April 7, 1888 Vol. III, No. 14Whole No. 66

THE STANDARD

HENRY GEORGE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

NO. 66—VOL. III, NO. 14. | NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1888. | PRICE FIVE CENTS

p. 1, col. 1 [Overprinted across the top of this notice: a hand-stamped subscriber address, “104 Dr Walter Mendelson 167 [or 179?] W 74th St”, printed at an angle; it hides several words of the notice.]

The [obscured] THE STANDARD have been rem[obscured] Ann street to [12?] Union square, [obscured]ich address all communications[obscured].

SINGLE TAX MEN IN COUNCIL.

A Relic of Barbarism.

Donn Piatt in Home Knowledge.

Protection and polygamy are the twin relics of barbarism. The one is the religion of Utah, the other that of Pennsylvania. They are alike in form as they are alike in stupidity. As droves of women are sealed to a prophet to insure their entrance to heaven, so the masses are sealed to the manufacturer that one may fatten while the others thin to skin and bone on imaginary blessing. The Mormon prophet works his wife on earth in return for his pass to the happy hereafter when they shall have been worked to death, and the monopolized capitalist wrings the last cent from wretched toil in return for a protection against the pauper labor of Europe.

Protection is the one antagonistic principle and practice of our government. The fathers, in erecting for us a political fabric, based it entirely on self-government. Our form at least emphasized the greatest freedom in the citizen, not only as to his political rights, but in his private business. They grew above him the fig tree and vine and assured him he might rest under their shade with no one to molest and none to make him afraid. To this end we have free speech, a free press, free schools, free religion—in a word, everything is free until we touch barter and exchange; and free trade has not only no existence, but is held to be in deadly antagonism to our better condition as a democracy. The citizen is left to seek salvation for his soul in his own way—he has free will secured him by constitutional provision. He may say what his independent spirit prompts, provided he does not encroach upon a like privilege in another. He may print what he pleases, and so we run through the list of rights and privileges until we hit trade, and there the current is reversed, we have a guardian appointed, a master installed, and one finds he is no longer the free and independent citizen. He cannot in the exercise of his judgment buy where he can buy to the best of his advantage nor sell where he can sell at a profit. The law intervenes.

Suppose the majority, through congress, were to limit any other right—say that to worship God in accordance with one’s conscience, or let congress dare to touch free speech or a free press, what would happen? And yet why should the inalienable right of free trade be barred out from any one? It is of more importance than all the others, because upon it we live.

Government was inaugurated to secure equal rights to all. It has no excuse for its existence upon any other proposition. Yet in protection we find the government not only abandoning its high duty as an agent of the people, but entering the field of private enterprise with its immense power, and while robbing the many insuring enormous profits to a few.

The Necessity of the Coming Campaign.

LAFAYETTE, Ind.—What is this great reform toward which we are working? Theoretically, a great land resumption, involving social revolution, but, practically, a simple tax reform. Hence, in a local campaign, the discussion must consist chiefly in pointing out the absurdities and the unfairness of the methods by which federal revenues are raised. If the democratic party finds itself compelled by force of circumstances to assist in pointing out a few of these absurdities and inequalities, it would be a poor policy indeed to oppose it.

EDWARD GATES.

A Pat Illustration.

In the course of an address recently made by S. V. Moulton before the carpenters’ union of Grand Rapids, Mich. He spoke as follows:

Suppose an island to spring out of the Atlantic in a night, supplied with all the resources of soil, minerals, and timber? Suppose upon that island but one harbor, and one man should attempt to seize that and levy tribute upon all who might want to go or come; or there should be but one coal mine and he should claim that and prevent others from taking out the coal; or should seize the highways or the soil and prevent travel or agriculture except tribute was paid to him, as did the feudal barons of the middle ages; you would say that such proceedings were robbery. Yet these are some of the ways in which large fortunes are accumulated, and not one can be traced to any great extent to legitimate sources.

Then Change the Law.

Indianapolis News.

We are heartily on the side of tenants against the landlords, as we have already recorded in the matter of increased rents here. We subscribe to all that has been said on the subject. It is not right that the benefit of nature’s fuel should be confiscated by those who own the premises. But let us grant all this, and then? Will it stop the increase? We are face to face with a little slice of what falls to an Irish tenant’s lot. Is a bog drained so that a farm becomes more healthy, or a house repaired so that it becomes more comfortable, at once the rent is raised on him. That is law in Ireland, and it is law in this country.

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THE LEHIGH REGION.

Free Trade and Free Land.

PARKERSBURG, West Virginia, March 28.—We are all free traders here in our club. The tariff is such a good club to break democratic heads with that I for one cannot see why any single tax man can consent to forego the pleasure and profit of using it. The “revenue reformers” cannot get around the fact that what they call “free trade” has not done away with pauperism in England, while protectionists on their part cannot get around the fact that Germany and France, two high protective countries, pay smaller wages than England, a comparatively free trade country. We are then in a position when we get them that far to shove the “land question” at them and set them to thinking.

W. J. BOREMAN.

It is Only the Tariff Wall that Keeps the United States and Canada apart.

Toronto Grip.

The smug, highly-protected Canadian manufacturer always glows with patriotism. Of course, you’ve noticed that. It harrows his truly loyal soul to hear traitors talk of admitting Yankee goods on easier terms than similar products from the dear old mother land. He always concludes his morning devotions by singing “God save the queen,” and he never fails to offer the same prayer when he retires at night. But sometimes this unexampled patriot has business at Ottawa, and it becomes known through the public press. ’Tis then we read items like this:

Another deputation, of which Mr. Rightmeyer of Kincardine, was a prominent figure, urged the removal of the duty on American salt, as the American tariff committee had recommended that commodity for the free list, and also urged an increase in the duty of salt from England.

There Are Plenty of Such Texts, But This One is Worth Quoting.

Boston Herald.

Mr. Henry George might perhaps find a text in support of some of his land theories from the statement made concerning the value of real property owned by the estate of the late Joshua Jones of New York. Among other property of which he died possessed is a tract of land between Seventy-fourth and Seventy-fifth streets, Central park and the Bloomingdale road, which was bought by his father in 1806 for the sum of $400 and has been in the family ever since. This property is now worth more than $[2?],500,000, not in consequence of improvements, but, as Mr. George would say, in consequence of the energy and industry of the citizens of New York, who have made of their municipality a great commercial center, thereby permitting Mr. Jones’s land to enormously increase in value.

One Thousand and Two Millionaires.

Kansas Commoner.

George and Hewitt and a thousand other millionaires desire eventually to place all tax upon the homes of the people.

Mayor Hewitt of New York is a recent convert to the idea. Why? Because having a monopoly in the manufacture of “steel beams,” by which he has become a millionaire, he would, under the operation of the George idea, be enabled ultimately to place all tax upon the poor “villians^sic” who dig in the ground or occupy it. He isn’t satisfied with what he has, but wishes to be able to control the property of others.

Presenting a Richmond Institution With the Right to Levy Taxes in Caroline County.

Richmond Religious Herald.

Deacon J. H. Coghill of New York city, a native of our old state, gave Richmond college $500 some years ago, and now he sends the college a deed to his farm of 237 acres in Caroline county, Va. The treasurer has thanked him, and now, in our own behalf, and in behalf of the friends of education throughout the south, we thank him. The influence of Mr. Coghill’s benefactions will, we hope, stimulate others to do far more than they have done for Christian education.

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A CLERGYMAN’S LETTER.

The following letter from a Unitarian clergyman will be read with interest by friends of the cause in every part of the world:

WARWICK, Mass., March 24, 1888.

Henry George—Dear Sir: I have followed with the deepest interest you and the movement by you inaugurated ever since the beginning of your campaign for the mayoralty of New York. For years I had pondered over the social problems and difficulties with which I had often been brought into close contact. I had commenced to feel that there could be but one way of salvation for society—state socialism. I had read the socialistic writers, and honored and sympathized with their spirit and aspirations; but state socialism appeared to me a crude and dangerous way of realizing those aspirations. However, if the only way (as it seemed to me), I felt more and more inclined to think it after all the right way.

I saw at first in your movement a half socialistic movement, and as such rejoiced in the radical discussion it would bring about. I read your speeches and your books, and began to see in the single tax a decided step toward radical social reform. But I could not see in it that one great and complete reform you and yours claimed to see in it. I gave, however, all the time I could to a study of it, in order to make clear in my own mind just what the single tax could and would do, and what it neither could nor would do. I found from the beginning that the more I looked at it the more I found in it—the more thorough a reform I saw it to be. But your saying that the land tax was the natural tax—a tax ordained by a law of nature to provide for the natural growth of society, I conld^sic not but regard as extravagant rhetoric. Still I hardly ever gave the subject an hour’s thought without seeing more in it. In the mean time I followed the movement rejoicingly—its spirit was such a one as I had longed to see in politics, and I began to wish I might see all that you saw in the land tax. I did so at last—months ago now; and having before written you to ask questions and half criticize and object, I deem it right also to let you know of this one more conversion to your social faith.

With me this social question has for years been one of the problems that have caused me most anxious thought. I have hungered to understand it, to see through it, to find a rational solution to it. And it is with contentment, equal to that with which men, plunged for years in religious skepticism see and feel a new, calm, rational trust rising for them, that at last I see in the divine order and in natural law a provision for all our social needs; a plain way out of all our social difficulties—merely to order things as nature and reason bid. It has given me that supreme contentment with which we trace the lines of wisdom, justice, love, purpose and good throughout creation.

Yes, I now clearly see that this single tax is nature’s tax; that such nationalization of land as you propose will mean the end of this social system—which every man who has seen how it grinds the under classes must regard as a veritable kingdom of hell upon earth—that it will mean a new social system, rising naturally with all the good the socialist aims at, a new and grander civilization—a civilization not only grand in its material advances, but grander still in the moral advances it will make possible; that it will mean in brief and in truth the physical foundation for the kingdom of heaven on earth.

I now clearly see that private property in land is contrary to nature, that is, to God’s will. I now see that it is the fundamental wrong which causes all the misery and ugliness of our advancing civilization, which has turned such divine things as machinery and all modern inventions into veritable curses to large classes of men, and which turns the greatest misfortunes like tornadoes and fires into much to be desired blessings for the same classes of men—which has separated society into classes having distinctly opposed interests, and withheld from the masses the good that modern progress ought to have given them. I see that the cause for which you struggle is the simple social economical truth—the answer to the sphinx-like social question. I see that the single tax is the law of nature, or, in brief, the pure, clear will of God.

