class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 32]"/>to show too much kindness. I am astonished at the beauty of the houses here. They are all tastefully furnished and one misses the display of wealth. The houses don't seem to be divided into rooms quite like English houses. Portiéres often divide apartment from apartment, and upon festive occasions the whole bottom floor can be turned into one large room. The effect is pleasing, but one perhaps misses a certain snugness, and it must be difficult for the servants not to hear everything that goes on. Perhaps the American people think it is a good idea to let their servants hear the truth, knowing that they will find out most things in any case.

On the other side of the river and around the steel plant the people seem definitely foreign, and it is quite easy to imagine oneself in a Southern European town. The shops have Greek, Russian, Italian, Hungarian, and German signs over their doors. It is unnecessary to look into the store in order to find out what is being sold. One need only look into the ditch running beside the pavement. Masses of rotting orange and banana skins will show a fruit store. Much straw and old pieces of cardboard with lengths of pink tape will indicate a draper's. Tufts of hair and burnt out matches will show where the barber shop is.

The people all spit about the streets in this part of the town. I suppose the streets are cleaned sometimes, but never very well. At any rate, the whole mass is mixed up together in the mud and slush which accumulates, and when this dries it is blown into the air and any citizen passing breathes it. The roads in this part of the town are full of shell craters and one is bumped to pieces as one motors along. I have been told that this cannot well be helped.

The steel plant has caused a terrific influx of people and it is impossible to house them all. A doctor chap tells me that in many large rooming houses a bed has always at least two occupants during the twenty-four hours. When the man goes off to work in the morning, the fellow who has been working on night shift takes his place. I believe that soon the two parts of this town are going to join and that then they will form a city which will be able to borrow enough money to keep the place in first class order. The people are not poor and indeed there are sometimes quite thrilling murders, I have heard, for the ignorant foreigners keep all their money in a chest under their beds or hidden in some way. I hear that this was caused by clever German propaganda. The Boche envoys went about and suggested to the people that if the United States entered the war they would soon be strafed by the fatherland, and that in any case, the Government would pinch all of their money.

Opposite the steel works office there are two photographic studios. All the people photographed are of Southern European blood. One sees happy brides, merry babies, and last, but not least, many corpses surrounded by sad but interested relatives. When one of these foreigners dies things change for him at once. He is placed in a beautiful coffin, lined with the most comfortable looking fluffy figured satin. His head rests on a great big cushion. The side of the coffin, called here a casket, is hinged and falls down, thus forming a couch, on which the dead person rests. Before the funeral, all the friends, and whoever can get there in time, group themselves around the corpse and are photographed. If the coffin is not a very convenient type, it is raised, and one sees the corpse, dressed in his best clothes, with a watch chain across his waistcoat, surrounded by all his friends who, I am sure, are looking their best. Sometimes a sweet wee baby can be seen in the picture, lying in its expensive coffin, while the father and mother and the other children stand near. It is a funny idea and a little horrible, I think. These gruesome photographs are exposed in the front window. It is a curious thing that the more ignorant amongst us seem to enjoy a good funeral.

I expect, that within a couple of years, this town will be a beautiful city with parks and good roads. The climate is certainly good and the hills around are fine. The steel company now dominates the place, business has taken charge of the people here, but the natural beauty of this spot can never be changed. Let me quote from the writings of a man who arrived here many years ago. He was very much impressed with the beauty of the hills:

"The high hills around Bethlehem in the month of October present a scene of gorgeous beauty almost beyond description. The foliage of the trees contains all the tints of the rainbow, but is even more beautiful, if that is possible, because the colours are more diffused. Some trees, the pine, the hemlock, and the laurel still retain their vivid green; the sycamore its sombre brown; the maple, the beauty of the wood and valley, is parti coloured; its leaves, green at first, soon turn into a brilliant red and yellow; the sturdy oak is clothed in purple, the gum is dressed in brilliant red; the sumac bushes are covered with leaves of brightest crimson; the beech with those of a delicate pale yellow almost white; the chestnut a buff; while the noble hickory hangs with golden pendants; the dogwood has its deep rich red leaves and clusters of berries of a brighter red."

In spite of the great steel plant, Bethlehem still nests in a very lovely valley, and during the autumn the hills are just as gorgeously beautiful as when John Hill Martin, the writer of the above, visited the town.

III

SOCIAL AMENITIES IN "BACK BILLETS"

Bethlehem, December 20, 1917.

A Country Club seems to be an American institution. We don't seem to have them. They are primarily for the folk who live in towns. American folk like to get together as much as possible and to be sociable. Please remember that all my friends here are steel people and generally rich. Some belong to quite old families, but whatever they are they have all got something attractive about them.

It would be quite possible for most of them to build huge castles in the country, and to live there during the summer, away out from the noise and dirt; but they don't. They like to be all together, so they build beautiful houses quite close up to the street, with no fences around them. Pleasant and well kept lawns go right down to the road, and anyone can walk on the grass. A single street possibly contains the houses of several wealthy families. They all rush about together and give wonderful dinners. As their number is not great, the diners ought to get a little tired of one another, but they don't seem to. I have had the honour of attending many of these dinners. They are fine. The women dress beautifully, and often tastefully and the dinner goes merrily on, everyone talking at once. We are all fearfully happy and young. No one grows up here in America. It's fine to feel young. We start off in quite a dignified fashion, but before the chicken or goose arrives we are all happy and cheerful.

It is impossible to be bored in Bethlehem at a good dinner. I suppose the object of a hostess is to make her guests happy. Most men here in Jericho work fearfully hard. Men in England often go to Paris or London to have a really hilarious time. In Bethlehem a man can be amused at home with his own wife and friends, and he certainly is. He may be fifty and a king of industry, but that does not prevent him from being the jolliest fellow in the world and brimming over with fun.

Perhaps Bethlehem is a little different from most towns in this country. A man here becomes rich; he has attained