THE SCRAP BOOK

HOW TO LIVE WELL.

BY GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the estimation of the widow’s mite, that it is not every one that asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy of the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer. Do not conceive that fine clothes make fine men, any more than fine feathers make fine birds. A plain, genteel dress is more admired, and obtains more credit, than lace and embroidery, in the eyes of the judicious and sensible.—From a Letter to His Nephew, Bushrod Washington, 1783.

Lady Ward Discusses Female Suffrage in New Zealand—C. F. Birdseye Shows That the Scope of College Fraternities is Widening—Professor Borgerhoff Points Out Merits of Esperanto—Mormon Elder Says It Costs $1,500 to Save a Soul—President Faunce Believes Public Schools Will Supply Antidote for War—Dr. Louis Elkino Writes of German Methods in Fight for Commercial Supremacy—Bernard Shaw Says Americans Are Children in Business—Queen Margherita on Race Suicide—Charles F. Pidgin Finds Boston a Big Debtor—Lord Roberts Wants Rifle-Shooting Made a National Sport.

HOW FEMALE SUFFRAGE WORKS IN NEW ZEALAND.

What about woman in New Zealand? We are arguing for and against woman suffrage in the United States with almost as much theory and as little practical knowledge of the proposed conditions as was the case thirty years ago. Some of us are positive in the conviction that the right to vote would unsex the sex—would harden motherhood and sisterhood into a sedulous mannishness.

Others believe that womanly intuitions would soften the sheer practicality of politics and induce gentleness where roughness has ruled. And for a dozen years we need only have looked to the Antipodes to learn how woman suffrage might work out in practise.

Lady Ward, wife of the premier of New Zealand, during a recent visit to the United States, said to a representative of the New York Tribune that the women of New Zealand, despite their participation in colonial politics, are very feminine. She added:

Sometimes women do speak at political meetings, but it generally turns out afterward that they are visiting Americans, or perhaps English women. No, we don’t sit on juries, and we don’t run for Parliament. The law would have to be changed before we could do so, but I don’t believe we want to. Perhaps some time in the future it will come to that, but I think it will be a long time.

We did have a mayoress once in a town in the northern part of the colony, but no one seems inclined to repeat the experiment. In fact, we are very busy with our domestic affairs, and are quite content for the present to leave the management of public affairs to the men.

The women of New Zealand place their homes before every other consideration, and their domestic problems are just as serious as those of any other country. Our young women would rather be stenographers than domestic servants, and we have not found any way of getting on without servants.

But don’t imagine that we are not interested in politics and that we don’t vote. There isn’t a woman in New Zealand who doesn’t know every member of Parliament either by sight or by reputation, and there isn’t one who can’t talk intelligently about political questions. Out on the farms and in the villages it is just the same as in the cities, and it makes life very much more interesting.

No matter whom you meet, you will always find one subject of common interest. People here don’t seem to be much interested in politics, and even your men don’t vote, I am told. Isn’t it strange? Perhaps it is because our country is smaller that we take so much more interest in its affairs.

Our elections are most interesting events, and the women do a great deal of electioneering, just as they do in England. But they don’t do much speechmaking, except among themselves. Political afternoon teas are a favorite method of winning over doubtful women voters.

What becomes of the babies when the mothers are out electioneering? Why, I really don’t know. I suppose there is always some kind-hearted woman to take care of them. Perhaps the women take care of one another’s babies. I never heard of any difficulties of that kind.

Do the native women vote? Yes, certainly. Every woman over twenty-one votes. The only qualification is a residence of twelve months in the colony and three months in the electorate where the vote is cast. The native women take just as much interest in politics as the white women, and are thoroughly well posted in everything concerning native affairs. We have an aboriginal population of forty thousand, and they have their own representatives in Parliament.

Women in New Zealand have the more time for politics because they do not carry the burden of charitable work. The charities there are subsidized by the State.

WIDENING SCOPE OF COLLEGE FRATERNITIES.

The American college fraternity has become a farce, educational and social, intellectual and moral, so great that even but few fraternity leaders appreciate it. At more than one college, chapter-houses have done away with the need of dormitories. As colleges have grown larger and more unwieldy, and the members of the faculties have been less frequently in personal touch with their students, the fraternities have in no slight degree taken the place of the old small-college units, alumni now influencing the undergraduates through their fraternities, much as the professors used to.

Writing in the Outlook, Clarence F. Birdseye points out that our college fraternities are to-day great educational influences:

The pick of our alumni in wealth and influence are fraternity men. If a tithe of this power can be turned back into the lives of the undergraduates to supplement the efforts of the faculties, we can do much to restore individualism.

Neither college nor fraternity conditions are at present ideal. They are often bad, and there is real foundation for all complaints. Unless promptly checked, the evils will grow far worse and more difficult to root out. This question must be studied by its friends, and the reform must come from the fraternity alumni; for the fraternities can be awakened and developed, but not driven, nor driven out.

Like every other historical, educational, or social question, this must be studied carefully and with open minds by many alumni and from different standpoints, so as to cover widely divergent conditions in institutions that may be universities or colleges, rich or poor, large or small, old and conservative or recent and radical, public or private, at the North, South, East, or West, and therefore governed by widely different religious, social, educational, and political influences.

Wide Distribution of Chapters.

The wide distribution of its various chapters adds greatly to the perspective and corrective power of every fraternity, and makes it an ideal instrument for wisely investigating and righting undergraduate conditions at the same time in widely scattered institutions.

The true fraternity alumnus can mold the lives and motives of his younger brothers. In most colleges the fraternities are so strong that if we can change the atmosphere of the fraternity houses, which for four years are the undergraduates’ homes, we can change the whole undergraduate situation.

The fraternity alumni have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars for housing and otherwise helping the undergraduates. Every fraternity has many loyal and devoted graduates who willingly give time or money or both to the true interests of their younger brothers, and whose word is law to them.

The character of the influence of each chapter depends largely on the local alumni, strengthened, guided, and impelled by a strong central organization. Why not apply modern business principles and systematic organization to this all-important problem?

Atmosphere of Chapter-House.

We have one thousand seven hundred fraternity chapters in three hundred and sixty-three of our institutions of higher learning as foci from which the good influences might constantly and powerfully radiate. There has been too much tendency to make the fraternity the end and not the means.

The alumni have not realized that the atmosphere of the chapter-house determines the character of the chapter’s influence on its individual members, and that the ultimate responsibility for this atmosphere is on the alumni. If we would make this atmosphere permanently good, we must appreciate that the alumni are the permanent and the undergraduates the transient body—completely changing every three years; and the seniors, the governing body, every year.

We, as the permanent body, have no right to furnish our undergraduates with fine and exclusive homes, and then shirk responsibility for the future conduct and influence of those homes.

The proper government of a chapter is a strict one, with the power in the hands of the upper classmen, especially the seniors, who are in turn held strictly accountable to alumni who are in constant touch with the situation and personally acquainted with every undergraduate and his work and needs.

Where such conditions are continuous, the chapter’s success is assured, and the effect on the undergraduates is highly beneficial. The fraternities, through strong central organizations, must make these conditions prevalent and continuous in every chapter. This has long been the theory, but the practise has been poor.

Correction of Waste.

The fraternities, with their numerous chapters in different institutions, have the best possible opportunities for the investigation and correction of the wastes and for the enforcement of economies in college life.

No one can measure the waste and lack of economy, to the college, the fraternity, the community, the family, or the individual, of a failure in college life, from whatever cause it comes.

It is criminal that we have not studied these wastes in our colleges as we have in our factories, railroads, and other great industries, and that we have allowed the pendulum to swing so far to the other side, and have not long ago returned it to its mean, and found educational influences to replace the small units of the earlier colleges.

Mr. Birdseye maintains, in conclusion, that it is for the fraternities to devote their wealth and influence to improve undergraduate conditions, incite their men to the best work, and prevent the wastes which result from a failure in college lives.

THE LATEST IDEA OF A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE.

In the preface to his famous dictionary Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote: “Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.” If that be true, it is not strange that man should so constantly seek to improve the instrument. We have the selective process by which worn-out words and idioms are dropped into the limbo of archaism and new coinages come into use. Then we have the attempts to supply new languages, ready-made. There was Volapük; and now comes Esperanto.

Professor J. L. Borgerhoff, of the Western Reserve University, sets forth in the Atlanta Constitution the claims of Esperanto as a world-language. After brief reference to former candidate languages, he says:

The latest attempt, and the one which bids fair to be final, is Esperanto, so called by its author, Dr. Zamenhof, a Russian physician, who under this pseudonym published scientific articles before he became famous as the inventor of an artificial language.

Zamenhof, like his predecessors in the same field, was struck by the useless wealth of idioms that divide the inhabitants of the earth and make international relations so difficult, while at the same time they are a prolific source of misunderstanding and enmity among the nations.

He was also convinced that the reason why the existing universal languages had failed in their purpose was that they were too difficult—almost as difficult as the natural ones. The cause of their difficulty lay in the grammar, which was too intricate, and in the vocabulary, which was far too varied. He forthwith composed a grammar which was simplicity itself; this he did by setting aside all rules not strictly needed for the construction of a logical sentence and by eliminating all exceptions. The few remaining grammatical principles may be learned in half an hour.

His next concern was the vocabulary. What makes the acquisition of a foreign vocabulary so hard to students is the variety of roots, the great number of different words. To take an instance from English, to express the various ideas suggested by the one conception of death, we have: dead, to die, deadly, and deathly, mortal, to kill, to murder, to assassinate, to suicide, to commit homicide, etc. What a cumbersome luxury of roots, and how discouraging to the foreigner who wishes to learn this language!

Number of Roots Reduced.

And yet English is one of the easiest of all European tongues. How to reduce this number of roots was the great problem before Zamenhof. He therefore took one out of a number, and by means of a system of suffixes and prefixes he made this one root do duty for all the others.

In this manner the Esperanto dictionary contains only about two thousand roots, yet they are sufficient to form, by means of derivation, a vocabulary large enough for all purposes.

But what makes matters simpler still, he chose his two thousand roots in such a manner that they appear familiar to all educated persons of European civilization, by selecting first those terms which are already in universal usage, like sport, toilet, train; then by taking words common to two or three leading languages, and finally by adding to these a small number of roots not international, but picked out judiciously from various idioms, so that any one, be he Slav, Teuton, or Latin, finds that Esperanto has a familiar appearance.

The suffixes number about thirty and the prefixes half a dozen; they have well defined meanings, and once they are known any person provided with a list of the simple roots can compose his own vocabulary almost ad libitum, so that the finest shades of meaning may be expressed to a nicety.

I should say that the most remarkable feature about Esperanto, and one which no natural idiom possesses to such a degree, is this power of forming new words once the key-word is given, and it should be remembered that in the majority of instances this key-word is already known.

Simplicity a Striking Feature.

The second striking feature is the simplicity and regularity of the whole grammatical scheme; thus are placed within easy reach two essential parts of a language—the vocabulary, and the very simple device whereby this vocabulary may be made to express all ideas clearly.

To take again the word “death” as an example: the key-word is “mort” (which we have in the English mortal). Remembering that in Esperanto all nouns end in “o,” all adjectives in “a,” adverbs in “e,” infinitives in “i”; that contraries are formed by prefixing “mal”; that the prefix “sen” means without; that the suffix “ant” marks the agent (corresponding to the English “ing”), and that the suffix “ig” means to cause, we get from the above root: morto, death; morta, mortal; morti, to die; morte, mortally; mortano, the dying man; mortanta, dying; mortigi, to cause death, or kill; mortigo, murder; mortiganto, murderer; mortiga, death-dealing; malmorta, living; senmorta, Immortal; senmorto, immortality, etc.

The conjugation of verbs, which is the great stumbling-block in the study of all natural languages, presents no difficulty whatever in Esperanto. In the first place, there are no irregular verbs; secondly, there is only one ending for each tense; thirdly, the number of tenses is reduced to a strict minimum, mainly past, present, future, and conditionally.

The infinitive of all verbs ends in “t”; the present always in “as”; the past always in “is”; the conditional always in “us”; these endings are the same in the singular and the plural.

To sum up, Esperanto is the easiest of all languages; all that is needed to read and write it is a familiarity with the few grammatical principles, most of which have been explained above, a knowledge of the thirty-odd suffixes and the half-dozen prefixes alluded to, and a dictionary giving the two thousand roots, many of which most of us know already.

Any one with the merest smattering of Latin and German and a knowledge of English can write a letter in Esperanto practically from the start; in fact, a person with a knack for languages can do so without this previous knowledge if provided with a dictionary.

As for speaking it, that is, of course, a matter of practise. It is easy enough, yet practise for a couple of months is indispensable to become fluent. Those interested should form a club and meet for the purpose of conversing. The pronunciation is as easy as the rest of the language.

Is this artificial language to come into real use? Professor Borgerhoff shows us that it is at least spreading rapidly. In June, 1905, there was only a handful of Esperantists in America. One year later there were fifty clubs, mostly in colleges. Paris offers about twenty free public courses. All over Europe the language has hundreds of thousands of adherents. Three thousand Esperantists, representing fifteen different countries, attended the congress at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in August, 1905.

THE CASH COST OF CONVERTING A SOUL.

The Mormons appear to spend more money to secure a single convert than any other sect. Elder Ellsworth, of the Chicago Mormon Mission, told the Chicago Inter-Ocean that his church expended probably fifteen hundred dollars for each convert. The statement came out in connection with the Inter-Ocean’s inquiry into the cash cost of saving souls in Chicago. The Mormon figures were highest; the figures of the Volunteers of America—five dollars a convert—were lowest. It is patent that the average cost of conversion is much higher to-day than it used to be.

The Rev. George Soltau, a well-known evangelist, at work in Chicago, said to the Inter-Ocean’s representative:

Twenty-two years ago the cost of soul-saving was infinitesimal. A picture of heaven, a few passages from the Scripture, a prayer, and a request were sufficient—a few cents, in fact, and our task was accomplished. To-day people have no leisure. They have no time to listen to what preachers have to say. They read cheap literature, which, as a rule, is antagonistic to evangelization.

Present Facts in a Commercial Way.

Religious phraseology doesn’t work. We have to present our facts in a commercial way. We don’t relish it, but we have to move with the times. We content ourselves with the fact that, after all, true religion is transacting business with God and with heaven.

General education has made it much more difficult to convert the people and to conduct a campaign of evangelization. The people are provided with so many methods of occupying their time and thought that there is no longer any possibility of getting individuals to come to a church to fill in a spare hour as they used to do so readily.

This fact has been demonstrated to me again and again, and forced home when I find myself in places where I used to hold meetings with five or six hundred people in attendance and where now I find difficulty in getting together an audience of twenty or thirty people.

A minister of to-day is also familiar with the fact that the Bible no longer occupies the place of authority in the minds of the people that it used to. And when a preacher has to prove the truth of his only authority it is a bad tendency on the part of the people.

It is the same as if a lawyer, when he appeared in court to plead his case, were obliged to prove the truth of the Constitution, which is the fundamental law. On the other hand, the evangelist himself hasn’t the slightest doubt of the authority of his message, while he knows his hearers have.

Education and Evangelism.

Asked whether, in his opinion, the education which had proved detrimental to evangelism was a bad thing for the people themselves, Mr. Soltau replied:

It is both good and bad. It is good in that it develops the minds and gives the people something to think about, and it is bad in that it diminishes their fear and reverence for the Scriptures.

Culture has undermined faith largely. It has destroyed the foundations on which faith used to rest; not that the foundations are one whit injured, but the building of character has been shifted to other foundations, namely, those of human opinion, research, discovery, and creed untested by what was supposed to be divine revelation.

Modern thought has infected universally the people with doubt upon all that was supposed to be established fact. And it has given nothing in its place except speculation and private opinion, so that every man is practically his own God to do and think as he chooses.

The production of literature—scientific, historical, and fictional—is so enormous as to demand the spare time of every one to read it. The pulpit and the pew, the magazine reader and the newspaper reader, have been infected with the German rationalism and philosophy, which has dared to assert itself as of higher authority than the Scriptures.

Authority has been destroyed, there is no court of appeal above human reason. That being so, there is nothing to correct human reason and bring it back to its old bearings. We have to evangelize people who have little or no substratum of Bible knowledge, and have no cultivated faith in any one but themselves.

The enormous wealth and rapid development of the material resources of the country have opened up innumerable outlets for the energies of mind and body, and the possibilities of getting rich have absorbed every one almost, so that the dollar has first and last place in the people’s minds. It is almost impossible to dislodge it. The altered conditions of civilization have destroyed simplicity of living and of thinking, hence there is no room or time for spiritual things.

The Average Churchgoer.

The low level of spirituality attained by the average church member disgusts the man of the world, who sees no distinct advantage in religion beyond possibly a social one. The average Christian thinks only of his personal safety and has no concern for his neighbor. His is mainly a selfish religion, and such poor samples are abroad of what God is supposed to do that the successful business man, who knows how he feels about results, discounts such enormously, and looks upon the whole thing as beneath his notice.

Democracy has produced lawlessness enormously. It begins in the family, where parental control is at a big discount. The grown boy gets his way at any cost to others’ business.

He has learned to ignore law and authority from the beginning. The laws of the community are evaded, then the laws of the State, then of the Federal government. He believes he is a law unto himself. There is no law of God to need his attention. There is no God to trouble about. The book of God is never read. The day of God is utterly ignored. The future life does not concern him, so he needs no Gospel, no mission, no Saviour, no prayer, and the whole thing is gone.

The dollar values everything. How much happiness, how much pleasure, how much for himself.

Mr. Soltau, however, does not think that the Bible has lost its power. None of the modern intellectual and worldly developments satisfy the secret cravings of the soul.

EDUCATION PRESCRIBED AS ANTIDOTE FOR WAR.

Since the majority of evils spring from ignorance, education is the surest safeguard of virtue. It is a strong perversity that continues against a real understanding of the truth.

If war is an evil—moral, economic—as both economists and moralists generally admit, the hope of universal peace rests upon education. For that reason the suggestions made by President H. P. Faunce, of Brown University, in a speech at New Haven, carry the greater weight. He said:

No great movement is permanent until placed on an educational basis. Whatever enters the public mind through the schools enters as sunshine and rain into the fiber of the oak. A world-wide movement is now in progress, having as its object not the reformation of human nature, not the disbanding of all armies and navies, but simply the establishment of a better means than war for the settling of the disputes that must occur as long as the nations endure.

Already great results have been accomplished. Arbitration has been substituted for war in the majority of the cases. War is now the exception, not the rule, in case of international quarrel. It is not true that “in time of peace we must prepare for war,” but rather that in time of peace, we must prepare to make war impossible.

There is a growing appreciation throughout the world of the irrationality and futility of war. We have come to realize that the simultaneous discharge of pistols at fifty paces is no more likely to establish justice than the tossing of pennies or the throwing of the dice.

When the duelist became absurd, dueling was dead. The time is surely coming when the international duel will seem, in the face of international opinion, an utterly stupid way of settling differences.

What can we do in the public schools? We can inculcate the broad principle that rational men, when they differ, should appeal to reason and not to force. Already our schoolboys do this in athletics. They are accustomed to accept the decisions of umpires and referees without whining or complaint. The athletic field is a direct training for arbitration on a large scale.

We can teach in our schools that peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. We are learning to exalt a new type of heroism—the heroism of the social settlement of the city missionary, of the men and women who are devoting their lives to the uplifting of social conditions in the heart of our great cities. This newer heroism must be taught in our public schools.

We can inculcate the brotherhood of man in every class in our schools, and in every study that is taught. We can show that racial antagonisms are baseless and brutal. Each of the various races makes its own contribution to modern civilization. The last address of John Hay was an appeal for this point of view; for earnest endeavor on the part of all men and women in responsible positions to inculcate the method of arbitration as a substitute for the utilities of war.

GERMANY’S FIGHT FOR COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY.

If the rise of the United States to a position of first importance has been the great phenomenon of the last decade, the tremendous strides made by Germany in commerce and industry should be placed only second in importance. The reasons in the one case cannot be the reasons in the second; whence the value of a descriptive analysis of the German advance, such as the article by Dr. Louis Elkino, which appeared in a recent number of the Fortnightly Review. He writes:

If I were asked to say what has contributed most to Germany’s progress, I should unhesitatingly mention the development of patriotism in its best sense in the individual, and, though this historic fact cannot be proved by the usual methods of the statisticians, we know beyond doubt that the nation has come to work together as a firm and united organization.

His conclusions on the importance of education were:

There can no longer be any doubt that Germany’s industrial advance is mainly due to the extent and thoroughness with which technical education is being conducted. Briefly stated, the secret of the pronounced success of the technical colleges in the Fatherland lies in the fact that they have kept pace with the ever-increasing scope of all branches of science in general, and, to the same extent, with the ever-increasing demands of the present-day industrial enterprises upon scientific investigation and research.

And, in addition, the number of subjects and sciences taught is constantly being added to, while, on the other hand, the harmonious blending of the practical with the theoretical has greatly furthered the development of the scientific spirit in all its essential details.

Another important cause is the great pains taken to master foreign languages.

German firms are competing strongly with British firms in markets which, at one time, were almost entirely in the hands of British merchants, and this is not surprising, for the British representative, as a rule, has little or no knowledge of the language of the country in which he travels for orders, while the German is able to speak it fluently. It is extraordinary that British firms should continue to send abroad representatives who can speak no other language but their own.

Efficiency of method is not the least of the main contributory factors.

It is thoroughness which, perhaps more than anything else, Germans have to thank for their present happy state of abounding prosperity. It has enabled Germany to overcome one crisis after another in commerce and finance, inasmuch as it helps to the discovery of where the weakness lies. Economists teach that small concerns cannot exist side by side with large ones when they are in competition, but this is disproved in the world of German enterprise. The small firms flourish almost equally with the large ones; like the great trusts, they are able, when they wish, to sell cheaply in foreign markets. Both employ the same methods. This partly explains how it is that, though there has been a concentration of wealth and of enterprise into the hands of a limited number of people, a vast amount of money has been distributed more or less evenly into the hands of the population of the country as a whole.

“AMERICANS PERFECT CHILDREN IN BUSINESS.”

George Bernard Shaw is never afraid to express an opinion on any subject, and apparently he is never at a loss for the opinion. The other day he expressed his views on business, saying:

The most striking peculiarity about business men is that I have never met one who understands the slightest thing about business.

Business men have certain set, conventional methods. Propose to them a way of doing business that departs from their usual method, and although the new way may mean more profit, they will not accept it unless forced to, and even then they believe they are being swindled.

My own way of doing business is perhaps novel, but it is neither harsh nor unfair. But it is novel, and therefore the men I deal with object to it, although they themselves are the gainers by doing things my way and not the way in which they are used. Yet they regard me with suspicion. It is very much as if you offered a man five dollars for doing something for which he had previously been in the habit of receiving a dollar, and having him denounce you as a swindler.

Not content with generalities, Mr. Shaw went on to discuss Englishmen and Americans as business men.

In making an agreement with an Englishman, you may be sure of one thing: if it is not entirely to his advantage he will not keep it.

An Englishman, when he wants a house, or money, or anything else, knows that in order to get what he wants he has to sign something. He does not care what he signs as long as he gets what he wants. After he obtains the money or the house, or whatever else he stood in need of, if he finds the agreement he signed disagreeable, he will denounce the man who holds it as a knave or a scoundrel and as one who is trying to take unfair advantage of him.

In my own experience with Englishmen, the terms of my agreements, satisfactory at the time of signing, have afterward proved irksome. They would then come to me and say: “Surely, Mr. Shaw, you cannot expect to hold us to such outrageous terms”; and when I would point to the agreements bearing their signature, they would retort: “Surely, Mr. Shaw, you are a gentleman!”

After all, the Jew is the only man who knows what he is signing, and will keep absolutely to his agreement.

Americans are perfect children In business. They have a stratum of romanticism that prevents them from knowing what business really is. This childish, romantic spirit impels them to be doing things, to cut somebody out, to do something that nobody else has done, or to do a greater thing than anybody else has ever done. Accidents, of course, will happen, and sometimes they make money. But the percentage of failures in America is something terrible. We never hear of these. Every attention is centered on the conspicuous few who have made success.

Shall we apply to Mr. Shaw the words of Horace,

which, being interpreted, is: “I attend to the business of other people, having lost my own?” It were fairer, perhaps, to say that, in his rôle of witty playwright, everybody’s business is Mr. Shaw’s.

QUEEN MARGHERITA ON THE SPHERE OF WOMAN.

The Dowager Queen Margherita of Italy has been expressing her disapproval of “race suicide” with no less frankness than President Roosevelt. Not often is a queen interviewed; less often is a royal interview more than a collection of perfunctory phrases, polite, but insignificant. Yet Queen Margherita has been saying:

A childless family is incomplete. There is a poetry and a pathos about childhood which appeal to every right-hearted woman. Most women, though they may not be able to put this idea into words, feel it. They have the maternal instinct. Hence the remoteness of race suicide.

Women show their intellectuality by rearing healthy and great children, just as much as they do by writing books or painting pictures. The wife who deliberately refuses to bring children into the world must have something wrong with her moral make-up.

I am very pleased to know that there is a movement in the United States in favor of large families, and that President Roosevelt has put himself upon record as favoring them. European women have begun to look for light to their sisters of the United States.

On the subject of woman’s “emancipation” Queen Margherita is equally outspoken:

I am absolutely opposed to any extravagant theories of what is called the emancipation of women. In whatever condition of life a woman may be placed, her first duty is the negative one of not giving up the qualities that distinguish her sex. Above all, she should guard against developing the trait of men. A blending of ancient reserve with modern independence would give us the ideal woman.

BIG BURDEN OF DEBT CARRIED BY BOSTONIANS.

Charles F. Pidgin, chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, has been inquiring into the question of debt. Statistics issued by the Bureau show that at least ten per cent of the residents of Boston are in debt for their food, rent, clothing, furniture, and for funeral and other expenses. These people are thus partly supported by others. Mr. Pidgin says:

Debt has gained such a hold upon the people of to-day that the only sure way to decrease the number of people who owe money, not only for extravagances but for sustenance, seems to be to begin with the children, and devise some scheme by which thrift may be taught in the public schools. The generation which is growing up should be taught to have a horror of indebtedness, and how to earn money, how to save it, and how to spend it wisely.

The effect of intemperance is taught in the public schools. Why should there not be some sort of course of study that will show the effect of indebtedness on a person’s life and character?

The children nowadays do not, as a rule, know the value of money. When they want spending money they go to their parents and ask for it. When it is gone they ask for more. Neither the parents nor the children in most cases know how much money goes in this way, and the youngsters are not called upon to exercise judgment in spending the money.

The little newsboys on the street work hard for their money. They know the value of every cent, and that they must save for a rainy day.

If other children were taught to earn a little, instead of having it always given to them, they would make better citizens and would know how far a dollar should go.

If parents who give their children money when they ask for it would, instead, give them a stated sum each week or month for spending money, and make it an object for them to save it, it would go a long way toward prejudicing them against debt.

I believe in allowances for children, and for wives, too, for that matter. It makes them responsible for a certain sum, and nearly always they will take a certain pride in making it go as far as possible.

Chief Watts, of the Boston police, does not think that debt is a cause of crime. He says:

I never heard of any one stealing to pay their debts, and although being in debt may have an influence on a certain class of criminals—such as shoplifters and embezzlers—I do not think that it has any influence on the general run of crime.

So far as suicide and murders are concerned, I can’t recall a case of suicide where the person had been worrying about debt, neither can I recall a murder that debt had anything to do with.

It’s girls, not debt, that cause murders and suicides—not that I blame the women; I should not want to be understood that way—but love-affairs are generally the cause of police records along those lines. Men seldom get desperate from debt. I believe that the general tendency of every one is to pay his debts if he has half a chance.

It was a Massachusetts sage—Emerson—who wrote:

WANTS RIFLE-SHOOTING MADE NATIONAL SPORT.

Lord Roberts has been pleading for the instruction of all able-bodied citizens of England in rifle-shooting. He says, in the London Express:

The rifle is our national weapon of to-day, but unhappily neither law nor custom enjoins that the manhood of our country should learn its use. Cricket and football are our national pastimes; why should we not make rifle-shooting another?

Rifle-shooting is a sport—a game attractive enough in itself; and every marksman should bear in mind that in learning how to shoot he is fitting himself as a member of a great empire to take up arms for the defense of his country. Rifle-shooting should be at once a national pastime and a patriotic duty.

The reasons for this suggestion are not few. “Bobs” proceeds to make the most of his case, for he goes on to say:

The American authorities, in the recently published rules for the “promotion of rifle practise,” gave it as their opinion that, “in estimating the military efficiency of a soldier, if we consider ten points as a standard of perfection, at least eight of these points are skill in rifle shooting,” and with that opinion I quite agree.

If, then, the scheme which I have been strenuously advocating for some time past is carried to a successful conclusion, we shall be a nation whose manhood will be for practical purposes all efficient soldiers—an efficiency, moreover, that can be obtained without the least interference with industrial or professional pursuits.

But for the whole scheme to be successful, it is desirable that boys, youths, and men should be given a certain amount of military training and instruction in the use of the rifle.

It is, I am aware, urged against my proposals that they are little short of conscription. I have frequently asserted before that I am altogether opposed to conscription as being totally inapplicable to an army the greater part of which must always be serving abroad.

Surely there is all the difference in the world between a nation, every man of which is obliged to serve in the ranks of the regular army and perform while in those ranks all the onerous duties of a regular soldier during times of peace and for small wars, as is the case on the Continent, and a nation which, while maintaining a regular army for foreign service, asks every man to undergo such a training as will fit him to take a useful part in a great national emergency when every true Briton would be, in point of fact, certain to volunteer, and only the shirkers, the unpatriotic, and the disloyal would be content to remain passive.

The people of this country should identify themselves with the army and take an intelligent interest in what the army has to do, and not regard it as something quite outside the national life; and this they would certainly do if military training became universal and rifle shooting a national pursuit.

We need not be afraid that such training and a generally acquired efficiency with the rifle would result in a spirit of militarism that would make us anxious for war. I believe, and would I could persuade haters of militarism to believe, that there is no surer guarantee of peace than to be prepared for war; and if every able-bodied man is prepared to play the part of the strong man armed, his own and his country’s goods will remain at peace.

Those who cry out for greater military efficiency and those who argue that less attention should be given to the things of war are seeking by opposite means the same result—the abolishment for all time of “that mad game the world so loves to play.”

Napoleonic Theory of the Relations of Man’s Stature and Genius—Iconoclasts vs. American Traditions—Time is Ripe for a Substitute for the Saloon—The Cash Value Placed by Law on the Life of a Man—Manual Labor Makes New Converts—Girard a Shining Model for Philanthropists—Advantages Resulting From Wealth’s Marriage Into “the Working Classes”—Does a Stepmother Make a Good Mother?—American Stomachs Are Not Deteriorating—Influence of Hate on the Efficiency of Armies—Early Risers on the Defensive.

RELATIONS OF A MAN’S STATURE AND GENIUS.

What is the height of genius? How do its physical inches correspond with its altitude of mind and soul? These questions are a subject of curious inquiry with the Boston Herald.

Napoleon the Great, a short man, surrounded himself with a staff of short men. He did not care to look like a pygmy among his subordinates. Doubtless vanity contributed to his preference for few inches. He said of General Kléber: “He has all the qualities and defects of a tall man.”

Napoleon would not only have agreed with Lombroso that great men are short men, but he went further than that; he altered the stature of Frederick the great, of Alexander, of Cæsar, to suit himself. He always insisted that they were short men, but the chroniclers of their times tell us otherwise.

The chroniclers of Napoleon’s time seem to have been struck by his own fancy, for they made him as short as they conveniently could. His old friend Bourrienne wrote Napoleon’s height as five feet two inches. Constant put it at five feet one inch. But, after all, these were old French measures.

Captain Maitland’s testimony is more to the point. It was to Captain Maitland that Napoleon surrendered on board the Bellerophon. Maitland measured him and recorded the fallen conqueror’s height as five feet seven inches, English. That, by the way, is half an inch more than the stature of Lord Roberts.

The Test of Figures.

But the Napoleonic theory does not bear the test of figures. Intellectual power in its varied manifestations is not found at its utmost strength in small men only. It takes men as it finds them—tall and short, thin and plump—and it seems to rather like height.

Thackeray was six feet four inches. So was Fielding. Scott, Walt Whitman, and Tennyson were six-footers. Goethe, the elder Dumas, Robert Burns, and Longfellow were five feet ten inches. J. M. Barrie is only five feet five inches, and Kipling only five feet six inches. Edwin A. Abbey has the same height as Barrie; so has Alma-Tadema.

Lord Curzon is six feet one inch, George Westinghouse is over six feet two inches, Andrew Carnegie is five feet four and a half inches, President Roosevelt is five feet nine inches. Mr. Gladstone was five feet nine inches. Sir Henry Irving was an inch taller.

Edmund Burke and Oliver Cromwell were five feet ten and a half inches, which, by the way, is the height of the present Prime Minister of England, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Wellington was half an inch taller than Napoleon.

That trio of great admirals—Nelson, Blake, and Sydney Smith—were a little under five feet six inches. Bismarck was a tall man, but not so tall as George Washington, who was six feet three inches. Sargent, the great painter, is six feet; Carlyle, Darwin, Huxley, and Ruskin were six-footers.

Disraeli and Dickens were five feet nine inches, which is also the stature of Sir William Crookes. Sir Oliver Lodge is six feet three inches, Marconi five feet ten and a half inches.

Emerson, Hans Andersen, Wordsworth, Bunyan, Audubon, Corot, Moltke, Millet, Gounod, Lord Clive, and Lord Brougham were tall men. So were Humboldt and Helmholtz. Lord Kelvin is five feet seven inches, Lord Reay six feet two inches. Conan Doyle is six feet one inch, Anthony Hope three inches shorter. All these figures give the stature of the men in their boots.

King Edward is five feet eight and a half inches, the Kaiser just an inch shorter. The Mikado is five feet six inches, the King of Italy five feet two inches. The Czar’s height is the same as the Kaiser’s. Leopold, King of the Belgians, is six feet five inches.

Americans Taller Than Englishmen.

Peter the Great was six feet eight and a half Inches. Abraham Lincoln was just under six feet two inches, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Burton six feet. Alfred de Musset, Froude, Puvis de Chavannes, Poussin, Lessing. Schiller, Lamartine, and Sterne were tall men. W. S. Gilbert is over six feet.

It would be possible to lengthen this list to the point of tediousness. But the more the subject is examined, the farther away we get from the Napoleonic theory. Nature has a pretty wide range in these matters, and she makes the most of it.

When it comes to averages, figures prepared by the anthropometric committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science indicate that the average stature of the male adults of England is five feet seven inches and seven-eighths, although the professional and commercial classes show “a mean height of from two to three inches above this, and the laboring classes an inch or two below.” The Scotch and Irish are a little taller, and the Welsh a little shorter than the English.

The average for the United States is said to be taller than the English—a fact which implies neither genius nor the lack of it.

AMERICAN TRADITIONS AND THE ICONOCLASTS.

Iconoclasts have been busy with American history for a good many years. They have cut the props from under more than one valued tradition. In the interest of literal fact they have destroyed much that is imaginatively valuable. Too often the one can be gained only by loss of the other, and it is not easy to decide which vantages most. At least there is some ground for nourishing tradition.

H. J. Haskell praised the “researchers” in a recent article in the Independent. The Chicago Inter-Ocean makes reply, saying:

Mr. Haskell cites as a correction of “important errors in the viewpoint” “the proof that the Revolution was not the result of conscious tyranny and oppression on the part of the British Government.”

Well, who now cares whether it was or was not? What difference does it make either way in the relations of the American and British peoples and their governments? Those relations are determined by present interests and future hopes.

We know our forefathers were right, and we do not care whether their opponents were right from their own viewpoint or not. Englishmen who count know that their forefathers blundered egregiously, and do not care whether they were conscientious or not in their folly.

It may be true—it probably is—that Weems fabricated outright the cherry-tree story about George Washington. But what difference does that make? The story simply imputed to Washington the boy the known character of Washington the man. It hurt no one, and it has inspired millions of American boys, by setting before them the example of a man whose greatness and goodness none could question, to be true rather than false, even when it was hard to tell the truth.

The “Rehabilitation” of Burr.

A great deal is said about the “rehabilitation” of Aaron Burr. But what is the effect of it all? To show that Burr was not technically a traitor? The courts said so long ago, and, despite personal opinions, the verdict was accepted as the law in practise. In trying doubly to prove Burr no traitor, the rehabilitators have proved him a blackmailing filibusterer—a man who lacked the courage to conquer a State, but sought to steal one—a man whose ambition and effort it was to play the part of

A great deal is also said of the evidence from his own diary of the “hollowness” and the “double dealing” of President Polk in his conduct toward Mexico. What is really proved by this evidence is that James K. Polk was not a cheap opportunist, waiting to be forced to act by situations created by others, but foresaw those situations and was ready to take advantage of them for the expansion of his country and the increase of its power.

To discover that James K. Polk was never taken by surprise, and that all his great political acts were purposed and planned for long in advance, does not degrade him, but exalts his character by proving its conscious strength. It lifts James K. Polk out of the Gladstone class and puts him at least on the borders of the Bismarck class of statesmanship.

Game Not Worth the Candle.

And of what earthly or heavenly importance is it to any human soul to know that the Pilgrims did not actually land in a body on Plymouth Rock on a certain day? Or that the old stone tower at Newport is not what Longfellow suggested, a relic of the Northmen, but merely Governor Arnold’s windmill?

Or that the Spanish settlers in America treated the Indians, on the whole, more humanely than did the English? Or that, if the Americans’ powder had not run out and they had been able to hold Bunker Hill, they would probably have been captured the next day?

With all their labor and kicking up of dust, and the personal notoriety they get by it, the “researchers” whom Mr. Haskell praises have not changed the main and abiding conceptions of our history at all. Their game seems hardly worth the candles consumed at it.

Truth is the first aim of the historian. History has been characterized as a pack of lies, generally agreed to by its makers.

“Anything but history,” said Horace Walpole, “for history must be false.”

The business of the scientific historian is to examine all witnesses, hear all the evidences, and get at the exact facts, even though they make ancient reputations tumble.

And yet we cannot but ask with Wordsworth:

TIME IS RIPE FOR SALOON’S SUBSTITUTE.

San Francisco, after its terrific shake-up, dropped the liquor business temporarily. The man in control foresaw the dangers of alcohol to a homeless community.

After three months saloons were permitted to open. What was the effect? A simultaneous rush for the swinging doors? Not at all. People seemed to have got out of the way of drinking; and this was true in spite of the fact that, during the period of “enforced abstinence,” they could always get liquor from outside the city limits, if they wanted it.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

Liquor drinking is with most people not the gratification of an appetite, but a mere habit. There is no liquor and few wines which taste good. Even the toper who takes his whisky straight washes the taste out of his mouth with water as quickly as he can.

With a comparatively few there is a real craving for liquor, or at least for its stimulating effects, but the vast majority of those who drink in saloons do so merely because in the poverty of their intellects they know no other way of manifesting good fellowship toward friends whom they meet. So the drink habit is formed, which, in some cases, degenerates into dissipation and the drunkard’s craving.

But even the classes which contain most of our hard drinkers seem really to care little for whisky, for they are not resorting to the saloons in any such number as was expected. Some seem to have formed the buttermilk or some similar habit, and have no inclination to return to the saloon—doubtless greatly to the happiness of their wives and the comfort of their children.

Habit, Not Appetite.

Whether this will last we do not know. Probably not. Mankind is gregarious, and the only public roof under which men may gather for the free enjoyment of a pipe and a friendly chat is the roof of the saloon. Therefore they will go to the saloon, and keep going until society tempts them away with something at least equally attractive.

They can go to the Young Men’s Christian Association, but they don’t want to. They will not be allowed to light their pipes, put their feet on the table, lean back in their chairs and blow smoke-rings to the ceiling.

Not even the public libraries do anything to draw men from the saloons. They must be “decorous,” take off their hats, and be silent. They don’t want to. Every public library should have a smoking-room where ordinary conversation is allowed. It will not disturb those who are reading. If it does they can go to other rooms.

The fact that it is habit and not appetite that is to be dealt with is the psychological basis of the so-called Gothenberg plan. On that plan all the saloons of a city are conducted by a corporation, whose members receive as dividends only a fixed, moderate interest on the investment, all profits above that going, in some form, to the public. There is no “bar.”

The Gothenberg Plan.

Customers sit at a table and their liquor is served to them. All saloons must keep “soft drinks” and give them at least as much prominence as is given to strong drinks. Under no circumstances is any attendant to have any interest in the sales of liquor, although in some cases he is allowed a commission on soft drinks and other refreshments.

No one is permitted to get intoxicated on the premises. There is no attempt to compel men to abstain. There is a continual temptation to do so. The army canteen was based on this theory, and was a most useful institution until some misguided women abolished it and drove the soldiers to debauchery. Nothing else was to be expected, or was expected, by the experienced.

The experience of this city proves that the drink habit is not difficult to overcome—not, however, by coercion, but by temptation. And men cannot be tempted to any extent by any efforts which have the missionary or altruistic flavor. Men wish to assemble in public places where there is entire freedom as to dress and appearance, and where there is no danger that anybody will solicit them to become better men. They are not only willing, but desire, to spend something for the “good of the house” and their own entertainment.

If society will provide them with such a place a good many will go there in preference to a saloon. If, at the same time, all saloons are abolished, they will speedily content themselves with such substitutes as we have suggested.

All of which would seem to support the theory that the saloon is “the poor man’s club.”

HOW LAW APPRAISES THE LIFE OF A MAN.

What is the value of a man? What is his average physical value, measured in dollars and cents? We hear it said that in partly civilized countries human life is cheap. We are told that the great movements typified by the American and French revolutions have raised the value of the individual. Can we get these comparisons into an arithmetical table?

Summarizing the statements of another journal, the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat says:

After looking over legal decisions in the various States, Bench and Bar, a publication devoted to affairs of the law, estimates that at ten years of age a boy of the laboring class is worth two thousand and sixty-one dollars and forty-two cents; at fifteen, four thousand two hundred and sixty-three dollars and forty-six cents; at twenty-five, five thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars and three cents; from which time the decline is steady, a man of seventy, by this legal decision scale, rating at only seventeen dollars and thirteen cents.

By the same practical method of computation, one eye is worth five thousand dollars; one leg, fifteen thousand dollars; two legs, twenty-five thousand dollars; one arm, ten thousand dollars; one hand, six thousand dollars; one finger, one thousand five hundred dollars; and permanent disability, twenty-five thousand dollars. This is merely an average as far as decisions have been examined.

One of the candidates on the Democratic State ticket, who was crippled for life while an employee on a Missouri railroad, fought his case through the courts for nearly ten years, gained it several times, but finally received nothing. So practise varies as well as theory.

The estimates of the value of a man’s life are based upon an idea not of his value to himself, but of his value to others. The figures in individual cases would vary greatly with reference to whether or not the person’s death caused hardship to others who had been dependent on him. The value of a man to himself is unimportant after he is dead. His value to society at large cannot be considered in a cash estimate, since that kind of value often depends upon other than physical resources. His value to those who look to him for support can alone be estimated on the material side.

DOES HATE INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF ARMIES?

E. T. Jane, the English naval critic, says the reason the Japanese defeated the Russians was that the Japanese hated the Russians and longed to kill them, whereas the Russian soldiers felt no consuming hatred against their ant-like enemies. The Columbia (South Carolina) State takes issue with the theory, as follows:

Mr. Jane is wrong, both as to his facts and as to his theory. First as to his facts:

The Japanese did not hate the Russians. They fought with tremendous fury at times, but it was a calculated fury, never a whirlwind of blind passion. Never for a single moment in the long struggle did they show such fury as to lose sight of the essential principle of modern warfare, complete self-protection. Nor did they show any passion on the field of battle, such as slaughtering wounded men, or mutilating the dead; yet the Russians were guilty of both atrocities.

When Russian prisoners were taken to Japan they were treated with so much consideration and kindness that they were happier than they had been within their own lines in Manchuria. Witness, again, the magnanimous and truly magnificent treatment accorded Stoessel and his garrison and Rojestvensky and his captured officers and men.

The Bravest Are the Tenderest.

Not from the beginning to the close of the war did the Japanese exhibit any hatred of the Russians. They fought like knights, like bushi—

And considering Mr. Jane’s theory, that hate makes a good fighter, it is as false to-day as it was in the heyday of chivalry. The poet is right in his view that “the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring.”

The old British idea, inherited from the teachings of Nelson and his half-corsair predecessors, that an Englishman “should hate a Frenchman like the devil,” is a sentiment that could well have had its origin in the place to which Nelson went for his sprightly imagery.

The best fighters of the world to-day are the men who can remain cool, unperturbed, unblinded by passion in the midst of battle. This is necessary in order that they may see straight and shoot straight; it is necessary in order that they may be able to protect themselves from the shot and shell of the enemy.

Contrary to the Scientific Theory.

It is conceivable that a warrior of the olden time might have been a bit more effective when rushing furious with hate into the ranks of his foe and laying about him with short-sword, or falchion, or claymore; although even in such case the cool-headed warrior was generally able to meet and overcome the raging brute. To maintain that hate makes a good soldier is to challenge the scientific theory of warfare.

Hate has never made a man more efficient in any good cause, and in very few bad ones. Browning says of Dante that he “loved well because he hated,” but Dante “hated wickedness that hinders loving.” No mere hate adds anything to a man’s efficiency. It saps his real strength by misdirecting it and spending it on the air in blind fury; it poisons and corrodes the heart and mind.

Chaucer says that “hate is old wrath”; it is, therefore, a demoralizing and debasing passion, weakening alike to body and the mind. The recklessness it inspires on the battle-field or in the daily struggles of life is ineffective against the coolness, deliberateness, and resourcefulness of the passionless fighter.

EARLY RISERS PUT ON THE DEFENSIVE.

The delightful Elia, who is the closest personal friend one may find in all literature, exposed certain fallacies once and for all to the satisfaction of those who are whimsically inclined. However, since not all minds have the whimsical turn, the fallacies continue to bob up from time to time with a vitality that is suspiciously Antæan.

Consider the proverb: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Any schoolboy will tell you that this is not so; and yet the fallacious statement persists—parents still preach it; aged money-makers explain their success by it.

Says the Philadelphia Public Ledger:

The very early riser is usually an opinionated individual, and it is likely that his habit of early rising is his only claim to distinction. More poetry has been written about eventide than the dawn. This is quite conclusive, for poets are sensible folk and not much given to the folly of early rising.

Some good literary work has been done in the early hours, but this is exceptional. Sir Walter Scott, it is said, wrote the most of his romances before breakfast; but a multitude of authors have produced immortal works by the light of the midnight oil without smelling of it.

Wilson Denounced Them.

Early risers descant rapturously upon the delicious freshness of the morning air and other delights which it is reported can be enjoyed about sunrise, against which may be offset the loveliness of the dying day, the deepening shadows of the twilight, and the charm of moonlight. The glories of the dawn rest in rumor only to the most of us, and must be taken on faith. The suffrages of the majority are for the sunset, and the majority rules in the Republic.

John Wesley wrote an excellent sermon on early rising. Doddridge took pride in the fact that he was at work at five in the morning; but the famous Doctor Wilson (Christopher North) scouted the whole brood of sunrise workers in a lengthy essay, which is the comfort and solace of all lazy and normal people.

Wilson refused to take it for granted that early rising is a virtuous habit, or that early risers are a particularly meritorious set.

“I object to both clauses of the bill,” says the courageous dissenter. “Early risers are generally milksop spoonies, ninnies with broad, unmeaning faces and groset eyes, cheeks odiously rosy, and with great calves to their legs.”

One of Primitive Man’s Habits.

This indictment was written in Scotland. Matters may not be quite so disgraceful here. Wilson questioned the motives of his fellow countrymen who sally forth at an impossibly early hour, and suggested that their ambition is merely to get an omnivorous appetite for breakfast.

“Let no knavish prig purse up his mouth and erect his head when he meets an acquaintance who goes to bed and rises at a gentlemanly hour.”

The lower orders of creation go to bed and rise with the sun. Primitive man probably had this vicious habit. Civilization has gradually reduced the ranks of early risers to the healthy and vigorous persons who purvey ice and milk with much clatter when they ought to be abed. The length of human life is increasing, and this is due to late rising. There can be no doubt about it. The sun rises hereabouts at this season [July] at 4:30 A.M., and few there be who have the nerve to witness the phenomenon.

MANUAL LABOR IS MAKING NEW CONVERTS.

Men of standing are more willing to work with their hands than they used to be. The new love for outdoor life may be in part responsible; as also the growing interest in art-craft, and a steady reaction against the “machine-made.” In any event manual work has been acquiring new dignity.

The Saint Paul Dispatch says that until within a few years we were so bent on emphasizing the intellectual that the manual had no honor.

To a certain appreciable extent this is changing. Men are interested to-day in seeing how much they can do for themselves. It is not alone that the art-craft movement has been inaugurated. We speak of a very much more intimate and amateurish thing than that.

It is that men are resuming the ax and hammer for the little common duties. They are making things for the house instead of calling in the casual carpenter. Younger men still in school are employing their vacation with carpenter work.

It is no longer quite so respectable to spend a college long-vacation canvassing for books. It is now entirely respectable to offer one’s services to a carpenter and be employed in some concrete service which shall at the summer’s end have a visible aspect.

This is a genuine triumph, and will work toward the accomplishment of that balancing of functions which has been much disturbed of late.

Now that men have reformed, we wonder if a similar development can be expected of women. There has been the drift in woman work away from the work of the hand to that of the mind.

School teaching has been a pervading ambition, and housework has been an evil from which only the most skilled failed of escape. In essence, one is no less worthy an employment than the other; each has certain philanthropic aspects which should appeal equally to women. But one has been exalted and the other debased because of the manual work, the esteem of the work of the hands.

There is a slightly detectable drift back toward manual labor, although much less apparent than in men’s work. But at least there has been discovered a science of household economics, and concrete exemplification of this science may secure recognition.

It will probably be long before women of colleges during the summer vacations may with impunity, social impunity, go into the hotels or the private kitchens, to work, as college men are going into the carpenter shop.

Why there should be this invidious distinction we do not know, since, so far as we can judge, it is quite as noble to feed mankind as to provide shelter. But the evolution will be worth watching and assisting.

A SHINING MODEL FOR PHILANTHROPISTS.

The death of Russell Sage and the problem of the distribution of his millions were the subject of much comment, some of which led naturally to editorial reminiscence. The Saint Louis Globe-Democrat reverts to the case of Stephen Girard, who, proportionately to the amount of his possessions, was probably his country’s greatest benefactor in the way of public bequests.

When Stephen Girard died in Philadelphia, in 1831, he was easily the richest man in the United States, the estate he disposed of amounting to seven million dollars. By will, he gave one hundred and forty thousand dollars to relatives (he was a childless widower), a number of bequests to employees, ninety-six thousand dollars to organized charities, three hundred thousand dollars to the State of Pennsylvania for internal improvements, and certain property in Louisiana to the city of New Orleans for public improvements.

The residue, amounting to over six million dollars, was bestowed on the city of Philadelphia, chiefly for the erection and maintenance of a college to accommodate not fewer than three hundred white male orphans, and the courts have construed a fatherless boy to be an orphan.

Put City in Charge of Work.

Mr. Girard put the city in charge of this work, and since 1869 it has been managed by a board of trustees appointed by the courts. Under its care the value of the Girard estate has increased to thirty-two million five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, three-fourths of which is productive real estate, with the remainder in choice cash assets.

Girard College, with its seventeen buildings, occupies forty acres. Its pupils at present number one thousand four hundred and eighty-three, and up to the present time it has fed, clothed, and educated seven thousand seven hundred boys, fitting them to step at once into active pursuits. This work will go on through the centuries with increasing resources.

Girard had a striking version of what wealth is for. He was a natural money-maker from his first commercial venture. He enjoyed the shaping of business and making it pay. He was no easy mark, but, giving others their due, exacted his own. His public spirit was highly developed, an inborn trait.

As a banker in the period of the second war with England, Girard personally saved the credit of the national credit more than once. He served Philadelphia many years in various official capacities, including that of councilman. Large internal improvements appealed to him strongly, and he was among the foremost in advocating and subscribing to them.

Set No Value on Wealth.

Girard set no value upon wealth, except as a means to accomplish worthy ends, and these were more to him than his money, or even his life.

In the year 1793, when Philadelphia lost a sixth of its population by yellow fever, and most of its citizens had fled, Girard personally took the inside management of a pest-house, ignoring all other business for two months. In one hundred days of that autumn the burials in the city exceeded four thousand.

At forty years of age Girard had only a competence, and wrote to a friend: “I do not value fortune. The love of labor is my highest ambition. I observe with pleasure that you have a numerous family and that you are in possession of an honest fortune. This is all a wise man has a right to wish for.”

Yet in the next forty years, largely through the fluctuations of values caused by war, he honestly and usefully accumulated seven million dollars, and devoted it to an everlasting mission of beneficence to his fellow men. He wrote that “Labor is the price of life, its happiness, its everything. To rest is to rust.”

