The North American review

From the collection of the

d

-

Prelinger
v Jjibrary
t p

San Francisco, California
2006

ESTABLl

LAWRENCE

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,

VOL. CLXI.

THE

NORTH AMERICAN

REVIEW.

RE-ESTABLISH KD BY ALLEX THORNDIKE RICE.

EDITED. BY LLOYD BRYCE.

ttf.

VOL. CLXI.

Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur.

NEW YORK:
No. 3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET.

1895.

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BRYCE.

All rights reserved.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCCCLXIV.

JULY, 1895.

FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES.

BY MAKK TWAIN.

The Pathfinder and The Deer slayer stand at the head of Cooper's novels
as artistic creations. There are others of his works which contain parts as
perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more thrilling. Not one
can be compared with either of them as a finished whole.

The defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. They were
pure works of art.— Prof. Lounsbury.

The five tales reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention.

One of the very greatest characters in fiction, "Natty
Bumppo." . . .

The craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper, all the delicate art
of the forest, were familiar to Cooper from his youth up. — Prof. Brander
Matthews.

Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction yet pro
duced by America.— Wilkie Collins.

It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor ol
English Literature in Y"ale, the Professor of English Literature
in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins, to deliver opinions on Cooper's
literature without having read some of it. It would have
been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who
have read Cooper.

Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in Deerslayer,
and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper
has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115.
It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464. 1

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BKYOK. All rights reserved.

g THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of romantic fiction— some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper
violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require :

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive some
where. But the Deerslayer tale accomplishes nothing and arrives
in the air.

2. They require that the episodes of a tale shall be necessary
parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the Deer-
.v/rt?/er tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives no
where, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since
there was nothing for them to develop.

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive,
except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be
able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often
been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and
alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this
detail also has been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

5. They require that when the personages of a tale deal in
conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk
such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circum
stances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable pur
pose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood
of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help
out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything
more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the be
ginning of the Deerslayer tale to the end of it.

6. They require that when the author describes the character
of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that
persenage shall justify said description. But this law gets little
or no attention in the Deerslayer tale, as "Natty Bumppo's" case
will amply prove.

7. They require that when a personage talks like an illus
trated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand -tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's
Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like
a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and
danced upon in the Deerslayer tale.

8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon
the reader as " the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the
forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this
rule is persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.

FENIMORE COOPERS LITERARY OFFENCES. 3

9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine
themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone ; or, if they ven
ture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to
make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not re
spected in the Deerslayer tale.

10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a
deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate ; and
that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and
hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tal6 dislikes
the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they
would all get drowned together.

11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so
clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will
do in a given emergency. But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is
vacated.

In addition to these large rules there are some little ones.
These require that the author shall

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14. Eschew surplusage.

15. Not omit necessary details.

16. Avoid slovenliness of form.

17. Use good grammar.

18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Even these seven are coldly and persistently violated in the
Deerslayer tale.

Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endow
ment ; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the
effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his
little box of stage properties he kept six or eight cunning devices,
tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and cir
cumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he
was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A fav
orite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of
the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore
out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. An
other stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently
was his broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the
rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chap
ter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig

4 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around.
Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth
four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may
be a hundred handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy
Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig ;
and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact the Leather
Stocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig
Series.

I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances
of the delicate art of the forest, as practiced by Natty Bumppo
and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may
venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailor — a naval offi
cer ; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving toward a lee
shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper
because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back
against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailor-
craft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat ? For several years Cooper
was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed
that when a cannon ball strikes the ground it either buries itself
or skips a hundred feet or so ; skips again a hundred feet or so —
and so on, till it finally gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he
loses some "females" — as he always calls women — in the edge of
a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo
a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the
ivader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear
a cannon-blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the
wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests noth
ing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I
wish I may never know peace again if he doesn't strike out
promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain
through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't it a daisy ? If
Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things,
he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact. For instance :
one of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook (pronounced
Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a person he is tracking
through the forest. Apparently that trail is hopelessly lost.
Neither you nor I could ever have guessed out the way to find it.
It was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not stumped
for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and
there, in the slush in its old bed, were that person's moccasin7

FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES. 5

tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would
have done in all other like cases — no, even the eternal laws
of Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up a delicate
job of woodcraft on the reader.

We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews tells us that
Cooper's books "reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention."
As a rule, lam quite willing to accept Brander Matfchews's literary
judgments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing of them ;
but that particular statement needs to be taken with a few tons of
salt. Bless your heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a
horse ; and I don't mean a high class horse, either ; I mean a
clothes-horse. It would be very difficult to find a really clever
" situation " in Cooper's books ; and still more difficult to find one
of any kind which he has failed to render absurd by his handling
of it. Look at the episodes of "the caves;" and at the cele
brated scuffle between Maqua and those others on the table-land
a few days later ; and at Hurry Harry's queer water-transit from
the castle to the ark ; and at Deerslayer's half hour with his first
corpse ; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry and Deerslayer
later ; and at — but choose for yourself ; you can't go amiss.

If Cooper had been an observer, his inventive faculty would
have worked better, not more interestingly, but more rationally,
more plausibly. Cooper's proudest creations in the way of
" situations" suffer noticeably from the absence of the observer's
protecting gift. Cooper's eye was splendidly inaccurate. Cooper
seldom saw anything correctly. He saw nearly all things as
through a glass eye, darkly. Of course a man who cannot see the
commonest little everyday matters accurately is working at a dis
advantage when he is constructing a "situation." In the Deer-
slayer tale Cooper has a stream which is fifty feet wide, where it
floAvs out of a lake ; it presently narrows to twenty as it meanders
along for no given reason, and yet, when a stream acts like that
it ought to be required to explain itself. Fourteen pages later
the width of the brook's outlet from the lake has suddenly shrunk
thirty feet, and become ft the narrowest part of the stream."
This shrinkage is not accounted for. The stream has bends in it,
a sure indication that it has alluvial banks, and cuts them ; yet
these bends are only thirty and fifty feet long. If Cooper had
been a nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed that
the bends were of tener nine hundred feet long than short of it.

6 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Cooper made the exit of that stream fifty feet wide in the first
place, for no particular reason ; in the second place, he narrowed
it to less than twenty to accommodate some Indians. He bends
a " sapling " to the form of an arch over this narrow passage,
and conceals six Indians in its foliage. They are "laying" for
a settler's scow or ark which is coming up the stream on its way
to the lake ; it is being hauled against the stiff current by a rope
whose stationary end is anchored in the lake ; its rate of progress
cannot be more than a mile an hour. Cooper describes the ark,
but pretty obscurely. In the matter of dimensions " it was little
more than a modern canal boat." Let us guess, then, that it
was about 140 feet long. It was of "greater breadth than
common." Let us guess, then, that it was about sixteen feet
wide. This leviathan had been prowling down bends which were
but a third as long as itself, and scraping between banks where it
had only two feet of space to spare on each side. We cannot too
much admire this miracle. A low-roofed log dwelling occupies
"two-third's of the ark's length " — a dwelling ninety feet long
and sixteen feet wide, let us say — a kind of vestibule train. The
dwelling has two rooms — each forty-five feet long and sixteen feet
wide, let us guess. One of them is the bed-room of the Hutter
girls, Judith and Hetty ; the other is the parlor, in the day time,
at night it is papa's bed chamber. The ark is arriving at the
stream's exit, now, whose width has been reduced to less than
twenty feet to accommodate the Indians — say to eighteen. There
is a foot to spare on each side of the boat. Did the Indians
notice that there was going to be a tight squeeze there ? Did
they notice that they could make money by climbing down out
of that arched sapling and just stepping aboard when the ark
scraped by ? No ; other Indians would have noticed these things,
but Cooper's Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they
are marvellous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always in
error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among
them.

The ark is 140 feet long ; the dwelling is 90 feet long. The
idea of the Indians is to drop softly and secretly from the arched
sapling to the dwelling as the ark creeps along under it at the
rate of a mile an hour, and butcher the family. It will take the
ark a minute and a half to pass under. It will take the 90-foot
dwelling a minute to pass under. Now, then, what did the six

FENIMORE COOPER'S LITERARY OFFENCES. 7

Indians do ? It would take you thirty years to guess, and even
then you would have to give it up, I believe. Therefore, I will
tell you what the Indians did. Their chief, a person of quite ex
traordinary intellect for a Cooper Indian, warily watched the
canal boat as it squeezed along under him, and when he had got
his calculations fined down to exactly the right shade, as he
judged, he let go and dropped. And missed the house ! That is
actually what he did. He missed the house, and landed in the
stern of the scow. It was not much of a fall, yet it knocked him
silly. He lay there unconscious. If the house had been 97 feet
long, he would have made the trip. The fault was Cooper's, not
his. The error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper was
no architect.

There still remained in the roost five Indians. The boat has
passed under and is now out of their reach. Let me ex
plain what the five did — you would not be able to reason
it out for yourself. No. 1 jumped for the boat, but fell in
the water astern of it. Then No. 2 jumped for the boat,
but fell in the water -still further astern of it. Then No. 3
jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern of it. Then
No. 4 jumped for the boat, and fell in the water away astern.
Then even No. 5 made a jump for the boat — for he was a Cooper
Indian. In the matter of intellect, the difference between a
Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of the cigar
shop is not spacious. The scow episode is really a sublime
burst of invention ; but it does not thrill, because the inaccuracy
of the details throws a sort of air of fictitiousness and general
improbability over it. This comes of Cooper's inadequacy as an
observer.

The reader will find some examples of Cooper's high talent for
inaccurate observation in the account of the shooting match in
Tlie Pathfinder . (i A common wrought nail was driven lightly
into the target, its head having been first touched with paint."
The color of the paint is not stated — an important omission, but
Cooper deals freely in important omissions. No, after all, it was
not an important omission ; for this nail head is a hundred yards
from the marksman and could not be seen by them at that distance
no matter what its color might be. How far can the best eyes
see a common house fly ? A hundred yards ? It is quite impos
sible. Very well, eyes that cannot see a house fly that is a hun-

8 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

drecl yards away cannot see an ordinary nail head at that distance,
for the size of the two objects is the same. It takes a keen eye to
see a fly or a nail head at fifty yards — One hundred and fifty feet.
Can the reader do it ?

The nail was lightly driven, its head painted, and game called.
Then the Cooper miracles began. The bullet of the first marks
man chipped an edge of the nail head ; the next man's bullet
drove the nail a little way into the target — and removed all the
paint. Haven't the miracles gone far enough now ? Not to suit
Cooper ; for the purpose of this whole scheme is to show off his
prodigy, Deerslayer-Hawkeye-Long-Rifle-Leather-Stocking-Path-
finder-Bumppo before the ladies.

44 Be all ready to clench it, boys ! " cried out Pathfinder, stepping into
his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant. " Never mind a new nail ;
I can see that, though the paint is gone, and what I can see, I can hit at a
hundred yards, though it were only a mosquitos's eye. Be ready to clench ! "

The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way and the head of the nail was
buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead.

There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies with a rifle,
and command a ducal salary in a Wild West show to-day, if we
had him back with us.

The recorded feat is certainly surprising, just as it stands ;
but it is not surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch.
He has made Pathfinder do this miracle with another man's
rifle, and not only that, but Pathfinder did not have even the
advantage of loading it himself. He had everything against him,
and yet he made that impossible shot, and not only made it, but
did it with absolute confidence, saying, "Be ready to clench."
Now a person like that would have undertaken that same feat
with a brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have achieved
it, too.

Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before the ladies.
His very first feat was a thing which no Wild West show can
touch. He was standing with the group of marksmen, observing
— a hundred yards from the target, mind : one Jasper raised his
rifle and drove the centre of the bull's-eye. Then the quarter
master fired. The target exhibited no result this time. There
was a laugh. " It's a dead miss," said Major Lundie. Pathfinder
waited an impressive moment or two, then said in that calm, in
different, know-it-all way of his, " No, Major— he has covered

FENIMORE COOPERS LITERARY OFFENCES. 9

Jasper's bullet, as will be seen if any one will take the trouble to
examine the target."

Wasn't it remarkable ! How could he see that little pellet fly
through the air and enter that distant bullet-hole ? Yet that is
what he did ; for nothing is impossible to a Cooper person. Did
any of those people have any deep-seated doubts about this thing ?
No ; for that would imply sanity, and these were all Cooper
people.

The respect for Pathfinder's skill and for his quickness and accuracy of
sight (the italics are mine) was so profound and general, that the instant
he made this declaration the spectators began to distrust their own opinions,
and a dozen rushed to the target in order to ascertain the fact. There, sure
enough, it was found that the quartermaster's bullet had gone through the
hole made by Jasper's, and that, too, so accurately as to require a minute
examination to be certain of the circumstance, which, however, was soon
clearly established by discovering one bullet over the other in the stump
against which the target was placed.

They made a "minute" examination; but never mind, how
could they know that there were two bullets in that hole without
digging the latest one out ? for neither probe nor eyesight could
prove the presence of any more than one bullet. Did they dig ?
No ; as we shall see. It is the Pathfinder's turn now ; he steps
out before the ladies, takes aim, and fires.

But alas ! here is a disappointment ; an incredible, an un
imaginable disappointment — for the target's aspect is unchanged ;
there is nothing there but that same old bullet hole !

* If one dared to hint at such a thing," cried Major Duncan, " I should
day that the Pathfinder has also missed the target."

As nobody had missed it yet, the " also " was not necessary ;
but never mind about that, for the Pathfinder is going to speak.

"No, no, Major," said he, confidently, "that would be a risky declara
tion. I didn't load the piece, and can't say what was in it, but if it was lead,
you will find the bullet driving down those of the Quartermaster and Jas
per, else is not my name Pathfinder."

A shout from the target announced the truth of this assertion.

Is the miracle sufficient as it stands? Not for Cooper. The
Pathfinder speaks again, as he " now slowly advances towards the
stage occupied by the females:"

"That's not all, boys, that's not all; if you find the target touched at all,
I'll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the wood, but you'll find no
wood cut by that last messenger."

The miracle is at last complete. He knew — doubtless saw —
at the distance of a hundred yards — that his bullet had passed

10 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

into the hole without fraying the edges. There were now three
bullets in that one hole — three bullets imbedded processionally in
the body of the stump back of the target. Everybody knew this
— somehow or other — and yet nobody had dug any of them out
to make sure. Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interest
ing. He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. And
he is more interesting when he is not noticing what he is about
than when he is. This is a considerable merit.

The conversations in the Cooper books have a curious sound
in our modern ears. To believe that such talk really ever came
out of people's mouths would be to believe that there was a time
when time was of no value to a person who thought he had some
thing to say ; when it was the custom to spread a two-minute re
mark out to ten ; when a man's mouth was a rolling-mill, and
busied itself all day long in turning four-foot pigs of thought
into thirty -foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenua
tion ; when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck to, but the talk
wandered all around and arrived nowhere ; when conversations
consisted mainly of irrelevances, with here and there a relevancy,
a relevancy with an embarrassed look, as not being able to explain
how it got there.

Cooper was certainly not a master in the construction of dia
logue. Inaccurate observation defeated him here as it defeated
him in so many other enterprises of his. He even failed to
notice that the man who talks corrupt English six days in the
week must and will talk it on the seventh, and can't help him
self. In the Deerslayer story he lets Deerslayer talk the showiest
kind of book talk sometimes, and at other times the basest of
base dialects. For instance, when some one asks him if he has a
sweetheart, and if so, where she abides, this is his majestic
answer :

" She's in the forest— hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft
rain— in the dew on the open grass— the clouds that float about in the blue
heavens— the birds that sing in the woods— the sweet springs where I slake
my thirst — and in all the other glorious gifts that come from God's
Providence I "

And he preceded that, a little before, with this :

" It consarns me as all things that touches a fri'nd consarns a fri'nd."

And this is another of his remarks :

44 If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in the scalp and

FENIMORE COOPERS LITERARY OFFENCES. H

boast of the expl'ite afore the whole tribe ; or if my inimy had only been a
bear "—and so on.

We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran Scotch Com-
mauder-in-Chief comporting himself in the field like a windy melo
dramatic actor, but Cooper could. On one occasion Alice and
Cora were being chased by the French through a fog in the
neighborhood of their father's fort:

"Point de quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed
to direct the operations of the enemy.

"Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 60ths!" suddenly exclaimed a
voice above them ; "wait to see the enemy ; fire low, and sweep the glacis."

"Father! father !" exclaimed a piercing cry from out the mist; "it is
I ! Alice ! thy own Elsie ! spare, O ! save your daughters ! "

"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental
agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in solemn echo.
" 'Tis she ! God has restored me my children ! Throw open the sally-port ;
to the field, GOths, to the field ; pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs !
Drive off these dogs of France with your steel."

Cooper's word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has
a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without
knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune.
When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary
flatting and sharping ; you perceive what he is intending to say,
but you also perceive that he doesn't say it. This is Cooper. He
was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approxi
mate word. I will furnish some -circumstantial evidence in sup
port of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen
pages of the tale called Deerslayer. He uses <f verbal," for
" oral " ; " precision/' for " facility " ; " phenomena," for " mar
vels " ; " necessary," for " predetermined " ; " unsophisticated,"
for "primitive"; "preparation," for "expectancy"; "re
buked," for "subdued"; "dependant on," for "resulting
from " ; " fact," for " condition " ; " fact," for " conjecture " ;
" precaution," for " caution " ; " explain," for " determine " ;
" mortified," for " disappointed " ; " meretricious," for " fac
titious " ; " materially," for " considerably " ; " decreasing," for
" deepening " ; " increasing," for " disappearing " ; " embed
ded," for " enclosed " ; " treacherous," for " hostile " ; " stood,"
for " stooped " ; " softened," for " replaced " ; " rejoined," for
"remarked"; "situation," for "condition"; "'different," for
" differing " ; "insensible, " for " unsentient " ; " brevity," for
"celerity"; "distrusted," for "suspicious"; "mental imbe-

12 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

cility," for "imbecility"; "eyes," for "sight";

ing," for " opposing " ; " funeral obsequies," for " obsequies."

There have been daring people in the world who claimed that
Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now — all dead
but Lounsbury. I don't remember that Lounsbury makes the
claim in so many words, still he makes it, for he says that Deer-
slayer is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that connection, means
faultless — faultless in all details — and language is a detail. If
Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper's English with the
English which he writes himself — but it is plain that he didn't ;
and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper's is
as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down
in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that
exists in our language, and that the English of Deerslayer is the
very worst than even Cooper ever wrote.

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that Deerslayer is
not a work of art in any sense ; it does seem to me that it is desti
tute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art ; in
truth, it seems to me that Deerslayer is just simply a literary
delirium tremens.

A work of art ? It has no invention ; it has no order, system,
sequence, or result ; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no
seeming of reality ; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by
their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of
people the author claims that they are ; its humor is pathetic ;
its pathos is funny ; its conversations are — oh ! indescribable ;
its love-scenes odious ; its English a crime against the language.

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all
admit that.

MARK TWAINS

CONTEMPORARY EGYPT.

BY THE HON. FREDERIC C. PENFIELD, U. S. DIPLOMATIC AGENT
AND CONSUL-GENERAL TO EGYPT.

THE ending of two lives that had run in channels strangely
similar redoubles interest over that country ever paramount in
anomalous conditions — Egypt. Vocabularies of praise and cen
sure have been well nigh exhausted on Ismail Pasha and De
Lesseps, whose recent deaths were chronicled simply as items of
news rather than events ; but the nineteenth century is indebted
to them for a work of incalculable value to the whole world,
Egypt alone excepted.

Egypt reaps no benefit from the international waterway cross
ing its domain, uniting the Orient with the Occident ; in fact, the
Suez Canal, which has played a mighty political part, made and
unmade khedives, and which, by strange fatality, passed from the
control of the nation that built it to that of the country that
strenuously fought its construction, is responsible for the modern
bondage of the Egyptian people.

Prior to the giving of the canal concession, Egypt had no
debt. Her credit was first pledged in Europe by Viceroy Said,
who, to add lustre to his name, headed the subscriptions to the
capital of the enterprise with $17,000,000, although the under
taking was to cost Egypt nothing, and from which for ninety-
nine years she was to receive fifteen per cent, of the gross receipts.
This laid the corner-stone of the new house of bondage.

Ismail succeeding to the throne, lent himself readily to the
seductive project, learning how easy it was to borrow money by
affixing his signature to an innocent-looking paper thoughtfully
prepared in Europe. His first transaction was a matter of $30,-
000,000, and thenceforth there was frequent exchange between

14 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

His Highness and Paris and London of these innocent-looking
papers, for gold .

There were many investors in the scheme, but it seemed as if
Egypt alone fed the insatiable monster with money. Native work
men digging the ditch, received no pay. It was forced labor.
But the French Emperor awarded the French company an
enormous sum for Ismail's breach of contract, when he sent
the fellaheen back to their fields, such of them as survived fevers
and starvation. Egypt paid, of course.

The colossal work completed, Ismail's magnificent extrava
gance devised a celebration of fitting splendor, from his Oriental
standpoint. The opening of the canal in 1869 outranked in gor-
geousness anything described in the Arabian Nights. Royalties
and notables, from Europe, were treated to a fete in Cairo trans
cending the wildest dreams of Haroun-al-Raschid, lasting a month,
over which the Merry Monarch spent $21,000,000 of the people's
money.

History reveals nothing equal to IsmaiTs carnival of extrava
gance. In thirteen years he added to Egypt's exterior burden
$430,000,000, and increased the taxation of his subjects more
than fifty per cent.

A day of reckoning came, however, when engagements could
not be met, for Egypt was hypothecated to its fullest value, and
the usurers of Europe made such outcry that Ismail was forced by
the Sultan to surrender his throne and go into exile. Forseeing
the crash, he had sold to the British Government his own shares
for $20,000,000, on which the Egyptian treasury for twenty years
faithfully paid five per cent, interest. This purchase illustrated
Disraeli's shrewdness, for by prompt action he prevented the
shares from going to France. They are to-day worth more than
four times what they cost, and secure to England the voting con
trol. The promised fifteen per cent, of tolls had also been sacri
ficed by Ismail, as security on which to borrow the last few mill
ions necessary to complete the canal.

The dethroned Khedive's bequest to his country was a debt of
$450,000,000, not two-thirds of which sum ever left the hands of
the bankers' agents and negotiators. The principal work over
which it was spent was the canal, not to belong to Egypt until
1968. Docks at Alexandria and Suez, and a few hundred miles
of railways and telegraphs, costing perhaps ten per cent, of the

CONTEMPORAR Y EG YPT. 15

sum borrowed, represented the benefits to his nation. Steam ves
sels of useless pattern, stucco palaces, gilded coaches and operatic
scores and costumes, formed meagre assets.

In Tewfik's reign there were many evidences "of financial dis
integration, such as obdurate creditors, commissions of liquida
tion, an Anglo-French financial control, and the like. The bur
den of the fellaheen was almost unbearable. The cry of " Egypt
for the Egyptians" meant much, and the Arabi rebellion, a di
rect outcome of the people's condition, menaced the authority of
the Khedive, until stifled by an English fleet and soldiers in 1882.
France, it is asserted, did not deem it necessary to bombard the
Alexandrian forts held by the rebels, and, declining to share the
responsibilities of such an act, her fleet steamed away from the
Egypt in which Frenchmen had held sway from the coming of
Napoleon in 1798.

Military and civil " occupation "by the British followed, its ob
ject being to restore the authority of the Khedive and repair the
fortunes of the land by administrative reform. Consequently the
year 1882 becomes the epoch from which dates everything current
in discussin r; Egyptian affairs. The indebtedness when the reform
policy was instituted reached nearly $475,000,000, bearing six or
seven per cent, interest, speaking generally. As a class Egyp
tian securities ruled very low on European bourses in 1882.
" Unifieds " f or a time were 46-J, and other designations were
even less. An average quotation for several months was 50,
meaning that prudent investors would give only $237,500,000 for
the Egytian debt.

It has never been possible to determine the nationality of
holders of Egyptian bonds. Interest coupons are presented in
London, Paris, Berlin and Cairo, and naturally at the place where
exchange is highest, or where income taxes can be escaped. It is be
lieved, however, that English people hold more than half of them.
A British financier estimates that five-eighths better represents
the stake of his country-people. If so, England's share of the
debt in 1882 was about $296,875,000, worth in the market $148,-
437,500.

Entanglements of every sort beset the work of regeneration
entered upon by Tewfik Pasha and the foreigners electing to labor
with him. For years it was a neck and neck race with bankruptcy.
Indemnification of Alexandrians whose property was destroyed

16 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

by reason of the rebellion, the military disaster resulting in the
loss of the Soudan, and other inevitable expenses swelled the debt
by nearly $40,000,000. The soil — the sole producing agent of
the country — needed better and more extended irrigation, and a
fresh loan was actually negotiated in Europe to make useful the
Nile barrage, at the apex of the Delta, regulating the supply of
water used by the cotton cultivators.

At last fortune turned, and hypercritical Europe was satisfied
of the solvency of the country of the Nile. It is a popular fallacy
that the debt has been reduced since England's co-operation
began : it has been materially added to. But the character of
the security — in other words, the intrinsic worth of the country —
has been so improved that owners of bonds have willingly reduced
the rate of interest by nearly half.

Egypt's emergence from practical bankruptcy, with its obli
gations quoted almost as high as English consols, reads like a
romance ; and there is no better object lesson in economical pro
gress, through administrative reform, than that presented by
contemporary Egypt.

Taking the figures of the debt in 1882, with England's share
estimated at $296,875,000, and '•' Egyptians" now touching four
per cent, premium, the appreciation is something enormous.
The difference between the estimated value then and the known
value to-day of England's supposed share is no less than $149,-
625,000 ! Of course the advance has benefited all bondholders
proportionately— French, German, Italian, Austrian and Russian,
as well as English.

The amount and details of the debt at the present time are as
follows :

Guaranteed loan, 3 percent, (quoted 6W premium) $42,442,866

Privileged debt. 3V6 per cent, (quoted 1% premium) 142,851,798

Unified debt, 4 per cent, (quoted 454 premium) 272,037,625

Domain loan, 4>4 per cent, (quoted 7 premium) 19,418,421

Daira Sanieh loan, 4 per cent, (quoied 2}£ premium) 32,191,589

Total bonded debt $508,94 5,299

This debt, applying as it does to an agricultural population of
7,000,000 people, where manual labor is worth from fifteen to
twenty cents a day, and to only about 9,000 square miles of till
able soil— an area a trifle less than New Hampshire or Vermont
in extent — is almost overpowering. Frenchmen and Englishmen
owe more per capita, but their resources are incomparably greater,

CONTEMPORARY EGYPT. 17

and their creditors are their own countrymen. The American,
owing about $15, may well pity the lot of the Egyptian, who owes
$72.70.

The Egyptian question in its popular aspect is one of adminis
tration, rather than of politics, and that the work of establishing
financial equilibrium has been successful is obvious. Recuperation
has been brought about by checking waste and dishonesty, and
developing the soil and adding to the cultivated territory by irriga
tion. The abolition of slavery merits universal praise, as does the
suppression of forced labor for public works, with the attendant
curse of the courbash. The improvement in native jurisprudence
has likewise beeji conspicuous, for native courts now have more
than a semblance of justice. The reduction by half of the price
of salt, and railroad and postal rates, proves the wisdom of legis
lating for the earning classes, by double service.

Changes of any sort are made with difficulty, because of
unique conditions. The cash box guarded by representatives of
six European governments, and treaty privileges existing with
fourteen powers, some of which are not in harmony with the
present conduct of affairs in Egypt, make progress difficult.
Hence the restoration of the country to easy prosperity, at a pe
riod when shrinkage in prices of cotton, sugar and grain has been
great, must be regarded as a conspicuous triumph. Khedive
Abbas and his co-workers, whoever they may be, have much to
accomplish still. But system and economy now established, the
attainment of permanent success will not be difficult.

It is too early for speculation as to the reversionary value of
the Suez Canal. Yearly more and more necessary to commercial
interchange with India and the bountiful East, sceptics assert
that in time it may be treated as toll roads arid bridges have been
the world over — thrown open to the public, and maintained by a
nominal tax on vessels using it, after the manner of lighthouses.
It has brought Egypt into unfortunate prominence as stragetical
ground, certainly, and the prospect is not reassuring, say carpers,
that the world's greatest artery of marine travel (responsible
for the borrowing habit of past rulers of Egypt) will ever bring
substantial benefit to the Egyptians. Some indemnification of
Egypt would be demanded by public opinion, surely. Last year's
tolls were about $15,000,000, and for 1895 should be as good as
$17,000,000. In 1894 the British flag represented 71i per cent.
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464. 2

18 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the traffic, as against 5£ for France. The number of steamers
passing through was 3,352. Next to England, Germany is the
principal user of the canal.

As in other small countries, where the gulf between the masses
and the upper class is wide, bureaucracy is a crying evil. It is
estimated that two per cent, of the able-bodied men serve the
government in some capacity. Nepotism formerly had full play,
and it is difficult now to make the people understand that merit
rather than favor should place one in the public service. Minis
tries and public offices appear to be overloaded with subordinates
of every conceivable nationality. As a rule, the responsible
heads of departments are Englishmen, but among the clerks more
French than British subjects are found, and official correspond
ence is couched in French or Arabic. Salaries seem strangely
out of proportion. Cabinet members are paid $15,000 a year,
and under-secretaries $7,500 — twice what Washington officials
receive. Offices are open only in the forenoon, and five hours is
the official day's work. In that halcyon period known as " the
good old days," there were more civil servants in Egypt than in
Great Britain, with five times the population. Thorough reform
has yet to be accomplished, in the opinion of the economist.

The " international " aspect of Egypt is a hindrance to prac
tical economy, say many. The Commission of the Debt, for
illustration, brings to Cairo delegates of the powers which are the
country's creditors. Each is paid a salary of $10,000 by the
Khedivial Government for watching the interests of his country
men, who hold bonds quoted at a handsome premium. Having
no voice in fixing the rate of interest or the amounts going to the
different countries, it occurs to the reformer that a competent
accountant could perform the service of these six men, with a
great saving to the taxpayer. Also, the railway system of less
than eleven hundred miles, is managed by three princely-paid men,
acting for England, France and Egypt. Similarly, the spirit of
internationalism dominates the Daira Sanieh, State Domains, and
other divisions of the government, and aggregates a mighty draft
on the exchequer. But the customs and post office departments,
each with a single head, are models of perfection.

A striking feature of railway management in Egypt is that
only 43 per cent, of the receipts go for operating expenses.
Native labor and moderate speed of ordinary trains make this

CONTEMPORARY EGYPT. 19

possible. The governmental railways last year carried 0,827,813
passengers, and receipts from all sources were $8,870,000. By
reason of sweeping reductions in fares the number of passengers
has been doubled in six years. Two years hence all-rail travel
will be possible from the Mediterranean to the first cataract of
the Nile.

Augmentation of winter travel to the Nile is helping the lot of
the Egyptian materially. Last season's pleasure and health-
seekers, 7,500 in number, distributed $5,000,000 in the country,
half of which came from Americans.

The purchasing power, held to be indicative of a nation's
pecuniary condition, has kept pace with other statistics. In 1882
the imports were valued at $32,127,650 ; in 1890, $40,409,635 ;
and 1894, $46,330,000. Exports for the same years — cotton,
cotton seed, grain and sugar — were valued at $54,977,850, $59,-
373,490 and $59,420,000 respectively. Over fifty per cent, of the
foreign commerce is with Great Britain. The cotton crop,
wholly exported, produces nearly $45,000,000. Of this, the
United States buys about $3,000,000 worth annually. The ton
nage at the port of Alexandria has nearly doubled since 1882.
Last year the arrivals represented 2,221,145 tons. That of French
ships has multiplied at a rate unequalled by any other flag.

There has been vast improvement in the morale of the Egyptian
army, and it is now as well disciplined and efficient as when Gen
eral Stone and his American associates placed it on a stable foot
ing a quarter of a century ago. It comprises 15,000 men, but
with the military police as an adjunct in emergencies, the full
strength is 21,000. Soldiers are conscientiously looked after,
well clothed and fed, and hygiene is considered. The commander
and seventy-six other officers are " borrowed " from the British
Government and paid twice the amount of their home salaries.
The common soldier gets only five cents a day. In the towns the
practice is general to purchase immunity from conscription, cost
ing $100 a man, which adds considerably to the war office funds.
The British Army of Occupation, garrisoning Cairo and Alexan
dria, numbers 4,200 men of all grades. Its status must be that
of a component part of the Khedive's forces, although there is
misconception regarding the matter. The red coats are in Egypt
on liberal financial terms, for Egypt pays only the difference be
tween the cost of home and foreign service. This is about $435,000

20 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a year. The British Government's share is about $1,250,000
annually. There can be no monetary loss to the country in which
they are quartered, for most of the soldiers spend all their pay,
England's and Egypt's money as well. How long the arrange
ment is to be maintained is a problem which, like the fine dis
tinctions between "occupation" and "protection," can only be
treated by one writing of political Egypt.

To carry on the government requires about $50,000,000 a
year. It was more in times when budget-making was the merest
guesswork, and deficiencies could be explained by the convenient
phrase "insufficiency of receipts." The Budget of the current
year allows expenditures of $48,000,000, and is based upon re
ceipts of $51,300,000. Any balance will be divided equally be
tween the governmental sinking fund and a reduction of the debt.
The heaviest outlay is for interest on foreign indebtedness, $18,-
854,185, while the annual tribute to the Sultan consumes $3,325,-
205 more. The Khedive, khedivial family, and palace expenses
coming under the head of "Civil List," jcall for $1,169.305. To
maintain the army and military police costs $2,381,085, and civil
and military pensions $2,150,000 more.

Direct taxation on land, date trees, etc., produces $25,000,-
000, the balance of revenue being made up by '• indirect
taxes " — customs receipts (eight per cent, on imports and one
per cent, on exports), profit from the salt monopoly, stamp
duties, receipts from railways, post offices, telegraphs, ports and
courts of justice.

A reform of the greatest importance now in progress, is the ad
justment of inequalities in the land tax, the present scheme be
ing full of anomalies. It is not unusual to find land rented at
$30 and $35 per acre paying only $2.50 in taxes. In olden times
there was no rule for its collection, and the collector went pre
pared to take from the farmer every penny his crops had pro
duced, and then flog him into borrowing on mortgage any addi
tional sum his rapacious master felt in need of. There was no
pretense of fairness, and not until Tewfik's reign was a receipt
of any kind given the peasant to show he had paid his taxes and
that no more was due for the current year. Simple as it was,
nothing more potent for alleviating the position of the masses
was ever inaugurated. It was a reform that benefited every tiller
of the soil, and was operative before " the coming of the English."

CONTEMPORARY EGYPT. 21

The scheme of taxation now in force is arbitrary and inequit
able. A definite tax is specified for large tracts, which some of
the land only is capable of paying. The work in hand is to base
this schedule upon rental values, that each acre may be assessed
commensurately with its producing capacity. The country is
promised that the total tax— $23,900,000 on the 5,237,200 acres
of cultivated soil — is not to be increased. This means that the
small holder is to pay less per acre, and the pasha landlord, once
powerful enough to have his thousands of acres assessed at what
ever he chose, will pay more proportionately. The glaring in
equalities had been brought into prominence by the low prices of
crops, and it had become imperative to devise a remedy.

It will surprise American farmers to know that their brethren
in ancient Egypt, some of them, pay a land tax of $8.20 per
acre annually, and that the average tax for the country is $4.56
per acre. This maximum tax is on lands in the Delta, possess
ing such exceptional richness that five hundredweight or more of
cotton per acre is produced each year with comparative certainty.

The land tax has ever been the millstone about the neck of
the Egyptian, sapping his energies and stunting his intellectual
growth. The ancestors of the peasant now toiling from long be
fore sunrise until after sunset, nearly every day in the year, have
been farmers since the world began. What has their incessant
toil produced ? Nile farmers have ever been wretchedly poor,
certainly.

To day's prosperity of the fellah, permitting him to have a
few dollars after harvesting, to eat meat occasionally, and seek
recreation at religious fairs, is of recent origin and slow growth.
It began with the introduction of tax receipts, and has been nur
tured at intervals by trifling reductions in taxation, as the area
has been added to by irrigation at a rate in excess of the govern
ment's pecuniary needs.

Being humanely treated, the Egyptian to-day realizes that he
is a human being, and it is the opinion of those capable of judg
ing, that more has been done in the last fifteen years for him
than ever before in a century. Tewfik Pasha inaugurated the
good work, and the administration, hea<. .ed by Abbas Pasha, is
carrying it forward with intelligent perseverance.

The country's obligations to European creditors are suffi
ciently menacing to compel the small farmer to keep out of the

22 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

clutches of the money-lender at his gates, if he can. Neverthe
less, the indebtedness secured by farm mortgages is greater than
it should be, and critics allege this as certain proof that the
boasted prosperity of the country is fictitious, and exhibit
statistics to coincide with their argument. Critics of another
sort array figures calculated to show that the aggregate mortgage
indebtedness is very small, less than $40,000,000, and that it is
the large holders — owning from fifty acres upwards — who have
pledged their property ; and, further, that they have done this
to buy more land, confident of an appreciation of values. It is a
fact that the proportion of small holders borrowing by mortgage
is trifling, and they are the people whose welfare first deserves
consideration.

It is claimed that less than nine per cent, of the land bears
mortgages, the aggregate indebtedness amounting to $8 an acre.
An average value of the cultivated soil is thought to be $115 an acre.

Headers of mathematical mind, discovering that the foreign
indebtedness represents definitely $97.17 on every acre of produc
tive soil, and adding the $8 of home burden (probably under
stated), find that but little equity remains to the Egyptian, who
for more than seven thousand years has been the most industrious
and light-hearted of husbandmen. Simply speaking, it means
an equity of only $10 an acre ; or, each inhabitant averaging three-
quarters of an acre of productive earth, a remaining "margin"
of $7.50 per person. And his energy must not flag for genera
tions to come, lest his fellow-creature in enlightened Europe be
in arrears over his interest on " Egyptians." Blessed be Allah !

Egypt presents a striking example of a Mussulman country
possessing a system of laws harmonizing with European and
Western world civilization. Its international tribunals are un
paralleled in the great domain of civil law, yet comparatively
little seems to be known of them outside the Levant.

The ' ' capitulations," or treaties, between the Christian powers
and the Ottoman Empire regulating the privileges of foreigners
within the Turkish dominions, some of which are many centuries
old, occasioned so much confusion of jurisdiction in Egypt, where
so many Christian nationalities were represented, that Nubar Pasha
called the attention of Ismail to the necessity for some reform,
and himself drew up a project which was communicated to all the
governments having representatives in Egypt.

CONTEMPORAR Y EG YPT. 23

As a result an International Commission assembled in 1869,
under the presidency of Nubar, who was Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and united in a report recommending the scheme. This
was signed by the representatives of the United States, Austria,.
Germany, England, France, Kussia and Italy. At subsequent
conventions Belgium, Spain, Holland, Greece, Portugal, Den
mark and Sweden-Norway approved the plan. On June 28th,
1875, Khedive Ismail inaugurated the Court at Alexandria,
although it was not until February 1st, 1876, that the new system
of jurisprudence was actually launched.

The procedure is practically that of France, the Code Napo
leon, modified to suit the circumstances of a country where local
custom and religious obligations must be respected. The juris
diction is stated in this extract from the Code itself :

" The new tribunals shall have cognizance of all controversies in matters
civil or commercial between natives and foreigners, or between foreigners
of different nationalities. Apart from questions touching the statut per
sonnel (questions of wills, succession, heirship and the like, which are regu
lated by the laws of the country of the individual), they shall have cogni
zance of all questions touching real estate between all persons, even though
they belong to the same (foreign) nationality."

It is of good augury for the national progress that the Tri
bunals have won the confidence of both natives and foreigners,
and that the government bows to their authority. Europe
needed no better proof of their efficacy than when Ismail and the
government itself were brought before the Court of Appeal as
defendants, having failed to meet obligations to foreign creditors.

An idea of the work of the Tribunals is given in the statistics
of their labors from February 1, 1876, to October 31, 1894, show
ing that 135,555 suits had been instituted, and 130,449 termi
nated by decision. Thousands of suits have been concluded
without decision — by arbitration or withdrawal. In addition to
final decrees, many thousands of intermediate judgments and de
crees have been pronounced ; and all have to be written out, not
only as to terms, but motives justifying the conclusion of the
court also.

The practice is common for a native having an important suit
to assign his interest to a foreign friend, to give the Interna
tional Courts jurisdiction of his cause, thus securing intelligent
and fair consideration. Two years since, when some of the powers
were dilatory in giving their adhesion to the extension of the

24 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

courts — for every five years there is a formal renewal — something
like a panic occurred among the commercial community.

Courts of First Instance are located at Cairo, Alexandria and
Mansourah, and the Court of Appeal is at Alexandria. The
minimum pecuniary limit of appeal is $400. Three languages
are recognized in pleadings and documents — French, Italian and
Arabic. The foreign counsellors of the appellate court, nine in
number, receive a yearly salary of $9,250 each, and their four
native colleagues half as much. For the three lower courts
twenty-seven foreign judges are employed, each receiving a salary
of $7,000, their fourteen native coadjutors receiving half as
much. Five fudges — three foreign and two native — sit at a time.
The United States, like other great powers, have one representative
in the upper, and two in the lower courts. While the Tribunals
were not intended to be profit-earners, their receipts for years
have been considerably in excess of expenses.

England's participation in the affairs of Egypt has not been
felt in the Mixed Courts, where the English language and law
are unknown. It is claimed there has never been occasion for
British influence to show itself, the institution being strictly in
ternational, with thirteen other nations watchful of their rights.
Consular courts still have criminal jurisdiction, in accordance
with the original "capitulations" of the Sublime Porte.

The lay investigator meets many obstacles in an attempt to un
derstand the procedure of the Native Tribunals, of which there
are seven at populous points, with a Court of Appeal at Cairo,
and many summary courts. Almost every variety of law is dealt
in — organic, Koranic, usage, etc. Nearly 32,000 cases were de
cided last year in these courts.

It is the veriest fiction of thought that the Egyptian himself is
being Europeanized, as one learning of the Egyptian administra
tive policy might infer. He is being superficially modernized
only, which he does not object to so long as his beloved religion
is not molested. At heart he is as unchangeable as the sphinx,
and Islamism must ever dwell on the banks of the Nile.

FREDERIC COURTLAND PENFIELD.

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE.

BY EGEKTOK K. WILLIAMS.

ON" viewing briefly the history of the grain trade for the last
three decades, which measure nearly the limit of the writer's ex
perience, the chief difficulty encountered is not that of calling to
mind the many prominent changes, developments and their most
important effects, but of giving full credence thereto ; and this in
the face of personal knowledge of many of them and of authentic
statistical corroboration of many more. In no previous thirty
years of this country's history has such phenomenal progress been
made in all that pertains to man's material welfare — progress so
far beyond any precedent that we are tempted to believe there can
be no counterpart in the future.

In this article we shall consider the word " trade " not merely
in the ordinary significance of traffic, but in the broader sense,
inclusive of production and consumption.

The first effect of an extended and cheapened telegraphic ser
vice was the seeming drawing nearer to each other of the grain
importing countries of Europe and the exporting countries of
America, Asia, Australia, and Argentina, resulting in an almost
complete abandonment of the old — and since Europe's infant
commercial days — established custom -of procuring and storing
supplies several months in advance of their requirements. A
hand-to-mouth system was adopted, purchases were made by
cable, and time of shipment arranged to meet the wants of the
European miller and corn factor. This new method brought
about in time keener competition and reduced commissions or
profits to the exporter, the importer, and the European factor.

The differences in value between the markets of consumption
and those of production narrowed to an unprecedented extent,
and this narrow margin for expenses and profit has, in exceptional

26 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

instances, continued ever since, and bids fair to continue indefi
nitely. This reduction in the cost of delivered grain inures, of
course, chiefly to the consumer's advantage.

It is an anomalous condition of things commercial, but never
theless generally true, that the more grain there is to be trans
ported the less are the per-bushel-earnings of the inland and ocean
carrier. The solution lies in the fact that, as a rule, large crops
produce low prices, consequent upon supply being in excess of
demand; and low freights are the usual accompaniment of low
prices. The converse of this proposition is generally a commer
cial fact.

The railroads of late years have entered so keenly into com
petition with the Lake routes for the grain traffic that, to meet
this speedy, effective, and cheap land transportation, the con
struction of steam vessels and tows of very large capacity and in
creased speed, became imperative. These lake leviathans require
in the aggregate but few men for their management, and being
run at very small expense, compared with other tonnage differ
ently constructed, or, when their immense capacity is considered,
have been able not only to successfully compete with land tran
sit, but to make such minimum rates of freight as to result in
driving from the traffic— if not from the lakes — vessels of small
tonnage, and in placing a permanent embargo upon their further
construction.

Freights have fallen from an average range on the lakes of
7-15c. to l-3c. ; on the ocean, from 10-15c. to 2-6c. ; and all
rail to the seaboard from 30-45c. to 9-15c. per bushel.

The adoption of the hand-to-mouth policy by our millers and
dealers (and this same policy governs their customers and their
customers' customers, until the purchaser of the 10-pound bag
of flour is reached) is largely due to the narrow margin of profit
generally obtainable. This profit is not very infrequently, par
ticularly in large transactions, so small and unremunerative that
a reversal of the old system is very often the safer course. Sale
is made by the miller of his product, and by the dealer of grain
or flour, before the purchase is effected. What can better illus
trate the radical change a few short years have effected in busi
ness methods than we here find, in that, what at as late a period
as the 70's was deemed hazardous gambling, indulged in by a few
and frowned upon by a vast majority, is now commended and

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. 27

preferred by the most conservative. In fact, it is this class who
most frequently make sale of property not at the time in their
possession nor owned by them.

We well remember how very slow Europeans were to take ad
vantage of the above noted method of protection against loss of
moment on their purchases, even when strongly adverse markets
with them offered the most convincing motive. But these theo
retic moralists are to-day, and of late years have been, among the
largest " wind '" operators on our exchanges, and, more than
that, have transferred flourishing twigs from this indigenous
American speculative plant to their own shores.

Paralleling to some extent in importance and degree, the phe
nomenal increase in grain area and production in the United
States, has been the decline thereof in England since 1869, when
free trade in wheat and all other farm products was first fully es
tablished. In that year about 97 per cent, of England's popula
tion, viz.: 18£ millions out of a total of 19 millions, were fed
upon English home-grown wheat. In 1890, with a population
of 25 millions, only 5 millions were supplied with English wheat,
a falling off of 77 per cent.

The decrease in wheat acreage in 40 years, from 1846 to 1886
was nearly 66 per cent., viz.: from 3| million acres to 1,200,000
acres. This decline is not attributable to exhaustion of wheat
lands, for the average yield continued to be, and still is, about
28 bushels per acre, against 12^ in the United States, 16 in
France, 11 in Germany, 8 in Russia and 10 in Italy. ' ' It is al
most certain that the wheat area (English) will be the smallest in
a century" (Mark Lane Express, October 15, 1894). A better
appreciation, by the general reader, of the extent of the disaster
resulting from a falling off in home crops sufficient in 1869 to
feed 97 per cent, of population, to crops competent to supply
only 20 per cent, in 1890, can be gathered from the following
data obtained from figures furnished by ( ' Her Majesty's Com
missioner of Customs."

In 1890, the imports of the United Kingdom of wheat, wheat-
meal and flour amounted in value to 270 millions of dollars. Total
imports of farm products, live animals included, in the same
year reached the enormous total of 555 millions of dollars, or
more than one-third of the whole value of British exports of all
classes for the said year, and at the rate of about 14£ dollars per

28 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

capita. These enormous importations appear incredible when
we consider that the British Isles have about 45 millions of acres
of arable land to maintain less than 40 millions of people — being
over 1J acres for each inhabitant.

The estimated British imports, wheat and flour, for 1895 are
189, 799,680 bushels, against 152,474,000 in 1890, and 119,894,431
in 1877.

In most striking and, to us, most gratifying contrast to the
above truly appalling figures is the exhibit of our agricultural
condition made by ex-President Harrison in his last annual mes
sage. We quote as follows : ff The value of total farm products has
increased from $1,363,646,866 in 1860 to $4,500,000,000 in 1891,
as estimated by statisticians— an increase of 230 per cent." The
total farm value of grain, hay, potato and tobacco products alone
reached in 1894 the enormous total of $1,630,861,632, with prices
at minimum figures. The average annual increment from 1821
to 1890 is stated at $901,000,000. The wealth added in the thirty
years 1860 to 1890 was forty-nine milliards — more than the total
wealth of Great Britain. Agricultural wealth has been quadrupled
in forty years, and urban wealth has multiplied sixteen-fold.

When, in addition to the enormous decrease in England's
acreage, we reflect upon the low wheat values which, with oc
casional exceptions, have ruled during the past four years —
notably this year — the impoverishment of the English farmer de
pendent upon grain products can be, in a measure at least, im
agined. He is favored with a high average yield and low wages,
but these advantages are more than offset by high rentals and
low prices. The excess of price which he obtains beyond that of
the American farmer is by radical reduction in through trans
portation, inland and ocean, very greatly less than that prevail
ing a comparatively few years ago. While the American farmer
pays higher wages, he pays less of them, through the substitution
of steam and horse machinery for manual labor. Again, his land
freehold, the price paid per acre for his land in the far West and
Northwest, is in many instances less than the leasehold of his
English competitor. This the latter pays yearly, the former but
once. Statistics show that the 1 rmer in England pays in rental,
taxes, and poor rates about $14 per year on every acre of wheat
land ; and the wheat producer of America who rents his farm pays
on an average in rental and taxes only about $2 per acre.

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. 29

The lowest price for English wheat recorded in 104 years was
17s. 7d., or 52c. per bushel in October, 1894, against $1.78i, aver
age in 3873, and $1.2% average for 21 years— 1873 to 1893. The
average price in each decade for 250 years — 1640 to 1890 — was
$1.53 per bushel. The highest in this period was $3.79-J, in 1812.
In 1243 the price ruled as low as 2s. per quarter, or 6c. per
bushel, and in 1597 as high as $3.12. In this connection we give
the following extract from an English journal : " A national con
ference of British agriculturists was lately held in London,
attended by representatives of nearly every organization of
farmers in the kingdom. A dispatch says that doleful tales were
interchanged among the farmers present of farms being deserted,
the soil untilled, and agriculture brought to the verge of ruin.
The Right Hon. Henry Chaplin »aid he feared the oldest indus
try in the country was near supreme disaster ; that the public
had no idea of the gravity of the crisis, and that the constant and
apparently limitless fall in prices had brought ruin to thousands
of persons. When he mentioned protection as a possible remedy
the word was received with wild cheering, and he was cheered
with even greater enthusiasm when he said that if he were com
pelled to choose between ruin of farming and protection, he would
choose protection."

What of the English miller in his race with the American for
the English trade? The positively incredible increase in our ex
ports of flour the past few years — an increase so startling as to in
vite the skepticism of even those conversant with shipping sta
tistics—affords ample answer to the above query. That the
American has proved an undoubted victor figures demonstrate
beyond question.

The total exports of flour in the two fiscal years 1892-93 and
1893-94 were 33,479,870 barrels (sacks classified as barrels), of
which 20,349,039 went to Great Britain.

A factor in favor of the* American miller is his incurring of
through freight only upon the net product, whereas his com
petitor, who imports foreign wheat, necessarily incurs freight
upon the net product and upon the offal from the wheat also.

Another favorable factor is found in the reduced ocean freight
obtainable upon flour shipped in bags of various sizes instead of
barrels, by reason of the much greater facility for stowage of the
former. Further benefit of this method of shipment is derived

30 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

from the increased demand from dealers in Great Britain and
Continental Europe for packages of sizes to suit individual pur
chasers, large and small, and also from a saving of expense of
extra handling and packing, inseparably connected with barrel
shipments.

We may therefore justly infer that the conditions, present and
prospective, of the English miller, through the competition of his
keen-edged rival, may be in not a few instances even worse than
that of his farmer-countrymen ; the latter can, and in very many
shires has, let his farm ''go to grass/' and with some resultant
profit ; while the former, having no alternative course, may find
that, try as he may, " 10 mills do not make a cent."

The American agriculturist, who, in company with agricul
turists the world over, has suffered the penalty of over-production,
can trace a large portion of his own trouble to his own door.
Unlike the more scientific European or Canadian farmer, who
saves his soil by rotation of crops, the American maintains an
unbroken monotony of wheat-raising, to the impoverishment
alike of his land and of himself. Wheat in the Chicago market
has fallen from an annual average of $1.11^ for twenty-six years
1867 to 1892, to a minimum of 54 cents in 1893, 50 cents in 1894,
and 49 cents in January, 1895.

Verily, a knotty problem of the future is not the one agitated
a few years ago : " How shall the nations of the world be fed ? "
but, " What shall be done with the surplus that the nations pro
duce ? " There is a limit to the consumption, to the bread wants
of the people of the inhabited portions of this globe of ours ; but
statisticians have been unable to define the extent of the capa
bility of production, particularly of countries of continental
area such as America, India, Russia, Argentina, Australia, and
Canada.

Exceptional partial crop failures, such as lately recorded in
Argentina and now threatened in America, offer some temporary
solution of the problem. Through such influences accumulated
surpluses can be reduced.

The aggregate production of those, which in the writer's youth
were termed "the great wheat -producing States/' the wheat belt
of the country, would now afford a subject for merriment to the
"Farmer Princes" of the far West, the possessors of farms each
of which yields an output greater than that of counties in the

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. 31

olden times. Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York,
with her universally known fruitful Genesee Valley, Ohio,
Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, have been shorn of many of their
wheat laurels. " Westward the star of empire takes its way."
The control of the future destinies of this country will be deter
mined by the nation's majority whose dwellings will be west of the
Mississippi; and thitherward has already travelled the " wheat
empire."

One of the greatest anomalies, probably the greatest, in the
grain trade, is that the measure of value is determined by the
comparatively small quantity that is shipped, and that the much
greater quantity that is consumed at home is no more of an actual
factor in the foreign market than if it did not exist. The first
conclusion after consideration of this matter would very naturally
be as follows : For the goods we send to the European market, in
which we are aware we shall find competition from other sellers
from other countries, of articles of the same or approximate
quality to our own, for these goods we must accept the best bid
obtainable and rest content therewith. But that the European
prices should determine, should definitely and arbitrarily fix
American values, that the less factor should control the greater,
is an incongruity difficult for many to comprehend or with which
to become reconciled. The burden of the complaint of the pro
ducing, milling, trading, and transporting interests is that the
''verdict of values" is rendered in a foreign, competitive, con
sumers' market, where the preponderance of interest and of
influence is on the side of low prices. That the classes named
are the chief sufferers from low markets, and the home and foreign
consumers the beneficiaries, "goes without saying." This foreign
dictation is therefore by no means an unmixed evil ; in fact,
those benefited are the great majority, and that there is no remedy
is evident. The surplus of exporting countries must always
determine, home values, and this surplus must be disposed of in
the world's markets.

And what of the cotton producer ? Does he escape the foreign
yoke ? By no means. The American cotton market quotations
are virtually made in Liverpool ; the smallest fractional vibration
of the " speculative pendulum " there meets with instant re
sponse on our exchanges.

The list is not yet complete. England, the wealthiest of all

32 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

nations, and, with her colonies, the most extended, and the most
ambitious for further extension, not content with controlling
the values of our farm products, has sought, and in many in
stances with signal success, to largely influence if not control the
products of many of our railways and also of numbers of our
manufacturing industries.

This she accomplishes, and it must be admitted fairly and
honorably, by the purchase of large blocks of the stocks of these
different corporations. This barter or exchange is mutually
acceptable. America wants the British gold and England wants
more remunerative investments than can be found at home.

While it is true that the London stock market has by no
means the effective or the continuous influence on the New York
Stock Exchange that the English grain and cotton markets have
on the American, and that at frequent times New York is the
dominant force, it is undeniable that in no inconsiderable portion
of each year our prices of leading railway and other stocks
and bonds which are listed on the London Board are largely, if
not wholly, controlled there. England, scores of years ago,
earned for herself the proud title of s ' Mistress of the Seas "; has
she not by peaceful methods also earned the title of " Mistress of
the World's Export Markets ?"

Lack of space prevents the discussion in this article of the
following topics : The merits and demerits of the method of
trading in grain for future delivery as evidenced in its practical
workings ; some of the probable effects of the present system of
publication of weekly and monthly Governmental and State re
ports (of more or less questionable accuracy) of the " conditions "
of the growing crops from the time the seed is sown until the har
vest is complete ; the effects of the full information given to the
" consuming world" of the actual quantities of grain in our store
houses, coupled with approximate estimates of the surplus left in
producers' hands ; and prominent features connected with the
almost complete abolition of the at one time universal and cen
turies-old custom of the sale and purchase of grain and flour
through commission merchants, or agents who have been sup
planted by principals, with whom profit and loss, not commissions,
are the reward.

The system of purchasing and selling grain for future delivery
was introduced, if we recollect aright, in the latter part of the

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. 33

60's. We recall, as if it were yesterday, the first transaction
made on our Toledo Exchange ; how, with " bated breath and
startled ears/' the members heard the offer and acceptance by the
Presidents of two National banks, of a contract for the delivery
of 5,000 bushels of wheat at a stated price during the following
month. How little we then realized how familiar in a few short
years — yes, it may be said in a few months — we would become
with such really legitimate and lawful transactions ; how wide
spread, in fact, universal, they would become, and what a mo
mentous influence for the welfare of mankind they would exert
on the commerce of the world.

The disastrous effects to this agricultural country of the late
panic would have been intensified several fold by the enforced
cash marketings from the crop of 1893 and from the immense
wheat surpluses left over from the excessive crops of 1891 and
1892 — which enforced marketings became imperative by reason
of the impecunious condition of the farming community as a
whole — had not the system of trading in grain for future delivery
established speculatively higher future prices, which induced
capitalists to assume and carry the burden of the large stocks
in all our leading markets. Elevator proprietors and other
moneyed men made equivalent cash purchases and future sales,
which protected and benefited them, and to an immense degree
protected and benefited the farming community, and, in fact,
the whole country.

Kadical abuses, such as grain " corners," undue speculation
and its attendant evils, have been occasional and unavoidable
accompaniments of this modern system, but these abuses form
no basis for argument against the method itself.

The use or abuse of any factor for the good of mankind is
simply man's treatment of God's gifts.

EGERTOK R. WILLIAMS.

NOTE.— Since the writing of this article, a deficiency of sufficient magnitude in
the wheat crops of America and of the world has become so definitely assured as to
promise the, at least temporary, restoration^ values to a level approximating and,
possibly, greatly above the cost of production. Such a radical change, while fraught
with serious injury to many producers and consumers, would prove of incalculable
benefit to the world at large. E. R. W.

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464.

HOW FREE SILVER WOULD AFFECT US.

BY THE HON. EDWARD O. LEECH, LATE DIRECTOR OF THE MINT.

IT is important to understand clearly and exactly what the
free coinage of silver under present conditions means. It may be
defined as the right of anyone to deposit silver of any kind at a
mint of the United States, and have every 371J grains of pure silver
(now worth in its uncoined state about 52 cents) stamped, free
of charge, " One Dollar/' which dollar shall be a full legal-tender
at its face value in the payment of debts and obligations of all
kinds, public and private, in the United States.

(1) Such an act at this time would savor of national dis
honesty. At the present value of silver one of our legal-tender
dollars will purchase 716 grains of pure silver, nearly double the
amount contained in a silver dollar. From the foundation of the
government the effort of our fathers has been to establish a coin
age ratio approximating as nearly as possible the commercial value
of the precious metals. The first coinage act (1792) authorized
the mintage of gold and silver coins at the proportion of 1 of
gold to 15 of silver, which was believed to be about the com
mercial value of the metals at that period. Gold being under
valued slightly, gold coins did not enter into circulation, and sil
ver constituted the currency of the country. To remedy this in
1834-37 the ratio was fixed at about 1 to 16 (exactly 1 to 15.98)
which was believed to correspond more nearly to the commercial
value of the two metals. The effort was always to approximate
the commercial value of the two metals.

Hamilton, in his Justly celebrated report on " The Establish
ment of a Mint/' says : " There can hardly be a better rule in
any country for the legal than the market proportion/'

Jefferson said : " Just principles will lead us to disregard
legal proportions altogether ; to inquire into the market price of

HOW FREE SILVER WOULD AFFECT US. 35

gold in the several countries with which we shall principally be
connected in commerce and to take an average from them. The
proportion between the values of gold and silver is a mercantile
problem altogether."

It remained for these latter days to seriously suggest to the
American people the unlimited mintage of coins of full-debt-
paying power, worth intrinsically about one half the face value.
In point of honesty there is no practical difference between
stamping and issuing a coin with full debt-paying qualities as $1,
which is really worth only 50 cents, and cutting a dollar in half
and requiring everyone to accept the half as a dollar. No country
can thrive by dishonesty and of all forms of national dishonesty
the clipped or overvalued coin is the most ancient and most ob
jectionable.

( 2) The inevitable result of the unrestricted coinage of silver
by this country acting in monetary isolation would be to place
our currency on a silver basis. This is recognized and admitted
now by leading advocates of silver coinage. A distinguished
United States Senator, a leader in the silver movement, speaking
from his place in the Senate during the late currency debate, said :
" We are threatened that if the present currency laws remain
unchanged the country will soon be upon a silver basis. Perhaps
that is true. I am somewhat inclined to think it is. This pros
pect, however, has no terrors for the silver advocates. They are
contending for both gold and silver, but if forced to choose be
tween the two would greatly prefer silver." Heretofore the advo
cates of silver coinage have insisted that the moment the mints
were open to the free coinage of silver the unlimited demand
would ipso facto maintain the parity at the coinage ratio. Now
we have the frank admission that the free coinage of silver by
this country means a silver basis for our currency.

What does a silver basis mean? It means in the first instances,
violent contraction of the currency by the withdrawal of gold
coins and gold certificates from circulation. The stock of me
tallic and paper money in tho United States is about $3,209,000,-
000, every dollar of which, under our present standard, is as good
as a gold dollar and practically interchangeable with gold. The
law makes it the imperative duty of the Secretary of the Treasury
to " maintain the two metals on a parity with each other " and
provides the necessary means to accomplish it, the pledge of the

36 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

public credit. With free silver coinage the obligation both
moral and legal upon the government to "maintain the two
metals on a parity " would end. The immediate result would be
the destruction of the parity, the separation of our currency be
tween gold and silver, and the withdrawal of $676,000,000 of
gold from circulation and use as money. This enormous con
traction of the money which is the basis of our currency system
would unsettle business, impair credits, destroy values, and pro
duce the most tremendous financial disturbance which this coun
try has ever witnessed.

After the first shock, the effects of which no man can fully fore
see, when values had adjusted themselves to existing conditions,
a silver basis means that the paying power of our money in for
eign exchanges would be depreciated to the commercial value of
the silver in our dollars, whatever that may be. "We have a per
fect illustration close at hand in our near neighbor, Mexico, of a
country on a settled silver basis, with unrestricted gold and sil
ver coinage. The Mexican dollar, although it contains more sil
ver than our dollar, has a purchasing power in foreign exchanges
equal only to its commercial value as bullion. The same is true
of the currency of every country which is on a silver basis.
Tliere is no country in the world to-day where silver is minted
into legal-tender coins where gold circulates as money. The
commercial relations between European countries and our own are
more intimate to-day than were the relations between the states
of the Union prior to the Civil War. All Europe has practically
the gold standard, and all international exchanges, whether with
gold-standard or silver-standard countries, are settled on a gold
basis. The great bulk of the foreign commerce of the United
States is with countries having the gold standard. During the
last fiscal year we exported to Europe merchandise of the value
of $700,000,000, while we imported from the same countries
merchandise of the value of $295,000,000. Between countries
which use the same metal as money there is a par of exchange which
varies only within well defined limits, regulated by the balance
of trade. Between countries which use different metals as a
measure of value there is at present no natural par because of the
fluctuations in the commercial value of silver. Stability in the
rates of exchange is of the very essence of commercial transac
tions, especially commercial transactions based on credit. With-

HOW FREE SILVER WOULD AFFECT US. 37

out this there is necessarily an uncertainty which it is impossible
to eliminate and which complicates and deters business transac
tions. In this lies the permanent evil of a silver basis for our
money — the uncertainty and fluctuations in tlie value of our cur
rency as measured ~by tlie world's standard— gold. What the
purchasing power of our currency in domestic transactions would
be0 would depend upon conditions which no one can foresee or
accurately forecast.

(3) If the mints of this country were open, under present
conditions, to the unlimited coinage of silver into legal dollars,
the United States would quickly become the dumping ground of
the world's silver. The mints of Europe and India are closed to
silver coinage. Aside from the mints of Mexico, Japan and a
few South American countries, the stamp of whose mint adds
nothing to the value of the coins, there is no actual demand for
silver for coinage into full legal-tender money by civilized coun
tries. Is it conceivable that the invitation to the owners of silver
throughout the world to exchange 371£ grains of silver, now
worth fifty-two cents, for one of our legal-tender dollars would
not be heeded? If our mints should be open to the free coinage
of silver, the current product of silver would most certainly and
swiftly find its way there. The annual product of silver at the
present price, sixty-seven cents an ounce, approximates 162,000,000
ounces, which would coin in silver dollars $209,000,000, a snug
little profit to the owners of silver mines of over $100,000,000 on
the present annual product only. If a price of sixty-seven cents
an ounce brings forth a product of the coinage value of $209,-
000,000, it is safe to say that with silver at $1.29 an ounce (our
coinage rate) the output would be enormously increased. Mexico,
South America, and many portions of this continent and Aus
tralia abound with deposits of low grade lead ores in which silver
is the metal of chief value, which ores cannot be profitably de
silverized at the present commercial value of silver, but which
would be opened up and their silver contents dumped into the
treasury of the United States, with silver at $1.29 an ounce. But
what of European stocks of silver? Gold is the standard of all
Europe. Whether they are bimetallic in theory or monometallic,
gold alone constitutes the measure of values in all continental
countries. Many of the European countries have in their banks
and treasuries large hoards of overvalued silver coins, coined in

38 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

former years, which they would be glad to exchange for our gold.
The Bank of France alone has in its vaults $250,000,000 of over
valued silver coins. If the gold value of our legal-tender money
remained undisturbed, the passage of a free coinage act by the
United States would afford a splendid opportunity for such an
exchange.

If our mints should be open to the free coinage of silver under
existing conditions, the stocks of silver would move to this
country solely because they could be converted, at the highest
market price, into our legal-tender money, which, in turn, could
be converted into gold at par ; but the moment our currency
reached a silver basis, when our legal-tender paper-money could
be exchanged only for silver dollars, the profit to the foreign
silver owner for the interchange of his silver for our gold would
cease and silver would be imported only as an exchange transac
tion, just as gold is now.

(4) If we should exchange our stock of gold for a stock of
silver, cut loose from the standard of all the great commercial
countries with whom we do business, and ally ourselves to
Asiatic and South American monetary systems, what would
we gain ? One of two things would most certainly occur ;
either our gold would be hoarded by banks, trust companies
and individuals, or else would go abroad to pay for the silver
shipped here for sale. In either case our currency would be
depreciated and fluctuating in value to the embarrassment of
business and the ultimate injury of the wage earner. The
basis of our currency would be changed from gold to silver,
but whether the increase in the volume of money — the panacea
for all our industrial ills promised by free silver advocates — would
be considerable, or the price of silver be permanently increased,
is open to serious doubt. Just as long as it was profitable to ship
silver to the United States — that is, just as long as it would bring
a higher price here than elsewhere— silver would come, but it
would not come when the shipment ceased to be profitable. If
silver ceased to come here because it was not profitable to ship it
and receive payment in dollars whose purchasing power was
only equal to the commercial value of the metal contained
in them, where would be the gain in the volume of our cur
rency ?

(5) It is said that the decline in prices which has occurred

HOW FREE SILVER WOULD AFFECT US. 39

during the last twenty years, has been occasioned by the disuse
of silver as money, and that if this country should resume the use
of silver the value of all products would be increased and our pro
ducers benefited. The decline in the prices of staples could not
have arisen from any scarcity of metallic money, for the reason
that there is nearly double the amount of metallic money in use
in the world to-day that there was in 1860, — the official esti
mates of the coin stocks being $3,400,000,000 in I860, against
$8,021,000,000 in 1894 (Report of Director of the Mint, 1894,
pages 44,45). Nor could it have arisen from any disuse of silver
money, for the reason that there is more silver money in use in
the world now than the entire stock of metallic money in 1860, —
the figures for silver money being $4,055,000, 000 in 1894, against
a total metallic stock in 1860 of $3,400,000,000.

In our own country, where prices have declined as much as
elsewhere, it is a fact shown by Treasury statements that we i.ot
only have more money in actual circulation than ever before, net
excepting the flush times of the War, but vastly more silver
money. The circulation of the United States, exclusive of all
Treasury holdings, was on June 1, 1895, $1,606,000,000, of which
$550,000,000 was silver money. The per capita circulation was
$23.02 against $18.04 in 1873, and $20.57 in 1865, the highest
period of war inflation. Indeed, there is no country where the
amount of actual money has diminished in recent years, but on
the contrary, in addition to an increased stock of metallic and
paper money the effort of civilization and one of its most bene
ficial results, developed largely during the last twenty years, has
been to minimize the use of actual money by providing substi
tutes in the shape of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, telegraphic
transfers and Clearing-House settlements. In proof of this may
be cited the fact, shown by the the report of the Comptroller of
the Currency, that over 95 per cent, of the business of the banks
of this country is done by substitutes for money.

Moreover, all the silver produced since 1873, except what is
used in the industrial arts, has been converted into money either
by actual coinage or the issue of legal-tender notes against the
bullion held as reserve. This product has been enormous as com
pared with prior periods, the period of high prices. The product
of silver during the last twenty years has aggregated over $2,400,-
000,000 in coining value while during the preceding twenty years

40 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

it was only $948,000,000. The coinage of silver for the last twen
ty years has aggregated $2,300,000,000.

So that it is not true that the money of ultimate redemption,
either gold or silver, has diminished since 1873, and consequently
the argument based upon this mis-statement falls with it.

It is impossible in the space allotted me to enter upon the
question of the decline of prices, but it is sufficient to say that
there is not one of the great staple commodities which has fallen
largely in price where such decline cannot be readily traced to cir
cumstances affecting the demand and the supply of the article
itself.

Undoubtedly it might be possible, by making a dollar worth
fifty cents, to bring about a condition of monetary affairs when it
would take two dollars to buy what one will now purchase; but
a more certain and expeditious way to depreciate the currency, if
that is the aim, would be to start the government paper mills
going and issue paper dollars. If prices are to be increased through
the depreciation of the purchasing agent — money, it certainly
would not be an unmixed blessing. Unless wages increased in
the same proportion as other commodities, it is evident that the
wage earner would not be benefited. As shown by the report
of the Senate Finance Committee wages averaged over thirty per
cent, higher in 1891 than in 1860. According to the census of
1890, the earnings of labor increased over forty per cent, as com
pared with the prior census — a period of ten years. If, therefore,
the staple necessities of life have fallen largely in price in recent
years, an immense advantage has been reaped by the wage earner.
There never has been a period when the money paid the laboring
man in this country would buy as much of the necessities of life
as to-day. The greatest calamity which could possibly happen
to him would be to double the price of the commodities which
he must use by depreciating the value of the dollar in which he is
paid. All persons living on fixed incomes would suffer severely.
The deposits in the Savings Banks of the United States, owned
by the laboring men and women, aggregate $1,800,000,000.
These deposits have been made in money or bankable funds of the
present standard of value and to-day are payable in money inter
convertible with gold. Under free silver coinage every dollar of
these deposits and the deposits in all the commercial banks of the
country, aggregating the enormous sum of $4,000,000,000, could

HOW FREE SILVER WOULD AFFECT US. 41

be paid and would be paid in legal dollars of about one-half the
present purchasing value of the dollar. The value of every insur
ance policy and every pension would, in the same way, be cur
tailed one-half.

Undoubtedly it would be of advantage to the debtor classes to
be able to pay their debts in a depreciated currency, but this
would be manifestly unfair, for the reason that all contracts
entered into in this country since 1834 (when our currency was
practically and purposely changed to a gold basis), certainly since
1873, when gold was legally made the unit of value, are fairly
payable in money of our present standard, and as they constitute
the bulk of existing contracts it would be manifestly dishonest
that they should be liquidated at half their present value.

Behold the countries with free silver coinage, or the silver
standard — Mexico, South America and Asia — and see the rates of
wages there compared with wages in countries that have the gold
standard ; see the " Prosperity arid Happiness (?) " there among
the laboring classes compared with the wage earners of Europe
and the United States, and surely no more practical and complete
refutation of the theory that a silver currency would benefit our
laborers and producers could possibly be adduced.

The memorable words of the lamented Secretary Windom
uttered with dying lips before the New York Board of Trade and
Transportation are pregnant with truth :

"The quality of circulation is even more important than the quantity.
Numerous devices for enlarging credit may, and often do, avert the evils of
a deficient circulation, and a redundancy may sometimes modify its own
evils before their results become universal, but for the baleful effects of a
debased and fluctuating currency there is no remedy, except by the costly
and difficult return to sound money. As poison in the blood permeates
arteries, veins, nerves, brains and heart, and speedily brings paralysis or
death, so does a debased and fluctuating currency permeate all the arteries
of trade, paralyze all kinds of business and bring disaster to all classes of
people."

The nation that undertakes to conduct its business with money
of uncertain value is at a great disadvantage. In order to merit
the confidence of the world and maintain our credit and reputa-
tation as a country of the first class we must maintain our money
system above all question, with all our currency redeemable on
demand in the money which civilized countries have decided to
do business with, — gold.

Only within a few months have we seen the threatening con-

42 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

dition of affairs brought about by the doubt of the ability of the
government to meet its obligations in gold on demand. The re
moval of that doubt through the successful financiering of the
Treasury by the existing Bond Syndicate has given such relief
to currency conditions as to impart confidence to business
which portends better times. Free silver coinage would replace
the doubt of our ability to maintain gold payments by the cer
tainty that we did not intend to. It would be a national disgrace
as well as a national misfortune, which the people of this country
will never submit to, to debase the money of this proud and pros
perous republic to the standard of Mexico, South America and
Asiatic countries.

EDWARD OWE:N~ LEECH.

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS.

III.— THE SHEEP AND THE GOAT.

BY DR. LOUIS ROBDSTSON.

THE sheep has undergone more modifications at the hands of
man than any other animal. All the rest of our domestic animals
have proved their capacity to reassume the habits of their wild
ancestors, but no once tamed sheep has taken to a life of inde
pendence. This is at first surprising, because many kinds, such
as the Scotch mountain sheep and those upon the high lands of
Chili and Patagonia, manage to live and thrive with very little
aid from their masters. Yet it is found that even the hardy
Pampas sheep cannot hold its own when that aid is wanting. If
man were to become extinct in South America the sheep would
not survive him half a dozen years. There are three chief reasons
for this, and all of them are of peculiar interest.

In the first place, the sheep is, as a rule, a timid and defence
less animal, and at the same time is neither swift nor cunning.
It falls an easy prey to the meanest of the wolf tribe. A single
coyote or a fox terrier dog could destroys flock of a thousand in
a few days. Then it is found that the young lambs and their
mothers require especial care and nursing. If they do not get
it at the critical time the flock owner will lose them by the hun
dred. It is a common thing in the South Downs for the shepherd
not to leave his flock day or night during 'the whole lambing
season. Lastly, scarcely any modern sheep shed their wool
naturally, in the same way that the horse sheds his thick winter
coat.

There was exhibited at the first great International Exposi
tion, in 1851, a seven-year-old South Down ewe, which had never

44 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

been shorn. Its enormous burden of wool hung to the ground,
and it would have been about as capable of getting about as a
man covered with a dozen thick frieze overcoats. It is quite
plain that such a creature could not get its living in the open
fields unless it were regularly shorn.

Now, if we seek for an answer to the question " Where did
the sheep get its wool from ? " we shall find an explanation also
of the other two peculiarities which now prevent it from holding
its own in the wild state. And we shall, in addition, be able to
point out the chief reason why the animal was, in the first place,
domesticated by man.

The wool was of course developed primarily to protect the
sheep from cold. But from what cold ? The cold of winter ?
That can scarcely be, since the wool persists and continues grow
ing all the year round. The cold of Arctic climates ? That also
must be excluded, since no sheep, either tame or wild, thrives in
the extreme North. On the contrary, in Australia and many
other warm countries, the flocks flourish abundantly. Certain
naturalists say that the so-called musk ox is really a sheep, but it
is plain that that curious beast is a very distant relative of the
familiar varieties. Neither this, nor any other Arctic animal,
would long survive a removal to a sub-tropical region.

If we study the various kinds of wild sheep all the world over,
we at once find an answer to the question. Without exception
they are dwellers upon high mountains. Some live almost among
perpetual snow. The Bighorn inhabits the Kockies, the Moufflon,
the mountains of Corsica, the gigantic Ovis Poli, the Argali and
the Burrhel make their home upon the high ranges of Siberia and
Thibet. On the grassy slopes and terraces they find sustenance,
and among the giddy precipices above they take refuge when
danger threatens them. They took to the hills in the first place,
like the wild asses, because the fierce carnivora of the lowlands
were too many for them. Their cousins, the antelopes and deer,
were swift enough to hold their own on the plains, but the only
chance of survival which was open to the more sluggish Ovidce
was to take to the mountains. Many a human refugee, hunted
by a human beast of prey, has had to do the same. Having once
chosen their habitat, it was necessary that their instincts and
structure should become adapted for the life of a mountaineer ;
and throughout long ages, by the survival of those individuals

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 45

best fitted to this kind of existence, and by the elimination or
sifting out of the unfit, they have developed into what they now are.

As a protection against the cold of high altitudes they grew a
thick woolly covering beneath their long coarse hair. The need
of mounting steep slopes with rapidity, and of propelling their
heavy bodies by leaps among the rocks, caused the muscles of the
hinder quarters to become stout and fleshy. To the former fact
we owe our woolen clothing, and to the latter, the succulent
"legs of mutton " which so often appear on our tables.

Both the fleece and the meat have, of course, been greatly
altered by human agency. Those sheep have constantly been
chosen by breeders which fattened readily and which had the
finest and most abundant wool. The coarse outer covering of
hair disappeared ; although, as might be expected, it occasion
ally shows itself. In the West India Islands, even imported
South Down sheep become completely changed in appearance,
for the wool is hidden by long brown hair. Each different breed
of sheep, as the Cotswold, the Leicester, and the Merino, has
wool of a different character. This is chiefly owing to artificial
selection. The sheep breeders of Saxony, by picking out those
animals which had the softest fleeces, soon produced a greatly
improved supply of wool. They used the microscope to ascer
tain which animals had wool of the finest fibre, and rejected all
which did not come up to a certain standard.

It is the fleece, then, which first brought the sheep into
captivity, and it is the fleece that is chiefly instrumental in
keeping him as a servant and dependent. It now grows so
abundantly that he needs to be freed by the shears once a year,
or the burden of it would overcome him. Imagine wearing two
suits of winter clothing in July !

The other weak points of the sheep come from the facts that
he has been by nature adapted for one special kind of life, and
that we have now removed him from it. The conditions to which
every atom of him had become exactly adjusted are changed, and
it is hardly likely that he will be at home at all points under the
new circumstances. For this reason the tame sheep, like the
ass, appears a stupid animal. At critical times, such as when the
young lambs are born, the unaccustomed surroundings may be
fatal. It is this specialization, as the naturalists call it, which
accounts for the extinction of many animals which used to be

46 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

abundant. They become exactly fitted to one particular way of
life, and unfitted for any other. If circumstances compel them
to migrate, they die.

Generally the race comes to an end through the parents not
being able to rear their tender young, which naturally feel the
stress of unfavorable new environment more than the adults.
This is what would happen to the domestic sheep, if the shep
herds were not to take such assiduous care of them in the lamb
ing season.

Now let us see what other relics of wild life can be found in
the sheep. It is always, as I have said in a previous paper, worth
while to examine immature animals, if we wish to find out the
habits of their early ancestors. Young lambs have enormously
developed legs and can run about smartly when only a few hours
old. This at once suggests that they had to keep up with their
parents when the flock moved from place to place, and were not
hidden in secluded spots by their dams. They have a curious
habit of following anything large and light colored which moves
quickly away from them. A new born lamb will rush after a
newspaper blown along by the wind, or, as Mr. Hudson says in his
delightful book, The Naturalist in La Plata, they will persis
tently gallop after a horseman on the Pampas. It is the old and
most necessary instinct of following the flock when it was fleeing
from an enemy, but the instinct is at fault in civilized regions.

Doubtless on the tops of the Corsican or Thibetan mountains,
both newspapers and horsemen are too rare to be taken account
of in the formation of habits of self preservation. However white
the fleeces of their elders may be, young lambs are usually of a
dirty gray color, so as to harmonize with the rocks of their ances
tral home. When at play, they always seek the steepest parts of
the field, and if there is a rock or a log lying about, they will skip
on to it and butt atone another, as if playing " King of the Castle. "
If mountain or moorland sheep on a hillside are attacked by a dog,
they will always, from choice, run diagonally up hill. Should a
flock of Southdowns take alarm and break out from the fold at
night, the shepherd knows that the place to find them is the
highest ground in the neighborhood. If a dog enters a field
where there are ewes and lambs, he is watched in the most sus
picious manner, and at once attacked if he comes too near. Many
a valiant puppy, who thought that sheep were poor spiritless

WILD TRAJTS IN TAME ANIMALS. 47

things, has received treatment which astonished him when he
strolled into the sheep pasture in the lambing season.

Now, dogs are rarely dangerous to domestic sheep. The de
termined hostility shown to them at such times is a relic of the
old, wild instinct, when the horned flock on the mountain side
defended their young against jackals, dholes and wolves. An
angry ewe will stamp her foot when a dog comes within sight.
This is probably a relic of an ancient method of signalling the
approach of a foe. But it is also a threat; for many animals akin
to the sheep use their sharp hoofs with terrible effect. Deer will
destroy snakes by jumping on them and ripping them to ribands
with outward strokes of their hoofs. Nearly all antelopes use
this method of attack, and hunters have been killed by the hoofs
of Nylghau, the great Himalaya antelope.

A wild sheep in his native country -is no trifling antagonist.
The horns of the Ovis Poli and Argali are enormous, and must
be seen to be appreciated. Sir Joseph Hooker, the great botanist,
says that in Thibet foxes have been known to make kennels in
the hollow horns of the Argali ! This sounds rather a " tall "
statement, and I confess I should much like to find one of these
hermit-crab-like foxes at home !

Some Indian tame sheep are desperate fellows to fight, and
are exhibited by native potentates matched against bulls and
other animals. Phil Eobinson tells a story of a ram that was sent
to the Calcutta Zoological Gardens, and, since he was of no value
as a curiosity, the keepers thought that he would make a nice tid
bit for a tiger. The sheep, however, being of a pugnacious
disposition, "went for" the tiger as soon as he was put into the
cage. The traveller goes on to tell, that after a sharp tussle the
sheep killed the tiger ! Whether he ate him afterwards is not re
lated, but one would not be surprised at anything in such a sheep
as that !

The immense number of varieties of sheep, and the widely
different characters they present, prove that they have been
domesticated for a very long time. If the dog was the first ani
mal tamed by man, the sheep was certainly the second.

Naturalists are not agreed as to which of the wild species our
modern sheep are descended from. I think it is probable that
they owe their origin to several kinds, including the Moufflon, the
Burrhel and the Argali. These, oddly enough, have short tails,

48 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

like nearly all mountain animals — the chief purpose of the tail
among the herbivorous animals is to drive away flies, and on the
windy heights these are not troublesome. Yet domestic sheep are
born with long tails, and in spite of the practice of farmers and
shepherds of cutting the tails short, they still persevere in grow
ing them. Here are two problems for the rising generation of
naturalists, who, of course, are incalculably smarter and more in
telligent than the old fogies who have written on such subjects
hitherto ! Why does the modern sheep grow a tail ? And why
does a lamb wriggle his tail at meal times ?

I have but little space left to discuss the goat. He is much
less removed from his primitive free forefathers than the sheep.
Tame goats have run wild all the world over where there are
mountains. The goat is distinctly a climber among rocks. If
the ancestor of the sheep grazed on the growing slopes, the wild
goats lived high among the broken craggy sides of the mountain
and browsed the sparse leaves of the shrubs in the clefts and
crannies. As might be expected the young kids show greater
agility than their more sedate elders. The goat is altogether a
more slim and cleanly built animal than the sheep, even in the
wild state. He is also more independent, showing that it was his
habit to separate from his fellows when feeding, whereas the
members of a flock of sheep keep together if possible and always
follow their leaders when alarmed.

Both animals set regular sentries on high spots to watch for
the approach of enemies and these give signals to the others.
Hence neither the sheep nor the goat needs the long ears of the
donkey tribes.

Probably those of my readers who have better opportunities
for observing the habits of tame goats than I have, will be able
to note many interesting points in their behavior which tell tales
of the way of life of their predecessors who roamed the hills be
fore our own primitive ancestors had developed sense enough to
catch them and use them for their own purposes.

Louis

THE DISPOSAL OF A CITY'S WASTE.

BY GEOKGE E. WARING, JR., COMMISSIONER OF STREET-CLEANING
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

EVER since the beginning of Liebig's agricultural writings,
more than half a century ago, the quasi scientific world has been
seeking means to turn the wastes of urban life into wealth ; and
has been ascribing the downfall of empires to the pouring of those
wastes into the sea. The less inexact science of these later days
shows us how wastes sent into the sea come back to us in the form
of fish and other sea products, to such an extent as to go at least
very far toward the maintenance of general fertility in the land.
We have not yet reached any very satisfactory knowledge as to the
conversion of waste into wealth. While the theoretical value of
discarded matters is recognized, the cost of recovery is still an ob
stacle to its profitable development.

In England, great sums have been lost during the past thirty
years in the effort to get back the value of the fertilizing elements
of sewage. It is now conceded by practical men that the very
small amount of manure and the very large amount of water can
not be separated at a profit. Sewage farming is often the best
agent of sewage purification, and it may lessen the cost of sewage
disposal ; but it cannot under any ordinary conditions be made to
pay a profit. This long-hoped for source of wealth must be rele
gated to the position of a very useful aid to economy.

There are, however, other wastes of life which are not diluted
with great volumes of water, and which seem to give a fair enough
promise of profitable use to make it worth while to consider them
and their possible value with a good deal of care, and to make
them the subject of conclusive experiment.

The experience of the City of New York in the matter of " scow-
trimming " is suggestive. The scow-trimmers of New York

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464. 4

50 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

are employed to distribute evenly over the vessels by which it is
taken to sea to be dumped, the mass of garbage, ashes and street
sweepings that is discharged upon them by the cartload amid
a cloud of dust and often in quick succession. Under these diffi
cult conditions, the Italian workmen fish out such as they can of
the flying rags, bones, bottles, and other things of value that the
material may contain. Each of the fifteen dumps is worked by its
own gang for its own padrone, and these pay to the general con
tractor enough more than he has to pay to the city to leave him a
satisfactory profit.

Up to about 1878 the city paid $10.50 per week for each man
working on the scows.* From this time until 1882 no charge was
made for labor, the matters recovered being taken as an equivalent.
Beginning with 1882, the privilege of scow-trimming brought to
the city a money compensation of from $75 to $90 per week. The
payment increased gradually, until in 1887 it reached $320 per
week ; in 1888, $685; in 1889, $1,000 ; in 1890, $1,068; in 1891,
$1,770; in 1892-93, $1,795. At the end of 1894 it had fallen to
$1,675. There were occasional deductions on account of the tem
porary closing of dumps, but for some years the city has received
annually over $50,000 worth of labor and about $90,000 in cash
as the value of the privilege of gleaning from its dust chutes.

The following is the list of the articles collected, with the
tariff of prices. It is furnished by the present contractor, Sig-
nor Carlo De Marco, Padrone:

Mixed rags ............ : .......................... $ .50 per 100 Ibs.

No.2 " ..................................... 40

Dirty white rags ................................ 1.00

Soft wools ........................................ 2.00

Rubber ........................................... 3:50

Bottles ............................................ 1.25

Soda water bottles ............................... 50

bbl.

Lager beer " ............................... 65 "100

Seltzer water " .............................. 3.50 " "

Iron ........ , ................................... 4.50 "ton

Zinc ... ..................................... _____ 1.75 "lOOlbs.

Copper ............................................ 5.00 " " «•

Brass ........................................... 3.50 " " "

Pewter ....................... ............ 10.00 " " "

Paper ............................................. 25 to .40 per lOOlbs.

Tomato cans (for the solder) ____ .............. 2. 00 a load. t

Oldshoes ............................. .......... 05 to .15 per pair.

Hats ............................................. Ol^each.

Brokenglass .................................... lOper

Carpets .............................. ............ 25 "lOOl

Rope ............................................... 50 " " "

Brushes ...................... ..................... 05 to .15 each.

Fat ............................................ 1.10 per 100 Ibs.

Bones .......................................... 50 " " "

Hemp twine .............. . 1.00 " " "

Cloth ............................................. 1.00 " " "

* There is no record of the number.
t This was formerly $6 per load.

THE DISPOSAL OF A CITY'S WASTE. 51

Dickens's ' ' Golden Dustman " and the accounts of the rag
pickers of Paris have made us familar with the fact that there is
an available value in the ordinary rejectamenta of human life.
We learn by the work of the dock Italian of New York that to
regain this value is a matter of minute detail ; it calls for the
recovery of unconsidered trifles from a mass of valueless wastes,
and the conversion of these into a salable commodity.

Reasoning from this starting point we may fairly assume that
if there were a complete system for the collection of these objects
at their source — at the houses in which they are discarded — much
more would be recovered. As the subject is studied, it seems
clear that the public authorities might with advantage take con
trol of the whole business of the collection of rubbish. This
would probably be necessary to the securing of a great pecuniary
return. Such control would involve the suppression, or the public
employment, of the push-cart man, who jangles his string of bells
through the streets and carries on a more or less illicit traffic with
domestic servants. These peddler-buyers are no more tolerable
than were the long-ago discarded rag-pickers. Those who have
cast-off things to sell should be made to take them to licensed located
dealers, whose transactions can be held under proper supervision.
The municipality should — in the interest of the public safety, as
well as of the public finances — take up and carry on for itself, or
through contractors whom it could control completely, the whole
business of removing from houses whatever householders may
wish to get rid of and will not take the trouble to carry for sale
to a dealer.

It is not possible to make anything like a precise calculation
as to the value of these many and manifold wastes, but it would
seem safe to assume that with a universal and well-regulated col
lection and sale there might be recovered, in cash, one cent per
diem for each member of the population, beyond the cost of collec
tion and sale. This would amount annually to over $7,000,000,
enough to pay all the cost of street cleaning and street sprinkling,
and, in addition thereto, to repave the whole city within a very
few years, so far as this is needed, and to keep the pavements in
repair perpetually. In due time it would pay for a complete sup
ply of public urinals and latrines, and for other items of munici
pal housekeeping. There is, of course, no reason for fixing the
amount that might be saved at one cent per person, any more than

52 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

at two cents or at half a cent ; but the ground for supposing that
a very material amount can be secured is surely sufficient to make
it worth while to experiment extensively to determine just what it
will pay or will not pay to do.

The result of the investigation would be of value not only to
the City of New York but to all other places,— large and small.
Even if little or no profit should result from the collection and
separation of salable rubbish, still a systematic and complete treat
ment of the offscourings of towns, — and their prompt removal
from houses, — could not fail to be of much sanitary benefit. A
study of the constructive geology of the outskirts of an American
town will hardly furnish reason to commend the way in which
"filling in" is making building lots for the growing population.
Future ages may find in the long abandoned sites of American
homes as curious if n6t as interesting subjects for archaeological
study as the homes of the cliff dwellers furnish for us.

The proper treatment, not only of rubbish but of garbage and
ashes, will be an important element of a better civilization than
ours. The " out-of-sight, out-of-mind " principle is an easy one
to follow, but it is not an economical one, nor a decent one, nor a
safe one. For other and more important reasons than the hope
of getting money out of our wastes, should we pursue the study
of the treatment of these wastes, and try to devise a less shiftless
and uncivilized method than that which we now use.

In the matter of collection alone there is much need for radical
improvement. The most bulky matters collected in New York
are ashes and street sweepings. The latter are swept into little
piles on the pavement, there to lie until the cart conies along,
when they are shovelled into it. More or less powdered horse
dung is blown into houses and into the faces of the people, ac
cording to circumstances ; on a breezy day it is considerably
more. While the heaps lie awaiting the shovel they are kicked
about by horses, dragged about by wheels, and blown about by
the wind — also more or less according to circumstances. Ashes
are kept in a barrel or in a can, which is also the depositing place
of paper and other forbidden rubbish. In due time — more often
in undue time — it is set out to decorate the house front in a way
which it would be much less than adequate to call inelegant.
What happens when this receptacle is tipped over the edge of the
ash cart and rolled to and fro until it is emptied, no one need be

THE DISPOSAL OF A CITY'S WASTE. 53

told who has paraded a city street in fine clothing while the oper
ation is going on, with a good wind blowing.

The ash barrel and the " little pile " have thus far baffled all
effort. We are hopeful just now that we shall succeed in having
the ashes deposited in bags inside of the houses, the bags to be tied
and thrown into the cart, not to be opened until they reach the
dump. It is also hoped that street dirt, as it is swept up, will be
at once shovelled into a bag supported open on a light pair of
wheels. When the bag is filled it will be securely tied and set
aside ; and the cartman will collect the closed bags.

We are just now struggling with the separation of ashes and
garbage. The Board of Health has ordered this in a large cen
tral district, and the area will be extended as success is achieved.
The collection will be made separately and the disposition of the
two will be quite different. An effort is also being mado to have
paper, and other forms of light rubbish, kept by itself and dis
posed of by the householder or by a public contractor.

Up to the present time the final disposition of all of the dry
wastes of the city is by discharge from vessels into the sea. There
are dumping boards along the water front where scows receive the
contents of the carts. These scows are towed out beyond the
Sandy Hook lightship and there unloaded. Aside from the
wastefulness of this process, it gives occasion for serious com
plaint from those who are affected by the fouling of the adjacent
shores of Long Island and New Jersey. Probably not much offen
sive garbarge escapes the fish and the action of the waves, but
enough of this accompanies the straw, paper, boxes, cans, etc.,
with which the shore is often heavily lined, to have very much the
same sentimental effect that a solid mass of garbage would have.
In any event, the result is very disfiguring and very annoy
ing to frequenters of the beaches and to owners of shore prop
erty.

This constitutes a very serious menace to New York, Brook
lyn, and Jersey City. The fouling of the beaches may at any
time be made the pretext for protest, legislation, and injunction,
such as we have already had with reference to Riker's Island
and to local dumps in the Annexed District. This may have
the effect of absolutely closing to these cities the only outlet they
now have for their wastes. It is, therefore, incumbent on them
to hasten as much as possible the development of some other

C4 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

means for the disposal of their offal than the present barbarous
one of dumping them into the ocean.

The writer has necessarily given much consideration to this
general subject, and he is, so far as his official limitations per
mit, working in the direction of a complete separation of the
material into four different classes :

1. Paper and other light rubbish; 2. Street sweepings ; 3.
Garbage ; 4. Ashes.

If the complete separation of these four classes can be effected,
then the whole problem is practically solved. It is only because
each one bedevils all the others that final disposal is such a
serious problem. It is confidently believed that the separation
can be effected, and within a short time. Were this accomplished,
the four elements of the work might be developed as follows :

1. Paper, rags and rubbish of every kind, should be collected
only by the city's own carts, or by the city's own contractors.
It should not be permitted to sell any of the wastes of domestic
life at the door. Licenses should be granted for dealing in these
matters only to men who had fixed places of business, and who
carried on their traffic only at those places. Everything of too
low a grade to be carried to these establishments for sa1e would
be collected — not from the streets but from within the houses —
by the city's own agency, and all would be carried to local cen
tres where they would be assorted, where all matters having a
value would be classified and separated for sale ; and whence
everything having no value would be carted to suitable crema
tories for final consumption. It is here, it is believed, that a large
return could be secured to the treasury. The chief opposition to
such treatment of the question would come from those who court
the votes of the push-cart men, and whose argument it would be
that an honest industry was being destroyed. This charge may
be met in two ways : First, that too often the industry of these
men is otherwise than honest ; and, second, that their work will
still have to be done, and may quite as well be done by them as
by others, with the simple condition that it is to be done under
proper regulation. If everything of value that now goes to the
dumps, to the paper dealer and to the junk dealer, could be made
to pay tribute to the city, something like the result above hinted
at may be expected.

2. Paper and all manner of dry rubbish being rigidly kept

THE DISPOSAL OF A CITY'S WASTE. 55

indoors until taken by the collector, the sweepings of the streets
— especially after the improved repaying — will consist of little
else than horse droppings ; and while these have not much com
mercial value in New York, they can at least be got rid of in
offensively and without much cost. It seems one of the absurdi
ties of the situation that while stable manure is, probably, every
where else in the world much sought after and salable at a con
siderable price, in New York it not only has no value, but can
be got rid of only at considerable cost. The Department of
Street Cleaning has over eight hundred well-fed horses. It is not
able to get rid of the manure produced at its stables without cost
and is now actually dumping it into the sea. This manure, of
first-rate quality, was offered to the Department of Parks free of
charge. The superintendent said that he would be very glad
to receive it, if it was delivered free, but it was not worth
transportation, because so many private stables were glad to haul
manure to the different parks " free gratis."

3. Garbage. — It has been the custom hitherto to mix garbage
with ashes and rubbish. The separation of garbage from every
thing else is now being enforced. As soon as the separation is
fairly accomplished, contracts will be made for the "reduction/'
utilization or cremation of the garbage.

There are a number of patented processes by which grease is
extracted from garbage, and by which, with or without the ad
dition of other substances, a salable fertilizer is made of the resi
due. These processes are thus far all in the experimental stage.
There is not one of them of which it is absolutely known that it
would be safe or wise for the city to adopt it as the subject of a
long contract. Investigations into the actual working and actual
business conditions of the more important of these processes are
now being carried on by the Department, and it is believed that
before autumn enough will be known to indicate clearly what
course to pursue. All that is definitely known now is, that there
are several processes of cremation by which everything of this
class can be absolutely and inoffensively destroyed at a cost that
is not prohibitory. It is believed that there is more than one
process of ( ( reduction," or utilization, that can be profitably car
ried on with little, if any, help from the city in the form of com
pensation. Indeed, one responsible concern is ready to make a
contract to take the entire output of garbage as dumped from

66 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the carts, and to pay a substantial price for it. The proper
treatment of this subject will require, as in the case of paper and
rubbish, the absolute control of the business by the city. Not
only must we take charge of spoiled vegetables and the poorest
and most watery garbage of cheap boarding-houses, but we should
also have the richer product of hotels and restaurants. The city
should, in short, assert its right to an absolute monopoly of the
garbage business, for all garbage is a nuisance unless brought
under proper control. Such control cannot be exercised by the
city unless it takes possession of the entire field.

4. Ashes. — If we can withhold from the ashes produced in pri
vate houses all extraneous matters, as above described, bringing
house ashes to the condition of what we now know as " steam
ashes," there will no longer be occasion for dumping at sea. The
city has lands under water near by, like the very large inclosed
tract at Biker's Island and elsewhere along its water courses,
where its ashes may be deposited with the very useful effect of
creating valuable building land. Private owners of shore
flats are applying constantly for such ashes, and to a certain ex
tent are receiving them without cost to the city. Furthermore,
these ashes have a decided value for other uses. It has been in
timated to the Department that if they can be kept clean, a com
pany with sufficient capital will take them all at more than the
cost of collection, foe the manufacture of cheap fire-proofing
blocks, etc. The Department has been experimenting with
ashes containing some garbage, just as it is hauled to the dump.
This has been made into a concrete, with fifteen parts of ashes
to one part of Portland cement, producing a result that would be
admirably suited for the foundation of stone-block, asphalt, or
other pavement.

The general conclusion from the above must be that while the
question of the disposal of a city's wastes is full of difficulty, it is
also full of promise.

GEO. E. WARING, JR.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

VII.— THE CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARIA.

BY ALBERT D. VANDAM, AUTHOR OF f e AN" ENGLISHMAN" IN
PARIS/' "MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK/' ETC., ETC.

IF Napoleon III. had been the most arrant coward on earth —
and he was the very opposite of a coward — Orsini's attempt on
his life would have been calculated to convert him into a man of
courage. No intended victim of such an attempt as that of Jan
uary 14th, 1858, could come to any other conclusion but that
he bore a charmed life. If religiously disposed he would
simply attribute his escape to a direct intervention of Provi
dence ; if a fatalist, as the Emperor was supposed to be, his
fatalism would be intensified a hundredfold, and henceforth he
would advance on the road mapped out for him by Fate, not
only mentally blindfolded, but disdaining to take the ordinary
precautions of the sightless. That this was absolutely the case
with Napoleon III., I shall have no difficulty in proving as I pro
ceed.

The attempt of January 14th, 1858, was the fourth directed
against Louis Napoleon's life during the ten years that had passed
since his memorable interview with Lamartine. Whatever illusions
he rnay have entertained with regard to the role of the police as a
protector in the three previous ones, he could not have possibly
remained in such a " fooFs paradise " where the fourth was con
cerned. It is more than doubtful, though, whether Louis
Napoleon deceived himself at any time or was deceived as to the
collective power of the police to frustrate the designs of the would-
be assassin, or as a means of detecting the doings of secret soci
eties. Everything leads me to believe that he became more
sceptical upon all those points as time went on. He knew

58 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

that he could count upon a few Corsicans such as Alessandri
and Griscelli to defend his life at the risk of their own ;
he" knew that they were intelligent to a degree, absolutely
loyal to him, and as absolutely unscrupulous face to face
with the rest of the world ; but he also knew that of the so-called
organization at the Prefecture of Police they were things apart ;
that, if anything, they despised that institution; which, in its turn,
hampered them on every occasion, either from sheer professional
jealousy, or in order to court favor with its chief of the moment,
or to plot for the return to office of the former one ; each of whom
of those chiefs fancied himself a Fouche, a Keal, a Desmarets
and a Dubois rolled into one ; though in reality the whole of the
five prefects who held office during the second Napoleonic period
— namely Maupas, Blot, the two Pietri's (Pierre-Marie and Joa
chim), and Boitelle — had not together as much brains as the
famous Due d'Otrante by himself or as any of his principal
coadjutors.

This does not mean that the five men I have just named were
devoid of intellect or that their lieutenants such as Hyrvoix, La-
grange, and the lieutenants of the latter, Canler, Claude, Jacob
and others were incapables. Far from it. They all had a great
deal of talent, nay Canler and Claude were geniuses in their own
way, but neither they nor their official superiors had sufficient
genius or talent for the dual task circumstances and the prevail
ing spirit of intrigue imposed upon them. The five prefects
were not only called upon to look to the safety of the dynasty
and its actual chief, but had to guard against their being dis
lodged from their own position by the plotting of their prede
cessors, or the machinations of their would-be successors.

Boitelle, Persigny's friend and erstwhile fellow-soldier, re
placed Pietri (the elder), who had shown a most lamentable
want of foresight which caused great loss of life, much suf
fering and would have caused the death of the Emperor and the
Empress but for a miracle. I am not exaggerating; the carriage
that conveyed the Imperial couple and General Roguet, the Em
peror's aide-de-camp, was literally riddled with projectiles; no
less than seventy-six of these were subsequently found imbedded
in the panels and other parts; one of the horses wounded in twenty-
five places was killed on the spot, the other had to be slaughtered;
the three footmen and the coachman were all severely hurt; Gen-

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 59

eral Roguet/s deep, though not fatal, flesh wound just below the
right ear bled so profusely that the Empress's dress was absolutely
saturated with blood as she entered the opera. Finally, a bullet
had gone right through the Emperor's hat. I am only referring
to the Emperor and his immediate entourage on that night; the
total number of wounded was 156, at least a dozen of whom died
of their injuries.

Yet the whole of this butchery might and could have been pre
vented, for there is not the least doubt that the French authorities
were warned in time both of Orsini's departure from London, of his
contemplated journey to Paris and of his fell purpose. Billault,
the Minister of the Interior, Pietri, the Prefect of the Police, La-
grange, the Chief of the Municipal Police, and Hebert, the super
intendent specially entrusted with the service des htitels garnis —
in other words, with the surveillance of the visitors to Paris and
of those residents without a fixed abode — were aware of the pres
ence of Pieri and Gomez in the capital, if not of Orsini's. Nev
ertheless, both remained perfectly free until the mischief had
been done. We lay no stress on the passage of Morny's speech at
the opening of the Chamber stating that the provincial branches
of the secret societies were looking forward to some upheaval in
mid-January, which upheaval would be followed by important
movement. Those periodical announcements were part of the
policy of the Second Empire during the first ten years of its ex
istence. They were intended to strike terror into the hearts of
the peace-loving population, and to make them rally still closer
round a dynasty which was supposed to hold the revolution
aries and republicans — the terms were almost synonymous
in those days — in check by exposing and forestalling every
one of their plans. In spite of everything that has been written
and said on the subject, it is a moot point whether there
was one secret society in France of sufficient weight or dimen
sions to constitute a serious danger to the dynasty, and whether
the Emperor or any of his most confidential advisers believed in
the existence of such. But at the particular period of which I
treat an openly avowed belief was still part of the system. Four
years later (1862) the system is absolutely reversed. The secret
societies are supposed to have vanished from off the face of the
land — their disappearance being due of course to the strong and
energetic government which leaves no cause for dissatisfaction any-

00 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

where. The alarmists who would still believe in secret societies
must be dissuaded from their belief by the most delightful, but
at the same time most effectual means France has at her disposal
to that effect, namely the stage, and the Emperor himself takes
the initiative in that direction. He commissions M. Camille
Doticet (the late life-secretary of the Academie who died recently),
the then official superintendent of theatres, to find the Aristo
phanes who shall make people laugh and, in making them laugh,
disarm their fears. M. Doucet applied successively to Theodore
Barri£re, Louis Bouilhet and Amedee Holland,* all of whom at
tempted the task but without success, and who each received
6,000 frs. for their trouble. What they failed to accomplish
though, was achieved in another way by Alexandre Pothey, a
friend of theirs, in his satire of La, Muette; the n/ime of the secret
society which baffles all the researches of the police. There is no
evidence that Pothey ever saw Napoleon III. in private, yet his
satire bears a remarkable likeness to the story told by the Em
peror to my grand-uncle, f

Sceptical though the Emperor may have been with regard to
the existence of secret societies in France, he could not pretend
to ignore the existence of at least one outside France. Many years
before his advent to the imperial throne he had become affiliated
to the Carfionaria, and it was the Carlonaria which through
Mazzini and Orsini claimed the fulfilment of the project to which
he had subscribed at the time of his admission. That project of
which Lord Castlereagh had already a copy in 1813, and which
before that had been submitted to George III. aimed at the estab
lishment of an Italian Empire, limited by the Alps on the one
side and the sea on the other three, with Rome as its capital
and an Emperor chosen from either the reigning families of
Sardinia, Naples or England. J

In 1858 the most powerful living subscriber to that docu
ment was unquestionably Napoleon III., Emperor of the
French. But, powerful though he was, he dared not dis-

* Theodore Barrtere, the famous author of Les Faux Bonshommes, Les Filles de
Marbrt, and co-author with Henri Murger of the dramatic version of La Vie de
Boheme. Louis Bpnilhet, the friend of Gustavo Flaubert. A.m6d6e Holland, the
founder of the satirical journal. Le Diogene, and a well-known playwright, though
not known in England or America.

t La Muette made t'othey famous. He was originally a wood engraver. His
best-known book, however, is Le Capitaine Regnier, a precursor of Le Colonel
Ramollot.

\ Both the act of affiliation and a copy of the project were seen by Monsignor
Louie Gaston de Sigur, Arch-Canon of Saint Denis during the Second Empire.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 61

patch 300,000 men across the Alps in discharge of a purely
personal obligation, which was moreover contracted in his pre-
imperial days. We need not inquire whether Louis Napoleon's
compact with the Carbonaria, dating as it did from so many years
previously, was generally known in France. I was a lad of fifteen
then and, as I have had occasion to remark, constantly thrown
into the society of my elders, nearly all of whom were more or less
behind the scenes. I remember having heard vague allusions to the
danger the Emperor ran " from the knife of the hired assassin";
I heard the names of Mazzini, Karl Marx, and Bakounirie, in
connection with conspiracies, but until four or five months before
the attempt of January 14th none of those conversations tried to
establish the existence of a vast organization to deprive the Em
peror of his life. The three principal attempts up to that time,
including that of Kehlse, were supposed to have been instigated
by small groups, not necessarily Italians. My uncles' friends
argued that the nine serious attempts on Louis Philippe's life and
the one on the Due d'Aumale were apparently not dictated by
questions affecting the King's foreign policy; that with the ex
ception of Fieschi all those would-be regicides were Frenchmen ;
but they observed also that the fact of Kehlse, Sinabaldi, Silvani
and the rest being foreigners did not absolutely imply either a
far-reaching conspiracy or a conspiracy from without. The
plotters Ttere as likely to be Republicans or Legitimists as Italian
revolutionaries. Soon after the Coup dy l£tat there had been an
attempt to kill Louis Napoleon by means of an imitation of
Fieschi's infernal machine ; the attempt was nipped in the bud,
but the presumption was strong against the partisans of the
Comte de Chambord. In short, until within four or five months
before the butchery in the Rue le Peletier, neither my uncles nor
their friends, not even Joseph Ferrari, who was an Italian by
birth and intimately acquainted with the doings of Mazzini,*
seemed to be certain that the Carbonari were collectively at work
in that respect.

But there was a sudden change of opinion. One day my
younger grand-uncle came home looking very serious, and during
dinner told his brother that there had been an attempt to
decoy the Emperor. He did not say more that night, and I
discovered afterwards that at that moment he knew no more.

* See An Englishman in Paris, vol. II., and My Paris Note- Book, chap. 3.

62 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The next day more rumors found their way to our home,
for no one could or would vouch for the truth of what
he had heard and repeated. The word "decoyed," as used by
my uncle, was, however, a misnomer. The Emperor had simply
walked into a trap set for him by a woman with his eyes open,
for he had been warned that it was a trap. He had been drugged
and would have been abducted but for the intervention of another
woman. All those stories, though varying in detail, agreed as to
the main fact ; there had been a carefully concocted plot to get
hold of the Emperor and to convey him to the frontier, whether
to imprison him as a hostage or to do away with him eventually
was not stated. Not a single word of this, though, found its way
into the French press, but the Belgian papers published different
versions of the affair in the guise of fairy tales. In spite of the
vigilance of the police and the customs, some copies were smug
gled into France. The veil which fiction had woven around the
original personages was too transparent for the public not to
recognize them at once ; nevertheless, people might have looked
upon the whole as an ingenious fabrication but for the indiscre
tion of the Marquis de Boissy, a member of the senate and the jester
in ordinary to that august assembly, just as the late Cointe de Dou-
ville-Maillefeu was the jester in ordinary to the Chamber of Depu
ties under the Third Republic.* M. de Boissy was always putting
questions to the Ministry, and when the rumors just alluded to
became rife he insisted upon their being denied or confirmed by
the Emperor's ministers. No such denial or confirmation being
forthcoming, M. de Boissy exclaimed : " The Emperor, Messieurs
les Senateurs, is not sufficiently careful in his intercourse with the
fair sex. Out of sheer consideration for us, for himself, and for
the country, His Majesty ought not to place himself at every
moment in the power of this or that adventuress." M. de Boissy
was not called "to order" by the chair, and although in those
days no reports of the Legislature were allowed to be published,
the story of the unanswered interpellation and of M. de Boissy's
remark got wind. People not only concluded that the fairy
tales of the Belgian papers contained a solid foundation of truth,
but that the repeated attacks on the Chief of the State were
something more serious than the individual acts of a Ravaillac or

* The Marquis de Boissy married the Countess Guiccioli, who played so import
ant a part in the latter years of Byron's life.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 63

a Louvel. Shortly after that came the affair of the Rue le Pele-
tier.

I am not speaking without authority when I say that
the Emperor, in spite of his profound concern for the
innocent victims of that outrage would have felt pleased to
see the perpetrators of it escape. He knew that neither their
arrest nor execution would influence by a hair's breadth the
course the Garbonaria had mapped out in order to force their
erewhile member to fulfil the pledge he had given. And the
fulfilment of that pledge meant war with Austria for no reason
affecting the interests of France herself at that moment, with
Austria against whom Prussia, in spite of her many years of
warlike training, did not dare to draw the sword as yet, with
Austria who with France was the protector of the temporal
sovereignty of the Holy See. The lesson of the Crimean War
had not been lost on Napoleon III. In spite of the glory that
had accrued to French arms, the Emperor was aware that the
war had not been popular with the majority of the French nation,
who strongly suspected the motives that led to it, especially at
its conclusion when there was no territorial or other compensa
tion for the sacrifices they had undergone. And in the Crimean
War the Emperor had had the support of the clergy, which he
felt certain would fail in a war for the liberation of Italy ; for
not the humblest rural priest fostered the faintest illusion with
regard to the final upshot of such liberation as far as Koine was
concerned. And although the idea of freeing their Latin brethren
from the hated yoke of the Austrian was no doubt attractive to
some Frenchmen, the prospect of the humiliation of the Papacy
as pictured by the priesthood throughout the land was hateful
to nearly all.

That is why the Emperor felt sore with the police for not
having prevented the catastrophe, and not as has so often been
alleged because of the danger to which their neglect had exposed
him. Truly, that danger had never appeared so formidable as
then ; the erstwhile Carlonaro had fondly imagined that the
Carlonaria would stop short at taking his life — that all its
former attempts had been intended to force his hand, not to
render that hand powerless in death ; and to a certain extent he
had logic on his side. Louis Napoleon's death would have dis
pelled for at least a decade all reasonable chances of a free and

64 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

united Italy. Mazzini's contention, assumption, or boast — call it
what you will — that " Napoleon III/s death would have been
followed by another republic which would have come to the aid
of Italy," to which boast Orsini gave utterance at his trial, will not
bear a moment's investigation as regards its second postulate. But
the truth of the first was patent to everybody, and more than patent
to Louis Napoleon himself, who, notwithstanding his fatalism and
his marvellous escape from the jaws of death, was too logical to
court deliberately a second risk of a similar nature. The Prince
Imperial was not two years old, and his father knew but too well
that the sight of an infant king in his cradle, and shown by his
mother, was no longer sufficient to keep revolutionary passions in
check, as it had been 200 years before, during the Regency of Anne
of Austria. If at any period he had been at all sanguine about the
results of such an exhibition, the somewhat analogous experiments
of the Duchesse de Berri (July, 1830) and of the Duchesse d'Or-
leans (February, 1848) were amply calculated to disabuse his mind
in that respect, apart from the fact that in spite of his great love
for his wife, he was not quite prepared to credit her with the
heroism that beards a revolution. The Emperor, therefore, knew
that the first and foremost condition of his sou's succession to
the throne was the prolongation of his own life. Four and
twenty hours after the bloodshed in the Rue le Peletier. he had
been categorically told that his life depended on the following
steps on his part*: 1st. The Pardon of Orsini ; 2d. The Procla
mation of the Independence of Italy ; 3d. The Cooperation of
France with Italy in a war against Austria.

There was no alternative but acceptance,! and even then the

* I have heard it stated over and over a?ain that on the morning after the affair
in the Rue le Peletier the Emperor sent for an old friend of his mother, a Roman
exile, who had been living in Paris for many years, and who had been implicated,
forty-three years before, in the conspiracy against tho Holy See. Queen Hortense

" to this

had told her son, if ever he was in trouble, to apply to this friend. Thorn
upon seventy at that time, he was io direct communication with the Carbonaria
and had not left off conspiring. It was he who imposed the three conditions men
tioned above, and a few days later announced to the Emperor that fifteen months'
respite would be granted for the latter two. Personally, 1 am under the impression
that this intermediary between the Emperor and the Carbonaria was the lawyer
Domassi. the same who, in 1815, when a prisoner in Rome, was the guest of Mon-
signor Pacca, the Governor of the Holy City, at whose own table he ate. I feel
certain that his name was mentioned several times in my hearing, but I have not a
single note to confirm my impression. On the other hand, my uncles maintained that
the man for whom the Emperor sent was the Uomte Ar^se, the same who had been
brought «p side by side with Prince Louis, and whose father was on most intimate
terms with Queen Hortense. Comte Arese is said to have told the Emperor that, in
addition to Orsini, forty other Carbonari had been selected to repeat the attempt, if
Orsini's should fail

t A few days after the attempt the Prince Regent of Prussia (subsequently
Wilhelm 1.) wrote to Prince Albert as follows : "Napoleon's dilemma was summed
up in two words; War or the dagger ; not a French dagger, but an Italian one."

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 65

Carbonaria made a show of generosity in relieving Louis Napoleon
of one of his pledges, the pardon of Orsini. They were afraid,
probably, that the execution of that first pledge would entail the
non-fulfilment of the other two ; for at the first mention of his
contemplated clemency the Emperor was confronted by the whole
of the French clergy in the person of Cardinal Morlot, Arch
bishop of Paris. That prelate told him distinctly that, powerful
as he was in France, " your Majesty is not sufficiently powerful
to do this. By God's admirable grace, your Majesty's life has
been spared, but a great deal of French blood has been shed,
and that blood demands expiation. Without such expiation all
idea of justice would be lost. Justitia regnorum fundamentum."

When the words were reported to him at our home — I re
member the scene as if it were to-day — Ferrari leaped from off his
chair, and exclaimed : " They have come direct from Eome. The
priests flatter themselves that the Carbonaria will insist rigor
ously on the redemption of the whole of the three pledges, and
that short of that the society will take the Emperor's life. Well,
the priests are mistaken. A human life counts for nothing with
the Carbonaria and they will sacrifice Orsini's, as being for the
moment less valuable than Louis Napoleon's to the cause of
Italy's freedom. Kemember what I tell you."

His interlocutors could not help remembering, for his predic
tion was realized to the very letter. A couple of days later the
Emperor paid a secret visit to Orsini in his prison, and though
no one knows till this day what transpired during that interview,
Orsini after that became an altered man. He who had opposed
a stern and stubborn silence to M. Treilhard's questions made
virtually a clean breast of the whole affair. He supplied the
most minute particulars of the organizing of the plot in London,
and it was by the Emperor's special permission that Jules Favre
was enabled to point out the lofty sentiments that impelled the
deed. Louis Napoleon had virtually accepted the executorship
of Orsini's political testament.*

By that time the Emperor could have had but few, if any,
illusions left with regard to the efficiency of his police to protect
him and his subjects against such outrages as that which had
spread consternation throughout the land. The renewal of his

* I had the confirmation of this visit from the lips of the late Marshal Canro-
bert who had the particulars from General Floury, who accompanied the Emperor.
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464. 5

66 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

compact with the Carbonaria had, however, given him a respite
of fifteen months, for he felt confident that under no circum
stances would they prove false to their word. And fifteen months
to a man of his temperament, who trusted to the events of an
hour to carry out the plans he had meditated for years, who had
even postponed the Coup d'Etat from week to week, fifteen
months to such a man, just escaped from a supreme danger,
seemed little short of eternity. Fifteen months might be pro
ductive of a chapter, nay of a whole volume, of accidents ; mean
while he could breathe freely.

What, then, was the Emperor's surprise when within the next
three months he was informed secretly by one of his chamber
lains that another plot against his life was being hatched by the
Carbonaria. There could be no doubt about the society's share
in the matter, seeing that a portrait of Orsini, very rare at that
particular period, served as a token of recognition among the
conspirators, several of whom were in Paris. Pietri had been
succeeded by Boitelle, and the chamberlain's revelations which
had been preceded by insinuations virtually took the shape
of an indictment against the new Prefect of Police. At
first the Emperor had been disinclined to attach much import
ance to those communications, although he gave Boitelle a hint
of the rumors that were abroad, without divulging, however,
his own source of information. But when the chamberlain
handed the Emperor a portrait of Orsini, said to have been bor
rowed from one of the conspirators, the Emperor sent for his
Prefect and placed the documentary proof before him. The latter
was not in the least disconcerted. " If your Majesty will tear off
the sheet of paper that covers the back of the portrait, the value
of the documentary evidence will strike your Majesty as origi
nal/' The portrait was signed by Boitelle himself. " In fact,"
said the Emperor when telling the story, " Boitelle while danc
ing on the tight-rope of office is compelled to do as the others do.
Though honest to a degree he has to invent tricks to keep his
balance, and like the others he has but little time to spare to look
around him. That kind of dual observation can only be accom
plished successfully by a Fouche, and even my uncle had only one.
Fouche danced on the tight-rope and every now and again
knocked the enemies of the Emperor on the head with his balanc
ing-pole ; my prefects allow my enemies to get hold of the balanc-

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 67

ing-pole and to drag them off their rope with it. That is the
difference between my police and that of Napoleon I." Eighteen
months later, notwithstanding the apparently satisfactory issue
of the war in Italy, the Emperor might have held the same lan
guage with regard to the superior officers of his army.

After all this, there is no need to insist upon the real motive
— as distinguished from the alleged one — that led Louis Napoleon
to undertake a war against Austria. What is, perhaps, less in
telligible is the Emperor's anxiety for his cousin's marriage with
Victor Emmanuel's daughter, notwithstanding the King's
scarcely concealed repugnance to sanction such a union. The
following note from my grand-uncles is dated January 1859.

" The King, though brave to a fault, dreads ' scenes' with his
womankind. He had been more or less afraid of Queen Adelaide;
he was afraid of Kosina Vercellana long before he made her
Contessa di Mirafiori ; he appears to be more afraid of Prin-
cesse Clotilde than he was of the late Queen and is of Con
tessa Rosina, although the Princess is but sixteen. But she
takes life very seriously and has strong religious feelings, in
which both views and feelings she is backed up by her former
governess, Signorina Foresta. There being no mother these two
are of course much thrown together, and the opposition to the
marriage derived considerable and additional force from this con
stant companionship. Victor Emmanuel was on the horns of a
dilemma, but Cavour got him out of it by positively 'bundling'
Signorina Foresta out of the palace and ordering her to leave
Piedmont within the space of twenty-four hours. Ferrari tells
me that Cavour, in spite of his mild and benevolent looks can be
very rough and arbitrary. The only one who is not afraid of him
is Garibaldi, who on one occasion said that, Prime Minister or
not, he would fling him out of the window if he began bullying.
Be this as it may, according to Ferrari, Prince Napoleon was talk
ing to Victor Emmanuel when the latter was called out of the
room and told that Signorina Foresta had been got rid of. A
moment or so afterwards the king returned, his face beaming with
satisfaction. ' There has been a lot of worry about this marriage
of yours,' he said to Plon-Plon, with whom ever since his visit to
France in 1855 he had been on terms of boon companionship.
Plon-Plon nodded his head affirmatively. ' Well, we'll settle the
matter at once/ he said, and before Plon-Plon could ask any further

68 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

questions, he rang the bell and sent for his daughter. A few
minutes later the Princess entered the apartment, and the door
had hardly closed upon her when her father pushed her into Plon-
Plon's arms. ' I have told you that you are to marry Napoleon/ he
laughed, e and here he is ; kiss one another and let there be an
end of the matter. '"

That is how Victor Emmanuel got over his scruples or pre
tended to get over them, for to the end of his life he never forgave
himself for that marriage. " I shall be able to account to my
Maker for the blood I have spilled for the cause of Italy's free
dom," he said shortly before his death. ' ' I shall never be able to
account for the tears and the martyrdom I have inflicted upon an
innocent woman for that same cause ; and that woman is my
daughter."

The barest enumeration of the incidents of the Franco-
Austrian campaign is out of the question here. There are at least
a hundred books professing to treat those incidents historically ;
I have read several of these works ; I have skimmed a great many
more. As far as I can recollect there is not one which has ful
filled its real historical purpose of showing the reader that the
disaster of Sedan was foreshadowed in the victory of Magenta. It
is simply because the historian proper travels from his starting
point — Cause — to his goal — Result — in a railway train, which
mode of locomotion prevents him from examining the intervening
ground invariably bestrewn with valuable personal anecdotes. In
one of Disraeli's earlier novels — I do not remember which — there
is a father who recommends his son to read biography and auto
biography, by preference the latter, rather than history. I read
that novel when I was a mere lad, and have never seen it since,
but I promised myself to profit by the advice. I have not
neglected history, but have taken it as the English take their
melon, after dinner — i. e., after my biographical fill of the men
and women who played a part in that history. Most people take
their history as the French take their melon, viz., before their
biographical meal. Accident has, moreover, befriended me by
placing at my disposal a number of notes not available to
others, and it is from some of these that the evidence will
be forthcoming not only as to the rotten state of the French
army during the Franco-Austrian campaign, but of Napo
leon's knowledge to that effect at the very beginning of that

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 69

campaign ; which knowledge went on increasing until the
end, when he could come to one but conclusion, namely,
that in spite of the glory that had accrued to it, the French
army would be as powerless to keep the foreign foe at bay
on its own territory as the police had been powerless to pro
ject his life from the attempts of the assassin. Fate and only
Fate had stood by Napoleon's side, and. to Fate he would have to
trust throughout.

The Emperor left the Tuileries for the seat of war at 5 P. M.
on May 10, 1859 ; at 7:30 A. M. on May 4, hence six days and a
few hours before his departure, Lieutenant de Cadore, one of his
Majesty's orderly officers, handed Marshal Vaillant an autographic
letter from his sovereign informing the old soldier that he had
ceased to be Minister of War. A little less than four years before
that period the Marshal in a confidential gossip with a friend, had
confessed his inability either to accomplish or even to initiate the
desired reforms in the army, of the necessity for which he was
painfully conscious. The Marshal was essentially an honest man,
so honest, in fact, as to accuse himself frequently of dishonesty
without the smallest foundation for such an accusation. The
Emperor must have been more or less aware of that incapacity of
which, moreover, Vaillant made no secret;* yet there was no
attempt on his Majesty's part to replace the admittedly incapable
by the admittedly capable, for it would be idle to pretend that
all the captains of the Second Empire who did not come to the
front were vainglorious mediocrities. There were men who,
though not endowed with genius, were nevertheless exceedingly
well informed and ornaments to their profession. General (after
wards Marshal) Kiel was neither a Moltke nor anything like a
Moltke, but as an organizer he was probably superior to most of
the men in view. His subsequent failure to reorganize the French
army was due, first of all, to his early death ; secondly, to the oppo
sition he encountered on all sides during the short time he had
his hand on the helm. And there were many men as able as he
who were not even vouchsafed that small chance.

Why did not the Emperor replace Marshal Vaillant by one of
them long before that ? Why, having waited so long, did he dis
miss him so abruptly at the twelfth hour ? The eleventh had
gone by, for a great part of the forces was already in Italy.

* An Englishman in Paris, vol. II., ch. viii.

70 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The first question must remain unanswered until I treat of
society at the Tuileries and at Compiegne. The second I will
answer at once.

Vaillant was deprived of his portfolio at a moment's notice
because he had become imbued with the idea that an incapable
Minister for War, pocketing the emoluments attached to his office,
ought to atone for his incapacity by saving the moneys of the
State. He had positively sent three of the divisions belonging to
Canrobert's corps d'armee — namely, those of Bourbaki, Eenault,
and Trochu — across the Alps with insufficient clothing, without
stores of any kind, without cartridges, and almost without guns.
" Pray, ask the Emperor/' said Bourbaki to the officer sent by
Napoleon III. to take a preliminary view of the situation ; " pray,
ask the Emperor whether his Minister for War is a traitor or whether
he has fallen into a state of idiocy ?" "A French army has made
its way into Italy before now without shoes to their feet and with
out shirts to their backs ; but the sight of a French army going
to confront the enemy without cannon and without cartridges is
an unprecedented sight," concluded Trochu, when making his
report to the same envoy.

This was before a blow had been struck, before a shot had
been fired. On June 1 (three days before Magenta) the Em
peror was within an ace of being taken prisoner by the Austrians
at a distance of about a hundred yards from the French outposts,
which outposts themselves were not three hundred yards away
from the encampment of Failly's division. This narrow escape
did not occur during an engagement, but while his Majesty was
peacefully trundling in a shandrydan on a country road — I be-
lieve from Bicocca to Vespolata. At the battle of Magenta Mac-
Mahon himself fell among a detachment of Austrian sharp
shooters, who luckily mistook him for one of their generals.

Is it wonderful then that the Emperor's illusions with regard
to his army were gone ? Is it wonderful that being the fatalist
he was, he rushed madly into the war of 1870, trusting to his
star and to his star only ? For that such was the case I shall
have no difficulty in proving by and by.

ALBERT D. VANDAM.
(To be Continued.)

"COIFS FINANCIAL SCHOOL" AND ITS CENSORS.

BY W. H. HARVEY, AUTHOR OF *f COItf'6 FINANCIAL SCHOOL/'

" WHAT is it that exerts the most powerful influence in the
world over the actions of mankind ? "

This question was put by one man to another, as the two sat
alone lazily smoking their cigars one afternoon, in a room of the
Union League Club in Chicago.

The man to whom the question was addressed leaned back in
his chair in a thoughtful attitude, elevated his face and slowly
blew the smoke from his mouth as he held his cigar in his hand.

"Religion ? " queried the man who had asked the question, as
if to hasten a reply.

61 No," said his companion, who now brought his hand down
on the arm of the chair, sat a little more upright, and, looking
straight at his companion, continued : " Money. Its influence
in shaping the civilization of the world has been more powerful
than that of religion, in fact, there can be no true civilization
till its power is curbed, or, rather, till the philosophy of it is
solved."

The man speaking had become animated. He now leaned
forward and went on :

"If the present agitation results in solving that problem — a
problem which never has been solved — there will be at once the
beginning of a new era. Civilization needs a fluid — a life-giving,
vitalizing fluid. It needs it in quantity and quality. It is a scien
tific question, and when it is discovered the world will know it by
the effect produced."

"What do you call that which we now have?" interrupted
the listener.

" Barbarous J A muddy, sickly fluid, flowing intermittently

72 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

through the body politic with leeches sucking and impeding its
circulation at every point," was the reply.

" Well, the subject is in a fair way to receive the attention of
the world, and from present appearances, the United States will
lead in the movement — it will be the issue in the campaign of
1896." Then he asked suddenly :

. " What do you think of Coin's Financial School f "

" It has precipitated the study of the question and points the
way to its correct solution."

" What do you think of the answers to it, and of its critics ? "

The man to whom the question was addressed now rose,
straightened himself out and paced the floor without at first saying
anything in reply. Turning, he faced his companion and said :

" That book, as the near future will show, has aroused the
prejudice of the most dangerous and powerful element in the
world. Its critics are slaves set to lash the author of that book
and their master is — money. You said a moment ago, or inti
mated, that religion exerted the greatest of all influences in the
world on the action of members of the human race. Now, I will
demonstrate to you that religion has a master that threw
it, bridled it, broke it in and enslaved it. At the time of
Christ what is now known as the Christian religion had its
origin. It was at a period when a few owned about everything
and were trying to possess themselves of what little the poorer
people had. It was an era of selfishness — personal selfishness
— with a craze for making money. Money was worshipped
and hoarded by those who had it, and its scarcity among
the people created a fierce competition for the small quan
tity in circulation. This brought on a congestion in bus
iness and trade and a very similar condition was produced
to that which now exists throughout the world. Christ
discovered the cause of the concentration of wealth and preached
against it. He, in a literal sense, overturned the tables of the
money changers. Put in the common American English of to
day, he said that the system of trading and trafficking in money
and hiring it out for pay — usury, which means interest — would
inevitably end in the destruction of all other industries ; that
these industries yielded a profit averaging less than the profits de
rived by money changers in the way of interest on their money ;
that this advantage to the money changers, who were dealing in the

" COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL" AND ITS CENSORS. 73

life blood of commerce itself— on the very existence of which com
merce depended — finally gave to the money lenders such a power
as to bring on disintegration of society and with it the debasement
of the character of the people. Christ and his followers preached
against this system, and they were intelligent men who had a strong,
mental grasp of the situation, but little attention was paid to
them till it was discovered that the people were being converted
to their views. The fact was that in a trial by fair argument
there was no other conclusion to reach. The argument was this :

(t Trade and commerce — the interchange of products — depend
on a common medium of exchange ; one that will as nearly as
possible register values, and neither expand nor contract to
unduly affect the calculations of traders and business men.
This medium of exchange should be devoted, they reasoned,
solely to that use for which a demand had created it, and there
should be no law that would encourage men to hoard it and
demand pay for its use. It would thus have a value for ex
change, but none for hire. The money lenders at first laughed at
such an argument and said that money was property and it had
always been lawful for men to hire out for use that which be
longed to them. Christ replied to this by saying that, if these
men were not allowed to hire their money out for interest, they
would invest their money, and there being no object left there
after to induce men to hoard money, it would flow freely in the
channels of trade, answer the purpose for which it was intended,
every one would get some of it and the great craze for money
would cease. He also said that his plan would do away with a
dangerous system that eventually destroyed all other industries.
There would be no more hoarding of money. A relaxation of the
social strain would follow, resulting in peace and general pros
perity.

" The money changers discovered that this influence and this
man had to be checked and gotten rid of very quickly or they
would be overthrown. They shifted their position from one of
attempting to reason with the people to one of ridicule and abuse.
Poverty and the craze to make money had placed in their posses
sion soldiers, servants and writers willing to do their bidding.
To ridicule and abuse they added ostracism and punishment.
( Christian Dogs ' was a common appellation given to these men
who sought to remedy the ills of civilization. Finally the officers

74 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

in authority instigated by the men whose property was threatened,
or rather whose right to prosecute a ' legitimate' business was
being interfered with, decided to get rid of the main conspirator.
This was Christ. To jail, punish or kill him would, they rea
soned, destroy this ' pernicious movement ! ' This plan was
adopted and carried out. Christ was arrested and his life taken.
This threw his followers into confusion. Christ was himself a
Jew, and the apology of modern religion for abandoning his
teachings by railing at Jews has no significance in it except that
which I give it."

Here the speaker paused, turned and walked to the other end
of the room and back again. He began again :

" This put an end to hope of success for the movement set
in motion two thousand years ago by that wise and good man.
His followers kept up an attempt to carry out the wisdom of his
religion, and so long as they did were persecuted.

" Promise me," the man standing continued, " that you will
go and get the books giving the history of that period and know
for yourself how and why these men were persecuted and why
they were called all manner of vile names. When they were
driven out of Judea they went to Rome and arousing there the
same antagonism, they were similarly treated. Most of them
were killed and many of them were smeared over with tar and
torches made of their burning bodies by night on the streets.
Finally these Christians abandoned this teaching of Christ, that
had in it a remedy for the emancipation of the human race, and
from that moment the Money Power let up and permitted them
to become respected citizens. So, when you suggested that re
ligion was the greatest influence in the world, I said 'No, it is
money. And I was right."

Again he paused and took a short turn across the floor. His
companion was silent, lying back in the large arm chair in which
he was seated, his arms extending straight out from the body
across the arms of the chair, his cigar gone out and his mind
absorbed in contemplation of that long gone period, the truthful
portrayal of which he recognized and admitted.

The man thus sitting did not utter a word, but his eyes looked
the interest he felt in what was being said.

" And now," continued the man standing, (( this same uncon-
quered and relentless power is again aroused in defense of its sin-

" COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL" AND ITS CENSORS. 75

ful and selfish principle. It was not satisfied to wait for its slowly
accumulating power to absorb all other wealth, and undertook to
hasten this absorption by demonetization of one half of all the
money, that it might thereby increase the importance of the re
maining half. In its defense, as in the days of Christ, it knows
that it cannot win by relying on fair argument to present the
justice of its cause. Hence, it will use abuse, slander and mis
representation. The fair, truthful, honest arguments of Coin's
Financial School are met, not by counter arguments, but by
abuse of the book and its author. I will state one of them
to you/' he continued. " A New York critic commences a
book by saying that ' Coin's School ' never took place ; that the
statement that a little boy held a school in the Art Institute
in Chicago is false, and he exhibits and prints letters from
prominent Chicago men to the effect that the school never oc
curred. He then proceeds to reason that the author who would
lie about one thing cannot be relied upon to tell the truth
about anything. He thus appeals to prejudice, just as the
slave owners did when they damned Uncle Tom's Cabin by say
ing that no such negro as Uncle Tom ever existed and no man
by the name of Legree lived in the South. No one who has
capacity to address himself to the principle involved ever cared
whether Uncle Tom and Legree actually lived or not ; or whether
a little boy in knee pants ever taught a school in Chicago, the
pupils of which were such men as Lyman Gage, Jno. E. Walsh
and other bank presidents and prominent business men. The
principle discussed in the story told is the thing of value. But
unable to meet and overthrow an invincible argument and yet
determined to protect themselves by fair or foul means, they
charge the book to be false from beginning to end and cite the
non-existence of the ' School' as evidence to prove their case. If
it were true that the book is base and false, is it not reasonable
to suppose that the people of this country with the statutes and
official documents from Washington before them, from which
Coin quotes his tables and figures, would see that the book was a
fraud and that it never could have won the prominence it has ?
" A student of human nature," he concluded, " can see that
Coin is telling the truth when he reads the personal attacks made
on the author of the book ; a man who is known only by reason
of being the author of a volume that over a million of men — in-

76 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

telligent men — have read, and who believe its statements of fact
to be true and its logic sound/'

"But," said the other, "Coin's Financial School uses the
real names of living characters, while in Uncle Tom's Cabin
and other similar works, fictitious names only are used."

" That is true ; " was the reply, " but in the ' School' the well-
known opinions of these same characters as expressed by them in
print are put into their mouths and fairly stated. It is the strength
of the book that these questions are handled honestly and stated
fairly, giving clear and full force to the arguments of the other
side. In none of these letters of denial do any of these per
sons refute the sentiments and opinions that were put into their
mouths."

" How do you account for so many books appearing in answer
to the ' School/ and its critics in this form multiplying so rap
idly ? " was the next question.

" There are two classes of answers," replied the man stand
ing. "First, an answer was necessary to head off the influence
of the book. This brought forth several replies from men who
were best capable of presenting the other side of the question.
The other and larger class of replies came from numerous pub
lishers who want to print books to sell. They are after the money
there is in it, and, as the followers of the yellow standard were
crying for an answer to the book, here was a demand to be sup
plied. ' These men will buy any book claiming to be an answer
to the School,' is the way the publishers of books reasoned. I
know one publisher here in Chicago who hired two writers and
told them he wanted an answer written to Coin's Financial
School in ten days. They threw up their hands and said : ' Im
possible ; we know very little about this question/ f That makes
no difference/ said the publisher ; ' I want a book and must
have it. The answer first on the market will have the largest
sale, and you must throw something together which will make a
respectable book/ The book was produced and compares very
favorably with about forty others that were created under about
the same circumstances.

' s Then there are the numerous writers for pay " he continued,
€t who will write on either side of any subject for the money to be
made. They are unconsciously the instruments or slaves of the
power of money. They will assist in propagating and defending

"COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL" AND ITS CENSORS. 77

a system that is responsible for the disordered condition of soci
ety, because it makes money for them and relieves their temporary
necessities which money will provide for. The young man who
has just attended a conference at the First National Bank con
cerning the substance of an answer to the book is imbued by no
high patriotic impulse. He is but an atom in this nervous age
of money making. His mind is the natural product of the con
ditions environing his life, and the necessity of procuring the
comforts of life makes of him what he is."

" In what way and with what success do they answer the facts
and arguments in the book ? " asked the quieter man of the two.

" Most of them," replied the man standing, " go to pieces as
soon as they hit the financial question, and the reader quits and
throws down the book. Some of them build up on a theory and
construct interesting books. Those who undertake to prove that
the statistics in Coin's book are false will take Coin's table of prices,
for instance, of wheat, cotton and silver, covering the last twenty-
one years, and will make a table of their own, different from the
one in the book, and put the two side by side. Coin gives the annual
export price at New York, as given by the United States Statis
tical Abstract, for those years, and the author of the reply will
take, for instance, Chicago prices, but will not explain with fair
ness to the reader why the tables do not agree. Thus the two
tables will differ. But they will both show to the thinker that
the principle Coin contends for is right, viz. : that prices of prod
ucts not affected by trusts have declined with silver, and all are
being measured in appreciated gold. The author of the reply is
satisfied when he has represented Coin as a liar by his system of
comparing prices. Those who admit his facts and statistics and
argue honestly for a gold standard make the best replies."

" Of all the replies, both fair and unfair, which class do you re
gard as the most dangerous to the cause the School represents? '*

" Those vilifying the book and its author. I say that for this
reason. The book cannot be answered. The next best thing to
do is to prejudice the people who have not read the book against
it, so that they will not read it."

" Yes, but does not this, by exciting the curiosity of the
people, cause it to be read ? " the man seated inquired.

"No, not when you convince a man that if he reads it he will
read a pack of lies ; that the statements and figures are unreliable.

78 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

This removes the desire to read the book. If you want to kill
the influence of a man, or, as in this instance, a book, use ridi
cule and abuse. By calling a man an ' anarchist/ ' crank/ e re-
pudiator/ ' lunatic,' and * blatant orator,' an impression will
be created among all except the followers of the * crank ' and
1 lunatic/ that the man is more or less such a person. This is the
most effective weapon that has ever been or can be used on those
who seek a reform that interferes with the power of money or the
dominion of property over human hearts. Money has no patri
otism. It has no moral principles. If the life of the govern
ment were in danger to-morrow, as it was in 1861-65, the money
power would hold it up by the throat. In fact, it is now strangling
the government. It smiles on you when you recognize its power
but will crush you if you antagonize it, just as it induced Pontius
Pilate and the officials of that government to kill Jesus Christ
and scatter His followers. It is now only partially aroused ; if
the danger to it continues to rise in this country it will exhibit
all its strength and it will be terrible ! It will seize the govern
ment. Official despotism will follow. Men whose characters
have been moulded and made by the conditions leading up to the
present situation, when elected to office, become the servants of
this power. Their salaries are not reduced ; if changed at all
the salaries are raised. The purchasing power of their dollars is
increased by the system they defend. Their self interest goes
with the money power and they court its favors and look for a
soft spot, financially, on which to land at the end of their term
of office. They seemingly become heartless concerning the com
mon masses — the plain people — hence, official despotism. These
are the conditions that come with the breaking down of
a government as a natural result of the money power
absorbing the wealth of the people. I do not mean any man in
dividually, or any number of men collectively, when I speak of the
money power. It is a thing impersonal. It is a grasping, per
verse nature cultivated in man, that seizes upon the use of money
to accomplish its evil purpose. It is most dangerous because it
gives strength and prominence to those* who advocate its cause,
and has the appearance of being a just and reasonable right under
the laws of man for the disposal of property. It is not so easy
for men to see that its tendency is evil and its victims millions,
when their eyes are blinded by the dazzling blaze of possibilities

" COIN'S FINANCIAL SCHOOL" AND ITS CENSORS. 79

of wealth for themselves. The right to accumulate unnecessary
property and to produce distress among the people is not a divine
right, and should not be guaranteed by human laws/'

The man who had thus spoken paused, and, as he did so, the
man who had been seated rose and walked across the floor with
his head bowed and his hands behind him. Nothing more was
said by either for several minutes. Suddenly the one who had
listened and thus been impressed, said :

"And what is the end ? "

'•'Monarchy! " was the reply, and then continuing: "Mon
archy, where man's liberty is suppressed, free speech and a free
press abolished, and the poor held in subjection, standing armies
increased, police protection and a rule of might prevail, where
all recognize but one master, the power of wealth. To acknowl
edge the principle of which I speak would be serving another
god than wealth. The men on whom a suffering race must de
pend to advance its cause and secure the needed laws have not
in monarchies the right of free speech, let alone the strength
to overcome the power of money. Men of unusual wealth will
always take sides with this evil power to assist in crushing out a
demand for reform — which is but a cry for justice."

Both men were now standing facing each other, and, as the
philosopher who advocated the doctrine of Christ ceased speaking,
the other asked:

"How do you account for its taking two thousand years to
again involve the world ?"

" The unexplored portions of the world/' was the reply, " were
escape valves for the poorer people, and they fled from the rigors of
humiliation galling to liberty-loving natures by emigration into
modern Europe, and in the last four hundred years to this conn-
try. The damming up of the stream has now come. There is
no unexplored part of the world left suitable for men to inhabit,
and justice now stands at bay, confronted by an enemy confident
of its strength and as heartless and unrelenting as it is selfish/'

" On which side are we ? " earnestly asked the other.

" On the side of justice." In a prompt and animated tone came
the reply, and the two men simultaneously extended their right
hands and joined them together in a hearty grasp to seal the
promise that day given one to the other.

W. H. HARVEY.

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION.

I.— A REPLY TO MY CRITICS.

BY DR. MAX NORDAU.

THREE critics have raised their voices against me in this mag
azine. I desire, first of all, to pay my compliments to Mr. Haz-
eltine. My dealings with him shall be reserved fto the end. Mr.
Cox and Mr. Seidl pair together exceedingly well. They are
closely allied intellectually. Both possess the identical four char
acteristics that mark them as members of the same family. They
write in bad faith, they are vulgar, they are ignorant, and they
are incapable of argumentation. Whenever I detect these feat
ures in critics, I am accustomed to pass them by with a shrug of
the shoulder. They have no claim upon recognition. And in
answering them, I do so merely out of respect for the place where
their production appeared and for the public which has done
them the honor of reading it.

I.

MR. Cox imputes to me the statement that the predilection of
the middle and lower classes for chromos is an indication of their
intellectual sanity. I never said anything of the kind. What I
do say is that " only a very small minority take any sincere delight
in the new ' departures/ " which I characterize as morbid, while
the Philistine and Proletarian, whom I would still consider men
tally sound, find these "departures" repellent. And for that
reason the aversion of the masses to Pointillists and Pipists, to
Symbolists and White- washers, and not their predilection for
popular chromos, is a proof of their intellectual sanity. This
predilection is proof only of their scanty training in art. Take
the Philistine or Proletarian who revels in the despised chromos.
Conduct him frequently through the museum. Show him the

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 81

magic of color of Titiaii and Rubens, the harmony of Rembrandt,
the force of Velasquez and Franz Hals, the honest drafting of
Memling, Holbein, and Diirer, the temperament and depth of
feeling of Murillo and Correggio, and, above all, the more than
human truth and beauty and spirituality of Leonardo, — culti
vate his eye and his taste with those splendors, and the sound
Philistine and Proletarian will come to be ashamed of his exulta
tion over poor chromos ; he will esteem and appreciate the labors
of true artists, but will despise the hystericals, idiots and sensation
hunters of the brush even more than before his art culture ; for
he will then perceive bettor tluin now how far removed from true
art the aberration of these persons is. But the case of the small,
though noisy, minority of degenerates, who have made the aber
rations of art fashionable, is hopeless. They have enjoyed the
benefit of an aesthetic training. They know the art collections.
They have seen the eternal masters. But they have a sense for
no normal beauty, and only for irritating curiosities, which are
insults to taste, logic and morals. And thus the criterion of the
sanity or morbidity of the masses and of the minority is not what
attitude they may assume towards the odious chromo, but their
attitude towards the aberrations of art.

Mr. Cox speaks of my "arrogance," and my "total inability
to comprehend art." I am arrogant because I am not of one
opinion with him. He simply assumes that his opinion is self-
evidently and indisputably correct ; from which, of course, the
logical deduction is that a divergent opinion must not only be
false but also malicious. Such a degree of artless self-confidence
disarms. And as far as my " total inability to comprehend art "
is concerned, I have long been familiar with that kind of phrase.
It has always been with these that the fanatic advocates of luna
cies in art and literature have endeavored to intimidate the poor
folk that refuse to recognize anything but lunacies in them.
" Do you not find that Ganguin, that Van Gogh are great artists?
Then you are totally unable to comprehend art." The poor people
at whose heads this condemnation is hurled are frightened. It
is hard to be declared incapable of understanding art. To escape
this frightful disqualification they make desperate efforts to
admire Ganguin and Van Gogh. The reputation of many an
artist and poet — of Mallarme, for instance — is solely the result
of this terrorism exercised upon timid and fragile natures by fools
YOL. CLXI. — sro. 464. 6

82 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

or buffoons. Who does not know the old Oriental fairy tale,
repeated by Andersen, and finally dramatized by Ludwig Fulda,
in which a swindler sells an Egyptian sultan a wonderful cloth,
which possesses the peculiarity of being visible only to the
virtuous, while it remains invisible to the vicious ? The cloth has
no existence, the astute cheat only goes through the motions of
unrolling, measuring, and cutting, but holds nothing in his
hand. The sultan does not see any cloth, neither do the cour
tiers. But no one dares avow this. Everybody admires the
non-existing cloth, and praises its imaginary gorgeousness with
the choicest adjectives. For if anybody had owned that he saw
nothing but empty air, he would thereby have furnished the proof
of his depravity. The imposture is ended only when a small
child in its innocence and frankness exclaims that it cannot com
prehend what the others mean by speaking of a beautiful cloth ;
it sees no cloth ; there certainly is no cloth. Scarcely credible
though it be, this improbable fairy tale is repeated daily.
A fool or an impostor points to some idiotic work and says :
"Here is a master-production. Whoever recognizes its beauty
is an art connoisseur; whoever does not recognize its beauty
demonstrates his 'total inability to comprehend art/" And
the public, cowardly and intimidated, like the Egyptian cour
tiers of the story, actually exclaims : " How wonderful is this
work of art I" — although it, of course, sees well enough that the
work is not wonderful, but ineffably idiotic, that it is the delir
ium of a lunatic, or the childish effort of incompetence, or the
mystification of a humbug.

Mr. Cox says of my analysis of the Pre-Raphaelite school :
" This is somewhat like slaying the dead." He does not perceive
that by this incidental phrase he destroys his whole polemic
against me and brands it as frivolous, and that, provided his
statement is correct, he completely justifies my attitude. For, if
Pre -Raphael it ism is dead, it must assuredly have perished because
it was not fit to survive, because it was morbid ; and the whole ob
ject of the chapter which Mr. Cox assails is, after all, only to
prove that Pre-Raphaelitism is morbid, is not fit to survive. But
Mr. Cox's statement is untrue. While it may be that Pre-
Raphaelitism has been vanquished in England it is just begin
ning on the Continent to exercise its baneful influence. In
the salon of the Champ du Mars, this year, I find at least a

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 83

dozen painters whose pictures are completely dominated by the
influence of Sir E. Bu rue- Jones. I only mention Aman-Jean,
Ary-Renan, Hawkins, Monod, W. Stott, Picard, Osbers. I
might easily double or even treble the enumeration. In view of
this epidemic of imitation my chapter was not superfluous.

" Modern Painters was not a collection of studies," says Mr.
Cox. Well, then, he has never had the book in his hand. For
Ruskin himself says in the preface that the book grew out of in
dividual studies ; and we all know that individual portions, for
instance the essay on Turner and English Landscape painting,
appeared before the publication of the first volume of Modern
Painters, which contains an elaboration of that essay.

In reference to my statement that the Pre-Raphaelites "got all
their leading principles from Ruskin," Mr.. Cox says : (f This has
been disproved again and again. Raskin took up the movement
and explained it after it was started." Evidently Mr. Cox does
not know what he is speaking about. He confuses Modern Paint
ers with Pre-Rapliaelitism. Modern Painters first began to ap
pear in 1843. The Pre-Raphaelite movement was started towards
the end of the 'Forties. Ruskin's Pre-Raphaelitism appeared in
1851. Mr. Cox never read Hall Game's and W. Sharp's memoirs
of Rossetti. He is unacquainted with Holrnan Hunt's autobiog
raphy. Otherwise he would have seen how Hunt and Hall
Caine, speak of the influence of the first volume of Modern
Painters upon Rossetti, Millais and Hunt. Neither has he seen
Robert de Sixeraune's book, La Peinture-Anglaise Moderne.
There, too, it is expressly stated that " Penche sur ce livre
(namely, Ruskin's Modern Painters), Holman Hunt y puisait
comme une seconde vie." There is no doubt that Pre-Raphael-
itism was written by Ruskin after the movement was well under
way. But he wrote it because he felt obliged to defend a move
ment which had sprung from his book, Modern Painters.

The principle of Pre-Raphaelitism is that "in order to express
devotion and noble feeling, the artist must be defective in form."
Mr. Cox adds hereto : " This nonsense is Nordau's own." Read
the literal passages from Ruskin : " A rude symbol is oftener more
efficient than a refined one in touching the heart. ... As
pictures rise in rank as works of art they are regarded with less
devotion and more curiosity. . . . The picture which has
the nobler and more numerous ideas, however awkwardly ex-

34 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

pressed, is a greater and a better picture than that which has the
less noble and less numerous ideas, however beautifully expressed.
. . . The less sufficient the means appear to the end, the
greater will be the sensation of power." And now judge for
yourself whether this nonsense is Nordau's or Ruskin's. " No
such principle/' says Mr. Cox, " was ever announced by the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood as that artists should be deformed."
Again, Mr. Cox has never read the expressions, " divine crooked
ness," and " holy awkwardness" which Pre-Raphaelites have ap
plied to poorly drawn pictures.

I say, " Rossetti's father gave him the name of the great
poet " (Dante). Cox observes : " His father did nothing of the
kind. . . . He adopted the ' Dante Mater, and all Nordau's
argument of the influence of his name upon his character falls to
the ground." Read the following first strophe of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti's poem : " Dante's Tenebrae. In memory of my father : "

" And didst thou know, indeed, when at the font,
Together with thy name thou gav'st me his,
That also on thy son must Beatrice
Decline her eyes, according to her wont ?"

Now, what falls to the ground ? Mr. Cox has the assurance to
add : " Apparently our author can be accurate in nothing ?
He speaks of the 'P. R. B.' exhibition in 1849 as if it were
a separate exhibition of the Brotherhood alone." What I
said was literally this : " In the spring of 1849 they exhibited in
London a number of pictures and statues." There is not a syllable
here to indicate that it was a separate exhibition. That point
was left altogether untouched. Mr. Cox seems to take umbrage
at my statement that " Rossetti soon exchanged the brush for
the pen." I submit if this is not the correct description of the
activity of a man who, in the first part of his artistic activity
principally painted and only at rare intervals versified, while
later on he scarcely ever painted and never exhibited, but, on the
other hand, wrote copiously and published his writings ?

" He cannot even describe a picture correctly, for he says
that the figure of Christ in Holman Hunt's ' Shadow of the
Cross ' is standing in the Oriental attitude of prayer, . . .
the shadow of his body falling on the ground. Both the state
ments I have italicized are untrue." The only thing which is
untrue is the presumptuous assertion of Mr. Cox. Christ stands

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 85

with outstretched arms, and the shadow of the body together with
the outstretched arms is precisely what constitutes the cross. I was
in England when Holman Hunt's picture was first exhibited. It
gave occasion at the time to an extensive newspaper controversy.
The painter and his friends maintained that Christ was painted
in an Oriental attitude of prayer. Oriental travellers and savans
replied that no Oriental prays with outstretched arms. It is not
my province to decide this question. It suffices for me that Hol
man Hunt had the intention and the conviction of painting
Christ in an Oriental attitude of prayer.

Mr. Cox seeks to demonstrate that I am wofully at variance
with myself. He does this by placing in juxtaposition such
passages of my book, as he has partly not understood and partly
misrepresented. I am made to say that the painter is not per
mitted to draw the ideal form of things for " the ideal form is an
assumption. ... To exclude individual features from a
phenomenon as unessential and accidental, and to retain others
as intrinsic and necessary is to reduce it to an abstract idea; "
and then I am quoted as having said later: "For the artist, in
his creation, separates the essential from the accidental, . . .
divines the idea behind the structure . . . and discloses it
in his work to the spectator." This looks serious in good sooth,
and seems to justify Mr. Cox's comment : " It is not often that any
one can be so superbly inconsistent as this." The truth is that
the inconsistency has been produced artificially by Mr. Cox, and
that no reader in good faith will find it in my book.

Buskin says: " There is an ideal form of every herb, flower
and tree. It is that form to which every individual of the species
has a tendency to attain, freed from the influence of accident or
disease," and he goes on to say: " To recognize and to reproduce
this ideal form is the one great task of the painter." I contest
this thesis of Buskin's and show that it cannot possibly be the
painter's task to paint an "ideal form," that is a "schema."
(The English translation of this portion of my book is not wholly
correct. I beg to be permitted to stand by the German original.
Nobody can hold me responsible for the individual expressions of
a translation which I did not review.) " The ' schema,'" I con
tinue, " presupposes a conception of the law which conditions
the phenomenon. This conception" (not "idea," as the English
translation renders it) "may be erroneous, it varies with the

86 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

reigning scientific theories; the painter does not reproduce vary
ing scientific theories, but sensible impressions; the 'schema* ex
cites intellectual labor and not emotion, and the province of art
is the excitation of emotion."

And on page 333 I say : " The emotion ... is ...
a means of obtaining knowledge. ... It constrains the
higher centres to attend to the causes of their excitations, and
in this way necessarily induces a sharper observation and com
prehension of the whole series of phenomena related to the emo
tion. Next, the work of art grants an insight into the laws of
which the phenomenon is the expression, for the artist, in his
creation, separates the essential from the accidental . . . and
involuntarily gives prominence to the former as that which chiefly
or solely occupies his attention, and is therefore perceived and
reproduced by him with especial distinctness" Mr. Cox has
suppressed the italicized lines. They contain the kernel of
my idea. They prove that no such inconsistency was perpetrated
by me, as Mr. Cox suggests. Euskin insists that the painter
must have a complete conception of the law which conceals itself
behind the phenomenon, and that he must have a clear conscious
ness and intention of reproducing the phenomenon in such a way
as to express that law with clearness. I declare that to be false
and unartistic. I say contrariwise that the artist meets the phe
nomenon with an emotion ; this emotion directs his attention to
those features of the phenomenon which are the cause of the emo
tion ; in consequence whereof he gives prominence to these features
and neglects the others because they escape his notice. And when
the picture is finished it does not show the phenomenon object
ively, as is the case with a photograph, but it is just what the
painter perceived it to be subjectively by dint of his emotion.
And if the painter is a divining genius, his artistic emotion
will be aroused by the expression of the great nature-forces, or,
in other words, the eternal laws of nature in the phenomenon,
and through his picture the great nature-forces, the eternal laws
of nature, speak more plainly than through the phenomenon itself
when viewed by one who does not possess the analytic and class
ifying artistic emotion of a divining genius. In short,
Ruskin wants the artist to have a predetermined opinion ;
[ want him to allow the phenomenon to operate upon him.
Buskin wants thought-labor; I want emotion. Ruskin wants

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 87

the artist to consciously impart into the phenomenon a rational
conception; I want him to unconsciously give prominence to
such individual features of the phenomenon as will enable the be
holder to perceive a distinct law. Ruskin wants painting to be
the art of the conscious; I want it to be the art of the uncon
scious. I am at variance with Ruskin, but not with myself.

There is another untruthful assertion of Mr. Cox's connected
with this discussion. He says that I " make my own that doctrine
of absolute fidelity to fact which is the worst feature of Ruskin's
teaching." I do exactly the reverse. I even demonstrate that
' ' absolute fidelity to fact " is utterly impossible to the painter.
(P. 476-7. " It might be thought, perhaps, that . . . paint
ing and sculpture are capable of a faithful reproduction of reality.
. . . This is an error. It would never occur to a painter or
a sculptor to place himself before a phenomenon, and reproduce
it without selection, without accentuations and suppressions.
. . . Involuntarily he will accentuate and throw into relief
the feature which has inspired him with the desire to imitate the
aspect in question, and his luork, consequently, will no more re
present the phenomenon as it really ivas, but as he saw it ; it will
only be a fresh proof, therefore, of his emotion, not the cast of a
phenomenon.") Is this clear ? Is it possible to be less correct
than Mr. Cox when he maintains that I require " absolute fidelity
to fact" from the painter ?

Mr. Cox speaks of my "fury at witticisms," and states that ac
cording to me the tendency to perpetrate these is one of the great
signs of mental degeneration. I never once spoke of witticisms,
but of puns. Puns are, indeed, a proof of the association of ideas
solely according to the similarity of sound of the words, but they
make little or no requisition upon the reasoning faculty. And
such a purely mechanical association is evidence of defective ideal
ism and of insufficient intellectual strength.

" The way in which diametrically opposite symptoms prove
the same disease seems strange to the unscientific mind," says
Mr. Cox. So much the worse for the unscientific mind. It may
seem strange to him that excessive irritability, for instance, and
its apparently direct reverse, dullness, and even total insensibility,
are symptoms of the same disease, nervous exhaustion. But any
"scientific mind" will teach Mr. Cox that this is a fact.

Mr. Cox reproaches me with " never praising any artist . . .

88 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

except those whose reputation is so firmly established as to be be
yond all cavil." This is intended as a proof of my " insensibility
to art." Mr. Cox is not the inventor of this ridiculous reproach.
A wise Theban cast it up to me once before. My answer to him
shall serve as my answer now. What ! I write a book about
" Degeneration." I say in the title, in the preface, in the in
troduction, in the concluding chapter, ten times, one hundred
times, that I desire to occupy myself only with the pathological
aspect of Degeneration, only with its manifestations in art and
literature ; and now I am reproached for speaking in my book on
" Degeneration " precisely of the degenerate ones whom I cannot
praise, and not of sound artists whom I can praise ! You might
as well chide the author of a work on special diseases for not
speaking of foot-ball champions and record-breakers in high and
broad jumping, or the author of a work on insanity for not dwell
ing upon people with a phenomenally sound intellect. I have
praised plenty of artists and literati who had no established
reputation, and towards the establishment of whose reputation I
was fortunate enough to be of assistance. Whoever has read my
other books, whoever has read my Studies of the Paris. Salons in
the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, or in the Berlin Vossisclie
Zeitung, is aware of that. But, surely my book on (f Degenera
tion" was not the place to express my views of sound artists.

" What he does praise or admire in art is almost always suc
cessful imitation." I have just now shown that this is false.
Imitation plays no part in my theory of art. I even affirm that
bare imitation of art is impossible for psychological reasons.
" There is no sign that beauty of line or fine composition has ever
appeared to him to exist." On page 80 I discussed the means by
which a picture awakens feelings of pleasure, and I find that
these means are, firstly (not " solely"), the agree.ible sensorial
impression of beautiful color-harmony ; secondly, an illusion of
actuality and the pleasure attendant upon the recognition of the
represented phenomenon ; thirdly, the perception of the emotions
which prompted the artist to give prominence to certain features
of the phenomenon, such as the inartistic beholder failed to per
ceive so plainly before. But how else can the second and third
of these effects be produced than by the " beauty of line and com
position," that is, the drawing or the modelling of the figures
and the arrangement of the groups ?

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. gg

After all, the objections hazarded by Mr. Cox might almost all
be well founded, Mr. Cox might be right in almost every point
wherein he finds fault with me, and I be wrong, and still he would
not have touched the real nucleus of the work from afar. Whether
the Pre-Raphaelites exhibited alone or in consort with others in 1849,
or whether Rossetti's name was Dante or not, does not in the least
affect the thesis for the proof of which I wrote my book :
namely, thai certain fashion tendencies of art are morbid and
that they are rooted in the degenerateness of their inventors.
Mr. Cox's hair-splitting arguments do not even touch this
thesis.

II.

I HAVE but little to say to Anton Seidl. In his three pages
of frightful ejaculations I have found only two statements
which have demonstrated themselves as correct. I am said
to have used Praeger's biography as a prop for my assertions
concerning Wagner. My chapter on Wagner covers forty-three
pages. Praeger is mentioned in it only once. That passage is,
"For Wagner's persecution mania we have the testimony of his
most recent biographer and friend, Ferdinand Praeger, who re
lates that, for years, Wagner was convinced that the Jews had con
spired to prevent the representation of his operas." This is the
only reference to Praeger, who is not mentioned before nor after
ward, whose book I have not used in any other place, from whom
I have taken no other allegation. And those few lines afford
Anton Seidl a pretext to maintain that I drew materials from him
1 ( to substantiate my silly accusations." I would not have needed
to have recourse to Praeger even for the information that Wagner
imagined himself persecuted by the Jews, as there is other testi
mony in great abundance to the same effect.

The second statement is that I "cite Nietzsche as a competent
critic of Wagner's dramatic poetry, but reject Nietzsche as of
imbecile judgement in critizing Wagner, the musician/' I was
speaking of the part which the salvation idea played with Wagner
and said, page 184 : " Nietzsche has already remarked this and
makes merry over it, with repulsively superficial witticisms."
And thus I cite Nietzsche as a '•' competent critic of Wagner's
dramatic poetry"! Any other reader than Anton Seidl would
understand this passage to mean that "Wagner's salvation-

90 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

stupidity was so palpable that even a lunatic like Nietzsche could

not help perceiving it."

III.

MR. HAZELTINE regards the question which I sought to deal
with from a lofty point of view. In noble terms appropriate
to his noble train of thinking, he, too, deplores the chaotic
state of the times. But his views concerning the fin de siecle
malady differ from mine in three respects. Mr. Hazel tine does
not believe that this malady is a new manifestation; he does not
believe that it is caused by degeneration ; and he does not recog
nize its aetiology in the effects of the new inventions, the growth
of the great cities, and the ravages of stimulating poisons, partic
ularly of alcohol ; but, rather, in the loss of religious faith.

It were a pleasure to me to be able to coincide with so distin
guished a mind as Mr. Hazeltine's even in the minutest detail.
Objections raised by him demand serious reflection.

I have examined Mr. Hazeltine's arguments with respect, with
sympathy and free from a spirit of vain antagonism. He will
pardon me if I tell him that I really believe that I can reply to
his objections and uphold my theses.

I am grateful to Mr. Hazeltine for not charging me with the
delusion of imagining that the views which our times afford are
not something unique and hitherto unheard of. The celebrated
sociologist of Gratz, Professor Gumplovicz, has proposed the
names " Akrochronism " and " Akrotopism" to designate this
rather wide-spread error. He applies these words to that mental
defect which consists in making one believe that one's own age
and the place wherein one lives are something which never had
their parallel. I have striven to avoid this error of the mind. I
was so much struck by the similarity of our times with the age of
decline of the Roman Empire that I laid especial stress and dwelt
upon it in one of my former books, " The Conventional Lies of
Cultured Humanity." But just as it has been said that "a
little philosophy leadeth away from God, but a great deal thereof
leadeth back again," so I should like to say that " a little knowl
edge of history leads one to believe in the similarity between
different epochs, but more knowledge shows that the similarity
is only apparent, and that the difference is really very great."

In Rome, at the Decline, we find precisely as at the present
day, an unravelling of all moral bonds, ferocity in manners, un-

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 91

sparing egotism, sensualism and brutality ; we find multitudes
whose loathing of life impels them to suicide. The realistic
literature of a Petronius is the counterpart of the novels of a
Zola, only that there is more humor and wholesome satire in one
chapter of the Cena Trimalchionis than in all the two dozen
volumes of the Rougon-Macquart combined. The luxuriating
of the neo-Platonism reminds one of the neo-mystic movement of
our own times. In so far, the similarity is striking. The diver
gence begins when we consider not the immoral, but rather the
delirium-reeking literature and art of the present day, and do
not overlook the concomitant phenomena of the social life. No
record has been preserved to show us that the decay of manners
in Eome increased the rate of drunkenness, insanity and impul
sive crimes — for we must distinguish impulsive crimes from those
crimes which yield a palpable advantage to their perpetrators.
To-day this increased ratio is observable in all centers of civiliza
tion, at least, in Europe. Furthermore, we find in Rome at the
decline a retrogression of the arts, the works become more
slovenly, heavy and awkward, but still, antiquity does not furnish
us with such poets as Mallarme, Sar Peladan, Maeterlink, such
philosophers as Nietzsche, such artists as Henry Martin, Monet,
Pissarro, Van Gogh, or Trachsel. In these respects I see an
essential difference between our age and preceding epochs which
seem to bear a resemblance to it.

Mr. Hazeltine's views are quite correct so far as they go.
But he has confined himself to only one side of the question
and neglected the other side. He sees only the immoral tenden
cies of the present time. Such tendencies have been observed
heretofore from time to time, particularly in the wake of occur
rences which shook the social fabric, such as wars, revolutions
and epidemics. They imply neither degeneration nor insanity,
but the uncaging of the beast in persons who are held in check in
normal times by the wholesome fear of police and judges. But
in our day I see, besides the immoral tendencies, delirious ten
dencies, and concerning these, Mr. Hazeltine is silent. Tolstoi is
not immoral. Neither are the Pre-Raphaelites, and Wagner is
so only by reason of the excess of his erotic emotions. But
they are mystico-confused. Their ideation is abnormal.
Their theories of art and social reform are identical with
those which the psychist meets with in his educated patients,

92 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and of ten even, although in a more naive, less developed degree,
in his patients of the lower social strata. Immorality alone
would not justify the diagnosis of degeneration. That much I
will at once concede to Mr. Hazeltine. But deliriums do
justify the diagnosis ; and yet of the forms of delirium which I
dwelt upon at large, Mr. Hazeltine has said nothing. And the
diagnosis is supported by the aforementioned concomitant phe
nomena of the non-artistic and non-literary kind, which cannot
be traced to immorality alone, like the increased rate of insanity,
imbecility, idiocy and impulsive crimes, but which certainly
may be traced to degeneration.

The epoch of the troubadours of Provence occupies a unique
position. At that time immorality and decay of manners were
not, as in the Rome of the decline, the main features ; but there
were then, as now, in the literary and social life distinct signs of
deliriums — erotomania, mystico-mania, and a certain degree of
Masochism (a sickly revelling in the thought of being the slave
of a woman and of being ready to suffer for or through her).

That would, indeed, seem to establish a similarity between
that era and ours. But, according to all that we know of the
confusions of the mediaeval period, these were not phenomena of
degeneration, but rather epidemics of hysteria ; and this hysteria
was simply a consequence of the excitements attendant upon the
terror preceding the year 1,000, then upon the crusades and later
upon the black-death.

And now we come to the aetiological question. Mr. Hazel-
tine makes religious decay responsible for the disease of this age
as well aa for the morbid phenomena of the twelfth century and
of the time of the Roman Empire. He denies that over-exertion
had anything to do with it. He is convinced that humanity can
adapt itself without injury to every new invention. I, myself,
believe that. But time is required for the adaptation, and mean
time generations of less adaptable persons perish for lack of or
ganic fitness. And as far as over-exertion is concerned, it really
does seem almost paradoxical to say that the "upper ten "live
more comfortably and more peaceably to-day than their ancestors
before the introduction of the railroad, the telegraph, the tele
phone, the globe-trotting mania and the ubiquitous interviewer.
I treated the argument of over-exertion very fully in Degenera
tion. I adduced numerous statistics there in corroboration. I

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 93

do not wish to repeat the figures here. There is, in my mind,
no doubt of the existence of the over-exertion, the multiplication
of all sensations, the manifolding of the services that are re
quired of us. Lack of faith explains but few of the present phe
nomena. It does not even explain those of the Koman de
cline and the turmoils of the twelfth century. For the
educated classes of Augustan Rome, while the empire was still
new, young and strong, were just as sceptical as two centuries
later; and the belief of the illiterate masses in the third century
was identically the same as in the first century. Their religion
was an uncouth, naive superstition, and even their Christianity,
when they adopted it, was only a change of name applied to their
ancient views, which remained essentially the same. And to
charge the twelfth century with infidelity would require no little
temerity! Contact with Islam can rob no one of faith, for
faith is nowhere rooted deeper than among Mohammedans. At
the commencement of our era also, and also in the twelfth cen
tury, other elements besides infidelity were at work to produce an
intellectual epidemic. To-day that is surely the case, as we are
subject to sensations which radically transmute the life and habits
of every man, and to a cause of perturbation which was known
neither in old Rome nor in the twelfth century; that is to say,
the stimulating poisons, especially alcohol, which has been dis
tilled only since the eighth century and has come into general use
only in recent years.

I believe I have established my thesis. Our age certainly has
individual features in common with other ages, but at no time
known to me were there, in addition to phenomena of mere
brutality and lewdness, so many symptoms of organic ruin observ
able as now. The diagnosis — " degeneration" — is justified by
these symptoms of organic ruin, and is more applicable to our
times than to previous epochs. And infidelity cannot be the sole
or even the principal cause ; for to assume so would be equivalent
to shutting one's eyes completely to alcoholism and to over-exer
tion, which are discovered as the aetiology in numerous cases.

I have weighed Mr. Hazeltine's arguments seriously. I beg
him also to ponder mine. The questions that engage both of us
are of the number of those which are most deserving to occupy
the human mind.

MAX NORDAU.

94 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

II.— KIDD'S "SOCIAL EVOLUTION."

BY THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

MR. KIDD'S "Social Evolution" is distinctly one of the books
of the year. It has been called a great book ; but this it is not,
for the writer is burdened by a certain mixture of dogmatism and
superficiality, which makes him content to accept half truths and
insist that they are whole truths.

He deserves credit for appreciating what he calls "the out
look." He sketches graphically, and with power, the problems
which now loom up for settlement before all of us who dwell in
Western lands ; and he portrays the varying attitudes of interest,
alarm, and hope with which the thinkers and workers of the day
regard these problems. He points out that the problems which
now face us are by no means parallel to those that were solved by
our forefathers one, two or three centuries ago. The great poli
tical revolutions seem to be about complete and the time of the
great social revolutions has arrived. We are all peering eagerly into
the future to try to forecast the action of the great dumb forces set
in operation by the stupendous industrial revolution which has
taken place during the present century. We do not know what
to make of the vast displacements of population, the expansion
of the towns, the unrest and discontent of the masses, and the
uneasiness of those who are devoted to the present order of things.

Mr. Kidd sees these problems, but he gropes blindly when he
tries to forecast their solution. He sees that the progress of man
kind in past ages can only have been made under and in accordance
with certain biological laws, and that these laws continue to work
in human society at the present day. He realizes the all import
ance of the laws which govern the reproduction of mankind from
generation to generation precisely as they govern the reproduction
of the lower animals, and which, therefore, largely govern his
progress. But he makes a cardinal mistake in treating of this
kind of progress. He states with the utmost positiveness that,
left to himself, man has not the slightest innate tendency to make
any onward progress whatever, and that if the conditions of
life allowed each man to follow his own inclinations the average
of one generation would always tend to sink below the average of
the preceding. This is one of the sweeping generalizations of

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 95

which Mr. Kidd is fond, and which mar so much of his work.
He evidently finds great difficulty in stating a general law with
the proper reservations and with the proper moderation of phrase;
and so he enunciates as truths statements which contain a truth,
but which also contain a falsehood. What he here says is un
doubtedly true of the world, taken as a whole. It is in all proba
bility entirely false of the highest sections of society. At any
rate, there are numerous instances where the law he states does
not work ; and of course a single instance oversets a sweeping
declaration of such a kind.

There can be but little quarrel with what Mr. Kidd says as to
the record of the world being a record of ceaseless progress on the
one hand, and ceaseless stress and competition on the other; al
though even here his statement is too broad, and his terms are
used carelessly. When he speaks of progress being ceaseless, he
evidently means by progress simply change, so that as he uses the
word it must be understood to mean progress backward as well as
forward. As a matter of fact, in many forms of life and for long
ages there is absolutely no progress whatever and no change, the
forms remaining practically stationary.

Mr. Kidd further points out that the first necessity for every
successful form engaged in this struggle is the capacity for repro
duction beyond the limits which the conditions of life comfortably
provide for, so that competition and selection must not only al
ways accompany progress, but must prevail in every form of life
which is not actually retrograding. As already said, he accepts
without reservation the proposition that if all the individuals of
every generation in any species were allowed to propagate their
kind equally, the average of each generation would tend to fall
below the preceding.

From this position he draws as a corollary, that the wider the
limits of selection, the keener the rivalry and the more rigid the
selection, just so much greater will be the progress ; while for
any progress at all there must be some rivalry in selection, so
that every progressive form must lead a life of continual strain
and stress as it travels its upward path. This again is true in a
measure, but is not true as broadly as Mr. Kidd has stated it.
The rivalry of natural selection is but one of the features in pro
gress. Other things being equal, the species where this rivalry
is keenest will make most progess ; but then "other things"

96 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

never are equal. In actual life those species make most progress
which are farthest removed from the point where the limits of
selection are very wide, the selection itself very rigid, and the
rivalry very keen. Of course the selection is most rigid where
the fecundity of the animal is greatest ; but it is precisely the
forms which have most fecundity that have made least progress.
Some time in the remote past the guinea pig and the dog had a
common ancestor. The fecundity of the guinea pig is much
greater than that of the dog. Of a given number of guinea pigs
born, a much smaller proportion are able to survive in the keen
rivalry, so that the limits of selection are wider, and the selection
itself more rigid ; nevertheless the progress made by the progen
itors of the dog since eocene days has been much more marked and
rapid than the progress made by the progenitors of the guinea pig
in the same time.

Moreover, in speaking of the rise that has come through the
stress of competition in our modern societies, and of the keen
ness of this stress in the societies that have gone fastest, Mr.
Kidd overlooks certain very curious features in human society.
In the first place he speaks as though the stress under which na
tions make progress was primarily the stress produced by multi
plication beyond the limits of subsistence. This, of course,
would mean that in progressive societies the number of births
and the number of deaths would both be at a maximum, for it is
where the births and deaths are largest that the struggle for life
is keenest. If, as Mr. Kidd's hypothesis assumes, progress was
most marked where the struggle for life was keenest, the Euro
pean people standing highest in the scale would be the South
Italians, the Polish Jews, and the people who live in the con
gested districts of Ireland. As a matter of fact, however, these
are precisely the people who have made least progress when
compared with the dominant strains among, for instance, the
English or Germans. So far is Mr. Kidd's proposition from be
ing true that, when studied in the light of the facts, it is difficult
to refrain from calling it the reverse of the truth. The race ex
isting under conditions which make the competition for bare ex
istence keenest, never progresses as fast as the race which exists
under less stringent conditions. There must undoubtedly be a
certain amount of competition, a certain amount of stress and
strain, but it is equally undoubted that if this competition be-

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 97

comes too severe the race goes down and not up; and it is further
true that the race existing under the severest stress as regards
this competition often fails to go ahead as fast even in popula
tion as does the race where the competition is less severe. No
matter how large the number of births may be, a race cannot in
crease if the number of deaths also grows at an accelerating rate.

To increase greatly a race must be prolific, and there is no curse
so great as the curse of barrenness, whether for a nation or an
individual. When a people gets to the position even now oc
cupied by the mass of the French and fty sections of the New
Englanders, where the death rate surpasses the birth rate, then
that race is not only fated to extinction but it deserves extinction.
When the capacity and desire for fatherhood and motherhood is
lost the race goes down, and should go down; and we need to
have the plainest kind of plain speaking addressed to those in
dividuals who fear to bring children into the world. But while
this is all true, it remains equally true that immoderate increase
in no way furthers the development of a race, and does not always
help its increase even in numbers. The English-speaking peoples
during the past two centuries and a half have increased faster
than any others, yet there have been many other peoples whose
birth rate during the same period has stood higher.

Yet, again, Mr. Kidd, in speaking of the stress of the con
ditions of progress in our modern societies fails to see that most
of the stress to which he refers does not have anything to do
with increased difficulty in obtaining a living, or with the propa
gation of the race. The great prizes are battled for among the
men who wage no war whatever for mere subsistence, while the
fight for mere subsistence is keenest among precisely the classes
which contribute very little indeed to the progress of the race.
The generals and admirals, the poets, philosophers, historians
and musicians, the statesmen and judges, the law-makers and
law-givers, the men of arts and of letters, the great captains of
war and of industry — all these come from the classes where the
struggle for the bare means of subsistence is least severe, and
where the rate of increase is relatively smaller than in the classes
below. In civilized societies the rivalry of natural selection
works against progress. Progress is made in spite of it, for
progress results not from the crowding out of the lower classes
by the upper, but on the contrary from the steady rise of the
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 464. 7

98 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

lower classes to the level of the upper, as the latter tend to vanish,
or at most barely hold their own. In progressive societies it is
often the least fit who survive ; but, on the other hand, they and
their children often tend to grow more fit.

The mere statement of these facts is sufficient to show not
only how incorrect are many of Mr. Kidd's premises and conclu
sions, but also how unwarranted are some of the fears which he
expressess for the future. It is plain that the societies and sec
tions of societies where the individual happiness is on the whole
highest, and where progress is most real and valuable, are
precisely these where the grinding competition and the struggle
for mere existence is least severe. Undoubtedly in every progres
sive society there must be a certain sacrifice of individuals, so
that there must be a certain proportion of failures in every gen
eration; but the actual facts of life prove beyond shadow of doubt
that the extent of this sacrifice has nothing to do with the rapid
ity or worth of the progress. The nations that make most pro
gress may do so at the expense of ten or fifteen individuals out of
a hundred, -whereas the nations that make least progress, or even
go backwards, may sacrifice almost every man out of the hun
dred.

This last statement is in itself partly an answer to the position
taken by Mr. Kidd, that there is for the individual no ' ' rational
sanction " for the conditions of progress. In a progressive com
munity, where the conditions provide for the happiness of four-
fifths or nine-tenths of the people there is undoubtedly a rational
sanction for progress both for the community at large and for the
great bulk of its members ; and if these members are on the
whole vigorous and intelligent, the attitude of the smaller fraction
who have failed will be a matter of little consequence. In such
a community the conflict between the interests of the individual
and the organism of which he is a part, upon which Mr. Kidd
lays so much emphasis, is at a minimum. The stress is severest,
the misery and suffering greatest, among precisely the communi
ties which have made least progress — among the Bushmen,
Australian black fellows, and root-digger Indians, for instance.

