But, says Mr. Savage, these advantages would be attended by a frightful "paradise of officialism"—a helpless subordination—in which "the individual if not an officer would only count one!" We cannot appreciate the horror of having more of "a paradise" about officialism than we have in our present corrupt, inconstant, and servile system of political Bossism, even if the individual could only "count one." But Mr. Savage does know, or ought to know, that the very first step of Nationalism is to nationalize our "politics," so as to restore the initiative of political action to the people, and render the abuses to which he refers impossible. He seems to suppose that Nationalism is to be executed by Tammany Hall! Indeed, his capital as an opponent of Nationalism consists in loading it up with European paternalism and American political corruption, both of which it was invented to render impossible. Suppose the "politics" of New York were nationalized so that the City should no longer be a mere annex of Tammany Hall, but so that every citizen might "count one," under legal provisions for the vote and expression of the people without regard to party or boss—who would be wronged? Politics must be annexed to our government by such legal provisions, instead of being left to boss monopoly or mobocracy. There is no freedom possible without a common law and order to ensure and protect it. The trouble is now that all of our politics are outside of any law or order. "Count one!" Even that is now impossible. We don't count at all, no more than if we lived in Russia. But how many does Mr. Savage want an individual to count? His idea of political freedom seems to be that of our old "free" Fire Department, which was a monopoly entirely "voluntary." It gave us a fire and free fight nearly every night, developed its "Big Six" Tweed into a "statesman," and consolidated Tammany Hall into the model political "combine" of the world—as a monopoly. The custom is to dispose of the offices of the people as profitably as it can with safety, and to divide the proceeds for the benefit of the combine. One of our purest and best judges publishes his last contribution as $10,000, besides his other election expenses. This is the model to which the State and Nation must conform, for such is the condition of success. Under that plan Governor Hill manages the State of New York, and President Harrison, through "Boss" Platt, has just removed Collector Erhardt from the New York custom house, under the imperative necessity of the same method.

As long as our Government is run by partisan politics, outside of law, there is no other alternative but this way or defeat. The pretence, under this method, of civil service reform or fair tenure is sheer hypocrisy. The Tammany method is the only condition of success, and every practical politician knows it and adopts it. Nationalism proposes the only remedy. It would remove every department from political control, and restore the political initiative to the people by requiring their common action under general laws for that purpose, and suppressing as criminal the Boss conspiracy system, which causes the counting of less than one by anyone. Do you say it cannot be done? Well! look at that Fire Department. The indignation of "the State" finally replaced it by a paid civil service, "nationalized" department. Since then our fire affairs have run cheaply, effectively, smoothly, though in a most trying environment. Fires seldom occur, and seldom extend beyond the building in which they occur. The old abuses, political and other, have stopped. The men, appointed and promoted for merit, are highly respected and secured against causeless removal, accident, sickness, and old age. "Helpless subordination" ended by an appeal to the law which gave prompt redress. The heads of the departments and the officers count one and the attempt to count more would be an assumption not submitted to for a moment, for no one needs to submit. Extend this method mutatis mutandis over our Cities, States, and Nation, and also over legalized political election departments for the whole people,—and the nail will be hit on the head! The last nail in the coffin of party monopoly and corruption.

To excuse himself from not aiding this reform Mr. Savage cries, visionary, unpracticable! Thus he says:—

"3. Nobody is ready to talk definitely about any other kind of Nationalism ["Military Socialism" meaning], for nobody has outlined any working method. If it is only what everybody freely wishes done,—and this seems to be the Rev. Francis Bellamy's idea—then, it is hard to distinguish it from individualism. At any rate it is not yet clear enough to be clearly discussed."

All this shows Mr. Savage to be strangely misinformed. The Rev. Francis Bellamy is right. Every impartial person does want the kind of Nationalism Nationalists are after, as soon as their minds are disabused of this foolish talk about military despotism, and helpless subordination, etc., for every one can see that it works for the liberty, equality, and welfare of all.

Misinformed, is the word for Mr. Savage. For if he had kept but one eye on this world, as Humboldt said every well regulated chameleon and priest is in the habit of doing, he would have known that every word of this "No. 3," above quoted, is exactly wrong: To wit: The other kind of Nationalism, which is not military despotism, has not only been definitely talked about but definitely put in practice, not only in the New York Fire Department, but in our schools, roads, canals, waterworks, post-office, and in many other ways the world over! And never ("hardly ever") has monopoly been able to recover its chance to tyrannize and rob!

"No definite talk"! Yet our present Postmaster-General is asking Congress for the postal telegraph; and the Interstate Commerce Law is to be made practical to head off the People's Party? Let Mr. Savage pick up the very same August ARENA which contains his article, and read the clear and definite articles of C. Wood Davis, "Should the Nation own the Railways?" and of R. B. Hassell, on "Money at Cost," and then tell the Editor with a straight face that they are not "clear enough to be clearly discussed!" The facts, laws, and arguments are definitely there, and clearly discussed. Why have we not the discerning eyes and impartial brains of Mr. Savage to read them?

We ask Mr. Savage to bring such eyes and brains to bear, and we defy him to show any other plan by which the fatal monopolies, which are natural or beyond competition, can be usefully and safely checked, controlled, or destroyed. The attempts to do this by legal prosecutions have notoriously failed. How to replace monopolies and yet increase the benefits they have conferred is the question of our age, and Nationalism answers it. Mr. Savage, as we have shown, admits the difficulty. We are entitled then to a practical answer, or to silence. Ridicule, however witty, is neither answer nor remedy.

But instead of silence we have his amusing "fourth and lastly," thus:—

"4. Nationalism, as commonly understood, could mean nothing else but the tyranny of the commonplace."

The way in which Nationalism is commonly understood or misunderstood, is not the question; but how is it correctly understood,—that is the concern of every fair mind. When thus understood it seems to be just what Mr. Savage wants. For he agrees with Mr. Bellamy that if "it is only what everybody freely wishes done," then it would be his "individualism" and all right. Thus he approves of democracy; for, he says, "it only looks after certain public affairs, while the main part of the life of the individual is free." This is Nationalism to a dot! Yet he strangely concludes: "That Nationalism, freely chosen, would be the murder of Liberty, and social suicide." But if "freely chosen" will it not be the same as his individualism? and what everybody wants,—and so all right? Such would be his democracy certainly, but then how can this Nationalism also "freely chosen" commit murder and suicide, and both at once? Strange! That certainly would not be the tyranny of the commonplace.

Neither would Nationalism in any correct sense be such tyranny; and for these reasons:—

1. Government would for the first time in the history of the world, evolve beyond paternalism. It would be industrial cooperative administration, for the equal benefit of all, protection of the liberty of all, and such defence and restraint only as these main objects require. Government would thus be the material foundation upon which liberty, originality, and the original—the uncommonplace—could stand and be protected. The key to liberty is the "separation of the temporal and spiritual powers;" but Nationalism does even more than that. It limits Government to the provision of the common needs of all, and then protects all, in the enjoyment of their "uncommon-place." Read for instance the remarkable article of Oscar Wilde on "The Soul of Man under Socialism." He expresses the feeling of the artists and poets of the world. They want Nationalism so that originality and free healthy development may at last have a chance,—and an audience. What the people need in order to become an audience is the same thing that originality needs, emancipation from drudgery and from the dependence of parasitism.

2. This emancipation can come only from the great saving of time and of waste by Nationalism; and the division of labor by which it will enable each to follow the occupation to which he is inclined, and to which he will be the best prepared by nature and education. Man is an active animal, and the condition of life is that of some work. Now the work is imposed by the tyranny of man and circumstances; then it will be rather a matter of choice. In the order instead of the anarchy of industry there will be some relief. To use the grand prophecy of Fourier:—

"When the series distributes the harmonies, The attractions will determine the destinies."

Given a material foundation for man and his education, so that he may have the mental and material means of acting his part, and continuing his development, then the individual will have inherited an environment in which life will be worth living, and which only the favored inherit now. Civilization will certainly have ever new demands in order to equate its ever changing conditions; and ambition, heroism, and originality will simply rise to newer and higher fields. The idea that the temporal state will not continue to encourage and protect liberty, genius, and originality is most absurd. That has been its general course against the sects and monopolists of religion and opinion which have ever been the persecutors. Mr. Savage throws down a queer jumble of names, viz.: "Homer, Virgil, Isaiah, Jesus, Dante, Shakespeare, Angelo, Copernicus, Galileo, Goethe, Luther, Servetus, Newton, Darwin, Spencer, and Galvani,"—and says, "consider them," where would they have been before the "governing board" of Nationalism? We consider and answer: every one of them would have been free, and protected and encouraged in the exercise of his highest gifts.

Even under such defective government as then existed, each had its aid and support, and each was persecuted by the monopolistic sects and factions sure to get authority in the absence of some general temporal control, which is absolutely necessary for the purpose of protecting freedom of thought, of expression, and of action. From Homer's chieftain, Virgil's emperor, Goethe's duke, on to the end of the list, we owe all they have done for us to the temporal governments of their time, with a possible exception of Spencer, more apparent than real. Even the Roman Pilate (if we are to take the reports?) let Jesus have a freedom to tramp and preach in Palestine that would not be allowed in Boston for a day, and then stood by him, and when compelled, by the unnationalized nature of his office, to give up to the Anthony Comstocks and the priestly Monopolists and Pharisees of that day, he nobly said, "I find no fault in him," and publicly washed his hands of the whole bloody affair. So was it with Servetus. Temporal, much less a nationalized, Switzerland would have rescued him from the clutches of the Calvinistic monopoly of Geneva. "Toleration?" repeats Mr. Savage tauntingly. We reply, yes! We want a general temporal government which will protect liberty, and ensure that every priest, sect, fanatic, and phase of thought and opinion shall tolerate every other. This Nationalism only can do.

