NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCCCLXJV. JULY, 1895. FENIMO RE COOPERS LITERARY OFFEN CES. BY MARK TWAIN. The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer stand at the head of Coopers 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. Thoy 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 ot English Literature in Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins, to deliver opinions on Coopers literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and Ict persons talk who have rend Cooper. Coopers art has some defects. In one place in Deer8lctyer, 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 Bwrcx. All rights reserved. 2 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. of romantic fictionsome say twenty-two. In Deerslctyer 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- slayer 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. BLit 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 personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppos case will amply prove. 7. They require that when a personage talks like an illus- trated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand.tooled, seven-dollar Friendships 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 and7..... 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 mnst so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not rc~ 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 tale 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 read~r 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 rigbt 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 Deer8layer tale. Coopers gift in the way of invention was not a rich endow- ment; but such as it was be 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 doesnt 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 wouldnt satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he cant 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 Bnmppo and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailora 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 becanse 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, isnt 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 so1 and so on, till it fiuially gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some females as he always calls womenin 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 reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They bear 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 Bnmppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesnt strike out promptly and follow the trade of that cannon-ball across the,~laiii through the dense fog and find the fort. Isnt it a daisy ?~ If Cooper had any real knowledge of Natures 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. lIe turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that persons moccasin- FENIMORE COOPERS LITERARY OFFENUES. 5 tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like casesno, 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 Coopers books reveal an extraordinary fulness of invention. As a rule, I am quite willing to accept Brander Matthewss 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 hadnt any more invention than a horse ; and I dont mean a high class horse, either; I mean a clotheshorse. It would be very difficult to find a really clever situation in Coopers 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 Harrys queer water-transit from the castle to the ark; and at Deerslayers half hour with his first corpse ; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry and I)eerslayer later; and atbut choose for yourself; you cant go amiss. If Cooper had been an observer, his inventive faculty would N have worked better, not more interestingly, but more rationally, ~. more plausibly. Coopers proudest creations in the way of situations suffer noticeably from the absence of the observers protecting gift. Coopers 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 flows out of a lake; it presently harrows 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 brooks outlet from the lake has suddenly shrunk thirty feet, and become 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 settlers scow or ark which is coming np 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 ns 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 scrapiiig 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-thirds of the arks length a dwelling ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide, let us saya kind of vestibule train. The dwelling has two roomseach forty-five feet long and sixteen feet ~ wide, let us guess. One of them is the bed-room of the ilutter girls, Judith and iletty; the other is the parlor, in the day time, at night it is papas bed chamber. The ark is arriving at the streams exit, now, whose width has been reduced to less than twenty feet to accommodate the Indianssay 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 Coopers Indians never notice anything. Cooper thinks they are marvellous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always ~n 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 COOPERS LITERARY OFFENUES. 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 rnzssed 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 Coopers, 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 didyou 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 boatfor lie 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 Coopers inadequacy as an observer. The reader will find some examples of Coopers high talent for inaccurate observation in the account of the shooting match in The Pathfinder. 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 statedan 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. dred 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 yardsone 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 mans bullet drove the nail a little way into the targetand removed all the paint. Havent 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~LongiRifieLeatherstockiflg.path Iinder-Bumppo before the ladies. Be all ready to clench it, boys ! cried out Pathfinder, stepping into his friends 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 mosquitoss 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 net surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch. He has made Pathfinder do this miracle with another mans 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. Ills 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 bulls-eye. Then the quarter- master fired. The target exhibited no result this time. There was a laugh. Its 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, Majorhe has covered FENIMORE COOPERS LITERARY OFFENCES. 9 Jaspers bullet, as will be seen if any one will take the trouble to examine the target. Wasnt 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 Pathfinders 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 quartermasters bullet had gone through the hole made by Jaspers, 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 iu 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 Pathfinders turn now; he steps out before the ladies, takes aim, and fires. But alas! here is a disappointment; an incredible, an un- imaginable disappointmentfor the targets 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 ~ay 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 didnt load the piece, and cant say what was in it, but if it was lead, I 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: Thats not all, boys, thats not all; if you find the target touched at all, Ill own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the wood, but youll find no wood cut by that last messenger.~~ The miracle is at last complete. He knewdoubtless saw at the distance of a hundred yardsthat his bullet had passed 10 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. into the hole without fraying the edges. There were now three bullets in that one holethree bullets imbedded processionally in the body of the stump back of the target. Everybody knew this somehow or otherand 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 peoples 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 mans 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 conversatious 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 cant help him- self. In the Deerslctyer 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: Shes in the foresthanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft rainin the dew on the open grassthe clouds that float about in the blue heavensthe birds that sing in the woodsthe sweet springs where I slake my thirstand in all the other glorious gifts that come from Gods Providence I And he preceded that, a little before, with this It consarns me as all things that touches a frind consarns a frind. And this is another of his remarks: If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in the scalp and FENIMORE COOPERS LI2~RARY OFFENCES. 11 boast of the explite afore the whole tribe: or if my inimy had only been a bear and so on. We cannot imagine snch a thing as a veteran Scotch Corn- mander-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 fathers 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 6Oths! sudden!y 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, 0! save your daughters I Hold! shouted the former speaker, in the awfnl 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, 6Oths, to the field; pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these dogs of France with your steel. Coopers word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has a poor ear for music he will fiat and sharp right along without knowiug it. He keeps near the tnne, 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 doesnt say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approxi- mate word. I will furnish some circninstantial evidence in snp- port of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called Deerslayer. He uses 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 resnlting from ; fact, for condition; fact, for conjecture; Drecaution, for cantion; 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; counteract- 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 nowall dead but Lounsbury. I dont 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 faultlessfaultless in all detailsand language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Coopers English with the English which he writes himselfbut it is plain that he didnt; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Coopers 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 wrot& ~ . 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 trem ens. 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 areoh ! 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 TwAIw. 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 conditionsEgypt. Vocabularies of praise and cen- sure have been well nigh exhausted on Isma~il 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,OOO,OOO, 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 N 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