Long-Headed In His Views.

He was long-headed in his views. More than a century ago his advice for a large city was: “Build high, as there is only one ground rent.” He would have none but solid construction.

A farm near the city was his place of recreation. On his journeys there his lunch was under the seat, and on his return the space was occupied with milk and butter for his domestic use. But he spent a great deal of money on the introduction of rare plants and fine cattle. He steadily declared that no man should be an idler on his money, and he kept his word.

It is well said of him that “The spirit of work made him active; the spirit of justice made him exact; the spirit of trade made him rich; the spirit of duty made him brave; the spirit of patriotism made him generous; and the spirit of love made him great.”

As a credit mark on the side of a vast fortune Girard is conspicuous, and he fully succeeded in not dying rich, for he gave all to his fellow citizens, making sure that it would be safeguarded for that purpose forever.

Girard was a strange character. Penurious about small things, disagreeable in his personality, he was generous, beneficent, and public-spirited in a large way.

WHEN THE RICH MAN MARRIES A POOR GIRL

It is not altogether increasing newspaper sensationalism that indicates a larger number of marriages between rich men and poor girls. There are, it seems safe to say, more and more such marriages.

The judge does not always ride sadly away and leave Maud Müller raking hay. Frequently he departs only to get a marriage license and return post-haste. And Maud drops her rake right gladly and directs the way to the nearest justice of the peace.

Says the New York Medical Journal:

Marriages are constantly occurring in the United States between young men of great wealth and young women engaged in earning their own living; but, despite the familiarity of the phenomenon, no such marriage ever fails to cause apparently astonished comment, and, above all, copious newspaper gossip.

In Europe, where those who have inherited wealth are taught and really believe that they are of superior clay to the class of inherited poverty, and the latter assent to the teaching, such alliances may well cause a slight shock, diluted perhaps with some pleasure at the condescension of the man.

In our country, however, where one family can hardly have the pas of another by a single century, astonishment is ridiculous and out of place. Few of our richest men are idle, and their work differs only in magnitude from that of the poor.

If we grant that a century of idleness can enervate a family, a marriage into the “working classes” can only be beneficial. Stock must be enriched from time to time from near the soil.

Advocates of highly restricted interbreeding are fond of pointing to the race-horse as a superior product of their principles. A race-horse, however, is a poor creature from the point of view of usefulness; he is a beautiful specialized bundle of nerves, and requires more coddling than a healthy human baby.

Interbreeding does not work out well in the human species; the haughty Austrian aristocracy, which considers the nobility of France and England as upstarts, and ostracizes any member who marries into a family much younger than the Cæsars, is not as a class strong and healthy.

It is from Austria in great measure that our circuses secure their giants and midgets, and many other of the various “freaks,” objects of interest certainly, but hardly of pride.

Intellectually, we do not think that the statesmen of Austria, Spain, and Russia are the equals of those of France and the United States, while the English commoners have given a remarkable account of themselves.

We should be disposed to applaud the good sense of any rich young American who married a beautiful girl of poor but decent antecedents, in spite of the fact that such marriages depend upon unreasoning sexual attraction, like the great majority of marriages. As it is, we can only note the care Nature takes of a race, however heedless she may be of the individual.

DOES A STEPMOTHER MAKE A GOOD MOTHER?

Vice-chancellor Pitney, of New Jersey, passing on an application to have two children taken from their divorced mother and placed in charge of their stepmother, is reported to have said:

I never knew of a stepmother who was a good mother. There may be such instances on record, but I know of none, and I have had some experience.

Naturally, the Vice-Chancellor has been strongly controverted. Thus the New York World says:

The stepmother of fiction has a sharp face and a sharp tongue, and rarely misses an opportunity to wound sensitive young souls.

But the stepmother of fact is usually quite a different person. Certain individuals of scientific habits who have dabbled in the domestic relations believe that it would be better for most children if they could be brought up by stepmothers instead of mothers.

The stepmother generally has all the maternal instinct that any healthy child needs, while she is not likely to be a victim of the delusion that her stepchildren are so much better than other people’s children that it is an impenetrable mystery why they do not die young.

But, of course, there are stepmothers and stepmothers, and doubtless the woman who makes a poor stepmother would make a poor mother if she had children of her own.

As a popular prejudice the aversions to stepmothers has little more basis in fact than the aversion to mothers-in-law. Most men, in spite of the professional humorists, are on excellent terms with their mothers-in-law, and most women who have married daughters are excessively fond of their sons-in-law. At its best the mother-in-law joke was never a very good joke. Its humor consists largely in its not being true.

Vice-Chancellor Pitney may know a good deal about the kind of stepmothers who get into court, but the opinion of Abraham Lincoln about stepmothers is more valuable, because he was brought up by one.

The Macon (Georgia) Telegraph indicates why stepmothers may do better for children than a mother can.

The one defect in the God-like mother love is the inability to view her offspring with an impartial eye, and see them as others see them. And it would be far from a bold estimate to venture that the majority of men who get into trouble in later life turn their thoughts back at such times to an irresponsible childhood when a devoted and indulgent mother’s love stood between them and the penalties of all childish misdeeds.

The stepmother, on the other hand, endowed, as a rule, with the maternal affection that springs eternal in the woman’s breast, but unblinded by the other’s bias for the children of her flesh, more frequently approaches her often thankless task, governed by a sense of duty, rather than by affection merely, and many have there been as a result, both men and women, Vice-Chancellor Pitney’s dictum to the contrary notwithstanding, to rise up and call the stepmother blessed.

AMERICAN STOMACHS AS STRONG AS OF OLD.

One English historian began to write a history of the United States, from the adoption of the Constitution to the fall of the Republic. The battle of Gettysburg stopped him.

Professor John Mason Tyler, of Amherst, lecturing at the University of Chicago, said that climate had been the principal cause of America’s phenomenal development, and that climate ultimately would cause its degeneracy.

The Baltimore American argues against Professor Tyler, as follows:

Says the frenzied prophet: “Americans one hundred years ago lived on pork and doughnuts to a great extent. Before going to bed they were not satisfied unless they ate a large piece of mince-pie. We say to-day, ‘What a barbarous bill of fare!’ We, who can’t stand anything stronger than tea and crackers.”

In this lively sketch that, in a breath, spans a century and grasps unerringly the social and culinary philosophy of a people, the learned professor has done credit to the environment of his lecture. The doughnut philosophy here propounded is worthy to rank with the potato philosophy of an economic school that has long gone into extinction, while the dire predictions it made are embalmed in the history of intellectual errors.

The notion of a doughnut and salt pork diet, with a hunk of mince-pie as a nightcap, is a gentle evolution in social fiction. The American palate of a hundred years ago was as susceptible to the temptation of fried chicken and apple cider as it is to-day.

If the Amherst teacher could sit down to the cuisine upon which the Americans of a hundred years ago dined, he would be apt to revise his estimate of it as a “barbarous diet.” If he does not believe this, let him peruse a colonial cook-book, but with the warning that thereafter the diet of the present day will appear flaccid and unprofitable.

As to the charge that we of this age coddle our palates with tea and crackers, let the anemic professor speak for himself. The healthy American digestion tackles fearlessly canvasback duck, diamondback terrapin, and Welsh rarebit, highly condimented and in complemental relation with beverages more exhilarating, though, perhaps, less deadly, than tea, and his slumber makes no record of a wrecking of the American constitution by nightmares or disturbing physical emotions.

The breakdown of the American nation is conditional upon the collapse of the American constitution, then long after Macaulay’s solitary New Zealander seats himself on a broken span of London Bridge to view the débris of the English nation, the Stars and Stripes will still be waving over the American “constitution.”

In the meanwhile, some consolation may be derived from the fact that the American type of soldier is the finest the world affords. Darwin drew attention to the fact that the European in the American army tended to conform to the American type in stature and vigor under the influence of the American climate.

LOVE IN A COTTAGE.

Just a century ago, in 1806, was born Nathaniel Parker Willis, in Portland, Maine. Willis was a fellow townsman of Longfellow, but while the latter finally made his way to Boston and Cambridge, Willis found New York the most congenial residence. There he was successively editor of the Mirror, the Corsair, and the Home Journal, enlivening their pages with an inexhaustible supply of witty, well-timed, and sometimes brilliant prose and verse. He was the first American to write vers de société that deserved preservation, and that were at once light, amusing, and in good taste.

Willis affected an extreme elegance in dress, manner, and surroundings. He pretended to write amid rare flowers, with old vines beside him, and to use an amber penholder in the summer to cool his palm. Those who disliked this display of foppery were wont to explain the initials of his name as representing “Namby-Pamby.” But with all his superficial frivolity, Willis was a man of genuine talent. His early poems were quite as popular as Longfellow’s. He was the first American author to make a good living wholly by his pen. He discovered and gave substantial aid to many younger men of genius, among them James Russell Lowell and Bayard Taylor, and he first drew the attention of his countrymen to the great gifts of Thackeray, long before “Vanity Fair” had been written, and while the future novelist was still known only as a writer for the English magazines. He even engaged Thackeray to contribute a series of papers from Paris to the New York Corsair—this as far back as 1838. Willis also, in his own letters from Europe, created a model for all foreign correspondents since that time; and his collected epistles, “Pencilings by the Way,” still remain the most vivid sketches in existence of the men and women who were famous when Victoria first became queen.

The little poem here reprinted is one of the light, half-mocking productions, which its author wrote to amuse his urban public. It voices the sentiment of the young-man-about-town in the New York of the early fifties. Perhaps the best comment upon it is the fact that Willis himself, whenever he could possibly do so, was accustomed to leave the city and enjoy the rustic pleasures of his own country-house at Idlewild on the Hudson.

By NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

They may talk of love in a cottage,

And bowers of trellised vine,

Of nature bewitchingly simple,

And milkmaids half divine;

They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping

In the shade of a spreading tree,

And a walk in the fields at morning,

By the side of a footstep free!

But give me a sly flirtation

By the light of a chandelier—

With music to play in the pauses,

And nobody very near;

Or a seat on a silken sofa,

With a glass of pure old wine,

And mama too blind to discover

The small white hand in mine.

Your love in a cottage is hungry;

Your vine is a nest for flies;

Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,

And simplicity talks of pies!

You lie down to your shady slumber

And wake with a bug in your ear,

And your damsel that walks in the morning

Is shod like a mountaineer.

True love is at home on a carpet,

And mightily likes his ease;

And true love has an eye for a dinner,

And starves beneath shady trees.

His wing is the fan of a lady;

His foot’s an invisible thing;

And his arrow is tipped with a jewel,

And shot from a silver string.

Possibly, on account of this epitaph which Shakespeare had inscribed above his grave in the church of Stratford-on-Avon and which it would need a bold man to disregard now, the ashes of the great dramatist have been more fortunate than those of many distinguished men. Despite our inherent horror of disturbing the dead and our respect for the grave as consecrated ground, changed conditions, and, in some cases, mere curiosity, have made the list of celebrities whose bones have been moved a long one.

History shows that in securing immunity for one’s grave, neither the lapse of centuries nor past greatness is of any avail. It is on record that in the chaos of the end of the ninth century a pope had the body of his predecessor dug from the tomb, dressed it in its pontifical vestments, and had it tried and condemned by a synod. The hideous mockery terminated only when the mutilated body was thrown into the Tiber.

Dead Pope on Trial.

This scene, which marks the lowest point to which civil war and anarchy in Rome reduced the papacy, took place in February or March of 897. About eleven months before, Pope Formosus had died after a stormy pontificate of five years. He was followed to the grave in fifteen days by his successor. Then Stephen VI seated himself in the chair of St. Peter. Stephen belonged to the faction opposed to Formosus’s ally, Arnulf of Germany. Party feeling and party hatred ran high. The men temporarily in power had injuries to avenge, and Stephen, in a fit of almost insane fury, determined to try his predecessor.

On what charge the dead Formosus was actually tried is not now very clear—probably this detail was never considered of much importance. Stephen summoned a synod, dragged the corpse out of the grave, dressed it in its full pontifical robes and himself presided over the court. He made no pretence of being an impartial judge, however. Paying no attention to the trembling deacon to whom had been assigned the hopeless task of defending the dead Pope, Stephen turned savagely on the corpse.

“Why hast thou in thy ambition usurped the Apostolic Seat, who wast previously only Bishop of Portus?” he demanded.

The synod played out its part in the wretched farce. Formosus was convicted and solemnly deposed. The vestments were torn from the body of the dead pontiff, the three fingers of the right hand used in bestowing the benediction were cut off and the mummy, hauled through the streets by the mob, was thrown into the Tiber. A few months later Stephen was strangled in his palace.

Equally brutal was the treatment given to Cromwell’s body when the Restoration brought Charles II back to England and the cavaliers to power. Cromwell had directed that his interment be in Westminster Abbey, and every effort was made to have his funeral as impressive as that of any crowned king. The attempt, however, was not altogether successful. In his famous diary John Evelyn notes:

Cromwell’s Body Hanged.

“It was the joyfullest funeral that ever I saw, for there were none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with as barbarous noise, drinking, and taking tobacco in the streets.”

On the eve of January 30, 1661, the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and the regicide Bradshaw were dug from their graves. The next day they were dragged to Tyburn and hanged with their faces to Westminster Hall, where they had sentenced Charles to death. The corpses were buried at the foot of the gallows, where Connaught Square is now, and the heads, impaled on pikes, remained for years above the entrance of Westminster Hall.

After many years a high wind carried the head of the Lord Protector down. A soldier made off with it, and in 1779 it was on exhibition in Old Bond Street. A private family is now in possession of the ghastly relic—the features so well preserved that the large wart over one eye which was so noticeable in life is still plainly visible.

Wyclif’s Bones Burned.

The bones of Wyclif were treated in much the same way by the Council of Constance, in 1414, though there was, in his case, more of ceremony and less of mere hatred. The remains of the English reformer were burned and the ashes thrown into a brook, which, of course, ultimately emptied into the ocean.

“Thus,” says one writer, “the ashes of Wyclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”

But it is not always the enemies of the dead who disturb their bones. There is no more remarkable tradition than the crowning of the dead Queen Inez de Castro when her lord, young Pedro, ascended the throne of Portugal in the fourteenth century. The death of Inez, murdered by the command of her father-in-law, Alfonso XII, had been avenged by Don Pedro, but the torture of the assassins did not satisfy the prince.

Queen’s Skeleton Crowned.

The tradition is to the effect, it is said, that when Pedro came to the throne a few years later, he had the bones of Inez taken from the grave, placed upon a magnificent throne, robed in royal purple, and crowned queen of Portugal. To the skeleton the courtiers did homage, one after another kissing the fleshless hand in which the scepter had been thrust. Then, lying in her rich robes, her crown upon her grinning skull, in a chariot drawn by twenty coal-black mules and with a funeral cortège which extended several miles, the skeleton of Inez was driven to the royal abbey of Alcobaca, where the bones were reinterred.

Even then, however, the dead queen was not to be left in peace. In 1810 the French troops broke into the abbey of Alcobaca, destroyed the magnificent monument which Pedro had erected, and tore open the coffin. The yellow hair of the queen was cut from the skull and preserved in reliquaries.

Reburial of Napoleon.

Like those of Inez, the bones of Napoleon were buried a second time with all the pomp and ceremony that a great nation could devise. The body of the great emperor was originally buried under a weeping willow in a secluded hollow among the rocks of Saint Helena. With the Revolution of 1830, however, came a change in the political situation, and this made it possible for the remains of the conqueror to be removed from the lonely island-grave to the magnificent tomb under the dome of the Hôtel des Invalides.

The body was exhumed at midnight on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Napoleon’s arrival at Saint Helena. For nine hours the engineers labored to dig away the earth from the vault, to remove the solid masonry and to lift the heavy slab which covered the sarcophagus. Within a triple coffin of tin, lead, and mahogany lay the emperor, dressed in white waistcoat and breeches, black cravat, long boots and cocked hat, with the cloak he wore at Marengo spread over his feet.

Body of André Disinterred.

The year that Napoleon died the body of Major John André was taken back to England. André had been buried in a field close to the spot where he had been hanged as a spy, and the grave was marked by two small cedars and by a peach-tree planted at its head. Some of the newspapers had declared that “any honor paid Major André’s remains was casting an imputation on General Washington and the officers who tried him.” Such logic as this had so stirred some ultra-patriotic citizens of Tappan that when Mr. Buchanan, the British consul in New York, arrived there to exhume the body quite a crowd was prepared to express its emphatic disapproval.

Argument being obviously of no avail, Buchanan told the little mob that it was an Irish custom to drink spirits before visiting a grave and that this custom he always observed. In a few minutes the crowd was too much occupied with the Irish custom to annoy Buchanan and the consul proceeded with his task.

The lid of the coffin was found to be broken and the roots of the peach-tree had entwined themselves completely around the skull. The bones were taken to a house near by, whence warned of rumors that the body would be flung into the river, Buchanan was obliged to carry off the coffin like a thief in the night, driving twenty-four miles to New York.

Corpse of Paul Jones Identified.

The recovery of the body of John Paul Jones is still fresh in the public mind. Unearthed after a protracted search in an abandoned Paris cemetery, the features and body were so well preserved that there could be no doubt of the identity. Once this was established, the transfer of the body from French to American soil was made the occasion of a solemn ceremony, in the course of which five hundred. American bluejackets marched through the streets of Paris.

The remains of Jones, André, and Napoleon were exhumed in order that they might be buried again with greater honor. In Westminster Abbey mere accident or curiosity has several times disturbed the rest of the famous dead.

The body of Ben Jonson has been especially unfortunate. Having obtained a grant of “eighteen inches of square ground” in the Abbey, the poet was said to have been buried there in an upright position with the famous epitaph, “O Rare Ben Jonson,” over his head. In 1849 a new grave was being dug close by when loose sand poured in and the clerk saw:

“The two leg-bones of Jonson fixed bolt upright in the sand as though the body had been buried in the upright position, and the skull came rolling down among the sand, from a position above the leg-bones, to the bottom of the newly made grave. There was still hair upon it and it was of a red color.”

Pope’s Skull in Museum.

Another poet has suffered in much the same manner. The skull of Alexander Pope is now in a private museum. On some occasion the coffin was opened and a phrenologist gave two hundred and fifty dollars to the sexton to be allowed to take the skull home overnight. In the morning another skull was substituted and the poet’s deposited in the phrenologist’s museum.

Against the curiosity of science there is no safeguard. Recently Kaiser Wilhelm had the grave of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle opened again, this time for the purpose of photographing the fabrics in which the hero was wrapped. Against this violation of the sepulcher Jules Claretie, in an article written for the Paris Figaro and translated for the Boston Transcript, has protested vigorously. Claretie says:

After such combats, labors, and mighty thoughts, he dreamed of repose, like the poet Moses. Repose! There is none in this world for the illustrious dead. We waken them through mere curiosity.

At Charlemagne’s Tomb.

Charlemagne’s grandsons believed that they were heirs to his glory because for a moment they looked upon his skeleton or exposed his remains to view.

Otho first opened the sepulcher. Cornélius has depicted that fantastic scene in a celebrated fresco. Frederick Barbarossa followed Otho’s example. He stood alive before the corpse. On his stone throne, he contemplated the emperor, with huge hand grasping the scepter and the globe.

Then the dead Charlemagne was torn from his marble resting-place; his skull and the bones of his arms went to enrich the treasure of the cathedral crypt. The throne became sacred in the eyes of emperors, and Charlemagne—mutilated and dismembered—was partially restored to his marble vault.

Barbarossa was more fortunate; he was drowned in the Cydnus, and no one could profane his body.

Another emperor—Napoleon, in 1804—wanted in his turn to behold the fantom. Bareheaded and preceded by Duroc, the emperor contemplated the sacred bones.

“So this is he who was master of the world!”

And Napoleon, deeply moved, turned toward Canon Camus.

“Pray, Monsieur l’Abbé; pray for France, whose greatness Charlemagne founded.”

Then, when the stone had been replaced, Napoleon vouchsafed the “fantom emperor” a renewal of slumber.

Removed Emperor’s Shrouds.

Victor Hugo, while walking through Aix-la-Chapelle, complained even then of the innumerable violations to which the great Charlemagne’s tomb had been subjected.

“Some day,” said he, “I suppose that a pious and holy thought will enter the mind of some king or emperor. Charlemagne’s remains will be taken from the chest where the sacristans put them and again laid in his tomb.

“What is left of his bones will be religiously reassembled. He will regain his Byzantine vault, his bronze doors, and his marble armchair with its fourteen plates of gold, and the kneeling visitor will be enabled to behold, gleaming vaguely in the darkness, that fantom—crown on head and orb in hand—that once was Charlemagne.”

Well, no such thing was accomplished. Once more the dignitaries of the empire have assembled to open a coffin. The two shrouds that enveloped Charlemagne have been removed—those Oriental fabrics that some calif had sent to the emperor—and since, as the telegraphic despatches say, “the light was not sufficient to operate,” they have been sent to a Friedrichstrasse photographer, who will find light enough, egad!

Voltaire and Rousseau.

We have dug up Richelieu, opened Bossuet’s tomb, disturbed the great Napoleon’s coffin. A few years ago I saw the sarcophagi of Voltaire and Rousseau opened at the Panthéon. I saw the skull of the author of “Candide” passed from hand to hand; I saw men’s finger-nails scratch away its reddish coating (probably due, as Monsieur Berthelot told us, to the sublimate that had preserved the corpse).

In his leaden coffin, with arms crossed upon his breast, I saw the man who had written “The Social Contract”; I saw the onlookers—indifferent or curious—poke their fingers into the empty sockets now bereft of those eyes that had once gazed upon Madame de Warrens, or try to snatch from a jaw-bone—“as a souvenir, monsieur!”—one of those teeth that had touched cherries picked In Madame Gallet’s company.

I was present at that Dance of Death which men call “an historical exhumation.” And the inevitable photographer was there at the Panthéon, just as at Aix-la-Chapelle. Great men’s bones are hustled about, their skulls are pried into and weighed, as if, forsooth, some sparkle of genius could be got out of them!

Edward the Confessor.

Other kings than Charlemagne have had their slumbers broken. Since the coffin of Edward the Confessor was placed, on January 6, 1066, before the high altar of Westminster Abbey it has been opened for one purpose or another three times. Venerated as the last lineal descendant of Cedric, Edward was buried in his full regalia, the crown on his head, the gold crucifix in his hand, and the pilgrim’s ring, said to have belonged to St. John, on his finger.

It was thus that the body was found when Bishop Gundulf opened the coffin thirty years later and plucked a hair from the dead king’s long white beard. The coffin was opened again when Edward was canonized in 1163, and the body of the saint was then found to be in complete preservation.

Abbot Laurence, however, was harder to satisfy than Gundulf. From the dead man’s finger he took the ring of St. John, depositing it in the abbey treasury as a relic, and the vestments in which the corpse was wrapped were made into three magnificent copes. Another century passed and then Henry III had the coffin opened, when he removed it to the east of the high altar, where it has since remained.

Identifying Dead Kings.

Equally troubled has been the repose of Edward I, “The Hammer of the Scots.” When the old warrior died in 1307, he ordered that his flesh should be boiled and his bones carried at the head of an English army until Scotland should be conquered. Though this wish was calmly disregarded, one custom which antiquarians have been at a loss to explain, may be in some way connected with it. Until the overthrow of Richard III on Bosworth Field ended the Plantagenet rule, the tomb of Edward I was opened every two years and the cerecloth renewed. With the Tudors this strange rite fell into disuse.

For three hundred years the body of Edward was left in the tomb in peace. Then the Society of Antiquarians opened the coffin in 1771. The king was lying in his royal robes, the “long shanks” from which he derived his nickname, covered with a cloth of gold. Six feet two inches was the dead man’s height. Lean and straight as he was, Edward I must have been an imposing figure.

Only two other kings of England—James I and Charles I—have been exhumed. Their coffins were opened for the purpose of identification. James had the body of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, taken from Fotheringay to Westminster but, on the whole, the royal family of England has been little disturbed.

French Royal Tombs Robbed.

Not so the French. For three days in the Reign of Terror a Paris mob raged in the abbey church of St. Denis, which for centuries was the chosen burying-place of the French kings. In this sanctuary of the Old Régime the mob respected nothing. The silk robes were torn from the bodies of Hugues Capet, Philip the Hardy, and Philip the Fair.

A handful of gray dust, all that was left of Pepin, the father of Charlemagne, was flung to the wind, and one after another, Capetians, Valois, and Bourbons were dragged from the tomb and tumbled into a trench. On the pavement, one eye-witness says, rolled the heads of Louis XII and Francis I, of Marshal Turenne and of the great Constable Duguesclin.

For a short time the corpse of Henry IV, the most popular of all the long line of French kings, was respected. Embalmed with the best Italian skill, and so well preserved that the two fatal dagger wounds in the chest were still plainly visible, the body lay untouched for two days. Then some one shouted that Henry, like all the rest, had deceived the people, and his body, too, was flung into the trench.

After the Restoration an attempt was made to return the royal bodies to their tombs, but it was not altogether successful.

St. Swithin’s Troubled Rest.

If one passes from secular history to the legends of the saints, the exhumations become innumerable. It is, tradition asserts, on account of an attempt to remove the body of St. Swithin that we owe the prediction:

St. Swithin, chiefly notable for his mildness and humility, ordered that he should not be buried in his cathedral of Winchester, but in a “vile and unworthy place” among the common people in the churchyard. This the monks could not bring themselves to consider right, and on one July 15, they attempted to move the body of the bishop into the cathedral. But on that day and for forty days thereafter it rained so hard that they finally recognized in the weather the anger of the saint and abandoned their idea.

Apparently, however, the good saint changed his mind half a century or so later, for his remains were then brought into the cathedral and, instead of manifesting any displeasure, two hundred miraculous cures were credited to him in ten days.

There are two groups of “wonders of the world,” the first belonging to the period which we distinguish by the term antiquity, and the second to the Middle Ages. Considering the lack of facilities for building in the earlier period, it seems that the wonders of antiquity are much more remarkable than those of the medieval age; but these are stupendous marvels also, and deserve their fame, every one.

The Pyramids of Egypt rank first, being the oldest as well as the most permanent things which man has ever built. They are situated in middle Egypt, and there are now in existence some seventy-five; of this number there are some which are crumbling into shapeless masses, but the group of Ghizeh, which is the most important, stands in sturdy and unyielding strength.

The Pyramids are the tombs of Egypt’s dead kings, and date back to the Fourth Dynasty—about three thousand years before Christ. The largest covers an area of nearly thirteen acres, was originally four hundred and eighty-one feet high, and had a length on each side, at the base, of seven hundred and fifty-five feet.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built by Nebuchadnezzar for his queen, Amytis, and their site has been located at the northern end of the city. They consisted of a series of terraces rising to a considerable height, and laid out as a park; it is probable that such gardens would have been near to or adjoining the king’s palace, but whether or not they were has not as yet been discovered. The reign of Nebuchadnezzar was about 600 B.C.

The Tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria, at Halicarnassus, was built about 352 B.C. From this great monument, built by the king’s widow, Artemisia, as a memorial to him, the word mausoleum of our common speech is derived. The tomb seems to have been preserved up to the twelfth century, but earthquakes probably started its ruin soon after this, and the stones from it have been used in many other buildings, so that now even its general appearance can only be guessed at.

The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, was built at the public charge, though King Crœsus is believed to have contributed largely to it. It was one hundred and sixty-four by three hundred and forty-two and a half feet, and the height of its columns was fifty-five feet. It was begun in the sixth century before Christ, and one hundred and twenty years are said to have elapsed before it was completed. It was the seat of the worship of the goddess Diana.

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of Helios, the sun-god, which was made from the spoils left by Demetrius when the city was successfully defended against him, after a long siege. Its construction occupied the artist twelve years. It stood near the harbor, but not across the entrance, as was at one time supposed. It was erected about 280 B.C., and thrown down by an earthquake some sixty-six years later. Its height was something over one hundred feet.

The Statue of Jupiter at Olympia was the work of the greatest sculptor of ancient Greece, Phidias by name, who was born about 490 B.C. This heroic figure was about forty-two feet high, and represented the god seated on a throne. It was made of ivory and gold.

The Pharos of Egypt was begun under Ptolemy I, and was finished by his son about 282 B.C. It was a lofty tower, built on the eastern extremity of the rocky island from which it took its name, and was the great lighthouse at the entrance to the harbor of Alexandria. The light was furnished by a beacon-fire on its summit. Its height was four hundred and fifty feet, and the light could be seen at a distance of one hundred miles.

The Palace of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, is also mentioned as one of the wonders of the ancient world, though the preference is given to the Pharos of Egypt by the best authorities. This palace was cemented with gold.

The wonders of the Middle Ages seem quite modern compared with the marvels of the ancient world, long since crumbled into dust.

The Colosseum of Rome heads the later list. This was built by Vespasian, and dedicated by his son Titus, in 80 A.D. According to a document of the fourth century, this great amphitheater seated eighty-seven thousand persons, its dimensions being six hundred and seventeen by five hundred and twelve feet. It was the scene of the bloody sports in which the Romans delighted, and of the martyrdom of many of the early Christians.

The Catacombs of Rome, the earliest burial places of the Christians, are outside the city walls, within a radius of three miles; they were excavated wherever the soil was suitable for such tunneling, but were not secretly made, as the old tradition would have us believe. Their length has been estimated variously at from three hundred and fifty to eight hundred miles, and the number of dead which they contain is from six to seven millions.

The Great Wall of China was built by the founder of the Tsin dynasty, in 256 B.C. Its length was once more than one thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and it is the largest defensive work in the world, being thirty-five feet high and twenty-one feet thick. It follows an irregular course, marking the northern boundary of the empire, and is not deflected by natural obstacles. There are towers at frequent intervals, presumably for lookout.

Stonehenge is the most remarkable example of the ancient stone circles and stands, a magnificent ruin, on Salisbury Plain, in Wiltshire, southern England. It is at least as early as the Bronze Age, according to the most modern research, and that was from 2000 to 1800 B.C. From the arrangement of the stones with reference to the sun, It is believed to have had some connection with sun worship.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the most remarkable of these slanting campaniles, though not by any means the only one. It was begun in 1174 and finished in 1350. Its height is one hundred and eighty-one feet, and it is fifty-one and a half feet in diameter at the base. It inclines thirteen feet eight inches toward the south. The opinion prevails now that the slant is intentional in all these leaning towers, though the reason for it is not clear.

The Porcelain Tower of Nanking, which was erected early in the fifteenth century, was an octagonal structure, faced with variegated porcelain. Lamps and bells were hung from it. It was destroyed by the Taipings in 1853, but many miniatures of it are in existence in various parts of the world.

The Mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, is one of the most magnificent edifices in the world. It was begun by Justinian in A.D. 532 and was completed in five years. Originally it was named the Church of St. Sophia. Its walls were decorated with beautiful mosaics, which have been partly effaced or partly covered with inscriptions from the Koran. It was converted into a mosque by Mohammed II, in 1453, and four minarets were added, while the golden cross was replaced by the crescent. Its dome is one hundred and five feet in diameter and one hundred and eighty-four feet high inside.

Iron is, fortunately, the most abundant of metals as well as the most useful, and is to be found in almost all parts of the world.

The first recorded find was in North Carolina in 1585, while the first effort to manufacture it was made in Virginia in 1619.

The works were destroyed by Indians in 1622. The next attempt was at Lynn, Massachusetts, where a blast furnace was started in 1643, which produced some “sow” iron in 1645, and where a forge was built in 1648. Bog-ore was generally used in New England in colonial days.

The first export of iron (bar) to England was made in 1717, and the first pig-iron in 1728. Up to 1720, Massachusetts was the chief seat of the iron industry in the colonies. In the year 1750, Pennsylvania became the leading iron-producing colony.

I may say to you, my brethring, that I am not an edicated man, an’ I am not one of them as believes that edication is necessary for a Gospel minister, for I believe the Lord edicates His preachers jest as He wants ’em to be edicated; an’ although I say it that oughtn’t to say it, yet in the State of Indianny, whar I live, thar’s no man as gets bigger congregations nor what I gits.

Thar may be some here to-day, my brethring, as don’t know what persuasion I am uv. Well, I must say to you, my brethring, that I’m a Hard-shell Baptist. Thar’s some folks as don’t like the Hard-shell Baptists, but I’d rather have a hard shell as no shell at all.

You see me here to-day, my brethring, dressed up in fine clothes; you mout think I was proud, but I am not proud, my brethring, and although I’ve been a preacher of the Gospel for twenty years, an’ although I’m capting of the flat-boat that lies at your landing, I’m not proud, my brethring.

I am not gwine to tell edzactly whar my tex may be found; suffice to say, it’s in the leds of the Bible, and you’ll find it somewhar between the first chapter of the book of Generations and the last chapter of the book of Revolutions, and ef you’ll go and search the Scriptures, you’ll not only find my tex thar, but a great many other texes as will do you good to read, and my tex, when you shall find it, you shall find it to read thus:

“And he played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck.”

My text, my brethring, leads me to speak of sperits. Now, thar’s a great many kinds of sperits in the world—in the fuss place, thar’s the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar’s the sperits of turpentine, and thar’s the sperits as some folks call liquor, an’ I’ve got as good an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flat-boat as ever was fotch down the Mississippi River; but thar’s a great many other kinds of sperits, for the tex says, “He played on a harp uv a t-h-o-u-s-and strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck.”

But I tell you the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex is FIRE. That’s the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex, my brethring. Now, thar’s a great many kinds of fire in the world. In the fuss place, there’s the common sort of fire you light your cigar or pipe with, and then thar’s foxfire and camphire, fire before you’re ready, and fire and fall back, and many other kinds uv fire, for the tex says, “He played on the harp uv a thousand strings, sperits of jest men made perfeck.”

But I’ll tell you the kind of fire as is meant in the tex, my brethring—it’s HELL FIRE, an’ that’s the kind uv fire as a great many uv you’ll come to, ef you don’t do better nor what you have been doin’—for “He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck.”

Now, the different sorts of fire in the world may be likened unto the different persuasions of Christians in the world. In the first place, we have the Piscapalions, an’ they are a high-sailin’ and highfalutin’ set, and they may be likened unto a turkey buzzard that flies up into the air, and he goes up, and up, and up, till he looks no bigger than your fingernail, and the fust thing you know, he cums down, and down, and down, and is a-fillin’ himself on the carkiss of a dead hoss by the side of the road, and “He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck.”

And then thar’s the Methodis, and they may be likened unto the squirril runnin’ up into a tree, for the Methodis beleeves in gwine on from one degree of grace to another, and finally on to perfection, and the squirril goes up and up, and up and up, and he jumps from limb to limb, and branch to branch, and the fust thing you know he falls, and down he cums kerflumix, and that’s like the Methodis, for they is allers fallen from grace, ah! and “He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits of jest men made perfeck.”

And then, my brethring, thar’s the Baptist, ah! and they have been likened unto a ’possum on a ’simmon tree, and thunders may roll and the earth may quake, but that ’possum clings thar still, ah! and you may shake one foot loose, and the other’s thar, and you may shake all feet loose, and he laps his tail around the limb, and clings, and he clings furever, for “He played on the harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck.”

An error for which nervousness may have been responsible, was that made by the boy who was told to take the Bishop’s shaving water to him one morning and cautioned to answer the Bishop’s inquiry “Who’s there,” by saying, “The boy, my Lord.” Whether from nervousness or not, the boy managed to transpose the words of this sentence with ludicrous effect, and the Bishop was surprised and perhaps alarmed to hear in response to his inquiry the answer, “The Lord, my boy.”

The power of music is growing to be recognized by physicians in the treatment of certain diseases. Its effect upon animals is very marked, sometimes for good and in other instances for quite the opposite, though it is not always easy to know just which is the case.

A writer in Harper’s Magazine half a century ago gave some results of personal observation of animals under the influence of music. These observations are interesting and amusing, and would seem to show beyond a doubt that animals may be quite as fond of sweet sounds as man.

The sensibility of animals to music will hardly be questioned in the present day, when the manners and habits of all animated nature are so thoroughly observed and studied.

We no longer doubt the dictum of the poet, who sings, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast”; and, therefore, it is not so much in corroboration of his assertion, as in illustration of a fact so interesting and pleasing in itself, that we are about to bring to the notice of the reader some few instances of animal love of music which are too well authenticated to admit of a doubt, and some of which are the records of our personal observation and experience.

Mozart and His Pigeon.

One of the German biographers of Mozart makes mention of a tame pigeon, which was the companion and pet of that extraordinary genius when a child. The bird, when at liberty, would never leave the side of the young composer while he was playing any instrument, and had to be caught and confined in his cage to prevent him from following his little favorite from room to room.

Whenever the boy came into the presence of the pigeon, the latter manifested the utmost uneasiness until he began to play; if the door of the cage were opened, the bird would fly to the violin and peck at the strings, or to the harpsichord and jump and flutter on the keys, and would not be pacified until the child sat down to play, when it would perch quietly on his shoulder, and sit there for hours almost without moving a feather.

Cats have a species of undelightful music of their own, performed, as we all know, at unseasonable hours on the leads, house-tiles, and garden-walls of our dwellings. Puss’s performances are generally too chromatic for ears not feline, and we humans are given to disconcert their concertos with a shower from the water-jug, or anything else that comes to hand, when their untimely carols rouse us from our sleep.

In revenge, puss is generally as indifferent to the sublimest strains of the human voice or cunningly played instrument as any post can possibly be, and prefers the untuneful scream of the cat’s-meat man to the noblest compositions of Beethoven.

Cats Have Musical Ears.

Still, as if nature was determined to assert the triumph of harmony over every living thing, now and then a cat turns up who has a genuine musical ear, and will manifest unequivocal satisfaction and delight at harmonious combinations of sound.

We once owned a cat who would listen complacently to music by the hour together, always accompanying it with a gentle purring—who would leave her hunting-ground in garden or cellar whenever music was going on in parlor or drawing-room—who would scratch at the door, and croon and mew to be let in, and would resent a prolonged exclusion by certain expressive displays of disapprobation. When admitted, she would leap on the piano, and attempt, after the New Zealand fashion of expressing regard, to rub noses with the performer.

An old friend of ours reports another instance, which is perhaps still more remarkable. He was in the habit, most evenings in the week, of spending an hour or two at the piano after the studious labors of the day.

His pet cat, though as a kitten indifferent to music, grew to like it, and regularly led the way to the piano when the business of the tea-table was done. Here she took post on a chair, and listened gravely during the whole performance. When it ceased, and the instrument was closed, she would return to the rug, or to his knee, and sleep out the rest of the evening.

A Feline Paderewski.

Not so, however, if the piano was left open; in that case, puss leaped on the keys and pawed a performance of her own, in which she showed an extreme partiality for the treble notes, and something like alarm at the big bass ones, when she happened to give them an extra vigorous kick with her heels. In fact, a rousing discord would frighten her off the keys, but she would return again and soothe her feelings by a gentle pattering among the upper notes.

These exploits she repeated whenever the piano was left open, and whether she had auditors or not; so that it became necessary to close the instrument or exclude the cat from the room in order to insure a moment’s quietness. If by any chance her master spent the evening from home, puss showed her disappointment and dissatisfaction by restlessness and ill-temper.

Twenty-five years ago the writer was one of a joint-stock proprietary who owned a boat on an inland river, winding through a retired and picturesque tract of country. There were seven of us, all being either singers or players of instruments; and in this boat it was our custom to spend an occasional leisure hour in musical voyagings up and down the river. To many an old English melody on these occasions did the moss-covered rocks and precipitous banks return harmonious echoes.

A Dancing Cow.

We made strange acquaintances on those long voyages, up a stream navigated by no other keel than ours, and, among other natural curiosities, we fell in with a musical cow. This creature, a small, cream-colored specimen of the Alderney breed, suckled her calf, along with a dozen other vaccine mothers, in a meadow which sloped down to the river’s brink.

Whenever we turned the bend of the river, “with our voices in tune as the oars kept time,” and the meadow came in sight, there we were sure to see the white cow, standing up to the shoulders in the water, whither she had advanced to meet us, her neck stretched out and her dripping nose turned toward the boat.

As we skirted the meadow, she kept pace with us on the bank, testifying her delight by antics of which no cow in her senses would have been thought capable. She would leap, skip, roll on her back, rear on her hind legs, and then hurl them aloft in the air like a kicking horse—now rushing into the water to look at us nearer, now frisking off like a kitten at play.

When she came to the meadow-fence, she dashed through it furiously into the next field, and so on through the next fence, and the next after that. The fourth being railed, she would turn it by wading the river, and was only prevented from following us farther by a steep, precipitous bank which stopped her progress.

After these mad gambols, she always returned to her calf, first saluting us with a long, plaintive kind of bellow, by way of farewell.

Violin Charms a Snake.

At this period it was that, rescuing a fine snake from some ignorant boys who were about to kill it, under the notion that it was venomous, but who were glad to sell it for twopence, we carried the slippery creature home, and assigned him a lodging in a small wicker basket, filled with moss and suspended by a single string from a hook in the ceiling of our bachelor’s snuggery.

The reptile grew to know us, and to welcome us in his way, by gliding his cold coil across our face and temples when we brought him fresh moss, or tempted him with food, which, by the way, he would never take. It was by accident only that we discovered his musical predilections.

One evening, while marching the room to the sound of our old violin, with which it was our custom to beguile an occasional hour, we caught sight of what seemed a monstrous python threatening us from aloft. It was the shadow of our pet snake, projected by the single candle on the table to the arched ceiling above, and magnified to formidable looking dimensions.

The fellow was hanging out of the basket almost by the tip of his tall, and, with his head stretched toward us, was following our motions as we walked up and down the room.

We remembered the snake-charmers, and conceived at once that it was the music which had brought him out; and so it proved, as we had opportunity of certifying by repeated experiments. Whenever he heard the violin he came out, and always with his head in the direction of the sound, as if anxious to reach it. When taken from the basket and hung around the neck, he lay limp and as if lifeless while the music lasted, and did not immediately recover when it had ceased.

One day, on finding that he made no appearance at the call of the violin, we reached down the basket and found him gone. Whether he had fallen out by accident while hanging by his tall, or taken the leap on purpose, there was no knowing; but he had disappeared, and we saw him no more, though a few weeks after his departure we found his skin, turned inside out, behind a box placed against the wall.

Dogs Are Discriminating.

Dogs, judging from the conduct of the generality of them, may be regarded as indifferent to music, as they are noticed neither to seek nor shun it, as a general rule. Being remarkably docile, however, they may be, and are, taught to discriminate tunes, and to dance to violin, pipe, and drum in a manner that indicates plainly enough their appreciation of musical time at least.

Some dogs grind organs at the command of their unfeeling exhibitors; and though they always set about the business with a serious face, that may be no proof that they dislike music.

Our own dog—a cross between a Scotch and a Skye terrier—is affected in an extraordinary way by the notes of the harmonium, and chooses to post himself close to the instrument while it is playing. So long as the music runs below a certain pitch all is well; but touch a single note above that, and he prepares to join in the performance himself.

A Tuneful Terrier.

If a shrill note is prolonged above a minim, he points his nose in the air, at an angle of about forty degrees, and, elongating his body in a straight line from the nostrils to the tail, pitches precisely the same note, which he will go on sounding as long as you please. The inference generally drawn is that he dislikes it, and that the notes to which he thus responds are painful to him. To us that is not so clear, since, though the door be open, and he has the run of the whole house, he never shows the least disposition to make his escape. Who shall say that it is not a luxury to him?

The point is doubtful, at least; and we shall give him the benefit of the doubt, and acquit him of the charge, which we deem odious, of disrelishing music.

We shall close the present sketch by a remarkable instance of the love of music exemplified in the conduct of a party of mice who had obtained surreptitious admission at a public concert. Thus it runs:

“Soon after Miss Hay had commenced her first song, the party occupying the front seats saw a mouse sauntering leisurely up and down, close to the skirting of the platform on which she was singing. As the song proceeded, the mouse stood spellbound. A lady tried to drive it away by shaking her concert-bill at it; but the little animal had lost its fear of man, and would not retire.

Appreciative Mice.

“At the conclusion of the piece the mouse vanished, but reappeared, bringing with it a companion when the next song commenced. At the end of song the second the two mice retreated to their hole, but made their third appearance on the boards when the singing was again renewed.

“Eventually, six or seven mice came out regularly with every song, and retired when the music ceased. While the melodious tones filled the apartment all attempts to drive away the mice were vain. These most timid members of the animal kingdom were too fascinated to be in terror of the human family, who actually filled the room; and though a fiftieth part of the means used to drive them away would, under ordinary circumstances, have sufficed, they now stood, or slowly glided, so entranced by the melody which pervaded the room that they were heedless of the presence of their natural enemies.

“How naturalists may explain this phenomenon we know not, nor shall we swell this article by attempting a solution.”

The paragraph concluded by giving the names of several respectable individuals who witnessed the singular phenomenon, and who were willing to testify to the truth of the report.

The situation of Columbus was daily becoming more and more critical. In proportion as he approached the regions where he expected to find land, the impatience of his crews augmented. The favorable signs which increased his confidence were derided by them as delusive; and there was danger of their rebelling, and obliging him to turn back when on the point of realizing the object of all his labors. They beheld themselves with dismay, still wafted onward, over the boundless wastes of what appeared to them a mere watery desert surrounding the habitable world.

What was to become of them should their provisions fail? Their ships were too weak and defective even for the great voyage they had already made, but if they were still to press forward, adding at every moment to the immense expanse behind them, how should they ever be able to return, having no intervening port where they might victual and refit?

In this way they fed each other’s discontents, gathering together in little knots, and fomenting a spirit of mutinous opposition; and when we consider the natural fire of the Spanish temperament and its impatience of control, and that a great part of these men were sailing on compulsion, we cannot wonder that there was imminent danger of their breaking forth into open rebellion and compelling Columbus to turn back.

In their secret conferences they exclaimed against him as a desperado, bent, in a mad fantasy, upon doing something extravagant to render himself notorious. What were their sufferings and dangers to one evidently content to sacrifice his own life for the chance of distinction? What obligations bound them to continue on with him, or when were the terms of their agreement to be considered as fulfilled?

They had already penetrated unknown seas, untraversed by a sail, far beyond where man had ever before ventured. They had done enough to gain themselves a character for courage and hardihood in undertaking such an enterprise and persisting in it so far. How much farther were they to go in quest of a merely conjectured land? Were they to sail on until they perished, or until all return became impossible? In such case they would be the authors of their own destruction.

On the other hand, should they consult their safety, and turn back before too late, who would blame them? Any complaints made by Columbus would be of no weight; he was a foreigner without friends or influence; his schemes had been condemned by the learned and discountenanced by people of all ranks. He had no party to uphold him, and a host of opponents whose pride of opinion would be gratified by his failure. Or, as an effectual means of preventing his complaints, they might throw him into the sea, and give out that he had fallen overboard while busy with his instruments contemplating the stars—a report which no one would have either the inclination or the means to controvert.

Columbus was not ignorant of the mutinous disposition of his crew; but he still maintained a serene and steady countenance, soothing some with gentle words, endeavoring to stimulate the pride or avarice of others, and openly menacing the refractory with signal punishment should they do anything to impede the voyage.

On the 25th of September the wind again became favorable, and they were able to resume their course directly to the west. The airs being light and the sea calm, the vessels sailed near to each other, and Columbus had much conversation with Martin Alonzo Pinzon on the subject of a chart, which the former had sent three days before on board of the Pinta. Pinzon thought that, according to the indications of the map, they ought to be in the neighborhood of Cipango and the other islands which the admiral had therein delineated.

Columbus partly entertained the same idea, but thought it possible that the ships might have been borne out of their track by the prevalent currents, or that they had not come so far as the pilots had reckoned. He desired that the chart might be returned, and Pinzon, tying it to the end of a cord, flung it on board to him.

While Columbus, his pilot, and several of his experienced mariners were studying the map and endeavoring to make out from it their actual position, they heard a shout from the Pinta, and, looking up, beheld Martin Alonzo Pinzon mounted on the stern of his vessel, crying:

“Land! land! Señor, I claim my reward!”

He pointed at the same time to the southwest, where there was indeed an appearance of land at about twenty-five leagues’ distance.

Upon this Columbus threw himself on his knees and returned thanks to God; and Martin Alonzo repeated the Gloria in Excelsis, in which he was joined by his own crew and that of the admiral.

The seamen now mounted to the masthead or climbed about the rigging, straining their eyes in the direction pointed out. The conviction became so general of land in that quarter, and the joy of the people so ungovernable, that Columbus found it necessary to vary from his usual course and stand all night to the southwest.

The morning light, however, put an end to all their hopes, as to a dream. The fancied land proved to be nothing but an evening cloud, and had vanished in the night. With dejected hearts they once more resumed their western course, from which Columbus would never have varied but in compliance with their clamorous wishes.

For several days they continued on with the same propitious breeze, tranquil sea, and mild, delightful weather. The water was so calm that the sailors amused themselves with swimming about the vessel. Dolphins began to abound, and flying fish, darting into the air, fell upon the decks. The continued signs of land diverted the attention of the crews and insensibly beguiled them onward.

On the 1st of October, according to the reckoning of the pilot of the admiral’s ship, they had come five hundred and eighty leagues west since leaving the Canary Islands. The reckoning which Columbus showed the crew was five hundred and eighty-four, but the reckoning which he kept privately was seven hundred and seven. On the following day the weeds floated from east to west, and on the third day no birds were to be seen.

The crews now began to fear that they had passed between islands, from one to the other of which the birds had been flying. Columbus had also some doubts of the kind, but refused to alter his westward course. The people again uttered murmurs and menaces, but on the following day they were visited by such flights of birds, and the various indications of land became so numerous, that from a state of despondency they passed to one of confident expectation.

Eager to obtain the promised pension, the seamen were continually giving the cry of land, on the least appearance of the kind. To put a stop to these false alarms, which produced continual disappointment, Columbus declared that should any one give such notice, and land not be discovered within three days afterward, he should thenceforth forfeit all claim to the reward.

On the evening of the 6th of October Martin Alonzo Pinzon began to lose confidence in their present course, and proposed that they should stand more to the southward. Columbus, however, still persisted in steering directly west. Observing this difference of opinion in a person so important in his squadron as Pinzon, and fearing that chance or design might scatter the ships, he ordered that, should either of the caravels be separated from him, it should stand to the west, and endeavor as soon as possible to join company again. He directed, also, that the vessels should keep near to him at sunrise and sunset, as at these times the state of the atmosphere is most favorable to the discovery of distant land.

On the morning of the 7th of October, at sunrise, several of the admiral’s crew thought they beheld land away to the west, but so indistinctly that no one ventured to proclaim it, lest he should be mistaken, and forfeit all chance of the reward: the Niña, however, being a good sailor, pressed forward to ascertain the fact.

In a little while a flag was hoisted at her masthead, and a gun discharged, being the preconcerted signals for land. New joy was awakened throughout the little squadron, and every eye was turned to the west. As they advanced, however, their cloud-built hopes faded away, and before evening the fancied land had again melted into air.

The crews now sank into a degree of dejection proportioned to their recent excitement; but new circumstances occurred to arouse them. Columbus, having observed great flights of small field-birds going toward the southwest, concluded they must be secure of some neighboring land, where they would find food and a resting-place. He knew the importance which the Portuguese voyagers attached to the flight of birds, by following which they had discovered most of their islands.

He had now come seven hundred and fifty leagues, the distance at which he had computed to find the island of Cipango; as there was no appearance of it, he might have missed it through some mistake in the latitude. He determined, therefore, on the evening of the 7th of October, to alter his course to the west-southwest—the direction in which the birds generally flew—and continue that direction for at least two days.

After all, it was no great deviation from his main course, and would meet the wishes of the Pinzons, as well as be inspiriting to his followers generally.

For three days they stood in this direction, and the farther they went the more frequent and encouraging were the signs of land. Flights of small birds of various colors, some of them such as sing in the fields, came flying about the ships, and then continued toward the southwest, and others were heard also flying by in the night. Tunny fish played about the smooth sea, and a heron, a pelican, and a duck were seen, all bound in the same direction. The herbage which floated by was fresh and green, as if recently from land, and the air, Columbus observed, was as sweet and fragrant as April breezes in Seville.

All these, however, were regarded by the crews as so many delusions beguiling them on to destruction; and when on the evening of the third day they beheld the sun go down upon a shoreless ocean, they broke forth into turbulent clamor. They exclaimed against this obstinacy in tempting fate by continuing on into a boundless sea. They insisted upon turning homeward and abandoning the voyage as hopeless.

Columbus endeavored to pacify them by gentle words and promises of large rewards; but finding that they only increased in clamor, he assumed a decided tone. He told them that it was useless to murmur; the expedition had been sent by the sovereigns to seek the Indies, and, happen what might, he was determined to persevere until, by the blessing of God, he should accomplish the enterprise.

Columbus was now at open defiance with his crew, and his situation became desperate. Fortunately the manifestations of the vicinity of land were such on the following day as no longer to admit a doubt. Besides a quantity of fresh weeds, such as grow in rivers, they saw a green fish of a kind which keeps about rocks; then a branch of thorn with berries on it, and recently separated from the tree, floated by them; then they picked up a reed, a small board, and, above all, a staff artificially carved.