We insist, and have for years, that the government monopolies of opinions, morals, and force, farmed out to amateur societies of Comstocks and Pinkertons, should be withdrawn. If necessary to public safety, let power be exercised only by the government directly responsible to the people. It is this attempt to govern by monopolies in the interest of sects or industrial classes that gave rise to every one of the abuses to which the editor of THE ARENA has well called attention as "outrages of government." They are only outrages of government by monopolies for monopolies, and which it is the fundamental condition and mission of Nationalism to end forever. In all these cases, and in every case, the advocates and apologists of Anarchy, or of Laissez-faire must not mistake their position, they are inevitably the allies of the oppressor. The integration of special classes, sects, and interests, is the natural law making "toleration" more and more impossible. The integral integration, then, of all for the equal support, and for the equal protection of all, in mutual harmony and progress, is the only condition of our liberty, peace, and safety. No rule in Arithmetic is plainer than this law of Sociology, and Nationalism is its expression.



"RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD PLAY-BILLS."[5]

BY CHARLES H. PATTEE.

[5] Copyright by Charles H. Pattee.

In offering to the public my recollections of old play-bills I cannot be said to be travelling over familiar ground. For it is worthy of remark that while many bygone periods of theatrical history have found their chroniclers, their panegyrists, their enthusiastic remembrances, the space filled by the events of the Boston stage of 1852 to the present day has remained without a comprehensive survey, without a careful retrospect of its many notable and brilliant illustrations. To supply this void, to endeavor at once to preserve the memories of past grandeurs (already fading with the generation who enjoyed them), and to furnish to the younger portion of theatre-goers some conception of what the stage has been in its "palmy days," I have employed my leisure in putting together this history of old play-bills. The changes which have overspread modern society, vast and manifold as they are admitted to be, are, perhaps, nowhere more perceptible than in the region known as the theatrical world. To one who has formed a link in that chain which formerly connected the higher ranks of society with the taste for dramatic art—with the cultivation of the beautiful and imaginative in both opera and drama—to such a one the contemplation of the altered relations now between the patrons of the drama and the ministers of art suggest many comparisons. The first stage performance I ever witnessed will not easily be forgotten. It took place in the Boston Museum in 1850; the plays were "Speed the Plough," and a local drama (now happily banished from the stage) called "Rosina Meadows." Thomas Comer, who was leader of the Museum orchestra, a gentleman, actor, and musician, took me under his charge and seated me in the orchestra near the bass-drum and cymbals, where I remained until the end of the performance. The time flew in unalloyed delight until the fatal green curtain shut out all hope of future enjoyment. William Warren, W. H. Sedley Smith, Louis Mestayer, J. A. Smith, Adelaide Phillips, Louisa Gann, who became the wife of Wulf Fries, the celebrated 'cello player, residing in Boston, Mrs. Judah and Mr. and Mrs. Thoman, all of whom are dead with the exception of J. A. Smith, who is now an inmate of the Forrest Home in Holmesburg, Penn., and Mrs. Thoman, who was a charming actress, and for several seasons a great favorite with the Museum patrons. She was divorced from Thoman and became the wife of a Mr. Saunders, a lawyer residing in San Francisco, who died some years since. Mrs. Saunders is now living in the above city in retirement, and through the kindness of her cousin, Joseph Jefferson, is enjoying the ease of a genteel competence.

William Warren and Adelaide Phillips were the first performers who ever made a lasting impression upon me. William Warren, great as an artist and as a man. With pleasure do I pause from the record of events to present a description of the illustrious actor. He has now passed away, and to future generations the faithful description of one who delighted their fathers, and who can never be replaced, will surely prove welcome. He made his first appearance in Boston at the Howard Athenaeum, Oct. 5, 1846, as Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the "Rivals" (the same character that W. J. Florence is now personating with the Jefferson combination). Mr. Warren remained at the Athenaeum but one season, and during that time commanded the admiration of his audiences. Mr. Charles W. Hunt, a very good actor, had held the position of comedian at the Boston Museum for several seasons, but owing to some misunderstanding, left the establishment. Mr. Warren was engaged to fill the vacancy, and on the night of the 23d of August, 1847, he made his first appearance on the stage of the Museum as Billy Lackaday in the old comedy of "Sweethearts and Wives," and as Gregory Grizzle in the farce of "My Young Wife and Old Umbrella," and from that time, with the exception of one year's recession (1864-5) to the termination of the season of 1882-3, was a member of the Museum company. Thirty-six years is a long test applied to modern performers, and he that could pass such an ordeal of time, must possess merits of the very highest order, such as could supersede the call for novelty, and make void the fickleness of general applause. All this Warren effected. The public, so far from being wearied at the long-continued cry of Warren, elevated him, if possible, into greater favoritism yearly. But his place is not to be supplied. No other actor can half compensate his loss. Independent of his faculties as an actor, so great a lover was he of his art that he would undertake with delight a character far beneath his ability. Other actors will not condescend to do this or else fear to let themselves down by doing so. Warren had no timidities about assuming a lesser part, nor did he deem it condescension. Artists of questionable greatness may deem it a degradation to personate any save a leading part. Warren felt that he did not let himself down, he raised the character to his own elevation. From this it follows that no great actor within my recollection had undertaken such a variety of characters. He was found in every possible grade of representation. His acting forms a pleasant landing place in my memory. As I wander backward, no other actor has ever so completely exemplified my idea of what a genuine comedian ought to be. He gained the highest honors that could be bestowed upon him in Boston, and established his claim to be considered one of the most chaste and finished of American actors. From Sir Peter Teazle to John Peter Pillicoddy, from Jesse Rural to Slasher, from Haversack to Box and Cox, he was equally great and efficient. I have heard it remarked that the late W. Rufus Blake stood without a rival as Jesse Rural, while Henry Placide was the best of Sir Peter Teazles. Never having witnessed the performances of those gentlemen, I am unable to speak of their merits, as older writers have sounded their praises for a generation. Saturday, Oct. 28, 1882, was the fiftieth anniversary of Mr. Warren's adoption of the stage. The entertainment consisted of an afternoon and evening performance. The "Heir at Law," constituted the bill for the day performance, and "School for Scandal," was given in the evening. It was impossible indeed for the arrangements to be more perfectly accomplished. The character of the audiences was even more gratifying than its numbers. Never had been such an assemblage in any theatre. A great number of elderly persons, both men and women, interspersed with the younger people, gave a beautiful shading to the amphitheatre picture, as it was seen from the boxes. It was a tribute of respect to one who had been so long the pride of Boston. As a matter of record I give the complete cast of the plays:—

HEIR AT LAW.

Dr. Pangloss Wm. Warren Dick Doulas Chas. Barron Zekiel Homespun George Wilson Daniel Doulas A. Hudson Kenrick Jas. Nolan Steadfast J. Burrows Henry Moreland J. B. Mason John Fred Ham Waiter J. S. Maffitt, Jr. Cicely Homespun Annie Clarke Deborah Doulas Mrs. J. R. Vincent Caroline Dormer Norah Bartlett

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL.

Sir Peter Teazle William Warren Charles Surface Chas. Barron Joseph Surface Geo. Parks Sir Oliver Surface A. Hudson Sir Benjamin J. B. Mason Crabtree Geo. Wilson Moses Wm. Seymour Careless Geo. C. Boniface, Jr. Rowley J. Burrows Trip J. Nolan Snake F. Ham Sir Harry J. S. Maffit, Jr. Servant to Joseph A. R. Whytal Servant to Lady Sneerwell Geo. Cohill Lady Teazle Annie Clarke Mrs. Candour Mrs. Vincent Marion Norah Bartlett Lady Sneerwell Kate Ryan



Mr. Warren remained at the Museum during the entire season, and made his last appearance on any stage as old Eccles in "Caste," in May, 1883. From that time to the day of his death, which sad event occurred Sept. 21, 1888, Mr. Warren made Boston his home, residing at No. 2 Bulfinch Place, the residence of Amelia Fisher, where he had lived since the departure of his cousin, Mrs. Thoman, for California, in 1854. Mr. Warren left property to the value of a quarter of a million dollars. He made no public bequests, but bequeathed his entire estate to his relatives. Who is there in Boston that has not heard of Miss Amelia Fisher, the "dear old lady" of Bulfinch Place, where she has lived so many years, and at whose hospitable board so many have been welcomed? Miss Fisher, accompanied by her sisters Jane, afterwards Mrs. Vernon, who was for many years the "first old woman" of the New York stage, and Clara, afterwards Mrs. Gaspard Maeder, married in America in 1827, and made her debut at the Park Theatre, N. Y., singing a duet, "When a Little Farm We Keep," with William Chapman. Miss Fisher was for several seasons attached to the Tremont Theatre in Boston, and although possessing respectable abilities both as singer and actress, never attained the prominent place in the profession accorded to her more talented sisters. Miss Fisher retired from the stage in 1841, and for some years was a teacher of dancing in Boston. For over thirty-seven years Miss Fisher has entertained at her home a swarm of dramatic celebrities. Here Mr. and Mrs. James W. Wallack, Charles Couldock, Peter Richings and his daughter Caroline, Mrs. John Hoey, and Fanny Morant, dined together where, in later days, Joseph Jefferson, George Honey (the celebrated English comedian), Ada Rehan, Annie Pixley, Mr. and Mrs. McKee Rankin, and Mr. and Mrs. Byron, ate their supper in the old kitchen, and were merry with wit and song. Since the death of Mr. Warren, Miss Fisher has not enjoyed good health, although her hospitable board is still surrounded by her friends and guests.