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 conditionsEgypt. Vocabularies of praise and cen- sure have been well nigh exhausted on Isma~il 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,OOO,OOO, 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 N 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 Ismails 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, Ismails 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 f~te in Cairo trans- cending the wildest dreams of Haronn-al-iRaschid, lasting a month, over which the Merry Monarch spent $21,000,000 of the peoples money. History reveals nothing equal to Ismails carnival of extrava- gance. In thirteen years he added to Egypts 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 Disraelis 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 Khedives 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 CONTEMPORARY EGYPT. 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 Tewfiks 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 peoples 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 Kbedive and repair the fortunes of the land by administrative reform. Consequently the year 1882 becomes the epoch from which dates everything current in discussin; Egyptian affairs. The indebtedness when the reform policy was instituted reached nearly ~475,000,000, bearing six or seven per cent. interest, speakijiig generally. As a class Egyp- tian securities ruled very low on European bourses in 1882. Unifieds for a time were 46-i, and other designations were even less. An average quotation for several months was 50, meaning that prudent investors would give only ~237,50O,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 inconie 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, Englands 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 Tewflk 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 soilthe sole producing agent of the countryneeded 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 Englands co-operation began it has been materially added to. But the character of the securityin 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. Egypts 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 Englands 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 Englands supposed share is no less than $149,- 625,000! Of course the advance has benefited all bondholders proportionatelyFrench, 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 per cent. (quoted6~ premium) $42,442,866 Privileged debt, 3~,6 per cent. (quoted 1~premium) 142,854,798 Unified debt, 4 per cent. (quoted 4~ premium) 272,037,625 Domain loan, 4~4 per cent. (quoted 7 premium) 19,418,421 Daira Sanieli loan, 4 per cent. (quoted 2~6 premium) 32,191,589 Total bonded debt $508,945,299 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 soilau area a trifle less than New Hampshire or Vermont in extentis 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 ~l5, 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 been 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 and bridges have been the world overthrown 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 worlds 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 years tolls were about ~15,000,000, and for 1895 should be as good as $17,000,000. In 1894 the British flag represented 71~ per cent. VOL. CLXI.I~O. 464. 2 18 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. of the traffic, as against 5-s- 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 $~,5 00twice what Washington officials receive. Offices are open only in the forenoon, and five hours is the official days 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 countrys 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 Sanich, 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 EGYP~ 19 possible. The governmental railways last year carried 9,827,813 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 seasons 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 nations 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 yearscotton, cotton seed, grain and sugarwere 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 nwrctlo 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 Khedives 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 Governments share is abont $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, Englands and Egypts 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 reqnires 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 ontlay 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, call 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 Tewfiks 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,OOO on the 5,237,200 acres of cultivated soilis 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 days 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- ments 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, headed by Abbas Pasha, is carrying it forward with intelligent perseverance. The countrys obligations to European creditors are suffi- ciently menacing to compel the small farmer to keep out of the 22 THE NORTH AMERIOAN 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 holdersowning from fifty acres upwardswho have pledged their property; and, further, that they have done this to buy more laud, 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. Readers 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 husbaudmen. 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 nation Llities 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. CONTEMPORARY EGYPT. 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, Russia and Italy. At subsequent conventions Belgium, Spain, Holland, Greece, Portugal, Den- mark and Sweden-Norway approved the plan. On June 28th, 1875, Khedive IsmaYl 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 IsmaYl 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 decisionby 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. courtsfor every five years there is a formal renewalsomething 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 documentsFrench, Italian and Arabic. The foreign counsellors of the appellate court, nine in number, receive a yearly salary of $9,260 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 judgesthree foreign and two nativesit 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. Englands 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 inorganic, 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 COURTLAIW PENFIELD. THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. BY EGERT01~ B. WILLIAMS. Oi~ viewing briefly the history of the grain trade for the last three decades, which measure nearly the limit of the writers 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 countrys history has such phenomenal progress been made in all that pertains to mans material welfareprogress 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 oldand since Europes infant commercial daysestablished 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

THIRTY YEARS IN THE GRAIN TRADE. BY EGERT01~ B. WILLIAMS. Oi~ viewing briefly the history of the grain trade for the last three decades, which measure nearly the limit of the writers 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 countrys history has such phenomenal progress been made in all that pertains to mans material welfareprogress 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 oldand since Europes infant commercial daysestablished 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 AMERILYAN 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 consnmers 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 npon supply being in excess of demand; and low freights are the nsual 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 mn at very small expense, compared with other tonnage differ- ently constrncted, 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 trafficif not from the lakesvessels of small tonnage, and in placing a permanent embargo upon their further construction. Freights have fallen from an average range on the lakes of 715c. to 13c.; on the ocean, from 1015c. to 26c.; and all rail to the seaboard from 3045c. to 915c. 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 nnremunerative 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 ha~re effected in busi- ness methods than we here find, in that, what at as late a period as the 70s 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 Englands 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 l2~ 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 (Afar/c 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 Majestys Coin.. 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; liv 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 peoplebeing over 1k acres for each inhabitant. The estimated British imports, wheat and flour, for 1895 are 189,799,680 bushels, against 162,474,000 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: 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 statisticiansan 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,~30,861,632, 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 milliardsmore 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 Englands acreage, we reflect upon the low wheat values which, with oc- casional exceptions, have ruled during the past four years notably this yearthe 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 farmer 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 $1.78j, aver- age in 1873, and $1.24, average for 21 years1873 to 1893. The average price in each decade for 250 years1640 to 1890was $1.53 per bushel. The highest in this period was $3. 79j, 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 agricnlturists 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 agricultnre brought to the verge of ruin. The Right Hon. Henry Chaplin said 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 yearsan increase so startling as to in- vite the skepticism of even those conversant with shipping sta- tisticsaffords ample answer to the above query. That the American has proved an undoubtcd 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 npon the net product and upon the olfal from the wheat also. Another favorable factor is found in the reduced ocean freight obtainable npon 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 resnltant 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 ha8 fallen from an annual average of $1. 11~ for twenty-six years 1867 to 1892, tQ 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- bilitv 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 writers 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 nations 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 obtainablQ 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 worlds 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 YORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. nations, and, with her colonies, the most extended, and the most ambitions 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 mannfactu ring 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 Mistress of the Seas ; has she not by peaceful methods also earned the title of Mistress of the Worlds 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 60s. 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,O00 bushels of wheat at a stated price during the following month. How little we then realized how familiar in a few short yearsyes, it may be said in a few monthswe 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 1892which enforced marketings became imperative by reason of the impecunious condition of the farming community as a wholehad 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. Radical abuses, such as grain corners, undue speculation and its attendant evils, have been occasional and unavoidable accompaniments of this modern systtim, 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 mans treatment of Gods gifts. EGERTOI~T 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, restorationlof 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. 3 HOW FREE ShYER WOULD AFFECT US. BY THE HON. EDWARD 0. 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 371k 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 I 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 ShYER WOULD AFFECT US. BY THE HON. EDWARD 0. 