PART TWO
EDITORIAL .
PAGES ONE TO TWELVE
IT IT
Omaha
Sun
day
Bee
PART TWO
SOCIETY.
PAGES ONE TO TWELVE
VOL. XLII-NO. 18.
OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 20, 191
SINGLE COPY TEN CENTS.
High Spots in Europe-An Omaha Man's Observations
O&ende the Place to See and Study the Sylphlike Water Nymph
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By FRANK L. HALLEK.
HE next time you go from England to
the continent, take the Dover boat
to Ostende instead of Calais. The
journey across, the channel by this
, route will' take two hours instead of
; one. If the sea is rough you will be
dead to the world anyway flat on
your back in the cabin and one hour can't make
you any sicker. If the sea is fine two hours will
pass quickly enough in wafching tye shipfe of all
nation that make this channel the "busiest stretch
of water over here. Ostende is the Atlantic City
of northern Europe and largely patronized by the
English for week-end holidays. It has a snug har
bor filled with a picturesque fleet of fishing boats,
auto launches and racing craft; a mile of sea front
hotels built of stone and brick four to six stories
in height, attractive in design and festive with flags.
Long rows of Normandy poplars and distant village
church towers give a pleasing introduction to the
mainland. . The sea wall and broad 100-foot wide
etone walk over a mile long must have cost J1.000,
000 or more. It has the famous board walk oi At-
lantte City-beat lu a fraflsnj.Oll Sunflgys-esptTall; :"
the promenade Is a most brilliant Bight. Not only
the fashion of England and of France but holiday
excursions of rural and village people from 5nearby
towns add the quaint peasant costumes to the scene..
, The Daily Parade and What Follows
Each visiting delegation marches up and down
-the broad sea walk wilh its military band and wav
ing banners. After the parade they niake a break
for the beach. On the sandy shore a tented army of
pleasure seekers in gayly striped tents are making
the lives of the countless children one long summer
of delight and bring the tint of returning health to
hundreds of convalescents just out of hospital and
Kick room. Hooded wicker chairs, protecting from
the sun and wind, and folding camp chairs galore
Ngive a home look tdcamp life. Bathing vans, from
the plain wooden fourth class springless boxes on
wheels to gayly painted cushioned-springed stained
glass bathing carriages de luxe, stand like parked
artillery, row after row, awaiting the bather. There
is no large single bathing- pavilion as with us, with
its hundred of cubbyhole dressing rooms. In spite
of the fact that it is August and an overcoat felt
comfortable, the surf was full of bathers. It is ir
resistible; you get into line wih the rest and buy
a 20-cent perforated bathing ticket, take one coupon
and go to the "costumer" and get a zebra-striped
(' armless and legless bathing suit and one towel.
Then for the other Coupon you claim a fourth class
bathing van. V The dressing room is 4x6, with two
eliding wooden windows, a cheap looking glass and
a, wooden bench fastened to one side of the room
and three nails to hang your clothes on. You pull a
wooden lever up and down that projects 'through
the eaves and has a red wooden ball on the outside
end which becomes' a signal to the man with the'
great Norman horse to come and, pull your house
Into the surf.' He taps on your window and holds
out his hat for a fee, after which your ark begins .
to. move, dragging the heavy attached sea steps
along with it..' After casting off the last remnant
of modesty you brought with you from the United
States at the same time with your clothes.'you put
on your abbreviated Sing Sing suit and start down
the steps. The minute your feet touch the water
you for the first time in Europe find all the ice
water you want. You swallow your heart four
times rapidly in succession and find after the first
' plunge there is nothing in the world so invigorat
ing as this Ostende salt water. When through with
your bath you signal as before and the great horse
comes wading into" the sea up to his breast and pulls
your car back on the beach, where as you descend
you find the bath woman, who gathers up your wet
bathing suit and towel, standing with that tip ex
pecting smile that won't come off. What takes your
breath away quicker than the Ice cold water is to
see a pretty girl come tripping out of a bathing van
in one of these skintight armless and legless Jer
seys, without stockings or bathing shoes, but with
the cutest chic little bathing cap on her head, go
into deep water just once to satisfy herself that her
wet Jersey will stick to her like a postage stamp,
and then join her companions of both sexes and all
ages attired as she is and sport in the shallow water
to the evident . delight of an admiring audience .
armed with binoculars and kodaks.
