Untrained intelligence finds earning a more and more difficult task, and for all of us it has become plain, that in the mighty problem given us by a civilization which at so many points fails to civilize, every force must be brought to bear upon its solution. These pale, anaemic, undeveloped girls swarming in factory and shop, are the mothers of a large part of the coming generation, defrauded before birth of all the elements that make strong bodies and teachable souls. It is not alone the present with which we deal. Out of the future comes a demand as instant, and justice to-day bears its fruit in larger life for other days to come. For this must be two awakenings. One for the looker-on in the struggle who has no eyes for what lies still in shadow. The other for the worker, who must join the army already aroused, realizing its limitations, reaching out for training and larger opportunity, and seeking with the eagerness born of hard conditions, some permanent way of escape. And for watcher and worker alike the word is the same:

"Light, light, and light! To break and melt in sunder All clouds and chains that in one bondage bind Eyes, hands, and spirits, forged by fear and wonder, And sleek fierce fraud with hidden knife behind; There goes no fire from heaven before their thunder, Nor are the links not malleable that wind Round the snared limbs and souls that ache thereunder, The hands are mighty were the head not blind."



THE INDEPENDENT PARTY AND MONEY AT COST.

BY R. B. HASSELL.

A political revolution is in progress and has attained such proportions as to command attention and repay study. The magnitude of the movement and the definiteness of its aims are not understood and appreciated by those who live far from its field of operation. The reader is asked to lay aside his preconceived notions of the subject, and consider observations made, at short range, by one whose information is gleaned not from partisan newspapers, but from the field of action.

Before passing to an analysis of the platform demands of the new party, let us adjust the perspective; consider the work already done, and the method, motive, and personnel of the party.

Scarcely twelve months have passed since the birth of the party,—one political campaign. In that short period, an organization has been perfected which carries upon its rolls 1,200,000 voters; and an esprit de corps has been created which is worthy of comparison with the enthusiasm of the old parties. It has elected two United States senators and a respectable body of congressmen. It has won its victories in the strongholds of the hitherto dominant party, overcoming in one instance an adverse State majority of 80,000. An army of lecturers has been set at work, most of them well equipped. About a thousand newspapers have been established in the interest of the movement. A national bureau of information has been created which keeps a large force of clerks constantly busy. A committee has been appointed on organization. Under its direction, State after State is being organized, and the prophecy is freely made that, before the snow flies again, an efficient branch of the central body will have been established in nearly every hamlet in the nation.

The surprising advance already made by the Independents would not need to concern us, were it not that the national conditions which made it possible, in the first instance, still exist to sustain and accelerate it. If asked to explain this advance, most partisans would say, at once, poor crops, extreme poverty and demagogism; or, as South Dakota campaign speakers were known to say, hot winds and Mr. Loucks. But these are mistaken ideas. Poverty of the people made many listeners and voters who, under other circumstances, would not have deemed it worth their while to leave the plow. An examination, however, of the vote in the counties of one State, from which a United States senator has been elected, shows that the heaviest majorities for the new party were cast in counties where farming is most diversified, and where the people have been blessed with a succession of good crops. In the counties where the people were poorest, they were more effectually under the thumb of money loaners and bankers, who held chattel mortgages over their heads. In such counties a corruption fund had a powerful influence toward keeping voters in line. Extreme poverty is always a menace to the purity of the ballot. In the well to do counties, or rather the counties where good crops had prevailed, and in which the people were reputed well-to-do, and where the heaviest vote was cast for the party, the writer has made a careful study of conditions and finds none that do not exist in most agricultural districts of the United States. The herds of cattle and bursting granaries, years ago, would have been sure indications of competence and contentment.

A little inquiry now, however, reveals discontent and a hand to hand struggle with adversity and against odds. Market values leave no margin for profit. Abundance at harvest time, disappointment on market day. Men can understand the connection between short crops and lean pocket-books, and are easily reconciled to such conditions. They may grumble but they are sensible enough to understand that they must sow again and wait for the heavens to smile. But when great heaps of corn lie in their fields awaiting sale at twelve cents a bushel, when a mighty crop of wheat brings its possessor but fifty cents a bushel, when cows are worth but fifteen dollars apiece, and good butter sells for eight cents a pound, while thousands in the land are known to be suffering because of the lack of these things, a leanness of pocket-book results which the farmer may understand, but to which he is not easily reconciled.

His eyes are open. The over-production theory explains nothing to him while the mouths of a multitude go unfed; while the beef that he sold for one and a half and two cents a pound on foot, retails in the eastern market, when dressed, for from ten to eighteen cents a pound; and while his corn and his wheat, at the other end of the line of transportation, brings twice the price he received for it here. He is able to put two and two together. He knows that primarily all wealth comes from the soil, in response to the toil of himself and his fellows. His eyes rest upon the 31,000 millionnaires of the land who roll in wealth. He says, "I helped produce that. How did they get it?" He knows that the money could not be had last fall to handle his grain and that, in consequence, a ridiculously low price was offered him in order to keep it off the market. He knows that a few men take advantage of his necessities and dictate prices just at the time when he must sell. He knows that railroads absorb nearly fifty per cent. of crop values for transportation charges, in order to pay dividends on a capitalization, fifty per cent. of which is fictitious, and that when the laws forbid it the courts of the land step in and declare it "reasonable compensation."

In a word, it does not take a very sharp farmer to see that although hot winds, or murrain, or hog cholera increase the leanness of his pocket-book, these things do not explain that irresistible and invariable current which bears such a large portion of what he does earn into the plethoric pocket-books of the few rich. The farmer has become, perforce, a student of economics; and, although we may laugh at some of the vagaries in which he indulges, a close study of the situation and of his demands will probably show him to be about as reasonable as those are who champion the present order of things.

If the symptoms of an unnatural and unnecessary agricultural depression were confined to the Dakotas, and Kansas, and Nebraska, the farmer student might be nonplussed in his investigations. He might be led to consider his inexperience and extravagance as the source of the disease so deeply fixed upon him. But the farmer of to-day reads and travels. A Dakota farmer, a few weeks since, visited the paternal homestead in Ohio. He found, to his surprise, that his father's farm, which fifteen years ago lay within three miles of a thriving town of two thousand inhabitants, paying an annual tax of fifteen dollars, and worth a hundred dollars an acre, now pays a tax of seventy-five dollars, and is worth but forty-five dollars an acre, although the neighboring town has increased its population to ten thousand, and is noisy with shops and factories. He found that this was not an isolated case, but a fair example of the depreciation of farm values. He was not surprised to learn that the Ohio farmers were even then gathering to organize a State alliance. A careful survey of the United States, we are sure, will measurably confirm the conclusion of the western farmer, that farming, except in those localities where it has taken on the form of market gardening, or where it yet monopolizes some specialty, is unprofitable and disappointing.

Most farmers are ready to admit that their surroundings are better and their comforts more numerous than in ancestral days, when stoves were unknown, and the women slaved over the hand-loom and spinning-wheel, when medical men bungled and schools were luxuries; but they can see with half an eye that the mighty material advances of the last half century in this country have been made to serve the rich rather than the poor, the strong instead of the weak. They do not object to railroads, and the constantly increasing facilities for travel and transportation; but they do object to laws and customs which make railroads a means of transferring the hard earnings of the farm to the coffers of money kings. The farmer has received comforts at the hands of our civilization, but he has paid a good price for them, not to the genius which created, but to the plutocrat who bought. It is not because the farmer is facing starvation that he moves politically; but because, in the midst of plenty, comparative poverty is his portion. As a legitimate result of the civilization in the presence of which he lives, his tastes have improved, and his desire for education and comfortable living has increased, and with this improvement and increase has come a widening of the distance betwixt his possessions and his desires. In other words, the shadows of contrast in social conditions in our country are hourly deepening, and it is at such times that the canker of discontent eats closest. It will serve no purpose for us to spend time in condemning this spirit, and making light of it, because it is a natural result and a political fact that can only be remedied by a removal of the immediate cause. It is not possible or desirable to rid the people entirely of the spirit of discontent, but it can be so minimized that it will be no longer a menace to national life but an incentive to progress.