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 371k 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 I 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. 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 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 instance a 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 the United States is about ~2,209,000,- 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. There 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. IDuring 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- 110W 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 moneythe uncertainty and fluctuations in the value of our cur- rency as measured by the worlds standardgold. What the purchasing power of our currency in domestic transactions would be., 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 worlds 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 371k 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 Ameri~a, 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 mononietallic, 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 ~25O,OOO,OOO 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 moneythe panacea for all our industrial ills promised by free silver advocateswould 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 Statesthat is, just as long as it would bring a higher price here than elsewheresilver 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 as occurred 110W 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 1860, 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 r ot only have more money in actual circulation than ever before, uct 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 lar~ely 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 agentmoney, 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 censusa 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 valne of the dollar. The value of every insur- ance policy and every pension wonid, 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 onr 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 standardMexico, South America and Asiaand see the rates of wages there compared with wages in countries that have the gold standard; see the Prosperity and 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 OWEN LEECH. WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 111.THE SHEEP AND THE GOAT. BY DR. LOUiS R0BI1~S0N. 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 destroy a 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 grcat International Exposi- tion, in 1851, a seven-year-old South 1)own ewe, which had never

WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 111.THE SHEEP AND THE GOAT. BY DR. LOUiS R0BI1~S0N. 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 destroy a 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 grcat International Exposi- tion, in 1851, a seven-year-old South 1)own 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 Rockies, the Mouffion, 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 Ovidw 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, aud 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 coarse, 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- ~aIly 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 Ootswold, 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 bronght 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. Th~ 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 una~bcnstomed surroundings may be fatal. It is this specialization, as the naturalists call it, which accounts for the extinction of many anini~als 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 fl5 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 TRAITS 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 Robinson tells a story of a ram that was sent to the Calcutta Zoological Gardens, and, since he was of no valne 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 Mouffion, the Burrhel and the Argali. These, oddly enough, have short tails, 48 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. like nearly all mountain animalsthe 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 pointsin 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 RoBINSoN. THE DISPOSAL OF A CITYS WASTE. BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR., COMMISSIONER OF STREET-CLEANING OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. EVER since the beginning of Liebigs 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 niatters 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

THE DISPOSAL OF A CITYS WASTE. BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR., COMMISSIONER OF STREET-CLEANING OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. EVER since the beginning of Liebigs 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 niatters 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 AMERIQAN 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 snch 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 mad6for labor, the matters recovered beingtaken 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 189293, $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 lbs. No.2 .40 Dirty white rags 1.00 Soft wools 2.90 Rubber 3;50 Bottles 1.25 bbl. Soda water bottles Lager beer 100 Seltzer water 3.50 Iron 4.50 ton Zinc . 1.75 100 lbs. Copper 5.00 Brass 3.50 Pewter 10.00 Paper 25 to .40 per 100 lbs. Tomato cans (for the solder) 2.00 a lcad.t Old shoes 05 to .15 per pair. Hats 01~~6 each. Broken glass 10 per bag. Carpets 100 lbs. Rope Brushes 05 to .15 each. ~Fat 1.10 per 100 lbs. Bones 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 CITYS WASTE. 51 Dickenss Golden Dustman and the accounts of the rag- pickers of Paris have made ns familar with the fact that there is an available value in the ordinary ref ectamenict 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 sourceat the houses in which they are discardedmuch 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 shouldin the interest of the public safety, as well as of the public financestake 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,OOO,OOO, 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 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,]arge 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 t owns,and their prompt removal from kouses,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 not as interesting subjects for archa3ological 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 comes 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 windalso 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 timemore often in undue timeit 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 CITYS WASTE. 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 made 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 dischayge 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 inj unction, such as we have already had with reference to Rikers 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 t4 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: I. 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 citys own carts, or by the citys 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 s& e would be collectednot from the streets but from within the houses by the citys 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 treasuiy. 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 CITYS WASTE. 55 indoors until taken by the collector, the sweepings of the streets especially after the improved repavingwill 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 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 Rikers 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, for 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 sto2e-block, asphalt, or other pavement. The general conclusion from the above must be that while the question of the disposal of a citys wastes is full of difficulty, it is also full of promise. GEo. E. WARLNG, Jn. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. VJI.T1IJE CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARIIA. BY ALBERT D. VAXDAM, AUTHOR OF AX EXGLISHMAN IX PARIS, MY PARIS IjOTE-BOOK, ETC., ETC. IF Napoleon III. had been the most arrant coward on earth and he was the very opposite of a cowardOrsinis 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 bnt that he bore a charmed life. If religiously disposed he would simply attribute his escave to a direct intervention of Provi- deuce; if a fatalist, as the Emperor was supposed to be, his fatalism would be intensified a hundredfold, and henceforth lie 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 Napoleons life during the ten years that had passed since his memorable interview with Lainartine. Whatever illusions he may have entertained with regard to the rdle of the police as a protector in the three previous ones, he could not have possibly remained in such a fools 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

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. VJI.T1IJE CONSPIRACY OF THE CARBONARIIA. BY ALBERT D. VAXDAM, AUTHOR OF AX EXGLISHMAN IX PARIS, MY PARIS IjOTE-BOOK, ETC., ETC. IF Napoleon III. had been the most arrant coward on earth and he was the very opposite of a cowardOrsinis 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 bnt that he bore a charmed life. If religiously disposed he would simply attribute his escave to a direct intervention of Provi- deuce; if a fatalist, as the Emperor was supposed to be, his fatalism would be intensified a hundredfold, and henceforth lie 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 Napoleons life during the ten years that had passed since his memorable interview with Lainartine. Whatever illusions he may have entertained with regard to the rdle of the police as a protector in the three previous ones, he could not have possibly remained in such a fools 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 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 Fouch6, a R6al, 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 Pi6tris (Pierre-Marie and Joa- chim), and Boitellehad not together as much brains as the famous Duc dOtrante 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 snch 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, Persignys friend and erstwhile fellow-soldier, re- placed Pi6tri (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 IRoguet, the Em- perors 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. eral Roguets deep, though not fatal, flesh wound just below the right ear bled so profusely that the Empresss dress was absolutely saturated with blood as she entered the opera. Finally, a bullet had gone right through the Emperors hat. I am only referring to the Emperor and his immediate entourage ou that night; the total number of wounded was 166, 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 Orsinis departure from London, of his contemplated journey to Paris and of his fell purpose. Billault, the Minister of the Interior, Pi6tri, the Prefect of the Police, La- grange, the Chief of the Municipal Police, and H~bert, the super- intendent specially entrusted with the service des h6tels garnis in other words, with the surveillance of the visitors to Paris and of those residents without a fixed abodewere aware of the pres- ence of Pieri and Gomez in the capital, if not of Orsinis. Nev- ertheless, both remained perfectly free until the mischief had been done. We lay no stress on the passage of Mornys 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 republicansthe terms were almost synonymous in those daysin 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 ditnen- 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 landtheir disappearance being due of course to the strong and energetic government which leaves no cause for dissatisfaction any- 60 THE NORTH AMERIOAN 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 iDoncet (the late life-secretary of the Acad~mie 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 Th6odore BarrR~re, Louis Bouilhet and Am6d~e lRoIland,* 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 JIfuetle; the name 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. t 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 Carbonaria, and it was the Carbonaria 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- livhment 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. 