With the name of Adelaide Phillips there are many dear associations. When at seven or eight years of age I went to see her at the Boston Museum, the days she began to sing in "Cinderella" and the "Children of Cyprus." How the old days rise up before me now. She was then in the spring of life, fresh, bright, and serene as a morning in May, perfect in form, her hands and her arms peculiarly graceful, and charming in her whole appearance. She seemed to speak and sing without effort or art. All was nature and harmony. Miss Phillips was a great favorite in Boston where she made her debut at the Tremont Theatre in January, 1842, in the play of "Old and Young," personating five characters, and introducing songs and dances. Although very youthful, she displayed great aptness and evinced remarkable musical talent. On the 25th of September, 1843, she first appeared on the boards of the Boston Museum, which then stood at the corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets, where the Horticultural Hall now stands. The character which she assumed was Little Pickle in the "Spoiled Child." At the opening of the present Museum, Nov. 2, 1846, Miss Phillips was attached to the company as actress-danseuse, and doing all the musical work necessary in the plays of that time. She was a most attractive member of the company, and as Morgiana (Forty Thieves), Lucy Bertram (Guy Mannering), Fairy of the Oak (Enchanted Beauty) was greatly admired. Her first decided success was as Cinderella. She was now about eighteen years of age, and the tones of her voice were rich and pure. She did not aim at "stage effect," and her singing and acting were exquisite. At that time, 1850-51, Jenny Lind was in Boston. Miss Phillips was introduced and sang to her, and her singing was so brilliant, so ringing, so finished, that her hearer was astonished, and uttered exclamations of delight. The noble-hearted Jenny sent her a check for a thousand dollars, and a letter recommending Emanuel Garcia, who had been her own teacher, as the best instructor, and amid all the triumphs of her professional career, the affection and kindness which was showered upon her by Mlle. Lind, and her Boston friends, who came forward to show their willingness to aid Miss Phillips, was never effaced from her mind. After remaining abroad several years, she returned to Boston, appearing at the Boston Theatre Dec. 3, 1855, as Count Belino, in the opera of the "Devil's Bridge," supported by the popular favorite, Mrs. John Wood. She first appeared here in Italian opera a year later as Azucena in "Il Trovatore," Madame La Grange being the Leonora. In this opera Miss Phillips was heard with great effect and never were her talents as an actress more conspicuously displayed. At the conclusion of the performance, the favorite singer received an ovation, applause rang through the theatre; the emotion which was evinced by her friends and admirers was evidently shared by herself. The character of Azucena remained a favorite one with Miss Phillips to the last. The characters in which she excelled were Maffio Orsini (Lucrezia Borgia), Rosina (Barber of Seville), and Leonora (Favorita). In 1879, she joined the Ideal Opera Company, and carried into it her vocal and dramatic culture. She continued with this company until December, 1881, when she made her last appearance on any stage in Cincinnati. Her last appearance in Boston was at the Museum, the home of her earlier triumphs, in the role of Fatinitza, a few months before her departure for the West in 1880. Ill health compelled her to relinquish all her engagements, and on the 12th of August, 1882, accompanied by her sister-in-law, Mrs. Adrian Phillips, who was the Arvilla in the early days of the Museum, sailed for Paris. After a few days' rest in that city, they reached Carlsbad, and took apartments at Konig's Villa, a pension for invalids. A few weeks thus passed until suddenly, on Oct. 3, 1882, the change came, and Adelaide Phillips was gone. The death of this gifted and good woman produced a painful sensation in Boston, and, indeed, all over the country she was deeply regretted. In private life she was amiable and kind-hearted, ever ready to assist the distressed. By her family and friends she was idolized, by the public she was respected for the purity of her life, and admired for her talents. Herewith I give a copy of the "bill" of Miss Phillips' last benefit at the Museum, prior to her departure for Europe.

BOSTON MUSEUM.

FAREWELL BENEFIT OF MISS ADELAIDE PHILLIPS.

Re-engagement of the eminent artists, MR. CHARLES PITT and MRS. BARRETT.

FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE 27, 1851.

THE HONEYMOON.

Duke Aranza C. D. Pitt Rolando L. Mestayer Jacques W. Warren Lampedo J. W. Thoman Count J. A. Smith Balthazar J. L. Monroe Lopez G. H. Finn Campillo A. Bradley Lupez S. F. Palmer Juliana Mrs. Barrett Volante Mrs. Thoman Zamora Miss Adelaide Phillips

In which she will sing "Ah, What Full Delight," from the opera of the "Bohemian Girl."

Hostess Miss Rees

Fancy dance - Miss Arvilla. Comic dance - Masters Adrian and Fred Phillips.

Conclude with

THE SWISS COTTAGE.

Corporal Max L. Mestayer Nat. Tick W. Warren Lisette Miss Adelaide Phillips

In which she will sing "France, I Adore Thee," and "Liberty for Me."

A great attraction in Boston, way back in the fifties, was Anna Cora Mowatt. Her engagements were always very successful, the theatre being crowded with fashionable and intelligent audiences. Mrs. Mowatt was not a great actress. Delicacy was her most marked characteristic. "A subdued earnestness of manner, a soft musical voice, a winning witchery of enunciation, and indeed an almost perfect combination of beauty, grace, and refinement fitted her for a class of characters in which other actresses were incapable of excelling." Mrs. Mowatt was born at Bordeaux, France, during the temporary residence there of her parents about 1820. She married very young, and for a short time enjoyed every luxury that wealth could purchase. Her husband's bankruptcy drove her to the stage, where she made her first appearance at the Park Theatre as Pauline, in "Lady of Lyons," June 13, 1845. Her engagements here in Boston were played at the Howard Athenaeum, then under the management of Mr. Wyzeman Marshall, who still lives, and can be seen upon the principal streets of Boston almost daily. The "houses" were very large, tickets being sold at public auction. At the termination of her engagement she was serenaded at the hotel, and throughout the country she met with the same flattering reception. Mrs. Mowatt's favorite roles were Viola, Rosalind, and Parthenia, characters now fresh in the public mind, made so by Miss Julia Marlowe. Mrs. Mowatt made her last appearance on the stage at Niblo's Theatre, N. Y., on the 3d of June, 1854. On the 7th of that month she became the wife of W. F. Ritchie. Mrs. Ritchie died in Paris a few years since, where she was much regretted by the social circle of which she was the admired star.

In 1852, at the National Theatre, which was situated on Portland Street, Charlotte Cushman commenced her farewell to the stage in the tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet." Charlotte Cushman was now at the summit of her art. She was universally allowed to be the greatest tragedienne of the day. And this recognition was due to her fine genius. She owed nothing to artifice or meretricious attraction. Nothing was left to chance, for the indomitable spirit and zealousness with which she had sustained herself under adverse circumstances had done not a little to elevate her in the regard of her countrymen and admirers. This was the first of a series of "farewell engagements," inaugurated by Miss Cushman, and continued to her real and positive farewell in 1875.

I have always had an objection to ladies personating Romeo, but I waived that feeling in favor of Miss Cushman. Her personation of Romeo was beautiful and even pathetic. The passionate grief of young Montague in the third act was subdued by a tearful pathos. Nothing could surpass her reading of the character: it was a triumph, and in a word it would be difficult to conceive anything more grand than this impersonation. It is difficult to conceive a character more highly dramatic or more impassioned than that of Lady Macbeth. The conflicts, emotions, and power of the ambitious queen were portrayed with a truth, a grandeur of effect, unequalled since by any actress. Miss Cushman's impersonation of Meg Merriles was one of the finest illustrations of originality the stage ever witnessed. There was no effort to resemble the character. She entered the stage the character itself, transposed into the situation, excited by hope and fear, breathing the life and the spirit of the being she represented. In my opinion, when Charlotte Cushman died, so did Meg Merriles, and it will be many a day before the old gipsy queen will produce that indescribable effect upon an audience, as in the days of Cushman. At the Boston Theatre, June 2, 1858, Miss Cushman as Romeo, her farewell to the stage. At the same theatre, in 1860, another farewell, Miss Cushman as Romeo, who with the aid of Mrs. Barrow as Juliet, John Gilbert as Friar Laurence, and Mrs. John Gilbert as the nurse, made up a very strong cast. Here, at the Howard Athenaeum in 1861, then under the management of that talented actor (who, by the way, was the best Hamlet I ever saw,) Edgar L. Davenport, Miss Cushman was announced April 11, 1861, positively her last night in Boston, when Romeo and Juliet was given with a remarkable cast. E. L. Davenport was the Mercutio, John Gilbert the Friar, John McCullough, Tybalt, Frank Hardenbergh, Prince Esculus, Dan Setchell, Peter, W. J. Le Moyne, Capulet, Miss Josephine Orton (a very brilliant actress, and now the wife of Benj. E. Woolf, of the Saturday Evening Gazette), Juliet, Mrs. John Gilbert as the nurse (she had no superior in this role), and Charlotte Cushman as Romeo, truly a fine array of talent, all of whom have passed away with the exception of Miss Orton and Mr. Le Moyne. This was Miss Cushman's last performance of Romeo in Boston. In the spring of 1875, Miss Cushman played another farewell engagement, which proved in truth a reality. It was at the Globe Theatre, and Saturday, May 15, 1875, was announced as Miss Cushman's farewell to the stage. Macbeth was the play, with Miss Cushman as Lady Macbeth. As an event worth remembering, I give the complete cast:—

Macbeth D. W. Waller Macduff G. B. Waldron Banquo Chas. Fyffe Malcolm Lin Harris Duncan James Dunn Physician C. Pierson Drunken Porter E. Coleman Rosse S. Clarke Seyter G. Conner Sergeant John Connor Donaldbain Miss Wilkes 1st Witch E. Coleman 2d Witch Mrs. A. Hayes 3d Witch J. H. Connor Gentlewoman Miss Athena