It is necessary to understand thoroughly the conditions under which the work already described has been done. We have discussed the general social and financial condition of the farmer. How about his intellectual standing? We hear a great deal about the stupid, foolish farmer, easily led by demagogues. It is well to remember in this connection that those States where the Independent party has had greatest influence are the States where the smallest per cent. of illiteracy exists and, by parity of reasoning, the highest per cent. of intelligence. The fact is that the farmer of the West is not the clodhopper, at whose expense the funny man of the modern journal likes to crack jokes. He reads more widely and thinks more deeply than tradesmen or city people do, as a class. Tradesmen wear better clothes, are more urbane, and obtain a certain polish and self-possession which comes only from close contact with one's fellows in the business and social world; all of which is very useful to them in improving the "main chance" in a competitive struggle, and might be labelled finish and sharpness. They live an intense life, within a limited circle, and have little time and less inclination to weigh questions from the larger world. To this fact may be attributed the slight interest such people take in municipal government and the dominance of slum and saloon influences. It is not so with the farmer. He reads much and widely, and the solitary plow-furrow and the quiet country road conduce to thought. A certain sturdy intelligence follows, which again and again has proven the salt of the world, the re-inforcing element of society, and is to-day the hope of our nation. While the tradesman dwells much on commercial law, trade customs, and the means of attracting trade, the farmer thinks more naturally of the general law of the land, under which he is protected or robbed, prospered or ruined. His sales are made at wholesale prices. His eyes, therefore, seek out not so much the local factors in the make up of prices as the world-wide influences which are supposed to determine them. It is a large world in which he lives, and his vision, from necessity, sweeps the whole of it.

The people of the East will never understand the merit and magnitude of the present political movement, until they give the farmer credit for intelligence of a superior order. Those who think of him as the easy prey of demagogues are mistaken. He has been such in the past. We have convincing proof that it is otherwise now. Those who are familiar with the campaign plans of the dominant parties in these days, the shameless misrepresentation of facts by party organs, the open use of large sums of money to keep so-called leaders in line, and the tremendous power of public patronage can understand how much of demagogism in every community the farmers have had to meet and overcome in order to conquer an eighty thousand majority. It has required patriotism, common sense, and a Spartan-like heroism to face their organized foes and come off victorious. To their honor be it said that few Judases have been found among them at the ballot-box, or in the halls of legislation.

The work of the Independent party, so far, has been educational in two directions. It has increased the sum of information and developed a much needed self-confidence among the farmers. The alliance meetings, to which most of us object because of their secret and exclusive nature, are schools of economics and parliamentary tactics. The secrecy of the order, however, is not as objectionable as some of us have been inclined to think. As the leaders say, the veil of secrecy in this order is quite gauzy,—intended to keep out individuals rather than to conceal deliberations and doings. It throws the farmer on his own resources. He becomes a chairman, an investigator, a committee man, and a debater. If it were otherwise, the aggressive members of the professions would frequent the meetings, and naturally assume such functions. We are confident the farmer will come to see that these same ends may be attained by methods less objectionable to the thought and spirit of our people. Justice requires us to say that the secret order of the alliance and the Independent party have no necessary connection, although they are natural allies, and the former is the source of the latter. In fact, scores of men belong to the alliance who have not yet committed themselves to the political movement, and many who are bitter in their opposition to it. Political affiliation has nothing to do with membership, and all actual farmers and their families are entitled to it. Freedom in the expression of opinion is courted and strong, ready men are being developed.

The writer has met old farmers, during the last twelve months, who are as well posted in the history of finance as the Shermans and the Allisons of the country, and who read the lessons of that history with as clear a vision. They do not get their facts from demagogical documents, as many suppose. We call to mind a laughable incident in the last campaign. A joint discussion was progressing between a bright member of the legal fraternity, who was advocating the present order and extolling the Republican past, and an uncouth but clever old farmer, who took up the cudgel in behalf of financial reform. The lawyer vociferously declared the demand notes never sold at par with gold. The farmer calmly insisted that they did, and read from an authority. The lawyer demanded the authority. The farmer asked the lawyer if he would read to the audience the name of the authority, if it was shown him. The latter could only say yes. The pamphlet was opened at its title page, and the lawyer read with best grace he could, to an audience that fairly rolled in the chairs with merriment, "Report of the Treasurer of the United States." The farmers are going to a school where imagination is given small play, and facts are studied, uncolored by party traditions. Shall we not expect from this some good? Have we not reason to believe that the reading, intelligent majorities of the western prairies are to bring us some light and benefit?

It is useless to deny that these farmers have some intense prejudices. What class has not? And these prejudices must necessarily color opinion, and somewhat determine action. The farmer is bound to look at things from the standpoint of the poor man rather than from that of the corporation and the money loaner. The latter have had the thought and service of our statesmen for years past. As a consequence, the account between the rich and the poor is in an abnormal condition. Perhaps it is only right that the selfishness of the laboring classes should have its own way for a time, and even things up somewhat, before a new start is made.

But the class prejudice and selfishness of the farmer has been greatly over-estimated by his political enemies. His sub-treasury bill and plan for loaning money on real estate, to be sure, are intended to afford immediate relief to the farmer; but he believes, in his soul, that they would result in great advantage to the whole business world. He says, moreover, that condemnation of his plans comes with bad grace from the men who are even now supporting a financial system which delivers the money of the country over to the few and trusts them to distribute it among the many. His plan may have the same selfish ear-marks, but they are not so deep. We have been trusting a few men to distribute the currency of the nation, and have made it extremely profitable for them to do so. He asks now that this trust be transferred to the many, and gives good assurances, in the nature of things, that the many will touch the remotest needs of our people, and so diffuse currency that competition, if such a principle ever can be effective, will keep interest at a rate where labor can live and prosper.

That the independent movement is not considered a class movement, in a bad sense, but decidedly in the interest of all the middle classes, we have some proof in the citizens' alliances and the labor unions, which have united forces everywhere with the farmers, brought about by a recognition of the simple fact that where the farmer has money, the tradesmen of his market town have money and industries of all kinds thrive. Here lies the strength of the movement. The farmers are, perhaps, the largest distinctive class of citizens, and can exercise great political influence by themselves; but they are not numerous enough to work radical changes without aid from other classes. As it is, however, in the strictly political movement among the farmers, all who sympathize with their political views are welcomed. The best evidence of this is the election of such men as Rev. J. H. Kyle and editor Peffer to the United States Senate. While the farmer has a great deal to say about the utter absence of farmers from the national halls of legislation, he is not disposed to say that farmers alone should be sent there. He is willing to send the men who are best fitted to do the work that is to be done, but they must be worshippers of the common people as distinguished from the bankers and "financiers."

It is not possible to discuss the platform of the new party at any length within the necessary limits of this article. We shall be content to undeceive, if possible, those of our readers who have been charging that the platform is indefinite.

One of the chief recommendations of the Independent platform, to the voters of the West, was its brevity and definiteness, refreshing qualities in the minds of a people who had been accustomed for years to the platitudes and straddles of the old parties. Most of the Independent county and State platforms could be summed up under three heads, money, transportation, land. They declare in favor of a full legal tender currency to come direct from the government to the people, in volume sufficient to meet the demands of business; the government ownership and control of railroads and homes for the American millions. The main planks were summarized in the flaring posters which announced the great rallies of the party last fall. "Money at Cost! Transportation at Cost!" These were the headlines which everywhere caught the public eye, and drew the crowds. Opponents saw in these advertisements traces of a demagogue's hand. If it is demagogism to awaken curiosity, arouse thought, and in a terse sentence to express the party faith, then are the Independent leaders guilty of it. But whether guilty or not, these two expressions have awakened echoes that will not cease reverberating until our ideas and systems of finance and transportation are quite revolutionized. As we are not proposing here to discuss the wisdom of the farmer's demands, we need waste no time on the land and transportation questions. So much has been written on these questions, and the dividing line between disputants is so clearly drawn, and farmers have settled down so decidedly on one side of that line, that they are no longer open to the charge of juggling with words when they declare in favor of "homes" and "transportation at cost."