No fanaticism is here needed to shout “God wills it!” In the calmest mood conceivable we see that if we may ever use these words, we may use them here. Yes, surely “God wills it.” It is no assumption; it is plain truth. We see the command written in the very fibers and textures of creation, of nature. Being natural, it is of course God’s will. And in a natural mood, without fanaticism, but quiet and calm, we must gird up our loins and work for this cause the best we can “while it is day.” It is a part of religion, a part of thinking men’s service to God. So I see it, so for several months have I seen it, having gradually, thanks to your clear words, come to understand it.

My thanks!

One question, however, I wish yet to ask. It now appears to me as if the single tax would be a sufficient economical reform; as if, land once taxed to its full rental value, it would be needless to legislate specially against any monopolies; as if this tax would make it impossible for monopolises^sic to take undue advantage of the people; as if it would make them harmless. I have neither the means nor the time to look fully through this matter, and would be glad if you would some time show in THE STANDARD why this land tax would not tend to do with monopolies what undoubtedly it would tend to do in any other business—secure to all the workers their natural and reasonable reward. If I am right in viewing this matter as I now do, I shall be glad, for while my hope is that humanity may ever approach more and more to a natural socialism, a co-operative republic, I fear anything which would establish that by artificial methods, which would set any other limit to private enterprise than natural law and reasonable right. I think true socialism will come the most rapidly and with least friction, and in its noblest form, as the outcome of perfect individual liberty, bounded only by the limits natural right sets. And the state taking charge of railroads and all other monopolies would, of course, mean a little narrowing of the natural, and in itself herculean sphere of the individual. If in the natural progress of things state conduct of these affairs should seem to come of itself, it would, of course, be different; and even then, it seems to me, it were best did the liberty remain for private persons to enter into such business still—if they could find an opening not filled by the state. For after all that may be said for state control of any business, it remains a “hard pill to swallow,” and has been often so found. However, if there is no choice, if the single tax would still leave monopolies the power of taxing the public almost at pleasure—one would swallow the pill were it ten times more forbidding.

I will not take room nor time here to give my reasons why this matter appears to me as it does. No doubt you have long seen them, and I shall expect to see the whole of it cleared up in THE STANDARD soon.

I am writing some letters on the social question in the light of the solution offered by the single tax, in Norwegian, for a labor paper

p. 2, col. 5 published in the west, also for a home paper. Shall do what I can for duty’s and love’s sake.

All things are fairer to me, and life more good and bright because of this great, world-wide, noble movement of ours (may it be kept noble enough for the saintliest man or woman to live and work and pray in the midst of!). And since I saw the natural solution of these social difficulties, the plain divine will and intention concerning them, I thank God that I live in this age and have seen this movement from its beginning; to me it sanctifies the times; it hallows our century; it makes all things easy and beautiful. Yours,

H. TAMBS LYCHE, Unitarian Minister.

LONDON SOCIETY.

Calling Names.

The Milwaukee Wisconsin (protection republican) says:

There is no other journal of any political name in the country which will alienate more republican votes in the coming national kaleidoscopic, guerrilla republican sheet^sic known as the Chicago Tribune.

To which the Tribune replies:

The Tribune will not “alienate” any republican votes if the high-tariff, rule-or-ruin, trust-monopoly cranks do not “alienate” the Tribune. But we do not propose to sit idly by and see the republican party captured by an unholy combination of plutocrats and monopolists—actual and potential.

Wants to Encourage a Man Who Will Meet Him Half Way.

J. G. Malcolm, a well known single tax man of Hutchinson, Kan., writes to the Detroit Advance strongly objecting to running an independent candidate. He says:

If the democrats refuse to nominate Cleveland I am then for running a national ticket. But if they nominate Cleveland I shall vote for him, because I want to encourage a man who will offer to meet me half way, and because I do not want to weaken the chance of a friend and strengthen the chance of an enemy.

How Much of the Duty Do the Miners Get?

Philadelphia Record.

Mr. Stockton Bates of this city writes that “it can be clearly shown that in all protected industries where labor is the chief element of cost the entire duty paid by the importer goes to the American work people, and not to the proprietors and capitalists.” If this could be proved it would go far to reconcile to the existing tariff thousands of people who are now ymong its most relentless opponents. In fact, it would put an end to the discussion. But how much, for example, do the iron miners who work for less than a dollar a day get out of the duty of seventy-five cents on ore? Or, what share do the coal diggers of Pennsylvania secure from a like duty on coal? To come nearer home, how large a dividend do the weavers of Philadelphia draw from a duty of nearly sixty per cent on carpets, or from the still higher duty of ninety per cent on cloths? If Mr. Bates can present one authentic instance in which the entire duty paid by the importer goes to the American work people he will have a beginning, at least, toward proving his proposition.

She Hadn’t Moved in Society.

Norristown Herald.

Mrs. Bukoleek, who lives on a farm, upon reading that “a number cf Philadelphia ladies have taken up fencing as an exercise,” remarked that she thought they would have enough exercise to last them a lifetime after they had dug a few post holes and put up several panels of fence. “For my part,” she added, “I’d just as lief take up plowing in a forty acre field as an exercise.”

Lord! Lord! How This World is Given to Lying.

Chicago Inter Ocean.

Quinine was long denounced as the creature of monopoly; at length it was placed on the free list. Is it a cent an ounce cheaper in consequence? Most surely not.

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PEN, PASTE AND SCISSORS.

Governor Alger owns over one hundred square miles of Michigan timber land.

Washington, Pa., has three glass factories, all erected since natural gas has been in use.

A Steubenville, O., man has invented a bottle finishing machine which promises to do the finishing for three blowers.

Allehany^sic, Pa., natural gas consumers are holding meetings to protest against the extortionate charges of the companies.

The island of Malta has a lace output worth $220,000 a year. Four thousand five hundred women and girls are employed.

Senator Stockbridge of Michigan is about to purchase from Senator Stanford of California a brother of the famous horse Bell Boy. The price is $18,000.

The queen regent of Spain gives her subjects every opportunity to know how she is looking. She has a new photograph taken every few days.

Kelly & Jones, manufacturers of plumbing fittings, will remove their plant at Jersey City to Greensburg, Pa., where they will invest $300,000 and employ 300 men. The site was given them.

The coal output of Missouri during 1887 was 2,865,996 tons, worth $1.50 a ton at the mines. The area of coal covers 27,000 square miles. The average annual wages of the miners was $346.55.

Rev. E. Walpole Warren will soon know whether he is to be sent back to his native country as a law defying contract laborer, or not. His case comes up for trial before Judge Wallace in the United States circuit court on April 11.

The names for money in the language of the Ogallalla Sioux are interesting. Gold is mases-ska-zi, literally, “yellow white iron;” silver is mases-ska-ska, or “white iron,” and greenbacks are minne-huapimases-ska, or “paper that talks white iron.”

Louisiana is having a land boom, owing to the increased immigration from the northwest. Jay Gould is said to have secured several very large tracts of land, including one of 26,000 acres, and timber and other lands are being gobbled up by the 100,000 acres.

A lumber stacking machine, which takes the place of fifteen men, is in successful use. The lumber is carried on chains from the trimmer and dropped on the cars in better shape than the men formerly did the work. But one man is now necessary to manipulate the machine.

The Mail and Express has adopted the habit of putting a fresh text of scripture at the head of its editorial page every day. In a succeeding column it gives tips on the races, which are said to be unusually reliable. Apparently Elliot F. Shepard would like to be all things to all men.

“Look here!” she exclaimed. “This is terrible. You charge me twenty-five cents for that card of buttons, and back east I could get them for ten cents.” “Yes, ma’am, but just think of the elegant climate you get throwed in with every card of buttons.”—[Santa Barbara (Cal.) Press.

A successful experiment has been made at the Etna iron works, Pittsburg, by which the lap welding of tubes is done in one heating instead of two. Less metal is required. In fact, the new way saves a great deal of labor and the cost is from 25 to 40 per cent cheaper. An employe is the inventor.

The working women’s society is circulating a petition to the governor and legislature to amend the factory law so as to provide for the appointment of six additional factory inspectors, who shall be women. The demand is a just one. A majority of the operatives in the great city factories are women and girls.

The stewards who have charge of distributing the coal stored by providence in the Pennsylvania mines, have held a meeting in Philadelphia. They resolved unanimously “to maintain the prices of anthracite during the season of 1888-89, beginning April 1, and so to regulate the output of coal that the market shall be burdened with no over production.” Apparently these men think they own the coal mines.

The Maryland legislature has passed the bills fixing the price of gas in Baltimore at $1.25 per 1,000 feet. A desperate attempt to defeat the measure was made by stealing the original bill from the third reading file of the senate. A new bill, however, was drafted within an hour, passed under suspension of the rules, and at once signed by Governor Jackson. Legislatures can do business quickly when they feel like it.

The Christian Union notes with pleasure the fact that a valuable loan collection of pictures has been placed on exhibition in Whitechapel, London. The Christian Union suggests that something of the same kind be done in New York, and says: “In no other way could brotherly feeling be better expressed or developed than by this recognition on the part of the favored of kindred tastes and aspirations among those whom circumstances have debarred from like advantages.

Tennis is flourishing in Florida and Old Point Comfort, while New York still shivers in the March blast. The prize of a tournament held last week in St. Augustine was a solid silver model of the old city gates, handsomely mounted, and valued at $500. The condition upon which it passes into any one’s possession is that it shall be won three years consecutively. This makes it reasonably certain that the trophy will remain at St. Augustine—unless, indeed, Mr. Seers takes it into his head to take a trip to Florida every winter.—[New York Herald.

Hereafter every man who shall build a house will have to pay tribute to the sash, door and blind trust, which controls about three-fourths of the production of these essential articles in New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. How contemptible must a people appear in the eyes of foreigners when they submit without a murmur to wholesale extortion through gigantic combinations in restraint of trade, without the slightest serious effcrt^sic to curb or control the plunderers!—[Philadelphia Record.

Sixty thousand dollars is a pretty large sum to spend for the expenses of a wedding, especially when the bride pays all the bills; but that is the sum which the supreme court of New York has allowed nineteen year old Miss Singer for the expenses of her marriage with the Duke Decazes. The money comes out of the $13,000,000 estate of her father, the sewing machine inventor. Dukes come high, but it seems as if American heiresses must have them, even at a heavy premium. Why not start an American manufactory of dukes, and “keep the money in the country?”—[Boston Globe.

