with China, it is hoped that Russia and France will consider the treaty on its merits and act accordingly for the sake of economic reform. Furthermore, it cannot be denied that Russia has long desired to establish commercial interests of her own in China; and she may hail this as an opportunity for so doing. As some writer expressed it years ago, Russia has for centuries been making her way across the Asiatic continent with the irresistbetter than any other Western nation, unible slow precision of a glacier. Russia, derstands the Oriental character, which fact would give her a great advantage over all rivals in commercial competition in China. Confidence in this advantage may induce her to concur in the present treaty. |