With the money question it is different. "Money at cost" is one of those essences of thought which will bear analysis. We desire to show that with the farmer's party it means but one thing,—that it is a declaration of war with the piratical system of the present. "Money at cost" is a sentiment and conviction which has grown up in the minds of the producing and laboring classes of this country out of a deep sense of the injury done them during the last quarter of a century, and a pretty clear conception of the nature of money and the duty of government.

Money, they say, is a medium of exchange necessary in the transaction of business between citizens; that it is the first duty of government to provide this medium for its citizens directly and at the minimum expense; that it should not be considered property in any sense, and that every incentive to the hoarding of it should be removed; that there is no such thing as "cheap money" under a proper system, because only commodities are cheap or dear according to the market price of them, and money is not a commodity; that money can be issued by government or by authority of government, safely and honestly, in but two ways: in return for services rendered, or as a loan on adequate security, and should always represent days of toil or material of value; that the present bank systems by which money is farmed out for private gain, furnishes a fairly reliable currency but an unreliable means of distribution; that loans should be made on lands or imperishable products to the many who have personal need of the money with which to improve homes and develop enterprises, thus giving not only a safe currency but providing also for a wide and safe distribution of it; that government creates money out of anything it chooses; that it should create only the best money, by which is meant a stable, full, legal tender currency; that the curse of an unstable currency is now upon us blighting our people; that an unstable currency is one whose volume is regulated by the owners of private banks, dependent upon the uncertain output of mines, and varying with the caprice of the few who hold and control it; that a material scarce by nature is not fit to receive the stamp of government, because it is sure to vary in supply; that the medium of exchange should be of material so plentiful that blind nature or designing men cannot reduce the supply of it below the government demand for it; that the money so created should be durable, easy of transportation, and difficult of counterfeiting; that paper money is the easiest of transportation, the most difficult to be counterfeited, and in a sense the most durable, because so easily replaced when lost; that to base the medium of exchange upon value is as effectual as to stamp it upon value; that out of deference to foreign customs and the necessities of foreign trade, our government should buy up the gold and silver bullion of the country and hold for resale to those who have foreign balances to settle; that the country to-day is suffering from a contracted and contracting currency, on account of which the debtor class has had its burden doubled, to the corresponding advantage of the creditor class; that if contraction has been good for creditors, inflation must be good for debtors; that any measure, therefore, which looks toward an increase of the circulating medium is to be favored; that free silver coinage is to be favored; that instead of flying to the relief of the stall-fed speculators of Wall Street in times of financial stringency, it is time that the government was coming to the relief of the common people; that loans from the government should be made at a merely nominal rate of interest, not to exceed two per cent., because any higher rate is a congestor of wealth and gives capital a leverage over labor; that money-loaning as a business, except on such a basis from the government to its subjects, should go out of fashion, and might be expected to disappear under a proper financial system; that the unemployed capital of the country would then seek investment, labor would then be employed, factories would hum and the credit system might go to the dogs; that rates of interest cannot be satisfactorily regulated by law until we have banks that are national in fact as well as in name, managed by salaried officials of the nation whose duty it shall be to make loans at cost, under wise and conservative rules, to those needing them who can bring themselves within the rules; that the proposed sub-treasury and land loan plans are suggestions in the right direction and calculated, when perfected, to bring the government into touch with the needy citizen, and make of it a distributor as well as a creator of money; that paper in the shape of checks and drafts already transacts ninety-one per cent. of the business of the country, and might be trusted to properly supplement our currency and make supply equal demand, were it not that the great bulk of our people are not known beyond the communities in which they live, and therefore are debarred from using checks to any extent in the outside world; and that each piece of national currency, issued as a full legal tender, in the hands of the people, would be in the nature of a certified check, enabling the citizen to do business with despatch anywhere.

Running through the above statement of the independent doctrine of finance, we see that three ideas are most prominent. First, a desire that the government supersede avaricious man and blind nature in the creation and distribution of money, in order that money may be a stable purchasing power. Second, a determination that money shall no longer be a commodity to be bought, and sold, and manipulated, a leech upon labor in the hands of a few, but a convenience of trade, accessible to the many at first cost. Third, a demand that the misnamed national bank system of the present shall have its spirit of greediness exorcised, so that it may hereafter serve the people instead of its management. Are these ideas indefinite? Do they not mean "money at cost"?

We would now call attention to those facts which the western farmer says have opened his eyes, made him indifferent to the sneers of the banking class and its servitors, and fixed him in his purpose to effect a permanent change in the financial system of the country.

He says that the average profits of business enterprises in this country do not exceed three per cent.; that money loaning at six and seven per cent. of necessity congests the wealth of the nation; that eighty cents' worth of silver, stamped by government as a dollar, or a cent's worth of paper, bearing the same stamp, buys as much for him in the markets of the country as a gold dollar; that it is easier for him to pay his debts when money is plentiful; that the paper demand notes of '62, a full legal tender, stood at par with gold while the greenbacks, repudiated in terms by the very bill which created them, went skyward; that a contraction of currency has preceded every serious financial panic in the history of the country; that prosperity for the laborer, the producer, and the debt-payer has always accompanied currency expansion; that money loaners are strangely interested in keeping money scarce, and for that purpose fought gold in '50 when California and Australia threatened to flood us, the greenback in Lincoln's administration, and silver in '73, '78, and '91; that the farmer's products have been refused a market within a year past because there was not money to handle them; that present rates of interest consume him; and that, with good security to offer, he is obliged to pay exorbitant rates for money and in many cases is refused it altogether.

Let us remember that the last word has not yet been spoken upon the financial question; that the world, even the financial world, has not seen all of truth and wisdom yet; that reason is better than authority, especially if the authority is open to a suspicion of prejudice; and that there may be a financial bigotry as hateful and unprogressive, and as much out of sympathy with this growing age, as is the dry-as-dust ecclesiasticism of the day. Every citizen should give courteous attention to the new voices that come to us from the West, and be careful that his decision, on the whole matter, is not influenced by his position as one of the creditors of the land.



PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES.

BY SARA A. UNDERWOOD.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY B. F. UNDERWOOD.

The statements in this paper as to what was written in my presence purporting to be communications from "spirits," and as to the circumstances under which it was written, are scrupulously correct. The "communications," it is certain, are from an intelligent source. Mrs. Underwood is the person by whose hand they are put in form. That she is not laboring under a mistake in thinking that she is unconscious of the thought expressed until she has read the writing,—if, indeed, such a mistake in a sane mind is possible,—I am certain. Sometimes, owing to the illegibility of the writing, she has to study out sentences. The writing varies in style, not only on different evenings, but on the same evening; it is apparently the writing of not fewer than twenty persons, and generally bearing no resemblance whatever, so far as I can judge, to Mrs. Underwood's handwriting, which is remarkably uniform. The communications are unlike in the degrees of intelligence, in the quality of thought, and in the disposition which they show. Detailed statements of facts unknown to either of us, but which, weeks afterwards, were learned to be correct, have been written, and repeated again and again, when disbelieved and contradicted by us. All the writing has been done in my presence, but most of it while I have been busily occupied with work which demanded my undivided attention. The views expressed are often different from my own, and quite as frequently, perhaps, opposed to Mrs. Underwood's views.

Some will, doubtless, interpret these facts as evidence and illustrations of the multiplex character of personality, and will regard these communications, apparently indicating several distinct intelligences, as manifestations of different strata, so to speak, of the same individual consciousness. Knowledge of the facts unknown to our ordinary consciousness was, nevertheless, some will say, in the sub-consciousness of one of us, or perhaps of both. On this theory, of course it must be supposed that the mind has stored away in its depths knowledge acquired in ways unknown. By others all the phenomena related by Mrs. Underwood will be regarded as the work of disembodied, invisible, intelligent beings who once dwelt in the flesh and lived on the earth, but who are now in a higher sphere of existence, yet able under certain conditions to make their presence and their thoughts known to us. It is not my intention here to advocate any theory as to the cause of the phenomena described by Mrs. Underwood. I simply testify now to the accuracy of all those statements in her paper in regard to her automatic writing.

B. F. UNDERWOOD.



* * * * *

"The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land; to add something to the extent and solidity of our possessions."—Huxley in "Reception of the 'Origin of Species.'"