Moreover, Mr. Kidd does not define what he means by
" rational sanction." Indeed one of his great troubles throughout
is his failure to make proper definitions, and the extreme loose
ness with which he often uses the definitions he does make.

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 99

Apparently by " rational " he means merely selfish, and proceeds
upon the assumption that " reason " must always dictate to every
man to do that which will give him the greatest amount of
individual gratification at the moment, no matter what the cost
may be to others or to the community at large. This is not so.
Side by side with the selfish development in life there has been
almost from the beginning a certain amount of unselfishness
developed too ; and in the evolution of humanity the unselfish
side has, on the whole, tended steadily to increase at the expense
of the selfish, notably in the progressive communities about
whose future development Mr. Kidd is so ill at ease. A more
supreme instance of unselfishness than is afforded by motherhood
cannot be imagined ; and when Mr. Kidd implies, as he does
very clearly, that there is no rational sanction for the unselfish
ness of motherhood, for the unselfishness of duty, or loyalty, he
merely misuses the word rational. When a creature has reached a
certain stage of development it will cause the female more pain
to see her offspring starve than to work for it, and she then has a
very rational reason for so working. When humanity has reached
a certain stage it will cause the individual more pain, a greater
sense of degradation and shame and misery, to steal, to murder or
to lie, than to work hard and suffer discomfort. When man has
reached this stage he has a very rational sanction for being truth
ful and honest. It might also parenthetically be stated that when
he has reached this stage he has a tendency to relieve the suffer
ings of others, and he has for this course of his the excellent rational
sanction that it makes him more uncomfortable to see misery un
relieved than it does to deny himself a little in order to relieve it.

However, we can cordially agree with Mr. Kidd's proposition
that many of the social plans advanced by would-be reformers in
the interests of oppressed individuals are entirely destructive of
all growth and of all progress in society. Certain cults, not only
Christian, but also Buddhistic and Brahminic, tend to develop
an altruism which is as (< supra-natural" as Mr. Kidd seemingly
desires religion to be ; for it really is without foundation in
reason, and therefore to be condemned.

Mr. Kidd repeats again and again that the scientific develop
ment of the nineteenth century confronts us with the fact that
the interests of the social organism and of the individual are and
must remain antagonistic, and the former predominant, and that

100 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

there can never "be fonnd any sanction in individual reason for
individual good conduct in societies where the conditions of
progress prevail. From what has been said above it is evident
that this statement is entirely without basis, and therefore that
the whole scheme of mystic and highly irrational philosophy
which he founds upon it at once falls to the ground. There is no
such necessary antagonism as that which he alleges. On the con
trary, in the most truly progressive societies, even now, for
the great mass of the individuals composing them the inter
ests of the social organism and of the individual are largely identi
cal instead of antagonistic ; and even where this is not true, there
is a sanction of individual reason, if we use the word reason prop
erly, for conduct on the part of the individual which is subor
dinate to the welfare of the general society.

We can measure the truth of his statements by applying them,
not to great societies in the abstract, but to small social organ
isms in the concrete. Take for instance the life of a regiment or
the organization of a police department or fire department. The
first duty of a regiment is to fight, and fighting means the death
and disabling of a large proportion of the men in the regiment.
The case against the identity of interests between the individual
and the organism, as put by Mr. Kidd, would be far stronger in
a regiment than in any ordinary civilized society of the day. Yet
as a matter of fact we know that in the great multitude of regi
ments there is much more subordination of the individual to the
organism than is the case in any civilized state taken as a whole.
Moreover, this subordination is greatest in precisely those regi
ments where the average individual is best off, because it is
greatest in those regiments where the individual feels that high,
stern pride in his own endurance and suffering, and in the great
name of the organism of which he forms a part, that in itself
yields one of the loftiest of all human pleasures. If Mr. Kidd
means anything when he says that there is no rational sanction for
progress he must also mean that there is no rational sanction for
a soldier not flinching from the enemy when he can do so unob
served, for a sentinel not leaving his post, for an officer not desert
ing to the enemy. Yet when he says this he utters what is a mere
jugglery on words. In the process of evolution men and societies
have often reached such a stage that the best type of soldier or
citizen feels infinitely more shame and misery from neglect of

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 101

duty, from cowardice or dishonesty, from selfish abandonment of
the interests of the organism of which he is part, than can be
offset by the gratification of any of his desires. This, be it also
observed, often takes place, entirely independent of any religions
considerations. The habit of useful self-sacrifice may be de
veloped by civilization in a great society as well as by military
training in a regiment. The habit of useless self-sacrifice may
also, unfortunately, be developed ; and those who practice it are
but one degree less noxious than the individuals who sacrifice
good people to bad.

The religious element in our development is that on which
Mr. Kidd most strongly dwells, entitling it " the central feature
of human history." A very startling feature of his treatment is
that in religious matters he seemingly sets no value on the dif
ference between truth and falsehood, for he groups all religions
together. In a would-be teacher of ethics such an attitude war
rants severe rebuke ; for it is essentially dishonest and immoral.
Throughout his book he treats all religious beliefs from the same
standpoint, as if they were all substantially similar and sub
stantially of the same value; whereas it is, of course, a mere
truism to say that most of them are mutually destructive. Not
only has he no idea of differentiating the true from the false ;
but he seems not to understand that the truth of a partic
ular belief is of any moment. Thus he says, in speaking of
the future survival of religious beliefs in general, that the most
notable result of the scientific revolution begun by Darwin must
be " to establish them on a foundation as broad, deep, and last
ing as any the theologians ever dreamed of." If this sentence
means anything it means that all these religious beliefs will be
established on the same foundation. It hardly seems necessary
to point out that this cannot be the fact. If the God of the
Christians be in very truth the one God, and if the belief in
Him be established, as Christians believe it will, then the founda
tion for the religious belief in Mumbo Jumbo cannot be either
broad, deep, or lasting. In the same way the beliefs in Mohammed
and Buddha are mutually exclusive, and the various forms of an
cestor worship and fetichism cannot all be established on a per
manent basis, as they would be according to Mr. Kidd's theory.

Again, when Mr. Kidd rebukes science for its failure to ap
proach religion in a scientific spirit he shows that he fails to

102 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

grasp the full bearing of the subject which he is considering.
This failure comes in part from the very large, not to say loose,
way in which he uses the words " science " and " religion/' There
are many sciences and many religions, and there are many dif
ferent kinds of men who profess the one or advocate the other.
Where the intolerant professors of a given religious belief en
deavor by any form of persecution to prevent scientific men of
any kind from seeking to find out and establish the truth, then
it is quite idle to blame these scientific men for attacking with
heat and acerbity the religious belief which prompts such perse
cution. The exigencies of a life and death struggle unfit a man
for the coldness of a mere scientific inquiry. Even the most
enthusiastic naturalist, if attacked by a man-eating shark, would
be much more interested in evading or repelling the attack than
in determining the precise specific relations of the shark. A less
important but amusing feature of his argument is that he speaks
as if he himself had made an entirely new discovery when he
learned of the important part played in man's history by his re
ligious beliefs. But Mr. Kidd surely cannot mean this. He
must be aware that all the great historians have given their full
importance to such religious movements as the birth and growth
of Christianity, the Reformation, the growth of Islamism, and
the like. Mr. Kidd is quite right in insisting upon the import
ance of the part played by religious beliefs, but he has fallen
into a vast error if he fails to understand that the great majority
of the historical and sociological writers have given proper weight
to this importance.

Mr. Kidd's greatest failing is his tendency to use words in
false senses. He uses "reason " in the false sense "selfish." He
then, in a spirit of mental tautology, assumes that reason must
be necessarily purely selfish and brutal. He assumes that the man
who risks his life to save a friend, the woman who watches over
a sick child, and the soldier who dies at his post, are unreason
able, and that the more their reason is developed the less likely
they will be to act in these ways. The mere statement of the as
sertion in such a form is sufficient to show its nonsense to any
one who will take the pains to think whether the people who
ordinarily perform such feats of self-sacrifice and self-denial are
people of brutish minds or of fair intelligence.

If none of the ethical qualities are developed at the eame time

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 103

with a man's reason, then he may become a peculiarly noxious
kind of wild beast ; but this is not in the least a necessity of the
development of his reason. It would be just as wise to say that
it was a necessity of the development of his bodily strength. Un
doubtedly the man with reason who is selfish and unscrupulous
will, because of his added power, behave even worse than the man
without reason who is selfish and unscrupulous ; but the same is
true of the man of vast bodily strength. He has power to do
greater harm to himself and to others ; but, because of this, to
speak of bodily strength or of reason as in itself " profoundly
anti-social and anti-revolutionary" is foolishness. Mr. Kidd, as
so often, is misled by a confusion of names, for which he is him
self responsible. The growth of rationalism, unaccompanied by
any growth in ethics or morality, works badly. The society in
which such a growth takes place will die out ; and ought to die
out. But this does not imply that other communities quite as
intelligent may not also be deeply moral and be able to take firm
root in the world.

Mr. Kidd's definitions of "supra-natural" and "ultra-
rational" sanctions, the definitions upon which he insists so
strongly and at such length, would apply quite as well to every
crazy superstition of the most brutal savage as to the teachings of
the New Testament. The trouble with his argument is that,
when he insists upon the importance of this ultra-rational sanc
tion, defining it as loosely as he does, he insists upon too much. He
apparently denies that men can come to a certain state at which
it will be rational for them to do right even to their own hurt.
It is perfectly possible to build up a civilization which, by its sur
roundings and by its inheritances, working through long ages,
shall make the bulk of the men and women develop such charac
teristics of unselfishness, as well as of wisdom, that it will be the
rational thing for them as individuals to act in accordance with
the highest dictates of honor and courage and morality. If the
intellectual development of such a civilized community goes on
at an equal pace with the ethical, it will persistently war against
the individuals in whom the spirit of selfishness, which appar
ently Mr. Kidd considers the only rational spirit, shows itself
strongly. They will weed out these individuals and forbid them
propagating, and therefore will steadily tend to produce a society
in which the rational sanction for progress shall be identical in

104 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the individual and the State. This ideal has never yet been
reached, but there have been long steps taken towards reaching
it; and in most progressive civilizations it is reached to the
extent that the sanction for progress is the same not only for the
State but for each one of the bulk of the individuals composing
it. When this ceases to be the case progress itself will generally
cease and the community ultimately disappear.

Mr. Kidd, having treated of religion in a preliminary way,
and with much mystic vagueness, then attempts to describe the
functions of religious belief in the evolution of society. He has
already given definitions of religion quoted from different authors,
and he now proceeds to give his own definition. But first he
again insists upon his favorite theory, that there can be no ra
tional basis for individual good conduct in society, using the
word rational, according to his usual habit, as a synonym of sel
fish ; and then asserts that there can be no such thing as a ra
tional religion. Apparently all that Mr. Kidd demands on this
point is that it shall be what he calls ultra-rational, a word which
he prefers to irrational. In other words he casts aside as irrele
vant all discussion as to a creed's truth.

Mr. Kidd then defines religion as being ' ' a form of belief
providing an ultra-rational sanction for that large class of con
duct in the individual where his interests and the interests of
the social organism are antagonistic, and by which the former
are rendered subordinate to the latter in the general interest
of the evolution which the race is undergoing," and says
that we have here the principle at the base of all religions. Of
course this is simply not true. All those religions which busy
themselves exclusively with the future life, and which even Mr.
Kidd could hardly deny to be religious, do not have this prin
ciple at their basis at all. They have nothing to do with the
general interests of the evolution which the race is undergoing
on this earth. They have to do only with the soul of the indi
vidual in the future life. They are not concerned with this
world, they are concerned with the world to come. All reli
gions, and all forms of religions, in which the principle of asceti
cism receives any marked development are positively antagonistic
to the development of the social organism. They are against its
interests. They do not tend in the least to subordinate the in
terests of the individual to the interests of the organism in the

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 105

general interests of the evolution which the race is undergoing. A
religion like that of the Shakers means the almost immediate ex
tinction of the organism in which it develops. Such a religion dis
tinctly subordinates the interests of the organism to the interests of
the individual. The same is equally true of many of the more ascetic
developments of Christianity and Islamism. There is strong prob
ability that there was a Celtic population in Iceland before the ar
rival of the Norsemen, but these Celts belonged to the Culdee sect
of Christians. They were anchorites, and professed a creed which
completely subordinated the development of the race on this
earth to the well-being of the individual in the next. In conse
quence they died out and left no successors. There are creeds,
such as most of the present day creeds of Christianity, both
Protestant and Catholic, which do very noble work for the race
because they teach its individuals to subordinate their own in
terests to the interests of mankind; but it is idle to say this of
every form of religious belief.

It is equally idle to pretend that this principle which Mr.
Kidd says lies at the base of all religions does not also lie at the
base of many forms of ethical belief which could hardly be called
religious. His definition of religion could just as appropriately
be used to define some forms of altruism or humanitarianism,
while it does not define religion at all, if we use the word religion
in the way in which it generally is used. If Mr. Kidd should
write a book about horses, and should define a horse as a striped
equine animal found wild in South Africa, his definition would
apply to certain members of the horse family, but would not
apply to that animal which we ordinarily mean when we talk of a
horse ; and, moreover, it would still be sufficiently loose to include
two or three entirely different species. This is precisely the
trouble with Mr. Kidd's definition of religion. It does not de
fine religion at all as the word is ordinarily used, and while it
does apply to certain religious beliefs, it also applies quite as
well to certain non-religious beliefs. We must, therefore, recol
lect that throughout Mr. Kidd's argument on behalf of the part
that religion plays he does not mean what is generally under
stood by religion, but the special form or forms which he
here defines.

Undoubtedly in the race for life that group of beings will
tend ultimately to survive in which the general feeling of the

106 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

members, whether dae to humanitarianism, to altruism, or to
some form of religious belief proper, is such that the average in
dividual has an unselfish — what Mr. Kidd would call an ultra
rational — tendency to work for the ultimate benefit of the com
munity as a whole. Mr. Kidd's argument is so loose that it may
be construed as meaning that, in the evolution of society, irra
tional superstitions grow up from time to time, affect large bod
ies of the human race in their course of development and then
die away, and that this succession of evanescent religious beliefs
will continue for a very long time to come, perhaps as long as the
human race exists. He may further mean that, except for this
belief in a long succession of lies, humanity could not go forward.
His words, I repeat, are sufficiently involved to make it possible
that he means this, but, if so, his book can hardly be taken as a
satisfactory defense of religion.

If there is justification for any given religion and justification
for the acceptance of supernatural authority as regards this re
ligion, then there can be no justification for the acceptance of
all religions, good and bad alike. There can, at the outside, be
a justification for but one or two. Mr. Kidd's grouping of all
religions together is offensive to every earnest believer. More
over, in his anxiety to insist only on the irrational side of religion,
he naturally tends to exalt precisely those forms of superstition
which are most repugnant to reasoning beings with moral instincts,
and which are most heartily condemned by believers in the loftiest
religions. He apparently condemns Lecky for what Lecky says
of that species of unpleasant and noxious anchorite best typified
by St. Simeon Stylites and the other pillar hermits. He corrects
Lecky for his estimate of this ideal of the fourth century, and
says that instead of being condemned it should be praised, as
affording striking evidence and example of the vigor of the im
mature social forces at work. This is not true. The type of
anchorite of which Mr. Lecky speaks with such just condemna
tion nourished most rankly in Christian Africa and Asia Minor,
the very countries where Christianity was so speedily overthrown
by Islamism. It was not an example of the vigor of the imma
ture social forces at work ; on the contrary, it was a proof that
those social forces were rotten and had lost their vigor. Where
an anchorite of the type Lecky describes, and Mr. Kidd impliedly
commends, was accepted as the true type of the church, and set

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 107

the tone for religions thought, the church was corrupt, and was
unable to make any effective defense against the scarcely baser
form of superstition which received its development in Islamism.
As a matter of fact, asceticism of this kind had very little in com
mon with the really vigorous and growing part of European
Christianity, even at that time. Such asceticism is far more
closely related to the practices of some loathsome Mohammedan
dervish than to any creed which has properly developed from the
pure and lofty teachings of the Four Gospels. St. Simeon
Stylites is more nearly kin to a Hindoo fakir than to Phillips
Brooks or Archbishop Ireland.

Mr. Kidd deserves praise for insisting as he does upon the
great importance of the development of humanitarian feelings
and of the ethical element in humanity during the past few cen
turies, when compared with the mere material development. He
is, of course, entirely right in laying the utmost stress upon the
enormous part taken by Christianity in the growth of Western
civilization. He would do well to remember, however, that there
are other elements than that of merely ceremonial Christianity at
work, and that such ceremonial Christianity in other races pro
duces quite different results, as he will see at a glance, if he will
recall that Abyssinia and Hayti are Christian countries.

In short, whatever Mr. Kidd says in reference to religion must
be understood as being strictly limited by his own improper term
inology. If we should accept the words religion and religious
belief in their ordinary meaning, and should then accept as true
what he states, we should apparently have to conclude that pro
gress depended largely upon the fervor of the religious spirit,
without regard to whether the religion itself was false or true. If
such were the fact, progress would be most rapid in a country
like Morocco, where the religious spirit is very strong indeed, far
stronger than in any enlightened Christian country, but where,
in reality, the religious development has largely crushed out the
ethical and moral development, so that the country has gone
steadily backward. A little philosophic study would convince
Mr. Kidd that while the ethical and moral development of a nation
may, in the case of certain religions, be based on those religions
and develop with them and on the lines laid down by them, yet
that in other countries where they develop at all they have to
develop right in the teeth of the dominant religious beliefs,

108 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

while in yet others they may develop entirely independent of
them. If he doubts this let him examine the condition of the
Soudan under the Mahdi, where what he calls the ultra-rational
and supra-natural sanctions were accepted without question, and
governed the lives of the people to the exclusion alike of rea
son and morality. He will hardly assert that the Soudan is more
progressive than say Scotland or Minnesota, where there is less
of the spirit which he calls religious and which old-fashioned folk
would call superstitious.

Mr. Kidd's position in reference to the central feature of his
argument is radically false ; but he handles some of his other
themes very well. He shows clearly in his excellent chapter on
modern socialism that a state of retrogression must ensue if all
incentives to strife and competition are withdrawn. He does not
show quite as clearly as he should that over-competition and too
severe stress make the race deteriorate instead of improving ; but
he does show that there must be some competition, that there
must be some strife. He makes it clear also that the true func
tion of the State, as it interferes in social life, should be to make
the chances of competition more even, not to abolish them. We
wish the best men ; and though we pity the man that falls or
lags behind in the race, we do not on that account crown him
with the victor's wreath. We insist that the race shall be run on
fairer terms than before, because we remove all handicaps. We
thus tend to make it more than ever a test of the real merits ot
the victor, and this means that the victor must strive heart antf
soul for success. Mr. Kidd's attitude in describing socialism is
excellent. He sympathizes with the wrongs which the social
istic reformer seeks to redress, but he insists that these wrongs
must not be redressed, as the socialists would have them, at the
cost of the welfare of mankind.

Mr. Kidd also sees that the movement for political equality has
nearly come to an end, for its purpose has been nearly achieved.
To it must now succeed a movement to bring all people into the
rivalry of life on equal conditions of social opportunities. This
is a very important point, and he deserves the utmost credit for
bringing it out. It is the great central feature in the develop
ment of our time, and Mr. Kidd has seen it so clearly and pre
sented it so forcibly that we cannot but regret that he should be
so befogged in other portions of his argument.

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 109

Mr. Kidd has our cordial sympathy when he lays stress on the
fact that' our evolution cannot be called primarily intellectual. Of
course there must be an intellectual evolution, too, and Mr. Kidd
perhaps fails in not making this sufficiently plain. A perfectly
stupid race can never rise to a very high plane; the negro/ for
instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual
development as by anything else; but the prime factor
in the preservation of a race is its power to attain a high degree
of social efficiency. Love of order, ability to fight well and breed
well, capacity to subordinate the interests of the individual to the
interests of the community, these and similar rather humdrum
qualities go to make up the sum of social efficiency. The race that
has them is sure to overturn the race whose members have brill
iant intellects, but who are cold and selfish and timid, who do
not breed well or fight well, and who are not capable of disinter
ested love of the community. In other words, character is far
more important than intellect to the race as to the individual.
We need intellect, and there is no reason why we should not have
it together with character; but if we must choose between the
two we choose character without a moment's hesitation.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

III.— THE DECAY OF LITERARY TASTE.

BY EDMUND GOSSE.

To WRITE about the " decay " of a quality should presuppose
that the writer is convinced of its decadence, and I suppose that
when the editor of this REVIEW asked me to diagnose this dis
ease he did not for a moment expect me to pronounce the patient
in excellent health. But the fact is (or so it seems to me) that a
man must in these complex days of ours be very rash who pro
nounces broadly about the conditions of his age. There is no
general trend upwards or downwards, but a vast spreading out
laterally in all directions, with here a rise and there a fall in the
swelling surface. I am not Mrs. Lynn Linton, to scatter ashes
on my head, and cry " Woe, woe ! " It would always be easier to
me, as well as much pleasanter, to dwell on what is hopeful and
delightful in the attitude of the public towards literature. One
may, however, be on the whole an optimist, and yet not entirely

HO THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

pleased with every phase of what is going on around ns. Little
inclined as I am to grumble or to scold, I cannot think all the
phenomena of public appreciation favorable to the best literature,
or leading in a wholesome direction. My allotted task, then, shall
be fulfilled by some brief indication of what appear to me to be
growing dangers, indications, so far as they go, of decadence.

The greatest of these dangers, and the one with which it
seems most difficult to deal, is that which I have just indicated,
namely, the vast area now covered by a sort of literary apprecia
tion. Want of all intellectual relish, which we have been taught
to regard as disastrous, does not seem to be nearly so baneful in
its results as what is called " a spread of intellectual interest." I
never sympathized with Mr. Matthew Arnold in his lamentation
over the barbarous indifference of our upper classes to the claims
of literature. It has been ludicrous, of course, and in certain
sections complete. That indifference has been irritating in in
dividual cases ; it justly incensed Mr. Arnold to meet a county
magnate who had never heard of Heine. But it was, at least, a
sterile barbarism ; it did not propagate intellectual conceit. It
was like George I., it hated "boetryand bainting," but by its
side painting and poetry could flourish in their appointed places.
Better to my mind, King Log, who knows nothing and does not
want to know anything, than King Stork, who has ideas of his
own, and wants to interfere with every council of the frogs.

The late Master of Trinity was asked by a lady whether a cer
tain florid divine had not "a great deal of taste." " Yes, indeed,
Madam," he replied, " and all of it so bad." At the present day
the general public has a great deal of taste, and it requires a critic
to be a thorough-going truckler to democracy to say that he thinks
all of it very good. In former days, whether taste was good or
bad, and of course in many cases it was execrably bad, the ex
ercise of it was concentrated in a narrow circle. In the age of
Shakespeare, a little knot of Italianated nobles in London reg
ulated taste without the slightest reference to the excellent and
God-fearing multitudes spread from Berwick to Penzance. Had
there been university extension in the days of Elizabeth, and
Grindelwald conferences, and popular educational newspapers, and
" literary" sermons from a thousand Dissenting pulpits, there
would have been produced no impious comedies and no incestuous
tragedies. The tone of Jacobean drama would have been ex-

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION.

tremely proper, but would there have been an "
" Hamlet ?" We may doubt it.

The distribution of literary knowledge, although we may well
question the depth and soundness of it, cannot in itself be re
garded as anything but a social benefit to the race. We dare not
resist the appeal of those who wish to learn. Where the danger
comes in is where the half-taught turn round and proclaim them
selves teachers. The tendency of ( * the man in the street " to
pronounce opinions on questions of literary appreciation — that is
the phenomenon which fills me with alarm. An agricultural
laborer is as well qualified to criticise the rigging of a ship, or a
coal-heaver to review the conduct of a pack of fox-hounds, as
the ordinary person, untrained in the history and technique of
literature, is to decide whether a book is good or bad. Not to
admit this is simply to bow the knee to the individual voter.
The untrained reader can tell, of course, whether the book is
agreeable to himself or not. He should presume no further; he
has no authority, on the mere score of being a reader of that par
ticular work, to set himself up as a censor of taste.

We are still behind the United States, however, in this re
spect. There has never, to my knowledge, been displayed on
this side of the Atlantic such flagrant evidence of anarchy in liter
ary taste as, for instance, was discovered by the New York
Herald when it opened its columns to fugitive correspondence
with regard to the Lourdes of M. Zola. I doubt not that we
possess, in England, persons quite as devoid of the power to
judge a literary product and qmite as ready to oblige the world
with their views, as those wonders of ignorant assurance who
wrote to the Herald. But, at present, our editors throw their
letters into the waste-paper basket. Yet every year, in this
country, the weight of professional opinion seems to grow less,
the standards of tradition and reason are more frivolously disre
garded. There is more and more " taste" among us, but the
greater part of it is bad, because it is based on no recognition of
the principles of composition, and no respect for the traditions
of harmony and beauty.

It is not to be questioned that the immense public which is
becoming accustomed to regard itself as the patron of literature,
demands from the producer several things which it is highly de
sirable that he should not supply. If, against his better judg-

112 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ment, he does supply them, a decay of taste is inevitable. We
are fond of congratulating ourselves on the abolition of the per
sonal patron. It is true that he had his disadvantages. Dr.
Johnson found him a native of the rocks. Through obsequious
regard for him, a poem by Dr. Young was "addressed to the
Deity and humbly inscribed to His Grace, the Duke of Newcastle."
But, at all events, there were many patrons in those early days,
and the independent bard could pass from one to another.
Nowadays, there is only one patron — a world of patrons rolled
into one — the vast, coarse, insatiable public ; and if an author,
from conscientiousness or fastidiousness, does not choose to con
sider the foibles of this patron, there is no other door for him to
knock at.

One thing for which this great, outer public has no sort of
appetite is delicacy of workmanship, attention to form, what we
call pre-occupation with style. The only hope for literature is
that in spite of the indifference to, nay, the positive dislike of care
ful writing on the part of the public, those who write, being them
selves artists or artizans, shall continue to give to their produc
tion this technical finish which alone invests it with dignity and
value. It is only fair to say that in our own age there has been
no lack of those who have honorably and unselfishly turned out
work, not slovenly finished, as the public preferred, but fashioned
and polished in accordance with the laws and traditions of the art.
But I am bound to confess that I see, and I deeply deplore, a re
laxation of this noble zeal in some of our youngest fellow-crafts
men. I fear that something of the laxity of public taste has in
vaded their private workshops, and that they are apt to say to
themselves that second-rate writing is " good enough " for the
publishers. Whenever I see it boldly put forth that " the mat
ter " is everything and the "manner" nothing, that to write with
care is an "affectation" or an "artifice," that style may take
care of ifcself, and that " an unchartered freedom " is the best
badge of a writer, there seems to rise before me the lean and hun
gry scholar, scraping and cringing before the great vulgar patron
with "What you wish, my lord! I don't presume to decide."
And from this sort of obsequiousness to public "taste " no return
to self-respect is possible.

Against any general tendency to obliterate the forms of litera
ture the cultivation of verse is probably the most effective safe-

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. H3

guard. It is the poets who save the language from decay, and
who keep high the standard of literary excellence. My eminent
friend, the Master of the Temple, is forever denouncing the art
of modern verse, and discouraging its practice. " Confec
tionery/' he calls it, and a hundred newspapers applaud the
infelicity. I grieve when I hear men of the accomplishment and
knowlege of Dr. Ainger speaking with this harshness of what is
called "minor poetry." These distinctions of "minor" and
"major "are very arbitrary and invidious. We do not talk of
" minor prose writers," and yet the average of prose authorship
is more contemptible than the average of verse. Inept and imi
tative poetry is, of course, a very ridiculous product, but it is no
worse than vulgar, slipshod prose, and there is always the effort
behind it to construct, to select, to preserve the noble forms of
traditional writing, an effort which starts it from a distinctly
higher standpoint. And the verse of a far better class, the
poetry that is accomplished and refined without being positively
epoch-making — such verse, I make bold to say. is the very salt
which keeps the mass of our common style from decay. The bad
prose-writer is content to stammer forth his sentences in obedi
ence to no tradition whatever ; the bad poet is always conscious
of the great masters in the background.

The immense breadth of the area over which a sort of literary
taste is nowadays exercised has the very unfortunate effect of
flattening out the public impression of merit. In the hurry and
the superfluity of book-production, indifferent authors get praised
too much and excellent authors get appreciated too little. The
" opinions of the press," which fill the advertising columns of our
literary papers, would move Alceste himself to mirth and Celim&ne
to blushes. Not a handbook to the classics is compiled bat some
body is found to pronounce it " far more comprehensive than any
that has yet been given to the world •" not a sketch in comic
fiction but is " a definite contribution to English literature ;"
not a sickly collection of unconnected essays but "scintillate
with genius of the first water." In the decay of taste everything
seems a masterpiece for a moment, except a work of genuine
and independent talent. But the books so hastily praised are not
less hastily forgotten, and immortals cross the field and disappear
for ever as continuously as figures cross the disk of the magic
lantern.

VOL. CLXI. — sro. 464. 8

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

There seems to be an increasing tendency to swamp what is
really distinguished in the flood of universal good nature. If
we call Miss Blank's foolisfi. little novel a masterpiece, and dis
cover the results of long experience and profound research in
Mr. Swish's vamped-up edition of Cornelius Nepos, what epithets
have we left for Porson and Thackeray ? The effect of squander
ing superlatives is to lose all power of making a just comparison.
If Primrose Hill is a mountain of magnificent altitude, what is
Monte Rosa ? It is another mountain of magnificent altitude,
and, so far as language can do it, our idea of Monte Rosa is re
duced to our recollection of Primrose Hill. After all, to us as to
Caliban, words mean ideas, and if we are always misapplying our
words we cannot but be befogging and distorting our ideas. By
dint of praising a thousand things equally, and giving real atten
tion to none, we gain of things good and bad but the impression
of a moment. Literature of every quality is made to gallop in
front of us, and all we see is the waving of a cloak or the gleam
of a spur. The cavalcade passes, and we reflect on what we have
seen, but we find we have retained no definite recollections. The
figures all looked alike.

It will be a disastrous thing for literature if the ideal of good
work comes to be confined to the production of a momentary im
pression. Is the author, like the actor and the singer, to be con
tent for the future with a fugitive notoriety ? Is his to be an ap
parition lost for ever, directly the curtain falls and the lights go out?
Hitherto it has been the hope which has sustained him that he
might not wholly die, that if he was so lucky as to deserve it, the
rare boon of immortality was not to be denied him. But now,
so rapid is the passage of the phantasmagoria, so swift and so
complete the ingratitude of the public, that the memory of a
Walter Pater or a Theodore de Banville can scarcely hope to out
live that of a favorite ballet-girl. And this is the more hard, be
cause the ballet-girl had infinitely the better time of it so long as
her popularity lasted.

A very singular change in this respect has come over popular
taste in England during the last two or three years. It is worthy
of some attention, since its results may be of far-reaching im
portance. The complaint has, till lately, been that the distinc
tions and successes of literature were all in the hands of a limited
number of persons of advanced reputation. It was said that

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 115

there were young men knocking at the door, and that no one
would open to them. But the death of Rossetti, Matthew Ar
nold, Browning, Tennyson, and of a dozen men only less influ
ential than these, has completely changed the face of current lit
erary history. Of the old dominant race only one survives, Mr.
Euskin, who, in the dignity of his retirement in the Lakes, sits
as the unquestioned monarch of our realm of living letters.
But all the rest are gone, the door has been flung open, and the
young men and women (especially the young women) are rush
ing in in crowds.

It used to be said, and this but a very few years ago, that a
young writer could not expect to win general recognition in Eng
land until he was approaching forty. It used to be a matter of
jest what white beards our " promising young poets " had. Now,
there has come a violent crisis, and the middle-aged writers will
have to dye their hair, as we are told that shopmen and omnibus-
conductors have to do, before they can hope for employment. A
change was inevitable, and indeed much to be desired. We were
developing a gerontocracy, a tyranny by old men, which was be
coming intolerable. But the revolution has set in with amazing
violence, and has presented, as it seems to me, some grotesque
features. It used to be the question, " What has he (or she) al
ready published ? " Now, the best possible recommendation is to
have printed nothing, and veterans approach the publishers' of
fices by night, in a disguise, offering a manuscript under a false
name, with an assurance that it is their first effort at compo
sition.

The public asks for "new writers/' every day a batch of
brand-new authors, male and female. A book can hardly fail
to be accepted, if a pledge is given that it is by "a new writer."
Before the volumes are published we are treated to paragraphs
about the author, " whose first work will appear in a few days,
and is expected to create a sensation." It appears, and it does
create a sensation, and the very next day another "first work by
a new writer " creates a still louder sensation. The town is
thronged by these celebrities of a moment, their portraits appear
in journals especially devoted to "the new authorship," their
biographies are published ( their biographies, poor callow creat
ures !) and they are eminent for the greater portion of a week.
Then the tide of their successors sweeps them on. They think

116 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to return, with a second book, but that is no part of the public's
scheme of pleasure. The first book was received with extrava
gant laudation, a false enthusiasm, a complete indulgence to its
faults. A second book by the same hand, put forth in an inno
cent certitude of triumph, is received with contempt and inatten
tion, its oddities ridiculed, its errors sharply criticised. The
public does not want a second book ; it wants to be gorged with a
full incessant supply of "guaranteed first works by absolutely new
writers." This craze will pass, of course, but it is a proof, while
it lasts, of a very sickly condition of taste.

The books of which I have been speaking, these virgin-blos
soms of the bowers of Paternoster Row, are mainly novels. It is
surely a matter for very grave consideration whether the extraor
dinary domination of the novel to-day is a healthy sign. There
has never been seen anything like it before in the whole course of
our history. Fiction has long taken a prominent place in the
book-sales of the country ; romances have long formed the staple
of the book shops. But never before has the rage for stories
stifled all other sorts and conditions of literature as it is doing
now. Things have come to a pretty pass when the combined
prestige of the best poets, historians, critics and philosophers of
the country does not weigh in the balance against a single novel
by the New Woman. Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Herbert Spencer,,
Mr. Leslie Stephen and Professor Huxley — their combined "sales"
might be dropped into the ocean of " The Heavenly Twins " and
scarcely cause a splash in that enormous flood. Such successes as
we read of in the history of literature — the successes of Gibbon and
of Macaulay, of Boswell's " Life of Johnson," and of Buskin's
" Modern Painters," — would be impossible nowadays. The public
taste has all gone mad for story books, and nothing but fiction
has a chance of real popularity. It seemed to me that the cheer
ful arrogance of the successful novelist had reached its climax the
other day when, at the Banquet of the Society of Authors — with
one of the most eminent critics of the age in the chair, and with
poets, historians, essayists, divines sitting at the tables — Dr. Conan
Doyle (selected to give thanks for literature) described fiction
as Cinderella and the other branches of letters as her decayed
and spiteful sisters. That the author of " Sherlock Holmes" should
enjoy the exclusive attentions of that fairy prince, the Public,
is natural enough, but what an occasion for a shout of triumph !

DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. H7

We can hardly be wrong, I think, in detecting in the features
of public taste to which I have drawn attention, symptoms of an
increasing tendency to nervous malady, and the withdrawal of
self-restraint. Without going to the extravagant lengths of Dr.
Max Nordau, we may acknowledge that the intellectual signs of
the times point to a sort of rising neurosis. This inability to
fix the attention on any serious subject of thought, this incessant
demand to be " told a story," this craving for new purveyors of
amusement, this impatience of the very presence of the old, what
are they but indications of ill-health ? The time has passed when
the people were content to sit in the shade of the fresh laurel tree,
and to celebrate the immortal gods with cheerfulness. The direct
and simple pleasures of literature, of the sane literary tradition,
seem to have lost their charm, and unless there is a spice of
disease and hysteria about a book the multitude of readers finds
it insipid.

An intelligent foreigner, I suppose, visiting our country in this
year of grace, would be more struck with the ebullition of chat
ter about the New Woman than with anything else. As I write,
I find that astute and accomplished lady, Madame Arvede Barine,
describing to her fellow Parisians what she saw and read in Lon
don in the summer of 1894. She is no prude, she is no satirist,
she has been a deep and sympathetic observer of men and books
in many countries, and this is how she sums up her description of
the latest batch of English novels by women.

" I cannot say to what a degree all this recent literature of the English
novel seems to me to be indecent and immoral. It is a very grave symptom,
in a nation so jealous of appearances as the English, that women and girls
of repute should be able to write such things without exciting censure. The
novels on the Woman Question (les romans ftministes) are devoured by hun
dreds of thousands of readers, even when, as is usually the case, they have
no literary value, no merit of thought or of style. The public does not ask
that they should be works of art. It takes them for what they are, polemi
cal treatises and instruments of propaganda, and what it is interested in is
the thesis and not the form. England may say what she likes, she has not
escaped from the decomposition of ideas which is the disgrace of the close of
our century, and it is high time that she should say no more about French
immorality. Our novels may be the more crude, but hers are the more un
wholesome, and she has no longer the right to look down upon us with an
air of scandalized virtue."

Such words, written not by a jealous middle-aged Englishman,
but by a brilliant Frenchwoman, full of modern ideas, and greatly
interested in our institutions, may well make us pause. But eyen

118 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

here, to my mind, Mme. Barine is unduly alarmed. I cannot
consider the error to be one of morals so much as of taste, and I
therefore hold it proper to the subject of this paper. We do not,
— we conservative lovers of what is harmonious and decent, sup
ported on this occasion so bravely by Madame Barine, — we do not
object to the intentions of these revolting women, with their
dreams of woman emancipated, man subdued, and all the rest of
the nonsense. We judge them to be honest enough, in their
hysterical desire to whack the heads of all decent persons with the
ferules of their umbrellas. But what we do take the liberty of
saying is that their writings are tiresome and ugly, that they
give us the discomfort which we feel in the presence of loud ill-
bred people, and that, in short, they err grievously against taste.
But what is the use of saying that, when a public as hysterical
and vulgar as themselves buys their silly books in thousands and
tens of thousands ? There is nothing to be done but to sit with
folded hands, and to read the Pensees of Pascal until the scourge
be overpast.

It will pass over, and that soon. The world is on the very
point of saying to the New Woman, "Hie thee to a nunnery !" and
then Nora Helmer will come quietly back to eat macaroons again
and be a squirrel. But some fresh folly will seize the vast and
Tartar horde of readers that now devastate the plains of litera
ture, and in their numbers, we may be quite sure, there will not
be strength. So we come back again to our old complaint, the
hopeless complaint of the breadth of the world to which an author
nowadays has to appeal. Well might Keats deem the poet for
tunate who could " make great music to a little clan." It is not
the absence of literary taste which alarms us for the future. It
is not that the public has no taste. What distresses us is that it
has so much, and most of it so indifferent.

EDMUND GOSSE.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

NEW LIGHT ON ENGLISH HISTORY.

THE recent publication of the Kenyon Manuscripts serves to recall the
fact that the Historical Manuscripts Commission has now been at work for
twenty-five years. Between forty and fifty volumes have been issued.
More are to come, and when the great work undertaken at the expense of
the English Government is completed, it will form what may not inaptly be
described as a history of England in the rough.

There is hardly a family of any standing in England possessing even a
handful of deeds and papers, which has not opened its chests and its muni
ment rooms to the Commission. Some great families have not only done
this, but have permitted the representatives of the Commission to ransack
their homes from cellar to garret in search of papers, believed by historical
experts to be in their possession, but not found in the usual places of custody
for such documents. The old municipal corporations have acted in the same
spirit. Scores of these old boroughs have dropped out of sight since the
Reform Act of 1832 took away their political importance by depriving them
of their representatives in the House of Commons. But all ot them have
their places in English history, and the overhauling of their archives will
enable historians to estimate the importance of each in national life and
development.

A large number of the manuscripts go back to the thirteenth and four
teenth centuries. As a whole, they become of increasing fullness and of
more vivid interest as they deal with the centuries nearer our own time. No
phase of English life is untouched. It is difficult to say which are of more
interest and value to historical students, the manuscripts which have been
contained in the muniment rooms of the great governing families, and of
the House of Lords ; or the records of the old municipal corporations. Both
classes are rich almost beyond description in material illustrating imperial
as well as national development.

The papers from the great families throw most light on national and im
perial affairs, on the beginnings and developments of England as a colonial
power, and also on religious, judicial, educational and social concerns at
home. On the other hand, the thousands of documents from the archives of
the old corporations, while valuable in corroborating the other manuscripts
on some of the points named, throw most light on the development of munici
pal institutions and industrial life. They enable one to measure with some
accuracy, from first hand sources, the extent to which mediaeval municipal
institutions were developed. In going over these corporation records one is
most impressed with the fact that there is little new in the more recent de~

120 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

velopments of municipal activity. In the sixteenth century some of the mu
nicipalities owned the public water supplies, others in their corporate capa
city bought provisions and fuel for the people within their municipal limits ;
and many of the old municipalities possessed institutions which would now
adays be regarded as socialistic. In those early days, also, there was as much
care for the purity of the rivers, for the cleanliness of the streets, for correct
weights and measures, and for good order, as there is at the present time in
the most progressive of the English municipalities.

Many of the problems with which the mediaeval corporations were per"
plexed are still confronting the English people, only nowadays these prob
lems are dealt with by Parliament, and not by the municipalities. In the
periods covered by these old records, each municipality was largely self-con
tained. Its common council, meeting at the guildhall and guarding its
privileges with the greatest care, passed what local laws it pleased, and there
was no overriding them, unless they happened to conflict with the general
law. Prominent among the open questions of to-day which were open ques
tions three centuries ago, are those of regulating the sale of intoxicating
drink and of taking care of the poor. These it would seem from the old
manuscripts unearthed by the Commission have long been open questions.

Another such question is the payment of Members of the House of
Commons. In the seventeenth century that question was settled by the
gradual establishment of the present system under which Members of
Parliament served without pay. For two or three generations there was
no fixed rule. Some of the old corporations paid their members daily wages.
Others in the early years of the seventeenth century demanded from their
representatives undertakings to serve for nothing ; and all through this
transitional stage preference was given to the candidates who would serve
without pay. It was the lawyers who first broke through the system of
taking daily wages from the boroughs. Some of the lawyers were so
eager for membership in the House that in addition to serving for nothing
they undertook to discharge the legal business of the municipality on the
same easy terms.

The manuscripts make it plain that some corrections will have to be
made even in standard constitutional histories. One or two such alterations
will have to be made in Hallam. He fixes the middle of the eighteenth cen
tury as the time when Parliamentary boroughs were first for sale. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu's letters show that the sale of boroughs was not
uncommon in the opening years of that century, and the papers published
by the Historical Manuscripts Commission corroborate Lady Mary's state
ment, if they do not actually afford material for placing the date much
earlier. There were many boroughs which were admittedly decayed in
Queen Elizabeth's time. As early as 1579, the Government announced that
it shortly intended to carry a measure for the reform of the existing system
of parliamentary representation and to sweep many of these boroughs
away. Nothing, however, was accomplished. The boroughs grew worse
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in the middle years
of the eighteenth century, and no reform was brought about until 1832.

For students of the period of the settlement of America and of that of
the War of the Revolution, the manuscripts are full of first-hand matter,
most of which is new. The Abergavenny MSS., and other papers cov
ering the same period, taken in conjunction with Donne's Letters of North
and the Walpole Correspondence, furnish full and excellent materials for a

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 121

study of the England against which America revolted, and of the methods
which George III. used in the management of the House of Commons.

These papers are perhaps of special importance at this juncture in
United States history. They show that the systems of political corruption
and political management, " bossism " in politics, to use current political
slang, was not invented in this country. George III. was as keen and as
active a political boss as any American politician. He had henchmen at
his side like the notorious John Robinson ; interested financiers, who for
a consideration, political and pecuniary, loaned him money to corrupt and
buy the constituencies. Offices, great and small, were given solely as re
wards for political services; men wsre broken and turned out of the army
and the civil service solely on account of their votes in and out of Parlia
ment. A subsidized daily press upheld the policy of the king, and maligned
the characters of men who dared oppose him.

The Dundas letters in the Portland Collection will interest students of
the period of the Revolution by reason of the light they throw upon some of
the indirect inconveniences and losses resulting to England from the success
ful revolt of the American Colonies. Before the war, English convicts were
sent in large numbers to this country. After the Revolution, the King and the
Government were at their wits' end what to do with them. The hulks had
been tried during the war, but that plan had failed. At first it was proposed
the convicts should be sent to Scotland to dig canals. But Dundas, who
for more than thirty years was the supreme political manager of Scotland
in the Albany or New York sense of the word, was altogether opposed
to a scheme of this kind, and finally it was decided to send the convicts
to Botany Bay. Some of the convicts refused to go. They preferred the
journey in the cart from Newgate to Tyburn, to a journey to a country so
remote and unknown; and King George's patience was severely tried for an
entire week by three men sentenced to be hanged, who refused pardons condi
tional upon their transportation to the Southern Hemisphere.

The romance attending many of the discoveries of the Historical Manu
scripts Commission adds to the interest of the long series of publications.
Prior to the establishment of the State Paper Office in 1578, now known as
the Record Office, Secretaries of State and other high officials on going out
of office carried their papers with them. Many of these have been re-col
lected by the Commission. Some of the most remarkable and valuable finds
have been made in the most out of the way places. The great bulk of the
Rutland papers was discovered in a loft over a stable at Belvoir, after a dis
appointing search in the mansion. Other equally valuable historical treas
ures have been found in dove cotes, and among the beams and rafters of
baronial halls, and of the guildhalls of the old municipalities.

EDWARD POBRITT.

INDUSTRIAL FUTURE OF THE SOUTH.

SOON after the close of the Civil War one of the Southern leaders said to
ex-Governor Seymour, of New York : " The North would never have beaten
us if it had not been for our rivers. They ran from the North into the heart
of our country ; and we could not get away from you."

The converse of this is also true. The rivers of the South are an advan
tage in time of peace. They give access to all parts, except the mountains,

122 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

without the expensive canals of the Northern States and Canada. A slight
assistance to nature, the dredging of the Mussel shoals of the Tennessee,
allow-s large steamers to reach Chattanooga, and permanent dykes along the
Mississippi would double the carrying trade of that river also. To reach the
mountains the South should now develop a railway service as branches of
trunk lines yet to be built. New roads are needed to bring the wealth of the
forest and the mine more directly to the seaboard. The chief of these might
be a direct line from Nashville to Charleston.

Western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and central Kentucky are rich in
limestones. The valleys have fields of alluvium, and the crystalline rocks
give strong clay soils on the mountains. The variety of soils, together with
a mild climate, has always adapted the South to agriculture. The need of
fertilizers caused the late Justice Lamar to say that the agricultural future
of the South depends upon the rotation of crops, in which North Carolina
has already set an example. Should the rich phosphate rock of South Caro
lina be exhausted, similar deposits can be used along the coast from North
Carolina to Florida; and also in Alabama and Mississippi. The value of the
deposit annually mined in South Carolina is nearly $3,000,000. Gypsum,
superior to the best from Nova Scotia, is found in Washington County,
Virginia, in seams 600 feet thick. This ia only partially developed. With
little attention paid to rotation or fertilizers, Texas now returns 10 per
cent, more income to its farmers than either Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois. In
Mississippi and South Carolina 80 per cent, of the men are agriculturists.
More enterprising methods of farming ought to bring larger returns.

The limestone of central Kentucky gives $5,000,000 a year to the " Blue
Grass" country for its splendid horses. The valley of the Tennessee has
clover, blue grass, and wild cane. Stock raising is in its infancy theie. In
Texas the long droughts do not retard the rich mesquite^rass, and $8,000,000
of cattle are exported annually. Florida raises many cattle for the Cuban
market. Fifteen years ago there were only 20 breeders of cattle in all the
States southeast of the Mississippi River. To-day Mississippi alone has
about 100. Five years ago a short-horn from Mississippi brought $30,000 at
the Mil brook sale ; and this overcame the prejudice against Jerseys, short
horns, and red clover. Fine grass is grown in North Carolina, but it is still
remote from the markets. There are many dairies and creameries in
Florida, and those in Mississippi are increasing ; but the number should be
many times larger. Bed clover is still almost as much of a stranger as it
was to the Confederate Army at Gettysburg. And yet the materials are at
hand for making a soil strong enough for even red clover.

Early vegetables for the Northern market should not be confined to the
tidewater about Norfolk and to portions of South Carolina, Alabama, and
Florida. Roanoke Island, Thomasville, and Savannah might send larger
quantities of peaches and other fruits to the North. The sweet oranges of
Louisiana ought to supply more than the home market. Florida is devel
oping a large trade in cocoanuts and pineapples. The finest oranges and
lemons in the New York market come from that State, because the Italian
and the South American product will not stand the voyage. Peanuts, far
superior to the African, are raised about Norfolk, while the hilly lands of
North Carolina and Tennessee furnish a stronger quality. Kentucky and
Georgia are raising them in limited quantities. The total crop of peanuts
in the South has increased over 60 per cent, in the last five years.
._ The United States leads all other countries in the product of tobacco.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 123

The total crop is worth over $40,000,000 annually ; of which about $25,000,000
is exported to meet the increasing demand. More enterprise like that of
Durham, in North Carolina, would have kept the farmers of New York,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other Northern States from raising an
inferior quality. It would also have made other tobacco centres at the
South besides Richmond.

When there was a duty on sugar, it formed one-sixth of all the dutiable
merchandise imported into the United States. The quantity of sugar con
sumed in the United States is about 1,500,000 tons annually, of which the
domestic product is short of 200,000 tons, including 20,000 tons of maple, 2,000
tons of beet, and less than 1,000 tons of sorghum. The beet sugar of Europe
appears to be displacing the cane sugar of America. New methods of pre
paring beet sugar make it yield seven per cent, of saccharine matter, against
four per cent, twenty years ago. It is claimed that a million tons of beet
sugar will be exported within the next five years. If the cane-sugar terri
tory of the South is fully cultivated, the uplands should grow beet and
sorghum, and the hills and mountains maple sugar.

The cotton-producing States are: The two Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia,
Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. While an
increasing quantity is raised in southern Texas, Florida, and southwestern
Tennesee, yet the Yazoo delta offers the best prospects for extending the
acreage. The Sea Island product of the Carolinas might be largely in
creased. There may be something in store for the despised weed known
as okra, which is grown in South Carolina at one cent a pound. It is said
to be quite as good as cotton for many of the coarser uses. With the aid of
the compress system, instead of the old method of screwing the cotton in
bunks, every ship carries from 33 to 50 per cent, more cotton than it did ten
years ago. The cotton crop for 1890 (the largest ever grown) was 7,313,726
bales ; for 1889, 6,935,082 bales ; for 1888, 7,017,707 bales ; for 1887 and 1886,
about 6,500,000 bales ; and for 1885, 1884, and 1882, short of 6,000,000 bales.
Since 1890 the crop has not reached the figures of that year, when over
production caused the lowest prices since 1848.

In 1869 the world used only 5,000,000 bales of cotton in manufactures,
instead of 11,000,000 bales now— an increase of 120 per cent. The United
States has less than 15,000,000 spindles, against nearly 70,000,000 in Europe.
The total takings by spinners of this country are about 2,350,000 bales, of
which the Southern mills have but one-third. The South has now nearly
2,000,000 spindles, instead of 562,000 in 1880. Thus, in thirteen years it has
increased the percentage of spindles from five to fourteen. The total of
cotton mills in the Southern States is 271. The lower grades of cotton
goods made in Alabama are in competition at Lowell, Mass., with goods
made in that place, and fine brown sheetings, equal to those of Eastern
manufacture, are made in the Southern mills. The manufacture of cotton
at the South is growing at the expense of the industry in New England,
and Atlanta is already a competitor of Baltimore in the Boston market.
The prospects of the South will be even better when the mills drop the coarser
grades and offer a finer product.

There were only seven cottonseed-oil mills in the United States in 1866,
but in 1870 the product of the 26 mills was 547 000 gal ions, valued at $293,000.
This had grown to 13,384,385 gallons in 1890, valued at $5,291,178. The quan
tity has been reduced since that date. The total number of mills is 266. The
capacity of the mills is 9,942 tons of seed daily, or 2,982,600 tons yearly. The

124 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

total value of all the products of the seed for 1890 was $25,834,261. A large
quantity of the oil enters into the manufacture of lard, an expert having
stated that the oil is wholesome in every respect. The oil is also sent to
Italy, mixed with olive oil, and returned to the United States as pure
olive. Among the products of the seed, besides oil, are : Oil cake, for animal
food and fertilizers ; lint ; hulls, for fertilizers and the making of paper ;
and soap stock, for the making of soap and gas. The rivalry between the
mills has given way to more business-like methods, and cotton oil is already
one of the greatest industries of the South.

In 1889 Louisiana had about as many acres in corn as it had in cotton.
Texas led all the Southern States in 1890 with the largest crop of corn
and it was closely followed by Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. Texas
also leads in the wheat ciop ; and West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina,
and Georgia are at its heels. The grist mills of Richmond supply flour from
wheat grown in that locality to the markets of Brazil and other South
American states. It is the only brand that will cross the Equator with
safety. The output of flour in the South should be enough to supply all of
its population. Texas already grows more wool than California. There are
large sheep ranches in the mountains of Tennessee, and there might be
many others in the highlands of several of the States. The South has few
woollen mills thus far, but enterprise in this direction would lead to sub
stantial results. Overproduction in cotton is sure to bring development in
these several lines.

The eastern part of Texas is full of the long yellow-leaf pine ; while cy
press, oak and other hard woods are found in abundance in other localities.
The same pine also grows in the northern part of Mississippi, in the west
ern part of Louisiana, in the northern part of Alabama, and between the
Chattahoochee and the Flint rivers in Georgia. The great wealth of North
Carolina and Alabama is in hard woods. The walnut and oak of Alabama
are sent to the furniture factories in Grand Rapids, Mich., when it should
be made into furniture on the soil of Alabama.

But the greatest source of prosperity to the New South will be from its
minerals. Tennessee, Alabama, and Texas are rich in building- stones. The
raw deposits of asphalt in Alabama are equal to the best from Trinidad, and
it can be mined at $1 per ton. Salt mining in Louisiana has been increased
within the past five years ; but the product from Kentucky and the Virginias
will not be available till the Northern fields are exhausted. West Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee will yield more crude petroleum as the supply
grows less in the North. Even the gold mines of the Carolinas, Virginia,
and Georgia will be made profitable when they are worked by more scientific
methods.

The total annual output of coal in the United States is about 150,000,000
tons, of which the Southern States give 25,000,000 tons. Virginia is the
only Southern State producing anthracite. When the supply of Northern
anthracite becomes short, bituminous coal from the South, together with its
products, will be more of a factor in the market. The valleys of the Kana-
wha and the New rivers, in Virginia, have scarcely been touched. A coal
seam twenty-two feet thick has just been found in the Pocahontas district.
West Virginia has bituminous coal of fine quality, and as good is found in
the Warrior, the Coosa, and the Cahaba coalfields of Alabama— the thickest
measures in the country. The finest coke in the South is made in the Poca
hontas district, and the product is shipped to St. Louis and many other

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 125

Western points. Coke is made in Chattanooga for $5 a ton ; but it is worth
$45 a ton in Nevada, and $60 a ton in the City of Mexico. It is the best coke
in the world for smelting, and Alabama already ranks next to Pennsylvania
in the supply.

In Western Virginia and North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and Ken
tucky and northern Georgia and Alabama, the Appalachian mountains have
deposits of iron ore and coal in close proximity. Virginia has similar de
posits of iron and lioie. Brown hematite and magnetic ores are being
worked in that State, but not the specular ores. Kentucky is full of good
ores that have been worked to a very small extent. At South Pittsburgh,
Tenn., the ore has 37 per cent, of iron, and no flux is necessary with the lime.
At Knoxville, car wheels are made from cold-blast charcoal iron, a most dif
ficult process. Alabama has red hematite in deeper veins than Pennsyl
vania. It assays 47 per cent, of iron, while the brown hematite assays 55
per cent. Texas has hematite, magnetic, and specular ores, which will yet
find a Northern market. The basic process for steel is being used in the
South with good results. In a recent year the output of pig iron in the
United States was over 9,500,000 tons, of which nearly 1,000,000 tons were
made in six months in the Southern States. Alabama now turns out almost
as much iron as the entire South did four years ago, and Alabama pig has
superseded Scotch pig in Chicago. That State now holds the third position ;
Pennsylvania, the first ; and Ohio, the second. Virginia leads the Southern
States in the production of rolled iron ; and nearly all the rolled steel South
of the Potomac and Ohio rivers comes from West Virginia.

What is needed most in the South is, not the production of great quan
tities of pig iron, but, rather, the increase of manufactures of all grades,
even the finest. The city of Richmond supplies seven States with nails,
hardware, agricultural implements, and machinery. There is no reason
why every Southern city should not be a centre for factories of these articles
and many others. The miscellaneous industries of the South would then
require double the $175,000,000 of capital now invested, and more commer
cial centres would meet a want that has long been felt. The Census of 1890
showed that the wealth of the Southern States has outrun their gain in
population. As much cannot be said for the average of the Northern States
during the same period.

It is evident that the South has at hand, and therefore cheap, all the
raw materials entering into manufactures ; that its labor and cost of living
are cheaper than at the North ; that it can, in consequence, manufacture
goods of all kinds at less cost than the North or the West ; that it can not
only supply the home demand, but also export goods with profit; that in
the finer lines of manufactures it is extending its operations with success ;
and that, to compete with it, wages in the North must be reduced. With
all these advantages on its side the fault will be with the South if it fails
to reach out its hands and take what nature has so kindly offered.

FREDERIC G. MATHER.

THE NEED OF BETTER ROADS.

THE Malthusian doctrine of population teaches that the people will
increase faster than the means to sustain them, and that it is only a ques
tion of time when the population will press upon the means of subsistence

126 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

so as to prevent further increase in numbers, or, in other words, that the
entire energy of the people will be insufficient to supply them with food.
Whatever ultimate truth there may be in this doctrine, it has no applica
tion to this country in our day and generation, for the reason that the food
product has increased and is increasing faster than the population, not
withstanding the fact that the population has increased with great rapidity,
and substantially according to the Malthusian rule of doubling once in
twenty-five years. The explanation of this most important fact is not to
be found in any changed condition of nature, by which her bounty is in
creased, but in the increased power and productiveness of human labor,
whereby the output of product proceeding from the same unit of exertion
has been increased from two to ten fold. This being true, a diminished
proportion of the population is sufficient to supply all with food products,
and an increasing proportion are thereby released from the necessity of
producing the food supply necessary to sustain themselves.

It is a material question in the industrial progress of the country,
how the labor so released from the former necessity can be best ap
plied to minister to human wants. They can no longer be employed,
nor employ themselves to any advantage or profit, in the industrial villages
that formerly flourished in the agricultural regions within short distances
of each other, for the reason that the output of their product when so
employed by solitary and primitive methods, does not show that increased
output which human labor should show, and does show, when congregated
together in great numbers, so that the division of labor and the application
of machinery come in to supplement their power.

The concentration of population, which has astonished so many, was
inevitable, for it would be impossible to successfully and continually employ
a larger proportion of the population in producing food than is necessary to
produce a sufficient supply, and it would be equally impossible long
to employ the increasing number of those not required in the production
of food in primitive and solitary industrial processes which fail to increase
the output of their product when other means have been devised which in
crease that product many fold in connection with the concentration of
population and the division of labor.

Cheap transportation has contributed much to the increased capacity
of labor, by making it possible to concentrate surplus food products and
material for manufacture. The increasing ease with which the food
products, the materials of manufacture, and the population are concen
trated together by means of cheap and still cheapening transportation,
together with the increasing output of product which results from human
labor under such conditions, makes it certain that the prevailing condition
by which nearly one-half of our population in the older settled parts of the
country is concentrated in cities is a normal and not an abnormal condition,
and being based upon scientific causes is permanent and not temporary.

There are three factors which produce the existing result. First, a
cheap and abundant food produced by a diminishing proportion of the
people. Second, a cheapened means of transportation whereby these prod
ucts and the material for manufacture may be easily concentrated in the
great centers of population ; and, third, the increasing output of product
which manifests itself where labor is concentrated and the division of
labor is supplemented by the application of machinery.

Cheap transportation, so far as developed up to the present time, shows

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 127

itself mainly in the decreased rates upon steamships and steam cars; and
the rates have been so greatly lessened by these means that it is possible to
transport a ton a thousand miles upon the great lakes at the same cost as
would be required to move it five miles with a horse and wagon over a com
mon road. Two hundred and fifty miles may also be reached at the same cost
upon the steam cars. But with horses and wagons the rate of transporta
tion has remained almost unchanged during all the years of this great
development in cheap transportation.

Those who live in the rural district* and have seen the villages deserted,
the farmhouses abandoned, the population reduced in numbers, the re
wards of their industry decreased, and the value of their property dimin
ished, adversely criticise the fact that national and State roadbuilding
has been dropped, and that railroad building has been very extensive
during the last thirty years, and think that if the same energy and expendi
ture were given to the improvement of the common roads, the results
would be equally beneficial, and perhaps more beneficial than those that
have followed the era of railroad building.

I do not share in these opinions, and believe that the reason we have
failed to cheapen transportation by means of horses and wagons results
from the intrinsic weakness of such means rather than from the lack of
devotion to them. The system of State and national roads, as formerly
instituted, was intended to supply the means of through or 1 Dng-distance
transportation. The highest rate that prevails upon the steam cars is lower
than the lowest rate that could ever prevail upon wagon roads built with
public money, and the use contributed free to the carrier without toll. So
nothing could be more absurd than the idea of taking public money to
do that which is already better done without the burden of taxation. So
far as county and township roads are concerned, while still necessary, their
improvement would be unwise if they should be improved without reference
to the facts already stated above pertaining to the abandoned industries
and the deserted villages.

A local system of improved or macadamized roads, built with a view of
connecting villages that are now deserted, or of supplying the needs of a
community equally distributed throughout the country, would not justify
the expectation of those who contend for it. The rate of transportation with
horses and wagons can never be brought on the average below twenty-five
cents per ton per mile, while the average cost that prevails upon the steam
cars is not to exceed one cent per ton per mile, and in many instances but half
a cent a ton a mile. The steam railroads have served and will continue to
serve a great purpose, but it is probable that the limit of their usefulness is
nearly reached so far as the ram ification of their branches is concerned ; but at
the very point where the ramification of these roads ceases to be an advantage,
the electric road comes in and is destined to contribute still more to cheapen
transportation than it is possible that the horse and wagon can do by any
amount of expenditure directed to that end. The average cost per ton-mile
upon the electric cars would not exceed five cents, and the cost of building
the steel roadbed suitable for such cars to run upon would be no greater
than the cost of building stone roads.

I therefore advocate an important and far reaching change in the
manner of building country roads. My plan is to extend the street-car
tracks from our cities out into the circumjacent territory a distance
of thirty or forty miles, so that all the territory between centres of popu-

128 NOTES AND COMMENTS.

lation sixty or eighty miles apart would be reached. Let these tracks be so
made and laid that wagons and carriages propelled by horses may go upon
them, as well as cars propelled by electricity or other inanimate power.

It is already demonstrated that only one-eighteenth of the power is
required to move a vehicle over a smooth steel track that would be required
to move it over a gravel road, or one-eighth of that which would be required
to move it over the best pavement. When this important fact becomes
generally known to the farmers, they will realize that it is a poor policy to
promote the building of macadam roads when an equal outlay would pro
vide a good steel track. When the track is once provided so that cars and
carriages propelled by horses can also go upon the same tracks with cars
propelled by electricity, the superiority of the inanimate power will be so
apparent that horse power will be quickly abandoned. And what we have
seen in Cleveland and Columbus and other American cities we will see upon
the country roads, namely : a complete substitution of electric power for
horse power wherever the rails are laid.

Heretofore the use of electric cars has been confined to carrying passen
gers, and the extension of the system has depended wholly upon private
enterprise. This must be changed by enlarging the use to which the electric
cars are put, and by supplementing private enterprise by a more liberal and
enlightened public policy. There is no reason why the electric roads should
not be carriers of freight as well as passengers, and especially of food prod
ucts from the field to the market:

It is not claimed that these electric roads could be built and maintained
wholly out of the profits of the carrier, but that they should rest as a bur
den upon the benefited land area in the same way that other road improve
ments now rest. No better expenditure of public money could be made in
the State of Ohio for road improvements than to build a system of electric
roads connecting all the county seats with each other and with the great
cities of the State. This could be done by the State or by the counties with
State aid. And the roads when so built could be operated by leasing to
lowest bidder or by taking toll for each vehicle, the same as the State now
does from canal-boats:

I have estimated the increased value of agricultural lands resulting
from the decreased cost of transportation over steel rails by inanimate
power at $30 per acre. Observation to confirm this only waits upon experi-
meufc- MARTIN DODGE.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCCCLXV.

AUGUST, 1895.

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM.

BY W. J. H. TKAYNOR, PKESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PRO
TECTIVE ASSOCIATION".

So MANY phases of the Papal question have been presented to
the American people within the past five years that it is little to
be wondered at that the great majority of oar citizens are be
wildered, and the remainder anything but reassured by these
kaleidoscopic apparent changes. We have had Cahenslyism,
Ultramontanism and " Liberal Catholicism." While Cahensly-
ism would appear to be consistent with Ultramontanism, there is,
at first glance, something utterly irreconcilable between " Liberal
Catholicism " and the others. The difference, however, if there
be a difference, is rather abstract than concrete ; a difference of
terms rather than of principles, of policy rather than of doctrine.
All true members of the Papal church must accept its canons
and the ex-cathedra utterances of its head. Each — Ultramontane,
Cahenslyist, and " Liberal " alike — believes in apostolic succes
sion, the divine vicarship of the popes, papal infallibility, and all
the dogmas and canons, superior and inferior, laid down by the
church. The difference between the first and second upon the
one hand, and the <e* Liberal Catholic" upon the other, is that
Ultramontanism adheres to the principles of paparchy simply,
while " Liberalism " is content with obedience to the voice of
the living pontiff, as it speaks from day to day. This may ap-

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 465. 9

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BKYCB. All rights reserved.

130 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

pear to be a distinction with but a scarcely perceptible difference ;
while, in fact, the difference is most important and will bear
careful examination.

The Ultramontane believes in the temporal as well as the
spiritual supremacy of the Pope, and desires to assert it without
regard to circumstances. The "Liberal Catholic" denies the
clafm of temporal supremacy literally, but admits it generally,
and is prepared to insist upon its acceptance only in such degree
as the living Pope may prescribe from time to time. While the
Ultramontane, then, is bound by the traditions and laws of the
paparchy, the "Liberal Catholic" concentrates his entire allegi
ance on obedience to the reigning pontiff.

When Liberal Catholics contend, as many of them do, that
the Pope does not assume temporal jurisdiction, they violate
neither the principles of truth nor their allegiance as papists ;
but not even the most liberal papist will assert that the laws of
the paparchy do not confer upon the pontiff the right to claim
and enforce his claim of temporal jurisdiction, nor that the popes
have not frequently done so. There exists not a papist (and
when I use the term I use it with all respect to the members of
the papal faith) who does not place the Church above the State,
and, consequently, the priest above the temporal ruler. Even
Archbishop John Ireland, regarded throughout the length and
breadth of the land, as the "most liberal of Catholics" and
( ' most loyal " of American citizens, in speaking at Boston on
April 28 last, said : " Next to God is country, and next to religion
is patriotism." In the same speech he said : " Vox populi vox
Dei) it is said. The words are true when the nation or state
moves within the orbit of the powers delegated to it by the
Supreme Master." As the papal hierarchy claims to be the only
interpreter of the utterances of the Supreme Master, it follows
necessarily that the Pope is the legitimate definer of the limits of
the orbit of the state.

The Jesuit Schrader, in his affirmative propositions upon the
Syllabus, asserts : " The Church has the power to apply external
coercion. She also has a temporal authority direct and indirect."
The remark is appended : " Not souls alone are subject to her
authority." It will thus be seen that Archbishop Ireland merely
puts a new mask upon an old face, and repeats Schrader's propo
sition in softened tones.

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 131

Brownson was less politic, but not one whit more emphatic,
when in criticising Montor's History of the Roman Pontiffs in
January, 1853, he wrote :

"It is certainly undeniable that the concessions of sovereigns and the
consent of the people were obtained on the ground that the Popes held the
power by divine right, and that those maxims on which Mr. Gosselin relies
for the justification of the Popes and Councils in exercising it, were that the
spiritual order, and, therefore, the Church as the representative of that
order, is supreme, and temporal sovereigns are subjected to it, and to the
Pope as its supreme visible chief. Popes and Councils in exercising
authority over sovereigns, even in temporals, were, according to those
maxims, only exercising the inherent rights of the church as the spiritual
authority, and consequently sovereigns were bound to obey them, not by
human law only, but also by the law of God. Such incontestably is the doc
trine of the magnificent bulls of St. Gregory and Boniface, and of the
maxims according to which it is attempted to justify the power exercised
over sovereigns by Popes and Councils. Now these maxims either were true
or they were false. If they were false, how will you justify an infallible
church— expressly ordained of God to teach the truth in faith and morals,
and to conduct individuals and nations in the way of holiness— in adopting
and acting on them ? If they were true, how can you deny that the power
exercised is of divine origin or contend that it is derived from the consent of
the people, or the concession of sovereigns ? . . .

" How dare you suppose, in case of a collision between her and public
opinion, that she, not public opinion, is in the wrong and must give way ? "

Among the captious, there may be some objection offered to
one or other of the authorities quoted as not being the ex-cathedra
utterances of a pope. In anticipation of the objection I point
out that no pope has yet objected to either or condemned their
utterances, but on the contrary, two popes have endorsed both.

With the Syllabus itself before us and the bull Unam Sane-
tarn, lesser authorities are superfluous, however, and are intro
duced only as corroborative evidence of the pretensions of the
papacy, as in the past, to temporal as well as spiritual suprem
acy. And, in truth, if we concede the papal assertions regard
ing apostolic succession, the claim is most consistent. If Leo
XIII. is one of a divinely appointed line of God's vicegerents, he
is as much superior to ordinary men as he is inferior to God,
and it follows logically that he is above all earthly authority,
whether temporal or spiritual.

The *' liberal" papist does not feel himself called upon to cate
gorically affirm what the Pope has not yet thought proper to
specifically assert in this country and what eminent prelates
have only considered it expedient to present in veiled language.

132 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

But if, as the paparchy assumes, the pontiff is delegated with
supreme temporal power from a divine source, the question
naturally intrudes itself : Why is this power not openly asserted
in the United States and why do Liberal Catholics find it neces
sary to cloak their utterances concerning it ?

A comparison of the American Constitution with the canon
law and encyclicals of the paparchy answers the question. The
two are utterly irreconcilable one with the other, unless the
United States be regarded merely as a province of the papal
church, a position which they at present hold according to papal
definition. This position was made most emphatic in an apostolic
letter sent by Leo XIII. to the Bishops and Archbishops of the
papal church in America, dated January 6th, 1895, from which I
quote the following extract:

"Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catho
lic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional
Republic, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established among you,
and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washing
ton at the helm of the Republic the first Bishop was set by apostolic author
ity over the American Church."

Yet, although the principles of our American democracy and
those of the papacy are so utterly diverse, they are not so far
apart but that popes and priests are forging a chain of circum
stances with which to unite them together, and this, be it said,
not through mutual concessions, as the apologists for the papacy
would have us believe, but through generosity and ignorance
upon the part of the American people, and apparent concessions
which yield nothing but empty words upon the part of the Pope
and his followers.

The policy of positive antagonism to the American public
school system which was pursued for a number of years prior to
the formation of the American Protective Association, has given
place to the negative policy of letting it severely alone and ex
tolling the merits of the parochial system. Not that the papacy
hates the American public schools less nor seeks their destruc
tion less ardently, but because the desired end can be more
speedily attained through diplomacy than through force ; and
while the Pontiff reserves to himself the full powers conferred
upon him by paparchical laws and decrees, he holds these powers
in abeyance until it may become expedient to employ them, while

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 133

meantime link by link the chain is forged that is intended to unite
the State to the Church.

Pius IX. thundered anathemas and bulls at all liberty what
soever. Leo XIII. and his lieutenants in the United States ap
proach the same end wrapped in the mantle of American Liberty
and speech softened by the oil of diplomacy. Pius IX. in an
encyclical dated December 8, 1864, hurled the following utter
ance at the exponents of liberty :

"Actuated by an idea of social government so absolutely false, they do
not hesitate further to propagate the erroneous opinion, very hurtful to the
safety of the Catholic Church and souls, and termed 'delirium' by our
predecessor Gregory XVI. of excellent memory, viz., that liberty of con
science and of worship is the right of every man, a right which ought to be
proclaimed and established by law in every well constituted state ; and that
citizens are entitled to make known and declare, with a liberty which
neither the ecclesiastical nor the civil authority can limit, their convictions
of whatsoever kind, either by word of mouth, or through the press, or by
other means. . . .

" Gregory XVI. in an encyclical in 1832 declared freedom of conscience
1 one of the most pestilent of errors ; ' freedom of press, * very disastrous,
very detestable, and never to be sufficiently execrated, that mortal plague,
never to be extirpated until the guilty elements of evil perish utterly in
flames.' "

Pius IX. again, in an allocution dated March 18, 1861, con
demns " modern civilization, whence come so many deplorable
evils, so many detestable opinions ; which even countenances
faiths that are not Catholic and which does not repel unbelievers
from public employments, and which opens the Catholic schools
to their children."

Even Bossuet, a ( liberal ' papist, asserted that " the prince
ought to use his authority to destroy false religions in his realm.
Those who wish the prince to show no rigor in the matter of re
ligion, because religion ought to be free, are in impious error."

If Pius IX. or Gregory were to send such messages to the Amer
ican people to-day they would only afford sport for the satirist,
yet Leo XIII. makes substantially the same assertions clothed in
gentler verbiage, and these are received either with silent or ex
pressed approval by a large proportion of the press and people of
the United States. In his encyclical of January 6, 1895, he says:

" Nevertheless, since the thirst for reading and knowledge is so vehe
ment and widespread among you, and since, according to circumstances, it can
be productive of good or evil, every effort should be made to increase the
number of intelligent and well-disposed writers who take religion (papal)

134 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

for their guide and virtue for their constant companion. It is, of course,
the function of the clergy (papal) to devote their care and energies to this
great work ; but the age and the country require that journalists should be
equally zealous in the same cause, and labor in it to the full extent of their
powers. Let them, however, seriously reflect that their writings, if not pos
itively prejudicial to religion, will surely be of slight service to it unless in
concord of minds they all seek the same end. They who desire to be of real
service to the church, and with their pens heartily to defend the Cathode
cause, should carry on the conflict with perfect unanimity and, as it were,
with serried ranks, for they rather inflict than repel war if they waste their
strength by discord. In this manner their work, instead of being profitable
and fruitful, becomes injurious and disastrous whenever they presume to
call before their tribunal the decisions and acts of Bishops, and, casting off
due reverence, cavil and find fault. The Bishops, placed in the lofty posi
tion of authority, are to be obeyed. . . . Now, this reverence, which it is
lawful to no one to neglect, should of necessity be eminently conspicuous
and exemplary in Catholic journalists."

In another part of the same encyclical the Pope declares :

" Wherefore we ardently desire that this truth should sink day by day
more deeply into the minds of Catholics, namely, that they can in no better
way safeguard their own individual interests and the common good than
by yielding a heart submission and obedience to the Church."

Not one word of admonition regarding submission to the
State is inserted until we come to the following :

11 In like manner let the priests be persistent in keeping before the minds
of the people the enactments of the Third Council of Baltimore, particularly
those which inculcate . . . the observance of the just laws and institu
tions of the republic."

The adjective in italics is worthy the consideration of the
reader, and gains more than passing significance in light of the
papal admonition which commands papists to refuse to obey all
laws that are not sanctioned by the papacy, and of Leo's ency
clical to the papists in the United States commanding them to
render obedience to Francisco Satolli, "constitutions and apos
tolic ordinances notwithstanding."

Although the exhortation to unquestioning obedience prac
tically constitutes the chain of papal imperialism in the United
States, the links thereof are numerous and varied in character.
There is the anti-mixed-marriage link ; the anti-freedom-of-the-
press link ; the anti-public-school link ; the anti-secret-society
link ; the labor link, and last, but by no means least, the polit
ical link. In all spheres of the papist's citizenship the Pope
presumes to meddle and to dictate, although apologists for the

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 135

papacy would have us believe that all there is of the papal hier
archy is religious.

Space being precious, I pass over the questions of mixed mar
riages, education, liberty of speech and press, and secret societies,
and will confine myself to the political features of the papal prop
aganda, after a passing allusion to the labor question as laid down
in the encyclical Rerum Novarum. The evident object of the
encyclical is to unify the papist labor of the United States, in
order that it may secure the same advantages in the labor market
as in politics the papist vote until recently held in the City of
New York and other large cities, and eventually, under the lead
ership of the priesthood, grasp the balance of power in the com
mercial and labor world. This hypothesis receives added strength
in the light of the following excerpt from Encyclical Longinqua
of January 6 last :

"Nay, rather, unless forced bv necessity to do otherwise, Catholics
ought to prefer to associate with Catholics, a course which would be
very conducive to the safeguarding of their faith. As presidents of societies
thus formed among themselves, it would be well to appoint either priests or
upright laymen of weight and character, guided by whose councils they
should endeavor peacefully to adopt and carry into effect such measures as
may seem most advantageous to their interests, keeping in view the rules
laid down by us in our encyclical Rerum Novarum."

The political sphere, many good, well-intentioned, but badly
informed souls, and others who are neither so badly informed nor
so well intentioned, would have us believe papal priests and pre
lates eschew, and the laity affect it only as citizens, unbiased by
priestly exhortation or compulsion.

The papacy claims the right to govern the morals of her sub
jects, and affirms that "politics are morals on a larger scale." I
am aware that both assertions have been denied by those whose
interest it was to deny them, but in the light of history such de
nials are scarcely worth consideration. What the papacy has
been in the past it is but reasonable to suppose it is at present and
will be in the future, especially if its present conduct confirms
the presumption.

Turning back the pages of European history for half a cen
tury, we find that in 1830 the parliament of Belgium — a country
under a good king and the most liberal government — was ham
pered, and its freedom menaced by the clerical element, which,
though in the minority, contrived to hold the balance of power,

136 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and to stir up disaffection among their supporters against the
government. At the time of the Brabant revolution the governor
of the Austrian Low Countries wrote to Leopold as follows :

..." The aristocracy, the priests, the monks, the populace, and the
bulk of the nation, which is neither democratic nor aristocratic, but which
is inflamed by the fanatical and insinuating teaching of the priests.

"Since the end of the last century Belgium has had two revolutions, but
both times at the voice of the clergy and to drive from the throne two
sovereigns, Joseph II. and William I., who desired to introduce freedom of
conscience. In 1815 King William gave the Belgians the most liberal con
stitution on the continent. The bishops caused it to be rejected by the
notables on the following ground1: * To swear to uphold freedom of religious
opinions and the concession of equal protection to all faiths, what is this but
to swear to uphold and protect error equally with the truth, to favor the
progress of anti-Catholic doctrines and so to contribute towards the extinc
tion of the light of the true faith in these fair regions. . . . There are,
besides, other articles which a true child of the church can never bind him
self to observe— such is the 227th which sanctions the freedom of the press.' "

For a long period confessors refused absolution to persons who
had taken the oath of allegiance to the king.

In 1870 all Italy threw off the papal yoke, an emancipation
which even those countries disposed to be most friendly towards
the papacy not only officially sanctioned but rejoiced at,

M. Nigra, Italian Minister at Paris, wrote tinder date September
12, 1870, to the effect that he had notified the French minister
of the order given to the Italian government to cross the pontifi
cal frontier. M. Favre replied : " That the French government
would let us do as we liked and sympathized with us."

The Austro-Hungarian government refused to protest.

Count Beust, Austro-Hungarian Chancellor, stated to the
Italian Minister at Vienna that the Austro-Hungarian govern
ment " was satisfied with the ideas expressed in the circular of
the 18th of October, and considered that the course which the
Italian government had taken was reasonable and just and such
as would conduce to an equitable solution." The circular goes
on: "The temporal power of the Holy Father has ceased to
exist . . . that compulsion in mutters of faith,, set aside by
all modern states, found in the temporal power its last asylum.
Henceforth all appeal to the secular sword must be suppressed in
Rome itself."

Count Bray, Bavarian Minister, also accepted the change
without protest.

Marshal Prim, Spanish Prime Minister, also congratulated the

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 137

Italians on their entry into Rome, and the regent " manifested
his satisfaction at the result of affairs at Rome/'

The Minister of Portugal declared himself " beyond measure
satisfied, praising much the moderation, good sense and the po
litical tact of the government of his majesty (Victor Emmanuel)
in such difficult circumstances."

In revenge for the seating of Amadeus, son of Victor Em-
manuel,upon the Spanish throne, the Carlist insurrection occurred;
an insurrection which received both the financial assistance and
apostolic blessing of Pius IX.

In 1872 commenced the fight between the clericals and govern
ment of France ; a fight which has continued with more or less
fierceness ever since and has done much to retard the progress of
the nation.

The fierce contest for supremacy between Prince Bismarck
and the clericals of Germany is so largely a matter of well di
gested history that it needs but brief mention here, and I need
only quote the Iron Chancellor's opinion of the clericals in March,
1872, when he said they were ' ' the most evil element in parlia
ment."

The expulsion of the Jesuits from Germany in 1872, after
they had been expelled from nearly every civilized country in the
world, suggests the conclusion that either the priesthood were
desperately wicked and overbearingly and politically meddle
some, or that the nations of Europe did not appreciate a good
thing when they possessed it. I am fully aware that the answer
to the proposition is : The priests and popes have always been
right and kings and governments invariably wrong. It is paying
a tribute to papal tenacity to assert that the course pursued
by Pius IX. in the " seventies " has been persisted in unremit
tingly ever since. Neither Pius IX. nor Leo XIII. has given the
Italian king or government a moment's rest. The chief aim of
the paparchy seems to have been anarchy and revolution, of
which the Sicilian insurrection was a fair sample. The fact that
priests were caught in red-handed complicity with lay conspira
tors leaves no shadow of a doubt as to the part played by the
priesthood in that insurrection. In Hungary the fight of the
clericals against the popular will and the government to prevent
the passage of the Civil Marriages Bill, and after its passage to
prevent its observance, is a matter of modern history that scarcely

138 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

needs to be recalled ; while the bitter hostility of the clericals of
Germany to the German Emperor for the purpose of enforcing
the claims of the Jesuits is a subject of almost daily illustration
in the public press.

I shall be asked, perhaps//* Why go to Europe to illustrate an
American argument ?" I reply that I go where the Church
under discussion is best known, that I may ascertain her standing
and reputation in respect of all those virtues to which she lays
pretensions.

No one who is acquainted with history will aver that the
papacy has not engaged extensively in politics in Europe to the
great discomfort and annoyance of those nations in which she has
practised them.

The question now is : Has she repented of the past and is she
prepared to abandon politics and settle down in the American
Republic upon the same basis as other sectarian institutions, and
leave matters of state entirely in the hands of the people ? The
recent encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. would indicate that she has
changed nothing except her methods of encroachment upon the
rights of the state and the privileges of the people.

That her priests and laity have been the chief factors in
American politics, recent events in New York would indicate.
These political operations have neither been confined to the laity
nor to the inferior ecclesiasts. It is not so many months since
the Bishop of Rochester publicly attacked a brother prelate
for interfering in the politics of New York. Not much import
ance it is true, was attached to the fact of the priests of the
archdiocese of New York instructing parishioners from the pulpit
which way to vote during the municipal elections last fall, yet
the most trustworthy newspapers of New York vouched for the
truth of the incident.

Some apologists for the papacy, even after these events had
become public, had the hardihood to deny that papal priests were
in politics, until it transpired that the Bishop of Sioux Falls, and
a large number of inferior priests throughout the country, had
publicly instructed their parishioners how and for whom they
should vote. Still some were unconvinced as to the part papal
theologians were playing in American politics until Archbishop
Ireland, towards the end of May, came out in unmistakable terms
upon the silver question.

THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 139

I trust this settles the vexed question as to whether or not
the papacy is in politics. That she has been in politics quite
actively in the past, and that her influence in the political world
has been almost twice as powerful as that of all other sects com
bined, the enormous appropriations granted to her by the govern
ment for the alleged education of the Indians will indicate,
while the large number of special privileges enjoyed by her under
State governments demonstrate conclusively that her political
organization is as perfect locally ae it is nationally.

The course pursued by the popes in Europe during the last
century is being duplicated here with variations. The paparchy
is a law unto herself and will accept no other. If constitutions
differ from the spirit of canon law they must be modified to
harmonize with it. The constitution of the United States makes
the voice of the people the supreme law ; the papal leaders add
the amendment, " so long as it conforms with the law of the
papal church/' or words which embody that meaning.

Where the people are strong, where the state is powerful,
the papacy is weak. The converse of this proposition is also
true : hence the papal conspiracy to weaken our Republic by the
union of Church and State, with the Church of Rome at the
head.

While the Pope denies the right of the state to cross the do
mestic threshold and includes within the pale of domesticity the
education of the young, he arrogates to the Church the right not
only to intrude into the most sacred relations of family and home
in the persons of her confessors, but dares to dictate to parents
the course of instruction which the youth of America shall re
ceive. Let the State concede this right and the rising generation
will be Americans only in name, but in reality the subjects of a
foreign paparchy. The perversion of the American constitu
tion to conform to papal dogmas will then be only a matter of
time, and the Republic as established by the signers of the Dec
laration of Independence be merely a memory.

What the open imperialism and arrogance of Gregory and
Pius could never have accomplished in the United States, the
superior diplomacy of the present Pontiff and his American pre
lates has partly succeeded in securing — the predominance of the
papal church as a sect and the balance of power as a political
body. While Pius administered allopathic doses of ultramontan-

140 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ism and nauseated his subjects, Leo, while striving after the same
end, contents himself with a slower but much more effective
treatment of homoeopathic liberalism.

However liberal a papist may be, he is a child of the Church
and obedient to the voice of the Pope in all matters over which
the Church claims jurisdiction ; and when he accepts the Encycli
cal of January 6, 1895, the difference between him and the Ultra
montane is so slight as to be imperceptible.

The paparchy seeks to renew in the new world the power of
which she has been denuded in the old. While in Europe she
used kings and councils as her tools, she adapts herself to Amer
ican conditions here and intrudes herself into all the elements of
our public life which contribute to our power. She organizes
labor, not for labor's sake, but as an intimation to capital that
she is mistress of the situation. She strives to obtain the balance
of power in each political party and secures concessions to the
Church which no other sect has ever sought or could obtain.
She drives her subjects from secret societies which are legal under
the constitution and declares them illegal, substituting her own
laws for those of the people. She declares the civil marriage law
of no effect and denies the right of her subjects to think, speak
or write independently of the permission of the Bishop.

Those " liberal " Catholics who can digest all this cannot con
sistently reject whatever else the papal theological pharmacopoeia
may contain. " Liberal Catholicism" is but a term for a policy
and means neither concession nor amendment. The papacy is to
day, as it ever was in the past, a despotism claiming universal
jurisdiction ; an end to be attained only by the weakening of
governments and the transfer of the power of the people into the
hands of the priests.

To combat these pretentious, to remove the hand of the Pope
from the brain of the thinker and the writer, from the mouth of
the speaker and the mind of the scholar, from the throat of the
statesman and the will of the voter — the American Protective As
sociation was organized. It will continue its work nntil popes
have learned that under the American constitution as it now
stands they have no right that is not possessed by the most in
significant member of the non-papal clergy or laity.

W. J. H. TRAYNOR.

FEMALE CRIMINALS.

BY MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS, HER MAJESTY'S INSPECTOR OF

PRISONS.

Two Italian savants, Lombroso and Ferrero, both well known
as earnest students of the new science of criminal anthropology,
have recently directed their researches into the peculiarities of
offenders of the weaker sex. Criminal woman has been brought
under the mental microscope, her traits and idiosyncracies
minutely and patiently examined. The process is much the same
as that adopted in the investigation of the criminal man ; the re
sult also is similar. "We have now put before us a particular
type, a distinct and peculiar character, whose separate existence
is supposed to be proved, based upon certain well established
physical and physiological differences between her and the normal
woman. It may be questioned, perhaps, whether we gain much
by what has been elicited ; whether the facts now published are
not more curious than instructive. What nseful purpose is
served by this photographic portraiture of the female criminal is
not exactly apparent, except perhaps that by recognizing criminal
traits we are put upon our guard against those who exhibit them.
Yet this might prove very inconvenient, sometimes ; we might
be led to quarrel with or misjudge our best friends. For we here
touch upon the really weak spot, the one great flaw in the doc
trines of the criminal anthropologist. It has no doubt been
proved satisfactorily that evil-doers possess many purely personal
qualities and characteristics ; the awkward thing is that these
same peculiarities are encountered also among the most exemplary
members of society. To this the Lombroso school answers that
these last have never been sufficiently tempted ; that some day,
given adequate inducement, they too, will certainly go astray.
All that is left us, presumably, is to hope for the best ; to con-

142 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tinue to associate with those whose looks should hang them,
trusting that their innate wickedness may never drive them to
suddenly shock and surprise us by their misdeeds. But we may
take heart of grace, for the whole position is otherwise assailable;
this theory of the inherent instinctive impulse to crime in certain
individuals, cursed with unsought but ineradicable imperfections,
can be contested on other grounds. It is a well-known fact that
evil-doers pass from the lesser to greater crimes ; the old saying,
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, is an everlasting truth. The
criminal anthropologists have never yet explained how it is that
the thief's nose, which is found to be a ' ' turn up/' does not be
come the " crooked " in the murderer, when the thief expands,
as he so often does, into the more heinous criminal.

While dissenting, however, from his general conclusions, we
may follow the scientist with interest through his experiments.
He has discovered and classified many strange phenomena, the
result of his examination of a not very large number of female
offenders.

Lombroso finds that the typical female criminal has coarse
black hair and a good deal of it ; but this is obviously only true
of Italians, there is no such general color among northern or
Saxon races. She has often a long face, a receding forehead,
over-jutting brows, prominent cheek-bones, an exaggerated
frontal angle as seen in monkeys and savage races, and nearly
always square massive jaws and a firm mouth. Lombroso insists
strongly upon the last-named trait, as very generally present ;
the female offender is especially remarkable for her want of
feminality. She is virile, masculine in voice and in figure, lank
and meagre without the rounded forms, a chief beauty in the true
woman, and able therefore, as in many well-known cases, to wear
male attire without detection. The eyes of the female offender
are said to be sunken, deep set, in color dark (only in the
Italians, of course) ; wrinkles soon show, and in elderly women
are strongly developed in certain parts of the face ; the cranial
capacity is inferior to that of the normal woman ; there is a
greater tendency to grow gray and to baldness ; moles are com
mon ; hairiness, which is unusual and unfeminine, has been fre
quently found ; strabismus also, and generally an unprepossessing
appearance. Yet the offender in early years often possesses la
leaut'e de la jeunesse; degeneracy does not show till the adipose

FEMALE CRIMINALS. 143

tissue has shrunk, then the salient cheek bones protrude, the
lower jaw hardens, the complexion fades and wrinkles deepen.
Although in subjects whose attractiveness is part of their stock
in trade, beauty lingers through close attention to artificial
allurements, the female offender grows more and more ugly with
advancing years, till at last she becomes a hideous and repulsive
old hag, with all her native blemishes and imperfections thrown
up into strong relief.

Passing on to the mental or psychological characteristics,
these also are strongly marked according to the Italian enquirers.
It may be stated here, parenthetically, that the facts deduced in
this respect rest on a broader basis. For the physical traits, but
just enumerated, follow upon somewhat limited investigations ;
not as many as a hundred women in all having been examined .
But as regards the mental qualities the professors have sought
their illustrations far and wide, in all countries and all ages, and
adduce some rather remote female criminals, such as the mother
of Antaxerxes Messalina, Ta-ki of China, or such hackneyed
cases as those of Brinvilliers, Tiquet, Lafarge, Jegado, and
Gabrille Bompard, in support of their generalizations. For some
strange reason, from ignorance perhaps, or possibly unfamiliarity
with the English language, hardly any of the notorious female
offenders in England are brought forward in evidence, although
many would afford startling corroboration of the conclusions
drawn. I propose, therefore, to refer to some of these in review
ing the psychological aspect of the female offender.

The vices most prominent in the feminine criminal are found
to be great cruelty, a passionate temper rising quickly into ex
travagant fury, an excessive craving for revenge, low cunning
strongly developed, greed, shameless rapacity, an inordinate love
of lucre, mendacity to the utter contempt of all truthfulness.
Such women are erotic, but not capable of pure, devoted love:
they are weak in that maternal feeling which is usually the
strongest sentiment in the feminine nature; they are given to
dissipation, audacious, violent, imperious, dominating weaker
characters whether of their own or of the opposite sex, their
vices, in a word, are of the male rather than the female. In
planning crimes they exhibit much deliberation, can bide their
time with fiendish patience, following out their purpose with un-
shakeable, undeviating persistence, and when the moment of

144 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

action arrives will strike without cowardly hesitation or any fear
of future remorse. They are especially clever in instigating
others to the commission of crime, using them as catspaws or
agents, evading direct responsibility themselves, and being stren
uously persistent in denial, in obstinate refusal to confess. All
these traits have been proved over and over again to exist in the
worst types of female criminals, but happily their combination in
one individual is extremely rare. When found in full develop
ment they constitute a type of extraordinary wickedness which
the world does not often see. These are the class of "born"
criminals, the very worst specimen of female offenders, the
women of whom writers speak as "more cynical, more depraved,
more terrible than any form of criminal male." " The woman
is seldom wicked," says the Italian proverb, "but when she is,
she surpasses the man."

This, the worst type of female, the " born " criminal is not
common in the softer sex. So much so that the scientists readily
admit that the " occasional" criminals form the large majority
of female criminals. The two classes indeed overlap constantly,
and it seems hardly necessary to distinguish between them when
discussing feminine criminology. Every woman who has once
fallen, not only into crime, but from the strict paths of virtue,
is probably capable of further, even the deepest, forms of degra
dation. Speaking broadly, she is either good or bad ; when she
is the first but has broken through the safeguards of moral
restraint and lapsed into the second she may then drift on and
downward into any kind of crime. This is generally accepted as
an axiom by all who have had much experience with female
offenders. The only distinction is one of degree; the worst only
are wholly bad, exhibiting none or but few of the " contradic
tions," as Lombroso calls them, the redeeming qualities which
so often raise them from the lowest levels.

Whatever, then, the class of offender, whether, adopting the
Lombroso division, we speak of the "born" or the " occasional "
criminal, in all alike the same traits are to be found only in a
greater or lesser degree. The Italian theories of facial and physi
cal characteristics may not be entirely convincing, being deduced
as has been said from too narrow data and dealing with too few
nationalities to be accepted as establishing any universal law. But
I have found in criminal women, both in my reading and within

FEMALE CRIMINALS. 145

my own personal experience, which is not of yesterday, not only
the mental traits and tendencies already enumerated, but others
not mentioned by Lombroso. Many cases might be adduced in
corroboration of the alleged cold-blooded, callous cruelty of the
female murderess, the savage determination with which she car
ries out her fell purpose ; no difficulties deter her, she can wait
and watch for opportunity concealing her devilish intention under
a smiling face, till at last she administers poison and strikes the
blow with a nice calculation of effect. She seldom shrinks, sel
dom falters after the deed is done, either in facing consequences
or removing traces. Catherine Hayes having caused her husband's
death wished to cut off his head with a penknife and boil it ; Mrs.
Manning dug the grave for her victim, three weeks ahead, just
in front of her kitchen fire, where she roasted and ate a goose the
very afternoon of the crime. Kate Webster dismembered the
corpse of her mistress and boiled it piecemeal ; Hannah Dobbs
strangled a lodger and dragged her body downstairs to bury it
among ashes in a disused cellar. Dixblanc, the French cook who
murdered Madame Kiel in Park Lane, did much the same. Fe
male cruelty of a still more revolting kind was displayed by Mrs.
Brownrigg and the two Meteyards ; the first of whom flogged her
parish apprentices to death, having first starved and shamefully
ill-used them; the latter were milliners who tortured their em
ployees under the most disgusting circumstances, killing them
with refined cruelty and afterwards chopping their bodies to pieces.
Within quite recent years the Irish woman, Mrs. Montagu, rivalled
these monsters by her fiendish cruelty to her own children, and in
the Staunton case, although the men were the principal agents,
the two women were included in the crime of taking an innocent
life by cruel^torture, ," a deed," said the Judge, " so black and hid
eous as to be unparalleled in all the records of crime." Professor
Lombroso makes no mention of any of these cases, which are cer
tainly not less illustrative of cruelty than any in his book.

Among the mixed motives that compel women to great
crimes greed stands high, then comes the desire for vengeance,
the gratification of passionate hatred for real or fancied
wrongs, the ungovernable outbreaks of fierce temper, the mad
promptings of jealousy, for the female offender is an ardent
lover, strong in love as in hate, and implacable when crossed or
flouted. Sarah Malcolm, the charwoman, committed a triple
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 465. 10

146 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

murder, incited thereto by the sight of her mistress's wealth in
coin and silver plate ; the murder of O'Connor by the Mannings
originated in the woman's cupidity, her thirst for her victim's
possessions ; it was the same with Kate Webster, Jessie McLachlan,
and Hannah Dobbs. There have been numerous cases of child
murder in England by mothers to secure insurance money, the
policies often taken out on purpose by the inhuman parent, who
has already doomed her offspring to death. Baby farmers have
been driven by greed to practise atrocious cruelties on the
infants committed to their tender mercies; cases innumerable
might be quoted of the employment of poison (of which more
directly) to gratify inordinate rapacity. Feminine rage, often the
forerunner of mania, is most noticeable perhaps within prison
walls, and it is sometimes so spontaneous, so persistent and
terrible, as to be only explained by actual mental derangement.
The woman McCarthy, who, in Millbank, stabbed a matron
without a moment's warning, was, no doubt, a homicidal lunatic,
but Flossie Fitzherbert was sane enough, and when she assaulted
another matron and broke a medicine bottle into her skull she
was carried away by momentary but quite uncontrollable f erocitv.
It was in a fit of passion of this kind that Dixblanc, chafing
against what seemed unjust rebuke, turned on her mistress and
struck her dead. For long-continued, indomitable ill-temper, the
woman Julia Newman, who made Millbank hideous for nearly a
year, will never be quite forgotten. Fierce feuds between the
prisoners themselves continued from previous quarrels when free,
or originating in new discords in durance, are of constant occur
rence, leading at times to sanguinary conflicts, which but for
prompt interference might have ended in loss of life. I have
before my mind's eye the case of a woman whose loathing for a
comrade was so intense that she could not be trusted within
sight of her, and who made several attempts, happily abortive, to
murderously assault her enemy.

Jealousy, as might be expected in the female subject, has im
pelled many to crime. It is now well known that Constance
Kent, whose offence was only tardily proved on her own confes
sion, did her infant brother to death because she was jealous of
him, although on no very reasonable grounds. When sexual re
lations intervene the feeling is naturally intensified; many vio
lent acts might be instanced in which outraged women have

FEMALE CRIMINALS. 147

sought to vent their disappointment on truant or unfaithful
swains. When the woman of greatly perverted moral sense has
been crossed in love, her thirst for vengeance has only been as
suaged by the most terrible reprisals. One of the most hideous
cases on record is perhaps that of Mary Blandy, who poisoned
her father because he would not consent to her marriage with
Captain Cranstown, whom he knew to be a miscreant and un
principled fortune hunter.

Poisoning is a crime peculiarly attractive to the female
offender, as is proved by the hundreds of cases in which it has
been perpetrated by them in times past and present. As I have
written elsewhere, "its chief recommendation to them is its sim
plicity and the many facilities that are offered for its commission
to a sex so generally employed as mistress, housewife, nurse or
cook." It is a strange fact and a further illustration of this con
tention that according to the last statistics of crime in the United
States as furnished by the Census Bulletin of 1892, as many as
244, out of a general total of 393 female homicides were committed
by women in " personal service," or, speaking more in detail, by
26 housewives, 50 housekeepers, 138 servants, 16 washerwomen
and 10 nurses. No information is available of the method em
ployed, but it may be safely inferred that poison was largely used.
This would only be in harmony with all criminal experience.
The crime which commended itself to Lucretia Borgia and
Brinvilliers is still deplorably prevalent and we have our May-
bricks, Cheshams, Catherine Wilsons, Christina Edmunds and
Madeline Smiths in modern days. These and other cases to
which Lombroso makes no reference are not likely to be soon
forgotten; as that of Rebecca Smith who confessed on the scaffold,
when about to suffer for poisoning hei baby one month old, that
she had already poisoned seven other children; of Chesham who,
imitating the harridans who invented and sold Aqua Tofana, con
fessed that she had for years carried on a large business in remov
ing husbands, both her own and others. Catherine Wilson was a
wholesale poisoner whose foul practices were in all cases inspired
by greed and who first used, if she did not actually discover, the
properties of colchicum, the pretty violet flower of the meadow-
saffron so familiar in Swiss summer fields, in the form of a slow
and not easily detected poison. Fanny Oliver used prussic acid
to get rid of a husband who was insured in a burial society; and

148 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Madame Lafarge, whose case, being enveloped in much mawkish
sentimentality, attracted world-wide attention at the time, did her
husband to death with] arsenic, the true " bungler's "or " be
ginner's " weapon, as its symptoms and the traces it leaves are so
easily detected.

The typical female poisoner, however, was Anna Zwanziger or
Anna Schouleben, known as the German Brinvilliers, whose
crimes were committed about the commencement of the present
century. It is somewhat strange that this woman has also escaped
the attention of Lombroso, for she exemplifies some of the most
remarkable criminal traits, and her picture as handed down to us
is so much direct 'evidence upon the outward aspect of her species.
Zwanziger was of small stature, thin, deformed, her sallow meagre
face deeply furrowed by passion as well as by age. Her eyes ex
pressed envy and malice ; her brow was perpetually clouded ; her
manner cringing, servile and affected ; age and ugliness had not
diminished her craving for admiration. Mock sensibility, and
weak moral sense and an undoubted taste for dissipation led her
into evil courses at an early age, and left her at fifty reduced to
the greatest poverty, homeless, friendless, and at her wit's end to
live. It was then that she adopted poisoning as a means of live
lihood, as a profession, and her own exultant account of the power
it conferred on her may be commended to those who are interested
in the psychological analysis of the female criminal mind.

Her attachment to poison was based upon the proud con
sciousness that it gave her the power to break through every re
straint, to attain every object, to gratify every inclination ; she
could deal out death or sickness as she pleased, torture all who
offended her or stood in her way ; she could revenge herself
through it for every slight ; it amused her to see the contortions
of her victims; she could get fellow-servants and others into
trouble, throw suspicion upon any innocent persons whom she
disliked. If she wished to bring a married man to her feet, she
might murder his wife when she chose ; if she hankered after the
possessions of others, she might acquire them when the poison had
done its work. As time went on she became an expert toxicolo-
gist ; mixing and giving poison was her constant occupation. She
was so devotedly attached to this deadly familiar friend that she
carried it always about with her, and when arrested and some
arsenic was found in her pocket, " she seemed to tremble with

FEMALE CRIMINALS. 149

pleasure and gazed upon the white powder with eyes beaming
with rapture." When sentenced to capital punishment she told
the judge that her death was fortunate for mankind, as it would
have been impossible for her to discontinue her trade of poisoning.
There can be no question that Zwanziger fully fills up the type of
" born" criminal ; she was in truth a veritable monster, an incar
nate female fiend.

It is agreeable to turn from these sombre details, from the
black traits that show criminal women at their worst, and which,
as has been said, are rare in their fullest development, to the smaller
foibles, the blemishes, the blameworthy but not deeply criminal
failings of their everyday life, mainly as seen when under re
straint. Some of these the female offender shares with her more
virtuous and immaculate sister, but shows in an aggravated and
exaggerated form ; the vanity, for instance, which is strong even
in the inmates of a prison ; the intolerance of control and of
constituted authority, for what in the best is mere obstinacy or
self assertion becomes in the worst direct defiance ; the persis
tent misconduct, the fluent, shrewish tongue that will not be
silenced ; perversity in fact so marked as to be nearly unmanage
able and incurable, especially when associated with a readiness to
graver offence, or a morbid tendency to surrender and despair.
On the other hand female prisoners have some pleasing traits ;
gratitude is very common among them, they are always sensible to
kindness and sympathy, and can in truth be more easily governed
through the gentler influences than by stern, unyielding discipline.
A very curious trait taken in connection with the maintenance of
good order in a female prison is the strong inclination of the in
mates towards combined disorder. There is a contagion of mis
conduct, if I may so call it, which spreads with strange rapidity
through a prison ; it may be the peculiar imitativeness of the
feminine character, the ready yielding to example even in ill
doing, but whatever the cause the effect is frequently observed by
others as well as myself. When one woman " breaks out," many
more, if within reach of her influence whether by sight or sound,
will follow suit. This is why " breaking out," a favorite but not
always intelligible sin against good order and which shows itself
in wholesale destruction of property and personal effects, cell
furniture, window panes, woodwork, bedding, clothes, seldom
occurs in isolated instances ; why, many years ago, the sudden

150 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

fancy to drum upon the inside of a cell with the soles of her feet
which took one prisoner, soon extended to a whole ward; why if
a few are insubordinate, the whole female prison is transformed
speedily into a bear garden.

Vanity in a female prisoner would be merely laughable if it
were not so sad to behold. It is, however, the one touch of
nature which proves the human kinship, and there is perhaps
some hope for even these poor degraded creatures if they are thus
swayed by such harmless emotions. Prison matrons would be
perpetually busy if they checked every attempt made by their
charges to adopt the last fashionable coiffure ; ( ' fringes " are
" going out " perhaps in general society, but they are still amaz
ingly popular in prison. Criminals will trim their hair as it
pleases them, and the wisest disciplinarian affects to see nothing
of the fringe. In the same way, once, when chignons were in
vogue, the female felt happy whose locks escaped the prison
scissors and were long enough to fold over a pad of oakum. The
ingenuity, again, with which some prisoners will twist and turn
their unbecoming uniform into some faint notion of the fashions
of the day might have earned these artists good wages in a dress
maker's atelier ; I have seen panniers counterfeited and polon
aises, skirts draped or tied back, dress improvers manufactured
out of whalebones or horsehair ; no doubt, when the present
" bell " skirt is fading out of fashion it will be largely patronized
in jail. The craze for personal adornment leads women to skim
the grease off their scanty allowance of soup, with which they
plaster their hair. I once knew an aged prisoner who was caught
scraping the dust from the red brick cell wall to serve her as
rouge.

Some more estimable qualities may be noticed. I must contest
Lombroso's theory that maternal affection is generally wanting
among female offenders ; it is directly contradicted by my experi
ence. I have found ''the children's ward" quite a model nur
sery, and prisoner mothers exemplary in their care and attention.
It may be that when at large, relieved from the controlling eye of
authority, the criminal is less affectionate, but I much question
whether she is any worse than others of her class. Another good
point in the female (as well as in the male) in durance, is her
unwearied patience and devotion in nursing the sick. Of course
it may be urged, per contra^ that here again she is under super-

FEMALE CRIMINALS. 151

vision, that hospital work forms an agreeable change to the monot
ony of prison routine ; still with all due deductions the fact re
mains that the prisoner nurse is deft-fingered, soft-footed, watch
ful and kindly in her ministrations. The sympathy for the sick
is extended even to the officers over them, and I am forcibly re
minded of the case of a matron whose slow death of malignant
disease was touchingly respected by the universal and spontane
ous resolve of all the prisoners to "give no trouble" during her
last illness. It was usually a very unruly prison, too.

Of the gratitude which lies low in the offender's heart, but
which can be reached by judicious treatment, I shall quote but one
instance. It is that given in Scougal's Scenes from a Silent World,
an admirable monograph on prison life. A hardened offender,
one with sixty-four convictions against her— Lombroso would have
classed her as a " born " criminal — arrived scowling and sullen
under a fresh sentence. Her conduct corresponded with her
sullen demeanor and was continuously defiant and refractory,
until an unofficial visitor took her in hand. Then " she became
a totally changed being — gentle, obedient, and deeply grateful to
those whom she found to her utter amazement to be-really anxious
to help and comfort her." It was there she had first met with
pity or kindness from her fellow-creatures, and the first touch of
human sympathy melted her despair as sunshine softens ice.

Among the many dicta of the criminal anthropologists is the
assertion that primitive woman was not given to wrong-doing,
and that the female offender is a product of civilization, increas
ing with it. This theory may be supported, perhaps, by wider
and more general investigations made, but it is certainly not
proved by English experience. Nothing is more remarkable in
the annals of crime than its steady diminution among females in
England in recent years. In the last decade there has been a
decrease of 41 per cent, in the total numbers imprisoned, com
paring 1892-3 with 1882-3. Although the prison population
cannot be taken as a final test of the conditions of crime, the
fact cannot be overlooked when the decrease is so strongly
marked. Moreover, during these ten years there has been a gen
eral increase of the population of 25 per cent. If the statistics
are sifted and the figures taken according to the gravity of mis
deeds and sentences, the decrease is still more surprising. The
average total of convicts, the females, that is to *say who have

152 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

been sentenced to penal servitude for terms of three years and
upwards, was in 1892-3 just 245, as against 887 in 1882-3, a
diminution of 72 per cent.; in the " local " prisons, those for lesser
terms and offences, the decrease has been 33 percent., but the two
combined give the figure already quoted of 41 per cent. Another
highly satisfactory feature is found by examining the figures
further and comparing the ages of criminals in custody. This
clearly shows that the principal decrease has occurred among the
younger criminals, in other words, that the supply is being cut
off at the source, that fewer recruits are enlisted or drawn into
the great army of crime. But the older habitual criminals con
tinue to flock in ; nothing seemingly will eradicate the poison
when it has once been taken into the system ; the woman who
has fallen into evil ways seldom recovers her position. Now
in 1892-3 the largest proportion of female prisoners in custody
is still represented by those who have been most often convicted ;
in 1882-3 this total was 9,316, in 1892-3 it was 9,408. Sharply
contrasted with these figures the first convictions, or those who
have been convicted but once, show up in the manner already
described. While these in 1882-3 were 7,008, now in 1892-3
there were only 4,377.

A further but somewhat remote diminution may be expected
when the old hands gradually disappear. But this process of
depletion will be slow ; for, strange to say, the criminal woman
seems to thrive in prison. Her longevity, not in the general
population alone, but among the so-called dangerous classes espe
cially, is established beyond all doubt. "Ik is a well-known
fact," says Lombroso, "that the number of aged female criminals
surpasses the male contingent." This he explains on the theory
that women have greater powers of resistance to misfortune.
"This is a well-known law which in the case of the female
criminal seems almost exaggerated, so remarkable is her longevity
and the toughness with which she endures the hardships, even
the prolonged hardships of prison life. ... I know some
denizens of female prisons who have reached the age of 90, hav
ing lived within those walls since they were 29 without any grave
injury to health." It is pretty obvious from this that criminal
women stand punishment better than men.

ARTHUR GRIFFITHS.

"TENDENCIES" IN FICTION.

BY ANDREW LANG.

IF we are trying to understand the " tendencies," the main
currents and back-waters of thought and sentiment, in any past
age, we do not pay particular attention to its light literature.
Plays and novels of the past give little of the grave information
which we seek in old works of philosophy, history and theology.
People used to keep their play and their earnest apart with some
success. There are, of Course, exceptions to this rule. Greek
plays contain the most profound religious and philosophic reflec
tions of the period, but if any one calls Greek plays light litera
ture, we "disable his judgment." And, even in this field, as
time went on, and discussion abounded, and sophists multiplied,
and theorists took aim at every conceivable object, we find Eurip
ides filling his dramas with perfectly modern " tendencies."
Euripides revels in (< problems," as much as any lady
novelist who writes under a masculine name takes pleasure in
rare moral or immoral "situations." For this very quality
Aristophanes, like a good literary Tory, assails Euripides. His
characters exhibit on the stage, before all Athens, positions
which it would be wiser not to discuss at all. The drama becomes
a debating room of matters better left undebated to the verdict
of tradition. The passion of a brother for a sister is one of these
risky situations, riskier than the modern British novelist is likely
to attempt. But here was a "problem," and Euripides was as
fond of a ' ' problem " as Dr. Ibsen.

These things are the exceptions. In all the plays of Shak-
speare, in an age when the drama was to the world what the novel
is to-day, how little we find of " tendencies." The great contem
porary " problem" was the sequel to the English Reformation.
The British middle classes, like John Knox, who refused an Eng-

154 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

lish bishopric, conceived that the English Reformation had not
gone nearly far enough. There were still plenty of " idols" to
break ; plenty of beauty in religious ceremonial was left to destroy,
numerous illogical formulae were to be swept away. The Puri
tans, "a sect of perilous consequence," said Elizabeth, " such as
would have no kings but a presbytery, " were waxing great in the
land. The attempt at a theocracy was maturing, but about all
this we find, in Shakspeare, next to nothing. Sir Andrew
Aguecheek, who did not give his " exquisite reason," declared his
dislike of a Puritan, — in Illyria, — but of debates on Puritanism
Shakspeare gives us none. His own shade of religious opinion is
disputed to this day. The great early colonial efforts of his time
are not more prominent in his works. The " problems" of Ham
let or of Jacques are the eternal, not the temporary or exceptional,
problems of humanity.

As for tendencies in novels, till the middle of the eight
eenth century, at earliest, novels were written merely for human
pleasure. " Bold bawdry and open manslaughter," says Ascham,
were their themes in the Elizabethan age. Love and fighting,
to use more friendly and even more accurate language, were still
the topics of fiction. Fielding and Richardson had their con
fessed moral and social purposes, especially Fielding ; but they
subordinated these to the story and to the play of character.
Sheer romance prevailed with Mrs. Radcliffe, Miss Porter, and
the totally forgotten novelists of chivalry and mediaeval history,
whose fame, if they had any, was swallowed up in that of Scott.
He, of course, was a romancer pure and simple ; so, in essentials,
were Bulwer Lytton, and Cooper, and even Hawthorne, despite
his allegory, for Hawthorne loved old moral ideas for their
romantic possibilities. Yet even Disraeli, in Sybil, anticipated
our modern tales about social problems, and M. Taine, not quite
unjustly, censured the eternal moral purpose of Thackeray. The
Newcomes is a long parable of loveless marriages, the theme is
insisted on with tedious iteration. Dickens, too, sacrificed much
to tendencies ; several of his tales are pamphlets directed at
abuses, but then his are amusing pamphlets. We can endure
plenty of purpose and plenty of preaching from novelists who are
humorists. But, after the deaths of our great novelists, the
novel, somehow, has become a more and more potent literary en
gine; till, like Aaron's rod, it has swallowed up all the other

" TENDENCIES" IN FICTION. 155

species of literature. When the public says "literature/' the
public means novels, — and new novels. We can scarcely be said
to have any new historians who are read as Macaulay was read,
or as Mr. Froude, or Gibbon, or Carlyle were read. The public
does not care for history ; recently a novelist delivered a lecture
in which Prince Charles was said to be the lover of Beatrice
Esmond ! Such novelist's history is as accurate as Miss Aikin's
account of the Kising of 1715, begun, according to her, in the
interests of a king who was dead, and led by a prince who was
not born. In philosophy Mr. Herbert Spencer has shot his bolt,
or rather, has emptied his quiver, and Darwin is lost in the Dar
winians. We have, indeed, Biblical critics, or we borrow them
from Germany. But History, Philosophy, Theology, are not now
read as our fathers read them, in works of Theology, Philosophy,
and History. These branches of literature now exist merely as
" stock/' — in the culinary sense, — for novels. In I forget what
South Sea isle, the women chew a certain root, and the liquid
thus extracted is the beverage of the men. So modern novelists,
reading grave works, or reading articles about them, produce
the novel of philosophy, of theology, of "tendency" and "prob
lem " for the pensive, but indolent public. History itself
reaches the world in historical novels. Miss Pardoe's works on
the French Court, and Mr. Parkman's excellent book on the
Jesuits in Canada, are " stock" for Dr. Doyle's Refugees, and I
fear that no more of Mr. Parkman's labors really reaches the Eng
lish public. Every matter of discussion, however esoteric, — the
relations of the sexes, the foundations of belief, the distribution
of wealth, — is mixed up with " a smooth love tale," and thus
the cup of learning, as Lucretius recommends, has honey smeared
on its lips, and is drained by the thirsty soul. I prefer my jam
and my powder separate, for one, and, if I want to know about
Lourdes, turn rather to French physiologists and psychologists,
than to the novel of M. Zola. But this is not the general taste,
with which it were vain to quarrel. Interested in many grave
and in some repulsive matters, the public declines to study these
themes in the treatises of specialists, and devours them when they
are sandwiched between layers of fiction.

This taste is in itself a " tendency " worth noting, and neces
sarily the novels of an age like ours are replete with tendencies.
We are humanitarian, and so are our novels ; revolutionary, and

156 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

so are our novels. All institutions are brewing in a witch's caul
dron, wherein the novelist drives his hook, like the sons of Eli,
and brings forth matters good or bad.

Women, naturally, take the lead in an industry to which their
desultory and amateur education conducts them. I am not speak
ing, of course, about the accomplished author of David Grieve,
whose education and knowledge are thorough and manly, and who
does not make hysterics her favorite motif. But hysterics really
seem to be the chief literary motive of some strangely popular
lady authors. The tendency represented in their novels is the
revolt of some women against the Nature of Things, and especially
against the nature of their sex. They want to have all the free
dom which men exercise, even that which they exercise contrary
to the acknowledged laws of Christian morals. Licentiousness,
the claim "to enjoy," as lady novelists call it, at random, is bad
enough in men, but in men it does not cause a break up of the family,
and a reduction of society to something much below the state of the
Digger Indians. For women " to enjoy," that is, to behave like
the nymphs of Otaheite in the Antijacobin, is, manifestly, to
leave the new generation in the posture of young cuckoos bereft
even of the comforts of a thrush's or a sparrow's nest. This obvi
ous fact in natural history has always been regarded as a bar to
the indiscriminate license of women. Horace condoles with them ;
miserarutn est neque amori dare ludum, and so forth ; but some
of the hysterical ladies maintain their assertion of feminine equal
ity in these matters. Though their works make a talk, and are
devoured as stolen fruit, it is not likely that this particular "ten
dency " will do much harm. c ' Offences must needs come/' but
scandals about girls are not, perhaps, so numerous now as they
have been in several other less earnest periods. Women are, on
the whole, naturally averse to following the path pointed out by
the more daring romancers of their sex. Again, the exceptions
who want to " live up," or rather down, to their favorite novels
are usually unattractive, and therefore, by the selfishness of
wicked man, are condemned to theory.

Quite another kind of freedom, and of equality with mankind,
is claimed and acted on by two recent English heroines. Each
of these young ladies knocks down her old aunt I One of them
explains that, while she deeply regrets her impulsive conduct,
men have the privilege of expressing passion in voies de fait, as

"TENDENCIES" IN FICTION. 157

the French have it. So why not women ? Well, one might put
it to the Superfluous Woman that men do not knock down their
aunts, nor even their uncles. Give woman an inch, and she will
take an ell, in the matter of liberty and privilege. This Super
fluous Woman perhaps represents the high water mark of hysterics
in female fiction. The heroine, a pretty and wealthy girl, is
dying of ennui before she is twenty-one, if my chronology is cor
rect. Girls of twenty, with beauty on their side, and triumph
before them, do not sicken of ennui. "They have a bully time/'
In a few seasons matters alter ; the vanity and vulgarity, the
tedium and desolation of ceaseless pleasure hunting begin to tell,
begin to be felt. The dose of " excitement" has to be increased,
fiercer and stronger ingredients are added, and the girl ends in a
Sisterhood, in a loveless marriage with the usual results, as a
public character and topic of tattle, or, more commonly, as a
weary, wandering old maid. But girls of twenty are not Iblasees
to death, and, like the Sirens in Pontus de Tyard, ennuyees
jusques a desespoir. In a recent tale, The Maiden's Progress,
Miss Hunt has drawn, with much cleverness, the slow progress
of ennui in the flirting spinster. But she is good natured, and
lets her heroine easily off at the end. Generations of girls have
I seen, gathering roses while they might, and then gathering
nettles and thistles, seen them with pleasure, and soon with pity ;
watched their weariness and forced feverish gaiety. But a pretty
girl bored to death at twenty saw I never.

The Superfluous Woman takes to a hectic kind of philan
thropy : flies to the North, falls in love with a Caledonian farmer
who is great at putting the stone, has an erotic and not very in
telligible scene with him in a barn, finds him very unlike Robbie
Burns in any similar situation, hurries South, knocks down her
old aunt, marries an idiot peer, bears superfluous idiots, is
haunted by a "Thing" with claws, and so forth, and so forth.
This novel then seems to be a sea-wrack left at the high water
mark of hysteria. The book has been a good deal tattled about
in print : it represents a " tendency " — the tendency to hysterics
— and, as for the heroine, she wanted the attentions of Dr. Play-
fair or of Dr. Weir Mitchell, or she needed to be married at seven
teen. " The green sickness " was very familiar to our ancestors,
but they did not write novels about it.

It is not my opinion that the author of this eccentric romance

158 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

wants to do harm ; very far from it ; she plainly regards herself
as a moralist. Indeed they all do ; all are very earnest ladies, in
cluding, doubtless, the author of The Heavenly Twins. But I
have never been able to read that work, and have only met one of
my own sex who had done so. Some, indeed, I have seen driven
to this water by their lady wives, but they did not drink ; they
could not drink. Thus, as the ladies will not tell me the plot,
and men cannot, I am unable to pronounce an opinion about the
" tendencies " of The Heavenly Twins. The Yellow Aster, on
the other hand, I have read some of, laying the book down where
the heroine, who married out of curiosity, was so shocked by the
usual " consekinses of that manoeuvre," as the elder Mr. Weller
says. The heroine was pleasant as Boadicea, painted blue, in
childhood. Her agnostic parents I seem to have met somewhere
before, in fiction. The character of the heroine is beyond me,
but, if she is as rare as a Yellow Aster, it is of no importance.
Long may girls like her be introuvables. The writer, unlike
most of her peers, is not wholly destitute of humor.

Minor a canamus. I have read a good deal of Dodo, and also
the remarks on Dodo, published in an American journal, by " T.
W. H." Am I wrong in conjecturing that Colonel Higginson is the
critic ? At all events T. W. H. draws a parallel between Dodo
and Daisy Miller as exhibiting "the feminine low water-mark of
the two nations/' I congratulate you, if Daisy is your low water
mark, for I am, and have long been, in love with that pretty and
amiable enchantress. She had a foolish vulgar mother, and no
breeding, but enfin, Daisy is Daisy, and we all adore her. She
did not die ; Mr. Henry James resuscitated her in the play which
he wrote about her. Dodo, on the other hand, is a detestable
minx, and her eternal patter has no wit to recommend it. If
Dodo is our low water— mark, and if Daisy is yours, we are lost
indeed. But, if French novelists are right, you have a water
mark much lower than Daisy ; and if some of your own novelists
are right, I prefer your low water-mark to your high. Nay,
surely there are worse lasses in America than pretty, innocent,
pathetic Daisy. You are mortal, after all.

But there are other considerations. Such a yell was raised
against Mr. James for his little masterpiece, that only very un
usual courage would enable an American novelist to draw Ameri
can woman at a lower water-mark. We, here, say what we please

" TENDENCIES * IN FICTION. 159

Thackeray could draw Blanche Amory and Becky, without being
called a bad Englishman. You know what happened to Mr.
Henry James, when he sketched an American girl, not bad (as
some think Becky was), not a petty minx, as Blanche was, but
mal elev'ee. Mr. James was said to have libelled his country
women, or a class of his countrywomen. That was his crime.
Now, pray observe, Dodo is not supposed by T. W. H. to repre
sent English women, nor even a class of English women. In
England we never dreamed of thinking that Dodo represented a
class. On the other hand, the author of the novel was said, no
doubt hastily, to have sketched a living person. To have done so
would have been to commit an outrage. T. W. H. speaks of
" the supposed original " and mentions that "she was recently
married." If all this were true, Dodo would, of course, be not a
type, but a real person ; no class of English women would be
represented by her. As a matter of fact, the author of Dodo did
not even know in the most casual manner, the person to whom T.
W. H. obviously refers. Again, the crime of Dodo, is, in my
opinion, that she is a chattering bore. But T. W. H. complains
of her guilt in " neglecting a too loyal husband," in leaving her
child to dance with an old lover, and in dancing skirt dances, as
it were, on the grave of the babe. Well, if the " original " was
married after the publication of the novel (as T. W. H. says),
obviously the fancied original cannot have been guilty of the ex
cesses which T. W. H. so justly reprobates. But it is all of no
importance. Dodo, if we accept all this gossip, is not a type of
English woman, but is an individual. Daisy, on the showing of
Mr. James's enemies, represented a class. The Dodo is an ex
tinct bird ; or was copied from la belle Stuart, in Grammont.
The only " tendency " worth noticing, is the very general ten
dency to detect personal caricature in fiction. " Society " novels,
bad at best, are apt to sin in such caricatures, drawn by dull
people who do not even know the originals. Moreover, even if
there were a real Dodo, she could not become the founder of a
sect. Nefaict ce tour qui veult.

And now shall we discuss Les Demi Vierges 9 No, because the
society, the bad society, is that of cosmopolitan Paris. "We are
not responsible for the vagaries of that international chaos.

Happily there are other " tendencies " than those of frivolity,
fashion, bad taste, vice, sham social science, sciolistic theology,

160 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and hysterics. There is the good old tendency to love a plain
tale of adventure, of honest loves, and fair fighting. We have
Gentlemen of France, we have knob-nosed Kaffirs and battles
with sacred crocodiles, we have TJie Prisoner of Zenda, that
pleasingly incredible scion of German royalty, we have Micah
Clarke, and Tlie White Company, and Mr. Stevenson's Highland
ers and Lowlanders. Here is primitive fiction: here is what men
and boys have always read for the sheer delight of the fancy.
The heroines are stainless and fair, the men are brave and loyal,
the villains come to a bad end, and all this is frankly popular.
We have no Scott, we have no Dickens, we have no Fielding, but we
have honest, upright romancers, who make us forget our problems
and the questions that are so much with us, in the air of moor
and heath, on the highway, on the battlefield, in the deadly
breach. Our novels in this kind are not works of immortal
genius: only five or six novelists are immortal. But the honest
human nature that they deal with, the wholesome human need
of recreation to which they appeal, — these are immortal and
universal.

ANDEEW LANG.

THE SOLUTION OF WAR.

BY THE EEV. DK. H. PEREIRA MENDES,

THE solution of war is Palestine.

" Palestine ?" readers will ask. " How can that or any other
country affect the abstract question of how to abolish war ? "

The cessation of war ! What a dream ! What a consumma
tion to be devoutly wished for !

Let calm, practical, sober logic be heard, and thousands of
men of common-sense will say it can never be.

But it is just calm, practical, sober logic which we would in
voke in order to show how great a step forward even this genera-
ation can take in the direction of the reign of law, the rule of
right, the cessation of war, and the maintenance of peace.

For what can be mare calm, more practical, more sober logic
tihan that which is associated with the domain of the lawyer ?
And it is to the lawyer, the passionless lawyer, we must look
for the initial labor, and for much more than is initial, in the
attempt to attain this much-desired end.

For undoubtedly it must be conceded that the power, gradually
developed, which has tended to prevent wars by diplomatic effort
— and in many an instance, has actually succeeded — is what is
known as international law. It follows, therefore, that for its
further efficacy or potency we must look to the masters of law,
who alone can unfold its possibilities.

International law has proved its usefulness many times and
in many directions.

In the minds of ordinary readers it is usually identified with
such questions as harbor, river, or fishery rights, rights of bellig
erents, protectorates, annexations, residents or capital in foreign
countries, navigation of the high seas, search rights, three-mile
limits, extradition, Monroe doctrine, protection versus free-

VOL. CLXI.— NO. 465. 11

162 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

trade, international copyright, patent or trade-mark law, inter
national cables, canals, tunnels, etc.

But as stated by Professor Amos, of University College, Lon
don, England, it has these additional functions to perform:

(a) To facilitate intercourse of states and their citizens in
time of peace.

(b) To obviate and determine the occasions of war.

(c) To moderate the severities and restrict the area of war.

A clear comprehension of international law is essential for
diplomatic settlement of international differences, and for the
extension of a recognition of its utility, wisdom, and justice.

Hence a codification is imperatively demanded in the interests
of peace, progress, and human happiness, to all of which war is
so distinctly inimical.

This codification should and would be s the embodiment of
the purest reason and the loftiest morality." It would have for
its sole end such an adjustment of the relations of the several
states of the world as would best enable each to contribute its
share to the welfare and moral advancement of all.

This would require a congress of the recognized leading jurists
of the world to form a scientific opinion upon the existing state of
international law ; to gather, collate, sift, and point all principles
and rules which affect or are likely to affect international inter
course, and to correct unjust precedents.

This would be a legitimate evolution from the beginnings of
Balthasar Ayala, Alberico Gentili, Grotius, Pufendorf and
Vattel, from the attempt of Prof. Bluntschli to correct " glaring
gaps, contradictions, and ambiguities, " and from Mr. Dudley
Field's able effort to present international law in an ideal form.

Such a codification would be the first step towards the pre
vention of war. And the prayers of the civilized world would be
with the governments convening such a congress of jurists, as
with the jurists themselves in their labors.

The second step would be the education of public opinion : —

(1) To recognize the equality of populations, morally and
spiritually, and to understand that even the smallest states have
rights and functions which ought to be respected.

(2) To encourage commercial and social intercourse between
nations and the consequent growth of mutual interests which
may not be lightly imperilled.

THE SOLUTION OF WAR. 163

(3) To extend proper political franchise and personal liberty.

(4) To cultivate a knowledge of what war means.

(5) To correct spurious patriotism, by which we mean patriot
ism based upon wrong or unjust argument. For example, French
patriotism cries for Alsace and Lorraine, but these provinces were
originally German. Why blame Germany for taking back what once
^as hers ? German patriotism says " Keep Alsace and Lorraine,
because they were originally German." Why then does not Ger
many restore Silesia, which properly is Austrian ? Italy made a
grand and successful fight for Italian independence, Germany for
German unity. Several 'powers strove nobly and sucessfully for
the independence of Greece. But the " spurious patriotism" of
the powers which "partitioned" Poland prevents the independence
and unity of that country — a country once not impotent in the
councils of Europe's nations and one to which Europe is as much
indebted for hurling back the tide of Mohammedan invasion
through her king Sobieski, as it is to Greece for stemming the
tide of Persian invasion through a Leonidas or a Themistocles.

Russia expels Catholics, Protestants, and Jews in pursuance of
the " Kussia for the Russians " policy. The civilized world calls
that a " spurious patriotism " which drives out or coops up law-
abiding and industrious citizens. The United States is, of all na
tions on earth, the most solemnly pledged to further the cause of
popular and constitutional liberty, of which she is the very apostle.
Yet a "spurious patriotism" makes her pronounce invariably for
Russia, where there is anything but popular or constitutional
liberty— shall we say especially where England is concerned ?
Never is American patriotism more spurious than when it is
called forth against that very England to which she owes so
much that is glorious in her fibre, her sentiments, her literature,
her institutions, her liberties, and most important of all,
her very religion ! Never is it more spurious and more re
grettable than when it impedes the natural destiny of Anglo -
Saxondom — ultimate union to the real advantage of each of its
constituent nations.

Following the codification of international law and the edu
cation of public opinion, a third step towards the prevention of
war would be the institution of arbitration as an accepted prin
ciple, and its recognition as the duty and prerogative of an inter
national court, duly and permanently established.

164

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

As to the actual and possible wrongs of war we need only re
capitulate its costs and curses, viz. :

(a) Standing armies, or millions of men consumers instead of
producers ; the general community therefore not only taxed to
support them, but deprived of their contributions toward the
general prosperity, and toward the lessening of the general
burdens.

(b) The withdrawal of just so many brains and pairs of hands
from the agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and other in
dustries, and from laboratory, study, and office, wherein means
are devised for enterprises which would- supply work for thou
sands of men and women, to the increase of the country's re
sources.

The following figures are significant :

Cost of army
and navy.

Revenue.

Men withdrawn
from industrial
pursuits'.

Taxes could
be reduced.

France

$174.000,000

$670,000,000

500.000

One-Quarter

England

180000000

488 000 000

360000

One-third

Germany
United States

118,000,000
80,000,000

300,000,000
385,818,629

500,000
30,000

One-third.
One-fifth.

In twenty European states the cost of army and navy is
$1,638,000,000; debt, $25,000,000,000 ; soldiers, or men withdrawn
from industrial pursuits, available 22,621,800 ! That is to say,
there are 22,000,000 standing arguments against a religion of
peace and good will ; 22,000,000 arguments against any claim fora
civilization more ethical than that of old Rome ; 22,000,000 argu
ments to show that it is time to make religion a power for good —
the life-influencing power it was meant to be.

(c) War means "glorious victories," which term, translated
into plainer English, means thousands of widows, more orphans,
countless broken hearts, shadowed lives and shattered homes ;
brave men killed, more wounded, vet more stricken with diseases
caught in the field ; strong men made burdens for life on the
community ; and in this country the awful scandal and far-
reaching injustice of the pension list.

(d) War means military and naval budgets, which summon
the clouds of national bankruptcy and keep aglow the embers of
discontent. Witness Italy to-day.

(e) Legacies of national hatred, jealousy, and ill-feeling. We

THE SOLUTION OF WAR. 165

note a regrettable change in French sentiment towards England,
due to clashing Eastern interests. Imagine war between France
and Great Britain ! They have been friends for decades and are
bound by myriad ties. It is no impossibility. But what a blot
on civilization ! They would be face to face as foes in Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America ! It would mean a spread of the blood
lust which lurks in men's hearts. It would mean endless com
plications. Few countries in the world but would feel them.
Few homes in both lands but would sympathize with hearts dark
with the shadow of death. Few hearts but would be wrung with
the echoing moan of sorrow. Alas ! It would mean kinsman
against kinsman.

(/) War means the brute argument of tooth and claw. What
an insult to our intelligence ! What an insult to Christianity,
the religion professed by earth's great nations ! Yet we are told
that preparation for war is a necessity. Gladstone expressed
his misgivings to a parliamentary deputation, asking that over
tures be made for a mutual disarmament of the powers, and he
spoke as premier of England ! Caprivi put his foot on the
mere proposition ! And he spoke as Chancellor of mighty Ger
many.

Arbitration is suggested as a remedy.

The examples already offered, especially by England and the
United States, are brilliant pages in the annals of humanity.

From a paper of Professor Semmes, of the Louisiana Univer
sity, read at the recent Chicago Religious Congress, we learn
that the idea and practice of arbitration for national differences
have steadily gained ground. This is the best, because most prac
tical, argument for its utility. He says that from 1793 to 1848,
a period of fifty-five years, there were nine such arbitrations —
only nine. In the next twenty-two years there were fifteen, in
the next ten years there were fourteen, and in the last thirteen
years there have been thirteen ; that is to say, in the last forty-
five years arbitration has averted forty-two wars.

But arbitration has its dangers. The care which must be ex
ercised in selecting arbitrators shows to what an extent distrust
exists.

Small powers are often chosen, as if the greater the power, the
greater the possibilities of interests being involved which might
warp judgment.

166 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

For example. Suppose England and Russia clash in the
East — no remote contingency — can England accept France as
arbitrator ? Not at all. For France is irate with England and
is the sworn friend of Russia, upon whose power alone she relies
for help against the Dreibund. Nor would any of the latter be
acceptable to Russia. And it is useless concealing the spurious
patriotism which makes the United States imagine that her
interests lie in the weakening or humiliation of England, a senti
ment which sufficiently excludes her good offices.

Another possible complication is France and Russia versus the
Dreibund. England is out of the question as arbitrator, and the
United States leans too much for obvious reasons, to France and
Russia.

But let us ask : Does it accord with the dignity of the great
powers to ask a second-rate or third-rate power to arbitrate ?

A modification of arbitration is that it be submitted to com
petent lawyers. But natural, even though it be spurious, patriot
ism again enters here as a possible element, and amour propre is
not an impotent factor in judgment.

Granted that kings, statesmen, and lawyers of high repute are
gentlemen of honor, and as judges would always act as such, yet
if this be so and always was so, how is it that so many wars have
taken place between nations that refused all diplomatic settle
ment, including arbitration 9

Not that the proposition to have a court of lawyers is at all a
bad one. On the contrary, it is a decided step forward. But it
is a suggestion which needs development.

At present it serves admirably to introduce what we mean by

PALESTINE THE SOLUTION OF WAR.

It is true that arbitration is the only becoming solution of the
problem how to abolish war.

But there must be some established arbitrative power to which
disputing nations can appeal.

1. It must be above suspicion.

2. It must be removed from any chance of being biased by
any possible political considerations.

3. It must have a moral, and if need be, a physical force be
hind it to enforce its decisions.

There is but one arbitrative power which can fulfil all these

THE SOLUTION OF WAR. 167

requirements, and we offer it because it comes from that book
which has already given mankind so many practical ideals —
the Bible.

But it involves the restoration of Palestine to the Hebrew
nation. The mere suggestion of this opens a vista of practical
results of tremendous importance, if we will only pause to merely
glance at them. For it means :

(a) The solution of the vexed Eastern question, the political
rivalries and jealousies in the East. These affect all the powers, for
England cannot afford to have another power on the highway be
tween her and her Indian and Australian empires. France chafes
already at England in Egypt. Austria and Italy have Mediter
ranean interests which may not be overshadowed ; and Russia
considers she is bound by political and religious motives to have
Palestine herself.

(b) The solution of religious rivalries and jealousies which affect
the three great religious worlds of Catholic, Protestant, and Greek
Church. None can afford to have the other supreme in the land
whose very dust is so sacred to all.

(c) The erection of the Hebrew nation by the powers into a
neutral state, its boundaries prescribed by the Bible limitation
(Gen. xv. 18-21 ; Deut. xi. 24), so that it could not possibly have
any territorial ambition beyond them, nor could it ever be exposed
to political intrigue for its own aggrandizement.

(d) The opening up of a vast commerce, for which the He
brews are peculiarly qualified by commercial genius, and for which
they are prepared by their commercial establishments in all coun
tries, which would be maintained and continued. (See Isa. Ixi. 9.)
In this commerce all nations would advantageously participate.
For Palestine, geographically, is the natural converging point of
the trade routes between two continents, Europe and Africa on one
side, and two continents, Asia and Australia, on the other. Tyre,
Sidon, Elath, Ezion-Geber, Beyrout, Haifa, and Acre among
her ports would speedily become the London, Marseilles, New
York, or Hamburg of the East. And while to them the ships of
the world would ' ( fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows "
(Isa. Ix. 8), the hum of industry's pauseless fingers would be the
psalm of life of myriads in a land once a granary of the world,
the successors of the myriads of whose existence the countless
ruins of to-day are the dumb but heart-moving witnesses.

168 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

(e) It would mean the solution of the so-called Jewish ques
tion, whether it ia Kussian Pan-slav policy or Franco-German
anti-semitism which propounds it. And the Hebrew nation of
to-day, by its eminence in finance, letters, science, and trade, de
serves attention for reasons which need not here be noted.

(/) And it would mean the fulfilment of two Bible ideals of
vital importance to humanity. The one is "a house of prayer
for all nations " (Isa. Ivi. 7). This would be erected in the same
broad spirit which made King Solomon pray when he dedicated
his temple : " And also the stranger who is not of Thy people
Israel, and cometh from a far-off land, because of Thy Name,
when they hear of Thy great Name and Thy strong hand and
Thine outstretched arm, and he come and pray to this temple, 0
do Thou hear in Heaven the place of Thy dwelling and do all
that the stranger crieth to Thee for!" (I. Kings viii. 41 seq.)
This would mean the quickening of the idea of the Brotherhood
of Man, recognizing the Father of all of us.

And the other ideal would be the institution of a world's
court of arbitration, when "out of Zion shall go forth law, and He
will judge between the nations and reprove many peoples ; and
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation,
neither will they learn war any more." (Isa. ii. 3-4; Micah iv. 2
and 3.)

If the codification of international law by the chief jurists
of the world is the first step towards the solution of war and the
education of public opinion to the cost, the injustice, the horror,
and the shame of war is the second, this creation of an interna
tional court of arbitration is the final step and the guarantee of
peace and its blessings. It would be based upon such codification,
its force would rest secure in public opinion. The administra
tion of international law would be intrusted to the said court,
each member of which would be a graduate in international law,
high in rank among the learned of the Hebrew nation, esteemed
as an authority on the polity of nations by the world at large and
known to be in life sans peur et sans reproche. We say Hebrews,
because the Hebrew nation alone has and can have no political
interests outside its Bible boundaries to bias its decision. Arbi
tration, impartial and honorable, will thus be rendered by a court
of a nation whose very existence will depend upon impartiality ;

THE SOLUTION OF WAR. 169

whose past history will cry to it to judge righteously and fearlessly.
Its environment will be the Temple, dedicated to the Father of
all ; and over its members will be the halo of religion.

That it would take years to codify international law and edu
cate public opinion against war, yes. But what are a few years in
view of the advantages to be ultimately gained ? And it may be
years before the final step can be taken, the restoration of Pales
tine to the Hebrews, for this is not to be until God's own time
(Isa. Ix. 22). The colonies, settled and settling there, seem but
preparatory for their reception. But once a fait accompli, a gen
eral disarmament could then be safely expected and safely effected.

What if a nation should refuse to abide by the law going forth
from Zion ? It is a very remote contingency. The very treaty
erecting Palestine into a neutral state, and clothing its court of
international arbitration with its functions, would provide for
just such a contingency. The moral force of the educated public
opinion would speedily bring a recalcitrant nation to its senses.
How could it withstand a threatened ostracism, or a combina
tion of physical force or other penalties ? But the time will
come, it must come, when nations "will not learn war any more"
and when humanity's watchwords at last will be Eight and
Eeason instead of Might and Treason.

Before our eyes rises a picture of the nations restoring the
Hebrews " as an offering," as the prophet phrases it (Isa. Ixvi.
20) : shall we say as " an amendment offering "for the injustice of
lead-footed centuries ? We dream of that martyr-nation of history,
" despised and rejected," as that very prophet foretold, "wounded
through others' transgressions, bruised through others' iniquities,"
at last rightly, justly, lovingly dealt with !

But with the picture and the dream, and far surpassing both
in beauty, we behold a vision of peace and goodwill at last on earth
— or as the psalmist grandly words it : "Love and truth meet
ing, righteousness and peace embracing, truth springing forth
from earth, and charity looking down from heaven " (Ps. Ixxxv.).

0 that some statesman would crown his life by reaching
out to turn war with its cost, curse, and crime, into a realization
of the ideal of prophet and psalmist !

H. PEREIEA MESTDES.

THE YACHT AS A NAVAL AUXILIARY.

BY THE HON. WILLIAM MCADOO, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF

THE NAVY.

THE true yachtsman is a genuine sailor in whose breast is
that strong, enduring love of the sea that voluntarily braves its
dangers and shrinks not from its possible privations and discom
forts. His is the eye quick to catch the lines of beauty, the
grace of form, and the elements of strength and utility in all
manner of craft that go down to the sea. If he is worthy of this
royal sport, his soul has heard and responded to the voice of
nature, and to him the olden gods of wind and wave are no longer
myths but eternal verities, speaking to him of mysteries and
secrets that the profane heart cannot understand. Man first
built vessels of necessity and utility, then ships of war, and lastly
those for pleasure, and the last is first cousin to the second, and
the country which produces them in numbers has got the naval
spirit. The modern well-conditioned yacht assimilates her life as
nearly as possible to that of the war ship in her order, discipline,
etiquette, and even outward emblems and signs, and as a general
rule all yachtsmen are the warmest and closest friends of the
naval establishment. They have for many years been the most
earnest advocates of a naval reserve, and are to-day, to a large
extent, the stimulus that helps forward the existing naval militia.

The growth of yachting in the United States in the last
twenty years, marvellous as it has been, is but one of the many
signs of the turning of our people again to the sea, and the re-
establishment of our merchant marine in the proud position it
held in the days of the famous clipper ships. At heart we are a
maritime people, and, possessing, as we do, a long stretch of
coast, enclosing broad arms of the sea, it is not surprising that

THE YACHT AS A NAVAL AUXILIARY. 171

yachting is growing in popularity. No other country affords
such broad expanses of sheltered waters as Massachusetts Bay,
Long Island Sound, the Chesapeake, the sounds of the Carolinas,
Mobile Bay, Santa Barbara Channel, San Francisco Bay, Puget
Sound, and the great and lesser lakes, with their numerous trib
utaries and adjacent harbors.

On January 1st of this year there were ninety regular organ
ized yacht clubs and four auxiliary associations in the United
States. The yachts are owned either by clubs, by two or three
owners associated together, or by individuals who can afford to
own one or more on their own account. There are about two
thousand two hundred and fifty of this last named class in this
country, and quite a number of them own two or three each. In
all the remainder of this hemisphere there are but seven yacht
clubs all told, three in Canada, and one each in Nova Scotia,
Cuba, Jamaica, and the Argentine Republic. The state of New
York heads the list with thirty-two clubs ; Massachusetts has nine
teen ; New Jersey, ten ; Connecticut, seven ; California and
Rhode Island, three each ; Maine, Pennsylvania, Maryland and
Florida, two each ; North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and
Louisiana, one each ; and there are ten clubs along the Lake re
gion on our northern boundary, two of which are included in the
thirty-two credited above to New York. Of the clubs enumerated
as to States, at least forty are located in New York harbor, Long
Island Sound, and their adjacent waters. The interior waterway
communication along our coast line, so well illustrated in the re
cent trip of the torpedo boat " Gushing/' gives additional im
petus to yachting through the enormous water course it is now
possible to traverse in even the smallest class of yachts with per
fect safety, and to the rivalry thus offered through visiting yachts
from various sections of the coast.

What is or may be, from a naval standpoint, the value of all
this individual and organized effort ?

There are two elements to be considered : First, the men ;
and second, the yachts themselves. Both are now of value to
the country, the yachts in the lesser degree than the trained
yachtsmen, but both may be made of greater value by a proper
appreciation of their possibilities. The men, through their ex
perience in handling yachts under all conditions of sea and
weather, through their acquired knowledge of the waters in which

172 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

they cruise, and through their general nautical training, offer a
magnificent field for the formation of State naval militia organi
zations and ultimately for a national naval reserve. And while
few yachts are so constructed as to be of much use in time of
war, yet the possibilities are such that, by mutual agreement be
tween yacht owners and the government when the plans are
under consideration, they may be constructed to answer the
double purpose of yachts in time of peace and naval auxiliaries
in time of war.

The fostering of a reserve of men and ships, supplemental to
the regular forces, is only second in importance to the creation of
a navy itself. Maritime power goes hand in hand with naval
power, for a commercial marine can only be built up and main
tained coincidently with the creation of an efficient navy. Un
questionably the building of war ships has contributed largely to
the renewal of our ship building industries, and the study of
ship construction for war purposes has served the double purpose
of improving the details, and of raising the standard of the
tests and requirements, of ship building in general. In the especial
construction of vessels such as the "St. Paul" and "St. Louis "
as naval auxiliaries, we note the gradual approach of types of ships
in which the commercial and naval ideas are blended. A similar
approach in type of steam yachts and the smaller auxiliaries of the
navy, is sure to come later.

It takes longer to make seamen, however, than to make ships.
That our present naval personnel is inadequate, even for peace
conditions, is shown by the increase on July 1st of this year of
the complement of men in our navy by 1,000, simply because we
have recently added a few new ships to the navy, yet the total
force at present is only 10,000 men. At the breaking out of the
Civil War the complement had been fixed at 7,600. By July,
1803, there were 34,000 in the service, and when the war closed
there were 51,500 enrolled in the navy. Our merchant marine,
then glorious in its extent, furnished most of these ; but where
shall we look for our reserve now ?

At the end of the war there were 7,600 officers in the navy,
and 671 ships in commission. Of the officers, but one-seventh
were regulars. Where shall we get others now ? Of the ships,
but 277 were built by the government. Where shall we get our
auxiliaries now ? Our merchant marine is small, and modern

THE YACHT AS A NAVAL AUXILIARY. 173

naval requirements are different, the naval profession being so com
plex; where, therefore, are we to get our reserve of men and
ships ? They can no longer be picked up under the spur of
necessity. It is now a question of systematic, steady preparation
and organization in time of peace.

The naval militia organizations, as bred and created largely in
a yachting atmosphere and now existing in thirteen States, with
a present complement of 226 officers and 2,706 men, are the first
auxiliaries to be considered. The existing naval militia is pri
marily a State organization, dependent largely upon local and State
support, and enrolled as part of the National Guard. It is not a
true naval reserve which should owe allegiance only to the gen
eral government and be subject solely to the naval regulations
governing the general service. While subject, however, to State
control, the naval militia is kept in constant touch with the regu
lar establishment by receiving, for arms and equipments, in each
State, a portion of the $25,000 annually appropriated for its en
couragement by Congress, and distributed by the Department
under such rules as are deemed wisest and best for the object to
be accomplished. Congress has also authorized by law the loan
of unused ships and other property to States having organized
and equipped naval militia. The ships so loaned are those out of
commission and unsuited for regular naval service. The greatest
difficulty now encountered is to find a sufficient number of such
vessels to meet the demand. The discarded wooden ships of the
old navy make most excellent inshore armories for these organiza
tions, but, unfortunately, these have nearly all been disposed of
by sale or otherwise. Following the spirit, as well as the letter of
the law, the Department has endeavored to give to these organiza
tions every possible encouragement, keeping them in touch with
the navy by advice on all professional subjects, inspection by
officers whenever desired, issuing printed documents for their in
struction, opening up to them all sources of professional informa
tion, and giving them each summer an opportunity for a short
cruise on some of the ships in the regular service, where, in addi
tion to being taught somewhat of the manifold duties of a man-
of-warsman, they are enabled to practise firing the great guns
at a target from the moving ship. They are also allowed to
draw at first cost arms and equipments from the portion of the
national allowance allotted to their State. As a result, in some

174 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the States, the naval militia is the best armed military body
in the State, having rapid fire guns of the very latest pat
tern, magazine rifles, and good serviceable navy revolvers. All
this, however, would be of little avail without intelligent, persis
tent, and enthusiastic individual effort and the support of the
State to whose forces they belong. It is but right that it should
be said here that some of the States have been most liberal and
progressive in encouraging and aiding this new arm of defense.
In the States where the organization is best and most efficient
these results have been secured by great labor, patience, and tact.
There were and are sources of opposition calling forth determina
tion and sound judgment.

What is the future of the naval militia ? Will it grow
into a true naval reserve under national auspices, such for
instance as that possessed by England ? In time of war,
where will be its most practicable field ? Manning sea coast
batteries, inner line coast defense ships, or furnishing crews
to the regular sea-going fighting vessels ? As to all this, the
best officers in the service differ ; and indeed at this moment,
the possibilities of the organization are so great and its field so
wide that no one can give categorical replies to these queries.
That it is a good organization for the country scarcely any one
will deny. It is now largely in its formative period, and when
wisely led, is following the line of least resistance in search of its
best field of usefulness as a part of the national defense of the coast
and on the high seas. It is everywhere doing good, hard, honest,
preparatory work, often under very discouraging circumstances ;
is full of naval enthusiasm ; and willing to make sacrifices and
undergo hardships. As a purely local organization in the large
cities having navigable water front, it will, in case of need, be
found a most efficient military body doing work which could not
be done, at least so well, by the purely land forces. Its rapid
growth in many States without any concerted movement or official
encouragement is especially suggestive of the active and un
selfish spirit of patriotism to be found in our country.

The sea-going yachts give to yachtsmen the very best training
in seamanship and navigation, but it is to the steam yacht in
particular that we must look for the auxiliary vessel for naval
purposes in time of war. Three types of these are now being
developed.

THE YACHT AS A NAVAL AUXILIARY. 175

. 1st. The large, full-powered steam yachts like the " Atlanta,"
" Corsair," " Conqueror," " Columbia," " Electra," " Eleanor,"
"Margarita," "May," "Namouna," " Nourmahal," "Oneida,"
" Peerless," " Sagamore," " Sapphire," " Utowana," and
" Valiant."

2d. The auxiliary type with moderate steam and sail power,
as illustrated by the " Intrepid " and " Wild Duck."

3d. The high speed boats for sheltered waters and compara
tively short runs, like the " Now Then," " Say When," " Hel
vetia," " Norwood " and a host of others.

The first and third classes might be utilized as torpedo boats
by considerable alterations in the direction of removing unneces
sary weights and strengthening the decks, but the types in the
future, by conforming in the plans to one or two necessary con
ditions, might be made to answer all the purposes of the owner
in time of peace and of the government in time of war. Just
how this agreement would be arrived at between the owner and
the government is a question depending largely upon the patri
otic impulses of the owners and upon the liberality of the gov
ernment in the way of guarantees. For instance, the government
might furnish inspectors to superintend the building ; provide
all the supports, racks, bulkheads, fittings and outfits of a mili
tary character ; have the yachts regularly inspected as to hull,
fittings and machinery and the competence of the master and
engineers ; and finally, enroll them in a naval reserve, with the
right to fly a special flag and to uniform their officers and crew
in conformity therewith. .

In return, the government should have the right to charter or
purchase them in time of war, and, by special agreement, to use
them for a few days each year for drill or training purposes at a
time when the owners would need them least. Granting that
this system would not spoil a yacht in any way for the purposes
for which the owner built her, and that the cost to the govern
ment, outside of the actual inspection and the war materials,
should be more or less nominal and should in no circumstances
include anything in the nature of a bonus, it would seem that
the advantages on both sides might be sufficient to warrant
a trial of the system. There are, and probably always will
be, numerous Whitehead and Howell torpedo oufits stored at
the Torpedo Station, at Newport, K. I., and the process of

176 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

fitting out or converting a yacht would only occupy a few
days.

There are three methods of installing the tubes from which
the torpedoes are fired: 1st, over all; 2d, between decks; and 3d,
below the water line. The last named is very expensive and
need not be considered. It is the height of the upper deck
above the water that determines which of the other two is used.
Eleven feet is considered the limit at which a torpedo may be
launched. If the upper deck is higher than this, the installation
must be between decks. This necessitates extra weights, as the
shutter for the tube and the ball joint for training a beam are re
quired. The question of weights is most important.

Whitehead torpedoes weigh about 850 pounds each, and at
least two are carried for each tube. Except in time of war or
during periods of drill, the torpedoes would not be carried on
board. The number of tubes would depend on the size of the
yacht. The lower deck tubes, mounts, deck circles, etc., weigh
about 2,800 pounds, and the upper deck fittings, complete, about
2,100 pounds. Each yacht would require a Bliss air compressor,
with separator and accessories, weighing about 475 pounds.

The Howell torpedo weighs about 514 pounds. Weights are
practically the same for the mounts, but no air compressor is
needed. A boiler pressure of 80 pounds of steam is, however, re
quired to operate the fly-wheel.

As regards the weight of battery, any type of one-pounder
rapid-fire gun will weigh with mounts from 225 to 275 pounds,
and the boxes of ammunition about 122 pounds each.

Within the limits of this article it has been impossible to speak
of the great mass of small steam and sailing craft which are
sailed and managed by their owners, who are in large part young
men and boys strongly imbued with a love of things nautical
and who, in case of necessity, being highly intelligent, more or
less skilled in the arts of the sailor, and deeply patriotic, could be
relied on as a most excellent and efficient force for naval
defensive operations.

The eager and enthusiastic yachting spirit now abroad
in our land bodes well, not only for the navy, but for the mer
chant marine, to see a healthy revival of which is the ardent hope
of all who love the Republic.

WILLIAM MCADOO.

WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING.

«
BY SIR BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON, M. D., F. R. S.

IT HAS been my lot for so long a series of years to be concerned
in the art and practice of cycling that the various effects of it,
good and bad, have become with me a matter of common observa
tion. I feel as conversant with the details as if they formed a part
of my prof essional life, and this fact enables me to speak with a cer
tain degree of confidence, which is strengthened by the circum
stance that I have no kind of prejudices bearing upon the subject.
Cycling came before me in the first place in what may be called
an accidental manner. I had been presiding at a sanitary con
gress held at Leamington, in the county of Warwick ; the first
held in England in which matters relating to health alone were
introduced. Connected with this congress was a large sanitary
exhibition ; and amongst the exhibits there were a few bicycles
and one of the first machines manufactured in this country in the
shape of a tricycle. This tricycle was worked by what was called
lever movement ; the pedal, now so universal, not having been
then applied to tricycles. The late Sir Edwin Chadwick, one of
the Vice-Presidents of the congress, who, though far advanced
in life, was as alert as a schoolboy on all inventions that pre
sented novelty and that affected the health of the body, had his
attention called to this new machine. Greatly struck by it and
by the good work that could be done upon it, he promised to
bring me next day to see it in action, and so, accompanied by a
large number of the council of the congress, I went with him and
had the whole thing explained to me by the exhibitor. Seeing
that movement upon it w.as comparatively simple, I had the ma
chine brought out to an asphalt passage leading to the main road,
and straightway mounted it. The attendants were prompt in their
efforts to prevent my sustaining injury from the venture. But

VOL. CLXI.— NO. 465. 12

178 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

all idea of danger rapidly disappeared, and I very soon ran away
from my protectors, reached the main road, which lay at a right
angle from the asphalt passage, proceeded a good half mile on my
own account, and returned in triumph, to the great delight of
the lookers-on. From that day until now I have been a cyclist.
I very soon had a machine of my own, choosing what was called
a " Rob Roy," in which the levers were replaced by pedals, a
very nice instrument, which had, however, the misfortune of be
ing what is called a " single-driver "; that is to say, progression
upon it was by the work of one wheel. Then followed the
" Salvo," in which machine the late Mr. Starley, of Coventry,
got over the difficulty of the single wheel by the compensation
process, and turned out a' really admirable instrument, one of
which kind I rode for several years with great comfort and safety,
and which, in fact, I still retain. It was a very heavy machine,
weighing about 120 pounds. The wheels were unnecessarily high
and the gearing was low, but, nevertheless, I got on with it,
climbing the hills with great ease, and, as the brake was perfect,
went down hills with a rapidity and safety that could not easily
be excelled. Later on I followed the various improvements of
machines using two trackers.

My experience has all been, personally, with the tricycle, but
my observation has extended also to bicycles through the ex
periences of those who have been my companions, for very soon I
found companionship in cycling more than in any other pastime,
and it is from such experiences, together with my own, that I
write what is subjoined.

From the first my impressions have been always in favor
of cycling, and, to some extent, the expression of that favor on
certain public occasions has, I think, helped to popularize the
movement. I believe the exercise has been of the greatest service
to large numbers of people. It has made them use their limbs; it
it has called out good mental qualities, and it has taken away
from close rooms, courts and streets, hundreds of thousands
of persons who would otherwise never have had the opportunity
of getting into the fresh air and seeing the verdant fields and
woods, the lakes and rivers, and the splendid scenery that adorn
our land. This is all in favor of the cycle, the bicycle or tricy-
cle, but I have yet more to say in the same direction. I am
bound to indicate from direct observation that cycling has been

WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING. 179

useful in the cure of some diseases and that it is always carried on
with advantage, even when there is a marked disease. I have
seen it do a great deal of good to persons suffering from fatty dis
ease of the heart, from gout, from dyspepsia, from varicose veins,
from melancholia, from failure due to age, from some forms of
heart disease, from intermittent pulse and palpitation, and dis
tinctly from anemia. Moreover, I have known persons who could
not have been expected to ride without danger get on extremely
well in their riding, and have often, with due precautions, given
permission to ride even to some patients to whom five and twenty
years ago I should have forbidden every kind of exercise. These
truths I have proclaimed publicly without any hesitation, and
sometimes to the wonder of friends who still held views which I
had been compelled to discard.

But now it is my duty to speak on the other side and to report
such experience as yields evidence of dangers from cycling. I
shall speak on this point as explicitly as is necessary.

There are dangers from cycling. The first is the danger of
teaching the practice to subjects who are too young. Properly,
cycling should not be carried on with any ardor while the body
is undergoing its development — while the skeleton, that is to say,
is as yet imperfectly developed. The skeleton is not completely
matured until twenty-one years of life have be«n given to it. The
cartilaginous structures have to be transformed into true osseous
structures before the body can be said to be naturally perfected.
If it be pressed into too rapid exercise while it is undergoing its
growth it is the easiest thing in the world to make the growth
premature, or even to cause a deformity. The spinal column is
particularly apt to be injured by too early riding, and the exquisite
curve of the spinal column, which gives to that column when it
is natural such easy and graceful attitudes for standing erect,
stooping, and bending, is too often distorted by its rigidity or
want of resiliency. When that is the case the limbs share in the
injury. They do not properly support the trunk of the body,
and pedestrian exercise, thereupon, becomes clumsy, irregular,
and ungraceful. We see these errors particularly well marked in
the young, now that the cross-bar system of the cycle has come
so generally into use. The tendency in riding is for the body to
bend forward so as to bring itself almost into the curve of the
front wheel, and in this position many riders hold themselves for

180 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

hours, and the spine more or less permanently assumes the
bent position. In plain words, the column becomes distorted,
and through the whole life affects the movements of the body.

There are further injuries done to the youth, male or female,
through other organs of the body and especially through the
heart. Dr. Kolb, as well as myself, has found that it is the heart
which is principally exercised during cycling. So soon as brisk
cycling has commenced the motions of the heart begin to increase.
In this respect cycling differs from many other exercises. Kowing
tells most on the breathing organs ; dumb-bells and other exer
cises where the muscles are moved without progression of the
body, tell most on the muscles ; whilst in climbing and long
pedestrian feats it is the nervous system that is most given to
suffer. There is not a cycle rider of any age in whom the heart
is not influenced so as to do more work, and although in skilled
cyclists and trained cyclists a certain balance is set up which
equalizes the motion, such riders are not exempt from danger.
I have known the beats of the heart to rise from 80 to 200 in the
minute, in the first exercise of riding, an increase which, for the
time, more than doubles the amount of work done — a very serious
fact when we remember that the extreme natural motion of the
heart allows it to perform a task equal to raising not less than 122
foot-tons in the course of 24 hours, that is to say, over 5 foot-tons
an hour. In the young we may apply the same argument to the
heart as we have done to the skeleton ; the heart is undergoing
its development, and it is an organ which cannot without danger
be whipped on beyond its natural pace. What occurs with it
under such circumstances is that it grows larger than it ought
to grow, that it works out of harmony with the rest of the body,
and is then most easily agitated by influences and impressions
acting upon it through the mind. I have many times seen this
truth illustrated too plainly, and I doubt whether in the young,
after extreme exercise, such as that which arises from a prolonged
race, the heart ever comes down to its natural beat for a period
of less than three days devoted to repose.

In the young, excessive riding affects unfavorably the muscles
of the body generally, as well as the heart, which is itself a
muscle. Properly, the muscles go through stages of develop
ment just as the skeleton does, and to attain a truly good mus
cular form all the great groups of muscles ought to be evenly

WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING. 181

and systematically exercised. But cycling does not do that ; it
develops one set of muscles at the expense of the other. It does
not develop the chest muscles properly ; it does not develop the
arm muscles properly ; it does not develop the abdominal muscles
properly ; it does not essentially develop the muscles of the back ;
but it does develop the muscles of the lower limbs, and that out
of proportion to all the rest. I have a picture in my mind's eye
at this moment of a youth who, when stripped, was actually de
formed by the disproportionate size of the muscles of the calf of
the leg, and of the forepart of the thigh — an effect which un
balanced the body as a whole, and greatly impaired it for good
healthy action.

Lastly, in the young, cycling often tells unfavorably on the ner
vous function. The brain and nervous system, like skeleton and
muscle, have to be slowly nurtured up to maturity, and if they be
called upon to do too much while they are in the immature state,
if the senses of sight and hearing and touch have to be too much
exercised, even though by such exercise danger from collisions
may be skilfully averted, perhaps to the admiration of lookers-on,
there is a tax put upon those organs which makes them prema
turely old and unfitted for the more delicate tasks that have after
wards to be performed.

There are two classes of dangers arising out of overstrain in
cycling : the first may be called the extreme, the second the mod
erate danger. I will take the extreme first. This is shown in
those remarkable athletes who enter into competitions such as
have never before been dreamed of in the history of the world.
The results of such competitions have as yet excited comparatively
little notice among men who are specially skilled in estimating
their importance, but they convey the strangest intelligence as to
the physical capabilities of man. They show that men have been
found able to travel, by virtue of their own bodily energy, 400
miles at one effort. They show also that men can be trained to
perform this effort without sleep, and that the body can be kept
using itself up, as it were, for the long period of 40 hours. Sleep,
which the poet tells us " knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, is
the balm of hurt minds, and chief nourisher in Life's feast/' sleep,
which is the very harbinger of health, is here set aside, with the
result of a victory absolutely purposeless, at the expense of the
whole body. There has not been, as far as I can ascertain, a single

182 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

example of a feat of this kind being accomplished without direct
and immediate sign of injury. Finally, when the labor is done
there is the period of recovery which lasts for many hours, and is
in itself an ordeal which the strongest nature ought never to be
subjected to. The result is that these victims of extreme compe
tition last but few years in the ordinary condition of health and
strength.

In this criticism is included a summary of the objection which
has to be made to record breaking, a kind of absurd effort, the
end of which it is very difficult to foresee, for, unfortunately, it
maybe urged with apparent plausibility that it is good as prac
tice. The enthusiastic cyclists tell us that it is through record
breaking that all the great advances have been made. Record
breaking, they say, depends upon improvements which take place,
not simply in the work of the riders or in those who compete,
but also in the development of the machine itself. It has been
found, for example, that the lightening of the machine, the re
duction of its weight down even to twenty or thirty pounds, has
been one of the great achievements. A man put more work
originally into a machine weighing, say one hundred and twenty
pounds, while doing ten or fifteen miles an hour, than is now put
forth on a light machine doing over twenty miles an hour. There
is a great deal of truth in this statement, and I fully admit that
the record breakers have done service in making cycling, as an
art, a remarkable exhibition of human skill and endurance. I
have suggested for many years past that the end of these efforts
will be a transition to the domain of flight, and that a good flying
machine will ultimately come out of the cycle. The cycle, in fact,
will develop into the flying machine through the intervention
of wings, which will be workable by the power of the individual
alone or aided by some very light motor. It is, therefore, with
great reluctance, that I protest against the overstrain which I have
seen. It is a kind of self-martyrdom to which we may conscien
tiously give admiration and support.

The second effect of overstrain is rather a forced than a volun
tary martyrdom. Those who suffer from it are mostly young
persons, often mere boys, who are made to ply the machine, prob
ably heavily loaded, in commercial duties and business. It is
astonishing in this metropolis of London what an amount of work
a youth can be trained to do. He can really do the work of a

WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING. 183

horse, owing to the quantity and weight of goods he can distribute,
and the rapidity with which he can get through his task. There
is a little ambition about it also, for the young people often like
the exercise, and are proud of showing off their skill and energy,
while their employers, apprehending no evil from it, let them do
as much as ever they can. The result is a greatly expedited cir
culation in these young laborers and an extreme tension of the
heart and arteries, these organs being as yet immature and easily
over-expanded under undue pressure. The effects are not imme
diate, but they lead to enlargement or hypertrophy of the heart
and to those derangements of the blood vessels which follow upon
dilatation of the arterial circuit. Afterwards, when the maturity
is completed and the organs of the body cease to develop, there is
a disproportion between the vascular system and the other parts
of the body, which means general irregularity of function ; a
powerful left heart pulsating into a feeble body, and a powerful
right heart pulsating into the lungs. The effect must, of neces
sity, be injurious, and the fact is too well demonstrated in prac
tice. I have seen this enlargement and over-action in so many
instances I am convinced that when it is more correctly and widely
understood it will be recognized that cycling is one of the causes
of " disease from occupation," and that some public steps will
have to be taken to limit the danger. But the danger is not al
ways connected with occupation. Many well to do young persons
of both sexes, by the enthusiasm and competitive work they throw
into the exercise, become affected in a similar manner, and have
to be restrained, when that is possible, from too great an indulgence
in the pursuit.

In noticing these evils I have proceeded at once to the most
important central evil, that which applies to the heart and circu
lation from overstrain. But there are other phenomena I must
not let pass. There is often developed in the cyclist a general
vibratory condition of the body which is mischievous and is shown
in various acts of movement and thought. There are certain un
conscious or semi-unconscious movements of the body which be
come sensible to the subject himself at particular moments when
great steadiness is called for, as, for instance, when sitting for a
photograph. There is also shown an over desire for rapidity of
motion, as if it were necessary at every moment to overcome time
and curtail distance by labor of an extreme degree. Lastly, there

184 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

is developed a kind of intoxication of movement which grows on
the mind by what it feeds on and keeps the heart under the im
pression that it is always requiring the stimulation of the exercise.
These sensations, it will be said, are entirely "nervous," and
under a correct interpretation of the word I perfectly admit that
they are so. It is improper, at the same time, to consider that a
persistent sensation, or series of sensations, should be disregarded
altogether because they are what is called " nervous." A repe
tition of nervous phenomena produces, in a short time, a habit
that is strengthened by craving or desire, like the desire for al
cohol and other stimulants when the need is felt of whipping the
heart into a greater state of activity. I have long been of opin
ion that all cravings and impulses, indeed, spring from the heart
as from their centre or magazine, and not from an independent
brain ; as if, in short, the heart were the mind centre of motive
desire and action.

There are some further symptoms observable in many devel
oped men and women who indulge in cycling and which, though
they may be minor in degree, should not be neglected. In all
long tours carried out by cyclists we meet with these minor de
velopments and I candidly confess that, prudent as I have been
in my excursions^ I have experienced the symptoms myself. You
are out on a bright day skimming along the roads, with every
thing in favor of the exercise. You have gained your <f wind,"
that is to say, your breathing and circulation are going together
in harmony; you have lost the sensation of strain in the front
muscles of the thigh; your spirits are exhilarated as you pass
along ; you do not indulge in spurts but keep steadily at your
work, and as the day begins to close you are going so merrily
that you actually regret that the journey has come to an end.
You dismount for the night: you take, perhaps, a fair supper;
you luxuriate in a bath, and you go to bed. But when you get
into bed a most provoking thing occurs; you do not sleep ; you
are kept awake by a constant restlessness of the muscles. The
muscles of the lower limbs will not be quiet. They start you up
in twitches and if you look at the muscles, especially the muscles
in the calves of the legs, you see that they are in motion although
you may not feel them. I remember an instance in which the
observance of these muscular twitchings created actual alarm to
the rider, and I myself counted no less than sixty of them within

WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING. 185

the minute. They are muscular motions arising from an over-
irritable condition excited by the riding. They may extend even
to the muscles of the thighs and they always produce a restless
night. Toward the morning the muscles become more composed
and a heavy sleep follows, with a weary waking as if the body
were as tired on rising as it was on going to bed. Presently,
when the muscles are again exercised, the weariness passes away
and a repetition of the cycling effort actually, after a time, ap
pears to bring more relief, so that you cycle with the greatest
freedom. The continued exercise is, however, no real cure; the
phenomena are repeated, and cycling becomes at last a very weari
some pursuit. I have known actual breakdowns from this dis
tressing cause, and I warn all cyclists, but especially those who
have attained middle age, to moderate their enthusiasm whenever
they find that the motion of cycling long continued produces
muscular restlessness and impaired sleep.

The question has often been put to me whether dangers not as
yet referred to are induced or increased by the efforts of cycling.
Does hernia, or rupture, occur through cycling ? I can say fairly
I have never known it. Does enlargement of the veins increase
through cycling ? I can say fairly I have never known it ; on the
contrary I have, I think, seen a reduction of venous enlargement
under the exercise. Does congestion of the brain ever occur,
with giddiness or other symptoms referable to the head ? I confess
I have never known it, and I do not recall an example in which
owing to symptoms immediately induced any rider has felt it neces
sary to dismount from the machine. But there are two things
which I have witnessed and which I would like finally to record.

I have known persons of lymphatic and gouty tendency who
have taken to cycling and have felt at first great good from it.
They have become warm advocates of the pastime and, indulging
in it extremely, have suffered from their extreme devotion to
it. I have observed that certain of these have become depressed,
have lost tone, and have been obliged, peremptorily, to give up
the sport they were so fond of. I have also known amongst the
gouty a peculiar kind of gout induced by the exercise, and there
upon a dislike to it — a result which is rather unfortunate, as
well as unnecessary, because the injury has been brought about
by overdoing the thing, and by turning what would be useful into
an in j urious practice. In conclusion, though, as I have said, severe

186 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

head symptoms from cycling are unusual, it is within the range
of my experience to have known general injury in nervous sub
jects brought on by a too great stress of observation in riding,
such as is induced by the fear of collision in crowded thorough
fares, too rapid a motion in descending hills, or too severe a trial
in overcoming obstacles that caused the danger of a fall. I have
even known young people, not bad riders, injured by too great
trespass on nervous power, and I certainly would advise all timid
riders to avoid tempting Providence too far in trying to show off
their ability as against their better trained and cooler companions.

WARD RICHARDSON.

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.

BY WORTHINGTON C. FORD, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS
AT WASHINGTON.

INCREASED imports of merchandise, decreased exports of do
mestic products ; less gold imported, and more exported ; a
smaller import and export of silver ; a larger tonnage movement,
and a diminished immigration — such are the main features of the
trade and navigation of the United States in the fiscal year 1895,
just closed, compared with the results of the fiscal year 1894.
This is not on its face a very encouraging showing ; but it repre
sents far more than the bare statement shows. In June, 1894,
the situation had been one of extreme depression and financial
anxiety for more than a year. The Treasury gold was going out
at the rate of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars a day,
and was leaving the country in even larger amounts. The banks
were proffering " loans " of gold to stop a leak which seemed
unending. The Treasury had been once replenished, and yet
the reserve stood at a point lower than had been known since the
resumption of specie payments. Enterprise was paralyzed under
the strain, and the gloomiest predictions found ready endorse
ment in conservative circles. Small " armies " of paupers rov
ing the country were pointed to as an example of what the future
would reproduce on a large and dangerous scale. In June, 1895,
the financial aspect had been improved, but only by passing
through a crisis the like of which had not been experienced since
1873, perhaps not since Black Friday. The industrial prospects
had also brightened, and, last of all, trade rises in volume under
the stimulus of manufacturing demands, wider markets, and bet
ter prices. 1894 will be known as a panic year ; 1895 will mark
the turning of the tide from depression toward prosperity, abso
lute as well as comparative. The recovery has been slow, and at

188 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the same time rapid. There were evidences of better things a
year ago ; but six long weary years were needed to recover from
the consequences of 1873. To the approaching change the for
eign commerce of the country bears witness.

The imports of merchandise for the twelve months ending
June 30, 1895, were $731,960,319; those for the preceding year
were $654,994,622. There was an increase of $76,965,697, or
11.7 per cent. This increased import lay entirely in the dutiable
merchandise; $368,729,392 in 1895, and $275,199,086 in 1894.
The imports of merchandise free of duty differed in the two years
by about $16,000,000. The transfer of sugar from the free to
the dutiable side in great part accounts for this difference ; but
the certainty of duties in 1895 has encouraged imports, while the
uncertainty in 1894 was an effectual discouragement. In 1894
the exports of domestic merchandise were valued at $869,204,937 ;
in 1895, $793,553,018. The loss on domestic exports was $75,-
651,919, or nearly the same amount as was gained in the imports.
Including exports of foreign merchandise, the total trade of 1895
was $1,539,653,580, or $8,000,000 less than the total commerce of
1894. The very large excess of exports over imports which was
shown at the end of 1894, $237,145,950, was not repeated, for
the excess of exports in 1895 was only $75,732,942. It was re
markable that the trade conditions of 1894 did not lead to im
ports of gold in settlement of the apparent balance in favor of
this country ; and it is hardly likely that the smaller exports of
1895 can be an important factor in determining the commercial
movement of gold against the very much larger influence ex
erted by the transfer of American securities.

Less food was imported in 1895 than in 1894, more raw
materials for domestic industries, more partly manufactured
articles, and more manufactures for consumption. Allowing for
the disturbance due to the tariff contest, this showing may be
taken as evidence of a rising industrial movement, and no more
general index of economic condition can be found.

The movement of gold has been remarkable. The exports
for the twelve months were $66,131,183, and were made in the
first seven months— July to February. The imports were $35,-
120,331, making a net export of $31,000,000. This loss of gold
would have been much greater had it not been for the operations
of the syndicate. In the face of high rates of exchange and

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 189

a natural tendency for gold to leave the country in the spring
and summer months, little gold has been sent abroad, the Treas
ury has maintained the reserve, and, now that the crops will
come forward, the danger of a recurrence of a rush for gold is
believed to be reduced to a minimum.

The time was when the farmers of the United States were the
great feeders of grain and suppliers of fine cotton of the world.
Other peoples have developed in competing capacity in grain and
meats, and at no time has their ability been so great as at pres
ent. It was Russia and British India that were feared as com
petitors ; it is now the Argentine Republic, which appears to
have an almost unlimited power to grow and export wheat in
defiance of any competition. The agrarian policies of European
nations have also militated against American breadstuffs and pro
visions, as well by encouraging home production as by discourag
ing, even prohibiting, imports from the United States. No class
of articles has been so materially influenced by the fall in prices.
As early as 1885 wheat had fallen below the dollar mark, and
only in 1892 did it rise above it. But the export price of 1894,
67 cents, was unusual, and the still lower average of 1895, 57
cents, was demoralizing. Corn, in which no competition is felt,
was steadier in price , but the other breadstuffs were lower, and
the result in the aggregate is startling. The value of the bread-
stuffs exported in 1895 was about $115,000,000 ; and to find so
low a figure one must go back to 1877. A comparison of quan
tities will show how fallacious is such a test.

1877. 1895.

Barley 1,186,129 bush. 1,556,715 bush.

Corn.. 70,861,000 " 25,507.753 "

Oats 2,854,1*8 " 540,975 "

Rye 2,189,322 " 8,879 "

Wheat 40,325,611 " 75,831,639 "

Flour • 3,343,665 bbi. 14,942,647 bU.

It is wheat and wheat flour that have maintained the export,
though due allowance should be made for the deficient crop of
1876, which was smaller than any in the last twenty-one years.
Only 20 per cent, of that crop was exported, and 40 per cent, of
the crop of 1893 was thus available. The distribution of exports
in 1895 was normal, the few large differences being accounted
for by good home crops, making a foreign supply unnecessary.

Next in importance stand provisions: — meats and meat prod
ucts, and dairy products. The total value of exports in 1895

190 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

was not very different from that of 1894, seven or eight per cent,
less on $145,270,000. All beef and its products show an increase
over 1894, tallow alone excepted, which has been influenced by
the competition of Australia. Not in twenty years was the quan
tity of tallow exported so small as in 1895. Bacon, hams and
lard have met with greater favor, and the quantity of hams has
never been equalled in any previous year, for the export in 1895
will exceed 105,000,000 pounds. It is in Europe this increase has
found a market. Dairy products have declined in quantity as
well as in value.

The phenomenally low price of raw cotton has tempted heavy
purchases from abroad. If the crop year be taken, the exports
in the ten months ending June 30, 1895, were 3,427,845,710
pounds, against 2,566,982,921 pounds in the corresponding period
of 1894. Nearly 900,000,000 pounds more were sold in 1895 than
in the preceding year, and netted $3,400,000 less. The distribu
tion of this increased quantity may be taken as a fair indication
of the industrial countries which have felt the approach of better
demand for the manufactured goods. England naturally stands
first, taking 700,000,000 pounds more in 1895 than in 1894 ; Ger
many, France, and Italy will use 450,000,000 pounds in excess of
last year ; and even greater needs are indicated by the increased
exports to Mexico and Canada. One other country, the youngest
among nations and the youngest industrial power, will repay
careful study if her demand for American cotton may be taken
as an indication of growing competence. In the year 1894, less
than 5,000,000 pounds were exported to Japan ; in the year 1895,
the export was more than 11,000,000 pounds. This is the more
remarkable as Japan has British India and China as sources of
supply, and is known to draw heavily from them. This need for
our cotton points to positive development on the best lines of
manufacture. It is only five years ago that the United States
sent cotton cloth to Japan. Now Japan asks for raw cotton,
defeats British Indian competition in yarns, and threatens
English cloth with exclusion from the continent of Asia. Amer
ican cloth, by its low price and good quality, still finds favor in
the East. China, through her troubles, has imported less in 1895
than in 1894 by about 17,000,000 yards ; but other parts of Asia
and Oceanica made good 5,000,000 yards, and in South America
the market is increasing, save in the Argentine Kepublic. To

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 191

Brazil the exports have never been so large, in spite of the abro
gation of the reciprocity agreement ; while Colombia, which did
not enter into the agreement and in consequence had its coffee,
hides and skins subjected to a duty on entering the United
States, has again reverted to American cottons and surpasses the
demand in any previous year. Against these signs of advance
must be set a loss of two-thirds, or more than 10,000,000 yards,
in the Canadian market — due rather to bad times than to the
home industries of that colony.

