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2 THE cOPTAL OF BFLGiUM THE ORIGIN OF THE CITY OF BRUSSELS. A Second Paris on a Smaller Seale, and Has a Population of 200,000. Some time in the sixth centur ry St. Gery, the Apostle of Belgium, fixed his abode on an island in the River Senne, and gathered a village community round him, to which he gave his own name. Such, accord- ing to tradition, is the origin of the city of Brussels. hether the tra- * dition is authentic or not, both the] town and its name can claim a his- tory going back over at least four- teen centuries. Mention of Broek- sele or Brucselle, "the village on the brook, occurs in the chronicles of the eighth and tenth centuries. Situated on one of the main Frankish reads, Brussele possessed considerable strategic and trading importance. The Emperor Otto the Great founded or endowed the church of St. Gudule here in 966, and later in the same century Charles, Duke of Lorraine, made it the centre of his court. Afterwards it. became the chief seat of the war- like Dukes of Brabant. In the fif- teenth century Brussels had grown from St. Gery's primitive settle- ment into a flourishing trading town of 45,000 inhabitants, a very large city under medieval conditions, though at the same epoch Ghent or could number a quarter of a million citizens. It was then surrounded by the city wall, which, according to the chroniclers, ' took twenty-two years to build, and which remained until 1830. Besieged and Bombarded. In its subsequent history the city raw the brilliant courts of the Dukes of Burgundy, and of the Spanish and Austrian Emperors. It was the scene of the first rising in the Ne- therlands against the Spanish domi- nation. During the war of the Spanish Succession it was besieged and bombarded by the French under Villeroi, who plied the city with red hot shot. In the conflagration which reread many of its ancient e d, and six- teen shinies and four thousand houses are said to have been burn- ed to the ground. Brussels has aleo its historical associations with the French Revolution, for in the Grand Place the French Republic was. proclaimed by Doumo Modern Brussele, the beautiful |°°™* and well-planned capital, dates from the revolution of 1830, when the uneasy partnership of Holland was dissolved. Since that date the city has been practically trans formed by the zeal and energy of its burgomasters, aided and sup- ported by the Belgian rulers. In particular Brussels owes much of its beauty to King Leopold IT. Of lim one of the recent. historians of Belgium has said that "Brussels was little more than a provincial town when he came to the throne: he made it @ city of palaces.' Apart from the strategic reasons that dic- tated its abandonment at this time, it can hardly be matter for surprise that the Belgian authorities should shrink from risking the destruction of the fruits of the labor of the last four generations by offering a re- ristance to its entry, which at best could have little military result. It may be hoped that, however the tide of war may roll, Brussels. will be spared from the horrors of ~ bem- bardment. . at Long and Varied. But despite the transformation which has made it a second Paris on a smaller, but scarcely less impres- sive scale, Brussels presents in its architecture many records of _ its long and varied history. The churches of St. Gudule, and the old merket place, the Grand Place, where the Dukes of Burgundy held their tourneys, and where the pa- triots, Count Egmont and Hoorn, were executed by the Spanieh, carry the mind back to medieval times. he University, housed by the pal- ace built for Cardinal Granvelle by Sebastian and Jakob van Noyen, speaks of the Renaissance period. The upper town preserves its eigh: teenth century aristocratic flavor in contradistinction to the more mod- ern and restless architecture of the Quartier Leopold. An enumeration of the numerous fine buildings, old and modern, of the capital . the Palais de la Nation, the Paj- ais, de Beaux Arts, the Hotel de Ville and the rest--would be ol ous. No visitor to Brngeele, how- ever, can avoid the sight of that commanding and imposing structure the Palais de Justice. This. gigan- tic building, the largest of the nine- teenth century, covers an area con- siderably larger than St. Peter's at + and tn its strength and solid- ity:recalls the monuments that have come down from the ancient civili- zations of Egypt.and Assyria. indeed largely designed on 'the mod- els of the temples at Karnak and Nineveh. This