Public attention at this time especially is being called to various forms of psychic phenomena measurably through the efforts of the Society for Psychical Research in investigating and sifting the evidence for the stories of apparitions, hallucinations, forewarnings, etc., but more because so many who have heretofore scoffed at and doubted such stories, or who have been foiled in their efforts to obtain for themselves any satisfactory evidence that such phenomena really occur, are now able to testify from their own experience, in one form or another, that such are real facts of our existence.

The questions raised by the class of facts already elicited through this investigation are of supreme importance, and it becomes the duty of every serious-minded enquirer who has had experience of this kind to give the result of his investigations to the public, and thus aid those searching for the underlying cause of all such phenomena. Therefore after considerable hesitation, and with some inward shrinking from an obvious duty, I have concluded to take the consequences of publishing my own recent experience. A word of personal explanation may here be necessary. A sincere believer in Orthodox Christianity until my twentieth year, I have been led by careful study and unfaltering love of truth to give up my belief in Christian dogmas, and have for some years known no other name by which to designate my state of mind in regard to religious belief than that misunderstood and often misapplied term, agnostic. But at no stage in my mental progress have I ever felt sure that I had reached any conclusion which was final, and at no time have I been a believer in spiritualism, or been convinced that we survive the present state of being; while always I have felt an interest in every undecided question in science and religion, and earlier have had some "intimations of immortality," which have caused me to think seriously on the subject and to long for more light. I have decided to lay the simple facts of my most recent experience before the readers of THE ARENA, and allow them to draw what conclusions they will without offering any theory of my own. More than a year ago my interest in psychic phenomena was awakened by reading the reports of the Society for Psychical Research, but it has been my own personal experience which has created a profound impression on my mind. If any one who reads this will try to imagine in what spirit he would greet an entire stranger or group of strangers, who through the telephone, for instance, should send him genial messages full of commonsense, philosophy, humor, and friendliness, giving him interesting details of a strange land, he can partially understand the state of mind in which, after many months of such intercourse, I find myself. Except on two or three occasions no one has been present but my husband, B. F. Underwood, and myself.

The modus operandi is the simplest possible. As I remembered that Mr. U. was rather averse to the planchette experiments of former years, thinking them unwholesome and deteriorating in their tendency, I at first said nothing to him of my new psychical experiments, though these were made oftenest in his presence in the evening when we both sat at one writing table, near each other, busied with our individual literary work. As I experimented in his absence as well as in his presence, I soon found that I got the most coherent writings when he was present. Indeed I could get nothing coherent, and very frequently nothing at all, when he was away, but when he was present the communications began to grow strangely interesting, and as he was called upon repeatedly, I felt obliged to invite his attention, when the most surprising answers were given, which roused his curiosity and interest. It has been explained that his presence is necessary for me to obtain writing, as "blended power is best." Two or three times, at the suggestion of this intelligence, we have asked two of our intimate literary friends—non-spiritualists—to be present, but each time with comparative failure; afterwards we were informed that the cause of failure was the introduction of persons unused to the conditions, who broke up the harmonious relations necessary to communication; in time they could be of help.

It would take a volume to present all the interesting statements as to an advanced stage of existence, only hidden from us because of the inadequacy of our sense perceptions, and by the conditions imposed upon us at this stage of our progress, which have been given from this source. Explanations have been made why communication through the agency of certain persons, though not through all, are possible. The conditions, it is alleged, are not entirely dependent upon the superior intelligence or morality of the persons with whom the intelligences can become en rapport. These invisibles declare that they are as seriously and anxiously experimenting on their side to discover modes of untrammelled communication with us, as we on our side ought to be, if what they write be true, and if such a thing is possible. "Spirits" they persistently insist upon being called. In this paper I can give only a statement of some things which do not seem explicable on the hypothesis of mind-reading, thought transference, hypnotism, or subconsciousness. In all these experiments I have been in a perfectly normal state. The only physical indication of any outside influence is an occasional slight thrill as of an electric current from my shoulder to the hand which holds the waiting pen. Step by step I have been taught a series of signals to aid me in correctly reading the communications. I have no power to summon at will any individual I wish. I have repeatedly, but in vain, tried to get messages from some near and dear friends. It has been explained that on their side, as on ours, certain "conditions" must exist in order to get in "control." When "eh?" is written I know that the operator at the other end of the line is ready to communicate. When in the middle of a sentence or a word "gone" or "change" is written, I understand that the connection is broken, and I must not expect the completion of that message. When a line like this —— is drawn, it is a sign that that sentence is completed or the communication ended. So with other things. Rhymes are often unexpectedly written, especially if the "control" professes to be a poet, and they are dashed off so rapidly that I do not understand their import until the close when I can read them over. Impromptu rhyming is a feat utterly impossible to either Mr. U. or myself. Names persistently recur which are unknown to us. Many different handwritings appear, some of them far superior to my own. When I first began to get communications I destroyed, in a day or two after they were written, the slips of paper containing the writing, but as the developments became more interesting, Mr. U. suggested that they be preserved for reference. I acted on this suggestion, and thus in the instances of facts given outside our own knowledge, I am enabled to give the exact wording of each communication. Our questions were asked viva voce, and as they were often suggested by what had been previously written, I either at the time or soon afterward wrote them just above the reply. I am not, therefore, trusting at all to memory in the statements I shall make.

A gentleman of this city (whom I will call John Smith, but whose real name was a more uncommon one) with whom Mr. U. had been acquainted many years, but of whose family relations he knew little, died here more than a year ago. Mr. U. had met him but once in the year previous to his death, he having been away on account of failing health, staying, we understood, with a daughter recently married, whose home was in Florida. The first name of this married daughter, or of any of Mr. Smith's daughters except one, was unknown to Mr. U. I had met one of his daughters whose name I knew to be Jennie. I also knew that there was another named Violet. I was not sure, however, whether this was the name of the married one, or of another unmarried, but had the impression that Violet was unmarried. One evening, while waiting for automatic writing with no thought of Mr. Smith in my mind, and Mr. U. sitting near me at the table with his thoughts concentrated on an article he was preparing, this was written: "John Smith will now enter into conversation with B. F. Underwood." I read this to Mr. U. who laid aside his pen, and in order to test the matter, asked if Mr. Smith remembered the last time they met, soon after his return from the South, and a short time previous to his death. There was some delay in the answer, but soon reply came "On Madison St." "Whereabouts on Madison?" was asked. "Near Washington." "At what hour?" "About 10 A. M., raining." As it was rarely that Mr. U. was in that part of the city at so early an hour, and especially on a rainy day, I doubted the correctness of this reply, but Mr. U. recalled to my mind the unusual circumstance which made it necessary for him to be in that vicinity on the day and at the hour named, on which he and Mr. Smith, he distinctly remembered, last met. Only a few words passed between them on account of the rain. After this, writing, purporting to be from Mr. Smith, came frequently. Very soon something was written which induced Mr. U. half sportively to inquire whether there was anything which troubled Mr. Smith, anything which he wished he had done but had omitted, before his death. The answer came, "One thing—change deeds on Violet's account. None of my wife's are at my daughter's disposal. All in her own disposal." Mr. U. asked if it was meant that he had not left his property—for he was a man of some wealth—as he now wished he had. "You are right," was written, "want all my girls to share alike." "Which daughter do you refer to?" was asked. "Went away from her in Florida—Violet," was the answer. I remarked, "Why, I thought Violet was one of the unmarried girls, but it must be that that is the name of the married daughter." Then Mr. U. was strongly urged to call on Mr. Smith's married son, James, with whom Mr. U. had a slight acquaintance, and tell him of this communication. "Clearly state my desire that my daughter Violet share equally with her sisters." Of course this was utterly out of the question. At that time we had no intention of informing any one of our psychic experience, and if we had, Mr. James Smith would have thought us insane or impertinent to come to him with so ridiculous a story, the truth of which we ourselves strongly doubted. Pages were, however, written concerning the matter in so earnest and pleading a manner that I came to feel conscience-stricken at refusing to do what was asked, and to shrink from seeing Mr. Smith's name appear. Once was written, "Say to James that in my new position, and with my new views of life, I feel that I did wrong to treat his sister Violet as I did. She was not to blame for following out her own convictions, when I had inculcated independent thought and action for all." This and other sentences of the kind seemed to convey the idea that Violet had in some way incurred his displeasure by doing according to her own will in opposition to his. This was puzzling to us, as we knew that in her marriage, at least, the daughter we thought to be Violet had followed her father's wishes.