American cotton is sold in competition with the cotton of the
East and Egypt, but so far surpasses in quantity, and, in the
case of India, in quality, that it holds its own. In neither country
is the power of the State exerted to encourage the planting and
push the sale. Russian petroleum is a more aggressive and dan
gerous rival to the American oil, and has succeeded, by treaty
provision, in almost excluding the illuminating oil of the United
States from certain markets. Neighborhood, and a large yield
of heavy oils, have contributed in part to this result ; but tariffs
and prejudice are more potent influences, and are able even to
overcome differences in price, quality and packing in favor of the
American product. The rise in the price of illuminating oil
during 1895 has given better returns to exporters than in any
year since 1891, but the quantity was exceeded in 1894. Severe
as the struggle for markets has been, the produce of the United
States has been successful, and the exports of 1895 — 885,000,000
gallons — are only 13,000,000 less than the exports of the banner
year, 1894. The increase was in Europe, and great as that has
been it was not sufficient to compensate for the losses in the East.

If any single item among the imports fixes the attention, it is
raw wool. This one article has been the subject of more political
discussion and economic experiment than any other to be found
in the list of imports or of domestic exports. Indeed, it has
only occasionally figured to any importance as an article of ex
port. It has been a source of pride that American wool has been
used in the home market, and every safeguard taken to prevent
its passing into foreign hands. At the outbreak of the civil war raw
wool was being exported to the amount of about 1,000, 000 pounds
each year, but in only one year (1886) did the quantity again
attain or exceed that limit. If 300,000 pounds were sent away
in one year, the quantity would be considered a large one, and

192 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the return of 1894, 477,182 pounds, was abnormal. In 1895 the
number of pounds exported was more than double the export of
any previous year, and exceeded 4,000,000 pounds. The details
are not so encouraging, for this quantity was mainly divided
between Mexico — not a manufacturing country — and Canada,
where a woollen industry does exist.

The success or failure of the experiment of free wool is yet to
be determined. Since September the wools of the world have
had free access to our markets for the first time since 1857, and
the quantity imported shows the privilege is being extensively
used, but it would be difficult to prove the imports excessive. In
1894 the uncertainties of what the issue of the tariff struggle
would be nearly cut off importations of wool. In the previous
year, 1893, when the movement was unhampered by any such
uncertainty, the total imports were 172,433,838 pounds, of which
122,386,072 pounds were of the low grade carpet wools, not pro
duced in the United States in quantities sufficient to meet the
wants of the manufacturers. In eleven mouths of 1895 the im
ports exceeded those of the year 1893, and the full year 1895 will
give a total of about 200,000,000 pounds. This increase is no more
than occurred between 1892 and 1893, and, representing two years,
cannot be regarded as unusual. What is noticeable is the in
crease in the finer grades — the clothing wools. In previous years
an import of between 50 and 60 million pounds would be taken as
a fair amount; in 1895 the quantity will be more than 90,000,000
pounds, or nearly one-half the entire wool importations. These
larger importations of raw wools have been accompanied by
smaller importations of woollen manufactures.

Prices of wools, both domestic and foreign, have ruled low,
very low, and in adapting the home-growing interest to the new
conditions introduced by the removal of the duty, some heavy
losses were entailed. The sale of American sheep abroad has
fluctuated widely. In 1883 the number was 337,251, and year
by year the number lessened, until only 37,260 were exported in
1893. In 1895 the export of 1883 was slightly exceeded, but a
few thousand in excess need create no apprehension, as proof of
an unprofitable industry. The situation of wool is peculiar in
every producing country, and enormous as the increased product
has been, it is doubtful if any check will be felt on a still greater
increase. In Australia the ranchmen are successfully overcom-

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 193

ing one of the most serious obstacles to the extension of sheep
raising, by sinking artesian wells and making pools or dams to
retain the water for their stock. The great London dealers in
wools, Messrs. Helmuth, Schwartz & Co., give a suggestive com
parison in the wool production in 1884 and in 1893.

1884. 1893.

Pounds. Pounds.

England 132,000,000 151,000,000

Continent of Europe 450,000,000 450,000,000

North America 350,000,000 377,000,000

932.000,000 978,000,000

Australia 408,000,000 632,000,000

Africa (Cape) 52,000,000 91,000,000

RiverPlate 322,000,000 365,000,000

Other 106,000,000 164,000,000

888,000,000 1,252,000,000
Total 1,820,000,000 2,230,000,000

The increased product for the first group was 5 per cent. ;
for the second group 40.9 per cent. ; and for both groups 22.6
per cent. While the populations of these countries have in
creased in the same time only 9.5 per cent., the yield of clean
wool has increased 19.4 per cent. * This in itself should explain
the low prices of wool, and in such matters an economic is more
permanent than a political cause.

The movement in iron and steel also is looked upon as a fair
measure of the industrial situation at home, and the same
measure may be applied to the import and export trade. In
1882 the heaviest imports of iron and steel and manufactures
were made, $70,551,497. Since that year the value has declined,
and in 1894 was only $20,559,368 — the lowest record since the
end of the depression of 1873-79. In 1882 the exports of iron
and steel and manufactures were valued at $20,748,206 — an
amount exceeded only in the single year 1871. In 1894 the ex
ports were $30,106,48.2 — a figure never touched before — and in
1895 this aggregate is surpassed by more than a million. Through
the long list of articles included in this class of manufactures
only a few show diminished exports ; the losses on pig iron, band
iron, cutlery, stationary engines and boilers, plate iron, printing
presses, railroad bars and sewing machines, are more than com
pensated by the additions on wire, stoves, firearms and bar iron.
Brazil is equipping her railroads with American engines ; and if
the Argentine Republic buys fewer locomotives of the United
States, it takes more cars and more agricultural implements,

"Statistics given by Messrs. Justice, Bateman & Co.

VOL. CLXI.— xo. 465. 13

194 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

both of which may widen the wheat area of that Republic and
enable it to compete to an even greater extent with the wheat
grower of the West.

The exports of copper ingots in 1894 greatly exceeded those
of any previous year, and were in great part caused by its de
mand in electrical appliances. The movement in 1895 was less
by nearly one- third though the price was sufficiently low to
warrant an increased consumption. Before 1894 the largest ex
port was 56,453,756 pounds sent chiefly to Europe in 1892; and
an export of 146,000,000 in 1895 is not one to give occasion to
any fears that copper of the United States can not hold its own
against the products of Chili and Spain. The exports of copper
ore have been declining for some years, and in 1895 barely one-
fifth the quantity of 1892 will be sent to the only consumer —
England. That country obtains large quantities of ore from
Venezuela, Spain, Cape of Good Hope and even Newfoundland.
France also imports the ore from Chili and in an indirect trade
through England.

Such are some of the leading elements in the foreign trade of
1895. It would be interesting to discuss them from the revenue
standpoint, and show where the $20,000,000 larger customs
revenue was obtained, and how, through the fall in the price of
sugar, the revenue was not greater. The West India Islands,
whence the great supply of sugar is derived, are well known to
be in a condition of decline, politically as well as economically.
The market for sugar in the United States has been their main
prop, and it could remain a support only while the prices paid
for raw sugar covered the cost of production. It has been
asserted for years that sugar could not profitably be grown under
two cents a pound ; and for more than six months and at the
very time the cane sugar campaign is on, the price has been
given at 1.7 cents for cane and 1.5 cents for beet. The political
features of sugar need not detain us, however interesting it
would be to speculate upon a continuance of the current low
prices, and their effects upon the West Indies, Louisiana, and
that complicated structure of bounty-fed beet sugar interest in
Europe. So long as the consumers of the United States get
their sugar cheap, it will be as well to leave the struggle between
cane and beet products to the wisdom of other peoples. This is,
indeed, necessary, because of the revenue from sugar.

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 195

It would be even more interesting to map out the great
geographical lines of American commerce, and study the polit
ical consequences with a special reference to the American conti
nent. The largest share of our trade is still with European
countries, and must be for many years; but the commercial
relations with our neighbors are capable of great development,
and a commercial supremacy would involve other relations of
high importance in the near future. With 1894 as a year of
comparison, the imports in 1895 had increased from Europe,
South America, Asia and Africa, and decreased from Canada and
the West Indies, and Oceanica. A greater value of exports was
sent to South America, Oceanica and Africa, while a less value
went to Europe, Canada, the West Indies and Asia. The de
pression in Canada has been more severe than in the United
States, and the war in Asia has had its effect on trade.

The experience of 1894 in foreign trade was trying to an
extreme; that of 1895 has done much to repair losses, and more
to prove how firmly are established the great branches of our
trade. Sharp and concentrated as was the crisis of 1894, it was
better to have an explosion and a ready recovery, than a long and
lingering decline, followed by a sudden access of speculation and
extravagant trading, ending as it always must end, in disaster.

WOKTHINGTOK C. FOKD.

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND.

BY THH EIGHT HON. SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, BART.

THE editor asks me, What will be the policy of the Unionist
administration, supposing it to obtain legislative power? We
may begin the answer to the question by setting aside some mat
ters as certain not to be touched, in spite of the expectations of
some in the electorate that they will be dealt with. It may
safely be asserted that there will be no return to protection, that
there will be no steps 'taken in the direction of bimetallism, and
that nothing will be done for Church schools. The two former
of these propositions will be at once accepted by competent
judges. There may be doubt about the third. The archbishops
and bishops of the Established Church, and the friends of volun
tary schools, which are mainly Church schools, have been active
lately, and although cold water has been poured upon them by
Lord Salisbury, they undoubtedly expect that some, at all events,
of their demands will be acceded to. On the other hand, the
accession to office of Mr. Chamberlain and his friends will form
so convenient an excuse to the Conservative party for not enter
ing upon legislation which is never popular with the constituen
cies, that I maintain the opinion which I long since formed and
have just expressed.

Leaving the negative and coming to the positive side of the
programme, it may safely be foreshadowed that labor questions
will be dealt with in a comprehensive, though not perhaps in a
satisfactory nor a scientific, fashion. The Factory Bill of Mr.
Asquith will probably be taken by his successors without much
change, and this popular measure will probably become law in
much the shape in which it was introduced by the Liberal admin
istration. Mr. Asquith's Truck Bill will probably have the same
fortune, but this bill will be hotly opposed by the Trades

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND. 197

Unionists, as it would have been even if it had gone forward
under the auspices of the Liberal administration. It may be ex
plained that " Truck " in its original sense meant the payment
of wages otherwise than in cash, and that the early Truck legis
lation was directed against the practice which formerly prevailed
widely of forcing workmen to deal at certain shops and pay too
dear for their goods, and against kindred evils. Outside the
ordinary range of the existing Truck acts lies a whole class of
fines and deductions, which constitute a working-class grievance
of the first magnitude. Stoppages are made from wages for all
sorts of reasons, and in some cases ill-paid workers, such as girl
factory hands, receive in cash only a small proportion of their
nominal wage. Fines for coming late in the morning are an ex
ample of what is meant. These fines are far larger in amount
than seems necessary for the purpose of securing punctuality of
attendance, and the amount deducted for a short absence is vastly
greater than the wage which could be earned in the time. Mr.
Asquith's Truck Bill proposed that deductions should be illegal,
except where assented to in writing by the worker, and, on being
attacked, pronounced reasonable by a court. The former of these
two provisions so closely resembles the contracting-out which was
recently objected to by the Liberal party in the Employers'
Liability Bill, when introduced into it by the House of Lords,
that it slinks in the nostrils of the trades unionists. Contract
ing-out is a fruitful source of inefficiency in legislation. Excel
lent principles are laid down, but contracting-out is allowed,
becomes a standing form, and makes the legislation nugatory.

Another bill left by the late government which a Unionist
government may take up is Mr. Asquith's Coal Mines Regula-
tion Bill, which is also far from popular with the working class,
but into which an attempt may be made to insert a clause limit
ing the labor in mines of boys under a certain age. The Miners'
Federation will undoubtedly fail in attempting to limit employ
ment underground before twenty-one, and will probably fail in
attempting to limit employment under eighteen, but is not un
likely to be successful in limiting employment under sixteen.
The importance of this question lies in the fact that it is the
difficulty about the boys which causes the resistance of Northum
berland and Durham to legislation for the purpose of regulating
hours in mines of adult men. If the labor of boys in mines were

198 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

limited to eight hours in any twenty-four, the practical objection
of the Northumberland and Durham miners to the introduction
of a similar limit to the labor of men would disappear, inasmuch as
the men in Northumberland and Durham have no personal interest
in the question, for they in all cases work considerably less than
eight hours at the present time. Their boys, however, work
longer; and it is commonly asserted in Northumberland and Dur
ham that it is impossible to change the system under which two
shifts of men work with one shift of boys, or three shifts of men
with two shifts of boys. It is the opinion of the other miners that
means for meeting the difficulty might easily be found.

Mr. Bryce's bill for the introduction of a new system of con
ciliation in trades disputes is not likely to be taken up by the Con
servative party in its present form, but it is probable that some
attempt will be made to deal with the subject by legislation which
will probably be popular, and also, probably, prove useless. It is
a thankless task to object to any scheme for arbitration or concilia
tion from which good is hoped ; but experienced trades unionists
are inclined to think that such legislation, if ambitious, is likely
to be dangerous. The pressure of public opinion would be brought
to bear to induce the parties to an industrial conflict to accept any
arrangement that might have been made for them ; but public
opinion is represented by the press, and the press, in order to live,
is forced to incline towards the side of wealth. The trades
unionists think that well-organized industries are able to look after
themselves, and that in others the workers must go to the wall, and
that it is unnecessary to consecrate the system which may cover
this result.

Of bills which have not been introduced and are not remanets
from the Liberals, but which have been foreshadowed by Mr.
Chamberlain and accepted by Lord Salisbury in speeches in
the country, the chief are a Workmen's Compensation Bill, a bill
for the allocation of local rates to the purchase of workmen s
houses, and an old-age pension scheme. It is difficult at present
to say much about this last as no very definite proposals have
been made on behalf of the Unionist party, except by Mr. Cham
berlain, and his proposals have not secured general acceptance.
The difficulties of detail are very great. There is no definite
recommendation by any committee or commission before the coun
try, and it is far from certain that any proposals which might be

THE NfiW ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND. 199

placed before Parliament would receive wide support. The other
two proposals for legislation are more ripe. Mr. Chamberlain in
opposing the Employers' Liability Bill of Mr. Asquith suggested a
general bill for compensation in case of all injuries, and he has re
cently introduced a bill which has met with a somewhat favorable
reception, although the objection has been urged that it does not
provide for employers' liability for accidents by penal provisions.
The proposal for the allocation of rates to the purchase of work
men's houses came from a Conservative quarter. It has
been accepted by Mr. Chamberlain, who pleaded in its
behalf the analogy of the allotments legislation. Allotments,
however, do not become the freehold of the holder, and
the freehold remains in the local authority which makes
the advance. The proposal for assistance from rates to work
men to buy their houses contemplates the freehold being the
possession of the workmen, and not of the local authority. On
this ground the legislation will be strongly fought by many be
longing to the more advanced parties ; but it will pass.

It is very probable that the incoming Unionist administration
may go forward with an Irish land bill, which would contain
the portions of the Irish land bill of Mr. Morley which
have the support of Mr. T. TV. Kussell, and that they may intro
duce an Irish local government bill. The latter measure, how
ever, will have to be one giving to Ireland most of the municipal
and local liberties which are possessed by Great Britain, and one
far more advanced than Mr. Balfour's ill-starred bill of the last
Parliament, if it is to have any chance of passing without a vio
lent conflict. It is also possible that the Unionists may try their
hands at temperance legislation. The local vote might be called
in for the purpose of diminishing the number of public houses,
with a compensation to be borne by the survivors.

The outgoing Liberal administration had not carried a
strongly reforming policy into Indian, foreign, colonial, or mili
tary affairs, and there is no ground to suppose that the change
of administration will imply a change of policy in these respects.
A considerable improvement in the War Office had indeed been
announced by the outgoing government on the night of its
defeat, and there can be little doubt that the proposals then
made will be adhered to by the incoming administration.

CHARLES W. DILKE.

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION.

BY THE REV. J. A. ZAHM, C. S. C.

ONE of the greatest questions of the day, it is admitted by all,
is the social question, and its most illustrious exponent is, without
doubt, the august Pontiff of the Vatican. Ever since his assump
tion of the tiara Leo XIII. has manifested a special interest in all
problems relating to the welfare of society. This is abundantly
evinced by his noble encyclicals on these topics, and by his num
berless letters to eminent representatives of church and state.

In a private audience, with which I was favored not long
since, the social question was introduced and discussed at some
length. I ventured to tell his Holiness that the editor of the
NORTH AMERICAN KEVIEW had requested me to write an
article on this subject, and that the people of America, non-Catho
lics as well as Catholics, .were always pleased to give respectful and
reverent attention to his utterances, and especially to all those in
any wise bearing on the condition of the laboring classes.

" Ah, yes," he said, " the Americans are a noble people. I
love them greatly. I am aware of the deep interest they take in
social problems and was gratified to learn that they received so
kindly my encyclical on the condition of labor. You may tell
the people of the United States, through the NORTH AMERICAN-
REVIEW, that I shall always be ready to contribute to the fullest
extent of my power towards their well-being and happiness, and
especially towards the well-being and happiness of the wage-
earners of their great republic.

" The social question," continued the venerable Pontiff, his
eyes beaming with light and intelligence as he discoursed on the
subject to which he attaches so much importance — ' ' the social
question is the great question of the future. La question sociale,
c'est la question de Vavenir. It is a question in which all should

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 201

be interested, and each one should contribute his quota towards
lessening and removing the difficulties with which it is at present
beset. It is particularly desirable that ecclesiastics should be
thoroughly conversant with the subject, and that they should
take an active part in every discussion and in every movement
that looks toward the betterment of the social condition of
humanity, and especially the social condition of that major por
tion which must earn their bread by the sweat of their brow/'

This is but a brief synopsis of what the Holy Father actually
said, and conveys no idea whatever of the earnestness and impres-
siveness which characterized the spoken words of the large-
hearted and noble-minded occupant of the chair of Peter. He
dwelt particularly on his encyclicals Immortale Dei and Rerum
Novarum, and referred incidentally to other documents, bearing
on the same subjects, of which he is the author.

The encyclical Longinqua Oceani Spatia, recently issued, is,
in a measure, but a supplement of the Rerum Novarum. I shall
consider the two documents, therefore, in so far as they both deal
with the social problem, as virtually one and the same.

So much by way of preamble. The following pages are de
signed to give a brief exposition of the origin, character and his
tory of the social question from the Roman Catholic point of
view, and to exhibit the gist of the Pope's teaching, as gathered
from his letters and encyclicals on this all-important subject.

I.

A LITTLE more than a century ago, in 1791, the French Revo
lution abolished by a third and definitive decree the corporations
which formed the basis of the old social order. In 1891, Leo
XIII. promulgated a new economic charter, at the very moment
when the industrial association, which was the outgrowth of the
Manchester School, was approaching dissolution.

In lieu of the old organic regime the French Revolution sub
stituted the reign of individualism. Unlimited competition,
freedom of labor, the preponderance of capital and the general
introduction of machinery ushered into existence the fourth es
tate proletarians, or wage-earners — and with it the social ques
tion. The organism became a mechanism, and from its excesses
proceeded the evils from which we now suffer. As matters at
present stand, we have two inimical forces, standing face to face ;

202 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

on one side, the modern state with its army and its police ; on the
other, socialism and organized labor with its battalions and its long
pent-up grievances.

Never before was humanity confronted with such a danger. It
is related that when Antioch was taken by the Persians, A. D.
266, the entire population of the city was assembled in the
theatre. The seats of this theatre were cut in the foot of the
escarped mountain which crowned the ramparts. The eyes of all
present were fixed on the chief actor ; every ear was strained to
catch his words, when suddenly his hands began to contract, his
arms became paralyzed, and his eyes assumed a startling stare.
From the stage on which he stood he beheld the Persians, already
masters of the defences of the ill-fated city, rushing down the
mountain with resistless impetuosity. At the same moment the
enemy's arrows began to shower down within the precincts of the
theatre, and to awaken its inmates to a realization of their peril
ous situation.

Is not our situation analagous ? Have we not felt the earth
tremble under our feet, and heard the social revolution, as Las-
salle predicted it would, knock at our doors ? And what aug
ments the danger, is that the International seems decided on the
policy of delay, until the natural pressure of our social condi
tion shall place the reins of power in the hands of the " new
masters." 1848 and 1870 appear to have been the last attempts
of the Fourth Estate to achieve victory by force of arms. Its
leaders are unwilling to commit new blunders, and are persuaded
that the day will come when socialism will be triumphant.

Leo XIII. chose this prophetic hour to make known the social
evangel to the combatants on both sides. Among the wrecks of
human institutions, the Papacy remains the sole international
power, sufficiently equipped, sufficiently sure of its own resources,
sufficiently endowed with light and energy, to attempt the
supreme work. It, alone, has imperturbable faith in the future of
humanity. It is idealist, in spite of all deceptions ; optimist, not
withstanding all the spasmodic weaknesses of the body politic. As
in the politico-religious order, Leo XIII. has, through his encyc
lical, Immortale Dei, preached the code of reconciliation, so has
he, in the economic order, promulgated the charter of social har
mony. We recognize in the earnest, but tender words of the
Pontiff, the divine perfume of the Master, the precise lessons of

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 203

the Fathers of the Church, and the carefully pondered and the
soundly democratic teachings of the Doctors of the Middle Ages.
For the first time, economic science has pity on the wage-earner,
and discusses the new issues raised without rancor or recrimina
tion. At the same time it exhibits a respect for the rights of all
while insisting on the duties of all, which will forever render the
encyclical, Rerum Novarum, not only the most glorious monu
ment of the present pontificate, but also the most beneficent con
tribution yet made to the new order of things. In the Church
alone is there a condition of stable equilibrium, which always re
mains unaffected. The personal character of the encyclical
resides, not so much in the lessons of justice and charity as in
the perfect adaptation of revealed truth to our present condition,
and in the beautiful and fruitful manner in which the facts of
history are harmonized with eternal principles.

Leo XIII. is at the same time as compassionate as a mother
and as impassible as an anatomist ; as just as a judge and as
tender as an infant. He loves ardently that poor humanity which
is so often blind to its best interests, but which is more frequently
betrayed by its own leaders. In him the Papacy appears, even
to-day, as the empyrean in which all hatreds and struggles are
buried and in which all great reconciliations are effected. In
deed the most distinguishing characteristic of the encyclical is
that it seeks to harmonize capital and labor, to reconcile employer
with employee, to unite justice and charity.

The first part of the encyclical shows that the accord be
tween labor and capital is one of the most beautiful and most
consoling laws of political economy. As God, in the book of
Job, "makes peace in the high places," so does Leo XIII., from
the lofty eminence which he occupies, bring to men the peace-
giving breath of the Infinite.

This equilibrium has its origin in the Pope's comprehensive
genius. Leo XIII. knows not that exclusivism which divides
the social order into separate compartments. His breadth of view
and love of humanity preclude this. His keen intellect has
grappled firmly with all the difficulties of the situation. Econo
mists too often separate what should ever be united. One
expects everything from the state, another looks for a cure only
from above, while others still appeal for a solution of the problem
to special associations or to private initiative. But Leo XIII.

204 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

embraces all these factors, and causes every one of them to make
for the common weal. The Church, the State, individual
activities, society as a whole, should not they be prodigal of their
best efforts in helping forward the work of reconciliation ?

It is this harmony and breadth of view which give to the en
cyclical the character of arbitrament which it possesses, and
make it, as it were, a kind of truce of God. Hence spring the
facility with which the Pontiff steers clear of the quicksands of
this vast world. And with what dangers is he not beset ? In
trinsic difficulties, technical difficulties, complexity of subject, a
continual transformation of political economy, which scarcely per
mits one to promulgate doctrines and principles, antagonistic pas
sions and rivalries — Leo XIII. has met all these obstacles.

Thanks to his marvellous competence and his profound knowl
edge of the subject-matter of debate ; his consummate art in sep
arating theories from facts, and principles from remedies, Leo
XIII. has avoided these reefs. He is at the same time a doctor
and a practical man of affairs ; an illuminator and a conciliator ;
resting here on the Gospel and St. Thomas Aquinas, and there
seeking aid in the immense modern laboratory, where are found
both men and hypotheses.

Such are the distinguishing notes of the encyclical ; its op
portuneness, its evangelical character, its irenical harmony,
its perfect comprehensiveness. These are combined with scien
tific precision and an incomparable simplicity of art, in which
supreme elegance and exact science unite in sweetest symphony.

II.

WHAT, it may be asked, has occurred in society, that special
exertion is now required to keep in motion a machine which
formerly moved of itself without noise and without effort ? In
what" does this much-talked-of social question consist ? All
are making the same inquiry, but the responses given are as di
verse as the prescriptions of physicians. More than ever before
the world is brought to face seriously the social question. For
merly certain minor social questions perturbed humanity, but the
crisis which now confronts us is peculiar to our own epoch.

It is only the foolish hope of interested optimists which will
lead men to believe that they are sheltered from the impending
catastrophe, because, forsooth, the same endemic malady has be-

LEO XIIL AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 205

fore raged in all countries and at all times. It is, indeed, true
that social antagonism is not something new or something
peculiar to our century. But there is between the past and the
present this essential difference. Formerly, after the struggle be
tween employer and employee was over, rest and peace were to
be found in the workshop or in the home, whereas to-day the
struggle has reached our very hearthstones. It persists in a dull
and sullen manner, when it does not break forth openly, and it
is ever compassing the ruin of society because it is incessantly
destroying all chance of domestic happiness. Never before, in
deed, has the social question knockei in so threatening a manner
at the doors of the civil order.

In the introduction to his epo ,h-making document, Leo XIII.
directs attention to some of the evidences of the dominant evil —
extreme riches, extreme misery, and the indescribable desolation
which has entered the world of the proletariate in consequence
of the atomization of society under the levelling reign of capital.

Gifted with a methodical mind and endowed with a rare
genius for classification, the Pope limits himself to indicating the
roots of the evil, without entering into details, or descending to
investigations of secondary importance.

It may truly be said that the social question arises from a five
fold revolution : the revolution in machinery ; the revolution in
political economy ; the revolution in religion ; the revolution in
the state, and the revolution brought about by the general move
ment of humanity.

Machinery, or rather the abuse of machinery, was the first to
effect a transformation in the economic order. It is not without
reason that Lassalle styles it "the revolution incarnate" — Die
verkorperte Revolution. Machinery has revolutionized the mode
of production, the manner of labor, and the distribution of
revenue and of property. It has destroyed the workshop and in
troduced the factory in its stead. It has sterilized manual labor
and, by its immense productivity, has internationalized prices
and markets. While, on the one hand, it has created the des
potism of capital, it has, on the other, called into existence the
unorganized army of the proletariate. It has ground humanity
into a powder, without cohesion and without unity, and has
placed the world of labor at the mercy of a few soulless pluto
crats. This new order of things means the reign of the few ; it

206 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

implies the permanence of expropriation and the resurrection
of ancient Home, where millions of slaves were trampled under
foot by an insolent oligarchy of wealth. And finally, by its fatal
centralization, machinery has engendered a double International
— the International of capital and the International of socialism.

Against such a condition of things there should have been
erected some sort of protecting dike. But instead of creating a
new order, in conformity with the changed mode of production,
economic science introduced into the laws and institutions of
the land those very principles which have rendered the influence
of machinery sinister and destructive. Of an agency marvellously
rich in its potentialities, it has made an engine of revolution.
Production, production, nothing but production, such has been
the ideal, the last word of the Third Estate and of economists.
Adam Smith in England, J. B. Say in France, and Schulze-
Delitsch in Germany, have traced out this new legislation, with a
view to bringing out of machinery all its latent force, without
ever thinking of the terrible confusion that was sure to ensue.

Science and politics have leagued together to render the state
omnipotent. How then could socialism regard with serenity a
factor of such unquestioned power ?

Absolute collectivism was born and received with acclamation
in the comitia of the people before it was scientifically promul
gated by Carl Marx. The sons of toil constitute the majority.
Why are they not then the rulers ?

Kiehl, before Sainte-Beuve, had drawn the portrait of the lit
erary proletarian as the guide of the laboring proletarian. De
classe and a conspirator, ambitious, jealous and vindictive, he
finds a use for his knowledge in giving his services to the advance
ment of revolutionary socialism. A German, Riehl spoke for the
Germans. But have not his prognostications been everywhere
verified ? You have supplied outcasts and the declassed with all
modern arms — education, universal suffrage, literature. You have
awakened them to a consciousness of their power. You have
taught them that law is the voice of the majority, that education
is the stepping-stone by which they may attain to power. You
have endowed them with sovereignty. You have made them leg
islators and judges. Why, then, should not the masses rise up and
announce to the Third Estate : We are the masters ?

Politics and their historical environment created Lassalle and

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 207

Carl Marx. Lassalle and Carl Marx created militant socialism
and the International.

" Liberalism," says Averbeck, " has acted as a state would act
if it should banish a part of its citizens to a solitary island and
let them there begin a struggle for existence. This state gives
to the exiles all the treasures of science — libraries and scientific
apparatus — but it withholds from them what is necessary for
subsistence. It is to be presumed that such unfortunates will
burn the books in order to warm themselves and break the in
struments in order to make tools that will enable them to gain
the necessities of life." The same writer was likewise one of the
first to signalize the perils of this political and social contrast.
To day the situation seems even more grave. For, has nt>t the
International the same engines of war as the State ? Has it not
to hand all the appliances requisite to start a revolution ? The
stupefied Liberals persist in persecuting the Church, in weakening
the ethical sense, and dancing on a volcano until everything shall
be blown to atoms.

Do we not read the signs of the times ? One would declare
that everything conspires to crown the Fourth Estate. As far
back as 1810 there were not wanting far-seeing synthetic minds,
who foresaw that the reign of social democracy would issue in
the natural and fatal termination of civilization. Philosophers
and critics have expended an infinite amount of wit in their at
tempts to give a definition of civilization, but no two have been
able to agree on the same definition. The events of our day,
however, make a definition unnecessary, for we have before our
very eyes the most salient facts of all history past and present.
For what is the evolution of humanity but its expansion and
progressive exaltation ?

All the theories of philosophers and all the preachments of
exploiters are of no avail. We are moving toward a triumphant
democracy. Whether the transformation of the aristocratic and
bourgeois society into a democratic society be slow or prompt,
violent or peaceful, it is none the less inevitable ; and more than
this, none the less irrevocable, once it shall have been effected.

There are several reasons in explanation of the difficulty of
a return. All men are not sensible of the exalted charm of
liberty, and freedom is not an imperative need for a large num
ber of men. But the sweetness of equality appeals strongly to

208 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the most feeble intelligences, and men are slow to renounce this
pleasure when they have once tasted it. Besides this, the laws
and customs of a democratic society are in accord with certain
ideas of right and justice, and they find in the conscience as well
as in the passions of men a powerful support.

What intensity marks this movement ! What a formidable
support for the Fourth Estate ! And how singular the coincidence
of this general current with the present economic crisis. Sieyes
wrote : " What is the Third Estate ? Nothing. What ought it
to be ? Everything. " Is it astonishing that the chiefs of the
International apply these words to the Fourth Estate ?

We have briefly considered the five confluents which consti
tute the river of the social question. Never has a more compli
cated situation, or one more pregnant with peril, weighed upon
men. What were the invasions of the barbarians from the north
of Europe, or the upheavals of the fifteenth and eighteenth cen
turies, in comparison with the threatened explosion of this vast
world already stirred to its profoundest depths and in a state of
violent ebullition ?

Has not the time at length come when some one should speak
in the name of all and above all ; when some one should take up
the problem, not with the pedantry of party, nor with affected
scholastic display, but with a keen and serene intellect which is
competent to get at the heart of things without becoming entan
gled, and is capable of taking a comprehensive survey of the situ
ation without getting confused ? Is there not required one of
those rare men with whom conscience in everything is a prime
necessity and whose greatest pleasure and recompense lie in the
laborious pursuk of good and in the absolute discharge of duty ?

Such an one is Leo XIII. With that buoyant and indomi
table spirit which has nerer known weakness, of which age has re
spected the integrity, Leo XIIL, after having disentangled, ana
lyzed and scrutinized all the elements of debate, has judged it
necessary, not only as a man of science, but also as supreme
teacher, to undertake the great work of synthesis and truth.

III.

SINCE issuing his famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum, of
which Europe, poisoned by the School of Manchester and by the
teachings of a materialistic philosophy, had greater need than

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 209

young and prosperous America, Leo XIII. has developed his
apostolic doctrine more in detail. This is observed especially in
his letters to the Count de Mun, the Bishop of Grenoble, the
Bishop of Liege, the Cardinal of Mechlin, as well as in his let
ters to M. Decurtins, to Abbe Six, to Abbe Naudetand others. All
these manifestations of the great Papal mind are bound together by
the same golden thread. Go to the people to assist and emancipate
them. Establish syndicates and associations for the laboring
classes. Demand from the State legislation for their protection,
and strive to secure the passage of a law, international in char
acter, which shall protect at the same time both employer and
employee from economic piracy. Restrict the hours of labor, and
place women and children under proper protection. Give to the
poor man a just remuneration for his work, and strive to make
him ah upright and honorable citizen. Above all, see that religion
is the inspiring and directing soul of the home, for without it the
work of reconstruction and regeneration is impossible.

That which, above all else, brings out in bold relief the solici
tude of Leo XIII. for the laboring man is the injunction which
he lays on, the mission which he commits to, the priests of the
Church. He wishes them to go forth into the market-place, to
visit the factories, to found societies for workingmen, to inaugu
rate conferences for them, and thus to direct the large demo
cratic and social current which is the result of long ages of effort,
labor and sacrifice. To Americans, with their native activity
and independence, this is easy and natural. It, however, de
manded evangelical courage to impose this on the Old World,
where three centuries of renaissance of pagan law, and a century
of laissez-faire and laissez-passer have atomized society and
divided the human family into two opposing camps — on one side
the tyranny of the law and of the employer; on the other,
renewed servitude and virtual rebellion — everywhere hatred, lack
of equilibrium, egotism and overt struggle.

One of the most striking characteristics of the Pope's teaching
anent the labor problem is his return to the ideas of evangelical
solidarity, to the lessons of social wisdom, and to the principles
which governed the guilds of the middle ages — all of which, with
singular skill, he adapts to the needs and conditions of the cen
tury just closing. Sometimes reactionaries, and even English
Liberals, reproach the Pope with going too far and with favoring
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 465. 14

210 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

methods which are regarded as revolutionary. In the eyes of
such people he is a Socialist. This revolutionist, however, but
relights the almost extinguished torch of Christian tradi
tions. He is simply continuing the spirit of the early ages of
the Church. ' ' The day when there shall be placed in the chair
of St. Peter," wrote de Vogue in his Spectacles Contemporains,
"a Pope animated with the sentiments of Cardinal Gibbons and
Cardinal Manning, the Church will stand forth before the world
as the most formidable power it has ever known." So be it. Is
not Leo XIII. such a Pontiff ? Fearlessly brushing aside three
centuries of cabinet diplomacy, he declares his intention of fol
lowing the traditions of those illustrious pontiffs who are honored
in history as social law-givers and emancipators of the people.
He synthesizes admirably the Gospel, St. John Chrysostom, St.
Thomas, Gregory VII., Alexander IV., Pius IV., and many
others besides. " The danger is imminent," wrote Madam Adam
in her Patrie Bourgeoise, " for Leo XIII. is preparing a crusade
which a younger Pope may render triumphant. The constitu
tion of the Church and individual devotedness, which Christi
anity, we must admit, is capable of exalting, in a far higher
degree than the philosophy of Paul Bert, are calculated to pro
voke one of those grand movements of moral reform which are
always based on a social movement." Madam Adam forgets that
it is not a crusade, but a return to the principles of economic
and organic mutuality which obtained before the Renaissance,
and an adaptation of them to the age in which we live. This is
what Leo XIII. told Castelar, the Spanish Republican, in so
many words. "It is necessary," said he, "to bring back the
Church to its original traditions." In this declaration are re
vealed at once the historic mind and the originality of Leo XIII.
In it are disclosed his greatness and the unity and majestic co
ordination of all his acts and all his teachings.

Economically and socially, the Renaissance, the resurrection
of pagan law, the cult of exaggerated individualism, the philoso
phy which issued in Darwinism, have again brought back and
made general both the pride and the slavery of ancient Rome.
Absolute and pagan theories regarding property, exaltation of lib
erty, which, while it is the honor of the human mind in the
domain of politics, is folly in the domain of economic science,
substitution of an artificial mechanism for the normal organism,

LEO XIII. AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 211

rupture with industrial organizations and the atomization of
society — in a word, all the miseries of our modern world have
proceeded from these sources. Our age is, indeed, but a walled-
in field of battle, in which egotism, individual interests and pas
sions are engaged in homicidal combat. Formerly society was an
edifice, in which each social floor had its protection, its right, its
security, its well-being. It was, to employ another figure, a vast
organism, in which each member, while it was subject to the law
governing the whole, had its proper function and its full life.

It is this thought, eminently Christian and eminently evan
gelic — a thought reposing on justice and love — which is the main
spring of the social action of the Holy Father. Here, as else
where, Leo XIII., while always having a regard for the times in
which we live, supplies us with the traditional means of subsist
ence and defence. A man of the past and of the future, con
tinuing in his own beneficent way the policy of his illustrious
predecessors, while at the same time paving the way for a better
to-morrow — without change of principles, but by the application
of new methods — the present Pontiff stands conspicuous in history
as an innovator, while he is all the while but a priest of the an
tique ideal, but an ideal appropriated for our own time.

Besides the teachings of antiquity there are other guides
nearer to us for pontifical initiative. A conservative power, the
Papacy scarcely ever moves in advance of the political and social
exigencies of an epoch. It does not create, it codifies.

The Fathers have determined with precision this law of
organic growth. Origen, Tertullian, St. Cyprian, St. Augus
tine, and, above all, St. Vincent of Lerins, have developed the
philosophy of this phenomenon. It is thus that they speak of
a sensus theologicus, of an intelligentia ecclesiastica, of a sensus
Catholicus, which are affirmed, expanded and translated in a
body of doctrines, in eodem sensu et in eodem dogmate.

In a lower degree, the Papacy appropriates and condenses the
human teachings of each epoch in so far as they bear on the
immutable principles of the evangelical and traditional deposit.
In every direction in which the energies of the Church are em
ployed, we remark a formal evolution of this institution which is
in relation to the evolution of the ideas and the facts of the con
temporary world. With the plastic power, which is par excellence
the sign of her vitality, the Church adapts herself in our days to

212 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the service of societies formed outside of herself, and often
opposed to her, as she adapted herself to the feudal system, to
'the Renaissance, and to all the metamorphoses of its flock. Her
work, sometimes, illudes the careless observer, because it goes on
by processes which resemble the mysterious processes of growth
and development in the higher organisms. Under the action
of vital force all the atoms of our body are continually being
changed and renewed, but our form and personality are in nowise
modified thereby. It is in this sense that we must understand the
renovation of the Church and the Papacy.

The Church and the Papacy are never in a hurry. In every
thing which does not concern eternity, in the domain of the
contingent and the relative, her role is not to anticipate, but to
regulate and to consecrate all the progress definitively made.
Some thinkers urge, as an objection and as examples of unex-
plainable variation, the misfortunes of certain bold spirits, who,
in the past, were blamed for having maintained political and
social doctrines which were subsequently cordially received by
the Vatican. These innovators had started too soon. Political
truths, essentially relative, do not become complete verities and
acceptable to Rome save at the moment when they appear prac
tical, or when the circumstances of time and place clearly evince
that the fruit is ripe and may be gathered. In all that concerns
herself, the Church is the sole judge of this moment.

The encyclical on the condition of labor and other similar
acts of Pope Leo XIII. are the official and permanent consecra
tion of the labors and the teachings of the most devoted Catholics
of this century in respect of the social question.

The first one after Ozanam, or the Viscount de Melun, to
make a deep impression on Rome in this matter, was Bishop
Ketteler, of Mayence. It was in 1848, when socialism appro
priated all the new economic currents, that he promulgated his
social evangel. His sermons, preached in the Church of St.
Paul, at Frankfort, at the time of the celebrated diet ; his confer
ences with workingmen ; his book on " Christianity and Labor";
his discourses at Mayence ; all his acts as bishop and statesman
had this ideal : Save, emancipate the Fourth Estate by the appli
cation of the Gospel and the doctrines of St. Thomas to the eco
nomic conditions of the day.

A man of dauntless courage, comprehensive mind and noble

LEO XIIL AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 213

heart, he was at the same time a Catholic Lassalle. At one time,
even, Bismarck seriously thought of making him Archbishop of
Cologne, and of undertaking with him the great work of social
reconstruction. The Kulturkampf, which the Iron Chancellor
inaugurated in order to placate the national liberals, to break the
power of Kome and to divide France, rendered this grandiose pro
ject illusory. Ketteler, however, did not abandon his plans.
AVhile the storms raged above the German forests he gathered
about him those gallant heroes: Vogelsang, Kuef stein, Schei-
cher, Hitze, Joerge, Monfang, Schorlemer, Brandts, Bachem, and
all that chosen band, who, even in our own day, with less 'dan and
more timidity, it is true, continue to develop his ideas. At the
Council of the Vatican, before the cannon of Sedan had startled
Europe, the Bishop of Mayence hoped to secure official recognition
of his programme, and thus bring the laboring world within the
orbit of the Church. But this fondly cherished hope was not
realized. "And to think" — he complained to the Archbishop
of Rouen — " to think that we have not been able to utter that cry
of love and sympathy to the outcasts of the century !"

But the seed which he sowed germinated. On the morrow of
this same war, a representative of France took up the idea
which had its birth beyond the Rhine. Supported by the teach
ings of Leplay and Perin, the Count de Mun, with the volcanic
fire of his eloquence, continued the social crusade. He soon suc
ceeded in rallying around himself such soldiers as La Tour du Pin,
P. Pascal, M. Lorin, Abbe Noudet, Abbe Bataille, Abbe Six, M.
Sabatier, and, above all, Cardinal Langenieux and M. Leon Har-
mel, who led to the Pope the first workingmen's pilgrimage.

At this same epoch, the Abbe Pettier, professor at Li£ge, in
Belgium, discovered his vocation for social work. A priest and
a theologian, he had a singular love for the poor, and was pos
sessed of a judgment that was almost infallible. From the Gos
pel he drew forth a whole body of social doctrine, and found a
sanction for his apostolate in the highest fonts of Christianity.
His programme is an irrefutable, economic codification of the doc
trines of the Holy Fathers and of the Doctors of the Middle
Ages. In spite of all the attacks which have been directed
against it, it remains impregnable. Around him also have gath
ered a zealous body of co-workers like the Kurths, the Levies, the
de Harles, the Vetragens, and hosts of others.

214 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Then, again, there is M. Decurtens, a layman. A born dem
ocrat, and a counsellor of the nation, he is as ardent an ultra
montane as he is an imperturbable socialist. A leader of the labor
ing classes and a man of broad culture, erudite, eloquent, and
energetic, he is endowed with not only an incomparable capacity
for work, but also with an incomparable power of will.

He it was who effected in Switzerland the fusion of the labor
organizations, Catholic and Protestant. He it was who induced
his government to convoke an assembly of all the Estates in order
to consider universal, social legislation — a project which was frus
trated by William II. It is he, too, who makes periodical pilgrim
ages to the Vatican to engage the Holy Father to direct the social
movement of our time. He has many rivals and imitators, but
the noblest spirits of Helvetia are with him.

Such, in brief, is the Latino-Germanic genesis, if I may so
express myself, of the encyclical.

The Anglo-Saxon race furnished the Pope with reason for
action. Here appear Manning, Gibbons, Ireland and Keane, the
last three of whom are better known, and more highly appre
ciated, in Europe than in their own country. They are men of
ardor and action, always optimists, ever alert and never discour
aged. Both by vocation and by environment they are leaders. Dis
entangled from the conventionalities of the Old World, they are
more free than their European confreres ; their faith is more pro
nounced and their word has the true ring of the Gospel of Christ.

As an American, I am proud that the sacred spark which
set Europe and the Vatican aflame was supplied by our own favored
land. In 1887, when the memorial concerning the Knights of
Labor was forwarded to Eome, the Christian world still hesitated.
But this document was the trumpet note which settled the issue.
Rome spoke, the encyclical Rerum Novarum was promulgated,
and timid, Catholic Europe breathed a sigh of relief.

Such, then, are the origin, the character and the history of
the social idea of Rome. Leo XIII. has been the grand resultant
of a historical movement. It is because he was obedient to the
laws of history, and because he understood the social needs of
his time, that he deserves to be known forever as the Pope of
the workingmen and the great high-priest of our century.

J. A. ZAHM, C. S. C.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

VIII.— PROSPERITY AND SOCIAL SPLENDOR.

BY ALBERT D. VAKTDAM, AUTHOR OF ' e Atf EtfGLISHMAtf LNT
PARIS," "MY PARIS tfOTE-BOOK," ETC., ETC.

THERE is one fact connected with the Second Empire which
the nobodies who have lorded it over France since the Empire's
fall have not been able to explain away. I allude to the unprece
dented prosperity the country enjoyed during those eighteen years.
All their attempted explanations to that effect are lame and more
than lame ; they cannot even limp along ; they are positively para
lyzed by subsequent facts . The impartial observer, whether he be a
Frenchman or a foreigner, who happens to have lived in France
under the regime of Napoleon III. and under that of the Third
Republic cannot help pointing out that during the first-named
period the peasant, and for that matter the townsman too, had
his " fowl in the pot"; a condition of things which was considered
by Henri IV. — not a bad king as kings went in those days — the
height of a country's welfare.

The answers to such a remark come glibly enough, and in
many instances they are partly epigrammatic, partly philo
sophical.

" That ' fowl in the pot' on which you lay so much stress,"
retorted a Republican, "was simply the 'goose with the
golden eggs '; the nation was eating both her interest and her
capital." That, I maintain, is an absolute falsehood. It could
be proved over and over again, if it were necessary, that the war
expenses and the war tax of five milliards of francs were paid out
of the savings of the population during the previous fifteen or
sixteen years, that scarcely an acre of ground was either
mortgaged or sold during the two or three years after the

216 THE XORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Treaty of Frankfort by those who invested their moneys in
those loans. To adduce such proofs would lead me too far
astray. I may mention, however, that in many of the smaller
provincial centres those loans were almost entirely subscribed in
what appeared to be newly minted gold and newly issued bank
notes, both of which tenders, though, turned out on closer exami
nation to have been minted and issued six, seven, eight and
twelve years before. The moneys had simply been lying idle dur
ing the whole of that time in the linen presses of the peasantry
and the petite bourgeoisie in accordance with a system that has
prevailed in France ever since the peasantry and petite bourgeoisie
had something to save, a system which will not be entirely aban
doned within the next century, if then. If further proofs were
wanted of the unexampled prosperity of France between 1855-
70, they would be found in a comparison of the reports of the
Poor Law Board (Assistance Publique) during the Citizen Mon
archy and the Third Republic with those of the Second Empire.

It would be sheer folly to pretend that there was no poverty
in France during the Second Empire. But from various causes
the attitude of " Fortune's favorites " towards the indigent was
different from what it is to-day. The self-sufficient, pompous,
quasi-virtuous big-wig of the Third Republic flatters himself
that he owes his position to talents, energy, and perseverance.
Though he can be lavish at times, he is rarely generous ; he con
tents himself with being just — according to his own lights. In
the majority of cases he has never had the handling of large
sums of money until he wheedled himself or was pitchforked
into parliament, diplomacy or office, and, what is worse for the
poor, he knows his position to be insecure, and that, therefore,
he must make hay while the sun shines.

It is doubtful if the big- wig of the Second Empire ever enter
tained those fears of relapsing into obscurity and straitened
means. Whether talented or not, he was less impressed with his
own " high and mightiness" than the Republican. Those whom
I have known were almost inclined to laugh in their sleeves at
the idea of a providential mission on the part of Queen Hortense's
son, let alone at their own share in such a mission. Not a few
grinned behind the backs of the worshippers at the Napoleonic
shrine, but until a short time before the collapse all had great
faith in the cleverness of the high priest, and above all in his

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 217

" star." And inasmuch as he, the high priest, convinced that
his "star" would never fail him, gave freely, without stint,
almost too lavishly, and certainly too indiscriminately, the
majority of his court followed suit in that respect as in every
other.* 9

And in spite of the Republicans' frequent assertions to that
effect, Louis Napoleon's charity was not the result of political and
dynastic calculation. It proceeded from the wish to enjoy life
himself and to make every one around him enjoy it ; for he was
essentially the bon-vivant in the widest and most beneficent ac
ceptation of the term ; the bon-vivant whom Marivaux had in his
mind's eye when he said, "Pour etre assez bon, il faut Vetre
trop." His charming ways, his amiability in all things, his dis
interested generosity, his appreciation of humor, even when it was
directed against himself, have never been surpassed by any mon
arch ; and as a consequence, perhaps no monarch — Charles II.
included — has contributed more to his own downfall than he.
One instance of that amiability, which under the circumstances
might well be called culpable neglect to checkmate his enemies in
time, must suffice here. On the 3d November, 1863, Thiers and
many other avowed opponents of the Empire resumed their seats
at the Palais Bourbon. Morny, in his opening speech as Presi
dent of the Chamber, alluded in graceful terms to the reappear
ance of some of his former parliamentary colleagues. " I rejoice to
see them once more, and have no doubt about the loyalty of their
intentions," he said. The next morning Morny paid a visit to
the Emperor, who complimented him on his eloquence.
" Nevertheless," added Napoleon with a smile, " it strikes me
that your reference to the election of M. Thiers was a little — well,
a little too intense. You are reported to have said: fAs for myself, I

* After the fall of the Empire, thousands of begging letters were found at the
Tuileries, nearly all of which were annotated in the handwriting of the Emperor
himself, mentioning the sums that had been sent in reply. lie spent on an average
£140,000 per annum in that way— thus £2,500,000 during the eighteen years of his
reign. When we consider that this same man left an income of leas than £5,000 to
his widow, the reader will agree that the words lavish and indiscriminate are not
misplaced. We are not concerned here with the private fortune of the Empress, for
although it is true that she pledged her jewels in the beginning of September, 1870,
in Knpland, in order to face the immediate expenses for herself and her small band
of followers, it is by no means certain that necessity compelled that step. With re
gard to the late Emperor's invincible belief in his " star, here is another proof. By
his will, drawn up while he was stiJl on the throne, everything was left to the Em
press, not the smalleat provision having been made for the son whom he loved with
a deep-seated, almost idolatrous affection. It was because Napoleon III. felt con
fident that his "star" would prolong his days until he had seen that son firmly
established as his successor on the throne. In that case there would have been no
necessity to provide for him, and it would have been but right that the Empress
should enjoy the revenues. But for that will the Prince Imperial might be alive
and on the throne of his father, for he would certainly not have gone to Zululand.

218 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

rejoice, etc., etc/ Does not * rejoice' convey a little too much ?"
Moray pointed out that he had referred to former colleagues
with whom he had then been on the best of terms, and so forth.
" Yes, yes," retorted the Emperor gaily ; " I had better make
up my mind to it ; I am surrounded by enemies. There is no
doubt about it, you are an OrleanislT;; decidedly, you are an Or-
leanist."

The note relating this incident is couched in somewhat
critical terms, an unusual tone for my grand-uncles to adopt. It
goes on as follows : ' * I do not like the way things are drifting at
the Chateau (Tuileries). Every one there seems to be master ex
cept the master himself. Politics are discussed in the interval
between two dances by men and women who have no more idea
of such matters than our cook has of anatomy, dissecting and
operating. I dare say our cook would indignantly refute such a
charge of ignorance by triumphantly pointing to the fowl she has
trussed or the joint she has trimmed, and it would be vain on my
part, I suppose, to make her understand the difference between
operating upon a live body and a dead one. And the Empire,
though by no means a healthy body, is very much alive. A few
months ago I read a book on The French Revolution, by an Eng
lishman,* and one passage struck me as particularly pertinent to
the present state of affairs. ' Meanwhile it is singular how long the
rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly/
I am afraid those twenty-three newly elected deputies, five of
whom have sat in the Chamber for the last six years, are going to
handle the Empire roughly, and the mistake of the Emperor lies
in his having given them a chance. He ought to have prevented
their return by hook or by crook. The man who made a clean
sweep of at least ten times their number twelve years ago ought
not to have afforded any of them an opportunitv now of making
a clean sweep of him ; for that, assuredly, is what they will en
deavor to do.

" How long they will have to wait for such an opportunity it
would be difficult to determine, but when that opportunity comes
they will be ready for it. In fairness to them it should be said
that they do not disguise their intentions ; the noise they make
in preparing their brooms — by stamping the handles on the
ground in the orthodox fashion — is loud enough to awaken

• Carlyle'e,

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 219

any one who is not wilfully deaf ; but they are either that at
the Tuileries, or else their own buffooning prevents them from
hearing as well as seeing what is going on around them. From
what I gather it is not easy to decide whether the latest travestis
of Meilhac and Halevy and Offenbach are the pure outcome of
these gentlemen's imaginations, or simply a faithful picture of
some of the scenes enacted now and then at the Chateau — unless
the scenes at the Chdteau are a deliberate attempt to imitate, nay
to surpass, Mdlle. Schneider, Leonce and their fellow artists.
The gods, demi-gods, heroes and heroines of Homer, as portrayed
by the authors of Orphee aux Enfers and La Belle H'etene, and
set in motion by that truly magic music of Maitre Jacques, are
assuredly not more astounding to the unsophisticated, and for
that matter to the sophisticated, than a great many of the war
riors, clericals, grandes dames and grands seigneurs constituting
the innermost circle at the Court. What, after all, is the high
priest Calchas to that astonishing Abbe Bauer, the latest fad, I
am told, in the way of ascetic, but at the same time elegant,
Christianity ? He is a convert ; he was educated for the Jewish
ministry, and if everything the people state be true, Judaism is
well rid of him. It appears that a little while ago the abbe tried
to convert Adolphe Cremieux, for Cremieux, though baptized
when quite an infant, is distinctly a Jew and not a Catholic ; a
Jew, moreover, of whom Judaism throughout the world may well
feel proud. Of course, the conversion of such a man as Cre
mieux, if at all feasible, could not be accomplished by an Abbe
Bauer, who was more than roughly handled in the encounter.
Bauer, however, in spite of his quasi-refined exterior, is a vul
garian to his fingers' ends and thick-skinned besides. Cremieux's
hard hitting did not make him wince, and at the end of the
interview he said: fl am very much surprised at your views about
the founder of our religion, for I really believe that you are so
liberal a Jew as to have legally defended Christ if you had lived
in His time/ 'That I certainly should have done,' replied
Cremieux, 'and, what is more, I should have got Him acquitted
— unless — unless I had been obliged to put the like of you in the
witness-box for the defence.' More scathing than even this is
Monseigneur Dupanloup's criticism on Abbe Bauer's first sermon
before the Court. The preacher, in spite of the warnings of his
superiors, had given too much prominence to the Virgin in his

220 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

address. * Place aux dames,' said the Bishop of Orleans. 'Ac
cording to Abbe Bauer there is no God, and the Virgin Mary is
His mother/

" I may be permitted to doubt, though, whether this treatment
& I'ancien regime of sacred subjects, or rather the reintroduction of
the perfumed, theatrical, and too worldly abbe into Court circles,
by which the Empress wishes to emphasize her admiration for
Marie- Antoinette, her surroundings and legitimacy in general, is
calculated to give the nation a very exalted opinion of their rulers.
One does not want a John Knox thundering against everything,
nor does one want an Abbe Bauer ' under-studying 9 the role of a
Cardinal de Rohan. Mouse igneur Dupanloup, notwithstanding the
sally just quoted, is a highly gifted, worthy, and absolutely disinter
ested prelate. He is thoroughly imbued with the dignity of his
sacred office, and although very militant at all times, and often
abrupt and the reverse of amiable, he would not condescend to
enact the buffoon, or instruct his clergy to that effect, for no
matter how good a cause. He would not do evil that good might
come. But a great many of his fellow-prelates do not possess the
same tact and discrimination. They fulminate, or allow their
clergy to fulminate, against the vices and foibles of the hour in a
manner which is apt to breed as much contempt for the would-be
physician as for the patient. Not long ago a parish priest, in
veighing against the can-can, actually held up the two sides of
his cassock and performed some steps in the pulpit to show his
flock how the Holy Virgin danced and how they, his flock,
should dance. That priest decidedly beats Calchas in La Belle
Helene, but there is a warrior at the Court who beats both the
cure, the Calchas and the Agamemnon of the opera-bouffe.
This is no other than Count Tascher de la Pagerie, who imitates
barn-yard fowls, the sun and the moon, by making idiotic grim
aces at the command of his imperial mistress, and who is ' trotted
out' on all occasions for the amusement of visitors. Count
Tascher does not think it incompatible with his rank in the
army, his relationship to the Emperor and his position of Cham
berlain to the Empress to oblige in that way. He is prouder of
those accomplishments than of his birth, the brave deeds of his
father, and of everything else besides. After that, people need
not wonder at G-ustave Dor6's performing somersaults and stand
ing on his head for his own amusement, and at his announced in-

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 221

tention of abandoning his own career,, in which he has already
won much fame, for that of Anriol, the clown.

" And it is more than probable that in the intervals of his
clowning, this same Count Tascher pretends to lend a hand in
the steering of the ' ship of State/ for the Tuileries is fast be
coming a 'cour du roi Petaud et cliacun y parle liaut.'*

<( The worst of it is that those whose very existence as a body
depends upon their unquestioning obedience and abstention
from comment until such comment is invited are becoming
infected with the prevailing mania for laying down the law
on every conceivable subject. When I say ' becoming in
fected ' I put it mildly ; in reality they have set the ex
ample — I mean the army. I have seen enough of soldiering
to know the inestimable value of silent obedience to the orders of
one's superiors. The order may be wrong, and tantamount to a
death sentence to its recipient ; he is bound to carry it out to the
letter. And yet, with the examples of Lords Lucan and Cardi
gan at Balaclava before them, French officers will go on discuss
ing orders, not only from a military point of view but from a
political.

" One instance in point will suffice. The delinquent is gone,
and peace be to his ashes ! for he was a brave and honorable
soldier. But his well-known bravery and uprightness, and, above
all, his position near the Emperor as aide-de-camp, called for more
circumspection on General de Cotte's part than he exercised on
the occasion alluded to. The thing happened a few evenings
before the Emperor's departure for the Franco-Austrian war.
General de Cotte was on duty at the time, and after dinner went
down to the smoking-room set apart for the military and civil
household. f The thing is settled/ he said aloud, lighting a cigar
ette ; * in a day or two we shall be on our way to Italy, unless
Providence and the Lunacy Commissioners stop us at the first
stage at Charenton/f Half an hour later the general went up
stairs to the Empress's drawing-room. He had scarcely entered

* In olden times the mendicants, in imitation of the guilds, corporations, and
communities in France, annually elected a king, who took the title of King Petaud,
from the Latin peto. In Tartvffe, Orgon's mother compares her son's house to the
court of King P6taud. "On riy respecte rien, chacun y parle haut," she says.

t Charenton is the well-known madhouse just outside Paris. At the news of the
declaration of war in 1870 Prince Napoleon made a similar remark. He was on his
way to the East with Ernest Reuan. " Reverse your engines," he said to the master
of the yacht; " we are going back." " Where to, monseigneur ?" was the question.
"To Charenton." The reply was quoted as something spitefully witty and original.
It was spiteful, hut not original.

222 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the apartment when the Emperor came up to him with a smile.
' My dear general/ he remarked, quietly, ' I have too much respect
for the opinion of others, even when they are diametrically opposed
to mine, to ask people to fight battles the causes for which they
do not approve. You will remain in Paris with the Empress/

" That did not suit the general's book at all ; but he did not
utter a word in defence, he only bowed. He was, in fact, too
astonished at his comment having reached the ears of the Em
peror so soon. As far as he was aware, no servant had entered
the room while he was there. He was, then, reluctantly compelled
to conclude that an equal had played the part of tell-tale ; and
that alone would convey a fair idea of the code of honor that
obtains among the immediate entourage of the sovereigns.
Nevertheless, he was not going to be left out of the fight
ing, so on the 14th of May he simply had his horses and
baggage taken to the Imperial train, selected a seat in an
empty compartment, and only showed his face at Marseilles.
The Emperor merely smiled and held out his hand. This is a
sample of the Emperor's amiability, of his willingness to let by
gones be bygones/'

My notes contain a hundred similar anecdotes, all tending to
show that the Emperor was too good-natured ; and I shall have
no difficulty in proving, when the time comes, that this excessive
laissez-faire finally caused his ruin.

As yet, however, the cloud on the horizon is not bigger than
a hand, and certainly not visible to the naked eye. And France
is too busy enjoying herself to scan the sky with a spyglass. She
does not even enact the fable of the hare with the telescope ; she
remains profoundly ignorant of the approach of her enemy.
France resounds with laughter, and above it all rings that modern
version of Rabelais' "Fay ce que vouldras," viz., the chorus of
Theresa's song, " Rien n'est sacrepour unsapeur," which chorus
paints the moral atmosphere in one line.

For the sapper stood not alone in his irreverence for any and
everything. He simply took his cue from those above him, from
educated and talented men who deliberately mocked at "the
whole world and his wife," including the sovereign and his con
sort, the former of whom they not only slighted in his private
capacity, but as the chief of the State. Kochefort, at a later
period, had at any rate the courage to attack openly; the par-

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 223

tisans of the <T Orleans regime lacked that courage. They sailed
as close to the wind as they dared without risking penalties.
Strange to say, though, the worst blows to the Emperor's dignity
came from the Emperor's friends and proteges, and were dealt in
fun — " histoirede s'amuser et d' amuser Us autres." They came
in the shape of practical jokes at which Society roared and the
victim himself, who was rarely seen to smile, laughed outright.

On the face of it, the jokes perpetrated by " Napoleon IIL's
double/' as Eugene Vivier was called, may appear trivial. But
the startling likeness of the famous cornet-player to the Emperor
which made those jokes possible had its influence, nevertheless,
on the Emperor personally, and gave rise to the most absurd
stories during the heyday of the Empire, and above all at its fall;
which stories only tended to diminish the Emperor's prestige.

" Paris is ringing again with another exploit of Vivier," says
my note. " This time he has impersonated the Emperor at a
supper at Mme. de Paiva's and to such good purpose that several
of her guests who frequently see and talk to his Majesty were
completely taken in. It would appear that about a week ago the
Emperor and the Empress were at the Italian opera, where Mme.
de Paiva's box faces that of their Majesties, and that the glare of
the footlights hurt her Majesty's eyes. There was no screen in
the Imperial box, and the Empress had only her fan to keep off
the heat.* The Emperor remarked quite casually on the incon
venience to one of his aides-de-camp, saying, ' Mme. de Paiva is
better off than we are ; look, what a beautiful Japanese screen she
has ! ' The aide-de-camp in question happened to be on friendly
terms with Mme. de Pai'va, and paid her a visit between the acts.
Quite as casually as the Emperor he remarked upon the beauty
of the screen, adding that the Emperor would be pleased to have
a similar one for the Empress. Thereupon, Mme. de Paiva un
fastens the screen in question, hands it to her visitor, and bids
him offer it to the Emperor with her respectful compliments for
the use of the Empress. The aide-de-camp, though considerably
embarrassed, dare not refuse the offer, and makes his way to the
Imperial box with the screen, which he quietly adjusts in front of
the Empress, who, however, sweeps it contemptuously out of her
way. The Empress has not got her temper under sufficient con
trol, and often allows it to get the better of her in public ; under

* Fans were very small in those days; the large one§ date from much later.

224 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

such circumstances the Emperor invariably pours oil upon the
troubled waters, and he did so in this instance. He picked up
the screen, and with a smile placed it in front of himself ; and
inasmuch as Mme. de Pa'iva had narrowly watched the scene from
the other side of the house, he considered himself bound to go
and thank her personally the next day or the day after. For that
part of the story I will, however, not vouch. I am under the im
pression that it is a pure fabrication, whether of Mme. de Paiva
herself or of some of her familiars I am unable to say. Both are
equally inventive, and the rumor was evidently set afloat in order
to find a basis for the next scene in which Vivier was to play his
part. For even if one admits that the Emperor paid the alleged
visit, his Majesty would certainly not have followed it up by in
viting himself or accepting an invitation to a supper at Mme. de
Paiva's — at any rate not to a supper in company with a half-score
of guests, not one of whom is particularly famed for the art of
holding his tongue.

" Be this is as it may, the supper with the carefully s pre
pared ' entrance of Vivier, took place and has furnished fresh
gossip for at least a week. Practically, the Emperor is power
less to prevent those things ; he can neither send Vivier into
exile nor condemn him to wear a mask, but there was no neces
sity to invite Vivier to the Tuileries and to have the performance
repeated for the delectation of all and sundry, as the Emperor
has done.

" The fact is, Vivier is persona grata with Louis Napoleon
for a far different reason than people suspect. To begin with,
Vivier is a Corsican ; secondly, many years ago Vivier gave un
solicited testimony to Louis Napoleon's legitimacy, which has
been so often called in question, and on which the Emperor is
so exceedingly sensitive. It happened in 1844, while Vivier was
giving some performances in London. One day he met a coun
tryman of his with the name of Ceccaldi, who told him that
Prince Louis was in London, and that he (Vivier) ought to pay
his respects to him. ' Come to the French Theatre to-night
and I will present you/ said Ceccaldi. At that time Vivier had
never set eyes on the Prince, but the moment he entered the
theatre he pointed him out to his companion. ' How do you
know ? ' asked Ceccaldi ; ' you have never seen him before/
' No/ was the reply, ' but I recognized him at once by the like-

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 225

ness to his father, to whom I was presented at Pisa/ Then there
is the truly startling likeness between the Emperor and Vivier
himself. Although it has already led to much mischief, and
may lead to further mischief,* the Emperor, with his ' big heart/
his somewhat too active imagination, and his fatalism, is almost
convinced that Vivier's existence is more or less bound up with
his own.

" Thus we have the Jester in Ordinary to the Court, i. e.,
Count Tascher ; the Jester who performs f by command/ namely,
Eugene Vivier ; and we have also the corps de ballet and the
corps dramatique, for now and again there are choregraphic and
other entertainments, generally arranged by the Princesse von
Metternich, who enjoys herself at the Tuileries as she probably
would not be allowed to enjoy herself at the Hofburg. The
daughter of the famous Count Szandor, who by the by was as mad
as a March hare (I mean the father), does not think it necessary
to observe the same strict rules of etiquette towards the grandson
of a Corsican lawyer and his wife, she would be bound to
observe towards a Hapsburg and his spouse, herself a Princesse
des Deux-Ponts-Birkenfeld. And to make the resemblance to
the ordinary theatre complete, the noble and aristocratic balle
rinas quarrel among themselves just like rats de I'op'era, issued
from concierges and cabmen, and would come to blows now and
then, like the humbler-born dancers, but for the timely interven
tion of the Empress/'

" Is it a wonder, then, that the Pai'vas, the Skittles, the Cora
Pearls, and the rest shrug their shoulders and smile, nay, laugh
outright, at the mention of some of those grandes dames de par le
monde. I doubt whether many of those declassees be very witty;
nevertheless, they are credited now and then with saying things
which are worthy of a Ninon de TEnclos and Rochefoucauld —
although I strongly suspect that some of the clever literary men
and journalists among their familiars are mainly responsible for
the epigrammatic form of those remarks. This is perhaps
another instance of ' Nemesis at work again,' for if in the begin
ning of the Empire the papers had been allowed a certain latitude

* I feel convinced that there was no prophetic intent to the words I have under
lined in the above note. Nevertheless, after the fall of Sedan there were hundreds
of people in France, and ahoye all in Paris, who said that the Emperor was not at
Wilhelmshohe at all, that Vivier had been sent for in hot haste and had taken his
place. Absurd as was the story, it was encouraged by the Republicans, who saw
in it a means of still further damaging the Emperor's prestige.
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 465. 15

226 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

in their comments upon matters political, the writers would not
have been obliged to make themselves the assiduous chroniclers
of thefaits et gestes of that particular section of society in order
to live. As it is, those records have become a permanent feature
and will probably not disappear, however much the stringent
rules with regard to political comment be relaxed in the future.
At present there appears to be a tendency in the other direction,
and the Emperor — who I feel persuaded is liberally inclined —
does not know which course to adopt in consequence of the mul
tiplicity of his counsellors, not two of whom appear to be agreed
as to the degree of liberty to be granted, and all of whom — not
to mince words — are making fools of themselves.

" Of course, the Cora Pearls, the Skittles, the Paivas, and the
rest are only too delighted at all this, and confident of the support
of their friends the journalists have entered into open rivalry with
the Court beauties — again, of course, on the only ground where
such rivalry was possible, namely, Longchamps, the Bois de Bou
logne, the Champs-Elyse'es, and the theatres. Mdme. de Paiva's
boxes at the Opera and at the Italiens are more luxuriously
appointed than those of the Emperor and Empress ; her dia
monds are more costly than the latter's ; Skittles's pony-chaise,
with its pair of black cobs, and its two grooms on coal-black
cattle behind, beats anything and everything from the Imperial
stables ; Cora Pearl's turn-out throws everything into the shade
except Skittles's ; the two latter cut a better figure on horseback
than either the Comtesse de Pourtales, Mme. de Gallifet,
Mme. de Contades, or Mme. de Persigny ; they have only two
equals in that respect — the Empress and Mme. de Metternich.
Their carriage-horses, hacks and hunters look better, are better
bred and broken in than the best elsewhere, and need not fear
comparison with those provided by General Fleury for the use of
her Majesty. As may be readily imagined, her Majesty is not
particularly pleased. Fleury admits that there is cause for dis
pleasure, but professes himself unable to alter the state of things/'

By that time I was a young man of over twenty, and had
paid several visits to London in the season, which enabled me
to appreciate the difference — of course from a merely ama
teurish point of view — between the two capitals in the matter
of horseflesh and conveyances. Well, the trained and severely
critical eye of the real connoisseur would have unquestionably

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 227

awarded the palm for merit to the simple elegance in the Eow
and the Ladies' Mile ; to the uninitiated the spectacle in the
Avenue de Flmperatrice (at present the Avenue da Bois de Bou
logne) would have appealed with greater effect. It was more
showy ; nevertheless, it was very beautiful, and the Parisians
had, from what I was told, never seen anything like it.

The recollection in the shape of mental pictures has remained
bright and vivid throughout these many, many years. I have no
need to refer to notes to reconstruct the scenes; in fact, I have
no notes bearing on that subject. I have simply to sit still and
let the pictures uprise before me. The backgrounds are almost
invariably the same; it is either the Arc de Triomphe standing
like a grey pawn against a deep blue sky or the masses of dark
green of the Bois apparently forming an impenetrable barrier at
the end of the Avenue de Flmperatrice.

The first in the field is generally Mme. Feuillant with her
two charming daughters, mere girls at that period. The whole
of the turn-out is absolutely perfect, from an artistic point of
view — I am not quite so sure about the other point — from the
small heads of the two big black steppers, with large tufts of
Parma violets at their headstalls, to the hood which appears to do
duty as a storehouse for similar bouquets large and small. Violets
predominate in the whole of the arrangement; they are conspic
uous in the bonnet of Mme. Feuillant herself — a bonnet with a
yallance, and which enframes the face like a portrait; the foot
man and coachman have hugh nosegays of violets, the tint of
which harmonizes admirably with the collars and cuffs of their
dark green liveries.

More conspicuous was the carriage of Mme. de Metternich.
It was yellow, and yellow had almost entirely disappeared in those
days, to be revived, however, later on. But in the early sixties
only Mines, de Gallifet, de Jancourt, and the Austrian Ambassa
dress patronized that colour.

Then came Rothschilds' turn-outs, always more remarkable
for their magnificent horses than for the beauty of their carriages,
and hard upon them the landau of Mdlle. Schneider, who as yet
was not the Duchesse de G6rolstein, but simply La Belle
Helene.

Between half-past four and five there was generally a slight
stir of expectation among the occupants of "la Plage," better

228 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

known to-day as "le Cercle des Decaves." In a little while
there appeared on the horizon four troopers of some crack regi
ment of the Imperial Guards, flanked by a corporal, and im
mediately afterwards came the carriage of the little Prince
Imperial followed by a captain's escort of the same regiment.
To the left of the carriage rode the officer in charge, with a
trumpeter by his side; to the right M. Bachon, the Prince's
riding master and equerry, in a gold-embroidered green tunic,
cocked hat with black feathers, white breeches, and jack-boots.
About that period, however, M. Bachon's office was an absolute
sinecure, the Prince having met with an accident which disabled
him for many, many months from mounting his ponies, and the
cause of which accident subsequently became also the cause of
his premature and sad death in Zululand.*

Shortly afterwards came the Emperor in his phaeton, without
an escort of any kind, and only his aide-de-camp by his side. The
pace of his Orloff s, which had cost 40,000 francs, was remark
able and somewhat dangerous to those who got in their way, for
every now and then, and up to the last, the Imperial whip, for
getting that he was in France and not in England, mistook his
nearside for his offside. Not once, but a dozen times, have I
heard the indignant Jehu exclaim : " Where is he going to, the
brute? Where did he learn to drive ?" Though no man looked
better on horseback than Napoleon III., he left off riding almost
immediately after he ascended the throne, except on special oc
casions, such as reviews and at Compiegne while out hunting.
Already at that time the Emperor had his horses broken in by
M. Faverol de Kerbrech, just as he had his new boots worn by
his barber. Then came the Empress in her elegant caleche
drawn by four bays with postilions, outrider, and grooms, in
green and gold, the first-named wearing jockeys' caps half hidden
by the golden fringe of the tassels.

ALBERT D. VANDAM.

(To be Continued.)

APPENDIX TO PART VIII.

This is a note I made on the day the particulars of the Prince's death came
to hand. The note was written entirely from memory, but I feel certain
that all my facts are correct. " Several of the Prince's little playfellows
had a foreign (English ?) riding-master who knew nothing of the classical

• See Appendix to this Chapter.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 229

traditions of the French school, and who taught his pupils things which M.
Bachon, the Prince's riding-master, was probably unable and certainly un
willing to teach his. M. Bachon had been second master to the celebrated
M. d'Aure, in Paris, afterwards he had taught at Saumur. M. d' Aure, how
ever, though a most brilliant horseman himself, had not founded a school of
horsemanship. He was what I should call a brilliant equestrian improvi
sator rather than a sterling teacher. M. Bachon was an excellent riding-
master, and that was all. He had none of the flashes of genius of his chief.
He taught the Prince to ride perfectly broken-in ponies, and tacitly discoun
tenanced all showy riding and tricks. And the showy riding and tricks
were exactly what the little lad seemed to like most. Fired by the example
of his playmates, who vaulted in the saddle while their tiny mounts were
going at a galop, jumped down again, and repeated the feat over and again
in spite of their frequent tumbles, the Prince tried to do the same, and one
summer evening at Saint Cloud, while the Emperor was looking on, his son
came heavily to the ground. He was up again in a moment, and there was
no sign that he was badly or even slightly hurt. Had there been such a
sign, the Emperor would have been too seriously alarmed to countenance
for a single moment the continuation of the game, for assuredly no man
ever loved his child better than Louis Napoleon loved his. The boy returned
that affection a hundred fold, and it was this sweet trait in his character
that caused him to hide his pain, for he fancied his father was annoyed with
him for his inferiority to his play-fellows. Was his father annoyed, and did
he show his annoyance ? I cannot say. Certain it is that the little Prince
went on vaulting ; young as he was he would not be beaten.

"I know of a similar case of perseverance in his father's life. One severe
winter while he was staying at Leamington there was a great deal of skat
ing, and one of the favorite games was to jump over an upturned chair
while going at a great pace. Prince Louis attempted the feat several times
without success, coming down each time with a tremendous crash that
made the lookers-on stare. He would not give in, though, and finally con
quered the difficulty.

"To come back to the little Prince, who, after that night went on taking
his riding lessons, but so languidly that M. Bachon began to reproach him
with laziness. Instead of jumping into the saddle as he was wont to do, he
had to be assisted, and in a little while bodily lifted on to his pony. M.
Bachon, as yet ignorant of what happened, peremptorily bade him one day
to place his foot into the stirrup, and then it all came out. Intensely
frightened, the riding-master immediately communicated with the Emperor,
who only remembered his son's fall in connection with his pluck. For
months and months the child suffered and never mounted his ponies. He
recovered gradually, but the habit he had contracted of hoisting himself
into the saddle by means of his hands clung to him. Many of his friends in
England could bear testimony to this. It was the cause of his death in
Zululand. Trusting to his skill, he attempted to jump on to his horse
which was already in motion ; the holster, of which he caught hold for the
purpose, gave way, and he was left to face the foe by himself. A. D. V.

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE.

BY GOLDWItf SMITH, D. C. L., LL. D.

NEVER before has the intellect of man been brought so di
rectly face to face with the mystery of existence as it is now.
Some veil of religious tradition has always been interposed. At the
beginning of this century most minds still rested in the Mosaic
cosmogony and the Noachic deluge. Greek speculation was free,
and its freedom makes it an object of extreme interest to us at
the present time. But it was not intensely serious ; it was rather
the intellectual amusement of a summer day in Academe beneath
the whispering plane.

No one who reads and thinks freely can doubt that the cos-
mogonical and historical foundations of traditional belief have
been sapped by science and criticism. When the crust shall fall
in appears to be a question of time, and the moment can hardly
fail to be one of peril ; not least in the United States, where edu
cation is general and opinion spreads rapidly over an even field,
with no barriers to arrest its sweep..

Ominous symptoms already appear. Almost all the churches
have trouble with heterodoxy and are trying clergymen for
heresy. Quite as significant seems the growing tendency of the
pulpit to concern itself less with religious dogma and more with
the estate of man in his present world. It is needless to say what
voices of unbelief outside the churches are heard and how high
are the intellectual quarters from which they come. Christian
ethics still in part retain their hold. So does the Church as a
social centre and a reputed safeguard of social order. But faith
in the dogmatic creed and the history is waxing faint. Eitualism
itself seems to betray the need of a new stimulus and to be in
some measure an aesthetic substitute for spiritual religion.

Dogmatic religion may be said to have received a fatal wound

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 231

three centuries ago, when the Ptolemaic system was succeeded by
the Copernican, and the real relation of the earth to the universe
was disclosed. Dogmatic religion is geocentric. It assumes that
our earth is the centre of the universe, the primary object "of
divine care, and the grand theatre of divine administration.
The tendency was carried to the height of travesty when an in
sanely ultramontane party at Rome meditated, as, if we may be
lieve Dr. Pusey, it did, the declaration of a hypostatic union of
the Pope and the Holy G-host. But it was in Byzantine or medi
aeval theosophy that the travesty had its source. The effect of
the blow dealt by Copernicus was long suspended, but it is fully
felt now that the kingdom of science is come, and the bearings
of scientific discovery are generally known. When daylight
gives place to starlight we are transported from the earth to the
universe, and to the thoughts which the contemplation of the
universe begets. "What is man, that Thou art mindful of
him ? " is the question that then rises in our minds. Is it pos
sible that so much importance as the creeds imply can attach to
this tiny planet and to the little drama of humanity ? We might
be half inclined to think that man has taken himself too seri
ously and that in the humorous part of our nature, overlooked
by philosophy, is to be found the key to his mystery. The feel
ing is enhanced when we consider that we have no reason for be
lieving that our senses are exhaustive, however much Science,
with her telescopes, microscopes, and spectroscopes, may extend
their range. We cannot tell that we are not like the sightless
denizens of the Mammoth Cave, unconsciously living in the
midst of wonders and glories beyond our ken.

Nor has the natural theology of the old school suffered from
free criticism much less than revelation. Optimism of the ortho
dox kind seems no longer possible. Christianity itself, indeed,
is not optimistic. It represents the earth as cursed for man's
sake, ascribing the curse to primeval sin, and the prevalence of
evil in the moral world as not only great but permanent, since
those who enter the gate of eternal death are many, while those
who enter the gate of eternal life are few. Natural theology of
the optimistic school and popular religion have thus been at vari
ance with each other. The old argument from design is now
met with the answer that we have nothing with which to com
pare this world, and therefore, cannot tell whether it was possible

232 TH% NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

for it to be other than it is. Mingled with the signs of order,
science discloses apparent signs of disorder, miscarriage, failure,
wreck, and waste. Our satellite, so far as we can see, is either a
miscarriage or a wreck. Natural selection by a struggle for ex
istence, protracted through countless ages, with the painful ex
tinction of the weaker members of the race, and even of whole
races, is hardly the course which benevolence, such as we con
ceive it, combined with omnipotence, would be expected to take.
If in the case of men suffering is discipline, though this can
hardly be said when infants die or myriads are indiscriminately
swept off by plague, in the case of animals, which are incapable of
discipline and have no future life, it can be nothing but suffering;
and it often amounts to torture. The evil passions of men, with
all the miseries and horrors which they have produced, are a part
of human nature, which itself is a part of creation. Through
the better parts of human nature and what there is of order,
beneficence, majesty, tenderness, and beauty in the universe, a
spirit is felt appealing to ours, and a promise seems to be con
veyed. But if omnipotence and benevolence are to meet, it must
apparently be at a point at present beyond our ken. These are
the perplexities which obtrude themselves on a scientific age.

What is man ? Whence comes he ? Whither goes he ? In the
hands of what power is he ? What are the character and designs
of that power ? These are questions which, now directly pre
sented to us, are of such overwhelming magnitude that we almost
wonder at the zeal and heat which other questions, such as party
politics, continue to excite. The interest felt in them, however,
is daily deepening, and an attentive audience is assured to any
one who comes forward with a solution, however crude, of the
mystery of existence. Attentive audiences have gathered round
Mr. Kidd, Mr. Drummond, and Mr. Balfour, each of whom has
a theory to propound. Mr. Kidd's work has had special vogue,
and the compliments which its author pays to Professor Weis-
mann have been reciprocated by that luminary of science.

Mr. Drummond undertakes to reconcile, and more than rec
oncile, our natural theology and our moral instincts to the law
of evolution. His title, The Ascent of Man, is not new;
probably it has been used by more than one writer before; nor is
he the firsl to point out that the humble origin of the human
species, instead of dejecting, ought to encourage us, since the

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 233

being who has risen from an ape to Socrates and Newton may
hope to rise still higher in the future, if not by further physical
development, which physiology seems to bar by pronouncing the
brain unsusceptible of further organic improvement, yet by intel
lectual and moral effort. Mr. Drummond treats his subject with
great brilliancy of style and adorns it with very interesting illus
trations. Not less firmly than Voltaire's optimist persuaded
himself that this was the best of all possible worlds, he has per
suaded himself that evolution was the only right method of cre
ation. He ultimately identifies it with love. The cruelties
incidental to it he palliates with a complacency which sometimes
provokes a smile. All of them seem to him comparatively of
little account, inasmuch as the struggle for existence was to lead
up to the struggle for the existence of others, in other words,
to the production of maternity and paternity, with the altru
ism, as he terms it, or, as we have hitherto termed it, the affec
tion, attendant on those relations. To reconcile us to the sufferings
of the vanquished in the struggle he dilates on " the keenness of
its energies, the splendor of its stimulus, its bracing effect on
character, its wholesome-lessons throughout the whole range of
character." " Without the vigorous weeding of the imperfect, "
he says, "the progress of the world would not have been
possible." Pleasant reading this for "the imperfect" !

" If fit and unfit indiscriminatelv had been allowed to live and reproduce
their kind, every improvement which any individual might acquire would be
degraded to the common level in the course of a few generations. Progress
can only start by one or two individuals shooting ahead of their species ; and
their life-gain can only be conserved by their being shut off from their
species— or by their species being shut off from them. Unless shut off from
their species their acquisition will either be neutralized in the course of time
by the swamping effect of inter-breeding with the common herd, or so diluted
as to involve no real advance. The only chance for evolution, then, is either
to carry off these improved editions into ' physiological isolation,' or to re
move the unimproved editions by wholesale death. The first of these two al
ternatives is only occasionally possible ; the second always. Hence the death
of the unevolved, or of the unadapted in reference to some new and higher
relation with environment, is essential to the perpetuation of a useful varia
tion."

This reasoning, with much more to the same effect, is plainly
a limitation of omnipotence, and supposes that the ruling power
of the universe could attain its end only at the expense of whole
sale carnage and suffering ; which cannot be glozed over, and
which, as the weakness was not the fault of the weak,, but of their

234 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Maker, is in apparently irreconcilable conflict with our human
notions of benevolence and justice.

This, however, is not all. We might, comparatively speaking,
be reconciled to Mr. Drummond's plan of creation if all the car
nage and suffering could be shown to be necessary or even condu
cive to the great end of giving birth to humanity and love. But
Mr. Drummond himself has to admit that natural selection by no
means invariably works in the direction of progress ; that in the
case of parasites it has consummated almost utter degradation.
The phenomena of parasites and entozoa, with the needless tor
ments which they inflict, appear irreconcilable with any optimis
tic theory of the direction of suffering and destruction to a para
mount and compensating end. Not only so, but all the extinct
races except those which are in the line leading up to man and
may be numbered among his progenitors, must, apparently, upon
Mr. Drummond's hypothesis, have suffered and perished in vain.
That " a price, a price in pain, and assuredly sometimes a very
terrible price," has been paid for the evolution of the world, after
all is said, Mr. Drummond admits to be certain. But he holds
it indisputable that even at the highest estimate the thing
bought with that price was none too dear, inasmuch as it was
nothing less than the present progress of the world. So he thinks
we " may safely leave Nature to look after her own ethic/'
Probably we might if all the pain was part of the price. But
we are distinctly told that it was not ; so that there is much of
it in which, with our present lights or any that Mr. Drummond
is able to afford us, men can hardly help thinking that they see the
ruthless operation of blind chance. Nature, being a mere ab
straction, has no ethic to look after ; nor has Evolution, which
is not a power, but a method, though it is personified, we might
almost say deified, by its exponent. But if there is not some
higher authority which looks after ethic, what becomes of the
ethic of man ? The most inhuman of vivisectors, if he could
show that his practice really led, or was at all likely to lead, to
knowledge, would have a better plea than, in the case of suffering
and destruction which have led to nothing, the philosophy of
evolution can by itself put in for the Author of our being.

Mr. Drummon-d's treatise, like those of other evolutionists, at
least of the optimistic school, assumes the paramount value of the
type, and the rightfulness of sacrificing individuals without limit

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 235

to its perfection and preservation. But this assumption surely
requires to be made good, both to our intellects and to our hearts.
The ultimate perfection and preservation of the type cannot, so
far as we see, indemnify the individuals who have perished miser
ably in the preliminary stages. Besides, what is the probable
destiny of the type itself? Science appears to tell us pretty con
fidently that the days of <our planet, however many they may be,
are numbered, and that it is doomed at last to fall back into
primeval chaos, with all the types which it may contain. Far
from having an individual interest in the evolution of the type,
the sufferers of the ages before Darwin had not even the clear
idea of a type for their consolation. Evolutionists, in their
enthusiasm for the species, are apt to bestow little thought on the
sentient members of which it consists. "Man" is a mere general
ization. This they forget, and speak as if all men personally
shared the crown of the final heirs of human civilization. The
following passage is an instance : —

" Science is charged, be it once more recalled, with numbering Man
among the beasts, and levelling his body with the dust. But he who reads
for himself the history of creation as it is written by the hand of Evolution
will be overwhelmed by the glory and honor heaped upon this creature. To
be a Man, and to have no conceivable successor ; to be the fruit and crown of
the long-past eternity, and the highest possible fruit and crown ; to be tha
last victor among the decimated phalanxes of earlier existences, and to be
nevermore defeated ; to be the best that Nature in her strength and opu
lence can produce ; to be the first of the new order of beings who, by their
dominion over the lower world and their equipment for a higher, reveal that
they are made in the Image of God— to be this is to be elevated to a rank in
Nature more exalted than any philosophy or any poetry or any theology has
ever given to man. Man was always told that his place was high ; the reason
for it he never knew till now ; he never knew that his title deeds were the
very laws of Nature, that he alone was the Alpha and Omega of Creation,
the beginning and the end of Matter, the final goal of Life."

To be the last victor among the decimated phalanxes of
earliest existences, and to be nevermore defeated, is, to say the
least, a different sort of satisfaction from the glorious triumph of
love in which the process of Evolution, according to Mr. Drum-
mond, ends, and in virtue of which he proclaims that Evolution is
nothing but the Involution of love, the revelation of Infinite
Spirit, the Eternal Life returning to itself. It even reminds us
a little of the unamiable belief that in the next world the sight
of the wicked in torment will be a part of the enjoyment of the
righteous. Perhaps there is also a touch of lingering geocentri-

236 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

cism in this rapturous exaltation of Man. Evolution can give us
no assurance that there are not in other planets creatures no less
superior to man than he is to the lower tribes upon this earth.

The crown of evolution in Mr. Drummond's system is the
evolution of a mother, accompanied by that of a father, which,
however, appears to be inferior in degree. The chapters on this
subject are more than philosophy; they 'are poetry, soaring almost
into rhapsody. ' ' The goal," Mr. Drummond says, " of the
whole plant and animal kingdoms seems to have been the crea
tion of a family which the very naturalist has to call mammals."
The following passage is the climax :

" But by far the most vital point remains. For we have next to observe
how this bears directly on the theme we set out to explore— the Evolution of
Love. The passage from mere Otherism, in the physiological sense, to Al
truism, in the moral sense, occurs in connection with the due performance
of her natural task by her to whom the Struggle for the Life of Others is
assigned. That task, translated into one great word, is Maternity — which
is nothing but the Struggle for the Life of Others transfigured to the moral
sphere. Focused in a single human being, this function, as we rise in his
tory, slowly begins to be accompanied by those heaven-born psychical states
which transform the femaleness of the older order into the Motherhood of
the new. When one follows Maternity out of the depths of lower Nature,
and beholds it ripening in quality as it reaches the human sphere, its char
acter, and the character of the processes by which it is evolved, appear in
their full divinity. For of what is maternity the mother ? Of children ?
No ; for these are the mere vehicle of its spiritual manifestation. Of affec
tion between female and male ? No ; for that, contrary to accepted beliefs,
has little to do in the first instance with sex-relations. Of what then ? Of
Love itself, of Love as Love, of Love as Lif 9, of Love as Humanity, of Love
as the pure and undefiled fountain of all that is eternal in the world. In the
long stillness which follows the crisis of Maternity, witnessed only by the
new and helpless life which is at once the last expression of the older funo
tion and the unconscious vehicle of the new, Humanity is born."

The father seems to be here shut out from the apotheosis ;
though why, except from a sort of philosophic gallantry, it is dif
ficult to discern. The man who toils from morning till night
to support wife and child surely has not less to do with it than
the woman who feeds the child from her breast.

Somewhat paradoxical as it may seem, Mr. Drummond main
tains that love did not come from lovers. It was not they that
bestowed this gift upon the world. It was the first child, ' ' till
whose appearance man's affection was non-existent, woman's was
frozen ; and man did not love the woman, and woman did not
love the man." Apparently, then, in a childless couple there can

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 237

be no love. Here, according to Mr. Drummond, is the birth, of
Altruism, for which all creation has travailed from the beginning
of time. This appears to him a satisfactory solution of the prob
lem of existence. Yet the races which have been sacrificed to
the production of altruism, if they were critical and could find a
voice, might ask if there was anything totally unselfish in the
indulgence of the sexual passion, which after all plays its part in
the matter, and of which the birth of a child is the unavoidable,
not perhaps always the welcome, consequence. To the mother
the child is necessary for a time in order to relieve her of a physi
cal secretion ; while it repays her care by its endearments, the
enjoyment of which is altruistic only on the irrational hypothesis
that affection and domesticity are not parts of self. To both
parents, in the primitive state at all events, children are neces
sary as the support and protection of old age. Beautiful and
touching parental affection is ; pure altruism it is not. Very ad
mirable, as a part of man's estate, it is ; but we can hardly accept
its appearance as a sufficient justification of all that has been
suffered in the process of evolution or as a solution of the mystery
of existence. It is curious that Mr. Drummond should place the
happiest scene of female development and all that depends on it
in the country where divorces are most common and the increase
of their number is most rapid. He may have noted, too, that in
that same country and among higher civilized races families are
proportionately small and fewer women become mothers.

Then put the mammalia as high as we will in the scale of
being, they are mortal. Evolution tells us complacently that
death is necessary to the progress of the species. It may be so ;
but what is that to the individual ? The more intense and ex
alted affection, whether conjugal or parental, is, the more heart
rending is the thought of the parting which any day and any one
of a thousand accidents may bring, while it is sure to come after
a few years. Pleasure and happiness are different things.
Pleasure may be enjoyed for the moment without any thought of
the future. The condemned criminal may enjoy it, and, it
seems, does not uncommonly enjoy it in eating his last meal.
But happiness appears to be hardly possible without a sense of
security, much less with annihilation always in sight. The oracle
to which we are listening has told us nothing about a life beyond
the present. It is needless to say how much the character of that

238 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

question has been altered since the corporeal origin and relations
of our mental faculties, and of what theology calls the soul, have
been apparently disclosed by science. The thought of conscious
existence without end is one which makes the mind, as it were,
ache, and under which imagination reels; yet the thought of an
nihilation is not welcome, nor has it, up to this time, been dis
tinctly faced by man. If ever it should be distinctly faced, its
influence on life and action can hardly fail to be felt. Is the
evolutionary optimist himself content to believe that nothing
will survive the wreck, inevitable, if science is to be trusted, of
this world ?

To say that a particular solution of a difficulty is incomplete
is not to say that the difficulty is insoluble or even to pronounce
the particular solution worthless. Mr. Drummond's solution may
be incomplete, and yet it may have value. The only moral ex
cellence of which we have any experience or can form a distinct
idea, is that produced by moral effort. If we try to form an idea
of moral excellence unproduced by effort, the only result is
seraphic insipidity. This may seem to afford a glimpse of possi
ble reconciliation between evolution and our moral instincts.
If upward struggle towards perfection, rather than perfection
created by fiat, is the law of the universe, we may see in it, at
all events, something analogous to the law of our moral nature.

Mr. Kidd's work was criticised in detail in the last number
of this REVIEW by the vigorous pen of Mr. Roosevelt. His
theory is that man owes his progress to his having acted against
his reason in obedience to a supernatural and extra-rational sanc
tion of action which is identified with religion. The interest of
the individual and that of society, Mr. Kidd holds to be radically
opposed to each other. Reason bids the individual prefer his
own interest. The supernatural and extra-rational sanction
'bids him prefer the interest of society, which is assumed to be
paramount, and thus civilization advances. The practical con
clusion is that the churches are the greatest instruments of
human progress.

What does Mr. Kidd mean by reason ? He appears to regard
it as a special organ or faculty, capable of being contradicted by
another faculty, as one sense sometimes for a moment contradicts
another sense, or as our senses are corrected by our intelligence

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 239

in the case of the apparent motion of the sun. But our reason
is the sum of all the faculties and powers which lead us to con
viction or guide us in action. To be misled by it when weak or
perverted is very possible ; to act consciously against it is not.
Simeon Stylites obeys it as well as Sardanapalus or Jay Gould.
He believes, however absurdly, that the Deity accepts the sacri
fice of self-torture, and that it will be well for the self-torturer in
the sum of things. His self-torture is therefore in accordance
with his reason. A supernatural sanction, supposing its reality to
be proved, becomes a part of the data on which reason acts, or
rather it becomes, for the occasion, the sole datum; and to obey it,
instead of being unreasonable, is the most reasonable thing in the
world. Misled by his reason, we repeat, to any extent a man may
be, both in matters speculative and practical; but he can no more
think or act outside of his reason, that is, the entirety of his im
pressions and inducements, than he can jump out of his skin.
What Mr. Kidd seems at bottom to mean is that we may and do,
with the best results, prefer social to individual, and moral to
material, objects. But this is a totally different thing from acting
against reason, and while it requires a certain elevation of char
acter, it requires no extra-rational motive.

Mr. Kidd speaks of "reason" and the capacity for acting with
his fellows in society as " two new forces which made their
advent with man/' He cannot mean, what his words might be
taken to imply, that the rudiments of reason are not discernible
in brutes, or that sociability does not prevail in the herd, the
swarm, and the hive. To the herd, the swarm, and the hive sac
rifices of the individual animal or insect are made like those of
the individual man to his community. Is there supernatural or
extra-rational sanction in the case of the deer, the ant, or the bee?

Altruism, acting against reason with a supernatural and extra-
rational sanction, is, according to Mr. Kidd, the motive power
of progress. But this altruism of which we hear so much, what
is it? Man is not only a self-regardant, but a sympathetic, do
mestic, and social being. He is so by nature, just as he is a
biped or a mammal. How he became so the physiologist and
psychologist must be left to explain. But a sympathetic, do
mestic, and social being he is, and in gratifying his sympathetic,
domestic, or social propensities, he is no more altruistic, if altru
ism means disregard of self, than he is when he gratifies his

240 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

desire of food or motion. Self is not disregarded because self is
sympathetic, domestic, and social. The man of feeling identifies
himself with his kind; the father with his children; the patriot
with his state ; and they all look in various forms for a return of
their affection or devotion. The man in each of the cases goes
out of his narrower self, but he does not go out of self. Show us
the altruist who gives up his dinner to benefit the inhabitants of
the planet Mars and we will admit the existence of altruism in
the sense in which the term seems to be used by Mr. Kidd and
some other philosophers of to-day.

Keason, as defined by Mr. Kidd, appears to be a faculty which
tells us what is desirable, but does not tell us what is possible
"The lower classes of our population/' he says, "have no sanc
tion from reason for maintaining existing conditions." " They
should in self-interest put an immediate end to existing social
conditions." Why, so they would if they had the power, sup
posing their condition and the causes of it to be what Mr. Kidd
represents. It is not altruism that prevents them but necessity ;
the same necessity which constrains people of all classes to submit
to evils of various kinds, submission to which, if unnecessary,
would be idiotic. That poverty and calamity have been endured
more patiently in the hope of a compensation hereafter is true,
but makes no difference as to the reasonableness of the endur
ance. From a comparison of the two sentences just quoted, it
would appear that Mr. Kidd identifies reason with self-interest, and,
therefore, with something antagonistic to society. Whereas, in a
sociable being conformity to the laws of society is reason. " The
interests of the social organism and of the individual," says Mr.
Kidd, " are and must remain antagonistic." Why so in the case
of a man any more than in that of a bee ?

What is the " supernatural and extra-rational sanction " in
virtue of which man acts against the dictates of his reason, and
by so acting makes progress ? Religion. What is religion ?

" A religion is a form of belief providing an ultra-rational sanction for
that large class of conduct in the individual where his interests and the
interests of the social organism are antagonistic, and by which the former
are rendered subordinate to the latter in the general interests of the evolu
tion which the race is undergoing,"

Here is a definition of religion without mention of God. The
supernatural sanction is religion, and religion is a supernatural

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 241

sanction. This surely does not give us much new light. But we
are further told that " there can never be such a thing as a rational
religion." Superstition, such as the worship of Moloch, that of
Apis, that of the gods of Mexico, or mediaeval religion in its de
based form, is not rational, nor will our calling it supernatural or
extra-rational make it an influence above nature and reason, or
prove it to have been the motive power of progress, which, on the
contrary, it has retarded and sometimes, as in the case of Egypt,
killed outright. The religions which in their day have been in
struments of progress, and among which may perhaps be num
bered, at a grade lower than Christianity, Mohammedanism and
Buddhism, have owed their character to their rational adaptation
to human nature and their consecration of rational effort. They
are counterparts, not of the polytheistic state religion of Greece,
but of the Socratic philosophy, which had a divinity of its own,
the impersonation of its morality, and paid homage to the state
polytheism only by sacrificing a cock to ^Bsculapius. Chris
tianity, as it came from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth, was, like
the philosophy of Socrates, unliturgical and unsacerdotal : its
liturgy was one simple prayer. " Supernatural" is a convenient
word, but it by implication begs the question, and when applied
to superstitions is most fallacious. " Inf ranatural," or something
implying degradation and grossness, not elevation above the
world of sense, would be the right expression. Christian ethics,
as distinguished from dogma, are not supernatural; they are drawn
from, and adapted to, human nature. It is disappointing to find
that a theorist who makes everything depend on the influence of
religion should not have attempted to ascertain precisely what
religion is and what is its origin, or to distinguish from each other
the widely diverse phenomena which bear the name. His sanc
tion itself calls for a sanction and calls in vain.

When a hypothesis will not bear inspection in itself, time is
wasted in applying it, or testing its applications, to history. But
Mr. Kidd says of the first fourteen centuries after Christ :

" So far, fourteen centuries of the history of our civilization had been de
voted to the growth and development of a stupendous system of other-worldli-
ness. The conflict against reason had been successful to a degree never before
equalled in the history of the world. The super-rational sanction of conduct
had attained a strength and universality unknown in the Roman and Greek
civilizations. The State was a divine institution. The ruler held his place
by divine right, and every political office and all subsidiary power issued
from him in virtue of the same authority. Every consideration of the present
YOL. CLXI.— tfO. 465. 16

242 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

was overshadowed in men's minds by conceptions of a future life, and the
whole social and political system and the individual lives of men had become
profoundly tinged with the prevailing ideas."

Of all the actions by which, mediaeval civilization was moulded
and advanced, what percentage does Mr. Kidd suppose to have
been performed under religious influence or from a spiritual mo
tive ? How many feudal kings and lords — how many, even, of
' the ecclesiastical statesmen of the Middle Ages does he suppose
to have been carrying on a conflict with reason for objects other
than worldly and under the inspiration of divine right ? How
much resemblance to the character of the Founder of Christianity
would he have found among the rulers and the active spirits of
the community or even of the Church ? How much among the
occupants of the Papal throne itself ?

It has already been pointed out that Mr. Kidd, to say the
least, overstates his case in saying that Christianity was directly
opposed by all the intellectual forces of the time. So close was
the affinity of Koman Stoicism to it that one eminent French
writer has undertaken to demonstrate the influence of Christianity
on the writings of the Koman Stoics. But it had also an ally in
the melancholy of a falling empire and a perishing civilization.
It had intellectual champions as soon as it had intellectual assail
ants, and their arguments were addressed to reason. The pessi
mistic melancholy of a falling empire and the revolt from a de
crepit polytheism were also intellectual or partly intellectual
forces on its side.

In the recent concessions of political power by the upper
classes to the masses, Mr. Kidd finds an example of altruism
prevailing over reason. That something has in the course of this
revolution occasionally prevailed over reason might be very plaus
ibly maintained. Whether it was anything supernatural or extra-
rational seems very doubtful. In Great Britain, for instance, the
extension of the franchise in 1832 was the result of a conflict be
tween classes and parties carried on in a spirit as far as possible
from altruistic and pushed to the very verge of civil war. After
wards, the Whig leader finding himself politically becalmed,
brought in a new Reform Bill to raise the wind, and was outbid
by Derby and Disraeli, whose avowed object was to (( dish the
Whigs." Of altruistic self-sacrifice it would be difficult in the
whole process to find much trace.

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 343

If this branch of the inquiry were to be pursued, it might be
worth while for Mr. Kidd to consider the case of Japan, the
progress of which of late has been so marvellously rapid. It ap
pears that in Japan, while the lower classes have a superstition at
once very gross and very feeble, the upper classes, by whom the
movement has been initiated and carried forward, have no genu
ine religion, but at most official forms, such as could not sustain
action against self-interest.

The cause of human progress has been the desire of man to
improve his condition, ever ascending as, with the success of his
efforts, fresh possibilities of improvement were brought within
his view. It is in* this respect that he differs from the brutes.
Mechanical evolution and selection by struggle for existence
apply to man only in his rudimentary state or in his character
as an animal. Of humanity, desire of improvement is the
motive power. There is no need, therefore, of importing the
language, fast becoming a jargon, of evolution into our general
treatment of history. Bees, ants, and beavers are marvels of
nature in their way. But they show no desire for improvement,
and make no efforfc to improve. Man alone aspires. The aspira
tion is weak in the lower races of men, strong in the higher. Of
its existence and of the different degrees in which it exists, science
may be able to give an account. But it certainly is not the off
spring of unreason, nor can it be aided in any way by supersti
tion or by any rejection of truth.

A work on the foundations of religious belief by the leader of a
party in the British House of Commons, who is by some marked
out as a future Prime Minister, shows, like the theological and
cosmogonical essays of Mr. Gladstone, the increasing interest felt
about the problems, not only by divines and philosophers, but by
men of the world. In Mr* Balfour's case the union of specula
tion with politics is the more striking, inasmuch as his work is
one of abstruse philosophy. It is by metaphysical arguments
that he undertakes to overthrow systems opposed to religion, and
to rebuild the dilapidated edifice on new and surer foundations.
He is thus treading in the steps of Coleridge, the great religious
philosopher of the English Church. It is to a limited circle of
readers that he appeals. Ordinary minds find metaphysics et out
of their welkin," to use the words of the Clown in Twelfth Night.

244 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

They venerate from afar a study which has engaged and still en
gages the attention of powerful intellects. But they are them
selves lost in the region in which ff transcendental solipsism "
has its home. They are unable to see at what definitive conclu
sions, still more, at what practical conclusions, such as might in
fluence conduct, philosophy has arrived. Metaphysic seems to
them to be in a perpetual state of flux. " The theories of the
great metaphysicians of the past," Mr. Balfour says, ' ' are no con
cern of ours/' They would surely concern us, however, if, like
successive schools of science, they had made some real discoveries
and left something substantial behind them. But as Mr. Bal
four plaintively tells us, the system of Plato, notwithstanding the
beauty of its literary vesture, has no effectual vitality ; our debts
to Aristotle, though immense, "do not include a tenable theory
of the universe"; in the Stoic metaphysics " nobody takes any
interest"; the Neo-Platonists were mystics, and in mysticism
Mr. Balfour recognizes an undying element of human thought,
but " nobody is concerned about their hierarchy of beings con
necting through infinite gradations 'the Absolute at one end of
the scale with matter at the other "; the metaphysics of Descartes
"are not more living than his physics"; neither "his two
substances, nor the single substance of Spinoza, nor the innum
erable substances of Leibnitz satisfy the searcher after truth."
Had these several systems been investigations of matters in which
real discovery was possible, each of them surely would have dis
covered something, and a certain interest in each of them would
remain. But they have flitted like a series of dreams, or a suc
cession of kaleidoscopic variations. Mr. Balfour doubts " whether
any metaphysical philosopher before Kant can be said to have
made contributions to this subject (a theory of nature) which at
the present day need to be taken into serious account," and he
presently proceeds to indicate that " Kant's doctrines, even as
modified by his successors, do not provide a sound basis for an
epistemology of nature." Mr. Balfour seems even to think that
philosophy is in some degree a matter of national temperament.
He says that the philosophy of Kant and other German philoso
phers will never be thoroughly received so as to form standards
of reference in any English-speaking community " until the ideas
of these speculative giants are thoroughly re-thought by English
men and reproduced in a shape which ordinary Englishmen will

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. $45

consent to assimilate." " Under ordinary conditions," he says,
" philosophy cannot, like science, become international." This
seems as much as saying that philosophy is still not a department
of science, or a real investigation resulting in truths evident to
all the world alike, but a mode of looking at things which may
vary with national peculiarities of mind and character.

Locke, as Mr. Balfour reminds us, toward the end of his great
work assures his readers that he " suspects that natural philosophy
is not capable of being made science," and serenely draws from
his admissions the moral that " as we are so little fitted to frame
theories about this present world we had better devote our ener
gies to preparing for the next." Perhaps we might amend the
suggestion by saying that most of us had better devote our ener
gies to the search for attainable truth and to the improvement of
our character and estate in this world as a preparation for the
world to come. A man so metaphysical in his cast as Emerson is
obliged to say that we know nothing of nature or of ourselves,
and that man has not " taken one step towards the solution of the
problem of his destiny."

Before the relation of mind and body had been proved, and
while the mind was supposed to have a divine origin of its own
and to be a sojourner in the body as a temporary home or prison-
house, it was perhaps easier to believe, as did the mediaeval phil
osophers, that in the mind there was a source of knowledge about
the universe apart from the perceptions of sense, and that the
world might be studied, not by observation, but by introspection,
and even through the analysis of language as the embodiment of
ideas. Transcendental Solipsism and a world constructed out of cat
egories would, under those conditions, have their day. Something
of the mediaeval disposition seems to lurk in the effort to demon
strate that the material world has no existence apart from our
perceptions. Be this true or not, it can make little difference in
our theological or spiritual position. The fact must be the same
in the case of a dog as in the case of a man.

Most of us, therefore, will be content to look on while Mr.
Balfour's metaphysical blade, flashing to the right and left, dis
poses of ' f Naturalism " on the one hand and of Transendentalism
on the other. We have only to put in a gentle caveat against any
idea of driving the world back through general scepticism to
faith. Scepticism, not only general, but universal, is more likely

246 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to be the ultimate result, and any faith which is not spontaneous,
whether it be begotten of ecclesiastical pressure or intellectual
despair, is, and in the end will show itself to be, merely veiled
unbelief. The catastrophe of Dean Mansel, who, while he was
trying in the interest of orthodoxy, to cut the ground from under
the feet of the Kationalist, himself inadvertently demonstrated
the impossibility of believing in God, was an awful warning to
the polemical tactician.

Mr. Balfour gets on more practical ground and comes more
within the range of general interest when he proceeds to set up
authority apart from reason as a foundation of theological be
lief. Above reason authority must apparently be if it is apart
from it, for wherever authority has established itself reason must
give way, while it has no means of constraining the submission
of authority. No one could be less inclined to presumptuous
rationalism than Butler, who, in his work, which though in par
tial ruin is still great, with noble frankness accepts reason as our
only guide to truth. In combating the objections against the
evidences of Christianity, Butler says that " he expresses himself
with caution lest he should be mistaken to vilify reason, which is
indeed the only faculty we have to judge concerning anything,
even revelation. " What is deference to authority but the deference
to superior knowledge or wisdom which reason pays, and which,
if its grounds, intellectual or moral, fail or become doubtful,
reason will withdraw? This is just as true with regard to the au
thority of tradition as with regard to that of a living informant
or adviser ; just as true with regard to the authority of a Church
as with regard to that of an individual teacher or guide. Au
thority, Mr. Balfour says, as the term is used by him, " is in all
cases contrasted with reason and stands for that group of non-
rational causes, moral, social, and educational, which produces its
results by psychic processes other than reason." A writer may
affix to a term any sense he pleases for his personal convenience ;
but the reasoning of the psychic process of deference to authority,
though undeveloped, and, perhaps, till it is challenged, uncon
scious, whether its cause be moral, social, or educative, is capable of
being presented in a rational form, and cannot, therefore, be rightly
called non-rational. There is, of course, a sort of authority, or
what is so styled, which impresses itself by means other than
rational, such as religious persecution, priestly thaumaturgy,

GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. 24:7

spiritual terrorism, or social tyranny. But in this Mr. Balfour
would not recognize a source of truth or foundation of theological
belief. A philosopher who proposes to rebuild theology, wholly
or in part, on the basis of authority, seems bound to provide us
with some analysis of authority itself, and some test by which
genuine authority may be distinguished from ancient and vener
able imposture. Papal infallibility, which Mr. Balfour cites as
an instance, does undoubtedly postulate the submission of reason
to authority ; but it proved the necessity of that submission by
the extermination of the Albigenses and the holocausts of the
Inquisition. It is still ready, as its Encyclical and Syllabus inti
mate, to sustain the demonstration by the help of the secular arm.

So in the case of habit. Our common actions have no doubt
become by use automatic, as our common beliefs are accepted
without investigation. But if they are challenged, reasons for
them can be given. A man eats without thinking, but if he is
called upon he can give a good reason for taking food. A soldier
obeys the word of command mechanically, but if he were called
upon he could give a good reason for his obedience.

Mr. Balfour scarcely lets us see distinctly what is his view of
belief in miracles, which must play an important part in any re
construction or review of the basis of theology, an all-important
part, indeed, if Paley was right in saying, as he did in reply to
Hume, that there was no way other than miracle in which God
could be revealed. He seems inclined to represent the objections
to them as philosophical rather than historical, and such as a
sounder philosophy may dissipate, intimating that rationalists
have approached the inquiry with a predetermination " to force the
testimony of existing records into conformity with theories on the
truth or falsity of which it is for philosophy not history to pro
nounce/' This might be said with some justice of Strauss's first
Life of Jesus , and perhaps of some other German philosophies of
the Gospel history. But the current objections to miracles, with
which a theologian has to deal, are clearly of a historical kind.
A miracle is an argument addressed through the sense to the un
derstanding, which pronounces that the thing done is super
natural and proof of the intervention of a higher power. It
seems inconceivable, if the salvation -of the world were to depend
on belief in miracles, that Providence should have failed to pro
vide records for the assurance of those who were not eye-witnesses

248 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

equal in certainty to the evidence afforded eye-witnesses by sense.
Are the records of the miracles which we possess unquestionably
authentic and contemporaneous ? Were the reporters beyond all
suspicion, not only of deceit, but of innocent self-delusion ?
Were they, looking to the circumstances of their time and their
education, likely to be duly critical in their examination of the
case ? Is there any thing in the internal character of the miracles
themselves, the demoniac miracles for example, to move suspicion,
it being impossible to think that Providence would allow indis
pensable evidences of vital truth to be stamped with the marks of
falsehood ? What is the weight of the adverse evidence derived
from the silence of external history and the apparent absence of
the impression which might have been expected to be made by
prodigies such as miraculous darkness and the rising of the dead
out of their graves ? These questions, daily pressed upon us by
scepticism, are strictly historical, and will have to be treated by
restorers of theological belief on strictly historical grounds.

Mr. Balfour recognizes mysticism as an " undying element in
human thought." That it is not yet dead is evident. Minds not
a few have taken refuge in various forms of it. But undying it
surely is not. The mystic, however exalted, merely imposes on
himself. He creates by a subtle sophistication of his own mind
the cloudy object of his faith and worship. He had himself writ
ten his Book of Mormon, and hidden it where he found it. In
that direction there can be no hope of laying the foundation of a
new theological belief.

There can be no hope, apparently, of laying new foundations
for a rational theology in any direction excepting that of the
study of the universe and of humanity as manifestations of the
supreme power in that spirit of thorough-going intellectual hon
esty of which Huxley, who has just been taken from us, is truly
said to have been an illustrious example. That we are made and
intended to pursue knowledge is as certain as that we are made
and intended to strive for the improvement of our estate, and we
cannot tell how far or to what revelations the pursuit may lead
us. If revelation is lost to us manifestation remains, and great
manifestations appear to be opening on our view. Agnos
ticism is right, if it is a counsel of honesty, but ought not to be
heard if it is a counsel of despair.

SMITH.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

REVOLVER OR SABRE.

THE introduction of gunpowder created a revolution in the art of war
which has developed for the military student some interesting and curious
facts. Before then, physical strength and endurance were absolute requi
sites of an accomplished soldier. The great captains of those days, upon
every available opportunity, practised their men in such athletic sports as
would make them most proficient with the weapons they used. The
Roman soldiers during the long period of their military supremacy had for
their principal weapon a short heavy sword, with which they rushed into a
hand to hand conflict with the enemy. Their athletic training and dis
ciplined valor carried victory with them for hundreds of years and main
tained their supremacy in arms, till luxury and dissipation rendered them
an easy victim to their more hardy conquerors from the North. Ancient
traditions are clung to most persistently in the selection of military weap
ons. In modern cavalry armament, we find the sabre and lance, a modifica
tion of the ancient sword and spear, adhered to with a pertinacity for
which it is difficult to account on rational grounds. Let us fancy two sol
diers in the mounted service,'equally brave, one thoroughly trained to handle
the sabre and the other an accomplished revolver shot. Station them one
hundred yards apart and let them advance toward each other at any gait,
with hostile intent. Can any one for an instant expect but one result— that
the man with the sabre shall certainly be destroyed before he can arrive
within striking distance of his enemy ? Suppose we made the number a thou
sand ; is there any ground to suppose the result would differ materially in
illustrating the superiority of the revolver over the sabre ? To exemplify this
in another form ; let us suppose, that a sabre cut over the head, or a thrust
through the body, is equal to a wound from a revolver bullet : and for the
sake of argument we will allow the man with the sabre, to arrive within ten
feet of his enemy with the revolver ; we will assume that ten seconds are
required for a "sabreur" to successfully carve one man and get within
striking distance, about three and a half or four feet, of another. We know
that it is a very ordinary feat for a good revolver shot, mounted, to fire five
shots in five seconds and hit a mark the size of a man, every time, at a dis
tance of ten feet, and this with his horse at a full run. The reverence with
which we cling to arms ancient might make a wise soldier laugh, were
its effects not so pernicious, as sometimes, to make a good soldier weep.
Our recent civil war developed some excellent ctkalry officers on both sides,
and in the opinion of many competent judges, General Ouster was second to
none. For some time previous to 1876 he commanded the Seventh Cavalry in
various Indian campaigns. Being full of energy and ambition, it is reason-

250 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

able to suppose lie trained his troopers with all the judgment and skill
derived from his extensive experience. The sabre was the recognized
cavalry weapon, and at that time, our cavalry officers gave little or no
attention to mounted fire. In 1876 we find a portion of this cavalry, under
General Custer, numbering about three hundred of his best troops, engaged
with hostile Sioux and Cheyennes.

These Indian warriors had been brought up on horseback and trained
from boyhood to use firearms mounted. The battle took place upon an open
and gently undulating country near the Little Horn River, and not a single
white man was left to clear the mystery which shrouded the details of
the engagement. About two years subsequent to this event, the writer be
came well acquainted with some of the Sioux and Cheyennes engaged in
this fight against the Seventh Cavalry, and after much difficulty they were
induced to describe the details of the action. Three of these Indians at dif
ferent times gave their versions of the battle, and their accounts did not
vary in material points. They said the Indians charged upon the cavalry,
firing their rifles and pistols, and that the action lasted about half an hour.
Thirty-five or forty Indians were killed, and they believed most of the casu-
alities were due to the Indians shooting one another, as they attacked the
cavalry on both flanks at the same time.

They said that the cavalry horses were so terrified by the yells, shooting
and appearance of the warriors that the soldiers had all they could do to
keep their seats, that many of them were thrown, and that they did little
execution among the savages. It must be remembered that up to this
time our cavalry had received little or no training with the revolver, and
that the Indians outnumbered the cavalry, three or four to one. Had
the latter known how to handle their revolvers, they would have sent many
times their own number to the happy hunting ground.

Toward the close of our late unpleasantness the central part of Missouri
was infested by a body of men claiming to belong to the Southern Army,
under a leader named Bill Anderson. These men had for their sole ar
mament from four to six revolvers each and were mounted upon the best
horses the country afforded. For about a week they were camped in a pas
ture near the house where the writer, then a boy, lived, and we had a number
of opportunities to observe their occupation. They spent several hours each
day at mounted pistol practice, putting their horses at a full run and shoot
ing at trees or fence posts. Some of them would, at times, vary this practice
by taking the bridle reins in their teeth and firing a revolver from each
hand. As we remember, their shooting was excellent. A few months later,
a body of cavalry, variously estimated at from 300 to 250, were landed by the
railroad at Centralia, Mo., to operate against Bill Anderson and his
men. The country around this railroad station is an almost perfectly level
prairie. This cavalry had proceeded but two or three miles from their land
ing place when they encountered the enemy. Anderson formed a skirmish
line and charged, some of his men taking the bridle reins in their teeth and
a revolver in each hand. The affair was soon ended. Of the 200 or 250 men
only ten escaped with their lives ; the others were laid out over the prairie
for a distance of several miles. Anderson lost only five or six men.

So far as we can learn, little progress has been made by the cavalry of
European armies in mounted revolver shooting, owing to the fact that they
lack a knowledge of the art and that they have too much respect for ancient
traditions. The military establishment of our country has reached a much

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 251

higher state of efficiency in the use of firearms than that of any other
nation.

This is due to the liberal appropriations of Congress for target practice,
the knowledge and skill of our officers in revolver and rifle shooting, and the
facility with which they impart this most valuable of all military accom
plishments to the enlisted men.

For many centuries the theory and practice amongst civilized nations
has been to train cavalry to act by the collective shock ; that is, to develop no
individuality, but to have them ride boot to boot, in a solid mass with drawn
sabres and with an irresistible force, so as to overwhelm all in front of them .
With the individuality now to be found in the foot soldier of an ordinary skir
mish line, such a mass of cavalry would be destroyed, or rendered useless
before they could arrive within two hundred yards of the objective point.
The modern cavalry soldier should be trained to the highest degree of indi
vidual excellence in the management of his horse and revolver ; he should
be armed with a carbine and at least two revolvers, and have the useless,
clanking and antiquated sabre consigned to some spot from which it could
have no resurrection. The cavalryman should be practised with the revol
ver till he could fire five shots in four seconds, and be able to hit, two out of
three times, an object the size of a man, at a distance of ten yards, with
horse at a full run. To one not familiar with revolver shooting this may
seem a difficult thing to do, and it may appear to require too high a stand
ard of excellence from the average cavalry soldier, but it must be remem.
bered that revolver shooting is like many other physical accomplishments :
it is learned much more rapidly when the instruction is carried on according
to some correct system. The exercises of the recruit, while he is learning to
ride and handle his horse, should be varied by at least two hours' work each
day, devoted to handling and snapping his revolver on foot, so that the cor
rect execution of these exercises may become mechanical; in other words,
the recruit should be trained to bring his pistol to bear upon an object and hit
it without any perceptible time being spent in taking aim and pulling
the trigger. Ours is an age of specialists, and it is seldom that one is found
who can reach the highest degree of excellence in more than one mechanical
art. When this skill is once attained in using a revolver, there is ever
a good demand for its services, and the confidence and courage which its
possession is certain to give to our cavalry soldier will make him brave and
self-reliant to an extent which will render him on the field of battle more
than a match for five times his number of the best cavalry the old world
has ever seen.

W. P. HALL,

Major and Assistant Adjutant-General ; late Captain Fifth
United States Cavalry.

WHAT MEN THINK OF WOMEN'S DRESS.

IP we accept the oldest writings concerning the subject, we must con
cede that the first costume worn by primitive man and woman was selected
only after a consultation of the two sexes. It is a curious fact that after
centuries of groping in the blind labyrinths of dress, women are returning
in some measure toward primitive ideas and conditions. They are just
beginning to appreciate the aid of men in matters of this sort.

The increase of liberty that women enjoy in this latter decade or two,
their entrance into the realm of men's occupations, and their consequent

252 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

desire for greater freedom in dress, make it a hard matter, under these
scarcely-adjusted conditions, to draw the line between masculine likes and
dislikes as to dress reform. It may be stated emphatically, however, that
almost all men abominate all forms of woman's attire that merely aim to be
"mannish," that are adopted only for the sake of making a "smart"
appearance. Mannish collars, vests, hats, neckties, etc., when worn by
women, almost always create a revulsion of feeling in a man by impairing
that femininity in appearance which must always be one of the greatest
charms of womanhood.

^At the same time men would gladly encourage women in their natural
right to adopt such modifications as would give them greater freedom
for exercise or business pursuits, and consequently greater health. There
was great fear among the timid that the adoption of the modern
bicycling costumes would subject the wearer to vulgar comment, or at least
insufferable stares, from men. The fact is that women stare at and criticise
their progressive sisters more than men do.

Men do not object in the least to their wives, or sisters, or daughters,
wearing " gym " suits for athletics, divided skirts or Turkish trousers for
bicycling, or even for business, so long as the touch of femininity, of mod
esty, is never lost in the making of such costumes. The man does not con
cern himself with details about such garments, but he looks for that
roundness, as opposed to angularity ; that grace, be it of a fluffy wing, or a
ruffle, or gather ; that little adornment, a touch of color, ribbon, flowing
outline, that shall proclaim at once the sweetness and preciousness of
womanhood.

Men naturally wish to pay, and do pay, the greatest deference to woman
hood, even in the crowded business life of New York City, but they demand
in return that women shall dress so as to suggest unmistakable womanliness.

As we are all striving to attain to Altrurian conditions we need to study
the matter of dress from the very base and beginning. Science is now only
content to go to the very bottom of things, and, discarding all custom and
tradition, demands a reason for everything. So it should be with dress.
Men and women are different. Therefore their dress should be different.
But as their spheres of activity are becoming more and more closely allied,
so their dress should permit equal freedom of movement and .equal health.
A beautiful statue, be it the cruelly amputated Venus of Milo, or the
Medici, or the Greek Slave, almost all of us, except some singular back-
country spinster, unite in saying needs no adornment. But it would be a
good practice to take that statue and dress it, not according to the prevail
ing mode, but according to thev demands of the figure, that, being itself
beautiful, its beauty should not be lost, but in some degree preserved, if not
enhanced by its dress. A company of art critics would dress it in the flow
ing robes of ancient Greece. At the same time a committee of doctors or
disciples of physical culture might not grant it any more drapery than has
the Diana of St. Gaudens on the Madison Square tower.

It should be a recognized principle that beauty of figure is not to be hid
den or lost by means of dress. There is no need to distort the art of the Cre
ator by the art of the milliner. If a woman has a beautiful throat, she has a
perfect right to reveal it, except when she runs a risk of taking cold. Almost
every woman has some good feature. Let her make the most of it. Be it
beauty of eyes or hair, or complexion, beauty of stature, of strength, of
arm or limb, dress should enhance it.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 253

The gain, for instance, that would accrue to the race in the way of in
creased health and happiness, and lessened pain and doctors' bills, if the
average skirt was cut ten inches shorter, would be tremendous. By that
one simple surgical stroke of the scissors, quick and painless, think how
many hundreds of tons of mud-bedraggled dry-goods would drop from the
overweighted hips of womanhood 1 But the very women who abbreviate the
corsage of their opera-dresses to an equal extent would shrink at the display
of a well-turned ankle. Yet the former practice is far more vulnerable to
criticism than the one we would advocate. It must be kept in mind that a
style of dress that encourages physical development is not designed alone
for women of fine physique. Its popularity would lead all women to covet
health and symmetry of form and to work for it by all the proper agencies
of diet, exercise, sleep and sensible living generally. It has been an old
grievance of our fathers and grandfathers that it took a fearfully sharper
eye to select a good woman than a good horse. And when they so often got
cheated on a horse, is it a wonder that millions of men have filled bachelors'
graves ? A bachelor's grave is a cold thing to look forward to, but many
have thought that it was preferable to taking a chance in that lottery where
the diamonds and the booby-prizes, the Venuses and the viragoes, have all
been concealed in a maze of crinoline and whalebone, cotton, powder and
paint. Who could know whether the beautiful maiden or the ugly dwarf
would step forth on the night of disenchantment ? We gladly testify that
our fin-de-si^cle daughters are dressing in some respects with greater good
taste and fidelity to common sense, truth, health, the laws as well as the
lines of their own physique, than did their grandmothers.

Of course there is a dress for children, a dress for the young, for the old,
for the invalid. We kindly drape the angles and the weaknesses in the loved
forms where age has set its wrinkled seal over the once virgin stamp of
beauty. Yet old age, too, has its beauties, and its fitting adornment.
It is among the ranks of the women themselves that there is the great
est objection to new ideas. Speaking for men, it may be said that
they consider themselves fortunate in a dress that is fairly easy and
healthful, if not pleasing from an artistic standpoint. In their good
fortune they do not begrudge to women any modifications of their
attire on which they can set the stamp of true femininity and add grace and
artistic effect to what is merely practical. Whatever makes for greater
health and comfort to women is not a matter of indifference to the stern sex,
however they may seem to leave the women to work out their own salvation
with fear and trembling. There will be no more hearty plaudits to
the successful solver of the dress reform problem than will come from
the "men's gallery." Ahasuerus is still gracious, and Esther need never
fear but that she will find favor in his sight in any sort of modest garb
whatever.

On one detail of dress I think I can speak with confidence, and that is, it
makes no difference in a man's eye what material a dress is made of. You
can please him just as well in calico as in silk, and perhaps better, if he has
to pay the bills. " It is all in the making," is a phrase tjiat means much to
men. They like symmetry, grace, harmony of colors, perfect fit. For one
man that will be dazzled by purple and gold there are a dozen who will be
charmed by quiet grays or browns, relieved by a bright ribbon and a bright
face. " Back to nature " is the cry of this logical, matter-of-fact and yet
impressionable age ; and learning of nature, and of her garments of leaves

254 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and grass and snow, we shall see how closely she clothes her forms, only
softening the outlines, selects her quiet harmonies of colors rather than
glaring contrasts, and covers nothing from sight that is of itself beautiful.

C. H. CRANDALL.

HISTORICAL NICKNAMES.

EDMOND ABOUT, in one of his last contributions to the Revue de Deux
Mondes, suggested that the political history of several nations could be
written in the form of a compendium of national epigrams and vaudevilles
—a sort of facetious ditties in which the French are rivalled only by their
Italian neighbors.

A collection of historical nicknames would, however, serve the same pur
pose in a still more compendious form. There are sobriquets that sum up all
the physical and moral characteristics of an individual and sometimes of a
party or even a whole nation. " What are the main tendencies of your ' Lib
erals' and 'Serviles,' as your Highness has begun to call them ? " a German
politician asked Prince de Ligne, the Austrian Chesterfield. " Well, you see,
our Serviles want sehrvieles (a good many things), but our Liberals want
lieber alles" (rather everything), said the keenwitted courtier.

When the braggard Bernadotte had got himself elected Crown Prince of
Sweden, he did his best to propitiate public opinion all around, assumed the
name of Charles Jean, loaded foreign diplomatists with decorations, and
offered his services as mediator between France and the victorious allies, but
his old companions in arms had sized him up to an inch and nicknamed him
' ' Charles Jean Charlatan. ' ' Complacent King Joseph they called ' * le roi par
ordre" and the depredations of General Vandamme were commemorated in
the epithet "Jacques Brigand" — "Billy Bushwhacker," as we might translate
it. For Napoleon himself his soldiers had only affectionate nicknames :
" The Little Corporal," "Little Wideawake " ; but Madame de Stael in a fit
of resentment called him "Robespierre on horseback" (Robespierre d
cheval), and the nickname stuck like the pun of that Ghent Alderman who
bribed the retail butchers of his city (locally known as les petits bouchers} to
get up a transparency with the inscription : " The little butchers of Ghent
to Napoleon the Great."

The "Grand Butcher" was not apt to forgive a personal squib of that kind,
but nevertheless almost choked with laughing when Count Las Cases at
Longwood ventured to acquaint him with the popular nickname of his royal
brother-in-law, Murat. The parvenu King of Naples was incorrigibly fond
of dressing in theatrical finery, gold-lace jackets with broad lace collars and
blue velvet surtouts, and in allusion to that foible the Parisian wits called
him " King Franconi, " Franconi's Opera being a flashy pleasure resort of
the French capital. Louis XVIII. they called ' ' Gros Revenue, ' ' to commemo
rate a high treasonable pun of a witty Imperialist, who had heard his com
rades complain of the enormous taxes of the new regime. "Never mind,
payons, payons, nous avons un gros revenu " — we have a large revenue —
the three last words meaning also " a returned potbelly." After the battle
of Waterloo they called their wellfed sovereign "Louis deux fois neuf,"
"twice nine, "with the additional meaning of "twice new." Those puns
had much to do with the final expulsion of the Bourbons, and it might be
questioned if all the speeches of the Jacobins hurt the cause of the royal
family as much as the Queen's nickname, * ' Madame Veto. " That those same

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 255

Jacobins were capable of self -banter is, however, proved by their sobriquet
of the frivolous cut-throat Barere, " the Anacreon of the Guillotine."

With a similar humor the wits of the Napoleonic era called the flunkey
naturalist Lac6pede (a great authority on snakes), "The chef of the
reptiles." " The Deity rested after the creation of Napoleon the Great," the
eloquent professor concluded one of his characteristic speeches. " A pity
that the Deity did not rest then a little sooner," said the Count de Nar-
bonne. As a rule the Imperialists would not permit the humorists of any
other nation to quiz their new made potentates, but they could not help en
dorsing the verdict of the tax-burdened Hessians who called their profligate
king (Brother Je'rdme) "Koenig Don Juan."

In the Crown Prince phase of his existence, Kaiser Wilhelm, the victor
of Sadowa and Sedan, had made himself so unpopular that the Berliners
called him the Kartdtschen Prinz (the grape-and-canister Prince, and de
molished his metropolitan palace. Voltaire, after his Prussian experiences,
could not revenge himself in that manner, but contrived to saddle old Fritz
with the sobriquet of "Luc" — originally the name of a mischievous and
highly irascible baboon which a French traveller had presented to the Phil
osopher of Ferney. The brother of the Canister Prince had a constitu
tional horror of gunpowder, and worshipped Bacchus rather to the neglect
of Mars, but was so affable to interviewers of all parties that he got off
with the nickname of " Champagne Freddie " (Der Champagner Fritz). All
in all, he was about the easiest-going King that ever contrived to maintain
himself on a storm-tossed throne, and when the Burgomaster of a rather
democratic Rhineland city presented him with a bumper of wine, "war
ranted as pure as our citizens' loyalty to your royal house," his majesty
merely held the glass against the light and whispered: " Vintage of Forty-
eight ? "—the year of the Rhenish insurrection.

He knew his nickname, and connived at the public banter of his foibles
with a philosophical tolerance entirely foreign to the character of one of
his successors, whose subjects have never yet ventured to translate the
London-made sobriquet of "Billy Bombastes." Marechal Blucher took
part in a debate on the best way of translating Napoleon's favorite nick
name of the bibulous leader of the Prussian cavalry, and finally voted that
" Der versoffene Husar" (the drunken old Hussar) would come the nearest
to a good fit.

" I know what they call me," said the Calabrian robber-chief, who had
baffled Murat's rangers for eighteen months, "but I would much sooner be
known as 'Fra Diavolo ' (Friar Satan) than as Fra Sanducho— Brother hypo
crite " ; and it is probable that the remorseless representative of the Borgias
would have rather prided himself on the title of " Cardinal Mephistopheles."
The Venetians can compete with the wits of the French metropolis in the
manufacture of telling nicknames, and a lady whom Napoleon in his con
sular days had pronounced the best-looking female of Southern Europe
was ever after known as " La Bella par decreto— ma' sin il verendo "— the
beauty by special cabinet order— but without the "verendo" ("Seeing," i. c.,
*' whereas," the initial phrase of an official decree); and when Maria Theresa
ordered some nude Italian statues to be draped in nether garments, the
sculptor revenged himself by calling her la calzonera—fhe "pantaloon
maker." The good-natured empress laughed at the conceit as heartily as
her great son at his sobriquet, der Kloster Hetzer—the " convent cleaner "
(the cleaner-out of superfluous monasteries), and Marshal Vend6me used to

256 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

say that he would forfeit all his titles sooner than his nickname, " General
Bonhomme." With #11 bis cynicisms, he was, indeed, Bonhommie person
ified, and once pardoned a petty marauder for the sake of his ready wit.
" So they are going to hang you ? Serves you right ; only a scoundrel will
risk his life for ten francs." " Ah, mon general, how often had I to risk my
life for ten coppers," (the daily pay of a French soldier) said the delinquent,
and was at once dismissed with a laugh and the admonition to " keep his
neck greased for the next time." The slang-loving old campaigner had a
vein of pathos, too, and in his last moment, when a friend tried to draw the
stiff curtains of his Spanish chateau, to keep the moon from shining in the
sick room, the dying veteran beckoned him to desist: " Laissez-?a ; je
vois la grande ombre de VEtemitequi s'avance"— "Never mind; the shadow
of eternity is going to save you that trouble in a minute or two."

The subjects of the late Czar called him in his Crown Prince days the
"Young Steer," and afterwards simply "the Steer," and the Army of
the Potomac is said to have very privately applied a similar sobriquet
to a general who confessed that he " never manoeuvred," and certainly
preferred headlong charges to elaborate tactics. Some Berlin journalists
who had seen him on his tour de monde, called him der Nussknacker Gen
eral^ in allusion to a silent automaton that is placed upon German ban
quet tables together with a plate of hazelnuts, but added that he had
unquestionably contrived to crack some nuts that had broken the teeth
of all other comers.

The soldiers of the first Napoleon embellished the accounts of their
campaigns with a vocabulary of historic geographical nicknames : " Capu
chin-Land " for Spain, " Knoutland," for the dominions of the Czar, " Mas
tiff land" for Great Britain, and "Big-wig land" (terre des perruques)
for Prussia. But their exploits in that special field have been rather
eclipsed by the achievements of American humor ; witness the following list
offacetice that was collected at a recent convention of commercial travellers :

British Columbia, "The Drizzle Land"; Maine, "The Foggy State";
Vermont, "The Clabber State"; Massachusetts, "The Schoolmar'm State";
New Jersey, "The Mosquito State"; Delaware, "The Cowhide State";
Pennsylvania, "The Blue Law State"; Ohio, "The Lobby State" (Kins
men of Orpheus C. Kerr in force) ; Kentucky, " The Shotgun State " ; Indian
Territory, " The Horse-thief Reserve " ; Kansas, " The Howler State " ; Ar
kansas, "The Quinine State" ; Mississippi, " The Ku-klux State" ; Tennes
see, " The Moonshine State " ; South Carolina, " The Congo State " (prepon
derance of Ethiopian elements); North Carolina, "The Granny State";
California, "The Boodle State"; Texas, "The Rowdy State "; Colorado,
"The Growler State"; the Dakatos, "Blizzard Land"; Indiana, "The
White Cap State" ; Mexico, " Bushwhacker Land."

F. L. OSWALD.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. CCCCLXVI.

SEPTEMBEB, 1895.

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT.

BY THE EIGHT BEV. WILLIAM CKOSWELL DOANE, BISHOP OF

ALBANY.

WHETHER we like it or not, the question of giving the ballot
to women is a question to be faced. From the last Legislature
of the State of New York favorable action was secured on the
proposal to submit to popular vote the omission of the word
"male "from the qualification of voters in the Constitution.
This is of course only tentative and preliminary. Another Legis
lature must pass the law before it can be submitted to the people.
But it behooves men and women who are opposed to it to be
awake to the duty of hindering its further progress. And it is
quite worth while to note how this first step was secured.

The story of the action of the Constitutional Convention
upon this subject is familiar. The proposal, backed by monster
petitions, was brought to the Convention at a very early day.
With praiseworthy aud untiring perseverance, its advocates fairly
swarmed in the Capitol. Hearing after hearing was given, and
the button-holes of members were absolutely worn out by the per
sistence of personal appeals. The committee to which it was
referred was a large, able, and intelligent committee. Hours,
both of day and night, were given to the public arguments, in
cluding a single hearing (the only one asked for) of the repre
sentatives on the other side. And after due and thorough delib-
VOL. CLXI. — NO, 466. 17

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BKTOB. All rights r«s«rved.

258 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

eration, an adverse report was made by the committee, which
was, after full debate, accepted by a large majority vote. It is
certainly not too much to say that such a decision, reached after
such deliberations, in such a body, has and ought to have the
greatest weight.

The opposite result last winter was reached in a very different
way. The movement upon the Legislature was cleverly planned,
and quietly executed by personal influence and appeal, with no
hearing whatever in the Assembly, and with only one hearing in
the Senate, held after the whole matter was known to be a fore
gone conclusion; a sufficient number of votes having been secured
by personal pledges to make the passage of the bill sure. This is a
well-known method among politicians, which hardly rises to the
level of high-minded statesmanship. If it indicates the kind of
political manipulation likely to be adopted, in caucuses and at the
polls, in popular assemblies and legislative halls, by what is com
monly called the "new" woman or the "coming" woman, it will
certainly induce most thinking people to feel that "the old is
better/' and to be thankful that yet awhile, at any rate, the new
woman has not come. I think I am hardly betraying any con
fidence in repeating the argument of a famous suffragist leader,
tried upon Mr. Choate before his election as President of the
Constitutional Convention. "I hear you are to be President of
the Constitutional Convention," she said. "Possibly," "If you
are, you will have the appointment of committees?" "Undoubt
edly." "If you do, I want you to appoint on the committee to
consider woman's suffrage, a majority of members known to be in
favor of it." "But," he said, "supposing I find in the Conven
tion a large majority opposed to it, could I make up a committee
with a majority of its members in favor?" "No" she said: "I
suppose you could not, but that is what we want." And all
through the management of this campaign the appeal has been
made, backed often by no other argument than "we want it," to
the gallantry of a man towards a woman.

It seems important, in view of the renewed effort in Albany
this coming winter, to appeal to the sober-minied thought of
men and women ; to omit rhetoric, oratory, abuse, misrepresen
tation, and ask for a serious consideration of a subject, certainly
fraught with grave and serious consequences ; for anything that
touches the ballot touches the foundations of government.

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT. 359

Among the difficulties which beset the whole question now are
the indifference and listlessness, or the frivolity and trifling with
which in too many instances it is regarded. Many a man says:
" Oh ! let the experiment be tried ; it cannot succeed ; it will do
no harm to pay women the courtesy of this complimentary vote,
and then defeat it at the polls." But this is an experiment too
much like playing with fire to be safe. Once granted, it can
never be recalled. And the risk of random voting on matters of
such importance is too great to be run. Many a woman opposed
to the measure feels that the whole thought of signing petitions,
and having her name printed, and appealing to the Legislature, is
so distasteful to her, that she would prefer to take the chance of
probable failure. Meanwhile, the advocates pile up petitions,
and multiply unmeaning names. Many a man trifles with his
responsibility, under the silly idea that it is ungallant to say
"No" to a woman. And many a woman laughs at the whole
matter as a joke, mixed up with bicycles and bloomers, and a
number of other trivial questions which have no remotest relation
to the principle involved.

Let us look fairly and squarely at the facts. There is one
class of women to be eliminated from the discussion, because
they fly into a " frenzy" which is not "fine," mistake abuse for
argument, and are only vulgarly violent, with sharp tongues or
sharper pens saturated with bitterness and venom. They are, if
there were only such as these, their own best answerers, furnish
ing sufficient reason against the movement. There is another
class which includes members of both sexes, with whom one can
not deal without sacrificing self-respect or reverence, who revile
all that one holds in holiest veneration, Holy Scripture, holy
Matrimony, St. Paul, even our dear Lord Himself. How rev
erent and religious women can cast their lot in with a cause which
has this drift in it is inconceivable; and yet some of them do so.
One has neither need nor desire to make reply to such as these.
They may be safely left, when the sediment has gathered at the
bottom, and shows through the quietness of the settled surface,
to their own condemnation.

But the cause has among its adherents and advocates a very
different class of women and men, to whose sober second thought
it is worth while to appeal, and against whose specious but sin
cere reasonings others need to be warned and guarded. It is

260 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

because of these, and of their reasonings, that this paper is writ
ten. It is not intended to argue the underlying principles of
the case, which have been argued abundantly already, but only
to assert them.

1. Suffrage is not a right of anybody. It is a privilege
granted by the constitution to such persons as the framers of
the constitution and the founders of the government deem best.

2. The old political proverb, "No taxation without repre
sentation," is utterly inapplicable to this question. It grew out
of the tyrannical action of a government "across the sea," in
which no one of all the people on whom the tax was levied had
the faintest voice in the framing of the laws or in the choice of
the government. We may be said to have in this country a great
deal of representation without taxation, because, in thousands of
instances, voters, and indeed the very men who impose the tax,
own no property at all. But women who are taxed are represented
by their relatives, by their potent influence, and by men's sense of
justice, amounting even to chivalry, which the woman suffragists
are doing all they can to destroy, but which has secured to them
far more protection, far more independent control of their prop
erty, than men have reserved to themselves. The complement
and object of taxation is not the right to vote, but the protection
of property. And women's property is better protected than
men's.

3. Equality does not mean identity of duties, rights, privi
leges, occupations. The sex differences are proof enough of this.
The paths in which men and women are set to walk are parallel,
but not the same. And the equilibrium of society cannot be
maintained, nor the equipoise of the body, unless this is recog
nized. As St. Paul put it forcibly long ago : " If the whole body
were hearing, where were the smelling ? " Over-stocked profes
sions, men and women crowding each other in and out of occu
pation, neglected duties, responsibilities divided until they are
destroyed, must be the result if this unnatural idea be enforced.

4. The theory of increased wages for women, to be secured by
giving votes to women-workers, is equally preposterous. Wages,
like work, are regulated by the unfailing law of supply and
demand. Work cannot be created, and wages cannot be forced
up. If there are too many workers there will be less employment
and lower pay.

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT.

These are some of the fundamental and axiomatic truths of
the argument.

It is important, too, to guard against the specious method of
mixing up things that have no relation to each other. A man or
a woman who opposes the forcing of the ballot upon women is
classed with the people who dislike female bicyclists and the
bloomer costume — questions of taste about which we may differ,
but which lie upon the lower plane of aesthetics. The unattrac-
tiveuess of an u^ly dress or an ungraceful movement may repel a
man's feelings and lessen the charm of a woman, but there it
ends. Women may ride bicycles and wear bloomers without
violating any political principle, provided they neither ride on
the one, nor walk in the other, to the polls.

It is still more important to draw another distinction. The
slavery of American women exists only in the warped imagina
tions and heated rhetoric of a few people, who have screamed
themselves hoarse upon platforms or written themselves into a
rage in newspapers. There is no freer human being on earth
to-day, thank God, than the American woman. She has freedom
of person, of property, and of profession, absolute and entire.
She has all liberty that is not license.

Let a woman tell the facts. I quote from one of Mrs. Schuy-
ler Van Rensselaer's admirable papers in the .New York World:

" For more than thirty years all the women of New York have been able
to enjoy their own property, whether inherited or acquired, without control
or interference from any man. A married woman may carry on a trade,
business, or profession and keep her earnings for herself alone. She may
sue and be sued and make contracts as freely and independently as an un
married woman or a man. She may sell or transfer her real as well as her
personal property just as she chooses. And she is not liable for her husband's
debts or obliged to contribute to his support. Meanwhile, a husband is
obliged to support his wife and children. He is liable for the price of all
4 necessaries ' purchased by her, and for money borrowed by her for their
purchase ; and ' necessaries ' are liberally construed as * commensurate with
her husband's means, her wonted living as his spouse, and her station in the
community.'

" A man who obtains a divorce cannot ask for alimony ; a woman who
obtains one is entitled to it, and to continue to receive it even if she re
marries. A woman in business cannot be arrested in an action for a debt
fraudulently contracted, as a man may be. Every woman enjoys certain
exemptions from the sale of her property under execution, but only a man who
has and provides for a household or family is exempt in the same way. A
woman is entitled to one-third of her husband's real estate at his death, and
cannot be deprived of it by will ; and no real estate can be sold by him dur-
his lifetime unless she signr, c •*? this dower right. A husband's right to a

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

portion of his wife's property begins only after the birth of a living child,
and even then she need not have his consent to sell it during her lifetime,
and may deprive him of it altogether by will."

While one "forbears threatenings," it is worth while to wonder
whether this would go on if the relations of the sexes to each other
were changed. Courtesies that are compelled by law would soon
become onerous. Instincts that were required by statute would
become irksome, until they were laid aside. A man jostled at
the polls and in the primary meetings would be less inclined to
step aside or stand up elsewhere to give a woman place.

The almost uniform method of confusing questions, resorted
to so constantly in the attacks of the woman suffragists, must be
protested against to the end. Giving a woman the ballot has
nothing whatever to do with her higher education, with her
choice of occupations, with the part she may take in the discus
sion of public questions, or with her share in the administration
of public interests. Along the lines of their distinctive ability,
and in the ways of their natural adaptation, no sane man ques
tions the wisdom and the duty of the highest education for
women, of the freest following out of their vocations, of the im
portance of their intelligent knowledge, and the value of their
expressed opinions in great moral and social public questions,
and of their capacity in certain offices of responsibility, duty and
trust.

So far as to principles, and fairness of methods in argument.
And now for the appeal to serious men and women, for the serious
consideration of this most serious question. The appeal is rightly
made, first, in behalf of the women of America who are earnestly
opposed to the imposition upon them of a burden which, from
their point of view, not only is not a duty, but is an evil ; not
only not a right, but actually a wrong. It is very easy, by the
process that is sometimes called " counting noses," to say that
this is a matter of minorities, and that majorities must rule. But,
like many other arguments in favor of this cause, the statement
is based upon the e ' take-things-for-granted " plan. Given a
large body of earnest agitators (some of them paid agents who live
by the agitation), and everybody knows that numberless signa
tures may be obtained to a petition for almost anything — names
of indifferent, unintelligent, brow-beaten and button-holed
people, who sign rather than argue, and assent in the spirit of

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT. 268

lazy complaisance, rather than offend the asker by refusing. Such
signatures mean nothing, although they swell the number into a
more than millenary petition, and make it more or less miles long.
Not for a moment disputing the fact that some of the names
stand for intelligence and intention, for conviction and conscience,
that they represent education, social position, tax-paying interest,
I claim, from my own large and long experience, that, in any com
munity with which I am acquainted, the most serious, intelligent,
cultivated women, with the largest money interest in the govern
ment, and the most quiet, thoughtful, earnest women, are, con
scientiously and on clear convictions, opposed to woman suffrage.
I insist that it is a wrong to force such women to the alternative
of going to the polls, against their instincts and their convictions,
or of allowing the unthinking majority of votes to be enlarged by
the ballots of women carried away by a theory, or influenced by
a desire for power. What the result would be is matter of con
jecture ; but my conviction is that it would be difficult, if not
impossible, to bring the great mass of really intelligent and
responsible women to vote, against their ingrained habits, their
instincts, their inclinations, and their judgments. And it is
important to stop and consider what that means. The old
proverb applies here of the horse dragged to the water, which
cannot be made to drink. Legislation may be secured that will
say to every woman: "You shall have the privilege of voting" ;
but, after all, it means only "may," and you cannot put the verb
into the imperative and say: "You shall vote."

There are two factors of grave danger in the political issues
and elections of America. First of all, the religious question,
which, guard it as we will, crops up from time to time, in appro
priations to charities or schools or religious organizations, or in
fanatical fury against some form of religious order and belief.
There have been two noted instances, at least, in which the
danger has been shadowed forth in the arraying of Protestants
against Roman Catholics. In one case, the violent stirring up of
Protestant women about a school question produced an angry
contest, in which the Protestants carried the day ; while in the
other, after a careful canvass, quietly made among Protestant
women, the summons of a single Roman priest mustered a force
of female voters, always liable to be controlled by clerical direc
tion, which carried the day for Rome. And the dregs and debris

904 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the contest were bitter and wretched to a degree. It is to the
infinite honor of women that they are more quickly interested,
more keenly concerned, and more deeply influenced in their
religious feelings and convictions than men. But it adds to the
wrong and horror of allowing religion to be dragged into poli
tics, if, on one side or the other, a great body of voters could be
wielded by any religious or ecclesiastical influence to decide the
question and carry the day.

The other factor, known and read of all men, is the venal
voter — the man whose ballot is for sale to the highest bidder.
The possession of the ballot has not purified the male voter from
the heinous sin of a sold vote. Why should it purify the woman ?
It is a well-known fact that, in all our large cities, there is a
great body of women who sell themselves, soul and body. It is
idle to stop and say that men are responsible for this horror. I
have no desire to screen men. I believe the man who sins against
purity is before God a sinner equally with the woman. But the
fact stands that a woman who will sell her purity, her honor, her
reputation, herself, will sell anything. And in the city of New
York, with its fifty thousand fallen women, there is this enor
mous and awful possibility of a vote that might turn the tide of
any election, purchasable by the highest bidder, who would nat
urally use his disreputable bargain for disreputable and dangerous
ends. By some strange confusion of infantile innocence, unim
aginable ignorance of facts, or malicious interpretation of words,
men who have called attention to this danger have been accused
of insulting their wives and mothers, or of implying that Mrs.
Cady Stanton or Miss Anthony would sell her vote. But this
sort of answer is only the action of the cuttle-fish which hides its
method of escape, or the dust of the fleeing animal which blinds
the eyes of its pursuer. The hideous fact of the number of de
graded and venal women remains. The awful fact of venal
voters among men remains ; and of the equally criminal class of
political go-betweens, who spend the money of candidates and
corporations in these most illegitimate ''election expenses/' And
the possibility and probability of the increase of a corrupted ballot
giving, in a close election, the balance of power, secured by a
purchase of the votes of women lost to all sense of shame, follows
as an immediate and inevitable danger.

It is constantly urged that women voters would be more con-

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT. 265

scientious and careful than men are, would be always on the side
of reform, would advance the interests of temperance and of all
great moral and social movements. But, in the first place, this
is purely prophetic, without the inspiration of prophecy. It is
mere guess-work. To reach a real conclusion through an im
aginary premiss is illogical to the last degree. There are, perhaps
in smaller proportion, bad women as well as bad men, intemperate
women, ignorant women. In the comparisons usually made by
the advocates of woman's suffrage, it is always the virtuous and
intelligent woman who is contrasted with the ignorant and un
principled man. The fact is, that to multiply suffrage means to
multiply every kind of vote by two, and while it would mean an
increase of votes cast on principle and for principle, it would also
mean an increase of unprincipled votes against the best interests
of society. It is greatly to be doubted whether politics, either in
its methods or in its results, would be purified in this way. The
giving of the ballot to men has not improved either the morals or
the responsibility of men. Why should it make women more
moral or more responsible? Voting, after all, is to a large degree
~by parties and for individuals, and there is no such violence of
partizanship in the world as the violence of female partizanship.
No one who has heard a good "Primrose League lady" in Eng
land abuse Mr. Gladstone will question this. And the condition
of feeling in the South during and since the war is a painful
evidence of it. It was the women of the South who fanned the
flame of secession, who forced the continuance of the hopeless
strife, and who to-day, where there is any spirit of out-and-out
sectionalism, are the unrelenting, unforgetting, unforgiving
Southerners. This relation of the Southern women to the war is
a serious note of warning, in another direction, about "the woman
in politics." There can be no doubt that women in the South
knew more, thought more, felt more, talked more about politics
than the women of the North. And what was the result and effect
of their intelligent interest? Slavery and the slave laws, with all
their frightful possibilities, maintained in the time of peace, and
sectionalism run mad when the opportunity for the war came!

There are two other considerations which cannot be omitted
in the study of this subject, the family relation, and the relation
between men and women in the world. To-day, in the house
hold, the man is the voter. Suppose the wife becomes a voter

286 2!Htf NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

too. She will either reproduce her husband's political views, and
there would be in one house two Democratic voters, and in
another two Republican voters, where there had been one. And
this is no gain towards a decision of questions. It is only a
multiplying of ballots, producing no change of results. Or else
the wife would take the opposite side from her husband's, and,
instantly, with all the heat and violence of party differences and
political disagreements, a bone of contention is introduced into
the home; a new cause of dissension and alienation is added to
the already strained relations in many families. Then there is
the question of mistress and maid. Shall the cook leave her
kitchen to cast a vote, which shall counterbalance the vote of the
mistress, or shall the employer undertake to control the politics
of the "kitchen cabinet"? And all this, not merely on the vot
ing day, or in the deposit of the ballot, but the weeks before and
after the election are to be spent in the heat of discussion, or in
the smart of defeat. The American home is not too sacred and
secure to-day to make it safe to undermine it with the explosive
materials of politics and partisanship. And meanwhile, as things
are now, the intelligent woman, interested in some great meas
ure of reform, has in her hand, not the ability to rival, offset, or
double her husband's vote, but the power of her persuasion, her
affection, her ingenuity, to influence it. It would be incredible,
if it were not shown to be true, that any large number of think
ing and intelligent beings, knowing, feeling, using, this tremen
dous power, should be willing to run the risk of losing it, by
substituting a thing far lower and feebler in its stead. And with
the experience of what she has gained for her sex, with the evi
dence of what voting men have brought about for her under the
influence of non-voting women, and through solicitude for their
interests, the rashness of this proposed experiment defies de
scription.

It is perfectly idle to imagine that the relation between men
and women in the outside world can remain the same when their
attitude to each other is so entirely changed. With women
mingling in the rough strifes and contests of political life, and
assuming positions and duties hitherto unknown to them, there
will inevitably come the quenching of that chivalrous feeling of
men towards women, born of the protection hitherto expected by
women and afforded by men, which is the inspiring cause of so

WHY WOMEN DO NOT WANT THE BALLOT. 267

large a part of the amenities of life and the politeness of manners.
And yet, just because woman is physically weak, and man physi
cally strong, there will be no change in the real necessities of
things. One may well look with grave anxiety at what is really
a revolution of the natural order, utterly unable to conjecture
what the results may be when women shall have become, not only
votresses, but legislatfrmes, mayoresses, and alderwomen. It is
the favorite habit of women arguing this cause to deal with it as
though woman's suffrage were an evolution. But it cannot fairly
be considered as, in any way, a progress along the line of that
steady advance in the power and position of women, which has
been wrought out by Christian civilization. It would not be
progress, it would be retrogression. And it is not the least
after the manner of growth and improvement in the character,
the education, or the opportunities of women. It is a new
departure ; an entire digression ; a violent change, and the
appeal of this article is in a way te from Philip drunk to Philip
sober." Certain women have said so loudly, and so often, that
they are (< enslaved," <f reduced to a level with idiots," " classed
with criminals," "deprived of natural rights," "down-trodden
and oppressed," that they have really come to believe it and to make
some sensible people believe it. I trust that wiser counsels may
in the end prevail. Meanwhile, inasmuch as the active agitators for
this radical revolution in the very fundamental elements of govern
ment, have resorted to every known means to secure their ends, I
cannot but feel, that, however the other women may shrink from
the publicity, it is their bounden duty by influence, by argument,
by petition, to " fight fire with fire " ; to see to it that, in the ap
proaching elections for the Senate and Assembly of the State of
New York, men shall be chosen who will defend them from this
wrong; and when the elections are completed, to let it be known
and felt in Albany that what some women claim as a political
right, they consider a personal grievance and a public harm.

WM. CROSWELL DOASTE.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET.

BY ADMIRAL P. H. COLOMB, ROYAL NAVY.

IT is to be observed of all pictures representing the Arctic
regions, thatf they are seldom true to nature : aud this because
it is always the exceptional, and never the ordinary, scene that is
painted. In every part of the picture we have the icebergs run
ning up with fantastic peaks and pinnacles, developing into
graceful arches and airy columns. It is not to be said that such
natural freaks are absent from every Arctic scene, but it is that they
give a character to few Arctic scenes. Thus the ordinary aspect
of the ice is scarcely picturesque, and something like a dull
monotony of form characterizes the real iceberg.

I think that most probably what is true of the pictures we
have of the Arctic regions is also true of those we have of the
blue-jacket who won our battles for us in past times. What was
picturesque, odd, eccentric, and therefore rare, about him was
selected to give character to the scene, so that the extraordinary,
instead of the ordinary, blue-jacket is the type of which we have
the greatest knowledge. It has often struck me as a curious
anomaly that Dibdin's songs were never sung by the blue-jackets
of my early days, that is, the days of nearly fifty years ago. They
had songs of their own — the " fore-bitter " of sixty or seventy
verses, with a roaring chorus at the end of each ; or the senti
mental solo describing the joys of wandering by river sides and in
soft, green meadows with the maiden of your choice ; or, less
frequently, the broad comic song, scarcely of a drawing room
character. I reconciled the fact to my sense of the fitness of
things by reflecting that Dibdin's blue-jacket was most probably a
stage sort of character, interesting to the lay mind of England,
but altogether unrepresentative of the real thing and rejected by
the real thing for this reason.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET.

There are not wanting here and there direct proofs of my view.
I have among my books a curious and rare pamphlet, written at
the very beginning of this century, descriptive of the inner life of
a man-of-war of the day. It is in the form of dialogue. A Mem
ber of Parliament becomes the guest of the captain for a short
cruise, and he carries on a conversation with the officers as the
ship passes through a variety of situations, including,, if I rightly
recollect, getting ashore, and experiencing an alarm of fire on
board. The Member never ceases to express his surprise at the
misrepresentations current on shore as to the character and con
duct of "the guardians of the deep," as they were to be seen in
their floating houses. Everything the Member sees and hears
shows order, discipline, temperance, delicacy of language — he
never heard an oath — and kindliness of thought and demeanor.
If, again, we turn from hypothesis to reality, and remember the
extraordinary good health which prevailed in the fleet under Nel
son's command throughout his long and monotonous blockade of
Toulon, it is hardly possible to associate it with the belief that
his men were the rollicking, drunken (that is, much more so
than society of the day), reckless creatures that have been popu
larly painted.

I, personally, am confirmed in my view from my own experi
ence. I never served in a ship where there were not a few repre
sentatives of the picturesque but unmanageable devilry which has
been handed down to us as the common character of the blue
jacket ; and if I were to paint the general aspect of the crew in
the colors proper to the exceptions, I should show that the blue
jacket of 1850 was a true descendant of him of 1800. I doubt
not that at the time I write there are on board many of our ships
specimens, probably very few in number, of the traditional type.
But no one now would write about them or draw attention to their
eccentricities as having in them anything to be amused at, still
less to admire. Public opinion, on the lower deck as elsewhere,
has changed its view of these things. Doubtless a blue-jacket,
in the gradations from perfect sobriety to perfect drunkenness,
does and says pretty nearly the same things now that he did and
said ninety years ago. Fifty, forty, twenty years ago, perhaps,
the comic side of the case would have been seen, and would have
predominated in the minds of onlookers : now men would regard
the case, not in its immediate, but in its future aspect. The

270 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

beginning of the drunkard's life, with all the horror and misery
of it which was to come, would now be the dominating thought,
and the idea of anything comic'would be an impossible association.
And so with any other variation from a fair standard of sensible
conduct and morality. We may find it, but it no longer bears a
picturesque appearance. No popular writer would speak of it as
a necessary concomitant of loyal courage, in all cases to be
excused, if not to be regarded with affectionate pity.

So, perhaps, it is this way with the evolution of the blue-jacket.
Perhaps we should find that his main characteristics are un
changed and unchangeable ; that there always was and always
will be a minority with qualities eccentric and striking which
were once thought to be picturesque and inherent in a " jolly
tar/' but which were really excrescences that time and enlighten
ment have worn away, so that now the minority is infinitesimal.

The blue-jacket, in short, always was what circumstances
made him, and he always will be so. Most of the blue-jacket's sur
roundings have immensely changed in the course of this century j
some of them it is impossible to change. His character has
obeyed the impulses forced upon it.

It is too early yet to understand fully what the change from
sail to steam may effect in the bluejacket's physique, but the
change for the majority cannot be so great as might be inferred.
A proportion of the blue- jackets of any fully rigged ship were
necessarily athletes. The " upper yardmen " in a llne-of -battle
ship or a frigate were exceptional men in this way, and much
more so,, perhaps, just about the time that sail power was receiving
its death warrant than ever before. These young men had to
race aloft to nearly the highest points, at top speed, eight or ten
times a week when the ship was in harbor ; to keep their heads
and maintain their breath while (< holding on by their eyelids,"
as the phrase went, and manipulating with a careful and measured
order of action the various and intricate arrangements for
" crossing" or " sending down " the royal and top-gallant yards.
It was all done at full speed, for it was universally held that the
upper yardmen gave a character to the whole ship ; and that
one which was foremost in this exercise was ever considered
"the smartest ship in the fleet." These upper yardmen were
always the coming men. They had most opportunities for dis
tinguishing themselves, were the best known, and were most un-

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET. 271

der the eye of the authorities. They developed great muscular
power in chest, shoulders and arms. Their lower extremities suf
fered, and one always knew the men who had been upper yard
men by their tadpole-like appearance when they were bathing.

But in the modern steam line-of -battle-ship and frigate these
extremely athletic specimens formed a very small minority of the
•"'ship's company/' and none of them could lose his turn at
being upper yardman BO long as the ship's reputation depended on
the speed with which the upper yards were crossed and sent
down. In harbor the rest of the blue-jackets had the handling
of yards and sails for exercise once or twice a week, but at sea
the use of sails for propulsion grew less and less important, and
most of the work aloft was more of an exercise and less of a
necessity.

I am not at all sure that the year 1800 produced even the
minority of athletes which our upper yard system was famous for
in 1860. Any one examining the logs of any blockading fleet
about the end of last century, can scarcely doubt the fact. The
ships as a rule were kept under extremely low sail and were for
days and days under the same sail, the "evolutions" being con
fined to "tacking'5 or "wearing," "per signal," five or six times
in the twenty-four hours-manoeuvres which called for little work
aloft. "It blew so much harder in the days of the war," that
double or even treble reefs in the topsails were found co-existent
with the ready passage of boats from ship to ship. There was
then no such thing as "sail drill," the actual necessities of cruis
ing being held all sufficient. Even in my own time, I have
noted that the training of a minority of athletes was the work of
steam, and that the exercises aloft by a sailing fleet, such as Sir^
Wm. Parker commanded in the forties, were a small matter com
pared to those instituted in the " Marlborough" tinder the splendid
auspices of the present Admirals, Sir Wm. Martin, Sir Houston
Stewart and Sir Thomas Brandreth in the sixties.

But however all this may be, there has been for a couple of
centuries a body of men serving afloat, second to none as loyal
fighting men, with whom it was a traditional privilege that they
could not be ordered "above the hammock-nettings." Since the
earliest times the proud position of the marines was to mess and
to sleep between the blue-jackets and the officers. And even
now, when the loyalty of marines and blue-jackets is equal,

272 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and is preserved by the same means, tradition puts the marine
to mess and to sleep in as good an imitation of his old place as
modern naval architecture will allow. This body of men got
few advantages, moral or physical from the use of sails, and
so far, the marine of to-day, when sail has gone, cannot differ
much from the marine of a hundred years ago.

Steam brought in a second body of men who were free from
training aloft, and who by the nature of the case could hold no
competition as athletes with the upper yardmen, though to some
extent the nature of their work below brought the operation of
mind and muscle into nearly as close an alliance as did that of the
upper yardmen aloft. These men, the stokers, were so noted for
their muscular power that in regattas it was generally allowed
that the stoker's boats ought to win. The marine again was
somewhat hampered by the general buttoned-up-ness of his dress.
The stoker dressed as a seaman, and enjoyed all the splendid free
dom of limb which the seaman's dress offers behind its pictur
esque and graceful outline.

Thus the evolution of the blue-jacket may be more direct
from him of the last century than from him of the time when
there was a contest between coal and wind for the right to propel
and when it was not certain which would win. The blue-jacket
proper has diminished in comparative number. The absence of
sail has brought him towards the marine ; his dress and much of
his training and mode of life leave him less distinguished than
heretofore from the stoker. In another way, the difference be
tween the stoker and the blue-jacket proper is minimized. All
that working in hemp and canvas ; knotting, splicing, grafting,
pointing, worming, sewing, tabling, and all the hundred and
one manufacturing operations of the blue- jacket as a handicrafts
man, have disappeared. There was a certain character about all
hemp and canvas handicraftsman ship which certainly must have
had its effect on the character of the handicraftsman. It was
never exact work. A job might be a neat job of work or it
might be a rough one, yet the work as work was equally good.

The seaman could put some of himself into the seizing of
every block he stropped, into the end of every rope he pointed.
That is all gone. He is not yet a mechanic; he is not yet a
worker in brass and iron as he was once in hemp and canvas,
but he is constantly handling mechanisms so exactly formed that

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET. 273

no part of the former is left in them. There is no individuality
in. the things he handles; they are impassive and imptrsonal.

And then again he has wholly lost that sense of contention with
the elements, that romantic uncertainty which lay in the doubt
whether, in the sailing ship, man or nature would win in any
contest. The character of a man perpetually wondering whether
nature would be kind and blow him into the haven where he
would be, or whether nature would he rough and give him a
week's dose of treble-reefed topsails to a dead foul breeze, could
not possibly embrace the same characteristics as that of him who
spends his life in feeling and asserting his entire mastery over the
elements, and his perfect indifference to the freaks of wind or sea.

So this, the ideality of the blue-jacket, his romance, his indi
vidualism, has been roughly assaulted by the advent of steam
and the number and exactitude of the mechanisms which steam
has developed, and which are the daily and hourly companions of
his life afloat.

Only two sorts of work remain to the blue-jacket into which
he can put his personality, or on which ho can stamp his charac
ter. In as far as he makes his own clothes, washes them, and
scrubs his own hammock, he is doing work which is not exact,
and into which his energy, or the want of it, his fancy, or the
want of it, may enter. It is to be hoped that the contractor for
slop clothing may be kept as much at arm's length as possible,
and that the pipe, " Scrub 'ammicks and wash clothes," may not
become obsolete on the advent of some terrible inventor who
proposes to do the business by steam.

But on the other hand, seaman, marine, and stoker lead on
board ship now a life not differing so very much from that which
their forefathers so lived. The absence of privacy ; much of the
crowding; the habit of doing hour by hour, like the works of a
clock, hosts of disagreeable things only because some one else has
ordered them to be done ; all these remain to form the physique
and the character, and to stamp their peculiarities on each of the
three great branches of the naval service. The very long, soli
tary cruises of men-of-war have passed away in our own time, yet
many of our smaller ships are for months isolated, cut off from
all civilization except their own, when their lot is cast in distant
and unfrequented parts of the world : so that whatever effect this
separation had in the past is not wholly lost in the present. And,
VOL. CLXI.— NO. 466. 18

274 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

quite apart from everything which was or is peculiar to the blue
jacket's situation on board ship as contrasted with that of the
marine and the stoker, we know for certain that ship life leaves
a special stamp upon him. We know it because of the special
stamp it leaves on the marine. Admittedly there are no troops
in the world like the Royal Marines. Besides the peculiar steadi
ness and solidity which they exhibit, their capacity for making
themselves comfortable under the most adverse circumstances of
a campaign has long been the envy of the pure soldier. In this
the blue-jacket shares equally, and the fact shows that it is in
herent in ship life to produce this sort of thing, and that the
change to steam has not affected it. I have had occasion to follow
some of the early history of the Sherwood Foresters, late the
Forty-fifth Regiment, and I have traced in it most of the char
acteristics now so marked in the marines. The regiment had
such an extraordinarily prolonged experience of life in transports,
that when several regiments were under convoy, those carrying
the Forty-fifth were held up as the patterns which other regi
ments should copy in order, cleanliness and comfort.

But if the blue-jacket has much changed, and I think he has,
generally for the better, it is law and rule that has done it and
not so much physical surroundings.

Though I have said that the average is not represented in our
pictures of the blue-jacket of a past age, I should paint that aver
age, as I knev7 it, in sadder colors than I could now use. The
average blue- jacket as I knew him long ago was always a good
fellow, but you seldom knew where to have him. He was un
questionably a drunken fellow, and he used to manage to get
dead drunk faster than any other class of men with whom I have
been acquainted. He was not steady. Apart from his officer he
seemed almost a reed shaken with the wind, though his personal
courage was always lion-like when roused. He was proud of his
officer, especially if the officer was hard on him. He was some
what of a fatalist, quick to imagine that fate was against him
and to give up the struggle against it. He was quarrelsome in
his cups, but almost always distinctly witty out of them. He
preserves his humor to the present day. A story is told of a cer
tain " Bill " standing at the corner of a street in Natal during
the Zulu war, when a certain general just landed, covered with
medals and orders, and equally hung with soldierly knicknacks,

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET. 375

the whistle, the field glass, the compass, the note book, etc.,
passed near "Bill " and his companion " Jack."

" Who's 'im, Jack ? » asked Bill.

" Dunno," said Jack, " seems to be one o' them new generals
just come ashore."

'•' H'm," returned Bill, preparing to put his pipe in his mouth
again, " looks like a bloomin' Christmas tree !"

The stories about frying watches, and lighting pipes with £5
notes, give an utterly false notion of the blue- jacket. Philip,
drunk, might have done such things, but not Philip, sober.
Philip, sober, has always been, and is, peculiarly sharp and thrifty
about money. Philip, sober, forty or ilf ty years ago took wonder
ful care of the pence, and he does so still. But forty or fifty
years ago he was filled with an ignorant suspicion of every one
who had to do with his money and who did not play upon his
fancies. He has got over that now perhaps pretty well, but no one
of his rank of life makes closer calculations or drives a better bar
gain than the developed blue-jacket of to-day. I think he has
overdone it in not meeting Government half way on the score of
his widow's pension, but he is the descendant of tradition and
Rome was not built in a day.

His thrift has been in every way helped by wise legislation in
the matter of naval savings banks, in the frequency of his pay
ments, and in the facilities given him when abroad for remitting
to his friends and dependents at home. To these he is almost
uniformly generous. I give some figures which show both his
thrift and his generosity, or care for his family.

A certain battleship, in the year 1893, with a complement of
less than 500 blue-jackets, marines, and stokers, sent home by
means of regular monthly allotments to relatives, dependents, and
friends, more than £4,700. At odd times, as they had it to
spare, they remitted a further sum of over £900. This was gen
erous thrift, exercised toward others. If further inquiries had
been made it would be shown that many of the remitter*, and
more of those who were not remitting, were hoarding in the
savings banks. In 1892-3, 17,934 men in the navy had savings
bank accounts open, and the total amount thus hoarded was
£229,173, an average of more than £12 per head of depositors, or
perhaps nearly £4 per head of the men serving. The sum actually
put away that year was over £173,000.

276 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

I have said that in old times he was a drunken fellow; but
then we were all drunken fellows a hundred years ago. I have
seen the journal of the captain of a frigate written in the West
Indies during the War of Independence. He had flogged a man
for drunkenness, and the man in the course of his punishment
said the captain himself had been drunk a couple of days before.
The man, according to the custom of those times, got another
dozen. But the captain, narrating the occurrence in his journal,
reflected that after all the man ha,d spoken the truth. The wise
conclusion of the captain thereon was " that he would never get
drunk on board the ship again."

When I throw my mind back forty years to the days when I
served in what was called "a twelve-gun pelter" — that is, a man-
of-war brig — it seems to me as if, just outside of the midship
man's berth, which was then my domicile, there were always two
or three drunken men lying on the deck with their legs in irons
and their heads on wet "swabs" — bundles of rope yarns which
were used in drying the decks after washing. And, showing how
we then regarded such matters, it is the comic side of the scene
which alone dwells in my mind. I have a remembrance of a cer
tain Thompson, a carpenter's mate, waking up, half recovered,
and prefacing a long soliloquy on the injustice of the commander
in speaking of him as " the man, Thompson," by quoting Shakes
peare, "Now is the winter of our discontent." Turtle, when
taken on board ship as fresh meat, are laid on their backs with a
wet swab under their heads. I remember a certain Lear, captain
of the foretop, recognizing the similarity of his position, and in
his more than half-drunken state declaring that ft he did'nt want
no wet swabs ; he wasn't a turtle !" •

I deem it quite possible that the blue-jacket of this date was
more drunken on board his ship than was his ancestor of a cen
tury earlier. The ancestor was brought up on beer ; my blue
jacket was brought up on rum. Every day he had a large wine
glass full of rum to three wine-glasses full of water at his noon-tide
dinner, and again at his afternoon tea. Often he did not drink
it, but handed his proportion to the messmate, whose turn it was
to enjoy the glories of getting thoroughly drunk with a possible
flogging to follow. The only directly repressive measure against
this sort of thing was taken many years ago, when the evening
basin of grog ceased to be served out. The opportunities of get-

THE EVOLUTION OF THE BLUE-JACKET. 277

ting drank on board wore lessened, but those on shore wire im
mensely increased.

In nothing was the blue-jacket of early days more unre
liable than in his return from leave on shore. The thing acted
and re-acted. The rarity of his visits to the land made him. stay
there when he got there, as long as he could. Because he was
sure to over-stay, he was seldom allowed the opportunity. But
the wisest of legislation cut the gordian knot. Many years ago
the dwellers on the lower deck of all ranks, were classed for leave.
There are "special/' " privileged" and "general," "leave-men,"
and there are "habitual leave-breakers." The "special "leave man
goes ashore almost as the officer does— whenever he wishes, and
the duties of the ship admit of it. The "privileged" man goes
when time is not likely to press much. The "general" leave-
man only goes at stated intervals and when time does not press
at all. The " habitual leave-breaker" only goes at long intervals
and to test his powers of returning to time experimentally. The
result, of course, is immensely increased opportunities of getting
drunk on shore, but immense pressure to keep sober so as not to
lose a "class" in leave, or to get a step higher in the classifica
tion. And in every ship, and always, the good lesson is working
and the evolution of the blue-jacket is towards sobriety and
reliability.

There are in every ship some total abstainers. Those who
look for a new heaven and a new earth as the outcome of total
abstention may be inclined to regard them as stars in the firma
ment. But generally speaking, I think I am right in saying that
the executive officers do not know who, amongst the well-behaved
and the exemplars on the lower deck are total abstainers, and who
are moderate drinkers. Most naval officers reckon more with the
ill effect of broken vows, than with the good effect of vows that are
kept. They do not favor the teetotal propaganda, and believe
more fully in that which they see ; namely, the silent growth of
that public opinion on the lower deck which has for so many
years been dominant on the quarter-deck.

What shall we say of the courage and loyalty of the present
blue jacket ? We may say then there never was greater trial of
it than was recently made in the Soudan, and it never had a
more magnificant triumph. All the blue- jackets' fighting of
late has been on shore, and probably there are no light troops in

278 ™# NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the world such as those we land from our ships. Speed of
movement, steadiness, reliability, daring of the highest quality,
are all there, and evolution in this respect has been towards per
fection.

What again of his loyalty and discipline? There is in this
respect no difference now between the seaman and the marine.
Both are long-service men generally looking forward to their
pensions. Both have a great stake in the success and mainte
nance of the naval service. Discipline for these reasons seldom
requires the iron hand. The causes which differentiated the
officer from the man have to some extent ceased to operate. The
man feels, as the officer has longer felt, that he is the subject of
law and not of personal will. He is more ready than he was to
fill his place in the general machinery.

But I hope I am wrong in apprehending a possible danger.
If personal interest alone had been the guide of the naval officer,
England would scarcely be where she is. The sentiment of loy
alty, and of the grandeur of self-sacrifice for a cause, have made
the British naval officer what self-interest alone could never have
made him. There have been some signs that on the lower deck
this sentiment does not wax. The discipline and loyalty based
upon self-interest and utilitarianism may be perfect in appearance
and yet incapable of bearing a strain. If anything of the trades-
union spirit should invade our lower decks, there might be
danger in it.

P. H. COLOMB.

REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

BY SIR WILLIAM H. FLOWER, K. C. B., F. R. 8,, DIRECTOR OF THE
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.

THERE is no intention in this paper of giving either a bio
graphical notice of Professor Huxley or an estimate of his posi
tion in science, philosophy or literature. Both have been done
over and over again in numerous journals and magazines
that have appeared since his death. The main facts of his
career, and his great contributions to human knowledge, must be
perfectly familiar to the readers of this REVIEW. I have, how
ever, in response to an appeal from the Editor, put down a few
personal reminiscences, gathered during a friendship of nearly
forty years, which may throw some additional light upon the
character and private life of one in whom all English speaking
people must take a deep interest. In doing this I fear I have
been obliged to introduce myself to the notice of the reader more
frequently than I should wish, but this seems inevitable in an
article of this nature, and I trust will be forgiven for the sake of
the main subject.

When Huxley returned to London from his four years' survey
ing cruise in the " Rattlesnake," under the command of Captain
Owen Stanley, one of the first men of kindred pursuits who took
him by the hand was George Burk, then surgeon to the Seaman's
Hospital, the "Dreadnaught," lying in the Thames off Greenwich.
About this time Burk removed from Greenwich to Haiiey street,
and although doing some practice as a surgeon, and even attain
ing to the position of President of the Royal College of Surgeons,
his main occupation and chief pleasure were in purely scientific
pursuits, and his great interest in and familiarity with micro
scopic manipulation, especially as applied to the structure of lowly
organized animal forms — then rather in its infancy — was a strong

380 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

bond of sympathy with Huxley. In 1852-4 they translated and
edited jointly Kolliker's Manual of Human Histology, published
by the Sydeuham Society. This fact shows that Huxley had
already made himself proficient in the German language, as he
had also, while on board the "Rattlesnake," taught himself Italian,
with the main object of being able to read Dante in the original,
so wido were his interests and sympathies.

It was through Burk that I first became acquainted with
Huxley. This was shortly before his marriage, the incidents
connected with which were of a somewhat romantic character.
When the "Rittlesnako" was in Sydney Harbor the officers were
invited to a ball, and young Huxley among the number. There
for the first time he met his future wife, whose parents resided
at Sydney. A few d.iys after they were engaged, and the ship
sailed for the Tower Straits to complete the survey of the north
coast of Australia, all communication being cut off for months at
a time, and then she returned direct to England. After that
brief acquaintance (not, I believe, longer than a fortnight), it was
seven years before the lovers saw one another. At the end of
this time, on Huxley's appointment to the School of Mines, he
was in a position to claim his bride, and welcome her to their
first home in St. John's Wood. He often used to say that to en
gage the affections of a young girl under these circumstances,
knowing that he would have to leave her for an indefinite time,
and with only the remotest prospect of ever marrying, was an
act most strongly to be reprobated, and he often held it out as a
warning to his children never to do anything of the kind, and
yet they all married young and all happily. Huxley's love at first
sight and constancy during those seven long years of separation
were richly rewarded, for it is impossible to imagine a pair more
thoroughly suited. I cannot help relating a little incident which
clings to my memory, though it happened full thirty years ago.
A rather cynical and vulgar-minded acquaintance of mine said to
me one day : " I saw Huxley in a box at the Drury Lane Theatre
last night. Can you tell me who was the lady with him?"
After a few words of description I said: •'< Oh, that was Mrs.
Huxley." " Indeed," he said, "I thought it could not be his
wife, he was so very attentive to her all the evening." As inti
mate friends knew, they had at first many household troubles
and cares to contend with, a large family of young children,

OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 281

much ill health, and not very abundant means, but through it all
Huxley's patience and sweetness were admirable. The fierce and
redoubtable antagonist in the battlefield of scientific or theologi
cal controversy was all love and gentleness at home.

