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Page 5
Meanwhile, the treaty is in the hands of the Senate, and may soon be
discussed.
* * * * *
News comes from Hamburg that the strike of the dock laborers is over.
The strikers have been beaten because of their lack of money.
In NO. 7 of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD you will find an
account of the strike, and if you will also refer to NO. 10, you
will see that it was thought that the strikers could not hold out very
much longer.
The money the strikers expected to receive from other labor unions to help
them was so slow in coming that the men and their families were in want,
and no man is likely to stand out for the benefit of others when his own
children are suffering from cold and hunger.
The men have gone back to their old employers and asked for work. The pity
of it all is, however, that during the strike others have been taken on in
their places, and the employers have now no work to give them.
After holding out since the end of October, and refusing the masters'
offer to give them $1.10 a day, and let all future troubles be settled by
arbitration, the strikers have had to give in without gaining a single
point. It is very sad.
* * * * *
The plague in India is still raging fiercely, and every one is feeling
very grave about it.
Europe is so afraid that it will spread, that the greatest care is being
taken to quarantine all people who have come from India.
All letters and merchandise are carefully fumigated, and they say that in
Italy the authorities are so frightened that they fumigate the people, as
well as their clothes and baggage.
So serious is the situation, that the Sultan of Turkey has issued an order
forbidding the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca.
The European Ambassadors in Russia and Persia are begging the rulers of
those countries to forbid pilgrims to pass through their lands, or to
embark from their ports.
You will understand what a very serious order this is, when you realize
that the pilgrimage to Mecca is a part of the religion of every Moslem,
and that about seventy thousand pilgrims go every year.
In all religions, there is some special ceremony or service that people
must attend if they wish to be considered children of God.
With the Moslems or the followers of Mohammed, it is necessary that once
in their lives they make the pilgrimage, or hadj as it is called, to
Mecca.
It does not matter how many thousand miles of sea or land must be crossed
to reach Mecca; once in his life every Mohammedan must make the
pilgrimage, if he wants to reach paradise when he dies.
The Mohammedans believe that when they have made their pilgrimage, they
are forgiven their sins, and can go back to the world as free from sin as
when they were born. All Mohammedans who have made this pilgrimage are
given the title of Hadji.
There are about one hundred and seventy-six millions of Mohammedans who
believe this, and who have been believing it, and making their
pilgrimages, since and even before the year 620 A.D.
These people are scattered through Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceanica,
which, as you know, is sometimes called the fifth division of the globe by
geographers, and consists of Australasia and all the islands below Asia.
The Philippine Islands, where Spain's second war is raging, are a part of
Oceanica.
If you will take your map, and see what an enormous portion of the globe
is inhabited by Mohammedans, and then find Mecca, which is in Arabia,
close to the Red Sea, you will understand that the making of this
pilgrimage is no easy thing to many of the Moslems, and that it must have
a most serious meaning to them to make them undertake such terrible
journeys.
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