A few weeks later, however, came an unlooked-for verification of Mr. Smith's messages. In a conversation between Mr. U. and a business friend of Mr. Smith, who was well acquainted with all his affairs, regret was expressed that so wealthy a man had left so little for a certain purpose. Mr. U. then inquired as to what disposition had been made of his property, and was told that he had left it mainly to his wife and children—so much to this one, and that. "But Violet," continued Mr. U.'s informant, "was left only a small amount, as Mr. Smith was angry because she married against his wishes." "Why," remarked Mr. U., "I understood that he approved of the match, and the fact that he accompanied herself and husband to Florida, and remained with them some time, would seem to indicate that." "Oh, you are thinking of Lucy, the eldest girl; her marriage was all right, but Violet, one of the younger daughters, going to Florida with her husband, fell in love with a young man of whom her father did not approve, so she made a runaway marriage, and on account of his displeasure, Mr. Smith left her only a small sum." The intelligence writing was aware of facts unknown, to either Mr. U. or myself, and no other persons were in the room when these communications were given.

One evening one of us spoke of the frequently false and mischievous statements purporting to come from spirits—predictions which did not come to pass, descriptions which were wholly wrong, and sending credulous believers on wild-goose chases after hidden treasure, etc., the occasion being an untrue statement made to us in regard to the death of a friend who was alive and well. We asked if this unseen intelligence would explain why this was allowed. Reply came promptly, "Rather tough problem. There are certain phases of our existence here which are not explainable to you on your plane, and the test we were obliged to make of your credulity was one of these." We protested against such tests, and I declared that I would not try to receive communications if they practised deception. "Why do you protest," was written, "when you already know you are but a tyro in this phase of being? You don't now willingly do the work assigned you, and B. F. U. is still harder to manage." Thereupon Mr. U. suggested "that without sense organs and a material environment, conditions would be such, perhaps, that they could not be expressed in terms known to us, nor be even conceived by us." Immediately was written: "Many wish to answer B. F. U.'s clear statement of the difficulties in the way of spirit intercourse with those still in the flesh, but now comes the one soul capable of clear answer. Blessed be they who question—gone." Next came this—"Boehme wants to reply." Here I have to confess that never having paid much attention to occult or mystical literature the name Boehme was utterly unknown to me, and at this point I asked Mr. U., "Did you ever hear of anyone by the name of B-o-e-h-m-e?" spelling the word. "Certainly," he replied, "Jacob Boehme, he was a German thinker who died—" my hand began to move just then, and he paused, and while the following was being written my mind reverted hazily to a German philosophical writer, who had died within a few years, and of whose life one of our friends had written a sketch. His name began with B, and I thought he was the one Mr. U. referred to, as I had forgotten what the full name was. I say this to explain that there could be no thought-transference in this instance from Mr. U.'s mind to mine. This was written rapidly. "Death and life are but two phases of one truth, and when what mankind calls death comes, it is as we experience the change that all our circumscribed relations to banded universalities become clear; but when we try to explain to those not yet beyond man's sphere we find ourselves at a loss because there is nothing parallel in this state of existence with your knowledge." Afterwards Mr. U. showed me in the encyclopaedia a sketch of him (the name spelled Bohme, and in several other ways) in which it was stated "he had a very fertile imagination, and a remarkable faculty of intuition, and professed to be divinely inspired," and that he died in 1624. Since then I have found another sketch of his life which says that "owing to the fantastic terminology he thought fit to adopt, his writings are condemned by many as utterly unintelligible." This may explain the "Banded Universalities," a phrase I never in my life saw before, and only dimly understand now; I had never to my knowledge read a word of his writings. In my case, as in that of many who profess to give spirit messages, frequently names of dead thinkers and heroes are signed. I protested against this, saying I did not believe that these individuals were the ones who communicated, and asked for some explanation. Immediately this answer was written: "Elaine and Guinevere were not real beings but types—so somewhere in our sphere are spirits who embody cleverness in creations of their fancy, and adopt names suited to their ideas." Since this explanation was given, I have had more patience with the communications signed by great names, since I have imagined that these are types aspired to by the real writers. But their "cleverness in creations of their fancy" extends sometimes to fair imitations of the thought and style of those whose names they borrow. For instance, since Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of my favorite poets, it is not at all strange that her name and that of her husband might be suggested by my own mind; my own mind ought also to suggest the thought of the following, written as from Mrs. Browning, though the phraseology is not mine. "Robert gave me life. He gave me to Love. He and I are but two sides of one individuality. We both understand this, as you understand it." But then followed without any apparent pause for a word, this:—

"Let your own hearts deeply feel The sweet songs of older lovers, So shall song and sense appeal To all that true emotion covers."

I never saw these lines anywhere, and I doubt whether anyone has seen them before, while I am confident that I did not compose them. I had not then read Browning's "One Word More," but two days later in a magazine article I came across a quotation from that poem in which occurs the phrase "older lovers," the magazine having been brought to the house that day, and two days after the verse was written. A day or two later at the close of a communication from an entirely different source, and one in no way suggestive of Browning, the words, "One Word More" were rapidly written, followed by this verse:—

"Round goes the world as song-birds go, There comes an age of overthrow— Strange dreams come true, yet still we dream Of deeper depths in Life's swift stream."

This I did not compose, nor had I ever heard or seen it before.

One evening it was promised that "Brain workers of philosophical bent" would answer our questions. The first question asked was, "From your standpoint do you consider death the end of conscious existence?"

Ans.—"Death we know only as a phrase used to indicate change of environment."

Ques.—"Is death expected on your plane as on ours, or do all understand that the next change is progressive?"

Ans.—"Slow are even those on our plane to understand the law of unending evolution."

Ques.—"But we may apprehend what we do not fully understand or comprehend?"

Ans.—"Comprehension sees farther than understanding. Comprehend means complete understanding."

Ques.—"Do you mean that comprehension is a word of wider significance than understanding?"

Ans.—"You are right."

I had never given any thought to the difference between the words "understanding" and "comprehending," and when this was written was not satisfied in my own mind that comprehend did mean more than understand. On the following day I consulted Worcester's Unabridged Dictionary and to my surprise, under the word "comprehend" found this note: "Comprehend has a more extensive meaning than understand or apprehend." So in this case, as in several others I have not time to cite here, the intelligence which moved my hand to write gave me knowledge which I did not myself possess. Very often in place of writing, all I could get from them would be spiral lines. Sometimes a page would be crossed and recrossed with these lines as if with some definite purpose. This suggested to me the possibility that such lines held some meaning unknown to me, and I put the question. The answer was given, "We have different modes of thought from yours—and the spiral signs are most in use with us: Some of our less advanced scientists forget that on your plane our mode of control is not understood by you. Lines are made of such esoteric meaning that, while we understand at a glance, it is impossible for those on your plane to perceive any words." Mr. Underwood here remarked: "There are numerous spirals—all modifications of the primary straight line."

Ans.—"Yes, the spiral is a primal law, simple yet complex, which we who understand life's manifold ascensions grow to symbolize in our thought, language, and writing."

I am warned by the length of this paper that I must close without being able to give one tenth part of the many strange and surprising revelations, or statements, philosophical and other, which we have gained from this strange source. I have confined myself to those which show most strongly evidence of an intelligence outside of Mr. U. or myself, the only two persons who have been concerned in obtaining them. To me personally these are not the most wonderful phases of this influence. The reasonable explanations given of the laws governing another state of human existence, but very little different from this except in being a step forward in the direction of Mind—that is to me the most wonderful, but of that I cannot speak here.