All gloom and mutiny now gave way to sanguine expectation, and throughout the day each one was eagerly on the watch, in hopes of being the first to discover the long-sought-for land.

In the evening, when, according to invariable custom on board of the admiral’s ship, the mariners had sung the Salve Regina, or vesper hymn to the Virgin, he made an impressive address to his crew. He pointed out the goodness of God in thus conducting them by soft and favoring breezes across a tranquil ocean, cheering their hopes continually with fresh signs, increasing as their fears augmented, and thus leading and guiding them to a promised land.

He now reminded them of the orders he had given on leaving the Canaries—that, after sailing westward seven hundred leagues, they should not make sail after midnight. Present appearances authorized such a precaution. He thought it probable they would make land that very night; he ordered, therefore, a vigilant lookout to be kept from the forecastle, promising to whomsoever should make the discovery a doublet of velvet in addition to the pension to be given by the sovereigns.

The breeze had been fresh all day, with more sea than usual, and they had made great progress. At sunset they had stood again to the west, and were plowing the waves at a rapid rate, the Pinta keeping the lead, from her superior sailing. The greatest animation prevailed throughout the ships; not an eye was closed that night.

As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin on the high poop of his vessel, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, and maintaining an intense and unremitting watch. About ten o’clock he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a great distance. Fearing his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king’s bedchamber, and inquired whether he saw such a light; the latter replied in the affirmative.

Doubtful whether it might not yet be some delusion of the fancy, Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the round-house the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterward in sudden and passing gleams—as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman, rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore borne up and down as he walked from house to house.

So transient and uncertain were these gleams that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.

They continued their course until two in the morning, when a gun from the Pinta gave the joyous signal of land. It was first descried by a mariner named Rodrigo de Triana; but the reward was afterward adjudged to the admiral for having previously perceived the light.

The land was now clearly seen about two leagues distant, whereupon they took in sail and laid to, waiting impatiently for the dawn.

The thoughts and feelings of Columbus In this little space of time must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed; his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly established; he had secured to himself a glory durable as the world itself.

It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man at such a moment, or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his mind as to the land before him, covered with darkness. That it was fruitful was evident from the vegetables which floated from its shores.

He thought, too, that he perceived the fragrance of aromatic groves. The moving light he had beheld proved it to be the residence of man. But what were its inhabitants? Were they like those of the other parts of the globe, or were they some strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination was prone in those times to give to all remote and unknown regions? Had he come upon some wild island far in the Indian Sea, or was this the famed Cipango itself, the object of his golden fancies?

A thousand speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, as, with his anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away; wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves, and glittering fanes, and gilded cities, and all the splendors of Oriental civilization.

Few nations are able to boast of such a great variety of games as are played in Great Britain and the United States. In many cases the Anglo-Saxon has been responsible for the preservation of games which are now almost unknown in the countries in which they had their origin. Some of these forms of diversion are older than the Roman Empire, while others, like ping-pong and basket-ball, are of recent invention.

BASEBALL holds undisputed sway as the American national game. It is founded on the old English game of rounders, and for almost a century it has been known in the Eastern States in various forms.

BASKET-BALL is unique, inasmuch as it was the invention of one man, and was completed at a single sitting. In 1891, in the course of a lecture at the Young Men’s Christian Association in Plainfield, Massachusetts, the lecturer spoke of the mental processes of invention, and used a game, with its limitations and necessities, as an illustration. James Naismith, who was a member of the class, worked out basket-ball that same night as an ideal game to meet the case. It was presented the next day in the lecture-room and put in practise with the aid of the members of the gymnasium. From there it spread to other branches of the Young Men’s Christian Association and subsequently to athletic clubs and the general public.

BILLIARDS is believed by some to have been brought from the East by the Crusaders, while others claim an English origin for it and find it allied to the game of bowls. Still others assert that the French developed it from an ancient German game. It seems pretty certain that the first person to give form and rule to the game was an artist, named Henrique Devigne, who lived in the reign of Charles IX. One writer sees in billiards the ancient game of paille-maille played on a table instead of on the ground, and this is indeed a very reasonable assumption.

BOWLS, or bowling, is one of the most popular and ancient of English pastimes, its origin being traceable to the twelfth century. It was held in such disfavor for years that laws were enacted against it and it was an illegal pursuit. Alleys were built, however, as it could not be played out-of-doors during the winter, and the game flourished in spite of opposition. In the beginning of the eighteenth century greens began to increase, while the alleys were rigorously and absolutely suppressed. It soon became a royal game, and no gentleman’s place was complete without a bowling-green.

CHECKERS is said by some to be a very old game, while others declare it to be of comparatively modern origin. Whence it came is absolutely unknown. The game is also called draughts, and there are many varieties of it—Chinese, English, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Turkish. It is also found among the native tribes of the interior of New Zealand.

CHESS always has been the subject of more dispute, so far as its origin is concerned, than any other game. It is probably the most ancient as well as the most intellectual of games, and it is played all over the world. The belief which is most generally accepted is that it came from the Hindoos, and the most conservative estimate places its age at one thousand years. Some persons, however, claim an age of from four to five thousand years for it. Its basis is the art of war, and the Hindoo name for it, chaturanga, means the four “angas” or members of an army which are given in Hindoo writings as elephants, horses, chariots, and foot-soldiers.

CRICKET is the national game of Englishmen, and seems always to have been played in Britain. The first mention of it is found in a manuscript of the thirteenth century. The name comes from the Saxon cric or cryc, a crooked stick—an obvious reference to the bat with which it is played. Wherever the English have colonized, the game is played, and in many of the British possessions it has become popular with the natives, notably in New Zealand.

CROQUET is said to have been derived from paille-maille, or mall, which was played in Languedoc in the thirteenth century. Mall was very popular in England at the time of the Stuarts. No other game has had such fluctuations of fortune as croquet, as it sunk into oblivion by the end of the eighteenth century, yet was revived during the middle of the nineteenth, and assumed almost the popularity of a national game.

CURLING has been popular in North Britain for the last three centuries, and is regarded as a Scottish game. It is possible that some of the Flemish merchants brought it into the country toward the close of the sixteenth century, but however that may be, it owes its development to the Scotch, and is now decidedly the national game of Scotland.

DICE are said by some to have had their origin in occult sources, but more reasonably they are ascribed to Psalmedes, of Greece, B.C. 1244. Those exhumed at Thebes are identical with those used to-day, and the games played with them are the simplest and most widely known games of chance in the world.

FOOTBALL was undoubtedly introduced into England by the Romans, and is, therefore, older than the national game of cricket. Varieties of it may be found in many parts of the world. It is known in the Philippines and through the Polynesian Islands, among the Eskimos, the Faroe Islands, and even by the Maoris of New Zealand. The Greeks also played it.

GOLF is popularly supposed to have its origin In Scotland, but there seems to be good reason for believing that it came from Holland. The name itself is undoubtedly of German or Dutch extraction, and an enactment of James I of England, bearing date 1618, refers to a considerable importation of golf-balls from Holland, and at the same time places a restriction upon this extravagant use, in a foreign country, of the coin of the realm.

LACROSSE is the national ball-game of Canada. It came from the aboriginal red men, who doubtless played it for many centuries before the discovery of the New World. Different tribes played it in different ways, and it was usually very rough. The name was given to it by the French Canadians, who saw the resemblance between the curved netted stick used in playing it and a bishop’s crozier or crosse.

PING-PONG is really table-tennis, and had its origin in that game. Its immense popularity lasted only a brief space of time, and its greatest vogue was in France and America.

POKER is probably a development of il frusso, an Italian game of the fifteenth century. A similar game called primiera was played in Italy in the sixteenth century, and thence journeyed into Spain. In France this became ambigu, and later appeared in England under the name of brag. Poker is distinctly an American game, and seems to have descended more directly from the game of brag than from any of the others.

POLO is of Eastern origin, and has been a favorite pastime in Persia, Tatary, and the frontiers of India from prehistoric times. The name of the game varies with the district, and the rules are not the same on minor points, though they are substantially alike on the main issues. China and Japan also have a game closely resembling the Persian sport.

POOL AND PYRAMIDS are both a form of billiards, and their origin from the same source is apparent.

SHUFFLEBOARD probably comes from the same source as quoits, curling, and bowling. It was immensely popular in England during the reign of Henry VIII. Subsequently it was one of the games forbidden by law because it turned the people from the practise of archery.

TENNIS is pronounced the oldest of all the existing ball-games. It is impossible to give its origin, but it was played in Europe during the Middle Ages, in the parks or ditches of the feudal castles. It was at first the pastime of kings and nobles, but later it grew popular with all classes. The French took it from the Italians and the English from the French.

WHIST undoubtedly is derived from the old game of trumps, which has a purely English lineage. There is no record of the origin of this game nor of its development into ruff-and-honors, which was the parent of whist. The earliest reference to it is believed to be in a sermon of Latimer’s, about the year 1529. The name probably is derived from the “hist” or “silence” which close attention to play demands of the players.

Ten weeks after the production of “Rienzi,” the Dresden Theater produced Wagner’s new opera, “The Flying Dutchman,” which had been composed in seven weeks after the completion of “Rienzi.” Much to the surprise of Wagner and his friends, “The Flying Dutchman” met with a cold reception, and served to slam shut in Wagner’s face the door of popularity which “Rienzi” had opened. The work was inadequately staged and sung; but a more effective cause of its failure lay in the fact that it was a new kind of opera, whose method the public did not understand.

Wagner had begun to apply his theory of leading motives, or reminiscent melodies. These motives are phrases of a few notes rendered by the orchestra, each of which symbolizes a character, a psychological mood, or an event of dramatic weight.

While listening to the story which the orchestra is telling, one may without difficulty foretell the entrance of a character, the approach of doom, or the fateful result of an action. From these motives, modulated through strange keys and sung by instruments of differing colors, the scores of Wagner’s late operas, from “Die Meistersinger” on, were in their entirety composed.

Wagner received his idea for “The Flying Dutchman” from a dramatic episode in his own life. At the time of the production of his opera, “The Novice of Palermo,” he was living beyond his means in Russia, in the town of Riga.

The failure of his opera left him heavily in debt, and the importunities of creditors decided him to escape in disguise from Russian territory. Minna, his wife, masqueraded as the wife of a lumberman, who took her as far as Pillau, in north Prussia, to which place Wagner was assisted by a different route. From that seaport he embarked with his wife, an opera and a half, a diminutive purse, and a Newfoundland dog, on a sailing-vessel to London, and thence to Paris.

Before leaving Riga, Wagner had read the legend of the Flying Dutchman, who was condemned to sail forever till the love of a faithful woman should release him from this curse. Among the wild storms of Wagner’s own voyage, in the wild romance of the passage through Northern fiords, he became obsessed by the story.

Perhaps it was not only the charm of the music of the sea and the lilt of the sailor’s songs which inspired him, but also his own heart’s craving for a cessation from wandering, and a home blessed by peace.

When the curtain rises we gaze on a wide storm-tossed ocean; the ship of the Norwegian mariner, Daland, lies at anchor near shore. Presently the sails of the Flying Dutchman’s vessel emerge, blood-red, from the blackness of the storm. The Dutchman steps ashore, for another term of seven years is past, and he is free to seek once more on earth the love of a faithful woman, whose devotion shall save him from the curse of wandering.

When Daland reappears on deck he sees the Dutchman and greets him, although he is a stranger, with open-hearted cordiality. The Dutchman begs asylum for a few days in Daland’s home, a few miles away, offering Daland in return a share of the treasures he has amassed. To this Daland consents.

“Have you a daughter?” asks the Dutchman.

“A beautiful daughter named Senta,” Daland answers.

Then, with the precipitancy characteristic of all Wagner’s lovers, the Dutchman cries:

“Let her be my wife!”

Daland, gazing on the treasures which the Dutchman has shown him, joyously gives his permission.

The second act shows us a room in Daland’s house, where Senta’s friends are sitting before wheels, gaily singing and spinning. Senta herself sits apart, gazing sentimentally at a portrait over the door—the portrait of the Flying Dutchman.

The gay song of her friends irritates her, and she bids them cease.

“Then sing us a better song yourself!” they cry.

Senta accepts the challenge, and sings the ballad of “The Flying Dutchman.” At its close she jumps up and cries that she will be the woman to save the suffering mariner.

A few minutes later Daland enters, accompanied by the Dutchman. Senta’s eyes leap away from her father to the man beside him. Speechless and immobile she stares at the face of her dreams.

“Father, who is this stranger?” she breathes.

And Daland whispers that he is a rich mariner who has come to woo her, and whom she must favor.

Daland then leaves them alone. For long moments they stare at each other, while the passion of love for the first time fills the Dutchman’s heart, and Senta sees her fancies take form in reality.

When Daland returns, Senta has plighted her faith in the arms of her long-desired lover.

The third act presents the sea again. Two ships lie at anchor. That of Daland, which is gay with lights and movement, and the fantom ship of the Dutchman, dark and silent. Suddenly the sea, calm elsewhere, begins to rise about the ship of the Flying Dutchman.

Tongues of light shriek about its masts, a storm howls, the crew appears, and in satanic strains taunt the captain because he has not even yet found a faithful woman. Then suddenly the sea subsides, and darkness and silence again cover the ship.

Senta comes out of the door of her house, accompanied by a suitor, Erik. Erik pleads with her not to marry the Dutchman, but to renew that affection for himself which she must, he says, formerly have felt. He reminds her of an occasion when she stood, her arm about his neck, her hand in his.

The Dutchman has drawn near, quite unperceived by either one of them, and has heard this tale. Ignorant of Senta’s passion for himself, and now believing her to be but a mere flirt, he rushes forward, crying, “Farewell, Senta!” Then, pointing to the anchored ship, whose blood-red sails are being hoisted, he cries:

“I am the Flying Dutchman!”

As he leaps on board, the vessel moves out of the harbor. Senta runs to a rock, from which she plunges after her lover into the sea.

As she does so, the curse is lifted, the fantom ship falls apart, and Senta and the Flying Dutchman together arise transfigured from the waves.

The Swiss constitute that curious anomaly, a nation without a language, and in this they are alone among all the peoples of the world. This is all the more remarkable when their intense patriotism is considered, and their really wonderful love of country.

The official languages are German, French, and Italian, these three being the recognized “mother-tongue” of the majority of the inhabitants.

About three-fourths of the people speak German, while the remainder divide four other languages among them—mainly French and Italian—the languages varying, as a rule, according to the proximity of the people to each country whose tongue they speak.

Public documents and notices are printed in both the French and German languages. In the Swiss National Parliament the members make their speeches either in French or German, for nearly all the members understand both these languages.

The orders of the President are translated by an official interpreter and furnished to the newspapers in both languages.

Superstition of some sort or other has been attached to certain numbers from time immemorial, but the numbers three, seven, and thirteen have been particularly favored, and three and seven have figured very prominently in mythology, scriptural history, and elsewhere. Three is called the perfect number, seven is regarded as lucky, and thirteen as unlucky.

It was Pythagoras who termed three the “perfect number,” because it expressed “the beginning, the middle, and the end,” signifying a perfect whole.

On this account he made it a symbol of the Deity, and the “Holy Trinity” is now, and doubtless will be always, the most potent symbol of Christianity. The world was supposed to be under the rule of three gods: Jupiter (heaven), Neptune (sea), and Pluto (Hades). Jove is represented carrying three-forked lightning. Neptune carries a trident, and Pluto is accompanied by a three-headed dog.

Divides Things Into Three Parts.

There are three Fates, three Furies, and three Graces. The Harpies are three in number; there are three Sibylline books, and the fountain in Mysia, from which Hylas drew water, was presided over by three nymphs. The pythoness sat on a tripod; the Muses are three times three. Both Man and the World are threefold—the former, body, soul, and spirit; the latter, earth, sea, and air. The enemies of Man are the world, the flesh, and the devil; the kingdoms of Nature are animal, vegetable, and mineral. The cardinal colors are red, yellow, and blue.

In almost all countries new laws have to pass three bodies. In the United States, State laws pass the Assembly, the State Senate, and the Governor. Federal laws pass the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President. In England there are the Commons, the Lords, and the King to be reckoned with.

Concerning the church there were the “Three Chapters,” otherwise three books on the subject of the Incarnation and the two natures of Christ, which caused a great controversy during the reign of Justinian and the popedom of Vigilius. In 553 these books were condemned by the General Council at Constantinople. One was written by Theodore, of Mopsuestia; one by Theodoret, of Cyprus; and the third by Ibas, Bishop of Edessa.

It was the “three bishoprics” of France that passed to the German rule after the Franco-Prussian War. They were Metz, Verdun, and Lorraine, each of which was once under the lordship of a bishop. In early days the churches were usually provided with what was known as a “three decker.” This structure consisted of the clerk’s desk, the reading-desk, and the pulpit, one above the other. Then again, Epiphany or Twelfth Day is sometimes known as “Three Kings’ Day,” as it is supposed to commemorate the visit of the three kings, or wise men, to the infant Jesus.

The three estates of the realm are the nobility, the clergy, and the commonalty in England, the sovereign being in a class by himself. One of the collects in the English prayer-books thanks God for preserving “the king and the three estates of the realm.” It was Burke who designated the press of the country “the fourth estate.”

Mention must also be made of the “three R’s” of education: reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic; and the Bible is composed of three parts: Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha.

The Holiness of Seven.

Seven always has been a holy number, and that may be why it is considered lucky. The creation occupied seven days; there are seven spirits before the throne of God. There are seven days in the week; seven divisions of the Lord’s Prayer; seven ages in the life of man; and the just are supposed to fall “seven times a day.”

The moon has seven phases, every seventh year was sabbatical for the Jews, and seven times seven years was the “jubilee.” The three great feasts of the Jews lasted seven days, and seven weeks elapsed between the first and the second of these.

Levitical purifications lasted seven days. In the Bible are mentioned seven candlesticks, seven trumpets, seven stars, and seven horns. The Lamb had seven eyes. Ten times seven Israelites went into Egypt, and the exile lasted ten times seven years. There were ten times seven elders, and Pharaoh, in his dream, saw seven ears of corn and seven kine.

The bibles or sacred books of the world are seven in number: the Bible of the Christians; the Eddas of the Scandinavians; the Five Kings of the Chinese; the Koran of the Mohammedans; the Tri Pitikes of the Buddhists; the three Vedas of the Hindus; and the Zendavesta of the Persians. Incidentally, the Koran dates from the seventh century.

The seven churches of Asia were founded in the following cities: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Strangely enough, each of these churches, which were founded by the Apostles themselves, are now Mohammedan, and the cities in which they stand, with the exception of Smyrna, are more or less insignificant.

Before the throne of God stand seven angels. They are Michael, Gabriel, Lamael, Raphael, Zachariel, Anael, and Oriphel. The Deity is endowed with seven spirits: the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit of Understanding, the Spirit of Counsel, the Spirit of Power, the Spirit of Righteousness, the Spirit of Knowledge, and the Spirit of Divine Awfulness.

In the life of the Virgin Mary there were Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows. The former were the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple, the finding of Christ among the Doctors, and the Assumption. The sorrows were: Simeon’s Prophecy, the Flight into Egypt, the unexplained absence of Christ, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion, the Descent from the Cross, and the Ascension, when Mary was left alone. In the picture “Our Lady of Dolors” she is represented with her breast pierced with seven swords emblematic of her seven sorrows.

Seven Men Who Did Wonders In Chivalry.

The Seven Champions of Christendom were: St. George, of England, who was imprisoned seven years; St. Denys, of France, who lived seven years in the form of a hart; St. James, of Spain, who was dumb for seven years out of love for a Jewess; St. Anthony, of Italy, who was released from his enchanted sleep by St. George’s sons, who quenched seven lamps; St Andrew, of Scotland, who delivered six ladies who had lived seven years as white swans; St. David, of Wales, who was released from a seven years’ enchanted sleep by St. George; and St. Patrick, of Ireland.

The Seven Sages of Greece and their mottoes were: Solon, of Athens: “Know thyself.” Chilo, of Sparta: “Consider the end.” Thales, of Miletos: “Who hateth suretyship is sure.” Bias, of Priene: “Most men are bad.” Cleobulos, of Lindos: “The golden mean,” or “Avoid extremes.” Pittacos, of Mitylene: “Seize time by the forelock.” And Periander, of Corinth: “Nothing is impossible to industry.”

How the Old Alchemists Relied on Seven.

There are seven bodies in alchemy, each having its planet. They are: gold, the sun; silver, the moon; iron, Mars; quicksilver, Mercury; lead, Saturn; tin, Jupiter; and copper, Venus.

The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice, and sloth; while the Seven Virtues are faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

Ancient teaching had it that the soul of a man was composed of seven properties, each under the influence of a planet, thus: fire animates, earth gives the sense of feeling, speech is gained from water, air gives taste, sight comes from mist, flowers give hearing, and the south wind gives smelling. Here are the seven senses, and then, too, as the boys at school are fond of saying, there are seven holes in one’s head: two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and the mouth.

The Seven Sleepers were seven youths of Ephesus who fled from persecution to a cave and slept therein for many years. Their names were Constantine, Dionysius, John, Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, and Serapion.

There are two groups of Seven Wonders of the World. The antique group consisted of the Pyramids, Babylon’s Hanging Gardens, Mausolus’s Tomb, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, Jupiter’s Statue by Phidias, the Pharos of Egypt, and the Palace of Cyrus (which was cemented with gold).

The seven wonders of the Middle Ages were the Colosseum, the Catacombs at Alexandria, the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Porcelain Tower of Nankin, and the Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople.

The Origin of “Unlucky Thirteen.”

Thirteen is regarded as unlucky by a great many people who claim that they are not superstitious about other things, and there are thousands of tales of unfortunate occurrences supposedly due to that number.

The origin of the superstition is very generally supposed to be the “Last Supper,” at which the Lord and His Twelve Apostles were present. As a matter of history, the belief in the “hoodoo” antedates Christianity by centuries. Norse mythology deemed it unlucky to sit down thirteen at a banquet table, because at such a feast in the Valhalla, Loki, the spirit of evil and the god of strife, once intruded. Balder, the god of peace, was killed by the blind war-god Hoder, at the instigation of Loki.

The Turks so dislike the number that the word indicating it has become almost expurged from their vocabulary. The Italians never use it in making up their lotteries, and in Paris no house bears the number; and there is in existence there a profession the members of which make their living attending dinner parties in order to make the fourteenth at table.

At a discussion of superstitions recently one young man ventured the remark that he knew of hundreds of buildings in New York that had no thirteenth story.

“How is that?” he was asked.

“They are only twelve stories high,” was the reply.

Nevertheless, there are several skyscrapers in the metropolis in which the number thirteen is skipped both in numbering the floors and in numbering the rooms. The Kuhn-Loeb Building, at the corner of Pine and William Streets, is an example, and the building at the corner of William and Wall Streets has a twelfth floor and a fourteenth floor, but no floor in between.

For more than a century the Kilkenny cats, which “fought until there was nothing left of them but their tails,” have been regarded as the most quarrelsome creatures of which there is any record.

Various accounts of their memorable encounter have appeared from time to time, but the version which is given the most credence is that offered by a writer in the Irish Nation. This story is as follows:

The story has been so long current that it has become a proverb—“as quarrelsome as the Kilkenny cats”; two of the cats in which city are asserted to have fought so long and so ferociously that naught was found of them but their tails.

The facts are these: During the rebellion which occurred in Ireland in 1798, Kilkenny was garrisoned by a regiment of Hessian soldiers, whose custom it was to tie together, in one of their barrack-rooms, two cats by their respective tails, and then throw them face to face across a line generally used for drying clothes. The cats naturally became infuriated, and scratched each other in the abdomen until death ensued to one or both of them.

The officers were made acquainted with the barbarous acts of cruelty, and resolved to put an end to them. For this purpose an officer was ordered to inspect each barrack-room daily and report its state. The soldiers, determined not to lose the daily torture of the cats, generally employed one of their comrades to watch the approach of their officer.

On one occasion he neglected his duty, and the officer was heard ascending the stairs while the cats were undergoing their customary torture. One of the troopers seized a sword from the armrack and with a single blow divided the tails of the cats.

The cats escaped through the open windows of the room, which was entered instantly afterward by the officer, who inquired what was the cause of the two bleeding cat’s tails being suspended on the line, and was told in reply that “two cats had been fighting in the room; that it was found impossible to separate them, and they fought so desperately that they had devoured each other up, with the exception of their two tails.”

DEAR HANDS.

Of the gems reprinted in The Scrap Book, our readers have received none more gladly than Mrs. Susan Marr Spalding’s “Fate,” which appeared in our first issue. Her name was then given as “Spaulding,” an error which we take this occasion to correct.

Few who read the poem in the March Scrap Book were aware that Mrs. Spalding was still living. It is many years since “Fate” first appeared. The author’s fame, while amply justified by many other poems, has been permitted to rest upon that single earlier product, and the author herself has been lost sight of. Since “Fate” appeared, however, she has written much that is worthy of long remembrance.

Mrs. Spalding has been living with a friend, Mrs. Louise P. Sargent, of West Medford, Massachusetts, who writes of her, saying: “She is a helpless invalid, but so sweet and helpful that her influence radiates through a large circle.” Many friends sent her the March Scrap Book, and she said:

“I am growing tired of ‘Fate.’ Why don’t they copy some of the sonnets, which are surely as deserving?”

Mrs. Spalding’s later poems, while perhaps no one of them strikes so vital a tone as “Fate,” are of high merit. We reprint from “The Wings of Icarus,” published by Roberts Brothers in 1892, the following fine sonnet:

By SUSAN MARR SPALDING.

Roughened and worn with ceaseless toil and care,

No perfumed grace, no dainty skill had these;

They earned for whiter hands a jeweled ease,

And kept the scars unlovely for their share.

Patient and slow, they had the will to bear

The whole world’s burdens, but no power to seize

The flying joys of life, the gifts that please,

The gold and gems that others find so fair.

Dear hands, where bridal jewel never shone,

Whereon no lover’s kiss was ever pressed,

Crossed in unwonted quiet on the breast—

I see, through tears, your glory newly won;

The golden circlet of life’s work well done,

Set with the shining pearl of perfect rest.

AN ANNOUNCEMENT.

Miss May Tybell says she ain’t engaged to anybody, and that she won’t be, there being too much foolishness in Link already.—Henderson (Nebraska) Tribune.

ROUGH ON THE COLT.

While Elwood Gardner was caring for a colt in the stable Thursday he reared and kicked him in the stomach, hurting him so badly that he is not able to do anything.—Coldwater (Michigan) Courier.

THEIR EQUIPMENT.

The correspondent, as well as the entire town and county, extend the best wishes and success to this happy pair. There is not the least doubt in any mind that they will succeed socially as well as financially, as each has an unequivocal sense of ubiquity.—Wapello (Iowa) Republican.

LOST AND WON AD.

Lost—By Miss Susie Holbert, Saturday night, among the Sir Knights and the Daughters of St. Marace Tabernacle, No. 10, money tied in a handkerchief. Failure to return the money has caused some feelings. Miss Holbert won first prize in the U. M. P. J. J. M. Whist Club.—Lawrence (Kansas) Gazette.

A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE.

They tell of a North Atchison woman who was preserving cherries when the preacher called. She couldn’t leave her work, so he was called to the kitchen, and she watched her preserves while he talked, and stirred them in a quiet, religious way while he offered a prayer. The prayer and the preserves were done at the same time.—Atchison Globe.

A SEQUATCHIE MYSTERY.

Wonder what George Marson is doing over here riding muleback. He passed by here Sunday with his two-story collar on and with both hands in his pocket up to his elbows, with his feet lying between the mule’s ears. He had his shoes shined and he did not want to get them soiled. His mule was so small that his feet would drag.—Sequatchie (Tennessee) News.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Don’t sneak in at a ball game. Up at Salina last week a fellow borrowed a boat, crossed the river, got his feet wet and muddy, climbed up the bank, tore a five-dollar pair of pants on the underbrush, got poison-ivy all over his face, slipped up to the game in the park from the rear—all this but to find out that no admission was charged to the game.—Marquette (Kansas) Tribune.

THE WORM TURNS.

The lady (?) who yesterday called the attention of another to our patched breeches, whereat they both laughed so heartily, is informed that a new pair will be purchased when her husband’s bill is settled. It has been due nearly a year. Don’t criticise a printer’s dress too closely while you are wearing silks with money due him. Tell your husband to send us twenty dollars and seventy-three cents, and save the cost of an entire suit.—Swainsboro Forest.

THE KIND OF DOG IT WAS.

The following notice has been published in a northern Peninsula paper by a French-Canadian:

“Loosed. One dawg. Been loose him bout three weeks. Him white dawg almost white with him tail cut off close next to her body. Anybody find her bring him to me. I belong to him and shall give good rewards for the same. Black spot on him nose about size fifty cents or dollar piece, Canada money or United States all the same. For yours truly with anxious, Felix Carno, hind side of Methody Church about three blocks in the house up-stairs with green painting.”—Exchange.

The wind blew and blew. It flapped across the river and disported itself up through the town, shaking and tearing at things—gates, chimneys, and wire-hung smokestacks. It shrieked and roared through alleys and around corners, and at last it careened up Main Street, on the very stroke of midnight. There it contended with an uncertain-minded person, whom it found trying to navigate.

This was Mr. Chester Van Nesten, and he was supposed (by himself only, for no one else on earth knew anything at all about it) to be going somewhere. Not home, however, for Mr. Van Nesten was opposed to going home in dark and windy weather at twelve o’clock at night. “M’ dear,” he had said impressively when he thought of home, “lodge meet’n—in-itiation—unfit s’ciety la’ies!” And that, several times repeated, seemed to clinch the argument.

Having formed a resolution not to go to his home until such time as the streets and buildings, which whirled about him so erratically, should find themselves once more in their proper positions, he decided to go to his office and there spend the night.

At length, after a series of wonderful tacks, he succeeded in steering up to the darkened building in which were situated the offices of the firm of Hidgepit & Van Nesten.

Pausing before the stairway entrance of the old building, Mr. Van Nesten rattled at the door-knob.

“Locked!” he muttered as he fumbled uncertainly in his pockets.

The keys were forthcoming in due time, and then, in a spasmodic manner, he applied himself to the task of opening the door. He succeeded. Then, closing the door after him, he slouched and stumbled along till he encountered a staircase. Mr. Van Nesten paused to rest and consider this staircase, and then, breathing very hard, he clutched an invisible bannister and began by painful degrees to ascend.

Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s office was on the second floor, near the center of the building. Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s composing-room being in front and Hidgepit & Van Nesten’s bindery in the rear. Mr. Van Nesten arrived at last at the office. He stumbled in and endeavored to light the gas. But he had no matches—none—and after solemnly expressing appreciation of this mystery, he groped about in the dark for a time, thumping himself uncertainly against things, till he found a certain small leather-covered couch or lounge that reposed in a corner of the room with its head against a big iron safe. Mr. Van Nesten, breathing audible relief, sat down to rest.

His father-in-law and senior partner, Mr. Hidgepit, owned this lounge, and was in the habit of reclining on it daily (Sundays excepted) after lunch, while he meditated and encouraged digestion.

Van Nesten was very well satisfied, then, and sat quite still for a few moments while he contemplated the equity of things. He removed his coat and hat, but, finding no place to put them, he held them for a moment and then flung them from him. He endeavored to consider the iniquity of his coat and hat—and it ended by his head falling forward again, and then he dropped completely over and went sound asleep on the couch.

Some hours later Mr. Van Nesten awoke—a little gradually—in confusion and with reluctance. But a blinding stream of light was in his eyes and a figure—a grotesque and crouching figure, with a strip of black cloth across its face—was before him. This he became more or less vaguely aware of, and then came the pressure of something cold and hard against his right temple. He flashed wide awake in an instant—and perfectly, perfectly sober.

“Don’t move,” said the burglar. And Mr. Van Nesten didn’t. The burglar ran a deft hand over him to detect the presence of possible fire-arms, and then he stepped back.

“Get up!” he said sharply.

Van Nesten stood up. He was a young man, of good physique, and now that the first shock was over, did not feel greatly afraid. He looked steadfastly at the eyes which showed through the holes in the black mask. The burglar regarded him steadily, his pistol in his hand. He was taking stock of the situation.

“You belong here?” he demanded at last.

“I do,” said Van Nesten.

“Then”—the pistol was raised to a level with the young man’s head—“you open that safe!”

Van Nesten winced. It is no light matter to look into the muzzle of a big revolver. He experienced a quick impulse to duck—to fend his face—to dodge and run, but he controlled himself and remained perfectly quiet.

“Don’t say you can’t!”

The burglar’s tone was threatening.

“I won’t, though!” said Van Nesten. He was surprised at his own quiet, firm tones. “I won’t, though!” he repeated.

The silence then was electrical. The two men, tense as steel, stood glaring at each other.

“You won’t!” The burglar’s attitude seemed to be more tense. “You won’t!”

“I would—to save my life,” said Van Nesten, “but it’s not necessary. If you kill me you’ll have murder as well as house-breaking to answer for—besides being no nearer to getting the safe open. And it might make a noise,” he added.

The burglar stood for an unpleasant, concentrated moment, and then he seemed to grow a little less intense. He relaxed and uttered a curse.

“Throw up your hands!” he snapped.

“I’ll do that,” said Van Nesten, and he did.

The burglar put down his lantern and produced from his pocket a piece of stout cord. He leaped into a chair. “Come here!” he said, with vicious curtness. “Backwards!”

Van Nesten, turning about, endeavored to comply.

“Hands together!” said the burglar, when he had him satisfactorily stationed. Van Nesten’s hands came together; and the burglar rapidly wound round and round them at the wrists with an end of his cord. The cold nozzle of his revolver pressed lightly against Van Nesten’s neck.

“No monkey business!” the intruder cautioned by way of general admonition, as he drew it away. And then he tied Van Nesten’s hands.

He stepped down from the chair then and directed Van Nesten to climb up in his place. Then he bound the young man’s ankles together. He was a strong burglar and he bound them exceedingly well.

This done, he backed off and regarded his work. Van Nesten stood with his back to him, in a perfectly helpless position. He could not even get to the floor without severe risk of injury. The burglar walked round and faced him.

“I ain’t going to gag you,” he growled. “You understand if you make a noise what it will be—a personal risk to me? You understand that?”

“I understand,” said Van Nesten. “That’s the reason I’m tied. It won’t be necessary to gag me.”

The burglar grunted.

“It’s also unnecessary to keep me standing up here,” went on Van Nesten boldly. “Take hold of my elbow,” he said, “and steady me so I can jump down.”

The burglar glared at him an instant in amazement, and then suddenly jerked himself forward and seized him by the arm.

“Jump!” he said roughly.

When Van Nesten came down to the floor again the burglar gave him a whirl about, and pushed him over into the chair. They regarded one another steadily, then the burglar turned away.

“Keep your face shut now, will you?” he said, and went to pick up his lantern again.

He approached the big iron safe as a man approaches his chosen work. Van Nesten watched him making his arrangements—inspecting, tapping, and fingering about—as deftly, accurately, and readily as a skilful artisan.

He never paused for an instant and his tools seemed ready to his hand. Finally he prepared something with a few sharp clicks, and then he dropped down to his knees and began to work—drilling.

Van Nesten did not at all enjoy his situation, but the pain from his thongs soon gave way to a numbness, and then he did not suffer so much. The only sound for several moments was the dull grind of the burglar’s drill.

Suddenly the burglar stopped his work and began to snuff at the air. He laid down his tools and raised his face toward the ceiling.

“By God!” he cried excitedly, and sprang to his feet. “What’s this smoke?”

Van Nesten not only smelled it, but saw that it was pouring into the room through the open door.

“This place is afire!” said the burglar.

Like a flash Van Nesten’s mind went back and he remembered himself drunkenly ascending those stairs and lighting matches to try and find the way. He remembered now that when he had entered the office there had been no match left in his pocket. He gave a great wrench at his thongs—but they held him fast. Van Nesten groaned.

The burglar was down on the floor again, gathering up his implements. He was defter and quicker now than ever, and Van Nesten, in a cold sweat, sat watching him.

The burglar’s tools clinked and jingled together as he stowed them away. Then he suddenly leaped to his feet and faced Van Nesten.

“Shoot me—strangle me—do something!” cried Van Nesten. “For God’s sake don’t leave me here like this!”

But the burglar had not hesitated an instant. His hand had been in his pocket even as he rose from the floor, and a knife gleamed as he advanced with a rush.

“Stab me, then!” said Van Nesten wildly. “Stab me, then! Don’t leave me here to roast!”

“What!” cried the burglar. He recoiled from those words as suddenly as if he had been hit. An upward motion tore the mask from his face, and aghast he glared at Van Nesten.

“My God, man!” he said “what you think I am?”

The rising smoke eddied between them.

But the burglar recovered himself almost instantly.

“You’re scart,” he said, “and I don’t blame you.”

With two deft strokes of his knife he severed the cords that bound Van Nesten’s hands and feet. Then he stepped back and thrust the knife in his pocket.

“It’s up to you,” he said. “How are we going to get out of here?”

Van Nesten passed a hand across his forehead and staggered to his feet. He stepped to the door and the burglar quickly followed.

“Wait!” said Van Nesten. He flashed the burglar’s lantern up and down the hall. It was thoroughly full of smoke. His quickening mind took in the whole situation.

“Come on!” he said.

He took the burglar by the hand and led him swiftly through the hall.

“Up?” asked the burglar.

Van Nesten opened a door and they passed out into the bindery among stitching-machines and great stacks of unfolded paper.

“Good thing you brought this lantern!” remarked Van Nesten, leading swiftly on. They encountered another hallway and more smoke, then a flight of stairs, which they mounted two steps at a time.

“Can you open a door?” asked Van Nesten, when a locked one barred their way. The burglar grunted and applied himself, while Van Nesten held the light. Neither spoke, but hot clouds of smoke were coming up faster and faster, and the sound of a crackling roar was beneath them. The fire was coming on with a rush.

The door opened, and they burst into Greddin’s paper-box factory, full of combustibles.

“This way!” cried Van Nesten, taking the burglar’s hand again. They ran through tangled aisles of machinery, tables, and benches, the thick smoke all about them. Then Van Nesten reached a window and he and the burglar seized it together and threw it up. Shouts and the sounds of confusion in the street came up to them now, and in the distance clanged the gong of an approaching fire-engine. But there was no time to lose.

“Go ahead!” said Van Nesten. “It’s one at a time now.”

Then the burglar, with his head and shoulders through the window, drew back, white and shaking.

“My God!” he exclaimed, “have we got to jump across there?”

It was a perfectly easy leap of five feet to the roof of the next building, with a twenty-four inch drop to make it certain. “I can’t do it!” the burglar groaned.

Van Nesten stared at him, appalled at his sudden fright. “You’re crazy!” he cried. “It’s perfectly easy. Go on, man! Be quick!”

The burglar clutched the window-sill, looking out with wild eyes.

“I can’t!” he muttered despairingly. “I was always this way. I can’t do it!”

“You’ve got to!” said Van Nesten. “By God! I’ll throw you over!”

But the burglar shrank away. His nerve was utterly gone.

“Save yourself,” he said. “It’s no use. I’ll never make it!”

Van Nesten glared about him. Then he cried:

“Quick, man, your knife! Some belting!” He leaped to the top of an embossing-machine which stood near the window and seized hold of the two-inch leather belt which connected with its overhead shafting. The burglar had his knife ready and thrust it up to him. Van Nesten slashed at the belt, and it fell in twain. He leaped to the floor, bearing an end of it with him.

“Fasten it here—quick!” Van Nesten said, circling a projecting piece of the heavy machine. “When I jump across throw me the other end of it. You can cross on that.”

Van Nesten clambered to the window-frame and made his leap. His feet crunched on the gravel roof of the next building.

“Come on! That belt!” he cried, rushing back to the edge of the roof. “Come on!”

The burglar had already thrown it. It curled in a twisted mass at Van Nesten’s feet, and he seized it up and retreated back on the roof with the end of it. In vain he looked for a place to fasten it—hither and thither he darted, and the burglar, his white face showing through the smoke, his crouching body pressed down upon the window-frame, watched him.

Van Nesten wrapped the belt around his body and stretched it taut. There were twenty feet or more of it, and though the leverage would be against him, he could, by keeping to the far end of it, easily sustain the burglar’s weight for a distance of five feet from the window-frame on which it rested.

“I’ve got you!” cried Van Nesten. “Come on!”

The burglar crept up on the window-sill, his feet curled beneath him. Slowly, slowly his hand led out along the piece of belting—he reached to the center and part of the space that lay between him and safety, but still, distrusting, despairing, he clung to the window-ledge. Then he lurched suddenly forward, and swung by his hands over the abyss.

Van Nesten, braced as he was, took a step forward under the quick strain. The belt sagged, and the burglar sunk to a level with the roof. Its cornice was almost in his face. Terror was upon him as he hung, and he could not move. Then the belt slipped: Van Nesten could not hold it. The burglar gasped and clutched at the edge of the roof. Van Nesten, tangled in the belting, thought that he had fallen, and he hurried forward. The white face was beneath him and his own wild eyes stared into it.

Van Nesten, breathing heavily, bent over and took the burglar by the wrists. Terror now was upon them both. Slowly Van Nesten drew up the burglar who hung inert. It was not till his waist had passed the point of safety that the burglar exerted himself. Then he made a sudden frantic effort, and, wrenching himself free from Van Nesten, he crawled out upon the roof.

He lay flat for a moment from sheer exhaustion, then he sat up.

“By God!” said the burglar, passing his hands over his face, “I don’t want nothing more like that.”

Van Nesten, feeling suddenly weak, had sat down also. Now he turned toward the burglar and burst out laughing.

The burglar gave Van Nesten a quick look.

“What’s to do with you and me?” he asked.

Van Nesten remained cheerful.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Say,” he immediately added, “got anything you want to burn up? The firemen’ll be here in about a minute, you know.”

The burglar took the hint. He stood up and cast certain things through the window to the room they had just left.

“Chuck that gun over there, too,” said Van Nesten, with just an authoritative twang to his voice. The burglar, giving him another quick look, complied.

The burglar stood a little awkwardly.

“Well, let’s get out of here,” said Van Nesten, springing up. “It’s getting hot.”

Together they traveled over the roof toward the fire-escape.

Probably no national hymn has ever roused the frenzy of patriotic enthusiasm which always attends the singing of “The Marseillaise.” The bloody deeds of the French Revolution were all accompanied to the music of this inspiring song, and curiously enough, it seems to fire the hearts of the people when they are actuated by widely different motives.

The origin of the song is interesting and would seem to indicate that it was indeed an inspiration in the true sense of the word. Lamartine gives the story in his “Histoire des Girondins.”

In the garrison of Strasburg was quartered a young artillery officer, named Rouget de Lisle, a native of Louis de Salnier, in the Jura. He had a great taste for music and poetry, and often entertained his comrades during their long and tedious hours in the garrison. Sought after for his musical and poetical talent, he was a frequent and familiar guest at the house of one Dietrich, an Alsatian patriot, Mayor of Strasburg.

The winter of 1792 was a period of great scarcity at Strasburg. The house of Dietrich was poor, his table was frugal, but a seat was always open to Rouget de Lisle.

One day there was nothing but bread and some slices of smoked ham on the table. Dietrich, regarding the young officer, said to him, with sad serenity:

“Abundance fails at our boards; but what matters that, if enthusiasm fails not at our civic fêtes, nor courage in the hearts of our soldiers? I have still a last bottle of wine in my cellar. Bring it,” said he to one of his daughters, “and let us drink France and Liberty! Strasburg should have its patriotic solemnity. De Lisle must draw from these last drops one of those hymns which raise the soul of the people.”

The wine was brought and drank, after which the officer departed. The night was cold. De Lisle was thoughtful. His heart was moved, his head heated. He returned staggering to his solitary room and slowly sought inspiration—sometimes in the fervor of his citizen soul, and anon on the keys of his instrument, composing now the air before the words, and then the words before the air. He sung all, and wrote nothing, and at last, exhausted, fell asleep with his head resting on his instrument, and awoke not till daybreak.

The music of the night returned to his mind like the impression of a dream. He wrote it, and ran to Dietrich, whom he found in the garden digging winter lettuces. The wife and daughters of the old man were not up. Dietrich awoke them, and called in some friends, all as passionate as himself for music, and able to execute the composition of De Lisle. At the first stanza, cheeks grew pale; at the second, tears flowed; and at the last the delirium of enthusiasm burst forth. The wife of Dietrich, his daughters, himself, and the young officer, threw themselves, crying, into each other’s arms.

The hymn of the country was found. Executed some days afterward in Strasburg, the new song flew from city to city, and was played by all the popular orchestras. Marseilles adopted it to be sung at the commencement of the sittings of the clubs, and the Marseillaise spread it through France, singing it along the public roads. From this came the name of “Marseillaise.”

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

While Thomas Moore held a minor appointment in Bermuda, early in the last century, he visited the United States, and there found material for several well-known poems. His imagination was greatly struck by what he heard of the Dismal Swamp, which at that time was a vast morass more than forty miles in length and twenty-five miles in width, extending from Virginia into North Carolina, and having in the midst of it a stagnant lake to which few had ever penetrated. Many strange stories were told of this gloomy swamp, with its dark recesses in which savage animals and loathsome serpents lurked, and where, according to the legends of the country-people, unearthly sights had at times been seen.

Moore’s genius gave to one of these legends a poetical form in the lines which are here reprinted and which were long extremely popular. It may be mentioned as a matter of interest that the Dismal Swamp has in recent years been in part reclaimed by drainage, and that a canal now crosses it, thus destroying its old-time mystery and romance.

By THOMAS MOORE.

“They made her grave too cold and damp

For a soul so warm and true;

And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,

Where all night long, by a firefly lamp,

She paddles her white canoe.

“And her firefly lamp I soon shall see,

And her paddle I soon shall hear;

Long and loving our life shall be,

And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress-tree

When the footstep of death is near!”

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—

His path was rugged and sore,

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds.

And man never trod before!

And when on earth he sunk to sleep,

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tear, and nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,

And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,

Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,

“O when shall I see the dusky Lake,

And the white canoe of my dear?”

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright

Quick over its surface played—

“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!”

And the dim shore echoed for many a night

The name of the death-cold maid!

Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,

Which carried him off from the shore;

Far he followed the meteor spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark,

And the boat returned no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp,

This lover and maid so true

Are seen, at the hour of midnight damp,

To cross the Lake by a firefly lamp,

And paddle their white canoe!

It makes the ordinary, hard-working householder envious to see the luxurious display of fortune’s favorites. He finds it hard enough struggle to get the necessaries of life without any of its delicacies, and to keep the cost within his income. Nor can he look back into the days of long ago for consolation. It only increases his discomfiture to compare his expense account with those of his ancestors.

If a man had a quarter in his pocket in the days of the Plantagenets, for instance, he could keep his family well supplied for a week. With that amount of money he could smile at the butcher, bow openly to the grocer, and look the rest of the world as squarely in the face as did the village blacksmith.

If he lived in England seven hundred years ago and wished to regale his family on mutton, he could buy the finest of fat sheep for twenty-four cents, which would almost allow him to give a banquet on a pennyworth of mutton. A cow was more expensive, but one dollar and a half would buy the best he could find in the market, while for a fat hog he need only part with eighty cents.

In the fourteenth century, two cents would buy a pair of chickens, and a nickel for a goose fit to grace any Christmas dinner-table, and a penny would purchase a dozen new-laid eggs; while for two cents the brewer was compelled by law to sell three gallons of beer, the equivalent of forty-eight glasses.

Wheat sometimes fell as low as forty cents a quarter, though after a great storm, or In a time of “grievous famine,” it would rise as high as four and five dollars a quarter. Still, at these prices a good many pounds of bread could be bought for a penny.

Pasture and arable lands were ridiculously cheap—two cents an acre for the former and twelve cents an acre for the latter being considered a fair annual rental. Draft-horses were a drug on the market at seventy-two cents each, and oxen at one dollar and twenty cents. In the days of the second Henry fifty dollars would have equipped a farm with three draft-horses, half a dozen oxen, twenty cows, and two hundred sheep, leaving a balance of two dollars toward the payment of the rent—about five dollars a year.

As for labor, three cents a day was deemed good wages for an ordinary laborer, and even at harvest-time four cents a day was the highest sum expected.

House rent was so absurdly small that the Lord Mayor of London paid only four dollars and eighty cents a year to his landlord; and the Chancellor, with an annual salary of one hundred and ninety-two dollars, seemed poorer than many a cook of our own time. When a father sent his son to a university six centuries ago, four cents a day was considered a comfortable allowance, with a margin for such luxuries as wine at eight or twelve cents a gallon.

Twenty-four dollars a year was a munificent salary in those days. It was the exact sum paid to the assistant clerk of Parliament, and more than the average priest, with cure of souls, received; while the pension allowed by Edward III to his apothecary was only twelve cents a day, and King Edward IV’s allowance to his daughter was but four dollars and eighty cents a week, with an additional two hundred and forty-seven dollars and sixty cents a year for the maintenance of her eight servants.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth prices were still exceedingly modest, and, it is only fair to add, wages low in proportion. From a household book of 1589 we take the following typical prices: Beef, two and a half cents a pound; a neck of mutton, twelve cents; twenty-eight pounds of veal and a shoulder of mutton, fifty-six cents; cheese, four cents a pound; wheat, three dollars and eighty-four cents a quarter ton.

Coal is such a commonplace article that few people take the trouble to find out what it is and how it came into use. The average householder’s thoughts about coal are mainly confined to questions of price.

One picks up, of course, such interesting facts as that the United States burns three hundred and fifty million tons a year, at a cost to consumers of about seven hundred million dollars. In this estimate all grades of anthracite and bituminous coal are included. One wonders how long the visible supply will last, and whether the men who in future generations are to take up the work begun by Edison and other experimenters will find a new source of practical heat-supply in time to prevent a protracted “cold spell” when the coal gives out.

One is troubled, too, by the relations between miner and operator, and is worried when he learns that the great strike of 1902, for example, involved a total loss to workers, operators, railroads, and business men of about one hundred and fifty million dollars.

But all these matters are problems of the day—mere seconds on the clock of Nature. If we look back over so brief a gap as one hundred and fifteen years, we shall see the discovery of anthracite in America.

In 1791 a hunter, named Philip Ginther, lived on the eastern slopes of the mountains which are drained by the Lehigh River. Late one afternoon he found himself at the summit of Sharp Mountain. A storm was coming up, and Ginther broke into a run, for his home was some distance away. Stumbling over the roots of a fallen tree, he kicked up a black stone, and noticed that the soil in which the tree had grown was mingled with similar specimens of an unusual formation.

Now Ginther had heard that there was “stone coal” in the mountains, so he picked up the stumbling-block which had checked his course, and carried it home with him and gave it to Colonel Jacob Weiss, who lived near the site of the present Mauch Chunk. Colonel Weiss sent the specimen to Philadelphia, where it fell into the hands of Charles Cist, a printer, who recognized it as anthracite and advised Colonel Weiss to buy the land where the coal had been found.

To get the land was easy, for the region was wild and remote from the easier connections of civilization. Colonel Weiss bought from the government several thousand acres, and organized in 1792 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company. His associates included Robert Morris (the well-known financier), John Nicholson, Charles Cist, and J. Anthony Morris.

In May, 1792, an expedition—four laborers, with a member of the company to direct them—set out to open and work the mine. It was found that a great bed of anthracite lay quite near the surface. The company quarried several tons of the coal.

The question now was how to dispose of the product. The anthracite was there in vast quantity, ready to be pilfered from old Earth; but many miles of forest and mountain separated the mine from the nearest market. Moreover, people were dubious as to the burning value of anthracite, and wood was still plentiful, and—well, like other new products, anthracite had to prove its usefulness before it would be accepted.

After a few weeks the laborers were discharged. Colonel Weiss carried lumps of coal in his saddle-bags and induced a few of the blacksmiths of near-by settlements to try it; but there was no general tendency to adopt the new fuel.

The Pennsylvania Legislature, in 1798, chartered a company to improve the navigation of the Lehigh River. The work was completed in 1802, but although the removal of obstructions and the building of wing-dams were something of an improvement, the river was still likely to prove rude to voyagers. The coal company, however, resumed its quarrying, and built a fleet of arks which, during high water in the spring of 1803, were loaded with coal and sent down the stream. Four of the six arks were wrecked; two reached Philadelphia. But when the Philadelphians tried to burn the coal, they had no success with it, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company abandoned its efforts to introduce a fuel so unlucky.

In 1810 coal was found near Pottsville, and blacksmiths used it successfully. A Philadelphia chemist, after making a careful analysis, announced that the heating power of anthracite was extraordinary. Colonel George Shoemaker, who had dug up coal on his lands near Pottsville, loaded eight or ten wagons in 1817, and took the caravan to Philadelphia. Inasmuch as he guaranteed that the “stones” would burn, he succeeded in disposing of his stock; but now, as formerly, the Philadelphians failed to get any heat from their purchases—except the heat of their tempers, which led them to secure a warrant for the arrest of Colonel Shoemaker on the charge of swindling. He escaped to Pottsville by making a detour, and meantime the Fairmount nail-works, which had bought several tons of the anthracite, hit accidentally upon the way to make it burn.