A most inefficient company, exceedingly weak in the masculine department, while the actresses were barely tolerable. The highest anticipations of a brilliant engagement had been indulged in by the management, and bitter was their disappointment, and great the chagrin of Miss Cushman to find that this "positively farewell engagement" failed to create anything of a furore. The public had been so often deceived by these announcements, that they failed to respond to the box office. In this special performance of "Macbeth," Miss Cushman was hailed with prolonged acclamations. Old admirers were there who still recollected her when she was the greatest ornament of the stage. Younger ones assembled to catch the last rays of a genius which had filled Europe and America with its splendor. The former sought this memory of days gone by, the latter came to pay deference to the verdict of a previous generation. At the close of the performance Miss Cushman was called to the footlights, there to receive the tribute due to her name and fame from the not over large audience. The spectacle was interesting, yet it was melancholy, not to say painful, to all who could feel with true artistic sympathy. Her last appearance was soon forgotten in the turmoil of dramatic events, but her name still gleams with traditional lustre in the annals of dramatic fame. Miss Cushman never again appeared in Boston, for on the 18th day of February, 1876, she breathed her last at the Parker House, Boston. Her funeral took place at King's Chapel, in presence of a large concourse of people, and her body rests in Mount Auburn. Miss Cushman was a very wealthy woman, but her generosities were not numerous; even the little Cushman school, named in her honor, was forgotten in her will. Her relatives (nephews and nieces) reside, I believe, in Newport, R. I., and are the sole possessors of her large estate. I omitted to mention that Charlotte Cushman's last appearance in public was as a reader in Easton, Penn., June 2, 1875.



THE MICROSCOPE FROM A MEDICAL, MEDICO-LEGAL, AND LEGAL POINT OF VIEW.

BY FREDERICK GAERTNER, A. M., M. D.

When the microscope was first invented, it was regarded as a mere accessory, a plaything, an unnecessary addition, and an imposition upon the medical profession and upon the public in general. But since 1840, when the European oculists and scientists began to make microscopical researches and investigations, not only in the medical profession, but also in botanical and geological studies, etc., and since 1870, when, throughout the civilized world, the microscope came into general use in chemical analysis and other studies, it ceased to be considered an accessory, and is now regarded as an extremely necessary apparatus, especially in minute examinations and investigations; also in the advancement of every branch of science and art.

Had Galen, Celsus, Hippocrates, and the other great scientists of old, known the use of the microscope, they would have made no such grave blunders as in the advocation of the theory that the arteries of the human body contain and carry air during life, instead of oxygenized blood only. They were of the erroneous opinion that the blood stayed in the extremities, not to nourish and sustain the tissues, but simply to act as a humor in lubricating the same (tissues).

Then, again, had it not been for the microscope, the great English surgeon and physician, James Paget, would not have discovered that deadly parasite, the trichina-spiralis, which had already slaughtered thousands upon thousands of human beings. And yet the existence of trichina-spiralis may be dated as far back as the time of Moses, who even then advocated prohibition of the use of pork as a food, and who considered pork not only an unwholesome food, but dangerous and even poisonous.

The microscope is certainly the best friend that a scientist can have. A physician without a microscope is like a man without eyes: he is uncertain and unprotected and must be considered incompetent, simply because he cannot arrive at a correct and positive conclusion in diagnosing and prognosing his case.

The value of the microscope cannot be overestimated, at least in the examination of the sputa of a human being, and thus being able to state positively whether or not the man is suffering from consumption (Tuberculosis). How important it is to be able to state with certainty at an early date whether or not the patient is suffering from cancer of the stomach, by examining the vomits microscopically.

The microscope is composed of a simply constructed horse-shoe or tripod base with a column, tube, reflector, and lenses of different magnifying powers, ranging from one to five thousand diameters. It is a most extraordinary and at the same time a most simple apparatus, an invaluable instrument, whose use any person with a little skill can learn in a few hours' practice.

Much has already been published of late years concerning the microscope applied in a medico-legal sense (examinations). This surely is a very broad field and much remains for future observation and investigation. Everything that concerns medical examinations in a legal sense or legal examinations in a medical sense can be facilitated and accurately determined by the use of the microscope. For instance, let me call your attention to the world-renowned "Cronin" case of Chicago, in which the medical experts demonstrated to a certainty that the blood, hair, and brain matter found in the Coulson cottage and sewer drop were those of a human being. And what was still more remarkable they demonstrated by the microscope accurately and positively that the hair and blood found in the cottage and fatal trunk were those of the late Dr. Cronin, only in a modified condition.

Without a doubt the microscope is the most advantageous and most efficacious apparatus that a scientist has ever invented and constructed. It is an especially powerful factor in enlightening complex and difficult cases concerning medico-legal examinations, where the combined efforts of an attorney and an expert microscopist are required. Within the last decade, scientists have demonstrated to a certainty the possibility of distinguishing old and dried human blood spots, whether on clothing, wood, iron, or any other object, from those of animal blood. Scientists, especially pathologists and histologists, have demonstrated the great value of the microscope in distinguishing not only the skin, blood, hair, and brain matter, but also the excretions and secretions of the human body from those of animals.

Again, the microscope applied in medico-legal practice, particularly in malpractice suits, suits for damages, those requiring the detection of adulteration of food or drink, is of the greatest importance. It is not less valuable in determining the purity of an article, especially whether or not the food or drink has spoiled or undergone fermentation, and in detecting the accumulation and development of microorganisms such as germs, bacilli, etc. Prominent among these uses are of course the detection of oleomargarine, the adulteration of drugs, liquors, milk, groceries, sausages, etc.

The utilization of the microscope as a factor in the solution of legal difficulties is as interesting as it is valuable, and in that connection I wish to cite a few lines from an exhaustive paper read by the Hon. Geo. E. Fell, M. D., F. R. M. S., before the American Society of Microscopists, relating to the "Examination of Legal Documents with the Microscope."

"This subject is of practical importance, in which the value of the microscope has again and again been demonstrated. On several occasions have we been enabled to clear the path for justice to ferret out the work of the contract falsifier, and shield the innocent from the unjust accusations of interested rogues. The range of observations in investigations of written documents with the microscope is a broad one. We may begin with the characteristics of the paper upon which the writing is made, which may enable us to ascertain many facts of importance; for instance, a great similarity might indicate, with associated facts, that the documents were prepared at about the same time. A marked dissimilarity might also have an important bearing upon the case. The difference of the paper may exist in the character of the fibres composing it, the finish of the paper whether rough or smooth, the thickness, modifying the transmissibility of light, the color, all of which may be ascertained with the microscope.

"The ink used in the writing may then be examined. If additions have been made to the document within a reasonable time of its making, microscopic examination will in all probability demonstrate the difference by keeping the following facts in view: Some inks in drying assume a dull, or shining surface; if in sufficient quantity, the surface may become cracked, presenting, when magnified, an appearance quite similar, but of a different color, to that of the dried bottom of a clayey pond after the sun has baked it for a few days. The manner in which the ink is distributed upon the paper, whether it forms an even border, or spreads out to some extent, is a factor which may be also noted. The color of the ink by transmitted or reflected illumination is also a very important factor. This in one case which I had in hand proved of great importance and demonstrated the addition of certain words which completely annulled the value of the document in a case involving several thousand dollars. And in a certain case where the lines of a certain document were written over with the idea of entirely covering the first written words, the different colors of the inks could not be concealed from the magnified image as seen under reasonably low powers of the microscope."

The value of the microscope in this field of research is so great and the facts elicited by it so vital, I wish to emphasize its practical utility as strongly as possible. Of course the principal object in such an examination of written or printed documents is the erasures or additions; then the coloring of different inks applied and the mode of their execution. As to erasures, this can be accomplished in two ways, either by the use of a penknife or by a chemical preparation. The former is the one most commonly resorted to, and is effected in the following manner. With a well sharpened knife blade the surface of the paper is carefully scraped until all objectionable lettering and wording appear to the naked eye to have been effaced; but under a microscopical examination the impression made by the strokes of the pen may easily be detected, while the different colors of the inks are still plainly visible under the microscope.

The second method is by the application of a chemical preparation by which the ink is made soluble and is then easily removed from the paper by means of a blotter or absorbent cotton. Of course this method is also an imperfect one and the letters can easily be traced by close observation. When a chemical preparation has been used for erasing purposes, I find that in most cases it leaves a stain and also that the fibres of the paper are more or less destroyed by the chemical used; thus always leaving evidence that the document has been tampered with.

George E. Fell in his excellent paper says: "The eye of the individual making the erasures is certainly not sufficient, and even with the aid of a hand magnifier, the object might not be effectually accomplished. We will find that the detection of an erasure made by the knife is a very simple matter and may be detected by the novice. An investigation may be made by simply holding the document before a strong light and this is usually all that is necessary to demonstrate the existence of an erasure of any consequence.

"This is, however, a very different matter from making out the outlines of a word or detecting the general arrangement of the fibres of the paper, so as to be able to state whether writing has been executed on certain parts of the document; and again, when we enter into the minutiae of the subject, we will find that the compound microscope will give us results not to be obtained by the simple hand magnifier."

On several occasions I have had the opportunity for demonstrating with the microscope additions made to certain documents, two of which were wills (testaments); these additions were made in the following manner:—First an erasure was made and then the additional matter written over the erasure. With the microscope I could at once detect the erasure beneath the addition; also the different colors of the inks. Then, and this is the most important result of the microscopical examination, by close observation, I could discern the strokes of the pen in the original lettering as well as those of the additional lettering, and finally the general mode of their execution.