I know that my experience at this time is by no means exceptional. Before I had ever said one word to any human being except Mr. U. in regard to it, there came to me a confidential letter from a valued friend in another State, a lady of intellect and culture, confessing that like, but far more varied, phenomena were occurring through her. Like myself her position had been that of an agnostic, and the communications to her are very similar to those I have obtained. I had not heard from her in a year previous to the receipt of this letter. I have been told of two or three other cases, so far unknown to the public, all occurring within the year, and to non-spiritualists. And I judge from magazine articles written by such well-known people as O. B. Frothingham, Elizabeth Phelps Ward, and M. J. Savage, as well as from public utterances of Mrs. Livermore and others, that this wave of communication from some not fully understood source is far more extensive than is generally suspected. It is, therefore, time that all whose opinions may have weight, who have personal knowledge of such phenomena, relate what they have seen or experienced in order that these experiences may be compared, and the real source from which they emanate may be discovered, if possible.

One other strange experience in this line came to me a few years ago at the bedside of a dear friend at the point of death, which, perhaps, may be related in this connection. It was near midnight; death was momentarily expected. All the other watchers, exhausted by days of grief and care, were snatching an hour of rest; and I stood alone looking at the unconscious face before me which was distinctly visible, though the light was heavily shaded to keep the glare from the dying eyes. All her life my friend had been a Christian believer, with an unwavering faith in a life beyond this, and for her sake a bitter grief came upon me because, so far as I could see, there were no grounds for that belief. I thought I could more easily let her go out into the unknown if I could but feel that her hope would be realized, and I put into words this feeling. I pleaded that if there were any of her own departed ones present at this supreme moment could they not and would they not give me some least sign that such was the fact, and I would be content. Slowly over the dying one's face spread a mellow radiant mist—I know no other way to describe it. In a few moments it covered the dying face as with a veil, and spread in a circle of about a foot beyond, over the pillow, the strange yellowish-white light all the more distinct from the partial darkness of the room. Then from the centre of this, immediately over the hidden face, appeared an apparently living face with smiling eyes which looked directly into mine, gazing at me with a look so full of comforting assurance that I could scarcely feel frightened. But it was so real and so strange that I wondered if I were temporarily crazed, and as it disappeared I called a watcher from another room, and went out into the open air for a few moments to recover myself under the midnight stars. When I was sure of myself I returned and took my place again alone. Then I asked that, if that appearance were real and not an hallucination, would it be made once more manifest to me; and again the phenomenon was repeated, and the kind, smiling face looked up at me—a face new to me yet wondrously familiar. Afterwards I recalled my friend's frequent description of her dead father whom she dearly loved, but whom I had never seen, and I could not help the impression that it was his face I saw the hour that his daughter died.



A DECADE OF RETROGRESSION.

BY FLORENCE KELLEY WISCHNEWETZKY.

During the ten years which ended with 1889, the great metropolis of the western continent added to the assessed valuation of its taxable property almost half a billion dollars.

In all other essential respects save one, the decade was a period of retrogression for New York City. Crime, pauperism, insanity, and suicide increased; repression by brute force personified in an armed police was fostered, while the education of the children of the masses ebbed lower and lower. The standing army of the homeless swelled to twelve thousand nightly lodgers in a single precinct, and forty thousand children were forced to toil for scanty bread.

Prostitution, legalized in the purchase of besmirched foreign titles and forced upon the attention of youth in the corrupting annals of the daily press, was flaunted publicly as never before. Scientists competed for the infamous distinction of inventing appliances for murder by electricity, while in the domain of politics the sale of votes in the closing years of the decade was more notorious than at any period of the city's history. In a society in which all things are commodities to be had for money, the labor power of stalwart men and tiny children, the innocence of delicately cherished girlhood, the marriage tie, the virtue of the servant, and the manhood of the statesman, it is eminently fitting that the record of progress should be kept officially in dollars and cents.

This is done in all our communities in the report of the disbursing officer who is known in New York City under the title of the Comptroller. His report shows what money the city spends, the sources from which it is derived, and the purposes for which it is used. The following data taken from statement "G" of his report for '89, may be readily verified, and will prove, upon examination of the original, to be but few among many conspicuous indications of retrogression.

Expressed in dollars and cents, then, the growth of pauperism and crime was such in the decade which began with 1880, that we now spend more than a million each year in excess of the sum spent then for the same purposes. If we have grown in population so rapidly that the percentages remain unchanged, the fact cannot be ascertained for want of data. Nor is it important. The weighty fact is this, that pauperism and crime have gained upon us. Riches are greater and poverty is greater.

The moral and social retrogression indicated in this item of the Comptroller's report is thrown into bold relief by another item, the expenditures for schools. While the paupers and criminals have grown upon us by an annual expenditure of more than a million in excess of the sum needed in 1879, the school children's share of the public funds has grown by less than a million in excess of the requirements of 1879.

More shameful still is this retrogression when the item of police expenditure is considered, for this exceeds outright the appropriation for the Department of Education, and has grown more rapidly than the expenditure for schools. It appears that, under existing conditions, when property appreciates half a billion in value, it is necessary to have four and one half millions' worth of police to watch over and protect the half-billions' increase in assessed value from the ravages of our paupers and criminals.

It seems also that in 1879 our police cost less than our schools, while they now cost more. The problem assumes a still greater aspect when the expenditure for paupers, criminals, and police are taken together, for it then appears that they cost nearly twice as much as the schools.

Thus the community is clearly moving in the direction of more demoralized masses of population kept in check by the brute force of an armed police, since each year the excess grows which is spent for paupers, criminals, and police over the expenditure for education.

One retrogressive influence fails to find positive official expression, and is, therefore, the more worthy of notice. This is the collusion among officials to reduce primary school attendance. The Board of Estimate and Apportionment never approves the full appropriation made for the schools. The Board of Education strives to live well within the sum allowed it, and crowds the greatest possible number of children upon each teacher, the regular enrolment being seventy primary pupils per teacher. Then to parry the charge of over-filling schoolrooms, it becomes the duty of the principal to reduce the enrolment per schoolhouse to the lowest point. Therefore, when a zealous Sunday-school teacher finds that one of her little charges has gone to work under age, the offices of the city's solitary factory inspector being out of the question, she hunts up a truant officer, who takes the child before a magistrate, who, in view of the want of school accommodations, promptly discharges the truant. Behind our local municipal administration lies our whole system of capitalistic production, calling for cheap hands and profit, not humane culture. And the school authorities do but seek to supply the demand of that system for lads who can read the papers enough to vote with the machine, and write and cipher enough to be available as clerks.

Everything beyond this being unprofitable, the great mass of our city children are turned out of school at the ages of ten, eleven, and twelve years, to furnish "cheap" hands for industrial purposes.

The Comptroller's report is substantiated, moreover, by the concurrent testimony of the State Superintendent of Education, who laments that:—[14]

[14] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1888, p. 12.

"There is a large, uneducated class in the State, and our statistics show that it is growing larger. The attendance upon the schools has not kept pace with the advance of population. Recent legislation forbids the employment of children under thirteen years of age in any manufacturing establishment, but no adequate provision is made for gathering them into schools, and the number in the streets grows more rapidly than the number in the schools. Indeed, nothing practical has ever been done in this State by way of compelling attendance upon the schools. The result is sadly apparent and the premonitions are full of warning."

In 1889 (p. 13) the same official, Mr. Andrew S. Draper, says:—[15]

[15] Report State Superintendent of Education. Report 1889, p. 13.

"The total attendance upon the schools, when compared with the whole number of school age, has grown less and less with strange uniformity."

The factory inspectors in their report for 1886, say, p. 15:—

"The ignorance is something alarming. Thousands of children born in this country, or who came here in early childhood, are unable to write; almost as many are unable to read, and still other thousands can do little more than write their own name. Possibly one third of the affidavits of the parents examined by us in the factory towns were signed with a crossmark, and it seemed to us that when the children who now require these affidavits grow up and have children of their own about whom to make affidavit, the proportion of crossmarks to the papers will not be decreased."

"Children born in Europe, and who lately came to this country, are much better informed than the children born and reared in our own State, and this condition of affairs has also been remarked by the factory inspectors of other States. Very few American-born children could tell the year of their birth, State they lived in, or spell the name of their native town."

