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that he takes no credit to himself for this wonderfully novel work of being the first to teach these natives to write. Then they apply the symbols to their own language, in addition to the task of committing the shorthand alphabet. The Indians now using this phonetic system for writing are some half-dozen tribes or more living along the Thompson and Fraser Rivers. It is in these languages that the prayers, hymns, parts of the Bible, and the church ritual have been published. The focus of all religious and intellectual activities, and the one point of pilgrimage from long distances by land and river, is the Church. This structure is a white frame one, similar to those to be found in villages of East

ern Canada and the United States, was built by the Indians and presented to their highly appreciative priest. They have also made him a present of a carriage and team to enable him to make his visits to far-off villages. The Church has a cheerful interior with comfortable pews. The most striking oddity, however, to the white visitor is the curious hymn and prayer books whose pages are full of the curious shorthand symbols. Father Le Jeune preaches in the several native dialects of the country, especially Chinook, the ordinary trade language used between different tribes and whites throughout British Columbia, Alaska and the Northwestern coast of the United States.

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A page from a unique shorthand newspaper. Read by the Indians of British Columbia. It has sixteen pages and contains church and local information. Pastor Le Jeune had special type made for it, and it is printed on one of the presses of the nearest city.

On church and feast days, the whole community attend services. The church is well lighted by acetylene gas, and illustrated stereopticon lectures are frequently given by the pastor. In the rear of the church is the educational rooms, where Father Le Jeune gets up his quaint shorthand paper. This has sixteen pages, about the size of the average book, devoted to church and various local information. "Wawa" is the word for talk in the Chinook jargon, hence Father Le Jeune chose that name for the quaint newspaper. It was printed on a mimeograph for the first year, but after this, the priest succeeded

in having type made for it and getting it printed on one of the presses of the nearest city. A full page of this unique publication, here reproduced, shows the curious shorthand symbols used in the church service. Several years ago, the Passion Play was enacted here by the Indians under the direction of the priest. They are quite proud of their performance, and speak of the event with unusual pride. For a novel picture of progressive Indian life, Father Le Jeune's queer "Wawa" and his band of Indian shorthand writers, quite overshadow all others to be met with in British Columbia.

DUSK ON THE VILLAGE STREET

BY GRACE CROWELL

Dusk on the village street
And a hush over all descending,

Save where the nightwind wakes

In a tremulous whispering breeze—

Or an echoing step

On the walk; and birds homeward wending

With soft swishing of wings

Through the boughs of the darkening trees.

Dusk on the village strect

And smoke from the chimneys ascending

Speaking of the supper hour

In friendly, circling blue

Pungent the smoky air

And sweet with the earth scents blending

And pleasant the early light

At a casement gleaming through.

Dusk on the village street,

And restful the long day's ending,

Happy the village hearts

And neighborly kind are they.

Peaceful the quiet street,

And a little white moon now lending

A hallowed, softening light

Through the deepening twilight grey.

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that collectors press and dry, and proudly exhibit as rare and beautiful seaweeds. Dwellers along, the sea coasts, who see some species of these peculiar animals almost every day, are as ill-informed in this regard as travelers from the interior making their first visit to the seashore, and receive suggestions to the effect that their "feather mosses" and sea-fans are really animals with open scorn.

Most deceptive of all animals in this regard are the Coelenterata, or polyps, formerly known as zoophytes, or animalplants. One writer has remarked that Shakespeare's description of old age is peculiarly applicable to the Coelenterates:

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Many of the plant-like animals microscopic in size, but others are several inches, or even several feet, in length or diameter. Even the sponges were long believed to be plants. Aristotle was the first to point out the fact that this belief was erroneous; but his arguments were long disputed, and sometimes ridiculed. However, it will hardly do to ridicule the ancients on that account, for even in these days of the universal diffusion of knowledge there are scores of plant-like animals

1. Kelp air sac covered with hydrozoa. 2. "Ostrich plume," a curious form of animal life mistaken for a seaweed.

ists, always occurring in groups or colonies of associated animals. Thus low in the scale of creation, long before the dawn. of intelligence, nature worked out the social necessity of co-operation and the division of labor. In some genera, certain individuals have an open end with a crown of microscopic tentacles. These tentacles capture the floating organic cells that serve as food. Other individuals of the colony attend to the function of reproduction. The manner of reproduction is one of the strangest phenomena of organic life. In some genera the reproductive zooids set free tiny medusae, or jellyfishes-animals that differ widely in appearance and structure from their parents. When the medusa reaches maturity it deposits eggs, which float in the water until they become attached to some object, where they grow and develop into new hydroid colonies. This fact of two different forms of being, necessary to one

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Sea pansies.

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"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, everything." Devoid of any of the physical senses, without intelligence, without power of locomotion, and probably without consciousness, there is little about these strange animals to differentiate them from plants, except the function of digestion. The body is a sac, containing a digestive cavity. Essentially that is all there is to the Hydrozoa, an important class of the Coelenterata. Nevertheless, these animals are found in varied and beautiful forms, multitudes of individuals being arranged in colonies with an appearance of great complexity, although each individual of the colony consists of but a few simple cells.

To the unaided eye, the hydroids appear to be plants beyond the possibility of doubt; and the illusion is heightened by their manner of growth, firmly fixed by root-like appendages to shells, rocks, seaweels, piling, or anything else that happens to be at hand. These were the first communists-the primordial social

Fragment of help leaf, with hydroid colonies.

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