Real estate agents in St. Louis are taking a great interest in the coming meeting of the democratic convention in that city, which they are confident will largely advance the prices of the goods in which they deal. A committee consisting of Messrs. Theophile Papin, Leslie A. Moffett, Marcus A. Wolff and Fred G. Zelbig have been appointed to solicit subscriptions from agents and other persons representing real estate interests to defray the expenses of the convention. The committee anticipates liberal contributions to the fund from all persons in the real estate business, regardless of politics, believing, as most patriotic citizens do, that money spent in this way is like bread cast upon the waters, that it will not be many days in returning to them.

A case was being tried in the west of England, and at its termination the judge charged the jury and they retired for consultation. Hour after hour passed and no verdict was brought in. The judge’s dinner hour arrived and he became hungry and impatient. Upon inquiry he learned that one obstinate juryman was holding out against eleven. That he could not stand, and he ordered the twelve men to be brought before him. He told them that in his charge to them he had so plainly stated the case and the law that the verdict ought to be unanimous, and the man who permitted his individual opinion to weigh against the judgment of eleven men of wisdom was unfit and disqualified ever again to act in the capacity of juryman. At the end of this excited harangue a little squeaky voice came from one of the jury. He said: “Will your lordship allow me to say a word?” Permission being given, he added: “May it please your lordship, I am the only man on your side.”—[Singapore Review.

QUERIES AND ANSWERS.

A GLIMPSE OF TOMBS METHODS.

The Real Beneficiaries of the Lumber Duty.

Frederick Kreamer in Philadelphia Record.

When the Williamsport lumbermen went to Washington to prevail on the committee having in charge the bill now before congress to retain the duty on lumber, were they sent by laboring men? Does any one imagine that removing the duty from lumber would reduce the wages of the log chopper or the mill hand? The men who convert the standing tree into manufactured lumber are not alarmed. The native hand has shared the lumber camps with the Canadian log chopper long enough to know that the duty on lumber forms no part of his wages. The particular kind of labor he has to sell comes in competition with all other kinds of labor, including foreign labor. If the removal of the duty from lumber would lower the price of lumber it would reduce the value of stumpage; and who could better afford to stand a reduction than the timber owner, who bought his pine timber land at a cost of fifty cents or $1 per 1000 feet and now gets from $6 to $8 per 1000 feet on the stump. The only effect the reduction in the price of lumber would have on the laboring man would be to reduce the cost of the house that shelters himself and family.

History Repeats Itself.

Green’s History of the English People.

Monopolies abandoned by Elizabeth, extinguished by act of parliament under James, and denounced with the assent of Charles himself in the petition of right, were again set on foot, and on a scale far more gigantic than had been seen before. . . . Wine, soap, salt, and almost every article of domestic use, fell into the hands of monopolists, and rose in price out of all proportion to the profit gained by the crown. “They sup in our cup,” Colpepper said afterward in the song “Parliament,” “They dip in our dish, they sit by our fire; we find them in the dye fat, the wash bowls and the powdering tub. They shave with the cutter in his box. They have marked and sealed us from head to foot.”

Protection for Pennsylvania Coal Spoils the Market for Western Coal.

Chicago Tribune.

Bituminous coal should go on the free list. All New England could then get cheaper fuel and power coal from the Picton^sic mines in Nova Scotia, and the Canadian retaliatory tariff on coal would be repealed, thus opening a new field of export to the coal operators of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

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EVENTS IN ENGLAND AND AUSTRALIA.

At last the bitter cry of outcast London has reached the ears of the nation’s masters assembled at St. Stephen’s. Lord Dunraven, stocked with facts and figures, arose from his bench in the house of lords the other night and called for a consideration of the “sweating system” prevailing at the east end. He said that the conditions of the lives of many of the people there “are more deplorable than those of any body of workingmen in any portion of the civilized world.” As an illustration of his assertion, he stated that among the women engaged in making waistcoats he had found one machinist who could earn only 5s. per week by working from 7 in the morning till 12 or 1 next morning. In the manufacture of children’s clothes, he found one woman who made knickerbockers for 1½d. a pair, and could earn 5s. 6d. per week. “It is not strange,” said he, “that under such circumstances women are driven on the streets, and that the strongest men are killed in the course of eight or ten years.”

The whole assemblage was thunderstruck at the revelation, and one after another noble lords got up and poured forth eloquence and pathos. One found consolation in the fact that “the great majority of these unfortunate people are not our fellow subjects, but are Polish Jews, Germans and persons of other nationalities. They landed in this country in absolute destitution.”

But what was to be done? The London Star said rightly that the discussion “suggests much the same kind of feeling as would be aroused by a convention of cannibals meeting to discuss the prevention of hasty mastication.” These privileged persons had no intention of really changing the condition of things, for upon those conditions the continuance of the luxuries which they enjoyed depended. Besides, quoted one^sic, “if these dens are entirely swept away there is danger of trade being driven away.” But that there was a way out of the difficulty they were well agreed, and the discussion dwindled down to a plea for protection. “Men and women,” cried Lord Dunraven, “have to work eighteen hours a day for merely starvation wages; women are driven to a life of dishonor, as being less degraded than the circumstances which attend a life of honest toil,” because of that “free competition which political economists tells^sic us is so beneficial.” Consequently, competition from abroad must be cut off by rearing up a wall of duties, the virtue of which is that the price of products would rise and opportunity be given to increase rents, or at all events to prevent their decline.

And well may the noble lords speak eloquently in this cause. They are driven hard. From every quarter come dismaying reports. Rents shrinking and all kinds of schemes afoot to cause their further shrinkage—chief among them a plan to shift upon rents the burden of these taxes that have for so long hampered industry. In the Scottish highlands and in Ireland commissioners are chopping down rents. In Glasgow the influential financial reform association, in conjunction with the Scottish land restoration league, has just passed resolutions to the effect that “unless provision be made in the imperial budget for the repeal of the duties upon tea, coffee, cocoa, chicory, dried fruits, gold and silver plate, and the tax upon carriages, the sense of the house (parliament) be taken as to the abolition of such duties and the substitution of a tax upon land values.”

In London the rate committee of the Lambeth vestry recommends the taxation of ground rents for the defrayment of public improvements and suggests that other metropolitan vestries do likewise. Influential newspapers, such as the Star, the Pall Mall Gazette and Reynold’s Weekly, are blazing away for gradual absorption of rents for public purposes. Clergymen and lay speakers are everywhere urging the same thing. Members of parliament are working for it in the house of commons and candidates are advocating it upon the hustings. Here, there and everywhere the cry is raised against landlords’ confiscation of the products of the workers’ toil. It is not the hot heads and wicked agitators who are raising the row, but cool heads and respected “fellow subjects.” “The city is not a hot bed of socialism or even of radicalism,” says the London Echo. “On the contrary, conservatives largely preponderate in its representative bodies, yet here the proposal to levy a direct impost upon the owners of property (land) receives general support.”

Moreover, at the instance of William Saunders, one of the most persistent advocates of the single tax doctrine, whom the Walworth liberals and radicals propose to run for parliament on the next vacancy, the London united “committee for the taxation of ground rents and values” is preparing to place a statement of the doctrine in the hands of every elector in the metropolis. The statement will be issued in the form of a thirty-two-page pamphlet. A thousand dollars toward defraying the expense of this undertaking was guaranteed at the first meeting, and further subscriptions have since been supplied. Such a document in the hands of thinking people, even if supplemented by no greater public discussion than that which is now going on in press, on platform and in pulpit, must be productive of great good, and will bring into the ranks of the new crusade hundreds, perhaps thousands, of strong hands and sturdy hearts.

But the climax of assault against the peers was reached in the big vote in the commons in favor of reform in the house of lords. True, the tory vote outnumbered that of radicals and liberals, but the subject is one that is persistently coming up, and each time the defense is weaker and the assailants more audacious. Excepting a few men like Lord Salisbury, Earl Spencer and Lord Roseberry^sic, who foresee the social crash, and are prepared to stand from under, the five hundred gentlemen who constitute the house of lords are strongly prejudiced against the rising tide of democracy, and whenever a popular measure comes up they leave pigeon matches, race courses, prize fights and gambling hells to vote against it. And now John Morley caps the climax of ingratitude toward these saviors of British society by declaring that “the accident of birth can no longer confer the right to make laws for a free and self-governing nation!”

This sentiment is ominous, indeed, for, carried out to its logical end, it puts an end to royalty itself, and sweeps the land clear for the establishment of a republic.

The London Christian Commonwealth, in a recent editorial, says:

It was no part of God’s arrangement that millions of poor men and women—aye, and children, too—should be working their fingers to the bone, and living on bread and water, in order to fill the pockets of a few thousand people, who stand behind them to appropriate the fruits of their labor. No; this is not of God; no sanction can be found for it in the scriptures; and the voice of God which speaks to every man through his conscience and his reason condemns it as treason against primary human rights.

The Christian Commonwealth announces

p. 3, col. 4 that a conference of Christian men and women will shortly be held in London to make a move toward securing recognition of these human rights and to meet Cardinal Manning’s question, “What is society doing, or willing to do, to redeem and save the worthless?” Of what the Christian Commonwealth is in favor there can be no question, as it is a stanch advocate of the single tax and gives large space in its columns to the propagation of anti-poverty gospel.

The closeness with which the interests of Australia are linked to those of Great Britain in the great social struggle, and the radical sentiments that are abroad in Australia may be seen by the following extract from the Brisbane (Australia) Boomerang, commenting on the agitation in the highlands of Scotland and the scheme of wholesale deportation of crofters to Australia. “What permanent good will it do them to come to Australia?” asks the Boomerang:

Will it not be simply dropping them from the clutches of one land robber into the clutches of another? And if the latter robber, our own Australian landlord, does not yet squeeze quite so tightly as his British prototype it is only because the monopoly is not yet quite complete and because he is obliged to be a little reasonable until it is. The crofter holds the winning hand in Scotland. He’s got the land; he’s got the case; and he’s got a mighty flood of public indignation drowning the land robbers before his eyes, but bearing him safe and sound upon its topmost crest. The Torres Vedras of the British land movement has been assailed and held. The Irish land league has proved itself invincible, safely intrenched in the hearts of the Irish people. Scotland, by that Edinburgh jury which acquitted the Lewis deer raiders, has declared itself for reform. The English radicals have bridged the gulf of national hatred and now fight the battle of the English people upon Irish soil. If the crofter stays to share the fight, he’s in at the division of the spoil. If he comes here there’ll be a few years’ breathing spell, and then—the same old fight must be taken up again. For it matters little what we call the tenure under which men hold land in Australia so long as mortgagees and land syndicates, the forerunners of a landocrat caste, are enabled to extort in rent or interest or by lowered wages the lion’s share of the wealth wrung by labor from the soil. Those who want the crofter to come to Australia are those who want to make something out of him. His coming here would be like jumping out of the fire into the frying pan when he has the prospect of jumping clean on to the floor.