In the midst of his gloom, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics courageously endeavors to show that wages have increased for men in the labor organizations. But in so doing, he merely whistles to keep up his courage, for he dare not investigate now, as he did in 1883 and 1884, the employment of women and children, lest he show how much worse their condition has become during the intervening years, and thereby forfeit forever his position of laureate to the powers that be.

The omission of a State census in 1885 was a breach of the Constitution for which no previous decade affords a precedent, and the absence of a school census becomes, year by year, a graver sin of omission as the pressure of economic conditions makes child labor more widespread and more injurious.

In default of the State census and of adequate information from the State Bureau of Labor Statistics, and of efficient factory inspection, an eager welcome awaited the statement touching New York City, published in Mr. Carroll D. Wright's report of the National Department of Labor upon the working women in twenty cities, whereof the following speaks for itself.

Mr. Carroll D. Wright's report for 1889:—

"As respects ventilation, a properly regulated workshop is the exception. The average room is either stuffy and close, or hot and close, and even where windows abound they are seldom opened. Toilet facilities are generally scant and inadequate, a hundred workers being dependent sometimes on a single closet or sink, and that, too often, out of order."

"Actual ill-treatment by employers seems to be infrequent; kindness, justice, and cordial relations are the rule."

It would be interesting to discover the idea entertained at the department as to what constitutes ill-treatment.

"Out of 18,000 women investigated, the largest number, 2,647 earn $200 and under $250 per annum, 2,377 earn from $250 to $300. The concentration, it will be seen by consulting the tables, comes on earnings ranging from $150 per year to $350 per year."

"It is quite clear from the various investigations that have been made, that there is little, if any, improvement in the amount of earnings which a woman can secure by working in the industries open to her; her earnings are not only ridiculously low, but dangerously so."

"The summary by cities, tables xxx, pp. 530 to 531, would seem to indicate that the majority are now in receipt of fair wages when the whole body of working women is considered."

When such self-contradictory "information" is placed before the public as the fruit of investigation, the question arises whether the Department of Labor is not one more link in that chain of appliances for confusing the voter which embraces a dozen State bureaus of irrelevant reformation created chiefly within the last decade. Certainly in comparison with the first report of Mr. Wright's Massachusetts incumbency, the present one indicates a retrogression as marked as it is injurious.

Defective as it is, however, this information is the latest that we have, and it indicates terrible poverty among the better situated manual workers.

The average wages of the employed during employment being decidedly less than a dollar a day, it is not strange that homelessness grows and the police department reports:—

"As will be seen, the enormous number of 4,649,660 cheap lodgings were furnished during the year, to which should be added the 150,812 lodgings furnished in the station-houses, making a total of 4,800,472. If tenement-house life leads to immorality and vice, certainly the fifty-eight lodging-houses in the Eleventh Precinct, furnishing 1,243,200 lodgings in one year, must have the same or a worse tendency. Reflection upon the figures contained in the above will lead to the conclusion that we have a large population of impecunious people (all males) which ought to be regarded with some concern. It is shown above that an average of 13,152 persons, without homes and the influence of family, lodged nightly in the station-houses, and in these poorly provided dormitories, an army of idlers willing or forced. It is respectfully submitted that social reformers would here find a field for speculation, if not for considerable activity."

Into whose hands can our half a billion of added wealth have wandered, that it leaves more than twelve thousand human beings homeless throughout the year? And is the growth of such poverty, not retrogression?

It is urged from time to time that New York is no typical study for American conditions because of the immigration that forever flows through it, and the abnormally large proportion of the "unfittest" left as our residuum. But in comparison with the armies of the unfit systematically produced by our industrial system, the stratum of residuum deposited in the metropolis by the flood of immigration rolling westward, is too trivial to disturb the equanimity of candid observers. Only the perverted vision which leads New York's most famous charitable institutions to imprison beggars and kidnap the children of the very poor in the name of philanthropy, can so confuse cause and effect. If we were civilized, if we were doing the nation's work in an orderly manner, every recruit would be so much clear gain. It is the disorganization of our moribund industrial system which leaves no welcome for the immigrants save as the tenement-house agent may bleed them, and the sweating contractor "grind their bones to make his bread." It is this disorganization which turns the source of our finest reinforcement into a means of demoralization and temporary retrogression.

We have seen that in accumulated wealth, the city of New York increased by nearly half a billion dollars in the past ten years. A fair share of this material wealth was doubtless derived from the application of electricity to human uses, for that was pre-eminently the decade of electricity.

Yet, even in this respect the metropolis failed to hold its own. For, while the substitution of electricity for horse power has gone rapidly forward in the small cities of the West and South, New York has suffered an extension of its slow, filthy, and pest-breeding horse-car transportation. There can be little doubt that the unspeakable state of the streets contributed largely to the deadliness of the epidemic which raged at the close of 1889.

Nor was the electric lighting of New York more successfully developed than the use of electricity for transportation. The last night of the ten years found the city buried in stygian gloom, because the duty of lighting its streets is still a matter of private profit; and the insolent corporation which fattens upon this franchise surrendered the privilege of murdering its linemen unpunished, only when its poles were cut and its wires torn down. A more classic application of the Vanderbilt motto in action it would be hard to find, or a more thorough demonstration of the inadequacy of capitalism to rule the genii itself has summoned. Characteristic of the low plane of humane feeling in State and city is the substitution of the electrician for the hangman in judicial murder, at a time when the effort is general upon the Eastern Continent to abolish capital punishment.

As the application of electricity rose pre-eminently characteristic of the past decade among the uses of science, so architecture towered above all other arts. Yet, for one problem solved after the magnificent fashion of the Brooklyn bridge and the Dacotahs, hundreds of plans were devised with delicate ingenuity for filling up with bricks and mortar the small remaining air space in the rear of tenement blocks. And this noblest and most humane of all the arts was degraded in the service of millionnaire land-owners and sub-letting agents until the problem of to-day is, how to kennel the greatest mass of human beings upon the least area with smallest allowance of air, and light, and water, without infringing the building laws. One of the simplest solutions is superimposing floor upon floor, so compelling tired women and puny children to mount narrow, dark, and gloomy stairs, and increasing to its maximum the danger of fire. The Egyptian pyramids and the catacombs of Rome centuries ago were not poorer in healthful light and air than were these homes of our fellow-citizens in our own decade of retrogression.

But does this mean that our civilization is a failure, and the prime of life past for the Republic? Far from it. It means, I take it, that capitalism has done its work, and has become a hindrance, that the old industrial and social forms are inadequate to the new requirements and must be remodelled, and that promptly. It is now nearly half a century since Karl Marx wrote the following words, but they apply to the New York of to-day, as though he were among us and suffering with us:—

"It is the sad side which produces the movement that makes history by engendering struggle.... From day to day it becomes more clear that the conditions of production under which the capitalist class exists, are not of a homogeneous and simple character, but are two-sided, duplex; and that in the same proportion in which wealth is produced, poverty is produced also; that in the same proportion in which there is development of the productive forces, there is also developed a force that begets repression; that these conditions only generate middle class wealth by continuously destroying the wealth of individual members of that class, and by producing an ever-growing proletariat."



OLD HICKORY'S BALL.

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE.

It was in the year of our Lord 1806; the season, September; in the State of Tennessee, and the tenth year of its age, as a State.

The summer was over, the harvests ripe, the year growing ruddy. Down in the cotton fields the balls had begun to burst, and the "hands," with their great baskets, to trudge all day down the long rows, singing in that dreamy, dolefully musical way which belongs alone to the tongue of the Southern slaves and to the Southern cotton fields. Across the fields, and the rich, old clover bottoms that formed a part of the Hermitage farm, the buzz of a cotton gin could be distinctly heard, adding its own peculiar note to the music of Southern nature.

A cotton gin! it was a rare possession in those days, and General Jackson's was known from Nashville to New Orleans. Indeed, the whole of the previous year's crop had not yet been disposed of. The great bales were heaped about, waiting for the flat-boats that would carry them up the Cumberland, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and land them at the great New Orleans market. A slow trip for the bulky bales. Could they have foreseen the time when the tedious river's journey would be shortened to one day's run over a steel track, what must the big bales have thought! And those gigantic heaps of cotton seed which all the cows in the county could not have consumed, could they have "peered into the future" and found themselves in the lard cans! The old gin would have groaned aloud could it have known that it was buzzing itself into history as surely as was the tall, spare, erect man coming across the field in the late afternoon to see that the day's work was well done.