Everybody Stock lngle8 1
But more striking yet to our modest and bash
' ful American eyes is tae universal habit of
both sexes and all ages taking off their shoes and
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Frank LHaller Sends.
The Bee Another Fas
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stockings and seeing how near the waist line they
can wade in. I shall never forget one slim set
middleaged spinster dressed all in black, wearing a
large black hat, her shoes with i her stockings
stuffed into them tied by the shoestrings hanging
about her neck, her skirts gathered high up with
both her hands, standing thus calmly wading be
tween two waves, utterly oblivious of an exposure
of shining white beanpole anatomy, showing not
onlyjibove her ankles but above her knees as well.
Ostende is no place for a minister's son. The best
of good nature prevails and audible comments are
freely made. The whole beach roared "when two
extremely fat country women wearing straw sun
bonnets for bathing caps waddled ponderously out
to sea, carrying their billowing adipose on supports
whose factor of safety seemed ridiculously over
estimated. But it is the children, after all, who
hAve the best time. With little nets they ' catch
the small sea snails brought in with the waves and
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which are eaten raw. They work like beavers with
hands and spades, making sand dams to imprison
some adventuresome wave that has come top far
inland and then float their little boats. They
build towers of sand on which they, stand Awhile the -in-rolling
waters make islands for them. They dig
wells in the wet sand and build, their little castles
in Spain. The Punch and Judy shows and venders
of toys and kites fill their days with occupation in
the open air.
So tfanger Whatever of Being browned
You are not going to be permitted to drown at
Ostende. Besides the life lines and life-saving
crews in boats, expert swimmers are appointed as
. watchmen to parade the beach. Whenever an ad
venturesome bather goes beyond the danger line
the watchman blows his horn, the lifeboats start
shoreward and the offender is compelled to retreat
into safe waters.
A. l
4 JrmmT
Ostende itself is a town of hotels and boardiug
houses, with accommodation and entertainment for
all purses, well able to house 20,000 people at pne
time. A magnificent casino, with the largest and
most attractive concert hall I have seen, where
everything good to eat and drink may be had; fine
reading and writing rooms, smoking, card and gam-
Omaha Public Library and Museum
AKEN by themselves, the queer objects in
the Philippine collection in the public
library museum may not mean much
more than other scattered curiosities
from other parts of the world. But
when you try to find out something about the place
where these articles are common, and the people
who use them, they acquire a new interest.
That charcoal stove, which looks like a broken
flower pot with a clay kettle over it, does not
seem as interesting as a gas range or a blue-flame
oil stove. But when you learn that all the cook
ing in all the native homes in the Philippines is
done on just such stoves or their variations, then
it becomes a little more important , in your eyes.
In "The Unofficial Letters of an Official's Wife,'
Edith Moses says: "The stove for which I vainly
looked, and from whence came the appetizing
odors that filled the air, was nowhere to be seen,
but on one Bide of the room on a bamboo table was
ranged a number of terra cotta charcoal stoves;
over each stood an earthenware olla, or kettle; in
this primitive manner an elaborate - dinner was
being prepared." It, sounds quite easy, though,
until you read the account given by William B.