The proprietor and several of his men had spent a morning vainly trying to fire up a furnace with the coal. They had raked, stirred, poked, and used blowers, but the stuff refused to burn. Noon came, and the men shut the furnace door and went to their dinner. When they came back they found the furnace red hot. The closed door had solved the draft problem. The way to make anthracite burn was to shut it in the furnace and let it alone.

In a few years more the coal industry became established. The Lehigh company reentered the field. They shipped 365 tons In 1820, 1,000 tons in 1821, and 2,240 in 1822. By 1830 their annual production was more than 41,000 tons; by 1840 it was 225,000 tons; by 1850, 722,000 tons. Up to 1847 the company got all its coal from its open quarry on the summit of Sharp Mountain. Boats carried the coal down the Lehigh.

To get the product from the mine to the river, a railway, nine miles long, was built in 1827. Excepting a track laid in the quarries at Quincy, Massachusetts, this was the first railway to be operated in the New World. Mules drew the cars to the summit; gravity carried them down.

The little black stone which the good people of Philadelphia rejected in 1792 has become the keystone of all our industries.

There have been many objections raised to the date upon which the Presidents of the United States are inaugurated, chief among them being the usually inclement weather which prevails so early in the spring.

The first President Harrison contracted the cold which caused his death, soon after he assumed office, at the ceremonies attending his inauguration; and anxiety is always expressed lest the unhappy incident should be repeated. There was a reason for choosing that date, however, which very few persons have ever heard of.

When the day was fixed upon the 4th of March, It was because that date seldom occurred on Sunday. But three times during our history has the inauguration day fallen on that day. The first was the second inaugural of James Monroe, the fifth President, March 4, 1821; the second was when Zachary Taylor was made President, March 4, 1849; the third was the inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes, on March 4, 1877.

This will happen three times during each century, or one year after every seven leap years. Except when passing from one century to another, there is a slight variation, as will be observed in the following dates of the past and future inaugurations, of the first two centuries of the republic:

NEW NAMES BROUGHT LUCK.

Although widely divergent in their personal appearance and methods of acting, Grace Elliston and Margaret Illington, the first two Mice in “The Lion and the Mouse,” have one thing in common—each, after appearing on the stage under one name for some time, changed it for another.

Miss Elliston, it will be remembered, created Shirley Rossmore in the original production of the well-known Klein play last autumn, while Miss Illington went to Chicago later on in the second company, and made a big hit in the part when the piece was tried in London. To take the ladles in this order then—

Along about the middle or early nineties, a New York critic, in noticing the appearance at the Casino of Frank Daniels in “The Wizard of the Nile,” wound up his comments with these two sentences: “There were others that were clever—and one little beauty of a maid whose eyes played havoc with the audience. Her name is Grace Rutter, and she will be a star some day.”

Mansfield Recognized Talent.

This “little beauty of a maid” was only in the chorus, and although she has not yet fulfilled the strict letter of this prophecy, she has come pretty close to it, and is yet young. Born in Bluff City, Tennessee, she became interested in amateur theatricals and in a small way made her first professional appearance at the old Lyceum Theater, Memphis, in “Boccaccio.”

The experience was fascinating, and an offer from a traveling company tempted her beyond her strength, and she went on the road, finally reaching New York as a member of “The Dazzler” company.

At a benefit performance of some sort she recited. Richard Mansfield happened to be present, saw promise in her work, and engaged her as a member of his Garrick Theater stock company, then in its first season at this house, which Mr. Mansfield had just taken over from Edward Harrigan and renamed. But as it happened, it was also his last season there, and Miss Rutter’s only opportunity was to do Dodo in a burlesque of “Trilby” called “Thrilby.”

Hoyt & McKee, who succeeded Mansfield in the control of the Garrick, gave Miss Rutter a small part in Hoyt’s farce, “A Day and a Night,” which, in turn, secured for her an opening with Daniels, and in due course she was added to the musical comedy forces at Daly’s, where she was seen in “The Geisha,” “The Circus Girl,” and other London importations.

Chose Another Ladder to Climb.

But although she might be progressing all this while so far as salary was concerned, the ambitions in Miss Rutter’s heart were not being at all satisfied, and in the spring of 1899 she resolved to begin at the foot of the ladder again and mount up the dramatic rather than the light musical rounds.

After some casting about and a period of hope deferred, the ambitious young woman obtained a chance to appear with Daniel Frohman’s stock company at the old Lyceum. There she made her début in “His Excellency the Governor.” She decided, however, that the old name was against her, associating her as it did with musical work, so she appeared on the house bill as “Grace Elliston.” Perhaps her most notable work at the Lyceum was in the charming, fantastic curtain-raiser, “The Shades of Night.”

She remained with the Lyceum company for another season, and then, at the Criterion, created the leading part in that short-lived dramatization, “The Helmet of Navarre.” When this mistake was laid away on the upper shelf, minus camphor balls, Miss Elliston passed to Bonita in a big Academy of Music revival of “Arizona.” Her Shakespearian aspirations were realized in 1903–’04, when she became Olivia in Viola Allen’s offering of “Twelfth Night.”

Manager Named His Future Wife.

It was in 1900 that patrons of James K. Hackett, in “The Pride of Jennico,” saw that the part of the gipsy girl was played with much fire and dash by a very young actress who was set down on the program as Maude Light. Investigation shows this to be the real name of a stage-struck young woman from Bloomington, Illinois, who, after some very modest attempts in Chicago, had come to Daniel Frohman with her dramatic aspirations. She was placed in a minor rôle with the Hackett company, to be speedily promoted to Michel, the gipsy aforesaid, the second important female part in the play. And it wasn’t long before she was sometimes doing that of the Princess herself, whenever Bertha Galland was out of the cast. Her change of name was made at the request of Mr. Frohman. It seemed that the other women were all using stage noms, so when the matter was laid before her Miss Light expressed her perfect willingness to fall in line.

“But what shall I call myself?” she inquired.

“I’ll make you up a name,” replied Mr. Frohman, and forthwith took her native State, Illinois, and her home town, Bloomington, and out of the two formed “Illington,” prefixing “Margaret” for euphony.

From the Hackett play Miss Illington passed to the stock company at Daly’s, still under Mr. Frohman’s management, appearing as the Maid in “Frocks and Frills,” a small part which she made stand out vividly, and at the same theater she did Fleur de Lys in “Notre Dame.”

Succeeded Miss Loftus.

E. H. Sothern’s troupe next claimed Miss Illington’s services, and she took Cecilia Loftus’s place as leading woman when that actress fell ill and was obliged to leave the stage for the hospital.

In the autumn of the same year (1903) Miss Illington created the leading part in that distinguished failure, “A Japanese Nightingale,” but during the brief run of the piece she assumed a part attended with more success—that of the wife of her manager, Daniel Frohman. It was announced then that she would leave the stage at the end of the “Nightingale” engagement, but, as so often happens in such cases, the bridegroom proposes and the bride elects to please herself. So the very next spring we found her as Henriette in the all-star cast of “The Two Orphans.” And last season she filled the title rôle in “Mrs. Leffingwell’s Boots.”

For the coming winter Miss Illington is to be entrusted with the most important part that has yet fallen to her—that of the leading lady with John Drew in Pinero’s new play, “His House in Order”—a rôle created in London with great success by Irene Van Brugh, who made such a hit here a few years ago with John Hare in “The Gay Lord Quex.”

WOULDN’T STAY CURED.

Although stock company work, with two performances a day and a weekly change of bill, is an awful grind, it is also about the only way nowadays in which the young player can obtain the necessary experience to give him or her that versatility which broadens ability.

Take, for instance, the six weeks last spring when Jane Wheatley filled an engagement in Providence as leading woman of the Albee stock company, at Keith’s. During that period she was Muriel in “The Second in Command,” an English comedy; Lucy in “The Dictator,” an American farce; Katherine in “If I Were King,” a romantic drama; Phyllis in the Goodwin-Elliott play, “When We Were Twenty-One”; Marcelle in “The Gay Parisians,” a lively farce from the French; and Mary of Magdala in the Scriptural play, “The Holy City.”

Of her work in the last-named part, a local critic wrote: “She carried the rôle through from the moment of awakening from the scarlet bondage with a spirit of reverence that was much more than mere acting, and had applause been permitted she would have carried off all honors.”

Spent Allowance for Theater Tickets.

Miss Wheatley is a young woman who went on the stage from pure love of it, starting In 1898 with a very lowly part In “The Christian.” She was with Viola Allen for three seasons, and subsequently she played prominent parts with Sadie Martinot. She followed Grace Filkins as Lady Airish, in the support of Alice Fischer, in “The School for Husbands.” The account she has furnished The Scrap Book of her start in the profession is so very entertainingly written that I am giving it herewith in her own words:

“While studying in Boston some years ago, every penny of my allowance went for theater tickets, and the Hollis Street Theater was my favorite haunt. My chum was an enthusiast on the subject, if ever there was one, and I made a very good second. We had our respective favorites, and mine was Miss Viola Allen. I always had hoped to meet her, and even thought she might advise me or help me to a position on the stage. But how to arrange a meeting?

“My chum (Kate) and I talked it over, and finally decided upon a plan of action.

“Kate had gone to a boarding-school, somewhere in Canada, and had heard much from the teachers about Miss Allen, who had been a former student there. One of the teachers even suggested giving Kate a letter to Miss Allen. These facts were all we had to introduce us, but I remember that I was the timid one and Kate the fearless.

“After the matinée one day we summoned up courage and went to the stage entrance, sent in our cards, and, with beating hearts, waited. Miss Allen was then leading woman with the Empire stock company.

“In a few minutes a maid came out to us, and with cold politeness inquired what we wanted.

Aid from Viola Allen.

“‘We wished to see Miss Allen,’ was our answer.

“I know now what a piece of effrontery it was on our part, for when an actress has played a long part, and has only a short time before she has to play it again, she is ready for only one thing, and that is rest. However, Miss Allen was then, just as she always has been, kind, and invited us to come another day—which we did; and this time we were successful, for she saw us, and I remember how happy it made me.

“I remember the conversation, too; for she spoke of what was uppermost in our minds—our ambitions. So encouraging was the interview with this dear lady that when I finished my studies in Boston I wrote to her, saying that I meant to start my professional career in the autumn, and ‘would she help me?’

“She did. In reply to my letter, she said there were no parts in her play, ‘The Christian,’ except those requiring experience, but that some characters would speak in chorus, and I would be welcome to such a part.

“I remember an illustration made frequently by Dr. Emerson at the Emerson College. He pointed out to us that on the stage we were like parts of a mosaic—alone we were nothing, but as a part of the whole, each one in his place very necessary to the whole. I did not then realize how very small was to be my part of the mosaic—its proportions were exaggerated in my mind, and I had visions of myself in a dainty or artistic costume, entering with two or three other young ladles, and speaking in chorus, something as do the four daughters in ‘The Gay Parisians.’

“I also remember Miss Allen’s apologetic remark about the salary. ‘The money is nothing,’ she said.

“As for that part of it—money—it had never entered my mind. The happiness of having the opportunity was enough; and to think of being paid, actually paid, for simply doing what I loved to do! It was all very beautiful.

Appalled by Reality.

“To skip rehearsals, which, needless to say, were a source of great enjoyment, as it was all so new to me, the opening night in Albany came, and there my troubles began.

“The ‘characters speaking in chorus’ formed a mob, and extra supernumeraries were engaged for the night in Albany. It was a wild enough mob; my pride suffered, and my toes, too, for both were trodden upon. The damp cellar dressing-room with its many occupants, and the harsh, severe directions of the stage manager—it was all so different from what I had expected.

“In the course of the evening I found a lonely corner in the despised cellar and wept long and bitterly. Was this the way to Fame? Could I bridge these humiliations and discomforts? The goal seemed very far off, and I remember repeating to myself:

“‘I’m cured! I’m cured!’

“However, I went on to Washington with the company. There I tried another day of it, but conditions grew worse instead of better. During the afternoon of the second day in Washington I packed my bag, walked to the station, bought a ticket for New York, said nothing to any one of my resolution, but wired my father to meet me, and got on the train, bound for home.

Moth Again Seeks Flame.

“And oh, how glad I was to see my father, and he to see me! And how glad he was that I was ‘cured’ of my desire to be an actress!

“Well, to make a long story short, I remained ‘cured’ only a short time—two weeks, I think it was.

“A nice letter from Miss Allen, saying that she would keep my understudy for me, enticed me to return when the company played in New York. I refused to give up again, although those first tears were not the only ones I had cause to shed during that long season.

“My reward came, however, for before the close of the theater year the girl whose rôle I understudied left the cast, and they gave me her part for the rest of the season. Miss Allen helped me herself to do justice to it—even to rehearsing me after matinée, when she must have been very tired.

“And it was in my beloved Boston, where I had first met her, that I played my first part, and in her company, only the theater was the old Boston Museum, not the Hollis Street.”

DANCED ON CHURCH STEPS.

“The steps of a colored church near where I lived was my practise-ground, and I was on the stage when I was eight.”

Thus spoke Henry E. Dixey, in his dressing-room at the Lyric, between the acts of “The Man on the Box,” in response to my question about his start in his stage career—a career that stands out more remarkably than the majority. After achieving a reputation in a burlesque with which his name became so closely identified that it was often used interchangeably with his own, he went into Daly’s theater and played Malvolio in “Twelfth Night,” in a fashion to cover himself with glory. He has scored high in the Gilbert & Sullivan operas, and is now a successful star in high-class comedy.

Dixey’s real name is Dixon. He was born in Boston on January 6, 1859. His parents had no connection with the theater, and had no idea that Harry’s predilection for dancing was going to lead him there. When very young he helped eke out the family income by becoming a cashboy in a dry-goods store but he wasn’t a shining success at it. The part he liked best was being sent on errands, which gave him an opportunity to collect cronies about him and practise fancy steps on his improvised stage in front of the African meeting-house, as aforesaid.

Failed to Serve Two Masters.

It didn’t take the dry-goods people long to “get on” to the idiosyncrasies of their youthful employee, and in due course he lost his job and was cooling his heels all day long on the sidewalk, most of the time in the vicinity of the stage-door of the Howard Athenæum, then under the management of the late John Stetson.

When Stetson was putting on “Under the Gaslight,” he needed a street urchin, so he decided to give the little Dixon chap a chance to show what he could do. The child introduced a song and dance, made an instantaneous hit, and thus started on his career. His part was called Peanuts, and he was retained at the Howard for small bits with James S. Maffit and his partner, Bartholomew, in their pantomime work.

How he managed to pick up an education, with his head full of the stage, is difficult to determine; but one has only to talk with Mr. Dixey to know him for a man of keen intelligence and common sense. But his parents continued to keep him under their eye in Boston until after “Evangeline” was produced. Here he encountered his old friend, James S. Maffit, again, as the Lone Fisherman. Crane was in the cast, too, doing Le Blanc, the notary. Dixey was the forelegs of the famous Heifer, the hind ones submitting to the direction of Richard Golden. But during the tour of the famous piece Dixey did very many of the other parts in the burlesque.

In the course of the early eighties John Stetson extended his field of operations to New York, and set up a stock company at the Fifth Avenue Theater. Dixey, as one of its leading members, created Christopher Blizzard in “Confusion.”

“Adonis” and Its Successors.

In New York he fell in with William F. Gill. Dixey had some of the ideas for “Adonis.” Gill had more, and put them together in the shape of a burlesque. They tried to get Dixey’s old friend and first manager, Stetson, to bring it out at the Boston Globe. But he got cold feet on the proposition, declaring that it was too expensive to mount. Rice took it in hand, and after he had demonstrated the thing to be a success Stetson wanted an interest in it, in exchange for which he was willing to plank down twenty thousand dollars, but it was then too late.

“Adonis” ran at the Bijou in New York for more than three hundred nights, and was afterward done in London.

“The Seven Ages,” built on the same lines, was a frightful frost, if a thing can be said to be so when done in a temperature of one hundred and three degrees, which Mr. Dixey avers the thermometer registered at the old Standard in the early—and last—nights of the piece.

After “The Seven Ages”—Daly’s for Dixey, and in this connection I want to quote from an interview the actor gave to a writer for the New York Dramatic Mirror some ten years ago.

“Do you know,” he said, “that I really was the first Svengali on the stage? In ‘The Tragedy Rehearsed’ I introduced a little Trilby burlesque, where Miss Rehan was hypnotized into singing ‘Ben Bolt.’ That was the very earliest stage use of Miss O’Ferrall.

“Afterward I went to Augustin Daly and proposed that he should dramatize ‘Trilby,’ have Miss Rehan play the character, and let me do Svengali. It would have revolutionized things at Daly’s. But he pooh-poohed me, and wouldn’t listen to the idea. Instead, he put on ‘A Bundle of Lies,’ where I had a fifteen-line part. The play was a fearful frost.”

Takes Dark View of Future.

Just previous to the death of Stuart Robson, Dixey made a big success as David Garrick in the play “Oliver Goldsmith,” which Augustus Thomas wrote for Robson; then, by way of striking variety, Dixey went to London in a Casino review, “The Whirl of the Town,” which failed to please England.

A few years later, when Charles Frohman imported Barrie’s “Little Mary” to the Empire, puzzling New York by the play written around the stomach, Dixey was the Earl of Carlton.

Dixey, by the by, does not believe in stock companies, and is rather pessimistic as to the future of our stage, in the way of the supply of actors.

“Where are they coming from?” he said to me the other night, in the course of his chat about his own start in the business. “What training do they get under the present system to fit them for any work out of a set groove into which chance and the powers that be happen to drop them? Suppose, for example, you are a young man who has done good work in amateur theatricals, and with a ‘pull’ in the shape of a letter of introduction to a big New York manager. You are also straight and tall and would make a presentable appearance on the stage.

“Well, you have your interview with the big manager of to-day. He looks you over, presses a button, and to the obsequious underling who answers the summons, he says: ‘Put this gentleman in the juvenile part in Number Three company of “Mrs. Prettytoes’ Shoestrings.”’

“You are elated at first at getting a job, but you find later on that ‘Mrs. Prettytoes’ Shoestrings’ has long since exhausted its drawing powers in the big cities, and is billed for six months through the one-night stands of Texas and Arkansas. You play the same part for all that period, and the next season maybe you will receive a rôle exactly on the same lines when, if you are lucky, week stands may replace the single night stops.

Where Are Actors to Come From?

“And so it goes. Because you look the character you are assigned to it, and you never have an opportunity to show what you can do in the way of versatility, and consequently you never grow. Again I repeat, Where are the big actors in the next generation to come from?

“How about the stars of to-day? Were they not nearly all of them shining marks twenty years ago, having been cultivated under the old order of things? The only show a man has nowadays outside of the few cheap stock companies, to play more than one part a season, is when the first play put out fails.

“How different this was around Civil War times, when your star traveled from town to town and the companies in the various theaters were obliged to be up in the various plays he put out? Our cities were so small then that the same people had to be counted on to support a week’s engagement, so the bill had to be changed nightly. Twenty years from now I wonder who will be the stars, how many of them there will be, and—save the mark!—to what artistic merit will they attain?”

In a sense Mr. Dixey is himself a victim of the system he deplores. His season in “The Man on the Box” having been so successful, his manager has secured the dramatic rights to Cyrus Townsend Brady’s novel. “Richard the Brazen,” which will give Dixey a part on very similar lines to the conscienceless Lieutenant Worburton he enacts in the Harold MacGrath story.

Like almost all of the Christian festivals, Hallowmas, or All Saints day, is associated with an ancient pagan celebration of great antiquity, and from this older rite many of its curious and singular observances are derived. Hallowe’en is the vigil of the feast of All Saints, and the custom of its elaborate observance is general everywhere, though its greatest development has been reached in Scotland.

Modern practise has largely omitted what was at one time the most important part of Hallowe’en ritual—that is, the lighting of bonfires at nightfall by each household. From this practise the relationship that it bears to the older Druidical festival of Samuin is apparent. This was a great occasion in the days of the ancient pagan worship, and all the hearths were on this day rekindled from the sacred fire.

Indeed, sacred fires seem to have been a part of the various forms of worship of many nations. The Germanic people had their fires, as well as the Celtic, so the custom was not wholly Druidical, but from the Druids came most of the superstitions that now cluster around the eve of the Christian festival.

Origin of the Feast.

The feast of All Saints was introduced very early by the Christian Church because of the impossibility of keeping a separate day for every saint. In the fourth century, when the persecutions of the Christians had ceased, the first Sunday after Easter was appointed by the Greek Church as the day for commemorating the martyrs generally.

In the Church of Rome a like festival was introduced about 610 A.D., this being the time when the old heathen Panthéon was consecrated to Mary and all the martyrs.

The real festival of All Saints, however, was first regularly instituted by Pope Gregory IV, in 835, and appointed for the first day of November. It was admitted into England about 870, and probably about the same time into Ireland and Scotland. The festival is common to the Roman Catholic, English, and Lutheran branches of the Church.

The leading idea of Hallowe’en is that it is the time of all others when supernatural influences are strong, and charms, therefore, will not fail to work. Spirits, both good and evil, walk abroad on this one mysterious night, and divination attains its highest power. All who choose may avail themselves of the privileges of the occasion with the certainty that their questions will be answered.

Prying into the Future.

Nuts furnish the principal means of reading the secrets of the future, and in some parts of England the night is known as “nutcrack night.” The nuts are cracked and eaten, as well as being made the oracles of the occasion, and apples also are used in the games and for divination.

The poet Burns, in the notes to his poem, “Hallowe’en,” speaks of the passion which human nature has had, in all ages, for prying into the future—particularly unenlightened human nature; yet it is not always the ignorant who indulge in the Hallowe’en pranks. It is by the peasantry in the west of Scotland, however, that the night is regarded with sincere veneration and believed to be truly great with meaning.

Burns gives some of the spells and charms whereby the lassies test their fate. Among these customs are the pulling stalks of corn, the blue clue, and eating an apple before the glass. He also mentions sowing hemp-seed, “to winn three wechts o’naethings,” “to fathom the stack three times,” “to dip your left shirt-sleeve in a burn where three lairds’ lands meet,” and, finally, a curious process “with three luggies or dishes.”

Another writer tells of fagots made of heath, broom, and dressings of flax tied upon a pole. These are lighted and then carried upon the shoulders of some one who runs around the village, attended by a crowd. Weird effects are produced on a dark night, when numbers of these fagots are blazing at the same time.

Still another writer tells of the custom of collecting the ashes from the bonfire when the fire has burned out. They are carefully gathered into the form of a circle, and a stone for every person of the several families interested in the fire is put into this magic pile. If any stone is injured or moved next morning it signifies that the person represented by that stone is “fey,” and will not live a twelve-month from that day.

Kindling the Hallow Fire.

In the days when the “hallow fire” was kindled, various magic ceremonies preceded its lighting. These exorcised the demons and witches and rendered them powerless. When the ceremonies were finished, the fire was lighted and carefully guarded by the men of the family from the depredations of certain societies which were formed, sometimes through pique and at other times for fun alone, for the purpose of scattering these fires. The attack and defense were often “conducted with art and fury.”

The first ceremony of Hallowe’en was pulling the kail (stalk). By its shape and size the young women determined the figure and size of their future husbands, while any “yird,” or earth, sticking to the roots meant fortune. The taste of the “custoc,” or heart of the stalk, showed the temper and disposition, and finally the stems or “runts” are placed above the door, and the Christian name of the person whom Fate sends first through the door gives the name of the gentleman.

In an old book of the early part of the sixteenth century there is a passage as follows:

“We rede in olde tyme good people wolde on All Halowen daye bake brade and dele it for all crysten soules.”

This refers to the ancient custom of the poor going “a-souling,” or asking for money which they earned by fasting for the souls of the alms-givers and his kinsfolk. Presumably the “brede” was not eaten until the day after.

In some places these loaves were called “sau’mas loaves”—soul-mass—and were kept in the house for luck. Bakers gave them to their customers, and thus they resembled the Good-Friday bread and cross-buns.

The vigil and ringing of bells all night long upon All Hallows was abolished under Henry VIII, but, in spite of this, half a century later, under Elizabeth, a special injunction forbade all superfluous ringing of bells. Evidently the laws were not enforced then any more than now, and the nerves of the people were tried as they are in these days. It is our doorbells, however, not church-bells, that keep us on edge, with the small boy at the button.

A LETTER FROM CHRIST.

TWO INTERESTING DOCUMENTS, RECOGNIZED AS AUTHENTIC, THAT BEAR UPON THE LIFE OF THE SAVIOUR.

The Greek Church preserves a very interesting tradition which seems to rest upon some evidence which many Biblical scholars accept as quite convincing. The tradition relates that while Christ was working His miracles in Palestine the report of His divine power spread throughout Asia Minor until it reached the ears of Abgar, the Prince of Edessa in Mesopotamia. Abgar was afflicted with leprosy; and at last, in his despair, he is said to have written a letter to Christ beseeching Him to journey to Edessa and heal the prince of his disease. To this appeal the legend says that Christ dictated a reply by the hand of St. Thomas the Apostle, and that after the crucifixion St. Thomas sent Thaddeus, one of the Seventy, to Edessa, where he cured Abgar, who, with all his subjects, became converted to Christianity.

The tradition is very old, and is believed among the Eastern Christians. It is first found recorded by the Greek writer, Eusebius, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” written about the year 330. Eusebius gives copies of both letters. It was not until the year 494 that the Roman Church declared the letter of Christ to be fictitious. The Greek Church has never made any such declaration. Among those scholars who have accepted the letters as authentic are Tillemont and the German theologian Welte. The following is a translation of the two documents:

ABGAR TO JESUS CHRIST.

“Abgar, Prince of Edessa, to Jesus, the merciful Saviour, who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem, greeting. I have been informed of the prodigies and cures wrought by you without the use of herbs or medicines, and by the efficacy of your words alone. I am told that you enable cripples to walk; that you force devils from the bodies possessed; that there is no disease, however incurable, which you do not heal; and that you restore the dead to life. These wonders convince me that you are some god descended from heaven, or that you are the Son of God. For this reason, I have taken the liberty of writing this letter to you, beseeching you to come to see me, and to cure me of the indisposition under which I have so long labored. I understand that the Jews persecute you, murmur at your miracles, and plan your destruction. I have here a beautiful and pleasant city which, though it be not very large, will be sufficient to supply you with every thing that is necessary.”

JESUS CHRIST TO ABGAR.

“You are happy, Abgar, thus to have believed in me without having seen me; for it is written of me, that they who shall see me will not believe in me, and that they who have never seen me shall believe and be saved. As to the desire you express in receiving a visit from me, I must tell you that all things for which I am come must be fulfilled in the country where I am. When this is done, I must return to Him who sent me. And when I am departed hence, I will send to you one of my disciples, who will cure you of the disease of which you complain, and give life to you and to those that are with you.”

The nineteenth century was distinctively a century of invention. Whether the twentieth is destined to rival it by making discoveries that will rank with steam, electricity, wireless telegraphy, the harvester and the typewriter it is now too soon to say. It is safe to predict, however, that if by any series of fortunate chances it should earn the right to be called a “century of rediscovery,” it would win the gratitude of posterity, and fortune as well as fame would be the portion of men who might reclaim for mankind some remarkable secrets that were well known to the civilized world many centuries ago.

In Oblivion’s great storage-house are thousands of bits of knowledge which were possessed by many men when the world was much younger than it is to-day. But they have been so thoroughly forgotten by mankind that they are now referred to as lost secrets, as difficult to rediscover as those which lurk in the mystical notes of a Stradivarius violin.

Art of Egyptian Embalmers.

Thousands of years ago, for instance, the Egyptians used to embalm the bodies of their dead kings and nobility so perfectly that the bodies are in wonderful preservation to-day, as may be seen at the British Museum. Clever as we are in this age, we cannot do the same. The valuable secret is lost, and modern science cannot recover the lost knowledge. We can, of course, and we do, embalm bodies; but only for temporary preservation, and, comparatively speaking, in a most unsatisfactory manner.

Bodies which are embalmed nowadays will not be preserved for more than a few years at most; very many of the bodies the Egyptians embalmed before the birth of Christ are still so perfect that the lines of their faces are as clearly marked as when they were first embalmed.

Sheffield turns out the finest, hardest, and most perfect steel the world produces; but even Sheffield cannot produce a sword-blade to compare with those the Saracens made and used hundreds of years ago, and the Saracens never possessed the machinery we have nor had the advantage of knowing so much about metals as we are supposed to know.

A huge fortune awaits the man who discovers the secret which enabled the Saracens to make sword-blades so keen and hard that they could cut in two most of the swords used in our army to-day.

French Paste Diamonds.

There are a dozen different methods of making artificial diamonds, but none of the stones produced by these methods can compare with those made of old French paste, the secret of which is lost. So perfect were paste diamonds that it was difficult for even a person with expert knowledge of diamonds to tell that they were artificially produced, whereas most of the modern artificial diamonds can easily be detected, and their durability is nothing like so great as the old paste diamonds; indeed, good paste diamonds are now almost as valuable as real diamonds.

Probably not one out of every ten thousand buildings standing in all parts of the world and built by modern masons will still be standing five hundred years hence. We do not know how to put stones and bricks together as the ancients did, and consequently the buildings we raise nowadays are really mere temporary structures, and will be in ruins when the ancient buildings of Greece and Italy, which were built thousands of years ago, are in as good condition as they are now.

The secret is not in the bricks or the stone, but in the cement and mortar, neither of which essentials can we make as the ancients made them.

In modern buildings the cement and mortar are the weakest points; in the buildings which the Romans and Greeks raised thousands of years ago the cement and mortar are the strongest points, and hold good while the very stones they bind together crumble away with age. We cannot, with all our science, make such cement and mortar, and therefore we cannot build such buildings as the ancients raised.

Wonderful Ancient Dyes.

Chemistry, one might Imagine, is the science which has, perhaps, made the greatest strides during the last five or six decades. Yet modern chemists cannot compound such dyes as were commonly used when the great nations of to-day were still unborn. Now and again it happens that searchers after antiquities come across fragments of fabrics which were dyed thousands of years ago, and they are astonished by the wonderful richness of the colors of the cloths, which, despite their age, are brighter and purer than anything we can produce.

Modern artists buy their colors ready made, and spend large sums of money on pigments with which to color their canvases. The pictures of modern artists will be colorless when many of the works of ancient masters are as bright as they are to-day. Just as the secret of dyeing has been lost, so has the secret of preserving the colors of artists’ paints. Yet the secret was known to every ancient artist, for they all mixed their own colors.

Formula for Durable Ink.

How to make durable ink Is another great secret we have lost. Look at any letter five or ten years old and you will probably notice that the writing has faded to a brown color and is very indistinct. Go to any big museum, and you will find ancient manuscripts, the writing of which is as black and distinct as if the manuscript were written the day before yesterday.

The secret of glass blowing and tinting is not yet entirely lost; there are still a few men who can produce glass-work equal to that which the ancients turned out hundreds of years ago.

But the average glass manufacturer cannot produce anything that could at all compare with some of the commoner articles the Egyptians, and, later, the founders of Venice manufactured; and those who still hold the ancient secret guard it so closely that it will probably die with them and be added to the long list of things in which our ancestors beat us hollow.

There is a procession of seed-time, blossom, and fruit around the globe which never ends. It is harvest-time on the earth at every time of year, just as there is always sunlight shining somewhere and always darkness somewhere else.

January sees harvest ended in most districts in Australia and New Zealand, while the people of Chile and other countries of southern South America are just beginning to reap the fruits of their toil.

Upper Egypt and India begin and continue harvest through the months of February and March.

April enlarges the number with harvest in Syria, Cyprus, coast of Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, Persia, and Asia Minor.

May is a busy time in Central Asia, Persia, Algeria, Morocco, southern Texas, Florida, China, and Japan.

June calls forth the harvest in California, Oregon, southern United States, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, Danubian States, southern France, Greece, and Sicily.

July sees harvest in England, Nebraska, Switzerland, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Upper Canada, northern France, Germany, Austria, and Poland.

August continues the gathering in the British Isles, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Manitoba, Lower Canada, Denmark, and Russia.

September rules northern Scotland, southern parts of Sweden and Norway, as well as the cold islands of the North Sea.

October is the harvest month for corn in America and for hardy vegetables in northern Sweden, Norway, and Ireland.

In November harvest times begin in South Africa, Patagonia, and South Australia.

THE CRY OF THE DREAMER.

GIVE ME MY DREAMS.

THE PORT O’ DREAMS.

THE DREAMER.

WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES SIX.

HEART OF THE FIRE.

I am a single lady—single, you will please to understand, entirely because I have refused many excellent offers. Pray don’t imagine from this that I am old. Some women’s offers come at long intervals, and other women’s offers come close together. Mine came remarkably close together—so, of course, I cannot possibly be old. Not that I presume to describe myself as absolutely young, either; so much depends on people’s points of view. I have heard female children of the ages of eighteen or nineteen called young ladies. This seems to me to be ridiculous—and I have held that opinion, without once wavering from it, for more than ten years past. It is, after all, a question of feeling; and, shall I confess it? I feel so young!

I live in the suburbs, and I have bought my house. The major lives in the suburbs, next door to me, and he has bought his house. I don’t object to this, of course. I merely mention it to make things straight.

Major Namby has been twice married. His first wife—dear, dear! how can I express it? Shall I say, with vulgar abruptness, that his first wife had a family? And must I descend into particulars, and add that they are four in number, and that two of them are twins? Well, the words are written; and if they will do over again for the same purpose, I beg to repeat them in reference to the second Mrs. Namby (still alive), who has also had a family, and is—no, I really cannot say is likely to go on having one.

There are certain limits in a case of this kind, and I think I have reached them. Permit me simply to state that the second Mrs. Namby has three children at present. These, with the first Mrs. Namby’s four, make a total of seven. The seven are composed of five girls and two boys. And the first Mrs. Namby’s family all have one particular kind of constitution, and the second Mrs. Namby’s family all have another particular kind of constitution.

Let me explain once more that I merely mention these little matters, and that I don’t object to them.

My complaint against Major Namby is, in plain terms, that he transacts the whole of his domestic business in his front garden. Whether it arises from natural weakness of memory, from total want of a sense of propriety, or from a condition of mind which is closely allied to madness of the eccentric sort, I cannot say; but the major certainly does, sometimes partially and sometimes entirely, forget his private family matters, and the necessary directions connected with them, while he is inside the house, and does habitually remember them, and repair all omissions by bawling through his windows at the top of his voice, as soon as he gets outside the house.

It never seems to occur to him that he might advantageously return indoors, and there mention what he has forgotten in a private and proper way. The instant the lost idea strikes him—which it invariably does, either in his front garden or in the roadway outside his house—he roars for his wife, either from the gravel walk or over the low wall, and (if I may use so strong an expression) empties his mind to her in public, without appearing to care whose ears he wearies, whose delicacy he shocks, or whose ridicule he invites.

If the man is not mad, his own small family fusses have taken such complete possession of all his senses that he is quite incapable of noticing anything else, and perfectly impenetrable to the opinions of his neighbors. Let me show that the grievance of which I complain is no slight one, by giving a few examples of the general persecution that I suffer, and the occasional shocks that are administered to my delicacy, at the coarse hands of Major Namby.

We will say it is a fine, warm morning. I am sitting in my front room, with the window open, absorbed over a deeply interesting book. I hear the door of the next house bang; I look up, and see the major descending the steps into his front garden.

He walks—no, he marches—half way down the front garden path, with his head high in the air and his chest stuck out, and his military cane fiercely flourished in his right hand. Suddenly he stops, stamps with one foot, knocks up the hinder part of the brim of his extremely curly hat with his left hand, and begins to scratch at that singularly disagreeable-looking roll of fat, red flesh in the back of his neck (which scratching, I may observe, in parentheses, is always a sure sign, in the case of this horrid man, that a lost domestic idea has suddenly come back to him).

He waits a moment in the ridiculous position just described, then wheels round on his heel, looks up at the first-floor window, and, instead of going back into the house to mention what he has forgotten, bawls out fiercely from the middle of the walk:

“Matilda!”

I hear his wife’s voice—a shockingly shrill one; but what can you expect of a woman who has been seen, over and over again, in a slatternly striped wrapper, as late as two o’clock in the afternoon?—I hear his wife’s voice answer from inside the house:

“Yes, dear.”

“I said it was a south wind.”

“Yes, dear.”

“It isn’t a south wind.”

“Lor’, dear.”

“It’s a sou’east. I won’t have Georgina taken out to-day. (Georgina is one of the first Mrs. Namby’s family, and they are all weak in the chest.) Where’s nurse?”

“Here, sir.”

“Nurse, I won’t have Jack allowed to run. Whenever that boy perspires he catches cold. Hang up his hoop. If he cries, take him into my dressing-room and show him the birch-rod. Matilda?”

“Yes, dear.”

“What the devil do they mean by daubing all that grease over Mary’s hair? It’s beastly to see it—do you hear?—beastly! Where’s Pamby?” (Pamby is the unfortunate workwoman who makes and mends the family linen.)

“Here, sir.”

“Pamby, what are you about now?”

No answer. Pamby, or somebody else, giggles faintly. The major flourishes his cane in a fury.

“Why the devil don’t you answer me? I give you three seconds to answer me, or leave the house. One—two—three. Pamby! what are you about now?”

“If you please, sir, I’m doing something——”

“What?”

“Something particular for baby, sir.”

“Drop it directly, whatever it is. Nurse!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mind the crossings. Don’t let the children sit down if they’re hot. Don’t let them speak to other children. Don’t let them get playing with strange dogs. Don’t let them mess their things. And above all, don’t bring Master Jack back in a perspiration. Is there anything more before I go out?”

“No, sir.”

“Matilda! Is there anything more?”

“No, dear.”

“Pamby! Is there anything more?”

“No, sir.”

Here the domestic colloquy ends, for the time being. Will any sensitive person—especially a person of my own sex—please to imagine what I must suffer as a delicate single lady, at having all these family details obtruded on my attention, whether I like it or not, in the major’s rasping martial voice, and in the shrill answering screams of the women inside? It is bad enough to be submitted to this sort of persecution when one is alone; but it is far worse to be also exposed to it—as I am constantly—in the presence of visitors, whose conversation is necessarily interrupted, whose ears are necessarily shocked, whose very stay in my house is necessarily shortened by Major Namby’s unendurably public way of managing his private concerns.

Only the other day, my old, dear, and most valued friend, Lady Malkinshaw, was sitting with me, entering at length into the interesting story of her second daughter’s unhappy marriage engagement, and of the dignified manner in which the family ultimately broke it off.

For a quarter of an hour or so our interview continued to be delightfully uninterrupted. At the end of that time, however, just as Lady Malkinshaw, with the tears in her eyes, was beginning to describe the effect of her daughter’s dreadful disappointment on the poor, dear girl’s mind and looks, I heard the door of the major’s house bang as usual, and, looking out of the window in despair, saw the major himself strut half way down the walk, stop, scratch violently at his roll of red flesh, wheel round so as to face the house, consider a little, pull his tablets out of his waistcoat pocket, shake his head over them, and then look up at the front windows, preparatory to bawling as usual at the degraded female members of his household.

Lady Malkinshaw, quite ignorant of what was coming, happened, at the same moment, to be proceeding with her pathetic story, in these terms:

“I do assure you, my poor, dear girl behaved throughout with the heroism of a martyr. When I had told her of the vile wretch’s behavior, breaking it to her as gently as I possibly could; and when she had a little recovered I said to her——”

(“Matilda!”)

The major’s rasping voice sounded louder than ever, as he bawled out that dreadful name just at the wrong moment. Lady Malkinshaw started as if she had been shot. I put down the window in despair; but the glass was no protection to our ears—Major Namby can roar through a brick wall. I apologized—I declared solemnly that my next door neighbor was mad—I entreated Lady Malkinshaw to take no notice, and to go on. That sweet woman immediately complied.

I burn with indignation when I think of what followed. Every word from the Nambys’ garden (which I distinguish below by parentheses) came, very slightly muffled by the window, straight into my room, and mixed itself up with her ladyship’s story in this inexpressibly ridiculous and impertinent manner:

“Well,” my kind and valued friend proceeded, “as I was telling you, when the first natural burst of sorrow was over, I said to her——”

“Yes, dear Lady Malkinshaw,” I murmured encouragingly.

“I said to her——”

(“By jingo, I’ve forgotten something! Matilda, when I made my memorandum of errands, how many had I to do?”)

“‘My dearest, darling child,’ I said——”

(“Pamby, how many errands did your mistress give me to do?”)

“I said, ‘My dearest, darling child——’”

(“Nurse, how many errands did your mistress give me to do?”)

“‘My own love,’ I said——”

(“Pooh! pooh! I tell you, I had four errands to do, and I’ve only got three of ’em written down. Check me off, all of you—I’m going to read my errands.”)

“‘Your own proper pride, love,’ I said, ‘will suggest to you——’”

(“Gray powder for baby.”)

—“‘the necessity of making up your mind, my angel, to——’”

(“Row the plumber for infamous condition of back kitchen sink.”)

“‘to return all the wretch’s letters, and——’”

(“Speak to the haberdasher about patching Jack’s shirts.”)

“‘all his letters and presents, darling. You need only make them up into a parcel, and write inside——’”

(“Matilda! is that all?”)

—“‘and write inside——’”

(“Pamby! is that all?”)

—“‘and write inside——’”

(“Nurse! is that all?”)

“‘I have my mother’s sanction for making one last request of you. It is this——’”

(“What have the children got for dinner to-day?”)

—“it is this: return me my letters, as I have returned yours. You will find inside——”

(“A shoulder of mutton and onion sauce? And a devilish good dinner, too.”)

The coarse wretch roared out those last shocking words cheerfully, at the top of his voice. Hitherto, Lady Malkinshaw had preserved her temper with the patience of an angel; but she began—and who can wonder?—to lose it at last.

“It is really impossible, my dear,” she said, rising from her chair, “to continue any conversation while that very intolerable person persists in talking to his family from his front garden. No! I really cannot go on—I cannot, indeed.”

Just as I was apologizing to my sweet friend for the second time, I observed, to my great relief (having my eyes still on the window), that the odious major had apparently come to the end of his domestic business for that morning, and had made up his mind at last to relieve us of his presence. I distinctly saw him put his tablets back in his pocket, wheel round again on his heel, and march straight to the garden gate.

I waited until he had his hand on the lock to open it; and then, when I felt that we were quite safe, I informed dear Lady Malkinshaw that my detestable neighbor had at last taken himself off, and, throwing open the window again to get a little air, begged and entreated her to oblige me by resuming the charming conversation.

“Where was I?” inquired my distinguished friend.

“You were telling me what you recommended your poor darling to write inside your inclosure,” I answered.

“Ah, yes—so I was. Well, my dear, she controlled herself by an admirable effort, and wrote exactly what I told her. You will excuse a mother’s partiality, I am sure—but I think I never saw her look so lovely, so mournfully lovely, I should say, as when she was writing those last lines to the man who had so basely trifled with her. The tears came into my eyes as I looked at her sweet, pale cheeks; and I thought to myself——”

(“Nurse! which of the children was sick, last time, after eating onion sauce?”)

He had come back again!—the monster had come back again, from the very threshold of the garden gate, to shout that unwarrantable, atrocious question in at his nursery window!

Lady Malkinshaw bounced off her chair at the first note of his horrible voice, and changed toward me instantly—as if it had been my fault—in the most alarming and most unexpected manner. Her ladyship’s face became awfully red; her ladyship’s head trembled excessively; her ladyship’s eyes looked straight into mine with an indescribable fierceness.

“Why am I thus insulted?” inquired Lady Malkinshaw, with a slow and dignified sternness which froze the blood in my veins. “What do you mean by it?” continued her ladyship, with a sudden rapidity of utterance that quite took my breath away.

Before I could remonstrate with my friend for visiting her natural irritation on poor, innocent me, before I could declare that I had seen the major actually open his garden gate to go away, the provoking brute’s voice burst in on us again.

“Ha, yes?” we heard him growl to himself in a kind of shameless domestic soliloquy. “Yes, yes, yes—Sophy was sick, to be sure. Curious. All Mrs. Namby’s stepchildren have weak chests and strong stomachs. All Mrs. Namby’s own children have weak stomachs and strong chests. I have a strong stomach and a strong chest. Pamby!”

“I consider this,” continued Lady Malkinshaw, literally glaring at me in the fulness of her indiscriminate exasperation—“I consider this to be unwarrantable and unladylike. I beg to know——”

“Where’s Bill?” burst in the major from below, before she could add another word. “Matilda! Nurse! Pamby! where’s Bill? I didn’t bid Bill good-by—hold him up at the window, one of you.”

“My dear Lady Malkinshaw,” I remonstrated, “why blame me? What have I done?”

“Done?” repeated her ladyship. “Done? All that is most unfriendly, most unwarrantable, most unladylike, most——”

“Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a!” roared the major, shouting her ladyship down, and stamping about the garden in fits of fond paternal laughter. “Bill, my boy, how are you? There’s a young Turk for you! Pull up his frock—I want to see his jolly legs——”

Lady Malkinshaw screamed and rushed to the door. I sank into a chair, and clasped my hands in despair.

“Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! What calves the dog’s got! Pamby! look at his calves. Aha! bless his heart, his legs are the model of his father’s! The Namby build, Matilda; the Namby build, every inch of him! Kick again, Bill—kick out, like mad. I say, ma’am! I beg your pardon, ma’am——”

Ma’am? I ran to the window. Was the major actually daring to address Lady Malkinshaw, as she passed indignantly, on her way out, down my front garden? He was! The odious monster was pointing out his—his, what shall I say?—his undraped offspring to the notice of my outraged visitor.

“Look at him, ma’am. If you’re a judge of children, look at him. There’s a two-year-older for you! Ha! ha! ha-a-a-a! Show the lady your legs, Bill—kick out for the lady, you dog, kick out!”

There is always interest in the superlative. The biggest things, the smallest things, the ugliest and the most graceful are important only when compared with the rest of their kind. Every city in the world has its attractive roads and streets as well as its ugly ones.

The highest street in the world is Main Street, In Denver; the richest is Fifth Avenue, in New York City; the widest is Market Street, in Philadelphia; and the shortest is the Rue Blé in Paris.

The dirtiest street is that of Tchangsti, in Nankin; the cleanest is the Via Castile, in Seville, Spain; the most aristocratic one is Grosvenor Place, in London; the most beautiful is the Avenue des Champs Elysées, Paris. The narrowest street is the Via Sol, Havana, Cuba, which has a width of only forty-two inches.

POPULATION—Washington, D. C., 109,199; Chicago, 298,977; New York (including boroughs now forming Greater New York), 1,469,045; New York (Manhattan), 942,292; London, 3,251,804; United States, 38,558,371; Great Britain and Ireland, 31,672,678. World population, 1,310,000,000.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Spain Amadeus is made king, and in France Napoleon III falls with the empire.

In the United States, a great fire in Chicago destroys a large portion of the city; property loss, one hundred and ninety million five hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars; several hundred people are killed, and over one hundred thousand are rendered homeless; area burned, three and a half square miles. In the same month, October, vast fires rage in northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, with appalling loss of life. A commission of British and American statesmen meets In Washington and frames a treaty with reference to the claims of the United States against Great Britain for damage done during the Civil War by the Confederate cruiser Alabama and other Confederate vessels built and equipped in English ports; by terms of treaty the question is submitted to a board of arbitration to convene at Geneva next year. In New York, the corrupt Tweed ring is broken up, and its head, William M. Tweed, arrested and held in two million dollars bail. Under authority of Congress, President Grant takes steps to promote improvement in the Civil Service; he appoints a commission under George W. Curtis (see 1873). An act of Congress creates the Centennial Commission representing all States and Territories: it is authorized to prepare for a great international exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, in celebration of the nation’s centennial anniversary. Passage of the Force Bill to suppress the “Kuklux Klan” in the South. Death of George Ticknor, American writer and philologist; Alice and Phœbe Cary, poets; Robert Anderson, American soldier, the defender of Fort Sumter. Immigration, 321,350; exports, $442,820,178.

In England, the system of purchasing commissions and promotions in the army is abolished, and also the requirements of religious tests in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Russia gives notice that she will no longer be held by the treaty made after the Crimean War, under which she abrogated naval rights in the Black Sea; England and other powers acquiesce. Death of Sir John Herschel, astronomer, and of George Grote, historian and philosopher.

In France, the siege of Paris is ended by capitulation and armistice, pending formation of a government to negotiate peace with the victorious Germans. A National Assembly, selected by popular vote, meets at Bordeaux and selects M. Thiers as “executive head” of the Republic with a coalition cabinet representing the several factions. M. Thiers negotiates peace by which Germany annexes Alsace, except the city of Belfort, and a part of Lorraine (Treaty of Frankfort); indemnity to Germany, one billion dollars; German troops to occupy France pending its final payment. M. Thiers now made President of the French Republic. Meantime, civil war breaks out in Paris, and the Commune is established with a reign of bloodshed, cruel reprisals, and wanton destruction of property; burning of the Tuileries, the Louvre, Hôtel de Ville, and leveling of the Vendôme Column; barbarous murder of the hostages, including Archbishop Darboy. Commune is finally quelled after bombardment, assault, and capture of city by French Government troops; leaders of Commune executed; lives lost during the conflict, fourteen thousand. The Mont Cenis tunnel is opened for traffic, thus piercing the barrier of the Alps between France and Italy. Death of Auber, French composer.

In Spain, Minister Serrano having resigned, King Amadeus first appoints Zorilla and then Sagasta in his place. The excellent qualities of King Amadeus fail to compensate for his being a foreigner, while his honesty of purpose alienates him from all political factions. Meantime, the Alfonsists and Carlists organize their hostility and raise standard of war. In Germany, William I triumphantly returns to Berlin, after having been proclaimed Emperor of Germany in the palace of Versailles (see France). The first Reichstag of the new German Empire is formally opened. In Italy, the seat of government is transferred from Florence to Rome, the first Italian Government in Rome for many centuries. In Mexico, Juarez is again elected President, but by a small majority, owing to large following developed by General Diaz as a rival candidate. Diaz party in rebellion over result (see 1872). In Africa, Stanley, heading the New York Herald expedition, finds Livingstone and relieves his wants.

RULERS—United States, Ulysses S. Grant, President; Great Britain, Queen Victoria; France, L. Thiers, President; Spain, Amadeus; Germany, William I; Russia, Alexander II; Italy, Victor Emmanuel; Austria, Francis Joseph; Pope, Pius IX.

POPULATION—Washington, D. C., 109,199; New York (including boroughs now forming Greater New York), 1,469,045; New York (Manhattan), 942,292; Chicago, 298,977; London, 3,351,804; United States, 38,558,371; Great Britain and Ireland, 31,672,678. World population, estimated at 1,310,000,000.

In the United States, a general epidemic prevails among horses; business seriously crippled by it, and great financial loss. In Boston, a great fire destroys the business portion of the city; loss, seventy million dollars. General U. S. Grant, Republican, is reelected President; Henry Wilson, Vice-President; defeated candidate, Horace Greeley (Liberal Republican and Democratic parties). Congressional investigation of the Credit Mobilier corporation in connection with the building of the Pacific Railway; great scandal developed from the discovery that much of the Credit Mobilier stock is owned by members of Congress. The Geneva arbitrators award fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars damages to the United States for depredations committed during Civil War by Confederate cruisers built or equipped in England; and the Emperor of Germany arbitrates in favor of the United States in its contention with Great Britain for ownership of the San Juan Islands, between Washington Territory and Vancouver Island. Death of William H. Seward, American statesman; Horace Greeley, famous American journalist and editor; James Gordon Bennett, founder of the New York Herald; and Professor S. F. B. Morse, American inventor and father of the telegraph. Important inventions; the duplex telegraph perfected by Stearns; George Westinghouse, Jr., produces improved air-brake for trains (see 1869); Lyall Invents the “positive motion loom.” Immigration, 404,806; exports, $444,177,586.

In England, Stanley returns and publishes “How I Found Livingstone.” Deaths of Poole, English dramatist; Charles Lever, Irish novelist; Sir John Bowring, linguist and social politician. In France, the seat of government is transferred from Versailles to Paris. The government revokes the proscription of the Orleans and Bourbon princes. Death of Gautier, French novelist and essayist.

In Spain, Serrano again assumes ministry, but resigns because King Amadeus declines to encourage civil war by taking the aggressive against the Alfonsists and Carlists. Amadeus’s courage and coolness is exhibited strikingly amid conspiracies that surround him and warnings and attempts to assassinate him; but being surrounded by traitorous ministers and generals, with the army disorganized and rule in Spain under a constitution appearing to be impossible, the king at length decides to abdicate (see 1873). In Germany, the meeting in Berlin of the Emperors of Germany, Russia, and Austria establishes the “league of the three emperors” (Drelkaiserbund), thus assuring the peace of Europe and emphasizing the German capital as the pivot of European policy. Death of Feuerbach, German philosopher. In Mexico, a civil War is begun by General Diaz and his partisans, but it is ended by the sudden death of President Juarez from apoplexy. Lerdo de Tajada, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, assumes the Presidency; is subsequently elected, and tranquillity is restored.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, with the exception that in Sweden Charles XV dies, and is succeeded by his son as Oscar II.