great structure, built-in 1866, we not completed m- ti] 1883, and on% same two and a They are more than usua ~ Bathing Houses at Fashionable Ostend Now Shelter Belgian Refugees. Ontend is the fashionable watering place' of Belgium, and its one of the sights of European travel. being used to house the Belgian women and children, whose homes or more of bathing houses have been interesting just now because they are were burnt by the German invaders. half million pounds sterling to con- ir tict.. The City. of Brussels Proper. that is the municipal area enclosed by the Boulevards, has a population of about 200,000. It is. surrounded in the little kingdom during eighty years of peace, have grown with amazing rapidity. This Greater Brussels -- the "Agglomeration Bruxellois"--contains a population of 700,000 souls. Brussels is a bi- lingual city. In it the two elements that go to make up the nation min- gle, and while French is the busi- ness language Flemish prevails in several quarters of the town. The city is the centre of a number of in- dustries. Brussels lace and Brus- sels carpets are known everywhere. The furniture and carriage-making industries employ many workers; there are also cotton and woollen manufactures, and a good deal of brewing is done. In our own day also Brussels, sonst 70 miles from pls Se ing Soanoced by canel with the Scheldt. These mercantile developments, however, have played but a subsi- iary part in the rapid growth of Brussels. It is a ntial city, the seat of Government and the Court, the centre of the kingdom's artistic and educational activities, that it has attracted to itself the well-to-do and aristocracy of Bel- gium. That fact that minimizes to a considerable extent the impor- tance which attaches to it at the resent time. It occupies no such position relatively to Belgium as London does to our country. The occupation of London by a foreign Power would be a blow from which Britain might find it hard to re- cover, so intimately is the organiza- tion of national industry and finance bound up with the capital. The oc- cupation of Brussels, on the other band, unwelcome and distressing as it must be to Belgian national feel- ing, carries with it no such paralysis of national activity. Genius and Brains. Investigations show that the brain of the famous M. Bertillon, late head of the Identification De- partment in the Prefecture of Po- lice in Paris, was considerably above the average in weight. Such brilliant men as Bismarck, Cuvier, Kant and Turgenief also possessed brains far beyond the portion al- lotted to ordinary mortals. Tur- genief one of the heaviest brains on record. Apparently. therefore, that peculiar grey mat- ter known as brain plays a very important part in the success of mankind. We are apt to dub a fail- ure as "lacking in brains." Con- tradictory to this, however, is the fact that men whose genius has moved the world, and whose brains will be remembered for all time, have been the owners of brains far below the average in weight. The brains of Descartes, Ghelly, and Schumann, for considerably below standard the _ normal ee How All May Help. There are'some who fee! that ow- ing to circumstances or. responsi- bilities they are cut off from any obviously clear way of giving active co-operation for the national. bene- fit. It seems to me t me who. feels that he may at charge himself with this respoosili ity: that no action 5, or indirectly, or of those he fluence, shall tend to aid to increase such noeeas ae cessarily prevails -at present.-- cs instance, weighed | ,: Archbishop of Canterbury. * _ GENERAL SMITR- DORRIEN. Has Covered the Whole Ground Open to British Soldiers, ) General Sir Horace L. Smith- Dorrien, is the first great hero ee the war. General Sir John F in his official] report to the Ws fice, gave the whale credit of ing the entire left wing of the tish army in France from : tion at the hands of the Germa to Smith-Dorrien, who,- by the way, was in command of the Canadians in the South African War. General French declares him to be a '¢om- mander of rare and unusual cool- rime intrepidity, and ina- be Bri- a- Sir Horace has coveiil pretty well the whole ground open--until the other day--to an English sol- ier. That means Egypt whe times), South Africa (twice), Ind and a host of "penny. fights at AY , dershot." His first fighting waé in the South Attias war that ended with dieaster at Prete He was stery like Enatiofenen, bus one sees the ground," wrote Colley after the event, "the more unintel- ligible the --_ affair