Old Veterans Meet

Indianafolis, Sept 5.- Thanks to Queen's weather and successful carry ing out of the arrangements by the loca committee the Twenty-ninth annua encampmentof the Grand Army opened most auspiciously. So far as the nuin ber of visitor8 from outside points is concerned, the success of the encampment is already assored. All day long the railroads poured a stream of people into the Hoosier capital. No les than 50 trains with an average of 10 cari to each are reported by the officials as having arrived at the Union depot f or the 12 hours ending at 7 o'cloek Mon day night and as each car has its full quota of passengers, to sa] nothing of those in which even Btanding rooin was at a premium somewkere in the neighborhood of 30,000 must have been turned loose into the highways and byways of Indian apolis during the day. Not all of these, howeyer, were veterans. In tact. the boys in blue are al most lost in the throngs. The hardy hoop-pole yeomanry, with their wives and cliildren and other relatives near and remóte, form a large proportion o] the arrivals. It is a real live nationa Grand Army encampment, within easj reaching distance, and to keep away from it would be worse than treason And so they are here in their tens of thousands with the prospect that their numbers will be doubled before another sunset. As to the veterans, the arrivals ousside of the state posts are not by any means up to expectatious. A good many states send less than hali the total that had been scheduled a month ago as certain to be here, while a few are likely to make even a poorer showing. In the encampment proper fully 100 delegates, if not more, will fail to answer to the rollcall. Almost on the very spot in Militar} park where, 31 years ago, the citizens presented to Colonel Harrison, and his newlv oraranized Seventeenth reeiment of volunteers, the standards of Indiana and the United States to carry before them to the war, the ex-president Monday afternoon dedicated "Camp Walder," the name bestowed upon some 300 tents in which reunions of reginients and old soldier societies will be in ful blast for the remainder of the week. Ten thousand people packed Monument place and the adjacent blocks to witness the inaugural eleotrical illumination of the soldiers monument Sixty-five hundred incandescent lights bordering the base and tower of the shaft circling the approaches and arranged in flag and other devices on the four sides combined to produce an effect that almost eolipsed the gorgeous illumination of the administratión building at the world's fair.