4: In 1858 the most powerful living subscriber to that docu- ment was unquestionably Napoleon III., Emperor of the French. But, powerful thongh he was, he dared not dis * Theodore Barrhire. the famous author of Les Faux Bonshommes, Le8 FitLes cLe Marbre, and co-author with Henri Murger of the dramatic version of La Vie de Boheme. Louis Boulihet, the friend of Gustave Flaubert. Am6d6e Holland, the founder of the satirical j& urnal, Le Diog*ine, and a well-known playwright, though not known in England or America. t La Mtcette made Pothey famous. He was originally a wood engraver. His best-known book, however, is Le Capitaine Regnier, a precursor of Le Cotonet Ramollot. t Both the act of affiliatiun and a copy of the project were seen by Monsignor Louis 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 Napoleons compact with the Cariwnaria, 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 Bakounine, 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 E~n- 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 Philippes life and the one on the Due dAumale were apparently not dictated by questions affecting the Kings 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 ~iere as likely to be Republicans or Legitimists as Italian revolutionaries. Soon after the Coup d ttat there had been an attempt to kill Louis Napoleon by means of an imitation of Fieschis 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 IRue 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 Englishmam in Paris, vol. IL, and Mi, Parts Note-Book, chap. 3. * 62 THE NORTH AMER WAN REVIEW. The iaext 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 wo,man 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 int5 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 Comte de Dou- ville-Maillefen was the jester in ordinary to the Chamber of Depu- ties under the Third iRepnblic.~ 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 Emperors 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. NI. 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 Boissys remark got wind. People nQt 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 IRavaillac or The Marquis de Boissy married the Countess Guiccioli, who played so import- ant a part in the latter years of Byrons 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 hairs breadth the course the Carbonaria 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 Rome 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 ~o 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 Car6onaro had fondly imagined that the Carbonaria would stop short at taking his lifethat 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 Napoleons death would have dis- pelled for at least a decade all reasonable chances of a free and 64 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. united Italy. Mazzinis contention, assumption, or boastcall it what you willthat Napoleon IJJ.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 moments investigation as regards its second postulate. But the truth of the first was l)atent 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 Bern (July, 1830) and of the Duchesse dOr- h~ans (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 sons succession to the throne was the prolongation of his own life. Four and twenty hours after the bloodshed in the Rue le Peletiei. 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 Co6peration of France with Italy in a war against Austria. There was no alternative but acceptance, t and even then the * ~ have heard it stated over and over arain 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 the Holy See. Queen Hortense had told her son, if ever he was in trouble, to apply to this friend. Though close upon seventy at that time, he was in direct communication with the Ccrrbonaria 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 Dot a single note to confirm my impression. On the other hand, my uncles maintained that the man for whom the Emperor sent was the (Jomte Arose, the same who had been brought v side by side with Prince Louis. and whose father was on most Intimate terms with Queen Hortense. ComteAr~se is said to have told the Emperor that, in addition to Orsini, forty other Carbonari had bees selected to repeat the attempt, if Orsinis should fail. t A few days after the attempt the Prince Regent of Prussia (subsequently Wilhelm 1) wrote to Prince Albert as follows: Napoleons dilemma was summed up in two words; War or the dagger; not a French dagger, but an italian one. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SEC~0ND 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 execntion 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 Gods admirable grace, your Majestys 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. Justilict regnorumfundctmenlurn. When the words were reported to him at our homeI re- member the scene as if it were to-dayFerrari leapeff from off his chair, and exclaimed: They have come direct from Rome. The priests flatter themselves that the Carbo~iaria will insist rigor- ously on the redemption of the whole of the three pledges, and that short of that the society will take the Emperors life. Well, the priests are mistaken. A human life counts for nothing with the Carbonaria and they will sacrifice Orsinis, as being for the moment less valuable than Louis Napoleons to the cause of Italys freedom. Remember 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. Treilhards qucstions 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 Emperors 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 Orsinis 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 * ~ had the confirmation of this visit from the lips of the late Marshal Canro- bert wbo had the particulars from General Fleury. who accompaniefi the Emperor. VOL. cLXI.NO. 464. 5 66 THE NORTH AMERJOAN 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 df~tat 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 Emperors 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 societys 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. Pi6tri had been succeeded by Boitelle, and the chamberlains 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 Fonch6, and even my uncle had only one. Fouch6 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 prefeQts 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 onethat 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 Emmanuels daughter, notwithstanding the Kings 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 Rosina Vercellana long before he made her Contessa di Miraflori; 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 religions feelings, in which both views and feelings she is backed up by her former governess, Siguorina 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 Emnianuel 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, well settle the matter at once, he said, and before Plon-Plon could ask any further 68 THE NORTH AMERTCAN 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- Plons arms. I have told you that you are to marry Napoleon, he laughed, 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 Italys 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 pointCauseto his goalResultin a railway train, which mode of locomotion prevents him from examining the intervening ground invariably bestrewn with valuable personal anecdotes. In one of Disraelis earlier novelsI do not remember whichthere 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 dinneri. 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- leons knowledge to that effect at the very beginning of that PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. 69 campaign; which knowledge went on increasing nntil 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- tect his life from the attempts of the assassin. Fate and only Fate had stood by Napoleons side, and to Fate he would have to trust throughont. 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 Majestys 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 Majestys 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 endowud with genius, were nevertheless exceedingly well informed and ornaments to their profession. General (after- wards Marshal) Mel 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 hia 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. IL, cli. viii. 70 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. The first question must remain unanswered until I treat of society at the Tuileries and at Compi~gne. The second I will answer at once. \Taillant was deprived of his portfolio at a moments 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 Canroberts corps darm~enamely, those of Bourbaki, Renault, and Trochuacross 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 forWar 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 Faillys division. This narrow escape did not occur during an engagement, but while his Majesty was peacefully trundling in a shandrydan on a country roadI 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 Emperors 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 P. YANDAM. (To be Continued.) 1-- COINS FINANCIAL SCHOOL AND ITS CENSORS. BY W. H. HARVEY, AUTHOR OF COINS 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 ttie 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 month as he held his cigar in his hand. Religion? queried the man who had asked the question, as if to hasten a reply. 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 problema problem which never has been solvedthere will be at once the beginning of a new era. Civilization needs a fluida 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! A muddy, sickly fluid, flowing intermittently