The Boomerang goes on to say that “this land question is the bugbear of Australian politicians and writers. They all see it and feel it, but they dare not speak out like men.” No effectual remedy can be found for a condition of things under which there are ten thousand poverty stricken people in Sydney, thousands of unemployed men in Brisbane, wretched homes for many a struggling family, and girls by hundreds driven to sell their honor, until “the land is reclaimed by the state, and industry released from the dwarfing bonds of monopoly, and the soil thrown open to the user, and the unearned increment poured into the treasury of the people who make it.”

Our Commonwealth of Adelaide, South Australia, remarks in a recent issue that the single tax doctrine is spreading “quietly, slowly, but firmly, among the thinking portion of the people of New South Wales.”

At Dubbo, Goulbourn^sic, Forbes, Wagga, and other towns, strong societies have been formed to preach the new gospel of redemption to the people. Last month a land nationalization society was formed in Sydney; being in the hands of good, earnest men, there is every probability of it doing a good work in that city. The first meeting was a most enthusiastic one, and good practical speeches were delivered by Messrs. Foxall, Dobbie, Guilford, Trail and others.

At Port Pirie an anti-poverty society has been started. Mr. A. Durgey, who is indefatigable in the good cause, was chairman at the inaugural meeting, at which several good speeches were made.

PROTECTION BY BLIZZARD.

FROM INDIANAPOLIS.

The Result of Mature Reflection.

FORT WAYNE, Ind., March 26.—For a long time I was strongly in favor of running a presidential ticket, and your action in suggesting the opposite course made me hot. After more mature reflection I am one of those who believe that for the labor party to enter the coming campaign (that is, the tariff fight) and ignore the tariff question, would be, to use an ancient figure, like the play of “Hamlet” with Hamlet left out. Worse. It would be, by avowing a lack of convictions on a great question, to confess our unfitness to deal with public affairs. We cannot be indifferent on the tariff question. Either a protective tariff is a benefit to the people of this country, or it is not. In either case our duty is plain. If we are not a unit on the question, it is our fault.

Up to the day of the national election in 1884 I was an advocate of a protective tariff—or rather, I voted for protection because I “did not want American wages cut down one-half.” Since that time I have tried to give to the tariff question the kind of study that for the past seven years I have given to the principles of “Progress and Poverty,” and the result is that I am an absolute free trader. Until the labor party has positive convictions on vital questions it had better keep out of the fight.

All this is on the assumption that free trade will be the issue this year. Should events prevent this result, then the course to be pursued will remain to be settled. If the democrats offer to do part of the work that otherwise we would have to wait years to accomplish, I am sure I shall not object. I am not so anxious to make extra work for myself as to decline to ride in a wagon going part of my way. I believe we ought, on this or any other question in which we are interested, to get into the first wagon that comes along. We shall not be required to certify that the wagon will be fit for hauling saw logs ten years from now. We shall not be expected to indorse the democratic party, the republican party, or any other party.

W. E. MCDERMUT.

The Sooner the Better.

Hamilton (Ont.) Times.

Canada cannot afford to tax the raw materials of manufactures when the United States admits them free of duties. . . . Once a beginning is made it will not take long to get the tariff down to a revenue basis, which in the United States means a very close approach to free trade. As each protective duty is removed a set of lobbyists drops out, and the strength of the high tariff ring is decreased. With few and low import duties the United States must be the most prosperous country upon earth, and Canada must either adopt the same means (free trade) to attain equal prosperity, or the people of this country will go across the border in droves to better their condition. This is the situation confronting Canadian statesmen. The sooner they understand it, and prepare for it by reducing public expenditures and the rate of taxation, the better it will be for the dominion.

Who is Afraid of the Post Office?

Richmond State.

Who is afraid of the post office? Who would be willing to see the mails taken from the government and entrusted to the hands of any corporation? In a very short time after the establishment of a government telegraph there will be found few who would ever consent to see the telegraph placed once more in private hands. The needs of the age require a telegraphic system as efficient as the post office system.

p. 3, col. 6

SOCIETY NOTES.

Louise Chandler Moulton in Morning Journal.

The glad dawn sets his fires upon the hills, Then floods the valleys with his golden light, And, triumphing o’er all the hosts of night, The waiting world with new-born rapture fills: And, hark! I seem to hear a song which thrills The trembling air of earth with heaven’s delight, And straight uplifts with its Celestial Might Souls faint with longing, compassed round with ills.

“Christ, Christ is risen!” the unseen singers sing; “Christ, Christ is risen!” the echoing hosts reply. The hush’d wind knows a passing seraph’s wing, And holds its breath while shining ones go by: “Christ, Christ is risen!” loud let the anthem ring; “He lives, He loves, He saves; we need not die!”

Whether the season of Lent has or has not any but a conventional influence upon social movements, there is no question that Easter brings with it a throb of gladness to every heart. It is the crowning festival of the Christian world, and apparently has its perfect consummation in this good city of ours, where lights, music and flowers, the three great emblems of gayety and rejoicing, abound in churches and dwellings, and are brought within the reach of all.—[New York Sun.

A dispatch from Reading, Pa., announces that an average reduction of eight per cent in wages is to be made throughout the Connellsville coke regions. About one-third of the men are now idle, and it is thought that those at work will submit to the reduction without making any serious complaint.

The entertainments for charity during the next fortnight are almost without limit, and to keep them all with their respective dates clearly in mind would be a task even for those whose memories have been made better than now by the Loisette method. The performance in Delmonico’s ball room on Thursday evening for the purpose of raising funds for a French school promises well, as it has a good list of patronesses, including among others Mrs. James Otis, Mrs. Gibert, Mrs. Alphonse Montant and Mrs. R. L. Clarkson and an excellent company of amateurs, who will give a charming operetta in French and an English play called “An Old Master,” in which Miss Alice Lawrence will appear. On Monday, April 8^sic, Miss Leary, Mrs. Thebaud, Mrs. De Navarro and other ladies of the Roman Catholic faith will preside over a fete at Delmonico’s to aid those who are sick and in prison, charities which should appeal to all. Then come Mr. Louis Tiffany’s Paas festival to help the infirmary for women and children, a charity musicale at Mr. Frederick Goodridge’s on the 9th, and on the same evening will occur Mrs. Van Schaick Oddie’s dance at the Mendelssohn glee club’s rooms, which is to be a recognition of work already done in the cause of charity by the young ladies of Mrs. Oddie’s sewing class, which has met at her house during Lent. The Venetian carnival, to take place at the Metropolitan opera house on the 12th, will, of course, take the lead of all the festivals of the year. Mrs. Chauncey M. Depew and the other ladies who are on the committee of management have spared neither money nor trouble to make it completely successful. Unique and original it must necessarily be.—[New York Sun.

The health department says that over six thousand children under fifteen years of age are known to be engaged in various employments in this city.

That a feeling of relief comes with Easter to the youthful heart is easily understood. The shackles of dullness and restraint thrown off, plans for all kinds of diversion and merriment present themselves, and even though there may be no immediate prospect of fashionable entertainments, yet hunts, races and summer gayeties loom up in the near future and disperse all the clouds and darkness of the past six weeks.—[New York Sun.

Kate Ryan was employed at Higgins’s carpet factory, Forty-fourth street and North river. On Saturday last she was on the fifth story of the factory in company with several other girls. She leaned carelessly against a board nailed across the doorway of the elevator shaft, when the board broke, and she fell eighty fell^sic, striking on the top of the elevator. Her recovery was considered doubtful.

The Vanderbilts have expended large amounts on each other and for various charities this Easter. Mr. Frederick Vanderbilt spent several hours at Tiffany’s selecting some pretty trifles for his young wife. One of these was a new card case of Italian enamel leather, with a little jeweled watch encircled with forget-me-nots fastened in one corner. This little trifle cost $250, and with it went a dainty bracelet of pearls and emeralds, twisted in a design of a lily, which happened to take the millionaire’s fancy.—[Morning Journal.

A well-dressed man entered the store of Louis Tobias, at 166 Bowery, on Saturday afternoon and, while pretending to make a purchase, snatched a $5 ring from a tray of African cape diamonds and ran out. He was afterward captured and recognized as a noted diamond thief. He says had he known that it was not a genuine diamond he would not have risked his liberty.—[Morning Journal.

Prince Bismarck’s birthday is always a great feast and holiday for the servants of the house. In the kitchen a barrel of wine is provided by Princess Bismarck, two bands are in attendance, and the servants’ families appear on the scene. The prince comes down, talks with the guests, and distributes sweets among the children. The pleasant relations between master and servant are also evident from the fact that the princess always gives six Easter eggs to each of the servants. The domestic police of the prince consists of a sergeant and eight constables. If the prince is away from home, four constables go with him and four remain at the house, and all of them are entitled to arrest any suspicious person, be it at Berlin, at Friedrichsruhe or at Varzin.

A local panic is threatened in Danbury, Conn., on account of the stagnation of the hatting industry. The cause is said to be the cutting of manufacturers’ prices and the opening of small shops throughout the neighboring country. Eleven hundred operators intend to shut down on April 28, indefinitely discharging all their employes.

Parasols are almost as varied in style this Easter as are the dresses and bonnets. The plainest of silk shades with natural wood handles are considered in fashion, and also anything from this up to the hand painted and embroidered ones, with lace coverings and insertions and golden jeweled handles. Parasols are not expensive. You can get a neat one of shot glace silk with a twisted bamboo handle for $25, and quite a beauty for $50. Most of our customers give from $25 to [$35?] for parasols.—[Morning Journal.

Yesterday a band of juvenile thieves, varying in age from eight to thirteen, were brought up before a suburban police magistrate. They picked pockets habitually in churches, particularly at marriage ceremonies. One urchin, barely eight years of age, who had stolen a bride’s purse and hanhkerchief, was asked how, being so small, he could put his hand into the pocket of a grown-up person. “My companion carried me in his arms,” replied the boy. It transpired from further evidence that several of the precocious young malefactors had acquired extraordinary proficiency in their criminal art. The band to which they belonged had existed for two years without being detected. No adults were connected with it, the lads operating on their own account. Their place of meeting was in church every Sunday morning.—Vienna dispatch.