The fact that he had sailed under Captain Owen Stanley,
who died when in command of the " Kattlesnake" in Australia,
brought him into very friendly communication with the Captain's
brother, the late dean of Westminster, the Dean, as many of us
always used to, and still do, call him, just as the first Duke of
Wellington was always called the Duke. Notwithstanding the
great differences of their interests and pursuits, they remained
intimate until Stanley's death, and to be with them when they
met was a rare occasion of hearing much delightful talk and
many displays of playful wit. If I had the faculty of a Boswell,
I should have much work narrating of many charming little
dinner parties at one or the other of our houses, when Huxley
and the Dean were the principal talkers. I remember a character
istic rencontre between them which took place on one of the
ballot nights at the Athenaeum. A well-known popular preacher
of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, who had made himself
famous by predictions of the speedy coming of the end of the
world, was up for election. I was standing by Huxley when the
Dean, coming straight from the ballot boxes, turned towards us.
" Well/' said Huxley, "have you been voting for C ?" " Yes,
indeed, I have," replied the Dean. "Oh, I thought the priests
were always opposed to the prophets," said Huxley. "Ah?"
replied the Dean, with that well-known twinkle in his eye, and
the sweetest of smiles. " But you see, I do not believe in his
prophecies, and some people say I am not much of a priest."

Speaking of Dean Stanley, I am reminded of a very interest
ing meeting which took place at my house, in Lincoln's Inn
Kields, on November 26, 1878, just after his return from his visit
10 the United States. He had a great wish to see Darwin, who
was one of the few remarkable men of the age with whom he was
not personally acquainted. They moved in totally different
circles, Darwin having, owing to ill-health, long given up going
into general society. He had, however, a great admiration for
the Dean's liberality, courage, and character, and was glad of
the opportunity of meeting him. So we arranged that they
should both come to lunch. They were mutually pleased with

282 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

each other, although they had not many subjects in common to
talk about. Darwin was no theologian and Stanley did not take
the slightest interest in nor had he any knowledge of any branch
of natural history, although his father was eminent as an ornith
ologist and President of the Linnean Society. I once took him
over the Geological Gardens. His remarks were, of course,
original and amusing, but the sole interest he appeared to find
in any of the animals was in tracing some human trait, either in
appearance or character. The Dean enjoyed intensely the
broader aspects and beauties of nature as shown in scenery, but
the details of animal and plant life were entirely outside his
sympathies.

Another introduction consequent upon Huxley's voyage in the
" Rattlesnake "was to Dr. Vaughan, theji Headmaster of Harrow.
Mrs. Vaughan was Cnptain Owen Stanley's sister, and soon after
Huxley's return he was asked to dine and pass the night at Har
row. This was a new experience. The young rough sailor surgeon
was at first quite out of his element in the refined, scholastic,
ecclesiastical society he found himself plunged into. Among
those whp were present was an Oxford don (the first of the class
Huxley had ever met), whose great learning, suave manner and
air of superiority during dinner, greatly alarmed and repelled him,
as he after wards confessed. Bed time came, and both stood upon
the staircase, lighted candle in hand. They looked straight into
each other's faces, and the don addressed a few words directly to
Huxley for the first time. He was much interested, and an ani
mated conversation ensued. Instead of bidding each other " good
night" they adjourned to a neighboring room, sat down and talked
till two o'clock in the morning. This was the beginning of Hux
ley's life-long friendship with the late Master of Balliol, Dr.
Jowett.

It may surprise sgme people to know, but that he has told it
himself in an exceedingly interesting and delightfully written
short autobiographical sketch prefixed to his works, that Huxley
was not in early life anything of what is commonly called a
naturalist. Most men who have distinguished themselves in the
field of zoology or paleontology have loved the subject from their
early boyhood, a love generally shown by the formation of collec
tions of- specimens. Huxley never did anything of the kind. Hig
early tastes were for literature and for engineering. He attrib-

REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 283

uted the awakening of his interest in anatomy to Professor
Wharton Jones' lectures at Charing Cross Hospital, where he
received his medical education. Wharton Jones was one of the pio
neers of microscopic research in this country ; a great enthusiast
in his work, but a man of modest and exceedingly retiring dispo
sition, and very little known outside a small circle of friends.
He published several papers on histology in the Philosophical
Transactions, and made a specialty of ophthalmic surgery. Per
haps of his various contributions to the advancement of his sub
ject, not the least important was that of making a scientific
anatomist of Huxley.

The next man who had a real influence upon Huxley's pro
fessional career, was Sir John Richardson, a very keen zoologist,
at that time Principal Medical Officer at Haslar Hospital, near
Portsmouth, where the naval assistant surgeons first proceeded
on appointment. It was through him, that Huxley was appointed
to the surveying ship, the "Rattlesnake." He was not natural
ist to the expedition, as has been sometimes said, indeed he
would at this time have been hardly qualified for such a post, for
although he had published a short paper on the microscopic
structure of the human hair, he had as yet done no zoological
work. Moreover, the ship did carry an accredited naturalist,
John Macgillivray, who published a "Narrative of the Voyage of
H. M. S. 'Rattlesnake/ during 1846-'50," in two volumes [1852].

Huxley's official duties were only with the health of the crew,
and as he had a surgeon above him, he had plenty of leisure at
his command. How this leisure was employed in laying the
foundation upon which his future distinction rested has often
been told. He had his microscope with him, and he threw him
self with the greatest ardour into the investigation of the struc
ture of the lowly organized, but beautiful, forms of animal life
which abounded in the seas through which the ship sailed, and
which the surveying operations in which she was engaged gave
ample opportunities for observing under the most favorable con
ditions. This was almost a new field of research. He became
fascinated with it, and his success in its pursuit was the main
cause of his adopting zoology as the principal subject to engage
his energies during the rest of his life.

Aa »aid before, Huxley, unlike many other zoologists, was
never a collector, and had not the slightest tincture of the spirit

284 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of a museum curator. He cared for a specimen according to the
facilities it afforded for investigation. lie cut it up, got all the
knowledge he could out of it, and threw it away. I believe he
never made a preparation of any kind, and he cared little for
directions sealed down in bottles.

When, in 1862, he was appointed to the Hunterian Professor
ship at the College of Surgeons, he took for the subject of several
yearly courses of lectures, the anatomy of the vertebrata, begin
ning with the primates, and as the subject was then rather new
to him, and as it was a rule with him never to make a statement in
a lecture that was not founded upon his own actual observation, he
set to work to make a series of original dissections of all the
forms he treated of. These were carried on in the workroom at
the top of the college, and mostly in the evenings, after his daily
occupation at Jermyn Street (The School of Mines, as it was
then called) was over, an arrangement which my residence in
the college buildings enabled me to make for him. These rooms
contained a large store of material, entire or partially dissected
animals preserved in spirit, which unlike those mounted in the
museum, were available for further investigation in any direction,
and these, supplemented occasionally by fresh subjects from the
zoSlogical gardens, formed the foundation of the lectures, after
wards condensed into the volume on the Anatomy of Vertebrated
Animals, published in 1871. On these evenings it was always my
privilege to be with him, and to assist in the work in which he
was engaged. In dissecting, as in everything else, he was a very
rapid worker, going straight to the point he wished to ascertain
with a firm and steady hand, never diverted into side issues, nor
wasting any time in unnecessary polishing up for the sake of ap
pearances ; the very opposite in fact to what is commonly known
as " finikin." His great facility for bold and dashing sketching
came in most usefully in this work, the notes he made -being
largely helped out by illustrations. He might have been a great
artist, some of his anatomical sketches reminding me much of
Sir Charles BelFs, but he never had time to cultivate his facul
ties in this direction and I believe never attempted any finished
work. His power of drawing on the black board during the lec
tures was of great assistance to him and to his audience, and his
outdoor sketches made during some of his travels, as in Egypt,
though slight were full of artistic leeling. His genius was also

REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. 285

conspicuously shown by the clever drawings, often full of playful
fancy, which covered the paper that happened to be lying be
fore him when sitting at a council or committee meeting. On
such occasions his hand was rarely idle.

It is very singular that, although, as admitted by all who
heard him, he was one of the clearest and most eloquent of scien
tific lecturers of his time, he always disliked lecturing, and the
nervousness from which he suffered in his early days was never
entirely overcome, however little apparent it might be to his
audience. After his first public lecture at the Royal Institution
he received an anonymous letter, telling him that he had better
not try anything of the kind again, as whatever he was fit for, it
was certainly not giving lectures ! Instead of being discouraged,
he characteristically set to work to mend whatever faults he had
of style and manner, with what success is well known. Never
theless, he often told me of the awful feeling of alarm which
always came over him on entering the door of the lecture room of
the Royal Institution, or even the College of Surgeons, where the
subject was most familiar and the audience entirely sympathetic.
He had a feeling that he must break down before the lecture was
over, and it was only by recalling to his memory the number of
times he had lectured without anything of the kind happening,
and then drawing conclusions as to the improbability of its occur
ring now, that he was able to brace himself up to the effort of
beginning his discourse. When once fairly away on his subject
all such apprehensions were at an end. Such experiences are, of
course, very common, but they were probably aggravated greatly
in Huxley's case by the ill health, that miserable, hypochondriacal
dyspepsia which, as he says himself, was his constant companion
for the last half century of his life. Bearing in mind the serious
inroad this made in the amount of time available for active
employment, it is marvellous to think of the quantity he was able
to accomplish. When the time comes for forming a just
estimate of the value of his scientific work, and if quality as well
as quantity be fairly taken into account, it will without doubt
bear comparison with, if it will not exceed, that of any of his
contemporaries.

If, instead of taking up medicine and afterwards science as a
profession, he had gone to the bar, he must infallibly have
achieved the highest measure of success. As an advocate he

286 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

could scarcely have been surpassed. His clear, penetrating in
sight into the essentials of an intricate question, the rapidity
with which he swept aside all that was irrelevant, and the forc
ible way in which he could state the arguments for his own side
of a case, and his brilliant power of repartee, would have been ir
resistible in a court of justice. He was also free from a quality
which paralyzes the effective action of many men of great mental
capacity, the faculty of seeing something at least of both sides of
a case at the same time. When he took up a cause he took it up
in thorough earnest, and it must be admitted that there was
then very little chance of his feeling any sympathy for the other
side. He had some strong prejudices against doctrines, against
institutions, and against individuals, and as his nature was abso
lutely honest and truthful, he never cared to conceal them. On
the other hand, no man was more loyal to the causes he ap
proved of or the people he liked. He could always be relied
upon to carry out to the uttermost of his power anything he had
undertaken to do. To the younger workers in his own fields of
research nothing could exceed his generous assistance, sympathy
and encouragement. These qualities were, above all others, the
main causes of the devoted attachment he won from everyone
who was brought much into personal contact with him.

In one of the recent biographical notices which have appeared
of Huxley it is said that " no man of more reverent religious
feeling ever trod this earth." This statement has much of
truth in it. If the term "religious" be limited to acceptance
of the formularies of one of the current creeds of the world, it can
not be applied to Huxley, but no one could be intimate with him
without feeling that he possessed a deep reverence for " whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things
are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report," and an abhorrence of all
that is the reverse of these, and that, although he found difficulty
in expressing it in definite words, he had a pervading sense of ado
ration of the infinite, very much akin to the highest religion.

W. H. FLOWEB.

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAYOR MOVEMENT.

BY THE KEY. FRANCIS E. CLARKE, D. D., PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED SOCIETY OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOE.

IT HAS often been remarked that a history of the Society of
Christian Endeavor is a story of great religious conventions.
This organization seems to have inaugurated a new era in the
history of religious conventions the world around, for Christian
Endeavor conventions are not indigenous to the American soil
alone, or at least if they are exotics in other lands, they flourish
quite as well as in their native soil. The Christian Endeavor
Society in Australia and in England, and even in China, has been
marked by the greatest religious gatherings of this character
which these countries have known, and the wonderful scene
enacted in Boston in July has been duplicated on a smaller scale
in Sydney, and Melbourne, and Adelaide, and Shanghai, and
London, and Birmingham, and Glasgow.

Wherever the Endeavor Society has taken root, and there are
few lands now in all the world where it has not taken root, one
of its first developments is the massing together in vast conven
tions of earnest young people who desire to find better ways
of working for the church, for their country, and for hu
manity.

Even the early history of the Christian Endeavor movement
was marked by some remarkable conventions. Not that these
gatherings received very much attention in the daily papers or
even in the religious press of the day, but they were none the less
remarkable for the spirit and purpose which pervaded them, and
for the promise which they gave of larger things as the society
should grow in numbers and influence.

When the first society, that of the Williston Church in Port
land, Me., was scarcely seventeen months old, the first conven-

288 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tion was held in the parent church. Then there were known to he
in existence only six or seven societies in all the world, though
doubtless there were a number of others of which we had no
record. These societies were invited to send delegates one June
day in 1882 to the Williston Church, and a very pleasant and
significantly prophetic convention was then held.

Of course the numbers were small, for all the Endeavorers
then in the world, probably, would not have filled even a very
moderate-sized church, but those who came together found
ample reason for the convocation. They found questions of
interest to discuss and much joy in their interdenominational
fellowship, and one and all voted this first convention a decided
success, which ought to be repeated in the future years.

The next year a larger gathering was held in another church
of the same city, the historic old Second Parish Church, of
which the Rev. Edward Paysou was an early pastor. By this time
the societies had multiplied, and this meeting was naturally
larger and more full of interest and promise than the convention
of 1882. From that day to the present, as the societies have
rapidly increased in numbers and zeal and esprit de corpo, the
conventions have increased in like proportion.

The meetings held in 1886 and 1887 at Saratoga Springs will
long be remembered by all who attended them for their spiritual
flavor and the joyous earnestness of those who came together. As
in almost every year since, the numbers far exceeded the expecta
tions ; a fact which is true 'of very few religious gatherings or
convocations of any other kind, and it was a great surprise to
many an Jiabitu^ of Saratoga, somewhat blase, as it must be con
fessed he sometimes is by reason of hops and congress water and
horse races and Kissingen, to find the sidewalk in the vicinity of
the large Methodist Church thronged with Endeavorers at half-
past six in the morning, waiting until the church could be un
locked, and to find that the interest of the multitude was centered
in an early morning prayer meeting.

The first great convention, so far as numbers were concerned,
was the one held in Chicago in the following year, in 1888, in
the armory hall of Battery D. Five thousand it is thought at
tended this meeting, and though not a tenth part of the numbers
found at the present conventions, that was then considered a most
surprising gathering, and was declared by more than oue religious

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MOVEMENT. 289

writer to be the largest religious gathering ever held in the his
tory of the Christian church.

Philadelphia welcomed 7,000 to her ample hospitality the next
year, St. Louis 11,000 in 1890, Minneapolis 14,000 in 1891, New
York 30,000 in 1892. With each succeeding year as the throngs
grew larger the conventions excited more and more attention.
Particularly was this true of the convention at New York.

It was with the greatest difficulty that the people of the
metropolis conld be brought to realize that a concourse of any
size was coming within their borders. One hotel keeper, when
the committee of assignments sought places of entertainment,
offered to take the whole convention within his ample hostelry.
When asked if he knew how many were coming, he replied that
he did not care how many were coming, that his hotel would
accommodate 1,500 guests, that he had provided for many con
ventions in the past, and, as the summer season was a slack time
for him, he could take in the whole convention as well as not.
When informed by the committee of arrangements that there
would doubtless be ten times 1,500 people present he whistled
softly, a low, incredulous note, and bestowed a look of supreme
pity, not unmixed slightly with contempt, upon the well-mean
ing religious enthusiast who confronted him. But not ten times
1,500, but twenty times 1,500 were the final figures which told of
the throngs of Christian Endeavorers who poured into New York
City for the eleventh International Christian Endeavor conven
tion. The papers found themselves suddenly with a great
problem upon their hands, to report worthily so vast a convoca
tion. They rose to the occasion, however, at least some of them
did, and gave most generous space to this remarkable gathering.

The Hon. Chauncey Depew, with the pleasant facetiousness
which so becomes him, declared, when he addressed the great throng
in Madison Square Garden, that " New York never looked so fresh
and green as it did on that joyous occasion." But the young
people forgave his joke and applauded the somewhat equivocal
compliment to the echo, for they knew, as did every one else who
looked around on that throng of radiant faces, that the stalwart
young men of America and the fair young women from country
and city were there with their faces all illumined with the light
of a high and noble purpose to win their land, or so much of it
as they are responsible for, to the highest and noblest ends.

YOL. CLXI. — NO. 466. 19

290 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The personnel of these conventions is as remarkable as the
numbers brought together. Every one who studies the faces and
mingles with the throngs at these yearly gatherings remarks upon
this feature. You must needs search far and long for a milksop
or a goody-goody youth or maiden, unless their faces strangely
belie their characters. Strong young business men, students
from our colleges and academies, maidens from all ranks of soci
ety, but all intelligent and purposeful, abound everywhere. They
are quick to catch the speaker's point, eager to applaud the senti
ments which appeal to their hearts and to their common sense ;
always ready at the open parliaments with modest suggestions
and sensible plans for the carrying on of their work ; alert, keen,
quick witted are the tens of thousands who now annually come
to the movable Christian Endeavor fen^t.

The proportion of young men at these conventions is a very
striking feature. A journal devoted to the interests of women
has recently declared that of the sixty thousand who attended the
convention in Boston, fifty thousand were young women. This
is a huge mistake, though if the statement were true I do not
mean to intimate that the fact would be derogatory to the con
vention. But, as a matter of fact, nearly if not quite one-half,
certainly of those who came from a distance, are young men, as
a glance at almost any of the audiences would prove. The con
vention of 1893 at Montreal was smaller than the New York
gathering, largely because those who come to the convention
must all come from a distance. There is but a small local con
stituency of Christian Endeavorers in Montreal. Still some
seventeen or eighteen thousand attended this convention, most
of them coming from a long distance, and probably the number
of miles travelled by the delegates in the aggregate was far larger
than at any preceding gathering, and in spiritual tone and pur
pose the convention was quite up to its predecessors.

The convention of 1894 was held in the city of Cleveland,
and, to all appearances, the most unpropitious week in all the
century was chosen for the gathering. The intense commercial
depression of the previous twelve months had been followed by
the most gigantic strike in the annals of American labor organi
zations. Almost every railway in the United States was tied up
or was in danger of being blockaded by the strikers. An abso
lute embargo was laid on the delegates from the Pacific Coast,

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MOVEMENT. 291

and, in fact, on many from nearer Western States, who could
not, whatever their intention, reach the convention, as no trains
were running. Those who came from the East were uncertain
about reaching the fair city by the lake, or, if they reached it,
whether they would be able to get to their homes again. It was
freely predicted, even by those who knew something of the pluck
and persistency of Christian Endeavorers, that the convention
would necessarily be a small one, and all were amazed when the
news was flashed over the wires that this was the largest conven
tion in the history of the movement, and that fully forty thousand
people were in attendance at the meeting. Half of these
came from outside of the city of Cleveland and immediate
vicinity.

Great things were naturally expected of the last convention
which has just closed in Boston, and these great expectations were
not in any way disappointed. It was thought that there would be
fifty thousand people in attendance. As a matter of fact 56,425
registered delegates were recorded, and there were probably
thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of others who had some
part in the convention, and attended some of the sessions, though
they were not registered as Christian Endeavorers. For months
in advance preparations were made for this meeting most care
fully and elaborately. " The Committee of Thirteen/' of which
the Hon. S. B. Capen was the chairman, or " the Committee of
'95" as it is sometimes called if any one objects to the unlucky
number, was simply at the head of a vast committee numbering
over four thousand individuals, a committee which the largest
church in Boston could not hold when they attempted to have a
mass meeting to prepare for the convention. These committees
were to welcome the guests when they arrived, to find homes for
them and to pilot them thither, to perform the duties of ushers
in the churches and the great auditoriums, to raise the necessary
money for the use of the convention, to look after the printing
and the hall accommodations ; in fact, to perform the thousand
and one duties incident to the preparation for such a vast gather
ing and for its proper accommodation after the meeting began.

The convention choir consisted of a chorus of three thousand
voices which was divided into three parts, a thousand going to
each of the three large auditoriums. To secure places of meet
ing of sufficient size is naturally one of the great problems of such

292 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a gathering. Long ago it was found that no one hall in America
is large enough to accommodate those who come together, and if
such a hall could be found there is no voice in America big
enough to fill it. Naturally, then, the thing to do is to divide the
audience into smaller groups whicty are yet large enough to give
the effect of an immense mass meeting, while yet within the
compass of the most powerful voices. For the Boston conven
tion the great Mechanics' Hall with its capacity of ten thousand,
and two great tents, built for the occasion, each one of which
when crowded would hold as many more, were secured. Besides,
many churches were generously offered to the convention, and
not less than two hundred of them in all were used.

Thus it will be seen that though all could not get into the audi
toriums at any one time, all were accommodated somewhere, and
provision was made not only for the fifty-six thousand who came
to Boston but for tens of thousands of the people of Boston who
desired to get within sight and sound of the convention.

As a matter of fact, all the delegates themselves did not expect
to attend all the sessions, nor was it expected that they would.
Many of them came from a distance of fifty or sixty miles, going
back and forth to their homes every day, attending what sessions
they could and content with getting the inspiration and stimulus
of the great gathering. So, while there were many who could
not get to the particular session which they desired, all could
attend the convention, and there was surprisingly little complaint
from the young people, whom I have come to regard, after long
experience of these annual gatherings, to be the best natured and
sunniest company in all the world.

The city of Boston entered heartily into the plans for the con
vention. It realized in advance what was coming, and every
thing was done to give the visitors a most royal welcome. The
public gardens were decorated with Chistian Endeavor colors, and
Christian Endeavor emblems and monograms ; the entrance to
the parks were through arches which told of Boston's greeting,
while many of the merchants covered their stores with red and
white bunting, the convention colors, or set them ablaze at night
with Christian Endeavor emblems in electric light.

The daily papers vied with each other to give the best account
of the meetings. Every day for weeks in advance many columns
and a multitude of pictures heralded the advancing host, and

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MOVEMENT. 293

when the convention actually came pages and pages were given
each day to a verbatim report of the proceedings.

It can be imagined that to prepare the programme for such a
convention is no slight task. More than a thousand speakers had
part in the exercises. The convention programme, abbreviated as
it was, with many parts only indicated and the speakers' names
not given, covered nearly forty pages of closely packed type.
Moreover, so far as possible, speakers with iron throats and brazen
lungs, who can make themselves heard in the great assemblies,
must be chosen, and something like thirty denominations must be
represented upon the programme. But almost without a break
the programme was carried through, and always on time.

It may be asked, is it not almost impossible to conduct or con
trol such a vast and apparently tumultuous assembly ? I would
reply that never was there an easier convention to control than
this same Boston convention. The gavels which had been pre
sented for use in the different auditoriums were scarcely required
at all. A single suggestion from the presiding officer was enough
to induce perfect quiet and attention. Not a disagreeable inci
dent from beginning to end occurred to my knowledge, but in all
the assemblies every one seemed to strive to do as they would be
done by, speakers and hearers alike. The tide of enthusiasm
rolled higher and higher to the very end, and the consecration
meeting with which the convention closed was the most remark
able of the series.

But it may be asked, what is the rationale of these conven
tions ? How can they be accounted for ? What roots lie
beneath the surface from which this flower draws its life ?

J[ know of no other answer except that which is found in the
principles of the Christian Endeavor movement. Like the move
ment itself, the conventions are very democratic affairs. I have
spoken of the ' ( delegates/' but in a strict sense of the word there
are no delegates. The conventions are mass meetings, to which
all Christian Endeavorers are welcomed on the same basis. The
conventions have no legislative powers, no binding votes are taken,
there is no wrangling over creeds or polity, there are no offices to
fill, and no spoils to be divided. More strictly than any other
convention of which I know are these mass meetings for inspira
tion and fellowship, and not for business or politics. This is
entirely in accord with the genius of the Christian Endeavor

294 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

movement. There is no boss or dictator in Christian Endeavor.
Every society accepts the will of its own church as final and
supreme. There is no other arbitrator. No United Society, or
State, or Provincial Union in all the world seeks to legislate for
any local society. The duties of a Christian Endeavor society are
fulfilled when it does those things which its church and pastor
would like to have it do. As a matter of course, then, these con
ventions, when they assemble, can give themselves entirely to
fellowship and the inspiration of the hour ; and the results are
seen in the thronging thousands who go back to their homes and
their churches to live better lives and do nobler work than ever
before.

Again, the success of these conventions can be accounted for
by their flexibility and adaptability to circumstances. The con
vention in Shanghai was in its way as great a success as the con
vention in Boston, because it adapted itself to the needs of China
as the Boston convention did to the needs of the young peo
ple of America. The need of America in the present day is
evidently a better citizenship, a purer political atmosphere, and
this has been the ringing keynote which has been struck at every
one of the last three conventions. The applause with which this
note has been received when struck, and the enthusiasm with
which Christian Endeavorers everywhere have carried out the
thought, has shown the adaptability of the movement to every
passing phase of American life. A Tammany not only over
thrown, but a Tammany forevermore impossible in America, was
one great thought of the Boston convention, and five times ten
thousand hearts pledged themselves quietly, but none the less
sincerely, to a better citizenship and a purer government for our
great cities and for our nation.

' 'If I cannot have a vote," said one young lady, "I can have
a voter, and I will do my utmost to see that he votes right on
moral questions," and her sentiment was as heartily applauded
by the sex that votes as by the one which as yet has no ballot save
in Colorado and Wyoming.

In a multitude of places throughout the country these efforts
for good citizenship, which are started at these conventions, are
multiplied and reduplicated as the convention echoes are heard
in every city and hamlet of the nation. Not as a political party,
not by allying itself to any politician or to any political measure,

THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR MOVEMENT. 395

but standing in all political parties for righteousness and purity,
the Christian Endeavorers, if not the Christian Endeavor Society
of the future, will have a mighty influence and as wholesome, I
believe, as mighty over the destiny of our Republic.

Other dominant notes are struck at these conventions, though
none more persistently of late years than this note of good citi
zenship Missionary interests are always kept to the fore, and
the broadest interpretation is given to the word "missionary."
Work for the poor; for the "submerged tenth" in 'our great
cities ; relief of the sick and destitute; the carrying of sun&hine
and flowers to those whose lives are dreary and barren, and the
transportation to fresh fields and pastures new of those who or
dinarily breathe the foul air of the-slums, are some of the mis
sionary efforts of Christian Endeavorers.

They remember also that they have a duty, and an especial
duty, to their own denominational missionary boards, in their ef
forts to win the world to Christ. *As a result the contributions
from the societies during the last year, for distinctively mission
ary purposes, amounted to nearly half a million of dollars.

Another idea, necessarily prominent during these conven
tions, is that of interdenominational fellowship. The society is
not undenominational, as it is sometimes called, but interdenom
inational. Each local society is as denominational as the church
to which it belongs, but in its wider relation, and especially in
its international conventions, it is broadly interdenominational.
In this feature lies one of the great and enduring charms of
these conventions. They bring together young Christians of all
Evangelical names and creeds in a most gracious fellowship.
While doctrinaires are discussing Christian union, and proposing
various bases for the coming together of the forces of Christen
dom, Christian Endeavorers are enjoying Christian Union, with
out saying much about it.

Some one has wisely said, that " Christian union is much like
silence ; it is apt to be broken when you begin to talk about it/'
The Christian Endeavorers do not say very much about Christian
Union. They do not expect organic unity, or the destruction of de.
nominations, for they understand that denominations stand for the
emphasis of great ideas, and they know that there is a great differ
ence between denorninationalism and sectarianism. Christian
Endeavor is an inveterate foe to sectarianism, but is a friend of a

296 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

broad-minded, warm-hearted denerninationalism. The denomi
national rallies at the conventions are meetings of great power and
interest, and are entirely in harmony with the interdenominational
character of the gathering, which draws its chief inspiration from
this demonstration of the practical oneness of Christians of every
name.

Never were the prospects for the triumph of this interdenomi
national fellowship so bright as at present. Though strenu
ously opposed in some quarters, and much misrepresented in
others, it is constantly winning its way. The fellowship is en
larging by hundreds of thousands every year. Every month sees
four times ten thousand earnest youths joining this fraternity,
which stands for loyalty as well as fellowship, for fidelity as well
as for fraternity. Never did the young people before so hear the
call which summons them to duty for their country, for their com
munity, for their church, for their God. To the genuine spirit
of the movement they have responded most surprisingly, and are
constantly going forward to larger victories.

In the light of the history of the last fourteen years the hymn
written by the author of "America" for the Boston convention
is evidently prophetic of the future :

Arouse ye, arouse ye! O servants of God,
His right arm your strength, and your leader His rod,
O, haste from the north, from the south, to His call,
His cause shall prevail, He shall reign over all.
Farewell to your dreaming I No longer delay I
Go tell the glad tidings — God's hand points the way.
Go forward! go forward! to conquer, or die-
God will make sure the victory.

CHORUS.

Haste and bear the banner forth
East and west, and south and north;
Haste to lift the cross on high,

The pledge of victory.
Haste and bear the banner forth,
East and west, and south and north;
Haste to lift the cross on high,

The pledge of victory,

The cross and victory.

FKANCIS E. CLARKE.

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

BY ROBERT H. THURSTON, DIRECTOR OF SIBLEY COLLEGE,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

GREAT movements, whether of mind or matter, of nations or
of planets, of civilizations or of comets, of philosophy, of religion,
or of wealth-production, are the results of the action of great
natural forces, and have, in all cases, a definable route and rate of
motion. As the writer has often put it : " Nature never turns a
sharp corner " in any such movement, and the mighty flux of
material and of intellectual forces, and the grand resultant flow of
the current of material, or of intangible progress, must always be
as steady and as smooth as that of a great river flowing through a
plain. It may deviate, and even turn upon itself at times, but
it must have a smooth curve, if not a rectilinear course. Now
and then some great moral or physical obstruction may impede
or divert its stream, but only mighty forces, commensurate with
the tremendous inertia of the mass affected, can produce imme
diate or marked effects upon either its magnitude or its direction.

It thus comes that, if we can trace the line of progress during
the immediate past, — if we are able to follow it during past cen
turies or bygone ages, — we may lay down upon the chart the line
of its earlier course, to date, and can see at once what must,
inevitably, be the direction, the rate, and the distance gained, in
any stated time in the immediate future, provided new and catas
trophic phenomena do not, by their unexpected and unforseeable
action, invalidate all prophecy. Given the curve of human
progress, in any field, as representing the immediate past, the
immediate future becomes knowable with a degree of accuracy
and certainty, which is the greater as the forces and the masses
affected by them are the greater. The terminal portion of our
curve exhibits the tendency, and the direction of movement, at the

298

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

moment ; and if no great physical or moral force threatens to
introduce a new deviating power, or to cause some catastrophe,
the progress of to-day will be, inevitably, the outcome of the
progress of yesterday and the introduction to the progress of to-

(FIGURE 1.)

morrow, with unchanged, or little changed, rectilinear or curvi
linear advance. The rate of progress of education, or of wealth-
accumulation, in 1895, must be substantially correct as a gauge
of that of 1896, or with, perhaps, a little less exactness, of that
of 1900. A great war, or a world-wide commercial depression,

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS. 299

or a "reformation/' may now and then, in the course of the cen
turies, affect these great social currents of progress ; but, if
nothing at the moment looms up, threatening the immediate
future, the trend of human or of national progress may be con
sidered as fully established.

The distinguished statistician, Mr. Mulhall, in a recent issue
of the NORTH AMERICAN EEVIEW, has given the data which
permit the establishment of the curves of progress of the nation,
from early in the century to date, and thus their approximate
establishment in location, form, and direction, for the immediate
future. No great war occurring, and no serious catastrophe of
other kind taking place, we may obtain an idea of the probable
future movement, in its extent and direction, and in results ; the
accuracy of which will be more or less certain accordingly as the
curve, so far as laid down from our data, is more or less smooth
and even and persistent in its line. The tendencies of the mo
ment are within the view of the student, and the immediate
future comes into the field of view of the clairvoyant scholar.

Taking up this mass of most interesting and instructive data,
let us construct our curves and observe what they represent and
to what they point ; and let us see what we can discover of the
trend of national progress in growth, in wealth, in knowledge,
and in power.

The basis of all wealth and the measure of the power of
accumulation of wealth is the aggregate working power of a
people. The working power of a civilized people has come to be
measured by the total of its steam power. The growth in its
total "horse power" in steam engines of all kinds is the measure
of its growth in all the material foundation of civilization and
progress, and thus material progress underlies progress in all the
arts and sciences, and every intellectual as well as material ad
vance. The first of our diagrams (Figure 1, A) exhibits the trend
of our progress in developing power of national advancement.
Its smooth, steady curvature shows not only advance and con
stant gain, but a steady and continuous gain in rate of gain.
A straight line would simulate gain by simple interest ; our
curves, A to Z>, simulate gain by compound interest with fre
quently recurring periods of payment. The century has seen
great gain in power of doing work, of accumulating wealth, and
great gain in rapidity of gain of power and wealth. All our

300

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

subsequent deductions confirm this primary and essential, this
fundamental, conclusion. The United States of North America
constitutes not only the most powerful of nations, in the most
literal and meaning sense, but it is all the time increasing its
speed in the race and as constantly more and more rapidly dis
tancing its competitors. As we shall see presently, its greater
and growing intelligence, its great inventive power, fostered by
our exceptionally effective patent system; its industry, its educa
tion; its conscientious acceptance of the correct principles of
morals and of economics, as they are brought forward and generally
discussed — all these, and other and concomitant qualities, give
good reason for Mulhall's closing and enthusiastic prediction, as
well as for all the eloquence and pride and confidence of Carnegie.

*mTwd

iQifO '8SO '660 I8JO 'f$O

AVA/LABLE SJCAMPOMR IN (/WED STATES

(FIGURE 2.)

In Figure 1, the line A is the expression of the fact and the
law of our progress from 1820 to 1895 ; and the dotted portion
shows clearly what is to be anticipated in the immediate future,
if no catastrophic and unanticipated change in the conditions de
termining the fact and the law occurs. The smoothness of the
curve and its regularity of curvature prove that natural causes
have operated very steadily and continuously, in spite of occa
sional " crises," and that we may fairly assume the continuation
of the curve in the same geometric relations to give us a prophecy
of the coming years. Our total physical power for use in driving
machinery, for wealth production, has risen from about 4,300,-
000,000 foot-tons, daily, in 1820 — the equivalent of lifting a ton

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

301

800,000 miles— to nearly ten times that figure in 1860, and to
thirty times that power in 1895. It is seen that it must become
something like forty times as much, about 150,000,000,000, in
1900. Human power is seen to be growing slowly, i. e., in pro
portion to population, simply ; while steam-power, coming in
with Watt's perfection of the engine, at the beginning of the
century, will amount to one-half the total this year, and aggre
gate 80,000,000 in 1900, and 110,000,000,000 in 1910. Horse
power, steadily growing at a moderate rate, though much faster
than population, in the earlier half-century, and greater by far
than steam-power, finally is eclipsed about 1880 by the latter,
and, though still rapidly and steadily growing, falls far behind at
the end of the century. Steam-power measures most accurately,
probably, the ability to accumulate all those comforts and luxuries
which constitute modern civilization, and it is seen that the
trend of the line is there most rapidly upward. A glance at the

THOUSAND MILLION fbOT -TONS DAILY
O 10 20 30 40 SO .60 70. 60 ,90 ,100 JIO JiO J30 ',<>

AVAILABLE WORKING POWER J895

(FlGUKE 3.)

succeeding diagrams will show the details of this progress and
confirm our first and fundamental deduction.

Figure 2 simply classifies the forms of steam power into
marine, stationary, locomotive, and gives their aggregate. The
mightiest gain is seen to be in locomotive engines on our rail
roads. These curves show not only what are the figures for the
past and the present, and for the next few years ; but their uni
formly steady curvature proves that we may fairly anticipate their
continuation, with the same steady smooth sweep, for a quarter
or a half century to come, should no catastrophe or revolution
izing invention break up our industrial methods and radically
change social conditions. The horse-power of all steam engines
to date has come to be about 17,000,000, will be nearly
25,000,000 in 1900, and double that figure in another quarter-
century. The striking fact, here, is the proportion in which
transportation demands power, as shown by the sum of the

302

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

figures for railroads and steamboats. The curve for stationary
engines exhibits the proportion devoted to manufacturing the
articles transported. In every case the trend of progress is on
ward and upward, and with an accelerating velocity.

The next cluster of diagrams illustrates present momentary
relations, as to numerical and comparative quantity, of the prin
cipal nations, as obtained by laying down Mulhairs data. Fig
ure '6 places side by side the figures for available power of wealth-
production, and we find the United States leading all nations

ZfOO

(FIGURE 4.)

and doubling the amount assigned even to the leader among
European countries, Great Britain. Germany is third, France
fourth, and the other nations fall far behind. Keducing these
figures to the measure of the working power per inhabitant, as
in Figure 4, however, we get a more correct basis of comparison,
as a gauge of the character of the nation and its civilization.
Here we find that the United States is still in the van ; but Great
Britain is a close second and the inhabitant of France or Ger-

JO 40 SO 60 70 80 .90 .100

r,R

\1N

Mt

AT

AUSTRIA

fkANCE
GERMANY
GT. BRITAIN
/TALY

araa

CBK

!^B9

->•«,

rvr

»x>

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION. 189 o.
(FIGURE 5.)

many has but about one-half as much power of wealth-production
as the inhabitant of the United States. Figures 5 and 6 throw
some light upon the national habits, policies, and capacities.
They show the agricultural production of these nations. The
United States not only produces enormously more grain, and other
products, than either of the other great nations, but, what is
vastly more important, interesting, and instructive, twice as much

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

303

per worker as even Great Britain. This is at once proof of the
ingenuity of our people, in making the natural powers and all
machinery do their work, of the value and marvellous helpfulness
of our patent system, and of the ability of our people to make
their work tell most effectively in the application of wealth-pro
ducing powers to the production of the permanent forms of wealth,
where other nations are compelled to devote their energies more
largely to the production of the perishable articles — food, for ex
ample. That nation which can turn its power, mainly, into the

PRODUCTION or GWIH PER HAND 1890
ASSUMING I0<-^- OFMEA Ton2GAu? of
EQUIVALENT TO ONE BUSHEL OFG-RA.IM.

(FIGURE 6.)

production of the former kinds of wealth obviously will, other
things equal, accumulate wealth and promote the comfort and
content of its citizens most rapidly.

Figures 7 and 8 are even more interesting to the economist
and to the statesman. The appropriation of public funds to edu
cational purposes is seen to be about three times as much in

ffllUW DOUARS.

CTBRITAIN

fAAf/CE

GERMANY

AUSTRIA

/TALY

EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE PER ANNUM

(FIGURE 7.)

the United States as even in Great Britain, and five times as
much as in France and Germany, ten times as much as in Austria.
The expenditure per capita is nearly double that of Great Britain,
three and five times that, respectively, of France and Germany,
and ten times that of Italy. These figures may perhaps be taken
as the natural resultant of the preceding or, rather, these figures,
representative of the intelligence of the country, in close degree,
together with the freedom of the nation, and its inventiveness,
stimulated by both freedom and a good system of patent law, are

304

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the basis of the wonderful gains already illustrated. Figure 9
shows the number of letters sent, per inhabitant, in each country,
and measures the intelligence of its people. Figure 10 exhibits

DOLLARS
o o;so i.oo /so

200

2.50

QT.BKITMN
FRANCE
GERMANY

AUSTRIA

/TALY

••••M
HKH-J

•^K)

EDUCATIONAL EXPENDITURE PER INHABITANT KRAHWM

(FIGURE 8.)

the wealth per capita, the natural and inevitable consequence
of that ratio of intelligence with this marked qualification — the
wealth of the United States is the accumulation of a single cen-

ff° OF LETTERS PER INHABITANT PER MNUN

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 SO .90 100 110 120

SV1KOIUND
GTBRITMN
QERHANY
BELGIUM

HOLLAND
FRANCE

AUSTRIA
/TALY

POST OFFICE RETURNS

(FIGURE 9.)

tury; that of Great Britain comes of intelligently directed ener
gies, in commerce and manufactures, for centuries, and the other
European countries have the same advantage — in respect to time,

DOLLARS PER HEAD

100 200/300 400 500 600 700

GT.BRnxiN
fAANCE

HOLLAND

BELGIUM

GERMANY
SWEDEN

ITALY

AUSTRIA

AVEXAG£ of WEALTH ro POPULATION
(FIGURE 10.)

only. Accumulations of centuries place three European nations
ahead of the United States in this aggregate; but the gains are most
rapid with our own country, and we shall soon take the lead.
Our public school system and the coming universality of the pol-

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

305

icy, on the part of the States, of taking charge of and liberally sup
porting higher education, as in the State universities and the pos
sibly soon-to-be-founded National University, gives this country
much of this extraordinary advantage and goes far toward making
it the leader of the world in growth, in wealth, both material
and intellectual. The trend of our progress is constantly onward
and continually at such a rate of movement and of acceleration

DSiLARS
PER/NHABITANT

ISO
I*t0
130

no
no

100

30

80

70
60
50
40
30

to

10
n

/jp0

/400
1300
UOO

noo

1000

900

800

JOO
600
500

$00

300
zoo
/oo

/

/
/

/

1

f

1

1
I

/

I
1

$

I

i
i
/

V

/

1

\

I

/

/

<

tf

r

/

/

f

sS

/

/

/

/

— —

->?

<* /820 '830 '8*>0 1350 I860 '870 '880 '890 '900

GROWTH or WEALTH °r (jump STATES
(FIGURE 11.)

as well, as must steadily increase our relative and our actual alti
tude.

Figure 11 exhibits this growth of wealth, in the United States,
as the product of the inconceivable physical power applied by our
people to its production. The lower curve, and the lower and
left-hand scales, illustrate the total wealth of the nation, and its
growth from the beginning of the century, while the dotted lines,
VOL, CLXI. — NO. 466. 20

306

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

as before, indicate the future probable growth. From 1820 or
1830, wealth has been rapidly increasing with an accelerated
ratio. That is to say, from the date of the perfection of Watt's
steam engine and its application to mills and factories, and to
steamboats and railroads, wealth has accumulated with a contin
ually increasing rate of accumulation. From 2,000,000,000 in
1820, it has come to be 65,000,000,000 in 1890, and may be ex
pected to become fifty per cent, more in 1900, and to double in
the next quarter of a century. But the upper curve, of which

WEALTH

THOUSAND HIUION DOILURS

(FIGURE 12.)

the quantities are reduced to dollars per capita, is a better index
of our progress and its trend. The right-hand scale applies here.

The wealth, per inhabitant, was but $200 per capita in 18^0;
it was $1,000 in 18UO, is now $1,120, and will be $1,200 in 1900.

The smooth and steady curvature of the line indicates that we
may expect this gain to continue, indefinitely, into the coming
decades at least, and that, with wise administration of the gov
ernment, with repression of economic heresies and follies, and
with continued industry and growing intelligence as the outcome
of more and more general and complete education, our people
may anticipate a total wealth of $2,000 for every man, woman
and child in the community, within the first quarter of the new
century. When it is remembered that this people to-day enjoys

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

307

all the comforts, and many of the luxuries, of our fathers* gener
ation, and that nearly all the coming gains of working power and
in production will be applied to the securing of still greater
comfort and of still more general distribution of luxuries, it can
be seen very clearly that only their own follies can probably pre
vent this people from enjoying such a life as only poets have hith
erto dreamed of, and that within the next one or two generations

tfiLLiOH DOLLARS DOLLARS

7000
6000

I

/I

700

600
500

300

ZOO
(OO

1

/

'/
/

/.

I

—

~/~

/ '

/

$

/

Cj

f

I

I

30oo

f

/

^/

'

1 — •— "

/

y

1000
0

\

/

/

__-- -— •

1

^

"""

'390

WAGES PA/D

(FIGURE 13.)

at latest. Our grandchildren will see this coming of a millennial
period — lacking, perhaps, only the moral element so far as our
people choose to forego that most essential of all its elements.
In material comfort and prosperity the addition of a thousand
dollars' worth of comfort and of luxury to every household, for

308 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

each one of its members, should give marvellous improvement in
an even now marvellously fortunate country.

Figure 12 shows how this wealth is, and is to be, distributed.
It was mainly rural in the early days of the century ; it was
equally divided between city and country in 1855, and it is to
day three-fourths urban. This means that both people and
property are accumulating in the cities, a fact long since recog
nized by every statistician. It means further, that the country
is supplying the city with its surplus population, and that the
city is paying that surplus better wages than can be paid in the
country. It means, again, that the attractions of city life are
steadily becoming more seductive, and that the coming ideal
life of the every-day citizen is a city, and not a country, life.
In 1900 the cities will contain between three and four times as
much wealth as the country. This surplus of wealth will be
devoted to the construction of attractive homes, to the sanitary
improvement of the towns, to the provision of educational and
other intellectual advantages that, in the aggregate, must make
the city more and more attractive, in a thousand ways. The
tendency is, in many ways, unfortunate ; but it is certain and
we must make the most and the best of it. A distinguished
engineer, in a lecture recently given to the young men of his
profession at Cornell University, suggested that, after all, with
the coming improvements in sanitation and education in cities,
it may prove that the vision of the prophet, of a heavenly city,
may not be altogether unjustified, and the coming earthly para
dise, like the heavenly one, may prove to be urban.

Figure 13 shows how wages are and will be distributed out of
this wealth production. Before 1860 the wages were what we
should to-day think very low ; but, since the institution of the
embargo by the civil war, and the partial embargo of the late
war-tariff, all wages have been steadily and rapidly climbing,
with that same acceleration of rate of gain which has been every
where else observed. Almost five times as much is paid out
as wages, each year, as is measured off as the total capital of the
country at the time.

But the striking and encouraging fact is exhibited in the
lower of these two curves. The wages paid each operative, less
than $300 in 1860, is nearly $600 to-day, and will be above $600
per annum in 1900, if nothing occurs to disturb our present pros-

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS.

309

perity and the conditions of progress. In a few years more, the
wages paid, on the average, per individual worker, will be as
great as to-day supports the average well-to-do family. Of all
our curves, this is one of the most rapid in its rise, and this
means that the distribution of wealth is continually coming
to be more and more equalized, and that the average day
laborer, and the workman of every grade, will continually profit
more and more, and will gain constantly a larger and a larger
share of this distribution. Wealth will be more and more equally
distributed, just as long as present social and economic condi
tions are maintained in a wholesome and uncrippled state. The

so

DOLLARS

YfAR

'890

•"90O

18SO /86O '870

MALTH OF UNITED STATES

SUBOiV/Qfff UWER SttLEADMG WVFSTMENT HFAOS
(FIGURE 14.)

working people of the United States are rapidly taking possession
of its wealth, as they always have held possession of its policy and
of its legislation. In fact, while we may boast many millionaires,
as we boast of an occasional giant stalk of corn or tall wheat-
straw, it is the people as a whole, and the average working citi
zens, of whom we must think as the makers of the nation and
the creators of its wealth. It is the average citizen, no less, who
possesses that wealth and who directs the progress of the
nation.

The point made at the beginning of this article— -that future

310 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

gains of power and wealth will take the direction of improving
the condition of the people directly, by giving more universal
distribution of comfort and of luxuries, is well illustrated in the
next diagram. Figure 14 shows the divisions of wealth, as class
ified by Mulhall, into a half dozen principal forms of invest
ment. Wealth in cattle and herds grows slowly, as our facilities
for transportation bring into the market a widening area of meat-
producing country, and the markets of the world are supplied
from Texas, from South America and Australia, prices are thus
held down, and the people are able to buy their meat at low rela
tive cost. Factories represent the next largest investment. But
here improvements in the arts are continually making each more
productive, and also making their erection and operation cheaper
and more fruitful, relatively; so that while we are producing
enormously more extensively than formerly, it is with relatively
slow increase in the amount of our funds so invested. Railroads
follow the general course of the curves already presented as
those of steam power. They will, in 1900 or a little later, have
the full value of all the Jands of the nation.

But the curves for houses and for "sundries" are the most
striking, when interpreted. The growth in value of real prop
erty is seen to be very steady and uniform. This fact, taken in
conjunction with the known decrease of costs of construction,
shows how steadily and how rapidly the people are coming to
possess comfortable homes and permanent residences. This is
the foundation of all the material good in life.

It is the curve of " Sundries " that most of all interests us.
Tnis includes all the thousand and one articles of comfort and
luxury which make the life of the people worth living. It is in
the production of a higher and steeper curve that our growing
power is largely applied. It is this curve which best shows the
trend of our modern progress in all material civilization. Our
mills, our factories, our workshops of every kind are mainly
engaged in supplying our people with the comforts and the luxu
ries of modern life, and in converting crudeness and barbarism
into cultured civilization. Measured by this gauge, we are fifty
per cent, more comfortable than in 1880, sixteen times as com
fortable as were our parents in 1850, and our children, in 1900 to
1910, will have twice as many luxuries and live twice as easy and
comfortable lives, if they choose so to do, as do we to-day.

TREND OF NATIONAL PROGRESS. 311

Some important conclusions are easily and very positively de-
ducible from the study of these curves and diagrams. Tnus :

(1). It is evident that great social and economic laws are in
steady, nnintermitted operation, covering with broad sweep,
industrially as well as chronologically, the trend of modern prog
ress, and controlling the development, in wealth, education,
and all material and intellectual lines, of every civilized
nation.

(2). These laws insure steady progress, for decades, probably
for centuries, and with steady acceleration, as well, and without
much regard to ( ' crises," or to what are called good and bad
times.

(3). The trend of progress during past decades, and its direc
tion and acceleration at the moment, constitute the best guide in
predicting a probable future for our industrial and social system.

(4). This guide indicates a constant gain in rate of progress, as
well as in actual accumulation of wealth, in all industrial prod
ucts, in intellectual capital, and in general improvement.

(5). A point has been reached at which the already enormous,
and now rapidly growing, physical power of the world is being
mainly directed, in civilized countries, and especially in the United
States of North America, to the supply of comforts and luxuries
to a people already, on the average, well cared for and insured
against suffering and hardship.

(6). Very soon, and probably within another generation, the
average citizen will possess comforts and luxuries, and enjoy the
advantages of leisure for thought and study and intellectual
growth, which are, to day, the sole possession of those who are
distinctively denominated rich. The nation may be expected to
become a country of large and well-distributed wealth, and of,
on the whole, well-to-do and contented people.

(7). The direct means and methods of progress are through
the continual improvement of the arts and sciences, and the
steady reduction of the proportion of working power applied
to the manufacture of the more perishable forms of wealth, and
through the steady gain in the productiveness of that power as a
result of improvements in modern machinery and of the intro
duction of new inventions.

(*>). Culture, and all that makes life worth living, will come
to the nation, in constantly and rapidly increasing proportion, as

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the progress indicated by our diagrams, and by the smooth sweep
of our curves, continues.

(9). Our own nation, through its free institutions, its wise en
couragement of the arts and sciences and of invention, already
leads, and will lead in still greater and greater degree as time goes
on, through the immediate future, and until economic laws —
or the follies of social leaders — break the curve which exhibits
"The Trend of Modern Progress." Science thus reads us an
oracle.

The scientific principle which this article further illustrates
is that of a truly logical and scientific form of prophecy. Science,
and science only, often can, and frequently does, by a perfectly
accurate and correct method, give us clairvoyant views of the im
mediate, if not often of the remote, future. Of the Trend of
Modern Progress, in direction and rate of movement, there is no
reasonable doubt.

R. H. THUKSTON.

CROP CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS.

BY HENRY FARQUHAR, ASSISTANT STATISTICIAN", DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE AT WASHINGTON.

THE year 1895 will be agriculturally remarkable in more than
one way; but the leading characteristic now indicated for it is a
restricted area and wide-spread failure of cotton and winter wheat,
joined with a largely increased extent and exceptionally fair
promise of Indian corn and potatoes.

It is only a coincidence that this temporary replacement of
our leading export staples by these native American products
should have come when the season was exceptionally favorable for
the change, but the coincidence was singularly fortunate. Several
causes had for years been working together to bring down the
prices of commodities, and their effect had culminated in 1894;
wheat in leading markets had reached a figure never before known,
and cotton, a figure equalled only in one or two years, about 1845;
the corn price, owing to the shortness of last year's crop, had risen to
nearly the wheat level; so that it was altogether natural that the at
tention of farmers should be turned this year from wheat and cot
ton to corn. This was shown by a decline in cotton acreage, from
which only Texas and Oklahoma were excepted, along with a
general contraction of the winter and spring wheat area, reported
early in the year to the Department of Agriculture, and followed
by high percentages, distributed almost uniformly over the
country, of acreage in corn and potatoes. The incalculable and
inscrutable visitations of Jack Frost and Jupiter Pluvius, also,
were very partial in their treatment of the different crops. A
brief history of the progress of the season with a few of our lead
ing farm products will have some degree of general interest.

Winter Wheat. — Acreage sown, as compared with 1893-4, esti
mated at 103 per cent. ; acreage finally harvested, at 96 per cent.

314 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

There was no material falling off in the Pacific Slope region, but
the great growing States of the interior — Michigan, Ohio, Indi
ana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas — suffered a great reduction in
area. Dry weather at seed-time delayed sowing, prevented ger
mination and stunted the plant's growth; severe cold in the win
ter, followed by abrupt visitations of thaw and frost in the spring,
and concluded by a general drought and prevalence of insect pests
throughout the principal producing States, did the rest. Many
acres beyond the Mississippi were plowed up for corn. The fig
ure for "condition," by which is meant the proportion, expressed
as a percentage of the expected crop to a "full" crop — not
the crop of the preceding year or of any particular year, or even
the average of a series of years, but an ideal crop, the crop ac
cepted as satisfactory to the producer — this * * condition " sank
for the United States as a whole, from 83 the first of May to 71
the first of June and 66 the first of July. It thus appeared that
our farmers generally, just before setting about the harvest of
this grain, expected less than two-thirds of a crop. Yet the yield
was good in the northern States of the Pacific Slope, and better
than usual in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. If the coun
try had to depend for the great bulk of its wheat on these States,
the year would be counted among the fat and not the lean ones.
The condition at harvest time, both for winter and spring grain,
will be reported in September.

Spring Wheat. — The area sown in this grain is reported as
within 1 per cent, of 1894, and the condition as very good — 98
at the beginning of June, 102 in July, and, notwithstanding great
reported, and some actual, falling off, still as high as 96 in Aug
ust. In the chief spring wheat States, Minnesota and the Da-
kotas, the season proved much more favorable to this grain than
in the great food reservoirs to the south of them.

Hay. — The causes which reduced the area and condition of
winter wheat were equally detrimental to clover and timothy.
The June report showed that the clover acreage was one-thirteenth
less, on the average, than that of the previous year, while the
condition was 83 per cent. only. Here, as in the case of wheat,
the Atlantic and Pacific slopes showed fairly well, while the great
interior region was scourged by dry weather, a severe winter, late
frosts, and insects. By July the North Atlantic region had suf
fered further damage, and the Central States no improvement ;

CROP CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS. 315

the only parts of the country that came up to a fair average were
the Pacific slope and the South Atlantic and Gulf strip, where
little hay is usually raised. Condition had fallen to 74 for clover
and 71 for timothy ; by the first of August these figures were 67
and 70, with clover estimated at 87 per cent, of standard quality,
and an aggregate hay acreage but 9l£ per cent, of 1894.

Oats. — Acreage increased by 3 percent., as reported June lj
average condition at that date, 84 ; by July, 83, and by August
84 again. Some damage by dry weather and insects in the Cen
tral States, but a good crop in the North Atlantic and the North
west.

Cotton. — Area everywhere reduced this year, in consequence
of the low price. Only Florida, Oklahoma and the Indian Ter
ritory returned as much as 90 per cent, of last year's acreage;
Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina showed barely 80 per
cent., while the Cotton States proper were intermediate; general
average 85. Nor was this reduced extent at all compensated by
improved condition, the figure expressing this being 81 in June,
82 in July and 78 in August. Taking area and condition to
gether, and comparing with last year's August condition of 92,
we may infer a total product amounting to but 72-j- per cent, of
last year's. But this great reduction would still give us some
6,900,000 bales, a larger crop than the country produced in 1892,
or in any other year before 1887, with a single exception. The
reasons assigned for this year's poor condition are the backward
season, by which planting was notably postponed in every State
but Florida, and the encouragement given by copious rains to the
growth of grass and weeds.

Potatoes. — Area 8 per cent, greater than in 1894 ; increase
generally distributed, including the nine States of largest prod
uct, and only seven States showing a decrease. Condition fair ;
91 in July and 88 in August. Last year 92 and 74 at same dates,
and total crop 170 million bushels. The prospect of a two hun
dred million bushel crop this year is by no means slender, and an
excess over the 1889 figure— our highest hitherto— of 218,000,000
bushels, is altogether possible.

Corn. — The corn acreage shows an all but universal increase,
but two States reporting a falling off from last year. General
average advance 8 per cent. Condition exceptionally high ; 99
in July and 102 in August. The corn record is now held by the

316 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

1889 crop Of 2,122,000,000 bushels, although that of 1891,
amounting to 2,060,000,000 bushels, had a total value 40 per
cent, higher, because that year's failure of cereals in Europe
sharpened the demand for breadstuffs. There will be grave dis
appointment if the 1895 corn crop fails to surpass all previous
experience, and a product of 2,460,000,000 bushels may be quite
reasonably expected. Last year's crop, cut down by drought to
the piteous tale of 1,212,770,000, will in this case be more than
doubled. Timely rains have advanced the corn crop in almost
every section, particularly in the Cotton States ; the same agency
that proved adverse to their leading staple has favored the one
they substituted for it.

The numbers called for brevity " condition " express in brief
cojnpass all that can be predicted for the growing crop. As re
ported by the correspondents of the Agricultural Department
they express so many judgments of what the product is to be, in
their several counties, by comparison with what their experience
and study of the agriculture of those counties lead them to expect
in fairly favorable seasons. A great deal has been thought and
said about this subject of the standard for comparison in agricul
tural estimates. The most convenient mode of reference for the
statistician would probably be the average crop, taking the mean
yield of a series of seasons, bad and good as they come; this would
give us about as many conditions in excess of 100 as short of that
figure. Accordingly, in the statistical service of some countries,
and some of our States, the reporter is asked to compare his ex
pected yield with an " average yield/' In a great number of
cases, there can be no question, this comparison is quite accurately
and scrupulously made. A record of several years being kept, the
mean of all, successes, half-successes and failures, is adopted as
100, and each estimate of a prospective crop-yield is noted ac
cording to its proportion to this average. But in a greater num
ber of cases, those who are expected to follow this plan really
follow another plan. Having no exact record of a series of years
to guide them in striking their average, their standard is derived
from their impressions as to what ought to be, more than their
knowledge of what has been ; it is set by their successes and takes
no account of their failures, which it regards as accidental and
not normal; so that when they tell you of a " full crop," or an
80 per cent, crop, or a two-thirds crop, they mean that proper-

CROP CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS. S17

tion of a good and not merely a mean crop. The mixture of esti
mates on this basis with those relating to a regularly determined
mean, which must always occur when ( ' average crops " are named,
is sufficiently suggestive of confusion to raise very natural doubts
of the value of statistical returns in which they occur ; and the
total effect of such mixture is to give a value to the condition 100
quite different from that contemplated.

This is conclusively proved by examination of the figures
themselves. If 100 denotes an average, as pointed out above,
there will be about as many returns above 100 as below, in a suc
cession of years. Since, in practice, estimates in this form are
sure to show a preponderance of returns below 100, it is evident
that 100 really indicates something higher than an average. The
records of the United States Department of Agriculture come to
the aid of foreign records on this point. Clear as was the
understanding of the first statistician, Mr. J. R. Dodge, on this
point, and careful as he generally was to insist that his standard
was a full yield and not an average yield, the questions as to his
peaches and to one or two other fruits, in a few of his circulars,
were made for an extended succession of years to relate to condi
tion "compared with an average crop." As a result, the returns
are almost solidly below 100, showing that the correspondents
interpreted their par of reference as something higher than a
mere mean, even when explicitly instructed otherwise. That
this habit of fixing a standard higher than the level as often as
not attained may be taken as a fixed fact in human nature, is
acknowledged in an interesting manner by British testimony.
While the agricultural papers of that country have long made a
practice of asking for comparisons with an average crop, the
Times, in its valuable series of crop reports, has adopted
the standard of "perfect healthfulness, exemption from injury
(due to insect or fungus pests, drought or wet, cold or frost),
with average growth and development"; which amounts virtually
to the same that has been recognized for many years in agricul
tural reports on this side of the Atlantic.

Since the choice of a standard condition is determined by the
character of the reporters and their habitual manner of thinking,
it is not remarkable that some difficulty should be found in con
verting it to an exact quantity in bushels per acre. As already
admitted, the mean of a series of years, if it were possible for

318 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a great army of untrained reporters practically to apply it, would
be more definite and better suited to the purpose of immediate
statement in figures. But it is quite possible to make the " full
crop " or te normal yield " as exact a measure of quantity as a
regularly determined average, by the process of comparing the
condition estimate made when the crop is secured with the yield
as finally ascertained. For example, if wheat is judged to be 80
per cent, of a full crop when harvested, and the product was
afterward found to average 12 bushels per acre over the same
territory, it follows that the normal yield answering to the con
dition 100 must be accepted as 15 bushels per acre.

Mr. Dodge made, in 1892, a calculation of the kind just indi
cated, from which he found the normal yield of corn, the country
over, to have been for a dozen years almost constant at 28.6
bushels per acre. The highest figure was 30.4 and the lowest
27.5, the years 1882-83 being above the average and 1884-87
below, this slight loss being recovered after 1888. Mr. H. A.
Eobinson, the present statistician of the Agricultural Department,
decided a few months ago to make a special inquiry into this
question. Every correspondent of the department was accord
ingly invited to set down in figures the normal yield of wheat,
corn, etc., in his county, so that this numerical basis of reckoning
might be more directly calculated. Full returns from all parts of
the country, received in July and August, gave 29.4 bushels,
showing a substantial concordance with Mr. Dodge's estimate,
and a general fixity in our standard of corn cultivation. It
should be borne in mind, however, that the corn yield of the
year 1889 was shown by the eleventh census to be decidedly
higher than the value used in Mr. Dodge's calculation (a prac
tically identical total crop having been produced on an area 8 per
cent, less than the Agricultural Department's estimate), and that
the yields for the years preceding 1889 were doubtless affected
similarly, in gradually increasing measure. Allowing for this,
and amending the calculation accordingly, the mean normal yield
for the fourteen years ending 1894 becomes 29.9 bushels. But in
view of the uncertainty of the correction applied, it will be safest
to use the number 29.4, directly determined, as expressing what
is meant by a corn condition of 100.

A similar computation for wheat shows no such uniformity, but
a marked increase, Mr. Dodge's reduction giving 13.7 bushels for

CROP CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS. 319

the years 1881-84, 14.5 for 1885-90, and after those years more than
15. But the census reduced, as in the case of corn, the area es
timate of 1889; for the wheat acreage of the Agricultural Depart
ment that year, though determined with the usual care and
judgment, was no less than 13£ per cent, in excess of that
returned by the census. Allowing for this difference, an addition
of 1.08 bushels per acre must be made to the actual yield, and
1.23 bushels to the normal yield; so that if we suppose, as
appears most reasonable, that this correction was a gradual
accumulation, one-tenth of it being applied to the yield from
the Department's figures for 1880, two-tenths for 1881 and so
on, we find an average of 14.1 bushels per acre for 1881-84,
15.4 for 1885-90 aud 15.7 for 1891-94. Mr. Kobinson's in
quiry of county correspondents, as to the local normal yield in
each county, "brought results in fairly close agreement with the
last of these figures, the average of winter and spring wheat for
the whole country coming out 15.6 in July and a little over 15.7
in August. We may follow Mr. Dodge in ascribing the increased
wheat yield (equally undeniable whether we are or are not governed
by the census returns of acreage) to two causes: movement of cul
tivation to better lands, particularly in California, and improve
ment in agriculture generally. Until a further increase is noted
the general normal yield or the par of condition for wheat may be
accepted as 15.7 bushels per acre; the condition 66 for winter
wheat therefore, indicates 10£ bushels per acre, or 234,000,000
bushels in the aggregate, while the spring wheat condition 96 indi
cates a very little over 15 per acre or a total product of 169,000,-
000 bushels. These figures are preliminary only; correspondents
will furnish more precise returns after the crop is everywhere
housed, and be yet more precise about the end of the year, after
threshing has fairly indicated the quantity and quality of the grain.
The weak point in all the crop statistics of the Agricultural
Department is the evaluation of the area sown, or what is known
as the acreage of the crop. The yield per acre can be fairly esti
mated by well-informed and experienced reporters, and the esti
mate of "condition" is one whose definiteness in practice is even
surprising to those who only know how difficult the expression is
to define in straight plain English ; but for the number of acres,
a factor whose ascertainment is vital to a knowledge of the total
crop, there is no standard and no mark to guide the explorer back

320 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to the truth whence he has been led away. The best standard
that can be used in practice is the acreage of the census year ; but
since it is impossible for the estimator to bear that in mind all
through the decade, he necessarily has to compare each year with
the year before, so that every return of area has in it all the
uncertainty of the census determination, added to that of one or
more — perhaps ten — independent comparisons, all highly fallible,
of this year with the one just preceding. That such a chain of com
parisons is capable of leading far astray, is a necessity, and it
has been illustrated in more than one place above. But when we
have shown a divergence between Department estimates and cen
sus returns we have shown by no means the worst feature
of the case. In a candid statement of fact, it is necessary to con
fess that the census acreage figures, in both corn and wheat, have
been distrusted. Justly or unjustly, there is a widely prevalent
suspicion that the areas in the eleventh census were too low. This
suspicion is based to some extent on theories as to wheat con
sumption per head of population, and it is the office of crop re
turns to test such theories rather than be tested by them ; but
a way ought to be found to set these returns above suspicion.

The true way to attain this desirable end is to secure frequent
and accurate determinations of the area under all the principal
crops, which can only be done by an annual, or at least biennial or
triennial, farm-to-farm census. To inquiries as to area others could
easily be added without considerable additional labor or expense,
but the question of acreage should always be kept foremost, and its
precise report be regarded as the main object of the undertaking.
It is almost needless to repeat the arguments for frequent agri
cultural censuses, since they must be clear, cogent and irrefutable
in the most hasty consideration of the subject. If such a census
were taken every other year, say, not only would all agricultural
statisticians and students be furnished with firm ground to stand
on, but each and every census would, by the development of greater
skill and capacity among those in charge, be better than any of
our decennial censuses can now be. If there is a shred of truth
in the maxim that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well,
the filling of this lamentable gap in the practice of crop report
ing is a thing worth doing. The end of the century ought not
to see the gap unfilled.

HENRY FARQUHAR.

THE PETTY TYRANTS OF AMERICA.

IT may be asserted that national pride causes every people on
the face of the earth to labor under a delusion. The Frenchman
honestly believes himself to be the only truly civilized inhabitant
of the globe ; the Englishman thinks he is the only moral one ;
and I have no doubt that the American flatters himself that he
is the freest. Possibly the Sandwich Islander uses, in reference
to himself, some adjective in the superlative, followed by in the
world, according to American fashion.

Now, as a true-born Frenchman, I am ready to admit that
my countrymen express a very fair estimation of themselves ;
but I hold that the pharisaism of the English is obvious ; and as
for the Americans being a free nation, why, I maintain that
never was a greater mistake made in the world.

I will leave politics alone, although I might tell Jonathan
that the governments of England and France, especially of Eng
land, are far less autocratic than his. I will leave aside the
trusts, the rings, the combinations, the leaders, the bosses, but
only name them to take the opportunity of reminding Jonathan
that, if the greatest objection to a monarchy is that a nation may
thus run the risk of being ruled by a fool or a scoundrel, the
greatest objection to certain forms of democracy should be that a
nation may thus run the risk of being governed by 500 of such.
A great English lord was one day confidentially informed that
hi« steward robbed him. "I know it," he replied; "but my
steward sees that nobody else robs me." That English lord was
a wise man. - And, as for costs, I believe that enough money is
spent and enough business is stopped during a presidential cam
paign in America to keep all the crowned heads of Europe during
the four years of the President's time of office.

But enough, I repeat, about politics.
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 466. 21

322 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

I say that Jonathan is not a freeman because he is not the mas
ter in his own house. Whether he travels or stays at home, he
is ruled and bullied and snubbed from morning till he goes to
sleep. His disposition is that of an angel, and, whenever I am
asked what struck me most in the course of my visits to the
United States, I always answer : " I never once saw an American
lose his temper."

The American is not a man of leisure. His mind is always on
the alert. New schemes are forever trotting about his brains.
He is full of business, and trifles do not concern him. Besides,
he may happen to dwell at No. 3479 West 178th Street, and he
must try to remember where he lives. So he pockets snubs and
kicks, and forgets. To lodge a complaint against a rude con
ductor or an uncivil porter would mean a letter to write or a visit
to pay; too much waste of time. " Bother it!" he exclaims,
"let him be hanged by somebody else \" He is also a prince of
good fellows, and a complaint may mean the discharge of a man
with a wife and children. '

But this is not the principal reason. The Americans, like
the French, have no initiative and lack public spirit. The Eng
lish are the only people who are served by their servants, let the
servants be the ministers of the crown, the directors of public
companies, or mere railway porters. To every one to whom John
Bull pays a salary he says: "Please to remember that you are
the servant of the public." When the English appoint a new
official, high or low, it is a new servant that they add to their
household. When the French and the Americans appoint a new
official, it is a new master that they give to themselves to snub
them and to bully them. For example, when the English rail
way companies started running sleeping cars, the public said to
them : " We do not wish to be herded up together like hop-
pickers, you will please have the cars divided at night into two
parts by a curtain, so that our ladies may be spared the annoy
ance of having to share a section with a man." I do not know a
single American lady who has not told me of that grievance, and
how on that account she dreaded travelling alone. Yet I am not
aware that the American public has ever told the officials of any
railway company in this country : (f We pay you, and you shall,
please, give such accommodation as will secure the comfort of
our women." On one occasion, in a crowded sleeping car from

THE PETTY TYRANTS OF AMERICA. 323

Syracuse to New York, I occupied an upper berth, and a lady oc
cupied the lower one. If she only felt half as uncomfortable as
I did, I pity the poor woman.

Coming from Washington to New York, a short time ago, every
seat in the drawing-room car was occupied. The temperature of
that car was about 80. The perspiration was trickling down the
cheeks of the passengers, the women were fanning themselves with
newspapers, all were stifled, puffing and blowing, hardly able to
breathe ; but not one dared go and open the ventilators, not one
said to the conductor : " Now, this is perfectly unendurable,
please to open the ventilators at once." I took upon myself to go
and address him ; "Don't you think," I timidly ventured, "that
this car is much too hot ?" "I do not," he said, and he walked
away. As I meant to arrive in New York alive, I opened, not the
ventilator, but my window. That was a reckless, fool-hardy reso
lution. The passengers threw at me a glance of gratitude, but
there was in that glance an expression of wonder at my wild
temerity, and they looked sideways, forward and backwards, to
see if the potentate of the train had seen me. I was fairly roused,
I was sick, my head was burning, almost split, and I was ready
for that conductor if he had come to close my window — and that
at the risk of passing for some uncontrollable rebel. The rail
ways of this country are ruled by the nigger and for the nigger.

Then there is the man who, every five minutes, bangs the
door of the car with all his might to let you know he has arrived.
He will wake you up from a refreshing nap by a tap on your
shoulder to inform you that he has laid a magazine on your lap.
Then he will return with chewing-gum, then with papers, then
with bananas, apples and oranges, then with skull caps, then with
books, then with ten-cent pieces of jewelry, from his inexhaustible
stores. An Englishman, on whom this kind of unceasing bore
dom from the time the train starts till the time when it reaches
its destination would be tried, would pitch the boy out of the win
dow.

Then there is the refreshment room. You ask for refresh
ment and you name what you would like to have, and you re
ceive the refreshing answer, invariably accompanied by a frown :
" What's that ? " You apologize for the poor English you have
at your disposal, especially if you have acquired it in England,
and you prepare to enjoy a piece of custard pie or apple pie, or

324 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

may be, doughnuts. On leaving the place you pay, and the man
at the desk would feel dishonored if he said " Thanks" to you ;
but I will say this for him that he so little expects thanks for
what he brings to you or does for you that if you say, '* Thank you,"
he will cry, " You're welcome," in the tone of, " What's the matter
with you ? " Life is short, time is money, and all these little
amenities of European life are dispensed with.

You leave the train and arrive in the hotel. From the tender
mercies of the railway conductor you are handed over to the
hotel clerk, and, in small towns, to the lady waitress. Not a
smile on that clerk's face. He is placid, solemn and mono
syllabic. Your name entered on the registry, your sentence is
pronounced. You are no longer Mr. So-and-So, you are No.
219. The colored gentleman is close by to carry out the sen
tence. He bids you follow him. Yours is not to ask ques
tions ; yours is to follow and obey. The rules of the peniten
tiary are printed in your bedroom. You shall be hungry from 8
to 10 A. M., from 1 to 3 P. M., and from 6 to 8 p. M. The
slightest infringement of the rules would be followed by the dec
laration that you are a crank. At the entrance of the dining-
room, the head waiter, or the lady head waitress, holds up the
hand and bids you follow him or her. Perhaps you recognize a
friendly face at one of the tables. Yours is not to indulge in
feelings of that sort ; yours is again to follow, obey, and take the
seat that is assigned to you. During the whole time that
altogether I have spent in America I never once saw an American
man or woman who dared sit on any other chair than the one that
he or she was ordered to occupy. Nay, I have seen the guests
timidly wait at the door, when nobody was there to take them
in charge, until some one came to order them about. In small
hotels you cannot hope to have the courses brought one after the
other so that each one may be served hot to you. Your plate is
placed in front of you, and the lady waitress disposes symmet
rically ten to fifteen little oval dishes around it. When I first
made the acquaintance of this lady, and she had dealt the dishes,
I exclaimed, looking at her : " Hallo ! what's trump ? " But
there was no trifling with that lady ; she threw at me a glance
that made me feel the abomination of my conduct.

Complaints are so rare that I once witnessed, in a hotel, a
perfect commotion started by an Englishman who had dared

THE PETTY TYRANTS OF AMERICA. 325

express bis dissatisfaction at the way he was treated. He was in
the hall. "This is the worst managed hotel I have ever been
in," he exclaimed to the clerk. " "Where is the proprietor ? I
should like to speak to him." The proprietor was in the hall,
thoroughly enjoying the scene. He was pointed out to the guest
by the clerk. The Englishman, excited and angry, went up to
the proprietor.

"Is it you who are running this house ?" he said.

"Well," said the proprietor, with his cigar in his mouth and
his hands in his pockets, "I thought I was — till you came."

The Englishman looked at him, turned back, paid his bill,
and departed.

I am bound to admit that the incivility you meet with in
many hotels, offices, shops, etc., is only apparent. They are busy,
mad busy, those clerks and shopmen, and do not see why they
should indulge in the thousands of petty acts of courtesy that
customers expect in Europe, where, for example, shopkeepers
have time to write long notices to "respectfully beg the public
not to touch the articles exposed for sale." In America,
'•'Hands off" answers the purpose, and the visitors do not feel
insulted.

But among the lower class servants of the public, I am per
suaded that incivility is simply a form of misunderstood democ
racy. " I am as good as you " is their motto, and by being
polite they would fear to appear servile. They are not as good as
you, however, because you are polite to them, and they are not
polite to you • but they do not see that. It is not equality, it is
tyranny, the worst of tyranny, tyranny from below.

The patience of the American public is simply angelical, noth
ing short of that. I have seen American audiences kept waiting
by theatrical companies more than half an hour. Something was
wrong behind the scenes. They manifested no sign of impa
tience. When the curtain rose, nobody came forward to apolo
gize to them for this obvious want of respect. Once in a New
England town, through a train's being late, I arrived at the Opera
House three-quarters of an hour after the time my lecture was
advertised to begin. " I suppose I had better apologize to the
audience," I said to the local manager, " and explain to them
why I am late." "Just as you please," he replied, "but I
would not. I guess they would have waited another half an hour

326 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

without showing any sign of impatience. " The American public
expect no courtesy from the people they pay, and they get none.

The people of culture and refinement in America are paying
dearly for keeping aloof from politics, and refusing to have any
thing to do with the government of their country. They are
beginning to realize that fact. In everyday life their apathy,
their lack of initiative alone can explain their endurance of the
petty tyrannies I have only just indicated in these remarks.

If every official were educated up to the fact that he is paid by
the state, that is to say, by the people, and that his duty is to ad
minister, to the best of his abilities, to the welfare of the people ;
if every conductor of every railway company were made to under
stand that his first function is to attend to the comfort and wishes
of passengers ; if waiters, waitresses, porters, servants of all sorts,
were told that a polite public has a right to expect from them
politeness, courtesy and good service, life in America would be a
great deal happier.

Americans may say that all this is beneath their notice, but
they suffer from it. I do not think that I am one of those
Europeans who believe that nothing is done well unless it is
done in European fashion. I cannot help thinking that a good
deal of happiness is attained in life by amiable intercourse with
the people of all the different stations with whom we have to
come in contact.

MAX O'RELL.

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM.

BY EDWARD W. BLYDEN, LIB BRIAN MINISTER TO THE COURT OF

THE African problem in Africa, which has puzzled a hundred
generations of Europeans, is now engaging the earnest attention
and taxing the energies of all the powers of Europe. The de
cision of the Berlin Conference, ten years ago, has placed Europe
in relations to Africa such as never before existed between these
continents. Every power of Europe, including Russia, has es
tablished or is seeking to establish interests in Africa.

The African problem in America, which has existed since the
day the first negro landed in Virginia three hundred years ago,
instead of losing its interest as the years go by, is deepening in
importance and demanding more and more the serious considera
tion of the people of the United States.

Gratefully availing myself of the opportunity which the
courtesy of the Editor of this EEVIEW has placed at my disposal,
I venture to present to the American public the view of these
problems at which the study and travel of years both here and in
Africa have enabled me to arrive.

Fifty years ago there was no part of the world of which less
was known than the interior of Africa, and in which less interest
was taken. When the Landers had achieved their great exploit
of proving by actual observation that the Niger had an outlet to
the sea and that its banks on both sides were occupied by vast
and active populations, their discoveries were not received with
half the interest which is now aroused by excavations in the
valley of the Euphrates or on the banks of the Nile. The Edin
burgh Review of that day (July, 1832), rebuked the " very rigid
parsimony " of a government which rewarded the labors of the
enterprising travellers by a gratuity of one hundred pounds ; but

328 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

those labors were the prelude of all the modern activity in Afri
can exploration and exploitation. The English, as the first of
commercial nations, could not rest without ascertaining the
natural capacities of a country known to be populous, and with
out endeavoring to open new and easier routes of communication
with it. For the series of explorations which has, within the
last thirty or forty years, filled up the larger part of what used to
be blank spaces in our maps of Africa, we are indebted almost
altogether to the intelligence and enterprise of British travellers —
from Livingstone in 1849, to Captain Lugard in 1895. But the
conferences of the great powers at Berlin in 1884-5, and at Brus
sels in 1890, assumed for Europe the continent of Africa as its
special field of operation. The "scramble" is over, and now
the question is how to utilize the plunder in the interests of
civilization and progress.

France has taken the lead by military operations. England
has begun her work through chartered companies destined to end
in protectorates. G-ermany has blended the military with the
commercial regime. £ut each is proceeding cautiously and learn
ing the best methods by daily experience. They are gradually
repairing the waste places and teaching the natives to make the
best possible use of their own country, by fitting it up for their own
prosperity and preparing it for the exiles in distant lands who
may desire to return to the ancestral home.

The task which Europe has imposed upon itself is a vast one
— surpassing the labors of Hercules. But intelligence, energy
and science will cleanse the Augean stables — the swamps and
morasses which disfigure and poison the coast regions. They
will destroy the Lernean hydra of African fever. They will
bring the golden apples from the hidden gardens of the wealthy
interior.

France, in the conquest of Dahomey, has performed a task
which civilization has long needed. She has freed a great
country from the cruel savagery of ages and thrown it open to the
regenerating influence of enlightened nations. The king, who
was bound hand and foot by the sanguinary superstitions of his
fathers, was relieved by the military energy of the French from
his blood-thirsty responsibility, and is now ending his days in
bloodless luxury and quiet in the French colony of Martinique,
supported like a king at the expense of his captors and de-

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 329

porters. Abomey, his capital, closed for hundreds of years
against civilizing agencies, is now the centre of stable rule, of
educational and industrial impulse. Mohammedan missionaries,
formerly refused admission for religious work, are now directing
the attention of besotted pagans to the " Lord of the universe/'

The French are assiduous in the administration of the affairs
of the countries which, by the decision of the Berlin conference,
have fallen within their "sphere of influence." When, by con
quest or treaty, they have acquired any territory, they spare no
pains in its exploitation and development. The sons of powerful
chiefs whom they have conquered in what is now called French
Soudan are sent to France or North Africa for education to fit
them on their return to take charge of their respective countries
and govern them under French supervision in the interest of
order and progress. Several Mohammedan youth, the sons of
chiefs, were sent last year from Senegal to the Moslem College at
Kairawan for education. Natives of intelligence and capacity
are promoted to high official positions, and have the Legion of
Honor conferred upon them.

England is entering upon her part of the work, not as a
stranger. For more than a hundred years she has been engaged
in direct recuperative work, having provided Sierra Leone, after
abolishing the slave trade, as an asylum for recaptured slaves. In
this colony, as well as in those of Gambia, the Gold Coast and
Lagos, she has expended vast amounts of money and sacrificed
numberless English lives. She has very recently increased her
political responsibilities in Western Soudan by taking within her
jurisdiction the powerful kingdom of Ashantee, with which she
has waged such frequent and expensive wars with results by no
means discreditable to her native antagonists. Under the name
of the Niger Coast Protectorate, England has also taken the
whole of the Niger delta through which flow the great Oil
Kivers or estuaries of Benin, Brass, Bonny, Opobo, New Calabar
and Old Calabar. There is one feature in which the Niger may
defy competition from any other river, either of the old or new
world. This is the grandeur of its delta, which is probably
the most insalubrious region in all of West Africa. Along the
whole coast, from Benin to Old Calabar, a distance of about 300
miles, the Niger makes its way to the Atlantic through the
various estuaries just enumerated. Had this delta, like that of

380 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

the Nile, been subject only to periodical inundations, leaving be
hind a layer of fertilizing slime, it would have formed the most
fruitful region on earth, and might have been almost the granary
of a continent. But the Niger rolls down its waters in such ex
cessive abundance as to convert the whole into a dreary swamp.
This is covered with dense forests of mangrove and other trees of
spreading and luxuriant foliage. The equatorial sun, with its
fiercest rays, cannot penetrate these dark recesses; it only draws
forth from them pestilential vapors, which render this coast more
fatal than any other. There is not, however, the slightest doubt,
now that British enterprise under government protection has access
to that region, that in the course of time those forests will be
leveled, those swamps drained, and the soil covered with luxu
riant harvests.

Sir Claude Macdonald, to whom was entrusted four or five
years ago the duty of establishing the Niger Coast Protectorate, of
organizing regular government and enforcing order in that region,
has performed his difficult task with admirable ability. He has
in that short time created a revenue which more than suffices for
the work of administration. He has abolished barbarous customs
and suppressed marauding practices. The natives, he has discov
ered, have a perfect knowledge and appreciation of the immense
industrial resources of their country, and a readiness to take ad
vantage of them, together with an aptitude for imitation and a
desire for instruction, which are most hopeful indications of pro
gress. They are encouraged to spontaneous activity, and to a love
of achievement from which important results must before long ac
crue. The progress has been rapid as well as steady ; and may
be measured from month to month, almost from day to day.

The Royal Niger Company, which has brought within British
influence vast and important territories, will now, probably, like
the British East Africa Company, pass into the hands of the
British Government. As this company has been governed by
strictly commercial principles, it is feared, from recent occurrences,
that the welfare of the native population may be sacrificed to the
interest of the shareholders. Perhaps it may be best for all con
cerned that the regions in question should come under the strict
control of a Protectorate, if not formed into a Crown colony.

Germany, considering her inexperience in colonial matters, is
developing astounding ability and resources as a colonizing power.

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 331

Her recent decided step, in behalf of native protection, in the
punishment of Herr Leist for his abuse of official power in mal
treating the natives at Cameroon, has satisfied the people as to her
intentions and aims.

Every one has confidence in the philanthropic aims and
political and commercial efforts of the King of the Belgians in
the arduous and expensive enterprise he has undertaken on the
Congo. But none of these powers has any idea of making Africa
a home for its citizens. They know that European colonists
cannot live in that country. Nature has marked off tropical
Africa as the abiding home of the black races. I have met no
European agent, either political, commercial or industrial, who
thinks that there is any chance for Europeans to occupy inter-
tropical Africa. All that Europe can do is to keep the peace among
the tribes, giving them the order and security necessary to
progress ; while the emissaries of religion, industry and trade
teach lessons of spiritual and secular life. The bulk of the con
tinent is still untouched by Western civilization, notwithstanding
the fact that Africa has been partitioned among the European
powers — on paper.

It is an interesting fact that Liverpool, which, in the days of
the slave trade, took so prominent a part in the nefarious traffic,
is doing more than any other city to push the enterprises of re
construction into the continent. Her steamship companies and
her Chamber of Commerce are the most potent of the European
agencies in the work of African regeneration. And both are
doing all in their power to bring the natives forward and assist
them to develop and take care of their own country. It is com
monly supposed that the liquor traffic is decimating the African
tribes. There is no doubt that much mischief is done among some
of the coast tribes who are in immediate contact with foreign trade.
But, notwithstanding the large quantities of vile spirits introduced,
very little finds its way to the interior. In my journeys to the
hinterland of Liberia and Sierra Leone, I have been astonished
to find that all evidences of the malignant traffic disappear after
one gets about a hundred miles from the coast. Beyond that dis
tance the people, as a rule, are ignorant of the nature or use of
ardent spirits. It would be impossible to explain to those of
them who have not visited the seaboard the character and pur
poses of a public house or a rum shop. On returning to the coast

332 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the unfailing signs of approach to a European settlement or
to so-called civilization are empty gin bottles and demijohns.
There are three reasons for this exemption of the interior tribes
from the blighting traffic.

In the first place, the population of the coast towns and of
regions adjacent to the coast are so large, and the love for drink,
cultivated for generations, is so strong among them, that all the
importations are swallowed up in the maritime districts. Yet
each individual seems to have access to so little of this fire-water
that it is very rare to see any one " the worse for liquor." Then,
the inhabitants of the elevated and healthy regions, robust in
body and mind, are satisfied with the natural beverages of the
country, and do not crave foreign or abnormal stimulants.
Lastly, the people who control the volume of trade in the
Soudan are Mohammedans to whom the use of ardent spirits is
forbidden by their religion under the severest penalties. But
for this fact, the scourga of liquor, whose ravages in the mari
time districts Mungo Park deplored a hundred years ago, and the
Landers animadverted upon thirty years later, would long since
have exterminated or debased millions of that vast multitude who,
under the protection of Islam, are increasing in numbers.

Enlightened Christian sentiment in Europe and America is
working towards the entire suppression of the demoralizing
traffic. The aborigines of Africa, then, taking into considera
tion all the agencies at work, are not likely to share the deplora
ble fate of the aborigines of this country, Australia and New
Zealand.

It used to be fashionable some years ago to make disparaging
comments upon the home industry of the Africans. Men posing
as great commercial authorities informed the world that the trade
of Africa was very small and not likely to increase. They as
signed as a reason for this opinion that a savage people, living in
a climate where clothing is unnecessary and where food can be
obtained with little or no labor, would not exert themselves to
procure imported articles which they do not absolutely require.
But such opinions arose from completely erroneous ideas of the
social condition of the African nations generally, and of the de
gree of civilization in the interior of that continent. Within the
last twenty years these views have been completely exploded.
Steamers and sailing ships from all the ports of Europe now hug

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 333

the coast for more than two thousand miles, and carry away
every day to Europe in exchange for cash and European goods
large quantities of native products, such as vegetable oils, palm
kernels, piassava, camwood, mahogany, cotton, ivory, hides,
coffee, timber, gums, wax and gold. Horses and cattle, sheep,
goats, etc., are also brought to the coast for sale.

The able and experienced officers now administering the gov
ernment of the British Colonies in West Africa — notably Col.
Frederic Cardew, of Sierra Leone, and Sir Gilbert Carter, of La
gos — are earnestly recommending the construction of railways
from the coast to the interior, their travels to the hinterland hav
ing convinced them that vast resources may soon be developed by
increased facilities of intercourse and transportation. A few
weeks ago a deputation from the Manchester, Liverpool, and
London Chambers of Commerce waited upon the Secretary of
State for the Colonies to urge upon Her Majesty's Government
the immediate establishment of railways to meet the growing de
mands of the trade. Of all this valuable and increasing com
merce the voluntary industry of the natives is the only basis,

Africa produces in unlimited quantities articles of prime ne
cessity to civilization, which can not be obtained in anything like
ttie same quantities from any other country.

In the interior the natives have reached a degree of civiliza
tion not suspected by the outside world. Most of the tribes have
fixed habitations and defences round their towns ; they cultivate
tkeir lands ; they wear cotton dresses of their own manufacture,
dyed with native dyes ; and they work in iron and gold. The
native loom is very primitive, but the native cotton is excellent.
The native cotton dresses are much thicker and better than any
produced in Manchester, whose manufacturers try hard to imi
tate them. The African dyes are far brighter and more enduring
than the foreign. The African indigo is said to resist the action
of light and acids better than any other. Still, the interior
Africans, who are a great trading people, patronize foreign goods
and are multiplying their purchasing power. The beneficial
effects of trade are now perceived for hundreds of miles around
the settlements, large tracts of land having been brought under
cultivation.

The introduction of foreign cloth into the interior instead of
diminishing the manufacture of the native article has increased

334 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

it, and it more than holds its own side by side with the foreign
product, the natives decidedly preferring the African original to
the European imitation, and paying much higher prices for it.
They sometimes buy English " bafts" — the trade term for the
pieces of cotton of which their dresses are made — which are a
clever imitation of their own make, but only because they are
very much cheaper. As long as the Africans retain their superi
ority in manufacturing cotton goods, foreign competition will
not interfere with the work produced by their primitive appliances.

They also manufacture their own agricultural implements from
iron taken from the soil. They make beautiful gold trinkets and
their workmanship in that metal is not only curious,but often really
beautiful. The gold mines of Boure, in the interior of Sierra
Leone, and others in the interior of Liberia, yield abundantly
with the application of very little labor or capital.

There is nothing in Africa resembling the poverty which one
sees in Europe. The natives in some regions plant a portion of
their land especially for the stranger and wayfarer, so that they
can indulge in a hospitality unknown in civilized countries — a
genuine and unpremeditated hospitality. Cameron, the English
traveller, author of " Across Africa," told me that on one occa
sion when in the heart of the continent, several weeks' journey
from the coast, his supplies gave out and he had nothing to
offer the natives in exchange for the necessaries of life ; but he
experienced no inconvenience, much less suffering. He was the
object of abundant and assiduous hospitality from people who
had never seen him before and who would never see him again.
"In what country of Europe or America/' he asked, "would
such a thing be possible ? "

Great as have been the changes which have taken place dur
ing the last ten years in the condition of Africa so far as its rela
tion to Europe is concerned, vaster changes still are impending
in connection with the central portion of the continent — a region
of incalculable extent which seems still fresh, as it were, from
the hands of God and only waiting for the energies of civilized
man to bring to perfection the numerous products of its prolific
soil.

The feeling for progress and achievement awakened and im
pelled by enlightened and vigorous government on the coast
must lead to important results in the near future, which cannot

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 335

but have a decided and salutary influence, not only upon the peo
ple at home, but upon the condition of their children in exile in
foreign lands. But development and progress in Africa will lin
ger until the United States, both government and people, black
and white, take a wider and deeper practical interest in the affairs
of that continent. Europe cannot do what America can for*
Africa.

We have thus far been considering what Europe is doing in
and for Africa. We now come to those efforts in that continent
which are of more immediate interest to the public of the United
States. The Republic of Liberia owes its origin to American
benevolence. It is the only spot in Africa where the civilized
negro — the American negro — without alien supervision or guid
ance is holding aloft the torch of civilization and the symbol of
Christianity, endeavoring to establish government on principles
recognized by the civilized world and in international relations
with the leading nations : a country to which thousands of
Africa's descendants in the Southern States are looking as the
only place where they can obtain relief from their disabilities, and
a field for the unhindered cultivation and untrammeled develop
ment of their peculiar gifts as a people,

The discussion of this subject will lead to a brief considera
tion of the African problem in this country. The statesmen who
organized the government of the United States were as clear as to
the nature of the present race problem, which their sagacity
recognized from afar, as are the statesmen of to-day — perhaps
clearer. Thomas Jefferson foresaw the emancipation of the slave,
and he foresaw also the difficulties — insuperable difficulties — that
must attend the residence in one country of two distinct races to
whom intermarriage and social equality would be impossible. One
race ruling and dominant, the other possessing no birthright
of power, there being between them no such sympathy as would
make their interests everywhere and always identical. He, there
fore, conceived the idea of a separation, and some of his contem
poraries or immediate successors, laid the foundation of a society
for the deportation of the blacks to the land of their fathers —
not, as some of their opponents at that time suggested, to rivet
more securely the fetters of the slave, but to provide an asylum
and a field of operation for the freed man.

The American Colonization Society was organized in 1817 in

336 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the city of Washington, where it is still represented by an office,
an executive committee, a secretary and treasurer. The society
sent out the first emigrants in 1820, and in 1821 founded the
colony which they called Liberia — land of the free. The capital
of the colony was called Monrovia after President Monroe, who
gave practical aid to the enterprise.

The ship " Elizabeth," the " Mayflower" of Liberian history,
sailed from New York, having on board eighty-eight emigrants,
on the 6th of February, 1820. She had favoring breezes and
made the voyage in about thirty days, arriving at Sierra Leone
March 9. The immigrants, after trying several localities in
the neighborhood of Sierra Leone, at length obtained a foothold
at Cape Mesurado, about 260 miles southeast of Sierra Leone,
where they established the settlement of Monrovia.

In 1847 they became an independent republic upon the model
of the United States. This responsibility was forced upon
the colony by the anomaly of its position. Founded and
fostered by a private society, with no official recognition
from the United States Government, it was exposed to, and was
frequently the victim of, impositions from unscrupulous slave
traders and others who would not respect the laws enacted by the
colony. Under these circumstances it, of course, looked for
official recognition as a nation to the United States, but, owing
to the " peculiar institution," such recognition could not be
granted. It subsequently sought and obtained acknowledgment
from Great Britain and other European powers, under the name
and style of the Eepublic of Liberia.

The natural advantages of the country in the way of soil and
climate place it in the front rank of West African countries.
Every visitor sees at a glance the immense possibilities of the
youthful nation — agricultural, mineral, commercial and political.
What it now needs is capital and intelligent negro immigrants
from the western hemisphere — farmers, mechanics, preachers and
school teachers.

An unfortunate law, which the founders of the State consid
ered necessary to its integrity and protection, excludes the white
man from citizenship. The state of the world and the relations
of the races when this exclusive enactment was passed, sixty or
seventy years ago — made, by the way, for the colonists by white
American citizens — no doubt furnished a reason and an excuse

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 337

for it. But in a few more years it may come within the range of
Liberian practical politics to modify, if not altogether abolish,
that law as being behind the spirit of the age, and obstructiye.

Since the founding of Liberia, seventy-four years ago, not
quite twenty thousand negroes all told have gone to that colony.
And yet in spite of this limited immigration and in spite of the
fact that they have had very little foreign aid, they have brought
into operation upon that coast, which they found in a wild and
savage state, such agencies, political, commercial and industrial,
that they were thought worthy, about fifty years ago, to be re
ceived into the family of nations and have ever since been per
forming, without discredit, the functions of national life. They
are in treaty relations with all the great powers of Europe, with
the United States and other American nationalities. They have
diplomatic and consular officers in Europe and America. Com
mercially they attract steamships and sailing ships from the
principal European ports.

The culture of coffee is extending in Liberia, and several of
her citizens, immigrants from the United States, who went out
with very small capital or none at all, and devoted themselves to
agriculture, are now in affluent circumstances.

In presenting these facts it is not my purpose to urge any to
go to Liberia. I believe that the interest and sympathy which
have been awakened among the negroes of the South preclude
any necessity for such a stimulant. If the United States govern
ment would supply the means thousands would rush to that
country. No warnings, admonitions or predictions of possible
disaster would deter them. They would rush forth in unthink
ing multitudes and precipitate upon themselves and upon the un
fortunate country which admitted them a state of things the
horrors of which it would not be possible to exaggerate. No
greater evil could befall Africa or the nogro race at the present
time than an exodus of negroes from the United States.

I do not ignore the sad aspects of the condition of the race
here. We hear nearly every day of acts being perpetrated upon
negroes in certain sections of the country which drive some to
say, " Any where but here/' These acts are deplorable ; perhaps,
in many instances, indefensible ; but certainly dangerous and
pernicious to the last degree, not to blacks only but to whites
also. But emigration will not cure these evils. They are symp-
VOL. CLXI, — NO. 466. 23

338 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

toms of a disease which can be eradicated only by a wider and
deeper education of blacks and whites alike.

The present generation of white men and the present genera
tion of black men must pass away. A new generation of each
race, strangers to the abnormal facts of slavery and its monstrous
offshoots, must arise before any extensive colonization of Ameri
can blacks in Africa can answer its great purpose. The negro
problem must be solved here or it will reappear in Africa in a new
form. The negro must learn to respect himself here before he
will be able to perform the functions of true manhood there.
Should he leave this country now, harrassed and cowed, broken
in spirit and depressed, ashamed of his racial peculiarities and
deprecating everything intended for his racial preservation, he
would be destitute of the tenacity and force, the self-reliance and
confidence, the faith in himself and in his destiny, which, as a
pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, would guide
him in the policy to be adopted toward the man like himself
whom he will find on his ancestral continent.

A handful of people on the margin of the continent is a very
different thing from a million with imperfect views of themselves
and their work. But will the negro ever attain to full manhood
under a dominant race ? No ; not now. On one hand, all those
who held him as a slave and their children, and on the other, all
those who felt the iron of slavery penetrate their souls and their
children, must pass away before things will reach a somewhat
normal state.

I consider, therefore, that all agitation for the movement of
large masses of negroes to Africa is at the present time unwise
and premature. Not so, however, the effort to awaken a mission
ary spirit among the blacks, and to diffuse information which will
stimulate effort on that line, and induce individuals, or small
colonies, to go out with some definite object in view for the relig
ious or industrial improvement of the country. Meanwhile,
everything should be avoided by the masses who remain which
would aggravate the situation, and everything studied and pur
sued which makes for peace and harmony. What I would incul
cate upon the negro in the United States now is a modest temper-
ateness of behavior — an unpretentious and unambitious deport
ment, which is not only in accordance with the teudencies of his
own nature left to itself, bu«t is, I consider, the chief and soundest

THE AFRICAN PROBLEM. 339

blessing to which his destinies in America invite him. Politics
at present is not his field. He is as yet but a newcomer in the
arena of even personal freedom — not more than a generation
from chattelism. The fact is, I do not believe that the masses of
the negroes in the South, when let alone, trouble themselves about
politics ; they are very little disposed to take part in a strife
which to them is barren, uninteresting and often perilous ; and
it is to be regretted if any extraneous influence should be brought
to bear upon them to turn into partisanship what, under the cir
cumstances, must be considered a salutary indifference. He can
bide his time. He will not die out — he is not dying out. According
to the Census Bulletin No. 48, it appears that the colored popu
lation increased from 1880 to 1890, 856,800 ; or 85,680 a year,
about 243 a day, or 10 an hour. Such agencies as that at Tuskegee,
under Mr. Booker T. Washington, which are preparing him for
his work in this country and in Africa, if he goes there, should
be encouraged. All bitterness and darkness of spirit, all sour
unreasonableness, should be laid aside. By his cheerful, musical
spirit, and by all that is implied in his inimitable gift of song,
the negro may construct for himself here, to be taken with him
when he goes to Africa, walls within which will dwell peace and
palaces within which will be plenteousness. And when the time
comes for the departure of large numbers — for anything like an
exodus — the separation of the races will be marked by affectionate
regrets on both sides.

EDWABD W. BLYDEN.

OUR REVIVING BUSINESS.

BY THE HON. JAMES H. ECKELS, COMPTROLLER OF THE
CURRENCY.

A DISTINGUISHED English statistician, in a paper recently given
to the public, has called attention to the unprecedented wealth
of the people of the United States and the products at their com
mand. No clearer demonstration could be had of the accuracy
of his estimate of our country's condition than is now being wit
nessed in every part of the land. All the many evidences of the
new prosperity to be everywhere seen bear proof of the recupera
tive powers of our people and the abundance of their resources.
After more than two yerrs of continuous financial depression and
business stagnation, the summer months of the present year have
been notable for the volume of trade which, as compared with
similar seasons in other years, has characterized them. This un
usual activity has not been confined to a single line of business
or to but one class of manufactures. It has been manifest in all,
and almost uniform in degree. The iron and steel industries,
which appear to outstrip all others, are enabled to do so only be
cause prosperity is coming to all. The railroad conditions of the
country are improving, not alone because of the enormous crop
of corn and other agricultural produce to be freighted, but be
cause of the increase in the general carrying trade. Tl.e volun
tary raising of the wages of more than a million laborers in mill,
factory and mine, within a few months, has seldom if ever before
been witnessed even in times of acknowledged and uninterrupted
prosperity. This advance to the laborers has directly and indi
rectly benefited so many others who are engaged in trade, indi
vidually small but aggregating many millions of capital, that it
is impossible to say just who of all our people has not gained
from the improved condition oi the laboring classes. The gov-

OUR REVIVING BUSINESS. 341

eminent has shared in the advantage, though in a less degree
than the individual. Its receipts are now steadily increasing,
each month of the present year showing larger returns from cus
toms duties than the corresponding month of the preceding year.
If its income is not yet sufficient to meet its expenditures, there
is every indication that under the operation of the present tariff
law that end will be speedily reached. There certainly will be no
gradual falling off in this respect, such as characterized the work
ings of the last law.

This improvement in the people's affairs is remarkable when
it is considered in connection with the shortness of the time in
which it has been brought about and the events through which
the country has been called to pass. The effects of the panic of
1873 were felt with little lessening of severity until 1879, and
even then there was no such revival as is now apparent. Two
years after the panic of 1893 was at its height, the country may
fairly be said to be out of the throes of it, and well entered upon
an era of greater wealth and of extraordinary commercial and in
dustrial activity. So great an advance is all the more wonderful
in view of the circumstances which, to a greater or less degree,
have contributed to the disturbance of our business world.
Within a period of six years more business legislation of impor
tance has taken place than during any equal length of time since
the active war period. During this time the McKinley Tariff Act
became a law, making the most material changes in tariff rates,
the effect of which could not but be to disturb business, since
these changes altered conditions as completely as if the rates had
been intended to be revenue-producing instead of prohibitory
ones. The same Congress placed upon the statue books the
Sherman Silver Act, the influence and dangerous tendencies of
which in the monetary world worked even greater harm and loss
and caused greater doubt and uncertainty than the tariff act.
These acts were followed by a Congressional election, giving indi
cations of a coming Presidential election which would reverse the
tariff and financial legislation which had been enacted by the Re
publican Congress and sanctioned by a Republican President.
The injurious consequences of the two legislative acts referred to
had been felt long before the Presidential election which resulted
in the selection of a Democratic President and Congress, and they
speedily precipitated a struggle to repeal the financial legislation

342 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the Congress of 1888 ; also to repeal its tariff legislation and
enact something in its stead. The uncertainty surrounding the
outcome of the attempt to repeal the Sherman Silver Act and the
delay in. accomplishing it affected the entire business of the coun
try. The beneficial effects which would have followed the speedy
erasure of the obnoxious measure from the statute book were thus
lost. There was not sufficient time for either the commerce or
the industries of the country to revive when Congress entered
upon a consideration of the repeal of the McKinley Tariff Act.
Here, too, was delay and uncertainty. Such a condition in the
enactment of legislation could not but cause a paralysis of busi
ness widespread and far-reaching. The disastrous effects of the
Sherman law, the contributing elements of the McKinley Act,
and the consequences of delay in the action of Congress in their
repeal of both, so turned the business world upside down that
strikes became the order of the day, and disturbances in the ranks
of labor, of proportions till then unknown, followed in quick suc
cession. The movement of Coxey and his body of tramps, the
riots attendant upon the railroad strikes under the leadership of
Debs, and the long dispute between coal-mine owners and miners
in the various parts of the country but added to the conditions,
already serious, which affected our business world. Fortunately
the country has come out of all these experiences, each of which
added something to the elements which injuriously affected the
country's financial interests. In the light of them all the wonder
is not that the country has lost so much, but that it has lost so
little. It is the strongest tribute that can be paid to the Ameri
can citizen to note that to-day, notwithstanding the disasters at
tendant upon these recent events, he is once more enjoying the
frnits of a new prosperity full of hope in the future and more
strongly than ever^a believer in the strength of his government
and the wisdom of those who established it.

It has been suggested by some who are inclined to take a
pessimistic view of things that the advance made in so short a
time is far too great to be sustained. The facts, however, as we
have them through the Clearing House returns and other sources,
warrant the assertion that the improvement in the business world
is not of an ephemeral character, but, instead, is genuine and
substantial. It certainly cannot prove to be otherwise if the
fields of corn now maturing in the West yield the number of

OUR REVIVING BUSINESS. 343

bushels which all the indications point to. It is impossible to
conceive of the country not being wholly prosperous when the
laborer has employment at remunerative wages, and the farmer
has an abundance of produce, with markets affording profitable
prices. The only danger which can intervene, and thus produce
a reaction, would arise through our people's entering extrava
gantly upon enterprises of a wholly speculative character. It is
hardly probable, however, that such recklessness will be speedily
shown. The results of such enterprises in the past few years
have, in the great majority of instances, fallen so far short of the
expectations of their projectors that those who have money to
invest will be loath to invest in similar undertakings.

One of the serious causes of conditions similar to those
through which we have just passed arises from the utter reckless
ness with which credit is extended to those who make it a
business to promote this or that undertaking. The banks of the
country are in a great measure to blame for having in the past
few years made credit so cheap as to enable every character of
speculation to be carried on. The outcome of all this has been
that in many instances in many communities business booms of
the most unsubstantial character have been fostered, to the great
loss of all concerned. It is, of course, necessary to assume greater
or less risk in order to increase the business of a community, but
when the point is reached at which a bank or other financial
institution bears the whole burden of sustaining every promotive
undertaking in such community disaster must necessarily result.
The number of communities in all sections of the country where
inducements in the form of grants of land and bonuses in the
form of money or other special privileges are extended to factories
and other enterprises of a similar character will probably greatly
lessen, because of the ill success which in so many instances has
heretofore followed their so doing. When such is the case, it is
safe to say that fewer town lot additions will be platted and made
a part of every ambitious town solely for the purpose of enriching
some shrewd real estate speculator. At the same time there will
be greater care observed in seeing that such artificial means are
not wholly relied upon for making such towns importanl^entres
of industry and population. The unhealthiness of the business of
a community based wholly or in part upon speculation can best
be appreciated when it is realized that its character partakes

344 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

largely of gambling, with all the consequent evils that come in its
train. While it is probable that this character of business under
taking was not as great within the past five years as in some
periods of our history, it has been sufficiently large to contribute
in no small measure to bring about the loss entailed upon so many
within the past two years. It certainly has bred very great extrav
agance in personal expenditures, and the same things character
izing legislation in Congress have led to great extravagance in
public expenditures. The wisdom of the situation is to indulge
in a conservatism that, while on the one hand not refusing credit
to legitimate enterprises, will on the other not extend it to such
as are based largely upon future expectation. All this, it is be
lieved, will be done, even though for a considerable length of
time money will lie idle in the vaults of the banks and the trust
companies. The loss of interest and dividends thus caused in the
end is always much less than the loss which follows the collapse
of a boom.

Thus, taking into account the lessons learned through the ex
perience which our people have just had, it is reasonable to believe
that such wise conservatism will prevail in our business world
as will justify the belief of those who maintain the solid
ity of the present business conditions. No one at all familiar
with its affairs will doubt that the credit of the government
will be strictly maintained. There ought no longer to be
any doubt on this point. The steps taken since the advent of
the present administration have fixed beyond question not only
the determination but the ability on its part to meet promptly
every proper obligation of the government in gold. Its efforts in
this direction have been so fully justified by the results which
have flowed from them that there is scarcely left one among the
well informed who is willing to criticise the action which thus far
has been taken. It is to be regretted that the general govern
ment bears such intimate relations to the individual business of
its citizens, that the condition of its treasury should ever seriously
affect their individual fortunes, but such must be the case on occa
sions more or less frequent, until there is assembled at Washing
ton a Congress, which has sufficient wisdom, business sagacity,
and courage to enact such legislation as will permanently retire
the demand obligations of the government, through payment of
them in gold, and thus put out of the reach of speculators and

OUR REVIVING BUSINESS. 345

others the means of throwing the country into a panic by making
an assault upon the gold reserve in the treasury. It is one
of the absurdities of our financial system that the govern
ment voluntarily places itself in the position of being a general
market of supply for the gold demands of not only our own
people but the people of other countries. The whole system
as it stands to-day is a source of continuing loss to the people and
a menace to their prosperity. It is only because of the strength
and determination of the President in devising and in sanctioning
methods to prevent evils that otherwise would come upon the citi
zen in his business relations that the country has been enabled,
despite it all, to maintain a position where its financial condition
commands complete confidence at home and abroad.

How much it means to possess the confidence of those who
are dealing with us in our ability and purpose to maintain unim-
peached our monetary integrity is apparent from the change
which has come over foreign investors in American governments
and other securities since the consummation of the syndicate gold
loan. Statistics are not at hand to show just what the amount of
purchases by foreign buyers of our securities since that date have
been, but the sales of railroad and other stocks have been especially
large and at advanced prices. Not less benefit has resulted also
from a ceasing to return to us stocks and securities already held.
The importance of all this cannot be over-estimated. It is quite
as essential to command the confidence of foreign investors as it
is to hold that of our own people. This confidence, which leads
them to send here money for investment, can be held just so long
as there is here maintained a monetary system which accords
with that of every other great commercial nation. It will fall
away and finally be lost if ever a law is placed upon our statute
book making our standard of value, independent of all other
countries, either a single silver standard or a standard of both
silver and gold.

JAMES H. ECKELS.

A BRUSH WITH THE BANNOCKS.

BY GENERAL NELSON A. MILES, U. S. A.

IN THE summer of 1878 I organized an expedition to move
into and explore a wagon route and telegraph line west of Fort
Keogh, to reconnoitre the country, and also to visit Yellowstone
Park. I selected a command from among the most experienced
veterans of the Indian Territory and the Northwest; and then
with a strong wagon train, a well-equipped pack train, and all
the appliances, camp equipage, and field equipment necessary,
we leisurely moved up the Yellowstone. The party consisted of
ten officers, four civilians, five ladies, and three children.

We moved up the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Rosebud;
thence up that beautiful valley to its head, practically going over
the route followed by Ouster's command; thence over the
high divide to the Little Big Horn, camping near the battle
ground where the massacre occurred, and making a second exam
ination of the ground, the topography of the country, and the
distance between the different forces. In this second examina
tion we were accompanied by some of the prominent actors in
that tragedy on the side of the hostile Indians.

Moving up the Yellowstone was a continuous delight ; the
country was covered with rich verdure and the trees were in full
foliage ; game was abundant, and the waters of the upper Yellow
stone were filled with delicious trout. The officers rode on horse
back, and the ladies and children, occasionally in wagons, were
more frequently in the saddle.

After ten or twelve days' march, as we neared the Yellowstone
Park, I received information that the Bannocks had gone on the
war path in Idaho, were committing depredations, and were com
ing through Yellowstone Park, threatening to invade our own

A BRUSH WITH THE BANNOCKS. 347

territory. Of course, this meant serious business and I at once
prepared to check any such invasion on their part.

Sending the non-combatants to the nearest military post,
Fort Ellis, just a short distance from where Boseman now stands
and immediately adjoining the National Park, I started with
seventy-five men to make a forced march and occupy the passes
of the mountains through which it was natural to suppose the
Bannocks would attempt to go, on their way east. It had been
their habit to go through the mountains during the summer
season to trade with the Crow Indians or hunt buffalo. There
were two passes through which they could travel, one of which
was known as the Boulder Pass, a very rough and difficult trail,
and the other was Clarke's Fork Pass, which was a distance of
approximately one hundred and fifteen miles from our starting
point. In order to meet all chances, it became necessary for me
to divide my small force. Believing that they would be less likely
to go out through the Boulder than through Clarke's Fork Pass, I
sent Lieutenant Bailey with forty men to occupy the former
position, while with the balance of the men I proceeded to the
other.

I had already sent forward scouts to the Crow agency, urging
the Crow Indians to join us in the expedition against the Ban
nocks. The Crows had always been loyal to the government and
friendly to the whites, but as at the same time they had also been
friendly with the Bannock Indians, they hesitated about going
against them. The importance of arresting any hostile body of
Indians liable to commit depredations on other reservations and
neighboring settlements was explained to them. They were also
offered rations and ammunition and all the stock that they could
capture from the Bannocks. In consideration of these induce
ments, they agreed with the scout that I had sent forward to go
on the arrival of the command. When we did arrive, seeing the
small body of thirty-five men march past, they inquired how
soon the command would get there. They were assured that
although this was the only command we had, it was composed en
tirely of experienced Indian fighters, that every man in it was a
medicine man, and that we needed no greater force to go against
the Bannocks. But in spite of all we could say, they decided that
they would not go with such a squad as that, so we told them to
remain where they were.

348 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The command moved on, and in the course of an hour two
strong, hardy, brave-looking Crow warriors rode up and joined
us, saying that they were not afraid of anything and were going
with the command. Their example was followed by others, the
bravest first and the most timid last, until we had been joined by
seventy-five Crow warriors. It then appeared more like an Indian
expedition than anything else.

As rapidly as possible we crossed the country, taking but little
rest, and by forced marches reached the vicinity of Clarke's Fork
Pass, discovering that up to that time there had been no sign of
the Bannock Indians. The command was concealed in a "pocket "
in the mountains, a name given by hunters and trappers to a very
small park surrounded by high buttes and steep cliffs. The sol
diers, Indians, horses, pack mules, all were kept concealed, and a
few scouts sent out to occupy the crests of the high buttes and,
using their field glasses or telescopes under the cover of some
cedar or pine bush, to discover the first sign of the approach of
the hostile Indians. Occasionally an officer would be detailed to
crawl up the heights and examine the country — especially Clarke's
Fork Pass — with his glass ; but he was instructed never to reveal
as much as the top of his head over the crest unless it was
covered by some bush or tall grass.

On the following morning about eleven o'clock the hostile
Bannocks were seen to appear on the top of a mountain, and
slowly wind then way down the circuitous rocky trail, a distance
of three or four miles, moving along down Clarke's Fork, and
going into camp in the valley within six miles of the command.
They unsaddled and turned out their horses (quite a large herd),
posted their videttes or lookouts on the bluffs immediately ad
jacent to the camp, built their camp fires, and settled down, ap
parently confident of their safety, and utterly unconscious of the
enemy concealed in their vicinity.

To approach their camp it was necessary to pass over a level
plain of two or three miles in extent, and the lookouts or
videttes would have discovered the command the moment it
debouched from its place of concealment. Having once dis
covered it, it would be but the work of a moment for the Indians
to jump on their ponies and escape over the foot hills and rugged
passes of that mountainous region. We therefore decided to re
main in our place of concealment, from which we watched the

A BRUSH WITH THE BANNOCKS. 349

camp all that day, and then at night moved slowly down to within
two miles of it.

At nine o'clock that night I called the two Indians who had
first followed us from the Crow agency,, and told them that I
wanted them to discover the condition of the Bannock camp. An
Indian wrapped in his blanket could crawl up under cover of
the darkness and walk near a hostile Indian camp without being
detected, whereas a white man would be immediately recognized.
This was especially so as the night was dark and rainy, and the
Bannocks were curled up sheltering themselves from the rain and
cold, and if the Crow scouts had been seen, wrapped as they were
in their blankets, they would have very likely been mistaken for
some men belonging to the Bannock camp, walking about look
ing out for their horses.

The Crow scouts returned between twelve and one o'clock, and
reported that the Bannock camp was in a very strong position,
difficult to approach, with the sage brush as high as a horse's
back about it, and that if we attempted to take it we would be
whipped. The rain had then been pouring down in torrents
for several hours, and the conditions were anything but cheer
ful.

For this dangerous, hazardous, and valuable service, these
two men were afterward well rewarded, but they were told at the
time that the attack would be made at daybreak, and the Crows
were expected to assist — at least they were expected to capture
the herd of horses, and they were then directed to guide us to
the hostile camp. Slowly and noiselessly, the command moved
in the direction in which the camp was supposed to be, stopping
to listen in the dark, and occasionally making long waits for
some ray of light or other sign to direct them. When we had
moved to a distance that we believed would place us very near
the camp, we halted and waited until about four o'clock or after,
as we were not sure of its exact location or direction. Fortunately
a dim light suddenly appeared on our left, about five hundred
yards distant, indicating the exact locality of the camp, and that
we had almost passed it.

The troops were formed in skirmish line, and the Center
directed to guide on this light, which was evidently caused by
some one just starting a fire for the morning, and as good a line
as could be arranged in the dark was made. The Crows were told

350 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to take position on the right of the line. The troops moved slowly
and cautiously in the direction of the light, passing through the
grazing herd of horses and ponies. A halt was occasionally made
in order to wait until the troops could see a short distance, and it
was noticed that, as we passed through the herd, the Crow warriors
gradually commenced to quietly move off some of the Bannock
horses, and instead of remaining on the right of the troops where
they had been placed, they gradually worked to the left, and as
they did so drove the herd to the rear. As day broke the troops
were enabled to see, and they moved forward until they got within
a hundred yards of the camp before opening fire.

The Indians were taken completely by surprise ; some of them
jumped into the river and swam to the other side, about fourteen
of the warriors were killed and the balance of the camp surren
dered. The fight lasted but a short time and was over by six
o'clock in the morning.

Before the affair was over there was scarcely a Crow Indian
and not a single Bannock horse to be seen in the valley. While
the Crows had been useful on account of their formidable num
bers, the principal object of their attention was the herd of cap
tured horses. While some of them did not stop until they had
reached the agency, a distance of seventy-five miles, where they
arrived about one o'clock in the afternoon, others left their cap
tive stock in the hands of their friends four or five miles back in
the foot hills and returned to the assistance of the troops. They
did good service especially in calling out to the enemy to sur
render and capturing scattered Bannocks ; also in capturing a
small party that came into the valley later and were evidently
following the main band with a lot of stolen horses, one day
behind.

I had sent the interpreter on ahead from the Crow Agency, as
we marched out to go up to Clarke's Fork, to see what he could
find out about the enemy. He could speak both Crow and Ban
nock. When he had gone over the pass and into the park he
met the Bannocks on the other side of Clarke's Fork Pass.
They asked him if there were any troops in the neighborhood.
He replied "No," and then they said they wanted to go over and
trade with the Crows. After leaving them he passed on as if
journeying in the same direction from whence they had come,
until he had got a safe distance away, and then circled around

A BRUSH WITH THE BANNOCKS. 351

and reported to me the night before the attack. He was a good
man and was killed in that fight.

The affair was a very disastrous one to the Indians, eleven of
their number being killed and a great many wounded, while the
entire camp was captured with 250 animals.

Our loss was small in numbers, but among the killed was
Captain Andrew S. Bennett, of the Fifth Infantry, a most ac
complished, meritorious, and valuable officer. It was a sad sight
as his friends gazed upon his dead body, which Surgeon Redd
had placed against a tree, with the shoulders bare, in order to
examine the wound. The bullet hole was in the centre of his
breast, and had evidently caused instant death. His features
were as white and perfect as if chiselled from marble, and he
looked like an ideal hero. It seemed hard that this true patriot,
who had risked his life on many a hard-fought battlefield, both
during the war and on the frontier, must meet his death far
away in that wild and rugged region, amid the eternal snows of
the mountains. His body was tenderly cared for and sent East
to his relatives in Wisconsin.

The command remained beside the rapid, clear trout stream
that came down from the mountains, during that day, and in the
evening witnessed the burial of one of the Crow warriors who had
been killed in the fight and had been a very popular man in the
tribe. After his body had been arranged for its final resting
place, and bedecked with all the valuables that he had possessed,
as well as some belonging to his friends, and his grave had been
prepared on the butte near the camp, his body was lifted on the
shoulders of four of his comrades, who slowly moved up the side
of the butte chanting their sorrow in low, mournful tones, while
the other Indians bewailed his loss according to the custom of
their people.

NELSON A. MILES.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

IX.— INTRIGUE AND CORRUPTION.

BY ALBERT D. V AND AM, AUTHOR OF "AN ENGLISHMAN- IN
PARIS/' "MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK/' ETC., ETC.

IF the chronique scandaleuse of the Second Empire were not
so inextricably mixed up with its political history, I would fain
have kept my pen clean of the former altogether. When one
stands confronted with a regime which, during its eighteen years'
existence waged four formidable wars, not one of which on
careful examination seems to have been necessitated by the
nation's welfare, the natural impulse is to look for the causes of
such wars below the surface.

And a glance below the surface reveals, behind that glittering
Court which every one knows, with its ambassadors, chamberlains,
generals, ministers, and ladies of honor, a seething mass of intri
gue and corruption to find the like of which we must revert to the
reigns of Charles II. in England and of Louis XV. in France.
True, there is no titular mistress of the Emperor, either in the
shape of a Lady Castlemain, a Duchess of Portsmouth or a Mar
quise de Pompadour, but it is doubtful whether erstwhile Mrs.
Palmer, Louise de Keroualles and Madame d'J^tioles were more
fatal to the Stuart and the Bourbon than the women who surrounded
the nephew of the great Bonaparte. Not one, save Princesse
Clotilde inspired the public with that respect which is the first
and foremost condition of the prestige of a dynasty whether that
dynasty be hereditary, founded by the sword or intrigue as were
the dynasties of Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon. Of one
thing we maybe sure, in spite of the cheers that greeted the Em
press in public ; the French people spoke of the ultra-fashion
able throng that surrounded her as the English of the latter

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 353

end of the seventeenth century spoke of the court beauties of
Charles II., as the French of the middle of the eighteenth cen
tury spoke of the grandes dames of Louis XWs Court. And the
gossip, an attractive dish of truth and fiction, especially where
the Empress herself was concerned, spread over the borders of the
land ; and, as in the days of Charles II. and Louis XV., found
its way to the Courts of Europe. Smart attaches, if not their
chiefs themselves, sent amusing accounts of the faits et gestes of
the women and men that foregathered at Compiegne, Fontaine-
bleau, and the Tuileries ; accounts which vitiated beforehand all
the serious documents emanating from the Quai d'Orsay ; the
recipients of the latter refusing to take au serieux the political
aspirations of a sovereign who tolerated around him a society to
the full as profligate and corrupt as that which had danced and
disported itself in the salons and gardens of Versailles under the
anC'ien regime.

I have already indicated, at the beginning of the fifth
part of these papers, the source of the following notes. There
is no indication as to their exact date, nor were they all written
at the same time, but several events to which they refer inciden
tally show them to belong to the first half of the sixties.

"I have just returned from Compie'gne, where I had not been
for three years, and was irresistibly reminded of a conversation
with Vely Pasha at a dinner party at the Tuileries shortly after
the Emperor's marriage. The haunted look we noticed then on
the faces of the courtiers and even on those of the sovereigns has
altogether disappeared. On s' amuse fer me,* and I am not at all
certain whether they are not enjoying themselves a little too
much, and in a fashion not altogether calculated to enhance the
prestige of the dynasty with the other courts of Europe. I
must confess that my previsions, or let me say my expectations,
in that respect have been woefully disappointed, although, at the
outset, they bade fair to be realized. I did not for a moment
imagine that the Tuileries would become dowdy, dull, and re
spectable the greater part of the year and ridiculously bourgeois
on so-called grand occasions, as it was in the days of Louis
Philippe ; but I fancied that the golden mean would be ob
served ; I fancied that the society there would become a cross

* A paraphrase of a French commercial term "acheter ferme," that is, buying
outright without any restrictions.

YOL. CLXI. — tfO. 466. 23

354 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

between that of Versailles in the most brilliant days of Louis
XIV. and that of the First Empire at its most prosperous period ;
in other words, I fancied that part of the Faubourg St. Germain
would gradually rally to the Second Empire, and neutralize by
its grand air and unimpeachable manners the too obviously
soldatesque sans-fafon, from which even the best of Napoleon
III/s marshals and generals — with the exception of Macmahon —
are not wholly free, the somewhat too conquering attitude of the
male civilian element toward the women, and the rather challeng
ing tactics of the latter in response. This blending of two
sections of society no doubt commended itself to the Emperor,
especially when, after his accession to the throne, he cast a look
around him and found himself deserted by the bonne compagnie,
and notably by the female part of it, that had graced the Salon
of the Elysee during the presidency. With this end in view he
would have willingly made many sacrifices to concentrate the old
noblesse, and even gone a step further than his uncle under
similar circumstances. Napoleon III. would have put the old
noblesse into places short of the very highest, by which I mean
that he would have entrusted the men with diplomatic missions,
as he eventually did with few that came to him, although at that
time he would not have conferred a ministry on a known partisan
of Legitimacy. ' Those people understand nothing of politics,
and I did not want them for that. I only required them for
decorative purposes, for they are eminently fit to wear gold lace.
I would have willingly gilded them on all their edges/ he said
afterward.

" And some of them consented to be gilt in that fashion, but,
unlike their predecessors under the First Empire, they consider
that the obligation is entirely on the side of the dispenser of the
favors, and the nephew has not the strength of character of the
uncle to tell them to leave the Court, if not France, unless
their presence confers credit and not discredit on the dy
nasty. In fact, I doubt whether any except the most drastic
measures in that respect would be of the least avail now ; the
thing has gone on too long, and instead of a Versailles of Louis
XIV., blended with some of the virtues of the military and civil
parvenus of the Napoleonic era, we have a glittering but utterly
dissolute and ethically worthless society, which is simply a
startling reproduction of the Pompadour era, plus the swagger

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 355

and bar rack -language of the beau sabreur at his worst, when, in
spite of that swagger and his late successes in the field I suspect him
to be lacking in the sterling soldierly qualities and unquestionable
warlike talents of his dSvanciers. The Court, as I saw it at Com-
pi£gne a day or two ago, presents the most heterogeneous gather
ing of humanity it has ever been my lot to behold away from the
gaming rooms at Baden-Baden, with which it has also one trait
in common besides its outward elegance, namely, its absolute
egoism, the unscrupulous hostility of each of its members towards
his neighbor, like himself in pursuit of a favor, a possibly profita
ble transaction, or an intrigue. Like the gathering at Baden-
Baden, it is, as I have said, composed of utterly dissimilar ele
ments, of a semi-ruined old noblesse side by side with a pros
perous Jewish financial fraternity ; of a bourgeoisie with all the
greed of the French bourgeoisie of olden as well as modern times
thick upon it, and sorely perplexed at its inability to keep its
hoard ; of Harpagons emulating with wry faces the lavishness
of the Gramont-Caderousses and the Demidoffs ; of rapacious
would-be Massenas and spendthrift would-be Lasalles, but without
the military genius that distinguished the Due de Kivoli and the
hero of Prentzlau.

" Do what one will, it is impossible to close one's eyes to
these facts forced upon one's notice the moment one sets foot
within the court circle, and the mental cataract which evidently
prevents the Emperor from seeing them will, I am afraid, have
to be removed one day, remote or near, with danger to himself
and to his dynasty. The gambling stories alone are sufficient
to make one's hair stand on end, and the culprits, whether
they figure as hawks or pigeons, invariably belong to the
army. Those convicted of cheating, albeit not publicly — not
merely suspected — are not only allowed to retain their com
missions, but 'are received at court as if nothing had happened.

The Comte was caught red-handed at Chantilly a

twelvemonth or so before the revolution that cost Louis
Philippe his throne. He was compelled to lie low during the
remainder of the Citizen Monarchy, and during the whole of the
Second Republic, but at present he holds his head as high as ever.
A lieutenant in the Guards, a victim that one, lost 20,000 francs
at one sitting. He had not a red cent towards the money,
but he did not worry himself in the least, and in the morning

356 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

he simply applied to the Emperor. The move was a masterly
one, apart from the young fellow's knowledge that the Emperor
never refused an appeal for money as long as he had any to give.
He wound up his request by saying that there were only three
courses open to him, viz., the appeal he ventured on, dishonor,
or suicide. Of course under the circumstances the Emperor
could not very well refuse if he had felt inclined to do so,
which, truth to tell, he did not. He could not very well
have had it said of him that he had driven a promising
young officer to suicide for the sake of a few thousand
francs. I know well enough, though, what would have hap
pened if a similar request had been preferred to Wilhelm of
Prussia or Francis-Joseph of Austria who, I have not the least
doubt, are as tenacious of the honor of their officers as is the
Emperor of the French. The honor of the officer would have
remained safe, but he would have had to pay for it with the loss
of his commission.*

" The Emperor scarcely reprimanded the young fellow.
Opening a packet of money, he handed him the money. ' The
life of one of my soldiers is worth more than the sum of which
you stand in need/ he said, with that peculiar smile which con
stitutes his greatest charm. ' But I am not at all rich and I

* The laws on gambling in the army were and are very strict both in Austria
and Germany proper. I do not know enough of Austria to be able to say what would
have happened there under similar circumstances, but I fancy the author of the
note is correct in his surmise that King Wilhelm would not have been quite as
lenient as was Napoleon III. At any rate I knew two Prussian officers who lost their
commissions for having gambled away more than ihey could pay. In the one case
the gambling debt was paid ; the gambler was, however, cashiered. During my stay
in Paris 1 used to meet him frequently; he had become a correspondent for several
German papers. In the other case the debt was not paid; the dishonored gambler
was obliged to leave the country. Ho took service in the French foreign legion.
The last time I saw him, about three years ago, he was doing well as a military
coach in London, for by that time he was close uoon sixty. The late Emperor
Wilhelm, though, did not always punish so severely, especially when the offender
happened to be the gainer instead of the loser. For sometime after the revolution
of 1849 the Duchy of Baden was occupied by the Prussian troops that had helped to
quell the insurrection. The officers quartered at Kastadt had been especially
cautio'.ed againt playing at Badeb-Baden. One summer evening King then Prince)
Wilhelm strolled int9 the gaming rooms and noticed an officer in mufti at play.
The officer was winning, not much, but a good deal for a Prussian lieutenant, for
there were four Friedrichs d'or on the red. He bad begun with one and the color
had turned up twice. Just as he was about to pick up the money he caught sight of
the Prince watching him. Terror-stricken, he ttood as if rooted at the spot. The
red turned up a third, then a fourth time, still the officer did not move. At last the
maximum is reached, and the croupier asks — " Combien a la masse ?" No answer.
" Combien a la masse ? " shouts the croupier once more. Thereupon the Prince
walks round to the officer's side, taps him on the shoulder and says gently— "Take
up your money and go lest one of your chiefs should catch you here.
As a matter of course, the lieutenant did not want telling twice. A couple of
days later there happened to be a review at Rastadt. Prince Wilhelm caught sight
of the lieutenant and sent for him. " Lieutenant * * *," he said, " after you went
away, the red turned out four times more. I prevented you from winning four
times the maximum which you would have been sensible enough to stake. You can
draw upon me for that amount. But tase my advice; do not gamble again.
M. Benazet is not the enemy to attack twice under similar conditions."

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 357

might not be able at all times to redeem it at such a price. Go
and sin no more/

"Of Napoleon III. 's goodness of heart there cannot be the
smallest doubt, but I am afraid it is being taken advantage of on
all sides ; and, what is worse, he knows it, and half of his sadness
is due to his knowledge. The sentence, 'The life of one of my
soldiers is worth more than the sum of which you stand in need/
is very pretty, but utterly untrue. I doubt whether Napoleon
III. uttered it for effect. I do not think so. But take his army
from whatever point of view you will — from the military, the
moral, or the social — there are not many officers in it the redemp
tion of whose life is worth 20,000 francs.

" This does not mean that there are no competent and honor
able men in that army to the efficiency of which France will
eventually have to trust for her political supremacy in Europe ;
but those men are systematically snubbed, discouraged, and
thrust into the shade by the military Court party, which is dis
tinctly a creation of the Empress, to whom the barrack-room
manners of a Pelissier, for instance, are naturally distasteful.
She seems to be entirely ignorant of the fact that between the
fall of the First Empire and the rise of the Second there has
sprung up a race of soldiers as far removed from the very wonder
ful but nevertheless very ignorant and rough-hewn generals of
the great Napoleon as the latter were from the highly-educated
and highly-polished but nevertheless the reverse of wonderful
generals of the ancien regime, who, like the Due de Saint-Simon,
grumbled and threw up their commissions because at the age of
twenty-seven they had got no farther than their colonelcy, which,
like that of the immortal author of the Memoirs, their parents
had bought for them when they were beardless lads. That mili
tary court coterie dare not ignore the claims of a Pelissier, but it
pooh-poohs the claims of a Stoffel, a Trochu, and a score of
others who are their superiors in every way, except in the art of
bowing and scraping, leading the cotillion, and coining smart
epigrams. These men, the Stoffels and Trochus, are of opinion
that if promotion cannot always be gained on the battlefield
face to face with the enemy, it should at any rate
not be sought for in the drawing-room, but be won
in the barracks schoolroom, the drill-ground, and the camp.
They are gentlemen in the best acceptation of the term, some-

358 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

what Puritanical as far as their profession is concerned, and con
sequently as averse to the introduction of the barrack-room into
the boudoir — which is the Pelissier way — as they are to the intro
duction of the boudoir element and influence into the army —
which is the way of the court coterie. The Stoffels and Trochus
are the lives which are worth more than 20,000 francs apiece, or
would be if their owners did not allow their tempers to be soured
by the others, and did not keep sulking in their tents.

" But if the court coterie objects to barrack-yard manners a
la Pelissier in the drawing-room, they do not appear to enter
tain a similar objection to introducing boudoir influence into
the army. Of course the coterie would fain preserve a monopoly
in that respect, but the courtesan claims in this, as in all other
things, equality with the aristocratic intrigante. Here is a story
to that effect which was running the round of Paris only the other
day, and a story running the round of Paris soon spreads to the
provinces and across the frontier provided it be scandalous enough.

" Anna Deslions, whose real name is Deschiens and who a few
years ago was taken under the wing of the famous Esther Gui-
mont, lost her father. I suppose he was neither worse nor better
than a great many French fathers of the lower classes ; he was
perfectly aware of his daughter's doings, which knowledge did
not prevent him from living very comfortably on the allowance
she made him. Anna, it appears, was never tired of extolling
his virtues, and insisted on his having a magnificent funeral, for
the funds of which she applied to her ( protector-in-chief * who
happens to be a general of brigade and a curmudgeon of the first
water. He simply applied to the Military Governor of Paris for
a battalion and the band of the regiment quartered in the Fau
bourg Poissonni^re for the obsequies of a veteran of the First
Empire, which request was granted most graciously. The funeral
service was held at St. Laurent, and the female friends of the
bereaved daughter mustered in great force. The papers gave a
minute account of the affair, but somehow the story of the de
ception leaked out. The general was reprimanded, but the
Emperor, always anxious to avoid scandals, ordered the thing to be
hushed up. He, however, stopped the general from inviting private
tenders for the celebration of the yearly mass for the repose of old
Deschien's soul, which that delectable warrior wanted to do in
imitation of his fellow-soldier, General Fabvier, who died in '56."

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 359

Thus far the note, the absolute accuracy of which I could
prove by others in my possession and from entirely different
sources. A careful study of these leads me to one conclusion,
which I will endeavor to state as briefly as possible. Of all those
who " had the ear " of Napoleon III., there were not more than
four — certainly not more than a half-dozen counsellors — who
were loyally devoted to him and to his dynasty. The others
merely looked upon the dynasty as a stepping-stone to the
acquisition of enormous wealth, as an instrument for the gratifica
tion of their vanity, and the realization of ambitious schemes
more guilty still. If the latter were unfolded here in their
naked truth, the revelation would raise a storm of invective such
as a man endowed with far greater courage than mine might well
wish to avoid. This much I will say, come what may : with the
exception of Persigny, Fleury, Kouher, Mocquard, Princesse
Mathilde, Princesse Anna Murat (Duchesse de Mouchy), and,
to a certain extent, Walewski, every man and woman at the
Tuileries worked for his or her own hand, and by their matchless
selfishness, utter absence of scruple, and overweening conceit, in
curred the withering contempt and scathing, but nevertheless
deserved, criticism of a section of society, the existence of which
is tacitly ignored in every well-ordered community, in spite of its
presence being as plain as the sun on a bright summer's day.

The male counterpart of that section, consisting of chevaliers
d' Industrie, company promoters of a kind, shady financiers, and
the like, were more practical. They neither indulged in profit
less sneers and recriminations against the manieurs d' argent at
court, nor instituted comparisons between the latter and them
selves. They knew that such comparisons would have been
simply ridiculous. From the time that Mouvillon de Glimes
had started his " limited company " entitled Soeiete Anonyme
de Produits Chemiques, .and without as much as show
ing a printed share or prospectus, had swooped in a million and a
half of francs, with which he decamped across the Pyrenees, from
that time the swindlers not affiliated to the court knew the futility
of competing with those who were. The former might be just as
clever as the others — in many instances they were as clever and
cleverer — but the law, when it overtook them, had to show itself
doubly severe to dispel the suspicion attached to it of having been
utterly apathetic on former occasions. No one was ever deceived

360 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

by this except Napoleon III. himself, who fondly imagined that
the nation conld be hoodwinked by the system of making the less
guilty pay for the more guilty, for it finally became a system.
And thus it came to pass that the sovereign, who during the whole
of his reign had been constantly engaged in shielding the most
unscrupulous, and at the same time most cowardly, freebooter of
his time, lent himself to the persecution — for prosecution is too
mild a term — of a comparatively innocent man. I am alluding
to Mir£s, who was to Moray as John Law to the fraudulent son
of a banker. The latter goes on using his father's name and
influence to make dupes, knowing full well that when the crash
comes the father will step in and hush the matter up at the risk
of being reduced to beggary himself.

That the Emperor had to do this frequently the papers found
at the Tuileries after the fall of the Empire leave not the smallest
doubt ; that he finally got tired of this incessant and enormous
strain on his purse there is equally no doubt. One instance among
many will suffice. One morning there came — by appointment,
of course — to the Emperor's private room an individual, a mere
glance at whom revealed the prosperous, irrepressible loud-voiced
and loud-mannered brasseur d'affaires.* His fingers and shirt
front blazing with diamonds, formidable gold chain across his
chest, the ample cut of his brand new clothes, everything, in
short, proclaimed the prosperity to be of recent standing. He
came to submit to His Majesty the project of some new works to
be constructed in the heart of the capital. The Emperor, though
rarely surprised at anything, was surprised this time, and could
not help showing his surprise. The scheme, though a vast one,
had nothing to recommend itself or to distinguish it from a hun
dred others ; it was on the face of it a gigantic building specula
tion, and nothing more. The Emperor as good as said so, and
added that in any case it was a matter for his Minister of Public
Works and not for himself to decide, at which remark the appli
cant opened his eyes very wide. "That would be true, sire,
tinder ordinary circumstances," he began somewhat timidly ;
" but in this instance your Majesty has been informed of the
whole affair beforehand." This time it is the Emperor who opens
his eyes very wide. "I have been informed of nothing, mon-

* Literally "brewer of business": the French equivalent for the still more
modern and more euphemistic English term " promoter."

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 361

sieur," he says. " I beg your Majesty's pardon," stammered the

applicant, ' ' but " " I beg your pardon, monsieur," replied

the Emperor, " but " " M. de has told your Majesty

nothing ?" "M. de has told me nothing."

Thereupon the applicant, unable to contain himself any
longer, burst out, " The cheat, the cheat ! And I who gave him
a hundred thousand francs but two days ago, because he told me
that your Majesty had promised him to support my project !
The Emperor calmly dismissed his visitor, but a few hours later
he enacted a stormy scene with the official in question as a spec
tator. The latter remained perfectly unmoved and simply
smiled. "For two twos he would have applauded as one ap
plauds a mummer at whom one laughs inwardly for overdoing
the thing," said the Emperor bitterly, when he told the affair to
Fleury. ' ' Instead of which, when I left off abusing him for
sheer want of breath, he quietly remarked : e Your Majesty is
really too kind to worry yourself about such an idiot as that."

This is the synopsis of one of the innumerable one-act pieces
that preceded the big tragedy entitled " The Campaign in Mex
ico," the inception of which must have been due to some such
scene as the one I described just now. Jecker, the Swiss
money-monger, who had lent Miramon 7,425,000 francs — or at
any rate nearly half that sum in bare money — was a somewhat
more important personage than the Frenchman whom the Em
peror had been obliged to dismiss so unceremoniously ; especially
after he, Jecker, had done France the homor to become natural
ized, and had begun to press his claim of 75,000.000 francs
against Mexico. Morny himself, though daring enough, would
not have dared to wash his hands of him, and instead of the play
ending with the exit of Jecker from the private room of Napo
leon III., the play had only reached the end of its prologue. I do
not state this to be an absolute fact ; I merely surmise, for every
thing connected with the initial business of the War in Mexico is
so enwrapped in mystery that one must not speak with certainty.
An attempt to let in light on that subject as well as on the sub
sequent events consequently becomes impossible at the end of a
chapter, but I will endeavor to do so in the next.

ALBERT D. V AND AM.
(To be Continued.)

THE SITUATION IN CUBA.

BY SENOR DON SEGUNDO ALVAREZ, EX-MAYOR OF HAT ANA.

REGARDING the situation of affairs in Cuba, upon which I
have been invited to write for the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, the
most recent information in my possession shows that the insur
rectionary movement makes no progress and that as soon as the
rainy season is over the government will increase its efforts to
bring it to a speedy termination. The country at large is fully
resolved to withhold support from a movement which must lead
to ruin. Whatever strength the insurrection has shown has
been derived more than anything else from external aid, assisted
by the involved financial situation of the country at present. But
for these causes the movement would have ended almost as soon as
it began.

Many make a mistake in believing that this insurrection is
similar in character to the last outbreak in Cuba. According to
the judgment of intelligent men there were causes which justified
the previous conflict, and many of the principal citizens took an ac
tive part in it, believing themselves so powerful that they refused
the concessions offered to them by the then provisional government
of Spain. That war was more humane. Entire towns took the
field with the insurrectionists, but to no avail. The disappoint
ment experienced by its principal leaders proved to them the use-
lessness of such an undertaking, unless, indeed, they wished to
convert the island into a scene of discord and racial war. From
the result of that struggle thinking men and lovers of the coun
try learned that the only hope for the well-being of Cuba was to
remain under the Spanish flag, and so to obtain all the liberties
enjoyed by countries organized under modern laws. Their efforts
were being surely, although slowly, crowned with success, for
under the sway of political order they were acquiring all the

THE SITUATION IN CUBA.

rights which belonged to them, and further attempts were being
made, with all prospect of favorable result, for the establishment
of administrative and economical reforms, the people of the
island having direct control of these affairs. For these reasons
men who reflect, and men who have families and material inter
ests to think of, excepting, perhaps, some visionary schemers, do
not approve of the present uprising, which is more anarchic than
political in its character, as shown both by the means which it
employs and by the greater number of the leaders who have
thrown themselves into it, who have come from different quarters,
and who, as a rule, have absolutely nothing to lose.

At the conclusion of the previous rebellion, two political groups
were created, one styling itself Union Constitutional o Conser-
vadora, which comprises the greater portion of those who had come
from Spain. This party had for its chief aim the defence of the
flag without regard to class distinctions, but it sought in a cau
tious and moderate way to effect improvements in the political
situation. The other party, Autonomista, very largely composed
of native Cubans and directed by the most illustrious of them,
presented an autonomic plan similar to that in operation in
Canada. This party was working with much constancy and great
faith to bring about reform and by means of peaceful procedure
to arrive at the goal of their aspirations. Having modified in the
mean time, some institutions which experience had shown to re
quire alteration, the conservative party did not develop according
to the growing necessities of the times, the majority of the party
being unwilling to accept the proposals of its more advanced
wing. With the object of harmonizing conflicting interests and
bringing together the antagonistic elements of the country, an
economic league was formed, and men of both parties assembled
to discuss in a fraternal spirit such economical questions
as were of supreme interest to the island. This movement
was suspended; but, as soon as Minister Maura presented his plan
of reforms, it gave origin to a third party of an intermediary
character, which is called Reformista. This party, embracing
within it both Spaniards and Cubans, has been the bulwark by
which the cause of true reform has been saved from ship-wreck.
Such is the actual situation of the different parties.

The idea of independence, which, without a doubt, has been
very grateful to the majority of the native-born, experience in the

364 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

previous outbreak proved to be futile. Little encouragement can
be derived by those who cherish this hope from the examples of the
republics of South and Central America, which have already be
come emancipated. None of them has been able, owing to the
diverse elements of their populations, to organize a nation under
the form they originally pictured to themselves.

Annexation to the United States, about which many dream —
more so out of the country than within it — is an absolute impos
sibility. The greater majority of the Cubans do not wish it,
because they realize that, should it be put into effect, their indi
viduality would disappear in a short time. The most thoughtful
men of the island, to whom I have already referred, see no other
solution than to continue belonging to Spain, to live tranquilly
under the national flag, and to endeavor to bring about all the
reforms which may be necessary for the well-being of the country.

The United States have, in my opinion, great interest in
whatever situation the affairs of Cuba may find themselves in.
It is to their interest that the island should be prosperous, be
cause in that way the commercial relations between them will be
come wider and more fruitful. The number of American impor
tations will increase more than those of any other country, owing to
the proximity of the United States and Cuba to each other, and the
cordial relations which have existed between them so long. This
admits of no doubt, for if the mercantile balance is compared to
that of all the countries with which the United States have re
lations, none, considering the number of inhabitants, is of such
importance as the commerce with the island of Cuba, and the
greater the prosperity of that island the greater the produce it
will be able to purchase. Were Cuba independent its relations
with the United States would be practically the same as those of
San to Domingo and similar countries, so that the American nation,
being a calculating one, cannot help seeing, apart from the
treaties which it has already made with the Spanish nation for
the maintenance of peace, that the insurrection will be injurious
to them. I am aware that some States — like Florida, for example,
which has grown through Cuban immigration and developed
flourishing towns with regular industries — -view these questions
in a different light. Persons from the State just named, in
spired by the desire for gain, are apt to commit infractions of
international law, which may lead, to-morrow or the day after,

THE SITUATION IN CUBA. 365

to disagreeable complications between the United States and
Spain, but the interest of the United States is not in having war
within, much less outside. "What is to their benefit is the con
stant and admirable development of their vast resources, which
they are achieving to the admiration of the entire world.

I have been recently misrepresented as saying that the Ameri
can flag covered all crimes. But the remarks made above show
how impossible it would be for me to make such a statement.
What I have said is that certain things have been done to cover
criminal acts against Cuba by the Separatistas or their sympa
thizers, and by speculators who generally cover themselves with
their American naturalization papers. And this is true.

SEGUNDO ALVABEZ.

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND.

BY THE EIGHT HON. THE EARL OF CREWE (LORD HOUGHTON),
LATE LORD LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF IRELAND.

TEE political revolution of July, and the utter rout, for the
time being, of the Liberal party, have engaged public attention,
to the exclusion of other topics during the last six weeks. The
ingenuity of publicists and partisans exhausts itself in an en
deavor to apportion aright blame for the Liberal 'defeat, and to
forecast its results for the next few years to come. The purpose
of the present article is simply to discuss its effect upon Irish
parties, and upon the government of Ireland, in the light of
some recent experience gained in the country itself.

In the first place it must be noted that amid the crash of
parties, Ireland stands where she did; the changes in her repre
sentation are microscopic, and the constitutional demand for
Home Rule is presented by a slightly reinforced host of National
ist members. The very obviousness of this fact, and the certainty
with which ifc was foreseen, may cause its significance to be for
gotten; but let it be remarked, once for all, that of the different
proposals, applying to distinct portions of the British Islands,
which formed and still form part of the Liberal programme,
Home Rule is preeminently the one the position of which the
general election of 1895, has done least to affect, as regards the
district specially concerned. Fence with the matter as you will,
the return of 83 Irish Home Rulers against 20 adherents of
legislative union, forbids the most light-hearted Conservative
to boast that there is no Irish constitutional question left un
solved.

It is, however, the commonplace of the moment — the easy
resort of official optimism — to assert that the eyes of Irishmen
are fixed on the passing of a Land Bill, and not on political de-

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 367

velopments towards self-government. There is enough truth in
the statement to make it worth while to expose its essential one-
sidedness. In the first place it leaves out of account the towns
folk, whose interest in a Land Bill is extremely remote, but who
yet maintain the Nationalist faith unimpaired, and often in the
more extreme forms. Again, it lays undue stress upon the force,
great though it be, with which appeal can to-day be made
to the pocket of a class. It is, indeed, assumed by many poli
ticians of the baser sort, and half credited by some who ought to
know better, that not only in Ireland, but in England, Scotland,
and Wales as well, the jingling of the guinea is the only music
for your voters' ear. Lowered rates, grants in aid, old age
pensions — these are the only wares for the shop window, accord
ing as landowner, or farmer, or artisan is to be tempted in to
buy. " Freedom leaning on her spear" must have a cheque book
in her pocket or she will attract little notice. Perhaps there are
a few people left who will decline to believe that enthusiasm for
a political idea is now an impossibility, or that the spirit is dead
which destroyed slavery (though nobody was a penny the richer),
and which set the whole country ablaze when the story of Bul
garia's wrongs was told.

There are, no doubt, in Ireland as elsewhere, some minds who
recognize no higher appeal than the gain of the instant. There
were a few Venetians, perhaps, and a few Hungarians, who would
cheerfully have accepted Austrian domination in consideration
for a rise of wages. To compare any English government of
to-day with the Imperial government of '48 would of course be
unfair ; but on the other hand, the administration of Hungary
to-day, far more popular and sympathetic than that of Ireland^
has not abated a jot of Magyar pretension to self-government.

It is, in fact, on the divisions in the Irish Nationalist Party,
and upon them alone, that Unionists, who know Ireland, rely for
the weakening of the popular demand. Some examination of
these disputes, their causes, and their effect on public opinion in
England and Ireland may not be altogether out of place. It is pos
sible to extract three main elements of difference from the mass
of mutual recrimination which crowds the Irish press : (1) resent
ment of the treatment of Mr. Parnell in 1886 ; (2) personal dis
putes, sometimes founded on incompatibility of political temper,
sometimes, but seldom, on actual divergence of opinion and ac-

368 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tion on current questions ; and (3) the clash of clerical and anti
clerical sentiment.

The essence of the whole matter is to determine whether any
or all of these grounds of quarrel are in their nature permanent,
for it may be taken as absolutely certain that, so long as they
exist, the passing of a Home Rule measure will be impossible.

(1). It seems scarcely conceivable that the fight should
forever sway round the memory of the dead Irish leader. An
unprejudiced looker-on may be allowed to admit that Mr.
Parnell received in some respects hard measure from his col
leagues and followers, not so much in the fact of his dismissal as
in the manner of it. Such an observer may also be permitted an
expression of sincere regret over the disappearance from public
life of a supremely interesting and in many ways admirable
figure. The might-have-beens of politics are sometimes curiously
fascinating and it is difficult to decide what would have
happened could the Koinan Catholic Church in Ireland have
tacitly admitted the somewhat dangerous doctrine that high
public services may act as a set-off against private irregularities.
How far a direct national defiance of Mr. Gladstone and of
English public opinion might have aided or retarded the passage
of Home Rule, is a matter on which everybody must form an inde
pendent judgment for himself.

It is perhaps easier to maintain that had Mr. Parnell bowed
to the gale, and at once retired from the leadership, even the
straitest critics would sooner or later have consented to regard
his offence in the light of an "erratum," as Franklin professionally
entitled a moral lapse of his own early days.

Ireland has been the victim of many cruel ironies, but it
would surely be the cruellest of all, if the personality of Mr.
Parnell were to offer a permanent obstacle to the success of the
cause which he championed.

(2). It is not the purpose of this article to indulge in com
ments on the conduct or the language of individual public men
in Ireland. Such criticisms would fall with an ill grace from
one who has held the position of the writer. It is well, therefore,
lightly to pass over the personal element which unluckily plays
so prominent a part in the present controversy. No feature in
the situation is more disheartening to an English friend of
Ireland, but it is easy to overrate its significance. Mr. John

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 369

Morley has lately reminded us, with much force, that nothing is
more likely to lead to the overstatement of a case or to intemper
ance in argument than lack of early training in the exercise of
public functions, and he added that if many Irishmen are still
thus unpractised it is England that should take the principal
blame. This truth may well be borne in mind by those who some
times miss from Irish polemics what Gibbon calls " the well-
guarded declaration of discreet and dignified resentment."

Passing to strictly political subjects of dispute, by far the
most important has been the difference of opinion between the
followers of Mr. Eedmond and those of Mr. McCarthy as to the
proper attitude of Ireland towards the Liberal party. Within the
ranks of the Federationists themselves opinions upon this point
have not always been unanimous.

As time went on it became evident that the perfect independ
ence of English parties originally maintained by Mr. Parnell,
which Mr. Eedmond favored during the sitting of the late Par
liament, would be rendered difficult by the continued adhesion of
the Liberals to the principle of Home Rule. Government by
casually associated groups is alien to English parliamentary tradi
tion. Mr. Parnell had not much experience of this particular
difficulty, but even he more than once found it necessary to quit
his attitude of frigid isolation. It was not, however, until the
rejection of the Irish government bill by the House of Lords in
1893 that the severe test began. The question was then asked:
Ought the Irish to support the government in carrying their
British measures, or ought they, while admitting the loyalty of
Mr. Gladstone to his declared policy, to exhibit once more their
independence and their power by withdrawing aid from an ad
ministration unable to carry out its good intentions towards Ire
land ? The present writer, while gratefully recognizing the
value of the support so honorably extended to the late govern
ment by the Irish party, frankly admits that from a Nationalist
point of view there was at first sight much to be said for the al
ternative, policy.

It may further be conceded that the result of the general
election seems to uphold the soundness of this view. An earlier
appeal to the country could scarcely have ended more disastrously
for the cause of Home Rule.

But, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the dis-
YOL. CLXI, — NO. 466. 24

370 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

missal of a Liberal government by the act of the Irish members
would probably have thrown a breaking strain upon the Liberal
party. Even though the Liberal leaders recognized that Mr.
McCarthy and his followers were acting within their strict rights,
and had again set Home Rule in the forefront of their proposals,
the rank and file of the party might have so resented enforced re
consideration of the question, and the apparent abandonment of
English measures, as altogether to endanger the existing alliance.
True, the real blame ought to have been cast on the House of
Lords, but it would have been the Irish hand which dealt the
visible blow. It is, of course, open for Mr. Redmond to retort,
as he probably would, that he for one does not want the Liberal
alliance; but in that case one is entitled to ask in reply whether Mr.
Redmond wants Home Rule, and how he proposes constitutionally
to obtain it without the co-operation of one of the great English
parties ? As the matter now stands, the Liberal party, defeated
and diminished as it is, is essentially a Home Rule party; and when
its turn again comes to succeed to power, it must again face the
question of Irish self-government.

There remains, it is true, still one alternative for Mr. Red
mond in the hope of enlisting the sympathy of the Conservative
party with his views and aims. AVe shall consider presently the
possible outcome of the great Unionist triumph as affecting Ire
land, but meanwhile it is not without amusement that onlookers
have followed the phases of the flirtation between the Parnellite
and Unionist parties.

It remains to consider how far the reunion of the Irish party
is likely to be deferred by reason of actual and legitimate differ
ence of opinion on policy and procedure. If anything will close
the existing breaches, it will be the coming period of struggle
with the serried forces of reaction. The main subject in dispute,
which has been discussed above, disappears with the Liberal gov
ernment. Between the Liberal opposition and the Irish party,
relations of friendly concord will probably exist, but of a less in
timate character than were suggested to both sides by the small-
ness of the government's majority in the late Parliament. On
the whole, it seems likely that causes of offence between mem
bers of the Nationalist brigade will tend to become fewer, save
under one head, with which we must next deal.

Mr. Lecky reminds us (vol. viii., p. 429) that "in the

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 371

strange irony of Irish history few things are more curious than
the fact that it was the English government which persuaded
the Catholic priests to take an active part in Irish politics, and
to take part in them for the purpose of carrying the legislative
union/' It is something of an irony, too, which has " united
English Liberalism with the Koman Catholic Church for the
purpose of modifying that union " ; but in the matter of mutual
loyalty neither party has had cause to complain of the other.
Still, that the Conservative party should never have succeeded in
winning over to its side this isolated branch of the greatest con
servative organization in Europe is a singular and instructive
fact. So long as old Tory traditions held the field it might have
been difficult to form an alliance, but the capture of the Eoman
Catholic Church would not have been unworthy of Mr. Disraeli's
adroitness and enterprise. In some respects the task would have
been easier in his day than now, before the north, then so
Eadical, was pledged to support the Unionist party ; but signs
are not now wanting, as we shall presently remark, that the Con
servative chiefs of to-day may make some attempt of the kind.
In that case the steadfast adherence of the hierarchy and priest
hood to the popular party may be more severely tested than
ever yet in the past ; but the Church as a whole is little likely to
forget its national character.

At this moment feeling is naturally running high between the
League and Federation, on the ground of priestly interference
with the recent elections. That such interference has been con
siderable, and in some cases excessive, at any rate to English
Liberal eyes, may be at once granted. But it is important tore-
member the peculiar relation — half paternal, half fraternal — in
which the country priest stands to his peasant parishioner. It
would be strange if an intimacy so confidential, involving knowl
edge of the most private affairs, did not color the public dealings
of a person subject to the influence of another.

During the late elections much ill-feeling has been awakened
on this account, and it seems probable that as time goes on, the
Parnellite section of the Nationalists will more and more be
stamped with the character of an anti-clerical party. The ex
istence of such a wing may be a misfortune, so far as it tends to
present disunion ;, but in an Irish parliament where, as we are
always being reminded, Rome Rule is dreaded under the name of

372 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Home Kule, it would play an important part by representing the
element of Continental Liberalism in social and domestic
politics.

The conclusion appears then to be this : That so far as the in
ternal differences of the Nationalist Party depend on devotion to
the memory of Mr. Parnell, or on the Attitude of Ireland to
ward English parties, they will tend to diminish. Whereas, as
between clerical and anti-clerical opinion the line of demarcation
is likely to become sharper.

As between Nationalist and Unionist, no very marked change
seems likely to take place at present; there will be plenty of wild
talk on both sides, but there is far less personal difference than
is sometimes imagined. Of course, feeling runs high in Belfast,
and higher still in some of the northern towns in which the
number of Catholics and Protestants is almost equal. Here and
there one hears of an event which comes as an agreeable surprise,
as when in a North-Midland county, one recent 12th of July, the
local Nationalists lent to a gathering of two thousand Orangemen
their big drum, the prime requisite on such an occasion, and sent
cars for conveyance of those attending the meeting. But such
Arcadian amity is rare, though outside Ulster, in the districts where
Protestants are in a small minority, good humored relations are
the rule, except where well-meaning but ill-balanced persons have
embarked on the futile campaign of religious proselytism. If,
then — as surely is the case — the fuilure of the Liberal Party to
carry Home Rule has in no way reconciled the Irish majority to
the existing methods of government, and if the fissures in that
majority are, on the whole, more likely to close than to widen as
time goes on, what prospect has the new ministry of a continued
period of order and of comparative contentment ?

The answer is humiliating enough, seeing that the great Brit
ish Empire has to make it. In the immediate future the apathy
of Ireland, and therefore to some extent a quietude of the House
of Commons, will mainly depend on two conditions, one positive
and one negative, over neither of which the government will have
a shadow of control. There must be fine weather, and no popu
lar leader must arise to unite the Nationalist forces.

During the past three years of liberal administration, the re
markable peace of the country was in part due, it may be hoped,
to a sympathetic method of government which made no terms

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 373

with crime but which tried to enlist the best popular forces on
the side of order. Nevertheless it would be absurd to deny that
the task was made infinitely easier than it might have been by
the material prosperity which prevailed till the spring of this
year, and was then disturbed in isolated localities only.

Again, Unionist England, as she values her repose, must re
main fettered by the undignified necessity of beseeching Provi
dence not to raise up a new O'Connell or Parnell. At this
moment the various sections of the Nationalist party include
men of high character, men of brilliant eloquence, men of strik
ing business capacity ; it is an instance of the ill-luck which
haunts Ireland that no one of them combines all the qualities
needed for an Irish leader. England, in her secure and settled
condition, does not ask for leaders. She requires public servants.
These she uses to the utmost of their strength, gives them honor
while they are alive, with money if they desire it, and buries
them in Westminster Abbey when they are dead. But she
reserves the right to criticise with utter frankness her most
eminent sons, and if they displease her she is not above breaking
their drawing-room windows. Ireland, on the other hand, as a
nation who has suffered much, calls for a leader — the Liberator,
the Chief. He must be a man to appeal to the imagination,
either by the burning eloquence and masculine bonhomie of an
O'Connell, or with the magnetic influence and mysterious aloofness
of a Parnell. Such a leader — who knows ? — is perhaps approaching
manhood to-day and is dreaming dreams of an Ireland made pros
perous and contented by his guidance, or, perhaps, unconscious
of his destiny, he is now being wheeled in a perambulator along
the pavements of Dublin or of Cork. At any rate, appear he will
— by the ordinary law of averages, which allots a hero to every
nation now and again — and, when he comes, the problem of
how to govern Ireland, unless solved already, will once more
thrust itself before the eyes of the weary predominant partner.

It remains to consider the possible attitude of each section of
the Irish party towards the new government, and the policy which
that government may thus be tempted or compelled to pursue.

It would be a fruitless task to prophesy concerning the Nation
alist attitude in the House of Commons, towards an administra
tion which up to the time of writing has made no coherent declar
ation of policy in Irish affairs.

374 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Let us pass on to conjecture what direction Unionist tactics
may probably take. It has long been believed in Ireland that if
opportunity should otter, the Conservatives would attempt an
experiment of their own and reorganize the details of Castle
government, while maintaining the body of the present system.
It was also imagined that if a Unionist government should
assume office, Mr. Chamberlain would not consider the task be
neath his great abilities, and that he would make his first appear
ance in the unaccustomed character of conciliator. The ex
periment is not likely to be made. The phrase " Clear out
the Castle " has merits as an alliterathe cry, but the task is
one from which statesmen of wider experience than the present
rulers of Ireland might well shrink. For that task is the substi
tution, for a non-popular but distinctly effective system, of some
unknown scheme which by the hypothesis must be non-popular
also, and for the smooth working of which there is no guarantee.
Popular it cannot be, because the leaders of the popular party
will have none of it. As it is, central control is the mainspring
of Irish government. At one time it may be the Lord Lieuten
ant, at another the Chief Secretary or the Under Secretary, who
undertakes the real work ; but it always happens that one per
former, or two, or three, play on the instrument while the rest
of the official world blows the bellows. The system, like most
centralized systems, possesses a certain attractiveness. That it
works as well as it does is due in part to the fact that Dukes of
Alva and Generals Hagnan are not found among English poli
ticians of any shade of opinion ; in part to the publicity, even
though it be inaccurate, which attends the doings, great and
small, of those in power, and in part to the real merits of
the permanent officials in Ireland. It would be impossible
for the writer not to bear testimony to the high services
and admirable common sense of many of these gentlemen, upon
whom the sins and shortcomings of their political chiefs have
sometimes been unfairly visited. The real vices of the system
are its rigidity, its failure to encourage self-reliance in subordi
nates, and its undue demand upon those who are called upon to
control it. It is an undue demand because it predicates a per
petual succession of public men, endowed in the very finest de
gree with the qualities of impartiality, patience, and industry.
More especially are remarkable governing qualities necessary fo?

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 375

the members of a Conservative administration of to-day, because
the country has admittedly to be governed without the concur
rence and 'in opposition to the wishes of its constitutional repre
sentatives. On the actions of such a government there is, in fact,
no real parliamentary or other check.

It is not only in the domain of law and order, but in almost
every department of an Irish citizen's life, that the central gov
ernment has its eye on him. The government of Ireland is a
government by boards, and the system, by diminishing personal
responsibility, tends to throw control even more than might be
into the hands of the political chiefs and their immediate entour
age. The Local Government Board has three members, besides
those who sit on it ex-officio. The Prisons Board has three, and
among boards of a different class eight to nine members sit on
the Congested Districts Board, and seventeen on the Board of
National Education. The Board of Works, representing the
Treasury in Ireland— as well as the Woods and Forests and
the Board of Works proper — maintains towards the Irish govern
ment something of the attitude which an Indian resident might
assume towards a powerful and well meaning, but occasionally
indiscreet Maharajah; although friction has usually been avoided
by the excellent personal terms which have existed between its
head and the ministers of the day.

Such is the machine— not the machine which some of us
might prefer, though by no means a bad machine in its way.
Whether it would stand much tinkering is another question.

We have concluded, then, that it is doubtful if any advantageous
attempt can be made to reorganize Irish government on the present
lines. Possibly the present Ministers, declared opponents of
political change though they be. may attempt to provide the
country with a scheme of local government. Such a scheme,
counting so many points to the good in the struggle for Home
Rule, if freed from the grotesque features which distinguished
its predecessor, ought to receive, and probably would receive,
serious consideration from the Irish members. To begin at the
wrong end is sometimes better than not beginning at all. But
the problem of how to give any local control at all, without
alarming the favored landowning class, to whose support the
government is attracted, if not actually pledged, is a desperately
difficult one to solve.

g76 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

There are two other questions, each near boiling point,
which await the declarations of the Tory government — the ques
tions of Denominational Education and of the Land, to each of
which the late Ministers directed anxious attention. This is not
the place in which to discuss the technical and exceedingly
complicated points which have arisen since, in 1892, the Chief
Secretary was called upon to consider the question of certain
elementary Roman Catholic schools. After an infinity of discus
sion between the Castle and the National Board of Education,
those questions, relating mainly to the use of religious emblems,
and of school books in which controversial matters are touched
from the clerical standpoint, still remain undecided. Possibly a
Conservative government, unfettered by a general belief in the
impropriety of supporting centres of denominational education
from public funds, may be able to terminate the tangle by cut
ting the knot. It may thus, as was stated above, win the grati
tude, if not the support of the Koman communion, without
alienating the Protestant Church of Ireland, whose peculiar in
terests may be specially safeguarded. In so doing it is certain to
arouse the animosities, and alarm the prejudices, of the Non
conformist bodies of the North ; but secure in its great major
ity, it can perhaps afford to do so.

These bodies, too, as forming a large part of the Ulster tenant
class, are above all other men concerned with the settlement of
questions left open, or as they believe unfairly decided, by the Land
Act of 1881, and by the subsequent construction of its provisions
by the courts of law. It is assumed, and may be announced before
these lines are in print, that action will be deferred until next
year, by means of a short bill postponing the date at which ap
plications for fixing a new rent may be lodged. Such procedure
will afford longer time for speculation upon the character of a
measure for which Mr. T. W. Russell and Mr. Macartney, both
members of the new government, and hitherto hopelessly apart on
land questions, will each be more or less responsible.

There may be some Irish landlords who look with little enthu
siasm upon this transfer from Liberal to Conservative hands of the
matter which chiefly concerns them. They may remark that pos
sible concessions to the Roman Catholic Church on education
may render it advisable to conciliate Northern Protestant opinion
by free amendment of the land acts ; they may remember the un-

THE OUTLOOK FOR IRELAND. 877

palatable measures of 1887 and 1891, the work of Lord Salisbury's
former administration; and they maybe fully assured that, protest
as they will, English Conservative noble lords, so prompt to rush
to their aid when a Liberal government is in office, will look on
with apathy or a shrug while they are immolated upon the altar
of party necessity, and a similar or perhaps stronger measure is
genially introduced by Lord Ashbourne from the bench on the
right of the throne.

Time alone can show how far the pressure of circumstances
may force the hand of the government. Their principal aim, as
we are told, is to preserve a dead calm over Ireland, and to give
no single interest a handle for agitation. It stands to reason that
the most " loyal," and therefore least assertive, classes are most
likely to be driven to the wall, as being least able to resent or
retaliate for severe treatment.

For the rest, a policy of conciliation may be based on a profuse
expenditure from public funds. So 'long as the British taxpayer
is willing to provide it, no friend of Ireland can object to the dis
tribution of drafts on the Exchequer, if only they can be allotted
without waste and without blighting the growth of the delicate
plant self-help. In the past some public money has been
wisely and profitably laid out, and a considerable amount
has been entirely wasted. There are districts in Ireland in which
the failure of a single crop means short commons to all and star
vation to some. Here the ordinary operation of the poor law
must be supplemented by grants from the general fund. On the
other hand, the names of two places rise to the mind of the writer.
Both have been largely assisted from public and private sources,
and in each the result has been a marked lowering of the char
acter of the inhabitants and a relaxation of their efforts to earn
an independent living. It may be a strong temptation to earn
some easy cheers from a smiling western crowd, and to see one's self
belauded in the newspapers by some worthy priest for whom one
has transformed the world by providing access to his parish. But
these joys may be too dearly bough tat the cost of weakening that
spirit of self-reliance which it should be the object of all govern
ments to develop.

Nobody can pass some years in Ireland, especially in an offi
cial capacity, without becoming alive to the folly of dogmatizing
upon the future course of events in the country. Much uncer-

378 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tainfcy must necessarily surround the immediate outcome of Irish
politics. Neither English party is in a position to say that it
can govern the country according to its desire. The Con
servatives may at any moment be obliged to return to the
exasperating methods of coercion, and to the weary see-saw of
repression and reprisals. The Liberals, meanwhile, now frankly
admit that Ireland cannot be permanently ruled by Englishmen
of any party according to Irish ideas. Irish Nationalist ideas
are by no means the same as English Liberal ideas, although a
Liberal government, we hope, carries out its administrative
duties in a more sympathetic and less alien spirit than do its
opponents.

The Irish on their part will have need for the exercise of much
patience and self-control. It is not easy to see what advantage
is anticipated from a rather childish demonstration such as the
return of the convict Daly for Limerick city. It is only right to
mention that the cause of the dynamite prisoners generally, and
of Daly in particular, is supported by many Irishmen and Irish
women, who hold in abhorrence the dynamite creed, but believe
the convict to be innocent ; others again, while admitting at any
rate the partial guilt of the prisoners, maintain they have been
sufficiently punished by a considerable term of penal servitude.
This is a point that may fairly be argued, but the election, said
to be the reward of services to the Irish cause, seems to impale
upon a dilemma those responsible for it. What were those ser
vices ? Surely not the employment of dynamite ? If, on the
other hand, Daly be innocent, he is an exceedingly ill-used man,
and should receive every possible apology and compensation that
the law can offer. But it is not clear how even this supposition,
in the absence of substantial and known political claims, is to
qualify him for the representation of an important constituency.

We believe that the great Unionist triumph neither involves
any abatement of Ireland's claims, nor an abandonment of her
constitutional position. " Unfinished questions," it has been
said, " have no pity for the repose of nations." Not very long
ago it seemed likely that the Home Rule ship might make the
harbor for which she was steering, but she was swept by the gale
far out into the open sea. To retrace her course she must beat
painfully against the wind ; but she will reach home at last.

OREWE.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

"ST. ANTHONY'S BREAD."

LESS than three years ago there was founded, in the back room of a small
store on a side street in Toulon, a charitable project which bids fair to do
more towards bringing about the solution of the social problem in France
than all the congresses and conferences that have been held, and all the
books and articles that have been written with that end in view. It is
rapidly assuming the proportions of an international economic movement
of the first magnitude.

This charity, which has become an object at once of the astonishment
and admiration of all Europe, is named " St. Anthony's Bread," after St.
Anthony of Padua, and it is by the voluntary contributions of his clients
that it is maintained.

" St. Anthony's Bread" comprises not only food, but also clothing and
medical attendance— everything, in fact, necessary for the relief of the poor
in general, and of the sick and afflicted poor in particular ; for its directors
wisely hold that with this class one should always " make the good God
visible." They ascertain the names of the laborers in the various parishes
who are out of employment and help them to procure work, quite irrespec
tive of their religious belief, or want of religious belief. Orphans are sent
to school, the aged, the blind, the deaf and dumb are all placed in special
establishments ; letters are written for those who are themselves unable to
write, and advice procured from either doctor or lawyer when needed.
While the deserving poor are thus sought out and all their wants supplied,
professional beggars are tracked and exposed.

The promoters of this charity, however, do not labor merely to solve the
Social Problem, important though that work undoubtedly is. The corpor
eal necessities of the poor are relieved through the medium of " St. An
thony's Bread " only on the understanding that their spiritual duties are
not neglected. The conditions imposed upon the workmen in this regard
are of the lightest possible character. For example, one of the publications
issued under the auspices of " St. Anthony's Bread" consists wholly of light
literature, except for one brief paragraph of religious matter at the end of
the last page. "We must give them the feuilleton or they would not read
the instruction," it is explained. In friendly conferences, held at stated
intervals, the same clientele is taught the lesson of mutual help and sym
pathy.

The writer recently had an opportunity of witnessing the practical work
ing of this charitable project in the ** toughest " quarters of Paris, and has
also discussed its various phases with Frenchmen of every shade of belief, all

380 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of whom with one accord acclaim its promoters as the nation's benefactors.
Indeed, it will be surprising if "St. Anthony's Bread "does not result in
the complete regeneration of the French working classes— and if of these,
why not of the working classes of all Europe and beyond ? For the scope of
" St. Anthony's Bread " is no longer confined to France. As, at the start, it
spread from town to town throughout France, so is it now spreading from
country to country throughout the world. It is interesting to learn that this
great work is to be introduced into the United States during the coming
winter. The result will be watched with interest.

As is well known, the literature of the social question is immense, and
is growing rapidly every day. Herr Stamhammer, in his Bibliographic des
Socialismus, enumerates some five thousand works more or less immediately
dealing with it, and the catalogue is by no means complete. Words ! There
were storms of words on this same subject long before the French Revolu
tion. Theories are very well ; we may combat Mr. George and quote
passages from Albertus Magnus down to Leo Taxil, but in this century,
mere theorizing never brought about any reform. Action is the true policy,
and no steps that could be taken in this direction are more thoroughly
practical than those adopted by the founders of "St. Anthony's Bread."

"St. Anthony's Bread" is based upon the divine principle of charity.
And such Christian charities as this, which has for its aim the care of the
poor without distinction as to race or creed, not only provide a sovereign
balm for all the carking cares of the unfortunate, but have also the happy
effect of eliminating acrimony from the minds of men.

CHAKLES ROBINSOF.

THEN AND NOW.

No DOUBT there were splendid specimens of humanity, both physically
and intellectually, among the ancients. The Venus of Milo, the Apollo Bel-
videre, the Farnese Hercules were not evolved from the unassisted imagina
tion. Even if they were so evolved, they who conceived such glorious ideals
would themselves have represented a high type of mankind. The Iliad and
the ^Edipus Tyrannus are incontrovertible facts. Even among the earliest
prehistoric races there must have been men of wonderful genius and energy.
The man who kindled the first fire and broiled the first steak was the
peer of any modern discoverer, and he who first smelted iron ore was the in
tellectual equal of Edison himself. The prehistoric discoverer of the Ecliptic
was not surpassed in astronomical achievement even by him who ages
afterwards formulated the Nebular Hypothesis, or by him who chemically
analyzed the the stars. Some of us moderns are disposed to magnify unduly
the triumphs of our day in comparison with those of former ages, forgetting
that they who built the lower stories of the vast temple of human achieve
ment are as worthy of praise as they who raised it to loftier heights. It is
still far below its destined entablature ; but even those whose privilege it
shall be to place upon it its architectural crown in the sunlight of the
upper air, will deserve no better of their race than those who laid its foun
dations in the darkness of the past.

Others are equally disposed to glorify unduly the past in comparison
with the present. To them there have been no poets since Homer and Virgil,
no orators since Demosthenes and Cicero, no philosophers since Socrates and
Plato, no commanders since Alexander and Hannibal, no artists since Phid
ias and Apelles. wTo them only the dead languages are the fitting vehicles of

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 381

beautiful and sublime thought. The modern tongues, in spite of Brown
ing, Goethe, Hugo, Tolstoi, Whitman, are, asBlackie called them, "but
barbarous jargon."

Now I attach very little importance to the probable fact that, if the Iliad
had been done for the first time in English, with all its picturesque power
(with all deference to those who would insist upon the impossibility of such
a feat), it would stand no chance whatever of acceptance by the great Ameri
can publishers. Its rejection would, no doubt, be accompanied by the consol
ing statement, made in perfect good faith, that it was not on account of lack
of literary merit, but simply because it was not suited to present needs. Pos
sibly some slight hope of acceptance might be encouraged if the twenty-four
books were condensed to twelve. And this, by the way, might not have been
so absurd a suggestion as it might appear to the school of antiquity-worship
pers, who regard every line of the immortal poem as sacred, to whom even the
interminable "catalogue of ships" would not bear abbreviating, notwith
standing the manifest fact that the chief concern of the compiler was, lest
he might inadvertently slight the skipper of one of the insignificant little
boats. Imagine the whole Lilliputian fleet participating in the international
naval review of two years ago ! What would Agamemnon and Achilles
have thought of those mighty dragons of modern warfare, breathing forth
clouds and shaking the earth with their roar ? Would not their trumpery
Zeus and Ares have sunk into insignificance by comparison ? But then, on
the other hand, suppose the glowing imagination of the childhood of our
race had b^en brought to bear upon the mechanical achievements of its
manhood ; suppose, for example, that Homer could have witnessed that
grandest of all naval spectacles in the history of the world— should we not
have had something more adequate in its commemoration than long-winded,
gossipy newspaper reports and a few feeble rhymes in the magazines ? Sup
pose, again, that the Blind Bard of Seven Cities could have visited the
White City in 1893, would any magazine have rejected the epic he would
have been constrained to write in favor of any little lyric or ode that it act
ually inspired ?

But then we may have the epic yet, for poetry is not dead, even if the
world has outgrown its glowing childhocd.

Manifestly the world is aging far more rapidly than formerly, but it has
not reached its decrepitude, as many seem to think. The time has not
come for it to ignore the present and the future, and dwell only on the re
mote past, like the old dotard who sits by the fire and thinks only of the
wonderful things he did when he was a boy.

Whether the individual man of to-day is, on the whole, naturally a finer,
stronger, nobler being than his ancient progenitor, is a difficult question.
Pessimists say he is a degenerate being in spite of his schoolhouses, his uni
versities, and his oceanic literature ; his telephones, his electric cars, and
his world's fairs. As a superabundance of food does not necessarily produce
highly developed bodies, so, they say, a superabundance of mental pabulum
does not create intellectual giants. A man may travel over the whole civil
ized world, and return to his home with only a jaded interest in human
achievements, with sensibilities only the more calloused to the novel, the
ingenious, the beautiful, and the sublime. On the other hand, the optimist
holds that each succeeding century has lifted the race to a higher plane of
being ; that, where a man is subject to more new impressions in a day than
his remote ancestor received in a year, perhaps, his powers must necessarily

382 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

develop more rapidly. This would, of course, be true if he retained his im
pressibility. An impression upon wax, however, and an impression upon
marble are two very different things, as we learned in our First Reader
in the primary school.

But whether the individual man has increased in stature or not, there
is no denying that the race as a whole has grown from feeble infancy to
vigorous manhood, and that every living member of it would vastly prefer
his share in existence to that of one of Homer's contemporaries, classical
enthusiasts to the contrary notwithstanding.

EDWARD P. JACKSON.

COUNTRY ROADS AND TROLLEYS.

FROM the Colonial era till now the country roads in America have been
a reproach to our civilization. Before the War of the Revolution plans
were now and again discussed for bringing the various colonies into closer
communion by means of well-located and well-constructed highways. In
some of the colonies short stretches of good road uniting towns and settle
ments were built, but there was nothing like a comprehensive system of
roads uniting the fringe of settlements along the Atlantic coast, which then
constituted the populated part of the continent. The idea in England at
that time was that road-making was a matter of purely local concern, and
the application of this idea resulted so disastrously that people in one dis
trict would suffer for necessaries of life, when twenty miles away these very
things in unneeded abundance would be perishing from decay. English
ideas prevailed in the American colonies, and the roads remained un
improved.