In regard to the examination of legal documents, United States currency, printed and written matter, mutilated documents, including forgeries, etc., from a legal point of view (as to their genuineness), it will suffice to say that the principal features are, as already stated, first, the detection of erasures and additions; second, the comparison of the colors of the different inks used in the original and in the additional lettering, and finally the mode of their execution. This includes of course a careful observation of the original writing as to the general and comparative expression. In the observation of the characteristics of the letters constituting the document, I will call attention especially to the shading and general formation of the letters, that is, the stroke of the pen either in a downward or upward movement. This comparison includes both capital and small letters and even punctuation.

All these things, as well as the grammatical and orthographical relationship and comparative differentiations, must be taken into consideration in order to enable the microscopical examiner to give a positive opinion.

A microscopical examination of paper documents, such as wills, notes, checks, etc., as to whether or not they have been mutilated or forged, is certainly the most reliable test, and by far the easiest and simplest method of determining the authenticity or spuriousness of a document. An expert microscopist and observer can at once arrive at a correct and positive conclusion as to the genuineness of an autograph.

The use of the microscope in the examination of United States currency is invaluable, and I believe the only perfectly reliable test for distinguishing counterfeit currency from the genuine bills. In this examination the following observations are necessary, to the last of which I wish to call special attention: First, the quality of the paper used; second, the general execution and finish of the bill; third, the ink used for the printed reading matter as well as for the autograph; fourth, the two red lines; these lines in a genuine bill are produced by two red silk threads woven into the paper, and running lengthwise of the bill. In a counterfeit bill these lines are not of silk thread, but are simply two lines drawn with red ink. This is the crowning test in the detection of counterfeit currency, and I have no doubt that the same tests will hold good in the examination of foreign currency.



A GRAIN OF GOLD.

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE.

Everybody said he would go to the bad; everybody expected it of him. Whether it was the fulfilment of the promise, "As thy faith so be it," or whether he felt any conscientious obligation resting upon him not to disappoint public expectation, nobody knows. Nobody was surprised, however, when news went over the town that Jim Royal was going to the penitentiary.

Going to "the pen" at sixteen years of age. Nobody thought of that. Moreover, the old Tennessee prison contains scores of boys under sixteen, for that matter; and if they do not work satisfactorily, the lessees of the prison have made no complaint of them; therefore, they do work satisfactorily; for the lessees are not likely to pay the State for the privilege of feeding worthless hands. But as for vagabond Jim, if anybody thought of him at all, it was something after this wise:

"Safe place. Keep him out of mischief. Protect other people's boys. Bad influence, Jim's. Town's scourge. Bad mother before him. Questionable father. Made to work."

Now there were two considerations in this category, concerning which the public opinion was exactly correct. More so, indeed, than public opinion is usually known to be. Namely: Jim would "be made to work." No doubt about that. There were straps for the obstreperous, the water-pump for the sullen, the pool for the belligerent, the lash for the lazy, and for the rebellious—the shotgun.

Oh, yes; Jim would be made to work. The town was quite right about that.

The other consideration, although not altogether so important, was a trifle more interesting. Jim's "questionable father"!

It was his mother's fault that public interest (?) was not gratified. And it never forgave the poor outcast for leaving the world with that seal of secrecy still unbroken. The heart broke, but not the seal. They cast her off utterly when, poor girl-mother, she stubbornly refused to reveal the name of her betrayer. To them there was nothing heroic in the answer, "Because my life is ruined, shall I ruin his?"

So they treasured it against her in her grave, and against her son after her, in his grave too, that living, loathsome sepulchre, the State prison.

But they had surmised a good deal regarding Jim's paternal parentage. They searched for resemblances, birthmarks, peculiarities of feature, owning that nature always set her brand upon the bastard, and that the features, as well as the iniquities of the father, are always visited upon the illegitimate. If this be the case, Jim must have come of some strange blood. And yet, knowing him and his history, some might have traced the poor mother in the boy, although of that mother he knew very little. He had been told—oh, yes, he had been told—that she was found in a garret one December morning with a vagabond baby nursing at her dead breast. And old Nancy Piatt, the only one who ever seemed to dislike talking to the lad about it, had told him that she was "a pretty corpse, as pretty as the grave ever held," and that the dead lips wore a smile, those dead lips that never would, and never could, give up their pitiful secret. Poor lips; death had granted that which life denied them—a smile. Stubbornness, the town gossips called the woman's silence. In other circumstances it would have answered to the higher term of fidelity, or, perhaps, heroism. Jim was very like his mother, old Nancy said, despite Dame Nature's habit of branding. Surely Nancy ought to be authority, for when the boy was left, at two months old, on the town, old Nancy Piatt, a drunken old crone, who washed the clothes of the rich all the week, and drank her earnings Saturday evenings, was the only one who offered to "take the cub" whom the authorities were ready to give away.

A sorry chance had Jim, although he never realized that. At ten he could drink as much liquor as Nancy herself, and outswear the ablest lawyer in the town. At twelve he could pick a lock better than a blacksmith, and was known as one of the most cunning sneak thieves in the place. At fourteen he beat a little boy of eight unmercifully. (Did anybody expect old Nancy to tell him that was the crown crime of cowardice?)

Then someone suspected Nancy of a crime. One of those nameless crimes concerning which the law is very jealous, not considering the slander prevented, the "good name preserved," and the disgrace averted. All in high circles, and all set in the scale against a useless little baby,—a wicked little illegitimate baby, that is so heartless as to be born, and thereby bring a world of trouble upon wealthy and respectable people.

That old Nancy—for handsome considerations—had made away with the selfish baby, Jim knew as well as anybody. And when he was offered quite as handsome a sum to tell all he knew about it, his reply was to plant his fist in the eye of the man who had made the offer. Not that he cared for the cause the babe's coming had disgraced. He only meant to stand by old Nance, and not all the money in the county's coffers could have forced his lips to speak that which would hurt her. He was afterward arrested and brought before the magistrate, together with Nance, and swore, not by the calendared saints,—he hadn't made their acquaintance,—but by "George," by "Gum," by "Gosh," and even by God himself that he knew nothing at all about the matter. They knew he was lying, but there was no way to prove it, as he attempted no dodge. He was merely ignorant. Nance hadn't asked him to do this; she knew he would do it if necessary. She had not attempted to win his love, his confidence, or his gratitude. Perhaps she believed, in her blind way, that these things are born, not won, like respect, and honor, and admiration. He was fifteen when this happened. At sixteen Nance died from the effects of a blow from a policeman's club while trying to arrest her. Two weeks later the policeman died from the effects of a blow from Jim's club while trying to protect old Nance. Two months later the prison door closed on Jim, and the town took breath again in a long, relieved sigh of "Safe at last!" As if vagabond Jim's salvation had lain a weight for sixteen years upon their consciences.

It was certainly the face of a hardened creature that followed the sheriff to the railroad station that June morning. June, sweet, old love-laden, rose-burdened June. Of all the year to give up one's freedom in June. And how many years before he would breathe the free, rose-haunted air of another June. Twenty. Why, the twentieth century would be dawning before he would be free again. Would his face be any the less hard at the expiration of his term? The penitentiary isn't a hotbed of virtue, and Jim wasn't wax. Nobody wasted any hopes on him,—except the lessees, who, finding him able-bodied, young, and healthy, sent him to the Branch prison to dig coal.

There an old gray-bearded warden offered a plea for his youth, and a protest against the associations of the Branch, and was promptly reminded that the Tennessee State prison was not a reformatory institute, but that it had been leased as a financial speculation, which was expected to yield at least ten per cent. on the money invested by the lessees.

So Jim went to the coal mines in the mountains, leaving his life, his poor, puny sixteen years of dust and degradation, behind him. If there was anything of brightness, any softening memory, any tender touch of the human—dream touches are they to the castaway—which Jim carried with him, it was the memory of old Nance, drunken, filthy, murderous old Nance, and the face of the gray-bearded warden who had lifted his voice in his behalf.

It was noon of a day in June, early in the eighties, that Jim trudged across the coal-sprinkled ridge upon which rose the great gray, weather-beaten, rat-infested fence, which was dignified by the name of stockade. To go out of life into a dungeon like that, and at noon of a day in June. That Jim made no sign was accredited to his hardness of heart. That, having registered and heard an official sneer at the name, Jim Royal, and having passed through the hands of the barber, and being duly entered at last among the State's hired help, and dropped down on his ill-smelling bunk, a rat came and gnawed his ear, and the vermin crawled unmolested over him, and still he gave no sign, was set down to the account of his laziness.

"He won't be vicious," the warden said, "he is too lazy," and he thought yearningly of the raw-hide lash hanging in the office. That the stupor might be the result of weariness had never once suggested itself. If it had, why still there was the lash. The lessees' ten per cent. must be gotten out of that herd in the stockade, even if it should be necessary to beat it out.

But when, the next morning, Jim fell into his place as brisk as any, the warden began to waver between the lash and the pool. If he did not need the one, he was fairly seen to require the other. All of them needed some one, may be two, of the prison's medicines, and the warden made a special point of spying out the diseases of new arrivals, and applying the remedy as soon as possible. It told them, more plainly than words, precisely the manner of treatment they were to expect in case of any appearance of any of the several moral diseases with which all convicts, young, old, rich, or poor, were supposed to be afflicted.

Therefore, the warden "had his eye on Jim." And when the gang started from the stockade across the black, coal-dusted mountains, to the blacker mine beneath, he called to the new arrival, draining the last of some sloppy coffee from a dingy tin cup at the greasy, board table of the shed room that served for dining-room, and laundry, during the week, and for chapel on Sundays.

"Come here, sir; what's your name, sir? At least what one did you leave on the book out there?"

"The only one I've got," said Jim. "The clerk down there made it to spell Royal."

"Royal." A sneer curled the lips of the official. "Here Black"—to the guard,—"add this royal renegade to your company. Here, you fellow, fall into line here, and be quick about it."