The Umbria carried some precious freight yesterday morning when she started on her trip across the ocean. Among her passengers were Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and their family, consisting of Gertrude and Gladys Vanderbilt, and Cornelius, Alfred G. and Reginald C. Vanderbilt. Another son, William H., remains at school for the present, but will join the family in London later in the season. Chauncey M. Depew and a number of friends of the Vanderbilts went to the pier to see them off.—[New York Tribune.

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GENERAL BRYCE’S CALF.

General Lloyd S. Bryce, having considered the question of land nationalization, publishes a confession in the North American Review. He is embarrassed at the thought of the cow which has done duty so often to illustrate one phase of opposition to land reforms, as the blacksmith shop alongside the palace has for another phase. But General Bryce does not call it a cow; he calls it a calf.

If the principle that man must not monopolize what his own labor has not created prohibits private ownership of land, General Bryce wants to know if it does not also “interdict private ownership in a calf.” And General Bryce is a member of congress!

The economic identity of land and cows, or, if you please, calves, has been often asserted and the fallacy and absurdity of the proposition as often exposed; but for the purpose of observing a congressman’s mental machinery in full operation it may be instructive as well as entertaining, despite the danger of dizziness, to follow General Bryce through this little exercise of his in economic gyrations.

“God,” he says, “made the calf as well as he did the land,” the inference being that man has no more right to absolute ownership of calves than to absolute ownership of land. That God made calves as well as land is true, just as it is true that God made the rainwater which the housewife collects in her tub as well as the clouds from which it falls or the sea from which it evaporated. And in the same sense it is true that God made houses, locomotives, ships and dry goods as well as land. But for certain natural laws which man may direct, but can neither originate nor control, he could have none of these. No matter how much labor he expended he couid not collect a drop of water nor produce any inanimate thing but for laws of cohesion; and if he could it would float away into space but for laws of gravitation; and but for laws of generation calves would not be born. But given these and other natural laws, and man may produce ships, houses, locomotives, dry goods or calves at will; and if he direct his labor exclusively to the production of any one, the others will disappear. It is just as much on account of human labor that the supply of calves and cows is maintained as that ships and houses are produced and preserved. But not so with land, the source of all these things, and the ultimate governor of their production; no labor can make it, no labor can increase it, no lack of labor can diminish it. Land is, as it always has been and always will be, the source of life, the mother of wealth, upon which we must live and in which we must delve; to be denied it is a sentence of death, to be compelled to buy it a sentence into slavery.

A perfect calf syndicate could subject us to temporary inconvenience, but a perfect land syndicate would reduce us to servitude. General Bryce might do very well with land, even if he could get no calf to put upon it; but what would he do with his calf if he could get no land to put the calf upon?

Since man is an earthling and not a calfling, unless members of congress be excepted, there is all the difference of life and death or slavery and freedom between monopoly of land and monopoly of calves; and since all that is drawn forth from the earth is drawn forth by man’s labor, while the earth itself is as it came from the hand of omnipotence, there is all the difference of title by production and title by force between ownership of land and ownership of calves.

“The calf grows,” says General Bryce, “and with its growth its value is enhanced,” and “the calf costs its owner no more in proportion to bring up than it costs the land owner to bring up his land.” It is well to remember that General Bryce is a member of congress, for in the supposition that membership in that body implies a moderate amount of intelligence, the fact would never be suspected from this observation. What if the value of a calf does grow with its growth? Does the value of land grow with its growth? And who ever heard before of land owners “bringing up” land? The land had attained its full growth long before any land owner appeared to say to his fellow man: “This is mine! work for me or get you gone!” What Congressman Bryce probably means by “bringing up” land, is improving it. But if he does mean that, he wanders from the question, for it is not asserted that the value of improvements do not belong to the producer, but that the value

p. 4, col. 2 of the place improved does not belong to the appropriator. Land with a house on it is worth more than without a house, and the difference belongs to the builder. Land fertilized is worth more than if not fertilized, and the difference belongs to the cultivator. Land so favorably located that ten thousand men want it is worth more than land so unfavorably located that no man wants it; but the difference does not belong to the appropriator. In those cases the owner has earned the difference: in this he has not.

The “unearned increment” of the cow General Bryce finds to be her milk; and let him beware who would intimate that the milk has been earned by the owner of the cow who has fed her on the produce of his fields, for General Bryce is ready with a reply that “if the land does not belong to him, neither does the produce of the land.” General Bryce, it will be seen, has an airy way, learned in congressional committees, perhaps, of disposing of such trifles as the distinction between land from which labor produces and the things that labor produces.

Is it any wonder that the influence of the metropolis is so slight in congress? Here is a prominent representative from this city to a body which legislates upon economic subjects for a whole nation, who publicly confesses that he cannot distinguish between calves and land, between the value that comes from the growth of a calf and that which comes from the growth of population, between power to produce land and power to produce land products, between purchase of pieces of Ireland and purchase of Irish pigs; a representative who from sheer ignorance of the distinction would as soon confiscate men’s cattle as repeal parchment titles which have vested “the land of the free” in a part of their number, and discounted the labor of unborn generations.

Verily a tariff agitation is needed, if for no other reason than that some members of congress may be taught to take a primary lesson or two in political economy.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD.

Volapuk (in the pronounciation^sic of which, by the way, o is sounded as in “roll,” a as in father, u with a dexterous intermingling of oo and e, and the accent is on the last syllable), is the new language invented by Father Schleyer, a German priest, of which we are just beginning to hear. Its students claim for it that it not only meets all the requirements of a universal language, but is rapidly being accepted as such. It was first published in 1879, but made no progress until 1882, and very little until 1884. In the former year it spread into Austria, and in the latter into Holland and Belgium. In 1885 it was extensively studied in France, and in the following year in Sweden, Denmark and Russia. It is still almost unknown in the United States, but there are over one hundred influential societies on the continent of Europe devoted to its propagation. Eleven periodicals, including a humorous paper, are published in the language; its bibliography comprises nearly one hundred books in about a dozen languages; two general assemblies have been held by its scholars, and there is an academy to govern its development.

It was the aim of the inventor of Volapuk to devise a clear and accurate method of expressing thought, and to make the language as easy as possible to learn. In this he has been, so far as it is possible to judge without a thorough knowledge of the subject, completely successful. Respecting case^sic of acquisition, his success is demonstrated. Three or four weeks of moderate study will qualify a student to translate readily within the limits of his vocabulary, though a great deal of practice will, of course, be necessary to give fluency either in writing or speaking.

The most difficult part of the study of Volapuk is the memorization of the alphabet, which, to the English student, is not very difficult either, for all the letters have the English form, and excepting the vowels and three consonants the English sound; but from this point there is a logical simplicity of structure that makes the study as fascinating and almost as easy as the reading of a novel.

After learning the vowels, a few minutes’ study will enable one to count without limit. Each of the digits is simply a vowel sandwiched between two consonants; the tens are the plural of the digits, indicated by the addition of s: there is one simple word for “hundred” and another for “thousand” and from that on radical changes in numeration are indicated by the addition of ion to the digits and tens. Thus: bal is one and tel is two; bals is ten and tels is twenty; balsebal (ten-and-one) is eleven, aud^sic telsetel (twenty-and-two) is twenty-two; tum being hundred, baltum is one hundred, and teltum is two hundred; mil being thousand, balmil is one thousand; balion is million, bal balion is one million, and tel balion is two millions. while^sic telion is billion, and so on. All variations in numbers have this basis. For example, “second” is telid, “twice” is telna, and “the second time” is telidna. The months of the year and the days of the week, being enumerated, are also based upon the cardinal numbers. Month being mul, the first month, or January, is Balul, and del being day, the first day, or Sunday, is Baludel.

The cases are nominative, possessive, dative and accusative, and are indicated by vowel endings. The persons have syllable endings: first, ob; second, ol; third, om for masculine and neuter, of for feminine, os for impersonal, as in the sentence “it snows,” and on for collective, as in the sentence “they say” or “one would be embarrassed.” The plural in each instance is indicated by the addition of s, a feature so uniform that all nouns and pronouns ending in s are certainly plural. A similar feature is the adoption of the English

p. 4, col. 3 word “she,” spelled ji, as a prefix for the feminine; thus, sister is “she brother,” lady is “she sir,” wife is “she husband.” Adjectives are formed by adding ik to the noun, and adverbs by adding o, corresponding to the English ly; while degrees of comparison for both adverbs and adjectives are indicated by the syllable um before o in adverbs and after ik in adjectives for comparative, and by un for superlative.

The tense signs are vowel prefixes for the active voice and the same vowels preceded by the consonant p for the passive. The indicative mood is the root word with the appropriate pronoun affixed. The infinitive, the participle, the imperative and the potential are indicated by suffices; the subjunctive is the indicative preceded by the word if, meaning “if.” In connection with the subjunctive is the conditional mood with its peculiar sign, as “if I were well’ (subjunctive),”I would visit you” (conditional).

The interrogative, formed in English by transposition, is in Volapuk indicated by the syllable li placed before or after the verb and united to it by a hyphen. There are also the frequentative prefix, to indicate habitual action, as “I read, or,”I eat^sic;” and the reflexive suffix, expressing action upon the actor, as “I clothe myself,” or “he washes himself.”

This is a complete description of the skeleton of the language. There are conjunctions and prepositions to learn, as well as order of words, idiomatic expressions, methods of deriving and compounding words, and the vocabulary. But the principles are so simple and the processes so logical and regular that there are no arbitrary rules to observe and, except in learning root words, very little memorizing to do.

As an example of derivation something like sixty modifications of the word “language” are given by Mr. Sprague in his primer, all having that word for the principal root and being derived from it in accordance with principles so simple and regular that the student could make most of the modifications without reference to the dictionary if he knew the meaning of the root words. To illustrate with the term volapuk itself. It is a compound word, the principal root being pukon, to speak. Dropping the sign of the infinitive we have the noun puk, speech or language. The modifying root is vol, meaning world, to which is added a, the sign of the possessive case. The combination therefore is “world’s speech” or “world’s language,” which is translated “universal language.”