After the War of the Revolution the men who had a genius for adminis
tration and the building up of commonwealths appeared to see with entire
clearness that the States ought to be connected by a system of good roads,
and that branches of these principal roads should unite the various parts of
each State. Alexander Hamilton advocated road construction and im
provement by the Federal and State governments, and Washington with
his practical common sense, recommended that the opening, the making
and the maintenance of roads be taken absolutely away from the local
authorities. But less wise men could not see how the people of a city
were interested in the roads in the country, and why those of one neighbor
hood should concern themselves about the roads twenty or fifty miles away,
which they rarely if ever used. And so, as before the Revolution, the
country highways continued, for something like half a century, to be con
trolled by the purely local authorities.

Meantime Napoleon had given to France a wonderful network of roads ;
and her agriculture and manufactures nourished notwithstanding un
paralleled drains upon her for men and money. In England too the old
parish and neighborhood idea of road construction had been in a great
measure abandoned and roads after the plans of McAdam and Telford had
been constructed nearly all over the kingdom. There was activity too in
America and at last the principle was recognized by Congress and by several
State legislatures that road-making was a matter for both Federal and
State assistance. Several ambitious projects were discussed and the Federal
government agreed to lend its aid to the construction of the National Road
from tide water in Maryland to the navigable waters of the Ohio River.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 383

This work was started, but the plan was never carried out ; and to this
day the United States government is a defaulter in its obligations as to the
building of this great road.

This abandonment of plans and abrogation of interest would not have
been suffered, had it not been that the attention of the people was now di
rected towards another kind of highway— the steam railroad. The nervous
and sanguine Americans of half a century ago were so sure that they would
not need wagon roads any longer, as the railroads would serve their every pur
pose, that they permitted their long cherished plans for road improvement
to be abandoned and these highways lapsed into the care of the local
authorities who wreaked upon them an ignorant revenge. In the older
time the local authorities merely neglected the roads. Now they " worked "
them. Several times a year the road inspectors summoned the valetudina
rians and other incapables to their assistance and at great expense they
piled the dirt from the ditches and the sod from the banks into the middle of
the roads, where these materials served to impede and almost entirely stop
travel, till the kindly rains washed them back where they rightly belonged.

Less than ten years ago, however, a systematic agitation for the better
ment of our country roads was begun, and the influence of this has been
felt in every part of the country, while here and there in several of the States
the roads of whole counties have been regraded, drained and paved accord
ing to the most modern ideas of highway engineers. The record would be
most incomplete were it not noted that this agitation was begun, and in a
great measure has been kept up by the bicycle riders of the country. For
some years road improvement has been one of the most vital of the public
questions, and has been discussed with ever increasing interest by State
legislatures and county boards. In the aggregate, very little actual building
has been done, but in fourteen or fifteen States more liberal road laws have
been enacted, laws under which the improvement and maintenance of the
roads are less difficult than hitherto. In several of the States laws have been
passed under which, under certain conditions, State aid can be given for
better roads, and under which also when taxpayers require it the county
authorities are compelled to make the needed improvements. But always
the road improvers have had bitterly to fight the theorists who maintained
that this was a matter of purely local concern. But progress has been
steady though not rapid, and in some counties of New Jersey and
Pennsylvania many miles of excellently smooth Me Adam pavement have
been laid. And wherever this has been done the people soon became en
thusiastic in the praise of these better highways, for before two seasons have
passed in any such locality an unaccustomed prosperity has prevailed, and
business activity has taken the place of that stolid patience which is generally
a sad and discouraging characteristic of the country side.

But the movement is in sad danger, and more in need of friends than
ever before. Just as the steam railroad came into being to kill the efforts
of the road builders of a former generation, the trolley is with us now, and
the extension of these electric railways menaces road improvement in more
ways than one. If we abandon our efforts for better common roads with
the idea that the trolleys will satisfy all our needs we will in time realize
that the extension of trolley railroads makes good common roads all the
more important and necessary, for the trolleys will quicken the life and the
movement in the country and make any slow and laborious movements over
bad roads more irksome than before. Whenever there is an available

384 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

water power a trolley railroad can be operated at an expense ridiculously
small when compared to that of the ordinary steam railroad. The country
people of this and the growing generation do well to look forward to the
trolley railroad as likely to do them immeasurable good. But a fatal mis
take will be made if they act upon the idea that when the trolley is in every
neighborhood the old highway will not be needed. The old fashioned road
will be needed more than ever. The accomplishment of speed begets a de
mand for speed. People will not be content to labor and flounder through
bogs and mudholes for half a mile [because they can fly the remaining ten
miles of their journey.

But the men who are engaged at present in extending trolley lines
into the country are attempting a much greater wrong than that of the
mere neglect of the improvement of the country roads. They are attempt
ing to seize upon these roads and to convert them to their own uses. They
appear to lie in wait to take possession of a country road so soon as it shall
be put in excellent order for them. The unimproved roads are not nearly
so eligible for trolley tracks, but the improved road with its easy grades, its
excellent drainage and its Me Adam pavement is a trolley roadbed ready
made and waiting for the tracks. And so they beset the County Free
holders or County Commissioners for permission to lay these tracks by
which, they say, the country people will get genuine rapid transit. More
frequently than not the trolley managers get this permission without diffi
culty, and when the tracks are laid the improved road is ruined for ever.
When trolley builders have failed to get the permission of the authorities they
have exercised the right of eminent domain and have seized upon the coun
try roads. But here, as also in the other method, they have evidently gone
beyond any privilege warranted by law, for the Supreme Court in Pennsyl
vania, in a recent case, has held that " the laws originally framed to provide
transit by street railroads did not anticipate the conversion of suburban and
rural roads into long lines of transportation, connecting widely separated
cities. The streets of a city or borough are in the control of certain pre
scribed officials, who grant franchises with the consent of the mayor. The
laws, however, very clearly confine the lines of transit within the city or
borough limits. Township committees do not enjoy the power invested in
city officials ; the former have no power to grant the use of roads or subject
them to a servitude for the benefit of any corporation."

It is desirable, to be sure, that trolleys should be near common roads,
for then they are more easily accessible to those who are to use them ; but
they should not be over the pavement, nor yet between the pavement and
either of the ditches into which the surface water drains. The pavement of
a roadway is made for driving on, and the laying of railroad tracks of any
kind ends that use quite effectually. Nor should the tracks be put
between the pavement and the ditches, for the tracks would interfere with
the surface drainage and the pavement and the whole roadbed would be
ruined the first time there was a freeze. The side of the road beyond the
ditches appears to be the place for trolley roads, for there they would be
quite easy of access and not dangerous to life and to rights as sacred as life
itself. But permission even for such locations should not be acquiesced in ;
the trolley builders should be compelled to acquire rights of way by lawful

means.

JNO. GILMER SPEED.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. CCCCLXVII.

OCTOBEB, 1895.

THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION.

BY THE HON. VY. T. ATKINSON, GOVEBNOK OF GEORGIA,

EACH age has had its distinguishing characteristic by which it
has been designated in history, and the latter half of the nineteenth
century might aptly be termed the era of expositions. Beginning
with the great Crystal Palace of London in 1851, which was the
first international exhibition, it will close an exact period of fifty
years with the proposed Paris Exposition of 1900, having
included besides during that period a dozen magnificent indus
trial exhibitions at such prominent points as Paris, London,
Vienna, Philadelphia and Chicago. While the exposition is
but the natural successor of the market fairs of the middle
ages — of which an interesting example survives in the great
fair that draws for several weeks of every year hundreds of
thousands of visitors of every race to Nijni-Novgorod — and the
legitimate outgrowth of the state and county fairs of America
and other countries, yet it has so far surpassed these latter in in
terest and importance as nearly to crowd them out of existence
with its dwarfing proportions. The exposition has thus become
a most important feature of our latest civilization, and one whose
vast results can only be cursorily touched upon within the limits
of this article.

The first pretentious exhibition of the resources and products

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 25

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BBYOE. All rights reserved.

386 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the Southern States, which had scarcely recovered sufficiently
from the devastation of war and the troubles of the reconstruction
period to be represented at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876,
was held in Atlanta in the fall of 1881, and was successful not
only in attracting immigration and capital towards Georgia, but
also in encouraging our own citizens by an imposing demonstra
tion of the progress they had made. So great was its influence
upon our industrial advancement that the very grounds and build
ings in which the exposition was held were turned into cotton
mills. This was followed by the Louisville Exposition in 1883,
at which there was a fine display of Southern products ; and in
1884-85 New Orleans made a still greater exhibit at the World's
Industrial and Cotton Centenary Exposition. Now, while the
wonders of the Chicago World's Fair are still fresh in the minds
of all, while the effects of a great panic, in the very throes of
which the project was born, are still being felt all over the coun
try, Atlanta is holding her second exposition, which not only sur
passes all former exhibits of Southern products but in many re
spects even transcends the attractions of the "White City."
If this appear an exaggeration, let it be remembered that each of
the expositions mentioned had the mistakes as well as the suc
cesses of all previous ones to profit by. The exhibit made by the
United States government, for example, with all the material of
the World's Fair to start with and an additional appropriation of
$200,000 to draw upon, is much more complete in every depart
ment than upon any previous occasion. In other ways it is
claimed, and I believe without undue assumption, that this fail-
is superior to that of Chicago, quality and not quantity being
considered.

The appropriation of $200,000 for its own display is all the aid
that has been asked for or received from the Federal Govern
ment by the inaugurators of an enterprise that is estimated to
cost $2,000,000 from the time it was begun to the time the gates
close on the last day of this year, and may easily cost more. The
people of Georgia may be misled by their pride in the pluck and
enterprise of their capital city, but they do not believe that there
is anywhere another city of less than 100,000 inhabitants that
would undertake, unaided, an enterprise of such magnitude. There
were good reasons why the " Cotton States and International Ex
position " should be held at this time. Impoverished by war and

THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 387

exasperated by the limitless prodigality of reconstruction govern
ments, when the citizens of the Southern States finally regained
control of their own affairs they inevitably went to the other ex
treme and framed their new constitutions with such careful
niggardliness that no appropriations could be made by any legis
lature, however liberal in its views, except for the absolute neces
sities of administering the government. According to the strict
construction of the province of a republican government, this
may in reality be a proper public policy ; but in comparison with
the broad-gauge modern administration of affairs in sister States,
it often places the Southern States in the embarrassing position
of poor relations. At any rate, it prevented them from making a
proper representation at the Columbian Exposition. After it
was too late, after they had seen and realized the magnitude of
that great "World's Fair, and the benefits which might result
from it, the citizens of Georgia regretted that they had not done
by private subscription, even at some individual sacrifice, what
the State was forbidden to do. So the leading people of Atlanta
took hold of the matter and resolved to show the world that it
was to no poverty of resources, largely undeveloped though some
of these might be, that the failure to exhibit at Chicago was due.
The people of the other Cotton States took the same view, and
the result is that the world is being edified and delighted with
such an exhibit of Southern industries, products, resources and
achievements as was never seen at any exposition before, and as
few of the citizens of this section ever dreamed to be practicable.

Foreign nations likewise have been impressed by the char
acter of this exposition and have prepared exhibits creditable in
every way to the occasion. Thus the world not only has a chance
to see what the South is and get a glimpse of its present glorious
possibilities and future greatness, but the Southern exhibitor or
visitor may compare his achievements with those of others and be
the gainer thereby. Especially have the Spanish- A rre^can
nations manifested a deep interest from the beginning of the
enterprise and aided in every way in their power one of the chief
ends for which it was inaugurated — the promotion of closer rela
tions with the other countries of this continent whose trade would
seem naturally to belong to us. South America furnishes close
at hand a vast market for the very grade of cotton goods that the
South is now manufacturing in greatest abundance, and one

388 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

which has been but little developed by our manufacturers. Jeans
and cottonades are the general and typical dress of the South
American, along with the different grades of white cotton goods,
and there is no reason why England's present supremacy in this
trade should not be contested and overcome. These nations are
also large consumers of agricultural implements, which the South
has every facility for manufacturing — cheap timber, iron, labor
and coal, which are fast being taken advantage of in this and all
other lines of manufacture and development. The wonderful
natural products of our sister republics are in turn spread before
our eyes to tempt the desires of the shrewd trader into which the
Southerner has developed since he has been taught the folly of
being simply a cotton producer for the rest of the world.

He would be no true American who should not go to the ut
most limit in his conceptions of the future achievements, not
only of his own country, but of modern inventive genius, and the
Titanic force of capital. More than anywhere else the true
spirit of Americanism exists in full force in the South, and
hence we are ready and expecting the ultimate, and in all proba
bility speedy, completion of the Nicaragua Canal ; and we be
lieve that with the return of enterprise and investment, so long
dormant that they must soon awaken, no adequate field can be
found for their energies except in the building of an inter-conti
nental railway along the line of the Andes and their northern
continuations. The one would give the whole United States easy
access and cheap transportation to the vast trade of the Orient,
now so far away except to the few Pacific States ; the other would
insure rapid communication with our sister continent that could
not fail to bind us in the closest commercial union. By the suc
cess of either or both of these schemes the Southern States
would be the quickest and greatest beneficiaries, by virtue of
their geographical position. Hence the desirability of better ac
quaintance and closer communion with the nations of the South
and the East has been held constantly and successfully in view
by the promoters of the Cotton States and International Expo
sition.

But the chief benefit of the present exposition, as it was of
the exposition held in the same city fourteen years ago, is the
better understanding which it is expected to promote between
tho Northern and the Southern sections of this great nation of

THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 389

our own. The Chicago Fair demonstrated that even the greatest
exposition ever held in the world was not great enough to attract
to this new country any large number of foreigners, the majority
of whom seemed to hold that their older civilization and develop
ment leave nothing further to be expected or even desired. So
those who will make or unmake the success of this exposition, so
far as attendance goes, must be the citizens of the United States ;
and there are many things here to' interest the best- informed as
well as the most inquiring Northern and "Western visitors, not to
speak of the genuine Southerner, whose attendance in large num
bers is already assured.

The South still remains largely an unknown land to the aver
age Northerner, and its topography, flora and fauna, habits and
customs, are almost as unfamiliar to him as to the untravelled
inhabitant of another continent. Shut off from any close com
munication with each other for the first two-thirds of the century
by the vital difference in their labor systems, the Northerner first
became acquainted with the real aspect of the South as a member
of an invading army. That what he saw, even through hostile
eyes, was not altogether unpleasing, is evidenced by the number
of Sherman's soldiers who afterward settled in Georgia ; and while
the larger proportion of Union soldiers did not get so far into the
South, the number of veterans who have since settled in this
section further sustains the good opinion we ourselves hold, that
to know our section better is to love it more. The returning
soldiers, then, introduced a little leaven that is still felt ; but
after the war the country was rapidly filled up by a flood of immi
gration that for over two decades poured in from Europe almost
without cessation, and filled up the vacant places of the North,
East, and West. Partly in accordance with a great natural law,
and partly owing to the circumstances that the controlling influ
ences were all in the victorious section, and NewYork was the only
great port of entry, this tide of immigration flowed only on lines
of latitude, and almost none of it seeped into the South. All
the great railroads were built at that time to develop the "West and
fill up its unoccupied lands. Only one straight north and south
line, the Cincinnati Southern, was built to connect what was then
the metropolis of the West with the gateway of the South ; and
the purpose of this was not' to bring immigation and capital into
the South, but to divert Southern trade away from New York to

390 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Cincinnati. All these potential factors have operated to keep the
North and South apart, not to rake up political reasons that have
so recently been buried that they are better left undisturbed. In
view of the labor and socialist disturbances that an element of
foreign immigrants has made more violent, as well as the congested
condition of society and trade in the older Northern and Western
States, it is easy to believe that the South, quietly working out its
own destiny, has not really suffered by this apparently unequal
distribution of fortune's favors. At any rate, it has left intact an
American civilization of the highest order and the purest character,
with many broad acres of land, which the experience of the North
has taught us to offer only to a select and desirable class of immi
grants, that we may escape the very mistakes that we did not have
an opportunity to participate in at the time they were committed.

All this is said in no disparagement of the many citizens of
foreign birth who have enriched the history of our country,
added lustre to its annals both in war and peace, and to-day con
stitute a portion of our best and most useful citizenship. It
refers only to that indiscriminate desire for mere numbers in
population which has inundated some States with the ignorant and
degraded, whose coming could not be checked after the dangers
which followed the coming of such classes became apparent. We
do not believe that in this broad land and under our enlightened
government there should be any discrimination against a foreigner
simply because he is a foreigner — it has not been so very long
since our ancestors were all foreigners — but we do believe that the
time has come when the privilege of American citizenship should
be more highly valued and more securely guarded.

As to the development that has kept pace with the world in
manufacturing and other lines, and the resources that could be
catalogued only by exhausting the lists of mineralogy, forestry,
agriculture, and pomology, these must be left for the visitor to
see for himself as he passes through the thirteen large main
buildings in which the exhibits of the Cotton States Exposition
are barely contained.

Of equal if not greater importance to the prospective
settler or investor than the character of the soil and
climate, is the character of the society in his new environ
ments. He who has travelled much over this country must long
ago have been struck by the fact that the generality of the people

THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 391

are about the same everywhere. In the so-called wickedest local
ities, he may be astonished to find much that is good, even if in a
crude state; while model communities, much as they lament it,
will continue to be sorely afflicted by some sinners. To the true
American there is no North, no South, no East and no West — he
adapts himself to circumstances and becomes a natural part of his
environments. The Southerner, as we have said, is essentially an
American; and anyone who has not had a chance to see him on
his native heath may know him by studying the essential
characteristics, but not the local idiosyncracies, of his American
neighbor. The haughty slave owner need no longer exist even
in the Northern imagination, for the very good reason that there
are no longer slaves; and most of the people now controlling the
aifairs of the South never knew what it was to own a slave, though
their parents may have had many of them. To-day all men here
meet on the common plane of worth; if that plane still remains a
high one, so much the better for us and for worthy people who
would cast their fortunes with us.

The condition of society in the South has been persistently
misrepresented by a large class of Northern periodicals and
writers. For a long time this was attributed to the malice of ig
norance and that prejudice which was natural for awhile between
the two estranged sections, as well as to political effect ; but now
it is more shrewdly surmised to have its origin in baser if not less
wicked motives. The object seems to be to maintain at any cost
the commercial and manufacturing supremacy of the North and
East by keeping capital and immigration from seizing the many
superior natural advantages of the South. It must be for this
reason that in certain Northern journals every crime that is com
mitted in the South, whether great or trivial, is enlarged upon
and invested with a sectional significance. It is useless to appeal
to the sense of fairness where the facts cannot all be fully pre
sented, or to make comparisons that might be so odious as to
close the ears of the hearer ; but it is worth the while of the resi
dent of any other section, who loves his whole common country,
to come down and see for himself that the South is neither the
home of crime nor the abode of lawlessness, and that the people
whom he will meet from every State in the cotton belt are as
quiet and peaceful citizens as himself.

Especially has the attitude of the South toward the negro been

392 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

misrepresented by the Northern press and misunderstood by its
readers ; and this is the more grievous and seems the more un
reasonable because the one thing which has clearly proved the
crowning glory of Southern manhood has been the way in which
the former owner has conducted himself toward the man who was
his slave but the day before. Returning from a war waged not
on behalf of the slave, but on account of him, the whilom mas
ter, and the freed man, each put his hand to the plough and worked
side by side in the furrows. And ever since the negro has had his op
portunity in every calling in life alongside of the white man — and
if the latter did not every time provide equally for the children of
both it was because sometimes his poor means failed, and the white
man always rejoiced when outside philanthropists supplemented
his efforts. The Georgia common school fund is divided in fair
proportions between the whites and the blacks ; there is a white
school of technology at Atlanta and a colored school of technology
at Savannah, and so in the other States ; there are colored farmers
and landed proprietors, colored carpenters, colored lawyers, doc
tors and members of the legislature in all the Southern States.
And in nothing will the Cotton States Exposition be found more
instructive than in the'marvellous progress shown in every line by
this emancipated people in their own building, designed by their
own architect and contributed to and controlled solely by their
own race. The movement was inaugurated by their leaders, and
their plans were heartily encouraged by the Exposition manage
ment. It was an opportunity they sought at the World's Fair,
but sought in vain, just as they have vainly sought other privi
leges elsewhere that are freely granted them in the land where
they were manumitted. Does this bear out the tales of oppres
sion so frequently told on the Northern stump and rostrum dur
ing thirty years past ? No oppressed race ever made such advance
from abjectness and barbarism to such a high state of progress in
the arts and inventions as will be evidenced in the ample space of
the negro building at this fair. Nor does any emancipated white
serf or peasant in the white countries of the world have the same
protection for life, liberty and property, nor the same opportuni
ties for the pursuit of happiness, as are afforded the negro in the
States where he was once a slave.

Half the value of this lesson is lost if the thoughtful ob
server does not realize and reflect that with all this the negro is

THE ATLANTA EXPOSITION. 393

not an integral part of Southern life and civilization. He was
brought here and detained as an alien element, and we fully real
ize that this makes our duty towards him the more exacting.
God never tried to make him the equal of the white man, and
the Southern Anglo-Saxon has too much reverence to attempt
such an improvement upon the Creator's handiwork. It has
been demonstrated to be impossible to put "black heels on white
necks"; there has never been any desire on the part of the inev
itably dominant race to trample upon the natural or legal rights
of the black. But the problem which the nation, unable to
solve, helplessly turned over to us, we claim to have in fair pro
cess of solution, and we confidently urge all mankind to visit us
and witness both the problem and the process.

These are some of the many things which make the Cotton.
States and International Exposition worth visiting even by those
who have reveled in all the marvels of past expositions. The
exposition is the epitome of the world's progress and- civilization,
and each new one marks an advance and sets new lessons to be
learned, so that it is not safe to rely upon those already seen.
The world moves with such rapidity that even in these days of
fast locomotion he who should go around it and immediately set
out again on the same journey would find new things to observe
all along his route. But it is no longer necessary to travel
further than to the exposition to see the world's marvels. The
wanderings of Ulysses become useless when all states and their
ways can be found on one spot, and the aphorism of Epictetus
that this world is one city is transformed into a literal fact.
What travel once did for a few, therefore, the exposition now
does for all ; it not only gives a sight of the strange and mar
vellous, the useful and beautiful of other nations, but an insight
into the character of the peoples and the causes, as well as the
effects, of their differing civilizations ; it sweeps away prejudices,
broadens the judgment, teaches that in all his diverse surround
ings man remains practically the same, and impresses upon both
the mental and the moral sense his universal brotherhood.

W. Y. ATKINSON.

POLITICS AND THE INSANE.

BY DR. HE^RY SMITH WILLIAMS.

Two or three centuries ago it was customary to deal with the
insane in a way that to us seems simply barbarous. The un
fortunate victims of mental disease were then thrust into dun
geons, and often chained there. They were scourged at times
with whips and clubs, and not infrequently they were burned or
otherwise executed for witchcraft.

It is an easy inference from these facts that our ancestors of
those days were a very inhuman and barbaric lot. But the va
lidity of this inference is very much weakened by the further
fact that the barbarous treatment of the insane just noted was
still everywhere in vogue — barring the pyre — a single century
ago, and continued to be practised but little modified, in many
places, far into the present century, at a period, that is to say,
when our own grandparents, and even our parents were on the
scene of action. Now we know that these immediate progeni
tors of ours were not barbarians, and this knowledge may serve
to vastly temper our judgment of our remoter ancestors. But
why did either the one or the other permit atrocities to be
practised which we now shudder to recall ?

The answer is very simple. Our ancestors remote and less
remote did not know that in treating the insane like dangerous
beasts they were acting inhumanly. Enslaved to custom — as
we all are — they dealt with the insane as custom dictated. They
thought the scourge a righteous instrument for casting out devils;
and it was not bad but misguided hearts that gave the pyre appro
val. In other words, it was ignorance, not viciousness, that swung
the lash and plied the faggot to the destruction of the pitiable
victims of mental disease. No doubt indifference and selfishness
contributed a full share toward keeping the people in ignorance,

POLITICS AND THE INSANE. 395

but be that as it may, ignorance itself was the cardinal sin
that led to the abuses which now seem so unaccountable; — ignor
ance as to what insanity really is, ignorance as to the real duties
that sane humanity owes to its alien unfortunates.

We of to-day do not scourge the insane or chain them in
dungeons. About a century ago three or four wise physicians—
Pinel in France, Tuke in Scotland, Rush in America — taught
the people that insanity is not a curse but a disease, and when
this new idea had had time to make its way against the prevail
ing misconception — when ignorance was in some measure ban
ished—a new era dawned for the insane. To-day kindness,
gentleness, tolerance, pity are the mottoes of those who deal
directly with the unfortunate, once called a madman or lunatic,
but now more charitably spoken of as an insane patient ; and
the people, no longer ignorant as to this particular matter, are
stirred to indignation at the mere suggestion that this spirit has
been violated in any given instance. All of which, according to
my contention, does not prove that we are infinitely better than
our grandparents, who quite approved the things we now
abhor ; but does show that we are grown in some ways vastly
wiser.

But unfortunately our wisdom is not yet all-inclusive, and in
dealing with the insane to-day we are making some mistakes that,
I suspect, will seem as anomalous to our descendants as the mis
takes of our ancestors seem to us. With one of these mistakes
we shall have to do in the present paper. I refer to the custom,
widely prevalent, though fortunately not universal, of allowing
partisan politics to become influential in the conduct of the asylums
in which the dependent insane are cared for. The baleful effects
of this custom are as yet fully understood only by those persons
who have had opportunity to view the subject as it were from the
inside. The public at large is still in ignorance of the real bear
ings of the matter : hence the continuance of the evil. Ignor
ance — fostered by indifference and selfishness — is still, as of old,
the explanation of the abuses which society tolerates. In the
hope of in some degree dispelling this ignorance, the present
paper is written.

Let me show by some illustrative examples, the ways in which
politics has encroached upon a domain that of all others should
be free from its infringements.

396 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The simplest and most readily demonstrable manner in which
this encroachment may be made, is by the direct application of
the spoils system to asylum appointments. This has been done
again and again in various of our States. Perhaps the most
recent, and certainly one of the most glaring illustrations is fur
nished by Kansas. When Populism triumphed at the polls in
that State, a mad stampede for the spoils began, and the
asylum for the insane at Topeka was among the institutions
on which the spoilsmen fixed their greedy eyes. With a woman
at their head, morels the pity, they descended joyously on this
asylum, and as it were sacked it without quarter. Faithful, ear
nest, competent officials and employees of the asylum who had
given their lives to the service, were ignominiously discharged,
without pretense of their being unworthy, simply because their
places were wanted to reward the politically faithful. Candor
was the only merit of the action. No charges were trumped up,
no attempt was made to conceal the real animus of the removals.
It was purely a question of partisan political affiliations, and no
one was asked to think it anything else. The official body that
had direct charge of the disgraceful procedure is called — one
really blushes to record it— the State Board of Charities.

And what a band of the faithful came to take the places of
the discharged officials ! There was real humor in the situation
were it not for the pity of it. The halt and the blind, intellec
tually and physically, trooped from all parts of the State, bring
ing their political credentials, and were at once installed in the
offices of the deposed asylum officials. Did they know aught of
the care of the insane, of the methods of asylum management?
Nonsense ! What did that matter ? Were they not of the faith
ful ? Had they not worked and voted for the dominant party ?
Were they not entitled to their reward ?

The sequel follows so naturally that it scarcely needs telling.
Managing a large asylum is no child's play, and of course mat
ters were soon chaotic at Topeka. Preseatly there was internecine
war among the faithful, culminating in the arrest of the Super
intendent on charges preferred by the Assistant Superintendent
— the former of course bringing counter charges. Within a year
the situation became so desperate that even partisan eyes could
no longer be blinded, and the experienced Superintendent who
had been deposed was recalled, to undertake the arduous task of

POLITICS AND THE INSANE. 397

bringing the asylum back to the high level on which it was be
fore the political onslaught was made.

Let me repeat that such onslaughts as this, and they are recur
ring constantly in one State or another, are permitted by the
people not through viciousness but through ignorance. The
people of Kansas are not barbarians, however subject they may
be to epidemics of the various phases of political insanity, but
they are, like people in general, profoundly ignorant of insanity
and all that pertains to its treatment. The State Board of
Charities simply failed to realize what they were doing when
they let politics threaten the welfare of the indigent insane of
Kansas. I trust that they are somewhat wiser now, and that their
experience may not be without a wholesome effect elsewhere.

Another chapter of the story of Politics and the Insane is
furnished by the experience of those States in which so called
double-headed asylums have been established. New Jersey fur
nishes a typical illustration. Here competent medical officers
are installed in the asylums, but these officials are wofully
hampered by the appointment of political wardens with powers
almost or quite equal to those of the chief physician. The full
implications of this system are not manifest to the uninitiated,
else it would long ago have been banished. I have not space to
detail them here, though the subject is tempting. Suffice it that
such a double-headed institution is as much a monstrosity among
asylums as is a two-headed human being among men. I am told
that there was such a human freak on exhibition in the museums
of New York not long ago. If I am correctly informed, the
right head of this anomalous being controlled the left leg, and
the left head the right leg; and the individual — or was it two
individuals? — could not walk, because the two brains could not
be taught to act concertedly. Well, a double-headed asylum is
crippled in much the same way. The plan of having two heads
for one organism is so radically wrong that no compensating
circumstances can make it work efficiently.

Do the good people of New Jersey wilfully perpetuate such a
grotesque system ? Assuredly not. Most of them do not even
know that they have such an anomaly among them. The poli
ticians begot the monstrosity, and maintain it for the patronage
it brings, and the people complaisantly submit to the imposition
simply because they do not know that it is an imposition ; just

393 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

as in most other affairs we let the boss politicians govern us while
in our ignorance we fondly nurse the delusion that we are govern
ing ourselves. But fortunately political affairs ha-ve changed recent
ly in New Jersey. Quite a different Board of Control from the old
political one now has charge of the affairs of the asylums of that
State, and at last there seems some reason to hope that, before
long, partisanship may give place to rationality in the conduct of
the great charity of caring for the indigent insane.

But perhaps the most telling illustration of the evils that
result when the political vampire fixes his hold on supposedly
charitable institutions is furnished by existing conditions in
regard to the care of the indigent insane in our large cities. It
has come to be accepted as quite in the natural order of things
that the insane wards of large cities shall be wretchedly cared
for. Boston furnishes an honorable exception, sending most of
her indigent insane to the excellent State asylums, but New
York, and Brooklyn, and Chicago, and Philadelphia — the com
munities where a large share of the wealth of this country is
aggregated — are disgraced in the eyes of right-thinking people
by the manner in which they care for their insane dependents.
And, in each case, the explanation given by those conversant
with the facts is that partisan politics enters into the conduct of
asylum affairs.

The exact methods by which the spoilsman operates vary
somewhat in the different communities, but the results to the in
sane are much the same everywhere. Perhaps I can best make
the matter plain by citing somewhat in detail the conditions as
they exist in New York city.

There are about 6,000 insane patients in the city asylums of
the metropolis. The buildings in which these patients are housed
have a normal capacity of about 4,000 inhabitants. Some of the
buildings are new and reasonably good, but many of them are
old and ill-adapted for asylum purposes, and a few are not decently
habitable.

As to the character of the food, clothing, and general atten
dance supplied these patients, a statement of certain financial
facts will perhaps be most convincing. The State asylums of
New York, which are excellently but not extravagantly conducted,
cost the State between four and five dollars per week for each in
mate, exclusive of special appropriations for building and repair,

POLITICS AND THE INSANE. 399

etc. Conservative persons agree that as much as this is necessary
to properly conduct the institutions, and in point of fact much
more than this — as much as $6 per week in some cases — has in the
past been at times expended.

Now the New York city asylums are much less favorably lo
cated, as regards economical management, than the country
asylums, yet the largest per capita expenditure per week for the
care of their inmates ever applied for their conduct is $2.80. The
difference between $2.80 and $5 therefore represents relatively
the difference between the conditions of the city and State asy
lums of New York, provided they were under equally judicious
management. No one need be told that $2.80 has not the pur
chasing power of $5, and nothing more need be said as to how
the insane dependents of New York city are clothed and fed and
attended.

But it remains to note the anomalous fact that whereas only
$2.80 is applied for the uses of the insane in the city asylums,
almost twice that sum is assessed upon the property of the tax
payers of the city for the care of indigent insane. The excess
over $2.80 — amounting in the aggregate to about $600,000 annu
ally — is turned into the State treasury, to be applied towards the
maintenance of the State asylum system, with which the city has
nothing whatever to do, beyond thus helping to support it finan
cially. Brooklyn does the same thing, and together these two
cities pay to the State half the entire sum required to conduct
the State asylum system. Meantime, as they half care for the
insane of the State, they also only half care for their own insane,
with the difference that in the latter case no one is at hand to
supply the other half. All of which seems very anomalous.

The explanation is found in the old story of politics — a story
of legislative deals, of machine manipulations, of spoils. It came
about in this wise. When the State Care Act, providing that the
State of New York should assume control of all dependent insane
and provide for them directly, instead of leaving that duty to the
several counties, was under discussion in the Assembly, the political
machines of New York city and Brooklyn had no mind to give up
control of the patronage that came to them through handling the
moneys appropriated by their respective cities for the care of the
insane. So, after a battle, a compromise was effected by which
these cities were to retain control of their own insane, provided

400 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

they paid their full pro rata shares of the tax for carrying out
the State system, exactly as if they were to enter into the system.
That is to say, they were to share the financial responsibilities of
the system without entering into its benefits.

Now, it is easy to see why the people outside the cities con
sented to this, since it took a large burden of taxation off their
shoulders, but it is not so evident at first glance why the cities
consented to be robbed in such a manner. The real reason, as
just intimated, was that the machines were determined to re
tain control of asylum patronage and were willing that the tax
payers should be mulcted indefinitely to accomplish that end, if
necessary.

And so the deal was consummated ; the State- Care Act — in
itself an admirable measure — was passed ; New York and Brook
lyn retained control of their insane, their taxpayers being
mulcted about $750,000 a year for the privilege ; the political
machines handled the funds and doled out patronage to their
friends ; and the insane — got along as best they might, housed
in buildings constructed and repaired by political contractors,
clothed by other political contractors, and fed by still others.

It must in justice be added that there is one mitigating
circumstance in connection with the systems under consideration.
This is the fact that worthy and competent medical officers are
in charge of the New York and Kings County asylums. These
men, hampered as the are by lack of funds, and by the political
propensities of the Commissioners to whom they are responsible,
have labored faithfully for their patients, and it would be doing
them great injustice not to recognize the value of their efforts.
Carrying such a handicap, their fight has been almost a hopeless
one, but they have kept it up bravely. Especially is this true
in New York city.

The local asylum systems of Philadelphia and Chicago have
not even this one redeeming feature. In both of these cities the
condition of the indigent insane is even worse than in New York.
There are competent medical officials in each case, it is true, but
these men are made subordinate to lay superintendents who, what
ever their qualifications, are political appointees. Under such con
ditions the best results in asylum management are not even to be
hoped for. It is conceded the world over that a medical man
should be the undisputed head of every asylum for the insane, so

POLITICS AND THE INSANE. 401

the Philadelphia and Chicago systems are utterly indefensible.
The reason they are persisted in is that the office of superintend
ent of the hospitals of which the asylums are a part, is one of the
political perquisites of the party in power; and that physicians are
seldom politicians of the spoilsman order.

The practical results of the political methods of caring for the
indigent insane of Philadelphia may be told in a few words, which
I quote from a personal letter written by one perfectly familiar
with the facts : " The present system consigns the insane to
wretched, crowded dark buildings, that have been odious and
odorous for half a century, with no facilities for suitable out-of-
door exercise or occupation. The plans and grounds of the asylum
belong to a period long passed, and within the buildings the al
lowance of fresh air equals but a few square feet per patient.
All in all, the condition of the insane here is one of the saddest
spectacles to be seen in this country. Yet the politicians have
obstinately resisted every effort for improvement. " It scarcely
needs saying that the reason the politicians resist efforts at im
provement, is that the existing system gives them better facili
ties for patronage than could be hoped for under an improved
system,— since in the nature of the case, improvement would
imply banishment of the politicians from the field.

As regards the condition of the indigent insane of Chicago — or
such of them as are not sent to the State hospitals — the ground
may be covered by saying that they are a few degrees worse off
than those of Philadelphia. Eight hundred to a thousand patients
are crowded into quarters that might with some semblance of
decency accommodate half as many. A political lay superin
tendent is in charge, and the spoils system has full sway in the
appointment of all employees, to the lowliest scrubber. The
abuses that have been from time to time unearthed in this in
stitution in the past ten years read like the records of a sixteenth
century " mad house. " They are quite too brutal and disgraceful
to be recorded here. The world already knows of them through
newspaper reports, which for once could hardly be exagger
ated.

The most that can be said for the Chicago system is that it is
probably not quite as bad as is was seven or eight years ago. At
that time the County Commissioners, who have ultimate author
ity in the matter — and several of whom are now in prison serving

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 26

402 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

well-earned sentences — set an example by falsifying bills for coal,
clothing and provision; the asylum Warden — who now keeps a
gorgeous saloon and gambling house in Chicago — followed close
in their wake (supplying himself with sixty suits of silk under
wear at county expense, among other accomplishments) ; and the
subordinate employees, many of whom were notorious women and
criminals, conducted themselves in all respects as might be
expected of such characters. The ultimate victims of each phase
of the political chicanery were, of course, the supposed recipients
of charity.

This, indeed, must be the obvious result everywhere of polit
ical interference with asylum affairs. Did space permit I would
show more in detail the channels through which such interfer
ence operates disastrously. But everyone who is at all familiar
with the meaning of the word "patronage," as applied to political
affairs, especially in our cities, can supply the details for himself
with sufficient accuracy. By recalling, for example, the number
of large contracts — for coal, food, clothing, building, repairing,
etc. — that must be given out each year by the persons controlling
asylum affairs, and which may be, and under existing conditions
are, given to political confreres exclusively, it will be understood
what a political leverage the money appropriated for the care of
the insane may be made to wield, even where there is no direct
stealing of public funds. How dearly the politicians prize this
patronage is well shown by the fact, already cited, that the
authorities of New York city and Brooklyn were willing to pay
three-quarters of a million dollars annually to the State rather
than relinquish their hold on the local asylums. Had they
chosen otherwise, their 9,000 indigent insane might have been
cared for properly and even handsomely, as is done in the State
hospitals, without a single dollar's additional expense to their tax
payers, instead of being treated wretchedly as they are at present.
But little enough cared the politicians for the interests of the
9,000 dependents as against the selfish and unlawful interests of
the political friends, whose loyalty, thus purchased, was needed
to maintain the integrity of the "machines."

At last, however, the power of the corrupt machines has been
broken, for the time being, in both New York and Brooklyn;
and, the friends of the insane seizing the opportunity so long
waited for, are making strenuous efforts to have the asylums of

POLITICS AND THE INSANE. 403

these cities transferred to the State system. The existing law
authorizes such a transfer, and unless some political trickery at
Albany interferes, the transfer will be effected within the next
few months. If this is accomplished — as all right-minded persons
must hope it will be— the asylums of these great municipalities
will be placed on the same high level with the existing State hos
pitals. It will be a striking and gratifying change from the
wretched conditions of the past and present, and it will give to
New York city and Brooklyn the enviable distinction of caring
for their indigent insane better than the similar dependents of
any other large city in the world are cared for. For it is a note
worthy fact that the large cities of the Old World have been as
derelict as our own in their provision for the insane. Political
interference is not with them as marked as with us, but every
where there has been a tendency to niggardliness in providing
for this most helpless class of dependents in cities, as compared
with the provision made for them in rural districts. The asylums
of Paris are antiquated and inadequate, and the same was true in
London until recently, when modern quarters were provided for
at least part of the insane. This London asylum, the new build
ing of the Boston asylum, and a few of the buildings of the New
York city asylum, furnish, so far as I am informed, the only ex
ceptions to the rule that the buildings in which the insane de
pendents of cities are housed are miserably unsuitable. No large
city, unless it be Boston (which, as already said, cares for only a
few insane directly), has an asylum plant that as a whole is any
thing like up to date and adequate.

And so it will continue to be while politics controls asylum
affairs. And that will be, as long as the residents of our cities
are sufficiently ignorant and indifferent to permit existing con
ditions to continue. As I have said over and over, it is ignor
ance and not viciousness on the part of the people as a whole
that tolerates the abuses that prevail. It was the awakening of
the people to true conditions last fall that enables us to hope for
reform in the management of the metropolitan asylum through
transfer out of the hands of the politicians. A similar arousing
of the people of other cities must be secured before reforms can
be effected, for the politicians will never willingly relinquish
one iota of patronage, and until they are forced aside little can
be done.

404 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Fortunately it is possible to point out the initial step which
the reform movement must take in all cities alike. This is the
separation of the affairs of the insane from those of every other
class of dependents. At present the affairs of different classes o£
dependents aud delinquents in all our large cities are merged
under control of a single board, known usually as a Board or
Commission of Charities and Correction, which in all cases is a
political board, and through which the political patronage is
controlled. This massing of interests of diverse classes is illog
ical and cumbersome (the New York Department of Charities
and Correction controls about 17,000 individuals), but in all
large cities it has been persisted in (having originated naturally
enough, perhaps, while the communities were relatively small),
partly through inertia, but very largely because the politicians
have felt that a division would result in loss of patronage. When
ever the people are wise enough to demand that the interests of
the insane be made paramount to the interests of politicians,
they will insist on making insane patients a class by themselves,
under independent management. A movement is on foot to
accomplish this in Philadelphia, and it would be accomplished,
of course, in New York and Brooklyn by the proposed transfer
to the State. It is to be hoped that both movements will pre
vail, and that Chicago and other cities may soon also find means
to emancipate their insane dependents from their political bond
age. It is a burning shame that the most helpless of defectives
should be preyed upon by politicians anywhere, and a double
shame that the communities in which most of the wealth of the
country is aggregated, and where the most advanced ideas are
supposed to prevail, should be especially subject to such van
dalism.

It is bad enough to see the spoils system applied openly to
the asylums of communistic Kansas; it is worse to see it applied
insidiously in New York. Only ignorance permits it in one
community or the other. 'But let it not be forgotten that ig
norance, when due to selfishness and indifference, may come to
be almost a crime.

HEKKY SMITH WILLIAMS.

BIRDS IN FLIGHT AND THE FLYING MACHINE.

BY HIRAM S. MAXIM.

THE ease with which birds can move from place to place has
always excited the envy of mankind, and from the days of Icarus
and Daedalus down to the present day, philosophers and mathe
maticians have tried to solve the secret of a bird's flight.

It has been asserted by many mathematicians, that if a bird
should be considered as a machine, it would be quite impossible
for it to fly, according to the accepted laws of aero-dynamics.

When Professor Darwin was in South America many years
ago he was unable to account for the flight of the condor. He
speaks of seeing condors circling about in a valley, rising higher
and higher without any perceptible motion of their wings.

Professor Proctor, the astronomer, while on a visit to Florida,
studied the flight of turkey buzzards. He observed that they
were able to soar quite independent of any motion of their wings.
They seemed to balance themselves on the air and move forward,
and sometimes upward, without the expenditure of any force at
all. He attempted to account for this on the hypothesis that as
they were moving forward at a very high velocity they did not
rest on the same air long enough for the air to be set in motion.

Professor Froude, the mathematician, while making a voyage
in the South Atlantic, observed the flight of that greatest of all
flyers, the albatross, and he admitted that no existing mathemati
cal formula could account for the soaring of these birds without
any apparent movement of their wings.

A great many others have written learned treatises on the
soaring of birds, but, as far as I know, nothing has yet been pub
lished which is altogether satisfactory. Some years ago, while
in Spain, I observed the flight of a pair of very large eagles.
They came into sight on one side of a large and level plain,

406 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

crossed it almost in a straight line and disappeared without a
single apparent motion of their outstretched wings.

I also saw eagles soaring in the Pyrenees in the same way.

I have crossed the Atlantic many times, and have studied the
flight of sea-gulls. Some of these birds are able to follow the
ship for days at a time, and it is no uncommon thing for a gull to
maintain a fixed position in the air as relates to the ship without
any apparent exertion at all, and to follow the ship exactly as it
would do if it were secured to it with a cord.

All these phenomena seem quite inexplicable if we consider
them on the basis that the birds are moving in stationary air.
Some mathematicians of the lesser order who only partly under
stand the question, have supposed that a bird is able to maintain
itself on a horizontal current of air, that is, a wind blowing in a
horizontal direction, but this would in no way account for the
phenomenon, because if a bird should hold itself in a stationary
position against a wind that was blowing 25 miles an hour, the
conditions would be identical with those which would obtain if
the bird were moving forward at the same velocity through sta
tionary air, and we should be quite as unable to account for the
soaring in one case as in the other.

Some years ago I passed a winter on the shores of the Medi
terranean in the south of France, where I had a good opportunity
of observing the mistral and also air currents over the bays in the
south of France. I have since made two trips through the entire
length of the Mediterranean, and have observed that the winds
do not blow in a horizontal direction at all, but that even in what
we call a dead calm there are always vertical currents. Some
times with the ship sailing in a very nearly calm sea, ripples ap
peared on the water, showing that there was a direct though very
slight head wind. I observed that these ripples became less and
less as the ship moved onward, until they completely disappeared
in a glassy streak, 300 or 400 feet wide and which extended on
either side of the ship in nearly a straight line as far as the eye
could reach. As soon as this glassy streak was passed I observed
that the wind was blowing in the opposite direction, that is, with
the ship; and then, perhaps a mile or two ahead, we would find
another glassy streak towards which the wind was blowing from
both sides. Over the first of these streaks the air was of course
descending, and over the other, ascending.

BIRDS IN FLIGHT AND THE FLYING MACHINE. 407

At Monte Carlo I obtained photographs of the surface of the
Mediterranean from the T£te de Chien, which is 2,000 feet above
the sea. These photographs show the whole surface of the sea to
be streaked like marble. Each glassy streak represents a neutral
zone where the air is either ascending or descending, while the
water which appears of a darker color in the photograph is
covered with small ripples, and on all occasions I observed that
the ripples on one side of the glassy zone were travelling in ex
actly the opposite direction to those on the other side.

Through the whole of the south of France we hear much of
the mistral, or a cold, vertical wind. One may be out driving,
the weather may be soft and balmy, when suddenly the carriage
enters a chilly zone. The air is travelling downwards, spreading
itself out over the surface of the earth, becoming warmed, and
ascending at some other point. The cause of these vertical cur
rents is, of course, the same as the cause of all winds. The rays
from the sun passing through the highly attenuated upper
stratum of the atmosphere do not encounter sufficient resistance
to communicate any perceptible heat to the air, but the denser
air near the surface of the earth becomes heated by contact with
the relatively warm earth. We often have, while the sun is shin
ing, a layer of cold air superposed on a layer of hot air. Now as
hot air has a less specific gravity at the same pressure than cold
air, it follows that these two layers of air are constantly changing
places, the relatively warm air at the surface of the earth ascend
ing, expanding, doing work and becoming cooled, while the cold
air from above settles to the earth to take the place of the warm
air. The velocity with which these vertical currents move is,
say, from one mile to six miles an hour, and their movement is
quite independent of any other horizontal current that the air
may have as relates to the earth at the same time. These cur
rents may be going on in a valley surrounded by mountains with
out any other action of the atmosphere. On a plain, however,
there is also another action taking place at the same time, but
which does not in the least interfere with the vertical action, that
is, the whole body of air may be passing along over the surface
of the earth at the rate, we will say, of 10 miles an hour, while
the vertical action is going on at a velocity of, say, four miles an
hour. The soaring of a bird may be compared with a boy sliding
downhill on a sled. If a hill is, say, 100 feet high, and the sides

408 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

slope off in a horizontal direction 2,000 feet from the summit,
and if the snow is smooth, a boy can mount a sled and advance
2,000 feet while he is falling, as relates to the earth, 100 feet ;
that is, the sled with the boy on it in falling through a distance
of one foot develops sufficient power to drive the sled forward
twenty feet, but when the boy is at the bottom of the hill and can
develop no more power by falling, the sled soon comes to a state
of rest. Suppose now that a hill could be made in such a man
ner that it would constantly rise at such a velocity that the
sled would never reach the bottom of the hill, the boy would
then be able to slide forever, and this is exactly what occurs with
a bird. A bird places its wings in such a position that, as it falls
in the air say one foot, it moves forward through the air twenty
feet, that is, it slides along on the surface of the air underneath
its wings in the same manner that the boy slides down the hill.
Suppose now that the velocity of the bird should be about thirty
miles an hour, this would account for the whole phenomenon of
soaring on an upward current of only one and one-half miles an
hour. With an upward current of two miles an hour, the bird
would rise, as relates to the earth, one-half a mile an hour while
actually falling through the air at the rate of one and one-half
miles an hour. There is no doubt that a bird, by some very
delicate sense of feeling and touch, is able to ascertain whether it
is falling or rising in the air. It is well known that fish have
this power. If a surface fish sinks too deeply in the water the
compression of its swim bladder produces a sensation or impres
sion upon its brain, which causes the fish to change its course,
and relieves the pressure by coming nearer to the surface, and a
similar thing is true of the deep sea fish. If they approach the
surface their swim bladder becomes enormously distended and no
doubt produces a sensation which the fish know is relieved by
again sinking into very deep water. If these fish are caught and
drawn to the surface, the distension of the swim bladder becomes
so great that it displaces all the other organs of the body. In all
probability the numerous air cells which are found in the body of
a bird are provided with delicate nerves, which operate in a simi
lar manner to those of the swim bladder of a fish, so that as the
bird is moving forward through the air it is able to take ad
vantage of a rising column of air. As a whole we may consider
that the rising columns of air would be half of the total area of

BIRDS IN FLIGHT AND THE FLYING MACHINE. 409

the earth's surface, so that a soaring bird would always have a
rising column of air which would serve as a support.

Referring to the eagles which I saw in the Pyrenees, on
one occasion I observed five of these birds about 500 feet above
the peak of a mountain and they were balancing themselves in
a stationary position on an ascending column of air produced by
the wind blowing over the peak, and seemed to be as much at
ease as if they were roosting upon a tree. With the albatross
and seagull it will be found that they always occupy the same
position as relates to the ship. As the ship passes through the
air, the air is divided exactly in the same manner as water
would be, and as it comes together again at the stern of the ship
it produces an upward current, and it is on this ascending column
of air that the albatross and the seagull find a resting place
and follow the ship for days at a time without any apparent
exertion ; but whenever they find themselves in front of the ship
or at one side where there is no ascending column of air they have
often to work their passage very much as other birds do.

But all birds do not soar. Ducks, geese, partridges and pheas
ants are types of birds which are provided with comparatively
small wings. They only remain on the wing for a short time and
while in the air exert an enormous amount of energy and move
at a very high velocity. They do not seem to have the power to
take advantage of ascending columns of air, but move in a straight
line quite independent of air currents, and it is these birds we
should seek to imitate in our attempts to navigate the air.

The experiments of Herr Lilienthal are very interesting. He
has provided himself with a large pair of wings and a tail. He
mounts a high hill and while the wind is blowing up the side of
the hill, he throws himself forward with great force against the
air and slides down on the ascending column very much as a boy
would slide down hill on a sled, his flight being exactly like that
of a flying squirrel. The power which drives him onward is of
course generated by the act of taking himself and the machine to
the top of the hill exactly the same as is the case with the boy
and the sled. Lilienthal has certainly proved that it is possible
for a man to balance himself in the air, and this at least is a solu
tion of one part of the problem of flight.

Professor Langley has lately made some small flying machines
weighing a few pounds which are said to fly a few hundred feet.

410 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Hargraves has also made some small machines weighing a few
ounces which are said to fly some two or three hundred feet.

Mr. Phillips, a clever engineer living near London, made a
email flying machine some years ago which rested on three wheels
and was driven by a steam engine. By bottling up his steam
and expending all that he had made in twelve minutes in about
half a minute, he was able to drive his machine at a sufficient
velocity round a circular track to lift two of the three wheels
clear of the track.

My own experiments have been made on a very much larger
scale than any heretofore conducted. It appeared to me that all
other experimenters had made their apparatus so small as not to
be able to get a large amount of power out of a small weight of
material. My large machine may be considered as a very large
and perfectly made kite, the framework consisting of very light
and strong steel tubes and covered top and bottom with balloon
cloth, waterproofed, and made very sharp fore and aft. To the
sides of this framework wings are attached which are also nothing
more nor less than kites. If my large machine should be taken
on to a level plain and be anchored to the ground, it would weigh
about 8,000 Ibs. in a calm, but if the wind were blowing at the
rate of forty miles an hour, its weight would be nil, while if the
wind should be blowing at forty-five miles an hour, it would raise
the whole machine and 2,000 Ibs. additional weight besides into
the air after the manner of a kite. But a wind of forty- five
miles an hour does not often occur and cannot of course be de
pended upon, so I have provided myself with a railway track 600
yards in length. If my machine is run into the air at a velocity
of forty-five miles an hour, the result is the same as it would be
if the machine were stationary and the wind was blowing at this
velocity. Instead of the anchor rope for pulling the machine
into the air, I use a pair of very large and well made screw pro
pellers, each driven by a very powerful and light steam engine,
and when these engines are running at a steam pressure of 310
Ibs. to the square inch, they develop 360 H. P., and produce a
thrust on the machine of 2,200 Ibs. If the machine were flown
like a kite in the air, in a wind blowing at forty-five miles an
hour, the strain on the cord which held it against the wind would
be 2,200 Ibs. Consequently when my screws push the machine
forward with a total thrust of 2,000 Ibs. in a calm air, the

BIRDS IN FLIGHT AND THE FLYING MACHINE. 4H

machine moves forward at forty-five miles an hour and the lifting
effect equals the weight of the machine and 2,000 Ibs. besides.
If I only had an ordinary railway track, some of the wheels of
the machine would be sure to leave the track before I had attained
a speed of anything like forty miles an hour, so that if I wish to
lift all the wheels off the track and not have the machine become
unmanageable, it is necessary that I should have something to
hold the machine down, and this is accomplished by providing
an inverted secondary track just outside and above the ordinary
railway track. Outriggers attached to the sides of the machine
are provided with four wheels which engage the underneath side
of this upper track whenever the machine is lifted clear of the
ordinary track. In this way I am able to run my machine to
show its lifting effect and still not allow it to get off the track
and become unmanageable. In the park where my experiments
have been conducted there is barely room for the machine to pass
between the large trees, so that manoeuvring near the ground is
quite out of the question. I have, however, proved that it is pos
sible to make a machine that has sufficient power to lift itself
into the air without the agency of a balloon, so it now only re
mains that I should obtain very much larger premises, unencum
bered by trees or buildings, where I can learn to manoeuvre my
machine. I am only able to devote a small fraction of my time
to these experiments, as I am and have been for many years, the
managing director of a great English company, but I have put
in all the time that I had to spare for the last five years, and the
experiments have led me to believe that the flight of man is pos
sible even with a steam engine and boiler. I would, however,
advise the young engineers who may read this paper, if they
wish to do something to advance the science of aviation, to turn
their thoughts in the direction of a petroleum motor. These
motors have been greatly improved of late years, and I believe it
is the petroleum motor that we must look to in the future as
being the engine which will drive our flying machines. Petroleum
is cheap and abundant; it may be obtained in any quarter of the
globe, and no other substance that we can obtain on a commer
cial scale contains such an enormous quantity of latent energy.

HIRAM S. MAXIM.

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

BY THE VERY KEY. F. W. FARRAR, DEAN OF CANTERBURY.

OUR daily familiarity with the conditions of things around us
often hinders our due apprehension of them. Yet it should cer
tainly be our earnest endeavor to amend to the utmost of our
power all existent evils, aad out of that duty to posterity by
which all true men are influenced, to avert, so far as we may,
the perils which menace the not distant future. Let us then
glance briefly at some of those problems of the close of this nine
teenth century, which it is blindness to ignore, and madness not
to appreciate in their full significance.

Among those problems and perils are :

I. The enormous growth of stupendous fortunes, without any
effectual diminution of those malarious marshes of struggling
poverty, and of the waste places fertile in sorrow, which the French
describe under the general name of " La Misbre." When zones
of plethoric riches, of selfish luxury, of materializing egotism,
are conterminous with zones of squalid wretchedness and practical
heathendom, such juxtaposition, as a wise Bishop has warned us,
tends to produce cyclones. In almost all the great capitals of the
world you have fashionable churches and millionaire congrega
tions, and, close beside them, masses of torn, lost, ragged, bewil
dered, neglected sheep in the wilderness without a shepherd. Two
nations are placed side by side ; one nation lives in gorgeous pal
aces, drives in splendid equipages, indulges in an endless round
of banquets and every form of material and aesthetic self-indul
gence. It breathes perfumed air, is clothed in purple and fine
linen, and fares sumptuously every day. There are splendid
patches and crimson embroideries on the robe of our civilization,
but how seamy and ragged are the edges of that robe ! Turn
from the priceless superfluities of the rich quarters — from the

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. 413

fashionable worship and the aesthetic religionism — to streets in
which there is not one decent house or one decent woman, the
homes of dim pauper generations in which myriads pass their
miserable lives. Even physically the air is foul and loaded with
pestilence : but morally — who slew all these ? Who is responsi
ble for these lounging, loafing, hulking men — brutes more than
men ? for these dehumanized women ?

" Oh let it not be named for womanhood :
Think we had mothers ! "

And the children ? Ah ! that is the deepest horror of it all !
There are children who, at four years old, have learned to echo
the foul language of their parents, and are familiar with their
infamies — wretched children, half-sized, half-fed, without health,
without home, without hope ; children with stunted, shrunken
limbs ; with the slum-look on their poor, wizened faces, and many
of them maimed, or crippled, or full of disease ; children who
never heard the name of God but to give emphasis to a curse, or
to gain credence for a lie. Then look at the girls — coarse, flaunt
ing, slatternly — with the wicked, leering expression on their bold
and brazen features, many of them living on the wages of vice !
Who is responsible for this blackness of great darkness ? Who is
responsible for the filthy lanes and reeking pauper-tenements,
places horrible to live in, and yet more horrible to die in, foul
with oaths, fights, blasphemies, gin, and verminiferous dirtr
Two master fiends rage and riot among them — the fiend of drink,
enthroned in glaring gin-palaces, whose enormously wealthy
owners are exalted to the House of Peers for kindling the ghastly
fires in which so many myriads of human moths scorch them
selves into shrivelling agony ; and the fiend of impurity, filling the
souls and bodies of men and women with leprosy, and producing
the blighted offspring who in their turn shall be the retributive
scourge of the civilization of which they have been the helpless
victims.

II. Consider, secondly, the abnormal growth of great cities.
It is no mere external phenomenon.

In almost all nations, by a slow and hardly noticed social
revolution, the old sweet country life is being merged into the
struggling life of towns — a life which has been called "the grave
of the physique of our race/' which is also, too often, the grave
of its morality.

414 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

We might take, by way of example, New York, or Paris, or
Berlin, or Vienna, or Home ; but take London as one colossal
specimen. When clergymen talk or preach about the evils of
cities, men of the world shrug their shoulders with cynical apathy,
and set it down as professional declamation. Let me then quote
the testimony of wise and eminent laymen, to whom the callous
ness of familiarity has not made London cease to be an apalling
phenomenon.

Here is the impression which the world's capital made on the
poet-critic of genius, Heinrich Heine :

" This stern reality of things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-
like movement, this sour visage worn by joy itself, this high pressure oE
life, weighs down the fancy, and rends the heart asunder."

" What a wild, wondrous, chaotic den of discord it is I " said Thomas
Carlyle, when first he came to London. " I am often wae and awestruck to
wander along its crowded streets, and hear the roaring torrent of animals,
and carriages, and horses, and men, all rushing they know not whence, they
know not whither."

" One thing about London impresses me," said J. Russell Lowell,
" above any other sound I have ever heard. It is the low, unceasing hum
one hears in the air. When I hear it, I almost feel as if I were listening to
the roaring loom of time."

I will quote but one or two more striking testimonies out of
many. Consider this overwhelming condemnation of the phe
nomena of city life by the late Professor Huxley. Describing
an East End parish, in which he had lived for some years, he
said :

" Over and above the physical misery, the impression has never died out
of my mind of the supernatural and entirely astonishing deadness and dul-
ness of these poor people. Over that parish Dante's inscription, * Leave hope
behind, all those who enter here,'' might have been written. There was no
amusement to diversify the dull round of life, except the public house;
there was nothing to remind the people of anything in the whole universe^
beyond their miserable toil, rewarded by slow starvation. In my experience
of all kinds of savages all over the world I found nothing worse, nothing
more degraded, nothing more helpless, nothing so intolerably dull and
miserable, as the life I had left behind me in the East End of London.
Nothing would please me more than to contribute to the bettering of that
state of things, which, unless wise and benevolent.men take it in hand, will
tend to become worse and worse, and to create something worse than
savagery— a great Serbonian bog, which in the long run will swallow up
the surface crust of civilization."

Here again is the impression left by London on two such emi-

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. 415

nent living observers as Lord Rosebery and Mr. Chauncey
Depew:

"I am always haunted," says Lord Rosebery, "by the awfulness of
London; of the great appalling effect of these millions, cast down, as it
would appear, by hazard, on the banks of this noble stream, working each
in their own groove, and their own cell, without heeding each other, with
out having the slightest idea how the other lives— the heedless casualty of
unnumbered thousands of men. Cobbett called London * a wen.' If it was
a wen then, what is it now but a tumor, sucking into its great system half
the life and the blood of the rural districts?"

"One Sunday," said Mr. Chauncey Depew, "I traversed the White-
chapel district, and saw a sight it is impossible to see anywhere else in the
world. Such poverty, such misery, such wretchedness, such a seething fur
nace of ignorance, and all the attendants upon it, I never saw before, and
never expect to see again. I felt that that great city, with its magnificent
palaces, with every evidence, in part of it, of the greatest wealth and the
largest luxury, rests upon a volcano, which only needs the force of civiliza
tion to loosen upon it, to produce a catastrophe which would shock the
world."

Once more consider the terrible, but perfectly accurate, lines
of Lord Tennyson :

" Is it well that, while we range with Science, glorying in the time,
City children soak and blacken, soul and sense, in city slime ?
There among the glooming alleys Progress halts on palsied feet,
Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousands on the street.
There the master scrimps the haggard seamstress of her daily bread,
There a single crowded attic holds the living and the dead ;
There the smouldering fire of fever creeps along the rotted floor,
And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor."

III. Thirdly, is there nothing to cause anxiety in the huge
unparalleled growth of population? It has so greatly alarmed
France that there a large family is a rare exception, and there in
consequence the population is diminishing. In India, the rapid
increase of population has already caused the depression of vast
masses of the people into almost chronic starvation. In England,
densely overcrowded England, the births exceed the deaths by
hundreds a day, and what shall we do in the end thereof ? Even
now there is severe and almost overwhelming competition. Ad
vertise that you want a clerk on £100 a year, who will have to
work any number of hours a day, and you will get many scores
of eager and anxious applicants. Already in England the depres
sion has reached whole classes — the tenant farmers, of whom
many are on the verge of bankruptcy; the smaller shopkeepers
who suffer from over-competition, and the inevitably changing
conditions of trade; the clerks, whose little-skilled employment

416 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

is rendered less valuable by the thousands who crowd their ranks
in the belief that clerkship is more respectable than mechanical
labor; the clergy, of whom large numbers, suffering from the
agricultural depression, are entangled in painful difficulties; the
working-classes — who are indeed hardly a class, but are the back
bone of the nation — whose employment not only becomes more
and more irregular and uncertain, but many of whom are dis
possessed by foreigners, who can work longer, are better trained,
and can live on less. Meanwhile the increase of population which
is going on is mainly the increase of the unfit; it is 10 per cent,
more rapid in the slums than in the squares^ and its fermenting
and irrepressible rapidity — which has multiplied the inhabitants
of England more in this fragment of a century than it had been
multiplied in eight centuries after the Norman conquest — is
largely due to the curse of disgracefully early marriages between
half -developed boys and girla who enter on the estate of matri
mony "within half a crown of destitution." Add to all our other
difficulties the fact that our whole industrial system may, at no
distant date, be endangered by tremendous hurricanes of dis
turbance, and if, at any time, the diminished profits of the capi
talist should end in glutted markets, in paralyzing strikes, in
commercial stagnation, in the alienation to foreign and especi
ally to Eastern lands of many of our most important trades — if,
instead of tens of thousands, we should soon have hundreds of
thousands of the unemployed upon our hands, must it not be
admitted that very dark days may be within measurable distance
of our present conditions of society ?

IV. The dangerous elements to which I have alluded tend
ever to increase and multiply. It might have been thought that
national misgiving is inconsistent with the growth — or rather
with the advance by leaps and bounds — of natural resources. The
increase of our income has, indeed, been enormous — greater, as
Mr. Gladstone has said, from 1800 to 1850 than from the days of
Julius Caesar to 1800, and from 1850 to 1880 than from 1800 to
1850 — so that now our annual income is asserted to be quite
£1,300,000,000 a year, and our national investments are calcu
lated at £200,000,000 a year. Yet though the actual laborers are
ever being multiplied, " the fund available for them becomes a
constantly decreasing factor of the national wealth " ; and while
the rich are growing richer great masses of the poor are growing

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. 417

relatively poorer, so that in large parts of England a considerable
fraction of the population is living continually on the dim border
land of pauperism.

In ancient Eome such contrasts of

*' Wealth a monster gorged
Mid starving populations"

were deemed ominous. In ancient cities there were the dark
shadows always flung by a brilliant civilization — there were the
gladiators, and the slaves — but in modern cities too there is "a
certain mass of crushed and unreclaimed humanity, the canker
that feeds on the exuberance of its luxury, and perforates it with
misery and decadence." ' ' There is," said Mr. J. Russell Lowell,
" a poison in the sores of Lazarus, against which Dives has no

antidote."

" 111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

VI. And it must, I fear, be sorrowfully admitted that one bad
omen of these days is the deficiency of adequate charity. In Lon
don the hospitals are the most popular of all the charities ; and
yet in that wealthiest city in the world there is scarcely one of the
hospitals which is not burdened with deficits, and compelled to
issue despairing appeals. The sum expended in our charities is
loudly vaunted and sounds large, but the reality of charity is
tested not by the . quantum but by the ex quanta. On what is
called " Hospital Sunday," in every church of every religious
denomination, London is appealed to in hundreds of earnest and
even impassioned sermons. What is the result ? Only from
£40,000 to £50,000 ! and the next day you read that £76,000 or
£100,000 has been emulously poured out by a handful of rich
people at Christie's, to purchase buhl, or bric-a-brac, or Queen
Anne plate, or Louis Quatorze furniture, and that more has been
bidden for a piece of ormolu or a gold snuffbox, or three Sevres
vases than is contributed by several of our wealthiest congrega
tions. Our much belauded charities are, when nationally estim
ated, a proof of our meanness, not a monument of our munifi
cence.

Yet an experienced civil engineer warns us that " we are on

the verge of a revolution in thought and practice, and the only

way to make this revolution harmless, and even beneficial, is to

give, freely and betimes, that which else will be taken later on."

VOL. CLXI.— NO. 467. 27

418 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

VII. These things being so, the growth of democracy, the
power of the workingmen, the demands of the Socialists and of
the independent labor party, are not without a sinister signifi
cance. Pope Leo XIII. would not have written his Encyclical
Rerum Novarum if he had not been aware of the extent to which
labor questions are coming to the front. We cannot put our ears
to the ground and listen, without hearing the low murmur
of the swelling tide of the people. " I see them rising to
their feet/' says the eloquent Bishop of Deny, " the greatest
host that time has ever known, and hear the murmur of millions
speaking to millions across the sea in many languages. What
there is in the gospel to rectify the relations of human life, to
elevate the selfishness of capital and chasten the selfishness of
labor, to carry to the homes improvement in the present and hope
• for the future, that will find eager listeners. But to the men of
the near future religion will appear a barren and worthless stem
unless it be taught to clothe itself with the blossom of worship,
and to bear the fruits of human love." But if that be so, it is
sad to observe how angry and how contemptuous is the attitude
toward the Church and the churches among the artisans and
laborers in many centres of commercial and agricultural in
dustry.

Now, amid all these grave conditions, is there any hope ? We
know, and many years ago Mr. Gladstone eloquently reminded us,
that : *' It is against the ordinance of Providence, it is against the
interests of man, that immediate reparation should be possible
when long-continued evils had been at work ; for one of the
strongest safeguards against misdoing would be removed, if at any
moment the consequence of misdoing could be repaired." But if
there be no hope of an immediate Utopia, is there no hope of
gradual amelioration ?

Yes ! there is, if nations remain true to the lessons of the
Gospel. It is the only gospel for the many and for the poor.
They can look to no other source of help, hope, or comfort.
Science has no gospel for them, and can point them to nothing
but vast, mysterious, inexorable laws " which have no ear to
hear, no heart to pity, and no arm to save." Political economy
has no gospel for them, but the cruel demonstration that the
weak must go to the wall, and that those who stumble in the race
can only be trampled pitilessly down under the hoof. of advancing

SOME PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. 419

generations. Socialism has no gospel for them, but only the
false hopes held out by impossible theories, which, if even for a
time they were carried out by anarchic violence, would only
plunge mankind into more unutterable ruin. But true religion
can create convictions which will inspire them with courage, en
ergy, and hope ; which by the extinction of vice and drunken
ness, will give them even amid poverty and struggle, a power to
raise themselves into the true self-respect of those who have the
dignity of God's image upon them, and the sign of their redemp
tion visibly marked upon their foreheads.

If then another characteristic of this age be the decay of
faith, it is the worst omen of all. Is there this decay of faith ?
It is at least a perilous sign that, in many Christian countries,
thousands choose atheists, and socialists, and men of no religion,
and men of religions utterly hostile to their own, to represent
them in their Congresses and Parliaments ; that not ten per
cent, of the working classes go to church or receive the
eucharist ; that in France, Spain and Italy Roman Catholicism
— on the testimony of Roman Catholics themselves — has so com
pletely lost all hold on the manhood of the Continent that mil
lions of nominal Roman Catholics do not even pretend to follow
out the most elementary external rules and requirements of their
religion ; that among all English-speaking races the word Agnos
ticism — though a word of yesterday — is descriptive of a wide
spread mental phenomenon ; that leading newspapers discuss such
questions as "whether they have not been, on the whole, a curse to
the world ?" that the "Catechism" of Free Thinkers is widely
spread among our working classes ; that powerful governments
have erased from their statute books the name of God.

Some readers may perhaps ask whether it is the object of this
paper to point to pessimistic conclusions. I answer by no means.
" Our healing/' says Mr. Lowell, "is not in the storm or in the
whirlwind ; it is not in monarchies or aristocracies, or democra
cies, but will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks to
the conscience and the heart, prompting us to wider and wider
humanity/' The regeneration of society has always come from
individuals ; never from committees. It will not be achieved, it
never has been achieved by legislation. It cannot possibly be
brought about by violence. Verbal orthodoxy is absolutely power
less to accomplish reformations. Ceremonial religionism may co-

420 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

exist and has often co-existed with the most detestable enormities.
But let each true Christian man live up to his profession, let him
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith he is called, let him
boldly rebuke vice and be ready patiently to suffer for the truth's
sake, and then that salt of sincerity has not lost its savor, and will
be adequate for the regeneration of the world. It is the duty of
-every one of us, to the best of our power, to claim and to reclaim ;
to build upon the foundations, or if that has become impossible,
to rebuild among the ruins ; to break up the fallow-ground, and
make the old waste places blossom as the rose. Then shall we be
called " the repairers of the breach, the restorers of paths to dwell
in." We are called upon neither to groan, nor to despond, but
to work. When Lord Reay breathed the somewhat vapid wish,
" Well, God mend all." " Nay ! " answered Sir David Ramsay,
" Nay, Donald, but we must help Him to mend it."

Let us lay it down as an unalterable law that God never does
for man, what man can and ought to do for himself. We have
seen for generations that

" God can never make man's best,
Without best men to help Him."

But when once we rouse ourselves to genuine Altruism, there
is no knowing what even the humblest may not accomplish. " A
common slave " says the great tragedy,

" A common slave— you know him well by sight-
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches joined : and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched."

There is not one of us so humble that we may not become like
that poor slave. There is no hand, which if bravely uplifted to
God in the service of men amid the dark world and its doing
faith, may not burn in testimony " like twenty torches joined !f —
illuminating, strengthening, warning, revivifying, hastening the
final dominance of that kingdom which even now is, and shall
be more and more.

F. AV. FARRAR.

THE MICROBE AS A SOCIAL LEVELLER.

BY CYRUS EDSOtf, M. D.

THE germ idea of Socialism, that all members of the body
politic are theoretically and should be practically joint partners
in one great co-operative state, which should paternally look after
the affairs of each and should, by supplementing the individual
efforts with the aggregate of influence and wealth, thereby insure
individual prosperity, was not promulgated for the first time
when Mr. Bellamy published his successful book, Looking
Backward. In Plato's Republic and Bacon's Utopia, not to
mention other ideal states, the theory so fascinating to the
weak and those who have found themselves outstripped in the
race of life was worked out to the full. The power of the
state, the power inherent in many large community of men, that
power which we all realize exists, has more than once in the
dreams of men taken the place of the good fairy of the nursery
tale and, with a wave of the magic wand, made all men pros
perous and happy. It is a fascinating idea, the community of
interest and helpfulness, the utilization of the power of all for
the good of all, the loyal service given by each to all, and the
gracious protection and aid given by all to each.

More than this, the theory, like the majority of theories, rests
on a basis of fact. Not only has co-operation in its crudest form
done much for men, as in the English co-operative stores, but in
a more complicated manifestation, such as an insurance company,
it has proved itself capable of great good. I am not certain, how
ever, whether these two examples do not illustrate at once the value
and the weakness of co-operation. While the stores in England
have enabled those belonging to them to get more for their incomes,
and have thus done these people good, it may be questioned
whether, when there is set down on the other page of the ledger

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the number of individual trades people driven out of business
by the stores, the net result to the nation at large is on the credit
side. On the other hand, the majority of those who pay their
money to insure their homes against fire really pay a little more
than the companies ever pay back. Co-operation here merely
comes in to assume the burden in case the insured should not
have time to protect himself by his payments. In other words,
if the individual shall, through circumstances beyond his control,
be prevented from protecting himself, his fellows will protect
him. The principle at the base of this is directly opposed to
Socialism, because it demands as the primary condition that the
individual shall help himself.

From the standpoint of the Socialist, all men are bound to
help each other. The anti-Socialist, on the other hand, bases
his theories of political and social economy solely on individual
effort. The Socialist claims that if all will only unite, each will
be prosperous to a greater degree than ho can possibly be when
left to struggle unaided. The anti-Socialist declares that if each
will struggle to the measure of his ability, all will be prosperous.
Facts as they exist to-day are on the side of the latter ; for those
nations which are the most prosperous of all — such nations as
England, France, and the United States — are those in which indi
vidual effort is most untrammelled by " paternalism" in govern
ment. Whether we should see equal prosperity in a Socialistic
nation we cannot tell, simply because there is at the present time
no Socialistic nation. Nor can we appeal to the past, because
while there are many instances of " paternalism " — witness Spain
under Philip the Second — there is no one in which the people
have governed and have directed this " paternalism" to their
own good. So far as Socialistic principles in political economy
are concerned, we are obliged to look on them as theories only,
and therefore, however good they may be, as "not proven."

While it may be true that individual effort is the real founda
tion of national prosperity, when the theory of individuality is car
ried to its legitimate conclusion — namely, that no one man has any
interest in any other, except so far as their mutual relations
.bring profit to each — we are able to say, without hesitation, the
theory is false. It is not only in material things that the pros
perity of each is dependent on that of his fellows. Disease binds
the human race together as with an unbreakable chain. More than

THE MICROBE AS A SOCIAL LEVELLER. 433

this, the industrial development of the world has enlarged this
chain until now all nations are embraced within its band. Noth
ing is easier than for a man with a comfortable income, which is
amply sufficient for his wants, to say the poverty of his neighbor
or fellow-citizen is of little interest to him. Nothing is easier
to say, nothing is more false in fact.

What we call hygiene has grown with the discoveries made
by those clever men who have devoted their lives to the study,
until now it is a recognized science. Its laws have been formu
lated and their operation is well understood. Not wholly, be it
observed, for there are many things about them we do not yet
know — as, for example, the effect on the contagion of disease pro
duced by Telluric atmospheric and perhaps solar conditions ; that
there is a connection is believed by many scientific men, and is not
wholly denied even by those who do not consider the evidence so
far to be conclusive. Still, while there is much yet to be dis
covered, enough has been learned to enable us to fight disease in
a way undreamed of by our forefathers. The science of hygiene
is the science of the prevention of disease ; and it is the aim of all
physicians now to so guard their patients as to have no disease to
treat. This has been rendered possible by the discovery, by Pas
teur and others, of the microbes of disease, of the " infinitely
little " organisms, which produce particular ailments in humanity.
This discovery was in two parts : first, that contagious diseases
are caused by microbes ; second, that contagious diseases produce
microbes which either as microbes or their products will in turn
produce the disease in those who are well.

The discovery of the microbes and of the work they do has nat
urally resulted in the community preparing itself for the fight
with these little enemies. The work of boards of health is very
different to-day from that which similar bodies performed twenty-
five years ago. Of course the fact of the contagion of disease
was known a thousand years back, and the experience of mankind
was reflected in such institutions as the quarantine. But the ef
forts put forth against contagion rested with quarantine for a long
time. If disease broke out in a city, as the plague broke out in
London during the reign of Charles the Second, the physicians
were at a loss. The people had but one safeguard — they ran
away, and thus carried the disease to other parts of the country.
It would be impossible to-day for the plague to ravage any

424 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

city in the civilized world as it ravaged London, simply because,
although we do not definitely know what the plague was — it is be
lieved to have been typhus fever by many— we are certain it was
a disease caused by and developing microbes, we should fight it
exactly as we fight any contagious disease, and we should win the
same victory. It is owing to the discovery of the laws of hygiene,
and their practical application, that we are enabled to check dis
ease when it appears, to seize it and say it shall not spread. The
record of the work of the Board of Health of the city of New
York during the outbreak of cholera in 1892 may be fairly said
to be an example of absolute control of contagious disease.*
While there were eleven ca«es of cholera, there was not one second
ary case. In other words, there was not one case in which the con
tagion travelled from the sick to the well. While the cases pro
duced the microbes of the disease, these were destroyed as fast as
they appeared; and, so far as that outbreak was concerned, the
contagion of cholera was practically annihilated. This record has
never been excelled, simply because it never could be. It was a
perfect victory for the science of hygiene.

While the communities have, through their boards of health,
prepared for the battle with contagious disease, and while they
can trust with perfect confidence to their defences, the work of the
men employed in those boards reveals to them more clearly day by
day the close connection which exists between the health interests
of all members of the community, be these rich or poor. The
microbe of disease is no respecter of persons; it cannot be guarded
against by any bank account, however large. True it is that
nature herself has set many defences in the path of the microbe,
and that these, when the body is well nourished, warmly clad,
and properly housed, are generally worthy of being relied on.
So far wealth will protect, for he whose health is not weakened
by external conditions is less apt to contract disease. But it is
unfortunately true in this country that the competition which
has grown out of the untrammelled individual effort is so keen
and the stress and strain of life so great that the demands on
the nervous strength are heavier than those made during any
period of which we have knowledge. Excessive demands on
nervous strength are even worse than those on the physical, when

* Foreshadowed in article published in NORTH AMERICAN REVIKW, October,
1892, " Safeguards Against Cholera."

THE MICROBE AS A SOCIAL LEVELLER. 435

the ability to resist disease is under consideration, because the
greatest safeguard of all is that mysterious thing we call vitality,
and nervous exhaustion in degree attacks or rather lessens
this, first of all. It is the fact, therefore, in this American life,
that the conditions surrounding those who have wealth are such
as to lessen the value of that wealth when looked at as a safeguard
against the microbes beginning their deadly work.

The Socialistic side of the microbe is to be found, then, in the
fact that we may only fight diseases in a community by meeting
it everywhere. We cannot separate the tenement-house district
from the portion of the city where the residences of the wealthy
stand, and treat this as being a separate locality. The disease
we find in the tenement-house threatens all alike, for a hundred
avenues afford a way by which the contagion may be carried from the
tenement to the palace. We must, if we would guard the health of
the people, look on them as being one whole, not as being several
communities, each complete in itself. Their health interests are
in common, and the conditions affecting them have many points
of .resemblance. If the tenant of the tenement be susceptible to
disease, because of poor food and insufficient clothing, the inmate
of the mansion has his vitality weakened by the worry and anxiety
inseparable from business life.

To the man of wealth, therefore, there is a direct and very
great interest in the well-being of the ,man of poverty. The
former cannot afford to sit at his well-covered table and forget
the absence of food in the latter's poor room, because that absence
of food means, sooner or later, that disease will break out in the
room, and the microbes or their spores will in time pass the
heavy curtains on the windows of the mansion to find their prey
inside. This is the Socialism of the microbe, this is the chain of
disease, which binds all the people of a community together.

It is at first somewhat diffcult to understand the connection
between the prosperous man in this country and the poor, ignor
ant, down-trodden peasant of such a country as Russia. Yet,
see how plain it is. The crops in five provinces of Russia failed
almost entirely in the summer and fall of 1889, and a wide-spread
famine, during which many thousands died, was the result. A
simple influenza, a species of almost harmless although contagious
inflammation of the mucous membranes, attacked these famine-re
duced people. Owing to their ill-fed condition, this influenza was

426 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

intensified in character under the law discovered by Pasteur, that
contagion may be either intensified or attenuated by the medium
through which it is caused to pass. Thus a virulent form of
grippe was produced, a contagious disease having the power of
exhausting the vital energy of those attacked to an almost in
credible degree. The disease spread rapidly, it journeyed along
the travelled roads of commerce to Germany, France, and Eng
land, until it at last reached the United States. It attacked those
persons whose vitality was low, and it brought many hundreds of
people to the grave. So there were many funerals in this
country because the crops failed in those Russian provinces, and
because, in consequence, thousands of Russian peasants were re
duced to starvation.

This is as good an illustration of the intimate health relation
existing between all men in the world to-day as I could offer. It
would not be hard to find others : the Board of Health of New
York city had to fight the cholera because there was an unusual
drought in Persia, near the city of Meshed, when the pilgrims
gathered there in 1891 at the tomb of a Mohammedan saint.

If these things are true of the world at large, how much more
intimate must be the connection between the health interests of
the people of the same city ? The efforts which are being made
at the present time to alleviate the suffering and to give work to
the unemployed are not all charity. They are a real effort on the
part of those who have the money to defend themselves and the
community at large from disease.

During the great famines that affected the countries of Eu
rope and Asia in the Middle Ages, and since, for every death
that occurred from starvation and its consequent exhaustion,
ten persons lost their lives from infectious diseases that originated
or were intensified by the privations entailed by distress.

In the sixteenth century the frightful condition of the prisons
and the sufferings of the prisoners caused an outbreak of typhus
fever, which killed not alone the wretched criminal, but also the
justices on the bench, who were thus punished for their tolerance
of the conditions in which the disease found its birth. This is the
lesson taught by history, which to-day we see by the light of the
great discoveries of sanitary science. We might call it the Moral
of the Past, as seen through the Microscope.

CYRUS EDSON.

A STUDY IN WIVES.

BY MAX O'KELL, GRANT ALLEN, KARL BLIND, AND H. H.

BOYESEN.

THE FRENCH WIFE,

THE politics of matrimony is a science inborn in French'
women. Let a French woman be the mistress of a superb man
sion in the Champs-Elysees or of a poor little fifth- floor flat, she
always has the charm of feminality. However poor she may be,
she is always tidy, smart, alert, lien coiffee, Men gante'e and lien
chaussee. She has a little bustling, fluttering way about her that
will always keep your interest in her alive. Every one of her
movements is supple and artistic. To lift her dress modestly
and gracefully as she crosses a muddy street, she has not her
equal in the world. She may be sometimes, I confess, a little
affected, but she is never vulgar, and when she speaks to you
you cannot guess from her speech whether she is the wife of
what society calls a gentleman or not. Put a little French
seamstress or milliner in the most aristocratic drawing-room
for an hour, thanks to her keen power of observation and
her native adaptability, she will, at the end of that hour, talk,
cross the room, sit down, rise, leave the room as simply, as nat
urally, as the most high-born lady in it.

Her constant aim is to be interesting to her husband. She
multiplies herself. In turn she is his friend, his confidante, his
partner in business, his chum, and, if I may use the word in its
best and most refined sense, his mistress. She is forever chang
ing her appearance. For instance, you will seldom see a French
married woman wear her hair in the same way longer than three
or four weeks. She knows that love feeds on trifles, on illusion,
on suggestion. She knows that, when a man loves his wife, a

428 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

rose in her hair, a new frock, a bonnet differently trimmed, will
revive in him the very emotion that he felt when he held in her
his arms for the first time. She also knows that the very best
dishes may sometimes become insipid if always served with the
same sauce.

She understands to a supreme degree the poetry of matri
mony. I have heard men say that matrimony kills poetry. The
fools! There is no poetry outside of it. And the poetry has all
the more chance to live long in French matrimonial life because
our wedding ceremony is not, as in England, the end of courtship,
but only the beginning of it. In France, when you have married
your wife, you have to win her, and the process is very pleasant.
I have often told my English friends that if in their country there
were not so many kisses indulged in before the wedding cere
mony, there would be a great many more administered after it.
Why is the French woman of forty so attractive? Because
every feature of her face shows that she has been petted and
loved.

But, some Englishmen have said to me, in France couples
marry without knowing anything of each other. That is true.

In England I have known couples who had been engaged ten
years and who were still hoping to know something of each
other. Poor couples ! They might be engaged fifty years without
attaining that end ! Life, during an engagement, consists of
sentimental walks, the repetition of the same story. The sky is
serene, the sea is smooth. How do they know they are good
sailors until they have been in the same boat in a good big
storm ?

Ah, let misfortunes come, to say nothing of the price of but
ter and the length of the butcher's bill ! When they are engaged
and they leave their respective homes to meet, they look at them
selves in the glass to see there is nothing amiss about their toilet.
They are on their best behavior ; they put a bridle on their
tongues. But, put them married, of an evening, one each side
of the fireplace, he sulking over a book with his slippers on (his
slippers on, what an utter want of respect to a woman !) and she
with her curl papers. True love may get over the curl papers,
but it must be very, very true. And why curl papers ? Let us
talk about it. Why, you will say, to be beautiful, to be sure !
Oh, but when ? Only to-morrow. That is too late. A French

A STUDY IN WIVES. 429

woman is never visible before noon, not even to her husband, be
cause all the morning she has her curl papers on, so as to be
beautiful the same evening. Do you see the difference ? Do
you understand how practical this is ?

Through French life, the married woman goes on the princi
ple laid down by Balzac, that a man who penetrates into his
wife's dressing-room is either a fool or a philosopher. She does
want him to be a philosopher, and she takes great care that he
does not make a fool of himself.

MAX O'RELL.

THE ENGLISH WIFE.

THERE is no one ideal of the English wife — because there is
no one ideal of anything in England. The English nation, as
Matthew Arnold long ago pointed out, consists of three distinct
and mutually antagonistic elements, — the aristocracy, the middle
class, and the artisans and laborers. Each of these has its own
ideas, if any ; each of these goes its own way in utter isolation,
unaffected by the ideas that obtain above or below it. I shall,
therefore, treat of the three elements separately, beginning, as is
natural, at the lowest rung of the ladder.

The ideal wife of the laboring classes is a housewife and
mother of the antique Teutonic pattern. She rules the kitchen.
Before she married, she went out to service for some years in a
gentleman's house, where she acquired those habits of neatness
and tidiness which stand her in good stead in her husband's
cottage. She was cook or housemaid or •' ' general " — a <e general"
is best for the working man ; and she knows how to make ten
shillings a week go as far as the condition of the market can carry
it. After " keeping company " with her young man from sixteen
to twenty-four, she succeeds in marrying him. She is a mother
of. ten children living, "and five in the churchyard," which last
episode she regards as a natural incident of maternity. She
brings them all up to be neat and tidy like herself, sends them to
board-school betimes, with shoes and stockings on their feet, and
puts them out in the world to the best advantage as soon as they
have passed the sixth standard. The boys go to trades, for she
means them to rise ; for the girls, she gets places in a gentle
man's family — for choice the rector's — where they are well taken

430 THE XORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

care of. She sends the little ones to church neatly dressed on
Sunday, and sometimes goes herself, but not too often, for she
must stop at home to cook the one hot weekly dinner. When
she shows up at church or chapel at all, it is chiefly in the even
ing ; after which she may go fora walk with "her man" and
gossip with her neighbors. She has the profoundest faith in her
well-meaning husband, and often remarks that " no woman hadn't
never a better man than onr Joe ; " he seldom strikes her, except
when he's been drinking ; and even then, he's always sorry for it
afterwards. She manages to extract from him by dexterous coax
ing every Saturday night the greater part of his wages, save only
so much as the common feeling of virile dignity compels him to
retain for expenditure at the public house. She never grumbles
about his pipe and his tobacco. She sends him his " vittles," hot
in a can, to the place where he works, by one of the children.
She spends her life in hard toil, endless household drudgery ; she
washes and cooks and sews and makes beds for her husband, her
self, and her ten clean little ones, their faces are almost as white
as their pinafores ; yet she believes in God in a blind sort of way,
and attaches great importance to religious ceremonies. But she
has no soul ; how could she find time to attend to one ? She is the
material ideal of a materialized, brutalized, soulless peasantry ;
she does her duty in that state of life to which it has pleased
God to call her with a heroism that moves one's respectful
pity.

The ideal wife of the middle classes touches far higher planes.
• She can play the piano 1 As a girl, she was brought up at a good
average school, where she learnt to be a lady, and not much else
save to write an invitation. She is usually good looking, buxom and
bright as a girl, rather than refined or spiritual. Her cheeks are
rosy. He meets her, falls in love with her (if the phrase may
stretch so far), and straightway gets engaged to her. She is
faithful to him with a fidelity that knows no faltering. She does
not idealize him, but she loves him dearly, and believes with
touching faith in his solid goodness. She thinks John perfect.
After some years of waiting they are rich enough to marry, and
she settles down at once into the purely domestic wife and
mother. Her function is not to live her own life or expand her
own soul, but to play the part of his social representative. She
is an appanage of his respectability. She presides with solemn

-1 STUDY IN WIVES. 431

and silent dignity at the head of his table. She drives out with
portly pride in his carriage, when he gets one. She calls on his
friends' wives, and asks their daughters in due rotation to tea
and tennis. She produces six wholesome-looking children herself
at measured intervals, and spends most of her time thenceforth
in frittering uselessly over their nursery arrangements. She
takes no part whatsoever in her husband's business, and asks no
questions about it ; she contents herself with spending her house
keeping money wisely, to the best advantage, and dressing her
self and her pretty children as creditably as possible on their re
spective allowances. She -keeps the home beautiful, with anti-
maccassars and white muslin curtains. She continues to play the
piano in a progressively feeble way till the girls succeed her, but
she makes no other sacrifices to the strange gods of culture. She
is not much of a novel reader ; into poetry or general literature,
still less into science or thought or politics, she makes no wild
excursions. Her domain is the drawing-room ; in her husband's
mind she represents the social and gracefully artistic, or emo
tional, side of his serious existence. For him, the counting-
house ; for her, the parlor ! As she grows old she develops lat
erally into the British matron — an awesome person of a certain
size, a certain age, and great social distinction. She then de
votes herself wholly to her girls and boys, trying to make the first
into replicas of herself, and to prevent the last from doing in
early life exactly as their dear father did, She carries the whole
family triumphantly to church, and marries her daughters well
to men of excellent principles. She is the simple and unat
tractively virtuous ideal of a solid, stolid, unimaginative bour
geoisie.

The ideal wife of the aristocracy — does not exist. The Brit
ish aristocrat has no ideals. He was born cynical, with a good-
humored, matter-of-fact, man-of-the-world sort of cynicism: and
he carries his congenital creed unabashed through the world with
him. He sows his wild oats in many fields: then he marries, for
the settlements. His wife is rich, or beautiful, or both; she lives
in society. He and she go their own ways forthwith; and those
ways usually land one or other in the divorce court. Occa
sionally both of them reach that goal together. They smile and
part, after rearranging the settlements which form the practical
basis; thence they drift into the world once more, and begin

432 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

again da capo. Their ideal is to enjoy themselves; in their own
reckless way they usually attain it. .

GBANT ALLEN.

THE GERMAN WIFE.

WHEN a German is asked about the best qualities of the
women of his fatherland, he is, first of all, apt to think of those
who have written and sung in their praise since olden times.
Our cultured classes are very much historically inclined. Their
thoughts, therefore, easily go back to Tacitus, who says that, in
the opinion of our forefathers, "something sacred and prophetic
attached to women ; that their councils did not remain disregarded,
their utterances not undervalued/'

The Roman author speaks of the famed prophetess, Veleda,
of Aurinia, and other women held in high veneration. Not servile
flattery, he adds, was conferred upon the female sex, as if it were
composed of goddesses. But so fondly were husbands devoted to
their wives, so great was the respect paid to womankind in
general, that the idea of any of them falling into the enemy's
hands was more unbearable to a German than the prospect of his
own captivity. In battle mothers and wives tended the wounded,
and their applause of bravery was looked upon as the highest re
ward. Their prayers and laments as to the fate which would
await womenfolk in case of defeat often produced a fresh, coura
geous rally among the shaken ranks of a sorely-pressed warrior host.
In several chapters Tacitus draws a remarkable picture of the ideal
state of things as regards marriage among that primitive Teuton
nation, conveying thereby a manifest, though veiled, satire upon
the manners and morals prevailing in his home at Rome. "A
German wife/' he also says, " was not to look upon herself as
being outside the world of thought of struggling men. The
very ceremonies of her union to a husband were to remind her
that she was to be his associate in trials and dangers."

But enough of classic testimony, of which there is plenty.
When we come to the Middle Ages, there is a wealth of poetical
ffusions among our Minnesingers in honor of German women
and wives. Foremost among them stands Walther von der Vogel-
weide, the greatest lyrical bard of his time in Germany, whose
renown shone through many following centuries. He " had seen

A STUDY IN WIVES. 433

many lands, and with the best people he had become well
acquainted ; but evil, he thought, should befall him if foreign
manners were to please him more. Between the Elbe and the
Khine, and np to the frontiers of the Hungarian land, he had
found the best women of the world ; they were like unto angels."
ie Virtue and pure love — he who seeks them (says Walther) should
come to our country, where there is a fullness of bliss. Oh, may
I long live there ! "

There is occasionally a different strain between those rapturous
pseans even in Walther. Ulrich von Lichtenstein, who wrote a
book called " Frauendienst " (Worship of Women), is also re
sponsible for a later one, in which, in the form of a dialogue, the
decay of chivalrous love is deplored, and the fault mutually
thrown by a knight and a noble lady upon each other's sex. But
it must not be forgotten that these amatory productions of our
mediaeval singers, especially of those of aristocratic descent, had
always a tinge of the artificial in them. They rather point to
the special customs of a class whose poetical spokesmen were in
the habit of celebrating love adventures of a sometimes risky kind
under the garb of an almost eccentric use of purity talk.

Famous in mediaeval German tradition is the history or tale
of the Weibertrcu ("Wives' Fidelity"), which has been sung
by Burger. It refers to the siege of the town of Weinsberg, in
Suabia, by the Emperor Konrad III., in the twelfth century,
when, after the capitulation, the men who had offered a long and
stiffnecked resistance were sentenced en masse to death, whilst
their wives were to be allowed to leave without hindrance, taking
with them, " what was most precious to them." Instead of
clothes and jewehy, as was expected, they came out of the
stronghold with their husbands on their backs. It is, at any
rate, a pretty tale, typifying the ideal German wife of the
burgher class.

It need not be said that in the many centuries which followed
upon the literary epochs of the Minnesingers and of the Master-
singers, or civic bards, the praise of women is occasionally varied
by pungent squibs. That is an inevitable result of the march of
civilization which produces many and different types. Yet even
so great and merciless a satirist as Fischart, the German Rabelais
of the sixteenth century, has wonderfully sweet descriptions of
the happiness of domestic life, of the soothing ways and manners
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 2$

434 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the true Hausfrau and of the tender love between parents and
children. However, it would lead too far, considering the re
stricted space allotted to the contributions to this symposium to
say more of Fisc hart's or of the many modern poets' and writers'
references to the ideal German woman. Goethe, in his Torquato
Tasso, makes the Princess say:

' ' Willst du genau erfahren, was sich ziemt,

So frag e nur bei edlen Frauen an."

This has become a standard quotation in German literature.
Again, who does not know Schiller's poem:

" Warde der Frauen"—
Ehret die Frauen! siejiechten undweben
Himmlische Rosen in's irdische Leben —

or his "Song of the Bell," in which the true wife and mother is
depicted at the side of the hard-striving husband, in noblest
terms which have become household words in the Fatherland ?

Did Schiller mean by these pictures of domestic bliss to shut
out women from the larger concerns of patriotic aspirations and
from care for the cause of freedom as against tyranny ? Let
anyone who has a doubt on the point read Schiller's grand
drama, Wilhelm Tell. There, Gertrude, the wife of Stauffacher,
is most prominent as urging on the men to rise against oppression.
She, before all, gives counsel, both wise and courageous, to her
own husband, quite in the style of German women of Tacitus'
time. In the same powerful drama, the peasant women are
drawn in similar traits of love for popular freedom; refusing, as
they do, to bow before the hat which Gessler has had planted
on a pole as the sign of his autocratic rule.

Whilst I am writing this, there comes news of a speech of
Prince Bismarck, in which he alleges that fifty years ago no Ger
man woman busied herself with national affairs, but that now the
times are changed for the better ! The ex-Chancellor has for
years made many speeches in the most contradictory sense.
On this occasion he simply forgot the enthusiastic conduct of a
mass of German women in the War of Deliverance against Na
poleon I., and the sacrifices made by them for patriotic objects.
He forgot, or he purposely ignored, the fact of the hearts of vast
numbers of German women having been in the cause of national
freedom and union during the forties, and the ardent sympathy

A STUDY IN WIVES. 435

they showed with the champions of liberty in 1848-49, as well as
the risks and sufferings, in the way of persecution and imprison
ment, which some of them underwent in those years of storm and
stress.

To be, not f ' platform mothers," but good housewives, and at
the same time to take a deep interest in all that is good and noble
in literature and art ; to make a happy home, to bring up children
with fond care, and also to think of, and so far as the difference
of sex allows, to act for the public weal of their country and for
the intellectual, moral, and social progress of humanity at large ;
such in the opinion of the best among us, be they men or women,

is the ideal German wife.

KARL BLIND.

THE SCANDINAVIAN WIFE.

AT a time when all ideals are rapidly changing it is difficult
to furnish even an approximate description which will not be
challenged. The kind of ideal wife of whom Norse youths
dreamed twenty years ago, whom the poets sang and the painters
painted, is now reported to be in the process of extinction ; and
the new species of femininity which is said to be taking her
place would feel insulted by being associated with the term ideal.
A Norwegian young lady of good family, who some years ago was
a guest in my house, could see nothing improper in exploring
the Bowery and Hester Street by night in the company of a male
and a female friend, and when I meekly objected to her striking
up an acquaintance with gentlemen in Central Park of a Sunday
she laughed in my face and told me sans ceremonie that I was an
old fogy. My ideas of propriety she intimated were moss-
grown, antedeluvian, and smacked of the ancient period of bond
age which, happily, was now at an end.

During a recent visit to Norway I discovered that this type of
woman, so far from being exceptional, is exceedingly common.
She certainly occupies the front of the stage, is all-pervasive and
ubiquitous. During the summer you meet her on the public
highways, with her knapsack on her back, on foot or on a bicycle,
attended or unattended, snapping her finger in the face of all old-
fashioned notions of decorum. I cannot conceive what kind of
wife she would make, because I cannot conceive of the kind of
man who would have the audacity to marry her. And yet she

436 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

does not infrequently marry. I cannot help suspecting that she
must, in such a case, have exercised the right, which she claims,
of choosing, instead of waiting to be chosen; and the poor man, in
his embarrassment, has evidently lacked the courage to exercise
his right of refusing, instead of waiting to be refused.

Ndw, I do not claim, of course, that this ' ' virago of the
brain/' this representative of " the third sex" (to quote Mr. Le
Galienue), is the ideal woman of Scandinavia, still less that she
would make an ideal wife< But she has, for all that, to be taken
into account, because she is, by her presence and her noisy prop
aganda, visibly modifying the old ideal of Scandinavian wife-
hood and womanhood.

In my student days we used to sing with immense enthusiasm
the song, " The Women of the North," which among other ex
ploded commonplaces, declared that "the lily resembles the
bride of thy heart, the fair, Northern maiden " ; and that
'•' she stands unaltered, exhaling her coy fragrance ; she is the
blossom of blossoms." Though this standard comparison with
the lily has been repudiated as misleading and uncomplimentary,
it has not yet lost and never can quite lose its application. For
the qualities which the man demands the woman is bound to
supply, or feign their possession, under penalty of celibacy. And
Scandinavian man does not differ essentially from the male of
other civilized races in demanding of his wife all the standard
copybook virtues. He looks to her primarily to uphold the
dignity of his house ; to give, by her presence and manner, a cer
tain eclat to his hospitality ; to make his domestic machinery run
as smoothly, noiselessly, and economically as circumstances will
permit. He associates with his vision of her a certain sweet
matronliness which grows more pronounced with the years, as
the children gather about her knees. Though the girl be ever so
coy and submissive to her lover's wishes, he knows that it is in
the nature of things for the young wife to develop, through the
experiences of wifehood and motherhood, a personality which
must nob only win love, but also command respect. As his true
comrade and faithful friend she stands at his side, shares his
burden, and bears with him the brunt of the hard battle of life.

"When I look back through the long gallery of noble Scandi
navian women whose portraits my memory retains, the embarrass
ment of riches makes me loath to choose. One, however, whose

A STUDY IN WIVES. 437

beautiful personality spread a quiet radiance about her simple
life, I may, without invidious comparisons, select as fairly repre
sentative, and the man of whose home she was the bright and
shining focus would have been the first to claim for her every
ideal perfection. It has always been a marvel to me how this
mother of six children, every one of whom claimed her attention
and care, could yet preside with a calm and gentle dignity at the
great dinners which her husband's position compelled him to
give, superintend a large household, over every minutest detail of
which she kept supervision ; and yet preserve, amid innumerable
harassments, which would have driven a man to distraction, a
benign, unruffled amiability, and an unfailing helpfulness which
ever gave and gave, without thought of demanding anything in
return. From the early morn to the dewy eve she was in cease
less activity ; never breathless and hurried, but always quietly
ministering to the wants of the many whose welfare was in a hun
dred ways dependent upon her foresight, sagacity and tender
solicitude. At seven o'clock in the morning she presided at the
breakfast table pouring the hot tea for boys, while snowdrift and
darkness lay thick upon the window-panes ; and I can yet see her
benign, somewhat worn face in the lamplight over the large cop
per tea-kettle. Then she would remind them of their books so that
nothing was forgotten, wrap them up warmly in their scarfs and
overcoats, kiss each one good-bye with a dear little maternal ad
monition on the way ; then get papa's breakfast, which came
later, and listen sympathetically to his grumbling about the ever
increasing expenses, calm his occasional irritability, invent ingen
iously maternal excuses for Finn's low averages, Bertha's hoy-
denish behavior, Olaf's habit of tearing his clothes, etc. There
was balm in her words, healing in her touch, solace in the very
cadence of her voice. Though she left no record behind her,
except in the hearts of her sons and daughters, who mourned her
early loss, I cannot conceive of a nobler life than hers, nor one
dispensing a richer blessing.

HJALMAR HJOETH BOYESEN.

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST.

BY THE HON. EDMUND G. ROSS, EX-GOVERNOR OF NEW MEXICO.

LESS than forty years ago and within the memory of men and
women not yet old, there was a rush from the northern and east
ern states to the West. It was unlike the steady westward mi
gration that had from the beginning of the century been a con-
picuous American habit. It was an organized and suddenly con
ceived movement of people who turned to the West with a definite
and determined purpose. I refer to the famous "Kansas move
ment." Immediately prior to this movement, and in direct con
nection with it, a very similar movement had been made from
the states of the Southwest, notably from the counties of western
Missouri. Both crusades were caused by the repeal by Congress
of the Missouri Compromise, which up to that time had restricted
slavery to the longitudinal line of western Missouri. By that
repeal all the country lying west of that line, from the Missouri
to and including the Rocky Mountain region, had been opened
to negro slavery.

The first crusaders on both sides went armed and eagerly in
tent on reaching, in the least possible time, the country in dis
pute. The largely superior numerical force pouring in from the
North, in due season assured the success of the Free State cause,
soon filled that country, took possession of its most available
portions, and drew much of the succeeding migration to the
middle and western plains. But it was found after extensive im
provements had been made there — farms established and towns
built — that the rain-fall was insufficient and could not be de
pended upon for agricultural pursuits. Though in occasional
years it was abundant and bountiful crops were realized, it could
not be depended on, as one good crop was liable to be followed by
two or three seasons of drought, and more or less absolute crop

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 439

failure. This continuing for several years, the settlers in the
end became discouraged and many of them abandoned the
country, going still further west, not a few to New Mexico.
Later, irrigation was resorted to and in the vicinity of enduring
streams proved successful. Away from these, however, the ex
pense was great and the returns meagre and discouraging, few
localities being of sufficient elevation or possessing the necessary
facilities for the storage of water. This was the first signal proof
that had till then been afforded of the existence of a semi-arid
region, beginning at about the one hundredth degree of longi
tude and extending indefinitely westward, in which successful
agriculture was impossible without irrigation. Much of that
region has since been thus redeemed, and doubtless much more
will be redeemed in the same way; but it will be most expensive
and the prospective cost of its redemption, coupled with the rapid
and constant increase in our population, accentuates the necessity
for devising more simple and effective methods of irrigation
than are now generally practiced or known in the region of the
plains.

Large numbers of those who were early forced to abandon the
plains of central and western Kansas pushed on into the moun
tains of the West, very many of them into New Mexico, as I
have said. There they came in contact with a civilization ante
dating by centuries that which they had left. In all the princi
pal valleys they found adequate irrigation works, and abundant
and unfailing crops. Though it had been settled for hundreds
of years, the region was to these immigrants a new world. The
cultivation of land by artificial irrigation has long been practised
by the native people of New Mexico, who originally brought the
system from Mexico and Spain, but it is still novel to a very large
portion of the people of the United States. It has always been,
as it is now, carried on by them in the most primitive ways and
has developed almost perfect exactness in that form of engineer
ing. A native New Mexican needs no instrument for the secur
ing of levels in locating or laying out an irrigation ditch.
Given a known quantity of water supply, he can with his practised
eye, by simply walking over the ground, as exactly determine
the course required to insure a uniform flow of water at any de
sired force, and far more quickly, than can the trained engineer
with the most perfect instruments. This skill has become a part

440 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of liis nature and in a country which must depend upon artificial
irrigation for its food product it is a most useful acquirement.

But irrigation in that country and among the native people is
confined mainly to the river valleys, few going outside the larger
ones for settlement, and as a consequence there are large areas in
the valleys of the smaller streams, on the mesas adjacent to arroyos
and in the mountains that are practically unsettled and unde
veloped. These arroyos, lying as a rule at the foot of mountains
and between elevations, could in very many localities be converted
into catchment basins for the storage of water, and thus made
the basis of a supply to a considerable portion of the territory, at
a cost small in comparison to the acreage that could be thus
redeemed.

Since the tide of migration turned actively to the western
States and Territories lying in what is known as the arid region,
especially in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, the sub
ject of irrigation has come to be one of the first importance, as
successful cultivation has there been found impossible by the usual
methods applicable to the older settlements of the country east
of the line of aridity. Various methods have been applied to the
solution of the problem during the last three decades, the most
general and conspicuous being through the agency of great cor
porations based on land appropriations and stock companies absorb
ing great areas of the public domain. No more productive soils
are to be found anywhere than on large portions of the great tree
less, waterless plains and mountain valleys of what is known as the
arid regions. Water alone is needed to make their cultivation most
profitable. In many localities, notably in California, the problem
has been solved, but only at points more or less directly in prox
imity to large running streams. But there are yet in New
Mexico, and all the mountain region, and even in California,
very large areas not accessible to supply from adequate, enduring
streams, and therefore not favorable to tillage by the California
plan.

The clamor for the appropriation of public money for the es
tablishment of irrigation has had its day, and it is full time that
the appropriation of the public lands for the same purpose should
also cease. The government has no constitutional power to de
vote the money or the lands of the public to local or private ben
efit, and it ought not to have any such power. The idea was an

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 441

offshoot of paternalism, and bound, if once generally entered
upon, to result in irreparable mischief of a political character,
and of damage to other economic callings. Its origin lies in the
mistaken doctrine, which now and then crops out in times of
commercial and financial depression, that it is the duty of
the government to take care of the people, instead of the
opposite and correct political axiom, that it is at all times and
under all conditions the duty of the people to take care of the
government, and of themselves also — to guard and protect it, and
to see that the agents entrusted with its administration do not fall
short of the duties or go beyond the limits of their trust and
make of themselves the government, the rulers, instead of the
agents, of the people. One great hindrance to the successful and
general institution of irrigation in localities where it is needed
and practicable, is the constant and noisy plea that it can be best
secured only through great capitalized corporations based on large
landed donations from the government. No greater or more in
sidious danger now threatens the local, financial, economic, and
political interests of the West. It is a political, and in a large
sense an economic axiom, that they who own the lands of a coun
try will make its laws and govern it ; and there is consequently
no more effective method for the strengthening and perpetuation
of our popular forms than legislation that encourages the distri
bution of lands among, and their ownership by, the people who
occupy them.

By reason chiefly of the pernicious fallacy just mentioned,
how the regions under discussion may be watered and thereby
reduced to successful popular cultivation and settlement, still
remains an unsolved problem. In the more northerly sections
the snow and rainfall reduce the difficulty of solution, but in
New Mexico and Arizona, especially, the conditions are essen
tially different and the problem presented a much more difficult
one. In these territories the Rocky Mountains gradually dimin
ish in altitude and abruptness, till they fall away and end in
great mesas or elevated plateaus along the Mexican border, arid
and hot in summer, and which, though abounding in the ele
ments of fertility, remain for lack of water as barren as Sahara.
There are rain -falls and occasionally snow in winter, but s'o seldom
and so slight, as a rule, that the arid atmosphere soon dissipates
the most that falls, and their moisture is gone. There are a

442 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

number of streams, such as the Eio Grande and the Pecos in
New Mexico and the G-ila, the Salt and others in Arizona, rein
forced by a considerable number of smaller ones, with the usual
affluents, which, fed by the melting snows from the north, often
run bank full in the later weeks of winter and early spring, and
also for some days after the brief mid-summer rains ; but their
volume soon diminishes, and in the months when their waters
are most needed for the growing crops their flaw is slackened,
while not infrequently at the still later season for irrigation the
farmer finds himself without water, especially in the more south
erly sections, below the localities of supply in the north.

For these reasons, in the greater portion of the mountain dis
tricts, any general, coherent or connected system of irrigation is
impossible ; but limited, detached and independent irrigation is
practicable everywhere, though, of course, in very limited local
ities, as in the more elevated mountain areas, where irrigation is
possible only in crude ways. It is only on the plains and in
the larger valleys that extensive irrigation works can be made ap
plicable or large investments of capital profitable. In other and
smaller isolated mountain areas, the methods of storage, distribu
tion and application, must vary according to the configuration of
the land, and be confined to limited districts, the rugged nature
of the mountains rendering impossible any general system of con
serving or distributing the waters or the snow fall. This must be
done by the construction of isolated catchment basins in the
arroyos and depressions that abound throughout the mountains,
from which the water can be distributed to the larger valleys and
plateaus lower down. The varying altitude of the sections in
which water storage and cultivation can be made profitable is
from 3,000 to 8,000 feet, and the clear, dry, bracing atmosphere
is charged with health-giving properties. At all seasons of the
year, save perhaps in the higher altitudes, it is a positive luxury
to be out in the open air, summer and winter. Abounding in all
the elements conducive to health, comfort and longevity, it is
fitted in a pronounced degree for the home of prosperous com
munities. In the presence of all these prime concomitants to
the comforts of life, it cannot be possible that these regions are
condemned to perpetual barrenness and isolation. Nature makes
no mistakes and creates nothing in vain. It cannot be that those
beautiful, healthful plains and mountains can never be redeemed

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 443

from their condition of sterility and converted into comfortable
homes. They have the necessary constituents of fertility, though
dormant, the grandest of scenery and the most delightful of
climates.

It is true that every age must wrestle with and settle, if pos
sible, its own problems, and it is especially true that every gen
eration owes something to those who are to succeed it, as well as
to itself. Without a due observance of that obligation there
would be little if any progress. Without constant endeavor for
the betterment of conditions, there would be no progress and no
purpose in life but a brutish momentary satisfaction. The re
demption of the earth to the satisfaction of human needs and the
promotion of human happiness is therefore among the highest
duties of men, and the command of nature to essay its redemp
tion falls with equal force on every succeeding generation. The
solution of this problem of irrigation has fallen to this age, and
should be settled now, or, at least, put in the way of settlement,
for the welfare of this generation as well as of those which are to
follow. With a large proportion of the lands of the country
now available for settlement held by great corporations and private
syndicates, or otherwise for speculative purposes, and our land
less poor flocking to the cities or eking out a laborious existence
on rented farms, we have reached the open door of an European
condition of landlordism and tenantry, under which the class not
long since distinctively known as the " American farmer " must
soon become extinct. There is no condition, as already stated,
so calculated to inspire love of country and loyalty to law, or so
conducive to public order, as ownership of the home, be it in city
or country, though this influence is most quickly and deeply felt
in the rural districts. Therefore, no country can be truly pros
perous or long remain the home of freemen, whose producing
population is forced to live on rented farms ; or even where the
great mass of its laboring urban population is forced by the ex
cessive values of realty to a condition of tenantry. There can
be no condition like independent freeholding — home owning —
especially by laboring people, for the stimulation of love of home
and country ; and no other American environment has been so
productive as the farm of useful public men, who in the past
hundred years have left their impress for good upon the history
and institutions of their country and the world.

444 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

But we are swerving from the beneficent policy that was
long so distinctive a feature of our history ; and it is time to re
turn before we become a nation governed by an aristocracy of
landowners, of landlords and tenants, afflicted by all the evils
such conditions bring in their wake.

To those who have noted the tendency of the time during the
last half century, this will not seem an overdrawn picture of the
danger that has come to threaten our basic industry, and through
it the welfare of the country. Most of the great fortunes of the
time, individual and corporate, have been accumulated through
vast landholdings and speculation in land, secured largely
through governmental benefactions to corporations, and the other
wise mischievous administration of ill-considered public land
laws. On the other hand, mistaken economic legislation to the
discouragement of agriculture and cognate pursuits, has driven
to the cities large numbers of the people of the country, to live
by varying shifts and uncertain employment, till the cities are
filled with a population for which there is little room and less
work. It is true that wise and beneficent laws have decreed the
right of free homestead and pre-emption to settlers on the pub
lic domain, but on the other hand the Congress has thrown away
vast empires in area of the public lands to capitalized corpora
tions, and its auction sales have made the public domain a basis
of enormous private speculation, while its invitation to settle
ment and development has been robbed of its effect by the enact
ment of tariff laws, which create great centres of manufacture
and commerce and thus lure the people from the country to the
cities. Our beneficent land laws have thus been rendered com
paratively of little avail for the purposes of homestead and devel
opment, but great cities of princes and beggars have been built
up, while the public lands in large degree have been absorbed for
purposes of speculation, and still remain the same wilderness of
desolation they were at the beginning. There has been little
development, very little in comparison to what there should and
might have been, on the public domain of the West in the last
two decades.

The policy of spoliation indicated has been continued till ex
tension and growth in the West are practically at a standstill,
certainly so in comparison with its earlier record. Settlement
has reached the limit of production without artificial appliances,

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 445

and the great cities of the East have reached the point of con
gestion from over-crowded populations demanding employment.
Prudent fiscal legislation can do much for the betterment of
these conditions, but that alone can bring only partial and tem
porary relief. There would be little philosophy or coherence in
any plan therefor that did not contemplate the restoration of the
remaining areas of the public domain to settlement and produc
tion, and the re-establishment of the movement to its unoccupied
portions. But a small proportion of the vast acreage that still
remains is impossible of reclamation. It is true that in large
portions of the mountain States and Territories a coherent system
of irrigation is impossible, but limited, local, independent irriga
tion is not only possible, but feasible and practicable everywhere,
from the great valleys to the timber line, and at less cost to the
occupant, proportionately, than by any of the great schemes of
irrigation now in operation in the most favored regions.

The greatest hindrance to the institution of successful irriga
tion is the idea somewhat prevalent that it can be accomplished
only through the medium of great capitalized corporations,
based on speculative land holding and land absorption. But the
public faith in and demand for such methods are passing away.
It is found that not only do they fail to meet the demands for
homes for the people, for whom the public lands were originally
and wisely set aside, but, on the contrary, that such diversion of
them is destructive of that purpose. It is coming again to be re
cognized that the public domain exists primarily for the benefit
of those who seek it for homestead purposes solely, and not as an
instrumentality for spoliation by the public or the individual, but
for the establishment of American homes ; and it is to be hoped
that not another acre will ever be diverted to any other purpose.

There are no more productive soils on earth, given water, than
those of the great plains and mountain valleys of New Mexico.
The equability and healthfulness of its climate is unequalled, va
rying in latitude and altitude to suit all tastes and physical tem
peraments and conditions. The only question in the matter of
its successful irrigation is the water supply. The present visible
supply is manifestly insufficient. How it may be permanently
increased during the season of planting and growth is a serious
question. In view of the capabilities of that country for the
maintenance of a population sufficient to give it economic andpo-

446 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

litical consequence, and of the demand of an increasing popula
tion for homes, the question of its reclamation becomes one of
mighty import and worthy of profound consideration. A land so
fair, so replete with all the elements of healthf uhiess and vitality,
should not be permitted to lie inert and waste, if human ingenuity
can compass the stimulation of its wonderful, but undeveloped,
energies. The utility of irrigation for the cultivation of the earth
has been so fully established by successful experiment that its
discussion here would be out of place. That phase of the ques
tion has passed into the realm of established fact. It is no longer
in dispute. The problem now is, how best to apply it under the
varying conditions of localities. It is not a question of fact, but
of methods of application, and of the forms of its administration
with a view to the best possible results.

Next in importance to the reclamation of land for the pro
duction of food stuffs and its preparation for homes for the
people, is the prevention, as far as possible, of its absorption by
capitalists for speculative purposes. Any measure that left the
arid lands open to such absorption would defeat the first and
most important purpose of their reclamation. In the case of
New Mexico, with whose needs I am most familiar, I would
make the institution of a system of irrigation a condition prece
dent to admission to statehood, as without the reclamation of its
arid lands there would be little value in statehood. New Mexico
has remained in its original territorial condition for nearly fifty
years, and it is in many respects practically in nearly the same
economic condition as at the time of its acquisition from Mexico
— a mere satrapy of no consequence politically, and of very little
in any other respect. There is no good reason for the longer con
tinuance of this condition, but it will continue so long as her
lands remain impossible of development. Admission to state
hood will not of itself attract people or capital, or materially or
permanently change existing conditions; but statehood in con
nection with irrigation will.

Nor is it the duty or the province, even, of the United States
to assume the work of irrigation and reclamation there; but it is
to a degree the duty of the federal government to permit the
territory to assume the discharge of that duty in any legitimate
and proper way that affords reasonable promise of good results.
The public lands of New Mexico, the larger part of which will

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 417

forever remain valueless, I am convinced after long and careful
study of the subject at first hand, afford a legitimate and fruitful
resource for the accomplishment of the work of their own recla
mation, and I am also confident that the work can be accom
plished through that resource practically without expense to the
Territory or the general government, establishing at the same
time a basis for successful statehood, with the assurance of an
early and material increase of population for its maintenance.

The plan I have in mind is simple and easily understood,
and could also be readily applied to the other mountain commu
nities of the arid West. Let Congress enact that at a given time,
say two years from the date of enactment, a convention shall be
held for the preparation of a constitution for the new State. Fix
the time for the popular vote of the territory on that proposed
constitution at not less than a year subsequent to the promulga
tion of that act, and arrange that upon the approval of that con
stitution by Congress and the President the act of admission shall
be complete. The act of Congress authorizing a constitution
should also provide that upon the admission of New Mexico to
the Union as a State, the Territory shall be at once vested with the
title to all public lands therein at the date of that act, on condi
tion that it shall within a reasonable time, to be fixed by Con
gress, commence the work of reclamation by irrigation, authority
having been given it to borrow specified sums of money from time
to time therefor, and also on condition that as such lands are satis
factorily reclaimed they shall be sold to actual occupants only, at
the actual cost of reclamation and in tracts of not more than
forty acres to each actual settler. The capacity of the lands of
New Mexico for production has been fully tested through several
generations, but that capacity has not been developed to any gen
eral extent because of the inadequacy of private enterprise to such
a work, and because they belong to a general government that has
no constitutional right or power to engage in internal improve
ments. It is folly to ask the general government to expend the
public revenues for the benefit of a locality. These arid lands
never have been and never can become a source of revenue in the
hands of the government. The state, however, by the plan sug
gested, can reclaim and develop them if permitted to do so, fit
them for prosperous homes for tens of thousands of the now
landless, homeless people of the country, and make them a source

448 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of revenue, without the cost of one dollar to the government. I
believe that the state, thus endowed, will find little difficulty in
procuring the necessary means to enable it, by a judicious admin
istration of the trust, to fit for cultivation every reclaimable acre
within its boundaries in a reasonable time, and locate a farmer on
every one of its forty-acre tracts.

When wisely undertaken, adequate irrigation can be secured
at a comparatively small cost per acre. The futility of damming
the streams of New Mexico for the purpose of conserving water
for irrigation is shown by the fact that almost every dam thus
far constructed has been destroyed by flood, to the loss of
life and vast amounts of property values in addition to that of
the works destroyed ; and even were it possible to construct a
permanent dam in these streams, the basin thus created would
soon fill up with the sand and sediment carried down from the
mountains in every flood, and the waters thereby forced out and
over adjoining farms to their fatal injury. But as to the
most economical and effective method of conserving water for
irrigation, the native people of New Mexico have, fortunately,
set an object lesson which, strange to say, has been generally
overlooked in the elaboration of irrigation theories. All that is
needed is to adopt and improve upon their method, which is not
by damming but simply placing an obstruction in the stream,
so as to divide the current and divert the desired proportion of
its waters into a previously constructed acequia, or irrigating
canal. By this canal the water is carried across and distributed
over the fields under cultivation.^ The system thus suggested is
admirable in its simplicity. Taking the Mexican acequia as a
basis, there should be built in the centre of the stream from
which water for irrigation is to be taken, a pier high 'enough to
divert a portion of the flood or surplus waters into a lateral canal
commencing at the pier, and thence conducted into a reservoir
at some point in the foothills lower down the stream and of suffi
cient elevation to irrigate the lands between it and the stream.
This operation should be repeated at different points along the
stream as often as the needs of cultivation may require and the
topography of the valley will permit — the surplus waters that
flow down all the streams and arroyos in torrents from one to three
times every year, being stowed away and held for distribution
when needed by the growing crops. There is not a running

FUTURE OF THE ARID WEST. 449

stream or arroyo whose flood waters cannot be thus impounded,,
and held as reserve for irrigation at times when most needed,
during which all the watercourses are as a rule too dry or too low
for the purpose.

Aside from the direct aid to agriculture thus afforded, an
other very great benefaction to the country will be secured in the
prevention of the disastrous floods that every year sweep down all
those valleys, washing out farms and sometimes destroying entire
villages. By this plan, and at desired intervals, the surplus waters
for storage being drawn off, the volume and force of the highest
floods that ever visit that country will soon have become so
diminished and slackened in their flow as to render serious
damage therefrom impossible.

It is a serious question whether admission to statehood under
present conditions, even if possible by a vote of the people, so far
from being advantageous to New Mexico, would not, on the con
trary, become an absolute and permanent detriment — whether
the desired immigration and development which this proposition
is designed to invite and stimulate would not be repelled, and
thus the condition of the people of the new state, instead of being
bettered by the change, become actually worse than before, by
the establishment in political control of an element of retro
gression. This result has happened in the haste to make new
States, and the intelligent, progressive people of New Mexico do
not desire that their own territory shall constitute such an ex
ample. The value of statehood would be incalculably in
creased by the cession of lands to the new State, the ag
gregate wealth of the country correspondingly magnified,
and the opportunity for the acquirement of homes, in
dependent American homes, by tens bf thousands, would be
opened to the landless people of the entire country. Three
inter-state conventions have been held in the last few years for
the purpose of consultation on this important topic and a fourth
has just been held at Albuquerque.

It may be objected that the plan I have outlined would be
subject to abuse. Is it possible to suggest any effective plan for
this purpose that would not be open to the same criticism ?
Yet it cannot be denied that the opportunities for wilful misdi
rection of the public domain would thus be reduced to the mini
mum. As a rule, actual settlers only would become possessed
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 29

450 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the lands, and that of itself would be a great gain. As a rule,
too, very considerable areas would be rendered tillable which are
not at all likely to be so improved in the absence of any similar
provision by the government, and that would be another
great gain ; and all done at a small cost to the pettier, in com
parison with the value to him of the land so redeemed and
at no cost in the end to the State or the United States. Of
the more than sixty million acres of public land in New Mexico,
at least half could be made subject to successful cultivation, add
ing correspondingly to the tillable area and to the wealth of the
world, and affording comfortable homes, in addition to its pres
ent population, for a quarter of a million of producing people.

At the rate at which the public lands of the West have been
absorbed for speculative purposes by capitalized corporations, the
next generation will see the great central West barred against
the tide of homeseekers which marked and glorified the history
of the past generation. It is time to call a halt before the avail
able area of the public domain shall have been absorbed by specu
lative capital and closed against that great class for whose bene
fit as homesteads it was primarily set apart. The Lian who
owns his homestead has a pecuniary as well as a sentimental in
terest in the conduct and stability of the government that pro
tects him in his right to that home. There is no condition so
conducive to loyalty to law and to public order as the owner
ship of the home. He who owns the roof that shelters him has
something at stake, the security and value of which is dissipated
in the presence of public disorder. The security, the perma
nency and the efficacy of popular government have no more
earnest champion than the man over whom the flag of his coun
try waves as a symbol and guarantee to him of protection in his
home.

EDMUND G. Ross.

ENGLISH WOMEN IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS.

BY LADY JEUtfE.

WHEN the Primrose League was started in 1881 and 1882
under the aegis of the late Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir
Henry Drummond Wolf, it was the fashion to laugh at the little
yellow badge of flowers, which was said to be beloved by one
whom many regard as the greatest leader in the history of English
political strife. The question as to whether Lord Beaconsfield
really loved the primrose is still an open one, but the sunny woods
at Hughenden are full of them, and the flower was eagerly seized
on by the longsighted organizers of the League as a symbol which
might do a mighty work.

The idea "caught on " in the imagination of Englishwomen,
and being adopted by all ranks, it brought into a more friendly
and close compact the women of the upper and middle classes
who, whatever maybe the political opinion of their lords and mas
ters, are thoroughly conservative. The League is now fourteen
years old. It has had the experience of some elections and its
power is enormous. In 1881 the members of the Primrose League
were a few hundreds, in 1804 they were 1,259,808. This organi
zation is spread all over the country, in radical Scotland and
Wales, and the modest flower has even ventured to plant its roots
in the Emerald Isle, and it may fairly claim now to have attained
an age when its influence can be felt. The Eadical party and
press have always professed the greatest scorn and contempt for
the Primrose League, looking on it as a base and designing
organization, which by means of social temptations is sapping the
honest political convictions of Englishwomen. That the wife
of a doctor or clergyman should be able to withstand the seduc
tions of a wily Conservative duchess is a possible contingency, but
that the honest farmer's or tradesman's wife should fall is inevi-

452 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

table, and so the friendly gatherings and garden parties, the new
amenities which have helped so largely to brighten the lives of
people living all year round in the country are regarded as
the political serpent which has crept into the garden of Eden
and is corrupting the honesty and simplicity of our English
Arcadia.

The Kadicals have, however, the wit to see that such an organ
ization is invaluable and many have been the attempts on their side
to inaugurate a like work, but all their efforts have been unavailing.
But the lesson of their unsuccessful imitation is not thrown away
on their opponents, who in that form of flattery find great encour
agement. Perhaps nowhere have their failures been more dis
tinctly grotesque than in Scotland, where the Primrose League
itself had a chequered childhood, but where the blandishments of
any such like Liberal organization failed to touch the hearts or
imaginations of the sons of the Gael.

The Primrose League during the last election sent out an army
of women workers, canvassers and clerks, besides those who spoke
at meetings ; and the report which deals largely with the work
done during the last election and the direction in which members
were most successful ought to fill their hearts with unbounded
pride. The success which attended their efforts seems to have
borne rapid fruit if the one fact only is considered, namely, that
they added no less than 5,613 members to the League in July,
and there is little doubt that the Primrose League dames con
tributed largely to the success of the Conservative party.

The income of the League shows a large increase this year,
and where a supreme effort is needed there is no lack of willing
hands and well-filled purses which respond to the appeal. It is
curious, after recounting the experience of the work of women
connected with the Primrose League, to find a very clearly ex
pressed opinion that, while their work is excellent in many ways,
it is in the smaller and less important matters appertaining to
politics that they are useful. One must in fairness admit that
any strongly expressed opinion adverse to them conies from the
Liberal side, who view the Primrose League as the offspring of
the evil one, but both parties seem agreed that women who speak
in public at election time do not have anything like the power
and influence that the quieter and more unobtrusive canvasser
lias, who is willing to turn her hand to any wor.k that is wanted,

ENGLISH WOMEN IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. 453

from directing covers to bringing the always weary and often
drunken voter to the poll.

It would be invidious to point out exceptions, but I should
think the women whose work certainly helped their husbands into
Parliament did it during the long months before the election,
and that it was by personal acquaintance and canvassing that
they won the hearts of the electors, and not by any great oratorical
display. There is something repugnant to the ordinary English
man in the idea of a woman mounting a platform and facing the
noisy, gaping, vulgar crowd of an election meeting. The smell
of smoke, the ribald jokes, the coarse comments, the rough
give-and-take of an election are not circumstances in which women
either appear to advantage or are appreciated, and the testimony
of members of Parliament on both sides agrees on this point.

An English weekly journal, The Gentlewoman, sent a formal
letter to every M. P. asking him his opinion on this question and
some of the answers are very amusing. They are curious, taking
them at random, and it may not be out of place to quote a few.
Lord Valentia says: " I can only speak for my own constituency,
and have no hesitation in saying that the aid contributed by
ladies both in clerical work and canvassing has been of the
greatest possible value. . . ." Another M. P. says: " The
ladies gave me great help ; on the other hand my opponent's wife
was of great value to her husband by her clever and lively
speeches. . . ." One says: "My wife was my best canvasser."
The member for Rotherhithe says: " Ladies have succeeded as
canvassers in many places where men have failed, finding it
most interesting work and as exciting as bicycling." The
evidence as to their utility in clerical work, their willingness and
their perseverance in bringing up voters, is endless. There are
a few M. P.s, however, who are more outspoken than gallant.
" I consider I o\ye my success in a great measure to the ladies
who worked for me. ... I think ladies can do a great deal
privately, but I am not in favor of their speaking in public," is
the opinion of one M. P. Another says: "Personally I am
convinced that the less women have to do with politics, either in
public speaking or canvassing, the better." One M. P. is both
ungrateful and brutal, and writes: "I had no help from women,
whatever, nor would I ask any woma» to do anything in the
political contests; they have no sense of judicial fairness and will

454 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

attempt to carry out practices which if they 'were known would
lead to persecution under the Bribery and Corruption Act. The
rule of women's political associations is in nine cases out of ten,
bribery, corruption, undue influence or threatening in some form
or other. I have heard a Conservative Primrose dame deplore
the existence of the ballot which prevented her from knowing
whether her bribes gained her votes." Sir Frederick Milner
bears testimony to the help he received in clerical and depart
mental work, adding that he " found Separatist women more
fond of talking than Unionists."

The Primrose League Gazette is brimful of acknowledgments
from candidates of the great service the ladies of the Primrose
League rendered to them. We may, no doubt, discount some
of their enthusiasm and gratitude, but that the women worked
hard and zealously is a fact, and a great deal of the Conservative
success is owing to their enthusiasm.

While the chorus of praise is nearly unanimous, there are
great differences of opinion as to the reasons for the success, and
there is a very universal consensus of opinion that the value of
women's work lies in the humbler and more mechanical parts of an
election. If we analyze the different answers, we find that in cler
ical work, such as directing envelopes and leaflets, in personal can
vassing, and on election days in bringing up recalcitrant, rambling
or distant voters, women were supremely useful. It may be the
long rooted distrust and jealousy with which men have viewed the
gradual rise of the weaker sex that have caused them to indicate
the less glorious part of the fray as women's part, but it is a fact
that, while sternly deprecating their speaking in public, and ab
staining carefully from admitting that their softer or more persua
sive manners had greater weight than formerly, nearly every
M. P. has given his evidence to the help women render in a polit
ical campaign in England. Even Mr. Chamberlain, the sternest
opponent of women's rights, has spoken most enthusiastically as
to the help the Unionist cause received from them. But apart
from the widespread influence so large an organization as the
Primrose League must exercise, there are many reasons why women
should be very useful in political strife. They are untiring in
their enthusiasm, and their resolute belief in the cause they advo
cate insensibly encourages and impresses those they work with.
They are willing to do any work that is given them, and as so few

ENGLISH WOMEN IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. 455

of them have any oratorical capacity they are saved from the most
prominent of female weaknesses, namely, jealousy of those who
have. They have no real shyness in canvassing or in approaching
the voter, however rough he may be. As a rule he is civil to
women even in his cups, but no one can deny the great increase of
drunkenness in many parts during an election day.

The work of an active canvasser is really very entertaining,
for she comes into contact with people and phases of life which
are very original. In England the mode of procedure is a first
canvass of the constituency, so as to feel the pulse of the con
stituency and see in what direction the political current is
flowing. Each ward has its allotted canvassers, and they have
either to see each elector personally or to acquaint themselves
with his intentions. After the first canvass is over, which is
necessarily a very incomplete one, a second is undertaken, which
throws more light on the situation and leaves only the doubtful,
the absent and the distant elector to be accounted for. Besides
the ordinary canvassers of the stronger sex a large number of
women are employed, who volunteer their services and who are
of course unpaid, and they are nearly always the last and most
potent influence that can be brought to bear on the being whose
vote may be of such vital importance. In each ward political
feeling varies ; some are "all right," i. e. Conservative, others
" very unsatisfactory" or nearly all "blue," probably the Eadical
color. The latter are the ones to be tackled, and upon them all
the batteries of Conservative female persuasion have to be directed.

In London there are only two hours in the day during which
the lord and master of the house is to be found at home, at dinner
time, between one and two, or after eight o'clock. Dinner is not
the best time to solicit his suffrage ; his time is short, he is hot
and tired, anxious not to be late at his work and does not want
to "jaw" with anyone. In such cases the wife has to be ap
proached, and nothing can describe the discretion of the English
voter's wife. "I know nothing about my husband ; he does not
tell me how he votes ; I have enough to think of without votes,
and don't care. What good will it do me or the children ? You
can leave your card, and there's a lot more cards come. I'll
mention it to him when he comes back."

The electoral literature is a very wonderful development in
England ; for, besides all the information in the shape of leaflets,

456 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

etc., which are laid at the elector's feet, there are magnificent por
traits of the rival candidates, and cartoons of the wildest and
most distracting description, by means of which artistic efforts it
is hoped some impression maybe given of the misgovernment and
incompetency of the existing administration. These offerings
are received in the most impartial spirit, and at one London elec
tion an enthusiastic canvasser was horrified to find the windows
and walls of a most important supporter smothered with bills,
pictures and cartoons casting obloquy on his party; and he was only
relieved from the terrible suspicion of apostasy on being informed
by the eldest daughter of the family that they had put them there
" cos they was much the most beautiful of the two sides, Mr.

being that ugly mother would not have pictures of him in

the house."

A large number of the poorer electors know very little and
care still less about the larger questions of home and imperial
policy, and local matters in country districts often turned the
scale one way or another. Shorter hours, better pay, foreign
immigration, were the questions about which the wives seemed to
care most, the larger and broader questions being algebra to them.
The women were always courteous, with one or two exceptions,
but when a certain canvasser had exhausted all her persuasions
and was sternly asked "Are you married ?" and replied in the
affirmative, she was brusquely told to go home and look after her '
husband and children. Such amenities, however, were rare, and
in most cases the workmen's wives were quite polite. A canvas
ser I knew encountered a maid in a small family, no member of
which on numerous visits was ever at home, and at last, being
wearied out by repeated questions on answering the door the maid
said : " There is no use for you to come again ; master's out and
wont see anyone. I don't know how he'll vote: all I know is that
we always lights the fire with the Daily News."

In canvassing it was found a very useful help to leave a card
on the electors with the name and address of the canvasser, and
if it was a well-known person or a local celebrity, it had some
effect and was put in an exposed position, so that the less favored
neighbors might realize what they had foregone by their political
opinions. Local people had more weight than strangers unless,
as I say, ifc might be some person of distinction or rank or a
very pretty woman. Pretty women still retain their potency,

ENGLISH WOMEN IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. 457

though I know of no renewal of practices such as were carried
out with singular success by a beautiful duchess.

The influence of the Church in London was unmistakable, and
those whose names were known to the electors as working through
that medium had great power. One lady who had worked in a
very poor constituency in East London and had been the medium
of a great amount of help given to the women and children for
some years, told a very characteristic story of how she visited two
or three families in one of the large industrial dwellings for the poor
and was refused a hearing. She asked permission merely to leave
the candidate's card and one of her own, and took her departure
to go higher up in the same block where she received the same

answer : '• My husband is going to vote for Mr. , so there is

no use your coming here." On her return next day to finish her
canvass she was waylaid on the stairs by one of the most vehement
of her opponents of the day before, who said : " We was not
aware yesterday 'oo you was, and I've been speaking to my 'us-
band and 'e says 'e don't mind 'ow he votes as you was very
good to the children/' and without solicitation on her part, as
she went upstairs, her other opponent of the day before assured
her of her husband's indifference as to what he did with his
vote.

This story does not say much for the stolid, honest, political
working man in London, but it teaches one a very important lesson
which would-be legislators may take to heart; namely, that any
one who desires to get into Parliament should seek a poor metro
politan constituency, and if he devotes his time and what money
he can legitimately spend towards making personal acquaintance
with his constituents, acd endeavoring to beautify and improve
the lives and conditions under which they and their children live,
he may make his success assured and his seat safe against all
attack. There is no necessity to degrade or pauperize his people;
but the sympathy and kindness he can show them, and the various
opportunities which come to him in which he can help to make
their lives brighter, must bring about this result.

There is one notable example in the North of London of a con
stituency (which is the safest seat in the Metropolis) which has
returned the same representative for years, and which has been
held against internal dissension and strong political opposition,
solely for the reason that the members of his family have devoted
v •

468 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

themselves to acquiring a personal knowledge of his constitu
ents, and impressing on them the conviction that they consider
themselves their friends in the best sense of the word. If Parlia
mentary life is so desirable, it is not a very heavy price to pay for
it, and the labor can be shared and lightened by the wife and
daughters undertaking part, and their influence is of more im
portance than any other. It is not only during the storm and
stress of election-time that women can do their best work, but it is
during the intermediate period when they ought to be able to get
on terms of personal acquaintance with their constituents. One of
the most trying parts of electioneering to a woman must always be
the sight of poverty and sickness which meet her at every step,
and which makes the political work she is carrying on such a
mockery. Wretched houses, drunken parents, sick children, ter
rible poverty on all sides confront her, and the difficulty of stay
ing her hand must be great. To the credit of the London voters
be it said, they realize the impossibility of such help being forth
coming, and they never add to the difficulty of the work by de
manding it. When homes and scenes come under the notice of
the canvasser at every turn, which are appalling in their grim
darkness, it seems almost impossible to appeal for political support,
and to urge the claims of party on those who live under such con
ditions. The promises of better times, higher wages, a life more
like a human being's than an animal's, seem to choke them, and
the man from whom the political favor is asked must think with
savage cynicism of the repeated story which to him is only a hid
eous sham. " I don't blame them when they promises," said a
London workman, " they mean all they says when they says it,
but when they gets to the House of Parliament they finds others as
has promised more, and they cannot do what they said they
would," and so the workingman knows that he is still far from
the Arcadia promised him during a Parliamentary election.

There are amusing sides to the picture, however, as illus
trated by the story told by a female canvasser during her work
in the East of London. One day she found a man whitewash
ing a house in which she was looking for a vote, and she
addressed him, expressing her hope that he would give his vote
to her candidate. He sternly refused, and she said she regretted
it because his candidate was sure to be beaten, adding in fun,
" I'll back my man against yours." "I never bets, it's wrong,"

ENGLISH WOMEN IN POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS. 459

was his answer. Explaining this was a mere fafon deparler,
she turned to his mate, who then appeared, asking for his sup
port, which he also refused, and he added : " I'll bet you your
man will be beat." After some chaff the bet was booked, the man

saying, as he wished the canvasser goodbye: "If Mr. R is beaten,

you'll send me 'arf a crown; if Mr. W is beaten, I'll see what

I can scrape together." Mr. E , however, was returned with a

triumphant majority, and three days afterwards she received the
following letter: ' 'Madam — Mr. R — — 'aving got in, you don't owe
me anything ; I'm a workingman and I 'ave not got 'arf a crown,
but any day yon was passing I should be glad to see you. Yours
truly, John Jones." In a few days her work took her in the
direction of Mr. Jones' house, and she found him at home. After
the usual amenities Mr. Jones said: ff I ain't got 'arf a crown, of
course, yet what am I to do ?" She assured him it was of no con
sequence, that he might defer his settling day. Mr. Jones did
not, however, appear satisfied, and expressed his conviction that
the ' f 'arf crown" would never be forthcoming. " I ain't
going to tell you 'ow I voted; my vote's my property and I
can do as I likes with it, and I ain't going to tell you anything;
but I am a very 'ardworking man and I've not 'ad a 'oliday for
over 15 years; I 'ave not been in the country I don't know
when; I 'card as there is 'olidays going about, and I thought I'd
ask you to come and see me and see if you could 'elp me to one."
What happened, history says not. Let us leave the sequel to the

consciences of Mr. Jones and Miss D ; but Mr. Jones was still

in London a week ago.

Such incidents throw light on the motives which govern the ordi
nary English elector in his exercise of the franchise. While there
are thousands of workingmen who no doubt value the possession
of a vote, there is still a vast majority who know little and care
less about the questions which affect the welfare and integrity of
the empire, and whose life is one long struggle to make two ends
meet, and who are therefore only influenced by purely personal
interest.

This is, however, in parenthesis, and our paper is only in
tended to give an idea of the incidents of a general election, and
the influence and effect women have had on the result.

MARY JEUKE.

ENVIRONMENT AND DRINK.

BY J. F. WALDO, M. D., AND DAVID WALSH, M. D,

IN the present year of grace there is happily no need to enlarge
upon the evils of alcoholic intemperance. It may be at once
assumed that such indulgence entails disaster upon the individual
no less than upon the family and the nation. For all that, the
underlying causes of inebriety are but ill understood, although of
late years a flood of light has been thrown upon their inwardness
by many earnest workers. Among recent advances none is likely
to be of more practical value than that which recognizes alco
holism as pointing to some mental flaw in the individual.

To the medical man a " symptom" is merely the evidence of
a more remote disorder. Thus, a red and inflamed skin may be
symptomatic of scarlet fever, of parasites, of measles, of sunburn,
and of a host of more or less sharply defined and definable causes.
In a similar way the craving for strong drink may be regarded as
a symptom of varied origin. That it may be the token of an
inherited mental instability is now generally acknowledged.
When, however, it results from acquired brain conditions little
appears to be known as to its causation.

In the matter of drink, as in other ways, the individual
responds to the influences of his environment. Thus, bad sur
roundings may convert a man of seemingly sound mental and
bodily constitution into a drunkard. On the other hand, a good
environment may to a great extent neutralize the effects of even
a large and long continued consumption of alcohol. Take, for
instance, the case of a country squire well off in such things as
food, clothes, housing, and open air exercise. He may con
sume a large quantity of strong drink every day of his life, and
yet li\e to a hale and hearty old age. A poor man in a bad en-

ENVIRONMENT A ZVD DRINK. 461

vironment who drank to a similar extent would probably never
reach forty. In the first case,, it should be noted, the special cir
cumstances imply good liquor, whereas in the second they mean
drink of an inferior and highly injurious nature.

Then a bad environment acts in many ways as a direct phys
iological incentive to the use of alcohol. In most instances it
sooner or later lessens the moral control of the individual by damag
ing his brain, the nutrition of which is sensitive to changes in the
blood and circulation. By enfeebling the body generally, and
the heart in particular, it leads the individual, naturally enough,
to seek relief from the stimulant that lies nearest to his hand.

Environment is, of course, a wide term, and includes such
circumstances as occupation, habitat, worldly gear, in short, all
the immediate externals of the individual. The circumstances
of town life are more harmful to mankind than those of the
country, as shown by a comparison of the death rates of the one
and the other. If we compare the mortality of the rustic
laborer with that of the corresponding class in London we find
that the countryman enjoys a life on an average three times as
long as that of his metropolitan brethren. Much of this dis
parity may be accounted for by the fact that labor competition
is keener in the towns, and hence there is a greater amount of
poverty and privation. Among other causes are the smoky
atmosphere and the general dissipation of town life, as against
the simple habits and pure air of the country. Town mortality
is further influenced by such points of special environment as
bad drainage and unhealthy employments, but it may be ques
tioned if, after all. the great determining factor of its havoc
among adults may not be ascribed to alcohol.

It need hardly be pointed out that all comparative figures of
class mortalities bristle with fallacies. Thus, certain rich London
districts, such as Hampstead, with a death-rate of 14.6 per 1,000
of population, and Plumstead, with 16.4 per 1,000, compare fa-
voraoiy with many rural districts, and dilute, as it were, the re
turns for the whole Metropolis. Then, again, the towns are
recruited by a steady stream of robust country folk. The urban
child mortality, moreover, is about twice that of the rural. Tak
ing such things into consideration, it is likely that the brunt of
the total mortality of Great Britain falls upon the town poor.

The question of occupation closely affects the death rate of

462

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the laboring classes. The statistics of trade mortalities, however,
do not give much help upon the point. The census is meagre in
details, and is taken at too long intervals. Of the workmen,
many desert an unhealthy trade and drift off to swell the mor
tality of some other occupation ; while not a few die in work
houses and other institutions, and leave no record of the particu
lar trade that has broken their health. One may, however,
attempt to arrive at a few broad tentative conclusions.

In a table by Drs. Ogle and Arlidge, comparing the mortality
between persons of various occupations, we find the fifteen high
est on the list :

Occupation.

Mean Annual Death-
rate per 1,000 living.

Comparative mor
tality fleure.

Age.
25-45.

Age.
45 65.

Age.
25-65.

All males

1016
9.71

22.63
20.62
20.26
1477
13.70
15.29
17.07
18.02
13.73
15.39
13.90
13.64
13.78
14.25
12.52

9.26
7.79
7.64
8.53
9.70
7.54
8.53
7.77
8.32
8.00
6.41
7.13
609
5.52
4.64

2527
24.63

55.30
50.85
45.33
5369
51.39
45.14
37.37
33.68
41.54
36.83
34.25
3325
3239
31.13
33.00

22.61
25.07
2511
23.2S
2<!.96
23.13
20.57
21.74
19.74
19.16
19.98
17.68
1653
16.19
15.93

l.ono
967

2,20,i
2,020
1,879
1,839
x 1.742
1,667
1,565
1,521
1,519
1,482
1,361
1,327
1,314

1,3ns

1,275

903
896
891
887
883
883
825
820
797
771
719
701
631
599
556

Occupied males

Inn and hotel servants

General laborers in London

Costermongers and hawkers

Cornish miners

Potters and earthen ware manufacturers.
Filemakers

W aichmen, porters and messengers
Licensed victuallers and innkeepeis
Chimney- sweeps

Cabmen and omnibusmen
Brewerymen

Hairdressers . ...

Professional mus:cians

Bargemen and watermen
Carters and carriers

And the fifteen lowest :
Watch and clock makers

Plasterers and whitewashers. . ..

Coal miners

Grooms and private coachmen

Drapers and warehousemen

Barristers and solicitors

Carpenters and joiners ... .

Grocers

Schoolmasters and teachers

Agricultural liborers

Gardeners and nurserymen

Clergy, prieets and ministers

Glancing over the fifteen occupations of highest mortality
two things at once 'attract attention. First, they belong to the
working class, with the single exception of the licensed victual
lers and innkeepers. Secondly, they are in the main urban.
Moreover, seven of them, that is to say, the general laborers,
costermongers and hawkers, watchmen and messengers, cabmen

ENVIRONMENT AND DRINK, 463

and omiribusmen, musicians, bargemen and watermen, carters
and carriers, are engaged in outdoor work that is arduous, pro
longed, and often ill-paid and unhealthy. Is it any wonder that
men working under such conditions should turn for solace to al
cohol ? As a matter of fact nearly all of them drink to excess.
We see, then, that the fifteen highest trade mortalities fall for
the most part upon the town laborers, who are given to drink,
and whose work is of a toilsome and exacting nature. Of course,
among them are many persons of deficient bodily and mental de
velopment, who earn their bread in the unskilled labor market of
the cities. In the case of the Cornish miners, countrymen of
strong frames and temperate habits, the high mortality is due to
the poisonous dust and the bad ventilation of the mines.

Turning to the fifteen occupations of lowest mortality, we
find that four of them, namely, fishing, agricultural labor, farm
ing and grazing, and gardening, are carried on in the open air
and away from towns. The rest are partly urban and partly
rural, or mixed. Some of them, such as the legal and the clerical
professions, appear to enjoy a specially favorable environment.

On the whole, it may be said that the fifteen callings of
lowest mortality are to a great extent rural and include many
well-to-do persons in town and country, while those of the
highest fifteen are mainly urban, and, with the single exception
of the publicans, belong to the working classes. The majority of
those included in the fifteen lowest mortalities either work in the
open air or spend a good deal of time out of doors, so that it
seems clear that the hardship of out-door work cannot in itself
be a chief factor of the high death-rate among town laborers.
We must look for some other explanation of that excessive rate.

That alcohol has a share in the untoward result it is hardly
possible to doubt. Some such relation of cause and effect may
be traced in the following table :

Occupation .

Mean annual death-
rate per 1,000 living.

Comparative mortality
figure, 1,000.

Age.
25-45

Age.
45-65

&$

Barristers and solicitors

7.54
10.77

23.13
30.79

842
1,151

Law clerks

This startling disproportion may be accounted for in great
part by the three following factors. 1. That law clerks lead less

464 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

regular lives and drink more than their masters (and worse
liquor). 2. That they live in cheaper and less healthy houses,
and work in smaller and less wholesome offices. 3. That they
are drawn from a class, often degenerate town-dwellers, less sound
in mind and body than the middle class which supplies their em
ployers.

Conditions of a similar kind apply more or less to all the
fifteen occupations of highest mortality. So far as the towns
are concerned, bad housing is probably to a great extent due to
modern systems of drainage, which are often grossly defective. In
rural districts, where no general house drainage exists, this partic
ular risk will be avoided. Other defects, such as want of ventil
ation, dampness, deficient cubic space, are common both to town
and to country.

The factor of faulty drainage applies to workshops as well as
to houses. Broadly, it may be said to cause much bodily weak
ness, and, like bad ventilation, to predispose not only to chronic
ill health, but also to occasional acute disease. From a physio
logical point of view it seems perfectly natural that any one living
under bad surroundings of the kind should fly to alcohol for re
lief. Take the case of a town laborer going out to his work
after a night spent in an unwholesome dwelling. Suppose him
to change one bad environment for another in the shape of a
workshop that is overcrowded, ill-ventilated and polluted by
sewer gas ? No wonder that a man passing his life under such
depressing conditions should become weakened in mind and body,
and crave for drink to stimulate his flagging heart and overtaxed
energies. That this picture is not altogether imaginary may be
gathered from the following considerations : First, the proper
sanitary supervision of dwellings, especially of the poorer class, is
yet in its infancy, and, indeed, must remain so until our system
of inspection is rendered more thorough, skilled and systematic.
Secondly, the defective conditions under which workshop labor
is often conducted in our towns is plainly shown by the evidence
given before the Lords' Commission upon sweating, and also by
the reports of medical officers of health all over the country. In
deed, it could hardly be otherwise while the present local staffs of
sanitary inspectors are inadequate even for the discharge of rou
tine duties, to say nothing of the impossibility of a house to house
inspection of places that contain domestic workshops.

ENVIRONMENT AND DRINK.

465

If, on the other hand, the town laborer follow an outdoor oc
cupation, his life still appears to be much shortened as compared
with a corresponding class in the country. Thus, among the
fifteen trades of heaviest mortality, we find :

OCCUPATION.

Mean annual death rate
per 1,000 living.

CompaTative mor
tality figure, 1,000.

Age.
25-45

4M55

Age.
25-65

General laborers in London .

20.62
20.26
17.07
15.30
13.78
12.52

50 85
45.33
37.37
36.83
32.39
23.00

2,020
1,879
1,565
1,482
1.3U
1,275

Costermongers and hawkers. ... .

Watchmen, porters and messengers

Cabmen and omnibusmen

Professional musicians

Carters and carriers

Although those who work at the foregoing occupations escape
the danger of unwholesome workshops, they are nevertheless
exposed to the environment of an unhealthy home at night.
They share certain bad conditions in common with the country
man, such as long hours of labor, arduous toil and constant expo
sure to the stress of weather. They do not share alcohol to an
equal extent, and there can be no doubt that strong drink is one of
the most potent factors in shortening the life of the town laborer.

An interesting illustration of the effect of drinking habits
upon mortality may be drawn from the following table :

Comparative mortality figure, 1,000.

Occupation.

Age.
25-65

1. Cabmen and omnibusmen

2. Carters and carriers

3. Grooms and priv-ate coachmen.

14.82
12.75

8.87

Workers in the first two classes, which have relatively a much
greater death-rate, are notoriously heavy drinkers. They stop
at many public houses in the course of their daily rounds, and
they receive many offers of drink. Moreover, although their
work is out-door it is to a great extent sedentary, and exposure
under those conditions throws such a strain upon the circulation
that it is perfectly natural they should seek a physiological
restorative in the shape of a pleasant cardiac stimulant. Next
compare the mortality of these two classes with that of the pri
vate grooms and coachmen, who work under almost similar con-
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 30

466 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ditions as to exposure, but who have shorter hours and less oppor
tunity of indulging in alcohol. Indeed, it is obvious that heavy
drinking habits would soon throw them out of employment. We
find that their mortality is far less than that of the carters and
carriers, and again than that of the cabmen and omnibusmen.
It cannot be argued that the higher death-rate of the two last-
named classes is due altogether to their greater consumption of
alcohol. They are handicapped by longer hours of work, and
they suffer in consequence to a much greater extent than private
servants from rheumatism and other diseases due to exposure.

In this birdVeye view of the relation of environment to drink
the chief aim has been to map out a few of the more striking
outlines. The following broad statements may be appended in
the hope that they may have a suggestive value to future workers :

1. An excessive mortality prevails among the working popu
lation of towns as compared with (a) that of country laborers, or

(b) of mixed classes in the wealthier urban districts.

2. The town mortality is swelled by an excessive infantile
death-rate, and by the dusty and otherwise injurious trades car
ried on in crowded centres.

3. Overcrowding is rife in towns, especially in manufacturing
districts.

4. Many town occupations are unskilled and attract men of
inferior stamp.

5. Urban labor competition is keener than rural, with conse
quent increase of poverty and starvation.

6. Alcohol is consumed in larger quantity in towns, in part,
possibly, because of the greater temptations to indulgence. It is
also taken freely in the fifteen occupations that have the highest
death rates.

7. Systematic house drainage, with its attendant risks, is in
the main a distinctive feature of towns. Or, to put the matter
in a different form :

A. The stress of preventable mortality falls on the infantile
and working population of our great towns.

B. The conditions more or less peculiar to the town laborer
are (a) the temptation to indulge in alcohol, (b) trade dangers,

(c) bad drains.

J. F. WALDO,
DAVID WALSH.

THE SALOON AND THE SABBATH.

BY THE REV. FERDINAND C. IGLEHART, D. D., PASTOR OF THE
PARK AVENUE M. E. CHURCH, NEW YORK.

IT is natural that there should be conflict between the saloon
and the Christian Sabbath. They represent ideas exactly oppo
site. One stands for every thing that is bad, the other for every
thing that is good. The saloon breeds disease, disorder, misery,
and crime ; the Sabbath brings order, health, wealth, happiness,
and virtue. No moral conflict since the civil war has been
more important or bitter than the one now being waged in New
York city between the saloon and the Sabbath.

The first question involved in the conflict is the enforcement
of law. The present excise law in New York was passed nearly
forty years ago. It has been retained with few modifications by
successive Democratic and Republican Legislatures. In late
years it has been enforced, but only against the poor saloonkeeper
who had no political influence and no money with which to pay
the bribe. The records show that there were seven thousand
arrests for the violation of the excise law during the last year of
the Tammany administration in the city — more in proportion
than under the present rule.

The Police Commissioners should have had the united support
of the New York city press. With honorable exceptions they
have had its opposition. The city papers are brilliant, enterpris
ing, and, as a rule, are on the right side of moral questions. But
it is one of the astonishing and lamentable features of this con
test that so many secular papers have recorded themselves in
favor of the breaking of law. They have not only apologized for
law breakers, but they have laughed at, sneered at, and persecuted
the officers who tried to enforce the law.

One of the most disgraceful things about the contest is the bit-

468 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

ter opposition to the enforcement of the excise law on the part of
some officers of the Municipal, State, and Federal governments.
These are surely men who ought to know what an oath is and
what a law is, and yet they demand that the officers violate their
oaths and allow the crime-breeding places of the city to break the
law.

In the history of the world human government has moved in
a circle : first, absolute despotism ; then, a limited monarchy ;
then, a democracy ; followed by anarchy and an absolute
despotism again. This was the record of human government till
the close of the civil war, when we taught the world that a
republic need not fall into anarchy to be ruled by an absolute
despot again. But we are in the midst of grave danger in the
great cities. We are confronted by enemies of every kind ; by
the anarchy of wealth, the anarchy of labor, and especially the
anarchy of the breweries, the distilleries and the grog shops. Ex-
Judge Noah Davis, before whom William M. Tweed was tried
and convicted, said in a public address a few months ago : "In
my experience of thirty years on the bench I give it as my de
liberate opinion that eight-tenths of all the crime can be traced
to the saloon." Notwithstanding the opposition of able papers,
of influential politicians and powerful office holders, the Police
Commissioners have held their faces like flint to the purpose, and
their moral heroism and patriotism have stood out in bold relief
against the moral cowardice and disloyalty of those who have
opposed them.

The second question involved in the contest is the continu
ance of the Sunday closing law. No law favoring the opening
of saloons on Sundays should be passed. Nothing would so of
fend the conscience or corrupt the morals of the people as such a
step. New York should be slow to crave the disgraceful noto
riety of being about the only State in the Union to legalize the
opening of saloons on Sunday.

The Sunday opening is claimed in the interest of the poor
man, when it is for the benefit of the rich. It is in the interest
of the tills of the eight thousand saloon keepers of New York
city, and especially in the interest of the coffers of the million
aire brewers and distillers. The brewers' organization of New
York city alone represents $50,000,000, and the whiskey dealers'
association $30,000,000 more ; so that there are $80,000,000

THE SALOON AND THE SABBATH. 469

behind the liquor interest in New York city. It is this colossal mo
nopoly, and not the poor man, that is causing all the excitement
against the enforcement of the Sunday law. It is said that the
brewers' association has mortgages on more than six of the eight
thousand saloons of the city, and is proceeding steadily to place
mortgages on the rest of the town, on its public sentiment, its
politics, and its laws. It is estimated that previous to the Sun
day closing there were $200,000 worth of liquor consumed in the
bar rooms of the city every Sunday. Many saloon keepers de
prived of their best day's sales have broken up, and thousands of
failures will follow. The loss will fall upon the millionaires who
furnish the product and hold the mortgages. No monopoly
of America so oppresses the poor as the monopoly of beer.
Moloch of old whose brazen form held out its hand for the money
of the people, and whose fires consumed the sons offered as vic
tims, was merciful, compared to the Moloch of rum whose hand
demands millions of money, and whose fires burn up the best
of our sons.

The laboring man of the United States consumes an average of
a hundred dollars worth of drink each year. This amount would
buy fuel and flour for every working man in America. The work
ing people of New York City spend for liquor more than $50,000
a day, or $1,500,000 a month. Many men are poor because they
have had too much beer through the week. It would be a mercy
to them to shut the door of temptation to them on Sunday. The
liquor dealers are anxious that the poor man shall have some beer
with his dinner on Sunday. The anxiety of the poor man's family
is to have some dinner with their beer. There has been no propo
sition of the benevolent saloon keeper to let the poor man have
free beer with his free lunch on Sunday. It is the poor man's
dimes and not his liberty that they are so anxious about.

It is claimed that the poor man has as good right to his beer
on the Sabbath as the rich man has to his fine wines, brandies
and whiskeys. The jealousy of the poor man might ask no sweeter
revenge than to continue the discrimination. For if the rich will
continue to drink long enough they will become poor, and if the
poor will quit drinking long enough they will become rich. An
easier and wiser way of securing justice would be to amend the
law and prevent the selling at rich mens' clubs, restaurants and
hotel rooms.

470 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Another reason assigned for opening the saloons on Sunday is
that there are so many foreigners in New York city that it would
be the proper thing to adjust our laws to their customs. When
the blood is good, mixed blood makes the best nation. It makes
the strongest body and most vigorous mind. We have been very
fortunate as a nation in the good stock that has come to us from
foreign shores. The surprise is not that we have been European-
ized so much, but so little, and that we have Americanized our
foreign population so well. That fact attests the strength of our
form of government and the wisdom and virtue of its founders.
Of late, however, the foreign element has been poured in upon
us too rapidly, much of it being of an undesirable character. We
used to be the asylum for the oppressed of all nations, it looks
of late, as though we were coming to be oppressed by the
asylums of all nations, so much abject poverty, mental
disability, moral stupidity and crime are thrown in upon us
to poison us body and soul. We can take care of the
whole world, but it must come to us slowly enough for
us to assimilate it. Almost nowhere on the continent is our form
of government so s.trained to maintain itself as it is in its resist
ance of the tremendous tide of un-American immigration which
flows into New York city to remain in it. This is no time to relax
American law to the standard of Old World government or Old
World morals. This is no time to make New York a Berlin for the
German, a St. Petersburg for the Russian, a Paris for the French
man, or a Rome for the Italian. It is the time to keep New York
American for the Americans, whether they come from Europe,
Asia, Africa, or the islands of the seas, or are native born. It is
one of the fortunate results of an unfortunate panic that last year
we exported about as many foreigners as we imported, giving the
nation a rest and an opportunity to assimilate the elements
already here. It is said that there are 400,000 Germans in New
York city, and that they have been accustomed to have their
beer on Sunday in their own country and should be allowed to
have it here. The Germans are among our best population.
Their industry, economy, integrity, domestic fidelity, intelligence,
patriotism, have contributed much to our national thrift. But
these hundreds of thousands of Germans have no more right to
ask us to surrender our civil Sabbath, and hug the saloon to our
bosom, than they have to ask us to surrender our form of govern-

THE SALOON AND THE SABBATH. 471

inent and have a Kaiser because they have been accustomed to
live under a monarchy. The proper thing for them to do is to
respect and obey the laws of the country to which they have come.
That the Puritan civilization is better than theirs is attested
by the fact that 100,000 of the flower of the German nation come
to our country every year. Numbers of Germans have strict ideas
of the Sabbath, and have no love for the American saloon. Some
of the most powerful advocates of Sunday closing are among the
ministers and members of the evangelical German Churches in
New York city.

A large proportion of the solid, substantial, law-abiding people
of all religious creeds and every political faith are in favor of clos
ing the saloons on Sunday. They believe that the Fourth is one
of the Ten Commandments on which is based the jurisprudence
of the ruling empires of the world, and that in the long run
human society would suffer as much from disobedience of the
Fourth as of any other one of the commandments. The rigid Sab
bath laws of most of the English speaking nations of the world
have their root in the old Anglo-Saxon idea of loyalty to God and
liberty to the individual through loyalty to God.

There are others who do not recognize the religious obligation
of the Sabbath, who believe in it as a civil institution. They
consider it necessary as a rest for labor, a wall against crime, a
shelter for virtue, and they are earnestly in favor of enforcing
the law against the saloons. The Supreme Court of New York
and the Court of Appeals have thus defined the civil Sabbath :

" As a civil institution it is older than the government. The framers of
the first constitution found it in existence ; they recognized it in their acts.
The stability of government, the welfare of the subject, and the interests of
society have made it necessary that the day of rest observed by the people of
a nation should be uniform, and that its observance should be, to some ex
tent, compulsory, not by way of enforcing the conscience of those upon
whom the law operates, but by way of protecting those who desire and are
entitled to the day."

Justice McLean of the United States Supreme Court says :

" Where there is no Christian Sabbath there is no Christian morality, and
without this free government cannot long exist."

Nothing which the Catholic Church has done in its history in
this country has so commanded the respect and approbation of the
Christians of the United States as the strong stand it has taken
against opening the saloons on Sunday. The last Plenary

472 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Council at Baltimore, held last year, at which eighty bishops and
nearly all the prominent priests in the United States assisted, and
over which Cardinal Gibbons presided, has this to say on the
question :

"We earnestly appeal to all Catholics without distinction, not only to take
no part in any movement tending toward a relaxation of the observance of the
Sunday, but to use their influence as citizens to resist in the opposite direc
tion. There is one way of profaning the Lord's Day, which is so prolific of
evil results that we consider it our duty to utter against it a special con
demnation. This is the practice of selling beer or other liquors on Sunday,
or of frequenting places where they are sold. This practice tends more than
any other to turn the Day of the Lord into a day of dissipation, to use it for
an occasion for breeding intemperance. While we hope that Sunday laws
on this point will not -be relaxed but even more rigidly enforced, we implore
all Catholics for the love of God and of country, never to take part in such
Sunday traffic, nor to patronize nor countenance it. We call upon pastors to
induce all of their flocks that may be engaged in the sale of liquors to
abandon a3 soon as they can the dangerous traffic and to embrace a more
becoming way of making a living."

The Methodist Church, the largest Protestant denomination in
the country, has taken a step further, and declared in favor of total
abstinence for the individual and total prohibition for society.
Protestants and Catholics will be united in this fight, a fact which
the makers of political platforms and the candidates for votes
should remember before they place themselves on the wrong side
of the question.

The women of the state and country are about a unit in favor
of the Sabbath against the saloon. Cultured Christian women,
who know the value of the Sabbath in their lives and in bringing
up their families to usefulness and honor, and the poor wretched
woman who is oppressed by husband, father or son crazed by
drink, will join their prayers to God for the preservation of the
Lord's Day. Woman may not cast a ballot, but she will be pow
erful in this contest.

A law opening drinking-houses on Sunday would be the enter
ing wedge that would eventually open all the other business places.
Every other branch of industry could offer a better reason for
opening on Sunday than the saloon. The working men ought to
stand by the church people in this contest, for if the civil Sabbath
is allowed to slip away from us to business, it will mean for the
laborer seven days' work for six days' wages, as in many places on
the Continent.

The contest in New York city thus far has proved that the

THE SALOON AND THE SABBATH. 473

law can be enforced. Very few people thought it conld. About
the strongest argument urged for a change before the Excise Com
mittee of the last Legislature was that a law that could not be en
forced engendered disrespect for law which was demoralizing.
The majesty of law, however, has been vindicated not by repeal
ing, but by enforcing, the law. This local moral victory has a
far-reaching significance. It rejoices the friends of law and
order all over the land. They feel that if the saloons can be
closed on Sunday in New York they can be closed anywhere.
Philadelphia, with more than a million of inhabitants, has but
1,400 saloons, all of which are shut on Sunday. New York fol
lows with its victory over six times the number of these breeding
places of vice. There is no reason why all the cities of the country
should not profit by their example.

The enforcement of the excise law has been in every way bene
ficial to the public. It was claimed by the liquor men and by
their many friends that it was the Puritanical law that caused the
wholesale bribery of the police, and that this vice would never
cease till the harsh law had been repealed. Many good people
believed the falsehood. Columns of the newspapers were full of
charges that Puritanical law and religious oppression caused the
bribery of the police, with not a word against the thousand self-
confessed bribe givers whose wicked hearts had conceived the
crime. There is no bribery of the police now. It was the en
forcement and not the repeal of the excise law that was needed to
stop the bribery.

President Roosevelt reports that, thus far, crimes committed
on the Sabbath have fallen off fifty per cent. The same good
results followed the enforcement of the metropolitan excise law
in New York from 1867 to 1870. Resolutions of approval signed
by many of the pastors below Fourteenth street, headed by Bishop
Potter, which were sent to the Police Board, attest the benefi
cent effects of Sunday closing on the crowded down-town popu
lation.

The liquor men having failed to secure from the Legislature
the favor which they have sought for years, now propose to leave
the decision of the question to a vote of the people of New York
City. But when the effort was made to force the Legislature to
pass a Sunday opening law, it was never once thought of leaving
the matter to a vote of the people. And if the whiskey men

474 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

should have votes enough in the next Legislature to pass a Sun
day opening law over the Governor's veto, the home rule propo
sition would never be heard of again. The church people do not
like the idea of submitting to a vote the question whether the people
of New York shall be permitted to steal, murder, commit adultery,
break the Sabbath, or violate any other one of the Ten Com
mandments. A Legislature that would not recognize as true
without any debate the principles of the Ten Commandments,
and would not have courage enough to embody them in laws,
would have no reason for its existence. It is the business of the
members of the Legislature to make laws for the State. They
have no right to shirk the responsibility. They ought to con
tinue to us the civil Sabbath, which is older than the govern
ment. Some sneer at the Legislature as though it were a collec
tion of rustics ignorant of the needs of a great city; when, in
fact, nineteen Senators and fifty-six Assemblymen, or more than
one-third of the whole number, are members from New York
city and Brooklyn.

If a Sunday saloon is good for New York it is good for all the
other towns of the State. What right has any one to discrimi
nate in favor of the great rich city and against the poor little
town ? There has been much silly talk about the necessity of the
city's cutting loose from the country. The country could do
without New York as easily as New York could do without it.
Meat and bread and milk and vegetables and fruits are drawn
from the country. The stores of the city could not keep open
long without customers from the country. New York is engaged
in sneers at the "hayseeds." Washington and Lincoln were
farmers; Grant was the son of a rural tanner; they were "hayseeds."
General Harrison was born in the country and Grover Cleveland was
the son of a village pastor. A majority of the leading financiers,
business men, professional men of New York city, are from the
country. Some of the editors who write such caustic articles
about the " hayseed " Legislature learned all they know on a
country newspaper. A poll of New York city would show that
half, if not two-thirds, of the inhabitants are from small cities,
towns, villages, and farms. There is perhaps not a great city
in the civilized world that could live for two generations without
population from the country to replenish and enrich it. It is
more than likely that a majority of our foreign population who

THE SALOON AND THE SABBATH. 475

scout the idea of ' e hayseed " representatives being able to legis
late for a cosmopolitan city are themselves from rural districts in
their fatherlands, some of them from regions where they eat
black bread all the year, and count it a luxury to have white
bread and molasses at Christmas time. In native ability, in
education, in enterprise, and in moral force, the man of the coun
try is a match for the man of the metropolis.

The civil Sabbath or the church is not at stake in this con
flict. They shall stand till the end of time. Our form of govern
ment in the great cities is at stake; the American commonwealth
is in the balance. There is encouragement to believe that in this
fair land free government will not prove a failure; that virtue, how
ever unfavorable the environment may be, will be stronger than
vice, and that avarice and appetite for drink and all base passion
will fall before love to God and fellow-man, which is moving so
swiftly to the conquest of the world.

C, IGLEHART.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

X.— THE CAUSES OF THE MEXICAN WAR.

BY ALBERT D. VANDAM, AUTHOR OF " AN ENGLISHMAN IN PARIS,"
"MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK/' ETC., ETC.

THERE is no doubt in my own mind that the corruption of the
Second Empire, to which I referred in the preceding chapters,
has led some writers astray in their appreciation of the first
cause — or may be causes — whence sprang the war in Mexico.
Amidst the haze which unquestionably enwraps those causes, the
figure of the Swiss banker, Jecker, with his claim for 75,000,000
francs against the Government of Benito Juarez, seems to loom
inordinately large ; but a few moments of serious consideration
must inevitably bring the conclusion that the huge contour is due
to the peculiar disposition of alight behind a comparatively small
substance ; in other words, that the shadow is out of all propor
tion to the object reflected. For not the most "slap-dash"
leader-writer, not the most theorizing and dogmatic essayist, let
alone the more evenly-balanced student of human nature, could
for an instant imagine that at the period at which we have arrived,
Louis Napoleon would have embarked on the Mexican campaign
for no other reason than a prospective lion's share of those 75,000,-

000 francs.

The following notes, emanating from the two different sources

1 have so often had occasion to indicate, will throw a better light
on the causes that led to the Mexican campaign than any attempt
of mine could. Their authors had not only the privilege of being
frequently behind the scenes at the Tuileries, and the enviable
and instinctive talent of deduction, but one of them — the late M.
de Maupas's friend — was unquestionably, as I have already shown,
on intimate terms with some of the foremost members of the Corps

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 477

Diplomatique. There are but two drawbacks to the mass of informa
tion they supply ; first, it is very fragmentary, consequently it lacks
sequence ; secondly, tho dates are wanting in nine cases of every
ten. This latter defect probably arose from the authors' utter in
difference as to the ultimate fate of their jottings ; I have endeav
ored to remedy it by classification and condensation, in which, how
ever, I was guided by the wish to give a succinct account of events
rather than by considerations of chronology. I may be permitted to
remark that this obvious indifference of the authors lends additional
value to their evidence, for it renders their good faith above sus
picion. They may have erred in their appreciation ; the authen
ticity of the facts themselves is beyond dispute. The uniformity
of style — some people might say the want of style — of these notes
is due to me. As usual I have had to abbreviate and correct
many of those that were in English ; the French ones I have had
to translate.

" There is to be more military glory and more marching at
the head of civilization." Thus runs one of my English notes,
evidently written at the very outset of the affair. "There is to
be more military glory and more marching," it says a second time.
" The military glory is almost a foregone conclusion, and there
will be plenty of room for marching and even for countermarch
ing in a country as vast as Mexico; it remains to be seen whether
it may not prove a bit too vast to be furrowed by the wheels of
gun-carriages instead of the plough for the reception of the seed
of that civilization ; it is questionable whether bayonets are the
most efficient implements to e set' seed with, even the seed of
civilization. I have got an idea that one of the causes for this
anxiety to march at the head of civilization through the erstwhile
Empire of Montezuma is jealousy of the growing influence of the
United States in that quarter and the probable consolidation of
republican principles which would result from that influence. In
spite of the sympathy with those principles supposed to lie dor
mant in Louis Napoleon's breast, he does not like them practi
cally any more than his uncle, albeit that some of the coins of the
latter's reign bear the words ' Empire et Kepublique/ Moreover,
if there be jealousy in the mind of the Emperor with regard to
the United States, the United States do not appear to be alto
gether free from an analogous sentiment with regard to him.
Her public men have had, as it were, a prophetic feeling of

478 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

antagonism against him for years, in fact, almost since
his very accession to the throne, which feeling, per
haps, showed itself against their wish in such matters,
for instance, as their lukewarm participation in the
Exposition of 1855. That lukewarmness was, if not re
sented, at least regretted by the new Emperor, who especially at
that period was never tired of proclaiming his admiration of, and
his cordial friendship for, the United States, and who expected,
perhaps, a return of the compliment. He not only did not get
that, but President Buchanan sounded a distinct warning against
him and his probable policy with regard to Mexico as early as two
years ago.* The feeling of displeasure on the Emperor's part was
probably heightened by the curious coincidence that President
Buchanan had given umbrage to Napoleon III. before.f The dis
turbed condition of the Union's home affairs is not the absolute
reason for Napoleon's taking action in the matter just now, but
it is one of them. He knows perfectly well that in 1857 the
United States did not send their representative to Zuloaga but to
Juarez, because the erstwhile Oaxaka lawyer is a man after their
own heart. And it would appear that President Lincoln thinks
as much of him as his predecessor. I have all this on very good
authority, not from one source but from at least a half-dozen.
President Lincoln has, however, his hands very full, and the
Emperor thinks that Lincoln's poison may prove Napoleon's
meat; for from all I hear, the Emperor is absolutely working for
his own hand, and if all I hear be true, for his own hand alone."
The note does not end here, but I am obliged to interrupt its
transcription to make room for one in my younger grand-uncle's
handwriting, which note affords, as it were, a kind of explanation
of the last sentence of the other. The italics of that sentence are
not mine, and I may also be allowed to state that if my surmises
with regard to the identity of the writer of the notes given to me
by M. de Maupas are correct, as I have every reason to believe
they are, the two men whose information I print, that is my
younger grand-uncle on the one side and the English nobleman
on the other, were never even on speaking terms with one an
other. Their social standing and their tastes were too wide apart.

* Buchanan's speech in Congress, 1859.

t Then follows the story of Mr. Buchanan's conversation with the Emperor at
the French Embassy in London in 1855, related in a previous note by the same
author, both which note and story I used in Chapter V. The repetition is, to my
mind, another proof that the notes were never intended for publication.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 479

They may have met in society, and the name of the Englishman
was a household word among the Parisians of that day, in the
sense that the name of the Duo de Gramont-Caderousse was a
little later on, but I feel certain that they never held any com
munication. The similarity of opinion expressed in those notes
is therefore apparently all the more striking, not in reality though,
when we remember that both were behind the same scenes. The
note of my uncle, I should say, is of a somewhat later date.

" The English are really not showing their usual and admir
able common sense in their criticisms on the Campaign in Mex
ico. A few weeks ago Lord Montagu " (Lord Montague ?) "gave
a statesmanlike account of the ' Jecker claim ' in the House of
Commons. He told his listeners how Jecker had sold an enorm
ous portion of the shares of his loan to the then French Minister
in Mexico, M. de Gabriac, how the latter had sold them toothers
until they finally came into the hands of Moray, who, accord
ing to his Lordship, bought still more from various holders, and
also induced a still higher placed personage — by which, of course,
he meant the Empress — to participate in the purchase. The
English nobleman is unquestionably a capital speaker, and mar
shals his real or supposed facts with great ability, but his abso
lute ignorance of the character of the Emperor, Empress, Moray,
and the rest of the foremost personages at Court, has led him
into one or two most amusing blunders besides deluding him and
his countrymen into the belief that the recovery of the Jecker
claim was the main object in the Emperor's mind of the expe
dition to Mexico. The idea of Moray's disbursing money for
such things as the Jecker -bonds is too ridiculous for words, and
the thought of the Empress acting upon any suggestion from
Moray in that or any other matter is if anything still more ri
diculous. These bonds were never ksold by Jecker to Gabriac;
they are probably in Jecker's possession now, though there is cer
tainly an understanding between him and Moray that the latter
shall have a considerable number of them the moment they look
capable of being realized even at a tremendous discount. Why,
when Jecker became bankrupt about two years ago over 68 mill-'
ions of francs of those bonds, out of 75 millions issued, were
found among his assets. I have this on excellent authority,
namely, on that of Baron James de Rothschild, who told me at
the time. It is pretty well known here that Mr. Mathews, the

480 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

English Consul in Mexico, sent word to Lord Russell that Benito
Juarez had not even the comparatively small sum wherewith to
send La Fuente to Europe, though it is equally well known that
Abraham Lincoln, notwithstanding his own difficult position just
now, has fulfilled his secret promise to the real defender of Mex
ico's independence to send him money, arms, and, if possible,
volunteers. But Juarez is scrupulously honest, and with the
subsidies received he no doubt discharged his most pressing liabili
ties, and left himself almost penniless. Not only are the per
sonal resources of Juarez and his adherents practically exhausted,
but the country itself is in a similar sad plight. The report has
just reached here that the capital has not even sufficient
funds for the decorations and triumphal arches on the
occasion of the entry of the French troops, and that M. Martin
Daran, a banker in that city, advanced 40,000 francs for the
purpose. One can scarcely imagine the Emperor to be ignorant
of those reports, and yet it is assumed by a prominent member of
the English parliament, and probably by others also, that in
order to press the Jecker claim more forcibly, the Emperor con
tinues his occupation, for there is scarcely any contention about
the purely French claim, though the Emperor for reasons of his
own would scarcely admit this.

"The English Government informed Lord Cowley about
five months ago that in a conversation with the French Am
bassador Lord Russell had given the latter to understand that
if the French would completely abandon the Jecker claim,
her Majesty's Minister would support the purely French claim,
though not for the amount claimed. I wonder whether Lord
Russell is aware that the Comte de Flahaut, the French Am
bassador in question, is the father of Moray, that Moray has
been mainly instrumental in procuring the appointment of
Dubois de Saligny as French ambassador in Mexico in
succession to the Comte de Gabriac, and that Dubois
de Saligny, who aroused all the ill-feeling of the Mex
icans or rather of the Juarists — although the terms seem
almost to be synonymous — against the French in order to report
that ill-feeling to his government, has boasted to one of the Civil
Commissioners of the army of occupation that his (Saligny's)
' sole merit consisted in having foreseen the intention of the Em
peror to intervene in the affairs of Mexico, and to have rendered

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 481

such intervention absolutely necessary/ All those doings and
sayings are recorded in private letters from Mexico, private letters
which would be useful indeed to some of the European statesmen
who seem to be stone-blind with regard to the real motives and
intentions of the Emperor.