To Jim, accustomed from the day his dead mother's nipple had been taken from his toothless gums to having his own free will, the surly command came like a threat. He hesitated.

"Will you come, you bit of carrion, or shall I fetch you?"

Jim stood like a young lion at bay. His hands unconsciously drew up into fists; one foot moved forward; the prisoners stood in wondering groups, some recalling the day, five, ten, fifteen, aye, even fifty years before, when they, too, had thought of defence. They, too, had stood at bay. But they had learned the folly of it, and they knew Jim would learn too; but still they half hoped he would get in that one blow before the lesson began.

Such fists! such strength! And he came on like a young tiger, his eyes ablaze, his nostrils quivering, his arm poised, his full chest expanding, perfectly aware the officer was feeling for the pistol at his belt, when, quick and noiseless, a small hand, white and delicate as a woman's, reached out and drew the clenched fist down; a soft voice, softened by despair, said: "It isn't any use; they'll down you at last, and you only make it harder."

It was all done so quickly, the guards around had not had time "to draw," else the rebellious one had received the reward of rebellion.

The warden replaced his pistol, with a curse upon it for not obeying his effort to draw it. The young convict had ceased hostilities, and stood submissive by the side of his unknown friend. He had not once glanced at him, but something in his voice had controlled and subdued his passion.

"Away with him," cried the officer. "To the pump, and afterward to the pool. Get the straps ready there. We'll show our royal friend who is master here."

Again came an idea of resistance, but the same small hand was laid upon his arm.

"My friend, it isn't any use. I tried it all. Go on and be punished. It is part of life here. You receive it whether merited or not."

They dragged him off, strapped him, hand and foot, and writhing, foaming, like the untamed wild beast that he was, they thrust him under the great prison pump.

"That will cool his royal blood," laughed a guard, as the fearful force of the cold current beating upon his shaven head knocked him senseless.

Drenched and beaten, utterly exhausted, he lay like a limp rag, until three men had spent their strength upon the pump. Then to the pool they dragged him, and "ducked" him three times into the dark, stagnant water. Then back to the warden who asked if he "thought he had enough."

"Not enough to make me take your jaw," was the foolish answer.

"The lash," said the warden, and the miserable, half-drowned creature was taken away to be beaten "into subjection."

The guard overlooked the punishment. A stout, burly convict was required to perform it. He would have refused, being in like strait, only that he knew the uselessness. He had been there a long time, forty years, and according to his sentence would be there for fifty more. He had picked up a little scripture at the prison Sunday school, so that when he lifted the whip above the back they had made bare for it, he whispered, by way of apology:—

"And one Simon, a Cyrenian, him they compelled to bear the cross."

But Jim didn't understand even if he had heard. All he heard was that low, patient voice calling him "friend."

In the afternoon he was sent down to the mines, subdued, but not conquered. Every evil passion of his nature had been aroused, and would never slumber again.

After that first day's experience he seemed indeed a wild beast. He fought among the prisoners, rebelled against the rules of the prison, would have nothing to do with any but the worst of the men, shirked his work until he had to be strapped and beaten, in short, made a record that had never been surpassed by any previous man on the prison record.

Yet, when there was danger of any kind, he was the first there. One morning there was an explosion in the mine, and more than a score of prisoners were in danger of being suffocated before help could reach them. Indeed everybody was afraid to venture in that black hole from which the hot, sulphurous gases were pouring. Everybody but Jim. Even the warden had to admit Jim's courage. "He aint afraid of the devil," he declared, when he saw the boy jump into an empty coal car, call to the mule to "git up," and disappear in the gas and smoke with the empty cars rumbling behind him. It was a long time before he came out, but he brought ten insensible convicts in his first haul. The lessees recommended him for that, and promised to make it good sometime if he kept on at that rate.

Another time there was a fire. The rumbling old rat-hole was threatened with destruction, and with it three hundred and seventy-five of the State's charges. The men glared like beasts through the cracks of the tottering stockade. Liberty, it would come surely in some form. The fire was confined for a time to the wing where the hospital was. But when it mounted in a great blood-dappled sheet of flame to the top of an old rotten tower above the main building, where the prisoners were huddled, it became evident that all must go unless the old tower could be torn away. Up the uneven, rickety wall went Jim, nimble as a squirrel. Crack! crack! fell the dead boards, then with a clang and clamor, down rolled the old bell from its perch, carrying with it the last of the burning tower.

Jim climbed down as sullen as ever. He didn't care to save the old shanty, or to win any praise from anybody. He was simply not afraid, and his courage would not permit him to do other than what he did.

Nobody cared for him specially, although the soft-voiced man with the small, womanish hands spoke to him often, and always kindly. Jim never forgot that he had called him friend. The memory of it stayed with him, like the kiss of a first love that lingers long after love is dead. Most of the men were afraid of him, so fierce was his temper, and so easily aroused. Even the warden had learned that he could not tame him. The strap, the lash, the pool, the pump, had been applied times without number. The warden was still "looking around" for the time to apply the last resource, the shotgun. It was pretty sure to come, for the boy was entirely "unscrupulous."

Summer set in again. Again June came, and tried to bloom even on the coal-tracked mountain about the mine. Somewhere up back among the pine and shadows the wild roses were blooming, and the grapes. Their odors came down to the men as they tramped across the hot, bare, coal-strewn way between the stockade and the mines.

With the coming of June came a number of strangers to the mountain. They always came in the warm season, but they quartered themselves over in the town, beyond the stockade, and the stench, and filth, and crime found there.

Only one, a young man, a minister who had been expelled from the church in the city where he had preached, found his way to the prison. He went out one Sunday afternoon, and asked permission to preach to the convicts. It was freely granted. Such wild heresy! Such odd, eccentric ideas! Such flights of oratory! Such fiery brands tossed into the old tabernacles of religious belief! Such blows upon the old batteries of narrowness and impossibility! They had never heard anything like it. Had he preached thus anywhere else he would have been promptly silenced. But a lot of convicts was not an audience likely to be injured by the too free circulating of the doctrine he advocated. What if he should convince them that eternal punishment was a myth, and an insult flung in the face of the Creator? A slur upon His justice, and a lie to His divine goodness? What if he snapped his finger at a lake of brimstone and of eternal fire? And his wild ravings about an inconsistent Being, accepted as the head of all wisdom, and tenderness,—and mercy, and at the same time as the perfection of all cruelty and injustice, in that He creates only to destroy,—what if the seed scattered should take root? What if those old sin-blackened souls should comfort themselves with the new doctrine, the idea that no good can be lost? God cannot be God and destroy any good thing. It is wicked, it is devilish to kill that which is good. God cannot be wicked and be the good God, the kind All-Father, at the same time. Nor has He created any so vile as to be without some one virtue. In the dust of the evil He has not failed to drop one grain of gold to glisten, and to make glad the dull waste of life. The grain is there, planted by God's hand, in every soul. It was in their souls, poor, old, sin-covered, forsaken souls, toiling up to the light through those begrimed walls among the filth, and dust, and mould. Not one of them but was God's work, and bore His grain of gold. None would be lost, not one. What matter if the prison registrar's table of deaths did record so many, Found dead! Drowned! Killed! Shot! Blank! Blank! Blank! Meaning they disappeared, nobody knows how or when.

It was a strange, sweet hope to them, that came in that wild sermon of a bishop-silenced young heretic. They thought about it a good deal, and began, some of them whose terms were to expire with life, to dig down into the rust and mire with the spade of conscience for the hidden grain.

The minister was at the stockade often, cheering, sympathizing, and always comforting the convicts with the certainty of eternal love, and the folly of eternal punishment. One day he stumbled upon a man who was being strapped and prepared for punishment at the pump. His face was sullen, and there were splotches of blood on his clothes, and he limped when he attempted to walk. Still there was something in the old, young face, that neither cruelty nor threats could kill. They might turn on the icy water, and exhaust themselves with lashing him, but that stoic determination would not yield. They might murder him, but from his fixed, dead eyes, it would glare at them, that same heroic, immovable something that had shone in the staring eyes of his dead mother.

No visitors were allowed in that part of the prison, so the minister held back until, fearing the limp figure under the pump would be beaten to death by the cruel pour of water upon his head, he stepped forward to interfere.

"In God's name, I beg you stop," he cried, his hand uplifted, his eyes full of tears. "Your punishment is beastly. What has the fellow done? Is someone murdered?"

"Someone ought to be," sullenly replied the man at the pump-handle. "And someone might be if this sneaking rascal was the only hope of preventing it."

There had been a plot among the convicts to batter down the shaky old stockade, and break for freedom. They had secured a gun and some ammunition, where, no one could tell, and the plot had well-nigh succeeded. The guard on the wall had been killed, three men had escaped, and the prison bloodhounds were lying in the kennel with their throats cut.

Already the governor of the State had telegraphed freedom to the convicts not in the scheme who would give the names of those engaged in it. Even the leader's name; for that freedom was offered, pardon unconditional.

Something let fall discovered to the warden that Jim, while not in, was familiar with the whole history of the insurrection. The offer of freedom had no further effect upon him than a careless refusal to comply with the terms set forth. But when force was suggested, he set his lips in that old way that belonged to his mother, and said nothing. Three days they gave him to "knock under." But the only change noticeable during that time was a more decided sullenness, a look in the cold, gray eyes that meant death rather than yielding.

Once the soft-voiced young man who had put out his hand in his defence the day of his arrival at the stockade, and had afterward called him "friend," the only time he had ever heard the word addressed to himself, once he came over where Jim sat cleaning the warden's boots, and motioned him.

Jim shook his head, and went on blacking the big boots. But when the young convict drew nearer, and tried to take his hand, he drew back, and struck at him viciously with the blacking brush.

