They believe that the stone was originally a ruby, but that the tears which the pilgrims have shed over it for their sins have turned it quite black.

The sacred black stone was broken in the year 683, and the pieces are kept together by a silver setting.  The stone itself is about eight inches long, and is set into the outside wall of the Kaaba, where it can be conveniently kissed by a person of medium height.

Mohammedans always turn toward a certain point of the compass when they say their prayers, and it is toward the sacred black stone that they turn.

The gathering together of the pilgrims at Mecca has often brought plague, and nearly always brings disease in its train, and there is very little doubt but that the Bubonic Plague, which is raging in India, would be caught by the pilgrims, and spread by them over the whole of Asia and Europe.

This plague is supposed to attack only the dirty and unwashed, and as the majority of these pilgrims are filthy beyond description, it would be certain to fasten upon them.

This will be the first year, since the death of the prophet Mohammed, that there has been no general pilgrimage to Mecca.

We may hear a great deal more about it yet.

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At last active measures are about being taken in reference to the terrible Dead Man’s Curve.

Some weeks ago, it was said that it was to be done away with, and the cars run through a tunnel made under Union Square.

Nothing, however, has so far been done, and the people are getting tired of risking their lives, to oblige a cable car company.

At last the officers of the law have interfered, and the owners of the road are being prosecuted, for having their cars run in such a manner that it is a danger to citizens.

The president of the company was called before the Grand Jury, and said that it was impossible to run the cars around that curve in any other way than that which is in use at the present time.

Several engineers who understood all about cable cars were then called.  They said that if the company would put a short cable on the stretch of road around the curve, there need be no more danger.  They said that a gripman could stop his car or slow up on a short cable, but that with the long cable, such as the company is now using, it is impossible for the gripman to have any control of his car while rounding the curve.

The president of the company declared that a short cable would not work.  The case is to go to trial.  While the worst that can be done to the company is to be fined $500, people are looking forward to the trial, because they expect that the witnesses who give evidence will show some way of getting the car round the curve without shaking everybody who is in it, and killing or wounding all who cannot jump out of its way.

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