" For the support thus generously offered by England is the
very thing the Emperor does not want. It would smooth the
money difficulties between Juarez and himself, and would at once
destroy the pretext for a protracted occupation. Jecker's claim,
as being less likely of settlement, affords a pretext more difficult
to destroy, and that is where Jecker will probably score and
Morny pocket his ill-gotten gains. Let it not be thought for
one moment that the Emperor has the faintest sympathy with
Jecker as the creditor of the Mexican Government or erstwhile
Government. He is as firmly convinced of the iniquity of the
claim, and that apart from the amount, as all those must be who
have given the matter the slightest attention. But he saw in it at
once the opportunity he had been looking for for at least three
years, that is, ever since it became patent to him that the war with
Austria for the liberation of Italy, now that it had been successful,
would inevitably lead to complications with the Holy See. For
the wish to regain, if possible, the good graces of the Vatican is
another factor in the Mexican Campaign, and a much more
powerful one than the recovery of the moneys Mexico owes to
France. It must be remembered that the Liberals, the partisans
of Juarez, have confiscated the lands and property of the clergy,
which property, if realized, would assume almost fabulous pro
portions. Unfortunately for the real independence of Mexico this
realization is at present impossible. In the disturbed state of the
country no foreigner would invest, and the Mexican higher clergy
have already threatened the Mexicans born with major excom
munication if they bought the tiniest plot of that property or
paid rent for it. General La Forey has already had to interfere
in that respect.

" At the first blush nothing seemed easier for the Emperor
than to have made France's claim against Mexico the basis for
an intervention, although—and I am absolutely certain of what
I Say — the whole debt with regard to moneys lent at the begin
ning of the intervention scarcely exceeded a million of francs. The
rest had been incorporated into the Jecker loan, which, ' giving
VOL. CLXI.— NO. 467. 31

482 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

new bonds for old ones/ had nominally made Jecker and Com
pany the chief creditor of Mexico. The whole of the French
claims other than for money lent, even if every claim had been
justified, would not have exceeded another million. The latter is
the claim which in the first clause of the ultimatum at Soledad,
has been magnified into sixty million francs for damages and
losses sustained by French subjects up to July, 1862. The
ultimatum did well to insist that the claim had to be acknowledged
by Mexico, without discussion on her part and without France
furnishing particulars. Monstrous as this may appear in the
light of the comity of nations, it is sfcill more monstrous in view
of the following fact, for the authenticity of which I can vouch.
After the bombardment of San Juan de Ulloa, the French
had their claims settled to the amount of three millions of francs,
a million of which remained after a careful examination of the
claims by the French Government itself. That million was
afterwards divided by the French Government among the neces
sitous Frenchmen in Mexico.

" France, therefore, has not fared badly either at the hands
of Juarez or at those of his predecessors. Nevertheless, as I said
just now, inasmuch as a claim, which upon conscientious examin
ation would not have amounted to two millions (including moneys
lent), was magnified into one of sixty, the Emperor might as well
have taken that one as the redemption of the Jecker bonds for
the basis of his intervention, with the additional knowledge of
having a more ungrudging material support from England, and a
moral one from the rest of the powers.

" But this would have been altogether at variance with his
temper. That spirit of indecision of his, that tendency to have
any number of strings to his bow, in reference to various and
often conflicting ends, that spirit and tendency which to a great
extent, though not wholly, had remained in abeyance in the be
ginning of his reign, have recently assumed the upper hand.
The Emperor likes to suspend his decision about any and every
thing until the last moment, and after having weighed the for
and against of a scheme for ever so long, he ends up by taking a
sudden but entirely unforeseen resolution.* The resolution to
make the Jecker bonds the pretext for the expedition was of that
kind and surprised no one so much as Jecker himself, who had
certainly no such hopes when he applied to the Emperor.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 483

Far from disbursing money for Jecker bonds, which, at that
time were practically worthless, Morny must have had a pretty
lump sum from Jecker on the promise of interesting the
Emperor on his behalf. There was, moreover, a correspond
ence very compromising to the natural brother of the Emperor.
The sum Morny had received was too considerable to be refunded
by the Emperor — people say it was a million and a half of francs
— and Morny had not taken a step towards redeeming his prom
ise. Jecker, on the other hand, positively refused to part with
the correspondence, nay, threatened to publish it unless that sum
was refunded ; and as Jecker was not naturalized then, conse
quently not a Frenchman, the usual means for gagging him, or
for that matter for suppressing him altogether, resorted to by the
Prefecture of Police, were not available.

" It is doubtful whether the Emperor would have resorted to
them if they had been available. He jumped at the redemption
of the Jecker bonds as a valid pretext for intervention.
For I repeat again and again, the redemption of the Jecker
bonds is a pretext, just as the offer of the crown of Mexico
to Maximilian of Austria is a sham. I may not live to see this,
but if the expedition be successful, and Maximilian elevated to
the throne, he may remain there for his lifetime, if for so long,
but the succession will devolve upon Napoleon's heirs ; for what
the Emperor has really in his mind is a great empire in America
for the French, just as there is a great empire in India for the
English. If the thought had been seriously entertained to found
a stable empire for any one but Napoleon III. and his heirs, Na
poleon III. would not have selected a childless prince and a prince
who is childless after five years of marriage. There is another
end the Emperor has in view by that selection, the reconciliation
with the Holy See. Maximilian is a staunch Catholic, and the
Mexican higher clergy, the most corrupt in the world, will re
gain their influence under him. It will be a set-off against the
probable loss by Pius IX. of his temporal sovereignty. If that
fails Napoleon III. will think out something else to conciliate the
Vatican."*

ALBERT D. VANDAM.

(To be continued.)

* My unele was right, the Convention of 1864 between Italy and France was "the
other thing."

HUNTING LARGE GAME.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL NELSON A. MILES, U. S. A,

THE bison, or buffalo, was the roving Indian's mainstay and
support. It furnished him with splendid robes to protect him
from the cold of winter. Its hide, with that of the elk, fur
nished him warm shelter and clothing, while the venison and
buffalo meat supplied him with an abundance of wholesome and
toothsome food. The vast region from the Rio Grande, through
Texas, eastern New Mexico and Colorado, the Indian Territory,
Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, and the
plains of British America, was the pasture ground of millions of
buffalo. I think it is safe to say that from the crest of a mesa or
some high butte I have frequently seen from twenty thousand to
thirty thousand within a radius of ten or fifteen miles. Within
a single decade the buffalo, as well as the wild horse of the
plains, became extinct, the last remnant of both having been run
down and killed or taken in the vicinity of that strange section
overlooked by surveying parties in laying out the boundaries of
Kansas, the Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado,,
known as No Man's Land.

The chase of the buffalo was the Indian's chief amusement as
well as one of his means of livelihood, and was carried on usually
on horseback, formerly with bow and lance, latterly with
rifle also. In this exercise they became wonderfully expert.
Mounted on his strong, fleet " Indian pony/' well trained for the
chase, he dashed off at full speed amongst the herd and discharged
his deadly arrows to their hearts from his horse's back. This
horse was the fleetest animal of the prairie, and easily brought his
rider alongside of his game. Both the horse and rider had been
stripped beforehand of everything, shield, quiver, dress, and saddle,
which might in the least encumber or handicap the horse for speed,
the Indian carrying only bow and quiver with half a dozen arrows

HUNTING LARGE GAME. 485

drawn from it and held lightly and loosely in his left hand ready
for instant use. With a trained horse the Indian rider had little
use for the line, which was fastened around the horse's neck with
a noose around the under jaw, falling loosely over the horse's
neck and trailing behind, passing to the left side of the rider.
This was used for a great variety of purposes — to stop, to guide,
to secure the animal, to throw him, and bind him when down.
All this the Indians did with great skill.

The approach was made upon the right side of the game, the
arrow being thrown to the left at the instant the horse was passing
the animaFs heart, or some vital organ, which received the deadly
weapon "to the feather." In fact, Indians have been known to
send their arrows with such force as to drive them completely
through the buffalo.

The Indian generally rode close in the rear of the herd until
he had selected the animal he wished to kill. He then separated
it from the throng by watching for a favorable opportunity, and,
dashing his horse between, forcing it off by itself and killing it,
thus avoiding the danger of being trampled to death, as he was
liable to be if operating within the massed herd.

The training of the horse was such that it quickly knew the
object of its rider's selection, and exerted every energy to come to
close quarters. In the chase the rider leaned well forward and off
from its side, with his bow firmly drawn ready for the shot,
which was given the instant he was opposite the animaFs body.
The horse, being instinctively afraid of the huge beast, kept his
eyes strained upon him, and the moment he reached the prox
imity required, and heard the twang of the bow or the crack of
the rifle, he sheered instantly, though gradually, off, to escape
the horns of the infuriated beast. Frightful collisions would oc
casionally occur, notwithstanding the wonderful sagacity of the
horse and the caution of the rider. Occasionally the buffalo
would turn before being wounded. In a buffalo chase, I had one
turn quickly-on myself, even before I had a chance to fire a shot.
Capt. Frank D. Baldwin, of the Fifth Infantry, had a number of
most remarkable escapes both from buffaloes and from wolves, and
as illustrating the characteristics of both these species of large
game, I may instance in some detail one or two of his dangerous
adventures. One day in September, 1870, when he was stationed
at Fort Hayes, Kansas, lie received a note from a friend in

486 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. .

Chicago, saying that he, with two others, would be out to take a
buffalo hunt.

Baldwin was Quartermaster of the post at that time. Among
the horses which he used himself was an extra-fine " buffalo
horse." This horse was one of the most perfect of its kind, and
it was no poor horseman that would remain on him after firing
the shot, unless he thoroughly understood the traits of the horse.
Of course when the friend and his party came it was incumbent
upon Baldwin to give him the best buffalo horse, while he him
self was obliged to ride an untrained one from the corral.

They rode out with great expectations of having a fine time,
and, after travelling twelve or fifteen miles, discovered their first
herd of buffalo. Baldwin had warned his friend of the necessity
of watching his horse after firing, but feeling confident that in
the excitement of his first chase he would forget all about it,
kept along close beside him. Sure enough, at the first shot fired
when about fifty yards from the buffalo, the horse made his sharp
turn, and off went the rider.

After getting him up and on the horse again, Bald win- thought
he would show what he could do himself; so with the green horse
on which he was mounted, he started for a fine bull and soon
overtook him. By a little urging he was able to get the horse
close beside him, and then fired, mortally wounding the animal;
but the horse, instead of trying to escape the brute, kept along by
his side. Instantly the buffalo turned and imbedded his horns
in the horse, just behind the flanks. Baldwin was thrown over
the buffalo. He alighted on his head and shoulders, and
remained unconscious for several minutes. When he became con
scious the buffalo was standing there, bleeding at the mouth and
nose, with his four legs spread apart, and in the last agonies of
death, but looking fiercely at Baldwin, watching for the least in
dication of life. Had he made the slightest movement, as he no
doubt would have done if he had had the strength, he would have
been gored to death. Parts of the horse were still hanging to the
horns of the buffalo. Fortunately this condition of affairs did
not last more than a minute, when the buffalo fell dead with his
head within a few feet of Baldwin's person.

What was regarded by the Indians as royal sport has been
denominated the " surround." It required a body of three or
four hundred warriors to perform it satisfactorily. First, a few

HUNTING LARGE GAME. 4b7

runners were sent out to discover a herd of buffalo, frequently
selecting one containing as many as two hundred. Then divid
ing the force of warriors, and selecting some four or five groups
of from fifteen to twenty warriors each, to take position outside
the moving body that was to encircle the herd at prominent
points where they could give chase to and destroy any buffalo
that might break through the closing-in line and escape, the
main body proceeded to surround the herd. They went in groups
to different sides of the herd and then gradually approached
from all directions, closing the animals in and starting them to
running around within the circle formed by the converging and
contracting line of warriors. So skillfully was this managed that
they would keep the herd in motion, alternating in the chase and
firing, until they had destroyed the entire number. It approaches
more nearly than any other sport to the excitement of a battle,
exhibiting the same skillful horsemanship and marksmanship
without the attending danger.

In the dead of winter the Indian would run upon the surface
of the snow by the aid of snow shoes, while the great weight of
the buffaloes, sinking them down through even when the snow
was heavily encrusted, rendered them easy victims to the bow or
lance of their pursuers.

Another method of the Indian in hunting was to place himself
under the skin of the wolf and crawl up on his hands and knees
until within a few rods of an unsuspecting group of buffalo,
where he could easily shoot down the fattest of the herd.

There were several varieties of wolf on the plains, the most
formidable as well as the most numerous being the gray wolf,
often as large as a Newfoundland dog. They were gregarious,
going about in packs of fifty or sixty, and were always to be seen
following about in the vicinity of herds of buffalo, standing
ready to pick the bones of those the hunters left on the ground,
or to overtake and devour those that were wounded, which were
an easy prey. While the herd of buffalo were together they
seemed to have little dread of the wolves, and allowed them to come
in close company. It was this fact that suggested the above de
scribed stratagem. When the buffalo were abundant these
wolves were harmless to man, but as the buffalo diminished in
numbers, and the food of the wolves became precarious, they
grew ferocious when made ravenous by hunger.

488 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Captain Baldwin gave me an account of an incident that
happened to him in May, 1866.

" I was stationed," said he, " at Fort Harker, Kansas, in
command of a company of the 37th Infantry. Fort Harker was
located on the overland stage route from Fort Eiley to Denver,
and after leaving Fort Harker it was unsafe for any one to travel
in daylight except with a good escort of troops. . . .

" On one of my journeys of inspection I stopped about thirty
miles from the fort to have a buffalo hunt, and hunted all day,
but at night I was obliged to start back for the post. I left the
station about four o'clock in the afternoon in a light snowstorm,
with a tolerably fresh horse that was both strong and spirited. I
was alone and armed only with a small thirty-six calibre pistol,
depending almost entirely upon my horse to escape any danger
from Indians, not anticipating danger from any other source.

"I had ridden about ten miles when it began to grow dark.
My horse taking an easy trot, I was rather enjoying the ride. I
had noticed previous to this time the howling of wolves, but
had paid very little attention to it. As I rode along I noticed
that this howling began to get closer, and at length was aroused
from my reverie by the bark and howl of two or three wolves
very close to me. Looking back I saw two coyotes and one big
prairie or Lobo wolf following close behind me, and howling
their utmost. This rather startled the horse, as you may be sure
it did me, I increased my speed, but still they gained on me, and
it wasn't long before their numbers grew to a dozen or more, and
the distance between them and my horse was very much lessened.

" I began to appreciate the danger and realized for the first
time that I had a weapon with which it was very doubtful whether
I could defend myself against such ravenous beasts as these. I re
called the fact that just before leaving I had counted the number
of rounds of ammunition I had, which was just forty-nine.

l( I had left the stage route, intending to go to the post by a
trail which would save me something more than five miles in dis
tance, and as it was dark I had no hopes of gaining one of the
stations along the route, but was obliged to keep to the trail,
trusting to my mount to take me out of what had now become a
real danger. The wolves kept gaining on me until they had got
within a very short distance before I fired the first shot at them,
which, fortunately, disabled one of their number to the extent

HUNTING LARGE GAME. 489

that the blood ran from him, and he began to howl, whereupon
the whole pack pounced upon him and tore him to pieces. This
gave me a little start of one or two hundred yards before they
commenced following again. I fired every shot with the
greatest care, and it was very seldom that I missed disabling or
killing one of them.

et Afraid of tiring my horse at the start, I rode very carefully.
The number of the wolves increased until there were not less than
from fifty to seventy-five of them, and they followed me for at
least twenty miles, cutting my horse in the rear and flanks, often
getting almost in his front, enabling me to shoot from right
to left, firing when the animals were not four feet distant from
me. Fortunately I ran through a large herd of buffalo, which I
think diverted a large portion of the wolves from following me.
Still some of them kept after me until I got within five miles of
the post, when I had only four rounds of ammunition left, and I
felt it was necessary to make the supreme effort to escape from
them. My horse was nearly exhausted and bleeding from the
wounds of the wolves, but I put spurs to him, urging him to his
utmost speed, and reached the bank of the Smoky Hill Eiver,
on the side opposite that on which the post was located, com
pletely worn out with fatigue and excitement, and my horse
dropped dead before I could remove the saddle. I then waded
the river filled with floating ice."

In all that country ranged by the buffalo, were to be found the
elk and deer, and a variety of feathered game. The prairie
chicken was the most conspicuous. This bird is also found in
great numbers east of that belt, in the States of Iowa, Illinois
and Minnesota. This region, during the Spring and Autumn,
also abounds with water fowl— snipe, curlew, wild ducks and wild
geese of every variety.

My personal experience with game and hunting has been some
what limited. During the years that I was in that wild country
of the West, much of my time was devoted to hunting hostile
Indians. In Kansas in the early part of 1870, I found some leis
ure, however, to devote to hunting buffalo with General Ouster,
who had a cavalry command near mine, and who was well equipped
with horses and had a large pack of dogs. I also found much
healthful exercise and recreation in hunting wild turkey, prairie
chicken and quail, over the rolling prairies of Kansas, where

490 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

there was plenty of cover in the wild grass, which yet was not so
high but that we could see the intelligent and well4rained setters
and pointers work to perfection. I preferred the prairie chicken
to the quail as being a much better mark as well as a finer bird.
The wild duck could be found in considerable numbers at that
time in Western Kansas. In the timbered reaches of the " Rock
ies " the blue grouse were and are quite abundant.

During the construction of the transcontinental railroads, a
large amount of game was killed for the use of the men employed
in that work. In this way William F. Cody made his reputation
as a buffalo hunter. He was at that time a young man in the
twenties, tall, stalwart and of magnificent physique — one of the
handsomest and most powerful men I have ever known, with au
burn locks of a golden hue, large, brilliant, dark eyes, and per
fect features. He was a daring rider and a most expert rifleman.
He excelled in the rush after game, and could kill more buffalo
during a single run than any other man I have ever known. He
not only took the risks of a desperate chase, but he and his party
had to be constantly on the lookout for Indians. Under his con
tract, he for quite a long time supplied the railroad contractors
and builders with meat in this manner.

Farther north in the Dakotas and Montana, although the
country was alive with large game, my command was so incessantly
occupied in hunting Indians that it was rarely that any attention
could be paid to game, except occasionally buffalo, deer, and moun
tain sheep. I regard the meat of the mountain sheep or big-horn,
as the finest of all large game. The pursuit of this animal
requires great skill, hard work, and dangerous climbing. They
frequent the little mesas and ledges at the foot of precipitous
cliffs. They are very keen-sighted and difficult of approach.
When in repose they are usually found on little ledges where
they can survey the country below. For this reason the hunter
aims to get above them, and is prepared to shoot at first sight.
The skin on the knee and brisket of the mountain sheep is nearly
an inch thick, made so by kneeling on the sharp rocks. In the
broken country of the Rockies the black-tailed deer are nearly as
sure-footed as the mountain sheep, and frequently use their trails.

About the most interesting sport I have ever engaged in, was
the hunting of large wolves in Indian Territory in 1875, when
they were found in great numbers. A party of hunters, very

HUNTING LARGE GAME. 491

often numbering from ten to twenty, and well mounted, would
move out to a divide or high ground of the rolling prairies, each
with a greyhound or staghound in leash, while some men would
be sent along through the timber and the ravines with deer-
hounds and bloodhounds to start the wolves out of the cover on
to the high ground. The moment they appeared and undertook
to cross the prairie, a signal would be given and the dogs let
loose. The result would be a grand rush and chase of from three
to five miles, winding up with a fierce fight. The large gray wolves
were very powerful; you could hear their jaws snap half a mile
away, and frequently they cut the dogs very badly. When any
one dog had courage enough to make the attack all the others
would rush in; and I have frequently seen the whole pack upon
one large wolf.

There is, however, rarer sport than this to me in hunting the
bear with a well trained pack of dogs. Mr. Montague S. Stevens,
an English gentleman, who has a large cattle ranch in New
Mexico, has a fine pack of dogs, composed of bloodhounds, fox
terriers, staghounds, boarhounds, Russian wolfhounds, and vari
ous others of the canine species — th« first used as trailers — and
taken altogether they will tree or bring to bay any bear found in
the country. In fact they fight the bear so furiously that he pays
little attention to the' hunters, so that they can approach with
comparative safety. It is royal sport, though very difficult and
somewhat dangerous. The hunters are usually mounted on strong,
hardy, sure-footed horses, as they are obliged to ride rapidly up
and down the sides of precipitous mountains.

Bear hunting is the most dangerous of all kinds of sport, and
is uninteresting unless one is equipped with a well trained pack of
dogs — a pack used for no other purpose. Such dogs are never
allowed to hunt any other game.

The game of the West has rapidly disappeared before the
huntsman's rifle. It is a fair estimate that four million buffaloes
were killed within the five years between 1874 and 1879, from
what was known as the Southern herd, which roamed through
Northern Texas, the Indian Territory, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Between 1878 and 1883 the great Northern herd — quite as numer
ous — roaming through the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana,
were destroyed in like manner. The hunters received on an
average from $2.50 to $3.50 per hide, to be shipped out of the

492 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

country and sold for leather making, belting, harnesses, and kin
dred purposes. Many thousands of men were engaged in the en
terprise. The most successful hunting parties consisted of a
hunter and about six men known as strippers. The time usually
selected for taking the buffaloes was just after they had been
grazing in the morning, had gone to the water and then returned
to the high ground, lying down to rest in bunches of from twenty
to a hundred. The hunter, with the longest range rifle of the
heaviest calibre he could obtain, would fire from the leeward side,
so far away that the crack of the rifle could not be heard by the
buffalo, and being behind a bush or bunch of grass, could not be
seen. In that way he would kill from a dozen to a hundred a
day, without disturbing the herd to any great extent. The buff
alo receiving a mortal wound would bleed to death, while the
others about him, smelling the blood, would sometimes come near
him and paw the ground and so stand until they too would re
ceive their death wounds. The strippers would then come up
with ox teams, take off the hides, place them in the wagons, and
transport them to the nearest railroad station, whence they were
shipped to market. At ane station alone on the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad as many as 750,000 hides were
shipped in one year.

After the hides were removed, the carcass would be poisoned
in many cases, some yearling buffalo being generally selected,
and next morning there might be found forty or fifty dead
wolves lying scattered around, victims of strychnine. In
this way the large game was rapidly destroyed, together with
countless numbers of wolves that had thrived only by preying
upon them. This might seem like cruelty and wasteful extrava
gance, but the buffalo, like the Indian, stood in the way of civili
zation and the path of progress, and the decree had gone forth
that they must give way. It was impossible to herd domestic
stock in a country where they were constantly liable to be stam
peded by the moving herds of wild animals. The same territory
which a quarter of a century ago was supporting those vast herds
of wild game is now sustaining millions of domestic animals
which afford the food supply to hundreds of millions of people in
civilized countries.

A. MILES.

IS SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND?

BY THE KEY. PROF W. G. BLAIKIE, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E.

SOCIALISM may still perhaps be identified in the minds of some
with anarchy, atheism, dynamite and assassination; but its reason
able and intelligent friends among us have stripped it of these
and other ugly adjuncts. It is not now held to be the product
of either dreaming lunatics on the one hand, or reckless despera
does on the other; it is allowed by friends and foes alike to have
a reasonable basis, and to be capable of a friendly alliance with
religion, family order and morality. It has ceased to be regarded
as the culmination of democratic violence, bent on seizing all ex
isting property, flinging it into a common reservoir, and doling
it out to all and sundry in equal dividends; it is no longer the
synonym of anarchy or of communism. It is on this account
that it is receiving much more attention than in former days and,
according to its advocates, constant recruits.

The distinctive term by which it now desires to be known is
"collectivism," and the essence, or as Dr. Schaffle puts it, the
quintessence of collectivism may be simply stated. Its object is
to transfer the whole means of production — all that goes to pro
duce the commodities needful for human beings, namely, land,
machinery, workshops, warehouses, ships, railways, and all capi
tal used in production — from the ownership of individuals to the
ownership of the State. Its purpose is illustrated by the transac
tion which took place a few years ago when the ownership of all
our British telegraphs was transferred from railway companies or
other owners to the State. The transference, however, of the
whole instruments of production would be of no avail unless fol
lowed up by a corporate organization of labor and a distribution
of the proceeds in proportion to the value of the work done by
each laborer. On these three things — nationalization of the instru-

494 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ments of production, unification of labor, and proportionate dis
tribution of the fruits — the fabric of socialism rests, as it is usu
ally presented by its more intelligent advocates in this closing
decade of the nineteenth century. Nothing is allowed to be
socialism, or at least collectivism, that does not embrace these
points.

In this way modern English Socialism severs connection not
only with revolution and anarchy, but also with certain elaborate
systems, such as Fourier's " Phalansteries," or even Comte's
" polity/' by means of which society was to be constituted on an
entirely new basis. It also differentiates itself from not a few
movements to which the general name of Socialism, or social re
form, is often given. The ' ' Christian Socialism " of Kingsley,
Maurice, and others, some forty years ago, does not come under
the true category of Socialism, because it did not recognise these
three points. Even the ' ' Christian Social Union " of the pres
ent day is not in its constitution socialistic, although some of its
members may have embraced the tenets of collectivism. Dr.
Westcott, Bishop of Durham, in his "Social Aspects of Chris
tianity, ' shows warm sympathy with socialist objects, with the
elevation and increased comfort of the working classes, but he
does not believe in socialistic weapons. "Lombard Street in
Lent/' the somewhat enigmatical title of a series of addresses by
members of the Christian Social Union, strives to correct many of
the blemishes in the present economy of labor, but does not ad
vocate the distinctive principles of collectivism. It may be a
question whether the members of this Union are not as well en
titled to the name of socialists as the advocates of the three points;
and it is only as a matter of convenience that in this paper we re
strict its application to those who claim, as a sine qud non, the
nationalization of the whole instruments of production.

Unfortunately it is impossible to deny that under tha present
system many serious social evils are found. Nothing can be
more uncomfortable than the disputes between capital and
labor ; nothing more tragical than the strikes and lock-outs to
which they often lead. And as to the condition of the lowest
class of our people in London and other large towns, it is simply
heart-breaking. It is a disgrace to civilization. All these evils
collectivists ascribe, without hesitation, to the system that has
hitherto ruled in the world of labor, the system of "individual-

IS SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND ? 495

ism," and the ruinous competition which it involves. Their
view is, that under the present system, labor is exploited for the
sole benefit of the capitalist ; it is his aim. to produce as cheaply
as possible ; in order to do this the workman is robbed of his
fair share of profit and the capitalist fattens on the spoil. The
tendency of the system is to make the poor poorer and the rich
richer. Small industries are swallowed up by large ; all inde
pendent ways of making a livelihood are cut off from the worker ;
he must depend on the capitalist for the very right to live. It is
a system that affords no prospect of improvement ; the process
of the fat kine swallowing up the lean (for Pharaoh's dream is
reversed) must go on as long as there are lean kine to be
swallowed, and at the completion of the process, what you will
have will be, a few men rich "beyond the dreams of avarice,"
and the great mass "hewers of wood and drawers of water."

There is some truth, and also some exaggeration here. As a
whole, it is not true that the skilled artisan class has become poorer
of late years ; on the contrary that class is much better off. Any
statistical statement of wages and prices makes this plain. And
as for the unskilled and unemployed mass, whose conditions of
life are so miserable, it should be remembered that it is charac
teristic of the large towns where they live, that the feeble of the
race are not absorbed or borne up by the rest, but sink to the
bottom. Moreover, whether it be cause or effect, it is to be noted
that much of the helplessness of this class and much of their
misery are due to drink. Any explanation of the misery of the
east end of London and all our large towns that overlooks the
influence of drink, is on the very face of it miserably and palpa
bly defective.

Still, our modern industrial system has much to answer for.
The history of our manufactures is not flattering to human
nature. In the early part of the century, when the practice
began of employing large numbers of men, women and children
in single manufactories or other industries, the abuses that arose
were frightful. It is shocking to read of children toiling for
fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and only kept awake by the lash
of the foreman ; of women, even in a state of pregnancy, carry
ing heavy loads in pits, or working deep in water, or of children
on all fours with a chain round their waist dragging trucks of
coal along dark and dirty passages ; of injured spines and twisted

496 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

limbs, of wounds and bruises, premature old age and early deaths,
all caused by the greed of men who did not scruple to wring their
wealth out of the life blood of their workers. This was the first
result of the system of free competition, of supply and demand,
of laissez-faire, of buying in the cheapest and selling in the
dearest market. No wonder that even when somewhat reformed,
it aroused the indignation of men like Mr. Buskin, whose de
nunciations of it have served in no slight degree to bring it to the
bar of public opinion, and to swell the chorus of social condemna
tion. But, thanks to Lord Shaftesbury and other good men,
many of these abuses are now swept away and others have been
greatly modified. And, in the judgment of many wise and benevo
lent men, the right course for the English nation is to persevere
on these lines of improvement, in the hope that if equal progress
be made in years to come as in the past, the condition of the
working class will become sufficiently civilized and comfortable.

But in this view socialists will not concur. They maintain
that under any system of capitalism in the hands of individuals,
the object of the employer will be to give as little as possible of
the profits of their labor to his workmen, and keep as much as
possible to himself. The value of any product, socialists say, is
determined by the amount and quality of the labor bestowed on
it. To whom does this value rightfully belong but to the
worker ? Unless the worker gets the full value of his work, he is
robbed. No amendment of the present system will ever give the
workman all that he is entitled to. Such a result will never take
place till the whole instruments of production are public prop
erty, and labor is so organized that, after necessary deductions,
each laborer shall receive the share which corresponds to the
amount and quality of his labor.

The threshing out of the principle here assumed, that the
value of products is measured by the labor bestowed on them, has
not proved very favorable to socialism. It is denied that labor is
the only element that goes to constitute value. Dr. Flint, in his
recent elaborate book on socialism, has shown well that mere
labor creates nothing, any more than the moving of our hands
and feet in space would create anything. Labor must receive
from nature the materials on which it works ; it must be aided
by the intelligence that plans and directs it, and by the ma
chinery, often complicated and elaborate, that has been designed

18 SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND f 497

for its purposes ; and it must be turned to account by the dis
covery of customers who desire to purchase its products. It is
one thing to maintain that labor is an essential element of value,
and also that in the distribution of profits labor has not hitherto
received its due share ; but it is another thing to represent it as
the one element of value, and to make this the standard by which
the just demands of the workmen are to be tried. Even Dr.
Schaffie, in spite of his strong leaning to socialism, strongly con
tends that, in addition to the labor value of products, we must
take into account what he calls their use value, the value that
arises from the amount of demand there is for them. I may write
an elaborate book that costs me a world of labor, but, useful though
it may be, the demand for it may be almost nil. Under a socialistic
scheme of regarding labor, how should the value of my book be
determined ? If by the amount of my labor, it \*ill stand high ;
if by the sale of the book, extremely low. What Dr. Schaffle
maintains is that socialism has not grappled with this question,
which, under any practical scheme, would be an extremely im
portant one. We are not, therefore, entitled to assume, as so
many socialists do, especially of the working class, that labor is
what constitutes the sole or nearly sole value of products, or to
maintain that the workman is robbed aye and until he obtain the
full value of the product which his hands have fashioned. .

Land holds a foremost place among the means of production
that must become public property under a valid socialistic
economy. Naturally, the question arises, How is the land to be
acquired by the nation ? Happily the idea of seizing it without
compensation has no advocates among reasonable men. There
are those who mutter that as the land was originally the property
of the nation, but has unrighteously come to private owners, who
enjoy its fruits at the expense of the laborer, who, as producer,
ought to have the greater part of them, all landlords should be
treated as robbers and compelled to disgorge their unrighteous
mammon. But any such proposal would give too great a shock
to the conscience of the nation to be seriously entertained. The
nation recognizes the right of private property under arrange
ments that have come down from time immemorial, even sup
posing that centuries ago the first private proprietors acquired
the property unjustly. And some of the most intelligent advo
cates of socialism hold that a landlord or a capitalist who should
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 467. 32

498 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

be converted to socialism would be under no obligation, moral or
legal, to throw up his property, so long as the present system pre
vailed.

Compensation, therefore, in some form, would be due to the
landlord if his land were transferred to the state. But any such
arrangement would be a poor one for the people, seeing that even
under the present system the profits derived from land are so
small, and it is more than doubtful whether they would be better
under public management. As we say, a money compensation in
these circumstances would make the arrangement as broad as it is
long — perhaps broader. But, under a thorough system of social
ism money would be abolished. There could therefore be no
compensation in money. The compensation, according to Dr.
Schaffle, both for land, capital and other instruments of produc
tion, would be in the form of perishable goods — in what is called
labor-money, that is to say, in the form of orders on the depart
ment of distribution for such goods as they distributed, consist
ing of the common necessaries and a few of the luxuries of life.
But the compensation would not yield a permanent income, nor
would it allow the recipients to carry on any productive work
that would make them independent. As Dr. Schaffle remarks,
even the fortune of a Rothschild could not long resist the process
of dissipation that would soon set in !

Another proposed way of dealing with landed property is to
increase taxation on it to such an extent that ultimately its
whole value should be absorbed in the taxes, and landlords would
no longer care to keep what brought them nothing. This is the
course advocated by Mr. Henry George, and by Morris and Bax
in their work on Socialism (1893), as it is also by the Rev.
Stewart D. Headlam, editor of the Church [of England]
Reformer. It is indeed strange that so mean a proposal should
find respectable advocates. But it is hardly less strange that it
should be entertained as a practicable scheme. How should such
a taxation obtain the sanction of Parliament ? Unless, indeed, we
should come to have a Parliament of red-hot socialists, the thing
is out of the question ; and that is a prospect that does not seem
very near ! Even the 25 per cent, tax proposed by the Financial
Reform Association may be regarded as quite Utopian.

That all property acquired by and for the nation must be
reasonably compensated for is, therefore, coming to be admitted

IS SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND f 499

generally in England, although voices against compensation may
be heard occasionally. Compensation would take the sting out of
the older socialism, and place the whole question on a footing on
which it might be calmly discussed by honest and reasonable
men.

Other important concessions, as we must call them, have also
been made. For instance, the introduction of socialism is no
longer advocated in the form of a revolutionary mechanical meas
ure, to supersede the present system as suddenly and as completely
as the railways superseded the stage coach, or as the electric light
takes the place of gas. It is admitted that any change must be
a gradual one, and that the new system, instead of a mechanical
creation, must be a vital growth. The law of evolution must apply
to it. All permanent institutions, it is seen, follow this law, and
anything affecting society must obey it. And then the question
arises, How long time may the process demand ? Various an
swers have been given, ranging between fifty and five hundred
years: for, as evolution generally works slowly, it is seen that this
process must be slow. By this concession, another ground of
alarm has been removed. People are seldom alarmed at the pros
pect of a change which is to work slowly and gradually, like the
subsidence of a beach losing a foot or two in a hundred years. It
was the idea that socialism was to be brought in like the French
Revolution that terrified people, the idea of " after me the de
luge;" the thought of Europe converted into an innumerable mul
titude of volcanoes, causing confusion and desolation on every
side.

And then, too, we find that the more reasonable socialists are
more concerned to sow the seed of their principles and leaven
society with their spirit, than to attempt the practical execution
of their projects. This is clearly seen in Mr. Sidney Webb's
Socialism in England (Second Edition, 1893), one of the most rea
sonable expositions of the system which have lately appeared. In
common with most socialists, he sees a great tendency to the
adoption of socialist views and operations in the public policy of
the nation. That is to say, we are continually increasing the
number of institutions managed by the nation for the nation.
The army, the navy, are old socialist institutions; but in recent
times the carriage of letters, books, and parcels, the telegraph
system, public education, life insurance (through the post office),

500 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

granting annuities, remitting money, etc., etc., are socialist oper
ations. Municipal socialism is even more active than national.
All that concerns the heating, lighting, cleansing and repairing
of the streets; in many cases gas-works, water-works, tramways,
galleries, gardens and baths have become public concerns. And,
outside the nation and the municipality, individual ownership is
in the course of being exchanged for joint-stock companies, hun
dreds and thousands of proprietors taking the place of one. The
very men that denounce socialism, as Mr. Sidney Webb puts it,
are unconsciously practising it. '•" The individualist town council
lor will walk along the municipal pavement, lit by municipal
gas, and cleaned by municipal broom with municipal water, and
seeing by the municipal clock in the municipal market that he is
too early to meet his children coming from the municipal school,
hard by the county lunatic asylum and municipal hospital, will
use the national telegraph system and tell them not to walk
through the municipal park, but to come by the municipal tram
way, to meet him in the municipal reading-room, by the muni
cipal art gallery, museum, and library, where he intends to con
sult some of the national publications in order to prepare his
next speech in the municipal town hall, in favor of the national
ization of the canals and the increase of the government control
over the railway system." And yet he will denounce socialism as
a dream!

Socialists believe that in these and in other ways, the public
mind is becoming familiarized with the great idea — collectivism
versus individualism. As the process goes on, they think that it
will become ripe for the last and crowning step — the conversion
of the whole instruments of production into the property of the
State. By the time that the public mind is thus prepared, an
other operation, also favorable to socialism, will have been com
pleted — the absorption of all the smaller industries, and the ex
tinction of the class of individuals working at their own hand,
for their own benefit. When this comes to pass socialists think
we may slide into socialism as easily as the railway train, at the
end of its journey, slides into the rail that brings it to the plat
form.

So long as socialists work mainly on these two lines — expos
ing the evils of the present system, and indicating the reality and
the benefit of socialist principles, so far as they are currently in

IS SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND f 501

operation among us — it is possible that it will become more popu
lar ; it may gather new recruits, and it may avoid the rough
handling that the older and bolder socialism encountered. But
it seems to us a great mistake to suppose that the forms of na
tional or municipal socialism now in operation will really prepare
the way for the final gulp. Before the whole instruments of pro
duction are nationalized many important and difficult questions
have to be settled. In the first place, how are we to find a sub
stitute for the motives that under the present system impel men
to diligence, activity, and inventiveness ? In other words, how is
a man to be induced to work as hard for the welfare of the com
munity as he does for himself and his family ? It is sometimes
said in reply to this, that selfishness and other evil propensities
will pass away when the present temptations to the exercise of
them are removed ; men will become generous and amiable when
nothing is to be gained by greed and passion. It were amusing,
if it were not too serious for amusement, to mark the simplicity
of mind with which this transformation of human nature is ex
pected from a change of circumstances ! As if in all circum
stances and under all systems, monarchy, republicanism, democ
racy, oligarchy, and amid all conditions of life, riches or pov
erty, ease or struggle, success or failure, the great features and
failings of human nature had not always been, and would not al
ways be, the same ! Nothing in all the speculations, whether of
the socialists or the philosophers of the present day, is so surpris
ing as the facility with which they think they can generate an
" altruism " sufficient for their purposes ! In this connection,
the contention of Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his Social Evolu
tion, demands our serious consideration. He maintains that all
the altruism that has hitherto been at work among men has been
generated by religion, and religion alone. We may be excused
for refusing to believe in an altruism that comes from a mere be
lief in the greatest good of the greatest number. The demon of
selfishness is not so easy to exorcise. " Leviathan is not so
tamed/' True, there is no necessary antagonism between social
ism and religion. But more is needed than the absence of an
tagonism. If the true altruistic spirit is necessary for the success
of socialism, it must come from the fountain of religion, and
socialism must enter into close alliance with religion. ' ' Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?"

£02 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Another great question needing to be settled is the scale on
which labor is to be rewarded. Our present system settles that
question by a natural process. But before a vast scheme of unified
labor could be worked, definite rules must be agreed to regarding
it. What difference is to be made in the same occupation between
the work of the active, steady worker, and that of the slow, idle,
good-for-nothing one ? And how is the value of work in different
occupations to be settled ? And what about mental work, and other
work that is not strictly productive ? And what if the work of
some particular individual, say an author, is in infinite demand,
and that of another hardly in demand at all ? Then again, it is
a principle of socialism that the State is bound to provide work
for all. But what if the State cannot give a man the work he
likes ? What if that department be already full ? He must just
take such work as the State, or rather the officials that manage
the department, can give him. All will be under State officials.
Will this conduce to liberty ? If I can only get work that I don't
like from an official that does not like me, shall I be much better
than now ? We know how much men will sacrifice for liberty ;
and both our working men and our thinking men will pause
before committing themselves to a system that may practically
land the worker in slavery.

Then the enormous army of State officials that would he called
into being is another serious consideration. The national book
keeping which (if money were abolished) would have to embrace
a record of every transaction of buying and selling in every man's
life, is too gigantic to think of. And how would international
commerce be arranged ? What kinds of goods, scheduled as pro
ductive, would be forbidden, and what, being non-productive,
would be allowed ? Might one possess a carriage but not a wheel
barrow ? an organ, but not a sewing-machine ?

Mr. Webb did not meddle with those questions when he was in
America, and they are not discussed in his published book. It is
wise policy to keep them in the background, and to bring forward
the non-contentious points of socialism ; but it is a mistake to sup
pose that because the public readily accept what is non-conten
tious, we are nearer a final solution of the real question.

We have considered the prospects of socialism in England as
the subject is presented to us by the more educated and cultured
champions of the cause; it may be well, before concluding,

IS SOCIALISM ADVANCING IN ENGLAND 9 £03

to say a word on the attitude and expectations of the working
classes.

It is quite natural for them to feel keenly on the subject. It
is natural to believe that their labor is too hard and their remun
eration too small, and to feel that there is something far wrong
when so many idle men live in ease and luxury, and so many
hard toiling men have hardly the means of bare subsistence. It
is natural to chafe at a foreign sovereign drawing £10,000 a year,
or an ex-Speaker £4,000 a year from what they consider the
profits of their toil. No class can feel the evils of the present
system more than they do. And unless they have something of
the wisdom that would "rather bear the ills we have than fly to
others that we know not of," it is natural for them to have strong
leanings to socialism. But when the shrewdest and steadiest of
them try to see through the social system, and to consider how
society would get along under it, it is no wonder they find them
selves in a maze. It is the labor question, as it is called, that
more immediately interests the working class, and though 'that
question is very closely related to socialism, yet several of its
issues do not depend on it. The length of the labor day, the
living wage, the protection of the workman, education, old-age
pensions, comfortable houses, allotments, crofts and the like, are
all apart from the leading positions of socialism, and it is with
these questions mainly that the working class are at present con
cerned. True, the I. L. P. (Independent Labor Party) has a
socialistic basis, believing that socialism would be the complete
solution of all that it aims at. But meanwhile its chief energies
are directed to what more specifically belongs to the Labor
question.

But certainly the recent election to Parliament has done
little to comfort either the socialists or the I. L. P. Keir
Hardie is out and his proteges are not in. The verdict of the
country has been given against too many organic changes, and
in favor of working out for the present admitted principles that
tend to the general good.

And thus the answer we give to the question, Is socialism ad
vancing in England ? is substantially this : Not in its radical
principles ; net in its demand for organic change ; not in its
claim to nationalize the whole instruments of production. As a
new system, it may be picking up adherents here and there, in-

504 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. *

telligent and patriotic men of sanguine temperament, like the
members of the Fabian Society, who hope that the difficulties in
the way of its practical working may one day be overcome,
though they may not see how. But as a real force in the country,
gathering power as it goes, and only needing time to bear it
to victory, we maintain that it is not advancing. In many
ways, however, it is doing useful work ; it is calling atten
tion to the condition of the worker and the obligation of society
to give him a more comfortable life; it is constraining the
Christian churches to address themselves more to the improve
ment of the condition of the people ; it is compelling the legis
lature to give its deserved prominence to this subject ; and it is
drawing out many men and women to use their influence and
their lives for the welfare of those who spend their lives in daily
toil. Dr. Flint has pointed out its faults : so far as it allies
itself to atheism and materialism ; so far as it assumes that man's
chief end is a happy life on earth ; so far as it attaches more im
portance to the condition of men than to their character ; and so
far as it does injustice to the rights of individuals. With
these faults amended, so far as they exist, it may do still greater
service ; and should it find its goal inaccessible, it may turn out
that it has done better for humanity than if it had been crowned
with victory.

BLAIKIB.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

OUR NEED OF STRINGENT SHIPPING LAWS.

THE advent of a new era in the establishment of fast transatlantic steam'
ship lines under the American flag, carrying thousands of passengers and
valuable cargoes, calls for more stringent laws governing the loading, man
ning, and sailing of our steamships and sailing vessels, as is done in other
countries, notably in Great Britain, whose mercantile fleets predon; inate in
every sea. It is the protection she affords to her seamen, and the strict
discipline enforced on board of her passenger steamers, that give the rich
traveller, as well as the humblest employee on board, that feeling of security
and protection under her flag. Her shipping laws are carefully framed to
prevent accident from the inefficiency and carelessness on the part of
officers, inefficient crews, overloading, improper stowage, defective construc
tion, inadequate equipment, etc. They also have checked the greed of
owners, and prevented their sending to sea old and worn-out vessels unfit
to carry in safety passengers and cargoes, which used to be done before such
laws were enacted and rigidly enforced.

The "Merchant Shipping Act " of Great Britain has been revised and
made more effective in recent years by its many amendments framed by the
great philanthropist, Mr. Plimsoll, the sailors' friend, and introduced and
pushed through Parliament by him against the powerful opposition of the
most prominent ship owners. What that act has done to protect the lives of
seamen, to promote their comfort and to increase the safeguards of ocean
travel, similar laws should do to protect and foster the mercantile marine of
this country, if it is to grow and attain prominence among the maritime
nations of the world.

The recent achievement in the construction of the palatial ocean steam
ships, "St. Louis" and "St. Paul," warrants the assumption that this
country will in a few years own creditable fleets and control under its flag a
fair share of the ocean-carrying trade of this vast Republic.

Apart from the fact that England heretofore has been able to build,
equip and navigate her ships more cheaply than this country, one reason
why British steamships have in the past carried the greater portion of the
passengers and freight across the Atlantic is because greater care has been
taken by the British government in the enforcement of her shipping laws to
protect the lives of passengers and seamen. That guarantee of security has
been further enhanced by the supremacy and guardianship of her navy, which
has always been available and ever ready to resent insult to its subjects, and
interference with their rights and property, wherever scattered from one

506 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,

end of the globe to the other, no matter whether in one of her distant colo
nies or in foreign countries.

It is evident, therefore, that if the United States desire to foster their
shipping interests, and to attain prominence with their mercantile marine,
our government must be prepared to inaugurate more efficient measures in
that direction. Our aim and motto must henceforth be, " Protection to our
ships and to the seamen who man them." When that is done our young men
will be more encouraged and take greater pride in following the sea as a pro
fession, and in time, let us hope, will supersede the foreign element that
now is found to a large extent among the crews of our ships.

What our navy did in Chili two years ago to protect our citizens and
interests there it must be prepared to do again as often as required, as Eng
land has always done — more recently at Corinto, Nicaragua.

Our fast cruisers and modern battleships, which have been so much
admired abroad and which are unrivalled in the modern navies of the old
world, are competent to protect the safety of our citizens and property at
home and abroad, also to guard the dignity and honor of the " Stars and
Stripes" wherever it may wave. This must be done, however, without
boasting too loudly or making any attempt at " Jingoism" in the " spread
eagle style," so as not to detract from the dignity of the Commonwealth,
and thus quietly but firmly our influence can be made to be felt when the
occasion arises.

Recent instances are not wanting to illustrate the necessity that exists
for such laws being enacted, or if already enacted, to urge their enforce
ment. Only a few weeks ago the steamer " Colima," of the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company, sailed from San Francisco for Panama and way ports
in Central America and Mexico, with a large passenger list and a heavy
cargo, including a deck load. If the reports thus tar published of that sad
disaster, by which two hundred lives were lost, are true, and nothing has yet
been made public to refute them, that shipwreck was beyond doubt caused
by the steamer being improperly loaded and carrying a deck load which
should not have been permitted. Such a thing could not have happened
under the laws of Great Britain, which make it a misdemeanor to carry
deck loads, except under certain restrictions, and subject the captain
and owners of vessels to heavy fines and imprisonment. Had such regu
lations been in force under our laws, the " Colima" could not hare
obtained a clearance at the Custom -House, while carrying such a deck
load. Hence the disaster would have been prevented and two hundred valu
able lives saved. It has been a dearly bought lesson, by which we should
take warning, though it will be but poor comfort to the many bereaved who
have lost husbands, wives, sons, and relatives by the catastrophe. Such
disasters reflect discredit on the laxity of the shipping laws of this country ;
and should direct the attention of our public men and legislatures to the
urgent need of reforms being speedily enacted and rigidly enforced. The
question of the liability of owners of vessels sent to sea in au unseaworthy
condition, is one which the courts may be called upon to decide. It should
not be left, however, to individual sufferers (who may be financially unable)
to make a test case under such circumstances. The owners or officers of
corporations managing steamship companies should be held accountable
and responsible for damages, and punishment by the State, and in all cases
the cause of the loss or disaster, properly investigated by government officials
and nautical experts, as is the case in Great Britain and her colonies. The

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 507

loss of th« "Colima" is not the only instance of such sad disasters. Two
iron steamers, the "Keneewaw" ana "Montserrat" left Nanaimo and
Comax, Puget Sound, in December last, same day, coal laden, bound
for San Francisco; neither has ever been heard from. They
encountered heavy gales, and being heavily loaded (no doubt beyond their
capacity), it is supposed were unable to withstand the force of the tempest
and went down with all on board. There is little doubt but that both these
steamers were overloaded, as no restriction was placed upon them, although
one sailed from a Canadian port, but being under a foreign flag the authori
ties had no right to interfere. Some seventy souls were hurried into eternity
by those two disasters, which were the evident result of greed on the part of
their managers or owners, yet not a voice has been heard in condemnation of
such flagrant outrages, beyond the stifled moans of wail and despair of the
widows and orphans of the unprotected seamen. They should appeal to the
sympathies of the public and hasten the much needed remedies. No official
enquiry investigating the causes of these disasters has been made. Surely
it is full time that steps be taken by our government to inaugurate seme
system of inspection and adopt stringent measures for the better protection
of our Mercantile Marine, and the hardy seamen who risk their lives to
navigate our ships and develop the commerce of the Republic.

FRANK ROTHERHAM.

THE AMERICAN NOTE.

IN a community where no religious organization can ever take the lead
except by the consent of the people, it is important for each one to keep as
near to the characteristic note of the nation as it can, while adhering to a
course which is already marked out by tradition. When the American col
onies became the United States, they had a considerable variety of religious
systems, which had already struck their roots into the soil and which have
been handed down to our own time. These were mostly the fruits of the
Protestant Reformation in Europe, and derived their strength from the
fact that they held to freedom of thought as a vital principle. Neither the
Episcopal nor the Roman Catholic organizations had any considerable foot
hold, but there was a very general aversion to both of these systems as op
posed to that simplicity of worship and that centering of ecclesiastical
power in the hands of the people which had been the main idea of the Prot
estant bodies. It was affirmed that the people should rule in Church as
well as in State, and now, while both of these bodies are immensely better
understood than they were a century ago, there still prevails in the nation
at large the conviction that the people are the masters of the situation.

Hence the effort in both of these communions, notwithstanding their re
lation to the past, to take positions which identify them with the dominant
American ideas. The one is Latin in its spirit, and is seeking to be so
thoroughly American in its attitude toward the nation that its mediaeval
character shall not be considered. The other is Anglo-Saxon and is iden
tified with the ideas of freedom and fair dealing which belong to the Eng
lish race. It has its outreach into the past and feels obliged to keep itself his
torically true to the traditions it has received, but it has always allowed to
the people a certain amount of power in things ecclesiastical, and to-day,
while it has kept the spiritual prerogative in the hands of the bishops and
clergy, it has given to the laity the temporal control of the churches. Both

508 THE KORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

these communions are closely watching their opportunities and throwing
overboard many of their medieeval ideas in order to increase their favor with
the people, and both are beginning to share in the confidence of Americans
that they are not a menace to our institutions, but an essential factor in
their maintenance. Each has a work to do, and each is eager to secure a
claim to popular favor. The Episcopal Church has greatly modified its
ritual in order to meet the people, and the Roman Communion has gone
from one step to another in falling in vi ith our national ideas, in taking up
popular education, and in showing that it can adapt itself to the situation.

This is a right thing to do if it does not involve the sacrifice of essential
principles, and it is here that the Episcopal Church is possibly at a critical
point to-day. It is controlled by two schools of religious thought. One
prides itself in the name Catholic, and believes that the Church has only to
proclaim itself in strong terms in order to go in and possess the land. It is
ready to read the future in the light of its hopes and convictions, but it is
slow to remember that it has just emerged in the popular estimation to a posi
tion where the community at large begins to appreciate it on its merits.
Phillips Brooks did a great deal toward this appreciation in New England,
and Bishop Potter has accomplished much in making its purpose better
understood elsewhere. They have done this not by emphasizing this or that
feature of its polity or ritual, but by showing that it is in sympathy with
the object that people are living for in the widest sense, and that the issues
with which it has been bound up in popular opinion are obsolete. In
short, they have struck the American note, and have led the way, perhaps
unconsciously, to a truer understanding of what it represents than has been
expressed before. If this broader spirit prevails in the coming convention at
Minneapolis, the Episcopal Church will place no obstacles in the way of its
progress. Whatever important changes may be made, they will do no
harm if they are not out of harmony with the dominant note.

Of all the prelates in the Roman Catholic Church there are three
men who seem to understand instinctively how to strike this note. They
are Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Keane. The Car
dinal is strong for an American spirit. Archbishop Ireland has endeared
himself to his own people and to all Americans for his stand for educa
tion and for his attitude toward intemperance. Bishop Keane has shown
as the rector of the Catholic University at Washington that he is as ready
as the head of any Protestant university to take the lead in the higher edu
cation and to extend it to women as well as to men. With the details
of the religious life in either communion the public has no quarrel, but
in striking the American note these men have shown a masterly apprecia
tion of their position and have done more to disarm prejudice and secure
goodwill than any others of their generation. This is genuine work of a
quality that will not be forgotten. It takes a man who can interpret the
signs of the times to be a leader in Church or State, and there is much
speculation in religious circles as to who will insist that this American note
shall be adhered to in the convention at Minneapolis. If three men can
induce the whole body of the Roman hierarchy to do the sensible thing in the
Roman Catholic Communion, it ought to be within the power of three
men of born leadership and insight to hold the Episcopal Church to the
position which it has attained and keep its enthusiastic clergy and laity
from mistaking their own convictions for the American note.

JULIUS H. WARD.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. £09

HARNESSING THE TIDES.

THE work of harnessing Niagara having proved successful, the question
of obtaining similar power for generating electricity in cities begins to
assume an importance never before appreciated, and it is only a question of
time before the problem will be solved to the eminent satisfaction of thou
sands of town dwellers. The presence in our cities of steam boilers and en
gines scattered throughout the most crowded and over heated sections is a
constant source of irritation and unhealthfulness, and the substitution of
electricity brought from a convenient distance outside of the city limits for
the present huge steam plants would prove a boon that even the densest
could readily comprehend.

The experiment with Niagara has shown sufficiently that with such
power at hand a city like Buffalo (or New York, for that matter, if within a
reasonable distance) can be heated, lighted and all necessary machinery
run by electricity generated at a cost less than one-half of that produced from
coal. This electric current could be conducted across the continent if the
necessary installation of the plant was not so costly. Sources of power
nearer at home, however, will probably prevent the lighting of New York
by electricity brought from 2s iagara. The question of utilizing the tides of
the rivers, bays and inlets along the Atlantic Coast for generating power is
not a new one ; but recent developments in electrical matters bring up the
matter again in a new light. Within the last few years electricity has
entered the field as a formidable competitor with steam, and the real status
of the question cannot be determined until some of the experiments now in
the process of development have been completed.

The tides of the North and East rivers produce power enough to
generate all the electricity required to light New York and Brooklyn, to do
all the mechanical work in the factories and machine shops, and to run all
the railroad lines in the city and suburbs. This power is wasted, as formerly
all of the power of Niagara was allowed to expend itself in a profitless way.
All that is required is to store this immense power and to turn it into profit
able use. The problem presented differs somewhat from that at Niagara.
The tides are periodic, and not constant, and the power would have to be
collected at the times of its greatest exertion and stored for later use.

The Niagara people have already proposed to run a line to New York to
do what the tides of the Hudson and East rivers would accomplish right at
home. Either undertaking is a large one, requiring the expenditure of
millions of dollars. But the results would more than justify the outlay.
An inexhaustible supply of power from outside would prove a blessing that
could hardly be appreciated to-day. The present cumbersome delivery of
coal to factories and private houses would be abolished, and a clean, neat,
pleasant method substituted. The plant could be located at some con
venient place in the suburbs, or along the river front, where the city air
would not be vitiated and poisoned by coal gases, dust, and smoke.

What applies to New York and Brooklyn would apply to many other
cities. The tides of the Delaware and Chesapeake could be converted into
inexhaustible power to give the cities along that coast a perfect and cheap
electric plant. The great inland rivers are not so constant in the summer
season as the tides of the rivers and bays along the Atlantic coast. The rash
of the waters through the narrow inlets of our bays and rivers is so tremen
dous that enormous machinery could be propelled at a cost representing a
small percentage on the capital invested in the plant. The present outlook

510 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

is that the Niagara Falls Power Company will in time run an electrical con
duit to New York to supply the motive and lighting power of the city and
suburbs, unless some enterprising body of capitalists undertakes to utilize
the wasted power of the tides nearer at home. A conduit capable of bring
ing 100,000 to 200,000 horse power from Niagara would cost more than a four-
track steam railway. The investment of a similar amount in collecting and
storing the power of the tides in the North and East rivers ought to yield
better results.

Greater New York represents the largest power market in the country,
and through the ever-increasing suburban traffic the demand for this power
will increase. The trolley lines are running in all directions from the city,
penetratinac farther and farther into the suburbs, and with each new line
the demand for electric power becomes greater. Electricity is destined to
supplant steam in the short hauls, and it is only a question of time before
all of the suburban traffic is carried on by this power. Where railroad lines
enter the cities through tunnels the electric engines are sure to become more
popular than the steam engines. They have already supplanted
the steam engines in Baltimore and other large cities, and the free
dom from dust, ashes, smoke and gases, is a boon that every citi
zen appreciates. The most complete electric terminus of a great
steam railroad running into a city is that of the Baltimore & Ohio.
The Belt Line Tunnel runs under the city of Baltimore for a distance
of one and a quarter miles, and then through small tunnels and cuts into
the suburbs. The total length of the electric line equipped is about three
miles. When the steam engines and train come to the mouth of the tunnel,
the electric engines are simply to haul them through the underground pass
age of the city to the open country beyond. This system has not been
adopted for the sake of economy; but for the convenience and comfort of
the patrons of the road. The example set may bring other great railroads
entering our cities to a proper sense of their duty to the public, if they wish
to retain patronage.

The question of lighting and heating the cities and private houses by the
electric power brought from a general storage house outside of the city lim
its, commends itself to every one. Cooking by electricity is the only modern
and improved way. It can be done without heating the room, and without
the bother of using wood or coal. The electric heating stoves are regulated
so easily by a series of handles and knobs that no one could fail to like them.
There is no loss of fuel as at present. When the cooking is finished the cur
rent is turned off, and no unnecessary waste follows. The heat is ready at
hand on a moment's notice. A slight turn of a knob provides heat enough
instantly to broil the steak or to cook the potatoes. The power of the heat
can be made constant by a small regulator, so that one knows exactly the
intensity of the unseen fire.

Our present system of running machinery compels the erection of small
steam plants all over the city. Every hotel, office building, large apartment
house, and manufacturing loft must have its steam plant to run an elevator
and to heat the building. The steam companies attempt to economize for
the individual house owner by running their pipes into the buildings and
supplying the power from some central point. But even this system im
poses great expense. The steam companies must pay good prices for their
coal, and the cost of running the pipes through the streets is as great as that
of gas or water pipes. An electric plant could supply through its one con-

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 511

duit all the power and light that the gas and steam companies now furnish
through their numerous intricate net works of pipes. The cost could be
reduced one-half ; the service could be made far more satisfactory, and the
city redeemed from many of its present foul odors and an unpleasant, super
heated atmosphere. The boon would not simply be one of economy and
cleanliness, but one of healthfulness as well.

In a few years it is predicted that electricity will have entered into our
city life to the full extent described above, and the first in the field to obtain
control of the power will reap profits that cannot be estimated. But where
this power will ultimately come from is an unsettled question. It would
seem, however, that the tides along our coast might furnish the cheapest
and most effective power for such an undertaking if they could be controlled
and harnessed as effectually as Niagara has been in the last few years. •

GEO. E. WALSH.

RURAL FREE MAIL DELIVERY.

A BETTER mail service in the city than in the country is, by reason of the
greater density of population in the first named, consistent with "the great
est good to the greatest number," and, therefore, is a part of good govern
ment ; but the disparity between the mail service in the city and in the
country has become greater than is warranted by justice or the public wel
fare. The estimated receipts of the post-office department for the current
fiscal year equal the expenditures of the preceding year ; and it is generally
conceded that the finances of the department have, notwithstanding the
business depression, reached a point that justifies a decided improvement in
the mail service. One cent letter postage would aggravate the inequality
between the mail service of the city and of the country. That rural free
mail delivery is the more equitable is so apparent that its opponents are
compelled to limit their arguments to an exaggeration of its cost
and the assertion that the people do not want it. But the people do
want it. There is not a single agricultural paper that does not heartily ad
vocate it. There is not a national farmers' organization that is not earn
estly working for it. During the past year two hundred subordinate
farmers' organizations have pronounced in its favor. The leading dailies
everywhere advocate it. Just as the people understand the situation are
they in favor of it, once more demonstrating that intelligent public senti
ment is wise and just.

Mr. Wanamaker's experiments, set forth in his able reply to Senate
resolution of January 13, 1892, demonstrated that free delivery in towns
and villages would not add to the net expense of the department. With
free delivery on farms would grow up an express and telegraph mes
senger service that, while being of great benefit to farmers, would yield
such profit to the carrier that the bids for free delivery would soon be
greatly reduced. Mail could be delivered by those not capable of earning
high wages, and the number of offices could be lessened. In an agricultural
township now having five or six offices, all but one could be abolished, and
two boys on ponies could deliver the mail daily. This would effect an actual
saving. In the more sparsely settled regions, boxes along the star
routes would suffice for some years. All that is asked for has been well
expressed by the Farmers' National Congress: "That free mail delivery be
extended into towns and villages and to farms as rapidly as possible with
out making an onerous increase in the net expense of the post-office depart-

512 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ment." This is not unreasonable when city mail service is being constantly
improved. For example, during 1894 the area of free delivery in Chicago
was increased from 75 to 125 square miles, and the number of deliveries and
collections was increased 25 to 40 per cent. At the beginning of the year
there were 12 carrier stations, 24 sub-stations, and 70 stamp agencies ; at its
close there were 22 carrier stations, 15 branch post-offices, 54 sub-stations,
and 190 stamp agencies.

If the publications wrongfully enjoying the second-class privilege paid a
proper rate of postage, the net cost of rural free mail delivery would prob
ably be met. Nor would the official publication of the L. A. W., which is
friendly to our cause, be denied the " pound rate." A further saving could
be made of the appropriation for "special mail facilities on trunk lines,"
which has not accelerated the mails, which has never been recommended by
any postmaster-general, and which Dickinson, Wanamaker and Bissell have
condemned; or by getting back to a reasonable figure the appropriation
for " mail depredators and post-office inspectors" — known in the post-office
department as slush money. It is certain that whatever free mail delivery
may cost will be saved many times on the one ground alone that it is much
more economical that one person should bring their mail to fifty people than
that the fifty people should go for it. But why should the post-office de
partment more than the war or navy department be required to be self-
sustaining.

So closely interrelated are the interests of city, town and farm that any
thing to the benefit of the one must be to the benefit of the other. The
farmer would be benefited by the prompt receipt of the merchant's letter;
the merchant, also, would be benefited. The publisher as well as the
farmer would be benefited by the daily delivery of the newspaper at the
farmer's door.

The isolation of the farmer, driving his sons and daughters to the over
crowded cities, and his growing discontent from an increasing realization
that he is not in touch with the busy centres of humanity, proclaim the
need of rural free mail delivery in ways that the nation cannot afford to
ignore. This need is revealed by a comparison of our mail service with that
of other nations. Japan has rural free mail delivery, and in all the vast In
dian Empire there is not a person, no matter in what jungle he may live, to
whom his mail is not delivered. China, which alone keeps us company
among the nations of the earth in the private ownership of telegraph lines,
and which has highways about as bad as ours, refuses further to disgrace
herself by being as niggardly and antiquated as we are in rural mail fa
cilities; and the American farmer has a mail service much inferior to that
enjoyed by the agricultural portion of the nation we have most despised.

JOHN M. STAIIL.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

No. CCCCLXVIII.

NOVEMBER, 1895.

QUICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND
LONDON.

BY AUSTIN CORBIN.

THE introduction of some means of rapid transit between the
two great English-speaking nations, wholly free from the incon
veniences, delays and hazards due to tides, fogs and storms en
countered in narrow and crowded water-ways and along dangerous
coasts, is of the utmost importance to all transatlantic travellers,
who look upon the voyage as a necessary means to an end. The
universal demand is for the shortest possible sea passage for
travellers and the quickest delivery of the mails between the two
great distributing cities, London and New York.

The question, in projecting the best transatlantic steamship
line, is how to secure a route which shall combine the merits of
shortness and directness with the greatest safety and comfort to
the traveller. In solving this question, ports having a particularly
advantageous geographical location for embarkation and debarka
tion, and from which vessels can at once attain full speed, must
be selected, and ships must be run which will have the maximum
of speed, coupled with all the modern conveniences for security
and comfort.

As the western terminus for a new transatlantic route, it is
VOL. OLXI. — NO. 468. 33

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BBYOB. All rights reserved.

514 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

proposed to select Fort Pond Bay, which is one of the finest
natural harbors in the world. It is located on the north side of
Long Island, six miles west of Montauk Point, and 114 miles
from New York City. As shown by the latest government
charts, it is of such great and uniform depth that the largest
steamers can enter or depart from it day or night throughout the
year, without danger of detention. To enter this harbor, all
large steamers would depart from the usual route between Great
Britain or Europe and New York, at a point a little south of
Nantucket Shoals, and would proceed in a straight course through
unobstructed waters to the entrance of Block Island Sound, west
of Block Island. This entrance has a width of five miles, be
tween Phelps Ledge and a small shoal located a little to the west
ward of Southwest Ledge, its minimum depth being seven
fathoms. From this point the course would be through Block
Island Sound, passing between Shagwong Eeef and Cerberus
Shoal, which are four miles apart, and between which the mini
mum depth of water is eight fathoms. Thence the course is
direct, through absolutely unobstructed waters, into Fort Pond
Bay, whose entrance is three-quarters of a mile wide, and where
the tides never exceed three feet five inches. In selecting this
harbor for the western terminus of a new transatlantic route, the
entire southern shore of Long Island and the eastern coast of
New Jersey are avoided ; the risk from collision on the much-
frequented North River and New York Bay is escaped, and the
long delay at Sandy Hook and the slow passage through the
twenty-five miles of tortuous and crowded channels from Sandy
Hook Lightship to the New York piers are done away with.

Having chosen Fort Pond Bay as the western terminus of the
proposed route, the selection of a British port of arrival and de
parture becomes the chief matter requiring consideration. Of
the competing ports of Liverpool, Southampton and Mil-
ford, the last is the most accessible at all times, and possesses in
the highest degree all the advantages necessary for a port of
arrival and departure. To reach this port, vessels taking the usual
course to Queenstown and Liverpool, after sighting Fastnet Light,
off Cape Clear, on the southern coast of Ireland, would bear
directly eastward to the most westerly port of Wales which is Mil-
ford Haven, and thus avoid the disagreeable and dangerous trip
through a channel full of shipping at all hours of the day and night.

Q UICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 515

This harbor, which has an entrance more than a mile and a
half wide, with a minimum depth sufficient for the largest steam
ers, is entirely land-locked, and no seas of any consequence to
large vessels can rise in it. The tides in the Haven are very
slight, running not more than one and one-half knots per hour,
while in the Solent they run as high as four and one-half knots.
Fog is much less prevalent in the approach to Milford than around
the Scilly Islands, which must be passed in approaching South
ampton. Observations taken at the Milford Docks during the
past four years show that during that time there have been but
forty-four days on which fog existed in the Haven, and then only
fora few hours. According to the statistics of the Meteorological
Society the number of fogs prevailing at and around the Scilly
Islands is nearly double the number found on the south coast of
Ireland, the approach to Milford Haven.

This prevalence of fogs increases the necessary reduction of
speed in approaching the coast at the entrance to the Solent, and
makes navigation to Southampton much more dangerous. This
can be fully understood when it is remembered that all vessels
must pass the Needles, and run up the narrow channels between
the sandbanks of Southampton Water before they can reach
their destination. The Mersey channel is not less exposed to
these dangers, as it is always more or less filled with shipping.
But Milford Haven has free and uninterrupted access to and from
the sea, and is a harbor into which the largest vessel afloat, or
which is contemplated, can steam at any hour of day or night.
It has a depth of thirty-four feet at the pier where vessels would
land for discharging mails and passengers. At the end of this
pier is the Great Western Railway Station, which could be
entered without stepping from under cover, and from which
special trains could be run to London in less than five hours.

How essential it is that steamers should be able to go up to
their piers, at all times, regardless of tides, is shown by the great
efforts and enormous expenditures made by Liverpool and South
ampton to secure such piers. Their efforts have met with prac
tical success, so that it is now possible for both the Liverpool and
Southampton lines to boast of terminal facilities which enable
them to advertise a fixed hour of departure.

What, then, are the other advantages to be gained, which
should induce the American people to insist upon the adoption of

516 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a new route, with Fort Pond Bay and Milford Haven as the
termini ? To answer this question, it is necessary to compare
carefully the proposed route with those already in existence.
There are two main routes between New York and London. The
first is by the way of Queenstown and Liverpool and thence by
rail to London ; the second is by way of Southampton and rail
to London. The first route may be subdivided into (a) the
passenger route by which the traveller, after being compelled to
wait at Queenstown while the mail is transferred, is then carried
on to Liverpool, and thence by rail to London, and (#) the Over
land Mail Route by vessel to Queenstown and thence by rail to
Kingstown or Dublin, again by vessel to Holyhead, and then by
the London and North Western Railway to Euston Station, Lon
don. The mail route by Queenstown entails considerable extra
expense on the passenger, as well as the great inconvenience of
repeated changes, and is consequently very little used by travellers,
except under special circumstances.

For the purpose of determining the relative merits of the
routes already established, and comparing their intrinsic value
with the true worth of the route proposed between New York
and London by way of Fort Pond Bay and Milford Haven, it is
necessary to adopt some absolute standard of speed for both the
steamers and railway trains, and ascertain the exact difference in
the lengths of the several sea routes, as well as the railway jour
neys from the ports of debarkation to London and New York.

All previous comparisons have been rendered difficult because
fixed standards have not been taken, and because eastward and
westward passages have been confounded. The proper method is
to consider passages in the same direction, and to deal with the
same ship in all cases, and having determined its rate of speed,
and the length of the different routes, ascertain over which route
it could make the passage in the shortest time.

The best record made prior to this date has been assumed
as the standard of speed for all calculations. The fastest east
ward ocean steaming yet made is certified by the Cunard
Company to have been five days eight hours and thirty-eight
minutes by the " Lucauia." The average run was exactly 21.90
knots per hour. This rate is therefore taken as the standard in
all cases. In determining the length of the different routes, it can be
fairly assumed, for the purpose of comparison, that all steamers

QUICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 517

plying between the same termini traverse the same distances during
corresponding periods of the year, or could easily do so, whether
the passage be eastward or westward. If they do not, it is because
the master of one ship is willing to increase the sailing distance
in order to lessen the dangers of the voyage, or vice versa. It is
only necessary, therefore, to ascertain what advantage one route
has over its rivals in reference to their expedient courses. By
expedient course is meant the shortest course, between the same
termini, which experience has shown should be chosen, consist
ent with the season and dangers of the voyage, in distinction from
the shortest geographical route. The principal transatlantic
steamship companies have adopted regular expedient routes
which are now actually in force, and should be followed by all
steamers. These routes practically coincide for the greater part
of the distance across the ocean. In determining, therefore, the
advantage which one route has over another, the distance for
which they coincide maybe eliminated, and the routes considered
only from the points of divergence to their respective termini.

The passenger and mail routes by way of Queenstown would
coincide with the route to Milford Haven until they reached the
meridian of Fastnet, at a point ten miles south of the Fastnet
Light. From this point the two courses would begin to diverge,
but the exact distances in both cases to their respective termini
can be easily ascertained, and they are unchangeable, b*eing the
same in every season and in all kinds of weather.

The following tables show the distances from the point of
divergence to the ports of destination, the shortest railway dis
tances, and the total time necessary for carrying the mail from
the point of divergence to the London Post-office by the three
different routes. These calculations assume that steamers could
proceed at the maximum speed of twenty-one and nine-tenth
knots per hour from the point of divergence to their piers, and
that trains could be run at the rate of a mile per minute over the
whole railway distances.

The detentions in transferring at the several ports are exceed
ingly variable, depending upon temporary conditions ; but, as the
purpose of these particular tables is to show the intrinsic merit,
not the actual gain of the Milford Haven route over the already-
established routes, a fixed delay of one hour is assumed. This
may be too short, or it may be too long, a time, but it is as just

518 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a standard for one route as it is for the others. The delay at
Queenstown is necessarily longer, as the transfer is there made by
means of a tender ; the usual time is therefore taken. The trans
fers at Kingstown and Holyhead, being chiefly transfers of mails,
are assumed to take only thirty minutes.

QUEENSTOWN MAIL ROUTE.
Description of Route. Distances. Time.

From Fastnet to Queenstown (Roche's Point Light) 57 knots. 2 h. 33 m.

Detention at Queenstown (two transfers of mail and tender

10 landing) 2 h. 30 m.

Queenstown to Kingstown by rail 185 miles. 3 h. 05 m.

Transfer at Kingstown 30m.

Kingstown 10 Holyhead 56knots. 2 h. 34m.

Iraosfer at Holy head — 30m.

H oly head to London 264 miles. 4 h. 24 m.

Euston Station to London post-office 1 h

Total time from point of divergence to London post-office 17 h. 09 m.

PASSENGER ROUTE TO LIVERPOOL, LEAVING MAIL AT QUEENSTOWN.

Description of Route. Distances. Time.

Fastnet to Qu°enstown (Roche's Point Light) ... 57 knots. 2 h. 86 m.

Detention at Queenstown (for tram ferring mails) 1 h. 30 m.

Queenstown to Liverpool 240 knots- 10 h. 57 m.

Detention at Liverpool _-.. M . lh

Liverpool to London 201 miles. 3 h. 21 m.

Station to post-office *h

Total time from point of divergence to London post-offiee 20 h. 24 m.

MILFORD HAVEN ROUTE.
Description of Route. Distances. Time.

Meridian of Fastnet to Milford Haven 170 knots. 7 h. 46 m

Detention at Milford «^i---,v . • '.v-

Milford HaventoLondon -• 273miles. 4 h. 33m.

Paddington Station to post-office lh

Total time from point of divergence to London post-office 14 h. 19 m.

In computing the time for the Liverpool passenger route, one
hour and thirty minutes is allowed for transferring the mail at
Queenstown, as all the fast steamers running between Liverpool
and New York are under government contract to stop there for
discharging and receiving the mails. If this delay were omitted
the time would be reduced to eighteen hours fifty-four minutes.

It is a little more difficult to compare the Southampton route
with the Milford Haven route, as the point of divergence of the
two courses is much farther to the west, but from this point of
divergence both courses are on the arc of a great circle, and vary
little, if any, in length to the meridian of Fastnet, so that it is
only necessary to consider the distances from that meridian.
From the meridian of Fastnet, the distance to Milford Haven is
170 knots, and to Southampton 343 knots.

The following table, compared with the preceding table, giving
the time from Fastnet to London Post-office, by way of Milford

QUICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 519

Haven, will give the net gain of the Milford route over .the
Southampton route.

SOUTHAMPTON ROUTE.

Description of route. Distances. Time.

Meridian of Fastnet to Southampton 343 knots. 15h. 40m.

Transfer at Southampton .......... 1 h. ••••••

Southampton to London 79 miles. In. la m.

Waterloo Station to post-office

Total time from meridian of Fastnet to London post-office 18 h. 59 m.

It will thus be seen that steamers using the Milford Haven
Harbor would gain four hours and forty minutes over the South
ampton route ; six hours and five minutes over the Liverpool
passenger route, including the delay at Queenstown, and four
hours and thirty-five minutes excluding it ; and two hours and
fifty minutes over the Queenstown mail route.

It is much easier to determine the gain made by using Fort
Pond Bay, for, as a rule, all large steamers from Great Britain
or Northern Europe, approaching New York Harbor, aim to
pass the southern end of Nantucket Shoals in about latitude forty
degrees, forty minutes north, and longitude sixty-nine degrees
twenty minutes west, from which position the course for Sandy
Hook Lightship is west three-eighth degrees north, the distance
being 207 knots. Assuming that the whole distance of 207 knots
could be run at the maximum speed of twenty-one and nine-
tenth knots per hour, it would take nine hours twenty-seven
minutes to reach Sandy Hook Lightship. From this vessel it is
twenty-five knots to the pier of the American Line in New York,
and as this distance is through narrow, winding channels and
through New York Harbor, it must be run at greatly reduced
speed. The average time consumed by steamers from the Sandy
Hook Lightship to their respective piers is three hours, making
the total time from the point of divergence of the two routes to
the pier in New York twelve hours twenty-seven minutes, to which
must be added one hour for transporting mail from the pier to
the post-office, making thirteen hours twenty seven minutes.
The distance from the point of divergence to the foot of
Fort Pond Bay is 123 knots, all of which is through open and
unobstructed waters, and through all of which, to the entrance
of the bay, the maximum speed can be maintained in clear
weather.

520 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

FORT POND BAY ROUTE.

Description of Route. Distances. Time.

Point of divergence to Fort Pond Bay 123 knots 5 h. 37m.

Transfer at Fort Pond Bay Ih

Fort Pond Bay to New York, by rail 1U miles 1 h. 54m.

Station to Post-Office 1 h.

Total time from point of divergence to New York post-office, by Fort

PondBay Route 9h. 31m.

Total time required from point of divergence to New York post-office,

by present route 13 h. 27 m.

This Shows an estimated saving in favor of Fort Pond Bay, of
three hours and fifty -six minutes, based on the assumption that
vessels are run at full speed to the Sandy Hook Lightship.
The actual gain would always be greater than the estimated.
Statistics received from the hydrographic office show that the
average time of the ocean greyhounds from the meridian of
Montauk to their piers is eight hours. Adding to this five hours
and thirty minutes, the time necessary to sail from the point of
divergence to the meridian of Montauk, 120 knots, at the maxi
mum speed, and one hour from the pier to the post-office, the
total time from the point of divergence to the post-office is four
teen hours and thirty minutes, which shows a saving in favor of
Fort Pond Bay of five hours. In foggy or stormy weather the
gain for the Fort Pond route would be greatly increased, as speed
must be materially reduced along the entire coast of Long Island,
and especially when approaching the Sandy Hook bar ; while by
the Fort Pond Bay route, any reduction in speed would mean very
little loss of time, as the course over which it would be necessary
to reduce speed is short, and the trip from Fort Pond Bay to
New York could always be made in uniform time by rail. By
this course five hours could be saved and 114 miles of railroad
travel — which can be made at the rate of sixty miles per hour,
regardless of fogs and storms — would be substituted for 109
knots, or 125£ miles, of dangerous ocean travel.

The total gain thus estimated at both ends for the Fort Pond-
Milford Haven route would be : over the Southampton route,
eight hours thirty-six minutes ; over the Liverpool passenger
route, including the Queenstown detention, ten hours and one
minute ; excluding it, eight hours and thirty-one minutes ;
and over the Queenstown mail route, six hours forty-six
minutes.

Practically the same results may be obtained by taking the
distances, as estimated from the Government chart, showing the

Q UICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 521

different expedient courses, and using the same standard of
speed in all cases, 21.9 knots per hour and a mile per minute by
rail, thus ascertain the time required to transport the mail from
the New York Post-office to the London Post-office over the
various routes.

QUEENSTOWN MAIL ROUTE.

Description of Route.

Distances.

Time.

From New York post-office to steamship pier

1 h

From steamship pier to Sandy Hook .Lightship. . . .

25 knots

o v

Sandy Hook to meridian of Fastnet

2 755 knots

5 d 5 h 48 m

Fastnet meridian to Queenstown (Roche's Point Light) . .
Detention at Queenstown to transfers, mails and tender
to landing

57 knots

2h.36m,
2h 30m

Queenstown to Kingstown by rail ..

185 miles

q v, (\K m

30 m

Kingstown to Holyhead . .... . . .. ..

56 knots

2 h mm

Detention at Holyhead

30 m

Hoi y head to Loud on. Euston Station ....

264 miles

4 h 24. m

lh

6 d 2 h 57 m

LIVERPOOL PASSENGER ROUTE LEAVING MAIL AT QUEENSTOWN.

Description of Route.

Distances.

Time.

1 h.

Pier to Sandy Hook Lightship

25 knots

3 h

Sandy Hook Lightship to meridian of Fastnet

2 755 knots

5 d 5 h 48 m

Fastnet to Queenstown (Roche's Point Light)

57 knots

2h 36m

Detention at Queenstown for transfer of mails

1 h 30 m

240 knots

10 h 57 m

Transfer at Liverpool .

1 h

201 miles

3 h. 21 m.

Station to postoffico

1 h

New York post-office to London post-office. . .

6 d. 6 h. 12 m.

SOUTHAMPTON ROUTE.

Description of Route.

Distances.

Time.

New York post-office to steamship pier .....

lh.
3h.
5 d. lib. 39m.
9 h. 49 m.
lh*
In. 19m.
lh.

Pier to Sandy Hook Lightship . .

25 knots
2,88 { knots
215 knots

Sandy Hook Lightship to Bishop Rock

Bi hop Rock to Southampton ...

79 miles

New York post-office to London post-office

6d. 4h.47m.

522

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
FORT POND AND MILFORD HAVEN ROUTE.

Description of Route.

Distances.

Time.

Time from New York post-office to Railroad Station,
New York

In.

114 miles

1 h. 54 m.

Detention at Fore Pond Hay ....

1 h

F ort Pond Bay to meridian of Fastnet

2 671 knots-

5d. lh.58ra.

Meridian of Fastoet to Milford Haven

170 kno'e

7 h. 46m

Detention at Milford Haven

Ih.

Milford Haven to London .. .

273 miles

4 h. 33m.

Pciddingtoii Station to post-office

Ih.

New York post-office to I^ondon post-offloe, ... ..........

5d. 20 h. llm.

These calculations, based upon the maximum speed for steam
ships, and for long railroad distance, show only the theoretical
gain which would be made fry adopting the Fort Pond- Milford
Haven route, were the conditions such that these standards could
be maintained for the whole distance over each route. They can
be maintained, or nearly so, in the case of the proposed new route,
which has open deep-water ports, a straight course with entire ex
emption from bars, and almost absolute freedom from crowded
waterways, for at the western terminus, the course is unobstructed
and at the eastern terminus, all steamers would cross St. George's
Channel in a direct line and would soon be out of the usual
course for shipping. In the case of the other routes, which run
for long distances along dangerous shores through crowded tor
tuous channels and over sand bars, the speed must be materially
reduced. The assumed standard of speed cannot be maintained
on either the Liverpool route after leaving Queenstown, or the
Southampton route after reaching the Solent, or from Kingstown
to Holyhead, on the mail route, any more than it can be con
tinued over the Sandy Hook bar and through New York harbor.
The real advantage of the Fort Pond- Milford Haven route is,
therefore, much greater than the theoretical, and to fully appre
ciate the gain between New York and London, which the loca
tion and merits of this new route render possible, w,e must com
pare what would be done, if it were adopted, with what is done by
the other routes.

The time allowed for carrying the mail from Queenstown to
the London Post-office in these calculations is undoubtedly much
smaller than the actual, and the conditions of the channel are
such, that, as in New York harbor, the actual time can never be

Q UICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 523

reduced to the theoretical When it was lately decided by the
Eailway and Steamboat routes, in conjunction with the British
Post-office Department, to run express trains both ways between
Queenstown and London, so as to save all the time possible, and
the arrangements were completed, the attention of the whole
country was directed to the experiment, and every effort was
made to ensure the quickest possible delivery on the first trip.
The result was that everything was in readiness at all points, and
the following shows the result of the experiment :

Detention at Queenstown to transfer mail i 2 h. 30m.

Special train, Queenstown to Kingstown Pier 4 n. 34 m.

Detention at Kingstown llm.

Packet from Kingstown to Holyhead v 3h. 31m.

Detention at Hdyhead 9m.

HolyheadtoE ston Station 5 h. 31m.

Euston Station to JLiondon post-offlce 1 h

Total 17 h. 26m.

A careful record of all the steamers carrying mail by the
Overland Mail route between May 1 and September 5, 1895,
shows that there were thirty-five eastward passages made between
New York aud Queenstown during that time, and that the aver
age time between the arrival of the steamer at Roche's Point and
the delivery of the mail in the London Post-office was twenty-
one hours and forty minutes, and that only twice during the
whole of that period was the time less than eighteen hours.

It is safe to assume, therefore, that the average time between
the arrival at Queenstown and the arrival at the London Post-
office is not less than eighteen hours. This time can never be
greatly decreased on account of the risks, uncertainties and com
plications of the route, and after the new long term mail con
tract, which the Liverpool companies have made with the British
government, goes into effect in 1897, it is not likely to be
shortened for many years.

In March, 1895, an order was adopted by the House of Com
mons, requiring a return showing the days, hours and minutes
occupied by mail steamers during the year 1894 in the transit of
mails between New York and Queenstown, and also between
New York and Southampton. This return discloses the follow
ing facts. The shortest time made by any ship to Queenstown
was five days twelve hours forty-five minutes, to which should
be added the usual time consumed in carrying the mails from
Queenstown to the London Post-office, 18 hours, making a total
of six days six hours forty-five minutes as the steamship and rail-

524 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

way carriage time. One hour must be added to this for carrying
the mails from the post-office to the pier in New York, making
six days seven hours forty-five minutes as the shortest actual
time from the post-office in New York to the post-office in Lon
don. It also shows that the average time for eleven trips of the
"Lucania" was five days eighteen hours fifty-eight minutes, and
adding the time from the New York Post-office to the pier, and
from Queenstown to the London Post-office, nineteen hours, the
average time was six days thirteen hours fifty-eight minutes.

The best average time for the American Line was made by
the " New York," which for fifteen voyages averaged seven days
one hour fifty-nine minutes from the New York pier to South
ampton. The usual time required for carrying the mail from the
Southampton docks to the London Post-office is three hours and
twenty-five minutes. This is shown by the records of the forty-
three steamers arriving at Southampton from New York between
May 8 and September 12, 1895. Adding this time and the one
hour necessary for carrying the mail from the New York Post-
office to the pier, to the average time of the "New York," the aver
age time from post-office to post-office is found to be seven days
six hours and twenty-four minutes.

It is with these latter figures that the time which could be
made by a transatlantic line, using Fort Pond Bay and Milford
Haven should be compared, as the other lines, being well estab
lished and having their full complement of ships, cannot afford
to discard their older steamers and adopt newer and faster ones.
It can be safely assumed, therefore, that for some years to come
the figures given in the return to the House of Commons will
afford a fair standard for judging of the time which the estab
lished lines will take in making the passage from pier to pier.
The new route, therefore, would show the following gain over the
best average time, which is now being made over the Queenstown
and Southampton lines :

Arerage time, Queenstown route, by Steamer " Lucania" 6 d. 13 h. 58 m •

Estimated time. Fort Pond-Milford Haven route, adopting present

schedule railroad time 5d. 22 h. 11 m.

Total gain by proposed route 15 h. 17m.

Average time, Southampton route, by Steamer " New York" 7 d. 6 h. 24 m.

Estimated time, Fort Pond-Milford Haven route, adopting present

schedule railroad time 5 d. 22 b. 11 m.

Total gain by proposed route Id. 8 h. 11 m.

The gain of a very few hours would be of the utmost import-

Q UICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 525

ance in the matter of mail service. Granting that all existing
mail steamers could make the ocean voyage fast enough to deliver
the mails in the same time which the " Lucania " takes, it would
rarely be possible to get a reply by the return steamer sailing
a week later, except during the summer months. Even
then it is by no means certain, and little, if any, oppor
tunity is afforded for inquiries and investigation. Nothing
is really gained, therefore, by the present fast steamers of the
Cunard Line, for before the second return mail is due to
leave, the slow steamers of every line are able to deliver their
mails so as to enable a reply to be sent by the same return,
steamer. The saving of a few hours would completely change
this, and make the exception the rule. Steamers starting from
Fort Pond Bay, on receipt of mail which had left New York on
Saturday morning, would ~be able to deliver their mails in London
the following Friday evening at the latest, so that a reply could be
sent on Saturday's returning steamer, which would reach New
YorTc on Thursday night or Friday morning. The return letter
would in these cases ~be nearly across the Atlantic when the
reply, under existing conditions, is posted in London. By this
route, passengers would be able to be in telegraphic communication
with the rest of the world at least fifteen hours longer than ly
either of the other passenger routes.

In no way can these immense advantages be secured except
by a gain of several hours in the delivery of mails at the London
and New York post-offices. This can only be accomplished by
increasing the speed of ships — a very expensive method — or by
shortening the length of the ocean voyage, and substituting as
much railway travel as possible. The saving of time by shorten
ing the distance, calls for the selection of the Fort Pond Bay
and Milford Haven route. It is universally admitted that pas
sengers will go by the shortest route. This has been shown by
the fact that the rivalry of Southampton has already made seri
ous inroads into the Liverpool traffic. The British steamers now
cover all the short routes except that from Milford to Fort
Pond Bay. This should induce the American people to adopt
this route, and thus secure to themselves the shortest possible
means of communication between the continents which would
control all fast mail and express matter and all passengers to
whom quick transit is of importance.

526 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

In discussing the different ocean routes it was stated that the
shorter mid-ocean route was usually selected at the cost of increas
ing the dangers of the Toyage. In selecting Milford Haven and
Fort Pond Bay, however, the route is not only shortened, but all
dangers are reduced to a minimum. The chief dangers Atlantic
liners have to encounter, when in the vicinity of the English and
Long Island coasts, are collision and stranding. The risk of
collision in a run from Fastnet to Milford is certainly much less
than in a run from that point to either Liverpool or Southamp
ton, with the further advantage that when nearing the port the
risk is reduced to a minimum , whereas in the case of Southamp
ton the risk increases as the port is approached. In the case of
Milford, an approaching steamer would, before passing the
Smalls, cross the up-and-down traffic of the Irish Channel, and
having passed the Smalls, would be out of all that traffic, and
the risk of collision would be gone. The Southampton steamer
would, besides crossing the Irish Channel traffic, like the other
two lines, have the large and dangerous English Channel traffic
and the many fishing fleets to avoid through the entire distance
to the pier. Liverpool is, of course, in a similar position. In the
matter, therefore, of freedom from the risk of collision, the Mil-
ford course has a great advantage. As to stranding, it may be
assumed that, with the careful navigation exercised on board such
vessels as we are considering, a run of 100 miles can be made with
great accuracy. The distance from Fastnet to the Smalls is not
much over 100 miles, and in the thickest weather a well-navigated
steamer would not, at the end of that run, be more than two miles
out of her course, probably less. If this be so, the Smalls would be
easily picked up, and from these to Milford Haven the way is
clear. In fog it would be dangerously reckless to attempt to ap
proach Southampton at anything like the speed at which Milford
might be approached; and the same may be said as to Liverpool.

The question of this proposed transatlantic route is not a mere
local one between New York and London; but it concerns all
Europe and America, including Eastern Asia as well. The
British Government is determined, if it lies in its power, to con
trol the transcontinental mail. In May, a deputation waited on
Lord Rosebery for the purpose of formally submitting the scheme
of constructing a fast Atlantic and Pacific mail service, passing
wholly between British ports, in British boats and over British

QUICK TRANSIT BETWEEN NEW YORK AND LONDON. 527

rails, the object of the line being to develop and strengthen the
commercial connection between the British Colonies and the
United Kingdom. The success of such a scheme would require a
liberal subsidy from Great Britain, and the generous policy of
that government in subsidizing its mail lines is shown by the
fact that in recently awarding the Irish mail contract it raised
the annual subsidy to £100,000 for a decrease of one-half hour in
the time between Kingstown and Holyhead.

There is only one way to prevent the establishment of a Can
adian route which would divert much local and all through
mail and traffic to the Dominion, and that is for the United
States to promote and secure a through direct route, which will
put the mails into New York and all Pacific ports in less time
than can be done by any other route. This can be accomplished
by the Fort Pond and Milford route. Canada is offering to pledge
many times more money to obtain this advantage than would be
required from the United States to secure and make certain for
all time the intercontinental mail and passenger traffic.

The advantages of Fort Pond Bay and Milford Haven have
been stated, but the adoption of the former port does not require
the selection of the latter. Fort Pond Bay is open to all steam
ship lines and the Long Island Railroad, with its bridge
over the East Eiver, will be at the service of any steamship com
pany which wishes to save the time at the American end.

While it is true that the present North-Atlantic companies
have constructed, at vast expense, the finest and fleetest steam
ships afloat in any waters, and are maintaining a most magnifi
cent ocean service, it is equally true that they do not make the
quick time which might be made over this better route, and unless
some one of them shall utilize the manifest advantages of this new
American harbor, it is only a question of time when a new line,
with at least equally good ships and service, will be established.

The problem of quick transit between New York and London
has been stated. Here is what can be done at both ends or at
either end. It remains for the American people to say what shall
be done. To the traveller it is a question of convenience,
economy, saving of time and lessening of danger; to every Ameri
can citizen it should be a question of high national importance.

AUSTIN CORBIE.

THE PLAGUE OF JOCULARITY.

BY THE LATE PROFESSOR H. H. BOYESEN.

SOME years ago, at an annual examination in Columbia Col
lege, I requested my students to write in German a brief account
of their lives. To my astonishment more than half of the
class took this request (though it was printed on the examination
paper with the regular questions) to be a joke. Of the thirty-
two responses which I received, seventeen were in a more or less
jocular vein. One youth informed me that, as he had his eyes
fixed on the White House, he did not like to handicap his future
biographer by pinning him down to any unyielding framework
of biographical facts which might prove embarrassing to the
manager of his campaign. It was so much more advantageous
to leave one's biography in a state of convenient fluidity, until
the time came when one could know for what purpose it would
be needed. One could always invent a far more serviceable biog
raphy than circumstances were apt to provide. Another embry
onic president (from Brooklyn) stated that he was strictly a self-
made man, having been born in the slums, of poor but honest
parents, and, after having practised the honorable profession of
a bootblack, had reached his present exalted position by sitting
up at night, studying by the light of a two-penny tallow dip, and
modelling his conduct on such worthies as Dick Whittington
(minus the cat), Benjamin Franklin (minus the lightning rod), and
George Washington (minus the veracity). He had never smoked,
tasted ardent spirits or used profane language, and he attributed
his rise in life to this heroic abstemiousness, in connection with
all the other copy-book virtues of which he was so shining an ex
ample.

A third young gentleman declared that he had from the
cradle been a monument of goodness and stupidity, and related

THE PLAQUE OF JOCULARITY. £29

several touching incidents of his childhood which parodied with
inimitable drollery the good boy of the Sunday-school story. .In
conclusion, he expressed the hope that, in view of his moral
superiority and his intellectual limitations, I would mark his
paper one hundred, without reference to its shortcomings, as he
was the sole support of a widowed mother, a drunken father, and
nine orphaned children.

Among the remaining more or less fictitious ' ' lives " there
were some that were even funnier than these ; and there were
some clever and good-natured allusions to my own foibles, not
one of which had apparently escaped those keen-witted critics of
twenty. But what impressed me more than anything else in
connection with this unexpected burst of jocularity was that,
with two exceptions, all the names of the jokers indicated
American parentage, while, with three exceptions, the names of
those who gave serious, matter-of-fact responses indicated foreign,
principally German and Jewish, origin.

As an exhibition of the national character, I regard this re
sult as exceedingly striking. I had observed, many times before,
the tendency of Americans to take a facetious view of life, and
extract the greatest possible amount of amusement out of every
situation. But I had never quite believed that the tendency was
so pronounced and universal as the above-cited proportion would
seem to indicate. And yet, as I look back upon an experience of
twenty-six years in the United States, I am confirmed in the
opinion that the most pervasive trait in the American national
character is jocularity. It is by that trait, above all, that Ameri
cans are differentiated from all other nations. It is apt to be
one of the first observations of the intelligent foreigner who lands
upon our shores, that all things, ourselves included, are with us
legitimate subjects for jokes. An all-levelling democracy has
tended to destroy the sense of reverence which hedges certain
subjects with sanctity, guarding them against the shafts of wit.

Never shall I forget the shock I felt, the first time I was made
aware of this spirit of heedless levity which spares nothing
sacred or profane. More than twenty years ago, when I was in
troduced to a venerable clergyman — a kindly and cultivated man,
but a trifle pompous in his manner — my introducer remarked
that the reputed reason why the reverend gentleman had lived to
be so old was that "he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity."
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 34

530 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

I doubt if such a joke would be laughed at anywhere but in
the United States. At least a score of witticisms I can recall of
the same order ; and these are but a small proportion of those
which have been related to me during the last quarter of a cen
tury. Of course, the people who regard this species of fun as
proper and innocent will regard the man who objects to it as a
prig, if not a hypocrite. Another, and perhaps better, apology
might be found in the popularity of the humorous anecdotes
about St. Peter, as the guardian of the gate of heaven, which
abound in all the countries of Europe. But in the first place,
St. Peter is not to Protestants a sacred character ; and, secondly,
all the jocular stories told about him are of a mythological and
semi-symbolic kind, which puts them into the category of the
fairy-tale. Many naive and innocent tales, in which Christ and
"Unser Herrgott" figure, are circulated, in their medieval ver
sions, among the peasantry in Germany and Scandinavia ; but, so
far from being in their essence blasphemous, they are survivals
from a period of more childlike faith and more crudely anthropo
morphic conceptions. The American joke, on the other hand, is
the product of over-sophistication and a reckless determination
to be funny, in connection with a total want of reverence.

I have often wondered what was the primary cause of the joc
ularity which one encounters everywhere within the borders of
the United States — and which is verily the only trait that the
entire population has in common. Even the European immigrant
who at home would scarcely have made a joke once a year finds
himself gradually inoculated with the national virus, and surprises
himself by attempts at wit which are probably more gratifying to
himself than amusing to his listeners. Having observed this
phenomenon in the case of several Norwegians, who were surely
far from being humorists in the old country, I came to the con
clusion that the climate was in some way responsible. That our
dry stimulating atmosphere arouses a high degree of cerebral ac
tivity is quite obvious ; and humor is a form of mentality which
demands a greater complexity of brain and greater expenditure
of cerebral force than a mere unvarnished statement of fact.
This alone may go far toward explaining a manifestation which,
if I had not so frequently witnessed it, I should have pronounced
absurd. Easier circumstances, which incline one to a more
cheerful view of life, may also be taken into account ; and the

THE PLAGUE OF JOCULARITY. 531

democratic spirit which makes every man his neighbor's superior
is, perhaps, also a co-operating factor. But, whatever the cause
may be, there is no disputiug the fact that the national humor is
infectious.

I had an amusing demonstration of this proposition a short
time ago. A seedy and lugubrious Scandinavian ex-student who
had battled ineffectually with an adverse fate, since he left his native
land, honored me with a call and suggested that I might relieve
his necessities by procuring him a professorship in Columbia Col
lege. If none was vacant, he would consent to connect himself
with a less conspicuous institution. Having listened for half an
hour to his atrocious English, I could not forego the opportunity
to preach him a little homily, reproaching him with having neg
lected his opportunities to become Americanized, and demon
strating the absurdity of his aspirations. He then told me a highly
romantic, dime-novelish autobiography, and ended by requesting
a loan which would enable him to go somewhere, where I knew
he had no intention of going. Looking at my countenance, and
seeing that I did not believe a word of what he had been saying,
he exclaimed in his native tongue :

" If I have to lie in order to make an honest living, why, you
ought to thank your stars that you are so situated that yon don't
have to. If I were inadvertently to lapse into veracity, I should
starve. No fellow would give me a d shilling/'

I laughed, of course, and apologized for insinuating that he
was not Americanized. I assured him that his humorous accept
ance of his lot was thoroughly American. It furnished me with
additional proof of the close kinship between the Anglo-Saxon
and the Norseman.

It is, to my mind, a highly significant fact that humor is the
only literary product which we export. Occasionally, to be sure,
an American novel is translated into French and German; but,
generally speaking, our serious literature is in no great demand in
any European country. The only contemporary American
authors who have really an international fame are Bret Harte and
Mark Twain. Their books, in atrocious flamboyant covers, are
to be found on every railway news-stand in England and on the
Continent. The Queen of Italy was reported, some years ago, to
have asked an American if we had any other living authors than
Bret Harte and Mark Twain. In 1879, during a prolonged

532 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

sojcnrn in Paris, I had the pleasure of introducing the latter to
Tourgueneff and receiving the Russian au thor's cordial thanks for
having brought the famous humorist to see him.

" Now, there/' he exclaimed, " is a real American — the first
American who has had the kindness to conform to my idea of
what an American ought to be. He has the flavor of the soil.
Your other friends, Mr. A. and Mr. G., might as well be Euro
peans. They are excellent gentlemen, no doubt, but they are
flavorless."

One evening, during the same year, when I went with Tour-
gneneff to a stag party at the house of a renowned litterateur,
the conversation turned upon American humor. Several French
men present, among others Alphonse Daudet, declared that the
excellence of American humor had been greatly exaggerated. It
seemed to them grotesque rather than funny.

" There appeared some American stories, a short time ago,
in the Revue Des Deux Mondes" said Daudet, " they were by
Mark Twain ; I could see nothing at all humorous in any of
them."

" What were they ?" I asked.

" There was one named ' The Jumping Frog/ " he replied, " a
pitiful tale about two men who made a wager about a frog, one
betting that he could jump to a certain height, the other betting
that he could not ; then, when the time comes to test the jump
ing ability of the frog, it is found that he has been stuffed full of
shot, and of course, he cannot jump."

" Well," I queried, determined to uphold my friend, Clem
ens, " isn't that rather funny ? "

" No," Daudet replied decidedly, " I feel too sorry for the
poor frog."

All the rest, except Tourgueneff, joined in this verdict. He
thought the story had been so badly translated, that its real flavor
was lost in the French version. He thereupon told an incident
from Roughing It (I think), in order to prove that American hu
mor was not lacking in salt. It was the story of an inundation on
the plains. A party of emigrants have encamped in their wagons
on a little hillock, while the water keeps rising round about them.
Days pass and starvation stares them in the face. Every one has
to eat the most dreadful things. "I," says the author, "ate my
boots. The holes tasted the best."

THE PLAQUE OF JOCULARITY. 533

" Now," cried Tourgueneff, " isn't that delightfully funny ? "

All agreed, though with some qualifications, that a point had
been made in favor of TourguenefFs contention.

" But," objected a well-known editor, " how is it possible for
a civilized man to live among a people who are always joking ?
In Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad there is a perpetual strain of
forced jocularity, which at last grows to be deadly wearisome.
The author tortures himself to find the jocular view of all things,
sacred and profane. Now, what I want to know is this : Is this
attitude typically American ? To me it is essentially juvenile
and barbaric."

I took up the cudgels, of course, for Mark Twain, and de
clared unblu shingly that the jocular attitude toward life was not
typically American. But since then I have changed my mind.
I have come to the conclusion that nothing is more " typically
American" than this more or less forced jocularity. In the
Western States, and largely also in the East, the man who does
not habitually joke is voted dull, and is held to be poor company.
Entertainment, at all social gatherings, consists in telling funny
stories, and every man who has a social ambition takes care to
provide himself with as large a fund as possible of humorous say
ings and doings, which he doles out as occasion may demand.
Even public speeches have to be richly seasoned with jokes, which
(if they do not illustrate anything in particular) are dragged in
by the hair, and are made the real points de resistance of the dis-
cource. The non-humorous portions of an after-dinner speech are
merely the mortar which fills up the intervals and furnishes the
needed transitions to the jokes. Our most popular orators, both
in the East and the "West, are, as a rule, mere encyclopaedias of
funny stories. Their discourses are apt to be abundantly inter
larded with " that reminds me " — and then comes the anecdote,
which may or may not have any obvious relation to the text.

I verily believe that the startling decay of eloquence in the
United States, since the days of Webster, Calhoun and Clay, is
largely due to our inability to be serious about serious things.
We laugh now at the magnificent perorations of the great rheto
ricians of the first half of the century ; and a man has to have a
very great name, indeed, in order to secure attention for a non-
humorous oration on a matter of public concern. I am aware
that the late George William Curtis, the last representative of the

534 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

splendid old school of American oratory, did secure such atten
tion ; and Carl Schurz, another great citizen, has happily not yet
outlived either his fame or his usefulness. But apart from these,
I cannot recall the name of any renowned American speaker of
the last decade who is not primarily a humorist.

Though I should be the last to deprecate a fair seasoning of
humor in our toilsome and troublous lives, I can not but think
that the seasoning with us takes the place of the dish and the
dish of the seasoning. We invert the proper relation. And
this inversion entails some serious and disadvantageous conse
quences. In the first place, it kills conversation. Instead of
that interchange of thought, which with other civilized nations
is held to be one of the highest of social pleasures, we exchange
jokes. We report the latest jests we have heard, and repeat the
latest comic stories. At a certain season certain stories and jokes
have a particular vogue, and you hear them at every dinner table
and at every club you enter. They get to be, at last, an intoler
able bore ; and yet, whether you hear them the tenth or the
hundredth time, your sense of politeness compels you to feign
merriment. You have to know a man very well before you can
venture to "ring the chestnut bell on him." No observation I
made on returning from Europe in 1879 was to me more
startling than the discovery that in the United States
there is, properly speaking, no conversation, i. e.f con
versation of the kind that you enjoy in the best French
and Italian salons. It is so much easier — it entails, in fact,
no effort whatever — to rehearse ready-made anecdotes and
facetics ; and to a hard-worked commercial people it is, I doubt
not, a great relief to be able to fall back upon this conversational
coinage, already stamped and polished, which makes no draft upon
our intellectual capital. An author with whom I recently dis
cussed this curious phenomenon offered me, however, another and
highly plausible explanation. Intellectual capital, he says, is to
the American too valuable to be expended in mere talk which
brings no financial return. The merchant expends it in his count
ing room, and is tired, if not cross, when he returns to the bosom
of his family. The lawyer expends it in his office, and the author
at his writing desk. We have no class of people here who can
afford to squander their best powers on conversation; first, because
we do not, like France, supply the social atmospkere in which the

THE PLAGUE OF JOCULARITY. 535

conversationalist thrives, and accordingly do not make it worth
while for anyone to aspire to eminence in that line; and, secondly,
we should probably vote him a bore and laugh at him behind his
back, if we had him. But the habitual joker we do appreciate;
the hoarder of funny stories is mistaken for a wit; dinner invita
tions are showered upon him, and his path is strewn with roses.

I fancy that the social condition presented on our side of the
Atlantic has had no exact or even approximate parallel in the
lands where civilization is older than it is with us. The more or
less uproarious debate on political or religious topics which may
be witnessed in every corner grocery throughout the Western and
Southwestern States is, to be sure, of common occurrence in the
corresponding social strata in every country where free discussion
is not prohibited by law. Though as an intellectual exercise
such a trial of wit is wholesome and diverting, I should scarcely
dignify it by the name " conversation." The radiant serenity of
soul, the bright clarity of thought, the genial tolerance of views
opposed to your own, which are the essential conditions of that
happy exchange of winged felicities which I call conversation,
are, indeed, not unknown, either in Boston, Washington, or New
York, but they are so rare as to justify the assertion that the
social man, in his higher evolutions, is as yet practically unknown
in the United States. The sweetness of tone which often pertains
to ancient things, matured and seasoned in sunny repose, is not a
frequent ingredient of the human soul in this land of crude self-
assertion and mightily wrestling energies. How could it be ? It
would be a miracle if it were.

HJALMAE HJOETH BOYESEIT.

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS.

BY THE HON. CHARLES T. SAXTON, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
OF NEW TORE.

LAST fall the people had an opportunity to express their
opinion upon the policy and record of the party in control of our
national affairs. That opinion was expressed with a great deal
of vigor and positiveness. The verdict of 1892 was completely
reversed. The Republican party won a decisive victory in nearly
every northern state. Those states which had left the Repub
lican column two years before swung back into line, bringing
with them many Democratic strongholds both in the North and
in the South. There were 217 Democrats and 121 Republicans in
the last House of Representatives. The Republican vote in the
present house is more than twice as great, while the Democratic
representation has shrunk to less than one-half of its former pro
portions. Never was a more stinging rebuke given to any polit
ical party in this country. The utter rout of the Democracy
can only be construed by reasonable men into a sweeping con
demnation of the present administration ; nor has anything since
occurred to shake the general belief in the entire justice of that
condemnation.

The causes that brought about the Democratic victory of 1892
have been discussed from every possible stand-point until the sub
ject is worn threadbare. Republican workingmen were deceived
by the false cry that protection benefits capital at the expense of
labor. Republican farmers listened to that siren voice which
promised them dollar wheat in the event of Democratic success.
Republican consumers were deluded by statements, continually
sounded in their ears, that the McKinley tariff had materially
increased the cost of living. Some manufacturers may have seen
the mirage of more prosperous business reflected from the Demo-

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS 537

cratic promise of free raw materials. They have all had their eyes
opened since to the false pretences that were practised upon
them. But the efficient cause of Mr. Cleveland's election is to be
sought for in that socialistic movement, known by the name of
Populism, which had suddenly developed remarkable strength in
some of the Western states. The result of the last presidential
election was not really a Democratic victory, although it was un
questionably a defeat for the Republican party.

At the time of that election we were enjoying a prosperity
almost, if not quite, unparalleled in this country or elsewhere.
That is a fact within every man's knowledge — a fact as indisput
able as the sunshine upon a cloudless summer day. We realize
this more fully when we look back upon it from the depths of the
business depression in which we have been floundering for the past
two years. During 1892 we produced more and consumed more
than ever before in the same period of time. Capital was profit
ably employed and labor was well paid. Agriculture was in a
flourishing condition. The volume of foreign trade was greater
than in any preceding year. The same statement can be made
as to the value of our exports ; while the balance of trade in our
favor was greater than it had been since 1881. The McKinley
tariff bill was in successful operation. That " culminating
atrocity," as it was picturesquely styled by our Democratic friends^
gave us a larger degree of free trade than we had enjoyed for thirty
years, and at the same time afforded ample protection to all Ameri
can industries. Although it had reduced the amount of revenue
from customs, as its framers had designed it to do, it supplied
more than enough, with what came in from other sources, to de
fray all the expenses of government. There was discontent as
there always will be, because no matter how good our condition is
we generally want to make it better. There was poverty as there
ever has been, because the misfortunes of some and the faults of
others have borne the same bitter fruit since the beginning of
time. The silver question was a source of uneasiness to business
men, but there was no lack of confidence in our ability to escape
any serious danger from that direction. Taking them for all in
all, the " Harrison times" were very good times indeed, and the
Harrison administration was one of the cleanest, strongest and
most successful administrations in the history of this republic.

This great prosperity that we have glanced at was followed by

538 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

a greater adversity. The panic of 1893 which scattered destruc
tion broadcast through the land ended in business prostration and
industrial paralysis from which we have hardly yet begun to re
cover. "We are told by the administration organs that better
times are in sight. Every patriotic American is anxious to be
lieve that is so, no matter what the effect may be upon the fortunes
of this or that political party. But there is no reliable promise
of such prosperity as was ours at the close of the last administra
tion. It is true that some industries, especially the iron industry,
are very active just now, and that many manufacturing companies
have increased the wages of their employees. But it is not true
that the general business of the country is in a satisfactory con
dition ; and as for wages the average increase is no more than one-
half the reductions that were made two years ago. The prices of
most farm products are lower even than they were last year and
that was the worst year the farmers of this generation had ever
experienced. It is evident, however, that we have touched the
lowest point, and we have every reason to expect a gradual im
provement in business conditions ; but it is equally evident that
the brighter outlook comes from the assurance given by the elec
tion of a Republican House of Representatives last fall that there
will be no more free trade legislation enacted during the remain
ing life of this administration.

The cause of the panic has been the subject of endless contro
versy. The theory of those who appear in the role of apologists
for the present administration is that all our recent financial and
industrial difficulties were a legacy from the preceding adminis
tration. They insist that the clouds which burst with such de
vastating fury had been gathering for years. They point out that
the ship of state had long been drifting toward the breakers.
The most significant thing in connection with this theory, at
least to those who are considering the chances of the parties in
1896, is that the people do not accept it for the reason that so far
as they can judge it has no foundation in fact. The sky was,
to their view, clear and serene, without a shadow to obscure its
brightness, until after the election of a Democratic President and
a Democratic Congress, The breakers, if there were any before
that time, were effectually concealed from their vision. There
was no trouble about the currency. The gold reserve was main
tained at the proper figure without any trouble. The revenues

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS. 589

under the new tariff bill, which had fallen off at first, were
beginning to increase very considerably. The deficiency of
1893-4 is abundantly explained by the depression in all kinds of
business. With these facts in mind the suspicion naturally arises
that the clouds and breakers were only discovered by those who
were looking backward for some explanation, besides the obvious
one, of the hard times that followed so closely upon the heels of
Democratic victory.

The Democratic party has never in this generation had the
genuine confidence of the people. For nearly half a century it
has been on the wrong side of every great national issue. It has
shown an amazing capacity for committing political blunders,
some of which were equivalent to political crimes. " How shall
a man escape from his ancestors," exclaims Emerson, ' f or draw
off from his veins the black drop which he drew from his
father's or his mother's life ?" There has always been an irre
sistible tendency in the Democratic party to do just the thing
it ought not to do. Speaking of it as of an individual, we would
say that there is a taint in the blood, a taint of weakness and
incapacity if nothing worse. For some years past it has masquer
aded as the party of economy and reform. There is no doubt
but that Democratic leaders are always in favor of honest and
economical government ~by the Republican party. For illustra
tion, we remember that in 1890 the "billion dollar Congress"
was denounced by every Democratic orator and newspaper in the
land. The next Congress, which was Democratic in both
branches, went far beyond the billion-dollar mark, and there has
been an impressive silence ever since upon the subject of re
trenchment in national expenditures. There are some leaders of
the party who have a genuine desire to reform those abuses which
in their judgment need reformation. They are as a rule of the
mugwump variety and their number is not large. Their delusion
is the belief that they represent in that respect the masses of the
Democratic party. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Eeform is a profession and not a practice with the Democracy.
When we hear about it from Democratic leaders we may be sure
it is vox et praeterea niliil, a promise that will never materialize
into performance.

There is one exception, however, to this rule. The Demo
cratic party is thoroughly committed by precept and practice to

540 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tariff reform. That means, according to the latest definition
made by a Democratic National Convention, the destruction of
every kind of protection to American industries. The " tariff for
revenue only " of 1876 and 1880 has finally developed by a per
fectly natural process into the dogma that the very principle of
protection in a tariff bill is a fraud, a robbery, and a violation of
the constitution. This is certainly as near an approach as
can be made to the doctrine of absolute free trade without aban
doning entirely our system of raising revenue by duties upon
imports.

The Wilson bill was an effort to embody this doctrine in a
statute. It started out as a vigorous attack upon protection, but,
fortunately for the country, the attack was not so vigorously sup
ported in the Senate. When the House bill emerged from the
darkness and secrecy of the Senate Committee it had lost much
of its beautiful symmetry, but what it had lost in beauty it had
gained in wisdom and strength. Looking at it from a Demo
cratic standpoint, it was very far from being a radical measure,
although we will do the free trade leaders the justice to admit
that they got all they could and gave fair warning that more
would be demanded at the first favorable opportunity. In fact, the
bill as finally passed was a protection measure, although wholly
illogical and unsystematic in its construction. It was a protection
measure in another sense when considered in its relations to the
sugar trust.

There never was a more disastrous failure from any point of
view than the Wilson-Gorman tariff law. Having for its central
idea free raw materials, it placed coal and iron on the protected
list. Having for its main purpose a sufficient revenue, it has
brought about an annual deficiency of fifty or sixty millions of
dollars, and reduced the government to the necessity of borrowing
money with which to pay its current expenses. Having in view
an increase of foreign trade, it has accomplished its design, if at
all, only by increasing the value of our imports and diminishing
largely the value of our exports. It has crippled many industries,
and reduced the wages of thousands of our workingmen. It
wrought the destruction of the valuable reciprocity relations we
had with several foreign states. One of its most prominent feat
ures is the discrimination it made in favor of southern produc
tions. So pronounced was this feature that the President was

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS. 541

moved to utter a protest and a warning, which, it is needless to
say, were unheeded by Congress. " How can we face the people/'
wrote he, " after indulging in such outrageous discriminations
and violations of principle ? " The scandals that clustered
around the bill are still fresh in the public mind. Well
might President Cleveland declare that it meant "party per
fidy and party dishonor/' and refuse it the sanction of hia

signature.

It is important to have the tariff question settled right, but it
is even more important to have it settled in some way, right or
wrong, so it will stay settled. If the Democratic party has any
organic will at all, and that is by no means certain, that will is to
destroy our American system of protection. The real leaders of
the party will never be satisfied until that result is accomplished.
The Hon. Lawrence T. Neal, who was the author of the tariff
plank in the Chicago platform recently opened the campaign in
Ohio. He said in the course of his speech that the Wilson bill is
to be followed by the enactment of other laws " making still
further reductions and bringing us nearer to the standard of a
tariff for revenue." This is but the echo of what has been said
in substance time and again by Democratic orators. It reflects
the views of a large majority of the party, and that is the chief
reason why the party will not succeed next year.

The issue is clearly defined. It is not a question of schedules
but of principles. The great mass of the Northern people believe
in the principle of protection. That belief is gaining ground
even in the Southern States, several of which are beginning to
feel the strong pulse of a new industrial life. The result of the
last presidential election was not a verdict against the protection
system. The people looked to the letter of the candidate, rather
than to the platform of the party, for a declaration of principles
upon the tariff question. When it began to dawn upon them, as
it did soon after the election, that the triumph of the Democracy
was a severe blow at protection they became alarmed and indig
nant. This feeling found vent in the elections last year. The
revolution which then took place was not caused so much by the
hard times as by the general conviction among the people that the
hard times were brought about by the threat involved in Demo
cratic rule. There is no danger now that the " tariff reformers"
will carry us any further along the road that leads to free trade,

542 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

for the simple reason that they will not again have the oppor
tunity, at least for some years, to meddle with the delicate
machinery of our industrial system.

Nor is it likely that even with the tariff question out of the
way the people would intrust that party with the settlement of
our financial difficulties. When the panic came the administra
tion tried to place the responsibility upon the Sherman act. It
is a favorite boast of Domocratic leaders that their representa
tives in Congress unanimously opposed the passage of that
measure ; but they are careful not to state that the reason for the
opposition was that a large majority of those representatives
wanted free coinage and nothing less. When Mr. Bland moved,
in June, 1890, to commit the Conger silver purchase bill to the
committee, with instructions to report back a free coinage bill,
100 out of the 116 affirmative votes were from the Democratic side-.
Only thirteen Democratic votes were recorded against it. When
the bill afterwards came up in the Senate twenty-eight out of the
thirty-seven Democratic Senators voted for the Plumb free coin
age substitute, and but three of them were recorded against it.
The President is entitled to great credit for setting his face so
resolutely against the fifty cent dollar, but in so doing he turned
his back upon his party as represented in Congress. There is
about the same comparison between the danger threatened by
the Sherman act and that to be apprehended from the free coin
age of silver as there is between a mild gale and a western cy
clone. When that act was passed there was a well grounded hope
that its effect would be to stay the downward course in the price
of the white metal. Unfortunately that hope was not realized
and it was time that the law should be repealed. The Democratic
Congress waa powerless even to do that without the aid of the
Republican minority. There is every reason to believe that no
evils would have flowed from the law, except the loss sustained
by the treasury in buying silver on a falling market, but for the
profound and widespread distrust of the party in power.

Business men have but little confidence in Democratic finan
ciering. They remember, among other things, that in 1868 the
party was in favor of paying the national debt in depreciated
currency, and that in 1876 it denounced resumption of specie
payments. They know that it has always shown a willingness to
embrace any financial heresy, and that its very last deliverance

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS. 543

upon the money question was in favor of the "wild cat " cur
rency of the old State banking system.

The last Congress demonstrated its incapacity to deal with
financial matters. It lacked both the wisdom and the will.
Nothing was done for the relief of the treasury. Secretary
Carlisle has been compelled to sell bonds to maintain the gold
reserve and provide for current expenses. The revenues now are
wholly inadequate for the purposes of the government. The
national debt has been increased to the extent of $150,000,000,
or much more as some claim. But Congress adjourned in the
midst of these difficulties without making an effort to relieve the
situation.

The people like to see a party have a policy and a purpose.
They expect those who are intrusted with political power to know
what to do, and how to do it. We are confronted with some
very troublesome questions. They can never be settled by a
divided party. The Republican party is always able to agree with
itself on important matters. It may make mistakes, but it never
makes the unpardonable mistake of doing nothing in the face of
a great emergency. The Republicans in Congress will soon have a
splendid opportunity to show the quality of their statesmanship.
They should embrace that opportunity without hesitation. In
such a case, as in all cases, fidelity to the public interests will be
the surest road to party success.

The average American has a strong feeling of pride and
affection for his country. He is even so prejudiced and narrow
minded as to think more of his own country than of any other.
He expects the national government to uphold at any cost the
honor and dignity of the American name. He would promptly
resent any insult to the flag, and firmly repel any attack upon the
integrity of the Monroe doctrine. Furthermore, he believes that
this country, as the great power of the western world, owes duties
to its neighbors ; and that, while it should do nothing rash, or
quixotic, it should manifest in a proper way its sympathies with
those in every land who aspire to liberty and struggle against op
pression. To this extent he is a jingo, and he accepts the name
as a title of honor.

Americans of this class, and they are largely in the majority,
feel humiliated beyond expression by the foreign policy of this
administration. They look upon it as weak, cowardly, and un-

544 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

patriotic. They contrast it with the firm and vigorous policy of
President Harrison and his cabinet. They point to the Hawaiian
affair as the most disgraceful chapter in our diplomatic history.
They refer also to Samoa, and the surrender of the Japanese
students, and the Waller incident, as illustrations of the fibreless
character of our State Department in its dealings with foreign
nations.

There are other counts in the people's indictment against this
administration, but it is not necessary to mention them. The weak
ness of the Democratic party is structural. Its fatal defect is the
absence of anything like unity of purpose. The platform upon
which its various factions can agree is one which means all things
to all men. About the only unequivocal declaration it has made
for years was the tariff plank of 1S92 ; and its leaders have spent
most of their time since in explaining that away. It is not so
much a party as an association of opposing elements formed for
the single purpose of getting and keeping control of the govern
ment. There is no intention of charging that individual Demo
crats are actuated more than individual Eepublicans by selfish
motives ; but the purpose above indicated is the only real bond
of union that holds together the heterogeneous collection of per
sons that goes by the name of the Democratic party. One is re
minded by it of the old copy-book line, " Many men of many
minds." No Democratic leader can be named, unless he be a free
trader, who reflects the opinion on any considerable portion of his
party on national issues.

The circumstances above recited furnish the strongest reasons
for the belief that the Republican party will succeed in the com
ing elections. The people understand the matter very thoroughly.
They may not all be able to grasp the theories of the economist,
but there are not many among them who do not readily compre
hend the meaning of facts and the logic of conditions.

President Cleveland received less than forty-six per cent, of
the popular vote in 1892; a smaller portion than he received in
1888, when he was defeated. The Republican States of Wiscon
sin, Illinois, North Dakota, California, Indiana and Ohio cast
sixty-one votes for him; and the states of Kansas, Colorado,
Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon and Idaho gave twenty-two votes
for Weaver. That result was chiefly due to the twin delusions,
Populism and Free Coinage, both of which reached high water

OUTLOOK FOR REPUBLICAN SUCCESS. 545

mark that year. If those states had been where they belong
Harrison would have been elected. Nothing is more certain than
that nearly, if not quite, all of them will choose Republican
electors next year. The people of the West have had enough of
Populism, which brought them nothing but anarchy and financial
disaster. The free coinage question will not cut much of a figure
outside of the silver producing states. It was pointed out by the
Chairman of the Republican National Committee in the NORTH
AMERICAN REVIEW for April, 1894, that a change of 27,426
votes, properly distributed in California, Delaware, Idaho, North
Dakota. Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and West Virginia
would have given those states to Harrison and secured his elec
tion. The Republican party succeeded last fall in every one of
those states, except California, by pluralities, aggregating
240,000; and even in California there was a large Republican
plurality upon the vote for Representatives in Congress. The
Democratic party cannot properly succeed next year without the
vote of New York State. Judging from present appearances,
that vote will surely be cast for the Republican candidates.

In fact, viewing the situation from any standpoint, the pros
pect of Republican success is of the most encouraging character.
The party is thoroughly united on all matters of national policy.
Its achievements shine with a brighter lustre than ever against
the dark back-ground of Democratic incompetency. The people
know that it can be relied upon to protect their highest interests
at home and abroad. They have confidence in its ability to rise
above every difficulty and settle in a statesmanlike way every
question that may arise.

CHARLES T. SAXTON.

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 35

WHAT BECOMES OF COLLEGE WOMEN.

BY CHARLES F. THWING, LL. D., PRESIDENT OF WESTERN
RESERVE UNIVERSITY AND ADELBERT COLLEGE.

MR. G-EORGE WILLIAM CURTIS closed his memorable address at
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of Vassar College
with these words : " We have left woman as a slave with Homer
and Pericles. We have left her as a foolish goddess with
Chivalry and Don Quixote. We have left her as a toy with
Chesterfield and the club; and in the enlightened American
daughter, wife, and mother, in the free American home, we find
the fairest flower and the highest promise of American civiliz
ation/'

The classic phrase of the orator is an expression of a simple
fact. That fact is that about fifty-five per cent, of the woman-
graduates of our colleges marry. The fact is a happy one —
happy for the wives and husbands, and happy also for the homes.
For most women prefer to marry. The fears early expressed that
the college women would prefer a public to a domestic career, have
proved to be false. Women have resigned exalted public places
to become heads of simple American homes. The fact that most
women prefer to marry is also a happy one for life itself. The
home is the center of life; it is the source of life's best influences.
No contribution for its enrichment is too costly. All that learn
ing and culture can offer, all that the virtues can achieve, all that
the graces can contribute, all that which the college represents
and embodies, is none too rich for the betterment of the home.
The college woman, therefore, as embodying the best type of
womanhood, is bringing the best offering of herself to the
worthiest shrine.

Twenty per cent, of all women who become of a marriageable
age do not marry, and it is apparent that about forty per cent, of

WHAT BECOMES OF COLLEGE WOMEN. } 547

college women, who have become of a marriageable age, have not
married. The question, therefore, is, what work are the un
married women doing ? Are they doing a work of value sufficient
to justify the time and money spent in securing an education ?
Are they doing a work of the highest educational or ethical or
civil value ?

About 4,000 women are graduates of the principal colleges for
women in the United States, and among these principal colleges
may be named Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Radcliffe,
Barnard, and the College for Women of Western Keserve Uni
versity. Besides these colleges there are many co-educational in
stitutions. There are probably another 4,000 women graduates
from reputable colleges which are open alike to women and to
men. Of this great number of well-trained women it is probable
that about 5,000 are at the heads of homes, or will finally find
their career to be a domestic one. Of the remaining 3,000 it is to
be said at once that they are found engaged in almost every em
ployment.

The most popular, however, of all the fields of work for the
college woman is that represented in the school-room. It is prob
able that at least two-thirds of all college graduates teach for at
least a short time after their graduation. Surely no work is more
important than teaching in the public or the private school, and no
woman is better fitted to do the duties constituting this work than
the well-bred and well-trained college woman.* The American
school-room needs good manners, good breeding, instruction be
yond the text book and the lesson, and, more than all, it needs
culture and sympathy in the teacher. These are needs which the

* I am indebted for certain facts about the proportion of women who marry to
Miss Milicent W. Shinn. Bat the marriage rate of college women is a very
involved question. President Taylor, of Vassar, writes me as follows,: "One of the
puzzles, it seems to me, in gathering statistics regarding the women's colleges, and
especially oa the points bearing on graduate work and on marrUge, grows out of
the fact that women enter into botb of these sphere* much lacer than men do of ttiine*.
That is to say, a young woman teaches re ry often several years before * he under
takes her graduate work. That seems to me much truer in regard t • »hem than in
regard to young men, and certainly it is true of marriage, if I have observed with
any accuracy, that in estimating tbe statis'ics, or the average number of marriages
among a body of alumnee, it is unfair and misrepresents the truth to state the mat
ter without regard to the recent graduates, by far tbe most numerous classes, who
are not likely to marry for two or three, and sometimes more, years after their
graduation. Of course there are exceptions. ^ e hare had a large number of
marriages lately among our recent graduates, bu I after all, the suggestion that I
make will hold. ... I know that In this matter, in winch the public seems to be
very largely interested, statistics are constantly misleading." So also M us Mary
Caswel i. Secretary to the President of vv elletley College, writes me in reference to
that college that "the percentage of alumnae who marry is 17& The estimate is
easily made, yet it is in a manner misleading, since in the sum total are included the
later and, on the whole, larger classes, which represent possibilities of marriage not
yet realized. Taking out tae class of 1895, for instance, I get a higher percentage, 19
per cent."

548 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

college graduate is best fitted to fill. The public schools in every
grade have this need, and it is a happy thing to be able to say
that in hundreds and almost thousands of high schools through
out the country are found graduates of our colleges, not only
doing the routine work which belongs to the teachers' profession
but also contributing to this work the richness of culture and the
breadth of sympathy which produce results far more precious
than the ordinary routine of educational service. The college
woman has not yet gone to a large degree into the schools of the
grammar grade; but there are many reasons for believing that
the grammar schools and the primary schools are soon to have
the advantage of her presence and her work. It will be a happy
time for American schools and American life, when every
teacher's place is filled by a collegian. The normal school, in
certain respects, gives an excellent training, but the best teacher
is one who has first had the general training and the culture of
the college to which is added the professional training of the best
normal school.

It is to be said that women are found, though in less num
bers, teaching in the colleges for women as well as in the high
schools and other schools. To a slight extent they do teach men
in colleges which are open to both men and women. Yet the
time is not far distant when we may find women teaching in
men's colleges. I was recently approached by one of the most
distinguished scholars of the United States, herself a teacher in
a conspicuous college for women, asking me in the most gracious
way whether, if she accepted a position as teacher in the College
for Women of Western Reserve University, she would be allowed
to be a teacher in Adelbert College for men, which is a part of
the same University? There are in the United States, according
to the census of 1890, 735 women who are professors in colleges
and universities. A large proportion of these women are to be
found in colleges and universities which are hardly of a high col
legiate grade, and not a few of them themselves are not grad
uates of any college, but among them are many eminent scholars,
who teach branches as erudite as the highest mathematics and as
advanced as the most refined philology.

Of the ten most conspicuous women who are graduates of
Vassar College, and of the ten most conspicuous who come from
Cornell University and from the University of Michigan, more

WHAT BECOMES OF COLLEGE WOMEN. 549

than naif are teachers in the colleges for women. They hold
chairs of social science, of English, of botany, of chemistry, of
Greek, of astronomy, of history, and of political science. They
are giving to the cause of education, of culture, and of a higher
civilization the same contribution which men in similar positions
in the colleges for men are giving.

The last census of the United States shows that the number
of women who are preachers is now 1,235, who are lawyers 208,
and who are physicians and surgeons 4,555 ; but in these num
bers are to be found only a few who are college women. A
lamentably small proportion of the physicians of this country are
college-bred. Out of the more than 4,000 women who are physi
cians it is probable that not more than 200 have had a college
training. Out of the more than 1,800 women who are members of
the Collegiate Alumnae Association are only 34 physicians. The
law, the ministry and journalism command a far smaller propor
tion, for, in the same association of college women, there are only
half a dozen lawyers, preachers and journalists.

As one reads over the names of the graduates of the colleges
for women of the last twenty-five years he is impressed with the
fact that only a few of these women have attained distinction, or
have held conspicuous positions. One is reminded of the remark
which Sydney Smith, writing in 1810, made, though not with
absolute correctness, that up to that time no woman had produced
a single notable work either of imagination or reason, in English,
German, French or Italian literature. Three quarters of a
century after Sydney Smith wrote, Mrs. Fawcett showed that
there were at least forty women who had left a permanent mark in
English literature alone ; and yet, one can not fail to be im
pressed with the sad and glad fact that so few of college women
have become famous. I have recently had an examination made
of Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography* to discover the
nature of the early training and also the character of the employ
ment of the persons therein named. The work contains between
fifteen thousand and sixteen thousand names, of which only 633
are names of women. Of these 633 Women 320 are authors ;
seventy-three are singers or actresses ; ninety-one are sculptors or
painters ; sixty-eight are educators ; twenty-one may be called
philanthropists ; fourteen are missionaries ; thirteen doctors ;

* The Cyclopaedia was published 1888-1889.

550 THE NORTH A MEXICAN REVIEW.

twenty-eight may be described as having their places in this
article because of heroic deeds. There are also three who are
described as engaging in business, one in nursing and one in fol
lowing the profession of law. Of these 633 persons only nineteen
have had a college training ; of the 320 women who are named as
authors, only nine are college women ; of the ninety-one artists only
one ;of the actresses also one ; of the educators seven ; of the mis
sionaries one only is college-bred. It is evident that the college
woman has not become famous. This result is not strange, for
the time since the college woman has been at all possible has not
been long ; and the time since the college woman has existed as
an important part of American life has been very much shorter.
Usually longer periods of time are necessary for doing that work
of which the result is fame.

The effect of marriage upon the winning of distinction is not
so great as first thought would lead one to believe, for of the six
hundred and thirty-three women named in Appleton's Cyclopedia
one-half are married and one-half are unmarried. Some of the
most distinguished women of the country have been married,
and some women who have not been married have gained hardly
greater distinction. Half of the women named in Appleton's
work won fame through their books, and it is known that
writing is one of those arts that can be carried on at home. The
number of women who enter public employments is increasing,
and these employments are usually inconsistent with the life of
a wife and mother. We therefore shall find an increasing pro
portion of the distinguished women, who are college graduates,
unmarried.

I have recently made two lists, one of the distinguished women
who are not graduates and one of distinguished women who are
graduates. The two lists manifest a striking difference in that
nearly all the distinguished women who are not graduates are dis
tinguished for their writings, and they belong to the older order
of women. In the list of graduates I notice that the more dis
tinguished women are distinguished for their work as teachers or
scientific investigators. They do, at any rate, represent services to
the cause of scholarship of the highest value. They are to be
found, these women, as presidents of colleges, at the head of
great philanthropic movements, as teachers of history, liter
ature, philology, mathematics, Greek and chemistry. There are

WHAT BECOMES OF COLLEGE WOMEN. 551

names that suggest erudite thinking in the mathematics and in
abstruse scientific investigation, and also in the application of
scientific investigation to the problems of practical house-keeping.
They and their work represent the high water-mark of our civili
zation.

But one induction of a nature somewhat startling is made
evident. It is that from the great field of literature the college
woman has been absent as a creator for the last twenty years.
The number of books, of every sort, written by college women is
very few. No college woman has yet arisen whose work is to be
put into the same class with the works of Miss Wilkins, Miss
Murfree, or of Miss Phelps, or of several others whose greatest
works have appeared in the time since the first college was opened
to women. The American college has given us great scholars,
great philanthropists, great administrators, great teachers. It
has given us Frances E. Willard and Lucy Stone. It has not
given us great writers. It has given us no great novelist. It has
given one or two, and only one or two, essayists, and, without
doubt, the most conspicuous is Miss Vida Scudder.

It is possible that one may say that the American college for
men has not given us great writers. The remark is partially true
and partially false. Of the great historians, all, with one excep
tion, are graduates. Of that generation of poets who have helped
to render American literature illustrious, all, with the exception
of Whittier, are graduates. Some of the greatest essayists are
not indeed included in the list, but Emerson is there. Of our
novelists, a part, and a part only, are graduates. One does not
forget that Howells is not a graduate, neither is Aldrich, but
one does not fail to remember that Hawthorne was trained at the
college of Longfellow.

But all exceptions aside, it is certainly true that the grad
uates of the colleges for women have not made that contribution
to literature that they have made to scholarship, or to teaching,
or to administration. To consider the cause of this condition
would carry us too far afield for the present discussion.

It would be somewhat bold in anyone to say who are the most
distinguished women of any college ; but one who knows the
University of Michigan intimately and has known it for years,
and another who has had a hardly less intimate acquaintance
with Cornell University, send to me the names of ten whom they

552 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

regard as the most conspicuous in the history of these two great
colleges. In the Michigan University they are as follows:

Dr. E, J. MOSHER, Class of 1875, now an eminent practitioner in Brook
lyn, N. Y., who was professor in Vassar College, and for some time had
charge of the Massachusetts Prison for Women at South Framingham.

Dr. L. A. HOWARD KING, '76, Tientsin, China. Miss Howard became
eminent as a missionary physician by her successful treatment of the wife
of the great Viceroy, Li Hung Chang. He became so interested in her work,
that, with the aid of some of his mandarins, he erected a hospital and
equipped it for her use. She afterwards married an English missionary
named King. She did more to introduce Western medicine and surgery
into China than almost any other person.

Dr. LUCY HALL BROWN, a practitioner in Brooklyn, New York, and also
for some years a Professor in Vassar College. She graduated in 1878.

MART SHELDON BARNES, '74, wife of Professor Barnes, of Leland Stan
ford University. She was for some time Professor of History in Wellesley
College. She has written historical text books.

ANGIE C. CHAPPN, '75, Professor of Greek in Wellesley College.

ALICE FREEMAN PALMER, the distinguished ex-President of Wellesley
College. Graduated in the class of '76.

LUCY M. SALMON, '76, the head of the Department of History in Vassar
College.

MARY E. BYRD, '78, Professor of Astronomy, Smith College.

KATHERINE E. COMAN, '80, Professor of History and Political Economy
in Wellesley College.

From Cornell graduated the following women :

Mrs. JULIA IRVINE, President of Wellesley College.

MARTHA CAREY THOMAS, who holds the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
from Zurich, and is now President of Bryn Mawr College.

RUTH PUTNAM, author of " William the Silent Prince of Orange, the
Moderate Man of the XVI. Century."

Mrs. SUSANNA PHELPS GAGE, scientist and illustrator,

Mrs. A. W. SMITH, in 1895 Assistant Professor of Social Science in Leland
Stanford University.

EMILY L. GREGORY, Ph. D. (Zurich), Professor of Botany in Barnard
College.

Mrs. FLORENCE KELLEY WISCHNEWETZKY, now Chief Inspector of Fac
tories for the State of Illinois, and well-known as an author upon social
problems.

Mrs. ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK, entomologist and wood engraver.

KATE MAY EDWARDS, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Greek at Wellesley
College.

ELIZA RITCHIE, Ph. D., Instructor in Philosophy at Wellesley College.

Mrs. MILA TUPPER MAYNARD, formerly pastor of churches at La Porte,
Ind., and at Grand Rapids, Mich.

Among the most famous graduates of Vassar College, one can
not fail to make mention of Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, con
nected with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who

WHAT BECOMES OF COLLEGE WOMEN. 563

has for twenty years been an eminent student and teacher in
applied chemistry ; of Christine Ladd Franklin, mathematician
and logician ; of Mary A. Jordan, Professor in Smith College,
and whose services have been a great power in the building up of
that popular college ; of Heloise E. Hersey, formerly professor in
Smith College, and now at the head of a successful school for
girls in Boston ; of Mary Whitney, worthy successor to Maria
Mitchell at Yassar ; of Frances Fisher Wood, a physician in New
York ; and of Mrs. Elizabeth W. Champney, the author of sev
eral popular books.

The record of the graduates of the Bryn Mawr College is one
less distinguished than these names just suggested make, for the
college was founded in 1885, and no graduate is of a standing
longer than six years. But the following facts are most promis
ing of useful and distinguished careers :

Number of A. B.'stol895 115

Have taken degree of Ph. D 2

Hare taken degree of A. M 10

Engaged in graduate study 43

Dean of College 1

Lecturers, demonstrators, etc., in colleges 11

Private t utors and school teachers 35

Secretaries 6

Librarians 1

Literary workers : 1

Philanthropic workers 3

Married 15

Doing no special work 52

Dead 2

Surely such a record as is herein suggested is tremendously sig
nificant. Whether it is better, or not so good a record as men
would have permitted the historian to make it is not necessary
to say, but this record does represent work which is absolutely
worth doing. The result is one of absolute satisfaction to
the friend of the cause of college education for women. The
American college has helped American women to get strength
without becoming priggish, vigor of heart without being cold ; it
has helped them to become rich in knowledge without being pe
dantic, broad in sympathy without wanting a public career, and
large-minded and broad-minded without neglecting humble
duties. The American college has helped woman toward doing
the highest work, by the wisest methods, with the richest results.

CHARLES F. THWLKTG.

JINGOES AND SILYERITES.

BY EDWAED ATKINSON.

ONE of the most subtle, and, since there is no other word so
expressive, most damnable arguments which have been presented
in support of the free coinage of silver by this country with
out regard to the action of other countries, is that it is for our
interest and profit to take action on every point in reverse to the
acts of Great Britain. This proposal has been carried so far by
some of the attorneys of the owners of silver mines as to lead
them to advocate a war with Great Britain as a means of profit
and benefit to the United States. The danger in this view of
the matter is that it may find a ready response in a large class of
legislators who regard all imports from foreign countries as of
the nature of a war upon our domestic industry. Witness the
fact that in the effort to promote partisan legislation and to
seek favor with the so-called silver party, the junior Senator of
the State of Massachusetts has proposed a policy on behalf of the
so-called silver interests in our dealings with Great Britain even
more grossly ridiculous than the conception which the attorneys
of the silver miners have presented.

His proposal was to attempt to force Great Britain to adopt a
bimetallic treaty of legal tender by putting differential duties in
this country upon the products of Great Britain. These facts
distinctly prove that there is no argument so gross in its nature
that it may not be employed by men of public station, otherwise
of good repute, in their effort to compass party success. It is a
sad commentary upon human nature, giving an example of the
depravity of mind which may be brought upon a man who sinks
the principles of a statesman in order to compass the success of a
partisan.

The Jingo element can only become dangerous through the

JINGOES AND SILVERITES. 655

negligence of the mass of thinking men. That men are negli
gent is witnessed by the fact that those who would promote war
with Great Britain do not immediately become disgraced as they
might rightly be.

There is another bad feature in the existing state of opinion.
A great deal of money has lately been expended at the public
cost in the construction of a new navy. We surely needed a cer
tain type of war vessels to which no exception could be taken in
the present state of the world. We required armed cruisers
which could be speedily sent to dangerous points for the protec
tion of our citizens in foreign lands and for the protection of our
commerce. We may have been justified in constructing one or
two so-called battle ships without waiting for their worthlessuess
to be disclosed ; but we cannot be justified in having constructed
two very costly vessels of war which are known in the navy and
generally among the people as tf Commerce Destroyers/'' That
name is a disgrace to the ship, to officers of the navy and to the
nation. These two ships of war cost about seven million dollars
or a little more. That sum is nearly as great as the endow
ment of our oldest University, Harvard. The annual cost of
maintaining these vessels in service is nearly, if not quite, equal
to the pay roll of Harvard University. The time was when it
was considered justifiable for any army to sack a city and for the
officers and soldiers of an army to enrich themselves from the
plunder of the private houses and other property of a conquered
country. That time has long since passed. The sacking of cities
is a disgrace. Private plunder is treated as robbery. An officer
joining therein ceases to be a gentleman, and is regarded as a
thief. Yet what would disgrace an army and its officers upon
the land may be imposed upon the navy and its officers as a duty.
It is now held to be among their lawful functions to do the work
of pirates in ships of war built at the public cost, bearing the
degrading name of " Commerce Destroyers." The nation was
even represented at the recent opening of the peaceful canal at
Kiel by one of these vilely named armed vessels.

What could have been more grotesque than the display of
war vessels at the opening of the ship canal at Kiel — one hundred
great armed vessels of different types more or less worthless in
the face of the latest type of gun and shell, accompanied by
twenty-five smaller vessels, sent thither from various states and

556 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

nations, at a very heavy cost, to celebrate the opening of a canal
whose purpose is to carry cotton, fibres and metals to the people
of Germany, in the conversion of which into finished goods for
export they may be enabled to sustain the increasing burden of
armies and navies. The cost of the canal was about forty
million dollars. The waste upon these big and mainly worthless
war ships must have represented an expenditure of not less than
two hundred million dollars.

The display of these engines of destruction was mostly made
by the nations of continental Europe, which nations or states
maintain, within an area of European territory about correspond
ing to that of the United States, omitting Alaska, barriers to mu
tual service at the borders of separation, at which a revenue is col
lected by taxes upon imports, supplemented in some cases by
bounties upon exports, not quite equal to the cost of sustaining
the armies which, except for these barriers to mutual service,
would have no reason for their existence. In this way the in
herited prejudice of race and creed is maintained while the peo
ple are kept in a condition of poverty which, in respect to many
of these states, is year by year becoming more hopeless.

Contrast these conditions with our relations with the neighbor
ing Dominion of Canada. It is true that in 1866, I believe, we
abandoned the treaty of reciprocity under which for many years
the people of both sections of this continent had greatly thriven,
and that we are now striving to recover the advantage which we
might have enjoyed throughout the intervening period by making
another treaty. We exchange some of the products of our agri
culture with Canada, and, owing to our more southern position
and greater sunshine, we are enabled to supply her with the prod
ucts of our fields in rather larger measure than she can supply us.
There is no antagonism between us, and throughout the long
civil war not a ship was needed to watch the harbors of Canada
lest an attack should be made from them upon us, and not a regi
ment was called for to guard our long northern frontier. On
that frontier there also exists a canal, far greater in its service
than the canal at Kiel can ever be. The tonnage which passes
yearly through the St. Mary's Canal, which unites our great lakes,
exceeds that of the Suez Canal. Yet not a fort is required to
guard that canal, and not a ship of war is permitted upon either
of the great lakes.

JINGOES AND SILVERITES. 557

The true Monroe doctrine, so different from that which the
Jingo element among onr politicians so grossly misrepresents, has
been applied to these lakes since 1818. After the last war with
Great Britain the United States possessed the complete naval
control of the lakes. The armed vessels of Great Britain had
either been destroyed or were laid up almost worthless in the
harbors of Canada. In 1817 John Quincy Adams, Minister to
Great Britain, proposed to the English Government that neither
should thereafter maintain any armed naval force upon the lakes.
This course was advocated in order to ' ' avoid the danger of col
lision and to save expense." The subject was duly considered
for nearly a year in Washington and in London. John Quincy
Adams returned to America and became Secretary of State. In
1818 President Monroe stated to the Senate that an agreement
had been made permitting four revenue cutters on each side,
each with one gun, upon these great inland waters. Aside from
that, no armed ship was to be permitted. He asked the Senate
to express its judgment upon this agreement which had not even
taken the dignity of a formal treaty, and when the assent of the
Senate had been given he issued the proclamation certified by
John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, under which peace has
been maintained, collision has been avoided, and an enormous ex
pense has been saved both by this country and by Canada. Yet
it is even now considered reputable for the United States to con
struct " Commerce Destroyers " to exercise their piratical func
tions under the flag of the Union upon the open seas !

It is time for the farmers of the Western and of the Middle
States remote from the ocean to give thought to these conditions.
It is time that the English speaking people entered into a com
mercial treaty exempting private property from seizure upon the
sea, with such assent from other nations as might be had. When
the English speaking people unite their forces for the protection
of commerce by declaring that the destruction of private property
at sea by the war vessels of any nation should be held as piracy,
the moral support of the world would be given to such an agree
ment, and no nation, however under the control of a military caste,
would dare refuse assent to such an agreement.

We, therefore, have the whole moral and economic force of
the community on the one side and the Jingo element on the
other — the one comprising the great body of thinking people,

558 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

slow to observe, slow to make up its mind and slow to act ; the
other noisy, unprincipled and aggressive, taking advantage of
every petty prejudice to excite animosity and to betray the peace
of the country. If there be no higher motive required to arrest
political depravity, let the economic side of the question only be
regarded. By what nations is the commerce mainly conducted
which it would be the function of our " Commerce Destroyers " to
work their evil upon in case of war ? Almost wholly by England
and Germany, our two largest customers for the excess of our prod
ucts of the field and of the farm; also by the Scandinavian nations
and the Netherlands, who are the middle men among nations,
bearing our products across the seas and bringing back from the
tropical and semi-tropical countries the products that we need.

What would be the effect of war with either England or Ger
many, coupled with the destruction of their commerce? The
surplus product of Western farms and Southern plantations
might rot upon the field. The proportion of grain exported, or
of dairy products and meats, is not as large as the proportions of
our cotton export, yet if shut in and thrown upon the market
already fully supplied, it would depress all prices to the loss and
damage of every farmer in the land; while on the other hand,
cutting off the supply of foreign fabrics would for the time being
give such a monopoly to domestic manufactures as to increase
the cost of everything that the farmer buys. It is perfectly
logical for the advocates of a prohibitory tariff to take the posi
tion long since taken by Henry C. Carey, who said that " he
would regard a ten years' war with England as the greatest ma
terial benefit that could happen to this country/' People are
wiser now than they were when they listened to such a false
prophet, and yet there are to-day a sufficient number of ignorant
persons to whom a similar appeal is made.

Again: The attorneys of the silver miners and their coadjutors
urge the adoption of the silver standard and the demonetization
of gold on the ground that it is for our interest to take the re
verse of the policy of Great Britain, where the gold standard has
been maintained for two generations and where it will be main
tained. The audacity of this proposition is only equalled by its
absurdity. A very large part of the foreign exports of Great
Britain and Germany are to the silver-using nations of Asia,
Africa and South America. The exporters of Great Britain have,

JINGOES AND SILVERITES. 659

in fact, been exposed to a good deal of hardship and difficulty in
adjusting the terms of exchange with their principal customers.
What could be a greater relief to Great Britain than for the United
States to sell her the cotton, the corn, the dairy products and
presently the coal and the ores which she must have for conversion
into finished fabrics, giving her the opportunity to convert them
into these finished goods and then to sell them to the silver-
using nations on silver payments ? Once give Great Britain the
opportunity to put that silver upon us under a treaty of bime
tallic legal tender by which we should deprive ourselves of any
choice as between silver and gold, and we should at once relieve
British manufacturers and bankers of all the difficulties which
have grown out of the change of the ratio of silver to gold, taking
all these difficulties upon ourselves. If any argument could be in
vented giving greater evidence both of audacity and imbecility I
have yet to find it. The destruction of a fool is his own folly, and
when the advocates of silver monometallism, at the ratio of
sixteen to one, venture into this last ditch in their effort to stay
the rising tide in support of sound money, they disclose both
their audacity and their imbecility.

Again : The unscrupulous Jingo element of the opposition to
President Cleveland have attempted to create a prejudice against
his administration of the Hawaiian question by alleging that Eng
land is waiting to seize these islands. It is utterly false. No na
tion seeks the responsibility for taking these islands, subject to the
enormous expense of arming and defending them both upon the
land and upon the sea. What is needed again in this case is an
agreement among the great naval powers " to avoid collision and
to save expense " by neutralizing the islands and the waters ad
jacent thereto, giving all equal opportunity to land cables, to
conduct their trade and to keep their stores of coal wherever they
choose, while protecting the people of the islands in their rights.

We may regard the parcelling out of barbarous or semi-barbar
ous continents like Africa among the powers of Europe with perfect
equanimity, and yet we may regard it as being to our great interest
whenever or wherever the power and protection of the* English
speaking people is extended over barbarous countries. Wherever
Germany and France gain a hold their effort is to keep the sole
control of commerce, and so it has been with the Dutch in the
Philippine Islands. Wherever England establishes her control or

560 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

protectorate it is to the benefit of the masses of the people of that
land, even though they resist the somewhat rough and tactless
methods by which they themselves are benefited. The French
may have tact; but they use that tact for private gain and plunder.
The Englishman may lack in tact; but, in these latter days, he uses
his power to establish justice in the administration of semi-civ
ilized countries. Witness the fact that the Egyptians are no
longer spoiled. For the first time in history, the fellahs in Egypt
are beginning to enjoy the fruits of their own industry. Wher
ever England exerts her control the purchasing power of the peo
ple is increased, a demand for goods made by machinery begins,
and England attempts to make no discrimination, but gives to all
an equal chance to supply these wants. Contrast her policy with
that of the Spaniards. Contrast the condition of her colonies
with the condition of those which were under the control of Spain
and Portugal. Witness the present conditions of South America
as compared to any English colonies or settlements. What a boon
it would be to the world if systems corresponding to English law,
English administration and the English regard for personal rights,
could be extended over the continent of South America.

A paramount position in that international commerce through
which men and nations benefit and profit each other by serving
each other's needs is passing to this country. The people of the
United States constitute the only nation among the machine-
using nations of the world who possess within their own limits
the power of producing food, fuel, iron, steel, copper, timber
and innumerable fabrics far in excess of their own wants. They
are subjected to the lightest burden of national taxation as com
pared to any and every other machine-using nation. Holding
these advantages, their products are made at the highest rates of
wages in every branch of industry, except mere handicrafts, as
compared to those of any other country, and yet at the lowest
cost of production measured by the unit of product. There has
never been a period in this country when economic questions
were being so exhaustively studied by great numbers of people.
Let them but turn their attention to the facts which I have given
in this paper and the Jingoes among our politicians will be stamped
out of political existence in company with the advocates of the
debasement of our unit of value.

EDWARD ATKINSON.

OUR ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL KELSON A. MILES, U. S. A.

SOON after our forefathers had planted their little colonies
along the Atlantic? Coast, their children ascended the Hudson,
the Mohawk, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and other valleys,
penetrated t^ the Ohio, and at length invaded " the dark and
bloody ground " of Kentucky, and swept along the region of the
Great Lakes.

A little later they passed over the rich prairies, and to-day
their descendants have transformed the treeless plains, mountain
valleys and gold-fields of the Pacific Slope and of the Rocky
Mountains into refined and prosperous communities. Long be
fore the day of the Anglo-Saxon, adventurers of other races had
passed lightly over much of what is now the United States. Ex
cept in a few isolated spots they left behind no enduring trace.
Prrssing closely in the footsteps of the hunters and trappers, the
Daniel Boones of the frontier, the American has always founded
homes, established schools, and organized permanent industries.

The favorable termination of the French and Indian wars,
waged for more than two generations, gave the English colonists
the great lake region and northwestern territory west of the
Alleghanies, and put an end forever to the Frenchman's dream
of empire in this quarter ; the Louisiana purchase gave us a
vast area in the South and West, while the Texas revolution and
the war with Mexico gave us New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

What has long been called our great Western Empire may be
roughly described as including the country lying from north to
south between the Dominion of Canada and the republic of
Mexico ; and from east to west (with boundaries less definitely
fixed) between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean.

It is remarkable that when the great Corsican had exhausted
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 36

562 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

his treasure in the desolation and destruction of homes in
Europe, he was willing to dispose of his vast area of territory in
North America to the United States. Seventy-five million francs
at that time was a great boon to the French conqueror, and one
million one hundred and seventy-two thousand square miles of
the productive territory of North America upon which could be
built prosperous, happy homes, was a great boon for millions of
free people. The treasure exchanged for the land purchased the
equipment and munitions of war that carried mourning and
desolation to thousands of homes in Europe. The territory re
ceived in exchange for the treasure has produced millions of
homes in our own country.

President Jefferson desired a more perfect- knowledge of the
vast country which was acquired by what is known as the Louis
iana purchase from the French government, and it was under his
direction that the expedition of Lewis and Clark was projected.
In 1803 an expedition under the leadership of Lewis and Clark
was organized at St. Louis, to explore a route through the wil
derness to the Pacific coast. Their company was composed of
nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers, two Canadian
boatmen, an interpreter, a hunter, and a negro servant of Cap
tain Clark.

In the spring of 1804 the villagers of St. Louis assembled on
the bank of the Mississippi Eiver to bid adieu to the fearless and
hardy explorers. The history of that expedition is one of the
most interesting ever written. Their first winter was spent with
the Mandans in what is now North Dakota. Dragging their
boats for two thousand miles up the Missouri River, and leaving
them in charge of a band of savages, the Shoshone Indians,
they obtained from them horses for crossing the mountains to
the headwaters of the Columbia, and there made other boats and
floated down the beautiful Hudson of the West to its junction
with the Pacific, at the site of what is now the town of Astoria,
where they spent their second winter ; and in the following
spring commenced their toilsome return journey to the upper
Columbia, where they found their horses safely cared for by the
friendly Nez Perc6 Indians. They continued their journey back
over the mountains again to the headwaters of the Yellowstone,
passing down the Yellowstone and Missouri Kivers, and, after
two years and four months' absence, and after having been

OUR ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY. 568

given up as lost, they were welcomed home by the villagers of
St. Louis.

A few years later a party sent out by John Jacob Astor for the
purpose of extending the fur trade, also crossed the continent,
passing over a portion of the route followed by Lewis and Clark.
After the discovery of gold in California, immigrant routes
across the continent were established, but there still remained
vast regions between these routes almost unknown up to a much
later date. This is illustrated by the fact that the large and mag.
nificent tract now known as Yellowstone Park, so full of natural
wonders, was practically unknown until several years after the
war. The same may be said of the Grand Canon of the Colorado.

Much of the region under consideration had been at a com
paratively early date penetrated by men of the Latin races.
French traders and missionaries in small parties had from time to
time entered the present States of North and South Dakota,
Montana and Idaho, before the tide of Anglo-Saxon immigration
set in. They made no systematic exploration, however. Their
scattered trading posts, built of logs, soon rotted away ; they
made no effort at colonization, and except for a few pictur
esque missions, and French names for certain streams and locali
ties, all trace of their presence has disappeared.

Coronado from the south ascended the Gila River early in the
sixteenth century, and other Spanish adventurers, fired by the
twin zeal of religion and avarice, made desultory expeditions into
what are now Colorado and Utah. They erected here and there
rude arrastres side by side with the cross and to some extent
colonized portions of what is now New Mexico and Arizona. But
the civilization planted by them languished, and in some localities
even disappeared, either from inherent weakness or from the hos
tility of the fierce savages, rendered more formidable by the pos
session of fire-arms and horses.

That eminent statesman, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, of
Missouri, for years had urged the construction of trans-con
tinental railway lines which he believed were destined to be
come " The road to India." His ability and influence did much
to attract attention to the importance of establishing this great
avenue of commerce and communication, and it was chiefly
through him that the expeditions of the "Path-finder," Fremont,
were authorized and equipped.

564 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

John Charles Fremont was a native of Savannah, Georgia, an
accomplished officer and engineer, whose romantic wooing and
winning of Jessie Benton, now his widow living in Southern
California, will still be remembered by those who were living at
the time. Fremont's expeditions were organized with great care
at the month of the Kansas or Kaw Kiver, at Bent's Fort, on the
Arkansas, and at various points west of St. Louis. He pene
trated the central zone, passing over the Rocky, Sierra Nevada,
and Cascade Mountains, and along the entire Pacific Coast, from
the Columbia River to Southern California. He had with him a
corps of scientists, and his discoveries were valuable contribu
tions to the knowledge of the country. He had several en
counters with hostile Indians, and was in a position to establish
our right of domain at a critical time on the Pacific Coast.

In 1844 Congress authorized a survey for a trans-continental
railway, and an expedition was fitted out by Fremont, at private
expense, for the purpose of making those preliminary surveys.
He wrote a history of his explorations which attracted great at
tention, not only in this country, but in Europe.

The close of the war gave a great impetus to the settlement
and development of this region. The causes of this impetus are
not far to seek. The discharge from military service of such
large bodies of men, mostly young, vigorous, and intelligent, was
also a powerful stimulus to every kind of achievement, material
and intellectual. The tremendous volume of energy and ability,
which had been engaged in mutual destruction, when suddenly
released, found its most natural and congenial field of expansion
in the West, to which many thousands of young men from both
armies soon found their way. Before the war the border troubles
in Kansas, and the prospect of similar trouble in other sections,
while attracting perhaps a certain small class, might well deter
the peaceful farmer or peasant seeking a quiet home for his
family. The vexed question as to whether free or slave labor
should possess the fair and virgin fields of the West, was now set
tled for all time. The Homestead Law gave to each settler
in fee simple 160 acres of land, which to the rack-rented toiler
beyond the sea must have seemed a princely estate.

Among the results of the war as connected with the West, the
acquisition of Alaska, that magnificent pendant to our terri
torial area, is worthy of mention. The undisguised sympathy

OUR ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY. 565

shown to us by Russia, aggravated the strained relations already
existing between her and Great Britain, while drawing more
closely the bonds of friendship between her and the United
States. Soon after the war, rather than endanger these friendly
relations by the complications that seemed likely to arise from
the presence in Alaskan waters of our whalers and fishermen,
and perhaps willing also to perform an act showing her inde
pendence of Great Britain, Eussia departed from her traditional
policy aud sold the territory to onr government for $7,200,000.
Within a few years after the purchase considerable American
capital and several thousands of our citizens were engaged in the
mines and fisheries of that territory.

The construction of the trans-continental railways was inau
gurated during the war for political reasons. At one time there
was apprehension lest California and the Pacific Coast should
secede from the Union. California, particularly in the southern
portion, was largely settled and dominated by men of Southern
birth and sentiment, and in 1861 great sympathy was manifested
there with the secession movement. California was, in fact, seri
ously in danger of being lost to the Union cause, and was saved
largely by the efforts and eloquence of Senators Baker and
MacDougal, the Rev. Starr King, Leland Stanford, and their
compatriots, and by the timely action of the Government in
sending General E. V. Sumner in 1861 to command the Union
forces on the Pacific Coast. The danger that the communities
of the Pacific Slope, so far from the population of the East, and
separated from it by a vast tract of wilderness, should become
alienated from the Union, was plainly seen by the statesmen of
that day, and the building of the first trans-continental line was
expedited in order to establish connection between the Pacific
States and the Eastern portion of the Republic.

Since the war powerful states have sprung into existence;
practically six lines of trans-continental railway have been built,
inseparably linking the Pacific States to their sisters of the East ;
resources hitherto undreamed of have been discovered; and a vol
ume of development, marvellous and bewildering to contemplate,
has been crowded into a quarter of a century, making this the
brightest period of our history.

NELSON A. MILES.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH.

BY THE HON. W. C. GATES, GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA.

OMITTING statistics, which often weary rather than instruct
the reader, I will endeavor to interest him by giving a brief sum
mary of what is going on in Alabama at present as a typical
Southern state.

The first consideration looking to industrial development in
any country is what advantages it has of climate, soil and fertil
ity; the second is what natural resources it has to develop, and
the third is the accessibility to markets. The answer to the
last proposition may be briefly stated. Navigable streams
are abundant throughout the Southern states, and the railroads
are so numerous that the travel and traffic in some places scarcely
support them. They have been built in anticipation of a more
rapid development of the country than has taken place. Rail
roads will penetrate every neighborhood which has business
enough to pay the road to come for it. The more important
problem for the producer to solve in respect to transportation is
how to reduce the cost so as to enable him to realize a reasonable
profit on his product. This is frequently difficult because the
railroad or other carrier must also realize a profit on its busi
ness. But as soon as the abundance of products enables the car
rier to realize fair profits in the aggregate from small freight
charges the problem is solved.

The financial panic which began in the latter part of 1892,
and continued through the greater part of the two succeeding
years, suspended three-fourths of the great industries of the
State, especially in the mineral section. It broke banks and
business houses formerly in good repute. Mines and factories
which withstood the financial storm ran on short time and reduced
wages, which caused strikes among the laborers and resulted in a

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH. 567

further loss of employment. There was general depression in
business. The products of toil commanded very low prices. No
demand ; no price. Those who possessed money ht;d no confidence
in any securities or any investments open to them. Values of all
kinds of property shrank until it became unsaleable at any price.
In the boom towns those who were rich in 1891-2 saw their fortunes
wither and dry up. The farmer had plenty to eat, but no money
with which to buy luxuries or to pay his debts.

Strong men, in many cases, begged for employment and could
not obtain it. At the poor wife and hungry children want stared
and grinned like a gaunt spectre which prided itself in tantalizing
the unfortunate suffering innocents. But the generous-hearted
dispensed charities, and suffering was partially relieved. There
was no money, or but little, in circulation. Everything seemed
flat, stale and unprofitable. The people believed that the trouble
was chargeable to our financial system. They demanded more
money — greenbacks and the free coinage of silver ; anything
for relief from the hard conditions. But how changed is the
country now ! It is not so prosperous nor is money so plentiful as I
would like to see ; but there is a wonderful revival of business.

The corn crop never was surpassed in the Southern states.
All observers know that surely betokens plenty of "hog and
hominy/' facilitates stock raising and places the people of all
classes above want in the way of a plain subsistence. The crops
of small grain have yielded fairly well. Melons, peaches,
pears, grapes, berries and garden vegetables of every variety
have been most abundant and of excellent maturity and sweet
ness. As an illustration, a gentleman informed me that from
one acre of grapes this year he had sold $100 worth of the fruit
and made two barrels of wine.

The great staple crop — cotton — was injured in some states by
too much ram. It is essentially a sun plant, but a fair crop is ma
tured and two-thirds gathered. A less acreage was planted than last
year, and a less amount of commercial fertilizer was used on this
year's crop than on that of last year because the prices of cotton
ruled so low last year that it admonished the prudent farmer to
make cotton his surplus crop and to produce that, if possible, at
a less cost than formerly. These causes surely make the crop
of this year two and a half million bales less than that of last year.

This will, however, make but little difference to the farmer,

568 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

who is not in debt, and that difference will be in his favor. A shorter
crop insures higher prices and brings him more money in the
aggregate for a crop which cost him less to produce than that of
last year. It is better for him. The condition of the southern
farmer has greatly improved, and is well calculated to bring to
him contentment and happiness. Low prices for cotton hurt
none of them except such as are in debt, and are being eaten up
by interest running against them. They want to realize the
greatest number of dollars .for their toil — any kind of dollars
which will pay their debts. An understanding of the whole fin
ancial question consists mainly in a proper understanding of
interest. But the number of Southern farmers, who are hope
lessly in debt, is greatly diminishing, and the present good prices
for cotton will bring them out.

The southern tier of counties in Alabama, Mississippi and
Georgia have extensive forests of yellow pine. The same may
be said of West Florida. The lumber industry in these, which
has been partially suspended for the last two years, is now fairly
active. Turpentine orchards, distilleriesv and saw mills abound.
They employ thousands of laborers at fair wages. The lands
are light gray sandy loam and when denuded of the timber are
settled and cultivated in small farms. With moderate fertiliza
tion they produce cotton, corn, oais, sweet potatoes, sugar cane,
tobacco, melons and a great variety of vegetables in paying quan
tities.

The next tier of counties running through these States just
above the first named from west to east is called " The Black
Belt" not so much because a large percentage of the population
is black, perhaps, as because the soil is dark, stiff and very pro
ductive. These lands were held principally by slave owners prior
to the war, were splendidly cultivated and yielded great profits.
The large plantations are now being cut up into smaller farms
and the numerous steam cotton ginneries, pickeries, compresses
and cotton seed-oil mills, to say nothing of the new cotton
factories and villages formed around them, indicate that the
people are appreciating their natural advantages and turning
them to good account. Every man without regard to his color
who is willing to labor finds ready employment at living wages.

The next or third tier of counties, adjoining on the north
those last named, and embracing about one-third of the territory

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH. 569

of the State, is hilly and mountainous. It is known as the
Mineral Belt. In the valleys are many fertile and beautiful small
farms and happy homes. Within this section are vast coal fields,
iron ore and a very considerable quantity of marble, limestone
and other valuable minerals. Gold has long been known to exist
but not yet discovered in paying quantities. Aluminum, mica,
topaz and diopside are found in some of these counties.

A large number of iron furnaces, pipe works, rolling mills,
box-car and car-wheel factories are within this belt.

Where, during the panic, mines were closed, furnaces smoke
less, mills and factories noiseless, now the mines are putting out
every ton of coal possible, the factories, mills and foundries give
forth the hum of engines, wheels and hammers ; the glare of
acres of coke ovens and the furnaces light up the country for
miles around, both day and night, while their tall chimneys with
their splendid plumes of black smoke ascending heavenward pro
claim to the world that there are thousands of busy men there and
no enforced idleness. The increased demand for coal, pig iron, cot
ton and other products at remunerative prices has resuscitated dead
enterprises, stimulated this activity in business and has enabled
employers to increase the wages of their employees. Thus it proves
a blessing not only to invested capital but makes the homes of
thousands of laborers happy and attractive.

The mines, furnaces, mills, foundries and factories, with but
few exceptions, at Birmingham, Anniston, Talladega, Sheffield^
Florence, Gadsden, Jasper, and in Bibb, Shelby and DeKalb
counties, are now in active operation. The natural resources are
exhaustless. On one side of Birmingham there is a mountain
of iron ore over fifty miles long, on the other side a vast field
of coal, and nearby another mountain of limestone for flux
ing. Thus Nature placed there in touch with each other
all the materials for the manufacture of pig iron, without limit,
cheaper than it can be done anywhere else in the world. There
are three coalfields in Alabama, the Warrior, the Cahaba, and
the Coosa, which together contain coal enough to supply the
entire world, at the present rate of consumption, for a period
of 150 years. Accurate surveys, made by competent geologists^
demonstrate that the amount is even greater than this estimate.

The success of one more experiment, which is under way at
Birmingham and Bessemer, will develop an indescribable mine of

570 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

wealth, that is, the manufacture of steel from the pig iron made
there. Many tons of the pig iron have recently been shipped to
Pittsburg, Pa., for experiment, and the report is that it makes a
good quality of steel. The greatest profit is always realized from
the finished product.

The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company is perhaps the largest
corporation engaged as its name indicates. It did not close oper
ations during the panic, but its stock ran down in the market to a
merely nominal figure. Now it is quoted at 46 cents in the dollar.
It employs 4,000 men, and does an immense business. The Sloss
Company also survived. It owns several furnaces and the coal mine
at Coalburgh, and does a large and fairly profitable business. There
are many smaller enterprises of similar character in that vicinity.

At Anniston, before and during the war, there was one iron
furnace, known as the Woodstock furnace. Now there are two
new ones and two more on the same vein of ore in the
neighborhood of Talladega. A first-class quality of charcoal iron
is made at Anniston and, during the war, when the ports of the
Confederate government were blockaded so that we could not
obtain guns from abroad of any description, this iron was shipped
by rail to the foundry and gun shops at Selma on the Alabama
River, and cast into cannon.

In addition to the furnaces, there is at this town a factory of
box-cars and car- wheels, rolling-mills and a cotton factory which
ships its goods in unbroken packages to China. There are also
extensive pipe works there, which recently underbid all competi
tors, and obtained a contract to supply a large amount of pipe to
Tokio, Japan. Business generally, after an almost entire suspen
sion, is rapidly regaining its former activity.

Gadsden, in Etowa County, several miles further north, is a
central point with many industries which were shut down
during the panic, every one of them, until about the beginning
of the present year. Since that date there has been located there
a cotton mill of 30,000 spindles, at a cost of over a half million
dollars, and will be in full operation within a few days.

The Southern Manufacturing Company, started last Febru
ary, is running full time, and has more orders on hand than it
can fill in six months. The Long Leaf Pine Lumber Company's
mills are busy.

The Kyle Lumber Company's mills, with a capacity of 40,000

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH. 571

feet per day, have all the work they can do. The bottling estab
lishment is busy. The Weller pipe works, which have been idle
for two years, have just gone into operation again. This year a
furnitnre factory has been established which now has travelling
agents in several states selling its products. The old suspended
iron furnace has been bought by a solvent company, and its ca
pacity is being increased to two hundred tons, and is now about
being put in blast.

The Elliott Car and Oar Wheel Manufacturing Company is
now running full time with a force of 300 hands, and has about as
many orders as can be filled with the present force in two years.

Arrangements are in progress to reopen and to begin opera
tions of the Crudup ore mines with upwards of 300 miners.
Other industries of a smaller character are projected.

To the West of Birmingham is Jasper in Walker County. It
is surrounded by coal mines and other important industries which
are now revivified and active.

The fourth tier of counties in Alabama, eight in number,
are properly called the Tennessee Valley, as they lie along
the river of that name. The country is picturesque and
beautiful, its soil very fertile and produces nearly everything
grown in the South. Jackson County has but little manufactur
ing but is a very attractive agricultural section. Huntsville, in
Madison County, is the largest town in the valley. It has a large
and profitable cotton factory and other important industries.
Florence, in the northwestern corner county of the State, is
beautifully situated and has within it several industries worthy of
note. These were paralyzed by the panic like the others already
mentioned. There is a spathite furnace well adapted to the pro
duction of spathite iron which has gained quite a reputation with
foundry men on account of its fluidity, which is equal to the best
of that class produced in Scotland.

The Philadelphia furnace which cost about $250,000 will go
into blast within a few days.

The Pump and Lumber Company, whose plant cost but $30,-
000, employs eighty operatives within, and 200 lumbermen out
side, obtaining material, etc , and the finished product is 5,000
pumps and 3,000 veranda columns, a large quantity of moulding
and other building supplies per month. The company pays good
wages and realizes a handsome net profit.

572 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The wagon factory, with an invested capital of $100,000, gives
employment to about 125 laborers, and turns out 140 to 150
wagons per week, for which a ready market is found.

A cotton factory, a small stove factory, a hoop factory, planing
mills and grist mills are in active operation and paying fairly well.

Sheffield, just across the river from Florence, was a boom
town which the panic killed, but phoenix-like it is rising from
its own ashes. Its furnaces and great industries are reviving and
breathing new life. There is a great future for this beautifully
located town. Tuscumbia on the south and Florence on the
north within two or three miles of it are its rivals for business.

Decatur is another boom town whose growth was stopped by
the panic. The limits of old Decatur were too contracted when
the boom struck it, and hence New Decatur was laid out and
partially built up. All the manufacturing enterprises went down
before the financial gale. The shops of that great line of enter
prising, thrifty and well-managed railway, the Louisville and
Nashville, was about the only survivor. But what is the present
condition ? The box car manufacturing plant, which cost a
half million dollars, is still closed and silent ; but the car- wheel
factory near by has resumed operations with a full force and is
doing well. The Southern chair works is a small but important
and prosperous industry.

The oak extract factory, a new industry, is turning out 160
barrels per day of tanning which is shipped to several different
parts of the country. The same company is erecting in close
proximity an extensive tannery with capacity for tanning 200
hides per day.

Near the same locality parties are projecting the erection at an
early day of a starch factory, the plant to cost one million dol
lars. This will furnish a market for part of the surplus crops of
corn and potatoes produced in that neighborhood. No country
surpasses Alabama in the production of the sweet potato which
contains more starch than the Irish potato, and hence is more
desirable for the starch factory.

Cullman on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, south of
Morgan, the county in which Decatur is, was supposed to have
such a poor soil as to be worthless for agricultural purposes.
John J. Cullman brought a colony of his countrymen — Germans
— there after the war, and settled them in the woods. They

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH. 573

had to build their homes and clear np the lands. To-day that
county is filled with beautiful little farms, and thrifty industrious
farmers. Within the county more grapes are grown, and more
and better wine made from them, than in any other county in
this State.

Opelika, Union Springs, Eufaula, Columbia, Tallassee, Prat-
ville, Selma, Tuscaloosa and many other places within the State
have cotton factories and other paying industries.

At Montgomery, the historic and beautiful capital city, there
are half a hundred manufacturing enterprises, great and small,
in operation, and no person who wishes to earn his living by honest
toil need beg, but can find remunerative employment.

At perhaps one hundred towns in the State the hum of the
spindles and the clangor of the looms of the cotton factories will
be heard by the close of the present year. They pay from six to
ten per cent, dividends and diversify our industries. When we
equal New England mills in the production of the finely finished
product the dividends will be more than doubled.

Mobile, a lovely city of most hospitable people, is our only sea
port and is destined to become the mistress of the Gulf. Her
channel has been improved until vessels drawing 24 feet 10 inches
of water can enter and depart at high tide. When the locks and
dams on the Warrior River are completed coal can be delivered
on board ships in the harbor for two dollars per ton or less.
When the Nicaragua Canal is completed, as it surely will be, Mo
bile will become the great entrepot for all shipments from as far
north as Chicago to China and Japan and for a good portion of
those for the California Coast. There is not a coast town in the
Southern States which to-day has such a splendid commercial
future as Mobile.

The frequency of elections gives the people incessant political
fermentation, because ambitious men are always " laying their
pipes " and maturing schemes for some preferment next year or
the year after. An election once in three or four years would be
better for the people. The only live political question now for
the politicians to discuss is the free coinage of silver. There are
many good honest people in the South who believe that the free
and unlimited coinage of silver would do more to restore pros
perity to the country than anything ebe. The politicians have
so taught them.

574 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Aspirants for office are discussing it pro and con. The people
go out and hear the speeches and read the newspapers, and many
of them are confused and undecided on account of the great dif
ference of opinion among speakers, writers, and trusted party
leaders. They want plenty of good, honest money to do the
business of the country. They don't care what the standard is,
so long as parity is maintained, and the gold, silver, and paper
dollar possess equal purchasing and debt-paying power. With
this state or condition of the money of the country, if the
people can have prosperous times, they are content. Free and
unlimited coinage of silver would not place an additional dollar
in the pockets of him who has no silver bullion to coin. If a
mill grinds grain free of toll for all comers it will not give
any flour or meal to him who has no grain to take to the mill.
No one in the Southern states owns any silver bullion. There
is no silver mine within them. How then would free and un
limited coinage put any more money into circulation there ? If it
would cause a great quantity of silver to be coined at the present
ratio it would drive gold out of circulation, in accordance with
Gresham's universal law. It would thereby destroy parity and
force our metallic dollars to part company and gold to go to a
premium.

Our Southern people, with few exceptions, are not "gold
bugs" nor "silverloons," but true bimetallists. They want all
the silver that can be kept on a parity with gold, which the ad
ministration is struggling to do by means which the President
believes best calculated to accomplish it.

The people, from a careful study of the question, are begin
ning to doubt and grow distrustful of the experiment of free
coinage of silver lest it may, if adopted, beget another panic, or
so impair confidence as to roll back the tide of prosperity which
is now setting so beautifully towards them.

They are now beginning to lave in its placid and refreshing
waters. Let the tide rise which, " taken at the flood, leads on
to fortune/'

WM. C. GATES.

fPublir Lih
\

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS;

BY MAKY ANDERSON DE NAVAEEO.

THE second child of a large family, my mother was brought
up according to the most rigorous principles. Her thoughts were
hardly her own ; her literature was chosen for her, consisting of
the Lives of the Saints and other pious books; while plays, dances,
and the amusements generally permitted to the young, were
strictly forbidden, and practically unknown to her. My excel
lent grandparents, though Roman Catholics, had been educated
to believe that the natural tendencies of the theatre were " down
ward and pernicious/' and their children in turn were not allowed
even to think of entering such a place. However, by the aid of
her eldest and favorite brother, his pardonable dissimulation, and
a friendly latch-key, my mother was, at the age of seventeen,
smuggled into one of those " dens of iniquity " for the first time.
She was carried away by the talent and great beauty of Mrs.
D. P. Bowers, and by the charm surrounding that interest
ing, though sensational and old-fashioned play, "The Sea
of ICQ."

It was probably this breath of romance that caused her to grow
more and more restive under the strict discipline of her home
life. At any rate, it was soon after her first visit to the theatre
that she found a way of meeting, and losing her heart to, Charles
H. Anderson, a young man of English birth, who had just fin
ished his education at Oxford. Clever, scholarly, charming in
presence and manner, devoted to sport, a passionate lover of the
drama and all things artistic, he was the very man to win the ad
miration of a girl whose life had been as narrow and fettered as
hers. With all his graces and accomplishments, he was, unfor-

* Copyright, 1895, by MARY DK NAVARRO.

576 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

tunately, not religious, and his proposal for my mother's hand
was met by a stern refusal from her parents. They were espe
cially opposed to the marriage of their daughter with a man de
void of faith. My mother was therefore forbidden to see him
again, though from a worldly point of view her lover had every
thing in his favor. For some months a secret correspondence
was carried on between them. Wearying, however, of continued
separation, and aided again by the favorite brother, they eloped
and were clandestinely married. The young couple, after a
year's sojourn in New York and Philadelphia, wended their way
westward in 1859, only a few weeks before my birth.