COINS FINANCIAL SCHOOL AND ITS CENSORS. BY W. H. HARVEY, AUTHOR OF COINS 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 ttie 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 month as he held his cigar in his hand. Religion? queried the man who had asked the question, as if to hasten a reply. 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 problema problem which never has been solvedthere will be at once the beginning of a new era. Civilization needs a fluida 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! 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 movementit will be the issue in the campaign of 1896. Then he asked suddenly: What do you think of coins Financial School? 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 ismoney. 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 demosistrate 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 selfishnesspersonal 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 payusury, which means interestwould 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 COINS FINANCIAL SCHOOL AND ITS CENSORS. 73 life blood of commerce itselfon the very existence of which com- merce dependedfinally 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: Trade and commercethe interchange of productsdepend 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 TIlE NORTH AMERIGAN 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. Tie began again: This put an end to hope of success for the movement set in motion two thonsand 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 theni 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 bad 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 tooka 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- COINS FINANCIAL SCHOOL AND ITS CENSORS. 7~5 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 Coins 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 Coins School never took place; that the statement that a little boy held a school in the Art Institute in Chicago is false, arid 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 Toms Oalin by say- ing that no such negro as Uncle Tom ever existed and no man by the name of Legree lived in the Sonth. 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. R. Walsh and other bank presidents and prominent business men. The principle discussed in the story told is the thing of value. But nuable 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 menin- 76 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. telligent menhave read, and who believe its statements of fact to be true and its logic sound. But, said the other, Coins Financial School uses the real names of living characters, while in Uncle Toms Uabin 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 months 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 caine 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 Coins Financial School in ten days. They threw up their hands and said: Im- possible; we know very little about this question. 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. Then there are the numerous writers for pay he continued, 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 COINS 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 imbned by no high patriotic impulse. He is bnt 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 Coins book are false will take Coins 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 prejud,ice 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, re- pudiator, lunatic, and blatant orator, an impression will be created among all except the followers of the crank and 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 186165, 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 massesthe plain peoplehence, 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 COINS 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 mans 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 reformwhich 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 coun- try. The damming up of the ~tream 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. 1.A REPLY TO MY CRITICS. BY DR. MAX 1{ORDAU. 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 for 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 8mall 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. 1.A REPLY TO MY CRITICS. BY DR. MAX 1{ORDAU. 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 for 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 8mall 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 Titian and Rabens, the harmony of Rembrandt, the force of Velasquez and Franz Hals, the honest drafting of Memling, Holbein, and Dflrer, the temperament and depth of feeling of Murillo and Oorreggio, and, above all, the more than human truth and beauty and spirituality of Leonardo,culti- vate his eye find 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 better tban 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 cnriosities, 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. (Jox speaks of my arrogance, and my t6tal 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 opiuion 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 theni. Do you not find that Gauguin, 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 poetof Mallarm6, for instanceis solely the result of this terrorism exercised upon timid and fragile natures by fools VOL. CLXJ.I{O. 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 Fuida, 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 imagiuary 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 ! 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-Raphaelitism 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-IRaphaclitism is morbid, is not fit to survive. But Mr. Coxs statement is untrue. While it may be that Pre- IRaphaelitism 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. Burne-Jones. I only mention AmanJean, AryiRenan, Hawkins, Monod, W. Stott, Picard, Osber~~ 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-iRaphaclites got all their leading principles from Ruskin, Mr. Cox says: This has been disproved again and again. Ruskin 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-RaBhaelitism. Modern Painters first began to ap- pear in 1843. The Pre-Raphaelite movement was started towards the end of the Forties. iRuskins Pre-J?aphaelitisrn appeared in 1851. Mr. Cox never read Hall Caines and W. Sharps memoirs of IRossetti. He is unacquainted with Hohuan Hunts autobiog- raphy. Otherwise he would have seen how Hunt and Hall Caine, speak of the influence of the first volume of Modern Painters upon IRossetti, Millais and Hunt. Neither has he seen Robert de Sixeraunes book, La PeintureAnglaise Moderne. There, too, it is expressly stated that Pench~ sur ce ltvre (namely, Ruskins Modern Painters), Hobman Hunt y puisesit comme une seconde vie. There is no doubt that Pre-Raphaet- itism was written by IRuskin after the movement was well under way. But he wrote it because lie felt obliged to defend a move- ruent which had sprung from his book, Modern Painters. The principle of Pre-IRaphaelitism is that in order to express devotion and noble feeling, the artist must be defective in form. Mr. Cox adds hereto: This nonsense is Nordans 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 THE NORTh AAIERICAN REVIEW. 84 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 yonrself whether this nonsense is Nordaus or Ruskins. No snch principle, says Mr. Cox, was ever announced by the Pre- iRaphaelite 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, Rossettis father gave him the name of the great poet (Dante). Cox observes: His father did nothing of the kind. . . . He adopted the Dante later, and all Nordaus argument of the influence of his name upon his character falls to the ground. iRead the following first strophe of Dante Gabriel Rossettis poem: Dantes Tenebrae. In memory of my father : And didst thou know, indeed, when at the font, Together with thy name thou gavst 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 n& thing? 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 Hunts 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 Hunts 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. Coxs 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. Ruskin 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 Ruskins and show that it cannot possibly be the painters 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 AORTII 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 etno- 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 fr6m 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. Ruskill 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 eniotion of a divining genius. In short, Ruskin wants the artist to have a predetermined opinion; I want him to allow the phenomenon to operate upon him. RuBkin 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 nuconsciously 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. (Joxs connected with this discussion. He says that I make my own that doctrine of absolute fidelity to fact which is the worst feature of Ruskins 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 thonght, perhaps, that . . . paint- ing and sculpture are capable of afaithful 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 withont 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 work, consequently, will no more re- present the phenomenon as it really was, 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- isni and of insufficient intellectual strength. The way in which diametrically opposite symptoms prove the same disease seenis strange to the unscientific mind, says Mr. Cox. So mnch 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 Freje Presse, or in the Berlin Vossisehe Zeitung, is aware of that. But, surely my book on Degenera- tion was not the place to express my views of sound artists. What lie 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 s6lely ), the agreeable 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. 89 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 lie would not have tonched the real nucleus of the work from afar. Whether the Pre-IRaphaelites exhibited alone or in consort with others in 1849, or whether iRossettis name was Dante or not, does not in the least affect the thesis for the proof of which I wrote my book namely, that certain fashion tendencies of art are morbid and that they are rooted in the degenerateness of their inventors. Mr. Coxs 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 t wo statements which have demonstrated themselves as correct. I am said to have used Praegers 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 Wagners 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 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 Wagners 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 Wagners dramatic poetry! Any other reader than Anton Seidl would understand this passage to mean that Wagners salvation- 90 TUE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. stupidity was so palpable that even a lunatic like Nietzsche could not help perceiving it. III. MR. HAzELTIXE 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 8iecle malady differ from mine in three respects. Mr. ilazeltine 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. ilazeltines even in the minutest detail. Objections raised by him demand serious reflection. I have examined Mr. Hazeltines 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 nnheard 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 ones 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 strnck 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 literat~ire 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 Cenct Trimaichionis than in all the two dozen volumes of the Rougon-Iiliacquart combined. The luxuriating of the neo-Platonisin 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 ns that the decay of manners in iRome increased the rate of drunkenness, insanity and impul- sive crimesfor 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 beeome more slovenly, heavy and awkward, but still, antiquity does not furnish us with such poets as Mallarm~, Sar Peladan, Macterhink, 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. Hazeltines 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. ilazeltine is silent. Toistof 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 AMER WAN REVIEW. and often 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 iRome of the decline, the main features; but there were then, as now, in the literary and social life distinct signs of deliriumserotomania, mystico-niania, 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 media~val 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 as 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 De,qenera- lion. 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 Roman 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, naYve 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 reqnire 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 onr 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 [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 ones eyes completely to alcoholism and to over-exer- tion, which are discovered as the aetiology in numerous cases. I have weighed Mr. Hazeltines 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. ILKIDDS SOOJAL EVOLUTION. BY THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. MR. KIDDs 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. lie 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