What a heroic figure! and a face that even in youth bore the impress of a man marked by destiny for daring deeds. Imperious in temper, majestic in courage, and unyielding in will, he was one born to lay hold of fate and bend it to his desires. Yet, there was a timidity in the eye which no danger could make quail. And when down the lane there came the clatter of horses' hoofs striking the hard, dry earth, and with the horses a vision of long, dark skirts waving like black banners in the breeze made by the hurrying steeds, the owner of the cotton gin stepped within and beyond the vision of the lady visitors.

But they were not to be out-generaled even by a general; and straight up to the gin the horses were headed.

"General Jackson," one of the ladies—there were but two—called to the timid hero who had run away at her approach. Instantly he appeared. He wore a large, white beaver hat, the broad brim half-shading the clear-cut, strongly outlined features. When he lifted it, even Beauty could not fail to notice the high and noble forehead, the quick, eager eye, and the delicate flush that swept across the patrician features. "General Jackson, I have come in the name of charity. No, no, you need not take out your wallet. We are not asking money."

A smile played across the strong, thin lips. "How?" said he, "doesn't charity always mean 'money'? I was of the impression the terms were synonymous."

"Then for once own yourself in the wrong," laughed Beauty. "We have come to ask the privilege of a charity ball at the Hermitage."

"A what?"

"A charity ball; and at the Hermitage."

A most comically pleased expression came into the earnest eyes of the master for an instant. Only an instant, and then a heavy frown contracted his forehead. A flash of scorn in the clear eye, and a curl of the proud, sensitive lip, told of the suppressed anger that had suddenly smitten him.

"The Hermitage," said he, "is the home of my wife. She is its mistress, and to her is confided its honor and the honor of its master. To her belongs, and to her alone, the right to choose its guests, and to open its doors to her friends. I am surprised you should come to me with your request."

Ah! she was forearmed; how fortunate. Beauty smiled triumphantly. "But your servant who opened the gate, told us that Mrs. Jackson was not at home."

"Ah!" the frown instantly vanished, and the hand ever ready to strike for her he loved with such deathless devotion was again lifted to the broad old beaver.

"I think," said he, "in that case I may answer for Mrs. Jackson, and pledge for her the hospitality of the Hermitage for—charity."

Again he lifted his hat; across the fields the sound of a whistle had come to him, and a servant waited, with polite patience, near by with the horse that was to carry his master down to the river where the boats were waiting to be inspected—the new boats which, like everything pertaining to the master of the Hermitage, were to have a place in history.

"Ladies," said he, "charity is not the only voice calling upon the Hermitage farmer. Our country,"—he waved his hand toward the river where the boats were being builded,—"or one who nobly represents her, is calling for those vessels now in the course of construction yonder."

"Will there be war?"

How the clear eyes danced and shone beneath that question which over and over again he had put to his own heart,—"Will there be war?"

"We hope so," he replied. "All the West wishes it, the people demand it, and the time is ripe for it. Already a leader has been chosen for it; those boats were ordered by him."

"Colonel Burr?"

"Aye, Aaron Burr."

* * * * *

The night was balmy and deliciously fragrant with the odors of cedar and sweet old pine. Balmy and silent, save for a rebellious mocking-bird that trilled and trolled, and seemed trying to split its musical little throat in a honeysuckle bush before the open window of a little "two-story" log house set back from the road in a tangle of plum trees, wild rose-bushes, and sweet old cedars.

Every window was wide open, and from both windows and doors streamed a flood of light, to guide and welcome the guests who came by twos, and threes, and half dozens to the Hermitage ball. They were not in full-dress array, for most of the guests were equestrians, or equestriennes, and brought their finery in the little leathern band-boxes securely buckled to the saddle-horse. Stealthily the fair ones dismounted, and stealthily crept along the low piazza, through the side room, carefully past the pretentious "big room," and up the stairs, a narrow little wooden concern, each tenderly hugging her precious band-box.

There were but three rooms below, barring the dining-room which was cut off by the low piazza. The stairway went up from Mrs. Jackson's little bedroom into a duplicate guest-chamber above. Two others, as diminutive, one above and below, were tucked onto these. And this, with the big room, was the Hermitage. A very unpretentious cabin was the first Hermitage; the humble and honored roof of Rachel and Andrew Jackson, the couple standing under the waxen candles in the big room waiting to receive their guests. The master was resplendent, if uncomfortable, in his silken stockings, buckles, and powder, and rich velvet. For, whatever his faults, he was no coxcomb, and the knee breeches and finery had only been assumed for that one occasion, at the "special request" of charity's fair committee.

The vest of richly embroidered silk was held at the waist with a glittering brilliant, and left open to the throat, as if in deference to the flutes, and frills, and delicate laces of the white shirt bosom. There was a glitter at the knees where the silver buckles caught now and then a gleam from the waxen candles dangling from the low ceiling in a silver and iridescent chandelier, to the imminent peril of the white roll of powdered hair surmounting the tall general's forehead. At his side, proud, calm, and queenly in her womanly dignity and virtue, stood Rachel, the beloved mistress of the Hermitage. Her dress of stiff and creamy silk could add nothing to the calm serenity of the soul beaming from the gentle eyes, whose glance, tender and fond, strayed now and then to the figure of her husband, and rested for a brief moment upon the strong, gentle face with something akin to reverence in their shadowy depths. Her face, beautiful and beneficent, was not without a shadow: a shadow which grief had set there to mellow, but could not mar, the gentle sweetness of the patient features.

There was the sound of banjo and fiddle, as one by one the dusky musicians from the cabins ranged themselves along the wall of the big room, which had been cleared of its furnishings, and young feet came hurrying in when the old Virginia reel sounded through, the low rooms, calling to the dance.

More than one set of ivories shone at door and windows where the slaves gathered to "see the whi' folks dance." But prominent and conspicuous, in a suit as nearly resembling his master's as might be, and in a position at the immediate right hand of the slave who played the bass viol, stood Caesar, the general's favorite man-servant. He bore himself with the same courtly dignity, the same dignified courtesy, and had stationed himself beside the viol in order to have a more thorough view of the dancers, and above all of his beloved master. He had faithfully ushered in the last guest, and had hurried to his place in order to see General Jackson step down the long line of dancers and bow to his partner. Not for worlds would he have missed that bow, to him the perfection of grace and dignity.

Two by two the couples entered, crossed to the centre of the room and bowed each other to their places opposite in the long, wall-like line which characterizes the stately reel.

The ladies dropped like drooping lilies for one brief moment in the midst of their silken stiffness, skirts that "stood alone," and made their courtesies to their swains with proper maiden modesty.

Caesar saw it all from his post of vantage near the big viol, but he was not interested in the visitors, he knew what they could do. He was waiting to see his master "lay 'em all in the shade bimeby." Of course he would open the ball. He wasn't fond of dancing but it was the custom of the day, and he and Miss Rachel "knew their manners."

But for once the custom of the day was changed. Caesar was destined to disappointment. Mrs. Jackson's rustling silk announced her approach before she appeared, leaning, not upon the arm of the general, but in company with a florid, rather fleshy gentleman, no stranger, however, to the Hermitage hospitality. Much to the negro's chagrin he led her to the very head of the long lines of bright dresses and gay gallants, and stepped himself, as Caesar declared, "like a young cock," into the general's own place opposite. The master stood at the very foot, the escort of a lady Caesar had never set eyes upon before, and who for the life of him he could not forgive for being the general's partner.

He was grievously disappointed, so that when the florid fat gentleman at the head danced down between the gay columns, and made his manners to the lady at the foot, as gallantly as anyone could have done, Caesar expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard by the very gentleman himself.

"Mr. Grundy tryin' step mighty high to-night," he said.

But it was when "Miss Rachel" danced down in her silken skirts and met the master midway the line, and dropped a low courtesy, her full skirts settling about her like a great white umbrella, and the stately general bowed over his silver buckles like some royal knight of old, that Caesar's enthusiasm got the better of his indignation.