An example of derivation and compounding of curious interest to American readers is the noun, “The United States.” In Volapuk it is Pebaltats. The student of Volapuk about to translate this for the first time notices the sign of the passive voice in the initial p, and of the perfect tense in the following letter e. That is, pe, as a verb prefix, invariably indicates the perfect tense of the passive voice. From this the student knows that something has been done to something, which suggests to him that the next syllable. bal, must be a verb instead of the numeral “one,” which is spelled in the same way,and being a verb its infinitive must be balon. He turns to his dictionary and finding that balon, derived from bal, meaning “one,” signifies “to unite,” he knows that something has been united. Passing then to the next syllable, “tats,” which by its plural terminal warns him that the word to search for is “tat,” he finds it to mean “states.” Thus the translation of the whole word comes to him in the phrase “states which have been united.” But as this phrase is in Volapuk a single word and that a noun, and especially as it is capitalized, he knows that a particular nation, government or confederation is alluded to, and his knowledge of geography may suggest the United States of America; but he cannot be certain that this country is meant, except from the context or unless the word Melop, “America,” with the possessive suffix a follows. The United States of America, therefore, would be in Volapuk Pebaltats Melopa, a literal translation of which is “America’s states [which] have been united.”

The importance of this invented language cannot be overestimated, It is^sic already in somewhat extensive use abroad in commercial circles, and is attracting the attention of literary circles there; while in New York, where it is scarcely known, Charles E. Sprague, its principal student here, is authority for the statement that business houses are often in receipt of Volapuk letters from foreign correspondents. It is in commerce no doubt that the language will be in earliest and most active demand; but it cannot be general in commerce without extending beyond commercial limits, and at no distant day becoming what it is intended to be, a universal medium of thought between peoples of different speech, to be spoken in every household and taught in every school along with the mother tongue. What Latin is to the priest and French to the diplomat, Volapuk promises to become to the common people; and, developing, as it undoubtedly will, under the impulse of general use, but in accordance with its simple and regular laws of construction, it may even supersede Latin in the intercourse of ecclesiastics and French in diplomacy. However that may be, its adoption by the people will tear down another insurmountable barrier between nations, and by community in expression promote community in thought and brotherhood in intercourse.

Volapuk is essentially a free trade device, and as such demands immediate and earnest attention from protectionists. But it is one of the kind of devices that free trade every now and then puts forth, like

p. 4, col. 4 the steamship and the electric cable, with which protectionists find tariff laws utterly inefficient to cope. With greyhounds on the sea and cables under the sea, and a world’s language easy to learn and regular and limitless in development, strangers to one another will become so neighborly that nothing can make them hostile but walls which they will not build and guns which they will neither construct nor use.

LOUIS F. POST.

A MACHINE THAT WILL EARN A SALARY.

The typewriting machine and the stenographer have within the last few years effected a revolution in the methods of mercantile correspondence. Formerly a house engaged in an extensive business was compelled to have in its service a corps of skilled correspondents—men who not only knew how to write good commercial English, but who were conversant with the details of the business of the firm. A good corresponding clerk in those days was seldom out of employment, and a clerk who made himself master of some special line of business, who could express ideas tersely, yet in good English, and who wrote a rapid, good commercial hand, was sure of advancement. If his own employer did not raise his salary, some commercial competitor was sure to snap him up at an advance.

Then the typewriting machine came to the front, and with it the stenographer. Business men learned by degrees the convenience and security of having their letters written in their own very words, and in words chosen while the matters under discussion were fresh in their minds. The corresponding clerk no longer needed any knowledge of the business—save, perhaps, a few technical terms of trade—but could write a letter which might be perfectly intelligible to the merchant dictating it and to its recipient without conveying any very definite ideas to the stenographer. This was an advantage. It enabled the head of a great business to hold the reins more firmly in his own grasp and assured him against the risk that a discharged clerk could take away with him any valuable trade secrets. An hour or two of work each morning, with a stenographer at his elbow, enabled a merchant to read and answer his entire mail, and left him free for the other duties of the day.

Gradually it was found that a new field of industry had opened up for women. They made better stenographers and type writers than men. Their ignorance of commercial affairs was a merit rather than a fault. Above all, they were willing to work more cheaply. Tens of thousands of young women learned the business, secured comfortable situations and were independent. But the demand has grown faster than the supply. A good stenographer and type writer need now never be out of a situation, and wages are well maintained, if they are not actually rising. The old-time corresponding clerk has disappeared. So far as his special vocation is concerned he has been forced downward into the great army of unskilled labor. He makes no complaint. It wouldn’t help him if he did.

But if the stories told of Professor Bell and Mr. Edison are true, the young lady stenographer is doomed to the fate of the corresponding clerk. The graphophone will soon be an applicant for her situation, and will be pretty apt to get it. For the graphophone will do all that the stenographer and typewriter can do, will do it more rapidly and accurately, and will work for lower wages.

The graphophone is a perfection of the phonograph which Edison invented years ago. It is an instrument smaller than the ordinary typewriting machine, and can be made part of the furniture of any ordinary desk. When you want to write a letter all you need do is to place a little cylinder in position, start a clock work moving and whisper what you want to say into the graphophone’s ear. When you have finished, take out the cylinder, put it in a specially made envelope. address it to your correspondent and send it off by mail. When the correspondent gets it he puts it in his graphophone, starts his clock work and listens while the instrument repeats your message word for word and tone for tone. Then the little cylinder can be filed away and kept for years, ready at any time to repeat its remarks in an office or before a jury.

Graphophones, it is said, will not be offered for sale. Nobody can buy one. They will work for a salary, just as the young lady stenographers do now, and as the corresponding clerks of former days used to. Only, as they can get along without eating, wear no clothes, have no taste for theater or church, and don’t need to go home at night to sleep, they can afford to work for a great deal less than their flesh and blood competitors. Sixty dollars a year is the salary named for an efficient graphophone of good moral character and strictly attentive to business. On these terms, we are informed, one thousand graphophones will shortly be seeking situations. There will be no competition. The graphophone that isn’t hired will not go round hunting for a job and offering to take another graphophone’s place at a lower salary. It will stay perfectly quiet, incurring no expense, wasting no vital force, worried by no apprehension of coming destitution, assailed by no temptation, until somebody wants it. In this respect the graphophone has a great advantage over the young women whom it is trying to displace.

There is a lawsuit—so the papers say—behind the graphophone. But it will not injure the graphophone’s prospects. Quite the contrary. It is a lawsuit between Mr. Edison and Professor Bell, to decide the

p. 4, col. 5 question of who first invented the graphophone. But the verdict is reported to have been discounted. Mr. Edison is to have the same share of ownership whether the courts decide for him or against him. So is Professor Bell. Why, then. should^sic the lawsuit be continued? Simply, it is whispered, for the sake of the free advertising it will secure.

Thus invention advances, and man gains more and more the mastery over nature. As machinery replaces hands, and skilled labor becomes less and less needful, the cost of production and distribution is lessened and things can be sold cheaper and cheaper. It will be a consolation for the female type writer to reflect upon this when she loses her situation and finds herself face to face with—well, say starvation only.

ALIEN LANDLORDS.

The committee on the revision of the laws has submitted to the house a bill declaring “all foreign persons who have not been naturalized incapable of taking the title to lands anywhere within the United States, except a leasehold for not exceeding five years.” In the accompanying report the committee say they have ascertained “with reasonable certainty, that certain noblemen of Europe, principally Englishmen, have acquired, and now own, about 21,000,000 acres of land within the United States.” The committee says it has not sufficient^sic information to state the quantity of land owned by untitled aliens, nor does it consider that important. Why it is any worse for American citizens to have an alien nobleman for a landlord than to have an alien commoner it does not explain. Nor do they go to the ranks of the British nobility for examples of the wicked alien landlord. They of course bring up the case of Lord Scully, but disrespectfully refer to him as “a Mr. Scully, who lives in England and is a subject of the queen.” They also refer to the Schenley estate in Pittsburg, “from which the Schenleys, who are subjects of the British queen, draw annually not less than $100,000 rental;” but they do not state that this Scheuley estate got into the hands of “subjects of the British queen” by the marriage of an American girl to an Englishman.

Of the manner in which our railroad grants may result in alien landlords they say:

The avarice and enterprise of European^sic capitalists have caused them to invest many millions in American railroad and land bonds, covering perhaps 100,000,000 acres, the greater part of which under foreclosure sales will most likely before many years become the property of these foreign bondholders in addition, to their present princely possessions^sic. This aggressive foreign capital is not confined to lands it has purchased, but, overlapping its boundaries, has caused hundreds of miles of the public domain to be fenced up for the grazing of vast herds of cattle, and set at defiance the rights of the honest but humble settlers.

Since the bill is not retroactive it is hard to see how it can affect these avaricious foreign capitalists without depriving them of rights which attach to them by virtue of their purchase of American bonds.

This bill, in its discrimination against aliens, is utterly unworthy of the great republic. But its introduction and the accompanying report are gratifying evidences of the growth of the sentiment which questions the right of any man to compel another man to pay tribute to him for the use of the natural elements necessary to all. The attempt to prevent aliens in future from acquiring title to American land is merely a tub to the whale. Alien landlords yet to be, have no friends, and American landlordism is ready to throw them over in the hope that that may quiet the rising sentiment. But it will not.

> If free trade is right then the emancipation of the American colonies was an economic blunder. England would have given them all the free trade they desired.

That is what Van Buren Denslow said in his address on “The Protective Tariff,” before the Republican club of this city, April 2, 1888.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.

That is what the continental congress said in their Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

Let facts be submitted to a candid world.

The protectionists are complaining that it is the intention to make William L. Scott of Pennsylvania chairman of the national democratic committee in place of W. H. Barnum. If the democrats get rid of Barnum they will get rid of an incubus. His place, like that of Randall, is in the republican party.

The condition of the great sudsidies^sic in lands and bonds granted to the Union, Central and Northern Pacific railroads was that they should build and operate telegraph lines as well as railroads to the Pacific, and it was provided that these telegraph lines should be open to all who wished to use them for the transmission of news or messages. The three companies, however, made a contract with the Western Union by which they have carried its messages exclusively, thus giving it an entire monopoly of transcontinental telegraphing, until two years ago the Postal telegraph company secured the use of the telegraph lines of the Canadian Pacific, and by building a special line through Washington territory, Oregon and northern California, managed to reach San Francisco. But in all the country between the terminal points of the three American subsidized roads the Western Union still has an absolute mo- p. 4, col. 6 nopoly. The house, with but four negative votes, recently passed a bill to compel the railroad companies to obey the law, and it is now in the senate. If passed—and it will pass if that portion of the press not under the influence of the Western Union give any publicity to the matter—it will compel the railroad companies to accept messages from the postal company or any other opposition that may be started, on the same terms as from the Western Union. The four members who voted against the bill in the house were all representatives of New York. They were S. V. White, republican, of Brooklyn; A. M. Bliss, democrat, of Brooklyn; John H. Ketcham, of Dover Plains, New York, republican, and T. A. Merriman, Sun democrat, of New York.