"Git out, will you! And don't come a-fooling with this brush, lest you want your d—n head broke."

He had seen a guard spying upon them at a half open door in the rear of the young convict. At Jim's outburst of temper the guard entered.

"Come away from him, Solly," he said, "the surly beast is as like as not to knock your brains out."

The convict turned to obey, but the glance he got of Jim's face carried a full explanation. The temper was affected to keep down suspicion. After that came the punishment at the pump, the merciless beating, and then, all things proving unavailing, he was put in the dungeon to have the "truth starved out of him."

After three days he was brought out, faint, pale, ready to die at every step, but with that same immovable something shining in his eyes, and his lips still set in the old way that he had of his mother.

His hands were manacled, and an iron chain clanked about his feet as he dragged them wearily one after the other. For three days he had tasted no food, except a rat that he had caught in the dungeon. He ate it raw, like a dog, and searched eagerly for another. Just as he had found it, and skinned it with the help of his teeth, the guard peered through the grating, and seeing what he was doing, entered, and put handcuffs upon him, after first removing the raw flesh to a point where he could see, but not touch it. And there it lay, torturing him while he starved. And there it lay until it became carrion, and tortured him again. And then they had dragged him out again, out under the blue sky, where the trees—the old sweet-smelling pines—were waving their purple plumes upon the distant mountains, and the wild grape filled the air with perfume, and the wild roses were pink as childhood's sweet, young dreams, and over all was bended the blue heaven. And heaven spread before him, heaven; behind him lay hell, fifteen years of it less one. And they gave him choice again betwixt the two. They even crammed a bit of moral in the offer. "It was right," they said, "to tell on those who had broken the prison regulations, mere justice to the lessees." Right! too late to talk to him of right. He glanced once at the pines, going farther away, whiffed at the pleasant odor of the grape blooms, waved his hand to the roses, in farewell, perhaps, lifted his face to the blue heaven—he had never looked heavenward before in all his wretched years,—then, wearing that same old look of his mother's, he turned, without a word, and re-entered the prison.

Back to the pump, the lash, and at last to the dungeon.

But he no longer dreaded it. It was the Sabbath, and the shackles had been removed, but he was too weary to notice the rat that came out and sat peering at him, nibbling at his wet prison clothes, and his feet and hands. Even the carrion did not disturb any more. The scent of the wild grape blooms was still in his nostrils. And when the day wore on, and the two o'clock bell sounded, calling the men to Sunday school, he started up with a cry of "Here." He had thought the bell a voice at the dungeon door, and fancied that it said, "friend!"

He dropped back, with a smile on his lips. Could old Nance have peeped in at that moment she would have pronounced him very like his mother with that smile, and that stanch old heroism shining in his wide, dead eyes.

* * * * *

Down in the office the registrar entered upon the death list:

"James Royal—Natural death."

Natural? then God help the unnatural.

"The worst one ever fell into our hands," the warden told the minster as he came out of the chapel with the soft-voiced friend of the dead man's. "Not a spark of good in him, parson. Jim Royal knocks your theory all to pieces."

But the friend had been telling the minister a story. And as he passed out at the rattling stockade gate, he, too, glanced up at the blue sky. His doubts were gone, if there had been any, his faith was planted in God's eternal goodness.

"Can such die?" he mused, "such faithfulness, such magnificent courage, such glorious fidelity? Is it possible that such can pass away into eternal torment?"

The soft wind touched his cheek and bore heavenward the prayer he breathed:—

"Forbid it, Almighty God."



EDITORIAL NOTES.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE TO-DAY. PERSECUTED FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE.

The decision recently handed down by Judge Hammond, of the United States District Court, in the celebrated case of R. M. King, is rich in lessons of vital importance to thoughtful minds at the present time of unrest, when conservatism is seeking on every hand, even under the cloak of radical movements, to secure statutes and legal constructions of laws which may at an early day be used to fetter thought, crush liberty, and throttle the vanguard of progress. Briefly stated, the important facts in the case in question are as follows: Mr. King is an honest, hard-working farmer. He is charged with no breach of morals; in fact, it appears that he is a remarkably upright man. But he is a Seventh Day Adventist; that is, he does not hold the same religious views as the majority in his State. He stands in the same relation to his countrymen as that occupied by the early disciples of Christ to Roman society when Nero undertook to punish Christians by kindling nightly human fires for the delectation of conservative or majority thought. He is of the minority, even as the Huguenots were in the minority when the Church tortured, racked, and burned them for the glory of God and the good of humanity. He is of the minority, as was Roger Williams when, in 1635, the popular and conventional thought of Salem banished him. Mr. King is not an infidel or even a doubter. On the contrary he is ardently religious, being a zealous and conscientious member of a sect of Christians noted for their piety and faith. The Adventists, of whom he is an honored member, it must be remembered, hold somewhat peculiar views about the second advent of Christ. They believe they find in the Bible commands making it obligatory upon them to keep holy the seventh day of the week, or the Hebrew Sabbath, instead of Sunday, the holiday and rest day observed by most Christian denominations. Now it was shown in the trial that, conforming to his belief, Mr. King strictly observed the Sabbath on Saturday, but being a poor farmer he could not afford to rest two days each week, or over one hundred days in the year, and, therefore, after having kept the Sabbath he plowed in his field on Sunday. This aroused the pious indignation of the narrow-minded and bigoted members of the community who profess to follow that great Leader who taught us to judge not, to resist not evil, and to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. These Christians (?) who, unfortunately for the cause of justice and religious liberty, are in the majority in Tennessee, had this conscientious, God-fearing man arrested as a common felon, and convicted of the heinous crime (?) of Sabbath-breaking by plowing on Sunday. He appealed to the Supreme Court, and the sentence was affirmed. Then the Adventists and the National Secular Association took up the case. Hon. Don M. Dickinson was engaged as counsel, and the case was taken to the Federal Court last November on a writ of habeas corpus, the contention being that the conviction was contrary to the bill of rights of Tennessee and the Constitution of the United States, and that the defendant was held prisoner by the sheriff without due process of law. The application was argued several months ago, and Judge Hammond has had it under advisement until recently, when his decision was given in which the defendant was remanded back to the custody of the sheriff to pay the fine or serve the time according to the sentence. This decision holds that malice, religious or otherwise, may dictate a prosecution, but if the law has been violated this fact does not shield the law-breaker. Neither do the courts require that there shall be some moral obloquy to support a given law before enforcing it, and it is not necessary to maintain that to violate the Sunday observance customs shall be of itself immoral to make it criminal in the eyes of the law.

Suggestive, indeed, are the lessons of this great judicial crime against liberty, justice, and God. In the first place it illustrates the fact which must long since have become apparent to thinking men that the guarantee of the Constitution of the United States, which, more than aught else, has made this Republic the flower of all preceding nations, is yearly becoming less and less regarded by the small men and narrow minds who interpret law and who, instead of showing how unconstitutional any law is which violates the great charter of right, yield to the present craze for Governmental Paternalism, paying no more heed to our Constitution than if it was the ukase of a Czar. In numerous instances during the past decade has this solemn fact been emphasized, until it is evident that with the reaction toward Paternalism and centralization has come the old time spirit of intolerance and moral obloquy on the part of the governing powers which has been one of the chief curses of the ages, entailing indescribable misery on the noblest and best, and holding in subjection the vanguard of progress, which always has been and always will be the minority, regarded by the majority as dangerous innovators or disseminators of false theories and doctrines. In my article on Socialism I noted the case of Mr. King, observing that:—

He in no way deserves the shameful imprisonment he is suffering; yet the prejudice of the majority sustains the infamous law that makes criminals of the innocent and takes not into consideration the rights of the minority. And what is more, the religious press is so dominated by bigotry and ancient prejudice that it is blind alike to the Golden Rule and the inexorable demands of justice. If in any State the Adventists, the Hebrews, or any other people who believed in observing Saturday instead of Sunday should happen to predominate, and they undertook to throw Christians into dungeons, and after branding them criminals should send them to the penitentiary for working on Saturday, indignation would blaze forth throughout Christendom against the great injustice, the wrong against the liberty of the rights of the citizen. The only difference is that poor Mr. King is in the minority; he is the type of those who always have been and always will be made to suffer when the government is strong enough to persecute all who do not accept what is considered truth and right by the majority.

In replying to my paper Mr. Bellamy thus flippantly dismissed this case: "Of this it may be remarked that had it happened two centuries ago it would have been symptomatic; to-day it is a curiosity." It will be observed that in order to minify the dangers of Paternalism, Mr. Bellamy entirely ignored the point I had italicized, viz.: the Christian sentiment of society was not outraged and what was more, "the religious press was so dominated by bigotry and ancient prejudice that it was blind alike to the Golden Rule and the inexorable demands of justice." To-day we are told that this great judicial crime is a curiosity, although the religious bigotry of the majority has been upheld by the lower, the federal, and supreme courts, while the religious press has, with rare exceptions, sanctioned the persecution or ignored the case.

In vain the long-cherished idea that this country was to pass down the cycle of time known as the land of freedom; that it was to be forever the asylum for religious liberty and the cradle of progress, unless the sober thought of our people be at once aroused to stem the rising tide of Governmentalism and the steady encroachment of religious organizations and despotic foreign thought.

Comparatively few of the leading secular journals[6] have deemed this outrage sufficiently important to call for editorial comment, notwithstanding it marks the establishing of a precedent which must inevitably work great misery to innocent people at the hands of religious fanatics, unless there is a sufficient agitation to cause the repeal of many iniquitous laws which are a menace to the rightful freedom of citizens as long as they remain on the statute books.

