is no secret how great an importance the presence of work has in a prison. Here is a motorcar driver who entered the prison two years ago and is sentenced to three. He learned carpentry in prison, and now, after a year, he has become a skilled carpenter who forgets the crime he committed through devotion to his work; he has come to love the saw and the plane, for they are his only solace. Here is a wardrobe of his making, on the point of being finished; and there a chair whose making he has completed and which will soon be sold. In this way the prisoner fills his time, keeps away from idleness and chatter with his fellows, and earns a few coins, since he is given fifty percent of the price of what he produces.
In the prison there are more than a thousand men and juveniles, and I am sorry to say that those in the workshop number no more than twenty. The lieutenant sensed our astonishment at how few were working, and he showed his own regret in turn, saying that the place is small and cannot hold more than these. He is right—but would it not be possible to add a room to the workshop building each year?
Before we left the prison we paid a visit to the kitchen, and I found that the food is clean and sufficient, and varied as well. A weekly program of dishes has been drawn up, and a fixed quantity of food has been allotted to each prisoner, so that it is distributed equally. Beside the kitchen stands a special store from which those prisoners who have the means may buy.
I came out of the prison deeply moved by the condition of those poor souls who wait to return once more to society. This visit made me forget the gushing springs of woe that pour from our poor society!
I forgot the beggar in this street, the blind man at that corner, the cripple by the tram station. These tragedies, which had pained me, seemed slight before my eyes only because a tragedy greater than they is played out far from people's eyes—one that took up a great part of my thoughts.
Will our government, then, work to lighten this tragedy by making of the prison a reform institution, and not a mere pen in which thousands of the sons of our society kill time—our society, which stands in need of so much work of reform, refinement, and correction???
It is a wish—and may its fate be better than the fate of so many wishes in this country, afflicted as it is with the disease of neglect and indifference!...
being, and a tear in the heart. But alas! what use are sighing and grief while I am still a girl at her school desk? I wished I were a daring young man, that I might fight and struggle for your sake, O Palestine; that I might bear arms and stand beside the heroes, urging the young men on to strive and battle for you, O sacred land.
At your call, O Palestine, at your call! If this hand is too weak to bear arms, it will not be too weak to spread stirring speeches to rouse the young men to the struggle.
But no.... no, O hand. I will not accept for you this laggard's work, the work of old age and helplessness, while I am still young, with free Arab blood running in my veins. What, then, prevents me from helping?
O noble young men!
I call out in the name of the daughters of my sex, asking that you open the way for us; we stand ready to give ourselves and our souls as ransom for precious Palestine. For the hour has drawn near and the calamity has grown grave, and the Arabs must plunge into the fray to wipe out this unjust resolution and keep Palestine Arab forever.
The Lebanese-Syrian Tobacco and Tombac Monopoly Administration
Chesky — Clover
First quality
In sticks
Sport, Virginia, and Orient tobaccos
American flavor
Rolaniac — a French flavor
Tombac
The smoker is bound to find, among the various brands the Administration offers, the cigarette that suits his taste and his fancy.
The Lebanese-Syrian Tobacco and Tombac Monopoly Administration
Tangee Lipstick
The first glance..
falls upon your lips..
Tangee
The favorite lipstick
of the stars of Hollywood
Tangee
General agency for Syria and Lebanon
The East Mediterranean Company
Khan Antoun Bey — Beirut