A great commercial panic, originating in the New York stock market, sweeps the country (September 18 called the “Second Black Friday”). In New York City, the stock exchange is closed, and the clearing house suspends temporarily. Congress drops the standard silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and one-half grains from the list of coins. Death of Chief Justice Chase, American statesman and jurist; Agassiz, American scientist. General Ulysses S. Grant is again inaugurated President. Congress raises the salaries of its members and of officers of the government (act repealed 1874; called the “salary grab”). In New York City, the Brooklyn Suspension Bridge is begun. Great Britain pays to the United States fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars, the award under the Alabama claims. Alexander H. Stephens returns to Congress. Congress establishes one-cent postal cards. Spanish authorities capture an American steamer, the Virginius, suspected of conveying men and arms to Cuba; thirty Americans executed; great indignation and excitement throughout the United States; Spain tenders apology and surrenders vessel and surviving prisoners; indemnity paid (1875), eighty thousand dollars. Steady growth of the “Grangers” as a political factor. Congress refuses to make further appropriation for continuing work of the Civil Service Commission (see 1874). Organization of the “Farmers’ Alliance,” a cooperative agricultural society. Important inventions: the automatic self-binding harvester and the Janney automatic car-coupler. Immigration, 459,893; exports, $522,479,922.

In England, home rule for Ireland is agitated for the first time as an issue in politics and efforts are made to form a compact, well-guided Irish party in Parliament to press demand for legislative independence; the Irish Land League is organized. Gladstone endeavors to establish an Irish university on a non-sectarian basis, but finds the project unpopular and resigns. Disraeli declines to take the government, owing to personnel of House of Commons, and Gladstone resumes office. Death of Dr. Livingstone (in Africa), African explorer; Sir Edwin Landseer, English artist; Sir H. Holland, English physician and author; John S. Mill, English philosopher and economist.

In France, the last instalment of the billion-dollar war indemnity to Germany is paid, and all German troops are withdrawn from French soil. President Thiers, wearied of the controversies of seven political parties in the Chamber and the intrigues and hostility of the monarchists, tenders his resignation, which is accepted by a small majority in the assembly: great dismay and regret among the people at large. General MacMahon, favored by the monarchists, is elected President by the assembly; the Duc de Broglie, grandson of Mme. de Staël, is made Prime Minister. The monarchist majority negotiates with the Comte de Chambord, heir of the Bourbon kings (the so-called Henry V), who declines the throne, however, rather than govern under a constitution or “abandon the Bourbon White Flag for the Revolutionary Tri-Color.” The royalists now feel constrained to accept the Republic as the most feasible form of government for the time being, and gradually cooperate in strengthening it. Deaths of ex-Emperor Napoleon III, in exile; Balrot, French statesman; Guizot and Michelet, French historians.

In Germany, Baron Liebig, the great German chemist, dies, and also A. Rothschild, Hebrew banker (one of the five brothers), and Von Raumer, German historian. In Spain, King Amadeus communicates his abdication to the Cortes and leaves Spain, respected by the better class for chivalric bearing and honesty, but hated by masses because a foreigner. The Cortes now declares in favor of a republic, with Figueras as President, and Castelar foreign minister; but insurrections occur, and a new Ministry is formed. Castelar is made President amid such chaos that he proclaims temporary military rule. Insurrections of the Carlists, Alfonsists, and Communists are suppressed.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Spain Amadeus abdicates and a republic is proclaimed; Figueras, President, and later Castelar, military dictator; in France M. Thiers resigns Presidency, and is succeeded by General MacMahon.

In the United States, the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River at Saint Louis is formally opened. In New York City, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is organized. In Germantown, Pennsylvania, Charlie Ross, aged four years, is kidnaped from his father’s home (has never been found). Death of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University; ex-President Fillmore; Charles Sumner, American statesman and politician. Important inventions: the quadruplex telegraph (Edison); twine binder for harvesters (Gorham); the practical barbed-wire machine (Glidden and Vaughan). Immigration, 313,339; exports, $586,283,040.

In England, owing to a reaction against Liberal measures, Gladstone appeals to the country, promising abolition of the income tax and other tax reductions, but the national elections result favorably for the Conservatives; Gladstone resigns and Disraeli forms new government. Termination of the celebrated Tichborne trial, the longest known in England. In Spain, the Cortes votes a “lack of confidence,” and Castelar resigns. The military, however, disperse the Cortes, and a military dictatorship is formed under Marshal Serrano; European powers, except Russia, recognize his government; the warfare against the Carlists and Alfonsists is prosecuted with indifferent success. Finally army officers, led by General Campos, declare for Alfonso, son of ex-Queen Isabella (deposed); Serrano resigns, and a ministerial regency notifies Isabella of the elevation of her son to the throne.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Spain Serrano succeeds Castelar as dictator.

In the United States, two rival State governments in Louisiana maintain civil war and distract the State and nation (see 1877). Passage of new Civil Rights Bill (see 1883). Congress provides for the gradual resumption of specie payments; act becomes effective, 1879. Death of Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States; ex-President Andrew Johnson, and John C. Breckenridge. In Massachusetts, the Hoosac Tunnel is opened to traffic. In Louisiana, Captain Eads begins the work of deepening the channel of the South Pass of the Mississippi River, and in New York City the work of excavation under the dangerous reef of Hell Gate is completed; forty-seven thousand four hundred and sixty-one cubic yards of rock removed (see 1876). In Massachusetts, centenary celebrations of the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill are held. Many government officials indicted for connection with the swindles of the “whisky ring.” Important inventions: illuminating gas made from water (Lowe); ice machine; sulphuric acid plant; cash-carriers for stores (Brown); artificial ice skating-rinks (Gamgee). Immigration, 227,498; exports, $513,442,711.

In England, the shares of the Suez Canal owned by the Khedive of Egypt (amounting to nearly one-half interest) are purchased for four million pounds, in order that England may protect her interests in the route to India; the money is advanced by the Rothschilds. Departure of polar expedition under Captain Nares (see 1876). Death of Arthur Helps, English essayist and dramatist.

In France, the Constitution of the Republic is finally adjusted, and a parliamentary body established (Senate and Chamber of Deputies); Gambetta is leader of the “Left” or Republican division. Death of Quinet, French author. In Turkey, the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina revolt against the intolerable abuses of Turkish rule under Abdul Aziz. In Germany, civil marriage legalized throughout the empire. In Spain, the Bourbons regain power, Alfonso, son of Isabella II, being crowned king under title of Alfonso XII. Canovas del Castillo is made regent, and prosecutes attempts to suppress the Carlists.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Spain Alfonso XII becomes king.

In the United States, this, the centennial year of national existence, is opened with a general celebration all over the country. Visit of Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, and the empress. The great national Centennial Exhibition of arts and industries opens in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and surpasses all previous world’s fairs of every land. Massacre of General Custer and two hundred and seventy-six men of the Seventh Cavalry by the Sioux Indians under Sitting Bull, near the Little Big Horn River, Montana. Appearance of the Greenback party. Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican) elected President, and William A. Wheeler Vice-President. Defeated candidate, Samuel J. Tilden (Democrat). The result is held to be doubtful, owing to existence of dual governments in Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia, and a complication in Oregon; decision is referred to Electoral Commission appointed by Congress; decision for Mr. Hayes, March, 1877. In New York City, the first wire is stretched between the towers of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the blowing up and removal of part of the great reef at Hell Gate is successfully accomplished. Colorado is admitted to Statehood. Death of A. T. Stewart, New York merchant. In Brooklyn, New York, the burning of the Brooklyn Theater causes a loss of over three hundred lives (performance, Kate Claxton in “The Two Orphans”). Important inventions: the articulating telephone (Professor Alexander Graham Bell); hydraulic dredges (Bowers and others); machinery for making cigarettes; photography by electric light (Vander Weyde); the electric pen (Edison); steam-feed for saw-mill carriages; cable cars introduced (Hallidie). Commercial failures for year, 9,092; liabilities, $191,117,786. Immigration, 169,986; exports, $540,384,671.

In England, Disraeli secures passage of an act conferring upon Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India. News of the unspeakable atrocities committed under Turkish misrule in Bulgaria creates great excitement and indignation, but Disraeli, distrustful of Russian designs on Turkish territory, endeavors to adhere to a policy of non-interference. Gladstone, emerging from retirement, denounces Turkish oppression, condemns Disraeli’s inaction, and urges that the Ottoman Government “be turned out of Europe, bag and baggage.” A conference of great powers is held at Constantinople, England being represented by Lord Salisbury. Turkey rejects proposals of the congress, and Russia declares war as champion of the Christian Church (Greek).

In France, President MacMahon, as a political experiment, but against inclination, selects M. Jules Simon, Republican, from the ranks of the “Left” as Prime Minister in place of De Broglie, resigned. M. Simon organizes a new cabinet. Death of Aurore Dudevant (“George Sand”), French novelist. In Spain, the Carlists are at last subdued; Don Carlos escapes to France. A newly elected Cortes adopts new constitution providing for legislative bodies controlled by popular vote, also for freedom of the press, religion, and unions.

In Turkey, a conspiracy costs the sultan his throne, and, shortly after, his life; he is succeeded by Neurad V, and he in turn by Abdul Hamid II. Revolt extends to Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro; massacres of native Christians, pillage and destruction of valuable property. European powers remonstrate and urge reforms. Turks suppress revolt in Bulgaria, using measures of extreme cruelty and authorizing massacres by the Bashi-Bazouks (semi-organized banditti). In Germany, the movement is begun which ultimately results in transference of railroads to ownership of the separate states. Death of Ehrenberg, German naturalist. In Mexico, a rebellion breaks out and Diaz joins it, forcing President Lerdo into exile. Diaz becomes provisional President.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

In the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated President. The conflict in Louisiana between rival State governments is settled by the President in favor of Nicholls’s government (Democratic). President Hayes withdraws last of Federal troops from the South. Pennsylvania and West Virginia suffer from great railway strike and riots; in Pittsburgh, much property is destroyed and many lives are lost; freight and passenger service demoralized, and militia has to quell riot; strike unsuccessful. Death of Brigham Young, religionist and head of the Mormon Church. The “trade dollar” ceases to be a legal tender. Execution of John D. Lee, convicted of complicity in the Mountain Meadow Massacre (1857). Ex-President Grant sails from New York upon a tour around the world. Death of J. L. Motley, American historian. Manifestations in California against the immigration and the labor of the Chinese (see 1888); much general agitation this year over the rights of labor. Important inventions: the phonograph (Edison); the gas-engine (Otto); the Sawyer-Man electric lamp; transmitter for telephone (Berliner); carbon microphone (Edison); discovery of the two satellites of planet Mars (Hall). Immigration, 141,857; exports, $602,475,220.

In England, a war feeling develops against Russia; jealousy and alarm felt over her conquests in Turkey; origin of “jingoism.” A fleet is sent through the Dardanelles as a “demonstration” against Russia. Some disaffected burghers of the Transvaal (the South African Republic) invite England to annex their country. This is formally accomplished, and the annexation persisted in by England despite much controversy in Parliament (see 1880).

In France, M. Simon, being reproached by the President for radical tendencies, resigns as Prime Minister, together with the Cabinet. The President challenges criticism by dissolving the Chamber of Deputies and appealing to a national election, but a strong Republican majority is returned. Death of ex-President Thiers, French patriot and statesman. A French physicist, M. Cailletet, accomplishes the liquification of oxygen, hydrogen, and other gases; Pictet, in Switzerland, does the same. Invention of the Jablochkoff electric candle, and the chain and sprocket device for bicycles.

In Turkey, the Porte rejects the proposals of the conference at Constantinople, including its demands for the protection of Christian provinces, and Russia declares war against Turkey, announcing herself as the defender and protector of the Christians. Russian troops enter Rumania and cross the Danube; they capture Nicopolis and garrison, but at Plevna the heroic defense of the garrison of Turks against nearly two hundred thousand Russians and Rumanians lasts five months, the Russians failing entirely to carry the place by assault. The garrison of forty thousand men finally surrenders because of famine, and Turkish resistance collapses. In Mexico, General Porfirio Diaz is proclaimed constitutional President by the Mexican Congress, for term ending 1880. In Italy, Schiaparelli (astronomer) discovers the “canals” of Mars.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in the United States Rutherford B. Hayes succeeds Ulysses S. Grant as President.

In the United States, a great yellow fever epidemic spreads through the Southern States. Congress passes, over the President’s veto, the Bland-Allison Silver Bill, requiring the purchase monthly by the Secretary of the Treasury of between two and four million dollars’ worth of silver bullion for coinage (repealed, 1890). The silver dollar of four hundred and twelve and one-half grains is made a legal tender. Edison produces a perfected electric light for general use. Death of William Cullen Bryant, American poet, and of Bayard Taylor, American poet, essayist, and traveler. Important inventions: the carbon filament for incandescent electric lamp (Edison); Sholes’s typewriter perfected by E. Remington & Sons; the yielding spinning spindle bearing and the Gessner cloth-finishing press; gelatine emulsion dry plate introduced. Immigration, 138,469; exports, $694,865,766.

In England, protest is made by Disraeli against the Russo-Turkish treaty of San Stefano, and English diplomacy and firmness forces Russian consent to a congress of the five great powers at Berlin for settlement of terms. The Berlin congress cedes Island of Cyprus to England as her share of the spoils of the Russo-Turkish War, and yields to other demands of England. Disraeli returns from the congress, having brought back “peace with honor” and secured a great diplomatic triumph for England; height of Disraeli’s power. He and Bismarck the two greatest men in the world at this time (see 1881–1884). The Ameer of Afghanistan having rebuffed a British diplomatic mission, a force of English troops invades the country. Flight and death of the Ameer, Shere Ali; his son and successor, Yakoub Khan, submits to English treaty terms (see 1879). Death of Princess Alice.

In France, a great international exhibition is held in Paris. In Germany, the Congress of Berlin meets under the presidency of Prince Bismarck and modifies and revises the treaty terms of Russia with Turkey. Death of Petermann, German geographer. In Italy, King Victor Emmanuel and Pope Pius IX die within a few days of each other. At the last the Pope generously forgets their strife and differences, and sends the viaticum (eucharist) to the dying king. Victor Emmanuel is succeeded by his son, Humbert I; the Pope is succeeded by Cardinal Pecci, as Leo XIII. Rise of Crispi to prominence and power in the Italian Cabinet. In Mexico, under President Diaz, a stronger and abler government begins to develop; his consolidation of power secures domestic peace (see 1880). In Chile, a serious dispute arises with Bolivia and Peru with reference to northern boundary line (see 1879).

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in Italy Victor Emmanuel is succeeded by Humbert I; Pope Pius IX is succeeded by Cardinal Pecci, as Leo XIII.

In the United States, James Gordon Bennett, proprietor of the New York Herald, proffers the government a ship, the Jeannette, for a voyage of Arctic exploration via Bering Strait; offer accepted, and the Jeannette sails from San Francisco. Specie payments are resumed. Death of William Lloyd Garrison, noted abolitionist and reformer, and of Caleb Cushing, statesman, jurist, and diplomat. Quinine placed on free list. Publication of Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty,” advocating the “single tax” theory. Captain Eads completes the improvements assuring better navigation of lower Mississippi. Important inventions: Lee magazine rifle; blasting gelatine (Nobel), an explosive more powerful than dynamite or gunpowder; “Standard” bicycle perfected. Immigration. 177,826; exports, 710,439,441.

In Afghanistan, the British resident at Kabul, Sir Louis Cavagnari, is murdered; the British forces prepare to renew the campaign. An expedition sent against the Zulus in Southeast Africa for repeated attacks on British settlers. Zulus subdued, and their chief, Cetywayo, captured. The Prince Imperial of France killed by Zulus while serving in English cavalry.

In France, President MacMahon, disapproving of certain changes in the army corps, resigns and the Senate and Chamber elect M. Jules Grévy (Republican) as his successor. Gambetta succeeds Grévy as president of the Chamber of Deputies, and Waddington becomes Prime Minister. M. Jules Ferry, Minister of Education, begins an agitation to exclude the Jesuits and all “unauthorized orders” from teaching in France; much bitter agitation. The Bonapartist cause suffers by the death of the young prince imperial. In Germany, great economic changes are wrought by Bismarck, including notable increase in tariff. In Sweden, news received that Nordenskjöld, Arctic explorer, had reached the Northeast Passage. In Chile, war against Bolivia and Peru declared; naval struggle watched with world-wide interest as being the first between modern iron-clads; Chilean fleet victorious; Bolivian and Peruvian army almost annihilated at Dolores (see 1880).

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that in France President MacMahon is succeeded by Jules Grévy.

In the United States, owing to a deadlock between Ulysses S. Grant and James G. Blaine, the Republican National Convention nominates a “dark horse,” James A. Garfield, who is elected President, with Chester A. Arthur Vice-President; defeated candidates, Winfield S. Hancock and William H. English, Democrats. Popular vote. 4,454,416 to 4,444,952; electoral vote, 214 to 155. Samuel J. Tilden had declined the Democratic nomination. Important inventions: the magnetic ore concentrator (Edison); hammerless gun (Greener); spinning spindle (Rabbeth); the “Rover” bicycle (Starley), the first of the “safeties.” Public debt reduced to $1,915,594,813; commerce, $14,760,000,000; immigration, 457,257; exports $835,638,658 (nearly double that of 1871).

In England, unpopularity of the Zulu and Afghan wars, depression of trade, and bad harvests develop dissatisfaction with Disraeli’s government, and the elections for a new Parliament result in Liberal victory; Disraeli resigns, and Gladstone, the “Grand Old Man,” again becomes Prime Minister. The Transvaal revolts against English régime and proclaims restoration of free Republic (see 1881).

In France, a general amnesty is proclaimed toward all political exiles, Including those who had been Communists. The first annual celebration of the fall of the Bastile (July 14). Suppression of the Jesuit schools, and restrictions passed upon religious orders. France annexes the Society Islands. Invention of the electric storage battery (Faure). In Germany, the great Cathedral of Cologne, begun in the year 1248, is completed. Diplomatic relations are renewed between Germany and the Papal See. In Afghanistan, a British force is defeated at Maiwand, but General Roberts retrieves the situation by his march to Kandahar. Abdurrahman, nephew of Shere Ali, is installed as ameer, and the insurrection raised by a rival claimant, Ayoub Khan, suppressed. In Mexico, Diaz’s term as President ends, and he is peaceably succeeded by Manuel Gonzalez (see 1884). In Chile, the United States Minister succeeds in bringing about negotiations for peace between Chile and Bolivia and Peru (see 1881). In Spain, the Cortes passes a law for the gradual abolition of slavery in Cuba during the next eight years.

RULERS—The same as previous year.

POPULATION—Washington, D. C., 147,293; New York (including boroughs now forming Greater New York), 1,935,367; New York (Manhattan), 1,206,299; Chicago, 503,185; London, 3,834,194; United States, 50,155,783; Great Britain and Ireland, 34,868,648. World population, estimated at 1,433,000,000.

Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.—Marcus Aurelius. (121–180.)

A FISHERMAN’S REVENGE.

Enos Wilson, an enthusiastic fisherman from Brockton, Massachusetts, who is here on his spring vacation, is receiving the congratulations of his friends.

While out fishing in a canoe lately Enos got a bite from a dogfish. The dogfish bit the bottom out of the canoe and also carried away a portion of Mr. Wilson’s trousers.

This so enraged the doughty fisherman that he threw away his rod and line, and, jumping into the water, swam after the fish, overtaking it and holding it under the water until it was drowned.

The dogfish weighed nineteen and a quarter pounds on its own scales. It was a fresh-water dogfish and very vicious.—Boston Post.

FELINE INGENUITY.

Short—I thought you were going to drown that cat?

Long—Well, they say a cat has nine lives, but this one has twenty, I think. Why, I actually put that cat into a tub of water and tied a brick round its neck; and what do you think?

Short—Goodness knows.

Long—Well, this morning when I went to look at the tub the cat had swallowed all the water and was sitting on the brick.—Answers.

AN UNLIMITED EXPRESS.

“Trains in the South travel awfully slow,” said Robert Hathaway, of Atlanta, at the Plankinton House, “but it’s a base libel to say that conductors will stop trains to accommodate passengers who wish to pick flowers by the wayside.

“I was riding on a Central Georgia train about forty miles out in Campbell County, when the train came to a standstill. I could tell the train had stopped because I was looking out of the window at the time.

“When the conductor came through I asked the cause of the stop, and found it was a cow on the track. We started up, and had rumbled along several miles when it came to another stop.

“‘What’s the matter now,’ I called to the conductor, out of the window, ‘another cow?’

“‘Naw,’ he said disgustedly, ‘same cow.’”—Milwaukee Sentinel.

A STORY IN STONE.

A Yankee traveling in England listened for some time to a crowd of men talking together about the wonders they had seen in other lands. While others expressed surprise at what they heard, the Yankee remained passive, and he even yawned when others were working up to a high pitch of excitement. At length one of the travelers said to him:

“Have you anything in your country so superior and so much more wonderful that you could tell about?”

“Waal, I just have,” drawled the Yankee. “There’s hundreds of more wonderful things over in Ameriky that we don’t pay no heed to.”

“Do you mean Niagara Falls and the Mammoth Cave and such things?” said one.

“Pshaw! We don’t count caves, nor waterfalls, nor burning mountains, nor boiling springs, though we can beat creation in such things. Say, did any of you fellows hear of the petrified forest in Arizony?—hundreds of thousands of acres of stone forests!”

“And the trees standing?”

“The trees standing? Waal, I should say so; and not only standing, but all in leaf and some of ’em in blossom, and others, again, full of nuts and other fruit, all turned into stone, mind you.”

“And I suppose there were birds in the trees?” sneered one.

“Birds! Yes, sir, no end of birds, all of the most beautiful plumage and all turned into stone. Even the nests in the trees and the eggs in them were petrified in the most wonderful manner you ever saw. I see some of you fellows doubt me. Waal, all I have to say is that what I am telling you is true, and I’ll bet any sum on it and take you there to prove it. I’ll tell you what I saw last time I was in the petrified forest. There was a hunter who must have been in the forest when the petrification took place, for he was petrified, too, and there he stood as straight as you please, with a petrified gun on his shoulder a-taking aim at a petrified bird. Why, the whole thing was so natural that you could see the shot and smoke coming out of the muzzle of the——”

“I’ve got you there!” interrupted the Englishman. “The law of gravitation would have brought down the smoke and the shot.”

“So it would,” said the Yankee, “but the funny thing about it was that the law of gravitation was petrified, too, and so the blamed thing could not work.”—Tit-Bits.

A PEACH PUP.

“Speaking about dogs,” said Representative Beidler, of Ohio, “I suppose I have the most intelligent fox-terrier in the country, and he’s only a puppy yet.

“The other day he spilled his milk, and I cuffed his ears and chucked him out of the window. Next day he spilled his milk again, and I cuffed his ears again and chucked him out of the window. The next day, after he had spilled his milk again, he cuffed his ears and went and jumped out the window.”—New York World.

THE EMERGENCY AND THE MAN.

“Some people deal with graft about the way a farmer in northern Pennsylvania dealt with an emergency,” said Mayor Weaver, of Philadelphia.

“This farmer called on a neighbor very early one morning. The latter, although much surprised at receiving such an early call, did not forget his hospitality.

“‘Come in, Jake, and set down,’ he said cordially.

“‘I don’t know’s I ought,’ said Jake, but after a little more persuasion he went. About fifteen minutes were consumed in miscellaneous discussion of crops, when breakfast was ready.

“‘Set by, Jake, and hev a bite ter eat,’ invited the still hospitable farmer.

“‘Now, act’ly, Silas, I don’t know’s I orter stay so long. Ye see, ’taint’s though I didn’t ’preciate yer kindness, but my roof’s afire, and I cum over ter borrer a ladder.’”—New York Times.

WHERE TWO CLIMATES MEET.

A “digger” from California, eulogizing the climate, said:

“There’s a mountain there—the Sawyer Nevady, they call it—with a valley on each side of it, the one hot, the other cold. Well, get on the top of that mountain with a double-barreled gun, and you can, without moving, kill summer or winter game, just as you will.”

“What! Have you ever tried it?” asked one of his auditors.

“Tried! Often—and would have done pretty well but for one thing.”

“Well, what was that?”

“I wanted a dog that would stand both climates. The last dog I had froze his tail while huntin’ on the summer side. He didn’t get entirely out of the winter side, you know, sir.”—Old scrap book.

STRETCHING IT.

An American visiting Dublin told some startling stories about the height of some of the New York buildings. An Irishman who was listening stood it as long as he could, and then queried:

“Ye haven’t seen our newest hotel, have ye?”

The American thought not.

“Well,” said the Irishman, “it’s so tall that we had to put the two top stories on hinges.”

“What for?” asked the American.

“So we could let ’em down till the moon went by,” said Pat.—Exchange.

A piece ov satire, tew be beneficial, should be so rendered that every man who reads it or hears it shall say to himself, “That iz just, bekause it hits every boddy but me.”—Josh Billings.

WHY was the sandwich so called?

BECAUSE the Earl of Sandwich (1718—1792) on one occasion, not wishing to leave his place at the gaming-table, called a waiter and ordered some slices of bread with ham between them to be brought to him, so that he could go on playing without interruption. To this combination his friends gave his name.

WHY is a certain kind of paper called “foolscap”?

BECAUSE Oliver Cromwell substituted a fool’s cap and bells in water-mark for the royal arms granted by Charles I with certain privileges in manufacturing paper. When the “Rump” Parliament was prorogued this water-mark was removed, but the paper of the size of the Parliamentary Journal, seventeen by fourteen inches, still bears the name.

WHY are elephants afraid of mice?

BECAUSE mice strongly resemble a little animal known as the chacana, which feeds on a small berry especially liked by the elephant. Chacanas live in the ground after the manner of prairie-dogs, under the bushes, and are often trampled upon by elephants. In their fright the little animals run up the tubes of the elephants’ trunks, their long, sharp claws catch in the flesh, and they cannot be ejected. An agonizing death is almost invariably the consequence to the elephant.

WHY is noon the traditional and fashionable hour for wedding ceremonies?

BECAUSE the hour became the customary one in England many years since, for the reason that the bridegroom could not be relied upon to be sober any later in the day than twelve o’clock. It was naturally desirable that he should be responsible for his promises, and unless he was in a state of perfect sobriety this could not be. Hence the precaution of a noonday wedding.

WHY is the first period of married life known as “the honeymoon”?

BECAUSE of an ancient custom in the northern nations of Europe. The bride and bridegroom, for a month after the wedding, drank a wine made from honey as their principal form of nourishment. It was called the honey-month or moon.

WHY is the fee given to a servant called a “tip”?

BECAUSE the letters which compose the word are the initials of “to insure promptness,” an inscription on the money boxes which used to be in every tavern. Into these the traveler dropped his coin, and the staff, as a whole, shared the benefit. This custom still prevails in some places, but in the United States we give the fee to the particular individual who serves us.

WHY do we say “Uncle Sam” when referring to the United States?

BECAUSE the initials “U. S.” were once believed by a few workmen to refer to “Uncle Sam” Wilson who was government inspector, at Troy, in 1812. When the war began, Elbert Anderson, a New York contractor, bought a large quantity of beef, pork, and pickles for the army. These were inspected by Wilson and marked E. A., U. S., meaning Elbert Anderson, for the United States. After discovering that the letters did not apply to Wilson, the men still kept up the “Uncle Sam” as a joke. These same men carried it into the army and from there it got into print. From that time the term has been used for the United States.

WHY do we speak of the “near” and “off” horse?

BECAUSE in the days when the driver walked beside the horses his position was always at the left, with his right arm next the team. Therefore, in driving a pair, the horse on the left was nearer than the one on the right. The “near” horse is always the one on the left.

WHY do the stars twinkle?

BECAUSE their light passes through variously heated and moving currents of air which act as a refractor. Much twinkling foretells bad weather, because it denotes that these aerial currents are more disturbed than usual.

DEATH THE LEVELER.

James Shirley (1596–1666), the author of this poem, of which the last two lines are very famous, was a contemporary of Shakespeare, whom, however, he survived by many years. Originally a schoolmaster, he became a dramatic writer and composed both tragedies and comedies which form a link between the Elizabethan plays and those which were produced after the Restoration. He wrote few poems, yet these few are characterized by forcible imagery and a vigorous, manly cast of thought.

By JAMES SHIRLEY.

The glories of our blood and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armor against fate:

Death lays his icy hand on kings:

Scepter and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,

And plant fresh laurels where they kill:

But their strong nerves at last must yield;

They tame but one another still:

Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath

When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow.

Then boast no more your mighty deeds:

Upon death’s purple altar now

See where the victor-victim bleeds;

Your heads must come

To the cold tomb:

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.

The Tomb of Eve—How Our Northern Boundaries Are Indicated—Big Fees Kings and Queens Have to Pay to Physicians—Eating in Days When Forks Were Unknown—Why We Call an Old Story a “Chestnut”—Queer Mix-Ups of Twins—Shorthand in Use Two Thousand Years Ago—Great Distances Walked by the Average Man in a Life-Time—Misnomers in Common Use.

TRADITIONAL TOMB OF MOTHER OF HUMAN RACE.

The tomb of Eve, the mother of the human race, is located, according to tradition, not far from the burial place of Mohammed, on the Arabian coast of the Red Sea.

Every year, as the sacred season of the Hejaz comes around, hundreds of thousands of devout Mohammedans disembark at the little harbor of Jiddah intent on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Journeying with these, a correspondent of the New York Herald made the trip across the Red Sea from Suakim to the shrine venerated by Christian and Islamite alike—the legendary tomb of the first woman. He writes of it as follows:

The country presents a very sterile appearance, there being but little vegetation. A few date palms are dotted about, and away to the west, in the direction of Mecca, groups of stunted acacia-trees render the prospect less barren. The approach to the tomb is up a sandy slope, rising about two hundred feet above the town.

The grave itself is one hundred and sixty feet long and five feet wide, and is surrounded by a stone wall four feet high, covered with chunam. In the center of it rises a small dome-crowned mosque, wherein pilgrims assemble to say their prayers. The mosque is in charge of some dervishes, who have plenty to do in keeping it clear of the crowds of beggars who assemble and clamor for backsheesh.

Inside the mosque is perfectly plain, except that in the center is erected an altar. This stands about three feet high, and is covered with curtains. The curtains being drawn aside, disclose a black stone let into the floor.

This stone is supposed to lie directly over the tomb of Eve, and is polished like marble by the kisses of the faithful. It is by no means permitted to every pilgrim to place his lips on this sacred spot, but by a liberal amount of backsheesh and the presence of the consular kavasses I was permitted the honor, and, accordingly, the curtain was drawn, and on hands and knees I paid homage to our legendary mother.

The stone which is treated with so much honor is a very curious one, evidently meteoric, and is supposed, like the Kaaba at Mecca, to have been specially sent down from heaven for its present use.

I had a long chat with the chief custodian of the tomb, who told me that the office had been in the family for generations. He said that the most regular visitors to the shrine are the Bedouins, who, in their yearly wanderings through the Arabian desert, rarely fail to visit Eve’s tomb. I asked him if there was any legend as to why Eve was supposed to be buried there, but he knew none, and asked:

“Where else would she be buried except on this sacred soil?”

It is certainly curious that legendary lore should select spots so distant from each other for the graves of our first parents. While Eve rests on the shores of the Red Sea, Adam is popularly supposed to lie buried under the forest-clad slopes of Adam’s Peak, in Ceylon.

On my way back to Jiddah I asked my companions if they supposed the grave represented the stature of Eve, and they said, “Surely.”

HOW WE MARK OUR NORTHERN BOUNDARIES.

Nearly all the boundaries of the United States are formed by the easy, irregular lines of waterways. The artificial marking of a country the size of this would seem a gigantic task, and fortunately it was not necessary all the way around.

Along the northwestern border, however, there is a vast distance where something of the sort was required, although it is doubtful if many persons have ever heard of it.

A glance at the map of the United States shows that its boundary adjoining Canada follows, the larger part of the distance, an irregular water-line formed by the Great Lakes and their outlets.

Thence from the Lake of the Woods, on the north of Minnesota, a more direct course is taken through the wilderness and over the mountains of the wild West to the Pacific Coast.

This boundary between the countries is marked at regular intervals by pillars of wood and iron, earth mounds, or stone cairns.

Beginning at the Lake of the Woods, cast iron pillars have been placed alternately by the English and our government, one mile apart, until reaching the Red Valley River.

Those set by our neighbor were brought from over the ocean, while ours were made in Detroit. They are a hollow casting of a pyramidal form, eight feet in height, having a base eight inches square and octagon flange one inch in thickness, with a top four inches square, surmounted by a solid cap.

Into these hollow posts are fitted well-seasoned cedar joists, with spikes driven through apertures made for that purpose in the casting. One-half of the length of the pillars are firmly imbedded in the ground, so that the inscriptions on their sides, in raised letters two inches high, face the north and south, the first reading, “Convention of London,” the latter “October 20th, 1818.”

Beyond the Red River, earth mounds and stone cairns, seven feet by eight, generally denote the boundary line. Whenever wooden posts are used, they are of the same height as the iron pillars and painted red above the ground.

Through forests a clearing has been made a rod wide, so that the course is plainly indicated. Where bodies of water are crossed, monuments of stone have been raised several feet above high tide.

Over the mountains, shafts of granite, like grim sentinels, guard the way. Altogether the fixing of the boundary marks was expensive, but it was well done.

WHAT IT COSTS FOR ROYALTY TO BE ILL.

That old bugbear, the doctor’s bill, is really something worth while—to the doctor—when the patient happens to be a king. Of all the things a man has to pay, there is probably nothing he really grudges quite as much as this.

Let the ordinary mortal take heart, however, after reading the fees which royalty pays—and presumably pays without a murmur.

For his four weeks’ attendance at Sandringham, prior to the recovery of the king from typhoid fever, in 1871, Sir William Gull received fifty thousand dollars. Twice this amount was paid to Sir Morell Mackenzie for his treatment of the late Emperor Frederick.

The doctors who attended Queen Victoria in her last illness received two thousand guineas each; while Dr. Lapponi’s skill in removing a cyst from the Pope’s side a few years ago was recompensed with two thousand five hundred dollars. Dr. Dinsdale, for his journey to Saint Petersburg and vaccination of the Empress Catharine II, received fifty thousand dollars as his fee, twenty-five thousand dollars for traveling expenses, and a life pension of two thousand five hundred dollars a year.

The fees of the physicians who attended King Edward during the illness which preceded his coronation amounted to more than one hundred thousand dollars.

BEFORE THE FORK WAS THOUGHT OF.

Fingers were made before forks and used instead of forks until a comparatively recent period; indeed it is evident that forks have not even now superseded them altogether, though there is no doubt about there being a great improvement in the manner of eating since the days when the fork was unknown.

The Greeks and Romans, as well as other ancient nations, knew nothing of any such implement, and meat was commonly prepared in stews. Eating was hardly a dainty operation under such circumstances, and we should probably find ourselves overcome with disgust if we were obliged to take a meal in the company of our ancestors of even three hundred years ago.

Each man had his own knife, and at dinner seized the joint with his hand and cut off what he wished. The dish was then passed on to the next, who did the same. The knife then cut up the portions into small pieces, which were put into the mouth by the fingers of the hand unoccupied by the knife.

In many parts of Spain, at present, drinking-glasses, spoons, and forks are rarities; and in taverns in many countries, particularly in some towns in France, knives are not placed on the table, because it is expected that each person has one of his own—a custom which the French seem to have retained from the old Gauls; but, as no person will any longer eat without forks, landlords are obliged to furnish these together with plates and spoons.

None of the sovereigns of England had forks till the reign of Henry VIII. All, high and low, used their fingers. Hence in the royal household there was a dignitary called the ewery, who, with a set of subordinates, attended at the meals with basins, water, and towels. The office of the ewery survived after forks came partially into fashion.

About the first royal personage who is known to have had a fork was Queen Elizabeth; but, although several were presented to her, it is doubtful whether she used them on ordinary occasions.

Forks were employed only by the higher classes in the middle of the seventeenth century. About the period of the Revolution (1688) few English noblemen had more than a dozen forks of silver, along with a few of iron or steel. At length, for general use steel forks became an article of manufacture at Sheffield. At first they had but two prongs; and it was only in later times that the three-pronged kind were made. As late as the early part of the eighteenth century table-forks were kept on so small a scale by the country inns in Scotland (and perhaps in some parts of England) that it was customary for gentlemen traveling to carry with them a portable knife and fork in a shagreen case. The general introduction of silver forks into Great Britain is quite recent. It can be dated no further back than the termination of the French War in 1814.

WHY AN OLD STORY IS CALLED A “CHESTNUT.”

The reason why a hoary old joke should be a “chestnut,” instead of a butternut or a hickory nut, may have puzzled some persons who have used the word.

The late Joseph Jefferson gave the following account of the origin of the term, and this explanation may be relied upon, for the famous actor was an excellent authority on subjects on which he spoke and wrote:

In an old melodrama by William Dillon, called “The Broken Sword,” are two parts—Count Xavier and his servant Pablo. The Count is a sort of Münchausen, fond of telling stories of his exploits. He tells one:

“Once I entered the forests of Colloway, when suddenly, from the boughs of a cork-tree——’

“Chestnut, count,” interrupted Pablo.

“Cork-tree,” said the count.

“A chestnut,” reiterated Pablo. “I should know as well as you, for I have heard you tell the story twenty-seven times.”

William Warren, who had played Pablo often, was at a men’s dinner once when a gentleman told a story whose age and originality were far beyond any doubt.

“Chestnut,” murmured Warren. “I should know as well as you, for I have heard you tell it twenty-seven times.”

The guests took up the expression, and from that I believe comes the origin of the term.

HOW NATURE JOKES WITH HER CHILDREN.

The cases of mistaken identity which occur in real life are only another proof of the old adage that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Even Shakespeare, in his “Comedy of Errors,” stretching the probabilities to the utmost limit with the twin brothers and their twin servants, did not equal the facts in a marriage celebrated not long since in Paris.

Two bridegrooms, so exactly alike as to be indistinguishable from each other except by differences in attire, and two brides of whom exactly the same was true, were attended by two “best men” who were modern dromios.

Alphonse and Gabriel Chanteau, the bridegrooms, were distinguished from each other in their twin babyhood by means of a pink ribbon tied around the arm of Alphonse. Now that they have reached man’s estate Alphonse wears a red waistcoat and Gabriel a white one.

Genevieve and Susanne Renaud, twin sisters who have become Mesdames Chanteau, are living realizations of Girofle-Girofla in the French comic opera of that name. Their differentiation in the eyes of their friends is accomplished by the aid of Genevieve’s red corsage and the white one worn by Susanne.

As to the grooms’ “best men,” Gustave and Maurice Freunzer, also twins, who are cousins of the Messrs. Chanteau, they are as much alike as the proverbial two peas.

Knowing their marvelous resemblance, these twins will undoubtedly keep themselves happily “sorted out”; but the case of a woman in Vienna who was imposed upon to the extent of actually marrying the wrong man has the element of tragedy rather than comedy.

This woman, who was of the lower middle class, married a man whom she took to be Herr Weiss, her fiancé, returning from a year’s absence in America to make her his wife. In less than a month he robbed her of her savings and then suddenly disappeared.

A month later she received a letter from America regretting that the writer had been too ill to return at the time agreed, but stating that he was about to sail, and that immediately on his arrival would fulfil his promise by leading her to the altar. The letter was signed “Herrmann Weiss.”

The poor woman’s worst fears were realized when, on her correspondent’s arrival, she recognized that she had been victimized by an impostor. It subsequently transpired that the genuine Herrmann Weiss had, while in America, foregathered with his double, who had ascertained sufficient of the former’s history and prospects to enable him to carry out with success his scheme of deception and robbery.

When Claude Bonnat, a baker of Marseilles, was in hiding from the police, who held a warrant for his arrest on a serious charge, he managed to communicate with an acquaintance, one Leriot, who in every respect was his exact double, and conjured him, on the strength of their old friendship, to promise that, should any misfortune befall him, he would by impersonating him keep from the young woman to whom he was engaged the knowledge of her lover’s shame. Leriot gave his promise, which sat but lightly on his conscience, as one to be kept or broken as whim might direct.

However, when Bonnat a day or two later fell into the hands of justice, Leriot sought out the young woman, of whom he had no previous knowledge, with the result that his susceptible heart was so touched that he entered into the fulfilment of his promise with surprising zeal. So well, indeed, did he enact the rôle of Bonnat that he in a short while espoused the latter’s fiancée. The couple led a life of complex happiness, which was in no wise dimmed when, some years later, on the convict’s release, the wife first discovered the fraud of which she had been the victim.

SHORTHAND IS MORE THAN 2,000 YEARS OLD.

Shorthand is so closely associated with the hurry and rush of modern business that it is startling to think of it having been in use among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Yet there seems to be no doubt that the orations of Cicero were committed to paper with as much skill and rapidity as the modern stenographer can boast.

Just how old the system of abbreviated writing is which the ancient Greeks called tachygraphy, it is impossible to say. Xenophon is believed to have used it in taking notes of the lectures of Socrates, which would take it back to the fifth century before Christ. This is disputed by some authorities, but there seems to be no doubt about its use in the first century. A writer in the Chicago Tribune gives some interesting facts about it.

The development of shorthand was due especially to Marcus Tullius Tiro. Born in Latium in 103 B.C., Tiro, who was a slave, was brought up with Cicero, who was some years his junior. Freed, he became Cicero’s secretary, and in this capacity aided him greatly. In the famous trial of Catiline (63 B.C.) the stenographic rapidity of Tiro was at its height.

In the first century before Christ a discourse of Cato Uticensis, according to Plutarch, was taken down by shorthand reporters.

Early in the third century Anno Domino is found the term semeiograph (stenographic character), used by the Greek orator, Flavius Philostratus.

Origen, of Alexandria (185–254 A.D.), noted his sermons down in shorthand, and Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian of the fourth century, said that parts of the sermons of St. John Chrysostom were preserved by the same process.

The shorthand that they used was a form of writing in which each word was represented by a special sign. The letters of the alphabet, with modifications, connected so as to admit of great rapidity of execution, formed the elements of these characters.

Manilius, who was a contemporary of Cicero, Vergil, and Horace, mentions it in verse. He says:

DISTANCE WALKED DURING A LIFETIME.

The greatest things of the world reduced to the unit which, many times multiplied, goes to compose them, do not seem great at all.

The sum of all the money on earth would be made up of just so many pennies, and a penny is an insignificant coin. In just the same way the distance around the earth is very great, yet it is numbered in miles, and a mile is not much of a walk.

For instance, how far will a man walk in a lifetime? It is a little difficult to fix the average mileage per day of the average man. Some men are fond of walking. Others ride a bicycle or patronize the trolley-cars. But it is safe to say that every man walks two miles a day, if only in stirring about his room or office.

If a man lives to be thirty years old he will walk twenty-one thousand nine hundred miles. The three-miles-a-day man will cover thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty. The man who believes in a daily constitutional of five miles will walk fifty-four thousand seven hundred and fifty miles. The circumference of the earth is twenty-four thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine miles. If a man walks two miles a day he will find, after he has walked for thirty years, he would still have some distance to walk in order to complete the circuit of the globe.

Walking three miles a day he will go around the world once and have a neat margin besides. The five-miles-a-day man will walk around twice and have a few thousand-odd miles to his credit.

At forty this man will have made three trips, and at sixty his pedometer will indicate one hundred and nine thousand five hundred miles, which means that he will have walked around the earth four times and he will still have about two thousand miles to the good on the fifth trip.

MISNOMERS WHICH ARE COMMONLY USED.

Custom and usage have made the misapplication of some words so familiar that they have lost their original meaning and now signify quite the opposite. The word “slave,” for instance, is a striking example of this fact. The Slavi were a tribe which once dwelt on the banks of the Dneiper and derived their name from “slav,” which means noble or illustrious. In the later days of the Roman Empire vast numbers of them spread over Europe in the condition of captive servants, and the name of the tribe came to mean the lowest state of servitude—the very antithesis of its original sense.

Some of our commonest expressions are misnomers which seem to be absolutely unaccountable, yet we shall probably go on using them to the end of time.

Irish stew is a dish unknown in Ireland.

Kid gloves are not made of kid, but of lambskin or sheepskin.

German silver is not silver at all, nor of German origin, but has been used in China for centuries.

Dutch clocks are of German manufacture.

Baffin’s Bay is not a bay.

Turkish baths are unknown to the Turks.

There are no leaves in Vallombrosa, Milton to the contrary notwithstanding.

Turkey rhubarb should be called Russian rhubarb, as it is a Russian monopoly.

Why are turkeys so called? They do not come from Turkey.

Titmouse is a bird.

Sealing-wax contains no wax.

Shrew-mouse is no mouse.

Rice-paper is not made of rice or the rice plant.

Catgut should be sheepgut.

Blind worms have eyes and can see.

Cleopatra’s needles should be named after Thothmes III.

And so, I say it most confidently, the first intellectual task of our age is rightly to order and make serviceable the vast realm of printed material which four centuries have swept across our path. To organize our knowledge, to systematize our reading, to save, out of the relentless cataract of ink, the immortal thoughts of the greatest—this is a necessity unless the productive ingenuity of man is to lead us at last to a measureless and pathless chaos. To know anything that turns up is in the infinity of knowledge to know nothing. To read the first book we come across in the wilderness of books is to learn nothing. To turn over the pages of ten thousand volumes is to be practically indifferent to all that is good.—Frederic Harrison. (1831–  .) Essay on the “Choice of Books.” 1886.

Extremes often meet, and probably nothing better illustrates this than the many instances that exist of the elevation of persons of lowly birth to positions of great dignity and importance, while many others who have been delicately nurtured and enjoyed the highest culture have been forced to resort to the humblest forms of hard labor in order to earn the bread which they would eat.

Wicked little Cupid is responsible for many of the former cases, for he dearly loves a joke, and frequently has it at the expense of the rank and traditional glory of some ancient house and name. The world has always been rather democratic when love has stepped in, and some of the great personages of history have contracted alliances which might have been expected to turn things topsy-turvy, yet nothing has been seriously ruffled.

In Paris one of the most influential and popular leaders of society is the Baroness de Waru, the wife of the only son and heir of the multimillionaire president of the Orleans Railroad Company. Her blonde beauty is of the most ethereal kind, and her dainty person is distinguished by so much aristocratic elegance that no one to look at her would ever dream that her father had begun his career as a mere stable-boy, who, in the service of the last reigning Duke of Parma, was promoted from one post to another until he blossomed forth as a general, a baron, and as Prime Minister of the Duchy of Parma, besides being decorated with the grand crosses of most of the orders of chivalry of Europe.

Chambermaid Became Lady Mayoress.

Lady Evans, who, several years ago, as Lady Mayoress of London, was dispensing magnificent hospitality at the Mansion House to crowned heads and royal personages, foreign as well as English, was a chambermaid at the Oak Hotel, at Sevenoaks, in Kent, when her husband first met and married her. Her father was a village plumber, and her mother, until the date of her own marriage, was a cook and general servant.

On the Continent there is no more ancient or illustrious family than that of Kinsky, the chief of which bears the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Two of its most distinguished members—the Counts Eugene and Octavius, both of them Privy Councilors of the Emperor and Knights of the Golden Fleece—married domestic servants, Eugene taking his wife from the laundry, while the Countess Octavius Kinsky was formerly the chambermaid at a small inn.

The Countess Octavius has rendered herself very obnoxious to her husband’s family by her grasping propensities. But the late Countess Eugene, the ex-washerwoman of Ischal, was a singularly charming woman, universally beloved at Vienna, and, although she never asked for a presentation at court, the names of quite a number of members of the imperial family figured on her visiting list.

Lady Hawkins Was a Cook.

The widowed Princess Alexander of Battenberg, whose husband at one time ruled over Bulgaria, may likewise be said to have sprung from the kitchen, her father having been the valet and her mother the cook of the old Austrian General de Martini. Yet in spite of this parentage, Princess Alexander is treated as a sister-in-law by the similarly widowed Princess Henry of Battenberg, who is a daughter of Queen Victoria. The late queen showed great kindness and consideration toward Princess Alexander of Battenberg, acknowledging her as a kinswoman.

The second wife of the late Lord Bramwell had originally been his cook, while Lady Hawkins, who is the better half of the eminent English judge of that name, and the aunt by marriage of “Anthony Hope,” the novelist, was originally a housemaid, as was also the widow of the “Grand Old Man” of Australia, Sir Henry Parkes.

King Joachim of Naples, from whom the entire princely house of Murat is descended, began life at the close of the last century as a mere stable-boy, while the first Prince Kutusoff, founder of the grand Russian family of that name, achieved his greatness a hundred years ago by the skill which he displayed as the valet and barber to Czar Paul, a monarch whose own great-grandmother, Empress Catherine, was the chambermaid of a village inn, where she first attracted the attention of Peter the Great, who ultimately married her.

Earl Served as Porter.

That the prejudice which formerly existed in exalted circles against menial occupation is rapidly disappearing is abundantly proved by the number of titled personages who are content to take at meal-time their place, not at the table of the master of the house, but at that of the domestics in the servants’ hall.

Thus in the course of a civil suit against Sir Charles Nugent it came out that he was earning his livelihood as a groom, while Lady Nugent was taking in washing. Yet the Nugents are among the most ancient and illustrious of all the grand houses of the nobility of Europe, some of their members being princes of the Austrian Empire, while the head of the family is the Earl of Westmeath.

Here in this country Lord Drummond, the grandson and heir of the British Earl of Perth and the French Duke of Melfort, died several years ago while occupying a menial position—that of door-porter in the establishment of one of the proprietors of the great New York daily newspapers; and the writer can remember having found, a few years ago, Prince Benjamin Rohan, who by virtue of his birth is the titular cousin of every crowned head in Europe, and is descended in a direct line from Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, and the first Crusader King of Jerusalem, serving as a waiter in one of the smaller restaurants in Second Avenue, New York City.

Sir Thomas Echlin, head of the ancient house of Echlins, which has been settled in Ireland since the reign of King James I, and whose baronetcy is nearly three hundred years old, recently was employed on the Dublin police force in the humble capacity of an ordinary “bobby” at six dollars a week, and was formerly footman in a London family.

One of the last things that Lord Beaconsfield did before his death was to obtain from the queen a pension of five hundred dollars a year for the widow of the late Lord Kingsland, whom, in spite of her rank as a peeress of the realm, he had discovered earning a bare living as a washerwoman in a large family at Kensington.

Lord Kingsland, prior to his accession to this ancient peerage, had been a waiter in a Dublin hotel, but on becoming a lord, through the death of his uncle, abandoned this calling and preferred to rely upon his wife’s earnings at the washtub.

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it, but likely enough it is gone the moment we say to ourselves, “Here it is!” like the chest of gold that treasure-seekers find.... There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow,—the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.—Nathaniel Hawthorne.

THE OLD HAND-ORGAN.

THE STREET MINSTREL.

A CONFESSION.

THE ORGAN-GRINDER.

PICKLES.

“FR-R-RAISH PEANUTS.”

The navies of the world represent a tremendous amount of money as well as power. It now seems to be generally admitted that being prepared for war is the best way of insuring peace. If this is true, there would seem to be very little likelihood of war among any of the great nations of the world. They are all pretty well prepared to back up any arguments which they may find themselves forced into by a display of force.

Our own latest appropriation includes thirteen and a quarter millions of dollars for a battle-ship and three torpedo-boat-destroyers, with a million’s worth of “subsurface, submersible or submarine boats.” The battle-ship is to be of the British Dreadnaught class—a monster of nineteen thousand tons displacement.

Japan is building one of thirteen thousand one hundred and fifty tons, and Germany has increased the tonnage of some of her ships heretofore authorized to eighteen thousand each.

Commenting upon this the New York Sun says:

The Russian-Japanese War convinced the naval experts of the world that the big battle-ship must be the principal weapon of marine combatants, and the effects of the lesson may be seen wherever national ships are building.

Leaving out of consideration all vessels more than twenty years old, except such as have been rebuilt or rearmed, all vessels authorized but not begun, all transports, colliers, repair ships, torpedo depot ships, converted merchant vessels, yachts, vessels of less than one thousand tons, except torpedo-boats, and all torpedo-boats of less than fifty tons, the tables prepared at the office of naval intelligence show the strength of the eight greatest marine powers last fall:

Were the vessels now in course of construction all completed, the order in which the powers stand in this table would be changed by the transposition of the positions of Germany and the United States and of those occupied by Russia and Italy.

Comparing the personnel of these navies, it is shown that the United States, with one thousand three hundred and seventy commissioned officers of all ranks in the sea-going corps, has actually fewer than any power except Austria, which has eight hundred and fifty-one, and in proportion to tonnage stands at the bottom of the list, having only 1.95 commissioned officers to each one thousand tons of her war-ship tonnage built and building.

Great Britain has 2.52 officers to every one thousand tons, France 3.58, Germany 3.48, Italy 4.60, and Austria 5.91. It is not practicable to give the proportions for Russia and Japan, owing to the conditions created by their recent struggle.