is. The mar- vel of how a large army could have romaine in the vicinity unnoticed grows upon me.'"' When Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien writes his memoirs he will now have great- er battles to describe, but let him not forget the engagement ¢ that w _ his first medale and still puz zles the historians. At Islandula, as at Ginnis, he } seen the most serious fighting' could possibly have come his inniss was the most tho piece off business put a by our Egyptian army before K er took it in hand, and Sir Ho: put the finishing touches to the: penenienss when he and his moun troops pursued the retiring A few years later, and hé joi the Chitral Relief Force; and] in}; 1898 Khartum came to complete, a larger scale, his military tion in that part of the world. Fop teen -years ago he was given® mand of the 19th Brigade in So th Africa. He kept the lines of munication south of Pretoria, his brigade harried the Boers tinually. He came . through with promotion, and with Lord Kitehener for a backer. Even Botha, most chary in his admirations for Eng- lish generals, found an opportunity of complimenting the most pressing of his adversaries. The Eighth Campaign. Sir Horace was +alf-inclined think of South "Africa as won of Lord Kitchener, gt after India came with Aldershot his A. AD Gs the King in 1910. His mee conte. Bir Horse and and his f arranged things together the War Qilos when the ammnTot ever M. Grierson's death came over the wires. took Appoint a successor. Unlike several of the big witlébeary men of the moment, Sir Horace is a Public School boy. He is one of the Harrowers of the enemy. The son of a soldier (a late captain in THE AYE-AYE. Madagascar Mammal Is Nature's Curiosities. In spite of the well-worn maxim that "beauty'is only skin deep," most people base their, admiration, in part at least, on external ap- pearances. We are especially like- ly to prefer those four-footed ani- mals that possess pleasing forms and bright colors. se that are grotesque and ungainly, however, have a fascination that is. some- times as hard to resist as to under- etand. None of the curious animals that nature has fashioned is more spec- tre-like than the Madagascar mam- mal called the-aye-aye. Its gro- tesque features suggest vividly the wei ofa In The Animal World, Mr. W. 8. Berridge describes it as about three feet in length, with long, coarse fur of a dark brown or black color. The tail is long and bushy, and the ears are remarkabe for their size. The hands and feet are unlike those of any other creature, for the fingers and toes, with the exception of the great toes, are exceedingly long and slender, and furnished with at- tenuated claws. These, combined with the peculiar staring eyes, give the creature a most gruesome ap- pearance. The slender fingers play a curious part in the feeding habits of the aye-aye. By their aid the animal can dislodge from their hiding places the grubs and insects that form a part of its diet. When it gets an orange the aye-aye will first One of aerial beacon which the upper hemisphere, FIRE AS BEACON TO SHIPS PRACTICE DATES BACK TO DAWN OF HISTORY. Modern Devices os on Which the In- termittent Beacons Are Operat The use of fires to inform the na- vigator at dark and in foggy wea- satiny. In ancient times torches * ere' lighted or heaps of logs burnt, but our inventive age has produced ° becons in which the rays from vari- ous sources of light are re-enforced by mirrors and lenses. ons, strides made by navigation, have ese in accordance with the rapid lately been developed to extraord- inary perfection and variety. The airman requires a simHar means to find his way in the atmos- pheric ocean as navigators at sea. Whereas the light from beacons in the sea need be seen only in a prac- tically horizontal direction, Jights for aerial navigation must so give out their beams as to be visible from any point of space situated above the lowest flying level. A Berlin (Germany) firm has for some years been engaged in experi- mental work destined to produce special types of searchlight for aerial navigation. The first type of they evolved A Stationary Apparatus radiating freely in.an upward di rection beams of light coming from: whereas the 3 bite a circular hole in the fruit, and} beams from the lower hemisphere the 3rd Light Dragoons and 16th then hold it against the side of its] were deflected in a practically hori neers), Sir orace was born open mouth, while with the long]zontal direction by a set of Y-six years ago; two elder bro- fingers of its disengaged hand it} prisms. The type eventually de thers entered the navy, and one the/ scoops out the entire contents of veloped, however, comprises sever church. His family is the same--| the orange until only the skin is}al belts of lenses, sending out uni with a difference !