We left Sacramento when I was still a child in arms, my mother
wishing to be near her uncle, who was pastor of a small German
congregation near Louisville, Ky. Her parents had not forgiven
her for marrying against their wishes, and she felt the need of a
friend during the frequent absences of my father in England.
We took up our abode in Louisville in 1860.

New California was situated just outside of Louisville, and here
" Pater Anton," as my uncle was called, had long been a great
favorite. On his feast-day it was delightful to see his congrega
tion in their " Sunday clothes," bringing their children for his
blessing, the little creatures in bright-colored German frocks,
laden with flowers, fruits, eggs, home-knitted socks, cotton
handkerchiefs of the brightest red and yellow, cooing pigeons,
quacking ducks, chickens, while a pig or two (from the richer par
ishioners) invariably joined in the general chorus of holiday-
makers. Pater Anton was the gayest of them all, for though a
man of great learning, an accomplished linguist, a fine musician,
and an eloquent preacher, he was simpler than the simplest of his
flock. His appearance was so striking that passers-by turned to
look at him in the street. He was tall, with an habitual stoop.
His features were finely chiselled, and his straight black hair,
worn long, was cut like Liszt's. He had the most beautiful
mouth and teeth I have ever seen, the sweetest smile, and the
heartiest laugh in the world. My mother could not have chosen
a better friend for herself or for her children.

" Dans nos souvenirs la mort louche la naissance" My father
died when I was but three years of age, and within a few months
of the birth of my brother. He died at Mobile at the age of
twenty-four, in the full flush of his youth, " extinguished, not

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 577

decayed/' I remember nothing of his voice, look, or manner ;
nor have we any portrait of him now remaining.

Pater Anton (" Nome," as I called him, "uncle" being an
impossible word for me then) often came to cheer our little family.
I can see him still, on his fat old lazy horse, trotting up the street,
his long hair waving in the wind, his face shining with pleasure,
his rusty coat, shining also (with age, for he thought it worldly to
have more than one new coat in eight years.), while from his large
pockets, dolls, trumpets, jumping- jacks, and other ravishing toys
stuck out in every direction. What a picture he was of kindness
and child-like gaiety, and how we hailed him with cries of joy
and clapping of hands !

My brother and I were frequently allowed to go to New
California to visit Nonie. The bright little town, with its houses
painted blue, red, pink and white, with meadows and pastures
intersecting them, looked more like a toy town than a " real live
one." Now, alas ! all the quaint prettiness has vanished ; large
factories, ugly breweries and brickyards disfigure it. The church,
the priest's house, and the school of the old time, alone remain.
We always spent the great feast-days there. Especially do I
remember Corpus Christi. On that day, the pasture near the
church seemed to my childish eyes like an enchanted scene.
Many altars were erected there, covered with lace, flowers and
lighted candles. The village band played festal music, and was
answered by the distant notes of the organ and choir from the
little church. Three times the beautiful procession filed around
the pasture. Preceded by small girls in white, scattering rose-
leaves, and acolytes swinging their silver censers, came Pater
Anton carrying the monstrance. Kneeling in the grass, we sent
up fervent prayers, the warm summer sun shining like a benedic
tion over all.

Nonie began to teach me the organ. He wished to train my
brother and me for the lives he and my mother had mapped out
for us. My brother was to study medicine and help him gener-
erally (Nome was aTi excellent physician, and could soothe the
bodily as well as the spiritual ills of his flock), while I was des
tined to care for his small household, tend the parish poor, train
the choir, and play the organ on Sundays and holidays. But
man proposes and God disposes.

About that time, after remaining a widow for five years,

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 37

578 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

my mother was married to Dr. Hamilton Griffin, of Louis
ville, a surgeon and major in the Southern army, who had
gone through the entire war, having been wounded severely
on two occasions. I was then eight years old, and it was
thought necessary to begin my general education. They
took me to the Convent of the Ursulines, near Louisville, and
left me there. "Who that has ever suffered it can forget the
first great homesickness ? I remember distinctly my utter
misery when the grated door closed upon the mother and brother
from whom I had never before been separated. The convent
was a large Italian-looking building, surrounded by gardens, and
shut in by high prison-like walls. That first night in the long
dormitory, with its rows of white beds and their little occupants,
some as sad as myself, my grief seemed more than I could bear.
The moon made a track of light across the floor. A strain of
soft music came in at the open window; it was only an accordion,
played by some one sitting outside the convent wall, but how
sweet and soothing it was ! The simple little melody seemed to
say: " See what a friend I can be ! I am Music, sent from
Heaven to cheer and console. Love me, and I will soothe and
calm your heart when it is sad, and double all your joys." It
kept saying such sweet things to me that soon I fell asleep and
dreamed I was at home again. From that night I felt music to
be a panacea for all my childhood's sorrows.

Owing to an indolent nature and an impatient dislike for the
beginnings of things, I learned little besides music and a smat
tering of German, which was promptly forgotten. Thinking only
of amusement, I had, with wicked forethought, begged my indul
gent mother to provide my school uniform with spacious pockets.
These were secretly filled with wee china dolls, bits of stuff and
sewing implements, with which I made entire trousseaux for the
charming dollies during the study hours, and, when the unsus
picious nun was not looking, kept the girls in a constant titter by
dancing the dolls upon my desk as each new dress was donned.
Our convent uniform consisted of a plain blue cashmere skirt and
bodice, and a large straw scoop-bonnet, with a curtain at the back.
In this most unpicturesque costume we were marched to church on
Sunday, two and two, where my enthusiastic singing of the litany
generally put the others out, and where, to the horror of the nuns,
in my haste to leave the church, I invariably genuflected with my

THE OIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 579

back to the altar. The first year went by quite uneventfully,
until the end of the term, which was celebrated, as usual, by an
" exhibition/' as they called the songs and recitations given by
the children. An exhibition it was ! The nuns, knowing that
my mother would dress me tastefully for the occasion, put me in
the front row of the opening chorus — an appropriate one, for it
began with :

" My grandfather had some very fine geese,
Some very fine geese had he,

With a quack quack here, and a quack quack there,
And a here quack, there quack, here, there quack,
Oh, come along girls, to the merry green fields,
To the merry green fields so gay 1 "

This artistically poetic and musical gem contained verses
enough to name all the animals possessed by that unfortunate
grandfather. The long rehearsals over, the all-important after
noon arrived. I daresay that even at La Scala, on a first night,
there never had been more flutter and nervous excitement than
on our little stage. The house was crowded with anxious moth
ers, sisters, cousins and aunts — the male members of the respec
tive families having been wise enough to stop away. At last the
curtain rose. My poor mother was horrified to see me disgracing
my prominent position by standing more awkwardly than -any of
the others, my pretty frock already disarranged, and my hands
spread so conspicuously over my chest, that, in her eyes, they
soon became the most prominent part of the scene. Losing the
tune, I suddenly stopped, and foolishly began to giggle. My
mother overheard some one remark, " What a funny awkward
little girl ! " Others laughed outright. The performance over,
I felt very like a great heroine, and took my "consolation prize"
(what an excellent institution it is !) as though it had been some
well-earned laurel ; only, I could not quite understand my moth
er's crestfallen look. That was my " first appearance upon any
stage!"

During the following term the convent was stricken with a
contagious fever, and I was taken away from its friendly shelter
just as I had begun to love it. The serious illness that ensued
was made almost pleasant by my mother's care, the companion
ship of that best of friends, my brother Joe (to whom, alas, I
gave, with unconscious liberality, all the ills my flesh was heir

680 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to), and by the frequent visits of our Nonie, who often impro
vised, or played from some favorite master, on the organ below,
thus cheering my convalescence, and making the names of
Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven familiar to me long before I had
ever heard the magic one of Shakespeare. A year of idleness fol
lowed this illness, greatly relished then, but later, when the irre
vocable flight of valuable time was realized, deeply regretted.
De Quincey says that by deducting time for eating, sleeping, ex
ercise, bathing, illness, and so forth, a person of three score and
ten has only eleven and a half years left for the development of
what is most august in our nature. When study was recom
menced, it was at a day school, the Presentation Academy.
There, with accustomed indolence, I learned nothing, with the
exception of reading, in which I was generally head of the class.
Every day I was sent to school with a shining morning face, a
fresh frock, and a tidy blue ribbon to bind my obstreperous
locks. Every evening I returned home with the frock ink-
stained and torn, the pretty ribbon lost, and looking about the
head and hands a veritable " Strubelpeter." I was punished con
tinually for not knowing my lessons — made to stand in a corner
balancing a book upon my head, or sit on the dunce stool, which,
fortunately for me, was softly cushioned. " I love sitting here/7
said I to Sister du Chantal — who was fond of me in spite
of my mischievousness, and who always administered necessary
punishment in a kindly way — " for I am nearer to you,
can see the girls better, and this seat is so much more comfortable
than those hard benches." Doctor Griffin's brother, Guilderoy —
always a favorite with me — lived near us in those days. My brother
and I were taken at his request to his charming parties, when
ever any person of interest graced them. It was on one of these
occasions that I saw George D. Prentice for the first time. Cele
brated as a poet and wit, his caustic remarks in the journal he
edited made him the object of as much fear as admiration. Hav
ing been told that Mr. Prentice was a great man, that he was not
to be talked to or stared at, my terror may be imagined when he
took me on his knee ; for, though his heart was kind, his face,
doubtless from having had many hard fights with the world, wore
a stern, forbidding look, and was deeply furrowed with careworn
lines. His manner was gruff, and his hands, I noticed, were
soiled and ink-stained. After trotting me on his knee until I

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 581

was " distilled almost to jelly " with fear, he took me across the
room to ask questions and receive answers from that uncanny
little machine, La Planchette, in which he was greatly interested.
The result of that meeting was a frightful nightmare, in which
Mr. Prentice, with his gaunt figure, thin grey locks, and Mephis-
tophelian brows, appeared as a magician, and La Planchette as a
small grinning devil under his spell.

It was my desire to be always good and obedient, but, like
" Cousin Phoenix's legs/' my excellent intentions generally car
ried me in the opposite direction. On seeing a minstrel show for
the first time I was fired with a desire to reproduce it. After a
week of secret plotting with Joe, I invited Dr. Griffin and my
mother to a performance of the nature of which they were utterly
ignorant. It took place in our front parlor, the audience sitting
in the back room. When the folding doors were thrown open,
my baby sister and I were discovered as " end men/' She was but
eight months old and tied to a chair. Our two small brothers sat
between us, and we were all as black as burnt cork, well rubbed in
by my managerial hands, could make us. Blissfully ignorant of
my mother's mute consternation, I gaily began the opening

chorus :

" Good-bye, John 1 Don't stay long 1
Come back soon to your own chickabiddy."

The scene that ensued I need not describe. After being
punished for some such naughtiness, I usually wended my way to
the attic, that being the most gloomy part of the house, where,
indulging my misery to the full, I would imagine myself dead,
and revengefully revel in the thought of my mother's repentant
grief over my coffin. On seeing my tear-stained face, she gener
ally gave me a dime to soothe my wounded feelings, which it in
variably did as soon as I could reach an •''ice-cream saloon," and
there invest in a saucer of "child's delight."

At that time, my brother and I had two farms in the hills of
Indiana. Twice a year we crossed the beautiful Ohio to visit
them. There we found some excellent horses, and it was not
long before I learned to catch one in the paddock and mount and
ride without saddle or bridle.

Years after, in London, a well-known riding-master said to
me, " Why, Miss Handerson, you 'ave missed your vocation.
What a hexcellent circus hactor you would 'ave made ! I'd like

062 THE NORTH AMERICAN RSVIEW.

to see the 'orse as could throw yon now/' My early training
without stirrups, often without saddle or bridle, had taught me
how to sit firmly.

At the age of twelve I first heard the name of him who was to
awaken the serious side of my nature, and eventually shape my
later career. One night Dr. Griffin, who had in his youth prided
himself on his acting as an amateur, took down from the book
shelf, a large, well-worn, red and gold volume.

" This," he said, " contains all the plays of William Shakes
peare, and I mean to read to you the great master's masterpiece,
' Hamlet.' ' Though I understood nothing of the subtle thought
and beauty of the tragedy, the mere story, characters, and above
all that wonderful though nameless atmosphere that pervades all
of Shakespeare's dramatic works, delighted and thrilled me. For
days I could think of nothing but the pale face and inky cloak of
the melancholy prince. The old red volume had suddenly become
like a casket filled with jewels, whose flames and flashes I thought
might glorify a life. I of ten stopped to look at it with longing
eyes, and one day could not resist climbing up to take it from its
shelf. From that time most of my play hours were spent poring
over it.

One nighu, not long after, the family were surprised to see me
enter the parlor, enveloped in one of Dr. Griffin's army cloaks.
I was scowling tragically, and at once began the speech:

"Angels and ministers of grace, defend us I
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,"

my version being,

"Angels and minstrels of grace, defend us I
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin's dame. *

The latter innovation was made to evade having on my conscience
so sinful a "swear "as damned. Those present, seeing the drift
of my entrance, burst into laughter at the droll little figure with
its much bepowdered face. Feeling this to be disrespectful, I
indignantly quitted the room, falling over the cumbersome cloak
in what was meant to be a majestic exit. Certainly a very unprom
ising first appearance in the bard's great masterpiece !

The first play I ever saw was " Richard the Third," with
Edwin Adams as the crook-backed tyrant. Young, graceful,
handsome, an ideal actor in romantic characters, he was hardly
fitted for so sombre and tragic a part. Yet the force of his per-

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 683

sonal magnetism stamped his every word, look, and gesture in
delibly upon my memory. The music and lights, the actors and
actresses, whose painted faces seemed far more perfect to me
then — I was but twelve years old — than anything in nature ;
luckless Anne, Henry the Sixth, who, though he is an interloper
in the play, makes, through Gibber's daring, a splendidly effect
ive acting scene ; the royal army, consisting of six (l scrawny "
knock-kneed supers, with a very unmilitary look about them —
all are as clear before me now as though I had seen them yester
day. How we always remember the first dip into a new sensa
tion ; after-impressions of things a hundredfold greater are
blotted from our minds !

My mother, seeing my delight in the play, promised that, if
we deserved it, my brother and I should occasionally attend the
weekly matinees. With such a reward as two theatre tickets in
view, any amount of good conduct was cheap in payment. I be
came less mischievous and forgetful.

We were blest with but little of this world's goods at the time,
and, my help in the household being needed, I was taught the
culinary art. In a few months I could cook an excellent dinner
when called upon. I remember sitting by the stove with a bast
ing spoon (to be used on a turkey) in one hand, and Charles
Readers "Put Yourself in His PLace" in the other. "The
Winter's Tale/' "Julius Csesar," and "Richard the Third" were
also read as I sat by the kitchen fire baking bread. The theory
that it is impossible to do two things at once did not appeal to
me. I felt certain that no one could enjoy the poet's inspira
tion more than I, and at the same time turn out a better loaf.
Thankful I have always been for the knowledge of these useful
arts — which I think every girl should master — as they are whole
some both for mind and body.

When the longed-for Saturday came, little Joe and I would
start for the old Louisville Theatre, then on the corner of Fourth
and Green streets, quite two hours before the doors were opened.
The man in the lobby, observing my singular keenness, soon al
lowed us, early as it was, to enter, though he was compelled to
lock the door after us. We would then sit alone in the large
dimly-lighted theatre, feeling the most privileged of mortals,
silently watching the great green curtain, and imagining all the
enchantments it concealed. To leave the Temple of Enchant-

584 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ment and come back to commonplace realities was our only sad
ness. Fairy plays, melodramas, and minstrel shows formed our
regular menu.

An announcement that Edwin Booth was to visit Louisville
filled its playgoers with delightful anticipations. Times were
hard, we were poor, and many sacrifices had to be made to enable
us to witness a few of his performances. " Richelieu" was the
first of the series. What a revelation it was ! I had never seen
any great acting before, and it proved a turning point in my life.
The subtle cunning with which the artist invested the earlier
parts of the play was as irresistible as the power, fire, and pathos
of the later scenes were terrible and electrifying. It was impos
sible to think of him as an actor. He was Richelieu. I felt for
the first time that acting was not merely a delightful amusement
but a serious art that might be used for high ends. After that
brilliant performance sleep was impossible. On returning home
I sat at the window of my little room until morning. The night
passed like an hour. Before the dawn I had mapped out a stage
career for myself. Thus far, having had no fixed aim of my own
making or liking, I had frittered my time away. Then I realized
that my idle life must end, and that much study and severe train
ing would have to be undertaken : this in secret, however, for
there was no one to go to for sympathy, help or advice in such a
venture. Indignant that all my people had, in times gone by,
looked upon so noble an art as harmful, if not sinful, I felt no
prick of conscience in determining to work out clandestinely what
seemed to me then my life's mission. I was fourteen years of
age, inexperienced and uneducated, but I had not a moment of
doubt or fear. Mr. Booth's other performances intensified my
admiration for his art,* and strengthened me in my resolution.
Who can ever forget his Hamlet ? Where shall we find another
such lago, Richard, Macbeth, Shylock? Surely,

u He was the Jew
That Shakespeare drew."

Would not Macklin himself have given him the palm for his
portrayal of that great character? I am proud to owe my
awakening to the possibilities of dramatic art to such a master.

* That admirable woman and artist, Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), once told me
that, since Macready, few actors had approached Mr. Booth in intellectuality, per
fect elocution, grrace, personal magnetism, or the power of complete identification
with his characters. It was a great pride to me, an American, that this gifted and
severely critical Englishwoman appreciated so unstintedly our beloved actor.

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 585

His engagement over, I made a proposition to my mother, a
promise rather, that I would apply myself earnestly to study, if
allowed to work at home, school having grown unbearable ; I
agreed that, if at the end of a month she saw no improvement, I
would willingly return to the Academy. After much considera
tion, she determined to give this new arrangement a trial, the
old one having been far from successful. I selected for my study a
small white-washed carpetless room at the top of the house, where
no one was likely to intrude; its only furniture a table and chair, a
crucifix, a bust of Shakespeare, a small photograph of Edwin Booth,
and a pair of foils, which I had learned to use with some skill.
Bronson, Comstock, and Murdock on Elocution, Rush on the
Voice, Plutarch's Lives, Homer's Iliad, and the beloved red and
gold volume of Shakespeare, were my only books ; and these had
been stolen by degrees from the library below. After many
years in more luxurious apartments, how often have I longed for
that fresh, sunshiny little den !

A few years before, I had had an attack of malignant diphtheria,
which would have proved fatal but for a successful operation
Nonie had been bold enough to perform. The attack left my
throat very weak. Realizing that a far-reaching voice was one
of the actor's most essential instruments, my first effort, on be
ginning work, was to strengthen mine. In Comstock there were
certain instructions upon breathing which I promptly made use
of. Strange it is, but very few of us know how to breathe prop
erly. The simple method of taking a deep full breath through
the nose, without strain, holding it as long as possible and
slowly exhaling it through the mouth, never going through the
exercise more than twelve times consecutively, and always in the
open air, not only freshens one, like a dip in the sea, but, when
followed by certain vocal exercises, gives control over the voice,
which it strengthens and makes melodious. At the end of six
months my voice was hardly recognizable, it had become so
much fuller and stronger. Here was a great difficulty overcome.
As a voice that can be heard is the alpha of the actor, grace is
one of the requisites next in importance. Tall for my age, I was
conscious of being extremely awkward. This defect was not so
easily remedied, and for years, in spite of constant efforts to con
quer it, remained one of my great drawbacks.

The parts of Richard the Third, Richelieu, Pauline, and

586 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Schiller's Joan of Are were memorized and studied in detail.
Schoolroom lessons were also worked at with such good-will that
in one month I had made more progress than during six at
school. So satisfactory was the new system that it was allowed
to continue. The real cause of this improvement no one guessed.
My secret, however, consumed me. I longed to tell someone of
my plans for the future, and above all to show how I could read
and act, for as yet I had no proof that I was working in the right
direction.

In the South most of the servants were negroes. Among ours
was a little mulatto girl (" nut-brown maid," she called herself),
whose chief attraction to me was her enthusiasm for the theatre.
One night in desperation I went to her while she was washing
dishes in the kitchen, and there unfolded all my hopes. It was
to her I first acted, and it was she who gave me my first applause.
The clapping of those soapy, steaming hands seemed to me a ver
itable triumph. Believing that a tragic manner alone would suf
ficiently impress the situation on the " nut-brown maid," I
began with a hollow voice and much furrowing of the brow :
" Juli, wilt thou follow and assist me when I quit my child
hood's home to walk in the path of Siddons, Kemble, and
Booth ? " " Oh, Miss Manie, you kin count on dis pusson,
fo' de Lor' you kin ! Why, my stars, what a boss actor you is !
But you mus' 'low me to call your maw ; •* and in a trice she was
gone. A few moments later she re-entered the kitchen with my
mother, who was greatly surprised by my performance in the
fourth act of " The Lady of Lyons," which could not have been
acted in a more appropriate part of the house. She in turn
called the critic of the family, Dr. Griffin, who likewise was
astonished, and made my heart beat with joy by saying, "You'll
make a good actress some day. Your scene has thrilled me, and
I would rather have rough work and a good thrill than any
amount of artistic work without it." Spurred on by such
encouragement I worked harder than ever, often staying up half
the night to get some effect while trying to look into the heart
and mind of the character under study. After that evening in
the kitchen, I read scenes or acted them nightly to our small
household, usually from "Hamlet," "Kichard," or Schiller's
"Maid of Orleans."

Dr. Griffin was practising medicine at the time, and happened

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 587

to be called in to see Mr. Henry Wouds,* the leading comedian
of Macauley's Theatre. He spoke to the actor so continually and
enthusiastically of my work., that the latter at last requested a read
ing from me. Richard was the part, I determined, which would
be the best, not to read, but to act to him. The interval before
the day fixed for this trial was intensely exciting, and I was pain
fully nervous on seeing Mr. Wouds accompanied by the stage and
business managers of the theatre, coming towards our house. I
had never before seen an actor off the stage ; this was in itself a
sensation, and I felt besides that my whole future depended on
his judgment of my work. The acting began, and was continu
ally applauded. When over, Mr. Wouds sprang towards me,
and, taking both my hands, said, " Let me be the first to hail
you as our American Kachel."

Mr. Wouds was soon called away to support Miss Charlotte
Cushman during her engagement in Cincinnati, Ohio. He
evidently spoke of my work to the great artist, for, 'a few days
after his departure, a letter came from him saying that Miss
Cushman wished to hear me read. My mother, thinking such
attentions injurious to one so young, grew nervous when she saw
that not only was I bent upon going but that my usual champion,
Dr. Griffin, meant to aid and abet me. He urged her to make
the short trip, if only to see the great actress. With much per
suasion he won the day, and we started for Cincinnati.

The first character in which we saw Miss Cushman was Meg
Merrilies, in an indifferent dramatization of Sir Walter Scott's
" Guy Mannering." When, in the moonlight of the scene, she
dashed from her tent on to the stage, covered with the grey
shadowy garments of the gipsy sibyl, her appearance was ghost
like and startling in the extreme. In her mad rushes on and off
the stage, she was like a cyclone. During the prophecy:

" The dark shall be light
And the wrong made right,
And Bertram's right, and Bertram's might,
Shall meet on Ellengowan's height,"

she stood like some great withered tree, her arms stretched out,
her white locks flying, her eyes blazing under their shaggy brows.
She was not like a creature of this world, but like some mad
majestic wanderer from the spirit land. When Dirk Hatter aide's

* A few years later, wearying of the stage, Mr. Wouds entered the church,
where his preaching was highly appreciated.

538 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

fatal bullet entered her body, and she came staggering down
the stage, her terrible shriek,* so wild and piercing, so full of
agony and yet of the triumph she had given her life to gain, told
the whole story of her love and her revenge. When after her awfully
realistic death-scene, she had been carried from the stage, there
was perfect silence in the crowded theatre, and not until the cur
tain fell upon the last few lines of the play did shouts of enthus
iasm break the stillness. The surprise and pleasure of the
audience knew no bounds when, having washed off her witch's
mask, she came before them in proprid personfl,, a sweet-faced
old lady, with a smile all kindness, and a graciousness of manner
quite royal. Indeed, I never saw such charm and dignity, until
years after, at Westminster Abbey, when, celebrating her Golden
Jubilee, Queen Victoria, with one sweeping courtesy, acknowl
edged with majestic grace the presence of the assembled multi
tude.

It was arranged that we should meet Miss Cushman the next
day. We accordingly awaited her in the large parlor of the
hotel. Presently we heard a heavy masculine tread, and a voice,
too high for a man's, too low for a woman's, saying, " I am sorry
to be late, but some of the actors were duller than usual this
morning." She stood before us, her well-set figure simply clad,
the short hair in her neck still in curling pins, showing a de
lightful absence of vanity, for she had just come in from the
street. She looked at me for a moment with the keenest interest
in her kind blue-grey eyes, then wrung my hand with unexpected
warmth. " Come, come, let us lose no time," said she in her
brisk business-like way. " Let ns see what you can do. Richard!
Hamlet ! Richelieu ! Schiller's Maid of Orleans ? A curious
selection for such a child to make. But begin, for I am pressed
for time." It was trying to stand without preparation before so
great a woman, but, with a determined effort to forget her, I
acted scenes from ( ' Richelieu " and " Jeanne d'Arc." When the
trial was over, I stood before her in that state of flush and quiver

* An actor who played Dirk Hatteraick with her, told me that at this climax she
•truck her breast, which was like a coal of fire with the disease that was fasc killing
her, and that her c y was one of intense agony. Talnn believed that an actor had
two distinct beings in him, apart from the good and the evil we all possess— viz., the
artist, who is any character he may be cast for, and the man in hid own person.
Hi •? theory was that the artist always studies the man, and cannot consider himself
near perfection until he becomes master of the man's every mood and emotion. He
describes the deathbed of his father, and the grief he felt in losing so excellent a
parent, but adds that even in that solemn moment the artist began curiously to

study the grief of the man. Yet he does not speak of the artist "giving the man
physical pain for the production of a stage effect, as did "

the great Cushman.

THE GIRLHOOD OF AN ACTRESS. 689

which often follows our best efforts. Laying her hand kindly
upon my shoulder, "My child," said she, "you have all the
attributes that go to make a fine actress ; too much force
and power at present, but do not let that trouble you.
Better have too much to prune down, than a little to
build up." My mother was troubled at hearing her speak
so calmly of the stage as my future career, and protested earn
estly. No one, she said, of her family, nor of my father's, had
ever been on the stage, and she added that, to be frank, she
did not like the atmosphere of the theatre, and could not look
with favor upon a child of hers adopting it as a profession.
Miss Cushman listened attentively. " My dear madam,"
she answered, " you will not judge the profession so severely
when ,you know it better. Encourage your child ; she is firmly
and rightly, I think, resolved on going upon the stage. If I
know anything of character, she will go with or without your
consent. Is it not so ?" (to me). "Yes," said I — and how my
heart beat at the confession. " Be her friend," continued she to
my mother. ' ' Give her your aid ; no harm can come to her with
you by her side." Then turning to me again, "My advice to
you is not to begin at the bottom of the ladder; for
I believe the drudgery of small parts, in a stock com
pany without encouragement, often under the direction
of coarse natures, would be crushing to you. As a rule I advo
cate beginning at the lowest round, but I believe you will gain
more by continuing as you have begun. Only go to my friend,
George Vandenhoff, and tell him from* me that he is to clip and
tame you generally. I prophesy a future* for you, if you con
tinue working earnestly. God be with you ! Doubtless in a year
or two you will be before the public. May I be there to see your
success ! " With a hearty farewell she stalked out of the room.
That was our first and last interview. In her almost brusque
manner, she had led me to the right path, and had, in less than
an hour, fought successfully the dreaded battle with my mother.
In two years' time, 1 had made my debut upon the stage, and she,
the greatest of all American actresses, was sleeping her last sleep
in a laurel-covered grave at Mount Auburn.

MARY DE NAVARRO.

* Misa Cusbman's words hare been given, not because they were flattering to
the writer, but because they show the quick decisiveness, insight into character,
and generosity of the eminent woman.

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND.

BY THE HOtf. ROBERT P. PORTER.

AT this moment we have, in the problem of the'government of
London, questions which involve all England, and interest the
civilized world. Municipal government in England is no longer
confined to the details of water supply, street paving and clean
ing, lighting and sewage, and police protection. Within
a period covered by my own observations, the large
provincial cities, and quite recently London itself, have become
the scenes of the most daring socialistic experiments of
the century. In consequence, the municipal life of the English
people has assumed a new phase for the student of political econ
omy, and one far more complicated than the examination of
budgets, the study of taxation and expenditure, and a comparison
of debt and valuation of property. Town life in the twentieth
century will be as widely different from town life in the nine
teenth century as the town life of the fifteenth century, which
Mrs. Green describes so interestingly, differed from that of the
present day. The stupendous change from country to town,
which the present generation has witnessed in northern Europe,
the United Kingdom and the United States, at first massed the
population like cattle in the lower quarters of the great cities.
The centralization of industry consequent upon changed methods
of manufacturing made this necessary. It took time to adjust
these centres of industrial energy to the new conditions, but it
was inevitable in a country like England, which in a large meas
ure abandoned agricultural interests for the more tempting fields
of manufacture. In this, of course, her large cities took an im
portant part. For a while no attention was paid to the condition
of the people either in workshop, factory or home. Tempted
from the dull monotony of rural life by higher wages than the

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 591

land afforded, the British working classes migrated to the large
cities. Huddled together in the vilest tenements, burrowing like
moles below the earth in noisome cellars, working hours without
number in the fetid atmosphere of illy ventilated factories, sub
ject to the frightful dangers of badly inspected mines, and falling
easy victims to disease in consequence of bad drainage or poor
water supply, the first step of the modern industrial system may
have brought a shower of gold to the capitalist, but it left a sick
ening trail of human victims in the wake of the triuniTjJiant car
of progress.

Bad as many of these cities are now in spots, and high as 'the
death rate is in the lower quarters, the report of the Royal Com
mission of 1844 revealed a condition that, if allowed to continue,
would have simply destroyed the efficiency of the working classes
of the kingdom and seriously impaired the nation's vitality.
Fortunately for England, the greed-driven manufacturers were
brought up sharply by an aroused public sentiment, and legisla
tion was begun which has led up to changes that will revolu
tionize town life of the twentieth century, forever explode the
inhuman theory that pressure of competition is justification for
degrading the standard of life of the whole community, and im
prove the condition and stamina of the English people.

The municipal spirit so common in the United States and in
the large cities of the ancient world seems to have been almost
dormant in England until the middle of the present century.
Then it broke out in many directions. The condition of the
working classes in the large towns was, as I have said, deplorable.
Education, sanitary conditions, hours of labor, protection of life
and health in occupation, open spaces for recreation, and rational
amusements had received little attention from economists, whose
eyes were fixed on the growing volume of Board of Trade statis
tics, and whose pens were active in the glorification of England's
expanding manufactures and commerce. The dawn of better
times came with the various factory and mining laws, the legis
lation in relation to sanitary matters and the artisans' dwelling-
house acts, followed by the establishment of Board schools, and
an awakening of the municipal spirit which has already brought
about many important changes in the provinces, and which in
six years has cemented the parishes of London into the greatest
municipal experiment of the age.

592 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

In this short time the establishment of the London County
Council has crystallized and humanized the heretofore discordant
elements of the metropolis, and, as it seems to me, has done more
to encourage what is best and most advanced in local life than all
London's 120 charters running over 670 years, from William the
Conqueror to George II., to say nothing of the innumerable acts
of Parliament relating to the functions of the various boards and
bodies which control the affairs of the metropolis.

Before dealing with London as we find it to-day it may be
worth while to briefly note some of the changes that have taken
place in the other principal cities, because there we shall find not
only much of interest and permanent value in the discussion of
the municipal problem, but much that will enable us to forecast
the future of this interesting experiment in governing five millions
of people.

The old aspect of municipal administration dealt with the
paving and lighting of streets, the supply of water, the construc
tion of sewers, in maintaining order and occasionally in the estab
lishment of Parks. The new phase of municipal administration
in its most ambitious form, aims to deal with every question that
directly or indirectly affects the life of the people. Carried to the
extent to which it has been in some British cities it is in fact
nothing short of municipal socialism. Those who wish to study
the details of this new order of things will do well to obtain a work
recently published, entitled " Municipalities at "Work," by
Frederick Dolman, in which I have found much of value
in relation to what the various English cities have accom
plished. Another useful work on the subject has been pub
lished by Dr. Albert Shaw, of New York, who has made some
interesting studies of individual English cities. The present
article at the most can only touch lightly the, as yet, partially ex
plored field of detail. A decided step in this direction would be
fatal to the purpose I have in view, namely, the influence of these
experiments on the social welfare of the masses of the people, for
whose benefit and improvement they have been instituted.

The new school of municipal administration in England enters
into the life of the people. It not only takes upon itself the un
profitable side of the local budgets, but argues very plausibly that
a well-governed municipality can afford to give no privileges by
which corporations may enrich themselves at the expense of the

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 593

community ; that such profits belong to the community at large
or should be used to promote the general welfare.

Beginning with the municipalization of gas and water, the
idea has extended to tramways, markets, baths, libraries, picture
galleries, technical schools, artisans' dwellings, cricket fields, foot
ball grounds, tennis courts, gymnasia for girls as well as boys,
regulation of refreshment tariffs, free chairs in the parks, free
music, and last, though not least, it is proposed to invade the
sacred rights of John Bung himself and municipalize the gin
shops and public houses.

At Glasgow, a short time ago, I was afforded an opportunity of
riding in the new and comfortable city tram cars. These cars are
gaily emblazoned with the city coat of arms. The men are dressed
in new and handsome uniforms, and instead of toiling from four
teen to sixteen hours per day to enrich a corporation, these men
work ten hours, are paid higher wages than before, and to all ap
pearances are treated like human beings. And yet travelling is
cheap enough — one mile one cent. Instead of charging, as in
London, a higher rate for long distances, working men are en
couraged to seek homes out of town by a proportional reduction
as the distance increases.

The municipality of Glasgow took over the tramways simply be
cause the private company refused to agree to improve the lot of its
employees. Fortunately like Liverpool and Manchester, Glasgow
had wisely constructed its own tramways. They had been leased
to the private company for twenty-five years, and the lease expired
last year. In renewing this lease the disagreement occurred which
ended in the determination of the city to carry on the business it
self. The old company refused to sell its rolling stock, where
upon the municipal corporation, not to be bluffed, purchased a
new and handsome outfit, lighted the cars by electricity, and is
to-day carrying on the business, I hope, successfully. Meantime,
the old company has transformed itself into an omnibus company
and is trying to compete with the municipality. It is a pity
Brooklyn was not in a position to have promptly done the same
thing and ended the recent trouble.

Glasgow is also considering a plan for the extension of small

bathing or washing establishments at the rear of every street of

houses. It is believed from experience in this direction that such

a plan would not only be self supporting, but in time profitable.

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 38

594 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Leeds last year took charge of its own tramways, and for much the
same reason as Glasgow. The inefficiency of the service and its
exactions from employees created such a widespread dissatisfaction,
that the corporation bought out the company. Wages were
at once increased, and hours reduced. Whaib is the result ?
Loss ? Not at all. An increase of half a million passengers, and
a profit to the municipality. Leeds, however, has not shown the
energy of Glasgow in dealing with the question of rapid transit.

Nearly all the principal cities of England, or at least those of
them imbued with^the new municipal spirit, have made, as it
were, a specialty in some particular enterprise, and with invari
able success.

Birmingham has become noted because of its great municipal
improvements and the success of all its efforts in this direction.
The zeal of this city not only extends to the comfort of its people,
but to the encouragement of art, science and literature. More
to the point, a quarter of a century of the most satisfactory work
in this direction has cost the ratepayer no more than the inefficient
management of old.

Manchester, among other things, supplies hydraulic power to
those requiring it. The boldest scheme probably ever undertaken
by a municipality was the construction of the Manchester Ship
Canal. The spirit of enterprise which prompted it deserves
success, though I am afraid it may prove a mistake. It is, how
ever, the only serious mistake which I have found thus far in my
inquiries. Liverpool has a tremendous fight ahead with its slums,
and so, indeed, has Manchester. In furnishing municipal lectures
and in bettering life and making it more attractive, Liverpool has
shown some progressive spirit ; though the old conservative
element abounding in the great commercial city of the kingdom
has hindered the progress which was practically unimpeded in the
Midland centre and the manufacturing towns of the North.
Glasgow, with its municipal street cars, its city lodging-houses,
laundries and popular concerts, is certainly second to Birming
ham ; Bradford, with its satisfactory electric light system, its
remodelled central part, its abolition of slums, and Leeds, with
its splendid Central Library and fifty-three branch libraries, and
more open space than any other city of its size, are instances of
the new order of things in municipal work that must be studied
separately to be fully understood and appreciated.

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 595

You cannot tabulate degrees~of comfort nor work out exhibits
showing the effect of all these changes upon human beings.
General observation alone helps in such matters and if my gen
eral observation is of any value, I have noticed a tremendous
change in all these cities since I first visited them nearly fifteen
years ago. I was sent abroad in 1880 by a department of the
United States government to look into the financial condition of
English cities, to measure their expenditure, gauge their receipts,
summarize their debts and estimate their burden of taxation.
Even in those days a municipal budget was a dry sort of table
to those of us who revelled in figures. The new conception of
municipal government had not then made the headway it has to
day. The relation to social progress was not as close then as now.

The condition of the population of these large towns has un
doubtedly improved. This is confirmed both by observation and
statistics. A satisfactory decline in the death rate has followed
all enterprises looking to the better housing of the poor, the in
creased area of parks and open spaces, the improvement of
sewage and of water supply. Early closing and reduced hours of
work, have elevated labor and improved the community. Baths,
libraries, reading-rooms, art galleries, technical schools, museums,
have all helped to make life better worth living in the large cities.
There can be but one opinion on this side of the picture.

So far as England is concerned, the only limit on this sort of
work would be, I suppose, the capacity of the assessment roll,
and the amount the ratepayer is willing to pay. Democratic
government we have here ; to some extent the government of
rich communities by poor men. In England, however, as a rule,
a more responsible class of men interest themselves in municipal
affairs, than with us. At the same time, outside of a few large
cities, I believe nearly as satisfactory results as we find in Eng
land can be obtained in well-governed American cities. As be
tween the contract system and the system of municipal authori
ties employing labor direct, I am in favor of the latter. There is
less chance of jobbery, of a low grade of work, and of squeezing
the man who gets the least and works the hardest.

The real, vital, debatable question, which the growth of the
municipal idea or municipal spirit is forcing to the front, is : How
far can municipalities go in this direction without undermining
the whole fabric of free competition ?

596 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

In thus becoming its own builder, its own engineer, its own
manufacturer, does a municipality enter too much into direct
competition with private industries ? Does it not undertake
work which individuals are equally able to perform ? If this be so,
is there not danger of those of us who applaud the Tramway en
terprise of Glasgow, the Keal Estate scheme of Birmingham, the
Municipal Tenements of Liverpool, the Hydraulic Power and
Ship Canal venture of Manchester, the Abolition of Slums in
Bradford, and the grand municipal achievement of Leeds, find
ing some day or other enterprises not in the present catalogue
taken up by municipalities. In other words, to what extent is it
safe to trust municipalities in this direction ?

John Morley has said: "You may safely entrust to local
bodies powers which would be mischievous and dangerous in the
hands of the central government." On this theory, undoubtedly
true in the main, England is for the moment basing her munici
pal legislation, and tthe cities and towns of the country are rap
idly becoming important factors in the adjustment of wages and
hours of labor. In all advanced cities, and especially cities
which have abolished contractors and employ labor direct, a
regular scale of wages corresponding to the highest rate is in force.
The hours of labor vary from fifty-three to sixty per week. In
some of the cities, sweepers, men employed in gas works, etc.,
pay in a small part of their earnings, which is supplemented by
the city, and at sixty-five they are pensioned. If they die before
this age the money goes to their representatives.

In matters relating to labor, perhaps the London County
Council is the most conspicuous example, if not for what it has
already accomplished, certainly for the present and future extent
of its operations.

The theatre of this experiment is an area difficult to define
because of its enormous size and the complexity of the jurisdiction
affecting it. The term London is at present so indefinite as to
cover at least ten different areas. * The population of these several
areas ranges from 37,705 for the City of London to 5,633,806, for
the total area within the Metropolitan Police District. The ad
ministrative County of London, over which the County Council
has jurisdiction in practically nearly all matters relating to the

* The corporation of the city, the County Council, the police, the magistracy,
poor-law guardians, and asylum board, the central criminal court, the school
board, the Register General, the water company, the gas company, the post-office.

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 597

general welfare of the people, except criminal matters and police,
contains about five millions of people. The cost of governing
this area, representing one-fifth of one per cent, of the area of
England and Wales, is something like $60,000,000 per annum.
This does not include either gas or water which are supplied at
an annual additional cost to the inhabitants of $25,000,000
and $10,000,000 respectively. For the definite charitable or
ganizations exclusive of hospitals, schools, and endowments of
all kinds, about $12,500,000 are annually spent.

According to Burdett's Annual the amount spent on the
principal hospitals is $4,000,000. There is no means of ascer
taining this exactly, but Mr. Burdett informed me that
the yearly income of the greater charities which have their
headquarters in London amounts to upwards of $35,000,000,
equal to the total revenues of New York city. Of this stupen
dous sum, London probably receives at least half, possibly
$20,000,000.

London's annual budget, as nearly as I am able to estimate it,
for taking care of between fi^e and six millions of people is as
follows :

Cost of Lighting $26,000,000

Watersupply 10,000,000

Police 9,500,000

Schools 10,000,000

Streets 10,000,000

Paupers 12,500,000

Private charities and hospitals of all kinds 20.00,000

Health 3,500,000

Fire protection 650,000

Interest on debt 5,000,000

Total $107,150,000

As an off-set for this enormous expenditure we have an income
that when compared with the rest of England is simply gigantic.
The assessed rental value of houses for London is upwards of
$180,000,000, nearly 30 per cent, of the total for all England; net
profits of trades or professions, $265,000,000, or over 41 per cent.
In the schedules relating to particular properties and public com
panies, London represents nearly 60 per cent, or a total of $445,
000,000 and in salaries and fees nearly 70 per cent., or $115,000,-
000, a total annual income exceeding 1,000 millions of dollars.

Perhaps these astounding totals representing incomes may give
American readers some idea of the volume of earnings that pour
annually into the coffers of this great center of the world's
wealth, trade and commerce.

598 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The items of expense given in the table above only represent
the more striking expenditures. It would be safe to estimate the
total cost in round figures, say at 110 millions of dollars. Nearly
a quarter of this goes for furnishing artificial light : another
quarter for pauperism and charities. London's gas bill repre
sents nearly one-third the amount expended for gas by the
United Kingdom. Nor is the item of pauperism and charities
large when we bear in mind the appalling fact that twenty-seven
out of every hundred deaths in this aggregation of humanity
occur in public institutions. Every fourth person you meet on
the crowded, bustling thoroughfares of Living London dies a pau
per, an inmate of a hospital or of a lunatic asylum.

The active industrial classes, those engaged in trades and in
dustries, exceed a million. To furnish these and other profes
sional and commercial classes with efficient means of locomotion
from their homes to the various centres of work, is a problem
hardly taken up by the municipality of London, much less solved,
as is the case in large provincial cities. It is managed in an un
satisfactory manner, by a patchwork of ingeniously disagreeable
methods, consisting of freezing, lumbering omnibuses, smoking,
choking underground railways and tramway cars which it takes an
hour's journey in some other conveyance to find. On the other
hand, the cab system is almost perfect, and the charges reason
able. The proportions of this service may be realized from the
fact that the total number of hackney and stage carriages at the
present time is nearly 15,000.

In the ordinary course of events the London County Council,
which by the way has come to stay, has some stupendous munic
ipal problems to solve without considerable extension of the
functions of municipal government — I mean without at present
plunging too deeply into the labor question, the municipal
ownership of the land for the common good, and the new vista
of possibilities of municipal action which the more advanced ad
vocates propose. One would think that the gas and water sup
ply involving $36,000,000 per annum, and the improvements of
transit, afford a field for the ambitions of the ablest municipal
statesmen. And there are some very able and distinguished men
in the London County Council, men who represent every phase
of thought in politics. At Spring Gardens extremes meet.
Howard of Norfolk, England's premier duke, may measure

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 699

swords with plain John Burns, M. P. and labor leader. The late
Prime Minister, Earl Rosebery, will always remember with pride
and satisfaction that he assisted at the birth of this most demo
cratic of all public governing bodies in England. As chairman
of the London County Council his first two annual addresses will
some day become of great historical importance in the discussion
of the municipal tendencies of the times. Statesmen of the first
class, scientists whose names are known the world over, econo
mists, men of letters, jurists, politicians, business men, labor
representatives, are for the moment taking an active interest in
administering to the comfort and welfare of the London five
millions. The experiment is watched with even more curiosity
and interest by foreigners who have a front view than by those
at home behind the scenes.

Of the public spirit, ability and honesty of these gentlemen
no one who has studied the six years' work of the London County
Council can have a doubt.

The adoption oi what is known as the " fair wages clause "
by the London County Council and many other English munici
palities is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, though the
growing tendency of the Council to take upon itself work of all
descriptions is used with effect by the Moderates to alarm timid
taxpayers and large landlords.

The best defence of this system, and of the " fair wages
clause" in all contracts maybe found in an article by Sidney
Webb in the January Contemporary. Mr. Webb is undoubtedly
the ablest Progressive leader in the Council. A politician will
find it difficult to answer such an argument as the following from
Mr. WebVs article :

" It may be economically permissible under the present
organization of industry for a private employer to pay wages
upon which, as he perfectly well knows, it is impossible for the
worker to maintain himself or herself in efficiency. But when
a Board of Poor Law Guardians finds itself rescuing from starva
tion, out of the Poor Eate, women actually employed by one of
its own contractors to make up workhouse clothing, at wages
insufficient to keep body and soul together, even the most rigor
ous economist would admit that something was wrong.

" The London County Council, responsible as it is for the
health of the people of London, declines to use its position as an

600 THE XORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

employer deliberately to degrade that health by paying wages
obviously and flagrantly insufficient for maintenance, even if
competition drives down rates to that pitch.

tf What economist, now that the Wages Fund is dead and
buried, will venture to declare this action uneconomic."

Shocking as it would sound to the free trade ears of Mr.
Webb, this is simply a municipal form of protection. Mr. Webb
would undoubtedly say that the council's policy in these matters
was not the abolition of competition, but the shifting of its plane
from mere cheapness to that of "industrial efficiency."

By this method it is claimed they close up to the contractor
the less legitimate means of making profit by the aid of " pauper
labor." We do no more than this when we ask the English man
ufacturer to pay a duty on his goods ; goods made perhaps in
the same way as Mr. Webb describes. In other words, the London
County Council has established, beyond doubt, the doctrine that
it is immoral to take advantage of any cheapness that is got by
merely beating dow/n the standard of life of particular sections
of the wage-earner. Mr. Webb says :

" And just as the factory acts have won their way to economic
approval, not merely on humanitarian grounds, but as positively
conducive to individual efficiency, so, too, it may confidently be
predicted, will the now widely adopted fair wages clauses."

As a protectionist I am willing to concede that industrial
efficiency is undoubtedly promoted by fair wages, that cheap
labor, whether in a large city or in the country districts, means a
degraded population; but I fail to see that the mischief or danger
in this sort of legislation, if mischief or danger there be, is in
curred by placing it in the hands of the State, whereby the la
bor of a whole nation is elevated, instead of permitting the cities
and towns to carry it on in spots. The strongest part of the
protection armor has always seemed to me what may be called
the political argument; that is, the conditions of the country (the
United States if you please) must be protected against the lower
conditions or standard of wages and of living in European coun
tries, where the environments of the working classes are so differ
ent. Whatever views may be held on these questions of political
economy it will be seen that municipal government in England is
spreading its functions in dangerous economic ground, and that
th« battle at this moment, for control of Spring Gardens involves

THE MUNICIPAL SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 601

questions of far greater import to England and the world at large,
than a penny a month increase in local taxes, or the administra
tion of the local budget of London.

This contest does not, as some suppose, involve the existence
of the County Council, or the so-called unification of London.
These questions are no longer debatable. London stands to-day
one, and indivisible. As Mr. Asquith recently said, "London
is not a fortuitous aggregation of a set of adjacent communities,"
though from a recent article by the last Lord Mayor of London in
this REVIEW one would imagine that to be the case.

Mr. Leonard Courtney, surely a wise and judicious man and
chairman of the Royal Commission, which recently reported on
this subject, informed me that no serious objection exists in
either political party to the ultimate unification of London.

Mr. Courtney is a Liberal-Unionist not fully in sympathy with
the progressive majority of the London County Council. " Lon
don," he said, " will never be divided into separate municipalities
— of that you may feel assured — not if the Conservative party
should return to power. The only question is the division of what
may be termed powers relating to the common life of the people
and those which may wisely be treated locally. In these changes
the corporation of London will be treated with fairness and with
a full appreciation of its wealth, traditions and civic importance."
Mr. Courtney is so entirely right in his estimate of English
public opinion on the question, that this phase of the London
municipal problem does not seem to me worth discussing in a
general way.

Lord Salisbury, who poses as the friend of the old city, is
barren so far as a positive policy is concerned. London will
never again be split up into topographical expressions. It has
realized the advantages of true civic patriotism, and will con
tinue to increase the central power in all things that aifect the
common interest and raise the level of its people. The only real
question, therefore, as I have endeavored to explain, is how far
this policy of improving the condition of the people may be carried
without encountering the danger already pointed out.

ROBERT P, PORTER.

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIYIL SERVICE.

BY THE HON. W. G. BICE, OF THE UNITED STATES CIVIL SER
VICE COMMISSION.

TWELVE years ago " An act to Eegulate and Improve the Civil
Service of the United States " became law. Since then this law
has continued unchanged — neither enlarged by amendment nor
diminished by repeal. This freedom from alteration may rightly
be counted a tribute to the discretion of those who framed the
statute and an evidence of their sound judgment. Certainly
such stable existence is conclusive proof of the desire of the people
that the plan thus formulated should have opportunity to dem
onstrate its usefulness.

The United States Civil Service Commission was the agency
created by the law of 1883 to put the machinery for improving
the civil service in motion, and to it was also committed
the guidance of this machinery in the subsequent regulation of
the service. The duties of the three Commissioners constituting
the Board are primarily ft to aid the President as he may re
quest" in preparing suitable rules for carrying the act into effect.
The essential improvements sought to be accomplished under the
act were three.

First : Fairness to all applicants and to all sections of the
country. This fairness to applicants is secured by the provision
for appointment in the public service after " open, competitive
examinations," which " shall be practical in their character, and
so far as may be shall relate to those matters which will fairly
test the relative capacity and fitness of the persons examined to
discharge the duties of the service into which they seek to be
appointed." Fairness to all sections of the country is secured by
the requirement that " appointments to the public service afore
said in the departments at Washington shall be apportioned

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. 603

among the several states, territories and the District of Columbia
upon the basis of population as ascertained at the last preceding
census." Obstruction by any person in the public service of the
right of examination, or false marking thereof, is made a penal
offence.

Second : Liberty of action in political matters. This liberty is
embodied in the declaration " that no person in said service has
the right to use his official authority or influence to coerce the
political action of any person or body." Dismissal from office is
the penalty provided by the rules for such coercion.

Third : Freedom from involuntary political servitude and from
political assessments. These are embodied in declaring " that no
person in the public service is for that reason under any obliga
tions to contribute to any political fund, or to render any polit
ical service," and by providing penalty of fine and imprison
ment of specified public officers or employees who shall be con
victed of soliciting or receiving political contributions te from
any person receiving any salary or compensation from moneys
derived from the Treasury of the United States." It is also a
penal offense for any person to solicit or receive such contributions
in any United States building, navy yard, fort, or arsenal ; or for
any person in the service of the United States to give to any other
person in the service of the United States any money on account of
or to be applied to the promotion of any political object whatever.

The scheme devised to accomplish these results is no longer in
its infancy. Its value now can be justly measured ; and while
vindication of the system necessarily condemns practices op
posed, it is needless to dwell, to tiresome iteration, upon
" spoils," " spoilsmen," and " spoils system." These and other
similar words have become the cant of the discussion ; they
retard rather than advance a present understanding of the
broader phases of the subject. The system in operation is abun
dantly justified when demonstration is made that it leads in the
direction of good government, apart from every other considera
tion based upon sentiment or moral speculation. And every in
telligent advocate of the improvement and regulation of the civil
service will be firm in his insistence that the chief argument must
be upon this line.

To-day under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission
are 55,000 positions, comprising what is properly known as the

604 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

classified civil service of the United States. While the number
of these positions increases constantly and automatically by
reason of the natural increase in the number of Government
employees, yet the"' greater additions to the 14,000 originally
classified by President Arthur have been made by subsequent
Presidential orders. From 1885 to 1895 there were 24,000
positions thus specially added. The most recent notable inclu
sion is that of about 3,000 positions in the office of the Public
Printer made by the President in August, 1895. The mag
nitude of the classified civil service as above defined may perhaps
be best realized in the light of the fact that there is an expendi
ture of $50,000,000 every year to pay the salaries of the places
comprised therein.

It. is a great advance in the just administration of public
affairs when a practical system has been devised by which sub
stantially 55,000 government places are opened to all our people
through the door of ascertained merit. It appears as a still
greater advance when it is realized that this army of 55,000 intel
ligent citizens, most of them voters, cannot be used in the future
either to bolster up a waning political creed nor be made a
barrier to any demanded reform. And, greatest advance of all,
in its bearing upon the integrity of a representative government,
is the fact that no part of this total compensation can be legit
imately exacted hereafter for political purposes, nor can the
weight of these salaries be used by unscrupulous men to secure
personal political work from public servants, whose wages are
paid by all the people. The accomplishment of these things in
disputably tends in the direction of better government.

The civil service law itself was the first efficient statutory
movement in the improvement of the civil service ; but, this be
ginning having been made, the improvement is now proceeding
upon even broader lines than those laid down in the law. Other
steps have been taken outside the law of far-reaching and bene
ficial importance, and these deserve attentive consideration.

It is of preliminary interest to note that under section 1753 of
the Kevised Statutes, passed March 3, 1871, a complete merit
system of civil service could be carried out except in the matter
of offences declared penal. This section provides as follows :

" Sec. 1753. The President is authorized to prescribe such regulation*
for th« admission of persons into the civil service of the United States as

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. 605

may best promote the efficiency thereof, and ascertain the fitness of each
candidate in respect to age, health, character, knowledge and ability for the
branch of service into which he seeks to enter ; and for this purpose he may
employ suitable persons to conduct such inquiries, and may prescribe their
duties, and establish regulations for the conduct of persons who may receive
appointments in the civil service."

Acting presumably under the latter part of this section, the
President, in July, 1886, issued executive instructions addressed
" To the heads of all Departments in the service of the General
Government." In the course of these instructions the President
said :

" Office-holders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only
is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously
avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official
duty, offending, by display of obtrusive partisanship, their neighbors who
have relations with them as public officials.

" They should also constantly remember that their party friends, from
whom they have received preferment, have not invested them with the power
of arbitrarily managing their political affairs. They have no right as office
holders to dictate the political action of their party associates, or to throttle
freedom of action within party lines by methods and practices which pervert
every useful and justifiable purpose of party organization. . . .

"Individual interest and activity in political affairs are by no means
condemned. Office-holders are neither disfranchised nor forbidden the exer
cise of political privileges ; but their privileges are not enlarged nor is their
duty to party increased to pernicious activity by office-holding.

" A just discrimination in this regard between the things a citizen may
properly do and the purposes for which a public office should not be used is
easy in the light of a correct appreciation of the relation between the people
and those entrusted with official place, and a consideration of the necessity,
under our form of government, of political action free from official co
ercion."

The issue of this letter was the second important progression
in the improvement and regulation of the civil service.

These established regulations for the conduct of persons re
ceiving appointments in the civil service have been of great value
in supplementing the provisions of the act of 1883. They were
subsequently included in general terms in the Postal Laws and
Regulations, as follows :

" Office-holders must not use their official positions to control political
movements. They should not offend by obtrusive partizanship, nor should
they assume the active conduct of political campaigns. A postmaster is not
forbidden to exercise any political privilege, but should make proper dis
crimination between what ought and what ought not to be done by a public
officer. He serves all the people, who are entitled to attention, civility, and
assistance. No postmaster in whom the Government has, by virtue of his

606 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

appointment, reposed trust and confidence should find difficulty in deciding
as to the proper course to be pursued in the premises. This is in conso
nance with the order of President Cleveland of July 14, 1886."

This postal rule was confirmed by the succeeding adminis
tration in the February, 1893, edition of Postal Rules and
Regulations, and the letter of President Cleveland was specifically
republished as an order of the Postmaster-General in May, 1894.
Concurrently with this reiteration was the establishment by the
Postmaster-General of the important rule that:

" No carrier shall be removed except for cause, upon written charges
filed with the Post Office Department, and of which the carrier shall have
full notice and an opportunity to make defense."

This was a third admirable and far-reaching step beyond the
requirements of the act of 1883. In this relation the opinion of
the present Postmaster-General, as expressed in an address deliv
ered before the National Convention of Letter Carriers at Phila
delphia in September last, is specially pertinent. He said:

" No one rejoices more than I do, both on principle and on the lower
plane of selfish convenience, that every free delivery post-office in the
country is now under civil service rules; that the gateway to employment
therein is no longer partizan influence, but the free and open road of per
sonal merit, and that the tenure of that employment no longer depends upon
anything else than individual merit and individual fidelity."

A fourth step was one upon which highest commendation
should be bestowed as affecting men who had no strong voice to
present their appeal. This was the order by the Secretary of the
Navy in April, 1891, requiring that demonstrated capacity of the
workmen, without regard to political belief or influence, should
be the controlling factor in the employment of laborers in the
navy yards. The system then established for navy yards has
continued in successful operation ever since.

A final advance, entering into an entirely new field, is the
President's recent order providing for the application of the
merit principle, as ascertained by formulated examinations, to
certain grades of our consular service. The uniform approval
which the public press has accorded this latest progress is grati
fying evidence of the widespread appreciation by the whole
people of the benefits they are receiving from executive acts of
this character.

These things already have been done. Incidentally, some
thing concerning the future is of interest. The time now ap-

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. 607

preaches when the inclusion of several thousand minor post-offices
within some form of the merit system is seen to be a possibility.
Public opinion would assuredly approve this inclusion as in the
line of progressive methods of administration and as undoubtedly
increasing the efficiency of an extremely important branch of
government work. And the application of certain features of
the merit system to laborers in navy yards having demonstrated
its practicability, it is probable that some wide extension of the
plan so as to include all government laborers will speedily be
devised. The time also seems ripe for the general formulation
and enforcement of rules to govern promotions. This regulation
of promotions was an essential element of the scheme as originally
conceived and enacted, and it is a feature which deserves more
effective consideration than it has heretofore received .

A new function which enables the Civil Service Commission to
greatly increase its usefulness has recently developed. This
function is that of consultation by various State and city author
ities. Municipal boards of New York and Chicago and the Com
missioners of the District of Columbia have thus received from
the Commission at Washington much valuable assistance in in
augurating local merit systems.

While it is assumed that the methods are well known by
which the work of the United States Commission is accomplished,
it will aid in forming an accurate judgment on the subject now
under consideration to recall gpme special features of their pro
cedure. The Commission consists of three persons appointed by
the President, not more than two of whom can be adherents of
the same political party. This Commission meets daily as a
Board. By this Board all questions for examinations are passed
upon, the places and dates of examinations throughout the
United States are fixed, appeals from markings are adjudged,
claims for preference on account of military service are deter
mined, requests for reinstatement in the civil service are consid
ered, and all allegations of political discrimination and charges
of illegal political assessment are investigated. Upon the request
of the President the Commission formulates rules for carrying
the Civil Service law into effect, which rules, upon approval by
the President, are filed with the Secretary of State, and have in
many respects the effect of law. These rules, however, are sub
ject to change at the will of the President. It is by this possi-

608 THE KORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

bility of change in the scope of the rules that all additions to the
classified service, beyond the natural automatic increment, have
been made. This provision, by which the jurisdiction of the law
is extended to new departments without amendment of the law
being necessary, is one of several admirable flexibilities of the act
of 1883.

Kegular examinations of applicants for appointment are held
at least twice a year at convenient places in practically every
State and Territory, and many times a year at Washing
ton. Schedules of such examinations are widely distributed,
bulletins are posted in various United States buildings through
out the country, and notice is published in the newspapers of
each locality. Special supplementary examinations are held
whenever the needs of the public service require. The endeavor
is to make the questions most practical, and all departments are
continually invited to offer suggestions as to the character and
scope of the questions. Recently the Commission has inaugu
rated the plan of also asking suggestions from merchants and
other private employers of large clerical forces.

It has always been recognized that no examination can be
devised which will infallibly indicate the capacity to accomplish
work, and therefore, after an applicant has passed an examination
and has been selected for appointment, .'.t is required that he
should serve a probation period of six months before the ap
pointment can become absolute. No matter how high an appli
cant may have stopd in examination, if, at the end of six months,
his conduct is not satisfactory and his capacity is not demon
strated to the appointing power, he shall be notified that he will
not receive absolute appointment, and this notification discharges
him from the service. He cannot take another examination until
one year has elapsed after such discharge. It is, however, excel
lent testimony to the character of the examinations that dismis
sals at the end of a probationary period are practically unknown.
On the other hand, the authority and duty of removal for any
delinquency or incapacity before or after the expiration of the
probation period are left undisturbed by the civil service act and
rules.

Many local examinations are conducted by boards, the mem
bers of which are under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Com
mission for such purposes, but are employees of the post-offices,

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. 609

custom-houses and internal revenue offices throughout the coun
try. All examination papers, however, are now marked at Wash
ington, and the standing of the applicant is fixed by the Central
Board of Examiners there. This board is made up from the
permanent clerical force of the Commission. Until standing is
determined, the applicant is known only by the number appearing
on his examination papers. His name, residence, and other in
formation concerning him, are contained on a separate sheet, which
does not come before those who mark the examination papers.

The Commission is authorized, but not directed, to make in
vestigations as to the execution of the civil service act. It has
no power to administer oaths in such investigations; and the
limited authority conferred appears to have been with the wise
purpose that the attention of the Commission should be chiefly
concentrated in the direction of securing good material for posi
tions rather than in exercising a supervisory power over the in
ternal administration of public offices generally. The law does
not declare or in any way intimate that the Commission is to be
concerned in legal prosecutions. It has the same obligation as
other citizens to bring to the attention of the proper prosecuting
officer any violation of law of which it has evidence. Unfortu
nately, however, the impression seems to have been created in some
directions that it is in the nature of a detective bureau organized
to discover violations of the law and to ascertain why dismissals
are made, having powers somewhat similar to the Secret Service
of the Treasury or the inspectors of the Post-Office Department.
The usefulness of the Commission in its proper sphere has been
hampered by this impression. If it were generally felt that the
responsibility rests not upon the Commission but upon the citi
zens in the several localities to inaugurate prosecutions for viola
tions of the civil service law much greater good would be accom
plished.

The punishment imposed for violation of certain civn service
rules is dismissal from office, but this dismissal rests as a rule
with the President, or the Cabinet officer, or other official who is
the head of the department concerned. The Civil Service Com
mission is not in any sense a trial board. Neither has it the
power to remove or reinstate any government employee except
within its own force at Washington. The work actually com
mitted to the Commission makes greatest progress in proceeding
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 468. 39

610 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

upon the assumption that leading public officials to-day are gen
erally desirous of securing the best public service, and are en
deavoring to administer their offices in exact accord with civil
service, as well as all other, laws.

Questions as to what political contributions are permitted,
and as to what degree of political activity is allowed by the civil
service act, naturally arise as elections approach. The condem
nation of involuntary political service and involuntary political
contributions has been previously discussed. Voluntary political
service not partizan and not interfering with the public duties
of persons in the service of the Government, is evidently contem
plated by the act, and voluntary political contributions from pub
lic employees are countenanced. Section 13 of the act makes it
a penal offence to discriminate, or promise or threaten to do so,
against any employee because of his " giving any contribution of
money or other valuable thing for any political purpose." No
discussion of the right of the individual so to contribute is
needed, but it is of interest to note that this section of the civil
service act clearly recognizes as allowable the making of such
voluntary contributions for political purposes.

As to political activity, the most recent utterances of the
Commission indicating its opinion are as follows :

" Those who enter the classified service upon the ground of ascertained
merit as established by the civil service rules, and are protected therein,
should be quick to recognize the reciprocal obligation thereby imposed, and
avoid any action which now or at any future time could reasonably be sub
ject to adverse political criticism."

In the case of charges of improper partizan activity made
against an employee of the internal revenue service, who is a
member of local Board of Civil Service Examiners, the Commission
said :

" While attendance at a political convention as a delegate is not in itself
a violation of the civil service rules, the Commission holds that partizan
activity sufficient to impair usefulness as a representative of the Civil Service
Commission is sufficient cause for removal from membership in any of its
boards of examiners."

In conclusion, the civil service law has shown in practice
the openness of its methods, its fairness to all sections, and its
adaptability to the public service. When selections were made
through political pressure the work was done in a corner, the
distribution of places was for the advantage of the few, and ap-

IMPROVEMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE. 611

pointments were without adequate consideration of the public
need. Undoubtedly the civil service law has done many things
in betterment of the public service. Undoubtedly it will do
much more in the future. But just as undoubtedly it sometimes
prevents the appointment of the person best qualified for the
work that is to be done; for under the rules the appointing,
power must make his selection from the three names certified to
him by the Commission. Nevertheless, the competitive merit
system is a vast and unmistakable improvement over the former
method of selection by political or other influence, and the total
results of the civil service act tend unquestionably and strongly
toward better government.

But there are advances yet to be made to secure to the whole
people all the benefits to which they are entitled. Therefore it
is well at this time to give consideration to a principle of the law
which is outside of and beyond the penal provisions heretofore
discussed. This principle is the intimate relation of the President
to the betterment of even the subordinate public service of the
United States. Such relation is fully realized only when thought
ful analysis is made of the special act by virtue of which so much
has been accomplished. The President appoints the Commissioners
"by and with the advice and consent of the Senate," and "the
President may remove any Commissioner." The President, " as
he may request," has the aid of the Commission " in preparing
suitable rules for carrying this act into effect," and the Commis
sion regulates examinations " subject to the rules that may be
made by the President." In brief, the affirmation of the President
is the strength of the system. Such analysis makes clear where
honor largely lies for the past. And what of the future ? The
duty is imperative to see to it that the next President also shall
be a man who will take no step backward, but will compel a con
tinuous and aggressive advance in the application of the merit
principle.

WILLIAM GOBHAM RICE.

TRUE SOURCE OF AMERICAN WEALTH.

BY THE HON. BEN. F. CLAYTON", PRESIDENT OF THE FARMERS'
NATIONAL CONGRESS.

WE have no disposition to discuss, in a magazine article, the
true source of wealth from a scientific standpoint. We shall
ignore the well-beaten path of political economists. The conflict
between these scientific gentlemen over finespun theories and
doubtful propositions as to natural laws governing mankind in
their relation one to the other, and the application of these laws
in the production and distribution of wealth, are no nearer settled
now than at the close of the last century. Notwithstanding the
many unsettled details between economic writers, we are dis
posed, in the main, to recognize Political Economy as a science,
but we are not willing to accept all theoretical deductions as con
clusive, for theory often comes in conflict with truth when con
fronted by practical questions growing out of our great industrial
and productive interests. In fact, we think that the science of
economy has had but little to do with the accumulations of the
vast wealth of the American people. It is a question whether
one in fifty of our progressive financiers has ever made a study of
the science of Political Economy. Success is not always coupled
with an abstract theory, and many of the most successful have
learned more from the great book of nature and from practical
experience, than they have from all the ethical deductions of the
scientific writings from the days of Pliny and Charlemagne to the
days of Adam Smith and Mr. Carey.

Every chapter of our eventful history, colonial and national,
is intensely interesting to our own people, as well as a great sur
prise to the people of the old world, and yet, the results attained
are perfectly natural when we consider the perfection of the two

TRUE SOURCE OF AMERICAN WEALTH,. 613

elements that produce wealth, and their complete co-operation on
the American continent. In 1820, when the act of Congress was
passed for the distribution of public lands there was general dis
satisfaction. It was claimed that under that policy it would be
several hundred years before the government would find market
for its public domain. Less than seventy years ago, in 1827, the
land department reported that it would require 500 years to ex
haust the public lands, and some of the states insisted that nine-
tenths of it would never be sold. Since that time the govern
ment, by purchase and by conquest, has added 1,500,000 square
miles of new territory, and so lavish has been the demand that
the land department reports that all available lands for agricul
tural purposes have been practically exhausted. The Indian tribes
are being forced to smaller bounds to accommodate our growing
population, and when tribal lands *are thrown on the market, so
great has been the rush for homesteads that it has required the
presence of the United States army to protect the weak from the
strong, in their mad efforts for choice homes. Every tract of gov
ernment land that can be utilized for farming purposes has been
taken. Local and national irrigation conventions are being held.
Congress has been petitioned and has instructed the best engineers
attainable to investigate the feasibility of water storage and a sys
tematic irrigation for the reclamation of the arid districts to make
room for our constantly increasing requirements.

Drawing his conclusions from the United States report of
1880, Mr. Mulhall, ten years ago, gave the annual accumulations
of wealth of the four great nations as follows :

United States, $825,000,000 ; France, $375,000,000 j Great
Britain, $325,000,000 ; Germany, $200,000,000.

He then says : " The American people gained more wealth
from 1870 to 1880 than Great Britain had gained in all her
previous history/'

Mr. Mulhall is probably the most profound and best authenti
cated statistician known to our language — a man raised un
der a different political atmosphere from ours, with the usual prej
udices of his countrymen, governed by a different policy to that
of ours, and yet he is absolutely impartial. In a recent contribu
tion to the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, on the ( ' Power and Wealth
of the United States," he declares : " We find nothing to com
pare with the United States in this present year of 1895 ;" and

614 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

he farther says : "The wealth of the American people surpasses
that of any other nation past or present."

While the eminent philosopher indicates that our phenomenal
increase of wealth has been the result of circumstances, and that
the new world might have turned those circumstances to a greater
advantage, he proceeds to lay before his readers the fact, verified
by statistics, that : " An ordinary farm-hand in the United States
raises as much grain as five men " engaged in like occupation in
the old world. He seems to deplore that condition of things and
attributes it to the want in other countries of mechanical ap
pliances such as we use in the United States. This admis
sion is discreditable to the intelligence and the opportunities
of the old world, and especially so to Great Britain, possessed
with ample means to develop her immediate productive re
sources as well as those of her boundless dependencies. It is
equally complimentary to the American people that they have
been able within a single lifetime to so intelligently utilize the
forces of nature as to compel her soil to yield such marvellous
wealth.

The census reports show that our per capita increase in
wealth has been from $205 in 1820 to $1,039 in 1890. The
increase in the wealth of the nation in the same time has been
from $1,960.000,000 to $65,027,000,000, which has since been
increased to approximately $70,000,000,000.

The civilized world stands amazed at the vast accumulations
of the American people, and the query from home and abroad is
from whence it came, and what is its true source ?

We answer that our success is due to two agencies, both of
which the American people possess in the highest degree,
namely, labor and its intelligent application to the richest natu
ral resources of any country. In the consideration of the true
source of our national wealth we must combine these two ele
ments as one and inseparable. Man must furnish labor and
nature must furnish all the material upon which labor is
expended. Our labor has always been of the highest type, from
the fact that the people of the United States are the remote, if
not the direct, descendants of a representative foreign element
that had learned to think for itself, and when debarred from act
ing for itself, to seek a country of equal social and political rights
where it could plant the banner of the largest freedom and where

TRUE SOURCE OF AMERICAN WEALTH. 615

it could enjoy to the fullest extent the fruits of its own labor.
Our population is made up of an energetic class that is willing to
leave the scenes of childhood, the home of youth, the mother
tongue and native land to cast their fortunes with a strange peo
ple. The American citizen, whether native or foreign born, is
quick to recognize the rights of all who would come to our shores
to better their condition and to throw around them all the safe
guards of protection in every social and political right. From
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers there has been a healthful
growth in the spirit of freedom, morality, industry and economy.
The environments that surround the American citizen are
antagonistic to royal exclusiveuess. They regard labor as respect
able and measure men by the standard of virtue and personal
worth.

This independent and industrious class of people, venturing
upon our shores, found a country ready to respond to intelligent
and well directed labor. Before civilization reached our conti
nent its natural resources were as great as now. In its forestj,nd
on its broad plain, and confined within its rich soil, were found
the elements to sustain the same number of people as now. It
was a vast country — a country of magnificent natural resources,
from which has been harvested the results that astonish ourselves.
Mr. Jefferson, while President of the young republic, laid before
his people, then fringing the edges of the great continent, a
graphic picture of its interior resources. He transmitted to the
Congress of the United States documents vindicating him from
the attacks of his political enemies because of the Louisiana pur
chase. These papers are highly interesting, and contained the
first information that civilization ever had of this new acquisi
tion. They were printed by order of Congress and discussed
by the press of the day, the sage of Monticello being unmerci
fully criticised.

Highly embellished as his descriptions seem to have been,
they were nearer in accord with the results since obtained, than
was the report of General Fremont and other government offi
cials who placed this country on the map as an unproductive
desert.

The people who made an attack upon the President little
dreamed of the possibilities that would result from his action in
the purchase, or that within its bounds there was a natural

616 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

territory susceptible of cultivation to a point of becoming the
greatest grain and food producing country on the earth. Glow
ing and fanciful as the picture may seem, the results have far
surpassed the most sanguine imagination of the President.

The productive resources of one state comprised in the pur
chase, for the year 1892, was valued at $468,878,000, or more
than thirty-one times the cost of the entire tract. The Federal
census of 1890 reveals the following facts with reference to Iowa
products :

Oats, corn, hay and wheat , ...$198,869,000

Cattle, hogs and horses 184.4^4.000

Dairy product 37,000,000

Total 1420,293,000

For the first fifty years of our national existence agriculture
in its various forms was almost the universal occupation of its
people. In that time they laid the foundation for the complexi
ties of modern life as we see it to-day in diversified labor.
"The civilized man in his first beginning was farmer, carpenter,
mason, merchant and manufacturer — complete, though primitive,
in the individual. But he was a farmer first and foremost, and
used the other avocations merely as incidentals to this first and
chief employment. Less then a half century has elapsed since
the spinning wheel and the loom were common and necessary in
the home."

They lived entirely within their own resources, built their
own cabins, and constructed the huge fire-place and chimney.
A portion of the field was set aside for the flax, and when it had
been pulled, bleached and broken, it was manufactured into
cloth to supply the needs of the family ; the fleece produced on
the farm was submitted to the various processes of preparation
necessary and made into clothing without leaving the home. The
skins and the furs of animals were tanned by the farmer and con
verted into shoes for himself and family, and all his energies were
in the direction to secure the product from which his wants must
be supplied. Since then the inventive genius has been called into
activity and has so divided and diversified employment as to rev
olutionize the condition of things. " But the basal relations
remain unchanged, and agriculture as an antecedent presses her
claims of precedence with even greater relentless sternness."

Dotted over our vast country are the towns and cities with

TRUE SOURCE OF AMERICAN WEALTH. 617

the ceaseless din of factories and fche hurry and bustle of trade
and traffic. The quiet of every community is disturbed day and
night by the busy wheels of commerce as the railways sweep in
every direction over their steel trackage in transit to seaboard
cities, laden with the rich product of the American farm. In
the busy marts are found the employees of ship lines, the trans
portation companies, the grain elevators, and the clerks of the
banking and shipping houses, all handling or re-working the
raw material gathered from the forest or the field, and from
which the world must be clothed, fed and warmed. This vast
army of mechanics, the arts, the trades and the professions, have
contributed to a higher perfection of our productive industries ;
but they are not direct producers of wealth, they are consumers.
But these elements must ever remain the true source of wealth,
and the solid foundation upon which rests the beautiful and
magnificent temple of our success. The natural product of the
soil, aided by intelligent labor, is the great creative force, the
only source from which wealth may be obtained to meet all obli
gations. The street car fare, interest on bonds, dividends on
stocks, the soldiers* pension, the fees of the professional, the dry
goods and grocery bills, as well as the cost of conducting all the
intricate machinery of the government, must be paid by the reve
nues from the soil. The product of the gold and silver mines
is valuable only because of the commerce and the wealth created
from the soil by the co-operation of labor and nature's fertility.
One year of total failure of the products of the earth, and wreck
and ruin, starvation and death would be the inevitable results.
That the United States finds herself the wealthiest nation on the
earth at the end of the first hundred years of her existence is a
proud fact. When we consider the high type of citizenship
and the nobility of labor with which the country has been blessed,
we should not be surprised that our increase in wealth " can be
measured at each national census with almost the same precision
as that with which the astronomer indicates the distance of the
heavenly bodies."

BEN. F. CLAYTON.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

XL— THE WARNING OF SADOWA.

BY ALBERT D. VANDAM, AUTHOR OF ' f AN ENGLISHMAN" IN
PARIS," "MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK," ETC., ETC.

" A FEW nights ago there was a scene at the Tuileries more
dramatic, perhaps, than any in the most powerful of Alexandre
Dumas' historical melodramas. The chateau was wrapt in
silence, for the Empress is away in England or Scotland,
and the Emperor was sitting in his own room deeply engrossed
with the second volume of L'Histoire de Jules Cesar, which
is just out. Suddenly, one of the gentlemen-in-waiting, the
Marquis de Caux, I believe, enters the Emperor's room; but
the Emperor pays no attention, he scarcely looks up. ' What is
it ? ' he asks almost impatiently. ' The Prince de Metternich,
sire/ is the answer. The Emperor half rises from his chair and
turns very pale, as if with a presentiment of disaster, and before
the Ambassador is fairly in the room the presentiment is verified.
' I am sorry to inform your Majesty that the battle of Sadowa,
which was fought to-day, has been lost by us/ he says rather
more calmly than the Emperor himself. In another moment
several horses, which are always kept ready harnessed at nigftt,
were put in, and Kouher, Fleury, Drouyn de Lhuys and Rand on
sent for. The Master of the Horse and the Minister for War
reached the Tuileries within a second of one another. The
Emperor, who is phlegmatic enough at ordinary times, invariably
loses that phlegm in Fleury's presence. ' We have gained Venice
for others, we have lost the Rhine for ourselves! ' he exclaimed,
before the door had been fairly closed behind his most trusty ad
viser, handing him at the same time the telegram announcing
the Austrian defeat. ' We have lost nothing yet, sire/ remarked

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

Fleury, glancing at the paper, ' On the contrary ; now or never
is your chance to reconstruct the map of Europe/ The sentence
had barely left his lips when the door opened once more to admit
Randon. He had heard what Fleury said. ' We are not ready/
he remarked, addressing Fleury directly and summarily saluting
the Emperor. Then turning to the sovereign, ' Your Majesty is
well aware that I have not got thirty thousand troops fit
to take the field at such a short notice/ 'Thirty
thousand troops!' repeated Fleury with his usual dash;
€ thirty thousand troops ! That's more than sufficient to
mask the absence of those that are not ready/ The Emperor
shook his head. His eternal want of decision at the critical mo
ment came strong upon him. ' Ah/ he sighed, ' if the Empress
were but here/ For once in a way I agree with him; if the Em
press had been there, she would have counselled a headlong war with
Prussia there and then, and I fancy it would have been the right
thing to do. In three months, in six months, in a year, or a
couple of years — for that struggle must inevitably come now —
it will be too late. Nay, the longer it is delayed the worse it
will be for France in the end, for those who know best aver that
Prussia is gaining strength every day. Sadowa has effaced the
glory of Solferino, Prussia has proved her single-handed superior
ity over Austria in Bohemia, just as France proved it seven years
ago in Lombardy. If anything, the proof is in favor of King
Wilhelm's legions, for Victor EminanueFs troops did, after all,
count for something. Practically, though, the two nations stand
confessed equals on the battlefield with regard to one adversary,
and that one the military power hitherto deemed too strong for
attack by her latest victor who for years submitted to great hu
miliations at her hands.

"Unless I am greatly mistaken in the temper of the French,
they will not relish that real or supposed equality; it will rankle
in their minds, and they will hold Napoleon III. directly respon
sible for it. There, I feel, lies the rock ahead. The French
will not be satisfied until they have proved to the world at large
that Jena and not Leipzig or Waterloo was the test of their mili
tary supremacy to Prussia. They will not rest until they have
measured conclusions with the descendants of the armies of
Frederic the Great once more, and that rather than the prospect
of the acquisition of territory on the banks of the Rhine will be

620 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

the real cause of the next contest between them and the Teuton.
I feel convinced that no diplomatic skill will avert that contest,
unless Prussia would submit to the most extravagant demands
on the part of France. Sadowa, to my mind, has put an end to
the probability of such concessions, if ever they were seriously
entertained by King Wilhelm since he has had two such men as
Helmuth von Moltke and Otto von Bismarck by his side.

" I like and admire Napoleon III. as much as any man, but I
am not blind to the fact that it would want a Richelieu and a
Jomini to co-operate with him in order to withstand successfully
the combination arrayed against him. There is not a Metter-
nich or a Talleyrand in the whole of France, let alone a Riche
lieu; if there be a Jomini, he is carefully kept away from the
Court by the dancing and swaggering clique . who maintain
that le courage fait tout. And worse than all, Bazaine is in
Mexico. I am told by those who are competent to express
an opinion, that he and Niel are the only two among the marshals
who can lay claim to the name of strategists in the serious accep
tation of the term ; although those same informants do not hesi
tate to aver that there are at least half-a-dozen officers of lesser
grades that are superior to both. The competent ones are, how
ever, systematically ostracised by the Court party, which though
devoured by jealousy of one another does not even condescend to
be jealous of these. They are simply ignored. The jealousy,
intriguing, and caballing are reserved for those who cannot be
ignored ; the result of all this is an all-pervading spirit of mean
ness which it would be impossible to describe and still more im
possible to impress upon the outsider but for some startling
proofs in individual instances. A lawyer would call them pieces
de conviction morales.

" Some time after the fall of Sebastopol, its eminent defender
paid a visit to France and met with a distinguished welcome at
the Tuileries. When taking leave of the Emperor, he mentioned
casually that on his way home he was going to spend a day at the
camp of Chalons to see General Raoult, the chief of the staff.
Noticing the look of surprise on the Emperor's face, Todtleben
explained, ' During the late war, sir, General Raoult was my
most formidable adversary/ It wanted a foreign general to draw
the Emperor's attention to an officer of his army whose attainments
were common talk in every war-office of Europe except that of France

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 621

herself, an officer whom Queen Victoria had delighted to honor
by conferring upon him the Order of the Bath, who bore the in
signia of the Medjidi, of Saint Maurice and St. Lazare, the mili
tary medals of Sardinia and England, who during the siege itself
was made a Knight Commander of the Legion of Honor. Just,
na7> generous to a fault, the Emperor repaired his oversight in a
little while by naming General Eaoult chief of the staff of the
Imperial Guards.

" Did the Emperor point out afterwards to his Minister for
War that it is his most sacred duty to enlighten him on the
merits of his officers ? It is more than doubtful, for there is
nothing Napoleon III. dislikes so much as being compelled to repri
mand. He generally errs the other way. He endeavors as far as
lies in his power, to remove ignorance and incompetence from their
active spheres, but his method is, to say the least, curious. Gen
eral Forey, who wasted many months in Mexico, and showed a
lamentable want of decision and an utter absence of military
skill before Puebla, had to be recalled. The merest sub-lieutenant
could have pointed out the flagrant mistakes he had committed.
The Emperor could think of no better way of removing him from
his command than by making him a marshal. Here is an extract
from the Emperor's letter dated exactly three years ago, which
Forey has been showing everywhere. ' It has afforded me much
happiness to hear of the entry of my troops into Mexico ; and
now I think that all serious resistance will be at an end. By the
time my letter shall reach you, Mexico will have been in our
power for three months, and the military expedition may be con
sidered as terminated. Under those circumstances, I think it
useless to prolong your stay in Mexico. A marshal of France is
too big a personage to be allowed to worry about intrigues and
administrative details. Hence you have my authority to delegate
your powers to General Bazaine the moment you think fit, and to
return to France to enjoy your success and the legitimate glory
you have won/

" Of course, the non-recall of Bazaine when he was raised to
the dignity of marshal is explained by Forey's friends on the
plausible theory that since then, affairs in Mexico have gone from
bad to worse, but I and many like me who are neither Bazaine's
friends nor Forey's enemies know the difference of calibre be
tween these two.

022 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

" And then that magnificent sentence, ' A marshal of France
is too big a personage to be allowed to worry about intrigues and
administrative details/ Ye shades of Davoust and Ney, who
worried themselves, without being asked, about the soldiers' tin
kettles and the washing of their feet. And Bismarck, as big a
personage as any marshal of France, and who, Korner told me
yesterday, worried himself in the thick of the campaign about
his soldiers' cigars, and made his wife worry too, while he, Bis
marck, was sleeping on the flagstones. The present marshals are
too big for that sort of thing; they do not care a single jot about
the soldier's camp kettle, or about his cleanliness. The general
of division takes his cue from the marshal, the general of bri
gade takes his cue from the general of division, and so on, until
in the end the barrack-room becomes an unspeakable thing, and
the soldier, in spite of his outward smartness, a far from pleas
ant being to come into close contact with."

The above note or notes — for from internal evidence I came to
the conclusion long ago that the whole was not written at one
sitting — belongs to the collection from which I have so often
drawn in these chapters.

The stupefaction produced on the Emperor by the unexpected
revelation of Prussia's military supremacy over Austria — I could, if
required, prove that it was altogether unexpected — was not of long
duration. In October, 1866, he instituted a grand commission to
examine the question of reorganizing the French army. Only
those who lived in Paris in those days can conceive an idea of
the formidable opposition, of the blind antagonism, the project
met with from the very outset.

" Give a dog a bad name and it will stick to him." During
the last few years I have been so persistently accused of systematic
hostility against France both by the English and the French
themselves that I have grown absolutely callous to the accusation.
Nevertheless, I should be sorry to write one line of unfavorable
comment on a matter of such importance as the patriotism of a
nation on insufficient proof. The opposition to Napoleon III.'s
scheme of army reform was, however, prompted by such mean
and personal motives on the part of some deputies that silence on
the subject would be more blameable to my mind than outspoken
ness.

The sayings and doings of the Peace Society generally inspire

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 623

me with an irrepressible desire to throw politeness to the winds
and to call its members names ; yet there is no one more alive to
the hardships of conscription than I. If the opposition to Napo
Icon's contemplated army bill had sprung from a sincere wish to
diminish those hardships no one would or could have withheld
his sympathy, though even then the Solus Patrice supremo, lex
would have acted as a damper to one's admiration. But neither
the conscrit himself, nor his mother, sisters, and sweetheart, all
of whom suffer most from his enforced absence in times of peace,
from his non-return in times of war, occupied the thoughts
of the deputy. The relatives for whose feelings the deputy
showed the deepest concern were those who suffered least,
namely, the father and uncle of the ploughboy or young
workman. And for a very good reason : the father and uncle
could mar or make the deputy at the next general election ; that
is, could deprive him of his snug stipend of at least £500 per an
num, or secure him the undisturbed possession of it for so many
years. I will probably return to the subject in the next chapter •
for the present suffice it to say that this hostility of the
majority even while the bill was only in incubation produced the
most disastrous effect outside France in regard to her hitherto pre
ponderant influence in European affairs. To restore that pre
ponderance, a second Coup d'Etat was necessary in order to show
the world at large that the Louis Napoleon of 1 851 had not alto
gether ceased to be ; but the frequent want of decision that
marked the latter years of the Emperor's reign, and had already
produced two formidable errors as far as France's prestige was
concerned, was fast developing into a chronic disease, which the
approaching opening of that " damnable exhibition " was not cal
culated to remove, even temporarily.

For by that time " the invitations to the feast" were out, and
had been eagerly accepted by the crowned heads of Europe.
Joshua would have been equally glad to get such an invitation
from the kings of the land of Canaan. Twelve years before that,
Marshal Vaillant had expressed his opinion on the futility of try
ing to promote international friendships and conciliating rival
sovereigns by such means. "When the other one [Napoleon I.]
gave them entertainments and theatrical performances, it was on
their ground and not in France ; they paid the expenses, and
not he."

624 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Napoleon III., I fancy, knew the Parisians better in one re
spect than did either his uncle or any sovereign before him (the
nephew). He had probably come to the conclusion thatjn de
fault of incessant victories the Parisians' good will to their ruler
was largely dependent on the latter's ability and efforts to
provide them with magnificent public shows and court pageants.
I doubt if Napoleon III., had he decided to be crowned or to
crown himself, would have gone to Rheims like Charles X. and
some of his forbears, or, like Napoleon I., hesitated between the
capital and a provincial city as the scene for such coronation.
Instead of taking the Comedie-Franpaise to Erfurth to act
before a parterre of kings, Napoleon III. invited the parterre
of kings to the Rue Le Peletier, knowing that he would please
his metropolitan subjects and still trusting that he might
dazzle his royal and imperial visitors. The experiment of twelve
years previously had been so eminently successful in that
respect, and the exhibition of 1867 was to eclipse that of 1855
as well as the twelve others which had opened their portals
during the nearly seven decades that had gone by since the
" Temple of Industry" had been inaugurated on that same
Champ de Mars.

And truly, results seemed to justify the Emperor's expecta
tions. At no period of modern history had any capital of Eu
rope offered its hospitality to so many exalted personages within
so short a period. Three emperors (for the Sultan of Turkey is
styled an Imperial ruler, I believe) ; seven reigning kings, three
of whom were officially accompanied by their consorts ; nine
grand dukes ; two archdukes ; two dozen princes of the blood,
among whom there were at least a half-dozen heirs apparent ;
princesses, grand-duchesses, dukes and duchesses by the score ;
all these were calculated to give Paris in particular, and France
in general, an intoxicating idea of their Emperor's power. Did
France dream at that moment that among those visitors some had
come to spy the martial nakedness of the land, however carefully
hidden behind a gorgeous array — an almost too georgeous array —
of glinting cuirass and resplendent gold lace ? Did one visitor in
particular, as the French maintain till this day, have his cupidity
aroused by the unmistakable evidences of material prosperity,
in such curious contrast to the lack of power to guard
that prosperity by force of arms ? I cannot say. But here

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 625

is a story for the authenticity of which I will vouch, although
the source from which it is drawn is not the usual one.

The King of Prussia, accompanied by Bismarck, Moltke, and
others, arrived in Paris on June 5, 1866. The Elysee being
occupied by his nephew, the Czar of Russia, King Wilhelm took
up his quarters at the Prussian Embassy in the Rue de Lille.

On June 8 the Municipality gave a ball at the Hotel de Ville
in honor of the Imperial and Royal visitors, who as a matter of
course were received by M. Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine.
In shaking hands with Haussmann, King Wilhelm is reported to
have said : " Monsieur le Prefet, I have not been in Paris since
1814. I find it very changed indeed." Next morning, Hauss
mann accompanied the King, Bismarck, and Moltke to the
heights of Montmartre, where the whole of the city of Paris lies
practically at one's feet. ' ' That's where I was encamped in 1814,
M. le Prefet," said the King, pointing in the direction of Romain-
ville. " Yes, sire, but there's a fort there now," replied Hauss
mann.

This is the story in full. That those two sentences of the
King would have been better left unsaid under the circum
stances no one would care to deny ; but to build upon them a
theory of sudden, invincible cupidity or ambition which nothing
would satisfy but the possession, if for ever so short a time, of
the magnificent city that lay outspread at his feet, would be too
extravagant. And yet, if such invincible cupidity or ambition
had suddenly obtruded itself, where would have been the wonder ?
For years Napoleon III. had striven and plotted about that Rhine
frontier, the inordinate desire for which on the part of the French
had nearly led to a war twenty-seven years before Wilhelm of
Prussia stood on the heights of Montmartre. Do the French
imagine that Wilhelm's head was a sieve, that Jena, the humilia
tion of his father and mother by Napoleon I. had simply run
through that head without leaving traces there ? Do they
imagine that Nicholas Becker wrote his Hymne am Rhein and
Max Schneckenburger his WaM am Rhein without provocation ?

I myself am inclined to agree with the author who said, " The
journey to France of Moltke and his royal master in 1867 was
not a pleasure trip, but a downright military reconnaissance."
This in itself would prove that the idea of a possible, nay, a
probable war with France had suggested itself to the minds of
VOL. CLXI. — KO. 468. 40

626 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the three men who were mainly responsible for the issue of the
struggle. I am confirmed in my belief by a scene I witnessed
some seventy-two hours before King Wilhelm, Moltke, Bismarck,
and Haussmann stood on the heights of Montmartre. It was at
the review held in honor of the sovereigns at Longchamps on the
6th June. Thanks to my uncle's numerous friends in the army,
we had two tickets ; one had been given us by General Fleury,
the other by the Emperor himself. We were placed on the en
closure right in front of the imperial stand, where the Empress,
with her son by her side and surrounded by a brilliant suite, was
seated. At two o'clock the Emperor, the Czar, and the King of
Prussia, followed by their respective staffs, appeared on the
ground. It would want a great word-painter to describe the
spectacle, and I shall not attempt it. The Austrian and Eng
lish officers in their white and scarlet uniforms closed the proces
sion, and then about a score of yards behind them came a solitary
figure, also in white and on horseback. He was riding very
slowly, much slower than the rest, and seemed to scan every regi
ment as he passed it, as if to impress deeply on his memory its
number, its numerical strength, its probable potentiality.
" That's not an Austrian/' said my uncle, who in spite of his
strong field-glass was not able to distinguish very clearly. " I
wonder who it is ? " He had to repeat the latter part of his sen
tence, for If too, was watching the figure closely. It was the
second time I had seen it within a twelvemonth. The first time
was on the evening of Friday, the 29th June, 1866, at a window
in the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. At the very moment it appeared
at that window, a clap of thunder rent the air and a flash of
lightning made the sky lurid. " This is heaven's salvo in honor
of our victory, boys/' it exclaimed, its voice being distinctly heard
above the roar of the crowd.

" I wonder who it is? "repeated my uncle, nudging me in
the side with his elbow. " That/' I answered ; " that's Bis
marck."

— " remarked my uncle, lowering his glass for a second.
He did not say another word for at least an hour, but I noticed
that he kept watching the white figure.

( * I wonder," he said very slowly on our way home, " whether
the sixty thousand troops assembled to-day have hidden the naked
ness behind them. Fleury averred that it only wanted half that

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 627

number. I wonder whether that white figure is to be hood
winked in that way."

He scarcely spoke for the remainder of the day, but seemed
lost in deep thought. The reader may remember that on his
return from that review, Alexander II. was fired at by Berezow-
ski, in the Bois de Boulogne. The bullet only struck the mouth
of the horse of M. Raimbaux, the Empress's equerry, who was
riding by the side of the Imperial carriage. The jury of the Seine
made the would-be assassin a present of his life. It has been
stated, not once, but a hundred times, in print that this act of
clemency, perhaps, deprived France of Russia's alliance in 1870.

To those who knew Alexander II. best, the statement consti
tutes not only an insult to his memory, but is ridiculous besides.
It marks the same train of thought that credited Wilhelm of
Prussia with nothing but cupidity at the sight of Paris in all her
glory.

But on that June 6th, and for two months afterwards, such
thoughts found no crevice in the minds of the majority of
Frenchmen. The intoxicating idea of their power as attested by
the presence of all those exalted guests left no room for any
other. I said the majority. My uncles were not French, and if
they had been they would not have belonged to the majority.

On the evening of that day, when the papers came out with
their glowing accounts, my younger grand-uncle, who, as I said,
had scarcely opened his lips since our return home, quietly got
up and walked to a bookcase, from which he took a Shake
speare. He slowly turned the leaves until he came to Macbeth.
" That's the future quotation for the King of Prussia, Bismarck,
and Moltke," he said. Then in an impressive voice he read the
first line of the second scene of Act II. — t( That which hath made
them drunk hath made me bold."

He spoke no more that evening until he bade us " good
night."

ALBERT D. VANDAM.

(To be continued.)

OUR DUTY IN THE VENEZUELAN CRISIS.

BY REPRESENTATIVE JOSEPH WHEELER, OF ALABAMA, AND
REPRESENTATIVE CHARLES H. GROSVENOR, OF OHIO.

THE expressions which have passei. ^nto history as the Monroe
Doctrine were contained in the message which was delivered by
President Monroe to the Eighteenth Congress, December 2, 1823.
We were then a weak republic of about ten and one-half million
people and at that time the nations of Europe were enjoying
profound peace.

More than eight years had elapsed since the close of the ter
rific wars which had shaken that continent during the quarter of
a century which preceded the battle of Waterloo. The European
powers had reorganized and improved their military and naval
establishments, strengthened their financial conditions, and were
better prepared for war than at any former period. Great
Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, and Holland were governments
which took special pride and interest in extending and building
up their American colonies. In addition to this the strongest
nations of Europe had agreed to " lend one another on every oc
casion and in every place assistance, aid and support," and it was
soon apparent that these nations intended the subjugation of the
Spanish colonies in America.

It was in the face of this menacing attitude of powerful
European nations that President Monroe announced "that the
American Continents, by the free and independent condition
which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be
considered as subjects for future colonization by any European
powers ."

He further declared: "That we should consider any attempt on

OUR DUTY JN THE VENEZUELAN CRISIS. 629

their part to extend their system to any portion of this Hemis
phere as dangerous to our peace and safety."

If under such conditions this doctrine could be maintained by
a comparatively weak power of ten million people, should it not
be enforced in the strictest sense by the same nation which now
contains a population of seventy millions, and has become the
richest and most powerful sovereignty on earth. The American
people have always abstained from any interference in the in
ternal concerns of any European powers, but I believe they are
practically unanimous that a nation like ours should maintain
such a policy upon this hemisphere as is dictated by our best in
terests. To do less, would be at the sacrifice of our dignity and
the loss of the respect of the nations of the earth.

Through her aggressive colonial policy England already possesses
dependencies on this hemisphere which comprise territory con
taining 3,541,505 square miles, about equal to the entire area of
the United States, and including numerous islands, some of which
are within a few hours' sail of our shores. We have always care
fully abstained from any interference with these possessions of
Great Britain, but to allow that nation to extend her territory on
this hemisphere, either by treaty, or purchase, or conquest, or by
the insidious encroachments which have characterized her deal
ings with Venezuela, the people of the United States should resist
with all the power they possess. England fully understands that
the principles announced by Mr. Monroe have become a settled
policy of the United States, and as such must be considered and
accepted as principles of international law.

Venezuela, originally a dependency of Spain, was acquired
by that nation by the right of discovery about the year 1499. A
year later the Spanish explored the Delta of the Orinoco, and in
1531 extended their explorations up that river to the mouth of
the Meta. This, by virtue of the rule laid down at that time and
always acquiesced in by European nations, gave Spain an un
questioned title to this territory.

Many years later the Dutch established a settlement east of
the Essequibo river, near the site of the present city of George
town. By the treaty of Munster in 1648 it was stipulated that
Spain and Holland were to remain in possession of the territory
then " in actual possession of each," and sixty-five years later
Great Britain agreed to aid the Spaniards to recover their an«ient

630 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

dominions in America, the treaty stating these to be the same as
in the time of Charles II.

By the treaty of recognition by Spain the provinces were
ceded by name to the new republic.

England's title to Dutch Guiana was derived in 1814 from the
United Netherlands, the treaty simply designating them as the
colonies of Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice, but in none of the
treaties are the geographical boundaries designated. It is there
fore clear that the dividing line must be that which was recog
nized as the boundary between the Spanish and Dutch settle
ments at the time they existed as such. This is all Venezuela
has ever demanded, and for England to contend for more than
this would be an attempt to violate the Monroe doctrine by the
extension of European colonies in America.

Our government should, therefore, by a frank and manly
communication, demand that England agree that arbitrators
shall determine, by such evidence as can be produced, the bound
ary lines between the Spanish and Dutch colonies prior to the
cession of 1814, by which England first acquired title.

If this request is not acceded to, it will show conclusively that
England has decided to dispute the right of the United States to
maintain the doctrine laid down by President Monroe in 1823. It
will also prove that Great Britain has determined by force to
extend her colonies in America, and we cannot be too prompt in
meeting and resenting any such purpose. More than fifty years
ago, Venezuela entered a most earnest remonstrance against
encroachments then being made by England, and from that date
that republic has been pleading for some conventional agree
ment, some plan of arbitration or some method of compro
mise. She has been answered by evasions and delays,
during which England has gradually but steadily enlarged
her pretensions, until now that nation claims the entire
Orinoco Delta and twenty-nine miles of territory to the west of
that river. To understand the importance of this claim, we
must consider that the Orinoco floats the largest ships for four hun
dred miles, and many of its hundred tributaries are navigable far
into the interior, so that the control of the mouth of the Orinoco
carries with it almost a monopoly of the trade and commerce of
nearly a third of the South American continent. Upon a question
somewhat similar to the one now presented, President Polk recom-

OUR DUTY IN THE VENEZUELAN CRISIS. 631

mended the occupation of territory in Yucatan, declaring that
" we would not consent to a transfer of this domain and sover
eignty to either Spain, Great Britain, or any other European
power."

Our population at that time was about 20,000,000, and cer
tainly a policy we then boldly asserted can now be firmly main
tained. So far from receding from the strictest construction of
the doctrine laid down by Monroe, my views are that the United
States should extend its policy and look to the establishment of
depots and naval stations around which American colonies would
locate, sufficiently strong to encourage and protect our trade and
commerce. England's success in extending her trade and com
merce is largely due to her first establishing colonies or footholds
in countries the trade of which she sought to secure. American
toil now produces substantially 30 per cent, of the staple products
of the world ; we have but four per cent, of its population, and
foreign trade has become an essential outlet for American pro
ducts. The principle of the Monroe doctrine did very well in
1823,

President Polk advanced a step in 1848. "We must take an
other step forward in 1895. I would deplore any action which
would endanger our amicable relations with England, but we
must realize that they are largely due to our allowing that nation
a practical monopoly of the most valuable trade and commerce
of the world, and Americans must understand that friction will
certainly follow any material invasion of English markets by
American products.

JOSEPH WHEELEE.

II.

THE United States should plant itself immovably upon a just
and intelligent definition of the Monroe doctrine in defining its
attitude toward the Venezuelan situation. The position taken
by our government at the time of the occupation of a part of
Mexico by Maximilian, acting as the agent of the French Govern
ment, re-affirmed the Monroe doctrine in unmistakable terms,
and our position was accepted as the true one by the nations of
the world. But recently the course of our government has, upon
several occasions, cast doubt and uncertainty over our probable

632 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

future attitude, and the time has now come when the United
States should make clear and unmistakable the purpose to main
tain the position taken in the Mexican case ; or we should cease
to discuss the subject and abandon the Monroe doctrine perman
ently, and give public notice thereof. To temporize is cowardice,
to equivocate dishonor.

That England has violated the Monroe doctrine, or in other
words, that England has done acts which challenged the opposi
tion of the United States, is plain and undeniable. It may be said
that she did not seize any territory at the time of her controversy
with Nicaragua; that is, she did not attempt to acquire and annex
Nicaraguan territory. But it is true that she committed acts of
oppression, based upon a technical claim, and punished an infer
ior American Republic with brutality. The United States should
have protested then and have demanded explanation and satisfac
tion. That we did not, has encouraged the subsequent aggres
sions in Venezuela.

The original declaration of the Monroe doctrine, as made on
behalf of our government, contained this important statement :
" But with the governments who have declared their independ
ence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on
great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could
not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European
power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an un
friendly disposition towards the United States." The levying of
an unjust assessment is in the nature of blackmail upon a help
less State. The seizure of her ports by an armed force was an
invasion of the principle of the Monroe doctrine, and it was weak
and cowardly on the part of our government to submit to it with
out protest. The action of the United States amounted to a
waiver of our position hitherto, and it may be well urged by
Great Britain as amounting almost to an estoppel if we reassert
the doctrine.

The proposition of England, as recently announced by Sir
Julian Pauncefote that England will arbitrate the question of
her right to territory which she admits she holds by doubtful
tenure, but will refuse to arbitrate questions in regard to terri
tory which she is pleased to say she holds by indisputable title,
is a simple repudiation of all recognition of arbitration what-

OUR DUTY IN THE VENEZUELAN CRISIS. 633

ever, and it indicates the hypocrisy of the movement by which
a member of the British Parliament paraded himself across
the ocean and came to Congress in the last session with his
arms full of petitions in favor of an international system of arbi
tration. We have lost standing among the nations of the earth
by the course we have already taken, and in the failures already
manifested, and we had infinitely better surrender all pretence of
adherence to the Monroe doctrine and abandon the American
Continent to the ravages of European aggression than to any
longer pretend to uphold it and yet be guilty of the failures of
the past two years.

Our attitude should be that of unflinching and unfaltering
devotion to the principles and practices of this government hither
to, and in so doing we shall not bring war upon the United States ;
but we shall protect ourselves against war by securing respectful
recognition of our national purpose by all the nations of the
world.

At this time England seems to have special interest in South
American affairs. Her efforts to secure trade belonging legiti
mately to her commercial rivals, have been supplemented by an
interference in the Mosquito country which clearly manifests a
disposition to control, if possible, the ownership of the great
trans-Isthmus Canal. England should not be permitted to suc
ceed in this scheme. The building and control of that gigantic
artery of international commerce should be the dearest object of
American statesmanship.

The attitude of the United States towards the Venezuelan
question should be that of determined opposition to any move
ment of England, the result of which would impair or
weaken our ancient declaration of support of the Monroe doctrine.
Our construction of the scope of that doctrine should be pro
claimed and adhered to. Once proclaimed, a faithful adherence
to and recognition of our construction by the nations of the earth
should be the conditions upon which alone friendly relations with
us can be maintained.

CHARLES H. GROSVENOR.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A PRACTICAL USE OF VERSE.

THE impracticability of using telegraph lines for communication be
tween Army Posts in a rugged country which was the seat of continual
warfare between the United States troops and so cunning and daring a foe
as hostile Indians, must be apparent to any layman ; and taking a lesson
from the enemy, who for ages had been skilful in long distance signalling
through a line of stations, the government decided upon the experiment
of sending messages by means of heliography, or the transmission of letters
forming words by means of the flashes of light from mirrors.

Colonel Wm J. Volkmar, Assistant Adjutant-General and Chief
Signal Officer of the Department of Arizona, was put in charge of this work
and had occasion to congratulate himself upon the hearty support of the
Chief Signal Officer of the Army, Brigadier General H. W. Greely, and the
cheerful co-operation of the regimental officers.

On November 1, 1889, instructions were given to the officers command
ing the various posts on the proposed line from Whipple Barracks, Ariz., to
Fort Stanton, N. Mex., together with all branch stations, to prepare for the
work. The result was that early in May, 1890, signals had been flashed and
successfully re*d between all contiguous stations.

The total distance covered was 2,544 miles, and was taken from a table
showing the stations occupied, their connections and minimum flash dis
tances as estimated by horizontal projections measured by scale upon the map.

About 2,'XX) miles were operated connectedly during the two weeks' prac
tice immediately following the completion of the lines.

During this practice all former records of communicating between two
points by flash signal were broken.

On May 13 signals were successfully interchanged between Mts. Reno
and Graham, Arizona, a distance of 125 miles. Lieutenant Wittenmeyer,
Ninth Infantry, was in command of the former, and Lieutenant Dade,
assisted by Lieutenant Peterson, both of Tenth Infantry, of the latter sta
tion. All were under the immediate direction of Captain Murray, Fourth
Cavalry.

In referring to the remarkable and satisfactory results following the
order of November 1, 1889, Colonel Volkmar says in his report of May 31,
1890: "To all the officers and operators praise is due fo" patient, untiring
work in face of difficulties involving privations and hardship. The burning
heat of the deserts, the cold and snow of lofty mountain tops, the painful
daily climbing and descent of rugged peaks by stony trails taxing physical
powers to the utmost, were all borne without complaint.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 635

" Filled with zeal, each enthusiastic in performing his own part in what
the Chief Signal Officer of the Army unreservedly styled ' the most compre
hensive and best planned scheme of the kind ever devised,' the enterprise,
skill, and daring of American Signal Officers, shown by this work, will com
mand the admiration of soldiers everywhere."

General Greely, lately returned from his terrible experience in the Arctic
region, manifested his deep interest in this enterprise by joining Colonel
Yolkmar at the seat of operations, Fort Bayard, N. M., and on May I0th a
" through" test message was sent to Whipple Barracks, Ariz.; FortStanton,
N. M.; and all intermediate and branch stations.

In preparing +his message Volkmar was determined that the test should
be a trying one — that words should not suggest their followers — and to this
end concluded to send the message in verse.

Some lines occurred to him that he had read years before in the album of
a lady visiting one of the official family of Gen. W. T. Sherman, and as the
number of words was about the number desired, and a compliment to the
Chief Signal Officer of the Army was happily implied, he called upon his
memory and gave the message to the transmitter.

It consisted of 159 words, body of message, and 27 words address and
signature, total 186 words. The report says :

<; It was transmitted creditably, and at Whipple Barracks the copy
received through seven repeating stations contained few, if any, more ' bulls'
than would be found ordinarily in any message of such length and peculiar
description transmitted by the public telegraph lines."

The verses are given here to show how carefully the message had to be
transmitted and received in order to give such excellent results. They were
written by Lieut. Thos. H. Stevens, of the United States Navy.

"Tne World's a mighty book upon whose pages

Each man is s- ernlv bid to place his name,
And there, recorded through enduring ages,

We mark the loved and honored ones of fame.
Some touch with trembling hand the stylus fateful,

Some write invisibly in tears the word,
While those ther«* be with spirits dark and hateful

Write small their names among the coward herd.
But, with a mighty purpose filled, the Chosen

Spurn idle pleasures back to idle hand a,
And. striding s* ift hrough torrid zones or frozen,

Stamp high their names on peaks of distant lands.
And others come, eodlike in conscious power,

Who with far-reaching eye see bright reward.
And eaarer ruth to meet fche slow-paced hour

In which to carve their names with naked sword.
And here, perchance, wlthiB this flexile cover

Where mem have writ in ink. then passed away,
Time may recall a* friend or reverent lover

Great names illumed by Glory's fadeless ray."

ROWAN STEVENS.

REGULATION OF THE LIQUOR BUSINESS.

THE sale of liquor at retail is a subject that has been probably the cause
of more legislation in the various states of the Union than any other. In
some of them it is entirely prohibited by law under severe penalties, in most
of .hem it is permitted under restrictions. As yet, no effort apparently has
been made looking to any uniformity of the restrictions imposed, each State
providing its own laws regardless of those of the others.

That the sale of liquor is virtually a necessity is shown by the fact that,
no matter how stringent the laws maybe, it has been impossible totally to

636 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

stop it in any of the States, the United States internal revenue returns show
ing the payment of licenses in States where the sale of liquor is absolutely
forbidden by the State laws. It seems proper then, as the sale of liquor can
not be wholly suppressed, that the effort should be to regulate business in
such manner that it will be satisfactory to the community wherein it is
allowed.

The principal points about which the greatest difference of opinion
appears to be are the amount of the license fee and the regulations regard
ing the same. The amount charged for a license, to be fair, should be so
regulated that the charge would not be oppressive or exorbitant. It is
well known that the profits of the liquor business depend largely on the
locality wherein it is carried on; the license fee, therefore, should be some
what in proportion. As to the regulations, under our present system of
society, it is apparent that what would be proper in one locality might be
considered unreasonable or tyrannical in another ; in certain localities of
some of our large cities it might be necessary to allow a privilege for selling
all night ; in some other localities it might be proper to allow a privilege,
under certain requirements, for selling on Sunday, but in such cases it is
only reasonable that the privilege extended should be paid for in accordance
with the value thereof.

That the above propositions are not unreasonable and would meet with
the approval of a large majority of the people seems *vident, especially
if they were embraced in a law which could be general and apply with equal
force to villages, towns and cities.

Have a law passed making the license fee for selling liquor a moderate
amount — for instance, $25 a year ; let the law provide for a properly con
stituted authority for each village, town or city, such constituted authority
to be a part of the governing power of each village, town or city, and to be
styled a Board of Excise. The Board of Excise of each village, town or city
should have the right to fix the number of licenses to be issued, and to establish
the regulations regarding the sale of liquor in their several localities. The
Board of Excise of each village, town or city should once a year district their
several localities, and fix the number of licenses to be issued in each of the
several districts, the number not to be increased during the ensuing year.
At the same time the Board of Excise should establish such regulations as
to the sale of liquor in the several districts of their respective localities as
they may deem just and proper. There should be some provision in the law
whereby the residents of the several districts might be entitled to a hearing
before the number of licenses and the regulations pertaining thereto, for the
several districts, were fixed. Immediately after settling the number of licenses
and the regulations regarding the same, the Board of Excise should advertise
for proposals for the privilege of securing a license, the license fee in all cases
to be the same. Parties offering proposals should designate the location pro
posed in any district and the amount of bonus offered, which bonus must be
paid on the procuring of the license, and the amount paid both for the
license and the bonus should be turned into the treasury of the several vil
lages, towns or cities.

Any party violnting the regulations as formulated for the privilege
which he may have procured, shall forfeit the license and cease to have any
privilege for the sale of liquor, and no re-issue of any forfeited license shall
be made until the beginning of the next year. The law should provide pen
alties for selling liquor without any license therefor.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 637

In putting such a law into operation, it would be only just that for the
first year as many licenses should be allowed as were in force in any district
at that time, but the regulations should be made plain, and the law should
provide for their strict enforcement, and in case of any violation the for
feiture of the license should be imperative. It is more than probable that at
the expiration of the first year, there would be a large reduction in the num
ber of licenses to be issued, for the simple reason that the strict enforcement
of the regulations would in many cases remove the glamouf that appar
ently surrounds the business of selling liquor in the estimation of so many
of the community, and the business would have to be conducted in a more
conservative manner than at present, and would tend to make the parties
engaged in it better members of society.

The people of this country are naturally in favor of good order and will
ingly obey laws that are fair in their nature, and as the above ideas embrace
the principles of Home Rule and high license, it might be possible to frame a
law based on them that would be satisfactory to the general community.

FRANCIS GOTTSBEKGEB.

THE RULE OF THE MOTHER.

THE record of primitive man, whose evil propensities still survive in thb
brutal and lawless elements of society, shows how humble have been our
social beginnings and how slowiy the more delicate and beautiful relations
of family life have been evolved. It would be ungracious, however, from
our comparative elevation, to look down with contempt upon the repre
sentatives of our more lowly estate, for the gorilla who is depicted as
patiently sitting, armed with a club, at the foot of the tree in which mother
gorilla nurses her young, was perhaps the first in the series leading to man
who held himself responsible for the safety of the family, and who inspired
respect for parental authority.

There was a time when what seems to us the most definite of all human
ties was the most shifting and imperfectly defined. In the first instance it
was believed among primitive men that the child belonged to the tribe in
general, secondly, to the mother only ; thirdly, to its father and not to its
mother ; and finally, that it was related to both. This last recognized truth
is the basis of the family in modern society, but so far as the spiritual life of
the child is concerned the man holds himself far less responsible than the
woman for its maintenance, or for the higher ideals connected with the
home.

There are many reasons why this should be so. The natural forces at
play in the organic world early conspired to subject women, by means
of her sympathy for the child, to the reign of love and to the practice of
the domestic virtues. On the other hand, the burden was thrown upon
society, or perhaps more especially upon woman herself, of winning man
by indirect means to this same theory of existence. It has been suggested
that nature could not afford to leave the development of motherhood to
chance. In the case of the father, however, her methods have been less
insistent, and his evolution, in the highest sense of the word, has been a
difficult and somewhat retarded task.

In addition to nature's carelessness, society also has neglected its op
portunities for cultivating the theory of paternal responsibility. The Greeks

638 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

and Romans, by whose ideas modern society has been so largely dominated,
taught that a man's duty to the state was the first and most urgent claim.
Cicero said that the love owed by a citizen to his country was holier and
more profound than that due by him to his nearest kinsman. The Roman
father, it is true, maintained absolute control in the family, holding even
the power of life aud death over his children, as seen in the condemnation
of bis sons to death by Brutus, who sentenced them without judicial forms,
and not as a consul, but as a father.

In modern times the patriotic sentiment has become largely qualified by
other considerations. It is now believed that the state is of importance in
proportion to its power to guarantee the security and promote the well,
being of the family. This belief, however, has been only slowly attained,
as well as many others essential to ethical progress. Even Plato struck at
the root of paternal obligation in making the woman the property of the
community rather than the faithful wife of one man. Furthermore, in the
life of the Greeks, outside of the theoretic republic, we find that the legal
guardian of the hearth was not well fitted to win a man to the higher
motives of family life. Grote tells us that " owing to the almost Oriental
seclusion, Greek wives, as a rule, were uncultivated, limited, dependent,
and without charm." On the other hand, the freedom permitted the
courtesan class was favorable to mental development as well as to the cul
tivation of social attractions; therefore these women became the companions
the most sought after by men, and the ones who lent charm to life.

The modern ideal is to combine the integrity of the Greek wife with the
varied attractions of the less restricted class. There can be no doubt that
under these conditions there is a better outlook than ever before for the
intelligent direction of the life of the child. There is, however, the risk
that the new intellectual movement may cause women to forget that
progress has not been due to the intellect alone. The emotions have played
even a more important part than the intelligence in lifting mankind from
the pit of animalism; and love and persuasion, rather than logic, must still
be the principal agents in winning man from the "gladiatorial theory" of
life, from his aberrant and centrifugal tendencies, to greater helpfulness In
promoting the ideals of the home.

In America the tendency is to hold the mother responsible for the spirit
ual tone of the household. This unformulated theory has been pushed to
so great an extreme that at length society is threatened with what has been
designated a matriarchate or a return to that primitive state when the child
was supposed to belong to the mother alone. Every teacher can bear
testimony to the fact that the direction and oversight of the child's educa
tion are largely under the control of the mother. Even after the youth has
entered college it is she who keeps in touch with his success or failure. Ad
mirable as this interest may be, wife and child nevertheless suffer from the
want of closer sympathy on the father's part in all that relates to the things
of the spirit. Besides, however praiseworthy their intentions may be,
mothers are not always the most judicious advisers. The father in many
instances is an infinitely better guide ; at any rate, his broad contacts with
life and his natural force of character make him an ally that cannot safely
be dispensed with.

All through the ages man has endeavored to dominate and impress his
personality upon the world at large, until this form of activity has ren
dered irksome any more limited field of exertion. He has believed himself

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 639

compelled to sing to the wide world so persistently and copiously, in such
resonant praise-eliciting accents, that he has become fascinated, not only
with the public deed, but with the oratorical utterances he finds so pleasing
to the collective ear. As a result of these outside allurements it is difficult
for him to subdue his voice to ind vidual and immediate teaching. Further
more, in is hard to persuade the politician and the philanthropist that the
reforms needed in the state are first needed in the home, and that soli itude
about other people's progress might in a measure be spared if men were
primarily solicitous about those immediately dependent upon them.

The transference of paternal responsibility to institutions, and more
especially to the mother, shows that there is a widespread conviction on
the part of fathers that, however it may be with other people's children,
his owa, at least, live by bread alone. Acting upon this belief he is gen
erous beyond compare in supplying his family with physical luxuries. He
is, however, far less lavish with his time and companionship. Indeed, he
refuses to be bothered about such petty details as the formation of char
acter, the discipline of the child, and the general conduct of the home.
Even in the pursuit of h'S pleasures he often sets an example of indepen
dence which serves to strengthen in the average American household the
proclivity shown by its members to fly off in a tangent. Like billiard balls
they carrom against each other, are pocketed in the home for a season, and
then start off on independent careers. As a disintegrating force a certain
amount of quarreling is insignificant compared with this cultivated indiffer
ence and the state of mind which finds expression in the '• do as you like"
theory of family life.

The decline of paternal authority is widespread, but nowhere has there
been so great an abandonment of control as in America. In compensation
there is, however, a growing belief that '* Le pouvoir paternal est plutdt
un devoir qu'un pouvoir." In recognition of this principle the cost and
care of bringing up a child properly have become so great that there is an
increasing sent iment in favor of small families, not only on the part of those
who pride themselves upon their enlightened selfishness, but among con
scientious people who realize the difficulties of bringing up a child in the
way he should go. Save in agricultural communities, children seldom
render any efficient service to their parents, and a young person adequately
fitted for a profession, in most cases, has cost his parents and institutions
of learning, not less than fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. This exces
sive tax upon the head of a household and upon the state suggests the
possibility of mistaken zeal in inducing young people to abandon the field
of manual labor.

The commercial theory of the division of labor is doubtless responsible
for the withdrawal of the father from the concerns of the house; but this
practice in the home as well as in the manufactory has been pushed to an
extreme. It is an evil day in any civilization when other interests and
duties are postponed to the making of money, and when wealth becomes
the chief standard of success. Absorbed in the world of action, stimulated
by its gains, and desirous of appearing successful in the eyes of his associ
ates, it is easier for a man to pay bills and ask no questions, to give money
rather than time or thought to the ways of the household.

Although there is much room for the improvement of the mother, she is,
in a measure, constrained to the fulfilment of her duties. The means for
evolving the perfected father are, however, more uncertain owing to the

640 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

existing impediments to the operation of selection. The greater number of
eligible wifes among well-to-do people as compared with desirable husbands,
so far reduces the range of choice that there is no guarantee that the noblest,
strongest, or handsomest men will marry refined women. The difficulty
here arises in part from the fact that men of this class, if poor, are apt to go
into remote and uncultivated regions, and become the husbands of inferior
women, while the rich of ten satisfy the claims of affection without incur
ring the obligations of the marriage tie. Thus the absence of healthy com
petition diminishes the chance of developing the best husbands and fathers.
Since the influence of woman for good does not appear to be m propor
tion to her numbers it is to be regretted that the birth rate does not show a
greater proportion of males than is actually the case. The Jews, with whom
there is a larger preponderance of males than any other race, are, according
to Lecky, remarkable for their domestic virtues, and especially for the care
of their children.

C. P. SELDEN.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,

No. CCCCLXIX.

DECEMBER, 1895.

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS.

BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE : AND REPRESENTATIVES THOMAS C.
CATCHINGS, OF MISSISSIPPI ; JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER,
OF IOWA ; GEORGE N. SOUTHWICK, OF NEW-
YORK ; AND JOHN C. BELL, OF COLORADO.

I.

ON the meeting of the new Congress it will be the duty of
the President of the United States to make known what steps he
has taken to comply with the resolution passed by the last Con
gress desiring him to urge upon the British Government a
reference of the boundary controversy between British Guiana
and Venezuela to arbitration. Should it appear that the
suggestion, though promptly and earnestly made, has been
rejected, and that, either by distinct avowal or by implication
the United Kingdom has signified a purpose to occupy by force
an extensive tract of land alleged by the republic of Venezuela
to constitute a vital section of her territory, it will devolve on
Congress to consider whether the Monroe Doctrine is defied by
the course of Great Britain, and whether under all the circum
stances the United States should enforce that doctrine by deed
as well as word.

There are, clearly, several questions which ought to be sep
arately looked at. First, do the arguments for the vietf of the
Caracas government regarding the right line of demarcation be
tween British Guiana and Venezuela present a primd facie case
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 41

Copyright, 1895, by LLOYD BRYCE. All rights reserved.

642 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

so strong that in the judgment of onlookers the frontier ought
to be defined, not by the arbitrary act of one of the parties to the
controversy, but by an impartial international tribunal ? Assum
ing that the reply to this preliminary inquiry is in the affirmative,
shall we hold that by repelling arbitration in this matter, and by
forcibly detaining a part of Venezuela's territory, England would
ignore and set at naught the Monroe Doctrine ? If to this ques
tion also the answer should be ' ' Yes," we shall have to make up
our mind, whether upon the whole, it is expedient to renounce
the principles put forth by President Monroe, or whether the actual
and prospective consequences of acquiescing in Venezuela's dis
memberment are so serious that the firm upholding of those princi
ples should not be left to diplomacy alone, but must, in the last
resort, be secured by other means. Of merely secondary and
negligible interest are the Yuruan incident and the ultimatum re
lating thereto, said to have been sent by Lord Salisbury to Cara
cas ; for here the merits of the boundary controversy are mani
festly involved, and if Venezuela's territorial claim is well-founded,
she has done nothing for which reparation can be demanded.

I.

As regards the boundary controversy we scarcely need to say
that Venezuela and Great Britain are respectively the represen
tatives of Spain and Holland. The Caracas government claims
all the land possessed by Spain east of the Orinoco in 1810, the
date of the assertion of Venezuelan independence. The British
Foreign Office claims all the land in that quarter which be
longed to Holland in 1814, when " the settlements of Demerara,
Berbice, and Essequibo " were ceded by the Dutch to England.
The texts of the treaties and diplomatic agreements or admissions,
from which the several rights of Spain and Holland may be as
certained, are accessible to every student of international rela
tions. The first document in the case is the Treaty of Mtlnster,
by which in 1648 Spain and the United Provinces undertook to
define their respective possessions on the north coast of South
America. Some misunderstanding having arisen, the treaty be
tween Spain and Holland, which was signed in 1691, stipulated
that the Orinoco colonies should belong to the Spanish, and the
Essequibo colonies to the Dutch. From the outset of her inde
pendent existence Venezuela has insisted, as she still insists, that

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 643

by the " Essequibo colonies " was meant the Dutch settlements
on the Essequibo River, and that the boundary intended Dy the
treaty of 1691 was the east bank of that waterway. The counter
position originally taken by the British was that what was con
templated by the treaty just named was not the Essequibo Eiver
itself, but the entire watershed draining into it. Were the latter
interpretation of the text sustained by arbitrators, Great
Britain's possessions would receive a considerable extension
westward, but the Essequibo watershed could not possi
bly stretch beyond the Maroco River, which also flows
northward and into the Atlantic ocean, fifty miles
to the west of the Essequibo. We should note further that,
should an impartial tribunal declare that the term "Essequibo
colonies " means the Essequibo watershed, a like interpretation
would be applicable to another crucial phrase in the treaty of
1691, and by " Orinoco colonies " we should have to understand
the Orinoco watershed. In that event England would be obvi
ously constrained to abandon her present claim to Point Barima,
which adjoins one mouth of the Orinoco, lying in fact between
that river and one of its eastern affluents. Erom this prelimin
ary stage the course of the boundary dispute has been outlined
by the Hon. William L. Scruggs, formerly United States Minister
to Caracas. He has shown that the so-called Schomburgk line,
drawn in 1841, has no binding force on any one, because,
first, the line was drawn without authority, concurrence or
even knowledge on the part of Venezuela, and, secondly,
eighteen months after the line had been run, Lord Aberdeen,
then British Premier, distinctly disclaimed it, and ordered it
obliterated by the Demerara colonial authorities. In addition to
this disavowal of the Schomburgk line, Lord Aberdeen repeat
edly assured the Venezuelan Minister in London that Great
Britain had no thought of claiming or attempting to occupy
Point Barima or any of the estuaries of the Orinoco, or even any
portion of the coast west of the Maroco River. Amazing, indeed,
is the difference between the position of Lord Aberdeen, who
proposed a boundary line beginning at the mouth of the Maroco
River, and the attitude now taken by the British Government
which claims west of the Maroco a territory larger than Eng
land, and refuses to submit to arbitration any part thereof lying
east of the obliterated Schomburgk line, which gives her Point

644 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Barima at the mouth of the Orinoco and access to the gold fields
of the interior.

But, it may be said, the title to domain may rest on other than
documentary grounds. There is such a thing as rights gained
by prescription. Is it not possible that in the region under dis
pute, which once at all events was a "No man's land/' citizens
of British Guiana may have acquired title through long occupa
tion conjoined with an absence of protest on the part of Venez
uela ? There is no doubt that British colonists have gradually
made settlements in parts of the debatable tract, but the other
condition requisite for the acquisition of a prescriptive right has
been wanting. Venezuela has never waived her claim to any
part of the territory, which, as she holds, can be proved by
documentary evidence to have been inherited by her from Spain.
No such waiver could be legally made, for the Venezuelan
constitution debars her government from alienating any portion
of the national domain. Venezuela has always contended that
the western boundary of the Dutch settlement of Essequibo, ac
quired by England in 1814, was the east bank of the Essequibo
River. Not only has she never acquiesced in any encroachments
of British subjects on the land west of that waterway, but she
has incessantly protested against such encroachments. While
the position of Venezuela, however, has been consistent and un
wavering, that of England has been shifted, as earth hunger and
reported discoveries of gold have impelled her Guiana subjects to
push their frontier westward.

II.

In view of the facts recited, which are believed to be incon
trovertible, it seems plain that Venezuela has a strong primd
facie case preeminently suited for arbitration, since it cannot be
pretended in this instance that the outcome of an impartial in
terpretation of treaties and other diplomatic documents should
be deemed neutralized by the upgrowth of prescriptive rights.
We do not hesitate to say that the primd facie case is stronger
and more suitable for arbitration than was that of the United
States in our controversy with England regarding the boundary
of Oregon. Here we may point out that the British Foreign Office
cannot consistently aver, as Sir Edward Grey averred not long
ago, that " England cannot submit to arbitration her claim to

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 645

any territory which has been long occupied by British subjects."
England can do this, because she has done it. We have the
authority of George Bancroft for asserting that England no fewer
than six times offered to submit to arbitration the question of the
northwest boundary of the United States, although British sub
jects had long occupied part of the territory south of the Fifty-
four .Forty line claimed by our State Department. With this
precedent before us, shall we be told that England has outgrown
her liking for arbitration ? How, then, are we to account for
the presentation to the last Congress of a memorial signed by
354 members of the last Parliament, urging that an agreement
should be made whereby all controversies between Great Britain
and the United States should be referred to arbitrators ? Is
it strange that some persons should explain a glaring inconsist
ency on the theory that England's refusal to submit the Vene
zuela boundary dispute to arbitration is based, first, upon the
consciousness of being in the wrong, and secondly, upon the
knowledge that Venezuela is a weak power, which, it is assumed,
can be plundered with impunity ?

III.

Can Venezuela be plundered with impunity? Or is it rather
the duty of the United States to interpose, and insist that the
disputed boundary shall be defined by an impartial tribunal? Is
that duty imposed on us by a logical deduction from the Monroe
Doctrine? Taking the latter question jfirst, let us recall for a
moment what that doctrine is, as it was expressed by its pro-
pounder. The message sent to Congress by President Monroe on
December 2, 1823, contained the following words: te We owe it
to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the
United States and the allied powers, to declare that we should
consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any
portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."
It is true that with the development of the United States into a
power of the first magnitude and with the diffusion of parlia
mentary government on the other side of the Atlantic, the ap
prehension of danger to our free institutions from the contiguity
of monarchical systems has in large measure disappeared. But
that, outside of any terrors on their own account, the people of
the United States conceive that they have special rights and

646 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

special duties in the two Americas, rights and duties which
might be obstructed by the extension of European dominions
within our sphere of influence, is explicitly declared in the en
suing words of the message of President Monroe: " With the ex
isting colonies or dependencies of any European power we have
not interfered, and shall not interfere; but with the govern
ments which hare declared their independence and maintained
it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and
just principles acknowledged, we could not view an interposition
for oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their
destiny, ~by any European power, in any other light than as a
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United
States." It is the words which we have underscored that render
unmistakable the application of the Monroe Doctrine to the
Venezuela boundary dispute. Scarcely will any one, we fancy,
argue that the forcible dismemberment of an American repub
lic's territory is distinguishable from an attempt to subvert
its liberties or to control its destiny. To an attempt to draw
such a distinction Venezuela could reply that " You take my
life when you do take the means whereby I live;" and that,
should England assume a commanding position at the mouth of
the Orinoco, she would in the strictest sense control the destiny
of the Venezuelan commonwealth; she would, in truth, have set
her hand upon its throat. Much the same thing may be said of
England's apparent determination to take possession of the re
markably extensive and rich auriferous deposits on the banks of
the Yuruan River in the Venezuelan Territory of Uruary. The
tremendous significance of the double wrong inflicted may be
measured in a sentence. It is as if Great Britain during our civil
war, making a vantage ground of proximity and believing us in
capable of self-defence, had undertaken to rob us, on the one
han,d, of California, and, on the other, of the control of the
Mississippi.

It seems, then, a logical deduction from the words of Presi
dent Monroe, that we ought to defend Venezuela from arbitrary
dismemberment by insisting on a reference of the boundary
question to arbitration. Before inquiring, however, whether
what is logical is also expedient, let us glance at two curious
statements about the Monroe Doctrine which are occasionally
heard from English writers and speakers on the subject. We are

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 647

told, in the first place, that the doctrine can have no application
to England, because England was an established American power
at the time it was promulgated. The argument evidently proves
too much. Russia, France and Spain were all established Ameri
can powers when the memorable message of President Monroe
was written ; yet these were the very powers most deeply inter
ested in the reactionary projects of the Holy Alliance, against
which the message was directed. Reductio ad absurdum. We
are also now and then requested, with an air of irony, to name
the authority on which the Monroe Doctrine has become incor
porated in the law of nations. We have never met an American
who imagined the doctrine to be a part of international law.
The Monroe Doctrine, as Senator Lodge has pointed out in this
REVIEW, is not a law but a fact. It is a deliberate and out
spoken declaration of the principal American republic's policy or
programme with reference to political conditions on the Ameri
can Continent. It is a declaration which we have every jot as
good a right to make as England has to announce her policy or
programme touching the maintenance of her commercial pre
ponderance in the Far East, or of her naval ascendancy in the
Mediterranean, or regarding the partition of Africa, or concern
ing the Ottoman Empire. The Monroe Doctrine not being a law,
Englishmen are under no legal obligation to obey it ; but from
the view-point of expediency and wisdom it may behoove them
to consider whether they will treat the doctrine with contempt,
just as it behooved Russia in 1878 to decide whether she would
spurn England's Eastern programme and face the consequences,
or would submit the treaty of San Stefano to a European Congress.

IV.

There remains only the inquiry whether in the situation pre
sented by the Venezuela controversy it is worth our while to
adhere stiffly to the Monroe Doctrine even at the risk of war,
should Great Britain persist in withholding the boundary dis
pute from arbitration, or whether we should do better to abjure
the doctrine altogether. One thing or the other we must make
up our minds to do ; and the precedent now to be established
will be big with safety or with peril to many weak common
wealths in the New World. Let us mark not merely the actual
and immediate but the ultimate consequences of our renouncing
the principles formulated by Monroe, and of our leaving the

648 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Caracas government at the mercy of British aggression. The
first point to be noted is that there are five great river systems in
the habitable part of the American Continent, namely, those of
the St. Lawrence, of the Mississippi, of the Amazon, of La
Plata, and of the Orinoco. Of these England already possesses
one, that of the St. Lawrence ; unless we now interpose to shield
Venezuela from violent encroachment, a second, that of the
Orinoco, will inevitably fall under British sway, and a great
monarchical power may be built up in the southern half of this
hemisphere, a counterpart of that already erected in British
North America. We call the Dominion of Canada a monarchy,
and unquestionably the term may be applied to it, as properly as
to the United Kingdom. Only the name is lacking, and even
that was forthcoming in the original draught of the British North
America Act. We know on the authority of the chief author of
that measure, Sir John Macdonald, that he proposed to call the
new confederation a "kingdom," and to bestow upon the English
sovereign the title of "Queen of Canada."

Even more wide and ominous than its bearing on the fate of
the Orinoco basin is the scope of the question raised by the con
troversy touching the Venezuela boundary. A glance at the map
will show that the same game of successive encroachments which
is being played torday at the cost of Venezuela may be practised
to-morrow to the detriment of Brazil. On the south British
Guiana is bounded with convenient vagueness by the Brazilian
Republic, and the east fork of the Parima River, one of the
most important northern members of the Amazon River system,
takes its rise in British territory. If, under color of frontier
disputes, which she refuses to refer to arbitrators, England is
now allowed to deprive Venezuela of the Orinoco basin, what is
to prevent her from depriving Brazil hereafter of the vast valley
of the Amazon ? Then, again, why should not a precedent,
once established for South America, be followed in Central
America as well ? If, proceeding from Guiana as a basis,
England is suffered to absorb a large part of Venezuela, why
should she not, starting from the territory of Belize, manage
gradually to swallow Honduras, Guatemala, and Yucatan ?

F.

We add that, were it conceivable that the next Congress could
repudiate the Monroe Doctrine and refuse to back Venezuela in

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 649

her boundary dispute, there is still one expedient to which in its
extremity the Caracas government might have recourse. It
would have but to follow the course actually taken by the republic
of Texas, and subsequently proposed by Yucatan, the course,
namely, of applying for admission to the American Union. The
position of Venezuela, indeed, at this juncture is in many respects
analogous to that which Texas occupied in 1845. The latter
commonwealth, which then had been independent for eight years,
was confronted by the harsh alternative of suffering the loss of
its great river, the Rio Grande, and of much valuable territory, or
of engaging, single-handed, in a hopeless war with the vastly pre
ponderant power of Mexico. It shrewdly avoided impalement on
either horn of the dilemma by becoming one of the United States.
Venezuela has no present advantages to lose, and immense future
advantages to gain, by following the Texan precedent. Within
twenty-four hours after her admission to the Union she would
witness a striking and gratifying change in the attitude of the
British Foreign Office, which would show itself as eager to in
voke a decision by impartial umpires concerning the Guiana
frontier, as it did in the matter of the Oregon boundary contro
versy, when, as George Bancroft noted, it proposed arbitration
no fewer than six times. In truth, the mere agitation in Vene
zuela of the question of annexation to the great American repub
lic would in all likelihood bring the English government to terms.
One of the last things that Englishmen desire is to have Ameri
can citizens for neighbors of their lucrative possessions on the
mainland of South America and in the Antilles. They are quite
sufficiently worried by our proximity to Canada.

M. W. HAZELTINE.

II.

IF the Congress about -to assemble reads aright the signs of the
times, it will recognize its chief work to be such revision of our
currency system as will relieve the Treasury of the tremendous
and hurtful strain put upon it by the necessity of maintaining
the current redemption of the greenbacks, amounting to $346,-
000,000, and the Treasury notes issued in the purchase of silver
bullion under the requirements of the Sherman law, amounting
to about $150,000,000. It is the judgment of the Secretary of

650 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the Treasury, as it was of his predecessor, which judgment I am
sure is concurred in by an overwhelming majority of all who have
given thought to it, that our various forms of money cannot be
kept at a parity except by the exchange of gold for these demand
notes whenever it is asked for.

Inasmuch as the law requires them to be reissued as fast as they
are received, their payment in gold when presented is in no just
sense a redemption of them, so that the burden upon the Treasury
is never lifted.

Except through taxes or the sale of its bonds, the government
has no means of acquiring gold. The enactment of the Sherman
law, under which about $50,000,000 of demand notes were re
quired to be annually issued, excited apprehension that the obliga
tions of the Treasury were likely to exceed its ability to maintain
their current redemption, that we would be forced to a silver basis
whereby the parity of our several forms of money would be de
stroyed, and that a disastrous collapse of credit would ensue.

Prior to that law so large a proportion of taxes was paid in
gold that the Treasury had no 'difficulty in meeting the demands
upon it, but thereafter gold payments began to fall off, and in less
than three years ceased altogether. The government was thus
compelled to choose between letting the collapse come, or replen
ishing its gold reserve by selling its bonds. The latter course was
pursued with results of inestimable value to the country.

Apprehension has been allayed, it is true, but the state of the
gold reserve continues to be a source of constant solicitude.

Exports of gold, no matter for what purpose, beget uneasiness
necessarily harmful, and that may at any time develop a threat
ening condition. This is not through fear that the country may
be denuded of its gold stock, for under given trade conditions,
exports of gold have always occurred, and will always occur, so
long as commerce between nations continues.

Under our system exporters of gold, more easily and econom
ically than by any other method, can procure it from the Treas
ury by presenting these demand notes for redemption, and it is
the apprehension, which will not down, that the day may come
when such redemption cannot be made, that creates this solici
tude.

It is insisted by some that the trouble does not indicate vice in
our system, but that it arises wholly because of insufficient rev-

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 651

enne. The answer to this contention is obvious. The demand
notes amount in round numbers to $500,000, 000. So long as any
considerable volume of them is outside of the Treasury, they can
and will be used to withdraw whatever gold may be needed for
export or otherwise. No revenue would suffice to remove the
difficulty, unless ample enough to enable the Treasury to lay these
notes aside as they are redeemed or otherwise come into its pos
session, and defray the expenses of government without paying
them out again, for, if reissued, the necessity of providing for their
current redemption would remain. Taxation adequate to produce
revenue of such magnitude would be intolerable, to say nothing
of the dangerous contraction of our circulation that would result.
The evil is radical and so must the remedy be. Nothing will an
swer that does not take from the government the duty of issuing
and redeeming demand notes intended to circulate as money.
Provision should be made for the gradual retirement of these
obligations, and the substitution of bank notes, and this can be
safely done, with great advantage both to the government and
the people. We have been so long accustomed to government
issues that many have forgotten to what extent bank notes
formerly figured in our currency. In 1861 very nearly one-half
of our circulation consisted of State bank notes, and they
continued in use until taxed out of existence in the interest of the
National Banks. It would not be difficult for Congress to devise
a scheme under which bank notes could be safely allowed to any
extent required by the business of the people.

The tax on the issues of State banks should be repealed. The
repeal, if deemed desirable, might be accompanied by such con
ditions as would satisfy the public that their notes would be safe
and in all respects entitled to credit. The cost of government
bonds is such as to practically preclude the possibility of any
material enlargement of the circulation of National Banks.
Indeed, they have already become little more than banks of dis
count and deposit. The National Banking laws might readily be
remodeled so that all of their features that are so objectionable
to many would be eliminated, and their monopolistic tendencies
eradicated. This done, the capacity of National Banks to serve
the people by supplying them with a sound and abundant cur
rency would soon place them beyond the reach of criticism or
complaint. The Republican party, being now in control of Con-

(552 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

gress, is charged with the work cf rescuing the country from the
clangers threatened by existing currency conditions, and should
it fail to do so, it will deserve and receive the severest condemna
tion.

It should rejoice at the opportunity now aiforded it of per
forming this task, inasmuch as the grave evils to be remedied
spring from unsound and ill-conceived laws improvidently, if not
recklessly, imposed by them upon the people. Let them now
"bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance."

The gold reserve could then be abolished and the Treasury
confined to the simple function of collecting and disbursing the
revenues. When conditions required it, gold would still be ex
ported, but the exporter would procure it as best he could, and
the operation would neither disturb business nor excite comment.

The decision of the Supreme Court that so much of the Wilson
bill as sought to lay a tax upon incomes is unconstitutional, has
greatly curtailed the revenue contemplated by that law. It can
not as yet be definitely foretold whether or not that law, as it
stands, will yield sufficient returns to meet the necessities of the
government. So little time has elapsed since it was enacted,
and during a considerable part of that time such business depres
sion has prevailed, that no fair judgment can yet be formed of its
efficiency. As conditions improve, and as the process of read
justment becomes more complete, it may reasonably be expected
that it will yield greater revenue.

It would seem to be the part of wisdom to test it fully in this
regard, and, if in the meantime the necessity for larger revenue
should manifest itself, to make some temporary provision to sup
ply it. Certainly the business of the country needs assurance
that for the present the tariff will not be disturbed.

The question as to whether the government should construct
or aid in the construction of the Nicaragua Canal will doubtless
be pressed for consideration. Public sentiment has of late years
been rapidly crystallizing -into a profound conviction that the
building of the Canal would in many ways greatly facilitate and
advance our commercial interests, and it will not be satisfied un
less the project shall receive fair and sympathetic consideration.
The question is environed by many difficulties, but it is believed
that they are all capable of removal.

The relations between the government and the Pacific rail-

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 653

roads ought to be adjusted in some way. The indebtedness of
these roads to the government is great, and the time has arrived
when Congress should determine definitely what steps, if any, can
or should be taken to secure it. Many difficulties surround this
matter also.

It is contended by some that the government should acquire
these roads and operate them on its own account ; by some that a
compromise should be effected by which a definite sum should be
accepted in final settlement of all claims ; and by others that the
indebtedness should be arranged so that through a long period of
time it would be gradually paid in full,

At all events it would seem that a definite settlement of the
controversy can no longer be safely postponed.

While it is scarcely probable that any serious quarrel with
England will grow out of the Venezuelan dispute, yet if it is not
in the meanwhile satisfactorily adjusted it may become necessary
to cause inquiry to be made as to whether the situation calls for
intervention by the United States.

It is quite likely that Congress will take occasion to re
affirm with emphasis our fixed determination to uphold under
all circumstances the principle enunciated by the Monroe Doc
trine.

It may also become necessary to take into consideration the
situation in Cuba, with the view of determining what the duty
of this government is in the premises.

The foregoing are the matters, aside from the regular work of
Congress, that seem to be of the greatest importance.

T. C. CATOHINGS.

III.

THE Fifty-first House of Representatives showed what a united
party is able to accomplish under intelligent leadership. The
Fifty-third Congress, with a party management in both houses,
broken by the rivalry of contentious factions, illustrated some of
the infirmities of party government without party leadership. In
the present condition of national affairs we have a Democratic
President, a Republican House, and a Senate in which no party
has a majority, and in which on important questions an influen
tial section of each party appears ready to form a coalition against

654 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

sound policies. The average citizen is likely to look with sus
picion on any proposition in which these three divisions of the
legislative function are agreed. The House will experience great
difficulty in giving effect to the policy put forward by the admin
istration. A year ago, when the blind spent the winter leading
the blind, the Scriptures were literally fulfilled in the fall of both
into the ditch. In our present case, if the Secretary of the
Treasury again comes forward with a little squad of eastern Dem
ocrats in charge of currency reform, we are apt to see the spec
tacle of the blind trying to lead persons who can see, and the re
sult, so far as the House is concerned, is easy to predict. From
the Republican point of view nothing is needed to restore normal
business conditions except a full treasury, and a speedy return to
favorable trade relations with the world. No possible system of
currency can hold out long against a shortage of revenues and an
increasing adverse trade balance. If the administration should
come forward with some simple proposal to increase the revenue,
and some obvious changes in the Act of 1894 looking to a larger
patronage of home industries, the Republican party would meet
the Secretary of the Treasury more than half way. If we may
judge from experience there is little prospect of the present
House offering a very hearty indorsement to the elaborate
schemes of finance which appear to kindle the imagination of the
Secretary. The integrity of his purpose, of course, is not ques
tioned; but there is no extraordinary confidence in the Secretary's
career as a popular leader, dealing with the intricate problems of
finance. The obligation of the business community to the ad
ministration for saving us, albeit in an awkward, humiliating and
costly way, from a total wreck of the public credit, incident to the
Democratic management of our affairs since 1892, may be ad
mitted. It is a curious commentary on our shifting human
affairs, that the maintenance of the specie basis should have been
committed to a statesman who declared in the House in 1878,
that resumption itself was " a destructive scheme of the bullion
dealers " ; that the gold reserve has been administered and from
time to time replenished, as a general asset of the Treasury, by
thQ doubtful virtue of the act of 1875 through an official who in
1878 declared that it was-" a special fund for a special purpose,
the redemption and retirement of the legal tender currency/' and
that the coin collected under it " by the issue and sale of bonds

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 655

is dedicated to that one object " ; that the same statesman who
declared in 1878, that the dropping of the obsolete silver dollar
from the list of our legal coins, was a " conspiracy against the
human race " and the "most gigantic crime of this or any other
age/' should have become the confidential adviser of the
President and the most active agent of the extreme enemies
of silver ; that the party leader, who in 1878 announced
his purpose to pass one silver bill after another, over the
executive veto, even if the House had to suspend its rules, to
attach the obnoxious measures to the general appropriation bills,
and to starve the government into submission to the free silver
movement, should be called upon, as Secretary, to retrace the steps
he had advised, and pull the Treasury out of the bottomless pit
which his own followers had prepared for it. These things are
adverted to not to disparage what the administration has done,
but to indicate some of the grounds for Kepublican hesitation in
following a leadership now grown somewhat arrogant and impa
tient with the slow movements of Congress. The Kepublican party,
being solemnly convinced that the national safety requires Congress
to retrace every recent step in the direction of free trade, and
that no financial repose is possible without abundant revenues and
an a'dequate protection'of domestic industry, is not likely to spend
its strength in the House trying to overthrow a system of banking
and currency which for fifteen years before the election of 1892
gave the country neither trouble nor anxiety. It would undoubt
edly be a good thing to rescue the Treasury from the hands of the
gold exporters. It is a better thing to rescue the country from
unfavorable business relations which require gold exports. This
nation has grown accustomed to a statesmanship that is able to
prevent the disease as well as to recognize and treat the symptoms.
It would doubtless be a good thing to modify our banking laws,
so as to encourage the issue of bank notes, and to otherwise enlarge
the commercial usefulness of the National Banks. But nobody,
with a history of the United States at hand, expects Congress,
under Kepublican auspices, to join with Mr. Carlisle in a scheme
of bank reform, the ultimate effect of which would be to bring
back the half-forgotten promissory note factories of the last
generation.

It might as well be understood now that whatever money we
have in this country shall bear the image and superscription of

656 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the nation of America, and not the mere authority of a State
legislature. The American dollar must be as national as the
American flag. In whatever the administration proposes, having
honestly in view the credit and solvency of the Treasury, it will
have the united assistance of the Republican party in Congress.
It is not too much to hope that a law may be passed giving the
Secretary the power to use the public credit to protect the reserve
and to meet the current deficiencies of revenue. It is a national
disgrace that the recent Treasury operations, not entirely credit
able in themselves, should have been burdened by doubts and dis
putes as to their legal authority. No nation, which occasionally
indulges in the luxury of a Democratic administration, should be
without an emergency loan law on its statute books. It is likely
to be needed only about once in a generation, but its enactment
ought not to be neglected by this Congress. In addition to legisla
tion for the orderly and economical use of the public credit, it is
reasonable to expect Congress to provide for the immediate
increase of revenue by such modifications of the Act of 1894 as
will bring in money enough to pay the current expenses and have
a little left over for the sake of the public comfort. Unless the
spirit of party and of party faction has made Congress totally
helpless, these remedies for an uneasy Tre*asury will be provided.
It is probable that a general disposition will be manifested in
both Houses, not strictly within party lines, to give a substantial
expression to the patriotic aspirations of the American people.
In all our borders there is a noticeable revival of patriotism —
a new sense of the size of the republic, the glory of
the American flag, and the dignity of citizenship in the
United States. These sentiments have been greatly stimu.
lated by the failure, so far as the public is advised, of our
State Department to deal in an influential way with the violation
of American rights in distant countries, or to assert the traditions
of our fathers in matters which concern the safety and territorial
integrity of the struggling little Eepublics of Central and South
America. It is not likely that a nation, which did not withhold
its sympathy, more than seventy years ago, from the Greek revo
lutionists in their effort to cast off the despotism of Turkey, will
now find itself entirely without a voice of neighborly good-will in
behalf of the people of Cuba, now engaged in defending them
selves against the government of Spain, even if the Secretary of

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 657

State publishes his proclamations of neutrality, warning the
American people to do nothing, while the Attorney-General, fol
lowing at an humble distance, in an official interview, exhorts
them to say nothing. It must always be borne in mind that
whatever is attempted by the Congress must be so obviously pru
dent and patriotic as to escape the rocks of partisan debate, for
while the House of Representatives, through the historic public
service of Thomas B. Reed, is now able to do what a majority of
its members wish to do, the Senate is still at the mercy of the
rudest parliamentary weapons of obstruction. The public can
count with certainty on no legislative action to which any consid
erable group of Senators, in the enjoyment of a fair state of
health, is really opposed. For that reason the Republican party,
being in no position to put any scheme of partisan legislation
entirely through, cannot be expected to spend the winter splash
ing in the water. On the other hand, except the current routine
of legislation prepared by the Appropriation Committees, it is
not certain that anything will be done. The net result of the
election of 1894 is therefore not the enactment of new laws, in
harmony with the principles of the Republican party, but rather
the grateful sensation, now everywhere felt throughout the busi
ness community, that the opportunity of the Democratic party
for mischief in national legislation is at an end.

J. P. DOLLIVEE.

IV.

THE failure of the Wilson- Gorman tariff act to supply the
national government with sufficient revenue to meet current ex
penses is responsible for the principal problem which will be
presented to the Fifty-fourth Congress.

Three issues of bonds, aggregating over $162,000,000, have
been made during the past three years, nominally for the pur
pose of restoring the gold reserve but actually in order to supply
the money required for pressing necessities of the Treasury.
This cannot long be permitted to continue. Uncle Sam is not
accustomed to running into debt in a time of profound peace.
Indeed, such a contingency was so far from the thoughts of mod
ern statesmen that no provision was ever made for it ; and, in
stead of a short term emergency bond bearing a low rate of inter-
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 42

658 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

est, the Secretary of the Treasury has been forced to resort to
antiquated laws and issue long term and high interest bonds. This
position of the Treasury of the United States has been positively
humiliating to the average American and has suggested the
financial status that obtains at Madrid, Rome, Constantinople
and other capitals of bankrupt European powers. Moreover,
the history of the bond issue of 1895, when American capitalists
were not permitted to bid and the bonds were turned ever en Uoc
to an Anglo-American syndicate, at an enormous profit to the
coterie of Wall and Lombard Street bankers so fortunate as to be
within the charmed circle, carried with it a suggestion of scandal,
which should never again be permitted to attach to the opera
tions of the Treasury of the United States.

Furthermore, the condition of the Treasury sustains intimate
relations to the finances of the nation ; and, by reason of the gold
reserve being considered a portion of the Treasury's assets availa
ble for current expenditures, as well as for the one especial pur
pose for which it was established, every time the reserve has been
impaired below the traditional hundred-million mark, apprehen
sion regarding the ability of the government to maintain the
interconvertibility of its different forms of money has been
aroused, to the detriment of all business and industry.

How shall the present revenue laws be modified in order that
the current deficit, which has amounted to about $130,000,000
during the past two years and four months, may be done away
with and the government provided with sufficient revenue for
current expenses ? On that question, of course, the two great
parties will divide ; and, with a President committed to the tariff
ideas which found at least partial expression in the Wilson-
Gorman act, with a Senate of uncertain disposition, and with a
House fresh from the people and containing an overwhelming
majority of Republicans who believe in the American industrial
system of protection for home wage-workers, producers and
manufacturers, the outcome is uncertain. That the President
will urge an increase in the internal revenue tax on beer and ale,
if not on other articles which are now or were formerly objects of
internal revenue taxation, seems to be accepted on all hands. In
this manner he doubtless hopes to make good the loss of revenue
which the Supreme Court's decision of unconstitutionally against
the income tax provisions of the Wilson-Gorman act involved.

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 669

The preliminary estimates of the revenue which the proposed tax
on income would have yielded were in the neighborhood of $30,-
000,000. The internal revenue derived from beer and ale taxa
tion last year was approximately $31,000,000 ; and, as there is
little reason to apprehend any material falling off in the con
sumption of beer and ale, by reason of the proposed increase in
the internal revenue tax from $1 to $2 a barrel, probably the
expectation of $30,000,000 additional revenue would prove to be
well founded.

But, while the Democratic scheme of taxation justifies the pro
posed increase in the internal revenue tax on beer and ale, Repub-
licans will unquestionably oppose it to the bitter end. They look
upon internal revenue taxes as essentially " war taxes," to be re
duced or repealed when the revenue emergency which called for
their enactment has passed away. Both tariff duties and internal
revenue taxes, which were levied by Republicans "for revenue
only," have repeatedly been reduced or repealed, when the con
dition of the Treasury permitted such a reduction in taxation to
be made. The pending session of Congress will not witness any
departure on the part of Republicans from their historic policy.
Undismayed by the result of the popular verdict of 1892, and the
enactment of the Wilson-Gorman bill, in which the Democratic
party has sought to reduce or repeal tariff duties and make good
the resulting deficit in the revenues, by increasing the internal
tax on whiskey and levying an internal revenue tax on incomes,
the Republicans have steadfastly appealed to the people, in be
half of the American industrial system of protection; and the
political results of 1895, no less than those of 1894, encourage
them to the belief that the people condemn the Democratic tariff
legislation of last year. As wool was the " bloody angle" at
which the fight of last summer between protectionists and free
traders was the fiercest, and as the tariff reductionists held their
position at that point, despite their retreat from free coal, free
iron ore, and other advanced positions which they assumed to
occupy, so the protectionists of the Republican House will doubt
less seek to repair the damage inflicted on their lines, by restoring
wool to the dutiable list.

Under the McKinley tariff act of 1890, without the income
tax provision which the Democratic Congress and President
sought to embody in the law of 1894, without the increase in the

(560 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

beer and ale tax which the administration now proposes, and
despite the reduction of $50,000,000 in the annual revenue which
was brought about, the tariff duties and internal revenue taxes
yielded sufficient money to meet the current expenses of the
government. Republican statesmanship may be relied upon to
convert the "Wilson -Gorman law into an act which will at once
provide sufficient protection for all American wage-workers, pro
ducers and manufacturers, and also supply the Treasury with a
surplus rather than a deficit. Specific per cents are a matter of
incidental importance. The Republican Ways and Means Com
mittee of the House will frame a tariff measure, in harmony and
consistency with the principles of the policy of protection, under
which the American people prospered as never before in their
history, from 1861 to 1893.

That a dead-lock on the tariff question will be precipitated
seems altogether likely, if not inevitable. The President is a man
of recognized obstinacy of opinion. However, he will have on
his hands, during the coming winter, a Congress possessed of
equally pronounced views and enjoying the advantage of coming
fresh from the people, with positive instructions ; and tariff
duties, rather than increased internal revenue taxation of
beer and ale, will be the plan by which Republicans will seek to
relieve the pressing necessities of the Treasury. A presidential
veto of the Republican tariff measure will have no other result
than to transfer the fight for the restoration of the protective
tariff, from the halls of Congress to the presidential and con
gressional campaign of 1896.

However, all men of conservative views seem agreed that the
condition of the Treasury and the credit of the nation should not
be imperilled by conflicting ideas regarding the principles which
should be observed in levying tariff duties; and the amendment
of existing laws, in a manner which will permit the Treasury
Department to issue emergency bonds running for a brief period
and bearing a low rate of interest, will doubtless meet the views
of members who differ most radically on the tariff question.

That important financial legislation, other than this particular
provision, will be forthcoming is altogether unlikely. The
American people move with deliberation and care in matters of
such moment. The congressional elections of 1894 and the State
and local contests of 1895, so far as financial considerations

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 661

figured in political results, simply manifested popular hostility
to the proposition that the mints of the United States should be
opened to the free and unlimited coinage of silver dollars at the
ratio of 16 to 1. That was the only definite and specific financial
proposition which attracted popular attention. The election
of an overwhelmingly Republican House of Representatives in
1894 dispelled the free silver menace, which had aroused appre
hension both at home and and abroad regarding the stability of
American finances. That was a positive advance and a pronounced
gain to the cause of sound and honest money. But every
attempt at affirmative legislation of a financial character in the
present Congress is bound to arouse a multiplicity of conflicting
views, probably with the net result that beyond the formulation
of various measures designed to reform the existing currency
system and their extended advocacj nothing will be accom
plished.

However, it should be borne in mind, in this connection, that
from the day of the resumption of specie payments, January 1,
1879, as long as the tariff duties and internal revenue taxes
yielded sufficient revenue for Treasury purposes — indeed, until
the time of Democracy's advent to power at Washington in
March, 1893, the panic which followed and the Wilson-Gorman
tariff act — the existing financial system worked acceptably and
well. A deficit in revenue and an impairment of the gold re
serve, along with many disturbing influences in financial, com
mercial and industrial circles, were required to reveal the defects
and weaknesses in the system. These have unquestionably in
fluenced popular sentiment in demanding an improvement which
will meet recent conditions and requirements. Conservative
opinion, it will probably be discovered, will favor making haste
slowly in this matter. Financial legislation, on the eve of a
presidential election and in the absence of any crystallization of
sentiment and purpose, would hardly be of a desirable character.
Gold monometallism, international bimetallism, and independent
action in the direction of free silver coinage represent only the
general positions and not the subdivisions of financial views,
which will find expression in the present Congress.

That the Republican House of Representatives will respond
to party sentiment in favor of extending all proper and permis
sible encouragement to the struggling patriots of Cuba, and,

662 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

likewise, in favor of the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine
wherever on the American Continent foreign encroachment shall
seek to infringe it, goes without saying.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that, barring sensational de
velopments in other directions, the present House will be the
battle-ground where the great questions of tariff and finance
will be the issues, pending the time when the contest shall be
transferred to the vast field where the Presidential and Congres
sional struggle of 1896 will be fought and determined.

GEORGE N. SOUTHWICK.

V.

THERE will probably be a marked difference between what the
next Congress will do and what the great mass of the people think
it should do. The producing portion of the nation who feed,
clothe and house the race, think that some of their long neglected
natural rights should be declared and enforced, but no heed will
be given to their convictions,

The floating signs indicate that a few bombastic assumptions
of patriotism and a liberal number of Congressional bluffs at the
gathering war clouds, with a profuse abuse of the State Depart
ment and the President, will usher in the session. The two great
parties will play the role of King Lear's elder daughters in out-
vieing each other in protestations of loyalty. Their final conduct
will prove that such declarations were but harmless peals of the
political gong. All the necessary declarations of belligerency will
be unanimously adopted, the Monroe Doctrine will be re-declared
with great acclamation, and much indignation will be expressed
for the neglected past. Many other such pleasing matters will
be attended to promptly that will not materially affect the indus
trial or business condition of the country.

As long as the people can be contented with empty shadows,
the substance of things will be handed over to that class which
will accept nothing less than the substance of things. It is gen
erally conceded that a Congress has been secured thoroughly im
bued with the prevailing economic ideas of the New England and
Middle States. This assures such an organization of the House
Committees that no financial legislation can emanate from the

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 663

Finance or Banking Committee not of the " sound money " type,
no tariff measure or provision to increase the revenue of the gov
ernment can emerge from the Ways and, Means Committee except
of the high tariff order, and the organization of the Commitees
on Territories will be such that no recognition of the claims of
Statehood of New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma will be coun
tenanced, and a like eastern policy will be pursued throughout all
of the committees.

This will be unfortunate for the country at large, as it will
evince conclusively the intense sectionalism of these States from
which comes a general flow of the loudest deprecations of any in
dication of sectionalism. To maintain the homogeneity of the
people of a great country every thought and act of the represent
atives in Congress should be as broad as the country itself, but
human nature seems to be too weak to reach this standard.

The Nicaragua Canal should be built, if the ownershi or
complete control can be secured and maintained b the govern
ment. We cannot afford to subsidize any private corporation
and open the doors for a repetition of the Pacific railroad frauds
and national scandals.

The lien on the Pacific roads should be foreclosed at once, the
government own the roads, if need be, and operate or lease them
in the interest of the people. The nation cannot afford to keep
this vile book of public scandal and private disgrace open before
the people longer, even if its soiled lids must be closed at a loss
to the government.

The real contest in the coming Congress will be the determined
effort which the administration will make to retire the green
back, and increase, the interest-bearing debt and the bankers'
profits and privileges. On one side of this issue will be found
the administration and the representatives of the great money
centres of the country without regard to political affiliations.
On the other side will be the great body of the non-interest-
drawing but great interest-paying portion of the people.

The results of every evolution of our greenback and bonded
systems have been so beneficial to the professional banker and
dealers in ready money and government securities, that the people
at large have logically concluded that our financial operations
since the Kebellion have not been based upon broad, unselfish,
patriotic statesmanship and have not been for the greatest good

664 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to the greatest number, but have been rather built up by a narrow,
selfish line of specialists who so handle money and securities as to
make the largest possible private gains at the expense of the pub
lic ; the government thereby becoming financially subordinate to
and dependent upon the private capitalists for its financial life
and liberty.

The unprecedented number of great fortunes accumulated by
bankers and dealers in ready money and securities during the
past thirty years demands of the representatives of the people
a critical investigation of the methods used in reaching the
difference gradations leading up to our unfortunate financial
condition.

The greenback system originated in and passed the House,
providing for a full legal tender paper money. The Senate so
amended the bill that it was not a legal tender for the interest on
the public debt, or receivable for import duties. I will offer in
evidence, as showing for whose benefit this amendment was made,
a few lines of a speech of Thaddeus Stevens in the House, Febru
ary 20 , 1862, and like speeches were made by Mr. Wilson, Mr.
Morton and many others. He says : " I have a melancholy fore
boding that we are about to consummate a cunningly devised
scheme which will carry great injury and great loss to all classes
of people throughout this Union, except one." He declared that
the people generally approved the bill as it passed the House, but
that " there was a doleful sound came up from caverns of the
bullion brokers, and of salons of the associated banks" that
caused the Senate to so amend the bill as to " make two kinds of
money : one for banks and brokers and one for the people." The
passage of this bill made a forced market for the coin of the
capitalist ; he ran it to a premium, bought up the greenbacks at
an average of sixty odd cents on the dollar, secured an act of
Congress permitting him to exchange them for interest-bearing
bonds at par, and obtained the passage of the national banking
act built upon the bonded debt — all of which soon brought his
government bonds to a premium.

The interest only of the bonds was made payable in coin ;
the principal was payable in any kind of legal tender money. The
bank journals, the sympathizing public press and the bondholders
soon started an outcry, in the name of patriotism and the public
credit, that the principal of the bond ought to be paid in coin.

THE WORK OF THE NEXT CONGRESS. 665

The National Republican Convention of 1868 resolved, among
many other things : " That we denounce all forms of repudiation
as a national crime ; and the national honor requires the payment
of the national debt in the utmost good faith to all creditors at
home and abroad, not only according to the letter but according
to the spirit of the contract." In the subsequent Congresses the
Republicans declared the " spirit of the contract" with the bond
holder meant coin, but they could find no such spirit in the
agreements with the soldier or everyday citizen. They soon passed
a bill making all bonds payable in coin of the standard value of
July 17th, 1870. In 1873 Congress demonetized silver, and the
bondholder then contended that his bond was payable in gold.
To settle this, Congress passed a joint resolution in 1877, declaring
all obligations of the government payable in gold or silver at the
option of the government.

Then the so-called " Honest Money League" appealed to the
Secretary of the Treasury, in the name of the public credit, to re
verse the universal law of tender, and to allow the creditor to
choose the kind of money he would accept. His request was
readily granted, which took away the legal tender quality of our
coined silver when payments were to be made on a bond or bill,
and voluntarily destroyed the right to pay in silver as provided in
the Act of 1870. This last act of the Secretary of the Treasury,
allowing the creditor to choose the kind of money he would accept
on a bond or greenback, is the pith, bone and sinew of every
trouble or annoyance that the Treasury Department has had with
the gold reserve or with the greenback. This supposed malady
can be removed by simply going back to the correct principle and
paying all public obligations in any kind of legal tender money
that is most convenient to the government. The correct principle
is followed in France, and in all other governments having more
than one kind of legal tender money, with a perfect success. It
does seem that for the past quarter of a century financial leger
demain, that has greatly enriched the money dealer and impover
ished and humiliated the government, has taken the place of good
governmental financiering. Party platforms and political convic
tions of public men have become as " erratic as the phantasm of
a morning dream."

With a Democratic administration advocating a single gold
standard and an unbridled bank currency in the face of the

666 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

teachings of the party for nearly a century, viz : " We declare
unqualified hostility to bank notes . . . because gold and silver
is the only safe and constitutional currency/' and with the
great Republican party entrenched in Congress advocating the
same ruinous doctrine in the face of the teachings of the patriotic
Lincoln who largely enunciated the original principles of the
party, and who unerringly taught that " if a government con
tracts a debt with a certain amount of money in circulation,
and then contracts the money volume before the debt is paid, it
is the most heinous crime a nation can commit against a
people " — we can rely upon~no past by which we can safely
judge the future. However, it is to be hoped that something bet
ter than present indications portend may emerge from the
chaotic elements that constitute this ' Congress. As the great
heads of the lamb and the lion seem inclined to lie down together
in harmony and in a new lair, it may be fondly hoped that, with
the aid of the people and an enlightened press, the usual bombast
and political claptrap in the sessions preceding the presidential
elections may be eliminated, and as healthy a stimulus given to
business as existing conditions will permit during the presidential
canvass and election. The people out of Congress should by
a forced, healthy business sentiment forestall any depression of
business at the beckoning of any line of politicians or in the
interest of any political combination. The crowning curse of the
nation is traceable to the unbridled tread of the mere politician.
With all of the confusing shuffling of the age, let the people
forge to the front and direct the destiny of the succeeding years
in the interest of industry instead of in the interest of the pro
fessional politicians.

JOHN C. BELL.

CRANKS AND CRAZES.

BY MRS. LYNN LINTON.

IMAGINATION is by far the strongest faculty of the human
mind ; and the world which each man makes for himself is more
real than the things of time and sense. Hence, society has never
wanted for cranks to whom black is white and the pyramid rests
on its apex ; and crazes, able to attract their thousands, have ever-
run like wild- fire through the land. We see this in the very be
ginnings of society, when man first endeavors to frame a theory
of the universe and his relations with the unseen. In the
Obi-man and the witch-finder of the savage ; in his elaborate
system of taboo and his fear of, because his belief in, ghosts ; in
his impressibility by dreams, and his idea that what is simply
the automatic action of the brain is a real thing, an objective
drama wherein his errant soul plays the part of audience ; in his
religion and his beliefs — this faculty of the imagination with the
primitive man is supreme : and, working upward from him, so
do we find it everywhere, graduated according to education or
ignorance, strength of mind or feebleness of wit.

To reason with a crank is to carry water in a, sieve. He is
incapable of reasoning on any subject whatever. He has ' ( real
ized" this or that, and when he has once done this, though
change, with its consequent sanity, may come, it is not very likely
that it will. The kink in the brain which has produced this con
dition of thought is more likely to be permanent than transient ;
and the crank with a theory, the crank with a faith improvable
by evidence, or one with personal ambition, a personal grievance
or a " mission " self-evolved, is to all intents a lunatic and may
be a dangerous one into the bargain. History shows this, from
Ravaillac's time and before ; and more than the one crime of
burning the Temple of Diana has been committed by madmen as

668 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

crazily desirous of perpetuating their names as was ever that in
famous Ephesian. Not so many years ago, indeed, a young
fellow committed a barbarous murder, with the avowed desire of
" making all England ring with his name" — this being his idea
of glory and renown. Perfect mental sanity is just the hardest
thing to find among men. Genius, wit, imagination, and all the
intellectual faculties cultivated to the highest point, these we can
find without the need of a lanthorn ; but that exact mental equi
librium, that flawless self-possession, which is mental sanity —
here we are like those who seek for a buried treasure, which
exists, but where ?

What is true of individual cranks, is true of more widely dis
persed crazes. Of these each age has its special portion. Now it
is the Crusades and now the discovery of the North Pole. Now
it is the end of the world as prophesied by Solomon Eagle and
Dr. Gumming, and now it is the Millennium which is to come with
to-morrow's sun, when no eagle shall pounce on any leveret, no
owl shall go a-mousing o' nights, no man shall die, and no
tillage shall be necessary for the full vintage of the rich harvest.
This belief in the Millennium has long been a favorite craze with
many. It is on a par with that* reappearance of popular leaders
and heroes, which consoled the desolate adherents when death
claimed his tribute and the Great Charles, like Frederic Barbar-
ossa and our own King Arthur, inter alia, died the death of
ordinary men to be resuscitated as the elect, when their night had
passed and their day had dawned again. How those who believe in
this blissful state of universal peace and joy and deathlessness and
the union of lions and lambs can reconcile this dream with the stern
facts of life as we know it ; how they can believe that this shifting
phantasmagoria, where all old things are being forever ground up
into new, can become as stable and unchanging as a Heaven of
brass and an earth of iron ; how they can believe in the universal
suspension of all activities, all changes — seems to those not in
fluenced by that craze one of the most extraordinary delusions of
Hope which Imagination ever wrought. But many do so believe
it — in the rough — as a sketch. They do not care to go into de
tails and to work out for themselves the problem of this universal
suspension — this unchanging stability of condition. They leave
that to the Great God who is to arrange it all, and have no doubt
but that He can so order all things as to make that life which is

CRANKS AND CRAZES. 669

essentially fluid, shifting, and incessantly reproductive, as fixed
and unchangeable as a crystal imbedded in a rock. That is, Law
has no meaning for them, experience no lessons, and the miracu
lous is the only certainty.

Theosophy and all the phenomena of spiritualism follow on
the same line. Their very impossibility feeds the craze ; and
credo quia impossible is the motto of the sect. That a set of un
known men living in the obscure valleys of Thibet and calling
themselves Mahatmas, should be able to set all the laws of nature
at defiance has a fascination for some which they are unable to
resist. These, the Masters of Nature, are, according to some, the
makers of storms and tempests and the creators of earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions. They are the managers who pull the
strings, and the Forces of Nature are the marionettes they make
dance as they list. They have conquered the difficulty of solids
passing through solids, and have annihilated time and space.
Their letters written on purchasable Indian writing paper —
whereof " Madame " had a large store — can fly unseen from Thi
bet to London where they fall from the ceiling into the lap of the
high priestess. They themselves appear to their believers in the
gloaming, and weave turbans of nice fine Manchester cloth out of
the viewless air. They live to a fabulous old age, retaining their
comparative youth and good looks to the last, so that a sage of
ninety looks like a handsome man of forty, and one at sixty has
the flesh and skin of twenty-five or thirty. To this add the doc
trine of re-incarnation, which, as with the elephant that stands
on the tortoise, removes by one stage the mystery of a living soul
or ever the body took shape for its habitation.

Add, too, the belief that a man can evolve out of his own body
a materialized spirit which, first appearing as a nebulous mass,
gradually takes the form and substance of a concrete human being
who walks about the room, talks in English, sometimes of a
doubtful kind, takes your hand in his — and his is as warm and
substantial as your own — and finally sinks to the floor and dis
solves once more into nebulosity and nothingness.

These are among the crazes which sane people believe — these,
with colloquies and revelations from ghosts, and communications
from spirits who can give you a world of unprovable information,
but who were baffled by the mystery of Jack the Eipper, and,
able to see what is passing in a private house in India, are unable

670 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

to read the number of that bank-note within a securely fastened
envelope.

The craze of spiritualism, in its last developments, is perhaps
one of the most astounding instances of human superstition
known to us. The auguries drawn from the sacred chickens and
the flight of birds, dear to the Romans, were strange enough; but
that sane, wise, learned men should suffer themselves to be tricked
by a few artful ventriloquists and one-trick conjurers is something
that strikes those who do not share this belief as the only marvel
of the thing.

This proneness to accept superstition and fancies for proved
facts is as old as human nature, and has been one of the most
fruitful of all the harvests reaped by the astute and unscrupulous
in the garths of the credulous and imaginative. It is not a thing
of to-day, nor of England only. It is older than the Eleusinian
mysteries, than the serpent rods of the Egyptian sorcerers, than
the advent of Oannes or the peopling of the world by dragon's
teeth. It is a craze as persistent as thought, and will ever be,
while we are ignorant of our true relations with the universe.
For it is the outcome of spiritual desire, the embodied expression
of that stretching out of our hands towards the Unknown — of
that fruitless endeavor to grasp the truth which eludes us, that
makes half the charm and half the pathos of thought. It is a
craze all the same, and when carried to excess it is as dangerous
as it is humiliating and fallacious.

Certain modern crazes fall far below this in what may be
called the poetry of delusion- — the dignity of hallucination —
though one, at least, has an aura of nobleness, which, in some
instances, redeems it from rank mischief. We mean the modern
craze for missionary work in unlikely and unsympathetic coun
tries, where the lives of the missionaries are in danger, where the
converts they make are, for the most part, unredeemed scoundrels,
find where the civilization of the people is older and more compact
than our own, better suited to the needs of the people, and of the
kind wherein morality, customs and religion are all as closely and
inextricably intertwined as the fibres of a plant. Separate them
and you destroy the whole structure. But this argument has no
effect on those whose craze it is to carry the Bible into the far
East and so turn bad Buddhists into worse Christians. Nor does
it give them pause that by their rash action— self-sacrificing if

CRANKS AND CRAZES. 671

you will, but none the less impertinent and meddlesome — they
may create a war among the nations wherein thousands on
thousands will be sacrificed. The missionary craze has no
respect for ultimates, beyond that doubtful gain of inducing a
Chinaman to repeat the Apostles' creed instead of chin-chinning
Joss — of substituting for the Brahmin's belief in the genesis of
man from the body of the god, the story of the clay figure and
the abstracted rib. For all the misery and murder that may
follow his tampering with established faiths — for all the unsatis
factory nature of the conversions he may make — he goes on in
the old path, and shuts his eyes to the evil he so .diligently
effects. He is impelled by the craze of interference, and reason
is as a dumb dog while he careers over the ground mounted on
the hippogriff of an impracticable and a mischievous enthusiasm.

The same kind of craze makes people take up any extraneous
cause, whether they understand it in its entirety or not. The
love of acting Providence is so great with some ! Now we must
trounce the Unspeakable Turk for his dealings with his Christian
subjects ; and not the biggest duck that flies about the world of
rumor is too big for us to swallow. We do not stop to inquire
before we condemn, and while the sager and cooler among us would
hesitate before taking action on an ex parte statement, not sifted
to the bottom, the cranks for the sake of humanity, and those
who are crazy to be as a potent Providence sailing over the seas
in ironclads, insist on an instant and unanswerable demonstra
tion — on the thrusting of the hand, wrist-deep, into the pie with
which they and we have no concern. That valuable doctrine of
letting alone has no meaning for those cranks eager to mind
everybody's business but their own ; and that significant clock
will certainly never be given to the English-speaking peoples while
they are so intent on playing Providence and following in the
footsteps of Don Quixote.

Going still a step lower, what queer crazes take possession of
the public taste ! Take cycling as an example. Walking, rid
ing, skating, and dancing we can understand as fit exercise for
the vigorous and young ; driving is precious to the indolent and
the delicate ; but cycling seems to be such a doubtful kind of
amusement — such a queer cross between the treadmill and the
tight-rope — demanding such a constant strain of attention to
keep your balance, with such a monotonous and restricted action

672 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of the limbs as to render it a work of penance rather than of
pleasure. To be sure there is the enjoyment of rapid motion
through the air ; and there must be something in the very light
ness of the machine, the very exiguity of seat and tackle which
creates a charm. But to the uninitiated the craze which has
swept over England seems inconceivable ; and, as a substitute for
the horse and the carriage and one's own two feet, these uniniti
ated place the bicycle nowhere. It is invaluable as a cheap mode
of locomotion for those who cannot afford to keep a horse and
who want to go further afield than their own walking powers
will take them ; but for those who can afford horses and carriages
and Pullman cars and all the rest of it, a wheeled treadmill
seems but a queer kind of vehicle, and its popularity counts among
the things which no fellow can understand. And those crazy
cycling tours around the world, how mad they are ! about as
mad as the champion globe-trotter who flies through every coun
try at express speed ; as the man who undertakes to wheel his
wife in a wheel barrow from the Land's End to John o'Groat's ;
as the man who goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel ; or he who
crosses the Atlantic in an open boat with only a dog for his mate.

A craze, too, when it broke out, was the sudden engouement
for coster songs, which nothing but the genius of Chevalier
excused, and which, without him, were detestable. A craze that
had its graver side was the effeminate young man's passion for
bric-a-brac, the worship of sunflowers and lilies, and the desire to
live up to his blue china. He was a weak and puny creature when
he began ; when he culminated in the Yellow Book and certain
illustrations he was something worse. That, too, is a craze like
any other ; and the sudden, the un-English apotheosis of licen
tious literature and art counts as one of the most extraordinary,
as well as regrettable, outbreaks of modern times. And as every
thing has its shadow, and the swing of the pendulum to the left
is in exact ratio with that of its swing to the right, the Yellow
Book and all its congeners have fostered, if not produced, the
corresponding craze of Prurient Prudery, when again that haunt
ing desire to put their fingers, unasked, into pies not belonging to
them, makes intermeddling cranks of honest citizens, and brings
virtue into disrepute because of the unloveliness of its advocates.

Cheapness comes into, the category of modern crazes — cheap
things however produced — cheapness got by the sweating of the

CRANKS AND CRAZES. 673

hands and the poorness of the material,, by tears and starvation
here, by disappointment and untrustworthiness there. But it is a
craze, and we have to go through with it. Its offset and its
origin — at once cause and effect — is the craze for those huge em-
poria which eat up the small private tradesman in the locality
even as the Lamb of the Steppes eats up all the herbage round its
fatal growth. It would be interesting, instructive, and tragical,
to learn how many bankrupts and how many broken-hearts and
ruined lives have been made by these huge emporia — how many
" hands " have been driven to suicide or to drink by sheer despair
of rll-paid work and indecent poverty joined with crushing toil—
how many honest workmen have been thrown on the rates be
cause of unemployment, while Germany, France and Switzerland
send their cheaper products by the shipload, and the public
greedily buys for a shilling an inferior thing made abroad for
which, if English, they would pay perhaps fourteen pence. The
odd twopence goes in the way of rates and charities ; but this is
a calculation beyond the power of the craze-afflicted, and the
round of wrong goes on without a break in its vicious circle.