Misled by an erroneous news report, THE STANDARD last week criticised the ballot bill reported by the judiciary committee of the assembly. Correct reports from Albany show that the bill as reported is one that ought to be passed. That feature of the bill to which we objected was the reputed omission to provide for independent nominations; but such nominations are provided for. The conventions of any party which cast three per cent of the vote at the preceding election is entitled to have the names of its nominees printed on the official ballots, and the names of independent candidates are placed on the ballot upon the petition of electors equal in number to one per cent of the vote at the preceding election, no more than one thousand signatures being required in any case. As the proposed law is not to take effect until next year, there seems to be reason to hope that it may pass.

A Funny Story That Points a Serious Moral.

New York Tribune.

A large man of most dignified appearance and generally clerical attire stopped at a small apartmənt house in Twenty-ninth street and rang one of the fourth floor bells.

“Who is it?” called a shrill voice through the tube.

“I’m the clergyman, madame. I am making a few parish calls this morning and I thought I’d stop a moment. Please open the door.”

“Well, it’s time you came,” replied the shrill voice. “The condensed milk you brougt^sic yesterday was stale, and the vinegar you’ve been blowing about as so fine has been working until it blew the stopper out of the cruet. I think your grocery is a fraud.”

The clerical ear at the street end of the tube heard this reply in speechless surprise and then he called up earnestly:

“You’ve made a mistake, madame; I am the clergyman. If you are busy I will call again.”

“Butcher’s man?” she asked doubtfully.

“Clergyman!” bawled out the reverend gentleman in the doorway.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come yourself instead of sending the man. My husband says if you send us any more old sheep for spring lamb he’ll go around and break your head with one of the chops. Come up stairs, I want to see you.”

But the clerical gentleman was gone, and he hurried up Sixth avenue as rapidly as if the irate husband, chops in hand, was on his track.

Getting Ready to Buy Some More United States.

New York Tribune.

A syndicate of English capitalists recently sent R. Henderson, a Scotch iron expert, to this country to examine the coal and iron fields of the south. He has been here about three months, during which time he has made a thorough investigation of iron making, and also given much study to economic and trade conditions. In a brief talk yesterday he said:

“It appears to me that the conditions of your trade internally are excellent. There is good business all over the country, and the tendency of things is to improve. I cannot understand the falling off in the prices of securities in the market except on the theory that there is lack of confidence in the management of properties which are listed on the market. It is general lack of confidence I should say.”

“What do you think about making iron in Alabama?”

“Well, there is only one place in all England where they can make iron cheaper than they can make it at the new furnaces about finished at Birmingham^sic.

Argumentum ad Hominem.

Boston Globe.

When Fred D. was six years old his father and mother took him to the British provinces to spend a summer vacation. When crossing the frontier on the way home the custom house officer passed through the cars examining the baggage of the passengers, to see if it contained anything dutiable.

Fred was very much interested in this, and his father had to explain to him how any passenger who brings anything new from Canada must pay a tax on it to the officer.

The inspector was just about to leave the car and pass on to the next when Fred, who had been silently reflecting for a few minutes, asked his father, in a shrill voice, that was audible to every one in the car, including the customs examiner:

“Pa, did you pay him for that new overcoat and dress suit you got in Halifax?”

That little exhibition of juvenile cuteness cost his poor pa a [$20?] bill. His pa is a free trader now.

Had Enough of It.

Boston Globe.

Little Fred D—— and his father and mother were going to board with a neighbor for two weeks, while the house was undergoing repairs. Fred was delighted at the prospects.

“Mamma,” he said, “didn’t you say I must thank God for every good thing?”

“Yes, Fred.”

“Shall I thank him because we are going to board?”

“Yes, if you like.”

When the two weeks had expired, and the last dinner at the boarding house had been eaten, Fred leaned back in his chair and heaving a long sigh of relief, said, in the hearing of his hostess:

“Now let’s thank God we’ve got through boarding.”

They Would Have Fenced in the Pool of Bethesda.

Cor. St. Paul Pioneer-Press.

The owners of the bath houses at the Arkansas hot springs have formed a hot water trust, by which they are seeking to control all the springs. A regular yearly toll is paid the government for the privilege of bath houses, and the members of the trust have taken up all the available sites, but refuse to build houses on them in order to keep down competition. An auditor of the trust goes around every Monday morning and collects the receipts of the week from all the houses, and after paying expenses the profits are divided among the members.

New York’s Death Roll for One Week.

During last week there were reported at the bureau of vital statistics in this city 768 deaths, [635?] births and 201 marriages. Of the deaths, 416 were in tenement houses and 165 in public institutions. Of the dead, 294 were children under five years, and 65 were seventy years old and over.

ALL ALONG THE LINE.

THE FREE TRADE REVOLUTION IN PENNSYLVANIA.

THE WESTERN WAR.

GETTING INTO SOCIETY.

STRAWS WHICH SHOW THE WIND.

A non-partisan reform league has been formed in Minneapolis, and has issued a tract advocating the Australian system of voting.

Mr. George himself accepts the situation in a patriotic spirit, and we cannot but do him the justice to say so. If that is inconsistency, we glory in it.—[Grand Rapids Leader.

The senate of New Jersey has passed a bill providing that all railroad and canal property shall be taxed the same as that of individuals, and empowering counties to purchase toll roads and toll bridges and make them free.

There is one thing that ought to be insisted on at once and everywhere in the matter of convict labor, and that is that the profits on convict labor above expense of maintenance should go to the families of the prisoners.—[Labor’s Stage.

The Magnolia farmers’ alliance of Texas have resolved that they will not support any candidate for the legislature who will not pledge himself to vote for imposing such taxes on non-resident land owners as will compel them to sell at a fair value.

This is probably the only country in the world that tolerates within its borders armed and officered bands of mercenaries not recognized either by the civil law or by the military establishment, but ready at the word of command to shoot down the citizens. The “Pinkerton men” ought to depart.—[Boston Globe.

The Minnesota farmers’ alliance, at their session of March [28?], adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That we heartily indorse President Cleveland’s views on the tariff issue.

Resolved, That the so-called protective tariff is an iniquitous tax on the people for the benefit of monopolies and trusts, and we demand its immediate repeal on raw material and the necessaries of life.

Under the present system of taxation we fine a man because he employs labor to build a block or a house. Why should we do this? Is it a curse to the people to be employed building homes and improving our city? Is it a benefit to have “sharks” stand in the way of progress by keeping our lots out of use that they may bleed the people more when our population presses harder on the land in the scramble to get a home?—[Grand Rapids (Mich.) Workman.

It is a good sign to hear the single tax plan discussed fully on the street and in places of public resort. It is a proof that the people are becoming interested in questions of public moment. The establishment of a national tax reform club here is bearing good fruit. The club is non-political, has nothing to do with office aspirations or current politics. It is here to assist in bringing about a proper understanding of the single tax plan, to show its working, if adopted, and to prove its undoubted benefits to every class except remorseless jobbers and speculators.—[Hempstead, Texas, Advance Guard.

There are two or three planks Mr. Grip would like to see added to the platform of the new party when it comes to be thoroughly ventilated in the more or less remote future. One of these is continental free trade. If we cannot have free trade with the whole world—which will come with the advance of civilization—let us at least abolish the barbarism of a continental tariff, which is not merely silly but unchristian. And, because it is the part of common sense and sound political economy to remove artifical^sic barriers from the path of commerce, we go in for another plank, to wit: the abolition of taxation on individual industry. The present system of collecting taxes is unjust, cumbersome and expensive; in some departments it offers a premium on lying, and as a whole it is in the interests of monopoly.—[Toronto Grip.

The opponents of free wool must admit, in spite of their prejudices, that a prohibitory duty on wool would have a most disastrous effect upon the woolen industries of the country. Yet they refuse to see that an obstructive duty on wool differs only from a prohibitory duty in the degree of its mischievousness. If a prohibitory duty should be put upon wool the carpet manufacturers of Philadelphia would have to close their mills, every one of them, and many manufacturers of woolen goods would be involved in the calamity. The effects of the obstructive duties on wool are to give foreign manufacturers immense advantages in choice and cheapness of raw materials—advantages which the utmost industrial skill and industry cannot overcome.—[Philadelphia Record.

When the general public land bill came up for consideration in the house of representatives on March 27, Mr. Smith of Wisconsin offered an amendment providing that all deposits of coal and iron on the lands of the United States shall be reserved to the United States, and that no further grant or patent from the United States shall be held to include such deposits. Mr. Smith said that the object of his amendment was that the title to the coal and iron deposits should never go out of the hands of the people. No disposition was made of the amendment, and it was left pending. Mr. Payson of Illinois offered also an amendment providing that no patent to mineral lands shall issue except to a citizen of the United States. He declared that no man should be allowed to acquire title to mineral deposits unless he assumed the burdens as well as the privileges of American citizenship.

Herve Riel.

Robert Browning.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, Did the English fight the French—woe to France! And the thirty-first of May, helter skelter through the blue, Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, With the English fleet in view.

’Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase: First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville; Close on him fled, great and small, Twenty-two good ships in all; And they signaled to the place, “Help the winners of a race! Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick; or, quicker still, Here’s the English can and will!”

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk, and leaped on board: “Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?” laughed they: “Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable, here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where ’tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, And with flow at full beside? Now ’tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands, or water runs, Not a ship will leave the bay!”

Then was called a council straight: Brief and bitter the debate. “Here’s the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow All that’s left us of the fleet, linked together stern and bow, For a prize to Plymouth sound? Better run the ships aground!” (Ended Damfreville his speech.) “Not a minute more to wait! Let the captains all and each Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach! France must undergo her fate!”

“Give the word!” But no such word Was ever spoke or heard: For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck, amid all these— A captain? a lieutenant? a mate—first, second, third? No such man of mark, and meet With his betters to compete! But a simple Breton sailor, pressed by Tourville for the fleet, A poor coasting pilot he—Herve Riel the Croisickese.

And “What mockery or malice have we here?” cried Herve Riel. “Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals—me, who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, ’Twixt the offing here and Greve, where the river disembogues! Are you bought for English gold? Is it love the lying’s for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet, and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues! Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me, there’s a way! Only let me lead the line, Have the biggest ship to steer, Get this Formidable clear, Make the others follow mine, And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well, Right to Solidor past Greve, And there lay them safe and sound; And, if one ship misbehave— Keel so much as grate the ground— Why, I’ve nothing but my life; here’s my head!” cries Herve Riel.