--as that which] jef,, '| formally in al] directions the beams lords it in the Scilly Ieles:| The aye-aye is related to the le-|of a lamp placed in the focus. "King of the Scillies' * _18/murs, although when it was-first] A point was made from the outset the local title given Mr. | discovered, its chisel-like teeth led|so to design these intermittent Thomas Smith-Dorrien-Smith, who|the naturalists to believe that it] beacons as to allow each place to can claim among other distinctions that he is probably the only Eng- lishman to go to the trouble of as- suming the name of Smith by Royal License. French, says the French- man, was the pre estined name of the commander-in-chief of the expe- ditionary forces; Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien has its value, 'too; it is British, and it sounds well in the ears of everybody who knows the record behind it. He Loves His Soldiers. He ie a man who loves his work. But above all he loves the men wh pe sb ritish uni dershot command in 1907-he decided to trust the soldier's sense of honor rather than the syetem of picketing to keep order in the streets. ~ One of the pluckiest acts perform- ed by a British officer stands to the credit of General Smith-Dorrien. During the South African war his brigade, which included the Gordon f° gage moved forward to take nm Boer position at Doorn- kop. The Highlanders dashed u the hill impetuously, and Aan Smith-Dorrien, realizing their dan- ger of being surrounded, set off as fast as his horse could gallop straight across the enemy's front in order to turn them back. The onlookers held their breath as a hail of bullets beat up the earth -|all round the intrepid rider, but he S through unscathed, and hav- succeeded in his object, calmly conta to his position in the rear of the troops, and proceeded to de- T-|velop his plans for the attack as , quietly as though he were exercis- ing troops on the parade ground. ----Fr-_-_ __ COREAN JUSTICE. Until Recently Trials Were Most One-sided and Unjust. The Corean judge dispenses jus- tice in the open, and by etiquette only the judge can sit. Every one else must stand, except the prisoner and his friends, who are forced to in a humble, kneeling posi- tion with bowed heads. Until quite recently these trials were always very one-sided and shockingly un- juet. When a man was brought to a judge it was taken for granted he was guilty, and if he did not con- fess he was tortured and made to) do so. Witnesses, too, were openly bribed. In fact, giving evidence for or againstan accused person meazt a living to a portion of the com- munity, and these witnesses natur- ally favored those who paid best. --_--_--_--_k--____. Drink "Dish"' of Tea. The Tavistock--the bachelors' hotel in Covent Garden--is prob- the|ably the only place in London where a man must drink his "dish" of tea after the fashion of a century more ago. These dishes are cups without _handles. ; Lord | They are larger than those used by .| Kitchener exactly three minutes to our great - great - grandmothers, which would hardly suit the modern masculine demand. The cae dishes are of uniform white china with a broad Hep saad: was a rodent. The\natives of Madagascar great- ly dread the ave-aye, and have a superstitious. that if thev should touch one they will die with- in a year; certain individuals, how ever, claim to have a secret power by which they can overcome its evil influence. When it is accidentally caught in the traps set for other creatures, the owner of the trap, unless he believes that he is pos- sessed of the secret power, liber- ates it, after he has smeared fat over its body as a peace offering. PORT oF WILD ANIMALS. - 'Slagapere Callen Place tor for mae "More animals--wild o that is --are shipped from Singapore than from any other port in the world. 