In midshipmen and cadets the United States leads all the nations save Great Britain, both absolutely and relatively, with one thousand and fifty-four in the service, or 1.49 to each one thousand tons.

In nothing is the tremendous size of the British navy shown more impressively than the figures of her enlisted men. Of these, exclusive of marines, she has ninety-five thousand two hundred and sixty-three, but there are only 49.93 men to each one thousand tons, while the United States with thirty-seven thousand men has 52.70, Germany with thirty-five thousand one hundred and thirteen has 59.71, and France with fifty-two thousand one hundred and fifty-three has 65.10.

Great Britain and the United States are the only powers that maintain aboard ship enlisted men other than bluejackets, and it is the intention of Great Britain to replace all her marine officers gradually by naval officers. No navy has a grade corresponding exactly to the British and American warrant officer, the nearest approximation of it being the chief petty officers of the other navies.

The United States has no engineer corps, and Great Britain is amalgamating her engineer corps with the line. The other nations all maintain the distinction which existed in our navy until the adoption of the Roosevelt personnel law.

Neither Japan nor Italy maintains chaplains, and many British chaplains are naval instructors.

As a person enters Boston Harbor by the main ship channel, having threaded his way between Lovell’s Island and Gallup’s Island, and just before passing between Long Island and Deer Island, he sees at his left a unique monument marking a dangerous ledge and shoal. So peculiar is its appearance that every stranger is sure to ask, “What is that?” To this some local wiseacre promptly responds, “Nix’s Mate”; but usually he cannot explain its meaning or even spell the name correctly.

The “Mate” is a massive piece of copper-riveted masonry, forty feet square and twelve feet high (with stairs on one side), upon whose top rises a black wooden pyramid, twenty feet high. Two hundred years ago, where this weird pyramid now stands, there was a fertile island of twelve acres, furnishing excellent grazing, and called, in consequence, Green Island. So much is history. A curious old book, long out of print,^[4] has woven the legend of the name into a pleasing romance, which in brief is as follows:

When Sir William Phips made his celebrated expedition to the Spanish Main in 1687, under the auspices of the Duke of Albemarle, in which he recovered some millions of sunken gold and enriched himself for life, he was accompanied by one Captain Nix and his first mate, Edward Fitzvassal. As the first expedition was so wonderfully successful, Captain Nix went out on another search and raised another precious cargo from the bottom of the deep. But on his return the crew of his vessel, the Dolphin, mutinied, under the leadership of the mate, and turned pirates.

Captain Nix and six others were set adrift early in the year 1689, in an open boat, and left to their fate. After incredible hardships they reached land, only to be captured by savages. Toward spring they escaped in a canoe, and finally landed on Green Island, June 1, 1689. They contrived to reach Boston Town, and there they found the Dolphin and Fitzvassal, too, who had assumed the name of Captain Nix. Fitzvassal was tried for piracy, convicted, and sentenced to be executed on Green Island on June 5. But for some service which he had rendered to the colony while bearing his assumed name he was pardoned by the governor (Bradstreet). Before the news of the pardon reached him, however, he took a fatal dose of poison.

He was buried on Green Island, and his sole mourner was an Indian maid and sibyl who had loved him. She prophesied that the island would wash away, and her prediction was fulfilled: little by little, the earth slid off the rock into the sea, and now nothing remains but a dangerous ledge upon which stands the curious beacon—Nix’s Mate.

Ill health and infirmity do not always prevent the accomplishment of great things, and the list of invalids who have been famous for excelling in their chosen field is long and brilliant. Naturally such persons usually have been restricted to the quieter pursuits. Literature seems to have been the field wherein most of them have found congenial occupation, though there have been great invalids in other professions, also.

The long battle of Robert Louis Stevenson against the malady which finally conquered him, is well known to every one. He traveled about, from place to place, searching for the spot where he could hope to live at least long enough to do some of the work which it lay in him to do, until, at last, in the Samoan Islands, in the South Seas, he found the haven for which he had been searching. There the heroic struggle went on for the four last years of his life, and there he was buried high on the peak of Mount Væa, above his island home.

Probably no famous writer suffered for a longer period than did Alexander Pope, who was stricken, when only a child of ten, with a malady which deformed his body and robbed him of health and comeliness, leaving him to forty-six years of invalidism. His constant study and work, combined with this physical infirmity, made his life “one long disease.”

Carlyle, Heine, and Keats.

Thomas Carlyle was a chronic dyspeptic, and suffered, all his life, the torments which only those unfortunates, who are victims of this disease, can comprehend. The bitterness of some of his writings which were published after his death may surely be excused when this is considered, for the chronic dyspeptic is generally understood to develop, in spite of himself, a gloomy view of life.

Heinrich Heine, the great German lyric poet, was the victim, during the last twelve years of his life, of relentless disease. He bore his dreadful sufferings so patiently that he appears in a nobler light than ever before during his life. His hearing was bad, his sight was dim, and his legs were paralyzed, yet he wrote some of his most wonderful songs during the long watches of sleepless nights, lying on his “mattress-grave.” He described his condition as “a grave without rest, death without the privileges of the departed,” yet he was never so many-sided as during this period. He produced humorous pieces, political songs, and the tenderest poems. He kept at his work as long as he could hear and speak, his last words being “paper and pencil.”

John Keats, while on a tour of the English Lakes, contracted a throat trouble which developed into consumption. He continued to write, though he failed rapidly in health, and his last volume contains some of his best poems.

Mrs. Browning and the Brontës.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was confined to her room for seven years, but was restored to something like a normal state of health before her marriage. The long period of illness was partly caused by the death of her brother, of whom she was extremely fond, and many times her life was despaired of. She wrote in spite of sickness, however, and produced some excellent verse. All her life she struggled against a naturally weak constitution and she worked under difficulties.

Count Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet, was another whose life from childhood was made melancholy by impaired health. In his case it was largely the result of the energy with which he gave himself up to study, when he was only a child, thus undermining an already delicate constitution. He was the victim of a perpetual melancholy, and he wandered to and fro in Italy, always the prey of ceaseless physical tortures, which prevented him from accepting any permanent position that might have relieved the constant and pressing need of money. He attained distinction as a philologist and was offered a university professorship in Germany by Bunsen, but was unable to accept it because of his infirmity.

The three gifted Brontë sisters were all in wretched health. Emily and Anne died within a year of each other, leaving Charlotte to a lonely life of sorrow and heartache. She worked on, in spite of all, with indomitable energy and courage, and the genius of the woman is all the more remarkable when one realizes that her sufferings were both physical and mental. Her work came from an aching heart as well as from a weak and ill body. One short year of happiness was hers at the end, when she became the wife of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, curate under her father, who had long loved her.

Parkman and Prescott.

Francis Parkman, the American historian, is an illustrious example of heroic perseverance in the face of great difficulties. He selected as his life work the writing of the history of the rise and fall of the French power in America. He began a most exhaustive research which carried him west into the Black Hills, where the hardships he endured broke down his health and left him a semi-invalid for the rest of his life.

He kept at his appointed task, though fourteen years elapsed between the first part of his work and the second. To occupy the time which his health would not permit him to devote to the greater work, he took up the study of horticulture, in which he grew so proficient that he published a book on roses and was made professor of horticulture in the Harvard Agricultural School.

From 1865 to 1892 he brought out the various parts necessary to complete his great work. During all of this time, however, his health was so precarious that he depended almost entirely upon dictation instead of his pen, and his material was collected for him by hired copyists. The story of his struggle is regarded as one of the most heroic in the history of literature.

William Hickling Prescott was another historian whose labors were made difficult by infirmity. While he was at Harvard he lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and the other was so affected that he was obliged to pass several months in a darkened room. The sight was partly restored, but he could never use it in any trying work, nor more than a little while each day, and he suffered constantly with it and from the apprehension which it occasioned.

With the aid of secretaries and readers he set to work, determined to prepare himself for literature, as more active fields were closed to him. He wrote some himself, in spite of his affliction, using a writing frame designed especially for the blind—and he produced work which placed him in the ranks with the most brilliant historians.

Famous Musicians and Poets.

Chopin, the great modern master of pianoforte composition, was unable, because of lack of physical strength, to play some of his own works as he would have them played. A trip to England, of only eleven days’ duration, was enough to develop the latent consumption which was in his family, and from this time on he worked under the advancing ravages of the disease, though he lived twelve years before finally succumbing to its onslaught. Many times during this period he was reported at death’s door.

Handel became blind seven years before his death, yet continued his work and accompanied one of his oratorios upon the organ only eight days before his death.

Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott both were lame from a deformed foot, but suffered no inconvenience from the infirmity. Milton became blind and Beethoven was deaf from about his thirtieth year. He faced the pathetic situation with the brave resolve: “I will grapple with fate; it shall never drag me down.” His life was lived along these lines, and never did his courage falter or his fortitude give way, though the affliction to a musician was almost the greatest he could suffer.

Methuselahs Laughed at Doctors.

Some of the modern Methuselahs have been persons who were given up by the doctors to fill an early grave. Surely this fact, taken in connection with the many examples that there are of the great things which invalids have accomplished, ought to bring the champions of euthanasia up short. Perhaps it is too much to expect that anything will stop the man who is once thoroughly launched on this delusive line of thought, but for the sake of the timorous who are not, perhaps, as rugged in health as the men who advocate this “simple and humane” reform, the following examples of men and women, not famous, who have attained to a “green old age” in spite of being in an apparently hopeless condition, are quoted. They are taken from a paper written by E. H. Von den Eynden, of Antwerp, and published there in 1882, under the title “Singularités Macrobiologiques”—(Curiosities of Long Life).

Adèle Lambotte died at Liege in 1763, aged one hundred and one years. She was scarcely thirty-two inches in height, and so crippled in her legs and feet that from infancy she was compelled to walk on crutches.

In 1774 there lived at Château Neuf, in Thimerais, France, a certain demoiselle Thierree. At the time, she was over forty years old, and an invalid, forever taking medicines. A contemporary describes her graphically thus:

“A few tufts of grisly hair, two squinting eyes, lost in the multitude of wrinkles and hanging folds of skin that stood for nose and cheeks, and with a head in perpetual oscillation.”

She lived in the open air, strolling from point to point in all sorts of wind and weather. She enjoyed an income amounting to about one thousand dollars, and some of her friends made her a proposition to transfer their property to her providing she would pay them a certain annuity and devise the property back to them at her death.

The bargain was made, and faithfully kept, as far as the annuity was concerned, yet so skilfully did she manage affairs that she soon had an income of two thousand dollars over and above all expenditures. Her friends meanwhile imagined that they had made a good bargain, as her physician had assured them that she “could never see the return of the swallows next spring.”

The swallows came and went, and came and went again, and they got impatient, and in some way the “old mamselle” found it out. Then she set herself to live in earnest. She wept for Louis XVI, lived through and detested the Revolution, saw the funerals of Bonaparte and Charles X, and lived through the barricades of 1830.

Finally, in 1835, she died, aged one hundred and five years, lacking part of a month. On making an inventory of her affairs her executor found upward of four hundred linen chemises, each made with her own hands, not one of which had ever been worn. Her revenue, at the time of her death, was two hundred thousand dollars.

The people who made the bargain had died one after another, the last one more than forty years before her demise.

Remarkable Centenarians.

In 1699 the Mémoires of the Academy of Sciences recorded the death of a man, aged one hundred years, whose spinal column consisted of one single bone, the intermediate cartilages having ossified.

About the middle of the seventeenth century there was carried in solemn procession and hung up before the shrine of Notre Dame de Liesse an enormous vesical calculus, on which was engraved the following legend:

“This stone was removed from François Annibal d’Etrées, duke and peer, Grand Marshal of France, by the grace of God through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, September 15, 1654.”

The grand marshal was eighty-two years old when the terrible operation was performed. It gave him a new lease of life, as he did not die until 1675, more than twenty years afterward, aged one hundred and two years and a few months.

A poor girl, daughter of a retainer of the Château de Colemberg, near Boulogne, named Nicole Mare, was born deformed, and, besides having a withered forearm, was so humpbacked that she stood less than four feet high. With all this, she lived to the age of one hundred and ten years. Her occupation was herding cattle, and it is said that the only food she ever tasted was bread and milk.

Sick for One Hundred Years.

The celebrated Fontanelle, who, it is said, never enjoyed a well day in his life, and whose constitution was so frail that the least exposure made him ill, yet lived within less than one month of one hundred years.

M. Le Fermy, a peasant of the village of Saint-Justin, near Mont-de-Marsan, France, died in his native village September 13, 1714, aged one hundred and ten years and two months. All his life he was regarded as a feeble man. The note recording his death says:

“He was married five times, although he lived soberly and was regarded as weakly.”

In 1760, at Graessans, in the diocese of Saint-Papoul, France, died a woman whose age is recorded as one hundred and thirteen years and one month. She died of asthma, with which she had suffered for forty-five years.

The Benedictine monk, Brother N. Graillet, of the Abbey of Calvary, at La Fère, France, died in the abbey in 1763, aged one hundred and two years. He had entered the abbey in his thirtieth year, in ill-health and disappointed in life. “For seventy-two years, although always feeble, he obeyed every rule of the abbey, and was always first in filling the functions of the community,” is his record.

Pierre Foucault, a native of Abbéville, died in that place in 1766, aged one hundred and fifteen years. Up to the age of fifty his health had been very precarious, and during the years between fifty and sixty “he suffered many maladies.” After that he recovered his usual health and lived fifty-five years. His father died aged one hundred and two, and his grandfather was accidentally killed while hunting, at the age of eighty-seven.

Had Many Diseases.

Madame Ristori, probably an ancestress of the celebrated artiste, died at Empoi—a village in Tuscany—in 1767, aged one hundred and ten years. Her whole life was passed in frightful poverty and hardship. She was an invalid nearly her whole life, and had, besides, almost every disease that can be named, at one or another period of her existence.

Marguerite Couppéc, widow of Richard Couppéc, died at Rouen in 1769. The baptismal register at Caux, where she was born in 1654, shows conclusively that she was one hundred and fifteen years old at death. “All her life,” says her tombstone, “she lived in poverty and illness, having had many most violent diseases, notwithstanding which she was most laborious, being always occupied as long as her hands could work.”

NO CAUSE FOR ALARM.

Young Doctor—Do you think the visitor is really a patient? I am afraid that he is a creditor.

Servant—Well, I heard him groaning. If he isn’t ill he must have a very big bill to collect.—Fliegende Blätter.

A WELL REGULATED LIFE.

Reporter (to old man)—How come you to be so hale and hearty at ninety?

Old Man—Regularity, sir. I have gone on a spree regularly every Sunday, since I was twenty. There is nothing like regularity.—Fliegende Blätter.

ON THEIR HONEYMOON.

She—Oh, George, I want all these people to know that I am married to you.

He—Well, my dear, you had better carry the dress-suit case and the umbrellas.—Le Rire.

LOVE OF COUNTRY.

Several men were chatting together. One of them, a Greek, was praising his country.

“Greece,” said he, “is the most beautiful land in the world. The blue heavens laugh perennially over Greece.”

“Why, that’s nothing,” said a Hungarian, “the whole world laughs over Hungary.”—Jugend.

THE CASE AND THE EXCEPTION.

Doctor (to maid)—I am Dr. Curewell. They have just telephoned me to come here immediately. How is the patient?

Maid—Oh, doctor, you have arrived too late! My master died not five minutes ago.

Doctor—Well, never mind. In this case, at least, nobody can say that I was the cause of death.—Le Rire.

AT THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.

The Lady—Now, remember, please, I want a very good maid and one that is absolutely discreet.

The Proprietor—You can be perfectly sure of the maid I am going to send you. She has been five years at a telephone switch-board.—Le Sourire.

AT THE DUMA.

The Delegates—We demand equal rights, liberty, and absolute pardon for political offenders.

The Czar—Peace, peace, my people! All of you that are not executed will be pardoned.

The Delegates—Huzzah! Long live the Little Father.—Il Fischietto.

IMPUDENCE.

Peggy—Only to think of it, my dear, we were entirely alone, and he had the audacity to kiss me.

Lucy—I suppose you were furious; weren’t you?

Peggy—I should say so! I was furious every single time he did it.—Le Sourire.

KEPT HIS PROMISE.

She (weeping)—Five years ago, as a bride, you promised to love me for an eternity, and here we are on the verge of divorce.

He—Well, the past five years have seemed like an eternity.—Fliegende Blätter.

GREAT PRESS OF BUSINESS.

Father—Do you know, sir, that I actually saw you embrace my daughter?

Suitor—I beg your pardon, sir. The truth is, I was so frightfully busy at the time that I failed to notice you. I sincerely hope you will forgive me.—Le Sourire.

FISHING.

She—You don’t love me any more. I know it. I feel it.

He—But, pet, I assure you, I adore you.

She—No, no, no! No man can love a woman with such old clothes as mine.—Le Rire.

“Heaven born, forbear anger; in one little half-hour, or an hour at most, the bearers shall be here, and we will go forward with the speed of dragons. In the meantime, I will place a rug for the Presence to sit upon, and give him fire that he may drink tobacco.”

Jarvis assented with a sulky grunt, tossed Chen, his Chinese runner, a cigar, and lay on his back smoking and staring up into the dark hollow of the great bell suspended on a stone tripod.

“After labor it is good to lie at ease and smoke, especially when the Presence, who is my father and mother, bestows such tobacco. If the Heaven Born desires, I will tell him the tale of the great bell under which we lie. I have permission? Thus runs the tale:

“Kublai-Chan, Lord of the Earth, desired greatly to leave a memory such as no other king should ever equal, and after much thought he called Kuang Sai, the great artist in all metals, and commanded:

“‘Let there be cast for me a great bell, such as never earth or heaven saw, of the finest metal, bossed with angels and demons, and so great that the sound thereof shall reach to the utmost border of my kingdom, that all may hear, and, hearing, know that in Kambalu reigns the king, and, knowing, tremble and obey him.’

“And Kuang Sai prostrated himself nine times, and said: ‘My lord wills it, and it is done.’

“And he called his master metal-workers, journeymen and apprentices, and took from the king’s treasury gold and silver and copper and fine bronze for the casting, and he took clay and wax and modeled the bell—great, beautifully formed; round the lip of it, lilies and pomegranate; round the body of it, the angels and devils of air and sound, with waving hair and garments, like sound-made flesh; the loops by which it was to hang, two imperial dragons.

“And when all was ready he made the mold, and his men lit the fires, and for two days labored they at the melting, casting into the pot the gold and silver and copper and fine bronze. And when it was melted with fervent heat, his master founder, the strong man, struck out the plug from the crucible, and let the red hot metal flow into the mold. Four days waited the cooling; then they broke the mold—and the great bell was flawed.

“And again he made the mold and melted the metal, and again cast it, and again it was flawed. And again and again, and yet again, and always the great bell was flawed, and must be broken and re-melted.

“Then Kuang Sai offered sacrifice to his gods, and his master metal-workers, journeymen and apprentices, according to their several degree, also offered sacrifice to their gods; and again they cast it, and again it was flawed.

“Two score times they cast it—and always the flaw. Kuang Sai grew thin and pale; he ate not, nor slept; for his honor laid in that casting—and always the flaw.

“He offered sacrifice to the high gods, the middle, and the less; to the lords of earth, air, sea, and sky; to all demons and rulers of the upper and under worlds; to gods and godlings. He prayed in all temples; he gave food and garments to the poor; he consulted all priests; he leaked rice and silver to all. The priests grew fat and sleek; an innumerable multitude of beggars lay at the gate of Kuang Sai; and still, when he cast the bell—the flaw.

“And on a day he was summoned to the footstool of the great Chan. He made the nine prostrations according to ritual, and waited; and presently, soft and low, the great Kublai-Chan spoke thus:

“‘Kuang Sai, I have given thee all things to make my bell, yet still thou hast failed after three score trials, whereby I am lacking my bell, and my honor is diminished. If in three more trials I have not my bell, you shall die the death of a thousand slices, and your house and all therein perish by fire. I have said it. You have my permission to depart.’

“Kuang Sai departed full of fear. That night he went to the little Temple of Forbidden Things, and paid the blind priest of that temple to call up by name the powers of air, water, fire, and earth, and ask which of the lords of all things he had offended, that he might make his peace and cast his bell.

“He sat at the foot of the naked altar, while the priest cast dust upon his head and called upon the high gods, the middle, and the less, by name—each by his name, title, dignity, and degree. He called upon all gods of city and field, of trees and fountains, great and small; and they answered not. Then he called on the demons and lords of particular things, of metals and tools, of trades and crafts.

“And when he called on the Lord of Bells, came the runner of the Lord of Bells—a demon terrible to behold, red in color, bristling with hair, short and broad of stature, squat and paunchy of figure, long of arm, wide-mouthed, and having three eyes.

“‘Kuang Sai,’ said he (and his voice was like the rolling of a great bell), ‘you have made sacrifice to all gods, but you have forgotten the great Lord of Bells.’

“At the name all the temple gongs boomed without being struck of hands.

“‘Therefore is he mocked of his fellows; and therefore, before he will suffer you to cast the king’s bell, my lord demands your most precious treasure. At the next founding, when the metal leaps red hot for the casting, bring your daughter’ (here Kuang Sai cried aloud and fell down with his face in the dust of the temple floor) ‘arrayed as a bride, and before the metal flows give her to the Lord of Bells; so shall the casting be good. If not, remember that the death of a thousand slices is long, for without this sacrifice never will my lord suffer you to cast that bell.’

“And he disappeared, making noises like a bell.

“Kuang Sai went forth, staggering, and all night he walked and thought; and at morn he said ‘No,’ and went to the casting—and again the flaw. And he sat dumb and motionless and ground his teeth, and again said ‘No,’ and went to the casting—and again the flaw.

“Excellency, all that a man has, down to his skin, will he give for his life; and near to me is my shirt, but nearer my skin; and if the third casting failed he died in agony and his name was blotted out. There be men who would have died, but living among pictures and statues and singing men and women does not breed the courage that says ‘Then I can die.’

“On the day of the last casting, what time the pot bubbled full of red hot metal, over which floated light clouds of heat, came Kuang Sai, leading by the hand his little daughter, Fen Sai, blooming as a white water-lily, tripping on her little pearl-embroidered shoes, chattering and laughing in her father’s face.

“They came to the scaffold over the mouth of the great melting-pot, and as they came the master founder, the strong man, cried: ‘Master, behold the casting waits.’

“And Kuang Sai suddenly caught up his little daughter and cast her into the molten metal. Once she cried, very awful to hear—once, and no more; for or ever she touched the metal the fierce heat licked her up as a drop of wine is dried on a hot stone. And as she fell, one of her little shoes dropped off onto the scaffold.

“‘To the casting,’ said Kuang Sai, and the strong man struck out the plug of the crucible, and the metal, glowing red and green and golden, flowed into the mold. Four days waited they the cooling, and they broke the mold—and behold, the great bell, perfect, flawless, the wonder of the world for ages; the bell under which we now lie.

“And Kublai-Chan said:

“‘Let Kuang Sai be clothed in the imperial yellow; give to him the mandarin’s crystal button, and write on a tablet at my palace gate, in letters of vermilion: “Kuang Sai, the Incomparable Artificer, Whom the King Delights to Honor.”’

“And they clothed Kuang Sai and bowed down before him, giving him due honor according to command.

“Then masons built the stone pillars and hung the great bell, and on a day came Kublai-Chan to ring it for the first time, and with him, at his right hand, Kuang Sai, whom he delighted to honor.

“And when all things were prepared, Kublai-Chan, the great king, drew back the striking-beam with all force, and rang the great bell, and sound came forth, deep, sweet, and full as the voices of the gods.

“Far, far away spread the circles of sound, even to the edge of the kingdom. The multitudes gathered around and fell down before that voice in rows, as corn before the reaper. The farmer in the field heard and fell down before the voice of the king’s bell. At the edge of the kingdom the Tatar heard it, and checked his horse, wondering.

“And little by little the sound rippled down again to silence, but as the sound died there came a buzzing and whispering inside the bell, and it grew and grew sharper and louder, into a second peal—clear, sharp, cutting the heart like a knife—the scream of a woman in pain, fright, and horror beyond measure.

“Kublai-Chan covered his lips with his hand, for kings should not be seen to tremble. His guards, strong men, red-haired, tigers nourished by blood, looked on each other with white faces, and Kuang Sai, in his robes of honor, crouched and scrabbled in the dirt with his fingers and whispered and driveled.

“They led him away, and all his life long he had no more the light of reason, but sat and mowed and muttered and laughed foolishly, except when the king’s bell rang, and then he would fall and lie with his mouth in the dust.

“Behold! in an auspicious hour here come the bearers. Shall we walk to meet them? My tale has eaten up the waiting. But Heaven Born doubts its truth. Before we go, I will ring the great bell for him.”

Chen caught the suspended beam by which Chinese bells are rung, swung it, and struck the shining side of the bell, and the deep boom echoed over the flat plain. It was truly a tremendous sound, and justified the belief that it could be heard to the confines of the kingdom, and gradually the rippling circles of sound died down to silence.

Jarvis, standing with his hands in his belt, was forming his lips to say, ‘But where’s the scream?’ when Chen raised his hand for silence, and then, within the arch of the great bell, began a buzzing, like bees—a little sound, like trickling water or the roaring in a shell; and this thread of sound grew and gathered till suddenly there pealed out, full-throated, the cry of a woman in agony of body and soul—a sound to dream of and wake at night with your teeth on edge.

“That, excellency,” said Chen, “is Fen Sai crying for her shoe.”

Jarvis answered nothing, but he walked faster toward the coming bearers, and though the sun was hot on his back, his bones felt cold.

Man could direct his ways by plain reason and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and performers, to enliven the days of man’s pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marl.—Sidney Smith. (1771–1845.)

HOHENLINDEN.

AN IMPRESSIVE POEM INSPIRED BY THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS BY THE FRENCH IN DECEMBER, 1800.

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) is one of those writers who composed many elaborate works, yet whose fame rests wholly upon three or four short poems which have become classic. Among these is “Hohenlinden,” written immediately after the battle of that name, fought on December 3, 1800, between the French, under Moreau, and the Archduke John, in command of the Austrian army.

It was one of the most hotly contested battles of the Napoleonic wars, and was decided by the valor of Marshal Ney, the Austrians being routed with a loss of twenty thousand men. The battle made a profound impression in England, and inspired Campbell to dash off these stirring lines, which in the speed of their composition and their martial spirit remind one of Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

By THOMAS CAMPBELL.

On Linden, when the sun was low,

All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow;

And dark as winter was the flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

But Linden saw another sight,

When the drum beat, at dead of night,

Commanding fires of death to light

The darkness of her scenery.

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,

Each horseman drew his battle-blade,

And furious every charger neighed,

To join the dreadful revelry.

Then shook the hills with thunder riven,

Then rushed the steed to battle driven,

And louder than the bolts of heaven

Far flashed the red artillery.

But redder yet that light shall glow

On Linden’s hills of stainèd snow,

And bloodier yet the torrent flow

Of Iser, rolling rapidly.

’Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun

Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,

Where furious Frank and fiery Hun

Shout in their sulph’rous canopy.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,

Who rush to glory or the grave!

Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Few, few shall part where many meet!

The snow shall be their winding-sheet,

And every turf beneath their feet

Shall be a soldier’s sepulcher.

THE NEW FOOD.

THE HEALTH-FOOD MAN.

’TWAS EXCELSIOR.

The most unsavory concoctions of the modern pharmacy are as the nectar of the gods when compared with the medicines of ancient times. It would seem that physicians in those days taxed their ingenuity to its utmost to invent the gruesome horrors which they prescribed.

Certainly the fiends who were usually supposed to be the cause of sickness must have been a courageous lot of chaps if they withstood the doses they were treated to.

What would one think nowadays of a doctor who prescribed the blood from a black cat’s tail for skin troubles, live toads tied behind the ear to stop bleeding, or powdered spiders as an unfailing remedy for various diseases?

Mayerne, a French physician, who is said to have numbered among his patients two French and three English sovereigns—Henry IV and Louis XIII of France, and James I, Charles I, and Charles II of England—was fond of dosing his patients with “pulverized human bones.”

A chief ingredient in his gout powder consisted of “raspings of a human skull unburied.” In the composition of his celebrated “balsam of bats” he employed “adders, bats, sucking whelps, earth-worms, hog’s grease, the marrow of a stag, and the thigh-bone of an ox.”

Dr. Boleyn (of the same family as Queen Anne Boleyn), a physician in the reign of Elizabeth, prescribed for a child suffering under a certain nervous malady, “a small young mouse roasted.” The same doctor stated that “snayles broken from the shelles and sodden in whyte wyne with oyle and sugar are very holsome, because they be hoat and moist for the straightness of the lungs and cold cough.”

Belief in the efficacy of charms and amulets was once universal with the faculty, and precious stones were regarded as sovereign remedies. The hyacinth and topaz hung about the neck or taken in drink were certain “to resist sorrow and recreate the heart.” The sapphire was “a great enemy to black choler,” and was believed to “free the mind and mend manners.”

A certain kind of onyx was supposed to preserve the vigor and good estate of the whole body. One physician went so far as to declare that “in the body of a swallow there is a stone found called chelidonius, which, if it be lapped in a fair cloth and tied to the right arm, will cure lunatics, madmen, and make them amiable and merry.” Herbs were also in great request, and daisy-tea was accounted a certain cure for gout and rheumatism.

A formula for hair tonic which is given in the oldest book on medical practise now known—a book written at Heliopolis, where Joseph once served in the house of Potiphar—is described as a “means for increasing the growth of the hair, prepared for Schesch, the mother of Teta, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” Dogs’ teeth, overripe dates, and asses’ hoofs were carefully cooked in oil and then grated.

As Teta lived before Cheops, this recipe for hair-oil is older than the great pyramid at Gizeh, and is supposed to date back more than six thousand years.

Three drops of the blood of an angry cat gave relief to the epileptic.

The heads of venomous serpents have held an important place in medicine. A strong broth made from them and mixed with salt and spices and one hundred other remedies was employed under the name of theriac as a cure for every conceivable disease.

Curious survivals of this old belief in the efficacy of certain reptiles and insects as cures for human ills occasionally come to light, even in this advanced age. In New England, cobweb pills are supposed to be good for the ague, and in the South a certain knuckle-bone in a pig’s foot is a cure for rheumatism, if it be carried in the pocket or worn suspended from a string around the neck. The spider-web pill originated in China, where all species of insects have certain positive or negative values in medicine.

Among the learned physicians of Pekin it is customary to give two or three scorpions or spiders to a patient ill of fever.

In Ireland, the peasantry swallow small spiders alive to effect cures. From these to the cobweb pill of the New England native was easy.

In Flanders, the live spider is fastened into the empty shell of a walnut and worn around the neck of the patient. As the creature dies, the fever decreases until it is gone entirely.

Among jewels, the ruby was considered good for derangements of the liver, as well as for bad eyes.

The sapphire and emerald were credited with properties which rendered them capable of influencing ophthalmic disorders, and there is a superstitious belief that serpents are blinded by looking at the latter stone.

Temperance advocates, if they have any regard for the beliefs of the Greeks and Romans, might seriously consider the advisability of distributing amethysts among drunkards, for it was supposed that these stones prevented intoxication.

Most of our readers have no doubt heard of the precious jewel which the toad carries in his brain-box, and so-called toad-stones, which were in reality the teeth of fossil fish, were formerly worn in finger-rings as a protection against poisons.

Although popularly supposed to be itself a deadly poison, the diamond has from remote ages been credited with the power of protecting the wearer from the evil effects of other poisons, a reputation which it retained until comparatively recent times.

The superstitious use of jewels is not so intolerable to think of, and certainly would be less offensive to practise, but it is evident that the patient’s recovery during this period was owing to good luck rather than to good management.

The dictionary informs the breathless seeker after truth that a kiss is “a form of salutation expressed by the contact, with pressure, of the lips”—which definition, though clear and concise, seems to leave something to be desired.

Jonathan Swift testily remarks: “Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing”—and many more are the disgruntled speeches which have been made by men and women ever since the art first became known on earth.

It is probable that every mother’s son of us—and daughter, too—has some sort of idea of what a kiss is, in spite of the reticence of the language Solons, but it is doubtful if any one ever clothed the idea more appropriately than the lover who in 1679 wrote the epistle from which the following extract is taken. It is translated from the German.

What is a kiss? A kiss is, as it were, a seal expressing our sincere attachment: the pledge of our future union; a dumb, but at the same time audible, language of a living heart; a present, which at the same time it is given is taken from us; the impression of an ardent attachment on an ivory coral press; the striking of two flints against one another; a crimson balsam for a love-wounded heart; a sweet bite of the lip; an affectionate pinching of the mouth; a delicious dish which is eaten with scarlet spoons; a sweetmeat which does not satisfy hunger; a fruit which is planted and gathered at the same time; the quickest exchange of questions and answers of two lovers; the fourth degree of love.

The monks of the Middle Ages divided the kiss into fifteen distinct and separate orders—the decorous, or modest kiss; the diplomatic, or kiss of policy; the spying kiss, to ascertain if a woman has drunk wine; the slave kiss; the kiss infamous—a church penance; the slipper kiss, practised toward tyrants; the judicial kiss; the feudal kiss; the religious kiss (kissing the cross); the academical kiss (or joining a solemn brotherhood), the hand kiss; the Judas kiss; the medical kiss—for the purpose of healing some sickness; the kiss of etiquette; the kiss of love—the only real kiss.

LONG REACH FOR A GAVEL.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Served Lengthy Apprenticeship Before He Was Called to Preside.

Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, recently concluded a few words of advice to a writer investigating the condition of affairs in the national government by saying: “I don’t know but that I’d have you study twenty years before beginning to write.”

The advice was not given sarcastically. Cannon himself has gone about his work thoroughly, systematically, and, to all appearances, slowly. There has been nothing spectacular or hysterical about his progress, but the amount of ground covered has been enormous. Every new work undertaken has been based upon arduous and exhaustive preparation in other work leading to it. As a result he has come from a clerkship in a country store to the Speakership of Congress, and he has filled the office ably in a stirring and momentous period.

Joseph G. Cannon is descended from Massachusetts Quakers who migrated from the colony to North Carolina to escape persecution. His father was left a penniless orphan in infancy, and two maiden Quaker women adopted him and supported him until he was able to study medicine. The future statesman was born in Guilford, North Carolina, in 1836, and as the Quakers had protested persistently against slavery, the South became unsafe for them, and many, Dr. Cannon’s family included, moved North. The Cannons settled near the Wabash River, at Annapolis, Indiana.

Dr. Cannon was drowned when Joseph was fifteen years old. The doctor’s eldest boy was in college, and the family decided to allow him to finish his studies. The youngest was near-sighted, and was unable at that time to find employment. Joseph, the second son, had shown self-reliance, and had worked between school hours, so he was sent to work in the local general store. The first year’s pay amounted to one hundred dollars.

At the age of twenty Joseph had earned a thousand dollars and saved five hundred, and though his employers tried to persuade him to stay, and even offered him a partnership, he left them to begin the study of law. The trial of a slander suit he attended aroused in him a resistless ambition to become a lawyer. The privations he must undergo to realize his ambition were patiently endured. He took his five hundred dollars and went to Terre Haute, where he entered the office of John P. Usher.

Office work for two years, supplemented by six months’ study in a Cincinnati law school, fitted him for practise. Before he went to Cincinnati he had never been in a large city, had never seen a theater, and had heard but little music. The city broadened him, for there he heard Moncure D. Conway and Horace Mann, and received a newer and truer idea of the world. Practise in a large city was alluring, and for a time he thought of settling in Cincinnati. Then he turned from it and located at Tuscola, Illinois.

The first year he did not earn enough to pay his board bill. He could not afford to keep a horse to ride the circuit as most of the other lawyers did, so he tramped it over the prairies, picking up a little business that gave him much work and scarcely any money. Farm truck, grocery orders, and on one occasion a couple of cured hams, on another a side of veal, on still another a pair of trousers much too large for him, constituted some of his fees. Shortly after he started practise he had an appointment with a prospective client. He waited until late in the evening and the man did not come. Then, in desperation, he started after him.

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” asked Cannon when he had found him.

“Oh,” said the man easily, “I forgot to tell you. I find I can pay more than I expected, so I have hired another lawyer.”

The struggle Cannon underwent was a grim, hard one that called into play all the sturdy qualities of his nature. Instead of souring him as it has many other men, it increased in him a desire to help others who have the same fight to make, and many a young man battling for a practise, or facing the work of Congress for the first time, has received the benefit of it.

“Uncle Joe really knows how to help a fellow,” said one of the young lawyers to whom he had given a helping hand. “He’s been up against it himself.”

The hardships of the first year of practise gave way in the second year to better things, and Cannon was able to make a scant living and pay off his debts. He went into politics, too, and stumped the county, getting directly at the people, winning fame among them as well as winning the regard of his party managers. He had a fairly good practise when he decided to marry, and he built a four-room cottage at Tuscola.

His wife was an Ohio woman, and before going to their new home the two went to Chicago to buy furniture for it. They selected Potter Palmer’s department store as the best place, and were highly pleased with the intelligence and skill of the young clerk who waited on them. His name was Marshall Field. After spending part of the three hundred dollars Cannon had with him, he proudly brought his wife home to the little cottage.

“There, Mary,” he said as he walked her from one room to another, “I don’t think a young couple could ask for a better start in life.”

His wife did all her own housework, and as he was State’s Attorney for the district until 1868, and earned about fifteen hundred dollars a year, they considered themselves prosperous. From 1868 to 1872 he built up a private practise, and that paid him better. Besides, the short-sighted brother had gone into banking, had taken Joseph’s money for investment, and succeeded mightily.

In 1872 “Old Joe” Gillespie pushed Cannon forward for the Congressional nomination, and Cannon not only won it, but was elected after a brisk campaign. He has been in Congress, with the exception of one term, ever since then.

Altogether, Mr. Cannon has served thirty-two years, and, according to his own statement, it has cost him three hundred thousand dollars to live during that time. The government has paid him one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The rest came out of his private income. Nearly twenty years of the time has been spent as a member of the Committee on Appropriations. When the expenditures steadily increased Cannon was taxed with extravagance.

“You think,” he said in reply, “that because I am chairman of the Committee on Appropriations that it is my duty to make appropriations. I tell you it is rather my duty to prevent them being made.”

During the period of his service Congress has spent nearly twelve billion dollars. Since he has been Speaker it has spent nearly two billion dollars, and he has fought down expenses constantly. It is a staggering total, but the country that demanded such expenditures has reached a wealth never attained by another nation, and the leading men who ran the government and made the appropriations have been of giant size. Cannon stands among the foremost.

Speaker Cannon is a poor man, as far as personal wealth is concerned, and yet he is as happy as when he built the little four-room cottage for his wife and with her began the upward fight that has landed him in a supreme position in the national government.

A DEVELOPER OF CITIES.

Henry M. Whitney has crowded three or four great business careers into his life, and each of them has resulted in good to the community in which he operated. His father, General James S. Whitney, was fairly prosperous, though there were then no capitalists and no rich men, as rich men are reckoned to-day, in Conway, Massachusetts, where he lived.

Henry M. Whitney was born in Conway in 1839. He studied in the public schools and at Williston Seminary until he was sixteen years old; then he went to work in the Conway Savings Bank. When his father became collector of the port of Boston, he went with him as a clerk, and later, when the father entered the employ of the Metropolitan Steamship Company, the son again went with him, still as a clerk.

His rise was neither rapid nor spectacular, but it was steady, continuous, and solid. When General Whitney died in 1879 he was president of the Metropolitan, and his son succeeded him in the office.

At forty years of age Henry M. Whitney was a fairly rich man, but known to few people. The work that made his name known throughout the country came afterward. He had begun to deal in suburban real estate in the vicinity of Boston, and had picked Brookline as especially fitted for development. It was a section much favored as a place of residence by Boston business men, and as a first step in the development of his holdings Whitney built, chiefly at his own expense, a magnificent boulevard from the town to Boston. Over this the men who had offices in the city were accustomed to drive daily, just as to-day they go in their automobiles.

The development and extension of the trolley in the late eighties gave Whitney another opportunity, and he built a trolley line from Brookline to Boston. When he reached the city limits he found himself against a stone wall.

The Boston horse-car companies would not allow him to transfer his passengers without their paying another fare, and would make no provisions for connections between the cars. They would not permit him to get a franchise, and they ridiculed the idea that their own lines would ever be operated by electricity. The Brookline line was sandbagged and rendered worthless, for all it could offer passengers was a pleasant, and, at the time, a novel ride to the Boston city line.

Whitney made several attempts to persuade the Boston companies to allow him to use their tracks, and offered to stand part of the expense of installing electric equipment. The offer was turned down, and the little “West End” road still hung on the ragged edge.

Then Whitney went to work in another way. He quietly bought up the stock of the various companies, and when at last matters came to a test he and his friends were in control, and the “West End” entered Boston. Later it gave its name to practically the whole Boston street railroad service.

As a first result of Whitney’s control and amalgamation of the Boston streetcar lines, that city was among the earliest in the country to benefit from an adequate trolley service.

In 1893 Whitney got control of the Cape Breton coal mines. Before then the mines had dragged along, doing a fair business, but not advancing to any extent. The people in Cape Breton did not have the money to develop them, and the English capitalists in control were disinclined to advance any money for the purpose.

Whitney saw a chance to push Cape Breton coal into new markets, and soon the mines at Louisbourg and Glace Bay were doubling and trebling their output, and Sydney and North Sydney became thriving ports. He had also entered the gas business in Boston, and he began importing Cape Breton coal for the gas and coke works at Everett, near Boston. Such an increase in industry gave a tremendous impetus to Cape Breton, but it was not until Whitney added steel, coke, and gas plants that Cape Breton realized the full benefit of his work.

About the time Whitney entered the coal-mining industry, a fisherman had come in with a killock so peculiar that it drew attention. Examination showed that it was almost pure iron ore. He had found it near Belle Isle, between Newfoundland and Labrador. Further search showed that there were enormous deposits of excellent iron ore at Belle Isle.

The Sydneys had a good port and coal in abundance. Whitney made the combination that has resulted in the building of the great iron works at North Sydney. Fifteen years ago the two towns together did not have much more than four thousand inhabitants. At present they have nearly five times that number, and are thriving, growing cities, shipping enormous quantities of coal, and the Dominion Iron and Steel Company at North Sydney is regularly turning out twenty thousand tons of steel a month. About three-fourths of this is steel rails, and the enormous development of Canada’s railroad extension easily calls for much more than that.

Cape Breton is no longer a negligible section of the world, dependent on its fisheries, the scanty farm produce that its stony soil yields, and its mines slovenly managed and ill-developed. It is steadily growing rich, and the workers are prosperous. Both of these conditions are directly due to the foresight and management of Henry M. Whitney.

PEGGED ON TO FORTUNE.

William L. Douglas, who stands well in the forefront of the American shoe manufacturers, alone makes more shoes every year than were manufactured in the entire country when he started to learn the business.

Mr. Douglas was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1845, and when he was five years old his father died. At seven he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and was put to pegging shoes. Practically every operation was done by hand, though Howe’s sewing-machine was used by the more progressive manufacturers for stitching the uppers. But the rest of the work, fastening the soles included, was done by hand, and the larger factories employed only a dozen or so men.

Douglas worked at the bench from six o’clock in the morning until evening made it too dark to see where to drive his awl. At fifteen he could make a shoe, from cutting the uppers and trimmings and preparing the bottom stocks and heels to sandpapering the soles and blackening and burnishing the edges and heels. Then he began to look around for easier and more remunerative work.

The cotton mills of the State seemed to offer it, and he started in, as bobbin-boy, to learn a new trade. He remained at it only a few years, for he heard the glowing stories of how much skilled shoemakers were needed in the West. When he was nineteen he went to Colorado, and after working through a number of mining-camps he located at Denver and opened a cobbling shop.

The prices he received for his work were big, but they were nearly offset by the prices he had to pay to live, and he was forced to work sometimes sixteen hours a day. He was of slight build, and the strain began to tell on him to such an extent that he was forced to abandon the business and return East.

By 1876 machinery had begun to revolutionize the shoe business, and Massachusetts was making shoes for the whole country. Douglas had a few hundred dollars, the savings of the long days in Colorado, and he began manufacturing. He could not afford to buy all the machines necessary.

He commenced with three men, working himself. The little shop prospered and grew. Before long it was sending out shoes all over the country. As machinery was improved and a greater output became possible, the shop increased its business and began to export shoes. From the original output of forty-eight pairs of shoes a week it has grown to fifteen thousand pairs a day, and the shoes are sent all over the world.

The making of shoes and the organization of a great Industry has not absorbed Mr. Douglas’s whole attention. As a Democrat he has been a member of the Massachusetts House and Senate, Mayor of Brockton, and in 1903 he was elected Governor of Massachusetts, though the State is usually Republican. He worked during his campaign the way he worked in business, putting in the number of hours a day necessary to complete the task set, and he kept his political lieutenants working the same way. By this means he became the first Democratic executive the State has had since 1893, and he gave the people a business administration they liked.

It was Governor Douglas who settled the disastrous Fall River strike, after a number of futile attempts had been made to bring about an understanding, and his findings appealed to both sides, for the workers knew he had once worked in the mill and the employers recognized his acute business sense.

Fortune does us neither good nor hurt; she only presents us the matter and the seed, which our soul, more powerful than she, turns and applies as she best pleases, being the sole cause and sovereign mistress of her own happy or unhappy condition. All external accessions receive taste and color from the internal constitution, as clothes warm us not with their heat, but our own, which they are adapted to cover and keep in.—Michel Eyquem de Montaigne.

THE BLACKBIRD’S SONG.

Though the fame of Henry Kingsley (1830–1876) is eclipsed by that of his elder brother, Charles, many critics have been bold enough to predict that the time will come when the English-speaking world will recognize the younger of these brothers as the greater writer. Henry Kingsley, leaving Oxford without taking a degree, went to Australia when he was twenty-three years old, and it was not until his return to England, five years later, that he addressed himself to novel-writing. His most popular books were “Geoffrey Hamlin” and “Ravenshoe.” He wrote few poems, and of these “The Blackbird’s Song,” which is here reprinted for the readers of The Scrap Book, probably is the best known. It has the real lilt of the English blackbird, and this, together with its quaint diction, gives to it a peculiar quality that causes it to linger in the mind long after the book containing the poem has been laid aside.

By HENRY KINGSLEY.

Magdalen at Michael’s gate

Tirled at the pin;

On Joseph’s thorn sang the blackbird,

“Let her in! let her in!”

“Hast thou seen the wounds?” said Michael;

“Know’st thou thy sin?”

“It is evening, evening,” sang the blackbird,

“Let her in! let her in!”

“Yes, I have seen the wounds,

And I know my sin.”

“She knows it well, well, well,” sang the blackbird:

“Let her in! let her in!”

“Thou bringest no offerings,” said Michael,

“Naught save sin.”

And the blackbird sang, “She is sorry, sorry, sorry;

Let her in! let her in!”

When he had sung himself to sleep,

And night did begin,

One came and opened Michael’s gate,

And Magdalen went in.

SWEET-AND-TWENTY.

GO, LOVELY ROSE.

I PRITHEE SEND ME BACK MY HEART.

TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO THE WARS.

TO LADY ANNE HAMILTON.

NOT OURS THE VOWS.

THE GRAVE OF LOVE.

MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE.

WHEN STARS ARE IN THE QUIET SKIES.

TO HELEN.

There is nothing new under the sun, not even the wireless telegraph. To be sure, the system which has been in use for centuries among the savage tribes in the heart of Africa bears no resemblance to our latest wonder, but it is practical and effective, and its value has been proved many times.

A French explorer seems to have been the first to describe it.

By means of this system news of important events in the interior of the Sudan reaches all the trading ports on the coast in a very short time, although there is no electric telegraph or telephone in the interior.

The communication is made by means of various instruments, the most commonly employed being horns, tom-toms, and whistles. The horns are of solid ivory, made by hollowing out elephant’s tusks. The mouthpiece is at the side. These trumpets are of all sizes, but the favorite ones are very long and give seven distinct notes, produced by plugging the mouth with corks of various sizes. The ordinary tom-tom is a hollow log of wood, with a goatskin stretched over one end.

The following instance will illustrate the way in which this native telegraph is employed. The post commander at Stanley Falls was informed by a native of a neighboring village that a provision train had been attacked by robbers two days before at a point one hundred and eighty miles farther down the Congo. A week later the party arrived and confirmed the story in part.

They had reached the scene of the alleged attack at the time reported, but the shots which the natives had taken as indications of a conflict with robbers had been fired at a herd of antelopes.

More recently, when an officer of the French Congo came to grief in the rapids, the accident was reported the next morning at a village one hundred and eighty-six miles distant.

Among the Bengala tribe a sort of xylophone is used with four notes, by means of which the natives hold communication over great distances In a kind of telegraphic language.

The Rev. C. A. Rideout, an African missionary, gives in the Kansas City Star an account of this method of communication over long distances of sparsely settled country. He was working among the Basutos when he discovered that the villages had means of conveying messages from one chief to another, or transmitting the intelligence of defeat or victory. Says Mr. Rideout:

“A large gourd is hollowed out and thoroughly dried. Then kid’s skin, as hard and thin as parchment, is stretched across the hollow of the gourd. When beaten with a padded drumstick this gives forth a sound which can be distinctly heard at a distance of from five to eight miles.

“In every village there is a class of men who are utilized as scouts. Among these guards there are always two or three trained to the use of the gourd drum. The code is practically an African Morse alphabet, and is beaten on the drum in the open air.

“The sound is carried across the valleys and glens to the next village, where it is interpreted by another guard. If the message is for a distant part, he repeats it on his drum; and so it is carried from village to village, with very little loss of time, until it reaches the person for whom it is intended.

“I was granted the privilege of using the gourd telegraph system to send messages to our mission workers, and often availed myself of it. I don’t know a single instance where it failed to deliver its word properly.

“During the Boer War we, who were hundreds of miles from the scene of hostilities, got all the news with surprising rapidity, and I have known of several instances where tidings came by the gourd air-line hours ahead of the message by field-telegraph.

“Who first invented the system nobody knows. It has been in use for centuries. There appears to be no difficulty in sending any kind of a message, and I have known one to travel nearly one thousand miles.”

We of the twentieth century are rather too prone to believe that such remarkable cases of superiority to circumstance as are supplied by the lives of Helen Keller and Thomas Stringer are peculiar to our own time and country. Such, however, is not the case. Certainly no more impressive instance of accomplishment under trying circumstances can anywhere be found than in the travels and the accounts thereof credited to Lieutenant James Holman, who died in London almost fifty years ago, after a full and happy life. Not even the celebrated Baron von Humboldt traveled so far or visited so many countries as did Holman; and von Humboldt had his sight.

Holman offers an extraordinary example of what energy and perseverance may accomplish. Driven out of the naval service of his country by the complete extinction of his sight when twenty-five years of age, he found himself with his youthful passion for travel still unsatisfied, and with what might very probably be a long and dreary life before him. A naval officer who had already seen service in England and America, he now found himself forced to rearrange his life plans entirely. Almost immediately he resorted to Edinburgh University for a term of study, but even the pleasures of a cultivated mind could not reconcile him to a life of inaction. Finding the post of Knight of Windsor, which had been conferred upon him, intolerable, he obtained leave of absence, and prepared to set out on his first journey of exploration.

For more than forty years the blind lieutenant kept continually on the march. He traveled alone, for a valet, in his opinion, was a useless incumbrance. Beginning his travels with a tour of France, Italy, Saxony, Switzerland, and Holland, he next penetrated twenty-five hundred miles beyond the Ural Mountains in Siberia. After returning to Europe, he circumnavigated the globe, visited the west coast of Africa, the gold mines in the Brazils, the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, and the islands between that country and China. In 1840 he again left England—this time to explore the Holy Land, and, incidentally, every country touching the waters of the Mediterranean and adjacent seas.

Between these journeys it was Holman’s custom to expand into books the journal notes he had made en route. The resulting volumes (formally dedicated, by permission, “To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty”) are packed with shrewd comments upon men and manners, and with delightful descriptions of travel. Through these books (now extremely rare) we are enabled to-day to enter into the experiences of one of the most interesting personalities of which the last century can boast.

“If my undertakings—for such they may without vanity be called—be productive of no other benefit,” he says, “than that of proving to the world how much may be done by a cheerful perseverance under a heavy affliction—how great obstacles may be subdued by resolution—how the void of sight may be peopled by an active mind, and the desert fertilized by industry—how much hope exists even in the darkest page of life—and how many resources against discontent and loneliness this beautiful and varied world presents—I shall be content to think my labors have not been altogether destitute of utility.” This rather labored though earnest sentence does not, however, represent Holman at his best. His earlier books are full of spontaneity. While still a young man he derived as much pleasure from writing of his journeys as from making them.

The manner in which the blind man lets us share his sensations makes his work peculiarly interesting. After we have been wondering for a while how he gets any fun out of the long, hard journeys in the dark, he suddenly answers the question thus: “I must candidly admit that I have derived little gratification from the external objects that presented themselves, and am indebted to the resources of my own mind for the interest I felt; and in particular the contemplation of future plans, as well as the satisfactory progress I have already made with regard to my present ones which others have so often deemed impracticable.”

