There is to be a restaurant in the house, where the lodgers can buy their meals. Their food will not be given them for the twenty cents, but it will be made as cheap as possible, and will be of the best kind, and cooked in the nicest way.
It is to be hoped Mr. Mills' experiment will be such a success, that many others will follow his example. This lodging-house is on Bleecker Street, and work is already commenced on it.
A sailor who has just come back from Japan brings word that sixteen American sailors are in prison in Siberia for trying to kill Russian seals, and carry away their fur to market.
The story the man tells is that in October, 1895, the American schooner _Saitans_ was cruising in the Okhotsk Sea, off the Siberian coast. Some of the men landed on an island, and while they were ashore a heavy gale sprang up, and, to save herself, the _Saitans_ put out to sea, leaving the men behind.
They remained where they were for five days, and then they were found by a Russian man-of-war. They were accused of trying to catch seals, and were sent to prison for five months.
The following May, one of the United States cruisers went to the port where the men were imprisoned, and the officers saw them.
The men begged the officers to do something for them, because they had been told that when their five months' imprisonment was over, they were to be arrested again, and sent back to prison once more.
The officers asked the police about this, and were told that it was all nonsense; the five months would be up in a few weeks, and the men set at liberty. The officers were satisfied that this was the truth, and went away.
But when the five months were up, the sailors found that their fears were only too well grounded. They were rearrested, and sent back to prison for eighteen months.
The sailor who brings this news says that, when he reached the port where the men are imprisoned, he managed to be taken to see them, and found them working on some Russian fortifications.
He says the men were very unhappy, and had almost lost their courage. Their second sentence will not be over till October, and they are afraid that they will be rearrested, and imprisoned once more, unless something is done for them.