The Floating Homes Of Bangkok

Boats are the universal' means of conveyance and communication, and a boat thus becomes a necessary adjunct of every person's household ; to its dextroua use every cliild is trained; men, women and children are equally accustomed. Perhaps the most common forra is a stout skiff about twenty-flve feet long, turning up very shapely and high beliind, like a Venetian góndola. It is broad in the bearn, and two-thirds of its length is housed over, leaving a little Hat deck in front, and a still smaller one behind. Behind stands the husband and sculls, in front stands the wife, rowing and using a boat-hook to help their way through the crowds. The front of the boat is used for business, passengere or cargo. The rear third is given up to family and domestic f urniture. For, incredible as it may seem, we soon see tliat each boat is the home of a family, father, mother, girls and boys; who are boni there, live there and die there. In the day time the children and the furniture are crowded into a space not over four feet square; at night they can spread out over greater surface. I looked into these homes with attention, and never could enough wonder or admire how closely all was packed, without seeming to jostle or painfully crowd. Also that the children íived so happily and contentedly in a space no greater than a large-sized tëaratoga trunk! It is probably a fact that there are many tenyear-old children ia Bangkok rivet who have never walked over twenty feet in a straight line, in short, who have never been on land. But then, when they come in proximity toboats whose little inmates they know, they would - boys and girls f rom frve to twelve - jump out of their boat-house, and dive and swim away to visit and gambol around together; now f ree in the water, now hanging to the boat's sida or sitting astride of the scull oar. Aud a friend tells me that he has seen thetn in their visits take with them baby, to whose shoulders mother lias prudently attached ii hollow gourd or other light float to tusare its safety. In a minor excursión up a side canal I found myself at the city residence of the prime minister - -whose name I have not now time to write out in f uil. I ran my boat all around through bis pleasure grounds, and wondered whether the worthy old gentleman considered that he was living on land or in the river. In ono part of his aquatic elysium I s-aw magnificent specimens of the victoria regia, whose leaves, round like a platter, were over two yards in diameter. Their rim was sharply turned up in a ledge an inch high, and on the raft thus formed were settled.quite at home like, a family of frogs. They, too, seemed to fall in with the humors of the country. - Chrowicle. The census takees in Utah are Donfronted with these fticts: There ire 120,283 Latier Day Saints, or polygamous Mormons; about 10,000 Josephite, or anti-polysamous Mormons, and 14,156 Gentiles. The significant fact about the first class is that more than 40,000 of thom are ehi'.dren, undcr nine years of age. Tiieso figures indícate both the present and prospectivo strength of the "saints," and how polygamy is to be used to perpetúate their strength. They reckon ill who think to expel polygamy by the infusión of a Gentile element, which is small now, and eannct hope to contend against Mormon methods of increasing a polygamous population. Equally vain is the hope of outnumbering polygamoas Mormons by a forced emigration, or by the natural prcoesa of a superior civilization aad code of moráis, unleès there be also goverument co-operation to the. extent of enforcing its own laws. Mormonism must be treated, notas in open conflict with the laws, but as an organized conspiracy todefy the authorities of govtrament. A Ru8Sian Journal is credited with saying that the Baptists give more disquietude to the Russian clergy that any other donomination, on account of their sincere devotion to religious principies and tkeir exemplary lives. The fact, which is alike a compliment to the Baptists and a reproach to the clergy aforesaid, is given as a reason f'or the rapid increase of the former in Russia. Should these disquieted clergymen instígate another persecution of these exemplary christians, they would prove themselves worthy successors of the men who persecuted the apostles for preaehing a gospel and doing a certain work of healing when the pcrsecutors themselves "could say nothing against it." The Episcopal Clergy man's Insurunc League lias paid, during the last thir teen years, $310,000 to the widows and orphans of deceased ministers.