The truth is that Holman experienced a boy’s delight in proving to his friends that he could travel in safety and have a good time into the bargain. “I find less difficulty and inconvenience in traveling among strangers than people imagine, and prefer being left to my own resources,” he says. “Habit has given me the power of acquiring, by a kind of undefinable tact, as correct ideas of objects as the most accurate description would give.”

Of course, humorous situations were of frequent occurrence. Once at Bordeaux he heard water splashing at the side of the coach. This went on for something like an hour before he discovered that the other passengers, the better to insure their safety, had left the vehicle and crossed on a ferry-boat, leaving him to float with the carriage on a raft across the river Dordogne.

“I found that, while I supposed myself sitting in the coach office yard at Bordeaux,” he narrates, “I had actually traveled four miles by water without having entertained the least idea of such an adventure.”

In this same book Holman describes his custom of traveling with leading-strings.

“Finding myself suffering from headache, which I attributed to want of exercise,” he writes, “I made signs for the driver to stop that I might get out of the coach and walk for a time; he was quite indisposed to accommodate me until I manifested my intention of jumping out.

“He now thought well to stop his horses and proffer his assistance; however, I refused it, and succeeded in finding the back part of the coach, where I secured my hold by means of a piece of cord (which when traveling I make a rule to carry always in my pocket), and which in the present instance served me as a leading-string.

“I then followed in this way on foot for several miles, to the no small amusement of the villagers, who laughed heartily and even shouted after me.”

Upon reaching Rome, Holman went to the Vatican. He had hoped to be allowed to examine the sculpture carefully with his hands, but this he was not permitted to do, as soldiers were placed in each apartment to prevent such violation.

“Had I been freely permitted to touch the marbles, I doubt not,” he says, “that I might have been as highly gratified as those who saw, for the sense of touch conveys to my mind as clear, or at least as satisfactory, ideas of the form, and, I think I may add, the force of expression, as sight does to others. I did occasionally examine them in this way by stealth,” he adds, “when I was apprised that the soldiers’ backs were turned toward me.”

Holman was doubtless the only blind man who ever ascended Mount Vesuvius and survived to record his impressions of the feat. “My friends endeavored to dissuade me from this arduous undertaking,” he writes. “and when after fully deciding upon the measure, I inquired in what way it was customary for others to make the ascent, they replied: ‘Oh, they could see their way up.’

“‘Well, then,’ I retorted, ‘I have little doubt of being able to feel mine.’”

The ground proved to be too hot under his feet, and the sulfurous vapors too strong to allow the hardy Englishman to remain long on the summit, but his guide satisfied him by directing his walking-cane toward the flames, which shriveled the ferrule and charred the lower part. He retained the cane as a memorial, and mentions the fact in his writings.

The most dangerous journeys ever undertaken by Holman were those into the heart of Siberia, upon which he set out soon after his return from his initial visit to Florence. He occupied himself on the way inland studying the geography of Russia, tracing his intended itinerary with his finger upon a raised map.

At the Academy of Art, in Saint Petersburg, he was more successful than he had been at the Vatican in his endeavor to derive pleasure from the sculpture. Of his experience with the Canova statue of Napoleon he writes:

“The pedestal of this statue is so high that I could only reach the knees of the figure; but this was sufficient to satisfy me of its exquisite character. The kneepan, the heads of the bones of the leg, the muscles that form the calf, the ankles, the contractions of the toes (from the supposed weight of the body resting upon them) were all inimitable, so beautifully had the chisel written its delineations on the marble.

“My gratification on touching it was such that I could with difficulty withdraw my hand; and had the leg been clothed with a real shoe and stocking, and of a natural temperature, I might have imagined it real.”

In Moscow this undaunted sightseer walked to the Kremlin and “looked at” the wonderful bell there by mounting to its top on a ladder. The better to examine some of the mortars cast in 1694 by Peter the Great, he coolly took off his coat and crept to the bottom of one, greatly to the astonishment of the guide who accompanied him.

Holman’s own explanation of the way in which sightseeing of this sort ministered to his pleasure is of decided interest.

“The various organs of sense,” he says, “are the mere instruments by which the impressions of external objects are conveyed to the mind, which then reasons upon and draws its inferences respecting the nature of these objects. The conclusions thus arrived at are, consequently, mere ideas.... It matters not through what senses the impression from which these ideas are derived are transmitted. The reader will probably now comprehend the manner in which I arrived at what perhaps may be termed an ideal knowledge of the places I visit.

“Accompanied by an intelligent friend or guide, I examine every place of interest—touch what I can and hear of all, and then, combining the information thus gained with previously acquired knowledge of the subject and some portion of imagination, a picture is produced comprising in my mind a strong impression of reality, and answering the purpose, to me, almost as well as if I had actually seen it.”

To follow Holman as he calmly discusses his own feelings concerning the blindness which had come upon him is of decided psychological interest. Suspense was particularly difficult for him to bear.

“Any irritation of this nature renders me the most anxious of mortals,” he writes; “but let the excitement cease, no matter whether in an agreeable manner or the reverse, and my mind at once regains its tranquility so that I become comparatively comfortable.

“I then look back and smile at the previous storm, and wonder that it has exerted so powerful an influence over me. For instance, with respect to the one great affliction it has been my fate to suffer—the loss of sight—my mind was, during the period of suspense in which I was long detained as to the final result, in a state of excessive agitation and distress; but no sooner was it ascertained that the visual fire was quenched forever than it at once rose superior to misfortune and began to seek for and to find occupation and consolation in a variety of pursuits, among which the love of traveling, as the reader will perceive, has not been the least prominent.”

The humors attending his odd position were by no means lost upon him. “Recollecting that I am suffering from some deprivation,” he observes with gentle irony, “people often mistake the sense and begin to shout at me as if I were deaf; in short, this feeling is so general that almost every one who is not intimately acquainted with me elevates his voice in conversation.

“When I am desired to give my hand to examine anything by the touch, they take it as if my sense of feeling were deficient, squeezing it rudely, and pressing it forcibly on the object of examination, as if I were about to ascertain the condition of a bird or beast; whereas my sense of touch is most delicate, and all that I require is to pass the hand lightly over the surface of the body, and then the result is both pleasing and satisfactory.”

Occasionally, of course, this eager traveler made ludicrous mistakes. Once, when he was being entertained in Siberia by a family of distinction, he inquired from his friend what extraordinary animal it was that was making the singular snoring sound on the other side of him, which had for some time attracted his attention. The “animal” proved to be one of the principal counselors of the town who had a peculiar obstruction in his nasal organs which made him breathe with a wheezing noise.

This Siberian journey was the one in which Holman especially delighted. He had entered upon the arduous undertaking “with feelings heightened by the recollections of interest formerly derived during eight years’ service on the coast of North America.” Oddly enough, he expected to find a great similarity in the climate and productions of the two countries. He was especially interested, moreover, in the primitive simplicity and manners of the Russian and Tatar tribes.

Of the Russians, certainly, he learned a great deal during this journey. His estimation of their character appears to be singularly shrewd, and, for a blind man, wonderfully penetrating.

“Their natural quickness of mind and sensibility of feeling,” he says, “gives them the appearance of being a cheerful, amiable, and open-hearted people; but alas! under this exterior are concealed so much disingenuousness and artful policy as to diminish materially, on closer acquaintance, that estimation to which they would otherwise be justly entitled.”

Seventy-five years before Kipling’s “Truce of the Bear” was penned, another Englishman had perceived the close resemblance between the ursine and the human—in Russia.

The way in which the traveler overcame the material difficulties of journeying alone in a strange land is full of interest. He tells us that he kept his money in various bags, each of which contained a definite number of coins of different values. He was also provided with tea and sugar, a teapot, cups, and all that was necessary for the afternoon refreshment so dear to the English heart. Yet he did not spare himself when he wished to cover a stipulated distance.

The man’s force of character was never put to a severer test than when he was made a Russian state prisoner on suspicion of having assumed the pose of “Blind Traveler” in order that he might spy more effectively upon Russian politics.

The Czar had sent an aide-de-camp to arrest him and put him over the frontier without loss of time. During the ensuing sledge journey, which continued day and night for four thousand miles, and of which he was himself compelled to bear the expense, Holman became utterly worn out.

Then he took matters into his own hands; he decided that he needed a day’s rest, and told his courier-guards that he intended to take it. The Czar’s representatives, including the Governor of Moscow, ordered otherwise.

Holman defied them all—if he felt better next day, he would go with them; but not before. A long and angry altercation followed, but in the end he, a sightless stranger among bigoted enemies, won by sheer force of moral strength. They finally left him a free man on the border of the little republic of Cracow.

Of Holman’s seven books, the later volumes are considerably less intimate and vivid than those written in the first flush of his triumph over circumstances. Nevertheless his adventures and research among the gold mines of South Africa, his description of an entertainment given for him by a rajah of the East, his emotions as he climbed a mast for the sake of exercise, and the thrill which came to him while hunting elephants make reading of more than ordinary interest. The sailor’s keen delight in a voyage, and the Englishman’s unfailing weakness for riding, never deserted this extraordinary man. One of the best pen-pictures we have of him, indeed, is astride a horse.

“At the English consul’s,” writes Francis Parkman from Girgenti, Sicily, under the date, January, 1844, “I met a blind traveler, a Mr. Holman, who has been over Siberia, New Holland, and other remote regions, for the most part alone, and has written seven volumes of his travels. Traveling, he told me, was a passion with him. He could not sit at home.

“I walked home with him through the streets, admiring his indomitable energy. I saw him the next morning sitting on his mule, with the guide he had hired. His strong frame, his manly face, his gray beard and mustache, and his sightless eyeballs gave him quite a noble appearance.”

Lieutenant Holman died in his London chambers, July, 1857. He had never married, so that the unpublished journals and other literary material which survived him was not placed before the world as it probably would have been had a devoted son survived him. Through a relative who settled in Canada, however, the name and the fame of this remarkable man have come down to us.

It is due to the courtesy of a member of Lieutenant Holman’s family, a young artist, now in this country, that I am indebted for the intimate details here given concerning this intrepid traveler.

September is “the month of moonlight.” Poets and impressionists at this season of the year, have, from time immemorial, flooded the world with harvest-moon imagery. Pictures of moonlight lovers strolling along moonlit lanes, rowing on moonlit rivers, in moonlit boats, moonlight gleaners and the harvest home have been painted over and over again in word and color, but the why and wherefor of the extraordinary brilliance of the Queen of Night during the period that she is known as the “harvest moon” has been completely lost sight of by the great majority.

Those who observe the ordinary astronomical phenomena of daily occurrence are familiar with the time variations in the moon’s rising and setting. This is due to the direction of the moon’s apparent path with reference to the horizon, of whatever place it is viewed from. Its distance from the earth and its daily motion eastward in right ascension.

For the first few days in every lunar month the moon rises or sets twenty-three or twenty-four minutes later for three or four successive evenings, after which the retardation varies from that time to an hour and seventeen minutes, and sometimes more.

In the latitude of New York the maximum retardation is seventy-seven minutes and the minimum is twenty-three.

When the retardation is a minimum at the time of the full moon, the light is very powerful, and farmers have often taken advantage of the practically all-night brilliancy for several days, to harvest their grain. September 21 being the autumnal equinox and the full moon occurring nearest that date being usually in the height of harvest time, it is called the harvest-moon.

To understand the action of the causes which produce this phenomenon it is necessary to remember that at the time of the autumnal equinox the sun sets exactly in the west, and the southern half of the ecliptic, or the sun’s apparent annual path in the sky, will then be wholly above the horizon and the northern half entirely below; the ecliptic, therefore, making the least possible angle with the horizon.

In high northern latitudes, as in Alaska, British Columbia, Norway and Sweden and the north of Scotland, the moon’s path at such times is almost parallel with the horizon, and for more than a week she rises at very nearly the same time, giving the farmers ample light and time to garner their crops.

THE SOWER.

A POEM IN WHICH A DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN POET AND DIPLOMAT EXPRESSED HIS FEAR OF OLD WORLD INFLUENCES.

With the single exception of John Hay, no English-speaking poet has been so distinguished as a student of the social and political phases of national life as was James Russell Lowell (1819–1891). It is doubtful whether the United States ever produced a poet who was more truly national. His earlier verses were characterized by quaint Yankee humor, and many were virile pictures of New England life. In his later years, as a writer, editor, and lecturer, Lowell labored zealously to bring the literature and culture of the New World to a plane as high as that of the Old World. As a diplomat, he did more to cement the friendship of Great Britain and the United States than any man had done before. His official title, while in England, was that of United States Minister to Great Britain, but a London newspaper bestowed upon him another—“His Excellency the Ambassador of American Literature to the Court of Shakespeare.”

But though Lowell was cosmopolitan in many of his tastes, he was essentially a patriotic American. The great influx of foreigners and foreign ideals into the United States oftentimes excited his apprehension, and it was while under the influence of these fears that he wrote “The Sower,” which is printed herewith.

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

I saw a Sower walking slow

Across the earth, from east to west;

His hair was white as mountain snow.

His head drooped forward on his breast.

With shriveled hands he flung his seed,

Nor ever turned to look behind;

Of sight or sound he took no heed;

It seemed he was both deaf and blind.

His dim face showed no soul beneath,

Yet in my heart I felt a stir,

As if I looked upon the sheath

That once had clasped Excalibur.

I heard, as still the seed he cast,

How, crooning to himself, he sung:

“I sow again the holy Past,

The happy days when I was young.

“Then all was wheat without a tare,

Then all was righteous, fair, and true;

And I am he whose thoughtful care

Shall plant the Old World in the New.

“The fruitful germs I scatter free,

With busy hand, while all men sleep;

In Europe now, from sea to sea,

The nations bless me as they reap.”

Then I looked back along his path,

And heard the clash of steel on steel,

Where man faced man, in deadly wrath,

While clanged the tocsin’s hurrying peal.

The sky with burning towns flared red,

Nearer the noise of fighting rolled,

And brothers’ blood, by brothers shed,

Crept, curdling, over pavements cold.

Then marked I how each germ of truth

Which through the dotard’s fingers ran

Was mated with a dragon’s tooth

Whence there sprang up an armed man.

I shouted, but he could not hear;

Made signs, but these he could not see;

And still, without a doubt or fear,

Broadcast he scattered anarchy.

Long to my straining ears the blast

Brought faintly back the words he sung:

“I sow again the holy Past,

The happy days when I was young.”

The world of genius abounds with stories of marvelous achievements at the last moment, especially the musical and artistic branch of it. Strange though it may seem, some of the finest music and paintings have been executed in a rush against time.

“There goes Leader, off to paint his dally picture,” was the usual comment of his neighbors, upon seeing the artist leave his rooms early in the morning with a canvas on his back. Although this may, perhaps, have been a too flattering anticipation, it is a well-known fact that on several occasions the academician produced a large picture within a few hours.

Marvelous as is Benjamin Williams Leader’s rapidity with his brush, he has a formidable rival in Solomon J. Solomon, A.R.A., who painted an admirable life-size portrait of Israel Zangwill for the Academy Exhibition within five hours of taking up his brush.

But neither Leader nor Solomon would dispute the honors of swift workmanship with Sir Edwin Landseer. He had promised a picture for the Spring Exhibition of the British Institution in 1845, but on the day before the exhibition was to be opened all the hanging committee had received was an empty frame, which was duly hung in the position of honor.

As the prospect of the frame receiving a picture for the opening seemed very slight, a member of the committee went to interview the artist. He found Landseer standing in front of a bare canvas.

“That’s the picture I promised,” said Sir Edwin, pointing to the canvas. “I haven’t touched it yet, but I will send it to the institution to-night.”

A few hours later the completed picture was delivered, and may be seen to-day in the National Gallery. This wonderful work of half a dozen hours was none other than the universally admired “Cavalier’s Pets.”

Sir Arthur Sullivan composed the brilliant epilogue of the “Golden Legend” in less than twenty-four hours. He sat down at nine o’clock one evening to compose the overture to “Iolanthe,” and did not rise from his desk until the last note was written at seven o’clock on the following morning, while the overture to the “Yeoman of the Guard” occupied him no more than twelve hours, both to compose and score.

It is told of Gaetano Donizetti that he wrote the instrumentation of an entire opera within thirty hours. On the very morning on which Gioacchino Antonio Rossini’s “Gazza Ladra” was to be produced not a single note of the overture had been written, and the manager was in despair. He sought out the lazy composer, locked him in one of the rooms of La Scala, and declared he should have neither food nor freedom until the overture was completed. Rossini set to work with a will and to such purpose that the music was written and rehearsed before the evening performance.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was equally as indolent and procrastinating as Rossini. At twelve o’clock on the night before the production of “Don Giovanni” the composer was making merry with a party of convivial friends and had forgotten that the overture was unwritten. As he was going to bed, in the early hours of the morning, his wife reminded him of the fact that it was the day of production and that the overture was not touched. He asked her to make him a bowl of punch and help keep him awake, and sat down to his work as the light of dawn began to stream through the window. He fell asleep, completely exhausted, and slept soundly for a short time. At five o’clock he resumed his work, and two hours later the overture was finished.

It is said that Herr Stehmann learned the entire part of the Wanderer in “Siegfried” in six hours; and on one occasion when Herr Kraus, who was to have taken the leading rôle in Xaver Scharwenka’s “Mataswinka,” was suddenly taken ill, Stehmann, who had never before seen the part, mastered it so completely between the afternoon rehearsal and the evening performance, that in both words and music he was absolutely perfect.

LASSOOED THE COMPLIMENT.

Slow Speech of a Stranger Caused Miss Morewin to Sacrifice Conventionality on the Altar of Curiosity.

There must be times when actors are put in the embarrassing position of hearing their work discussed in public places by people who have seen the performance and are not aware that any of those who have taken part in it are within ear-shot. And sometimes, when there is a wag in the party, there are real dramatic moments in such episodes. Here is a case in point that happened in New York not so very long ago.

A party of men were descending in the elevator on their way to lunch in one of New York’s tallest skyscrapers. The car stopped at a floor and a lady got on. The wag in the group of men instantly recognized her as Louise Morewin, who plays the mother-in-law in “The Heir to the Hoorah,” which he had seen a few nights before.

The car was pretty well crowded and the wag was so placed that in the mirror he could see Miss Morewin’s face without being seen himself. And the spirit of mischief entered his soul.

“Say, fellows,” he began, “you have all seen ‘The Heir to the Hoorah.’ What do you think of the mother-in-law?”

One and another expressed an opinion, more or less non-committal so far as the playing of the part was concerned. But this did not satisfy the wag. It must be remembered that the building is very tall and that it requires some minutes for the elevator to reach the ground floor, so after the other comments had been gathered in, there was still time for a snapper.

“Well,” he remarked, “I saw the play the other night, and I think the actress who plays that mother-in-law is——”

He inserted a pause for impressiveness, and Miss Morewin could stand no more. Stepping around so that she faced him she broke out with:

“Well, what do you think of her?”

“I think she is immense,” finished the wag, utterly unruffled, while his friends, who had failed to recognize their fellow passenger, stood with jaws dropped at the spectacle of the strange woman butting into their conversation.

As for Miss Morewin, she smiled, flushed a little, and when the car reached the street level, she hastily mingled with the throng and was lost to sight.

THE MODEST CHORUS MAN.

We hear much of the chorus girl, but very little of the chorus man, who is no doubt considered by the manager a necessary evil, inasmuch as girls are not endowed, outside of dime museums at least, with bass and tenor voices. I know one of the four chorus men who made an oasis of deep tones in the blossoming garden of Weber & Fields’s girls, but he soon was promoted from the ranks to a principal part and is now reaping profits as a writer of comic songs.

He went into the business because he wanted to go on the stage, and found this the easiest door to it. Why do other chorus men take up the thing, I asked myself, and to find out, I proceeded to get acquainted with two young fellows in the George M. Cohan company, where chorus work is a very important feature of the proceedings.

“Why did you take up this line?” I asked outright of one fellow, a big-boned chap who was formerly a cigarmaker in Chicago.

“Because I wanted to see the world,” he replied. “That’s the reason I prefer one-night stands to long runs.”

“But you must run up against some hard ones in the way of dressing-rooms among the small towns of the country,” I reminded him. And then I told of some “Florodora” girls I had heard about who were each assigned a chair on which to make their half-dozen or more changes of costume.

“Oh, exclaimed the former cigar-man, that’s nothing. I’ve had to dress on the turn of a stairs, where the bend made an extra wide step.”

“How easy is it for a man to get into the chorus?” was my next query.

“If he has a good second bass or high tenor voice, it’s a cinch.”

I then discovered that physique counts more than it used to, not good looks, for make-up will cover freckles or sallow skin, but a fellow must be well-built, and know how to hold himself.

The other chap, also from Chicago, used to be in the electric business, but with his brother he happened to belong to a lodge of the Order of the Maccabees. They could both sing and dance, and at an entertainment of the lodge did so in public. This put the stage bee in the head of the younger, and through cheek and shameless recitations of utterly fictitious engagements he had already filled, he procured a chance to do Pish-Tush in a “Mikado” company that stranded after two performances.

Prevarication, in fact, seems to be the order of the day in the theatrical business, so that I cannot for the life of me make out why one member of the profession should ever believe what the other says, knowing the rule of the road, as it were, and what he would say himself under similar circumstances.

This Earl Stanley (the grandiloquent stage name my second chorus friend chose for himself) knew nothing about making-up and learned it by deftly following the motions of the man he was assigned to dress with, who actually remarked on the newcomer’s aptness in the art.

“You two fellows,” I observed, “were lucky to get an all-summer engagement with ‘The Governor’s Son’ on the roof, after ‘George Washington, Jr.,’ closed. All the chorus men were not held over, by a long shot.”

“All the good ball players were,” replied Lisle, and then it came out that Cohan is a baseball fiend, and to play good ball, all other things being equal, assists a man in getting a job in his companies, each of which sports its nine.

Oh, as to a chorus man’s pay, it ranges from eighteen to thirty dollars a week, all costumes being furnished by the management.

RECALCITRANT BENEFACTOR.

Last June Sarah Bernhardt sailed back to Paris after the most successful season she ever had in America. She took her profits with her in gold, too, and nobody should begrudge her the money, for, besides being a great artist, she is a generous soul, and is not chary of passing her good fortune on to others.

The following instance of this spirit of generosity is recorded by the San Francisco Call, and vouched for as authentic by one of The Scrap Book staff who has personal knowledge of the affair:

When Sarah Bernhardt was in the city some years ago she gave a breakfast to some of her friends at the California Hotel. It was served about noon, and there were but three persons present besides herself.

In the midst of the repast a bell-boy knocked at the door and said that there was a man down-stairs who refused to give his card and insisted on coming up to see her.

“Let him come, then,” was her reply.

The bell-boy explained that he had the appearance of a tough-looking tramp and might be crazy.

“Never mind his looks or his clothes, he may be a friend of mine,” was the reply.

In a few minutes a man of about sixty or more entered the room. He was very shabbily dressed, had not shaved for a week, and his shirt-front was well garnished with tobacco-juice.

The instant Bernhardt saw him she gave an exclamation and bounded forward. She threw herself upon his neck and covered his rough face with kisses.

The man was Mr. Levi, a furrier, who died recently in this city. Many of the Call readers will remember his short, heavy figure as he used to walk the streets with furs thrown over his shoulder, looking for customers.

Bernhardt at once made a place at the table and began opening champagne for her guest. She introduced him as an old friend from Paris and explained that when she was a child and her family was in straits Mr. Levi had cared for them all one winter and kept them from absolute want.

Every few moments she would jump up, clasp him about the neck and kiss him again and again. There was no acting about these embraces, she was glad to see him, and she wanted no misunderstanding on that score.

Presently she asked him why he did not go back to Paris and see his relatives. He answered, sadly, that he was not able.

“Oh, that is easily remedied,” she said, and a moment later she had written out a check for fifteen hundred dollars and thrown it across the table to him.

He picked it up, and when he saw the amount he broke down completely. With the tears streaming down his cheeks he said:

“Sarah, I didn’t come here for charity, but just to see you a few moments.”

He handed the check back across the table.

“Oh, not enough? I make it bigger.”

She wrote another check for two thousand dollars and threw it over to him. He looked at the second check and merely said:

“Give me the other, Sarah.”

She smiled as she handed it to him, and then the old man did a magnificently independent thing. He slowly placed the two checks together, tore them into bits and handed the fragments back to the madame.

“No, no, Sarah; no money. Just your gratitude; that is all I ever wanted.”

Then she was at his side again, kissing his tears away and sobbing herself. It was a very pathetic scene and one not easily forgotten by those who witnessed it.

She said that she would “fix him yet” in that peculiar way of hers, which always means that she intends to have her own will.

Some months later I was in San Francisco and met old Levi waddling along the streets with his furs. He stopped me and said he wanted my advice.

“I have just got a letter from Sarah,” he said, “and I don’t know what the devil to do about it.”

He translated the letter as he read it, and it went something like this, as near as I can recall it:

“You tore up the last check I gave you, which was very mean of you. I was very angry at the way you treated my checks. No one else ever did such a thing to me but you, and you make me angry every time I think of you and your treatment of me. You humiliate me before strangers. They must have thought that my checks were worthless, or you must have thought so.

“I now enclose another and larger one. It is for twenty-five hundred dollars of your American money and if that is not big enough send it back and I will make it larger, but some check of some denomination you must accept, and if I gave you all the money I ever earned it would not repay you for the time years ago in Paris you saved me from want. I shall expect you to come to Paris at once and be my guest. Answer yes by cable and make us all happy. If you do not do this you must never call on me again, as I shall refuse to receive you. Affectionately,

“What shall I do?” asked the old man with tears in his eyes. “She is bound to have her way. She always was that way as a child.”

“Better send the despatch and then cash the check and go to Paris.”

“I guess I’ll have to,” said the old man, and he started for the telegraph office.

BETTER THEATER PROGRAMS

When the late Clement Scott, the well-known English dramatic critic, visited this country in 1900, he wrote his impressions of American theaters for the London Sketch and devoted his second paragraph to the bill of the play. His comment ran as follows:

No fees for programs? I should think not, indeed! You find a huge stack of them under your very nose, and you can take any number you like, from one to one hundred. The difficulty Is to find the actual program when you have possessed yourself of one of these bulky pamphlets, for there is only a “halfpennyworth of program” amid “an intolerable deal of sack” in the way of advertisements and facetiæ.

But Mr. Scott failed to mention the worst feature of the American programs—the black smut left on the ladies’ gloves and the men’s knuckles from the smudgy type with which they are printed. The sixpence one must part with in order to become possessed of a London house-bill is really not begrudged in exchange for the neat card, folded at the two sides to make it convenient for the pocket and on which the most prominent features are the details respecting the play you have come to see.

In New York the program concession has been for years in the hands of a big firm which has paid the theaters large sums for the privilege of distributing bills of the play, and audiences have had to submit in patience to what this monopoly was pleased to give them. But there is hope ahead and Joe Weber deserves the credit for being the pioneer in a worthy innovation to make theatergoing the all round pleasure it ought to be.

Just before he closed the doors of his music hall for the summer, Mr. Weber amazed his patrons by providing them with a program de luxe, each enclosed in an oiled paper envelope, and printed in four colors on heavy coated paper. To be sure, it consists of forty-two pages, including the cover, but the bill of the play is in the exact center, making it easy to find, and the advertisements are most attractively displayed and illustrated.

The thing was got up by a firm of four hustling young men, who have already thrown into a panic the older firm, causing them to announce for this new season lithographed covers done in six colors. Whether as a whole the thing will be as attractive as the Weber program remains to be seen, but, in any case, the public are to be congratulated, for as the spirit of competition has entered the field, audiences will reap the benefit.

In London you buy your program from the young woman who shows you to your seat, for whom this practical Clement Scott had no great liking. Of this young woman Mr. Scott said:

I prefer the American “usher,” with the suave but determined manner, to our haughty and flighty girls at home, who think it a condescension to show you to your seat, the whereabouts of which they are usually as ignorant of as you are yourself. In an American theater you are marshaled to your seat with military regularity. In England you are at the mercy of some Miss Tousle Head who, so far as her business is concerned, is either insolently independent or sublimely ignorant.

CRITICS BAD WEATHERCOCKS.

Of what use are dramatic critics anyway? Brady’s attack on them from the stage last winter was a mere pin-prick to the humiliation they must feel as makers of public opinion in connection with “The Lion and the Mouse.” When the play was brought out in New York last fall the comments were almost universally adverse, yet the people took to the piece like ducks to water, and it looks now as if it would run the year round at the Lyceum. When it was tried in London, on the other hand, the reviews were exceedingly favorable, and yet the thing lasted barely two weeks.

Take, for example, the London Daily Telegraph, which summed up its report in these words: “To last night’s audience, let it be added, the piece made evidently a very direct and forcible appeal, the applause at the end of the third act, as on the final fall of the curtain, being of the most tumultuous and enthusiastic description.”

The Standard declared: “‘The Lion and the Mouse’ is a play to be seen—it is imperfect and crude, but it is drama, strong, intense, undeniable.”

The Tribune even went so far in its praise that it felt constrained to add: “As a sop to our national self-respect, however, we may remember that the author, Charles Klein, hails originally from this side of the Atlantic.”

PLAYHOUSE NOMENCLATURE.

The announcement that David Belasco will manage the new theater to be built in Forty-Fourth Street, and will call it the Stuyvesant, adds another appropriately named house to the group that has been growing up in New York of late years. The Hudson, the New Amsterdam, the Knickerbocker, the Manhattan and the Astor are all indigenous of the soil and are to be commended.

Liberty is not bad, although, to be sure, it would be more happily situated in Philadelphia than in Gotham. The Quaker City is now to make a needed departure from its run on street nomenclature by calling the house now building the William Penn Theater.

Speaking of Pennsylvania, it was too bad Pittsburgh sank the historic Duquesne in “Belasco”—all right in itself, but the name Belasco loses its force as a distinctive title when duplicated too many times. Three cities now have theaters of this title—New York, Washington, and Pittsburgh.

And Shuberts, more’s the pity, will soon be as thick as huckleberries in August. The house that should be known by this name is the Princess in New York, which would thereby be exchanging a cognomen perfectly inappropriate in America, for one that would much better stand over one house in New York than over twenty elsewhere.

It is a thousand pities that the name Booth was suffered to vanish from over a theater’s doors when Booth’s, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street, was pulled down. All that remains of it is a bust of Shakespeare in the side wall of McCreery’s, on the latter thoroughfare.

It is odd, too, when you come to think of it, that we have no Shakespeare Theater. It is a pity Charles Frohman did not use this—or at any rate Globe (the name of the house Shakespeare managed) rather than Empire. This might better have been Republic, which, when the Empire was opened in 1893, was still in the market, not having been affixed to the theater which Hammerstein built later and very soon passed over to Belasco. Another absolutely footless theater name in the United States is Savoy. Garrick is good, and Criterion not bad.

WHAT MAKES A PLAY?

Not long since the Grand Magazine, of London, held a symposium of opinions from the leading English managers on the elements in a play which determined their acceptance or rejection of it. It cannot be said that the result may be read with much profit by the aspiring playwright. Doubtless those managers who, according to a footnote, declined “for one reason or another” to discuss the methods which governed their choice, were wiser in their day and generation than those who did. For, after all, it is a gamble. And what’s one man’s meat may be another’s poison.

Take, for example, the assertion of Frederick Harrison, of the London Haymarket. He declares:

“I must be quite alone when I read a play, secure from interruption, and read it through at a sitting, and rapidly. If it will not bear rapid reading there is generally something wrong—incoherence of story, clumsiness of dialogue, or something that detracts from the probability of success for the play.”

Contrast this method with an incident vouched for in the Dramatic Mirror by the popular playwright Haddon Chambers, on his recent visit to this country. Speaking of one of his most successful plays, he said:

“Mr. Beerbohm Tree had the piece three months before he ever looked at it. Then, one day, I managed to read him the first two acts. The following day he was slightly indisposed and very courteously put me off. I saw him go into the Turkish bath, followed him, finished the reading then and there, and had the work accepted.”

Lewis Waller, the actor-manager, practically gets no further in the course of half a page report than telling the kind of play he does not want—ordinary melodrama or a farcical comedy.

Frank Curzon, who rivals Charles Frohman in the number of theaters he manages, and who is now a partner with James K. Hackett in “Mr. Hopkinson” and other ventures in America, says, on the other hand:

“When I read a play, I do not care to which class it belongs. If it hits me hard enough I produce it.”

The recipe for George Edwardes, the great musical comedy producer, is first an idea that shall be simple in character but capable of elaboration in a way that shall give striking opportunities to the members of his company. Often the locale or the background for the piece is selected long before the plot is attached to it.

W. H. Kendal, who frequently used to visit us with his wife—a sister of the late Tom Robertson, the teacup and saucer playwright—insists rather indefinitely that the characters shall live before him and that their story shall interest him.

Tom B. Davis, another musical comedy expert, in whose theater “Florodora” was brought out, thinks that the plot is not of supreme importance, but he wants the low comedian woven into the story in such a way that when the lovers find themselves in a predicament the audience shall know that it is he who will help them out. He also deems it advisable that “a dramatic situation shall be led up to in the finale of the first act, in which the baritone and the prima donna shall be the central figures.”

Altogether, Mr. Davis is the most explicit in his rules of any of the bunch, for of the two remaining entries for the Grand’s symposium, Fred Terry—who originally produced “Sunday”—sums up the order in which the interesting factors in a play should be put as, first, Heart; second, Heart; third, Heart, and Cyril Maude, the English Little Minister, confines himself to the statement that he would not choose a gloomy play.

THE BOY.

SONG OF THE MODERN ATONEMENT

ADAM: THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS A BOY.

THE BOY WHO LIVES NEXT DOOR.

No man or woman is so strong as to be wholly free from weakness. If a man occupies an humble sphere in life he usually is fortunate enough to keep his fads and follies from becoming known beyond his own circle of friends. If, on the other hand, he has attained sufficient distinction in the world to be called “famous,” he must reconcile himself to seeing the public in possession of all knowledge that has to do with his personal peculiarities.

Descartes had a small garden where he spent all the hours not devoted to mental labor.

Queen Elizabeth was very profane, and when angry would kick and cuff her maids.

Matthew Arnold’s dogs, cat, and canary bird are mentioned dozens of times in his poems.

Domitian spent his leisure in catching flies and piercing them through with a needle.

William the Conqueror was immoderately devoted to dog-fighting and bear-baiting.

David, the artist, when not painting, amused himself by scraping on an old fiddle.

Mirabeau loved dogs, and had a famous pet, Chico, to which he was much attached.

Mrs. Radcliffe ate raw pork before going to work on a particularly thrilling chapter.

Pierex, after work hours, busied himself in arranging and caring for his coins and medals.

Washington was devoted to fox-hunting, and in the season usually hunted twice a week.

Socrates was fond of playing with children, and was often seen busy with them at their games.

Mme. de Staël always carried a bit of a stick in her hand and played with it as an aid to conversation.

Blackmore, the novelist, was fond of gardening, and spent in that amusement all he made by writing.

Leigh Hunt, when tired out with work, found relaxation in riding to and fro on the London omnibuses.

Dumas, père, disliked a noise in the house while he was writing, and kept a pet buzzard in his room.

Vincent, the landscape painter, disliked violets, and always avoided a field or garden where they grew.

Prince Rupert, the cavalryman, was fond of chemistry, and invented the glass drops called by his name.

Berlioz, though so famous as a composer, could play no instrument except the guitar, and that very badly.

Hazlitt was an enormous drinker of strong tea, which completely upset his nerves and made him miserable.

Tycho Brahe, “the Wizard of the Golden Nose,” always became sick at the stomach whenever he saw a fox.

Herrick, the poet, was fond of pigs as pets, and taught one to follow him about and to drink beer out of a mug.

Francis Bacon was very fond of fine clothes, and spent much of his leisure in devising new costumes for court occasions.

Edward Fitzgerald was a vegetarian, and believed that in adopting such a diet he had, to quote his own words, found “the great secret of it all.”

Charles Dickens was fond of wearing gaudy jewelry, and the clanking of his numerous gold chains announced his coming while he was yet some distance away.

Henry W. Longfellow had a weakness for flowered waistcoats, and he possessed many of gorgeous pattern and color.

Queen Victoria of England shared the common superstition about salt. She would reprimand any guest who was unfortunate enough to spill it, and throughout the remainder of the meal she would be disturbed and in ill-humor.

A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest, “Fancy! since we last met I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London.”

“Really haunted? and by what—ghosts?”

“Well, I can’t answer these questions; all I know is this: six weeks ago I and my wife were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, ‘Apartments Furnished.’ The situation suited us; we entered the house, liked the rooms, engaged them by the week, and left them the third day. No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don’t wonder at it.”

“What did you see?”

“Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer, nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible, without the evidence of your own senses. Let me only say this: it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything; and the strangest marvel of all was that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be, and allowed after the third night that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house.

“Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week. She said dryly:

“‘I know why; you have stayed longer than any other lodger. Few ever stayed a second night; none before you a third. But I take it that they have been very kind to you.’

“‘They—who?’ I asked, affecting a smile.

“‘Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are; I don’t mind them; I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house not as a servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don’t care—I’m old and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with them, and in this house still.’

“The woman spoke with so dreary a calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing with her further. I paid for my week, and too happy were I and my wife to get off so cheaply.”

“You excite my curiosity,” said I; “nothing I should like better than to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which you left so ignominiously.”

My friend gave me the address; and when we parted I walked straight toward the house thus indicated.

It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up; no bill on the window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a beer-boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me, “Do you want any one at that house, sir?”

“Yes; I heard it was to be let.”

“Let! Why, the woman who kept it is dead; has been dead these three weeks; and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J—— offered ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, one pound a week just to open and shut the windows, and she would not.”

“Would not! and why?”

“The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in her bed with her eyes wide open. They say the devil strangled her.”

“Pooh! You speak of Mr. J——. Is he the owner of the house?”

“Yes.”

“Where does he live?”

“In G—— Street, No. —.”

“What is he—in any business?”

“No, sir, nothing particular; a single gentleman.”

I gave the pot-boy the gratuity earned by his liberal information, and proceeded to Mr. J—— in G—— Street, which was close by the street that boasted the haunted house. I was lucky enough to find Mr. J—— at home; an elderly man with intelligent countenance and prepossessing manners.

I communicated my name and my business frankly. I said I heard the house was considered to be haunted; that I had a strong desire to examine a house with so equivocal a reputation; that I should be greatly obliged if he would allow me to hire it, though only for a night. I was willing to pay for that privilege whatever he might be inclined to ask.

“Sir,” said Mr. J——, with great courtesy, “the house is at your service for as short or as long a time as you please. Rent is out of the question; the obligation will be on my side, should you be able to discover the cause of the strange phenomena which at present deprive it of all value. I cannot let it, for I cannot even get a servant to keep it in order or answer the door.

“Unluckily, the house is haunted, if I may use that expression, not only by night but by day; though at night the disturbances are of a more unpleasant and sometimes of a more alarming character. The poor old woman who died in it three weeks ago was a pauper whom I took out of a workhouse; for in her childhood she had been known to some of my family, and had once been in such good circumstances that she had rented that house of my uncle. She was a woman of superior education and strong mind, and was the only person I could ever induce to remain in the house. Indeed, since her death, which was sudden, and the coroner’s inquest, which gave it a notoriety in the neighborhood, I have so despaired of finding any person to take charge of it, much more a tenant, that I would most willingly let it rent free for a year to any one who would pay its rates and taxes.”

“How long ago did the house acquire this character?”

“That I can scarcely tell you, but many years since; the old woman I spoke of said it was haunted when she rented it, between thirty and forty years ago. The fact is that my life has been spent in the East Indies, and in the civil service of the East India Company.

“I returned to England last year, on inheriting the fortune of an uncle, among whose possessions was the house in question. I found it shut up and uninhabited. I was told that it was haunted, and no one would inhabit it. I smiled at what seemed to me so idle a story.

“I spent some money in repainting and roofing it, added to its old-fashioned furniture a few modern articles, advertised it, and obtained a lodger for a year. He was a colonel retired on half pay. He came in with his family, a son and a daughter, and four or five servants; they all left the house the next day; and although they deponed that they had all seen something different, that something was equally terrible to all. I really could not in conscience sue, or even blame, the colonel for breach of agreement.

“Then I put in the old woman I have spoken of, and she was empowered to let the house in apartments. I never had one lodger who stayed more than three days. I do not tell you their stories; to no two lodgers have exactly the same phenomena been repeated. It is better that you should judge for yourself than enter the house with an imagination influenced by previous narratives; only be prepared to see and to hear something or other, and take whatever precautions you yourself please.”

“Have you never had a curiosity yourself to pass a night in that house?”

“Yes; I passed, not a night, but three hours in broad daylight alone in that house. My curiosity is not satisfied, but it is quenched. I have no desire to renew the experiment. You cannot complain, you see, sir, that I am not sufficiently candid; and unless your interest be exceedingly eager and your nerves unusually strong, I honestly add that I advise you not to pass a night in that house.”

“My interest is exceedingly keen,” said I; “and though only a coward will boast of his nerves in situations wholly unfamiliar to him, yet my nerves have been seasoned in such variety of danger that I have the right to rely on them, even in a haunted house.”

Mr. J—— said very little more; he took the keys of the house out of his bureau, and gave them to me; and, thanking him cordially for his frankness and his urbane concession to my wish, I carried off my prize.

Impatient for the experiment, as soon as I reached home I summoned my confidential servant—a young man of gay spirits, fearless temper, and as free from superstitious prejudice as any one I could think of.

“F——,” said I, “you remember in Germany how disappointed we were at not finding a ghost in that old castle which was said to be haunted by a headless apparition? Well, I have heard of a house in London which, I have reason to hope, is decidedly haunted. I mean to sleep there to-night. From what I hear, there is no doubt that something will allow itself to be seen or to be heard—something perhaps excessively horrible. Do you think, if I take you with me, I may rely on your presence of mind, whatever may happen?”

“Oh, sir; pray trust me!” said he, grinning with delight.

“Very well, then, here are the keys of the house; this is the address. Go now, select for me any bedroom you please; and since the house has not been inhabited for weeks, make up a good fire, air the bed well; see, of course, that there are candles as well as fuel. Take with you my revolver and my dagger—so much for my weapons—arm yourself equally well; and it we are not a match for a dozen ghosts, we shall be but a sorry couple of Englishmen.”

I was engaged for the rest of the day on business so urgent that I had not leisure to think much on the nocturnal adventure to which I had plighted my honor. I dined alone and very late, and while dining read, as is my habit. The volume I selected was one of Macaulay’s essays. I thought to myself that I would take the book with me; there was so much of healthfulness in the style, and practical life in the subjects, that it would serve as an antidote against the influences of superstitious fancy.

Accordingly, about half-past nine I put the book into my pocket and strolled leisurely toward the haunted house. I took with me a favorite dog—an exceedingly sharp, bold, and vigilant bull-terrier, a dog fond of prowling about strange ghostly corners and passages at night in search of rats, a dog of dogs for a ghost.

It was a summer night, but chilly, the sky somewhat gloomy and overcast; still there was a moon—faint and sickly, but still a moon—and if the clouds permitted, after midnight it would be brighter.

I reached the house, knocked, and my servant opened with a cheerful smile.

“All right, sir, and very comfortable.”

“Oh!” said I, rather disappointed; “have you not seen nor heard anything remarkable?”

“Well, sir, I must own that I have heard something queer.”

“What?—what?”

“The sound of feet pattering behind me; and once or twice small noises like whispers close at my ear; nothing more.”

“You are not at all frightened?”

“I! not a bit of it, sir!”

And the man’s bold look reassured me on one point, namely, that, happen what might, he would not desert me.

We were in the hall, the street-door closed, and my attention as now drawn to my dog. He had at first run in eagerly enough, but had sneaked back to the door, and was scratching and whining to get out. After I had patted him on the head and encouraged him gently, the dog seemed to reconcile himself to the situation, and followed me and F—— through the house, but keeping close at my heels, instead of hurrying inquisitively in advance, which was his usual and normal habit in all strange places.

We first visited the subterranean apartments, the kitchen and other offices, and especially the cellars, in which last were two or three bottles of wine still left in a bin, covered with cobwebs, and evidently, by their appearance, undisturbed for many years. It was clear that the ghosts were not wine-bibbers.

For the rest, we discovered nothing of interest. There was a gloomy little back-yard, with very high walls. The stones of this yard were very damp; and what with the damp and what with the dust and smoke-grime on the pavement, our feet left a slight impression where we passed.

And now appeared the first strange phenomenon witnessed by myself in this strange abode.

I saw, just before me, the print of a foot suddenly form itself, as it were. I stopped, caught hold of my servant, and pointed to it. In advance of that footprint as suddenly dropped another. We both saw it. I advanced quickly to the place; the footprint kept advancing before me; a small footprint—the foot of a child; the impression was too faint thoroughly to distinguish the shape, but it seemed to us both that it was the print of a naked foot.

This phenomenon ceased when we arrived at the opposite wall, nor did it repeat itself when we returned. We remounted the stairs and entered the rooms on the ground floor—a dining-parlor, a small back-parlor, and a still smaller third room that had probably been appropriated to a footman—all still as death.

We then visited the drawing-rooms, which seemed fresh and new. In the front room I seated myself in an armchair. F—— placed on the table the candlestick with which he had lighted us. I told him to shut the door. As he turned to do so, a chair opposite to me moved from the wall quickly and noiselessly, and dropped itself about a yard from my own chair, immediately fronting it.

“Why, this is better than the turning-tables,” said I laughing; and as I laughed, my dog put back his head and howled.

F——, coming back, had not observed the movement of the chair. He employed himself now in stilling the dog. I continued to gaze on the chair, and fancied I saw on it a pale, blue, misty outline of a human figure; but an outline so indistinct that I could only distrust my own vision. The dog was now quiet.

“Put back the chair opposite to me,” said I to F——; “put it back to the wall.”

F—— obeyed.

“Was that you, sir?” said he, turning abruptly.

“I—what?”

“Why, something struck me. I felt it sharply on the shoulder, just here.”

“No,” said I; “but we have jugglers present, and though we may not discover their tricks, we shall catch them before they frighten us.”

We did not stay long in the drawing-rooms; in fact, they felt so damp and so chilly that I was glad to get to the fire up-stairs. We locked the doors of the drawing-rooms—a precaution which, I should observe, we had taken with all the rooms we had searched below.

The bedroom my servant had selected for me was the best on the floor; a large one, with two windows fronting the street. The four-posted bedstead, which took up no inconsiderable space, was opposite to the fire, which burned clear and bright; a door in the wall to the left, between the bed and the window, communicated with the room which my servant appropriated to himself. This last was a small room with a sofa-bed, and had no communication with the landing-place; no other door but that which conducted to the bedroom I was to occupy.

On either side of my fireplace was a cupboard, without locks, flush with the wall, and covered with the same dull-brown paper. We examined these cupboards; only hooks to suspend female dresses—nothing else. We sounded the walls; evidently solid—the outer walls of the building.

Having finished the survey of these apartments, warmed myself a few moments, and lighted my cigar, I then, still accompanied by F——, went forth to complete my reconnoiter. In the landing-place there was another door; it was closed firmly.

“Sir,” said my servant in surprise, “I unlocked this door with all the others when I first came in; it cannot have got locked from the inside, for it is a——”

Before he had finished his sentence, the door, which neither of us was then touching, opened quietly of itself. We looked at each other a single instant. The same thought seized both: some human agency might be detected here. I rushed in first, my servant followed. A small, blank, dreary room without furniture, a few empty boxes and hampers in a corner, a small window, the shutters closed—not even a fireplace—no other door but that by which we had entered, no carpet on the floor, and the floor seemed very old, uneven, worm-eaten, mended here and there, as was shown by the whiter patches on the wood; but no living being, and no visible place in which a living being could have hidden.

As we stood gazing round, the door by which we had entered closed as quietly as it had before opened; we were imprisoned.

For the first time I felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant.

“Why, they don’t think to trap us, sir; I could break that trumpery door with a kick of my foot.”

“Try first if it will open to your hand,” said I, shaking off the vague apprehension that had seized me, “while I open the shutters and see what is without.”

I unbarred the shutters; the window looked on the little back-yard I have before described; there was no ledge without, nothing but sheer descent. No man getting out of that window would have found any footing till he had fallen on the stones below.

F—— meanwhile was vainly attempting to open the door. He now turned round to me and asked my permission to use force. And I should here state, in justice to the servant, that, far from evincing any superstitious terror, his nerve, composure, and even gaiety amid circumstances so extraordinary, compelled my admiration and made me congratulate myself on having secured a companion in every way fitted to the occasion. I willingly gave him the permission he required. But, though he was a remarkably strong man, his force was as idle as his milder efforts; the door did not even shake to his stoutest kick.

Breathless and panting, he desisted. I then tried the door myself, equally in vain. As I ceased from the effort, again that creep of horror came over me; but this time it was more cold and stubborn. I felt as if some strange and ghastly exhalation were rising from the chinks of that rugged floor and filling the atmosphere with a venomous influence hostile to human life.

The door now very slowly and quietly opened as of its own accord. We precipitated ourselves onto the landing-place. We both saw a large, pale light—as large as the human figure, but shapeless and unsubstantial—move before us and ascend the stairs that led from the landing into the attics.

I followed the light, and my servant followed me. It entered, to the right of the landing, a small garret, of which the door stood open. I entered in the same instant. The light then collapsed into a small globule, exceedingly brilliant and vivid; rested a moment on a bed in the corner, quivered, and vanished.

We approached the bed and examined it—a half-tester, such as is commonly found in attics devoted to servants. On the drawers that stood near it we perceived an old faded silk kerchief, with the needle still left in the rent half repaired. The kerchief was covered with dust; probably it had belonged to the old woman who had last died there, and this might have been her sleeping-room.

I had sufficient curiosity to open the drawers; there were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing, nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor just before us.

We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen, nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending the stairs I distinctly felt my wrist seized, and a faint, soft effort made to draw the letters from my clasp. I only held them the more tightly, and the effort ceased.

We regained the bedchamber appropriated to myself, and I then remarked that my dog had not followed us when we had left it. He was thrusting himself close to the fire and trembling. I was impatient to examine the letters; and while I read them my servant opened a little box in which he had deposited the weapons I had ordered him to bring, took them out, placed them on a table close at my bed-head, and then occupied himself in soothing the dog, who, however, seemed to heed him very little.

The letters were short; they were dated—the dates exactly thirty-five years ago. They were evidently from a lover to his mistress, or a husband to some young wife. Not only the terms of expression, but a distinct reference to a former voyage indicated the writer to have been a seafarer. The spelling and handwriting were those of a man imperfectly educated; but still the language itself was forcible. In the expressions of endearment there was a kind of rough, wild love; but here and there were dark, unintelligible hints at some secret not of love—some secret that seemed of crime.

“We ought to love each other,” was one of the sentences I remember, “for how every one else would execrate us if all was known.”

Again: “Don’t let any one be in the same room with you at night—you talk in your sleep.”

And again: “What’s done can’t be undone; and I tell you there’s nothing against us, unless the dead should come to life.”

Here was interlined, in a better handwriting (a female’s), “They do!”

At the end of the letter latest in date the same female hand had written these words:

“Lost at sea the 4th of June, the same day as——”

I put down the letters, and began to muse over their contents.

Fearing, however, that the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself, laid the letters on the table, stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering, and opened my volume of Macaulay.

I read quietly enough till about half-past eleven. I then threw myself dressed upon the bed, and told my servant he might retire to his own room, but must keep himself awake. I bade him leave open the doors between the two rooms. Thus alone I kept two candles burning on the table by my bed-head. I placed my watch beside the weapons, and calmly resumed my Macaulay. Opposite to me the fire burned clear, and on the hearth-rug, seemingly asleep, lay the dog. In about twenty minutes I felt an exceedingly cold air pass by my cheek, like a sudden draft. I fancied the door to my right, communicating with the landing-place, must have got open; but no, it was closed.

I then turned my glance to the left, and saw the flames of the candles violently swayed as by a wind. At the same moment the watch beside the revolver softly slid from the table—softly, softly—no visible hand—it was gone. I sprang up, seizing the revolver with the one hand, the dagger with the other: I was not willing that my weapons should share the fate of the watch.

Thus armed, I looked round the floor: no sign of the watch. Three slow, loud, distinct knocks were now heard at the bed-head; my servant called out:

“Is that you, sir?”

“No; be on your guard.”

The dog now roused himself and sat on his haunches, his ears moving quickly backward and forward. He kept his eye fixed on me with a look so strange that he concentered all my attention on himself. Slowly he rose, all his hair bristling, and stood perfectly rigid, and with the same wild stare.

I had no time, however, to examine the dog. Presently my servant emerged from his room; and if I ever saw horror in the human face, it was then. I should not have recognized him had we met in the streets, so altered was every lineament. He passed by me quickly, saying, in a whisper that seemed scarcely to come from his lips:

“Run! run! It is after me!”

He gained the door to the landing, pulled it open, and rushed forth. I followed him into the landing involuntarily, calling him to stop; but, without heeding me, he bounded down the stairs, clinging to the balusters and taking several steps at a time. I heard, where I stood, the street-door open, heard it again clap to.