[6] Among the few papers which have denounced this judicial crime are the New York Commercial Advertiser and the St. Louis Republic. The former journal observes: "It seems that the glorious clause of the Constitution can give no protection to men who conscientiously believe they should literally observe the Fourth Commandment.... It seems that when a State seeks to enforce religious duty all consciences must bow before it. That is to say, if, for example, the Catholics of Louisiana were to pass a law that no man should taste meat on Friday, the act would be no infringement of religious liberty.

There can be but one opinion upon this decision among all liberal-minded men. It is odious sophistry, unworthy of the age in which we live. And under it an American citizen has been condemned to spend the rest of his days in a dungeon unless he shall stoop to deny the dictates of his own conscience and dishonor his own manhood.

The Republic in an editorial of August second says: "Not being able to leave his crops unworked for two days in the week, Mr. King ploughed them on Sunday, after having kept the Sabbath the day before. He was arrested under the Sunday law, and in order to make it effective against him it was alleged that his work on his own farm on Sunday created a public nuisance. On this entirely untenable ground he has been harassed from court to court. He was a poor man, but he has been supported by the friends of religious liberty. Mr. King has been greatly wronged, but his only remedy at law is under the law and Constitution of Tennessee. It appears that for the present his remedy is denied him, and this being the case he has no better recourse than to submit to the oppression and go to prison—to the convict camp, if it suits the convenience of his persecutors to send him there."

SOCIAL CONDITIONS UNDER LOUIS XV. A LESSON FOR THE PRESENT DAY.

To the superficial observer who, as guests of royalty, loitered through the sunny days which marked the closing years of Louis XV., France presented the aspect of a gay, thoughtless, happy, butterfly nation, whose government on the whole satisfied the requirements of the rich and powerful, and was sustained by the strong arm of the army on the one hand and the impregnable influence of the Church on the other. Small heed was to be given to the pamphleteers, whose brilliant satire, biting sarcasm, and pointed logic afforded amusement at the Louvre, rather than struck dismay to the hearts of those who fondly believed that the Church still held in thrall the brain of the masses, and that as for centuries the people had been content with slavery and vassalage, it was absurd to imagine they had now come to man's estate, had, Phoenix-like, arisen from the ashes of old-time sullen obedience or ignorant content, into the tumultuous atmosphere of intellectual activity. It is true, some far-seeing brains beheld the coming storm and warned the king, urging him to either suppress the philosophers, or concede to the masses a greater meed of justice, but their views were scouted by the ruling or conventional thought of the court, and life at the Louvre continued a merry whirl of carnal and selfish delight. The morning brought the chases, and evening the banquet, the theatre, or the ball; while at intervals grand polytechnic exhibitions delighted the populace, being given, probably, in the vain hope that they would satisfy the rising discontent, much as the gladiatorial shows satisfied, while they still further brutalized, the degraded populace of ancient Rome, making possible the toleration of such colossal iniquity as marked the decline of the Empire. Such, then, was the aspect of court life, while above the social and political horizon were gathering clouds which prophesied the greatest cataclysm civilization had witnessed. The wilful short-sightedness, the supreme indifference to the principles of justice, liberty, and fraternity; the conspicuous absence of the spirit of humanity, which characterized those who might have averted the coming baptism of blood, was the legitimate result of the anaesthetizing of the soul of the Court and aristocracy with the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. The divine spark had disappeared. The spiritual nature had given way to the sensual. Ambition and pleasure were enthroned in the seats of justice and humanity. Selfishness was the keynote of aristocratic life. And with this fact kept in view, the short-sightedness of royalty in the presence of the rising tide of intelligent discontent is by no means strange. Indifferent to the fate of the masses in any struggle that might be precipitated, guided by none of the higher impulses of life, and possessing implicit confidence in the impregnability of that triple bulwark of conservatism, the army, the police, and the Church, the ruling party of French aristocracy drifted down the stream garlanded with roses, revelling in wine and music, abandoning itself to pleasure on life's lowest plane.

To the student of social conditions, who might have been a guest of the philosopher Rousseau, the picture photographed on the mental retina would have been far different. Above he would have beheld the round of selfish, thoughtless gaiety, in which the images and intrigues of Madame Dubarry and Marie Antoinette, of Choiseul and Rohan, of Louis and Richelieu, were strangely mingled and distorted by exaggeration, as they sifted down from the Court through several layers of brains until they reached the world of the newly awakened laborer. Below him would have yawned, in all its hideousness, the blackness of the pit, the social cellar into which he would have seen thousands and scores of thousands of his fellow-men crowded or driven by want, misfortune, or the avarice of the more powerful, and from which so few who once fall ever rose to the noble estate of true manhood and womanhood. Around him he would have noted still another world, more interesting and yet more terrible in its ferocity and power than those above and below—the realm of the common people—the sphere of the masses—the current which passed over the darkest dregs and bore on its surface the scum. In this world the strange and interesting phenomenon would have met his eye of a newly awakened brain, an intellect which after ages of semi-unconsciousness, had, in a surprisingly short time, been aroused by the intellectual brilliancy of thinkers who had flooded a nation with new ideas, who had kindled the fires of justice, who had spoken in the ear of all the people the doctrine of the essential brotherhood of man, the kinship of the throne and the shop, the idler in the palace and the idler in the cellar; the cormorant who dined off the labor of others at Lucerne, and the low-browed outcasts occupied in the same way but pursuing different methods, in the social sewer. And he would have noticed an unusual activity in this working world; secret meetings were being held on every hand. The great philosophical works of Rousseau breathing a new hope and a larger life into the soul of every reader, and the withering satire of Voltaire falling against the battlements of the church and the throne—these were the text-books and watchword of the new revolution. Tens of thousands of men who a few years before had accepted unquestioningly the assurance of the priests and obeyed as children the decrees of Royalty, were now thinking as never before on justice and equity, were students and intelligent expounders of the master brains which blossomed forth on every hand, in spite of priest and police. Heresy and liberty, justice and freedom, progress and equity had joined hands; conventionalism was doomed. The cry for justice went up from every hand to the crown and the aristocracy, only to come back with a mocking laugh or a royal restrictive decree. Thus the flame was fanned. The noble teaching of the great apostles of light and justice which illuminated the brains of the people and at first filled their hearts with holy love and wonderful tenderness, making them ready to accept and only desirous of receiving that measure of justice and consideration to which they knew they were entitled, later changed to feelings of hate and desire for revenge which ever grows as mushrooms in the average mind when justice is denied and oppression bears down more relentlessly at each complaint that comes from the oppressed. It is a law of life on the lower plane that selfishness, indifference, and heartlessness coming from above are photographed upon the sensitive intellect of the struggling minds below, which vainly ask for justice, only to return in time intensified a hundred-fold—selfishness becomes active and is complemented by an insane desire to destroy. Indifference calls forth unbridled ferocity. Heartlessness awakens sentiments of cruelty and brutality as relentless and destructive as the cyclone.

The social sewer or cellar of Paris at this time presented as interesting and suggestive a study as the toiling world above. Here were thousands of human beings dwelling in the atmosphere of crime and brutality, hungry, cold, and well-nigh hopelessly vicious by virtue of want, association, and environment, and ready for, if not eagerly anticipating any social upheaval which would afford them an opportunity to plunder and pillage. This world presented then, as it ever must, the saddest and most hopeless spectacle in the kaleidoscope of life. There were scores of thousands in this social sewer and new recruits coming daily. The avarice and extravagance of the Court pressed upon the great stratum of middle life, which in time bore down upon the lower sphere with crushing weight, while many of its numbers, weary of the eternal struggle, relaxed their hold on respectability and fell into the pit of crime and moral death. The inhabitants of this realm presented a picture of ferocity and despair, which must necessarily prove a frightful element in a revolution. The social cellar was only waiting for the signal when its hideous throat would belch forth death as surely as cannon or mortar ever hurled the life-destroying bomb. Such was life in France in the world of the wealthy and the world of want; while Louis drank Dubarry's health; while Marie Antoinette longed for her childhood home, and the Dauphin busied himself with geography, lock-making, and clock-repairing.

When Louis XV. died the scum had so thoroughly poisoned the great current of life in France that it is probable that even had there been far wiser heads at the helm of State than Louis XVI. and his councillor they would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a bloody reckoning, for the love of peace and reverence for justice, the cool judgment and mature wisdom which swayed the popular mind at an early day was well-nigh drowned in the rising tide of angry discontent and intense hate. A settled conviction pervaded the soul of the masses that the hour had come when might should make right the age-long wrongs of the people; and when an idea of this character possesses the rank and file of a nation it is almost impossible even by a liberal policy to avert a bloody issue.

I have dwelt upon this striking passage of history because it bristles with suggestive lessons and warning notes to the great Republic at the present time, and because the grave evils, which are as symptomatic to-day as were the signs of the times portentous in the reign of the easy-going, sensual Louis, are being met by those who have it in their power to avert a social catastrophe in precisely the same short-sighted spirit as characterized the conservative aristocracy when it denied the existence of the universal discontent among the masses and flippantly dismissed the angry muttering of the coming storm as merely the expression of a few shallow-brained malcontents. To-day we find the same brutal indifference and selfishness as was so conspicuous at the Louvre in 1770, exhibited by our mushroom aristocracy of the dollar, composed of those who form and control the great monopolies, syndicates, trusts, and combines, which are so cruelly oppressing the many that the few may grow many times millionnaires; together with the great railway magnates, who have through watering stock on the one hand, and plundering the commonwealth of farmers by exorbitant freights on the other, dishonestly amassed colossal fortunes. And that still more baleful communion which forms such an important part of America's shoddy aristocracy, the Wall Street gamblers, they who rule "the street," paralyzing healthy business, causing panics at will, and annually sweeping to the wall, to ruin and to death numbers of victims who have been lured into their snares by deceptive reports industriously circulated and extensively published by paid agents of these same brigands of the commercial world.