'Singapore is the collecting place for half Asia, and there are steamships which actually specialize in this trade and cater for it. Elephants, panthers, leopards. deer and monkeys of many kinds, crocodiles, snakes, in huge variety-- all these are shipped at Singapore. The collectors buy snakes wholesale from the Chinese who are particu- p| larly good about getting the crea- tures they want Wild animals won't etand confine- ment in the hold of a ship. They are all, or almost all, carried as deck cargo. i extra ri sudden change of temperature may play havoc with a valuable consign- ment, The most precious of all four- legged passengers is a giraffe. A giraffe is a most difficult creature fo catch alive, and when caught too often dies before it reaches the For twenty years, from 1880 to 1900, only three giraffes were brought to Europe. During the present century the supply has been larger, owing to the opening up of East Africa, particularly of the Sudan. A young giraffe, even before ship- ment, is worth at least $1,000, and needs two men to look after it. One that was sent from Delagoa Bay to the London Zoo was eleven feet high, and was packed in a huge box ten feet high, with an opening in the top for the lengthy creature to put me head out. Something like $250 worth of fodder was shipped for its consumption on ba voyage, end when it was | he box was found to be too big to ~ through the railway tunnels. Every bridge and tunnel- was measured, then the box was re-|- duced to eight feet, telescoping Mr. Giraffe, but he arrived saf y in London bins ne the worse for his cramped journey. x. big elephant is an awkward ani- 1 to handle, especially to get aboard ship. Elephants, as a rule, some aerial beacon must have a distine- only means of reducing the able the aeronaut, his log book, descent lamps or gas (e.g., constructed which from the horizon to the zenith. order to be seen from all points of be distinguished from any other by| characteristic mark. tach tive mark of its own, this being the risk of the aeronaut's losing his way. Such marks are made up of variable sue- cessions of light given figures. flashes denoting! These characteristic flashes en- with the aid of to ascertain 'the place beacon is situated. Other methods of characterizing the {by @ sequence of long and short place; e.g.,! mes ams necors ance with the ] ; tanteras, would "fie seem to be de- -- sirable. In fact, the use of the Morse signs would presuppose. a perfect familiarity with the Morse alphabet, and the adoption of col- ored lights would be impracticable on account of the considerable re- duction in luminous intensity. due to the insertion of colored glasses. e Aerial Beacons are designed to emit an unlimited' sequence of flashes of sufficient Ju- minous intensity. Electric incan- acety-! lene or Blau gas) lanterns are ised' as sources of light. One is an elec- tric searchlight comprising special lamps (of up to 50,000 candle power), surrounded by a lens system whic cl is so designed that the beams light in clear weather are a ae up to 40 kilometers as a minimusn. -A glass globe covers the lenses on the top. a discharge hood serving to prevent excessive heating in the in- terior of the Jamp. . The distinctive flashes previously, referred to are produced by a spec4 ial switch. In flashing the beacons for aerial navigation the end sig- nal is of great importance. While marking flashes of one and one-half seconds as i maximum have |een found to 'be absolutely sufficient. a light of about five seconds' dura- tion is desirable for the end signal. Wherever electrical energy is available the use of electric search lights will be found preferable, whereas On mountain tops and close to the seacoast, where there iy no supply of electricity, gas-operated eacons are usec 1) advantage. Rotating beacons have also been i combine the beams of light in a bundle seen as a narrow luminous band wn a space this band must be given a ™- tation round its axis. a In Costa Rica. Taking the country generatly. the laboring classes, or peons, are about two-thirds pure padies. They are industrious, and very many of them are landowners in a emall way. Costo Rica, in fact, has a very large number of smal]! land- That is one cause of the owners. ips. When um bought] stability of the government, for the famous Jumbo for $10,000, it} revolutions, so common eleewhere to enter the box in which he «as eventually shipped. No Trouble to Change. "That is a = eb Ti hat."' 'A charmin, ' said the sales- lady, "but nay a suitable to a brun- ette. Now if you were only a blonde. "T must have that hat. I'!] be a blonde." but when the election is held, parties abide by the result. in Latin America, and especially in some of the neighboring Central American republics, in Oosta Rio States, they have plenty of excite- unknown United are ca. As in the ment during an electoral campaign, all Anna Held, the French actress, recently won $7,000 on a dream she had about a race horee. -