I was left alone in the haunted house.

It was but for a moment that I remained undecided whether or not to follow my servant; pride and curiosity alike forbade so dastardly a flight. I reentered my room, closing the door after me, and proceeded cautiously into the interior chamber. I encountered nothing to justify my servant’s terror.

I again carefully examined the walls, to see if there were any concealed door. I could find no trace of one—not even a seam in the dull-brown paper with which the room was hung. How then had the THING, whatever it was, which had so scared him, obtained ingress, except through my own chamber?

I returned to my room, shut and locked the door that opened upon the interior one, and stood on the hearth, expectant and prepared.

I now perceived that the dog had slunk into an angle of the wall, and was pressing close against it, as if literally striving to force his way into it. I approached the animal and spoke to it; the poor brute was evidently beside itself with terror. It showed all its teeth, the slaver dropping from its jaws, and would certainly have bitten me if I had touched it. It did not seem to recognize me. Whoever has seen at the Zoological Gardens a rabbit fascinated by a serpent, cowering in a corner, may form some idea of the anguish which the dog exhibited.

Finding all efforts to soothe the animal in vain, and fearing that his bite might be as venomous in that state as if in the madness of hydrophobia, I left him alone, placed my weapons on the table beside the fire, seated myself, and recommenced my Macaulay.

Perhaps, in order not to appear seeking credit for a courage, or rather a coolness, which the reader may conceive I exaggerate, I may be pardoned if I pause to indulge in one or two egotistical remarks.

As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it, so I should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all experiments that appertain to the marvelous. I had witnessed many very extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world—phenomena that would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed to supernatural agencies.

Now, my theory is that the supernatural is the impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore, if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, “So, then, the supernatural is possible,” but rather, “So, then, the apparition of a ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of nature, namely, not supernatural.”

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a material living agency is always required. On the Continent you will still find magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume for a moment that they assert truly, still the living material form of the magician is present; he is the material agency by which, from some constitutional peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful the tales of spirit manifestation in America—musical or other sounds, writings on paper, produced by no discernible hand, articles of furniture moved without apparent human agency, or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies seem to belong—still there must be found the medium, or living being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these signs.

In fine, in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like ourselves, by whom or through whom the effects presented to human beings are produced. It is so with the now familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the person operated on is affected through a material living agent.

Nor, supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned by a material being. It may be through a material fluid, call it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you will, which has the power of traversing space and passing obstacles, that the material effect is communicated from one to the other.

Hence, all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency or medium as mortal as myself; and this idea necessarily prevented the awe with which those who regard as supernatural things that are not within the ordinary operations of nature might have been impressed by the adventures of that memorable night.

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would be presented, to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist could be in awaiting the effects of some rare though perhaps perilous chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from fancy the more the temper fitted for observation would be obtained; and I therefore riveted eye and thought on the strong daylight sense in the page of my Macaulay.

I now became aware that something interposed between the page and the light: the page was overshadowed. I looked up and saw what I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe.

It was a darkness shaping itself out of the air in very undefined outline. I cannot say it was of a human form, and yet it had more of a resemblance to a human form, or rather shadow, than anything else. As it stood, wholly apart and distinct from the air and the light around it, its dimensions seemed gigantic; the summit nearly touched the ceiling.

While I gazed, a feeling of intense cold seized me. An iceberg before me could not more have chilled me; nor could the cold of an iceberg have been more purely physical. I feel convinced that it was not the cold caused by fear. As I continued to gaze, I thought—but this I cannot say with precision—that I distinguished two eyes looking down on me from the height. One moment I seemed to distinguish them clearly, the next they seemed gone; but two rays of a pale, blue light frequently shot through the darkness, as from the height on which I half believed, half doubted, that I had encountered the eyes.

I strove to speak; my voice utterly failed me. I could only think to myself, “Is this fear? it is not fear!” I strove to rise, in vain; I felt as weighed down by an irresistible force. Indeed, my impression was that of an immense and overwhelming power opposed to my volition; that sense of utter inadequacy to cope with a force beyond men’s, which one may feel physically in a storm at sea, in a conflagration, or when confronting some terrible wild beast, or rather, perhaps, the shark of the ocean, I felt morally. Opposed to my will was another will, as far superior to its strength as storm, fire, and shark are superior in material force to the force of men.

And now, as this impression grew on me, now came, at last, horror—horror to a degree that no words can convey. Still I retained pride, if not courage; and in my own mind I said, “This is horror, but it is not fear; unless I fear I cannot be harmed; my reason rejects this thing; it is an illusion, I do not fear.”

With a violent effort I succeeded at last in stretching out my hand toward the weapon on the table; as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock, and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly to wane from the candles; they were not, as it were, extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the fire, the light was extracted from the fuel; in a few minutes the room was in utter darkness.

The dread that came over me to be thus in the dark with that dark thing, whose power was so intensely felt, brought a reaction of nerve. In fact, terror had reached that climax that either my senses must have deserted me, or I must have burst through the spell.

I did burst through it.

I found voice, though the voice was a shriek. I remember that I broke forth with words like these, “I do not fear, my soul does not fear”; and at the same time I found strength to rise.

Still in that profound gloom, I rushed to one of the windows, tore aside the curtain, flung open the shutters; my first thought was, LIGHT.

And when I saw the moon, high, clear, and calm, I felt a joy that almost compensated for the previous terror. There was the moon, there was also the light from the gas-lamps in the deserted, slumberous street. I turned to look back into the room; the moon penetrated its shadow very palely and partially, but still there was light. The dark thing, whatever it might be, was gone; except that I could yet see a dim shadow, which seemed the shadow of that shade, against the opposite wall.

My eye now rested on the table, and from under the table (which was without cloth or cover, an old mahogany round table) rose a hand, visible as far as the wrist. It was a hand, seemingly, as much of flesh and blood as my own, but the hand of an aged person, lean, wrinkled, small too, a woman’s hand. That hand very softly closed on the two letters that lay on the table; hand and letters both vanished. Then came the same three loud measured knocks I had heard at the bed-head before this extraordinary drama had commenced.

As these sounds slowly ceased, I felt the whole room vibrate sensibly; and at the far end rose, as from the floor, sparks or globules like bubbles of light, many-colored—green, yellow, fire-red, azure—up and down, to and fro, hither, thither, as tiny will-o’-the-wisps the sparks moved, slow or swift, each at its own caprice. A chair (as in the drawing-room below) was now advanced from the wall without apparent agency, and placed at the opposite side of the table.

Suddenly, as forth from the chair, grew a shape, a woman’s shape. It was distinct as a shape of life, ghastly as a shape of death. The face was that of youth, with a strange, mournful beauty; the throat and shoulders were bare, the rest of the form in a loose robe of cloudy white.

It began sleeking its long yellow hair, which fell over its shoulders; its eyes were not turned toward me, but to the door; it seemed listening, watching, waiting. The shadow of the shade in the background grew darker, and again I thought I beheld the eyes gleaming out from the summit of the shadow, eyes fixed upon that shape.

As if from the door, though it did not open, grew out another shape, equally distinct, equally ghastly—a man’s shape, a young man’s. It was in the dress of the last century, or rather in a likeness of such dress; for both the male shape and the female, though defined, were evidently unsubstantial, impalpable—simulacre, fantasms; and there was something incongruous, grotesque, yet fearful, in the contrast between the elaborate finery, the courtly precision of that old-fashioned garb, with its ruffles and lace and buckles, and the corpse-like aspect and ghost-like stillness of the fitting wearer. Just as the male shape approached the female, the dark shadow darted from the wall, all three for a moment wrapped in darkness.

When the pale light returned, the two fantoms were as if in the grasp of the shadow that towered between them, and there was a blood-stain on the breast of the female; and the fantom male was leaning on its fantom sword, and blood seemed trickling fast from the ruffles, from the lace; and the darkness of the intermediate shadow swallowed them up—they were gone. And again the bubbles of light shot, and sailed, and undulated, growing thicker and thicker and more wildly confused in their movements.

The closet door to the right of the fireplace now opened, and from the aperture came the form of a woman, aged. In her hand she held letters—the very letters over which I had seen the hand close; and behind her I heard a footstep. She turned round as if to listen, and then she opened the letters and seemed to read: and over her shoulder I saw a livid face, the face as of a man long drowned—bloated, bleached, sea-weed tangled in its dripping hair; and at her feet lay a form as of a corpse, and beside the corpse cowered a child, a miserable squalid child, with famine in its cheeks and fear in its eyes. As I looked in the old woman’s face, the wrinkles and lines vanished, and it became a face of youth—hard-eyed, stony, but still youth; and the shadow darted forth and darkened over these fantoms, as it had darkened over the last.

Nothing now was left but the shadow, and on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the shadow—malignant, serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves, as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvæ so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water—things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other—forms like naught ever beheld by the naked eye.

As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings.

Sometimes I felt myself touched, but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold, soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril, and I concentered all my faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn will. And I turned my sight from the shadow, above all from those strange serpent eyes—eyes that had now to redden as if in the air of some though in naught else around me, I was aware that there was a will, and a will of intense, creative, working evil, which might crush down my own.

The pale atmosphere in the room began now to redden as if in the air of some near conflagration. The larvæ grew lurid as things that live in fire. Again the room vibrated; again were heard the three measured knocks; and again all things were swallowed up in the darkness of the dark shadow, as if out of that darkness all had come, into that darkness all returned.

As the gloom receded, the shadow was wholly gone. Slowly as it had been withdrawn, the flame grew again into the candles on the table, again into the fuel in the grate. The whole room came once more calmly, healthfully into sight.

The two doors were still closed, the door communicating with the servant’s room still locked. In the corner of the wall, into which he had convulsively niched himself, lay the dog. I called to him—no movement; I approached—the animal was dead; his eyes protruded, his tongue out of his mouth, the froth gathered round his jaws. I took him in my arms; I brought him to the fire; I felt acute grief for the loss of my poor favorite, acute self-reproach; I accused myself of his death; I imagined he had died of fright. But what was my surprise on finding that his neck was actually broken—actually twisted out at the vertebræ. Had this been done in the dark? Must it not have been done by a hand human as mine? Must there not have been a human agency all the while in that room? Good cause to suspect it. I cannot tell. I cannot do more than state the fact fairly; the reader may draw his own inference.

Another surprising circumstance—my watch was restored to the table from which it had been so mysteriously withdrawn; but it had stopped at the very moment it was so withdrawn; nor, despite all the skill of the watchmaker, has it ever gone since—that is, it will go in a strange, erratic way for a few hours, and then comes to a dead stop; it is worthless.

Nothing more chanced for the rest of the night; nor, indeed, had I long to wait before the dawn broke. Not till it was broad daylight did I quit the haunted house. Before I did so I revisited the little blind room in which my servant and I had been for a time imprisoned.

I had a strong impression, for which I could not account, that from that room had originated the mechanism of the phenomena, if I may use the term, which had been experienced in my chamber; and though I entered it now in the clear day, with the sun peering through the filmy window, I still felt, as I stood on its floor, the creep of the horror which I had first experienced there the night before, and which had been so aggravated by what had passed in my own chamber.

I could not, indeed, bear to stay more than half a minute within those walls. I descended the stairs, and again I heard the footfall before me; and when I opened the street-door I thought I could distinguish a very low laugh. I gained my own home, expecting to find my runaway servant there. But he had not presented himself; nor did I hear more of him for three days, when I received a letter from him, dated from Liverpool, to this effect:

Honored Sir—I humbly entreat your pardon, though I can scarcely hope that you will think I deserve it, unless—which heaven forbid!—you saw what I did. I feel that it will be years before I can recover myself; and as to being fit for service, It is out of the question. I am therefore going to my brother-in-law at Melbourne. The ship sails to-morrow. Perhaps the long voyage may set me up. I do nothing now but start and tremble, and fancy it is behind me. I humbly beg you, honored sir, to order my clothes, and whatever wages are due to me, to be sent to my mother’s, at Walworth: John knows her address.

The letter ended with additional apologies, somewhat incoherent, and explanatory details as to effects that had been under the writer’s charge.

This flight may perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences.

My own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring away in a hack cab the things I had left there, with my poor dog’s body. In this task I was not disturbed, nor did any incident worth note befall me, except that still, on ascending and descending the stairs, I heard the same footfall in advance. On leaving the house, I went to Mr. J——‘s. He was at home. I returned him the keys, told him that my curiosity was sufficiently gratified, and was about to relate quickly what had passed, when he stopped me and said, though with much politeness, that he had no longer any interest in a mystery which none had ever solved.

I determined at least to tell him of the two letters I had read, as well as of the extraordinary manner in which they had disappeared; and I then inquired if he thought they had been addressed to the woman who had died in the house, and if there were anything in her early history which could possibly confirm the dark suspicions to which the letters gave rise.

Mr. J—— seemed startled, and after musing a few moments, answered:

“I know but little of the woman’s earlier history, except, as I before told you, that her family were known to mine. But you revive some vague reminiscences to her prejudice. I will make inquiries, and inform you of their result. Still, even if we could admit the popular superstition that a person who had been either the perpetrator or the victim of dark crimes in life could revisit, as a restless spirit, the scene in which those crimes had been committed, I should observe that the house was infested by strange sights and sounds before the old woman died. You smile; what would you say?”

“I would say this: that I am convinced, if we could get to the bottom of these mysteries, we should find a living, human agency.”

“What! you believe it is all an imposture? For what object?”

“Not an imposture, in the ordinary sense of the word. If suddenly I were to sink into a deep sleep, from which you could not awake me, but in that deep sleep could answer questions with an accuracy which I could not pretend to when awake—tell you what money you had in your pocket, nay, describe your very thoughts—it is not necessarily an imposture, any more than it is necessarily supernatural. I should be, unconsciously to myself, under a mesmeric influence, conveyed to me from a distance by a human being who had acquired power over me by previous rapport.”

“Granting mesmerism, so far carried, to be a fact, you are right. And you would infer from this that a mesmerizer might produce the extraordinary effects you and others have witnessed over inanimate objects—fill the air with sights and sounds?”

“Or impress our senses with the belief in them, we never having been en rapport with the person acting on us? No. What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin to mesmerism and superior to it—the power that in the old days was called magic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter, I do not say; but if so, it would not be against nature, only a rare power in nature, which might be given to constitutions with certain peculiarities, and cultivated by practise to an extraordinary degree.

“That such a power might extend over the dead—that is, over certain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain—and compel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and which is far beyond human reach, but rather a fantom of what has been most earth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses—is a very ancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. But I do not conceive the power would be supernatural.

“Let me illustrate what I mean, from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as not difficult, and which the author of the ‘Curiosities of Literature’ cites as credible: A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elements of that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither; you can never discover nor re-collect them. But you can, by chemistry, out of the burnt dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower, just as it seemed in life.

“It may be the same with a human being. The soul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower. Still you may make a spectrum of it. And this fantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to be the soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; it is but the eidolon of the dead form.

“Hence, like the best-attested stories of ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence of what we hold to be soul—that is, of superior, emancipated intelligence. They come for little or no object; they seldom speak, if they do come; they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth. These American spirit-seers have published volumes of communications in prose and verse, which they assert to be given in the names of the most illustrious dead—Shakespeare, Bacon, heaven knows whom.

“Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not of a whit higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is more notable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth before.

“Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny, namely, nothing supernatural. They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether in so doing tables walk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, or a thing of darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood—still am I persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another.

In some constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those may produce chemic wonders; in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these produce electric wonders. But they differ in this from normal science: they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grand results, and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and, I believe, unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the same thing; well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same dream.

“If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class. My persuasion is that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semi-substance.

“That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe. Some material force must have killed my dog; it might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog—had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my will.”

“It killed your dog! that is fearful! Indeed, it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Rats and mice are never found in it.”

“The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence. Man’s reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my theory?”

“Yes, though imperfectly; and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate house the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?”

“I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal feelings that the small unfurnished room, at right angles to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting-point or receptacle for the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to have the walls opened, the floor removed, nay, the whole room pulled down. I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the small back-yard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the building.”

“And you think that if I did that——”

“You would cut off the telegraph-wires. Try it. I am so persuaded that I am right that I will pay half the expense if you will allow me to direct the operations.”

“Nay, I am well able to afford the cost; for the rest, allow me to write to you.”

About ten days afterward I received a letter from Mr. J——, telling me that he had visited the house since I had seen him; that he had found the two letters I had described replaced in the drawer from which I had taken them; that he had read them with misgivings like my own; that he had instituted a cautious inquiry about the woman to whom I rightly conjectured they had been written.

It seemed that thirty-six years ago (a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish of her relatives, an American of very suspicious character; in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child about six years old. A month after the marriage the body of this brother was found in the Thames, near London Bridge; there seemed some marks of violence about his throat, but they were not deemed sufficient to warrant the inquest in any other verdict than that of “found drowned.”

The American and his wife took charge of the little boy, the deceased brother having by his will left his sister the guardian of his only child, and in the event of the child’s death the sister inherited. The child died about six months afterward; it was supposed to have been neglected and ill-treated. The neighbors deposed to have heard it shriek at night.

The surgeon who had examined it after death said that it was emaciated as if from want of nourishment, and the body was covered with livid bruises. It seemed that one winter night the child had sought to escape; had crept out into the back-yard, tried to scale the wall, fallen back exhausted, and had been found at morning on the stones in a dying state.

But though there was some evidence of cruelty, there was none of murder; and the aunt and her husband had sought to palliate cruelty by alleging the exceeding stubbornness and perversity of the child, who was declared to be half-witted. Be that as it may, at the orphan’s death the aunt inherited her brother’s fortune.

Before the first wedded year was out, the American quitted England abruptly, and never returned to it. He obtained a cruising vessel, which was lost in the Atlantic two years afterward. The widow was left in affluence; but reverses of various kinds had befallen her; a bank broke, an investment failed, she went into a small business and became insolvent, then she entered into service, sinking lower and lower, from housekeeper down to maid-of-all-work, never long retaining a place, though nothing peculiar against her character was ever alleged.

She was considered sober, honest, and peculiarly quiet in her ways; still nothing prospered with her. And so she had dropped into the workhouse, from which Mr. J—— had taken her, to be placed in charge of the very house which she had rented as mistress in the first year of her wedded life.

Mr. J—— added that he had passed an hour alone in the unfurnished room which I had urged him to destroy, and that his impressions of dread while there were so great, though he had neither heard nor seen anything, that he was eager to have the walls bared and the floors removed, as I had suggested. He had engaged persons for the work, and would commence any day I would name.

The day was accordingly fixed. I repaired to the haunted house; we went into the blind, dreary room, took up the skirting, and then the floors. Under the rafters, covered with rubbish, was found a trapdoor, quite large enough to admit a man. It was closely nailed down with clamps and rivets of iron. On removing these we descended into a room below, the existence of which had never been suspected.

In this room there had been a window and a flue, but they had been bricked over, evidently for many years. By the help of candles we examined this place; It still retained some moldering furniture—three chairs, an oak settee, a table—all of the fashion of about eighty years ago.

There was a chest of drawers against the wall, in which we found, half rotted away, old-fashioned articles of a man’s dress, such as might have been worn eighty or a hundred years ago, by a gentleman of some rank; costly steel buckles and buttons, like those yet worn in court-dresses, a handsome court-sword; in a waistcoat which had once been rich with gold-lace, but which was now blackened and foul with damp, we found five guineas, a few silver coins, and an ivory ticket, probably for some place of entertainment long since passed away.

But our main discovery was in a kind of iron safe fixed to the wall, the lock of which it cost us much trouble to get picked.

In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colorless volatile essences, of what nature I shall say no more than that they were not poisons; phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock crystal, and another of amber, also a lodestone of great power.

In one of the drawers we found a miniature portrait set in gold, and retaining the freshness of its colors most remarkably, considering the length of time it had probably been there. The portrait was that of a man who might be somewhat advanced in middle life, perhaps forty-seven or forty-eight.

It was a most peculiar face, a most impressive face. If you could fancy some mighty serpent transformed into man, preserving in the human lineaments the old serpent type, you would have a better idea of that countenance than long descriptions can convey; the width and flatness of frontal, the tapering elegance of contour, disguising the strength of the deadly jaw; the long, large, terrible eye, glittering and green as the emerald, and withal a certain ruthless calm, as if from the consciousness of an immense power.

The strange thing was this: the instant I saw the miniature I recognized a startling likeness to one of the rarest portraits in the world; the portrait of a man of rank only below that of royalty, who in his own day had made a considerable noise. History says little or nothing of him; but search the correspondence of his contemporaries, and you find reference to his wild daring, his bold profligacy, his restless spirit, his taste for the occult sciences.

While still in the meridian of life he died and was buried, so say the chronicles, in a foreign land. He died in time to escape the grasp of the law; for he was accused of crimes which would have given him to the headsman. After his death the portraits of him, which had been numerous, for he had been a munificent encourager of art, were bought up and destroyed, it was supposed by his heirs, who might have been glad could they have razed his very name from their splendid line.

He had enjoyed vast wealth; a large portion of this was believed to have been embezzled by a favorite astrologer or soothsayer; at all events, it had unaccountably vanished at the time of his death. One portrait alone of him was supposed to have escaped the general destruction; I had seen it in the house of a collector some months before. It had made on me a wonderful impression, as it does on all who behold it—a face never to be forgotten; and there was that face in the miniature that lay within my hand. True that in the miniature the man was a few years older than in the portrait I had seen, or than the original was even at the time of his death. But a few years!—why, between the date in which flourished that direful noble and the date in which the miniature was evidently painted there was an interval of more than two centuries. While I was thus gazing, silent and wondering, Mr. J—— said:

“But is it possible? I have known this man.”

“How? where?” cried I.

“In India. He was high in the confidence of the Rajah of ——, and well-nigh drew him into a revolt which would have lost the Rajah his dominions. The man was a Frenchman; his name De V——; clever, bold, lawless; we insisted on his dismissal and banishment. It must be the same man, no two faces like his, yet this miniature seems nearly a hundred years old.”

Mechanically I turned round the miniature to examine the back of it, and on the back was engraved a pentacle; in the middle of the pentacle a ladder, and the third step of the ladder was formed by the date 1765. Examining still more minutely, I detected a spring; this, on being pressed, opened the back of the miniature as a lid.

Within-side the lid were engraved: “Mariana, to thee. Be faithful in life and in death to ——.”

Here follows a name that I will not mention, but it was not unfamiliar to me. I had heard it spoken of by old men in my childhood as the name borne by a dazzling charlatan, who had made a great sensation in London for a year or so, and had fled the country on the charge of a double murder within his own house—that of his mistress and his rival. I said nothing of this to Mr. J——, to whom reluctantly I resigned the miniature.

We had found no difficulty in opening the first drawer within the iron safe; we found great difficulty in opening the second: it was not locked, but it resisted all efforts, till we inserted in the chinks the edge of a chisel. When we had thus drawn it forth we found a very singular apparatus, in the nicest order.

Upon a small, thin book, or rather tablet, was placed a saucer of crystal; this saucer was filled with a clear liquid; on that liquid floated a kind of compass, with a needle shifting rapidly round; but instead of the usual points of a compass, were seven strange characters, not very unlike those used by astrologers to denote the planets.

A very peculiar, but not strong nor displeasing odor came from this drawer, which was lined with a wood that we afterward discovered to be hazel. Whatever the cause of this odor, it produced a material effect on the nerves. We all felt it, even the two workmen who were in the room; a creeping, tingling sensation, from the tips of the fingers to the roots of the hair.

Impatient to examine the tablet, I removed the saucer. As I did so, the needle of the compass went round and round with exceeding swiftness, and I felt a shock that ran through my whole frame, so that I dropped the saucer on the floor. The liquid was spilt, the saucer was broken, the compass rolled to the end of the room, and at that instant the walls shook to and fro as it a giant had swayed and rocked them.

The two workmen were so frightened that they ran up the ladder by which we had descended from the trapdoor; but, seeing that nothing more happened, they were easily induced to return.

Meanwhile I had opened the tablet; it was bound in plain red leather, with a silver clasp; it contained but one sheet of thick vellum, and on that sheet were inscribed, within a double pentacle, words in old monkish Latin, which are literally to be translated thus:

On all that it can reach within these walls, sentient or inanimate, living or dead, as moves the needle, so works my will! Accursed be the house, and restless the dwellers therein.

We found no more. Mr. J—— burned the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundation the part of the building containing the secret room, with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints.

But my story is not yet done. A few days after Mr. J—— had removed into the house, I paid him a visit. We were standing by the open window and conversing. A van containing some articles of furniture which he was moving from his former house was at the door.

I had just urged on him my theory that all those phenomena regarded as supermundane had emanated from a human brain; adducing the charm, or rather curse we had found and destroyed, in support of my theory.

Mr. J—— was observing in reply, “that even if mesmerism, or whatever analogous power it might be called, could really thus work in the absence of the operator, and produce effects so extraordinary, still could those effects continue when the operator himself was dead? and if the spell had been wrought, and, indeed, the room walled up, more than seventy years ago, the probability was that the operator had long since departed this life”—Mr. J——, I say, was thus answering, when I caught hold of his arm and pointed to the street below.

A well-dressed man had crossed from the opposite side, and was accosting the carrier in charge of the van. His face, as he stood, was exactly fronting our window. It was the face of the miniature we had discovered; it was the face of the portrait of the noble three centuries ago.

“Good heavens!” cried Mr. J——; “that is the face of De V——, and scarcely a day older than when I saw it in the Rajah’s court in my youth!”

Seized by the same thought, we both hastened down-stairs; I was first in the street, but the man had already gone. I caught sight of him, however, not many yards in advance, and in another moment I was by his side.

I had resolved to speak to him, but when I looked into his face I felt as if it were impossible to do so. That eye—the eye of the serpent—fixed and held me spellbound. And withal, about the man’s whole person there was a dignity, an air of pride and station and superiority that would have made any one, habituated to the usages of the world, hesitate long before venturing upon a liberty or impertinence.

And what could I say? What was it I could ask?

Thus ashamed of my first impulse, I fell a few paces back, still, however, following the stranger, undecided what else to do. Meanwhile he turned the corner of the street; a plain carriage was in waiting with a servant out of livery, dressed like a valet de place, at the carriage door. In another moment he had stepped into the carriage, and it drove off. I returned to the house.

Mr. J—— was still at the street-door. He had asked the carrier what the stranger had said to him.

“Merely asked whom that house now belonged to.”

The same evening I happened to go with a friend to a place in town called the Cosmopolitan Club, a place open to men of all countries, all opinions, all degrees. One orders one’s coffee, smokes one’s cigar. One is always sure to meet agreeable, sometimes remarkable persons.

I had not been two minutes in the room before I beheld at table, conversing with an acquaintance of mine, whom I will designate by the initial G——, the man, the original of the miniature. He was now without his hat, and the likeness was yet more startling, only I observed that while he was conversing there was less severity in the countenance; there was even a smile, though a very quiet and very cold one. The dignity of mien I had acknowledged in the street was also more striking; a dignity akin to that which invests some prince of the East, conveying the idea of supreme indifference and habitual, indisputable, indolent but resistless power.

G—— soon after left the stranger, who then took up a scientific journal, which seemed to absorb his attention.

I drew G—— aside.

“Who and what is that gentleman?”

“That? Oh, a very remarkable man indeed! I met him last year amid the caves of Petra, the Scriptural Edom. He is the best Oriental scholar I know. We joined company, had an adventure with robbers, in which he showed a coolness that saved our lives; afterward he invited me to spend a day with him in a house he had bought at Damascus, buried among almond-blossoms and roses—the most beautiful thing! He had lived there for some time, quite as an Oriental, in grand style.

“I half suspect he is a renegade, immensely rich, very odd; by the by, a great mesmerizer. I have seen him with my own eyes produce an effect on inanimate things. If you take a letter from your pocket and throw it to the other end of the room, he will order it to come to his feet, and you will see the letter wriggle itself along the floor till it has obeyed his command. ’Pon my honor ’tis true; I have seen him affect even the weather, disperse or collect clouds by means of a glass tube or wand. But he does not like talking of these matters to strangers. He has only just arrived in England; says he has not been here for a great many years; let me introduce him to you.”

“Certainly! He is English, then? What is his name?”

“Oh! a very homely one—Richards.”

“And what is his birth—his family?”

“How do I know? What does it signify? No doubt some parvenue; but rich, so infernally rich!”

G—— drew me up to the stranger, and the introduction was effected. The manners of Mr. Richards were not those of an adventurous traveler. Travelers are in general gifted with high animal spirits; they are talkative, eager, imperious. Mr. Richards was calm and subdued in tone, with manners which were made distant by the loftiness of punctilious courtesy, the manners of a former age.

I observed that the English he spoke was not exactly of our day. I should even have said that the accent was slightly foreign. But then Mr. Richards remarked that he had been little in the habit for years of speaking in his native tongue.

The conversation fell upon the changes in the aspect of London since he had last visited our metropolis. G—— then glanced off to the moral changes—literary, social, political—the great men who were removed from the stage within the last twenty years; the new great men who were coming on.

In all this Mr. Richards evinced no interest. He had evidently read none of our living authors, and seemed scarcely acquainted by name with our younger statesmen. Once, and only once, he laughed; it was when G—— asked him whether he had any thoughts of getting into Parliament; and the laugh was inward, sarcastic, sinister—a sneer raised into a laugh.

After a few minutes, G—— left us to talk to some other acquaintances who had just lounged into the room, and I then said, quietly:

“I have seen a miniature of you, Mr. Richards, in the house you once inhabited, and perhaps built—if not wholly, at least in part—in Oxford Street. You passed by that house this morning.”

Not till I had finished did I raise my eyes to his, and then he fixed my gaze so steadfastly that I could not withdraw it—those fascinating serpent-eyes. But involuntarily, and as if the words that translated my thought were dragged from me, I added, in a low whisper, “I have been a student in the mysteries of life and nature; of those mysteries I have known the occult professors. I have the right to speak to you thus.” And I uttered a certain password.

“Well. I concede the right. What would you ask?”

“To what extent human will in certain temperaments can extend?”

“To what extent can thought extend? Think, and before you draw breath you are in China!”

“True; but my thought has no power in China.”

“Give it expression, and it may have. You may write down a thought which, sooner or later, may alter the whole condition of China. What is a law but a thought? Therefore thought is infinite. Therefore thought has power; not in proportion to its value—a bad thought may make a bad law as potent as a good thought can make a good one.”

“Yes; what you say confirms my own theory. Through invisible currents one human brain may transmit its ideas to other human brains, with the same rapidity as a thought promulgated by visible means. And as thought is imperishable, as it leaves its stamp behind it in the natural world, even when the thinker has passed out of this world, so the thought of the living may have power to rouse up and revive the thoughts of the dead, such as those thoughts were in life, though the thought of the living cannot reach the thoughts which the dead now may entertain. Is it not so?”

“I decline to answer, if in my judgment thought has the limit you would fix to it. But proceed; you have a special question you wish to put.”

“Intense malignity in an intense will, engendered in a peculiar temperament, and aided by natural means within the reach of science, may produce effects like those ascribed of old to evil magic. It might thus haunt the walls of a human habitation with spectral revivals of all guilty thoughts and guilty deeds once conceived and done within those walls; all, in short, with which the evil will claims rapport and affinity—imperfect, incoherent, fragmentary snatches at the old dramas acted therein years ago.

“Thoughts thus crossing each other haphazard, as in the nightmare of a vision, growing up into fantom sights and sounds, and all serving to create horror; not because those sights and sounds are really visitations from a world without, but that they are ghastly, monstrous renewals of what have been in this world itself, set into malignant play by a malignant mortal. And it is through the material agency of that human brain that these things would acquire even a human power; would strike as with the shock of electricity, and might kill, if the thought of the person assailed did not rise superior to the dignity of the original assailer; might kill the most powerful animal, if unnerved by fear, but not injure the feeblest man, if, while his flesh crept, his mind stood out fearless.

“Thus when in old stories we read of a magician rent to pieces by the fiends he had invoked, or still more, in Eastern legends, that one magician succeeds by arts in destroying another, there may be so far truth, that a material being has clothed, from his own evil propensities, certain elements and fluids, usually quiescent or harmless, with awful shapes and terrific force; just as the lightning, that had lain hidden and innocent in the cloud, becomes by natural law suddenly visible, takes a distinct shape to the eye, and can strike destruction on the object to which it is attracted.”

“You are not without glimpses of a mighty secret,” said Mr. Richards, composedly. “According to your view, could a mortal obtain the power you speak of, he would necessarily be a malignant and evil being.”

“If the power were exercised, as I have said, most malignant and most evil; though I believe in the ancient traditions that he could not injure the good. His will could only injure those with whom it has established an affinity, or over whom it forces unresisted sway. I will now imagine an example that may be within the laws of nature, yet seem wild as the fables of a bewildered monk.

“You will remember that Albertus Magnus, after describing minutely the process by which the spirits may be invoked and commanded, adds emphatically that the process will instruct and avail only to the few; that a man must be born a magician!—that is, born with a peculiar physical temperament, as a man is born a poet.

Rarely are men in whose constitutions lurks this occult power of the highest order of intellect; usually in the intellect there is some twist, perversity, or disease. But, on the other hand, they must possess, to an astonishing degree, the faculty to concentrate thought on a single object—the energic faculty that we call WILL. Therefore, though their intellect be not sound, it is exceedingly forcible for the attainment of what it desires. I will imagine such a person, preeminently gifted with this constitution and its concomitant forces. I will place him in the loftier grades of society.

“I will suppose his desires emphatically those of the sensualist; he has, therefore, a strong love of life. He is an absolute egotist; his will is concentered in himself; he has fierce passions; he knows no enduring, no holy affections, but he can covet eagerly what for the moment he desires; he can hate implacably what opposes itself to his objects; he can commit fearful crimes, yet feel small remorse; he resorts rather to curses upon others than to penitence for his misdeeds. Circumstances, to which his constitution guides him, lead him to a rare knowledge of the natural secrets which may serve his egotism. He is a close observer where his passions encourage observation; he is a minute calculator, not from love of truth, but where love of self sharpens his faculties; therefore he can be a man of science.

“I suppose such a being, having by experience learned the power of his arts over others, trying what may be the power of will over his own frame, and studying all that in natural philosophy may increase that power. He loves life, he dreads death; he wills to live on. He cannot restore himself to youth; he cannot entirely stay the progress of death; he cannot make himself immortal in the flesh and blood. But he may arrest, for a time so long as to appear incredible if I said it, that hardening of the parts which constitutes old age.

“A year may age him no more than an hour ages another. His intense will, scientifically trained into system, operates, in short, over the wear and tear of his own frame. He lives on. That he may not seem a portent and a miracle, he dies, from time to time, seemingly, to certain persons. Having schemed the transfer of a wealth that suffices to his wants, he disappears from one corner of the world, and contrives that his obsequies shall be celebrated.

“He reappears at another corner of the world, where he resides undetected, and does not visit the scenes of his former career till all who could remember his features are no more. He would be profoundly miserable if he had affections; he has none but for himself. No good man would accept his longevity; and to no man, good or bad, would he or could he communicate its true secret.

“Such a man might exist; such a man as I have described I see now before me—Duke of ——, in the court of ——, dividing time between lust and brawl, alchemists and wizards; again, in the last century, charlatan and criminal, with name less noble, domiciled in the house at which you gazed to-day, and flying from the law you had outraged, none knew whither; traveler once more revisiting London with the same earthly passion which filled your heart when races now no more walked through yonder streets; outlaw from the school of all the nobler and diviner mysteries. Execrable image of life in death and death in life, I warn you back from the cities and homes of healthful men! back to the ruins of departed empires! back to the deserts of nature unredeemed!”

There answered me a whisper so musical, so potently musical, that it seemed to enter into my whole being and subdue me despite myself. Thus it said:

“I have sought one like you for the last hundred years. Now I have found you, we part not till I know what I desire. The vision that sees through the past and cleaves through the veil of the future is in you at this hour—never before, never to come again. The vision of no puling, fantastic girl, of no sick-bed somnambule, but of a strong man with a vigorous brain. Soar, and look forth!”

As he spoke, I felt as if I rose out of myself upon eagle wings. All the weight seemed gone from air, roofless the room, roofless the dome of space. I was not in the body—where, I knew not; but aloft over time, over earth.

Again I heard the melodious whisper:

“You say right. I have mastered great secrets by the power of will. True, by will and by science I can retard the process of years, but death comes not by age alone. Can I frustrate the accidents which bring death upon the young?”

“No; every accident is a providence. Before a providence snaps every human will.”

“Shall I die at last, ages and ages hence, by the slow though inevitable growth of time, or by the cause that I call accident?”

“By a cause you call accident.”

“Is not the end still remote?” asked the whisper, with a slight tremor.

“Regarded as my life regards time, it is still remote.”

“And shall I, before then, mix with the world of men as I did ere I learned these secrets; resume eager interest in their strife and their trouble; battle with ambition, and use the power of the sage to win the power that belongs to kings?”

“You will yet play a part on the earth that will fill earth with commotion and amaze. For wondrous designs have you, a wonder yourself, been permitted to live on through the centuries. All the secrets you have stored will then have their uses; all that now makes you a stranger amid the generations will contribute then to make you their lord. As the trees and the straws are drawn into a whirlpool, as they spin round, are sucked to the deep, and again tossed aloft by the eddies, so shall races and thrones be drawn into your vortex. Awful destroyer! but in destroying, made, against your own will, a constructor.”

“And that date, too, is far off?”

“Far off; when it comes, think your end in this world is at hand!”

“How and what is the end? Look east, west, south, and north.”

“In the north, where you never yet trod, toward the point whence your instincts have warned you, there a specter will seize you. ’Tis Death! I see a ship; it is haunted; ’tis chased! it sails on. Baffled navies sail after that ship. It enters the region of ice. It passes a sky red with meteors. Two moons stand on high, over ice-reefs. I see the ship locked between white defiles; they are ice-rocks. I see the dead strew the decks, stark and livid, green mold on their limbs. All are dead but one man—it is you! But years, though so slowly they come, have then scathed you. There is the coming of age on your brow, and the will is relaxed in the cells of the brain. Still that will, though enfeebled, exceeds all that man knew before you; through the will you live on, gnawed with famine. And nature no longer obeys you in that death-spreading region; the sky is a sky of iron, and the air has iron clamps, and the ice-rocks wedge in the ship. Hark how it cracks and groans! Ice will imbed it as amber imbeds a straw. And a man has gone forth, living yet, from the ship and its dead; and he has clambered up the spikes of an iceberg, and the two moons gaze down on his form. That man is yourself, and terror is on you—terror; and terror has swallowed up your will.

“And I see, swarming up the steep ice-rock, gray, grizzly things. The bears of the North have scented their quarry; they come nearer and nearer, shambling, and rolling their bulk. In that day every moment shall seem to you longer than the centuries through which you have passed. Heed this: after life, moments continued make the bliss or the hell of eternity.”

“Hush!” said the whisper. “But the day, you assure me, is far off, very far! I go back to the almond and rose of Damascus! Sleep!”

The room swam before my eyes. I became insensible. When I recovered, I found G—— holding my hand and smiling. He said, “You, who have always declared yourself proof against mesmerism, have succumbed at last to my friend Richards.”

“Where is Mr. Richards?”

“Gone, when you passed into a trance, saying quietly to me, ‘Your friend will not wake for an hour.’”

I asked, as collectedly as I could, where Mr. Richards lodged.

“At the Trafalgar Hotel.”

“Give me your arm,” said I to G——. “Let us call on him; I have something to say.”

When we arrived at the hotel we were told that Mr. Richards had returned twenty minutes before, paid his bill, left directions with his servant (a Greek) to pack his effects, and proceed to Malta by the steamer that should leave Southampton the next day. Mr. Richards had merely said of his own movements that he had visits to pay in the neighborhood of London, and it was uncertain whether he should be able to reach Southampton in time for that steamer; if not, he should follow in the next one.

The waiter asked me my name. On my informing him, he gave me a note that Mr. Richards had left for me in case I called.

The note was as follows:

I wished you to utter what was in your mind. You obeyed. I have therefore established power over you. For three months from this day you can communicate to no living man what has passed between us. You cannot even show this note to the friend by your side. During three months, silence complete as to me and mine. Do you doubt my power to lay on you this command? Try to disobey me. At the end of the third month the spell is raised. For the rest, I spare you. I shall visit your grave a year and a day after it has received you.

So ends this strange story, which I ask no one to believe. I write it down exactly three months after I received the above note. I could not write it before, nor could I show to G——, in spite of his urgent request, the note which I read under the gas-lamp by his side.

WEATHER SIGNS.

THE SIROCCO OF ITALY.

Italy is visited by a hot wind from the south which is known as the “Sirocco.” This wind will run the temperature in southern Italy up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and has a most peculiar effect on the human system, causing intense weakness and irritable depression.

The Sirocco is said to be indirectly the cause of more murders, and of quarrels in which blood is shed, than any other phenomenon in nature.

WEATHER PROVERBS.

The absence of dew for three days indicates rain. Heavy dew indicates fair weather. Clouds without dew indicate rain. If there is a heavy dew and it soon dries, expect fine weather; if it lies long on the grass, expect rain in twenty-four hours.

With dew before midnight, the next day will surely be bright. If you wet your feet with the dew in the morning, you may keep them dry for the rest of the day.

If it rains before seven, ’twill clear before eleven. Rains from the south prevent drought, but rains from the west are always best. If it rains before sunrise, expect a fair afternoon. If it rains when the sun shines, it will rain the next day. Rain is likely to commence on the turn of the tide.

Marry the rain to the wind and you have a calm. If rain commences before daylight, it will hold up before 8 A.M.; if it begins about noon, it will continue through the afternoon; if it commences after 9 P.M., it will rain the next day; if the wind is from the northwest or southwest, the storm will be short; if from the northeast, it will be a hard one.

THUNDER IN ENGLAND.

An early English author writes:

“Thunders in the morning signifie wynde: about noone, rayne; in the evening great tempest.

“Somme wryte (their ground I see not) that Sondayes thundre should brynge the death of learned men, judges, and others; Mondayes thundre, the death of women; Tuesdayes thundre, pleantie of graine; Wednesdayes thundre, much blodshede; Thursdayes thundre, pleantie of shepe and corne; Fridayes thundre, the slaughter of a great man and other horrible murders; and Saturdayes thundre, a generall pestilent plague and great deathe.”

HOW TO USE A BAROMETER.

The following rules are those which are used by the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club in their very successful attempts to forecast the weather with the aid of the barometer.

A Rising Barometer.—A rapid rise indicates unsettled weather. A gradual rise indicates settled weather. A rise with dry air and cold air increasing in summer indicates wind from the northward; and if rain has fallen, better weather may be expected. A rise with moist air and a low temperature indicates wind and rain from the northward. A rise with southerly winds indicates fine weather.

A Steady Barometer.—With dry air and seasonable temperature indicates a continuance of very fine weather.

A Falling Barometer.—A rapid fall indicates stormy weather. A rapid fall with westerly wind indicates stormy weather from the northward. A fall with a northerly wind indicates storm, with rain and hail in summer, and snow in winter. A fall with increased moisture in the air and heat increasing indicates wind and rain from the southward. A fall with dry air and cold increasing in winter indicates snow. A fall after very calm and warm weather indicates rain with squally weather.

The barometer rises for northerly winds, including from northwest by north to the eastward for dry or less wet weather, for less wind, or for more than one of these changes, except on a few occasions, when rain, hail, or snow comes from the northward with strong wind.

The barometer falls for southerly wind, including from southeast by south to the westward, for wet weather, for stronger wind, or for more than one of these changes, except on a few occasions, moderate wind, with rain or snow, comes from the northward.

COWS TELL RAIN.

A sign of coming rain or strong wind is evident when a herd of cows gather together at one end of a pasture, with their tails to windward. Again, when cows are unusually frisky—so that sedate old grandmother cows caper about the field and butt imaginary objects with their horns, while they fling up their heels—often storms are in the air.

Cows are sometimes thus playful in the witching hours of twilight, to the terror of nervous ladies who must cross their pastures.

But when in twilight cows follow one another along a field path unpleasantly close and gambol unpleasantly around one, fear of a storm need not necessarily add terror to the situation. For cows are very inquisitive, and in the dusk of twilight like to make careful investigation of strangers, without meaning any offense.

Cows show a sign of heat and its accompaniment, annoying insects, when they thus collect together, rubbing themselves against each other, and one might read in this a sign of fair weather ahead.

FIRE AS A BAROMETER.

Willsford, in his “Nature’s Secrets” (1658), tells us:

“When our common fires do burn with a pale flame, they presage foul weather. If the fire do make a huzzing noise, it is a sign of tempests near at hand. When the fire sparkleth. very much, it is a sign of rain. If the ashes on the hearth do dodder together of themselves, it is a sign of rain. When pots are newly taken off the fire, if they sparkle (the soot upon them being incensed), it presages rain.

“When the fire scorcheth, and burneth more vehemently than it useth to do, it is a sign of frosty weather; but if the living coals do shine brighter than commonly at other times, expect then rain. If wood or any other fuel do crackle more than ordinary, it is an evident sign of some tempestuous weather neer at hand; the much and suddain falling of soot presages rain.”

GOOSE-BONES AND PROPHECIES.

The goose-bone predictions are perhaps more closely watched in Kentucky than anywhere else, and it may be called the Kentucky weather prophet.

We must take the breastbone of a last spring’s goose—none other will do, for the prophecy does not extend beyond the year in which the goose is hatched. It must be divided into three different parts, which represent the three divisions of winter.

The breastbone of a goose is translucent, but at places has cloudlike blots upon it. These blots denote cold weather, and the prophecy is made according to their density and position.

ORIGIN OF COLD WAVES OF AIR.

Dr. Klein, in reference to the use of daily weather reports, states that in Europe, as in America, in all cases, the reports of the weather westward of a given station are of the greatest importance, while reports from stations to the east are, on the average, of minor importance in making weather predictions.

A southerly wind in the region of Ireland, Scotland, or Norway indicates the approaching side of an area of low barometer. It is therefore a sign of a coming change in the weather.

A northerly wind in those regions indicates, for Germany, that the pressure of the air from the ocean is high, and can be considered as a sign of steady pleasant weather.

The region of high barometer is generally separated from oceans and from equatorial regions by lofty chains of mountains. The coldest and densest stratum of air can therefore not flow away toward the sea.

The area of greatest cold on this continent is not prevented by any range of mountains from extending southward and eastward, but is only hemmed in on the west by the Rocky Mountains. Thus while the Pacific Coast is protected from an overflow of very cold air, the whole eastern portion of America becomes peculiarly subject to it.

The constellation Libra—the seventh sign of the zodiac, and the middle one of the Air Triplicity—is a cardinal, sanguine, diurnal, airy, masculine sign, governing the loins. The higher attributes are inspiration and perception.

A person born during the cusp, when the sun is on the edge of the sign, does not receive the full benefits of the individuality of either Virgo or Libra, but partakes of the characteristics of both.

There is a greater variety of disposition among the Libra people than among those of any other sign. They are energetic, ambitious, and inspired. The inner nature is receptive, intuitional, sensitive, and poetical. They always finish things in a careful, competent, and conclusive manner. They keenly feel and can closely imitate the acts and sentiments of others, and can thus readily learn from example.

Their strong emotions and great imitative ability make them well adapted for the dramatic profession. When angry, they leave nothing unsaid. Their nature responds to all forms of ideality. As students, they are fond of philosophical and ethical and especially of mystical literature, Many good linguists are found in this sign.

The Libra people have remarkable foresight, and in the decision of most matters they are correctly guided by their intuitive faculty. This is especially so in the buying or selling of commodities, in which they can rarely be defrauded.

When overtaken by disaster they recover quickly and go to work again with redoubled vigor. The Libra women are kind, constant, and merciful.

The other type of Libra people is to be found more among the men, who are cunning in their business dealings and inconstant in their affections.

In physical appearance Libra subjects are usually tall, slender, and well-formed, with oval face, or languid expression of countenance, and beautiful eyes. The physical temperament will be sanguine-bilious in Southern latitudes, and nervous-bilious in Northern climates.

Their most congenial friends will be found among the Fire people (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius); next, with those born under their own sign, and, third, with those born under Aquarius.

Libra people take things from a material and literal standpoint; and though their intuitive nature will often show them the true side of the question, they prefer to accept the conclusions of human logic.

Impatience is one of their chief faults. They are prodigal of their strength and talents, and scatter their forces in all directions. They suffer through anger and jealousy.

When a Libra and a Sagittarius person are united, the children will be very talented. Children of Libra and Aquarius will be stronger physically, and will possess a keen intellect. These children are quick to perceive the truth in anything, and will make determined efforts to improve. They have a natural genius for invention, having a marked mechanical ability over all the other signs. They should be permitted to have their own way when not entirely wrong. To circumscribe a Libra child is to destroy its genius.

The governing planet is Venus, and the gems are the diamond and the opal. The astral colors are black, crimson, and light blue. The flower is the violet.

August and December are the most favorable months, and Wednesday is the lucky day in this sign.

October, the eighth month of the old Roman year, originally began in spring. By the Julian arrangement it became the tenth month, and had thirty-one days assigned to it. By the Slavs this is called “yellow month” from the fading of the leaf; to the Anglo-Saxons it was known as the Wyn-Monat (wine month), because it was the month in which they pressed grapes, also as Winter-fylleth, because at this full moon (fylleth) winter was supposed to begin. It corresponds partly with the Vendémiaire and partly to the Brumaire of the first French Republic.

In some of the very old Saxon calendars October is characterized by the figure of a husbandman carrying a sack on his shoulders and sowing of corn. In others, less ancient, hawking is the emblem of the month; and yet in more modern times it has been represented as a man clothed in a garment of the color of decaying leaves, with a coronal of oak-branches and acorns on his head, holding in his left hand a basket of chestnuts, medlars, etc., and in his right, Scorpio—i.e., the sign of the zodiac which the sun enters on the twenty-third of October.

The principal ecclesiastical feasts are those of St. Luke, on the 18th; and St. Simon and St. Jude, on the 28th.

The late Senator Mark A. Hanna and Mrs. Annie Besant were born under this sign. Bernhardt, Modjeska, and Peg Woffington are excellent illustrations of the dramatic genius of the Libra people.

THE ZODIACAL SIGNS.

Of all the families of the earth probably there is none more numerous than that of Smith, and of all the Smiths in the world it seems that at least fifty per cent have been christened John. If the name were not so common we should probably admire it and see it through a glamour, as we do many other names that are not half as solid and substantial.

As it is, plain John Smith is not very high-sounding; it does not suggest aristocracy. It is not the name of any hero in die-away novels; yet it is good and honest. Transferred to other languages it seems to climb the ladder of respectability.

Thus in Latin it is Johannes Smithus; the Italian smoothes it off into Giovanni Smithi; the Spaniards render it Juan Smithus; the German adopts it as Hans Schmidt; the French flatten it out into Jean Smeets; the Russian turns it into Jonloff Smitowski; the Icelanders say he is Jahnne Smithson. Among the Tuscaroras he becomes Tam Qua Smittia; in Poland he is known as Ivan Schmittiweiski; among the Welsh mountains they call him Jihom Schmidt; in Mexico his name is written Jontli F’Smitri; in Greece he turns to I’on Sinikton; in Turkey he is almost disguised as Yoo Seef.

The art of arranging numbers in the form of squares, so that the sum of the various rows—vertical, horizontal, and diagonal—would in each case be the same, is, without question, the oldest of mathematical puzzles.

The Egyptians and Pythagoreans held them in the greatest veneration—especially the latter, who dedicated them to the then known seven planets.

The magic 34 square was probably the strangest freak of figures known at this time.

This strange freak may be found in Dürer’s “Melancholia,” engraved on copper in 1514, being included in the series of symbolical engravings of “The Death of the Devil,” “The Knight on Horseback,” etc.

The aim in this instance, as shown by ancient writings, was not only to obtain the same total (34) in the ten rows of four, but to discover as many symmetrical combinations as possible giving the same result. According to the ancients, “symmetrical combinations which no man could number” were to be found in this arrangement of the numbers from 1 to 16, inclusive. As an example, take 16, 3, 5, and 10, or 2, 8, 9, and 15, or 1, 9, 16, and 8, and so on indefinitely. The result is the same.

Another unique example is the following:

In this case the sum is 65, and can be reached in an almost endless variety of combinations. However, there is one feature to be remembered in dealing with this problem, and that is that the central number (13) must be added to each combination except in the straight and diagonal lines. Thus: 20, 24, 2, 6, and 13, or 8, 12, 14, 18, and 13, etc., each make the magic sum 65.

The well-known “15 puzzle” is another illustration of the surprising feats which figures are sometimes made to play. The problem being to arrange in a square of three rows, three figures in each row, the numerals, 1 to 9 inclusive, in such a manner that each row—vertical, horizontal, or diagonal—will total 15. This is more difficult than appears at first glance, unless you have the key, which is: place 5 in the center, and let the four corners be 2, 4, 6, and 8. The rest is easy.

This form differs from the 65 and 34 in that it can only be added diagonally, horizontally, and vertically.