94 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. ILKIDDS SOOJAL EVOLUTION. BY THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. MR. KIDDs 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. lie 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. Jt 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 te~nd 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 cocene 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 conrse, 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. Kidds 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, howevei, 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. Kidds 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 by 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 tq 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- d.itions 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 industryall 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.~O. 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 snrvive; 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. Kidds 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 iudividuals, 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 progressamong 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. 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 Yery 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 trnth- ful and honest. It might also parenthetically be stated that when be 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. Kidds 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 400 THE NORTH AMERICAN REViEW. there can never be found 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- i~ms 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 gteat 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 differentiatiug 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. Kidds 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 religions 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 mans history by his re- ligions 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 religions 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. Kidds 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 wl~io 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- serMon 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 same time DEGENERATION AND EVOLUTION. 103 with a mans 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. Kidds definitions of supra-natural and ultra- rational sanctions, the definitions upon which he insists ~o 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 hi8 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 creeds truth. Mr. Kidd then defines religion as being a form of belief providing ar~ 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 evolutioii 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 religions 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. Kidds definition of religion. It does not de- fine religion at all as the word is ordinarily used, and while it does apply to certain religions beliefs, it also applies quite as well to certain non-religious beliefs. We must, therefore, recol- lect that throughout Mr. Kidds 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 AMERIC1AN REVIEW. members, whether due to humanitarianism, to altruism, or to some form of religious belief proper, is such that the average in- dividual has an unselfishwhat Mr. Kidd would call an ultra rationaltendency to work for the ultimate benefit of the com~ munitv as a whole. Mr. Kidds 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 tlieti 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 dcfense 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. Kidds 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 typitled 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 flourished 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 religious 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 ilayti 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 RET~IEW. while in yet othex~s 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. Kidds 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 victors 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 o~ the victor, and this means that the victor must strive heart amil soul for success. Mr. Kidds attitude in describing socialism h 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 b~ 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 np 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 moments hesitation. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 111.THE DECAY OF LITERARY TASTE. BY EDMUI{D 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 pleasauter, 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

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 np 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 moments hesitation. THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 111.THE DECAY OF LITERARY TASTE. BY EDMUI{D 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 pleasauter, 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 110 THE NORTH AMERIGAN REVIEW. pleased with every phase of what is going on around us. 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 boetry and 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 th~ 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- emcise 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 Peuzance. Had there been university extension in the days of Elizabeth, and Grindelwald conferences, and popular educational newspapers, and literarys 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. 111 tremely proper, but would there have been an Othello or a 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 appreciationthat 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 Lourde8 of M. Zola. I doubt not that we possess, in England, persons quite as devoid of the power to judge a literary produc.t and quite as ready to oblige the world with their views, as those wonders of ignorant assurance who wrote to the flerald. 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 patrona world of patrons rolled into onethe 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 eonfess 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 manners nothing, that to write with care is an affectations or an artifice, that style may take care of itself, 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 dont 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. 113 guard. It is the poets who save the language from decay, and who keep high the standard of literary exceL]ence. My eminent friend, the Master of the Temple, is forever denouncing the art of modern verse, and discouraging its practice. Oonfec- 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-makingsuch 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 advertisiug columns of our literary papers, would move Alceste himself to mirth and O6lim~ne to blushes. Not a handbook to the classics is compiled but 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.NO. 464. 8 114 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 Blanks foolish little novel a masterpiece, and dis- cover the results of long experience and profound research in Mr. Swishs vamped-up edition of Uornelizts 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 he 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 iRossetti, 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. IRuskin, 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 bidgraphies 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 AMERIGAN REVIEW. to return, with a second book, but that is no part of the publics 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 cur 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 Huxleytheir 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 literaturethe successes of Gibbon and of Macaulay, of Boswells Life of Johnson, and of Ruskins Modern Painters,wonld 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 Authorswith one of the most eminent critics of the age in the chair, and with poets, historians, essayists, divines sitting at the tablesDr. 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. 117 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 Nordan, 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 Arv~de 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 romansf#imirdstes) 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 even 118 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. here, to my mind, Mine. 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 Pens& s 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, lie thee to a nunnery ! and then Nora ilelmer 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 media,val 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 do-

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 media,val 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 do- 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 peoplewithin 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 mediaval 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 Montagus 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 Marys 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 Elizabeths 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 Donnes 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 were 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 Georges 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 PORRITT. 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, allows 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 rail way 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 ilmestones. The valleys have fields of aluvium, 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 is 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 thexe. In Texas the long droughts do not retard the rich mesquitegrass, and $8,000,000 of cattle are exported ann~ually. 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 Milbrook 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. Red 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 asoil strongenough for even red clover. Early vegetables for the Northern market should not he confined to the tidewater about Norfolk and to portions of South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida. Roanoke Island, Thoma~ville, 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 50 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- par~ng 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 sugai will be exported within the next five years. If the canesugar 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 nowan 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 ual ons. 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 ci op; 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 Alabamathe 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 lime. 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 otbers. 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 1800 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 tG reach out its hands and take what nature has so kindly offered. Fnxnsnxc 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 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 126 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 increasect 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 roason 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 greai~ 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 weuld 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 m~tterials of manufacture, and the population are concen- trated together by means of cheap and still cheapening transportation, together with the increasing ou~put 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 transDort 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 devebpment in cheap transportation. Those who live in the rural districts 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 [hod, adversely criticise the fact that national and State roadhuilding 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 o! 