From a Photograph.
“Travelling recently on donkey-back across a trackless portion of the Conchilla Desert in South-Eastern California,” writes a correspondent, “we sighted ahead of us above the sage-brush a nondescript object which on nearer approach resolved itself into the two dilapidated tramcars shown in the next photograph. They formed the equipment of a ‘horse railway’ across the sands ten or twelve years ago to connect a solitary station on the Southern Pacific Railway with an agricultural colony several miles distant. The farming enterprise, however, failed utterly, and the ‘horse railway’ with it. The incongruous sight of these two abandoned cars in the midst of drifting sands is all that remains to-day to tell the tale of shattered hope.”
The amusing handbill shown below refers to a curious function which is very popular in British Columbia—the “poverty social.” This is an entertainment of the kind formerly known in more conventional circles as a “conversazione.” Whereas the latter is chiefly distinguished for its formality and general uncomfortableness, these “poverty socials” are delightfully free and easy; indeed, the people attending them are actually fined if their clothes are considered at all stylish or savouring of ostentation, the idea, of course, being that everyone—rich and poor alike—shall feel entirely at their ease. Needless to say, the bad spelling and the mistakes made in the printing of the bill are all carefully designed to heighten the homely effect of the gathering.
THIS AMUSING HANDBILL REFERS TO A BRITISH COLUMBIAN “POVERTY SOCIAL,” A FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT WHICH IS EXTREMELY POPULAR.
HALF-A-DOZEN ORANGES TRAVELLING DOWN THE THROAT OF A CALIFORNIAN OSTRICH.