Freer in his "Philippine Experience of an American
Teacher:"
"With a stove of this kind the expert native
can prepare a banquet of. many courses and serve
IX THE PHILIPPINES
each one hot. at the required moment. But woe
to the American who, in the absence of his cook,
attempts to prepare thereon a simple meal. Likely
the fire does not burn; stooping over the Btove, he,
places to his lips a bamboo tube and utilizes his
lungs as a bellows until he blows the ashes into
the food. The fire becomes too hot, the pot boils
over and he burns his fingers trying to lift the lid
and remove some of the burning fagots. When,
finally by the exercise of great patience and self
control he finishes the cooking process, he finds
that he has for his repast a dish of food well fla
vored with smoke and burned on the bottom, which
he eats in solitude, recalling meanwhile the family
table at home In 'God's country.' "
The houses where such primitive methods are
still practiced are, of course, Bomewhat peculiar.
Some are of hardwood throughout, elaborately
furnished witness the beautifully inlaid table in
the same case with the charcoal stove. And in the
same city perhaps with these are "nlpa huts" of
the palm leaves and rough hnplements"ot different
kinds. ; Civilization seems to be curiously back
ward in some ways; well advanced in some others.
, The rice mill in this same case suggests the
slow method of preparing Hour usedt for bread in
most of the country districts in the Philippines.
This is why, as Mr. Freer says, all American teach
ers, except those ii the larger cities, eat boiled
rice in place of bread, often three times a day, as
the natives do. Certainly the rough stone mill,
operated by hand, does not give the impression
that bread would be easily or quickly prepared
from the new product.
Another case shows various Philippine articles
purchased "at the time of the Transniissisplppi ex
position': A wooden money box, neatly carved;
measures made of the hollow sections of bamboo;
a dipper of a hard cocoanut shell; a bamboo pil
low; a rice broom which resembles in shape the
fans used by the ancient Egyptians. ,
All that is needed is to furnish the background
for these and they become more than scattered
curios; they are the product of a poetical, unprac
tical people, accustomed to doing things by rote,
and lacking accuracy. Add to this a climate which
does not demand even as much of the people as
the North American climate did of the Indians
here, and you are surprised at the progress made
by the native Filipino.
If you would know more about the islands and
the people, read, in addition to the two books men-.
tioned, Worcester's "Philippine Islands and Their
People" and Le Roy's "Philippine Life in Town
and Country." These books are all obtainable at
the library.
bling rooms. In Ostende I first saw the government
telephone poles. They are usually located in an
attractive little park, a block or two apart, built of
open ironwork towering fifty feet, with an open
grill work cylinder on top from which the telephone
wires run down to houses and hotels, doing away
with unsightly poles in streets and alleys. v,
Half an hour from Ostende you come to that
most charming of old towns, Bruges, once a seaport,
tha rhfnf f-nmmnrHnl itv in mndievn KiirntiR Tin w
three miles from the sea. Still, with its lovely
canals, a northern Venice, it draws from all over
the world the artist to paint its quaint old houses,'
lovers of the fine arts to wonder at and admire its
painted shrines and old pictures, architects to study,
Longfellow's belfry of Bruges, and wearied tourists
to rest a day or two in the quiet of this old, old
town.
International Exposition at Ghent
Another half nour and you come to Ghent, which,
in to have an international exposition of botany and
agriculture in 1913. The exposition buildings are
already partly constructed. One will be the longest
greenhouse ever built, for Ghent is the City of
Flowers, having more hothouses than any city in
the world. This is the birthplace of John of Gaunt
and the castle of the counts of Flanders, nearly 800
years old, still stands complete, a perfect specimen
of medieval fortress. Splendid old churches full
of historic tombs and famous paintings altogether
will make the exposition well worth visiting next
year.
After Ghent comes Brussels, Paris and conti
nental Europe, with its endless and tasteless table
o noies eiernany me same, mere is one article
of food used everywhere abroad, howver, that we
might well adopt, and that is green. nuts of all
kinds hazlenuts, almonds and English walnuts.
While green they do not contain so much oil, are
easily digested, extremely palatable when once you
appreciate them and as refreshing as a salad,.- '