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 lsck of devotion to them. The system of State and national roads, as formerly Instituted, was intended to supply the means of through or bugdistance transportation. The highest rate that prevails upon the seam 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 i.oprovement 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 cnrs 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 ramification of their branches is concerned ; but at the very point where the ramification of these roads ceases to bean advantage, the electric road cr.mes 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 n~w 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 ~3O per acre. Observation to confirm this only waits upon experi ment. MARTIN DODGE.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CCCCLXY. AUGUST, 1895. THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. BY W. J. H. TRAYNOR, PRESIDENT 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 our citizens are be- wildered, and the remainder anything but reassured by these kaleidoscopic apparent changes. We have had Cahenslyism, Ultramontaflism 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-catltedrct utterances of its head. EachUltramontane, Cahenslyist, and Liberal alikebelieves 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 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, i59~, by LLOYD BRYCE. All righte 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 claim 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 vo 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 Schraders propo- sition in softened tones. THE MENACE OF ROMANISM. 131 Brownson was less politic, but not one whit more emphatic, when in criticising Montors History of the ]?oinctn Pont ifs 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 churchexpressly ordained of God to teach the truth in faith and morals, and to conduct individuals and nations in the way of holinessin 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, isin 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- tam, 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 Gods vicegereuts, 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 papaichy 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 pur~ued 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 ROMANISAL 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. Pins 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 hot 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 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 Bossnet, a liberal papist, asserted that the prince onght 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 CathoUc 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: 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 Leos 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 unqnestioning 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 papists citizenship the Pope presumes to meddle and to dictate, although apologists for the ~iIE MENACE OF ROMAYISM. p45 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, aud will confine myself to the political features of the papal prop- aganda, after a passing allusion to the labor questiou as laid down in the encyclical I?erurn 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, nnder 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 Long~nquct of January 6 last Nay, rather, unless forced by 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 Belgiuma country nuder a good king and the most liberal governmentwas ham- pered, and its freedom menaced by the clerical element, which, though in the minority, contrived to hold the balance of power, 136 THE NORTFI 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 ground: 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 observesuch 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 under 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, Anstro-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 m~itters 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 ROMANIS3L 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 mnch the nioderation, 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,npon the Spanish throne,the Carlist insurrection occurred; an insurrection which received both the financial assistance and apostolic blessing of Pins 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 Germauy is so largely a matter of well di- gested history that it needs but brief mention here, and I need only quote the Iron Chancellors 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 moments 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,7 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 a~ 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 nnion 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 n~atter of time, and the Republic as established by the signers of the IDec- 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 securingthe 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 homzeopathic 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 tooTh, she adapts herself to Am er- jean conditions here and intrudes herself into all the elements of our public life which contribute to our power. She organizes labor, not for labors 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 constitntion 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 pharmacopceia 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 pretentions, 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 voterthe American Protective As- sociation was organized. It will continue its work nutil 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. II. TRAYNOR. FEMALE CRIMINALS. BY MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFLTHS, HER MAJESTYS 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 useful 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-

FEMALE CRIMINALS. BY MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFLTHS, HER MAJESTYS 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 useful 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 repenle fuit turpissirnu8, is an everlasting truth. The criminal anthropologists have never yet explained how it is that the thiefs nose, which is found to be a turn np, 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 coin- 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~ do Ia jeunes~e; 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 nil- 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- nously 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 ~yorst 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 GRIMINALS. 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 husbands 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 Riel 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 cruel8torture, f 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 mistresss wealth in coin and silver plate; the murder of OConnor by the Mannings originated in the womans cupidity, her thirst for her victims possessions; it was the same with Kate Webster, Jessie MeLachian, 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 Milibank, stabbed a matron without a moments warning, was, no doubt, a homicidal lunatic, but Flossie Fitzherbert was sane enough, and when she assault~d another matron and broke a medicine bottle into her skull she was carried away by momentary but quite uncontrollable f erocity. 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 minds eye the case of a woman whose loathing for a comrade was so intense that she conld 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 instanQed 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 perpetrate~1 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 her 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 bunglers or be- ginners weapon, as its symptoms and the traces it leaves are so easily detected. The typical female poisoner, however, was Anna Zwanziger or Anna Sch~5nlebcn, 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 ns 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 en iy 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 wits 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, whicj~ 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- makers alelier; 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 Lombrosos theory that maternal affection is generally wanting among female offenders; it is directly contradicted by my experi- ence. I have found the childrens 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 nnruly prison, too. Of the gratitude which lies low in the offenders heart, but which can be reached by judicious treatment, I shall quote but one instance. It is that given in Scougals Scenes from a Silent World, an admirable monograph on prison life. A hardened offender, one with sixty-four convictions against herLombroso would have classed her as a born criminalarrived 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 beinggentle, 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 18923 with 18823. 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 Th2 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. been sentenced to penal servitude for terms of three years and upwards, was in 18923 just 245, as against 887 in 18823, a diminution of 72 per cent.; in the local prisons, those for lesser terms and offences, the decrease has been 33 per cent., 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 18923 the largest proportion of female prisoners in custody is still represented by those who have been most often convicted in 18823 this total was 9,316, in 18923 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 18823 were 7,008, now in 18923 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. It 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

