the laws of Mohammed, which forbids
friendship or good-feeling between Moslems and either Christians or
Jews.

The Moslems have a great number of holidays in their calendar, but these
are nearly all fast-days.

The Arabs are a temperate, abstemious race, a race of light feeders;
naturally, they have a contempt for gluttony. In the matter of food, an
Egyptian would feast luxuriously for a week on the amount that an
American or Englishman would consume at a single meal.

Thus the very abundance of the preparations which the Englishman makes
for his Christmas dinner repels good Mussulmen.

Then, they do not celebrate the birthday of their own prophet; and the
celebration, in their own country, of the day which to us is invested
with so much love and reverence they consider an insult to them and to
their faith, and they submit to it with an ill grace and in sullen
silence.

All these things make a combination of opposing forces against which the
Englishman, endeavoring to enjoy his Christmas in Egypt, struggles in
vain.

So he eats his roast-beef, which is braized, and his boiled
plum-pudding, which is fried; takes his kiss--if he has any
sense--without mistletoe; winds up an unsatisfactory day by drinking,
instead of the time-honored "wassail," a jorum of champagne punch,
cooled with artificial ice; and goes grumbling to bed, with the
conviction that a Christmas in Egypt is a very "brummagem" sort of
Christmas.

ROSE EYTINGE.

_STATISTICS OF IDLENESS._

Reliable statistics relative to the number of men out of employment and
seeking work have always been difficult to obtain. In June, 1879, the
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor investigated the matter in
that State, reporting "28,508 as the aggregate number of skilled and
unskilled laborers, male and female, seeking and in want of work in
Massachusetts." In November of the same year the number was reported as
being 23,000. This was a little less than five per cent of the total
number of skilled and unskilled laborers in the State at that time. Upon
that basis, says the report, "there would be 460,000 unemployed
able-bodied men and women in the United States, ordinarily having work,
now out of employment." On the basis of the June report, there would
have been 570,000 unemployed in the United States. This was the only
statistical report upon the subject made prior to 1885; and coming, as
it does, from Colonel Carroll D. Wright, through the Mas