A craze that has got to bear its ultimate fruit is our modern
high-class education for the working classes, those who have to
gain their bread by their handiwork and to whom, therefore,
specialized and technical instruction would seem to be more
necessary than generalized and purely intellectual. A lad
destined to be a carpenter would surely do better if taught to
handle bis tools betimes and instructed in the mysteries of rabbet
ing and mortising, of dovetailing and planing, rather than in the
details of osteology or the curiosities of botany. And a girl who
has to be a cook might be taught how to boil potatoes, with
greater advantage to her future, than how to play the piano or to
sing in part songs. On this craze, however, it becomes us to keep
a discreet silence. It is idle to prophesy, and until we see the
results we cannot be sure that the thing is for good or evil.

It may raise the whole nation into a higher level, keeping the
relative gradations intact ; or it may throw the whole thing out
of gear and into confusion, and produce a time of social chaos,
destructive of all growth and good. Quien sale 9 On the knees
of the gods lies the answer to the question, and there we must
leave it till Time and the Future unfold it.

E. LYNN LINTON.
YOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 43

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY.

BY N. S. SHALER.

ONE of the most curious consequences arising from the ten
fingers of man is the decimal system of notation. From this,
among many other things, has arisen the division of the historic
ages into centuries. At first these periods of one hundred years
had no other estimation among the masses than that which came
from their convenience. The passage from one of these epochs
to another was practically unnoticed, but in our times the trans
ition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth of these spans is
awaited with a remarkable emotional as well as intellectual in
terest. Even among the masses of our folk we find all intelligent
persons looking back over the triumphs of their time with satis
faction, and forward with much expectation to the gains which
they and their successors may hope to win in the next great
division of the years.

This sympathetic absorption in the affairs of their kind is in
deed the greatest and the most widespread of all the triumphs
which civilized man has won from his experience in the century
which is passing away. There is fortunately an excellent foun
dation for all the gratulation and hope which men may be minded
to seek in the onward march of the world during the last three
generations. In this period the winnings in the moral and
physical fields of social development may be well set against the
thousand years which came before. The abolition of slavery,
the establishment, in a great variety of forms, of personal liberty,
the extension of the comity of nations, as well as the vast and
swiftly extending march of invention and discovery in the mate
rial realm, justify the pride of those who have had a share in the
great accomplishment, and warrant the fervid anticipation of the
future which animates the millions on both sides of the Atlantic.

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY. 675

It is evident that the civilized world, through the review and
forecast which the end of this nineteenth century has enforced, is
rapidly entering upon a state of sympathetic exaltation,, the like
of which has not been known since the end of the first thousand
years, when all Europe awaited the millennium as the time when the
earth was to pass away. In that old day it was despair ; in this
it is an inspiring desire to achieve. Such psychological moments
are the rarest things of the world ; they afford to the true philan
thropist the precious occasions to contrive for the effective ad
vance of man. Properly used, this critical period may afford the
occasion for remedying the greatest of all human ills, which has
been left untouched by all the benefits which our age has won.
This evil is war.

The historian of the nineteenth century will need to look
closely if he is to understand the conditions which led to such
momentous gains as it has achieved, while they left the greatest
and most senseless of human ills quite without relief. It is likely
that the explanation of this surprising state is to be found in the
slow extinction of the ancient and therefore abiding prejudices
which separate the races, the nations, the tongues, and the creeds;
in the prepossessions and interests arising from the maintenance
of military castes; and in the exceeding difficulty which has been
encountered in forcing the public opinion of this time through
the walls of tradition that encompass governments. The
spiritual awakening ofv the moment, that promises to bo the
greater in the immediately forthcoming years, affords a singu
larly favorable opportunity to those who would work for peace.
Properly used, it may be made the occasion for the creation of a
motive, and a system resting thereon, which, within the days of
those who take part in the good work, may practically do away
with the worst of human misfortunes.

Properly to use this opportunity to make for peace, two
things are evidently desirable ; in the first place, those who are
devoting themselves to the cause should endeavor to extend their
propaganda not through vaporous congresses, which by their
successive and absurd failures give an intangible air to the whole
endeavor, but by means of a determined system of education,
which shall bring before the youth a true sense of the moral and
economic abominations of war. It should be recognized that the
military motive had been fixed in the inheritances of our race by

676 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ages of habit, and perhaps also by the process of natural selec
tion, which in the olden days led to the survival of the most
militant tribes to be the foundations of our present states. It
should be perceived that our literature is as a gospel of combat to
young and ardent spirits. There is scarcely a bit of good writing
which is likely to meet the eyes of ordinary readers which paints
war as it really is. The Old Testament is one of the worst
offenders in this praise of battle. Although, in common with most
sensible people, the reader is probably to be ranked with those
who believe that there are sundry things much worse than the
slaying of men, and that, under certain conditions, campaigns
may well be waged with all the consequent loss of life and de
struction of the gains that life wins, it may be assumed that he
regards the present status as an abominable condition of things,
where national vanity, the lust of power, or ancient hatred, keeps
the civilized world in a state of continued crises, in which an
explosion is always imminent. The aim of the rational element
of our population should be not to reduce men to be passive
lovers of mere existence, mere non-resistants ; to accomplish
this end is fortunately impossible, and ostensibly to seek it is to
bring the movement for peace into discredit with those who
estimate the possessions of their civilization at their real value.
The rational and hopeful object should be to show war in its
true light as a relic of savagery, which has been enabled to survive
in our civilizations mainly because of the rhetorical and artistic
trappings which hide its true shameful aspect from the under
standing.

To make head against the influences which serve to propagate
the love of war it, seems necessary to begin the task in our school
system. Already there is some foundation for teaching of this
sort in the instruction which is now being essayed concerning the
rights and duties of the citizen. It will be a simple and appro
priate addition to this good work to set forth the actual nature
and effects of armed coi . ests. If the task were properly done
every youth would be brought to see the nobility and dignity of
civilization and the destruction that war makes in it. It would
be made plain to him that the better men of his time regard it as
preposterous, and in a way disgraceful, to go ever armed with
deadly weapons against the remote possibility of some ruffianly
assault ; it is the ruffian alone who clings to this ancient brutal

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY. 677

way ; he is not to be reckoned with in any decent society. A
slight extension of the same conception will make it clear to the
youth that any collection of people which maintains a vast
standing army simply that it may thus better be able to assail
its neighbors, is in the position of a man who goes about his peace
ful occupations in readiness for slaying his fellows. There can
be no doubt that the time has come for the deliberate and syste
matic teaching of those truths which will serve to build in the
minds of the people right notions as to the relation of violence
to societies. We have trusted too much to the secondary effects
of advancing culture to keep down the old evil of militarism.
We have relied on the absence of a great standing army and on
the uses of peace to develop among our own citizens a horror of
war, yet with the shadow of the greatest conflict of modern days
still upon us, we find the leading representatives of a great party,
even men who have been exposed to all the cultivating influences
which our country can afford, who know, or who have had every
opportunity to comprehend, the misery which war entails, yet who
are ever seeking to embroil their own nation with others. It needs
but a glance at the records of the last Congress to show that our
law-givers lack all sense of what they are seeking, when they
clamor for war as a means of vengeance or of national self-as
sertion. We need to breed up men who have a more civilized
view of human relations.

While the review of this century and the forecast of the next
may well lead us to determined effort toward the education of our
people away from the old irrational inhuman motives which led
them to look upon warfare as a natural and ready instrument for
the settlement of disputes, there is another and more immediate
means by which we may hope to take an important step towards
international concord. To set forth this means is the main object
of this writing. As before remarked, this last hundred years has
mended or at least bettered the lot of man in almost every regard
except in the frequency and destructiveness of its wars. There
may have been centuries in which this Moloch has demanded a
larger share of the people in sacrifice, but there have probably
been none in which the aggregate tax on life and property has
been so great, or in which there has been less in the way of profit
to show for the destruction. It is assuredly most fit that we
should do what we can to establish some international body which

678 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

shall at least set about the task of devising the means whereby
we may hope to begin the new account of years with the prospect
of bettering the conditions. This undertaking can be most fitly
proposed by our own country, for the reason that while we have an
unhappy history for a peace loving people there can be no doubt
that, with the exception of the Mexican war, none of our con
flicts have had conquests for their object. "We have shown an
eminent capacity for military work by waging the greatest
civil war the world has ever known, and we have in the Ala
bama negotiations settled a dispute which in the ordinary con
duct of international affairs would have resulted in an armed
conflict. The policy of our government, as determined by an
overwhelming majority of our people, is undoubtedly that of peace.
We have no basis for quarrels with our neighbors ; it is hardly to
be conceived that any will arise which will not be settled in an
amicable manner. These facts make it fit that our federal
authorities should take the lead in the good work by extending
an invitation to the leading states of the civilized world to join
in an official international congress, having for its purpose the
establishment of some convention to diminish the danger of war
like contests.

At first sight it may seem futile for this or any other govern
ment to undertake to promote an official gathering of delegates
from the leading European powers, with the hope of restricting
the exercise of that right which from the beginning of states has
been held to be absolutely witnin the bounds of their individual
judgments. In the present conditions of human nature, it is
not to be expected that any nation will give to any commission
a right to restrict the liberty to expend its blood and treasure in
any cause which may seem to its people to justify the sacrifice.
Accepting this limitation, as we needs must do, let us see whether
there remains enough in the way of possible good to justify the en
deavor which has just been recommended.

Let us suppose that our government, by an act of its Congress,
should invite the other first-class powers, say those to which it
sends ambassadors, to appoint each three delegates to meet those
from this country in Washington, on the 1st of January, 1807,
the object being to see what may be done to diminish the danger
of armed contests. It may fairly be reckoned that the object of
the movement will commend itself to the minds of all intelligent

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY. 679

people and that the greater number, if not all, of the states which
are bidden to the assembly, will accept the invitation. It being
assumed, as above suggested, that it is out of the question directly
to limit the initiation in the matter of declaration of war, what
are the recommendations which this commission of enquiry could
possibly make that would justify the meeting ?

It seems not unreasonable to suggest that the conference might
advise the institution of a permanent international peace com
mission, composed of delegates from the several national authori
ties, which should hold annual sessions and which could be called
together whenever it became evident that there was danger of a
warlike contest between any of the contracting parties, this per
manent commission to have no actual powers except those of
mediation preceding or during a conflict, and of suggestions con
cerning limitations or the reduction of standing armies and
navies. The arrangement for the use of the influence of the com
mission might well be as follows : The several states might agree
that, in a case of impending warlike outbreak between any two
members of the association, the commission might send a delegate
or delegates from its members whose efforts at mediation should
be heard before the declaration of war. This qpmmission might
furthermore agree to consider the recommendations for progres
sive disarmament at some definite and proportional rate, or for
the replacement of standing armies by an organized militia, say
of the Swiss type. The considerations may extend to the point
of submitting the propositions to the legislature or other bodies
which have charge of the budgets of the several states, there be
ing no guarantee given that the government concerned shall ap
prove of the propositions as submitted by the commission. It
might be well to charge the commission with the task of better
ing the statement of the body of customs which is termed interna
tional law ; it is possible that in course of time something like
effective codification of these usages might be brought about.

At first sight it may seem that a body of men however
much weight they might have from their individual value
would be without influence, because without the slightest
power to make their decisions felt. But the essence of the
strength which such a commission would possess would come
from its having a chance to concentrate public opinion in
favor of arbitration. This public opinion is now so strong that

680 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

even the most despotic of the civilized governments feels its influ
ence in the conduct of affairs. The action of this opinion is felt
not only from within ; every state which may be termed civilized
earnestly desires the approval of the neighbors with which it is
linked in the relation of commerce. We may indeed take the
amount of this sympathetic spirit as the best possible index as to
the measure of civilization to which a people has attained.
There would be strength enough in the commission to bring
this public opinion to a distinct and authoritative form : it may
be presumed that in many if not most instances it would be in
effective in preventing war, but it would certainly add much to
the influences which make against the occurrence of these dis
asters.

We may profitably imagine the steps which the international
board of arbitration would take in case there was evident danger
of trouble between two of the states in the league. When the situa
tion became critical the commission would be called together.
Its assembling would be in some cases perhaps due to the sugges
tions of the parties in dispute, its place of meeting would be on
the nearest neutral ground, say in general in Switzerland. As it
may be supposed that the persons representing the several states
would be men of great weight, in general distinguished diplomats,
the meeting would of itself have a decided effect in calling atten
tion to the desirability of arbitration. From the commission there
would be sent to the authorities of the endangered states dele
gates who, by the agreement, would have to be heard. The
presence of an accredited messenger of peace in a capital where
the war spirit was high might not be welcome ; but it would be
in some large measure effective. By the contract this messenger
would have a right to be heard, and his suggestions made in con
ference with the delegate or delegates acting at the other court
would assuredly make for delay in the declaration of war. It is,
of course, conceivable, in fact eminently probable, that in some
cases the authorities would repudiate the contract, and send the
delegate about his business, or his advice would be avoided, yet
we may be sure in any probable conditions a government, however
desirous of beginning a war, would hesitate to incur the odium
which would arise from taking such a course; they would prob
ably try to manage the situation; this would make for delay and
and delay would make for peace. Assuming the worst possible

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY. 681

result, that in which the efforts of the delegates were quite ineffec
tive., we have a burden laid upon one or both of the combatants
which would be hard to bear in face of the criticism of the better
people of other countries. They would be in the position of men
who had fired on a flag of truce.

Supposing that nothing could be done to prevent the outbreak
of war, the commission could still look forward with some hope to
lessening the duration of the strife. There have been many occa
sions in which a neutral power has been able with advantage to
mediate between combatants and to lessen the dangers of long con
tinued conflict. This mediation, coming not from single govern
ments, but from a congress representing the civilized world, would
have singular weight, and, we may presume, a degree of efficiency
which would not be attainable when essayed by any one state. As
we may presume that the delegates in the commission would be in
communication with the several governments, each tender of peace
would represent the motives of them all. Thus before and after the
declaration of hostilities, the proposed board would bring to bear
on the situation the moral force of the world, a force which is now
very strong for peace, and which will be greatly increased in
strength whenever an efficient system for its application is estab
lished.

Although there is much to hope from the action of a peace
commission in the crisis of war, it is likely that its usefulness in
treating with the conditions which favor conflict may be even more
important. The principal instigation to armed conflict is the
continued and competitive preparation for it; it is perfectly
natural that a state possessing a vast and costly war engine, ever
ready to be directed against its neighbors, should desire from time
to time to ascertain the strength of its cherished power.
It would be beyond the limits of human nature if a body of officers
containing tens of thousands of the ablest and most ardent men of
this generation should not long for the opportunity to do the deeds
for which their lives are a preparation. There can be no question
that standing armies of the proportion which these hosts have taken
on in modern continental Europe are in a high degree provocative
of wars ; every plan which contemplates a reduction of this danger
by a systematic and mutual decrease of the permanent forces of the
several states would be sure to be received with interest. So far
there has been no opportunity for the prosecution of a plan for

682 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

such a reduction of standing armies 5 none of the governments
which are concerned would be inclined to take the initiative in
the process even by calling a conference to consider the question,
for by so doing it would confess the seriousness of the burden
which weighs so heavily on them all.

We might reasonably look to a permanent peace commission
for a plan as to the reduction of standing armies and navies
which would have a chance to be adopted. This project might
include a scaling down of the annual levy to a determined per cent.,
so that at the end of a certain number of years, the men contin
ually under arms in any one state should not exceed say one
soldier to each one thousand of the population. This would
leave the several governments free to organize a high grade,
easily mobilized, militia, on the basis of the Swiss system, a body
of troops nearly as efficient for purposes of defence as a standing
army of like size, but which can be kept in a tolerably good state
by a sacrifice of not more than one month of each year in camp,
a tax on their time which would not deprive the men of their
places in industrial pursuits. Those who have seen bodies of the
Swiss citizen soldiers will, if they have a judgment in such mat
ters, agree with the assertion that they are likely to prove as
useful in protecting their country as equal numbers of the most
elaborately trained men from any part of Europe. The advan
tage of a militia in the interests of peace is found in the fact
that the men never become imbued with the war spirit; they look
upon the military side of their life as an incident; they are men
of peaceful callings, and have the instincts which belong to such
people, but which are foreign to the professional soldier. They
are willing to bear arms for the one cause which really warrants
war — the protection of their country from invasion.

The burden of standing armies, directly upon the budget and in
directly upon productiveness of the people, is now so patent to all
the statesmen of Europe that there is a reasonable chance f or^the fa
vorable reception of a proposition to effect a proportional reduc
tion of their permanent forces. The need is to have some toler
ably independent source whence these suggestions can come, a
source with the moral authority, aUeast, to enforce any understand
ing which might be entered into. It is possible that a commission
such as is suggested might not be able to contrive an agreement
at once, but a plan if well matured would concentrate the atten-

THE LAST GIFT OF THE CENTURY. 683

tion of people upon one of the means by which the risks of war
could be diminished. If the board were to be given a life of
ten years and should steadily endeavor to bring about the change,
there would be a fair chance of its success in the endeavor.

If the change could be made from the system of standing
armies to that of a true militia of the Swiss type, a long step
towards enduring peace would be made. In a military system of
this nature the soldier and the citizen would be identical when
put in the field ; the men would take with them that quality of the
household which makes the Swiss soldier an admirable home
guard, but not to be considered for distant aggressive warfare. In
such a condition the military motive in its dangerous form would
speedily die out ; all danger of its leading to wars of a political
nature could be left to the ever-increasing development of the
domestic spirit, that humor which makes men very willing to
sacrifice for their ideals, but exceedingly indisposed to die for pur
poses which they do not value. If the armed forces of govern
ments should be brought to the admirable state in which they
are established in Switzerland, the discreet philanthropist might
well be satisfied to go no further. In the existing conditions of
society, and, for all we can foresee, in any highly organized society
whatsoever, there will always be need of using well organized force
to restrain the large part of the population who are willing to
seek their ends by violence. There is no other way to retain the
good which has been won, or to win that which is before us, save
by the law, and the sanction of the law is in strength. It is
a sense of this truth which goes far to justify the existence of the
great standing armies in the minds of many judicious persons, who
fail to see that a well organized militia can be made as effective in
attaining the same valuable end.

The foregoing considerations serve to make it plain that this
country is of all the great nations the best placed to undertake the
noble task of clearing away the worst of all the evitable evils which
remain to man at the close of the century. Owing to our sin
gular geographical position and to the well-established traditions
of our government, we are the first great nation which has been
able to adopt a policy of non-interference with the affairs of other
states. With the single lamentable exception of the Mexican war,
where, as before noted, under the influence of motives which have
passed away, we broke from our path, we have steadily avoided

684 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

aggressive wars. We have at the same time shown that a people thus
withdrawn from the atmosphere of conflict can apply all needed
power to the maintenance of its institutions and its ideals. With
nothing to fear from abroad and with a well preserved indisposi
tion to meddle with the problems of European politics, we are
surely of all peoples the best fitted to undertake a movement to
free the world from the evils of war. To those who desire to see
the United States having a due influence in the affairs of the
world, there is no other opportunity so good as this. Far better
for our good name, or for the glory of that flag which only fools
desire to see over battle fields, will be the enduring and blessed
memory that our country led in a campaign against the monstrous
evils of battle. We can afford to make the offer of a mode in
which this work may be done: if by chance the tender of good- will
should fail of evident result, we shall at least have acted in a spirit
which is true to our history and to the best which is in our
people ; by the act we shall affirm our position to ourselves
and to the rest of the world.

It should be said that the project for action outlined in the
preceding pages, as that which might be taken by a permanent
commission of arbitration, is presented simply to meet the natural
objection that there is no evident method whereby such a body
could deal with the problem of war. The suggestions cover only
a part of the ground which might well be occupied by such a
board, so that if certain of them should prove to skilled pub
licists and diplomats to be impracticable, there are others ready
for consideration. The admirable example of the Alabama com
mission shows that questions which from their nature are the
likeliest to lead to war may, if there be but the spirit of peace
in the contestants, by wise counsellors be quietly adjusted. That
adjustment shows us that the spirit of peace is active, that it
needs but appropriate means to make its way. The means may
be in our hands ; it is our duty to try if this be so.

N. S. SHALER.

HOW LONDON DEALS WITH BEGGARS.

BY THE RIGHT HON. LOKD NORTON, PRESIDENT OF THE MENDI
CANCY SOCIETY.

THE treatment of mendicity by an old and highly civilized
community, in a metropolis of enormous size and wealth, is an
interesting and instructive subject of study.

The wise regulation of private charity, with an inevitable sup
plement of legal provision and police protection from fraud and
depredation, has, in London, been the result of crucial experi
ments and trials of every kind.

The lesson may be of various application to other localities
according to variety of circumstances, but it must be suggestive
of wisdom to all. The problem is of difficult solution every
where, and good and evil principles contend in embarrassing it.
There are the promptings of instinctive charity, and the with-
holdings of selfish stint. There is a wise charity which strength
ens the lame to walk, and the assuming patronage which
teaches him to lean. The one gives great benefit with little
thanks, the other loud thanks with little benefit.

English history illustrates every phase of this contention.
Mendicancy was even a religious profession, till necessity gave
mercy the discipline of law.

The true relation between beggars and relievers, or general
ly between want and means, requires painstaking discrimina
tion.

It is the wildest of socialist theories that poverty should be
abolished. So long as labor is the process of production, there
must be a social scale from competence to beggary. The differ
ence, no doubt, should be means of exercise of the mutual service
of interdependence instead of isolation. This is misunderstood
to be the language of proud patronage, but is really the inevitable

686 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

postulate in every problem of society. The question will ever
remain how best to deal with mendicancy.

In one sense all mankind are mendicant. Very few are sim
ply making the best use of what they have for ultimate account.
Most are seeking for something they have not. In fact, those
who have enough and might spare for others are more than beg
gars. They are stealers. The chief offenders against the Eighth
Commandment are those who "withhold more than is meet"
of what is due from them to those who want.

But the beggars under this discussion are the criers of distress
for the necessaries of life, whether the distress be feigned or true,
whether self -caused, or from misfortune. Much of this mendi
cancy comes from mere preference of ease to labor. Much comes
from a propensity to wild and wandering life, and repugnance to
the restraints and obligations of society. Much is the revenge of
vicious habits — uUrices curce — which have incapacitated from
power of self-support and industry.

Much is an organized imposture of simulated distress. But
there is much, though less demonstrative, of a cry of real misfort
une, and unavoidable want. The vicissitudes of industry and
failure of employment, temporarily or even permanently incidental,
accidents, sicknesses, bereavements, debilitating old age, and the
stress of inevitable competition — all these, and other causes too,
have, and will have, in every age and place, their victims crying
for help.

In the great and wealthy community of London one might
hope that only discrimination between the true and feigned cases
of distress was wanted to meet their claims from private charity.
But, alas, there are but few ready hands among the capable to help.
It is said that only a few thousand names appear in repetition
on all the various lists of metropolitan charities. But even the
ready hands often may be too ready, and with careless bounty
cause injury even to its receivers. It was a good old prayer which
besought heaven to give wisdom to zeal, as well as zeal to wisdom.
Sounci principles of action, and painstaking care in the act are
essential to useful and effective charity.

Unfortunately the claims coming from beggars of the first
three kinds just specified, are the most urgent, and the most
touching often, to sensitive feelings. The mendicants of idleness,
wild life, and vice thrusting themselves on the support of charity

HOW LONDON DEALS WITH BEGGARS. 687

can only safely so be helped when hopeful of possibility of cure.
Otherwise they require rather the correction of police,, or must
fall on the last resource of hopeless destitution, the public charge.
The mendicants of professional imposture — the most ingenious
and insidious interceptors of the relief due to poverty — are crimi
nals of greatest danger to private morality and to the public wel
fare. To such simulators of distress, when detected, the severest
punishment is the only due, in the interests not only of humanity
but of justice. Such imposture has become a fine art in London.
Not a benevolent scheme of any kind is ever started there, but
the harpies of imposture fasten on it as fresh material for fraudu
lent gains. Professional "begging letter " writers, and the ser
vice of " valiant " importunity in the streets, and the manufact
ure of fictitious signs of suffering constitute a trade which draws
a very lucrative income from deceived or intimidated charity.
The beggars from real need have, in London, large provision of
well regulated charities, checked and supplemented by a labori
ously perfected poor law.

In Norman times the wayfarers were left to the charity and
hospitality of religious houses. The poorer class were much pro
vided for simply by their dependance on feudal relationship. The
Monastic fraternities made mendicancy almost a sacred calling,
some of them becoming mendicants themselves. But their
wealth, though at one time calculated at a third of the whole
country's, fell short of the increasing and self-developing de
mands. Advancing civilization exposed such modes of charity to
great abuse and to depredation. The stirring of commerce, crusad
ing enterprise, and civil commotion, diverted many from self-
supporting industry to wild adventure. Multiplied roVers for prey
throughout the country became the subjects of necessary legis
lative check. Many honest poor went unrelieved, and many whom
misfortune disabled from work became objects for public provision.

Acts were passed to repress " vagabondage." Mendicancy
was treated as an offence, for which whipping and even branding
were assigned. Localities of "settlement" were made charge
able for the relief of actual destitution occurring within them.
Justices were enjoined to carefully distinguish between unavoid
able and voluntary impotence. For proper claimants the endow
ments of the Church and the benevolence of individuals were
authoritatively called upon ; and bishops were empowered to cite

688 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

before the Courts any "froward and wilful" refusers of weekly
alms, which were made legally obligatory.

When the monasteries were suppresed the burden which they
had borne was thrown on public provision. Poor laws were
passed, and taxes levied on every parish, and overseers appointed
to carry out the law.

The stringency of legal enactment provoked reactionary sen
timent, and the administration of the poor law soon became
relaxed. The relaxation, however, proved chiefly detrimental to
the really poor, especially to those who were thrown temporarily
into poverty from want of employment. Efforts at remedy
by artificial modes of industry aggravated the mischief. Certain
principles of relief were recovered from this experience. The
Commission of Enquiry in 1834 produced the act which still
rules the poor law system of England, added to, and in details
amended, by a few supplementary enactments since.

The act of 1834 instituted a Central Department called the
Poor Law Board for general supervision and inspection of all
local administration. Parishes were grouped in unions with a
common fund for common purposes.

A wider organization was so given to the treatment of men
dicity. The law of local ' ' settlement " was relaxed, and irremov
ability was increased, so facilitating and encouraging the range of
industry and enabling workmen to avail themselves of the means
of locomotion in search of employment.

This act set up workhouses for every Union of Parishes, re
stricting relief as much as possible to residence in euch unattrac
tive dwellings as a crucial test of destitution. Sentiment again
revolted against the needful precautions of law, and it was pro
posed that the infirm might be relieved at home and that even the
able-bodied should in some cases have out-door relief.

The principles of the act, however, have been in the main
adhered to. Out-door relief is restricted to the utmost, and in
some London Unions abolished altogether.

A separate act was passed for the metropolis providing
for public asylums for the infirm, dispensaries, " casual wards"
in the workhouses for vagrants, and schools for children of
paupers.

The " Casual "Wards" admit mendicants who escape all test of
destitution. They present themselves for shelter at night, and

HOW LONDON DEALS WITH BEGGARS, 689

in mercy must be admitted indoors. No question about out-door
relief can apply to beggars who carry their homes on their backs.
The only check on imposition by such applicants is the require
ment of some work to be done by them on the following morning,
before a meal is given them on their departure. Many schemes
are now on foot for discriminating between wandering "tramps"
living always on the road, without any occupation or destination,
and men 'bona fide in search of work. What is called the
" Ticket system" is thought the most promising device for this
purpose. But the certificate of veracity, to be got at the first
start, and shown at each place of application for shelter, partakes
somewhat of the nature of the prescription for catching birds by
putting salt on their tails. Some propose to give at departure
from the ward not only a breakfast but a mid-day meal in the vag
rants pocket, if he has one, that it may be known at every way
side cottage that any begging, or threatening for food by such
persons must be an imposture.

This subject, however, scarcely belongs to the treatment of
beggars in London, which is only the focus not the scene, of vag
rancy.

Poor laws are, after all, secondary, and properly supplemental,
to the primary obligations of charity. They must also be rigidly
bound by tests of destitution, while charity ranges freely without
limit to its scope, and needs only wisdom to guide truly the free
dom of its gifts. Poor law administers a trust fund for the pub
lic, but charity is responsible to God alone for the stewardship of
His beneficence in discharge of an account with Him. The sup
plement of poor law is due to the negligence or deficiency of
charity, or to cases of distress which charity cannot cure.

Private charity in secret, from acquaintances or relationship be
tween rich and poor, takes the brightest share of the work — the
godlike work — of love.

But charitable institutions give regulation and effect to the
general work of charity on a wider scale for great communities.
They abound in London. Their chief danger is their multipli
cation by individual efforts without concert on the wisest principles
of action. Individualism is an English characteristic, and when
any scheme of charity suggests itself to anyone's mind, it is gen
erally a new and additional enterprise rather than incorporation
with what is already in existence.
YOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 44

690 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

Their supporters are not numerous, and so dissipate their effi
ciency, yet not a houseless wanderer in London need ever fail to
find a refuge, nor any kind of distress want appropriate relief.
Homes, lodging-houses, infirmaries, dispensaries, hospitals of
every kind, sisterhoods of mercy, asylums for the necessitous, and
almost innumerable similar institutions, might seem exhaustive of
all possible begging claims, and leaving little for the supplement
of poor laws except so far as they are in partnership together.

Of associations for giving the best effect to the relief of the
poor by private charity, two samples may suffice for illustration
— one, the oldest now in operation, the other the latest result of
practical experience in the idea of the completest possible co
operation.

The first, called "The London Mendicity/' was very charac
teristically founded, soon after the peace of 1815, by the Duke of
Wellington. He was pestered by innumerable beggers pretending
to be discharged soldiers of his armies. Some of his old officers
formed themselves into a committee to investigate these applica
tions. In his diary there is an entry to this effect : " Was taken
in by a plausible fellow whose repeated beggings on supposed
events in his family I went on relieving, till some monstrous pre
tence showed it all to be a lie. What a wigging I shall get from
the Mendicity." The society, so practically begun, has run for
eighty years, and has carried on for a long list of subscribers,
headed liberally by the Queen, the investigation of begging letters,
so rescuing much private charity from imposture and mischief,
and economizing the means of aid to real distress. Its officers
have become well trained in detecting imposture and in delicately
enquiring into cases of real distress. Idle vagrants are prosecuted
by the society under acts for that purpose. Children hired out
for begging are sent to industral schools. Police magistrates use
the information of its officers and records in treating with beg
gars brought before them.

The voluntary Board of Management meet at its office twice
a week, and report to subscribers the result of investigations of
the applications sent them, or act as almoners themselves, giving
relief up to a limit of amount allowed by the subscriber. They
have also a " general relief fund " put at their disposal for appli
cations made directly to them, and money — sometimes to a large
amount — may be sent for special cases, to be laid out in larger

HOW LONDON DEALS WITH BEGGARS. 691

processes of gradual distribution, from casual misfortune, to re
newed independence.

Tickets are given, for subscribers' cautious use, for smaM
immediate relief to assist wretched beggars in the street, or, more
safely, to refer them to the society's office, where, if on investiga
tion real distress is proved, they are promised effective relief.

The latest and most comprehensive scheme of treatment of
beggars in London has for its special object to give a definite aim to,
and to direct into the most effectual channels, the large amount of
benevolent force at work in England, and particularly in London.

The association consists of a federation of forty district com
mittees, one in every poor law division of the metropolis, and of
a central council, on which every committee is represented. Such
an organization gives great means of collecting information, and
of diffusing advice and influence throughout its operation. The
combination of isolated efforts in uniform method and principles
of action, the correction of much misplaced and wasted energy,
the avoidance of conflicting action and the exposure of fraud,
have been its proved most useful results. Its main principles are
thorough investigation before assisting, and suitable and adequate
assistance to proved cases of distress.

Its chief aim in giving assistance is the restoration of dis
ablement to the power of self-help. Incurable helplessness it
leaves to private care, or, that failing, to public provision.

Its detail of operation is much the same as that of the London
Mendicity, with which society, among many others, it is in inti
mate co-operation.

In its committee are representatives of other charitable insti
tutions, and many poor law guardians.

Its constables are enrolled with the Metropolitan Police, cer
tified as mendicity officers by the Chief Commissioner, with power
of apprehending beggars, making report to him. This society
holds an annual conference, greatly contributing to uniform
practice and mutual understanding. It maintains a visitation of
those who have been assisted, and of some to whom material relief
was not so much needed as friendly influence and guidance in
ways of thrift and comfort unknown, or unsupplied, to them.

Half the wanderers begging help need but the inspiriting in
fluence of friendly encouragement and healthy circumstance,
which is due from higher quarters to the toilers in life.

692 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

The cry of the beggars, true or false, will never cease ; ad
vancing civilization and wealth tend rather to increase it. The
cry appeals to instinctive sympathy ; and, whether true or false
demands attention to ascertain the truth, and imperatively to
prevent destitution. It is the primary duty of every man (says
Sir Frederick Eden, in his celebrated " State of the Poor/') ac
cording to his ability, to relieve his fellow creatures in distress,
by the dictates of humanity, and of Christianity, and for the
political interests of the commonwealth in rescuing citizenship
from incapacity. In the last of these two considerations Pericles
asserted that there should be no poor in Athens. The Civis
Atheniensis demanded state supply, and relegated labor to slaves.

Neither the rigid discipline of ancient Sparta, nor the inde
pendence of modern America could obliterate the stigma of
craving want. The question is not how to stifle, or get rid of the
beggar's cry, but how best to deal with it.

To find employment for the unemployed> or to legislate suf
ficient wages are schemes which experience has exploded. To defy
economic laws, and argue that they should not be, is only to par
alyze exertion, and staunch the capital which might sustain it.

The beggar s cry represents God's own demand for men's
mutual service. The first claim it makes is on private charity,
and those who withhold any means they have to meet it will find
a Nemesis in ultimate account when present beggars will be
begged by them for a drop or water, and when those who had
pity will be repaid a thousand fold.

The default of charity is the province of legal relief. London
has perfected the union of charity with law. But the study of
preventives of the beggar's cry is even more important than of
its cure. The spirit of self-help must not be checked but in
every way encouraged, for all distress that is not incurable.
Friendly societies, the soon developing trades unions, co-operative
stores, and savings banks represent that spirit. There are also
the national provisions of education, and emigration to the
world-wide offers of this Empire to industry and wealth.

London shows districts of former squalor, and despondency,
in which the poor, without removal, have found fresh energy and
means of life, by merely cleansed and healthier dwellings.

RESULTS OF THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION.

BY THE HOtf. JOHN W. FOSTER, EX-SECRETARY OF STATE.

THE United States stand distinguised among the nations as
the foremost champion of international arbitration. Our ablest
and wisest statesmen have recognized it as the best way of adjust
ing most questions of difference arising between governments,
when the ordinary diplomatic methods fail. Such being the set
tled policy of the country, it would be unfortunate for the cause
of peace and civilization in the world if that policy should be prej
udiced in the United States for want of correct information or
through partisan bias.

One of the last arbitrations in which the United States par
ticipated was that held at Paris in 1893 for the settlement of the
questions which had arisen with Great Britain respecting the fur
seals of the Pribylov Islands in Bering Sea; and the impression
seems to prevail with many of our people that this arbitration was
unwisely entered upon, that it was fruitless in its results to us,
and that the responsibility for the failure is chargeable to the ad
ministration which agreed to it. Every one of these conclusions
is incorrect, and, in the interest of the great cause of international
arbitration, their fallacy should be exposed. It seems the more
opportune at this time, as the subject is likely to be presented
anew to Congress at its approaching session.

It is well, in the first place, to examine the origin of the con
troversy. Alaska was ceded by Russia to the United States in
1867, and in 1870 the Seal Islands in Bering Sea were leased by
the government to a private company, with the privilege of tak
ing on the land a certain number of seals annually. Soon there
after it became apparent that the seal herd was exposed to serious
diminution by means of pelagic or open sea hunting. As early
as 1872 the attention of the government was called to this

(394 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

danger, and it was suggested that a revenue cutter be sent to
cruise in the vicinity of the passes of the Aleutian chain, through
which the herd travelled on its way to and from the Seal Islands,
with a view to preventing such hunting. But Mr. Boutwell, Sec
retary of the Treasury, declined to act upon the suggestion, stat
ing : " I do not see that the United States would have the
jurisdiction or power to drive off parties going up there for that
purpose, unless they made the attempt within a marine league of
the shore." With the progress of time pelagic hunting increased
along the Canadian and American coasts, with greater slaughter
of the herd, and with occasional incursions into Bering Sea.
There was gradually developed a contention that the principle
laid down by Secretary Boutwell did not apply to Bering Sea, be
cause Russia had claimed and enforced exclusive jurisdiction over
all its waters, that it had been acquiesced in by the maritime
nations, including Great Britain, and that all the rights of .Russia
therein passed to the United States by the cession. The act of
Congress of 1868 (Section 1956) made it unlawful to kill seals
" within the limits of Alaska Territory or in the waters thereof,"
and it was claimed that the waters of Alaska embraced all that
portion of Bering Sea east of the line designated in the Russian
treaty of cession. Under the foregoing construction of the
treaty and the statute, the first seizure of British vessels in Bering
Sea took place under instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury
by the Revenue vessels in 1886, and other seizures followed in
1887. Suits were instituted in the Federal Court at Sitka under
the Act cited and the vessels were condemned. The judge,
whose tenure of office under the practice in vogue as to that Terri
tory was limited to the political administration which appointed
him, following the line of argument submitted by the District
Attorney in a brief prepared in the office of the Attorney- General,
held that "all the waters within the boundary set forth in the
treaty . . . are to be considered as comprised within the
waters of Alaska, and all the penalties prescribed by law . . .
must therefore attach within those limits." He further held that
"as a matter of international law, it makes no difference that the
accused parties may be subjects of Great Britain. Russia had
claimed and- exercised jurisdiction over all that portion of Bering
Sea . . . and that claim had been tacitly recognized and
acquiesced in by the other maritime powers of the world."

RESULTS OF THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION. 695

The seizure and condemnation of the British vessels were fol
lowed by an attempt to secure a more precise and strict definition
of "the ivaters of Alaska" by Congressional legislation. A
lengthy investigation was had by a Committee of the House of
Kepresentatives in 1888 : and in January, 1889, a report was
made by Mr. Dunn, of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee,
fully sustaining the view taken by the Attorney- General and the
Federal Judge in Alaska, and submitting a bill which declared
" that Section 19o6 of the Revised Statutes of the United States
was intended to include and apply to, and is hereby declared to
include and apply to, all waters of Bering Sea in Alaska
embraced within the boundary lines " of the treaty with Eussia.
This bill was passed by the House, but in the Senate it was sent
to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and that Committee
recommended that the clause above quoted be disagreed to ; and
the chairman, Mr. Sherman, in support of the recommendation,
stated that the proposed legislation ' 'involved serious matters of
international law . . . and ought to be disagreed to and
abandoned, and considered more carefully hereafter." Subse
quently, by virtue of a conference report, an act was passed
declaring Section 1956 to include and apply " to all the dominion
of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea/'

The seizure and condemnation of vessels as stated constitute
the origin and foundation of the complaint of the British Govern
ment and of the lengthy correspondence and negotiations which
resulted in the arbitration at Paris. These seizures were the act
of the administration of President Cleveland, and had the in
dorsement of the executive, politico-judicial and legislative de
partments of that administration. In so far as the views of the
opposing political party may be inferred from the attitude of
Secretary Boutwell and Senator Sherman, they were against the
legality or wisdom of the policy.

The complaint of Great Britain in 1887 was followed by a
diplomatic correspondence, in which Secretary Bayard, without
discussing or yielding the grounds upon which the seizures had
been made, proposed an international arrangement for the protec
tion of the seals from extermination. With this proposition pend
ing and with all the questions arising out of the seizures unsettled,
the executive government of the United States passed into the
hands of President Harrison. Mr. Blame, on assuming the duties

696 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of Secretary of State, sought to carry into effect the proposition
of his predecessor for an international agreement. He found that
few of the governments approached had shown any interest in the
proposition, but early in the administration he pressed the sub
ject upon the attention of Great Britain, and as soon as possible
secured a joint conference at Washington with the British and
Russian Ministers. After prolonged interviews the conference
proved a failure, as Great Britain was unwilling to enter into any
international arrangement which the two other interested powers
felt was at all adequate to protect the seals from extermination.

The measure which Secretary Bayard had initiated for the
settlement of the questions arising out of the seizure of British
vessels having proved impossible of realization, there seemed no
other alternative but to defend the action of the previous adminis
tration ; and thereupon followed the notable diplomatic corre
spondence between Mr. Blaine and Lord Salisbury, in which the
former sought with all his recognized forensic skill to defend
the action of the Secretary of the Treasury in ordering the
seizures and, as far as he felt it possible to do so, to sustain the
correctness 'in international law of the attitude of the Attorney-
General and the Judge of the Federal Court of Alaska. In no
part of that statesman's career did his devotion to his country
more conspicuously rise above partisanship than in that corre
spondence. It is doubtful if any other living American could
have made a more brilliant or effective defence of the action of his
government, and whatever fallacies exist in his argument are
chargeable to the previous administration which had occasioned
the controversy and marked out the line of defence.

The correspondence showed the two governments in hopeless
disagreement. Three courses were open to President Harrison,
and one of them must be chosen without further delay. First :
He could abandon the claim of exclusive jurisdiction over
Bering Sea or protection of the seals beyond the three mile limit,
recede from the action of his predecessor as to seizure of
British vessels and pay the damages claimed therefor. Such a
course would have met with the general disapproval of the nation,
and would have been denounced by his political opponents as a
base betrayal of the country's interests. Second : He could have
rejected the arguments and protests of the British 'Government,
and continued the policy initiated by his predecessor in the seizure

RESULTS OF THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION. #97

of all British vessels engaged in pelagic "sealing in Bering Sea.
But this course had already been proposed to President Cleveland
and decided to be improper. The Hon. E. J. Phelps, who as
Minister to Great Britain had conducted the negotiations with
Lord Salisbury growing out of the seizures of 1886 and 1887, in a
lengthy dispatch to Secretary Bayard, reviewing the conduct of
Canada which had prevented an adjustment once accepted by
Lord Salisbury, made the following recommendation : " Under
these circumstances, the Government of the United States must,
in my opinion, either submit to have these valuable fisheries de
stroyed or must take measures to prevent their destruction by
capturing the vessels employed in it. Between these two alterna
tives it does not appear to me there should be the slightest hesita
tion. ... I earnestly recommend, therefore, that the vessels
that have been seized while engaged in this business be firmly
held, and that measures be taken to capture and hold every
one hereafter found concerned in it. ... There need be
no fear that a resolute stand on this subject will at once put
an end to the mischief complained of." But this recom
mendation of Mr. Phelps was not approved by Mr. Bayard,
who was unwilling to adopt a course which might bring
about a rupture with Great Britain, the probable outcome
of which would have been an armed conflict. In view of this
decision and the state of public sentiment, with a prevailing
opinion in a large part of the press and with public men that the
attitude of the government was legally unsound, and that the
interests involved did not under the circumstances stated justify
the hazard of a great war between these two English-speaking
nations, the adoption of this second alternative by President
Harrison would have been the height of madness. The only re
maining alternative was arbitration. President Harrison felt that
if we could commit to an international tribunal the far greater
interests and principles involved in the Alabama Claims, it would
be the part of wisdom to adopt the same course as to the pending
questions of difference, and there can be no doubt that the sober
judgment of the country confirms his action.

If, therefore, the Paris arbitration was unwise in any of its
features it must have been in the manner of submission of the
questions to the Tribunal. But in this respect, also, the conduct
of President Harrison was greatly restricted by the action of his

698 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

predecessor. He was required to formulate for the decision of
the Tribunal the contentions upon which the seizures were made,
and the first four points embraced in article VI. of the treaty will
be found to accurately cover the grounds upon which the Attor
ney-General in 1887 asked for, and the Federal Judge based, the
condemnation of the British vessels. It is a singular incident
that when the case of the United States came to be prepared and
the Eussian archives were examined, what had been assumed in
the legal proceedings to be historical facts could scarcely be sub
stantiated by a single official document. It is also notable that
the only additional question introduced in the treaty provision
for submission to the Tribunal — that embraced in the fifth point,
to wit, the right of protection or property in the seals, and
which in the judgment of the counsel of the United States be
came the leading, if not the only, defence of the seizures — was
not advanced in the legal proceedings of 1887, and was not
mooted until a late stage of Mr. Elaine's controversy with Lord
Salisbury. The chief credit for the development of this point is
due to Mr. Tracy, Secretary of the Nary, who submitted a paper
of rare legal ability on the subject to the President, which at
a later date appeared in this REVIEW.* The treaty after having
undergone the careful scrutiny of the President and Hon. E. J.
Phelps, whose advice had been sought by the President, was sub
mitted to the Senate and approved by that body without a single
dissenting voice, so far as known. If the conduct of the Presi
dent, in the management of the controversy created by his pre
decessor, had not been in the judgment of the country wise -and
patriotic, or if the provisions of the treaty had not been properly
framed, it would scarcely have escaped the attention of his politi
cal opponents in the Senate.

Hence, the only remaining criticism which might be advanced
against the arbitration must relate to the management of the case
before the Tribunal. But in this respect also it must be recog
nized that the President's action was circumspect and free from
all partisanship. In naming the arbitrators on the part of the
United States, he chose, with the cordial approval of the Chief
Justice and his associates, Mr. Justice Harlan of the Supreme
Court, as senior American member of the Tribunal. In filling
the second place he selected Senator Morgan, the recognized
* NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, May, 1893.

RESULTS OF THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION. 699

leader on all international questions in the Senate of the party
whose officials had originated the subject matter of arbitration.
Hon. E. J. Phelps, President Cleveland's Minister in London,
an experienced diplomatist and a lawyer of national repute, had
been consulted by the President several months before the treaty
had been agreed upon, and when the case came to be prepared he
was named as senior counsel. With him was associated James C.
Carter, of New York, the recognized leader of the American bar ;
and before the tribunal was organized Frederick K. Coudert, an
accomplished French scholar and a prominent jurist, was added
to the list. These three gentlemen were the political friends of
Mr. Cleveland. With them was joined a single party friend of
President Harrison, H. W. Blodgett, for many years a distin
guished judge of the Federal Court. Senator Morgan in a recent
letter says : " Our party was and is responsible for using the
means that were employed both for the raising and the settlement
of these questions, and it was a just measure of responsibility that
Mr. Harrison devolved upon us when, out of a body of arbitra
tors and counsel and Mr. Secretary Foster, the Agent, selected
by him — seven in all — he selected four Democrats and three Ee-
publicans." As to the manner in which these gentlemen dis
charged their trust we have the following testimony of Mr. Jus
tice Harlan, in a public address : "I may say that no govern
ment was ever represented upon any occasion where its interests
were involved with more fidelity, with more industry and with
greater ability than was the United States by its agent and coun
sel. ... If more was not obtained it was solely because a
majority of that tribunal . . . did not see their way to grant
more."

On five points submitted to the Tribunal, embracing the
historical and legal questions, the decision was unfavorable to
the United States. While the action of the government in making
the seizures was based on the weakest ground of our defence and
which proved untenable, it cannot be doubted that the motives
which actuated its conduct were patriotic and praiseworthy. But
had our effort to save the seals from destruction been from the
outset based upon a right of protection and property in them, our
case before the Tribunal would have been much stronger and the
decision might have been different. Nevertheless, it cannot
be justly claimed that the arbitration was fruitless in its results

700 ™E NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

for us. It is no small matter that a question which threatened a
rupture of our peaceful relations with Great Britain was adjusted
by a resort to the arbitrament of reason and not of force. The
Alaskan seal herd is of great value to us and to the world, and it
is the duty of our government to be vigilant in protecting it
from destruction ; but the legal issues involved in our contro
versy with Great Britain regarding them did not seem to justify
the hazard of an armed conflict, and it was a great gain to us
that the controversy was peacefully settled without national dis
honor.

The decision of the Tribunal was adverse to the United States
on the legal points in dispute, but the award contained an import
ant provision for international regulations, which were intended
by the Tribunal to be a protection to the seals and which in the
judgment of the majority of that body would in practice prove
an adequate protection. The agent and counsel of the United
States contended that no regulations would be a certain protec
tion of the herd which did not prohibit all pelagic sealing, and
the American arbitrators voted for such prohibition, and sustained
their votes by very able and cogent opinions ; but the majority of
the Tribunal took a different view of the subject. The regula
tions adopted were opposed both by the American and Canadian
arbitrators. When first published they were accepted by all the
Americans who participated in the arbitration as a decided
triumph for the United States, and were regarded by the Cana
dian sealers as a serious menace, if not a death-blow, to their in
terests. If they are carefully examined they will be found to be
more favorable to the United States than the regulations which
Mr. Bayard proposed to Lord Salisbury as a settlement of the
question, or which Mr. Blaine offered to Sir Julian Pauncefote.
If, therefore, we obtained more from the Tribunal than our gov
ernment proposed to accept from Great Britain, the arbitration
cannot justly be characterized as fruitless in its results for us.
The adequacy of the regulations cannot be properly judged, be
cause they have not yet been put in force in their true spirit and
intent. This will not be done until they are also made to apply
to the Kussian waters, and until more stringent rules for their
enforcement are adopted. It has been a source of disappointment
to many who have taken an interest in the preservation of the
seals that these rules have been so lax and so imperfectly observed-

RESULTS OF THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION. 701

The obstruction in these respects is now, as it has been from the
beginning, the selfish and inhuman conduct of Canada.

The purpose of this article, to wit, the defence of the policy
of international arbitration, has been accomplished ; as it has
been shown by the foregoing review that the Paris arbitration was
not unwisely entered upon, that it was not altogether fruitless in
its results for us, and that the administration which agreed to it
cannot be held culpable for the manner of its submission or man
agement. But it will naturally be expected that something be
said concerning the question of damages, a subject which was not
settled by the award. In article VIII. of the Treaty it was ex
pressly stipulated that " the question of liability of each for the
injuries alleged to have been sustained by the other" should not be
embraced in the arbitration, but should " be the subject of future
negotiation." In the discussion following the adjournment of the
Tribunal, the fact seems to have been lost sight of that the United
States preferred serious claims for damages against Great Britain
on account of the injuries done by British pelagic sealers to the
Alaskan seal herd, and that President Harrison proposed that this
question of damages should, together with the British claims for
seizure of vessels, be submitted to the Tribunal. It was because
Great Britain refused to consent to arbitrate this claim that the
whole subject was omitted. The award of the Tribunal was in
effect that in certain waters, and at certain times, pelagic sealing
is improper and should not be permitted. How far the claim of
the United States subsists for injuries in the past sustained by the
seal herd in those times and waters is one of the questions to be
determined by the " future negotiations" contemplated in the
Treaty ; and prominent persons well informed as to the contro
versy contend that it is still a vital question.

While the liability for damages was not within the jurisdic
tion of the Tribunal, it is generally admitted that the effect of its
decision was to fix upon the United States a certain measure of
responsibility for damages on account of the seizures, which
would have to be met through the "future negotiations." With
out further investigation than the documentary evidence before
the Paris Tribunal, the sum of $425,000 was agreed upon be
tween the Secretary of State and the British Ambassador as a
full satisfaction of the claims for the seizure of the British vessels,
and the Congress of the United States was asked to make an

702 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

appropriation for that purpose. In the discussion which arose
in the House of Eepreseutatives when the subject came before
that body it was most unfortunate that it should have assumed a
partisan aspect. When certain members argued that the sum
asked for was greatly in excess of the just and legal claims of the
Canadian sealers, and that it was in direct conflict with the views of
the Agent and Counsel of the United States before the Tribunal,
they were taunted with the charge that this obligation had been
contracted by the administration of which they were supporters.
The member of the Committee on Appropriations who had the
measure in charge said : " This is not our foreign policy. We
are paying a debt which you gentlemen gave us." Mr. McCreary,
Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, in advocacy of
the appropriation, used this language: "I regret that we have
been placed in an attitude where we have to pay this amount ;
but the gentlemen on the other side of this House cannot claim
that we caused the existing situation." How unwarranted were
these assertions is shown in the foregoing review.

It may have been the wisest policy to vote the appropriation,
but it was no breach of our international obligations not to ap
prove of that sum ; and it is not to the discredit of Congress that
it exercised its judgment as to the action of the executive in
agreeing to a settlement with Great Britain which altogether ig
nored the claim of the United States for damages to the seals by
improper pelagic hunting, and the views of its own representa
tives before the Tribunal as to the British claims. While a dif
ference of views may properly exist between the executive and
legislative departments upon these subordinate questions, no dis
position has been entertained or shown by any portion of our
government or people to evade our just obligations under the
Treaty. And the fact that the spirit of the award leads us to pay
out of the national treasury a sum by way of damages, which at
the most must be regarded as insignificant for a great nation,
should certainly have no tendency to modify in the slightest de
gree our devotion to the great policy of international arbitration.

JOHN W. FOSTER.

1 CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE.

BY GOLDWItf SMITH, D. C. L., LL. D.

AT the recent English Church Congress held at Norwich, Pro
fessor Bonney, Canon of Manchester, made a bold and honorable
attempt to cast a millstone off the neck of Christianity by frankly
renouncing belief in the historical character of the earlier books
of the Bible.

" I cannot deny/' he said, " that the increase of scientific
knowledge has deprived parts of the earlier books of the Bible of
the historical value which was generally attributed to them by
our forefathers. The story of the creation in Genesis, unless we
play fast and loose either with words or with science, cannot be
brought into harmony with what we have learned from geology.
Its ethnological statements are imperfect, if not sometimes inac
curate. The stories of the flood and of the Tower of Babel are
incredible in their present form. Some historical element may
underlie many of the traditions in the first eleven chapters of
that book, but this we cannot hope to recover."

With the historical character of the chapters relating to the
creation, Canon Bonney must resign his belief in the Fall of Adam •
with his belief in the Fall of Adam he must surrender the doc
trine of the Atonement, as connected with that event, and thus
relieve conscience of the strain put upon it in struggling to recon
cile Vicarious Punishment with our sense of justice. He will
also have to lay aside his belief in the Serpent of the Temptation,
and in the primeval personality of evil.

In Lux Mundi, a collection of essays edited by the Kev-
erend Principal of Pusey House, and understood to emanate
from the High Church quarter, we find plain indications that
the unhistoric character, so frankly recognized by the learned
Canon in the opening chapters of Genesis, is recognized in other

704 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

parts of Old Testament history by High Churchmen, who, hav
ing studied recent criticism, feel, like the Canon, that there is a
millstone to be cast off. One of these essayists admits that the
"battle of historical record cannot be fought on the field of the
Old Testament as it can on that of the New " ; that " very little
of the early record can be securely traced to a period near the
events " ; and that " the Church cannot insist upon the histori
cal character of the earliest records of the ancient church in
detail as she can on the historical character of the Gospels or
the Acts of the Apostles." The same writer seems ready to
entertain the view that the ' ' books of Chronicles represent a
later and less historical version of Israel's history than that given
in Samuel and Kings," and that they " represent the version of
that history which had become current in the priestly schools."
"Conscious perversion" he will not acknowledge, but in the
theory of "unconscious idealizing" of history he is willing,
apparently, to acquiesce. Inspiration, he thinks, is consistent
with this sort of "idealizing," though it excludes conscious
deception or pious fraud. Conscious deception or pious fraud no
large minded and instructed critic of primeval records would be
inclined to charge. But "ideal" is apparently only another
name for "mythical," and it is difficult to see how myths can in
any sense be inspired, or why, if the records are in any sense
inspired, the Church should not be able to insist on their histori
cal character. * ' In detail " is a saving expression ; but the
details make up the history, and if the truth of the details can
not be guaranteed, what is our guarantee for the truth of the
whole ? Human testimony, no doubt, may sometimes fail in
minor particulars, while in the mainvaccount of the matter it is
true. But is it conceivable that the Holy Spirit, in dictating
the record of God's dealings with mankind for our instruction in
the way of life, should simulate the defects of human evidence ?
A veil which has long hung before the eyes of free inquiry
when they were turned on the origin and state of man is r amoved
by the Canon's renunciations. The present writer, as a student
at college, attended the lectures of Dr. Buckland, a pioneer in
geology ; and he remembers the desperate shifts to which the
lecturer was driven in his efforts to reconcile the facts of his
science with the Mosaic cosmogony, the literal truth of which he
did not venture to impugn. By a "day," Dr. Buckland said,

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 705

Moses meant a geological period, though the text says that each
day was made up of a morning and an evening, while the Deca
logue fixes the sense by enjoining the observance of the seventh
day as that on which the Creator rested after the six days' labor
of creation. How the professor dealt with fossil records of geo
logical races and the appearance of death in the world before the
fall of man, the writer does not now remember. It is not very
long since a preacher before an educated audience could meet the
objection to the Mosaic deluge arising from the position of stones
in the mountains of Auvergne, which such a cataclysm must
have swept away, bv the simple expedient of affirming that when
the deluge was over, the stones had been restored to their places
by miracle. Nay, were not Mr. Gladstone's great intellectual
powers the other day exerted to prove that the Creator, in dic
tating to Moses the account of the creation, had come wonder
fully near the scientific truth and almost anticipated the nebular
hypothesis ?

From the conceptions of science, geocentricism, derived from
the Mosaic cosmogony, may have been banished, but over those
of theology its cloud still heavily hangs. The consecrated im
pression has survived the distinct belief, and faith shrinks from
the theological revolution which the abandonment of the im
pression would involve.

The history of every nation begins with myth. A primeval
tribe keeps no record, and a nation in its maturity has no more
recollection of what happened in its infancy than a man of
what happened to him in his cradle. It is needless to say that the
first book of Livy is a tissue of fable, though the Romans were great
keepers of records and matter-of-fact as a people. When the age
of reflection arrives and the nation begins to speculate on its
origin, it gives itself a mythical founder, a Theseus, a Romulus,
or an Abraham, and ascribes to him its ancestral institutions or
customs. In his history also are found the keys to immemorial
names and the origin of mysterious or venerated objects. It is a
rule of criticism that we cannot by any critical alembic extract
materials for history out of fable. If the details of a story are
fabulous, so is the whole. If the details of Abraham's story — the
appearances of the Deity to him, so strangely anthropomorphic,
the miraculous birth of his son when his wife was ninety years
old, his adventures with Sarah in Egypt and afterwards in Gerar,
VOL. CLXI.— NO. 469. 45

706 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

evidently two versions of the same legend, the sacrifice of his son
arrested by the angel, with the episode of Lot, the destruction of
the Cities of the Plain, and the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar
of salt — are plainly unhistorical, the whole story must be relegated
to the domain of tribal fancy. We cannot make a real personage
out of unrealities or fix a place for him in unrecorded time.

That the alleged record is of a date posterior by many cen
turies to the events, and therefore no record at all, plainly ap
pears from the mention of Kings of Israel in Genesis (xxxvi., 31).
No reason has been shown for supposing that the passage is an
interpolation, while the suggestion that it is prophetic is extrava
gant. It stamps the date of the book, like the mention of the
death of Moses in Deuteronomy, to get rid of which efforts
equally desperate are made. The canon of Sir George Corne-
wall Lewis, limiting the trustworthiness of oral tradition to a
single century, may be too rigid ; but we certainly cannot trust
oral tradition for such a period as that between the call of Abra
ham and the Kings, especially when, the alleged events being
miraculous, an extraordinary amount of evidence is necessary to
justify belief.

The figure of the patriarch Abraham, a typical sheikh, as well
as the father of Israel, is exceptionally vivid, and his history is
exceptionally dramatic. It is needless to say that the history
contains episodes of striking beauty, such as the meeting of the
steward with Rebekah, the scene of Hagar and her child nearly
perishing in the wilderness, and the sacrifice of Isaac. But
to regard Abraham as a real founder, not only of a nation, but
of the Church, and as the chosen medium of communication
between God and man, sound criticism will no longer allow us;
and sound criticism, like genuine science, is the voice of the
Spirit of Truth. A writer in Lux Mundi, already quoted, avows
his belief that " the modern development of historical criticism
is reaching results as sure, where it is fairly used, as scientific
inquiry." He significantly reminds churchmen of the warning
conveyed by the name of Galileo. "Why should we any longer
cling to that which, whatever it may have been to the men of a
primeval tribe, is to us a low and narrow conception of the
Deity? Why should we force ourselves to believe that the Being
who fills eternity and infinity became the guest of a Hebrew
sheikh ; entered into a covenant with the sheikh's tribe, to the

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 707

exclusion of the rest of the human race ; and as the seal of the
covenant ordained the perpetuation of a barbarous tribal rite ?
There have been bibliolaters so extreme as to wish even con
verted Jews to continue the practice to which the promise was
mysteriously annexed. Tribalism may attach inordinate value
to genealogies as well as to ancestral rites, but can we imagine
the author of the universe limiting his providential regard and
his communication of vital truth to his creatures by tribal lines ?
Every tribe is the chosen people of its own god ; enjoys a
monopoly of his favor ; is upheld by him against the interest of
other nations, and especial!^ protected by him in war. It is he
who gives it victory, and if stones fall or are hurled on the en
emy retreating through a rocky pass, it is he who casts them
down (Joshua x., 11). Christianity is the denial of Jewish
tribalism, proclaiming that all nations have been made of one
blood to dwell together on the earth, and are sharers alike in the
care of Providence. Of the bad eifects of a conception of God
drawn from the conceptions of J ewish tribalism, the least is the
waste of money and effort in desperate attempts to convert the
Jews.

Of the history of the other Patriarchs the texture is apparently
the same as that of the history of Abraham. They are mythical
founders of a race, a character which extends to Ishmael and
Esau. In fact the chapters relating to them are full of what, in
an ordinary case, would be called ethnological myth. Of con
temporary or anything like contemporary record, even supposing
the Pentateuch to have been written by Moses, there can be no
pretence. Thus it is in the absence of anything like evidence that
we have been called upon to accept such incidents as the bodily
wrestling of Jehovah with Jacob, and the appearance to Jacob in
a dream of an angel who is the organ of a supernatural com
munication about the speckles of the rams or he-goats. Most
vivid and memorable, no doubt, are the characters of Esau, the
typical father of the hunter tribe, and that of Jacob in whose
unscrupulous and successful cunning we have a picture such as
the anti-Semite would now draw of his enemy, the financial Jew.
These chapters are full of legends connected with fanciful inter
pretations of names, such as Jehovah- Jireh (Genesis xxii., 14) ;
fanciful accounts of immemorial monuments, such as Jacob's
pillar ; or of tribal customs, such as that of refraining from a

708 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

particular sinew because it had been touched and made to shrink
by Jehovah in wrestling with Jacob. Extraordinary simplicity
is surely displayed by the pious commentators who appeal to the
custom as evidence of the historic event.

Much labor has been spent in efforts to identify the Pharaoh
of the Exodus and to fix the date of that event and its connection
with Egyptian history. Still more labor has been spent in tracing
the route of the Israelites through the wilderness and explaining
away the tremendous difficulties of the narrative. What if the
whole is mythical ? There is a famine in Palestine. The Patri
arch sends his ten sous, each with an ass and a sack, across the
desert to buy food in Egypt. Provisions must have been furn
ished them for their journey, and of what they bought they
must have consumed not a little on their journey home. This
seems improbable, nor was it very likely that the ten should
strike the exact place where their brother Joseph was in power.
Of the poetic character of the story of Joseph, with its miraculous
dreams and their interpretations, there surely can be no doubt.
Yet upon the story of Joseph and his brethren all the rest appar
ently hangs. We might almost renounce the task of analysing
the rest of the narrative — the attempt of the Egyptian rulers to
extirpate the Hebrews by the strange command to the midwives
when they might have taken a shorter and surer course; the con
test in thaumaturgy between the magicians of Jehovah and those of
Egypt ; the plagues sent upon the helpless people of Egypt to
make their ruler do that which Omnipotence might at once, have
done by its fiat ; the extraordinary multiplication of the Hebrews,
whose adult males, in spite of the destruction of their male
children, amount to six hundred thousand, a number which
implies a total population of at least two millions ; their sudden
appearance as an armed host though they had just been repre
sented as the unresisting bondsmen of the Egyptians ; their
wanderings for forty years within the narrow limits of the Si-
naitic peninsula, where, though the region is desert, they find
subsistence not only for themselves but for their innumerable
flocks and herds ; their construction of a tabernacle where ma
terials for it could not have been found ; the plague of fiery
serpents which was sent among them and the brazen serpent by
looking on which they were healed ; the miraculous destruc
tion of the impious opponents of an exclusive priesthood ; the

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 709

giants of Canaan ; the victories gained over native tribes by tbe
direct interposition of Heaven ; the strange episode of Balaam
and his colloquy with his ass ; the stopping of the sun and moon
that Israel might have time for the pursuit and slaughter of his
enemies. This last incident alone seems enough to stamp the
legendary character of the whole. In vain we attempt to reduce
the miracle, which would imply a disturbance of the entire solar
system, to a mere prolongation of the daylight. The Old Testa
ment is altogether geocentric, and not merely in the phenomenal
sense. The sun and moon are made " for lights in the firmament
of the heaven to give light on the earth/' and with them, is
coupled the creation of the stars. The writer of the book of
Joshua cites the book of Jasher as evidence of the miracle.
Was the book of Jasher inspired ? Could an inspired writer need
or rest on the evidence of one who was uninspired ?

Whether any sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt or any
real connection with that country is denoted by the visit of
Abraham to Egypt and afterwards by the story of the Exodus, it
is for Egyptologists to determine. Of the appearance of Hebrew
forms on Egyptian monuments, Egyptian conquest would appear
to give a sufficient explanation. The history of the Exodus is
connected with the account of the institution of the Passover,
and Analogy may lead us to surmise that national imagination
has been busy in explaining the origin of an immemorial rite.

We are, then, in no way bound to believe that God so identi
fied himself with a favored tribe as to license it to invade a num
ber of other tribes which had done it no wrong, to slaughter
them and take possession of their land. We are in no way bound
to believe that he, by the mouth of Moses, rebuked his chosen
people for saving alive the women and children of the Hidianites
and bade them kill every male among the little ones and every
woman that had known man (Numbers xxxi., 17); or that he
commanded them to slay, not only man, woman, and child, but
the dumb animals, everything that breathed, in a captured city.
To the objections raised by humanity against the slaughter of
the Canaanites, Christian apologists have made various and, as one
of their number admits, not very consistent replies. Some say
that in conquering Canaan the Israelites did but recover their
own, a plea which, even if it had not been ousted by prescription,
would be. totally inconsistent with the account of the sojourning

710 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of Abraham and of his purchase of plots of land. Others main
tain that, having been driven by force from Egypt, they had a
right to help themselves to a home where they could find it, and
to put all the existing inhabitants to the sword. The bequest of
Noah is also pleaded. But at last the apologist has to fall back
upon the simple command of God, which is justified on the
ground that the Canaanites were idolaters, they never having
heard of the true God.

Such examples as the slaughter of the Canaanites, the killing of
Sisera, the assassination of Eglon, the hewing of Agag in pieces
by Samuel before the Lord, Elijah's massacre of the prophets of
Baal, the hanging of Haman with his ten sons, commemorated
in the hideous feast of Purim, have, it is needless to say, had a
deplorable effect in forming the harsher and darker parts of the
character which calls itself Christian. They are responsible in no
small degree for murderous persecutions, and for the extirpation
or oppression of heathen races. The dark side of the Puritan
character in particular is traceable to their influence. Macaulay
mentions a fanatical Scotch Calvinist whose writings, he says,
hardly bear a trace of acquaintance with the New Testament.

Jael, when she decoyed her husband's ally into her tent and
slew him while he was resting trustfully beneath it, broke in the
most signal manner the sacred rule of Arab hospitality, as well
as the ordinary moral law. The comment of orthodoxy upon
this is: "If we can overlook the treachery and violence which
belong to the age and country, and bear in mind JaePs ardent
sympathies with the oppressed people of God, her faith in the
right of Israel to possess the land in which they were now slaves,
her zeal for the glory of Jehovah as against the gods of Canaan,
and the heroic courage and firmness with which she executed
her deadly purpose, we shall be ready to yield to her the praise
which is her due."* The extenuating motives supplied by the
commentator are not to be found in the text. To reconcile us to
the assassination of Eglon, a distinction is drawn between God's
providential order and his moral law, the providential order or
daining what the moral law would forbid.

The writer heard the other day a very beautiful Christian
sermon on the purity of heart in virtue of which good men see
God. But the lesson of the day, read before that sermon, was

* The Speaker's Commentary, ad loc.

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 711

the history of Jehn. Jehu, a usurper, begins by murdering
Joram, the son of his master Ahab, King of Israel, and Ahaziah,
the King of Judah, neither of whom had done him any wrong.
He then has Jezebel, AhaVs widow, killed by her own servants.
Next he suborns the guardians and tutors of Ahab's seventy
sons in Samaria to murder the children committed to their care
and send the seventy heads to him in baskets to be piled at the
gate of the city. Then he butchers the brethren of Ahaziah,
King of Judah, with whom he falls in on the road, two-and-
forty in number, for no specified or apparent crime. On his
arrival at Samaria there is more butchery. Finally he entraps
all the worshippers of Baal, by an invitation to a solemn as
sembly, and massacres them to a man. At the end of this series
of atrocities the Lord is made to say to him, "Because thou
hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes
and hast done unto the house of Ahab all that was ill my heart,
thy children unto the fourth generation shall sit on the throne
of Israel."

David is loyal, chivalrous, ardent in friendship, and combines
with adventurous valor the tenderness which has led to our
accepting him as the writer of some of the Psalms. So far, he
is an object of our admiration, due allowance for time and cir
cumstance being made. But he is guilty of murder and adultery,
both in the first degree ; he puts to death with hideous tortures
the people of a captured city ; on his death-bed he bequeaths to
his son a murderous legacy of vengeance ; he exemplifies by his
treatment of his ten concubines, whom he shuts up for life,
the most cruel evils of polygamy (2 Samuel, xx., 3). The man
after God's own heart he might be deemed by a primitive priest
hood to whose divinity he was always true ; but it is hardly pos
sible that he should be so deemed by a moral civilization. Still
less possible is it that we should imagine the issues of spiritual
life to be so shut up that from this man's loins salvation would
be bound to spring.

The books of the Old Testament, and notably the historical
books, are for the most part by unknown authors and of un
known dates. Nor do they put forward themselves any claim to
inspiration. Where they cite elder authorities, such as the book
of Jasher, they in effect declare themselves indebted to human
records, and therefore uninspired. Preachers, especially preachers

712 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

of reform, speak in the name of Heaven, Oriental and primitive
preachers speak as the inspired organs of Heaven. The Prophets,
whose name, with its modern connotation, is scarcely more appro
priate than it would be if applied to Savonarola or John Wesley,
are in this respect like others of their class. One of them when
bidden to prophesy calls for a minstrel, under the influence of
whose strains the hand of the Lord comes upon him (2 Kings,
iii., 15 ; see also 1 Samuel, x., 5). All seers, as their name im
ports, have visions. Primitive lawgivers speak by divine com
mand. In no other way, apparently, is inspiration claimed by
the authors of the Old Testament.

Jesus came to substitute a religion of conscience for that of
law, a religion of humanity for that of the tribe, worship in spirit
and in truth for worship in the Temple. His preaching was
a reaction against the Judaism then impersonated in the Pharisee,
afterwards developed in the Talmud, and now fully represented
in the Talmudic Jew. But he was not a revolutionist. Like
Socrates, he accepted established institutions, including the
national ritual, and in that sense fulfilled all righteousness. He
accepted the sacred books among the rest, and in addressing an
audience which believed in them, he cited them and appealed to
their authority in the usual way. He cites the book of Jonah,
and in terms which seem to show that he regards it as a real his
tory ; so that a literalist, like the late Dr. Liddon, took fire at
being told that the book was an apologue, considering this an
impeachment of the veracity of Jesus. Yet few, even of the
most orthodox, would now profess to believe that Jonah sojourned
in the belly of a fish. St. Paul in like manner treats the narra
tive of the Fall of Adam in Genesis as historical and connects a
doctrine with it, though the mythical character of the narrative
is admitted, as we have seen, even by a dignitary of the Church.

The Evangelists, simple-minded, find in the sacred books of
their nation prognostications of the character and mission of
Jesus. Sometimes, as critical examination shows, a little has
been enough to satisfy their uncritical minds (see Matthew ii.,
16 ; xxi., 5). But surely it is something like a platitude to as
cribe to them such an idea of Old Testament prophecy as is
worked out for us by modern divines such as Keith. No real
and specific prediction of the advent of Jesus, or of any event in
his life, can be produced from the books of the Old Testament.

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 713

At most we find passages or phrases which are capable of a spirit
ual application, and in that metaphorical sense prophetic. Even
of the famous passage in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, if it
is read without strong prepossessions, no more than this can be
said.

Beyond contest and almost beyond compare is the beauty,
spiritual as well a?, lyrical, of some of the Psalms. But there are
others which it is shocking to hear a Christian congregation re
citing, still more shocking, perhaps, to hear it chanting in a
church. To wish that your enemy's wife may be a widow, and
that his children may be fatherless and have none to pity them,
is Oriental. To wish that his prayer may be turned to sin and
that Satan may stand at his right hand, to wish in short for his
spiritual ruin, is surely Oriental and something more. The
writer in Lux Mundi, already cited, would persuade himself and
us that these utterances are not those of personal spite, but ' ' the
claim which righteous Israel makes upon God that He should
vindicate himself and let her eyes see how righteousness turns
again to judgment." This is the way in which we have been led by
our traditional belief in the inspiration of the Old Testament to
play fast and loose with our understandings and with our moral
sense. It might almost as well be pretended, when the Greek
poet Theognis longs to drink the blood of his political enemies,
that he is not actuated by hatred, but has some great moral ob
ject in his mind.

What is the Old Testament ? It is the entire body of Hebrew
literature, theology, philosophy, history, fiction, and poetry, in
cluding the poetry of love as well as that of religion. We have
bound it all up together as a single book, and bound up that book
with the New Testament, as though the religion of the two were
the same and the slaughter of the Canaanites or the massacre of
the day of Purim were a step towards Christian brotherhood and
the Sermon on the Mount. We have forcibly turned Hebrew
literature into a sort of cryptogram of Christianity. The love-
song called The Song of Solomon has been turned into a crypto-
grammic description of the union of Christ with his Church. A
certain divine, when his advice was asked about the method of
reading the Scriptures, used to say that his method was to begin
at the beginning and read to the end ; so that he would spend
three hours at least on the Old Testament for one that he spent on

714 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

the New, and would read the list of the Dukes of Edom as often
as he read the Sermon on the Mount. The first step towards a
rational appreciation of the Old Testament is to break up the
volume, separate the acts of Joshua or Jehu from the teachings
of Jesus, and the different books of the Old Testament from each
other.

The language of the Jews was the same as that of the other
inhabitants of Canaan, and it seems probable that their religion
also was originally the same. This view appears more likely
and, more consistent with analogy than the supposition that the
Jews, having set out with tribal monotheism, fell away from it
to fetishism, idolatry, and to the worship of the powers of nature,
with sensual rites. We are told in fact (Joshua xxiv., 2) that
the ancestors of Abraham served other gods. How, or by what
influences, whether those of individual reformers like the proph
ets, or of general circumstance, the nation rose from fetishism
and nature-worship to tribal monotheism of an eminently pure
and exalted type seems to be a historical mystery. Higher than
to tribal monotheism it did not rise ; at least it advanced no
further than to the belief that its god was supreme in power as
well as in character to all other gods, and thus Lord of the
whole earth. He was still the God of Israel, and the Jews were
still his chosen people. Judaism, therefore, never reached the
religious elevation of some chosen spirits among the heathen
world, such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, andEpictetus ; although
the Jewish belief was more intense than that of the philosophers
and extended not only to a select circle but to a portion at least
of the people.

Nor could the Jew, hampered as he was by lingering tribal
ism, form a conception of the universality and majesty of the
moral law such as we find in Plato or in Cicero. There is nothing
in the Hebrew writings like a passage in Cicero's Republic, pre
served by Lactantius : "There is a true law, right reason, in
unison with nature, all-embracing, consistent, and eternal, which,
by its commands, calls to duty, by its prohibitions, deters from
crime, which, however, never addresses to the good its commands
or its prohibitions in vain, nor by command or prohibition moves
the wicked. This law cannot be amended, nor can any clause of
it be repealed, nor can it be abrogated as a whole. By no vote
either of the Senate or of the people, can we be released from it.

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 715

It requires none to explain or to interpret it. Nor will there be
one law at Rome and another at Athens; one now, and another
hereafter. For all nations and for all time there will be one law,
immutable and eternal ; there will be a common master and ruler
of all — God, the f ramer, exponent, and enactor of this law, whom
he who fails to obey will be recreant to himself, and, renouncing
human nature, will, by that very fact, incur the severest punish
ment, even though he should escape other penalties real or
supposed."* Equally broad is the language of the De Legi-
~bus : " Since, then, nothing is superior to reason, whether in God
or man, it is by partnership in reason, above all, that man is
connected with God. Partnership in reason is partnership in
right reason ; and as law is right reason, law again is a bond
between God and man. Community of law is community of
right. Those to whom these things are common are citizens of
the same commonwealth. Ii men obey the same power and rule,
much more do they obey this celestial code, the divine mind and
the supreme power of God. So that we must regard this universe
as one and a single commonwealth of gods and men. And
whereas in states, on a principle of which we will speak in the
proper place, the position of the citizen is marked by his family
ties, in the universal nature of things we have something more
august and glorious — the bond of kinship between gods and

men."f

Of a belief in the immortality of the soul no evidence can be
found in the Old Testament, though readers of the Bible who
persist in using the unre vised version may remain under the im
pression that the doctrine is found in Job. Sheol is merely, like
the Hades of the Odyssey, a shadowy abode of the Dead. The
rewards and punishments of the Old Testament are temporal and
material ; its rewards are* wealth and offspring, its punishments
are beggary and childlessness. The only immortality of which
there is any idea in it is the perpetuation of a man's family in
his tribe. The vindication and requital of JoVs virtue are added
wealth and multiplied offspring. Nor do we find in the Old Test
ament that moral immortality, if the expression may be used,
which is found in Greek and Roman philosophers, who, without
speaking definitely of a life after death, identify the virtuous

* Divin. Instit., VI., 8.
iDe Leg.,L,T.

716 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

man with the undying power of virtue and intimate that it
would be well with him in the sum of things.

Not assuredly that the Hebrew literature lacks qualities, irre
spective of its dogmatic position, such as may account for the hold
which it has retained, in spite of its primeval cosmogony, theology,
or morality, on the allegiance of civilized minds. The sublimity
of its cosmogony impressed, as we know, Longinus. Voltaire him
self could hardly have failed to acknowledge the magnificence of
some parts of the prophetic writings, though in other parts he
might find marks for his satire. All must be touched by the
beauty of the story of Joseph, and the Book of Ruth. Admir
able are both the religious exaltation and the lyrical excellence of
some of the Psalms. The histories are marred by tribalism,
primeval inhumanity, and fanaticism; but they derive dignity as
well as unity from the continuous purpose which runs through
them, and which in the main is moral; since Jehovah was a God
of rightousness and purity, perhaps even of mercy, in contrast
with the gods of other tribes, and his worship, though ritual,
sacrificial, and unlike the worship "in spirit and in truth/' the ad
vent of which was proclaimed to the woman of Samaria, was yet
spiritual compared with that of deities whose votaries gashed
themselves with knives or celebrated lascivious orgies beneath
the sacred tree.

Hebrew law is primitive, and the idea of reviving it, conceived
by some of the Puritans, was absurd. But it is an improvement
in primitive law. It makes human life sacred, treating murder
as a crime to be punished with death, not as a mere injury to be
compounded by a fine. It recognizes the avenger of blood, the
rude minister of justice before the institution of police ; but it
confines his office to the case of wilful murder, and forbids heredi
tary blood-feuds. It recognizes asylum, a necessary check on wild
primeval passion, but confines it to accidental homicide, ordain
ing that if a man slay his neighbor with guilt, he shall be taken,
even from the altar, and put to death. It recognizes the father's
power of life and death over his child, patria potestas, as the Ro
man called it, but unlike the hideous Roman law, it requires pub
lic procedure and a definite charge, while it secures mercy by re
quiring the concurrence of the mother. It recognizes polygamy,
but strives to temper the jealousies and injustice of the harem. It
is comparatively hospitable and liberal in its treatment of the

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 717

stranger. Its Sabbath was most beneficent, especially to the
slave, and strictness was essential to the observance among a
primitive people. The ordeal is confined to the particular case
of a wife suspected of infidelity, and divination is forbidden save
by the Urim and Thummim. The law mitigates the customs of
war, requiring that a city shall be summoned before it is besieged,
and forbidding the cutting down of the fruit trees in a hostile
country, which was regularly practiced by the Greeks ; while the
female captive, instead of being dragged at once to the bed of
the captor, is allowed a month of mourning. Nor is war ex
alted or encouraged, as it was among the Assyrians and the
Persians. Service is to be voluntary ; captains are to be chosen
only when the army takes the field, so that there would be no
military class ; horses and chariots are not to be multiplied.
Jehovah, though a God of battles, is not characteristically so.
Not victory in war, but peace, is the normal blessing. Kings
it was expected the Israelites would have like the nations around
them. But unlike the kings of the nations around them,
their king was to be the choice of the nation, he was
to be under the law, which he was to study that
his heart might not be lifted up among his brethren, and
his luxury, his harem, his accumulation of treasure, and his mil
itary establishment were to be kept within bounds. Finally,
while there was to be a priestly order, that order was not to be a
caste. The Levites were to be ordained by the laying on of the
hands of the whole assembly of Israel. Nor, while the ritual was
consigned to the priesthood, was religious teaching confined to
them ; its organs were the prophet and the psalmist. Worship was
sacrificial, and all sacrifice is irrational. But there was no human
sacrifice, and the scape-goat was a goat, not, as among the pol
ished Athenians, a man. The American slave-owner could ap
peal to the Old Testament as a warrant for his institution. Slav
ery there was everywhere in primitive times, but the Hebrew
slave-law is more merciful than that either of Greece or Rome,
notwithstanding the ordinance, shocking to our sense, which held
the master blameless for killing his slave if death was not immedi
ate, on the ground that the slave "was his money."* The belief

*An essay written by the author on the question " Does the Bible Sanction Amer
ican Slavery? " has probably been long tince forgotten. In its line of argument
against slavery as an anachronistic and immoral revival of a primitive and once *noral
institution it was consistent with the present paper. But the essay was written in
the penumbra of orthodoxy and would now require very great modification.

718 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

in witchcraft as a crime to be punished by death unhappily
is also true, and, though not prominent, gave birth in mis
guided Christendom to an almost incredible series of atrocities.
How far these ordinances actually took effect, how far they
were speculative and ideal, we cannot say. The ordinance against
cutting down the fruit trees in an enemy's country certainly was
not observed, for the fruit trees of the Moabites are cut down,
Elisha giving the word (3 Kings, iii., 19). The agricultural
polity of family freeholds, reverting to the family in the year of
Jubilee, may safely be said to have never come into practical ex
istence but to have been the ideal republic of some very Hebrew
Plato. From the social point of view, perhaps the most notable
passages of the Old Testament are those rebuking the selfishness
of wealth and the oppression of the poor in the prophetic writings
and the Psalms, which have supplied weapons for the champions
of social justice. There is scarcely anything like these in Greek
or Roman literature. Juvenal complains of the contempt and in
sult to which poverty exposes a man, but he does not denounce
social oppression. In this respect the Mahometan and the Budd
hist are perhaps superior to the Greek or Roman. But we shall
hardly find anywhere a moral force equal in intensity to that of
the Hebrew prophets, narrowly local and national though their
preaching is.

Religion in the primitive state is completely identified with
nationality. For a member of the tribe or of the nation which
inherited the religion of the tribe to worship any but the tribal
or national god or gods is treason punishable by death. " He
that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord only he shall be
utterly destroyed." To the importation of this feature of an
obsolete tribalism into Christianity, Christendom in part at
least owes the fatal identification of the Church with the State,
the extermination of the Albigenses, the religious wars, the In
quisition, the burning of Servetus. At the end of the seven
teenth century a boy was put to death by the Calvinistic min
isters of Scotland for having blasphemed the Lord by question
ing the dogma of the Trinity.

That which is not a supernatural revelation may still, so far
as it is good, be a manifestation of the Divine. As a manifesta
tion of the Divine the Hebrew books, teaching righteouness and
purity, may have their place in our love and admiration for ever ;

CHRISTIANITY'S MILLSTONE. 719

but the time has surely come when as a supernatural revelation
they should be frankly though reverently laid aside, and no more
allowed to cloud the vision of free inquiry or to cast the shadow
of primeval religion and law over our modern life, as they do
when Sabbatarianism debars us from innocent recreation on our
day of rest ; for it is the Jewish Sabbath that is really before the
Sabbatarian's mind. It is useless, and is but paltering with the
truth to set up, like the writer in Lux Mundi, the figment of
a semi-inspiration. An inspiration .which errs, which contra
dicts itself, which dictates manifest incredibilities, such as the
stopping of the sun, Balaam's speaking ass, Elisha's avenging
bears, or the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar, is no inspiration
at all. It requires the supplementary action of human criticism
to winnow the truth from the falsehood, and the result of the
process varies with the personal tendencies of the critics. No
body would ever have thought of it except as an expedient to
cover retreat. We do but tamper with our own understandings
and consciences by such attempts at once to hold on and let go,
to retain the shadow of a belief when the substance has passed
away. The believers in verbal inspiration, of whom some still
remain, desperate as are the difficulties with which they have to
contend, stand comparatively on firm ground. Verbal inspira
tion is at all events a consecrated tradition ; semi-inspiration is a
subterfuge, and nothing more. These are troublous times. The
trouble is everywhere : in politics, in the social system, in relig
ion. But the storm centre seems to be in the region of religion.
The fundamental beliefs on which our social system has hitherto
rested are giving way. To replace them before the edifice falls,
and at the same time to give us such knowledge as may be at
tainable of man's estate and destiny, thought must be entirely
free.

SMITH.

OUR BENEFITS FROM THE NICARAGUA CANAL.

BY ARTHUR SILVA WHITE.

COLUMBUS died in the belief that the way to India and far
Cathay led through the Caribbean Sea. His faith will in part be
justified when the Nicaragua Canal is opened to the commercial
navies of the world.

The dawn of the twentieth century will be the psychological
moment for America — as the United States are popularly, though
eclectically, called. She will then have reached the most critical
stage conceivable in her development as a nation ; and it were well
that her statesmen, recognizing this fact, should be prepared
to perform their duty as the trustees of those who have placed
them in power. European nations, who have never ceased to
threaten the Isthmus — the true path for sea-power between West
and East, as Cromwell, Nelson, and even Columbus appear to
have recognized — and, in particular, Great Britain, whose com
mercial interests predominate and whose navy is supposed to
hold the command of the sea, may severally or collectively call
upon America to make good her pretensions or to resign the
proud position which Nature and the genius of her sons have
clearly assigned to her. She will be pressed to decide, whether
she aspires to the rank and responsibilities of a world-power, or
is content to play the part of a Hanseatic Confederation, whose
influence, however great, must necessarily be restricted within
comparatively narrow and selfish limitations.

In these days of political and commercial rivalry, embracing
the whole world, the nebulous Monroe Doctrine — as understood
by the masses in America and Europe — will, of necessity, be dis
sipated, unless it be condensed into some visible form of resist
ance against the encroachment of Europe. In plain words, the
Monroe Doctrine, in its negative, protective, and final aspects,

OUR BENEFITS FROM THE NICARAGUA CANAL.

can only be upheld by force of arms : by a navy capable of dis
puting the claims of the world to a closer share in the develop
ment of Central and South America, or by an ally, who, for a
consideration, may be willing to guarantee the preservation of
American interests. As an Englishman, I should like to see
Great Britain presiding over the projected Isthmian Canal ; but,
as a geographer, who may be permitted to regard such issues from
a philosophical point of view, I am compelled to admit, that the
claims of America, in spite of many reasons which invalidate
them, are, morally speaking, in excess of all others. For her the
unfettered possession of the canal is a matter of vital concern,
involving her very existence as a free and independent people ;
but for Europe it means simply commercial and political ag
grandisement.

The question is, therefore : Will American statesmen have suffi
cient patriotism and foresight to subordinate personal ambition
to the progressive requirements of a virile population ?

We all know that the development and expansion of nation
alities follow the lines of the least resistance, and are governed
by inflexible natural laws. Equally well-known are the principles
governing the redistribution of trade centres resulting from the
opening up of new channels of commerce. That America can
continue to maintain her position of isolation and reserve in the
family of nations is contrary to the teaching of history. Even
in recent years this has been shown to be theoretically impossible.
In the question regarding Hawaii, America lost a favorable oppor
tunity of acquiring a naval base that may be absolutely essential
to her in the future — indeed, the chief strategic position in the
Pacific ; and in the Nicaraguan dispute she honorably acted up
to the true principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and thereby
renounced forever the spread-eagle claims with which it had
hitherto been invested, at least in popular estimation. Her action
in raising the diplomatic rank of her chief European ministers to
that of ambassadors may be held to indicate that her relations
with foreign powers are daily becoming more intimate and im
portant : indeed, her recent pacific intervention between China
and Japan proves this beyond dispute.

These, and other examples which might be cited, point to the
fact that the United States have outgrown their Constitution,
and must, of necessity, assume a positive and progressive, as
VOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 46

722 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

against a negative and retrocessional, attitude towards the world.
Should America elect to adopt a distinct foreign policy, with all
its consequences, she will, of course, require a navy capable of
enforcing her diplomatic representations. Has America such a
navy? Indeed, one may ask, without reflecting on the capacity
of this arm of the service, which all the world knows to be most
efficient, has America a sufficiently strong navy at the present
day to venture upon the dangerous expedient of uniting the
Atlantic with the Pacific?

In the event of war between Great Britain and France, the
British Channel Squadron must first be defeated before her enemy
can venture upon invading England; and yet we hesitate to help
France by constructing a Channel tunnel uniting the two coun
tries, in spite of the obvious facilities for destroying it at a mo
ment's notice. When the Nicaragua Canal is opened, Europe will
be brought to the very doors of America — to her chief strategic
naval base. The West Indies will partially regain their former
political importance, and of these islands Jamaica, in the hands
of Great Britain, practically commands the Atlantic entrance to
the canal. On the Pacific seaboard, the Galapagos Islands, be
longing to Ecuador, appear to me to be the most suitable naval
base for protecting an Isthmian canal. Can America, under
existing circumstances, uphold her political supremacy and guar
antee the protection of her commercial interests?

By the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850) Great Britain and
America not only agreed to neutralize any canal that might be
built across the Isthmus, but also bound themselves to abstain
from any annexations of territory in Central America.* To
Great Britain, holding the command of the sea, it is of no great
consequence whether or not she be debarred from further political
domination over the Isthmus, provided the Canal remains
neutralized, but to America such abstention would appear to be
no longer possible.

The present disturbance of the balance of power in the Pacific
by the uprising of Japan, a formidable military and naval power,
and the consequent destruction of the Chinese myth ; the
impulse given to international, and especially British, commerce

* The English settlement at Belize, now called British Honduras, is, I am
aware, regarded in America as an infringement of this treaty; but there were
special pre-existing conditions which, under the subsequent convention with Guate
mala (1859), constituted a legitimate, though contested, claim on the part of Great
Britain.

OUR BENEFITS FROM THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 723

in the Pacific by the construction of the Canadian Pacific Rail
way, in connection with fast steamers (armed cruisers) shorten
ing the route between Europe and Eastern Asia ; the projected
direct cables along this new pathway of commerce ; and finally,
the inevitable construction of the Nicaragua Canal — all these are
events indicating the advent of a time, not so very remote, when
the Pacific will vie with the Atlantic as a pathway to the far
East. The route through the Suez Canal is open to many
objections, on account of the dangers to sea-borne commerce in
time of war.

The favorable geographical position of America, presiding
over one of the chief foci of international commerce and hold
ing what may be the key to the future command of the sea,
offers a national ambition which no statesman can afford to neg
lect. Similar conditions led to the creation of the Roman
Empire and to the expansion of Great Britain. Will America,
with these examples before her, accept the greatness that is
thrust upon her, and recognize her responsibilities ; and will her
sons respond to the call thus made upon her courage and re
sources ? These are questions that must be answered soon.

An ever-increasing navy, an adequate army, naval bases and
coaling stations — if not colonies — must necessarily hamper for
many years to come the internal development of a young country.
Add to these, the adoption of a sound foreign policy, with all
its consequences, and America may well hesitate on the course
which is marked out for her, directly the Nicaragua Canal is
opened to traffic. But as fe Rome was not built in a day," and as
the British Empire is the growth of centuries of strenuous
effort, America may comfort herself with the hope that " suffi
cient for the day is the evil thereof." The only comfort denied
her is, that if she refuse to occupy vital strategic positions well
within her grasp, some other power may snap them up. If her
Constitution prohibit national expansion, all one can say is : So
much the worse for the Constitution, which in these days ought
to be sufficiently robust to stand "the higher criticism."

Having roughly outlined the political aspect of our subject,
we may now glance at the co-related conditions of international
commerce, in regard to the displacement of trade centres by the
marriage of the Pacific with the Atlantic. If, politically speak
ing, the opening of the Nicaragua Canal carries with it many

724 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

dangers as well as advantages to the development of America,
the commercial prospects may be said to promise nothing but
profit.

The relation between trade routes and distributing centres is
a subject of the highest importance, not only to merchants, but
also, and in a greater degree, to the statesmen who direct and
control the colonial and foreign affairs of a country. That this
relation is of the most intimate kind, and the result of a natural law
which has been evident since the days when the civilizations of
China, India, Arabia, and the Mediterranean were first evolved,
is a well-marked historical fact. To go no further back than the
inauguration of the Suez Canal, about twenty-five years ago,
Great Britain is still experiencing the unfavorable results of the
deflection of commerce from the Cape route to that by the Medi
terranean and the Suez Canal. Instead of London being the chief
distributing centre of the riches of the Far East, as in earlier
times, there have arisen in the Mediterranean basin a number of
competitive centres. The Mediterranean Powers thus enjoy a
partial revival of their ancient prosperity. To Great Britain, as
the monopolist of the sea-borne commerce of the world, this
has proved a serious financial loss, and it is only by seeking
compensation elsewhere, e. g., in the acquisition of new markets,
that her merchants can hope to retain their paramount ad
vantages.

But, perhaps, the fundamental reason — apart from maritime
and colonial enterprise — why Great Britain has distanced her
rivals is that she is the only power enjoying the facilities of Free
Trade. Whilst all other powers are Protectionist, in the largely
unfulfilled hope of nourishing their growing industries, Great
Britain has never deviated from her present fiscal policy since
the time of its adoption. Every market in the world, which can
be approached by sea, is at her disposal. The absurdity to which
Protection has been carried, especially by America, in the vain
attempt to keep out British exports and to undermine British
commerce, need not be insisted upon in these pages. Every coun
try in the world has been fertilized by British capital — to the ex
tent, it is said, of no less than two thousand millions of pounds
sterling. So long, then, as Great Britain pursues a Free Trade
policy, and other countries are hampered by Protection, so long
will she continue to dominate the markets of the world. If

OUR BENEFITS FROM THE NICARAGUA CANAL. 725

America were to adopt Free Trade principles she would indeed
become a formidable rival.

When the Nicaragua Canal is opened, British freights to San
Francisco will be handicapped, as compared with cargoes from the
Eastern States of the Union. At present the distance from New
York to San Francisco, by Cape Horn, is 15,900 miles, and from
Liverpool 16,900 miles, or six per cent, further ; but when the
Canal is opened, New York will be 4,200 miles from San Fran
cisco, and Liverpool 8,200 miles, or no less than ninety-six per
cent, further ; thus doubling the distance of Europe as compared
with the Atlantic States from the Pacific Coast. On the reverse
side, from the American point of view, one can well understand
the opposition of the trans-continental American railways to the
opening up of a short sea route between Atlantic and Pacific trade
centres.

Again, when the Nicaragua Canal is opened, the Atlantic
States of North America will be within a short distance from the
Pacific States of South America ; although it is believed that,
south of Callao, the carrying trade, by sailing vessels at least,
would follow its present course round Cape Horn, in order to
escape the canal dues and the light baffling breezes under the
Equator. But in this case, steamships would replace sailing ves
sels and carry American trade much further south.

In conclusion, I may be permitted to formulate a new doc
trine, as against the Monroe doctrine :

First, That the welfare of the United States of America is
bound up with the maintenance of the British Empire;

Second, That, when the Nicaragua Canal is opened, the
United States will be in a position to assume or reject the rank
and responsibilities of a world-power ; and

Third, That the United States, in alliance with Great Britain
and her Colonies, would inevitably lead to the hegemony of the
English-speaking race.

The increasing popularity of marriages between American
heiresses and British peers encourages the hope that, since nations
and individuals develop along parallel lines, America and Great
Britain will recognize the obvious advantages of a mariage de

convenance.

ABTHUR SILYA WHITE.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE.

XII.— THE END OF THE EMPIRE.

BY ALBERT D. VANDAM, AUTHOR OF f { Atf EtfGLISHMA^ IN
PARIS/' "MY PARIS NOTE-BOOK," ETC., ETC.

I REACHED Paris on Saturday night, 16th July, 1870,
hence four-and-twenty hours after the virtual though not official
declaration of war between France and Prussia. I had no longer
a home in the French capital, for both my relatives were gone.
In spite of all that I had heard and seen for fourteen years, dur
ing which I had been an attentive listener and, considering my age,
a careful observer, I felt almost certain that France would hold
her own in the forthcoming struggle, but I did not imagine for a
single instant that she would inflict a crushing defeat on her
adversary such as her adversary eventually inflicted on her.

Before I went to bed that night my opinions had undergone a
considerable change— I will not say a radical one. I did not like
the tone of the prologue. I am no physiognomist, but I candidly
own that I have more faith in the man who at the hour of
supreme danger sets his teeth tightly and stares as if his eyes
would come ont of their sockets, than in the man who grins
open-mouthed and yells and rolls his eyes in a fine frenzy.

I cannot speak from personal experience of the attitude and
demeanor of the Berlin people in July, 1870, but there is, perhaps,
more valuable evidence than mine in that respect. It is that of
a representative Frenchman in the highest sense of the term.*
"At seven o'clock in the evening of the 19th (July), the Secre
tary of the Senate handed me my passports. I was ready to start,
and I left Hamburg immediately. Behind me lay Germany, up-

* M. G. Rothan, Minister-Plenipotentiary to the Hanseatic Free Towns.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 797

risen from one end to the other and rushing to arms, grave,
solemn, full of hatred, conscious that she was engaging in a mortal
struggle, ready for every sacrifice. In Paris I only beheld people
yielding to violent excitement, tumultuous scenes, bands of
drunken men indulging in patriotic saturnalias. The contrast
was heartrending/'

What was heartrending to the truly patriotic Frenchman be
came well-nigh disgusting to the alien with less fiercely pulsing
blood in his veins, but who, alien though he was, had learned to
love France during and for the many happy years he had spent
within her borders. I was almost sorry I had come to Paris;
the confidence of the previous four-and-twenty hours in France's
ability to confront the imminent danger with something like
moderate results received a shock there and then.

It took me nearly an hour to get to the Cafe de la Paix,
where I knew I should find the only man in Paris whom I could
frankly ask for information without exposing myself to the risk
of a rebuff and worse perhaps. Joseph Ferrari was my uncles'
old friend, and knew their nephew well enough not to suspect
him of being a spy in the pay of Bismarck. Diplomatically he
was not only the best-informed man in France, but the man who
had probably thoroughly sifted whatever information he had got
and subjected the residuum to the most critical analysis.

Ferrari was seated outside the cafe amids't a group of seven or
eight, Imperialists to a man. I knew most of them by sight, but
no more. Ferrari shook hands with me very cordially, but did not
even ask me when I had arrived. It was the first time we met
since, a twelvemonth earlier, we had parted on the platform of
the Northern Railway Station, whither he had accompanied there-
mains of my younger uncle on their way to their last resting-place
in a little cemetery near Amsterdam, where the yellow waters of
the Y splash in low, plaintive ripples against the shore.

I took the hint, ordered some coffee, and sat silently by his
side for nearly three hours, at the end of which I had arrived, at
any rate, at the conclusion, that if Bismarck, as was alleged at
the time, spent a great deal of money in maintaining a staff of
spies in France, he was absolutely flinging those sums out of the
window. There was no need to go hunting for secret informa
tion ; everything worth knowing seemed to be known to at least
a half dozen persons nearest to the Emperor, and they in their turn

728 THE XORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

made no scruple in telling their friends. A decently-bred and
well-dressed man, provided with a couple of letters of introduc
tion to some of the best-known deputies and officials, or to a
couple of members of the court circle, would simply have to
listen. In less than an hour, for instance, I felt perfectly certain
with regard to two or three main points. There was neither a
fixed plan of mobilization nor a plan of campaign. With regard
to the alliances France might possibly have contracted, all
Ferrari's interlocutors agreed that various attempts had been
made to secure them ; but while one section stoutly maintained
that the treaties relating to them were lying sealed and signed in
the archives at the Quai d'Orsay, the other was equally positive
that the negotiations had altogether fallen through. And yet all
these men surrounding Ferrari, and intelligent to a degree —
though, of course, intellectually, not to compare with him —
would have gasped at the bare suggestion that their country
might be crushed in the coming struggle.

' ' Now, you have heard the bells ring, but you do not know
who pulls the ropes/' said Ferrari to me that night as I left
him at his door. "I fancy I can show you not only the bell-
ringers themselves, but enlighten you as to the substance of
the ropes they are pulling." And from that hour until
a few days after Woerth, when I left Paris temporarily,
he indicated to me the "undercurrents" that had been
and were still at work. The information gathered from him
piecemeal, as well as what I saw personally during those three
weeks, is embodied in the following pages. I have., moreover,
read and heard a good deal since, which, for convenience' sake,
I will incorporate here instead of making separate footnotes.

" You heard the whole of them last night," Ferrari said next
morning ; "you heard the whole of them last night talking about
France's alliances. There is not a word of truth in the state
ments of either of the parties. There is not a single treaty to
that effect deposited in the archives of the Ministers des Affaire?
iStrangtres, nor have any negotiations fallen through. Both
Austria and Italy — Napoleon's main dependence — are playing a
waiting game ; if you want it more plainly, both Nigra and
Metternich are leading the Emperor and Gramont by the nose.
It would not be very difficult to do this with regard to the latter
under any circumstances ; it would be more difficult with the

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 799

Emperor but for his excruciating disease, which leaves him rest
neither night nor day except under the influence of morphia, and
I defy the most clear-headed intellect to work out a problem or to
pursue even its own thoughts under such conditions. Except
Conneau and a few doctors, no one suspects how ill he really is,
for your Napoleon, whom I like nearly as much as your uncles did,
is a real man of courage. If he were not so ill as he is, he might
become alive to the fact just now that those Rhine provinces
which are fundamentally the sole cause of the mischief are un
attainable, or at any rate not attainable by the means he proposes
to attain them by, namely, by attacking Prussia and by inviting
Austria and Italy to help him.

" To begin with, Austria and Italy will not, cannot, and dare
not help France. Let me explain to you why.

" I will leave Italy aside for a moment. In the first place
because such aid as she may be able to afford to France will be
almost worthless without the equally active co-operation of
Austria. In order to be of any use at all, Italy would have to
call out at least 100,000 troops, and in her present state of mili
tary organization it would take her at least six or seven weeks to
do this — that is, if the two burning questions, those of the
temporal sovereignty of the Papacy and the occupation of Home,
had been satisfactorily settled to the advantage of Italy before
hand. Without that, I tell you, there is not the remotest chance
of Italy's stirring a finger. I know my country better than the
Emperor, and feel positive that, if Victor Emmanuel at
tempted to mobilize his army without that stipulation — and
mind, a public, not a secret, stipulation — his army, much as it
loves him, would refuse to move at his bidding, provided it did
not stir against him. Our statesmen at the risk of being taxed
with ingratitude say to themselves, ( Italy's position with regard
to her unification — read with regard to the possession of Rome —
would not be improved by a victory of France over Prussia ; it
would be seriously improved by a defeat of France, or even by a
drawn campaign, which would necessarily lead to a Congress/
This, I own, is black ingratitude, but I am not responsible for it,
and, if I were, I would follow the tactics of Lanza or whosoever
stood in his place.

" Granted, however, that all those difficulties be satisfactorily
removed offhand, I repeat, it will take, then, six weeks to mobil-

730 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ize 100,000 troops, which, if Austria still holds aloof by that
time, will have to be directed on to Lyons, and have to cross a
great part of France by rail. By then, take my word for it, the
issue of the struggle will have been virtually decided. If France
be able to hold her own single-handed for six or seven weeks after
the real outbreak of the war, she will be able to do so afterwards,
and will need no help of any one — provided she interprets the
words ' holding her own ' in their most literal sense. If she at
tempts territorial aggrandisement — the territorial aggrandisement
Napoleon has been dreaming of for years — under no matter what
specious title, she will practically make a scourge for her own
back, for in spite of Napoleon's hare-brained theories on the sub
ject, the South German States want none of his protection
against Prussia ; and if they do not rally around her now, they
would rally round her then; and what is more, Austria, who is
wavering now, who, like Italy, is waiting to see how the cat
jumps, would waver no longer. Austria's love, like Juliet's,
would spring from her only hate. She would scarcely care to see
Wilrtemberg and Bavaria under French protection or allied to
France, for in such conditions Baden would scarcely prove an ob
stacle to an otherwise unhindered march of the French into Bo
hemia. Austria has had enough of that kind of thing under Na
poleon's uncle."

" Then why those drafts of projected treaties at the existence
of which you yourself hinted ? " I asked.

" Did not I tell you that both Austria and Italy are waiting
to see how the cat jumps ? If those drafts exist, and I feel cer
tain of the existence of one, and nearly certain of the existence
of the other, then final execution, I mean the signing of them
by the three contracting parties, would still be dependent on so
many conditions that at the last moment one or both of France's
contemplated allies might find a pretext for retreat. Do not lose
sight of the following facts. Austria will not act without
Italy. That is no surmise on my part, but an ascertained
fact. Austria is, moreover, a Catholic power, and as such de
termined to maintain the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy,
which Italy is equally determined to destroy. . . . But,"
and here he took out his watch, "I have outstayed my
time ; I shall see you again by and bye, and will tell you

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 731

With which he left me to my own devices and reflections.
The former were few, the latter many. Under different circum
stances, I should have looked up my French acquaintances. After
an absence of more than a twelvemonth, I should have had a
friendly welcome, albeit that during that twelvemonth not one had
probably given a thought to me. The Parisian character is essen
tially constituted like that. Out of sight, out of mind. But I
felt not certain of my reception in the present state of affairs. So
I made up my mind to have luncheon by myself and to wander
about the streets in the afternoon. My uncles and I had fre
quently dined at the Faisan Dore, in the Rue des Martyrs.
As I grew up, I lunched there now and again when the state
of my purse would run to it, and when the fare of the
Brasserie des Martyrs, next door, or Dinochaux's, hard by in the
Kue Breda, was not to my taste. Consequently, I was not alto
gether a stranger there. I might have been, for all the notice
I got on my entering the establishment from the principal down
to the cashier and the waiters, all of whom had seen me but a
twelvemonth before. On the 13th or 14th July I should probably
have had a sign of recognition and a smile from every one; on the
16th I had become an enemy to France, perhaps a spy. I have
never set foot in the Faisan Dore since, though for five years I
had to pass its doors twice a day to go and eat elsewhere.

I ate my meal in silence, notwithstanding the familiar faces
of several of the customers. I went out, and at the corner of
the Faubourg Montmartre ran against my friend Korner. "I
am glad I met you before I go," he said, holding out. his hand ;
" let us have the stirrup cup, if it be only the stirrup cup of
coffee," he laughed, no doubt in allusion to my frugal habits in
the way of liquor.

" But I thought that in virtue of certain laws you were ex
empt from military service," I remarked, when we were seated.

" So I am," he answered.

" Then you are going to join as a volunteer ? "

He looked amazed. "I am not going as a volunteer at all. I
was born in Paris, that's true, but I am too German to fight on
the side of the French, and too conscientious to fight against them.
So I am going to Brussels." Then he stopped, but in another
moment he went on. ' f Practically, this is the doing of the
French themselves, who maintain that men of German blood,

732 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

even if born in France, can never become Frenchmen. They are
right, nevertheless. I should have stayed here to await events if
the manager of the bank had not dismissed me yesterday
morning, without rhyme or reason apparently. ' You had better
be gone, monsieur/ he said. ' I cannot have you here. Your
fellow-clerks would make life intolerable to you/ With this he
handed me a voucher for a month's salary. I went home some
what crestfallen, I own. On the doorstep I was met by my con
cierge. ' Monsieur/ she whispered, ' the proprietor has asked me
to tell you to remove your furniture as soon as possible, and your
self with it. He will make you a present of the quarter's rent
that has begun. It is not his fault, perhaps. This morning,
after you were gone, the tenants came down in a body, and swore
that, if you were not out of the house in forty-eight hours, they
would be, and the proprietor might fish for his rent/ ' But,
madame/ I remonstrated, ' I was born and bred in this house ;
my mother, father, and grandfather died here. Where am I to
go ?' ' Ah, fa/ she replied, shrugging her shoulders as only a
Frenchwoman can, 'fa ne me regarde pas.9 And she went on
with her sweeping ; which indifference did not prevent her from
accepting fifty francs this morning under the following circum
stances. As you know, my grandfather died in January, and I
felt very lonely in this large flat by myself. I thought of giving
it up, and, in fact, gave notice to that effect at the end of the
March quarter. About six weeks ago I became engaged, and the
flat not being let, I decided to keep it on. You know that I am
not altogether dependent on my salary at the bank. If all had
gone well, I should have been married by the end of the month.
I went straight to my wife's parents to tell them what had hap
pened ; before I could open my lips, my fiancee's father informed
me that my engagement was broken off. There was a lot of
highfalutin' about the enemies to his country. I did not take
the trouble to answer him, and turned on my heel. But there I
was with a houseful of furniture on my hand, and nowhere to
put it, for I knew that if I did not shift it within forty-eight
hours it would be flung into the street, and I knew, equally, that
it would be of no use to appeal to the law at this moment. Three
people to whom I successively applied to move and store it
refused. They virtually gave me the same answer. They were
not going to help a German to get his chattels away, and as for

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 733

storing it, they would not be defiled by the furniture's contact.
I went to a fourth to try and sell it. The answer was the same.
The concierge has sold it for me ; she said it was left for rent.
At a rough guess it is worth about 4,000 francs, for it was all
very good and solid. I got 900 francs for it, out of which I gave
the concierge 50 francs/'

In the evening I told Ferrari the story. ' ( That's just it," he
laughed. "Napoleon, with his ridiculous theory of nationali
ties, pretends that the mere fact of annexing them would con
vert those Germans on the left bank of the Rhine into
Frenchmen, when two centuries of French rule, and by no
means stringent rule, have failed to do so in the case of the
Alsatians. Look at the Irish in America and the French in
Canada ; they have remained Irish and French in spite of every
thing. But all this is of a piece with Napoleon's dream of turn
ing Austria, the persistent enemy of France, into her friend.
Henri IV. and Eichelieu, who were as good politicians as the son
of Hortense, looked at Austria in that light. But Austria is
clever, and hating France, as she does and always did, does not
mind making a cat's-paw of her. Francis Joseph sends M. and
Mme. de Metternich to Eugenie, who worries her husband into a
war with Prussia which she calls ' ma guerre, & moi ' ; for
Napoleon, in spite of those confounded Rhine provinces, would
probably have continued to trust to his sinuous policy to
get them. Why the Emperor should persist in regarding Aus
tria as a friend beats my comprehension, and why he should
imagine that Austria looks upon France in a friendly light is
still more puzzling to me. Marie Louise, the consort of the
greatest man that ever lived, shakes the dust of France from off
her feet the moment she can ; she leaves her son to the tender
mercies of her father and old Metternich ; on the evening of the
day she learns the news of Napoleon the Great's death she goes
to the theatre as if nothing had happened. Antommarchi, who
comes to tell her of the hero's death, is not even received by her.
The Due de Reichstadt is practically sequestrated, and his grand
father sanctions all the questionable proceedings of his mother
with regard to him. Now look at the other side. Marie An
toinette is murdered in France ; the first Napoleon simply treads
Austria under foot, and when he marries one of her daugh
ters still conspires against her (against Austria) ; Napoleon's

734 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

nephew despoils Austria in Italy. In the day of Austria's
trouble with Prussia, he leaves Austria to face that trouble
by herself, although his policy dictates to him a different
course ; the death of Maximilian, the madness of Maxi
milian's wife, are virtually Louis Napoleon's doings. Notwith
standing all this, he is befooled by Francis Joseph and Metternich
fils on the strength of a few sheets of paper which are not even
signed, for those sheets of paper do exist, although in due time,
if it suits her, Austria will deny this.* But even if they were
signed they would be no good, as Andrassy warned the Emperor
as early as three years ago. ' Permit me to observe to your
Majesty/ he said at Salzburg, 'that a treaty only counts in pro
portion to its possibility of execution ; and I can guarantee your
Majesty that Hungary will never allow Austria to make war upon
Prussia/ I can only ascribe Napoleon's blindness to the desper
ate state of his health ; for as far as I can see, unless a miracle
save both, he is leading France and himself to headlong destruc
tion.

" That he is very ill there is not the least doubt. In a con
sultation held a fortnight ago between six of the most eminent
medical men of France, it was considered necessary to proceed
immediately to an operation. But Nelaton shirked the responsi
bility, owing to his want of success with Niel last year. And now
it is too late."

This is but a small instalment of the prognostications of
Ferrari. After that, the successive defeats of Reichshofen,
Woerth, Beaumont and Sedan were no surprise to me, and when
I landed again in Paris on the afternoon of the 3d September, I
was prepared for the sequel to Sedan. Yet I thought there
might be found a man to save the situation. M. Estancelin, the
eminent champion of the Orleanist cause, who is barely recover
ing from a severe accident as I write, well nigh saved that situa
tion in the Palais Bourbon. But for Trochu, who hesitated, he
would have succeeded. Lesseps saved the Tuileries from being
sacked and burned on the 4th September. Not for long though.

And the Second Empire finished more ignominiously than it
had begun.

ALBERT D. VANDAM.

* Ferrari spoke prophetically. Austria did deny the existence of those draft
treaties a few years later on, and when the Empress wished to refute the falsehood
by producing the documents, they had disappeared from Chiselhurst.

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS.

IV.— THE PIG.

BY DR. LOUIS ROBINSON.

THE sheep and the pig may be classed apart from other do
mestic animals in one particular. Man makes but little use of
them during their lifetime. With the exception of the annual
tribute of wool which he exacts from the sheep, he chiefly benefits
by appointing himself their sole heir and executor, and then ar
ranging for their seasonable demise.

Beyond this unfortunate fellowship the sheep and the pig
have but little in common either in habits or history. The more
we examine them, the more evident it becomes that they have
been developed among utterly different surroundings. Yet in
both cases, all the characteristics which render them so valuable
to us, served to preserve them during long epochs before the com
mencement of their captivity.

We now chiefly regard a live hog as so much perambulating
bacon. His other physical and moral qualities are totally eclipsed
by ideas about the number of pounds of pork which we hope and
intend to inherit from him. Let us first, then, consider whence
he gets his aptitude for laying on fat. Of course, it is plain that
no wild animal could long exist in the condition of the prize
hogs which we see exhibited in agricultural shows. Long
continued and assiduous care has been exercised by men in en
hancing this quality in the domestic breeds both in America and
Europe, and in an even greater degree in the far East. Indeed,
we are indebted for the delicate flavor and general high quality
of our pork to the ingenious Chinaman nearly as much as for our
tea and china tea-cups.

736 THE NORTH A MERICAN REVIEW.

The wild boar of Europe is a scraggy giant who would need a
vast deal of civilizing before his gaunt and sinewy frame could be
cushioned over with the proper thickness and quality of adipose
tissue. Very many years ago, breeders found that the European
pigs were much improved by being crossed with the Chinese.
These are of a different race altogether, and are not found wild
anywhere at the present day. The careful Mongolians have kept
and improved them for untold centuries, and this doubtless ac
counts for their superiority from the farmers' point of view.

But the disposition to lay on an enormous amount of fat when
food is plentiful dates back far beyond the beginning of the
Chinese Empire. And what is more, it was a most necessary
habit of the pig's wild ancestors in any but hot climates; for in
all probability the hog which did not get fat in the fall would
perish during a hard winter. One would not think that there
was much resemblance between fat pork and honey, yet analysts
tell us that they are chemically very similar. In both cases they
were, in the first place, stores laid up for winter use by their re
spective owners, which man, the arch-plunderer, has appropriated
for his own purposes. There was this difference, however,
that whereas the bees accumulated their savings in a joint stock
bank the pig carried his about with him.

Throughout the spring and summer in Northern and Central
Europe, the wild hog, by diligently grubbing for roots and what
ever else he could find, managed to make a bare living. But when
autumn came and the acorns and beech-mast fell, he revelled in
plenty. Moreover, at this season, many of his enemies, such as the
bears, were feasting on the ripe berries and nuts, so that he was
left in comparative peace. The result was that, in the few weeks be
tween the fall of the mast and the first severe weather, he filled out
amazingly. Then came the winter, during which he had to face the
cold, and find what food he could beneath the snow or on the hard
frozen ground. Towards the end of winter the most trying time
came. The earth was still hard with frost, and every nut or acorn
in the forest had been picked up by the thousands of hungry
searchers. The pig was no longer fat ; his inward store had well
nigh been consumed. It was always an anxious question with him
whether he would "save his bacon" until the breaking of the frost.

You will see then that the hog, which had within his own
private bank a dollar's worth of savings, in the form of lard,

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 737

when his fellows were insolvent, would in an exceptionally pro
tracted and severe winter be one of the few to survive. He would
naturally transmit his fattening tendencies to his descendants,
and so it comes about that, in the present day, no animal so
handsomely responds to liberal feeding as the domestic pig.

Many other beasts which live under somewhat the same condi
tions share with the hog this faculty for accumulating a store of
fat during the fall, but in no other case has it been taken advan
tage of by man to such an extent.

There are two other characteristics of the pig which we find of
great value ; viz. : his tough skin and bristly coat. We will now
discuss the natural origin of these. We have seen that the horse,
the ass, the sheep, and the goat, found it necessary to retire from
low and marshy regions where cover was abundant and which
swarmed with voracious foes.

Not so the wild hog. He stayed and faced the danger. If you
observe the shape of a lean pig you see at once that he has been
built for forcing his way through dense canebrakes and jungles.
He is shaped something like a submarine boat or a Whitehead
torpedo. His nose is the thin end of a wedge or rather a cone for
forcing apart the close-set stems of his native thickets. His hide,
especially about the shoulders and back, is extraordinarily tough.

The bristly covering of the wild hog is a perfect protection
against the thorns and he will plunge at headlong speed through
dense masses of bramble and briar where no other animal of his
size and weight could follow. If any of us were to pursue the same
track we should get our clothes, and afterwards our skins, torn
to shreds. He merely gets his hair thoroughly combed and
rather likes it than otherwise.

The true wild boars and the feral hogs which have escaped
from captivity in various parts of the world, go about in herds
for mutual protection ; and when one is attacked the others stand
by him and defend him. This affords an explanation of the
original use of the shrill voice of the pig, and of his readiness to
exercise it whenever he is in trouble. In fact, whenever you
hear a pig squealing you hear a testimony to the intrepid deeds of
his race in the past, as eloquent and emphatic as a Fourth of
July oration. In the wild state it was his appeal for help, to
which he knew his brethren, one and all, would respond with
splendid loyalty and courage. Many a hunter has had to climb a
VOL. CLXI.— tfo. 469. 47

738 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

tree to save his life after wounding one of a herd of peccaries.
Now the hog would not expend his breath in ear splitting squeaks
unless he felt pretty sure of getting some benefit from so doing.
His squealing, therefore, amounts to a lively expression of faith
in the noble moral qualities of his brethren. It conveys precisely
the same sentiment as do the words of a stump orator when he
says : " Gentlemen, I well know your constancy and your courage !
You have proved many times in the past that you are no mug
wumps who go to roost on a fence when the party is in danger !
I confidently look to you therefore to stand by me in the present
tremendous crisis/'

The continual grunting of the pig is also of interest as reveal
ing something of the conditions of life of his wild ancestors. A
herd of swine scattered in the long grass or among the brackens
of a European forest would soon lose sight of one another. But
the grunts of each would still advertise his presence to his neigh
bors ; and so the individual members of the herd would not lose
touch with the main body. Then there are grunts and grunts.
If one of my readers will imitate the ingenious Mr. Garner, and
take a phonograph to the nearest pig-sty he might get material to
make up a book on the language and grammar of the hog. How
ever thick the jungle the wild pig conjd, by taking note of the
pitch and emphasis of the grunts to right and left of him tell
pretty much what his hidden colleagues were thinking about.

There is another peculiarity of the suidce, or pig tribe, which
is of great importance to the farmer, and which at the same time
tells a tragic tale of the circumstances of the early forefathers
of our domestic hogs. They are very prolific, and produce from
half a dozen to twenty at a birth, whereas the other animals
which we have discussed produce as a rule only one or two.

Now, in a state of freedom the number of individuals of an
established species remains fairly constant from year to year. If
they doubled every year, the world would soon be overpopulated.
Supposing they increased ten fold and could find sustenance,
it would not take many generations to pack the whole surface
of the earth with hogs as closely as a Chicago pork factory
yard before a grand kill. There must, therefore, be a corre
sponding annual destruction of life to make up for the increase,
or, more properly speaking, the rate of increase must become
adjusted to the amount of annual waste.

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. . 739

But what a state of affairs this reveals ! Out of every family
of a dozen only one or two were left alive by the following
spring. Truly the pig paid dearly for his pig-head edness in stick
ing to the forest and the swamp ! The wolf and the bear, the
lynx and the panther were the chief factors in this fearful pro
cess of subtraction. You may take it as a general law that when
a beast is a member of a large family, born at the same time as
himself, his prospects of long life are not good. A life assurance
society would not take him at any price, except in the annuity
department, nor would a company which grants compensation
for accidents.

The natural term of life of the pig is longer than that of the
sheep, and the frightful mortality implied by the above facts is
therefore due to violence in nearly every case. If he is not made
a meal of by a prowling enemy he will probably be killed in
battle, for most wild boars will cheerfully attack anything from a
kitten to a locomotive.

Even this reckless valour of the pig has been made use of by
man in the districts which once swarmed with rattlesnakes ; and,
curiously enough, directly the grunting warrior appears, the snake
seems to know that he has met his match. I should not wonder
if some very remote and gallant ancestors of the hog bore the
brunt of that deadly war between the reptilian and the warm
blooded inhabitants of the earth to which I alluded in a previous
paper.

If so we owe him a debt of gratitude greater than we imagine.
What if, after all, " the gintleman that pays the rint," were the
real St. Patrick who cleared Ireland of snakes ?

Louis ROBINSON.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.

? SIB REGINALD F. D. PALGRAVE, K. C. B., CLERK OF THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.

To TWO essays, headed " The House of Representatives and the
House of Commons," that Mr. Herbert and Mr. Taylor have con
tributed to this REVIEW,* I have been asked to furnish a re
joinder. My predecessors on these pages have skilfully and ably
stated the arguments they seek to urge: the one as an advocate for
the House of Representatives as it is, the other for the House as it
might be if an important change was made in its organization ;
and they attain with much success the diverse ends towards
which they strive. But in the main object they have at heart,
which is to meet the wide-spread dissatisfaction that is felt re
specting Congress, both Mr. Herbert and Mr. Taylor have found
that a comparison between the usages of the House of Represen
tatives and of the House of Commons affords them only slight
assistance.

This conclusion was inevitable, as comparison between these
two most dissimilar institutions is unattainable. The con
trast, both outward and inward, between the two Houses
is absolute. The Commons are a fighting body, who make
and unmake ministries, and might try to upset the British
Constitution. The House of Representatives are a digestive
body, whose function is to assimilate legislation, coupled with a
limited power of worrying the Executive Government ; but with
no power of touching even the fringe of the Constitution hi which
America has wrapped herself.

* NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, March, 1894, and August, 1891.

ROUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 74!

Institutions marching toward such contrary directions along
the highway of the world are so completely sundered that they
cannot be brought within the same area of vision. Forms of
procedure, however, must be, to a certain extent, alike, whether
in the Parliaments of Japan or of Jericho, especially if the pro
cedure regulates the same class of transaction. Such comments
as I may venture upon regarding the ways of Congress shall ac
cordingly be limited to the rival methods adopted in Washington
and Westminster for dealing with public money.

Some consideration must, in the first instance, be applied to
the results achieved by the two most capable precursors, who have
entered before me upon the congressional and parliamentary
arena. Mr. Herbert's aim is to show that the House of Repre
sentatives not only do their work satisfactorily, but that they
could not do it in any other way. With sagacious insight he con
centrates his defensive energies upon the committee organization
adopted by the House. His adoption of this position is well
chosen, as he defends the very being of the House of Representa
tives by defending the committee system, for that system is the
all in all of that assembly.

Owing to the national jealousy of anything approaching a
one-man power, and the consequent absence of any single author
ity, the House of Representatives have sought .to acquire the
motive force necessary to urge on and to regulate their energies,
by a subdivision of authority ; by the delegation of their power
to fifty-six standing committees.

That a body politic, which has knotted up its constitutional
fibres into fifty-six discordant nerve centres, must act in a dis
tracted way seems certain enough ; and according to public
opinion that is the case with the House of Representatives. Mr.
Herbert, however, finds safety for the House in this multitude of
councillors ; and that resultant confusion, which is espied by
others, he does not discover. Most justly, as he asserts, the
committee system has beneficial influences. The chief standing
committees supply in their chairmen leaders to the House of
Representatives, who would otherwise be wanting ; and the guid
ance of men, " who, by long continuous service, have thor
oughly established themselves in the confidence of the House/' is
invaluable. By their service upon these committees the minori
ties in Congress, and the varied sections in the Union, find repre-

742 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

sentation and a field for their energies otherwise unattainable.
Ample opportunities are afforded for debate, and a check is im
posed on slovenly legislation. These committees also act as a
training ground for the growing statesmen, and bring mature
politicians of opposing parties and of different areas of state life
into close and friendly relations. Besides these and other bless
ings that Mr. Herbert ascribes to the House of Representatives,
he asserts that they form a guaranty that the people of the
United States are determined " that this country shall be great
and free and prosperous. And so it is to be."

To the ejaculation which closes Mr. Herbert's essay, Mr. Tay
lor cannot add his " so be it " : his approval would not go beyond
an amen " with a difference." Deeply impressed with the "lack
of leadership and directing power," in the House of Representa
tives, which renders its labors chaotic and fruitless, he suggests
a remedy ; and it is a remedy which deserves sincere respect and
consideration from his fellow-countrymen. He proposes to in
vest the Cabinet with the " right to appear in both Houses to
propose measures of legislation " on " great objects of a national
character," t( and to debate them, without the power to vote";
while, on the other hand, he suggests that Congress should not
be able to drive the Cabinet from power by a rejection of their
bills. The entire freedom from responsibility which this pro
vision entails on the Cabinet and on Congress, to a mind trained
in Westminster, seems to place both bodies in a false position. A
knowledge that the Executive Government depends upon the de
cision of a Legislative Assembly forms a wholesome check upon
a reckless use of their voting power. Freed from this check,
Congress can deal with the Cabinet bills wholly regardless of
their authors. The Cabinet also, as their position cannot be
touched by Congress, may be tempted to try experiments in legis
lation, and to fly political kites instead of directing their ener
gies toward useful proposals. According to the insight that of
ficial experience has afforded me, a government entrusted with
the proposal of legislation, who are denied a bodily presence in
the House of Representatives, and who do not rise, fall, or stand
as members of the House, would find that they were charged with
the depressing task of "twisting ropes of sand." Even as a
business matter, legislation is barely possible to men who stand
below the Bar of the House. The personal touch of a bill is es-

HOUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 743

.sential to give it a chance of becoming law, especially if it has to
be carried through a legislature crowded with busy workers. In
committee, especially, instant and constant watchfulness is vital
to the safety of a bill. According to an Elizabethan parliament
ary maxim,"no Committee can destroy a Bill" ; but if that rule
was binding upon Congress, a committee can effectually overlay
and stifle the bills that are entrusted to them, even in the pres
ence of their creators; how far more easily could a committee
squeeze into nothingness the parentless foundlings of a Cabinet !
And turning to the floor of the House, in the rough and tumble
of free and open debate that takes place there, invective and sar
casm discharged across the Bar would not touch the most ten
der-hided legislator who was within the shelter of the House. A
word from a man who could vote against a bill would outweigh
the entreaties and warnings of any man, however eloquent, who
can only plead in its behalf. An outsider can only bark, bite he
cannot.

Mr. Taylor foresees this danger and considers that the duties
and responsibility created by the initiation of legislation would
endow the Cabinet with power to overcome these legislative trials.
The duty, as he remarks, of "drafting and debating great na
tional measures," would force the Cabinet "to surround itself
with a trained fighting force." But these fighters would only
strike the air, if they are barred out from contact with their op
ponents. The Cabinet, under Mr. Taylor's scheme, must, as now,
rely for the conduct of their bills through the House on " the
political friends of the administration. ;' But under the new
regime those Cabinet friends would be charged with important
and onerous duties, which would impart to them a novel, and
perhaps a hazardous position in the Constitution. Their exer
tions in the House as defenders of the Cabinet bills would identify
them with the Cabinet — would, to a certain extent, raise them
above the Cabinet. Human nature placed on such vantage
ground could hardly resist the temptation afforded by such a com
manding position. The congressional friends of the administra
tion might become its masters.

Mr. Taylor prophesies an assured success for his proposal, be
cause "a Cabinet system — under which the Ministry sit in the
Chambers with the right to initiate legislation, and to debate
without the right to vote, and without losing office upon an

744 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

adverse vote — has worked well in practice," and, in proof, he
points to "the experience of a federal system strikingly like our
own," namely, the Swiss Federal Constitution. This fact may
give ground for hope, but a shield that covers a pigmy would be
a nothing to a giant. Surely a constitutional engine, that can
cope with the needs of Switzerland, might break down under the
stress and strain to which it would be subjected by a nation that
justly names itself after one of the four quarters of the globe.

There is, moreover, a practical difficulty in the realization of
Mr. Taylor's scheme for Cabinet legislation which evidently he
has not foreseen, though obvious to those who are versed in the
ways either of Congress or of Parliament.

This is the difficulty. How can sufficient time and oppor
tunity be obtained from the House of Eepresentatives, to ensure
the successful promotion of the Cabinet bills ? And can any
arrangement be devised which would act in harmony with the
committee organization as it now exists ? Mr. Taylor asserts, on
the one hand, that the Cabinet bills must " be lifted up out of
the mass, debated and disposed of in advance of all other busi
ness"; and yet, he subsequently remarks, that "under the com
mittee system, as now organized, the several great committees
control in turn the business of the House," whilst, "under the
modified system," that he advocates, "the Cabinet would simply
have its turn." These two propositions are, in effect, contradic
tory. To secure for Cabinet legislation a fair chance, the Cabi
net must have absolute command over a large portion of each
session. Free, open and continuous debate alone can set in mo
tion those waves of public opinion, within Congress and without,
which drive important national measures through the clash of
conflicting interests, and over the opposition that they must
create. And who can prescribe close and narrow limits to free
and open debate ? " If two men ride on one horse, one must ride
behind "; and if Cabinet business is to be " disposed of in advance
of all other business," a large restriction must be imposed upon
the legislative output of the fifty-six standing committees who
dominate over Congress. If the Cabinet is empowered to lift
their bills " up out of the mass " of ordinary congressional work,
the committees, big and little, must all stand down. If their
powers are not curbed, the Cabinet will be mobbed and jostled
out of the course by their fifty-six rivals in the legislative race ;

HOUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 745

nay, even though the action of the Cabinet be stoutly fenced
about, and strictly protected,, still the chairmen of the principal
committees, such as the committees of Ways and Means and
the Appropriations might easily, by combined action, hustle the
Cabinet bills off the floor of the House.

The strong new Cabinet wine, which Mr. Taylor pours into
the House of Representatives, assuredly will burst the old con
gressional bottle, unless its sides are fortified by many a hoop and
rivet. To play the part of instrument-maker to the Constitution
of the United States is not a rdle for an outsider; I therefore will
begin the task on which, with some timidity, I propose to ven
ture, namely, to consider the effect, using Mr. Taylor's apt
phrase, of " the headless committee system," upon the national
expenditure for which Congress is responsible.

" Do you understand your own government? " If that ques
tion was asked of a citizen of the United States regarding the
finance system of his Congress, the reply would be, "Yes, certainly,
it is spending made easy; if proof be wanted, look at the sur
pluses of former years; look at the deficit of last year." Yet it
never entered the minds of those skillful scrutinizers, Prof. Wood-
row Wilson and Prof. Bryce, when they examined the ways of
Congress, less than ten years ago, that Congress could attain
such a result. Enabled as they are by the study of the past to
spy as far as may be into the future, a national deficit, whilst
America reposed in absolute peace, seemed to them an impossible
achievement.

That the appearance of a big figure on the wrong side of the
public ledger is the natural outcome of Congress is shown in
another way. The sweet-toned comments made by Mr. Herbert
in his essay on the House of Representatives are nowise dis
turbed by this phenomenon. The event is to him so " in order"
that it is passed by unnoticed. Even the increasing money-
spending power conferred on the House, by an increased multipli
cation of their spending committees, is mentioned with approval.

The swelling dimensions of the yearly account which Congress
now presents to the United States has attracted some attention.
During March, 1892, two eminent practitioners in congressional
affairs dealt with the subject in this REVIEW,* the Hon. T. B.
Reed — an advocate of more and more expenditure, and the Hon.
* NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, March, 1892.

746 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

W. S. Holman — of less and less. But as these essays on the art
of " Spending Public Money" are mainly inspired by party spirit,
their arguments are useless to a Britisher. The contention I
venture to raise is not against party, but against procedure ; it is
to show that while Congress, as I presume, exists to remove
grievances, the biggest grievance that afflicts the United States
lies in Congress itself, in the method used by both Houses for the
appropriation of public money.

For this endeavor I can claim no novelty. The bright intelli
gence which animates Prof. Woodrow Wilson has ably pictured
the financial muddledom that reigns throughout Congress; and to
his remarks, these remarks owe their origin. And he has recog
nized, to a certain extent, the essential difference that exists be
tween the financial procedure used by Congress and the mone
tary system which prevails in our Parliament. Thus, here
also, in the following comparison between the financial
ways of Congress and of Parliament, I gladly accept his leader
ship. To this word of acknowledgment the writer must add a
word of disclaimer. His comparison is not designed to vaunt
the practice in vogue at Westminster, or to run down that of
Congress. Congress, whatever may be the machinery provided
for them, will make it serve their turn. The legislators of the
United States, with artistic ingenuity, handle effectively consti
tutional appliances, however clumsy, and can put the foolish
things allotted to their use to wise purposes.

Having thus sought to purge myself of national self-conceit,
and to do justice to my brothers across the seas, the comparison
in hand shall begin with a study of the relative positions of the
highest authorities in Congress and in Parliament.

Our Speaker, we may affirm with pride, is the realization of
impartiality. So utterly is the member of Parliament obliterated
by his elevation to the Chair, that I may recall this slip of the
tongue a Speaker made — with pardonable forgetfnlness. He said :
" I should recommend, — if I were in the House — " \ The
Speaker is also not only the maintainer of the privileges of Par
liament, but he is the special guardian of the public purse. He
rigidly enforces the rules which fasten the initiation of expendi
ture upon the shoulders of the government, and which impose de
lays upon the passage of a money bill. I have heard a Speaker,
though the suggestion was made solely for the convenience of the

HOUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 747

House, firmly resist an appeal from the Prime Minister for a slight
infraction of the rule which retards the progress of a money bill.
And passing beyond questions of procedure, the present distin
guished occupant of the Chair, — the occasion requiring his
intervention, — maintained the constitutional principle that no
unapplied surplus over and above the money devoted to the
service of the year should lie dormant in the Treasury. He
warned the House, as his authoritative opinion, that no portion
of the public revenue could be reserved for accumulation, pending
the decision of Parliament, or be left without a specific appropri
ation operative during the current financial year. And the
Speaker's declaration was obeyed by the government, though
obedience imposed upon them a task by no means easy. Again,
as part of the ordinary duties of the chair, the Speaker, through
officials acting in his behalf, enforces the rule that the grants
made for each year's service should correspond exactly with the
issues out of the Consolidated Fund authorized for that purpose
by the Committee of Ways and Means.

The duties imposed on the distinguished men who occupy the
chair in the House of Representatives are far otherwise. The
Speaker of that House is a great party chief : an umpire bound,
if he can help it, not to rule his own side out. Accordingly, the
result of a session may be predicted from the occupant of the
chair. To use the Scottish adage, "Show me the man and I will
show you the law," members of the House of Representatives may
say, " Show us our Speaker, and we will show you the course of
public business." And, therefore, if a " Billion Dollar '" Congress
be the programme of the Speaker's party, a whole shoal of appro
priation bills will be safely piloted through their appointed course.

Our Chairman of Ways and Means rivals the Speaker in free
dom from party bias ; and from a thought of rivalry with the
Speaker he would shrink instinctively. On the contrary, as did
happen in " the old days " of the House of Representatives, so it
may happen in days to come, "the Chairman of the Committee
of Appropriations, by skillfully manoeuvering his bills, could con
trol the House in spite of the Speaker, and of all other leadership."*

Passing on to the business methods which regulate the appro
priation of public money in Westminster and in Washington, a
marked difference occurs at the starting point in these proceed-

*The Hon. T. B. Reed, NORTH AMBRIOAN REVIEW, March, 1892.

748 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

ings. By a self-imposed disability the Commons have interposed
a barrier between themselves and the Treasury, which effectually
prevents their even touching the public purse. To save them
selves from the temptation which proximity to money, especially
other people's money, always engenders, the House of Commons
perceived that but one hand, and not their hands, should turn the
national money tap ; and at the beginning of the last century,
when intemperate jealousy for their parliamentary rights was a
passion, they gave effect to this sagacious determination. Sore
pressed by petitioners urging specious demands upon the Treasury
and upon their representatives, to withstand those sturdy beggars,
the Commons had resort to help from without. Immemorial con
stitutional usage showed them where that help could be found.

From England's earliest days taxes are "the king's taxes,"
both in principle and practice. Under an equally ancient usage
the House of Commons cannot grant the yearly supplies for the
service of the kingdom, save upon a demand from the Crown.
The Sovereign presents the estimates on which those grants are
based ; and, whilst the Commons can give less, they cannot give
more than the sums specified in the estimates. Every grant also
of money to meet the national demands of the year is voted as a
supply "for the service of Her Majesty/' and cannot be issued
by the Treasury save upon her royal order under the sign
manual.

Adopting the principle enforced by these usages, the Commons
resolved, December 11, 1706, that they would receive no petition
praying for public money unless it was recommended to them by
the Crown ; and this rule was at once extended to every motion
for any money grant, and was embodied in three standing orders,
the first, and, for more than a century, the only standing orders
appointed by the Commons for their self-government. The utility
of the self-denying ordinance the House thus passed upon itself
needs no trumpeting.

The adoption of a rule based on the prerogative of the Crown
cannot be suggested to a republican. Even an approach to the
principle which underlies this rule is beyond the scope of Con
gress. The American scheme of government, which is based on
government through diffusion of power, denies existence to any
single authority who could sanction the initiation of State expen
diture. And thus, in this matter, whatever be the result of their

HOUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 749

course, Congress may say, with Mr. Richard Alger in " Pem
broke," — "Fve got into this track now, and Til die before I get
out of it."

The House of Commons, however, having followed the right
track in their money procedure, proceeded onward still further.
The assistance of that faithful servant of the community, " Pub
licity," was called in to strengthen the House toward ensuring a
wise use of the public revenue. When the Commons placed the
money control in the hands of the government, they also, by
standing orders, prescribed that all levy of taxation and all public
expenditure should, as an invariable preliminary, be discussed by
a committee of the whole House, and that a single stage only in
any money transaction should be taken at each successive sitting.

Under these rules, to commence a bill for a money grant, a
member must place in the Speaker's hands a motion paper for
the appointment of a committee of the whole House, fixed for a
subsequent day, to consider the grant ; and, if called upon, he
explains to the House the object of that proceeding. Thereupon a
minister of the Crown, whose name, attached to the record of the
proceeding, is entered upon the journal, must rise and signify to
the Speaker and to the House that the proposal is recommended by
the Crown. The Speaker then submits to the vote of the House
the question for the appointment of the committee. On the ap
pointed day the Speaker leaves the chair; and the House in com
mittee votes the resolution on which the money bill is founded, and,
on a subsequent day, ratification by the vote of the House itself
must be given to that resolution. Thereon a bill is ordered, pre
sented, and set down for second reading on a future day, and the fol
lowing stages of committee, of consideration on report, and the
third reading are never run together, but are taken separately on
successive days, however annoying may be the consequent prolon
gation of the session. The stringency with which this rule has
been enforced is attested by the single instance when, with the
sanction of the House, it was set aside. The occasion, a terrible
event in English history, was the mutiny at the Nore, May, 1797.
Some thirty-five years ago a trifling fiscal resolution, on its report
from committee, was forthwith agreed to by the House, but the
offence was promptly purged by the annulment of the proceeding.

None of these precautions is adopted by Congress. Any
member, by the presentation of an appropriation bill, can put

750 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

his hand into the national purse ; the bill, by automatic and
noiseless process, is at once consigned to what we should term a
select committee, who sit in secret session. No special treatment
being prescribed for a money bill, it might, when the bill emerges
from the committee, be shot through the House, " without being
debated, amended, printed, or understood/' This cavalier treat
ment, the usual fate of other bills, is not meted out to an appro
priation bill. A money transaction, all the world over, is a
thing of sovereign interest ; and it is but natural that an appro
priation bill, in its final passage through the House, should be
discussed with as much publicity and as much debate as the Rep
resentatives can provide. Yet their much debate is not much
after all. Five-minute speeches in a noisy hall, that gain but
meagre report, and that command but meagre attention from the
outside world, but poorly answer our notions of free and full de
bate. And even when an appropriation bill has received the best
consideration that the House can give, those bills often suffer
under an adverse fate from which other bills are exempt. Ob
viously enough, it is over money transactions that collisions most
frequently arise between the House and the Senate ; and appro
priation bills suffer accordingly. The dispute is settled on the
.give and take principle, in secret conference, and often towards
the close of a session. Time pressure makes itself felt ; to save
the bill, the House, without debate, accepts and acts upon an un-
printed report of the compromise effected by the conference, so
that the compromisers alone know the destiny or the amount of
the expenditure thus blindly sanctioned by Congress.

The working out of the contrast thus afforded by Congress
and Parliament is singular. Whilst Congress cannot touch an
outwork of the Constitution on which their national government
is founded, in Westminster three unanimous Members of Parlia
ment might, in the space of five or ten minutes, pass a bill for
the abolition of the monarchy through all its stages, the Speaker
sitting powerless in his chair; on the other hand, Congress can
scatter the dollars of the nation broadcast over land and sea,
though all the whole 670 of the House of Commons in Parlia
ment assembled could not vote away a single shilling of the
public money, unless they were assured that the Queen sanc
tioned the outlay; and if, that assurance having been vouch
safed to them, they sought to pass the one shilling appropriation

HOUSES OF REPRESENTATIVES AND COMMONS. 751

bill through more than a single stage per sitting, the Speaker
would promptly interpose his veto.

The following assertions are themost flagrant of truisms,
namely, that to secure a due discharge of duty its transactors,
both in mind and body, must feel the keen pinch of personal
responsibility, and that, to create that pinching power, simplicity
and unity of action are essential. This pinch is applied to all
who are engaged in our national financial business. Each money
transaction in Westminster, from beginning to end, is guarded
by a chain of specially appointed caretakers. A charge upon the
people must be sanctioned outside Parliament by the Chancellor
of the Exchequer and by the Treasury authorities ; inside Parlia
ment by the recommendation of the Crown. The Speaker, the
Chairman of Ways and Means, and their official advisers, are
bound to see that the grant follows its due course ; and the Com
mons, by the delays appointed to provide opportunities for
debate, by the seven separate stages prescribed for the passage of
a money bill through the House, give a public pledge that they
fully recognize the financial responsibility. And to impose con
centration and control on the spending power of the House, the
Commons restrict the output of the grants for the service of each
financial year to one committee, and, under a Mede and Persian
law, those grants must be presented to the nation in one, and only
one, appropriation bill. If we squander public money, the nation
knows that the Government and the Commons alone bear the blame.

Congress, as Prof. Woodrow Wilson remarks, " evades judg
ment by avoiding all coherency of plan in its action." • This re
mark is specially true of its monetary action. Adverse criticism
is baffled by the multiplication of appropriation committees, who
all work independently of each other, and who present, regardless
of each other's demands, some twelve appropriation bills for the
consideration of each session. The constitutional passion of the
United States for the subdivision of power, aided by personal
jealousies, has transferred the custody of the public purse from
one committee to twenty-five appropriation committees, besides
endowing the Rivers and Harbors Committee with a separate key
to the Treasury chest. Divide and rule may be a fine expedient
in statecraft, but it plays the — anarchy — in procedure.

National expenditure and national taxation are twin subjects :
to consider the one without heed to the other, with us, is impos-

752 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

sible. This relationship is not felt in the United States. Nor do
they sympathize with us in the anxious thought — how shall we
meet the cost ? — caused when a fresh charge is laid upon our
shoulders. The difficulty with them is how to dissipate their
surpluses. Their tax pay ing " withers are unwrung " ; they are,
at present, subject only to the soft handling of indirect taxation.
We are the "galled jades "whose backs " wince" under the
weight and aggravation of an income tax. Borne down by our
taxation necessities there can be no more financial sympathy
between us and our American brothers, than there is between
"a fu' man and a fasting." Equally are we out of harmony in
the matter of expenditure. Nay, more, the entrancing spectacle
of the " Billion-dollar country " has demoralized one of the ablest
among our thinkers. Professor Bryce assures the citizens of the
United States that they may waste their billions with a light
heart, because they enjoy " the glorious privilege of youth, the
privilege of committing errors with impunity." The sentiment
is more pleasurable than practical. Whatever sport the men outside
Congress may find in the throwing away of their surpluses — they
may indulge themselves in this amusement without committing a
breach of trust. Congresses are in a different position regarding
the resources of the Union : they cannot accept with impunity a
mandate to scatter billions over land and sea. They must
remember their responsibility towards those who come after them.
Members of Congress are trustees not for their constituents only,
but also for the constituencies in time to come. Either respect
or disrespect is the inevitable lot of every trustee of other people's
money. There is no escape ; under the one judgment or the other
he must stand or fall. That they may render a good account of
their trusteeship Congress should take heed to what " one of them,
selves, even a" President "of their own, hath said" — "It would
be prudent to multiply barriers against the dissipation of appro
priations." *

REGINALD F. D. PALGBAVE.

* Jefferson, Message to Congress 1801.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

CONGRESS AND THE NEXT PARIS EXPOSITION.

THE State Department has announced the reception of the request of the
French government for the participation of the United States in the Inter
national Exhibition to be held in Paris in 1900, and, in accordance with
custom, Secretary Olney will doubtless transmit the invitation to both
houses of Congress at the session which opens this month, thus bringing us
face to face, as a nation, with another World's Fair. It will be both timely,
and perhaps useful, therefore, to glance for a moment at past Congressional
legislation concerning such exhibitions, in order to point out its faulty
sides in the hope of aiding towards better doing in the present instance.

Governments as such were first officially invited to these universal
expositions, as the French call them, by the organizers of the one held in
Paris in 1867. Previous to that date, the country holding the exhibition
addressed itself directly to individual manufacturers and possible exhibitors,
so that there was nothing national and official in the exhibit of each state.
Therefore we shall confine ourselves in this paper to an examination of
what was done at Washington to promote our interests at most of the
international exhibitions subsequent to and including that of 1867.

The two principal acts of Congress in this domain are the acceptance of
the invitation and the voting of an appropriation to enable the country to
properly carry out what is implied by this acceptance. I am sorry to have
to say that in both of these duties, and on every occasion when 'action has
been called for, Congress has laid itself open to blame. In the matter of the
accepting of the invitation Congress has always moved too tardily, while in
that of voting money it has never failed to show stinginess.

First, as to the tardiness of Congressional action. Here are a few ex
amples of this fault. Although, on the occasion of the Paris Exhibition of
1867, the United States government was invited two years beforehand,
Congress did not consider the matter till the middle of January, 1866. Fort
unately for our good name, President Lincoln— it was among the last offi
cial acts of his life— sent, in April, 1865, on his own responsibility, instruc
tions to Minister Bigelow, making him special agent of the United States
government in matters concerning the Exhibition, until the following
October, when the President appointed as Commissioner-General Mr. N. M.
Beckwith, who served without pay, and served admirably, I hasten to add.

Congress might plead in extenuation of its conduct in this instance the

fact that we had only just issued from our civil war, and that the most

complicated domestic measures monopolized at this moment the attention

of both houses. But this excuse loses much of its force when we see that on

VOL. CLXI. — NO. 469. 48

754 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

subsequent occasions, when called upon to take action on similar invita
tions, Congress has invariably repeated the mistake made in 1865.

Thus the first communication of the French government in relation to
the Exhibition of 1878 was received at Washington at the end of May, 1876,
and was transmitted within the week by the State Department to the proper
committees of the Senate and House of Representatives. And yet, nearly a
year and a half later — on October 16, 1877 — we find President Hayes urging
in a message the acceptance of the French invitation, while in his annual
message of the following December he returns once more to the same sub
ject. These repeated reminders from the Chief Executive seem finally to
have produced some effect, for in that same month— that is, about four
months before the fair opened— Congress accepted the invitation.

Scarcely less tardiness was shown in our treatment of the request for
our presence at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. In July, 1870, Secretary
Fish called the attention of Congress to the coming fair, but the invitation
was not accepted till June, 1872, and, what was still worse for our proper rep
resentation there, no money was voted till February, 1873, though the exhi
bition opened on May 1st.

A little more promptness was displayed by Congress in its legislation for
the last Paris Exhibition, but this promptness fell far short of what it
should have been if we consider the interest of the American section. The
invitation reached the State Department on April 6, 1887, and was accepted
by Congress on May 10, 1888, more than a year after the French
Minister at Washington had placed it in the hands of Secretary Bayard,
and less than a year before the gates on the Champ de Mars were thrown
open.

But the case of the Melbourne Exhibition beats the record of Congres
sional sluggishness in these matters, for, though the invitation was received
in June, 1887, it was not accepted till February, 1888, while it was nearly the
end of April before our Commission was organized, though the exhibition,
thousands of miles away by sea, was to begin on the first of August following.

In some instances the belated action of Congress has caused an actual
moneyed loss to the government. Thus, in the case of the International
Exhibition of 1878, the space in the main building originally allotted to the
United States had been seriously curtailed, because of the general belief
held in Paris that we would not be represented at the fair. But when
the demands for space began to pour in at the eleventh hour, as usual
with us, the Commissioner-General found that our section in the main
building was not only overcrowded, but that if our agricultural machinery,
perhaps our most important exhibit, was to be displayed, a special
structure, as well as several sheds and covered ways, would have to be
erected. So Congress was hastily asked for an additional appropriation
of $40,000, which, this time, was promptly granted, and $20,000 was expended
in order to obtain space which the French government had offered
free a few months before and which had been actually in our posses
sion.

Read, further, this bit of testimony on this point furnished by our very
cool-headed Chief-Commissioner to Paris in 1889. General Franklin says in
his official report to the Secretary of State :

" The shortness of time for collecting the exhibit of the United States and
for the delivering it in Paris, was a source of embarrassment in many ways.
Our acceptance of the invitation to the exhibition was delivered in Paris

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 755

only in July, 1888, less than ten months before the date of the opening of the
exhibition. We were the last large industrial nation which applied for
assignment of space, so that our choice was necessarily the last. It is prob
able that the spaces so assigned in Machinery Hall and in the industrial
section were large enough for our exhibits, but their location would
have been in a more prominent place had we been among the first to
apply."

The second grave charge to be laid at the door of Congress in this mat
ter of exhibition legislation is that of parsimony. Our Federal Senators and
Representatives not only fail to act till the very eve of the opening of an ex
hibition, but when they have thus so tardily decided to have the country
compete with the other nations of the world, that were up and doing while
we were " thinking about it," they still farther handicap the organizers of
the future American section by granting them only just enough money to
enable them to escape complete failure.

Thus the appropriation made for the exhibition of 1867 was so small that
the late Professor Joy, of Columbia College, who was secretary of the New
York Advisory Committee, wrote of it as follows to the United States agent
of the exhibition :

" There is not sufficient money to defray the necessary expenses of the
agent in New York, and it is safe to say that but for the gratuitous aid re
ceived from persons not officially connected with the Exhibition, and the
meagre salaries accepted by yourself and others, the work would have been
seriously interrupted."

When the Exhibition of 1878 came round, Congress asked the State De
partment what sum it thought ought to be granted the future commission.
Thereupon Secretary Fish— this request was made in 1876— suggested
$250,000; but Congress cut this down to $150,000, though later, as we have
already seen, $40,000 more were called for.

Here is what the late W. W. Story thought of the Congressional finan
ciering of the Exhibition of 1878. In his official report on the fine arts, Mr.
Story goes out of his way to pay his respects to Congress, using this
language :

" The sum appropriated was not only so insufficient in itself, but was so
tardily given as to render it impossible for America to make an exhibition
worthy of a great country. . . . The consequence has been an injury, not
only to the reputation of the country, but even more to its material interests.
''Noblesse oblige" is a motto which is unknown to or rejected by our country.
We wish to take among nations the high place to which we are justly
entitled, but we grudge the necessary outlay. . . . Whether or not we
care what is thought of us abroad, we are at least susceptible to our inter
ests, and these have been undoubtedly affected to a serious extent by the
incomplete exhibition of ourselves which the government forced upon the
country by its unwise economy and delay."

These two extracts from Commissioner-General McCormick's report con
cerning this same exhibition should be quoted in this connection :

" So many of our important and interesting industries were not repre
sented that American visitors, with vivid recollections of the Centennial
display, and a knowledge of what might have been done, were outspoken in
their depreciation of the tardy and inadequate action of Congress, through
which many of the advantages of a great opportunity were lost."

Mr. McCormick then goes on to say, and his words should be weighed by

756 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

those with whom hangs the fate of our representation at the Exhibition of
1900:

"It may be said that, having kept the expenses of our exhibit within the
Congressional appropriation, no larger sum need be voted for a similar
undertaking in the future. The saving in this instance must not, however,
be accepted as an argument in favor of a small appropriation. It was made
possible only by the avoidance of expenditures which would have made our
exhibit more complete and profitable."

These various strictures would seem to have produced some effect on
Congress, as the joint resolution on an appropriation for the Paris Exposi
tion of 1889 was larger and less bound by stipulations than any ever
voted for any previous enterprise of this kind. The total sum was a
quarter of a million dollars. The Commissioner-General's salary was
$10,000— heretofore it had not exceeded half that amount ; and the
Assistant Commissioner-General received $5,000. After deducting these
two sums, the salaries of nine scientific experts and the outlay for
clerical labor, over $200,000 were left for the exhibit work proper.

And what results from this tardiness in taking action and this stinginess
in the appropriation ? The effect is well summed up in the following words
of Secretary Seward, written apropos of the Exhibition of 1867, and which
could be^ truly repeated concerning every subsequent exhibition :

" The United States section did not contain such a collection of products
as would contribute anything like a proper or just basis for estimating the
industrial or natural resources of the United States."*

What, then, should be the course of Congress in its treatment of the
Exhibition of '1900? The answer is evident. In the first place, the invitation
should be accepted at the earliest possible date and the Commission set to
work. This would prevent the recurrence of the serious obstacle in all our
previous attempts to organize a creditable American section — there would
be no lack of time. In the second place, a generous appropriation should be
voted. Congress showed progress in this respect, as was stated above, by
iti action on the Exhibition of 1889. But it ought not to stop there. The
$250,000 of 1889 should not suffice for 1900. Even in 1889 our appropriation
was surpassed by several minor powers. Thus Mexico spent on its exhibit
at Paris 31,200,000, the Argentine Republic $1,000,000, while Brazil's expendi
ture fell but slightly short of our own. In December, 1888, Minister McLane
cabled from Paris to the State Department declaring that an increase of the
appropriation was absolutely necessary, and recommended that it be doubled.
Bat Congress did not act upon his advice, and the consequence was that
every patriotic American was ashamed of his country when he visited the
Champ de Mars a few months later.

This article may well end with these closing words of the report of Mr.
McCormick to Mr. Evarts:

"You will- hope, with me, lam sure, that hereafter, with a due regard
to international courtesy and to our own prestige, when all the powers of
the world are to take part in an exhibition, our government may act neither
reluctantly nor parsimoniously, but with ready cordiality and in a manner

* The statistics of the exhibition show that Mr. Seward's statement was far
from being exaggerated. Thus, the number of American exhibitors was 703, a
figure surpassed by thirteen countries, including Switzerland, Roumania. Turkey,
and Brazil, while five nations outstripped us as regards the square yards covered
by our exhibits, little Belgium being one of these, with Switzerland, Holland, and
Egypt nearly overtaking us.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 757

to give a just idea of our actual progress in science, art, education, and in
dustry."

Let us trust that the Congress which acts on the invitation of 1900 will
say "Amen" to this sentiment.

THEODORE STANTON.

SOME MEMORIES OF A GREAT LAWYER.

OF all members of the New York Bar, there has been perhaps no one
who could enchain attention for a longer time than Mr. Charles O'Conor.
" Lofty and sour to those that loved him not,
To those that sought him, he was sweet as summer."

Happy the man who could wander with him on Washington Heights, or
over the County of Westchester, or walk with him up and down on his
piazza. For such an one he had a fund of anecdote as exhaustless as it was
enchanting.

His discourse was not alone of professional experience, but of men and
events of half a century. For, as was said by Mr. Evarts at a meeting in
his honor, " he came to the Bar when New York contained but 166,000 inhab
itants, and he had grown up and expanded with the city, until with
Brooklyn it is second only to London in wealth and population."

His anecdotes, often amusing, more often were indicative of his intense
love of justice.

Among the acquaintances of his early days was Stephen Price, manager
of the Park Theatre, from whom he had an anecdote which, once heard, could
never be forgotten. A young British officer, stationed in Canada, while on
a visit in New York, had some variance with a favorite younger brother of
Stephen Price. The difference was, however, satisfactorily adjusted and
settled between them at the time. On the officer's return to Canada, the
Colonel of his regiment — Colonel Wilson— hearing of the matter, declared
that the officer could not be admitted to mess until he had wiped out the
dishonor on his name and regiment ; that an English officer who had been
insulted by an American, could not be recognized until he had vindicated
his- honor. The officer thereupon came to New York, challenged young
Price and killed him in a duel at Hoboken. After this Stephen Price kept
his eye on Colonel Wilson. Learning from a morning paper that Colonel
Wilson, a British officer from Canada, was at the City Hotel, he proceeded at
once to that well-known place. Following the waiter up to Colonel Wilson's
room, he entered with him, when a colloquy, brief but significant ensued.

" 1 am Stephen Price. I have come to insult you, to spit in your face if
necessary, and you may consider that done."

" I will consider myself insulted as much as can be, and you shall hear
from me at once."

Having procured seconds— a matter in those days of no difficulty— they
repaired to Hoboken, where Colonel Wilson was shot dead at the first fire.
His second fled for safety, and the body was left exposed upon the pier until
taken away by the proper authority.

For anecdotes like these, showing the quick admeasurement of exact
justice, Mr. O'Conor had a great admiration. He may be said to have had
a genius for Justice as well as law.

The strength and Anglo-Saxon purity of Mr. O'Conor's style has often
been a subject of wonder. Where did he clothe himself with such a
panoply of words ?

758 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

President Woolsey, of Yale College, who, after reaping the highest
honors of that college, passed four years in Germany to complete his
education, and was afterward made professor of the Greek language,
though famed for his purity of style, in its strength and foreshortening,
was by no means the equal of Charles O'Conor, who was confessedly with
out the advantages of a classical education.

The formation of style is a subject of frequent inquiry. Walter Pater
lately published an essay on the subject. Huxley avowed that if his
manner of expressing himself had the merit mankind were good enough to
assign it, he owed this perfection to his mother, who compelled him, when
a boy, to commit whole chapters of the Bible to memory, and especially the
Psalms, of which the 119th was his severest task. Others declare that Pascal's
way of writing all things twenty times over was essential to perfection.

But Samuel Butler, in his MS. commonplace book, solves the problem in
one couplet:

"It is more difficult and requires a greater mastery of art in painting to
foreshorten one figure exactly than to draw three at their just length ; so it
is in writing to express anything naturally and briefly than to enlarge and
dilate.

Therefore, a judicious author's blots

Are more ingenious than bis first free thoughts."

Mr. O'Conor, on one occasion, furnished the writer with the draft of
an opinion of his, accompanied by the minutest instructions to see that every
word was printed aright. On examining the manuscript, the writer found
that the opinion was in the interlineations ; that Mr. O'Conor had condensed
into one line of these about four of his original writing.

His overpowering sense of justice, in an individual case, as well as his
use of " a judicious writer's blots " were exemplified in the Lemmon case—
a case which so unfortunately tinged the opinions of his after life on the
whole Southern question.

Eight slaves of Mrs. Lemmon, a Southern woman passing through New
York on her way to Texas, were taken from her possession aboard the
vessel about to sail, by habeas corpus — as illegally held. Mr. O'Conor was
retained for their recovery in 1852. After a litigation of seven years the
Court of Appeals (Judges Comstock, Selden, and Clerk dissenting) ordered
their discharge.

Mr. O'Conor's sense of the wrong done his clients in that case, in respect
to their constitutional right of property in slaves, was such that he appealed
from the decision setting them at liberty to the Court of Appeals. He there
showed by statutes and authorities that while the English Courts in
Somerset's case were ordering the discharge of a West Indian negro, on the
ground that no slave could breathe the air of England, England had been
buying, selling, and holding white slaves for centuries, under the name of
villeins, in a state of absolute servitude. He then added : "Notwithstanding
the rather inflated expressions of English orators and judges on the purity
of English air, English and French air have none of their true enfranchising
purity until drawn through the nostrils of a negro ; while slaves have long
inspired it without having their status at all affected."

At the closing of the St. Nicholas Hotel in 1884, in answer to a question
by the writer, how he succeeded in saving the life of Colonel Loring in the
memorable trial for murder committed at that hotel, he gave the following
account :

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 759

After the trial had proceeded for some time, the Court was informed by
the jury that one of their number was a relation of the prisoner. The Court
adjourned the trial for consultation on a question so serious. Mr. O'Conor,
as prisoner's counsel, consented to the withdrawal of the juror and stipulated
to proceed with eleven jurors. The point was doubted, but, on consent of the
District Attorney, the trial proceeded with eleven jurors. The only witness
to the killing was the bootblack, who testified that on some disturbance be
ing made by Graham in throwing out his boots, the prisoner angrily came
from his room and, an altercation ensuing, with his sword cane stabbed
Graham, and worked about the weapon when in his body ; and witness
shortly informed prisoner that Graham was dead. "What did he say when
you told him this ?" Answer.—" No !" O'Conor : " Is that the answer of one
who intended to kill ? Is it not the answer you would make if informed a
friend you had just seen was dead !" Seeing the jury somewhat impressed
by this view, and the change appearing in their faces, he so pressed the
point that they found a verdict of manslaughter. The Court imposed the
heaviest penalty — imprisonment for seven years.

In Mr. O 'Conor's opinion, the greatest lawyer was not the man who
knows the most law ; but the one who sees at a glance the real question in
volved ; and he often declared that many cases were carried to the Court of
Appeals without the lawyers on either side discovering the real legal prin
ciple which must govern the case.

W. WATSON.

A PLEA FOR THE ENGLISH WIFE.

IT is scarcely to be imagined that Mr. Grant Allen disclaims acquaint
ance with that immense English class, the upper, middle, or profes
sional class, and par consequence with its wives; yet in his article on " The
English Wife," published in a recent number of this magazine, he by infer
ence leads his readers to suppose that that class is wifeless — a huge and com
plex bachelor in fact. Nevertheless a large portion of it is in the possession of
wives— and these helpmates are not necessarily New Women either ; at all
events they flourished and abounded so far back as the early girlhood of the
present middle-aged writer. That Mr. Grant Allen should prefer to leave
that distinctly tiresome person, the New Woman, out of his tale is compre
hensible enough, but his wholesale denial of the domestic and other virtues
to the aristocratic wife — presumably, poor lady, because she is so unfortu
nate as to have a handle to her name — seems a little hard, especially if it be
remembered that the misdeeds of her class are proclaimed upon the house
top, while those of others are more commonly whispered within its walls.

But it is not the aristocracy of either birth or wealth which forms the
raison d'etre of these remarks, but rather the English wife of reasonable,
good, or limited means, and who belongs to the upper middle class. It is to
her not insignificant existence I desire to call attention.

The type of English wife, then, to which I allude was sufficiently preva
lent even in the days when I knew her best, twenty odd years ago, when cul
ture had neither become commonplace nor was spelt with so ostentatious a C.
She was of daily occurrence in the circle of a family whose visiting list was
well up in the hundreds. From this type of wife had already begun to arise
members of educational boards, inspectors of poorhouses, social reformers,
and I think I am not mistaken in asserting that it was in England first that
women were permitted to fill such positions. Civic and national government,
literature, science and other matters not pertaining to nursery or kitchen

760 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

were subjects even then of family discussion, in which wives and daughters
took their share. It is a temptation to name some of the notable
women of that and a later day — wives of the upper middle class — but lest
they should be objected to as " exceptions," it is safer to speak only of the
common type of this class, that is, the wife who was in every sense her hus
band's good comrade, sharing his interests (needless to remark these were
not inevitably intellectual), his anxieties, business or otherwise, his books,
nay, often his play, which, by-the-bye, the American wife is only now learn
ing to do. Mr. Grant Allen's middle class wife was already something of a
back number, or more likely belonged to a different class altogether. The
English wife, as I knew many a score of her, was not relegated to nursery
or drawing-room, there to be "cribbed, cabined and confined." Even in those
days of Philistinism she was apt to have ideas of her own on impersonal sub
jects, as well as opportunities for ventilating them. Far back in my childhood
I can recall that women discussed books almost as frequently as they did
babies and domestics, and that these books were by no means invariably novels.
In rural districts, remote from railroads and " opportunities," a mild and re
fining effort after self -improvement assuredly existed, in the shape of lending
libraries, co-operative boxes of books from the great London libraries, and
what not, away back in the sixties. Such recollections may be allowed to
possess some logical foundation, in fact, if it be borne in mind that the Eng
lish wife, even of quite moderate means, knows nothing of household cares
such as we in the like or better position understand them on this side. Of
the back-breaking, soul-fretting daily drudgery endured here by thousands
of housewives and mothers— and where else in the civilized world are such
self-sacrificing mothers to be found ?— to whom comfortable means brings
little or no relief from the ceaseless drain on strength and nerves and mind,
the English wife continues sublimely ignorant. To the average American
housemother her talk of household care conveys a sense of the ridiculous—
by comparison. By the same comparison she enjoys abundant leisure of
mind and body. Is it credible that the great mass of English middle
class wives are, in the employment of this leisure, devoid of understanding
as well as of education ?

English politics are not, and never within my recollection have been,
necessarily and inevitably pitch. The interest, therefore, manifested in them
by Englishwomen, to a certain extent in the past, to a large extent in the
present, was and is both healthy and wise. Politics, when I was a child,
formed a common subject of discussion in the home circle. On first making
my home in a strange land— a land now grown so dear— and sharing as a
matter of course my husband's interest in American politics and public
questions in general, I remember well the chilling reception which greeted
any expression of opinion on my part concerning subjects which were con
sidered, I suppose, " unfeminine." But this was in a rural section of the
kind in which the men drew apart from the women when matters of any im
portance came on the tapis — and it was a long, long time ago. Nous avons
changi tout pela — even there, perhaps. And now that the American woman
has finally awoke to the vital questions at issue, civic and national, in this
great Republic, and finds herself compelled in consequence to grasp the all-
pervading pitch with both hands in the course of her gallant crusade against
corruption, she finds also that to the " higher" woman as to the " higher"
man this pitch is not defiling. At least it will wash off.

E. M. NICHOLL.

INDEX

TO THE

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIRST VOLUME

OF THE

Actress, Girlhood of an, 575.

African Problem, The, 327.

Age, Some Problems of the, 412.

ALLEN, GRANT. A Study in Wives— The
English Wife. 427.

ALVAREZ, SEGUNDO. The Cuban Situa
tion, 362.

America, Petty Tyrants of, 321.

American Note, The, 507.

.American Wealth, True Source of, 612.

Arbitration, Results of the Bering Sea,
693.

ATKINSON, EDWARD. Jingoes and Sil-
verites, 554.

ATKINSON, W. Y. The Atlanta Exposi
tion, 385.

Atlanta Exposition, The, 385.

Auxiliary, The Yacht as a Naval, 170.

Ballot, Why Women do not Want the,

Bannocks, A Brush With the, 316.
Betrgars, How London Deals With, 685.
BELL. J. C. The Work of the Next Con-

gre -8,662.
Birds in Flight and the Flying Machine,

405.
BLAIKIE, W. G. Is Socialism Advancing

in England* 493.
BLIND, KARL. A Study in Wives— The

German Wife, 427.

Bine-Jacket, The Evolution of the. 268.
BLYDKN, E. W. The African Problem,

327.
BOYKSEN, H. H. A Study in Wives—

The Scandinavian Wife, 427; The

Plague of Jocularity, 528.
Bread, St. Anthony's, 379.
nrush With the Bannocks, A, 346.
Business, Our Reviving, 340.
Business. Regulation of the Liquor, 635.

Campaigns, English Women in Political,
451.

CATCHINGS, T. C. The Work of the Next
Congress, 649.

Century, Last Gift of the, 674.

Christian Endeavor Movement, The, 287.

Christianity's Millstone, 703.

CLARK, F. E. The Christian Endeavor
Movement, 287.

CLAYTON, B. F True Source of Ameri
can Wealth, 612.

Coin's Financial School and its Censors,

COL'OMB, P. H. The Evolution of the

Blue-Jacket, 263.
Commons, The House of, and the House

of Representatives, 739.

Congress and the Next Paris Exposition
753.

Congress, The Work of the Next, 641.

Contemporary Egypt, 13.

CORBIN, AUSTIN. Quick Transit Be
tween New York and London, 513.

Country Roads and Trolleys, 382.

CRANDALL, C. H. Wbat Men Think of
Women's Dress, 251.

Cranks and Crazes, 667.

Crazes, Cranks and, 667.

CREWE, The Right Hon. the Earl of, The
Outlook for Ireland, 366.

Criminals, Female, 141.

Crop Conditions and Prospects, 313.

Cuban Situation, The, 362.

Cycling, What to Avoid in, 177.

Degeneration and Evolution, 80.

DILKR, SIR CHARLES W. The New Ad
ministration in England, 196.

Disposal of a City's Waste, The, 49.

DOANE, W; C. Why Women do not
W ant the Ballot, 257.

DODGE, MARTIN. The Need of Better
Roads, 125.

DOLUVER, J- P. The Work of the Next
Congress, 653.

Dress, What Men Think of Women's,
251.

Drink, Environment and, 460.

ECKKLS, JAMES H. Our Reviving

Business, 340.
EDSON, CYRUS. The Microbe as a Social

Leveller. 421.
Egypt, Contemporary, 13.
England, Is Socialism Advancing in ?

493.

England, The Municipal Spirit in. 590.
England, The New Administration in,

196.

English History, New Light on, 119.
English Women in Political Campaigns,

451.

Environment and Drink, 460.
Evolution, Degeneration and, 80.
Evolution of the Blue-Jacket, The. 268.
Existence, Guesses at the Riddle of, 230.
Exposition, Congress and the Next

Paris, 753.

Exposition, The Atlanta, 385.
FARQUHAR, HENRY. Crop Conditions and

Prospects, 313.
FARRAR, F. W. Some Problems of the

Age. 412.

Female Criminals, 141.
Fenimore Cooper's Litarary Offences, 1.
Fiction, Tendencies in, 153.

762

INDEX.

FLOWER, SIR WM. H. Reminiscences of

Professor Huxley, 279.
Flying Machine, Birds in Flight and

the, 405.
FORD, WORTHINGTON C. The Turning of

the Tide, 187.
FOSTER, JOHN W. Results of the Bering

Sea Arbitration. 693.
Future of the Arid West, 438.

Game, Hunting Large, 484.

Girlhood of an Actress, 575.

GOSSE, EDMUND. Degeneration and Evo
lution, 109.

GOTTSBKRGER, FRANCIS. Regulation of
the Liquor Business. 635.

Grain Trade, Thirty Years in the, 25.

GRIFFITHS. ARTHUR. Female Criminals.

GROSVENOR, C. H. Our Duty in the Ven
ezuelan Crisis, 631 .
Guesses at the Riddle of Existence, 230.

HALL, W. P., Revolver or Sabre, 249.

Harnessing the Tides, 5J9.

HARVEY, W. H. Coin's Financial School

and Its Censors, 71.
HAZKLTIVE, M. W. The Work of the

Next Congress, 641.
Historical Nicknames, 254.
House of Representatives and the House

of Commons, The, 739.
How Free Silver Would Affect u*. 34.
How London Deals with Beggars. 685.
Hunting Large Game, 484.
HUXLEY, Keminiscencesof Professor, 279.

IGLKHART, F. C. The Saloon and the

Sabbath, 467.

Improvement of the Civil Service, 602.
Industrial Development of the South,

566.

Industrial Future of the South, 121.
Insane, Politics and the, 394.
Ireland, The Outlook for, 366.
Is Socialism Advancing in England ? 493-

JACKSON, E. P. Then and Now, 380.
JEUNE, LADY. English Women in Polit
ical Campaigns, 451.
Jingoes and Silverites, 554.
Jocularity, The Plague of, 528.

LANG, ANDREW. Tendencies in Fiction,

153.

Last Gift of the Century, The, 674.
Laws, Our Need of Stringent Shipping,

505.

Lawyer, Some Memories of a Great, 757.
LEECH, E. O. How Free Silver Would

Affect Us. 34.

Leo XIII.. and the Social Question, 200.
LINTON, LYNN. Cranks and Crazes, 667.
Literary Offences, Fenimore Cooper's. 1.
London, Quick Transit Between Nrew

York and, 513.

MC^DOO, WM. The Yacht as a Naval

Auxiliary, 170.

-MATHER, FREDERIC G. Industrial Fu
ture of the South, 121.

Mail Delivery, Rural Free, 511

MAXIM. HIRAM S. Birds in Flight and
the Flying Machine, 405.

Menace of Romanism, The, 129.

MENDES, H. PERKIRA. The Solution of
War, 161.

Microbe as a Social Leveller, The, 421.

MILES, NELSON A. A Brush with the
Bannocks, 346; Hunting Large Game,
484; Our Acquisition of Territory, 561.

Millstone, Christianity's, 703.

Mother, The Rule of The, 637.

Movement, The Christian Endeavor, 287.

Municipal Spirit in England, The, 590.

National Progress, Trend of, 297.

NAVARRO, M. A. DE. Girlhood of an
Actress. 575.

Need of Better Roads, The, 125.

New Administration in England, The,
196.

New Light on English History, 119.

Nicaragua Canal, Our Benefits from the,
720.

NICHOLL, E. M. A Plea for the English
Wife, 759.

Nicknames, Historical, 254.

NORDAU, MAX. Degeneration and Evolu
tion, 80.

NORTON, RT. HON. LORD. How London
Deals with Beggars, 685.

Vote, The American, 507.

Now, Then and, 380.

GATES, W. C. Industrial Development of
the South, 566.

O'RELL, MAX. Petty Tyrants of Amer
ica, 3J1 : A Study in Wives— The French
Wife, 427.

OSWALD, F. L. Historical Nicknames,
254.

Our Acquisition of Territory, 561.

Our Benefits from the Nicaragua Canal,
720.

Our Duty in the Venezuelan Crisis, 628.

Our Need of Stringent Shipping Laws,
505.

Our Reviving Business, 340.

Outlook for Ireland, The. 366.

Outlook for Republican Success, 538.

PALQRAVE, SIR REGINALD F. D. The
House of Representatives and the
House of Conamons, 739.

PENFIELD, F. C. Contemporary Egypt,
13.

Personal History of the Second Empire,
57, 215, 352, 476, 618, 726.

Petty Tyrants of America, 321.

Plague of Jocularity, The, 528.

Plea for the English Wife, A, 759.

Politics and thelnsane, 394.

PORRITT EDWARD. New Light on Eng
lish History. 119.

PORTER, K. P. The Municipal Spirit in
England. 590.

Practical Use of Verse, A. 634.

Problem, The African, 327.

Prospects, Crop Conditions and, 313.

Quick Transit Between New York and
London, 513.

Regulation of the Liquor Business, 635.
Reminiscences of Professor Huxley. 279.
Republican Success, Outlook for, 536.
Results of the Bering Sea Arbitration,

693.

Revolver or Sabre? 219.
RICK, W. G. Improvement of the Civil

Service, 602.
RICHARDSON, SIR BENJAMIN WARD.

What to Avoid in Cycling, 177.
Roads, The Need of Better. 125.
ROBINSON, CHARLES. St. Anthony s

Bread, 379.

INDEX.

763

ROBINSON, Louis. Wild Traits in Tame

Animals-Ill., 43; IV., 734.
Romanism, The Menace of, 129.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. Degeneration

and Evolution, 94.
Ross, EDMUND G. Future of the Arid

West. 438.
ROTHERHAM, FRANK. Our Need of

Stringent Shipping Laws. 5u5.
Rule 01 the Mother, The. 637.
Rural Free Mail Delivery, 511.

Sabbath, The Saloon and the, 467.

Sabre, Revolver, or, 249.

Saloon and the Sabbath, The, 467.

SAXTON, C. T. Outlook for Republican
Success. 536.

St. Anthony's Bread, 379.

Second Empire, Personal History of the,
57, 215, 352, 476, 618, 726.

SKLDEN, C. P. The Rule of the Mother,
637.

Service, Improvement of the Civil. 602.

SHALER, N. S. The Last Gift of the Cen
tury, 674.

Silver, Free, How it Would Affect Us, 34.

Silverites, Jingoes and, 554.

Situation, The Cuban, 362.

SMITH, GOLDWIN, Guesses at the Riddle
of Existence, 230; Christianity's Mill-
atone, 703.

Social Question, Leo XIII. and the, 200.

Social Leveller, The Microbe as a, 421.

Solution of War, The, 161.

Some Memories of a Great Lawyer, 757.

Some Problems of the Age, 412.

Source of American Wealth, True, 612.

South, Industrial Development of the,
MM

South, Industrial Future of the, 121.

SOUTHWICK, G. N. The Work of the
Next Congress, 657.

SPEED, J. GILMER. Country Roads and
Trolleys, 382.

STAHL. JOHN M. Rural Free Mail De
livery, 511.

STANTON, THEODORE. Congress and the
Next Paris Exposition, 753.

STEVENS, ROWAN. A Practical Use of
Verse, 634.

Study in Wives, A, 427.

Tame Animals, Wild Traits in— III., 43;

IV., 734.

Tendencies in Fiction, 153.
Territory, Our Acquisition of, 561,
Then and Now, 380.
Thirty Years in the Grain Trade, 25.
THURSTON, R. H. Trend of National

Progress, 287.

THWING, C. F. What Becomes of Col
lege Women, 546.

Tides, Harnessing the. 509.

Tide. The Turning of the, 187.

TRAYNOR, W. J. H. The Menace of Ro
manism, 129.

Trend of National Progress, 297.

Trolleys, Country Roads and, 382.

True Source of American Wealth, 612.

Turning of the Tide, The, 187.

TWAIN, MARK. Fenimore Cooper's Lit
erary Offences, 1 .

VANDAM, ALBERT D. Personal History
of the Second Empire, 57, 215, 352, 476,

Venezuelan Crisis, Our Duty in the,

628.
Verse, A Practical Use of, 634.

WALDO, J. F. Environment and Drink,

460.
WALSH, DAVID. Environment and Drink,

WALSH, GEO. E. Harnessing the Tides,

War,' The Solution of, 161.

WARD, J. H. The American Note, 507.

WARING, GEO. E , JR. The Disposal of a

City's Waste, 49.

Waste, a City's. The Disposal of, 49.
WATSON, W. Some Memories of a Great

Lawyer, 757.

West, Future of the Arid, 438.
What Becomes of College Women, 546.
What Men Think of Women's Dress,

251.

What to Avoid in Cycling, 177.
WHEELER. JOSEPH. Our Duty in tne

Venezuelan Crisis, 628.
WHITE, ARTHUR SILVA. Our Benefits

From the Nicaragua Canal, 720
Why Women do not Waat the Ballot,

Wife, A Plea for the English, 759.

Wild Traits in Tame Animals.— III., 43;

WILLIAMS. E. R., Thirty Years in the
Grain Trade, 25.

WILLIAMS, H. S., Politics and the In
sane, 394.

Wires, A Study in, 427.

Women, What Becomes of College, 546.

Work of the Next Congress, The, 641.

Yacht as a Naval Auxiliary, The, 170.

ZAHM, J. A., Leo XIII. aad the Social
Question, 200.

358