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 religions ceremonial was left to destroy, numerous illogical formul~ 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 Jllyria,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 med keval 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 Bulwcr 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. Tame, not quite unjustly, censured the eternal moral purpose of Thackeray. The Newcorne8 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 Aarons 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 Macanlay 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 novelists history is as accurate as Miss Aikins account of the Rising 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 IL forget what1 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 Pardoes works on the French Court, and Mr. Parkmans excellent book on the Jesuits iii Canada, are stock for Dr. Doyles 1?efugees, and I fear that no more of Mr. Parkmans 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 1~I6 THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. so are our novels. All institutions are brewing in a witchs 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 coi~trary 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 thrushs or a sparrows 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; miserarum 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. 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! One of them explains that, while she deeply regrets her impulsive conduct, men have the privilege of expressing passion in voies do 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 blas~es to death, and, like the Sirens in Pontus de Tyard, ennuy~es jusques a desespoir. In a mcent tale, The Maidens 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. ~Ihe 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 IRobbie 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 highwater 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 au thor of this eccentric romance 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 abGut the tendencies of The Heavenly Twins. The Yellow Aster, oii 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 maueuvre, 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. 21finora canamus. I have read a good deal of Dodo, and also the remarks on Dodo, published in an American journal, by T. W. II. 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 miux, and her eternal patter has no wit to recommend it. If Dodo is our low watermark, ~nd 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. 1~9 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 mcd Uev~e. 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. II. to repre- sent English women, nor even a class of English women. Iii England we never dreamed of thinking that IDodo 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 IDodo, 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. II. 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 IDodo 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 Denzi 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 theolo~Y~ 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 The Prisoner of Zenda, that pleasingly incredible scion of German royalty, we have l7ficah Clarke, and The White Company, and Mr. Stevensons 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 ns, 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. A~DREW LAKG. THE SOLUTION OF WAR. BY THE REV. DR. 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 more calm, more practical, more sober logic fkan 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 succeededis 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 versits free- VOL. CLXI.NO. 465. 11

THE SOLUTION OF WAR. BY THE REV. DR. 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 more calm, more practical, more sober logic fkan 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 succeededis 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 versits free- VOL. CLXI.NO. 465. 11 THE NORTLT A 2IfERICAN REVIEW. 162 trade, international copyright, patent or trade-mark law, inter- national cables, canals, tunnels, etc. But as stated by Professor Amos, of Univerftity 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 seventies 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 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 cuable 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 Fields 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 iiot 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 was 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 countrya country once not impotent ia the councils of Europes 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 Russia 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 libertyshall 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 thau when it impedes the natural destiny of Anglo- Saxondomultimate 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. (1~) 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 countrys re- sources. The following figures are significant: cost of army Revenue. Men withdrawn Taxes could and navy, from industrial be reduced. pursuits. France $174,000,000 $670,000,000 500.000 One-quarter. England 180,000,000 488,000,000 360.000 One-thIrd. GermaDy 118,000,000 300,000,000 500.000 One-third. United States 80,000,000 385,818,629 30,000 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 for a 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 burden~i 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 mens 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. (f) War means the brute argument of tooth and claw. What an insult to our intelligence! What an insult to Christianity, the religion professed by earths 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 contingencycan England accept France as arbitrator? Not at all. For France is frate 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? 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 1~HE 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. (6) 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. 1821; Dent. 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. lxi. 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. lx. 8), the hum of industrys 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 is Russian 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. (f) 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. lvi. 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 ns. And the other ideal would be the institution of a worlds 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. 34; 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 opiniou. 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 npon 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 Gods own time (Isa. lx. 22). The colonies, settled and settling there, seem but preparatory for their reception. But once a fail 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 humanitys watchwords at last will be Right and Reason 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. lxvi. 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 heavens (Ps. lxxxv.). O 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. PEREIRA MENDEs. THE YACHT AS A NAVAL AUXILIARY. BY THE HOE. WILLIAM MCADOO, ASSISTA{T SECRETARY OF THE 1~AYY. 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. BY THE HOE. WILLIAM MCADOO, ASSISTA{T SECRETARY OF THE 1~AYY. 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 aijacent waters. The interior waterway communication along our coast line, so well illustrated in the re- cent trip of the torpedo boat Cushing, 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- feet 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- pcwience 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 wuich 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 preseut 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 h~d been fixed at 7,t300. By July, 1863, 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; hut 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, peiis- 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 comrara- 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 considerabl& 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, R. 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; 24, 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 N- 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 AYOID IN CYCLING. BY SIR BENJAMLN WARD RIcHARDSON, M. IX, 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 professional 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 was comparatively simple, I had the ma- chine brought out to an asphalt passage leading to the main road, and str~ightway mounted it. The attendants were prompt in their efforts to prevent my sustaining injury from the venture. But VOL. CLXI.NO. 465. 12

WHAT TO AYOID IN CYCLING. BY SIR BENJAMLN WARD RIcHARDSON, M. IX, 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 professional 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 was comparatively simple, I had the ma- chine brought out to an asphalt passage leading to the main road, and str~ightway 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 NORTEI 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 un~necessarily 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 developmentwhile the skeleton, that is to say, is as yet imperfectly developed. The skeleton is not completely matured until twenty-one years of life have been given to it. The cartilaginous structures have to be transformed into true osseous structures before the body caii 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. Thc 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. iDr. 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. Rowing 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 np 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 donea 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 derelopment, 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 h~ave a picture in my minds 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 thighan 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 Lifes 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 may be nrged 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 fo.rced 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 nudue 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 un- 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 i~oads, with every- thing in favor of the exercise. You have gained your 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 al6ng; 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 6f them within WHAT TO AVOID IN CYCLING. 18~ 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. IDoes 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 ita 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 inj 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. BE~JAMI WARD RIOHARDSO~r. THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. BY wORTHINGTOX C. FORD, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS AT wASHINGTOI~. 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 immigrationsuch 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 stimitlus 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

THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. BY wORTHINGTOX C. FORD, CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF STATISTICS AT wASHINGTOI~. 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 immigrationsuch 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 stimitlus 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 TIlE NORTh AMERI61AN 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 f or- 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 thanthetotal 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 md ustries, 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 goJd has been remarkable. The exports for the twelve months were $66,131,183, and were made in the first seven monthsJuly 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 fuce 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 rnsh 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 article~ 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 , hut 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. 1577. 1595. Barley 1,186,129 bush. 1.556,715 bush. Corn 70,861,000 25,507.753 Oats 2,554,h5 540,975 Rye 2,189,322 8,879 Wheat 40,325,611 75,831,639 Flour 3,343,665 bbi. 14.942,617 bId. 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,S45,716 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 qnantity 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 conntry,the youngest among nations and the youngest industrial power, will repay careful study if her demand for American cotton may be takea 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 o~ily 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 ahout 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 Republic. To THE TURNING OF THE TIDE. 191 Brazil the exports have never been so large, in spite of the abro- gation of the reciprocity agr& ement; 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 marketdue rather to bad times than to the home industries of that colony. American cotton is sold in competition with the cotton of