Not a minute more to wait. “Steer us in, then, small and great! Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!” cried its chief. Captains, give the sailor place! He is admiral, in brief. Still the north wind, by God’s grace. See the noble fellow’s face, As the big ship, with a bound, Clears the entry like a hound, Keeps the passage, as its inch of way were the wide sea’s profound! See, safe through shoal and rock, How they follow in a flock: Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground, Not a spar that comes to grief! The peril, see, is past! All are harbored to the last! And, just as Herve Riel hollas “Anchor!” sure as fate, Up the English come—too late!

So the storm subsides to calm: They see the green trees wave On the heights o’erlooking Greve; Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. “Just our rapture to enhance, Let the English rake the bay, Gnash their teeth and glare askance As they cannonade away! ’Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!” How hope succeeds despair on each captain’s countenance! Out burst all with one accord, “This is paradise for hell! Let France, let France’s king, Thank the man that did the thing!” What a shout, and all one word, “Herve Riel!” As he stepped in front once more; Not a symptom of surprise In the frank blue Breton eyes— Just the same man as before.

Then said Damfreville, “My friend, I must speak out at the end, Though I find the speaking hard; Praise is deeper than the lips; You have saved the king his ships; You must name your own reward. ’Faith our sun was near eclipse! Demand whate’er you will, France remains your debtor still. Ask to heart’s content, and have! or my name’s not Damfreville.” Then a beam of fun outbroke On the bearded mouth that spoke, As the honest heart laughed through Those frank eyes of Breton blue— “Since I needs must say my say; Since on board the duty’s done, And from Malo roads to Croisic point what is it but a run?— Since ’tis ask and have, I may; Since the others go ashore— Come! A good whole holiday! Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!” That he asked, and that [he?] got—nothing more.

Name and deed alike are lost; Not a pillar nor a post

p. 6, col. 2 In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing smack In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris; rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell mell On the Louvre, face and flank: You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle Aurore!

FARMER JONES AND THE TARIFF.

Yes, I’ve got to quit farmin’. My j’ints are gettin’ stiff and somehow I get tireder now by night than I use’ter; and I notis that Mary Jane sits down of’ner^sic an’ moves slower about the house. I reckon it’s ‘cause we’re gettin’ old an’ farmin’ is one o’ them bisnesses that makes no ‘lowance for gettin’ old.

Help? oh, I’ve tried that an’ it don’t pay. Time you’ve paid your store bills and your help there isn’t anything left. It makes one feel as if you were working for the storekeeper and your hired men for nothing and boardin’ yourself.

My girls are all married now, and their men are shiftin’ for themselves, and one by one my boys have been leavin’ me and goin’ into business. I tried to keep them on the farm—offered to divide it, or to buy them another farm near by; but they always said that farmin’ didn’t pay and that they was going into somethin’ where work wasn’t so hard and what work they did do brought more pay. One is in the lumber business—got a mill up in the woods now and is gettin’ rich. Bill went up into the iron country and struck a mine and got some fellows with money to go in with him, and he’s president of a stock company an’ workin’ his mines, and they say that he’s rich too. Tom writ me last year that I might find it pay good enough to be raisin’ corn, but that he found it a heap easier and better payin’ to be makin’ starch out of the corn us farmers raised.

I’ve hated to see my boys turnin’ away from what I’ve always reckoned the noblest callin’ men can follow, an’ for a long time I couldn’t understand it. Fust I thought they was gettin lazy, and I use’ter break out at them in that way, but I knew that I hadn’t any cause, for stediyer, harder workin’ boys never turned a sod than mine were; and when I go to see them I can see that they are workin’ just as hard, if not harder, than they did on the farm.

I’ve been a thinkin’ a good deal o’ late tryin’ to get at the bottom of the matter. I’ve noticed that my boys ain’t the only ones that’s gone from the farms into the shops. All round my neighborhood the real bright, smart boys have drifted off to the cities, and either gone in for their selves or are working for others. Every oncet in a while I find some paper with a long editorial in it about the tendency of population to’ards the cities and overcrowdin’ of ‘em, and they seem to think that it is a bad thing, and to wonder that men and boys will leave the pure air and independent life of the farm for the crowded, pinched, dependent life of the city. They seem to think that somehow it’s owin’ to men gettin’ weaker, more womanlike, loving ease and the sight of the wealth of the cities, even if they can’t have it themselves, an’ bein’ hungry for a closer touch with their fellow critters than they git on the farms. There’s somethin’ in all this; but these editorials don’t make the boys stick to the farms a bit closer, and the cities keep on robbin’ the country of its brains, leaving it only its muscle. These editors haven’t got to the bottom of the case by a long sight. And the bottom is so all-fired clear when you come to look for it steady that it is surprisin’ that they have missed it.

Now, if you’ll let me fill my pipe again—cigar? No, I’m beholden to you, but cigars and plug hats and broadcloth coats slipped out of my reach years ago; can’t afford ‘em. And, queer, isn’t it? but I can always think better when my pipe is a goin’. I reckon it is b’cause these questions turn themselves over in one’s mind much as these clouds of tobacco smoke roll over each other as they climb up. Well, in my thinkin’ of this question over it shapes itself about this way:

What do men work for, anyway? Money? No; beyond makin’ their livin’ they are workin’ to get the things that money will buy. Some short sighted ones work only for the money, as if that was the main thing, but most men want to get money so that they can get with it something that they want. There isn’t much need of argument to prove that. Some one handy at putting facts into words has said that “force runs on the line of least resistance.” That kind of a definition is as handy as a foot rule. When you’ve got it it makes lots of things easier to understand; and the more you try it the truer it appears to you. My cattle come up from the valley pasture by the ravine instead of directly up the hill. It is the law that explains why wagons and reapers and railroads and all these contraptions to save work have been made. When any of us have a job to do we study how to do it the easiest. We don’t always hit it, and some seem to go ploddin’ along doin’ things by the hardest. But the quicker witted a man is—the more he uses his head—the less he finds he will have to use his muscles in gettin’ what he is after; and it’s just as true of gettin’ money as of anything else.

We all want to get the most money with the least amount of work—or you may put it another way and get to the same point by saying that we all want to get the most money for what we raise, Of course^sic men are controlled in using their power in makin’ money by their bein’ able to do some things well and others not at all, but each in his way obeys this law.

Nacherly, then, if everything is equal—an’ in the long run, if left alone, all occupations are about equal—men go into that work for which they are best fitted; but if things aint equal, if greater advantages are given to some class of work, so that work of that kind will bring more money, men will be drawn to it an’ away from the

p. 6, col. 3 work that is disadvantaged. F’r instance, farmers shift their crops to those which bring the most profit; go to pork when that rises, or corn, or butter, or wool.

Now in this country, for a hundred years, we have been worshipin’ manafacters. All the talk has been about encouragin’ of them. You never heard tell of a man comin’ inter the country and askin’ the community to give him a bonus if he would go to farmin’, but it’s a common thing in the towns for men to ask and get a snug bonus for goin’ to manafacterin’. An’ congress has caught the same fever, and it acts an’ talks as if it hadn’t much of anything else to do but think up ways to encourage all kinds of manafacters. They’ve advertised that the whole United States was bound to give manafacters more than their even chance by taxin’ the goods of outside manafacters, so that the home fellows can get more for what they make than they could if competition was free. In fact, they have put a premium on manafacters of about fifty per cent to get people to go into them.

Now, the other side of the disposition of human natur to get the most it can for the least effort, makes men throw off any burden that hinders them in this gettin’ as fast and as far as they can. It costs money to encourage manafacters because it raises the price of things manafactered. Those who buy these things, payin’ more for them, are hindered just so much in gettin’ all they could for their labor, and nacherly they try to pass the cost off on to some one else. They can do it if they can raise the price of what they have to sell. If iron or steel or wool rises, the men who use them in making things raises the price of what they make. Now it is pretty clear that the last shift of this cost falls on the shoulders of the men who can’t raise the price of what they make, the class who haven’t and can’t have the control of this great “home market,” of which we hear so much. An’ this class takes in the farmers and most of the men who work for wages.

Now there’s lots of reasons why manafacterers would rather be in the cities. The railroads or the lakes or the ocean are generally there, an’ they can get the stuff in easy and cheap that they want to work up, and the same means makes the sendin’ away of what they make cheap an’ easy too. That the city is the home of manafacters is shown by the way a city grows up around a manafactery that is built up by some water power.

Well, now, can’t you see why our boys go to the city? With the government puttin’ a premium on the manafacters which go to cities or make cities come to them, and makin’ the farmers pay that premium—encouragin’ manafacters an’ discouragin’ farmin’—can’t you see that any boy with brains an’ gumption isn’t such a pesky idiot as to stay on a farm? Can’t you see that the government has smoothed down the lines of resistance runnin’ to’ards manafacters, and that in that bisiness the same work can bring more money? Why, if I wasn’t so old an’ stiff, blest if I wouldn’t sell the farm an’ go inter manafacterin’ myself.

P. J. SMALLEY.

Workingmen Might Do Worse Than Emigrate to the Soudan.

London Saturday Review.

> The English drudge rises early and goes to bed late, working eight or twelve hours a day, either in her miserable garret or in a huge manufacturing hive. Pinched with hunger and cold, worn out with labor, exposed to temptation and degradation, her joyless life stretches behind her and before her, with no pleasures to look back upon, no hope to look forward to. The wages she earns, those wages which proudly separates her^sic from the slave, are barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, till at last the body gives way or the soul revolts. Then comes the inevitable end, and a verdict of “Death from starvation” or “Found drowned” closes the scene.

The Soudani girl is taken from her parental hut of sticks and mud and sold to a respectable family or perhaps a very rich one. In the first case, she will [probably?] be alone; in the second, she will find others like herself. She represents so much capital invested, and is looked after with equivalent care. She is a servant whose wages have been paid twenty years in advance. It is true they have not been paid to her, but that is all the better for the girl. She is well housed and well fed, and wants for nothing. She is immediately provided with decent clothes and set to housework. She has charge of the family washing and cleaning, and of the kitchen, and generally fulfills these duties much better than a native paid servant would do. She is under no special restraint, accompanies her mistress shopping or does the marketing herself, and gossips her fill with the neighbors as she hangs out the linen on the house top, or sweeps the front door step.

Her work is by no means hard, and after the fashion of Egypt, where every man is a brother and every woman a sister, she is looked upon by the family quite as one of themselves. Speaking from personal observation, we may affirm that the black women are almost invariably treated with the utmost kindness and indulgence, and are often spoiled like children by the too great good nature of their masters or mistresses. They constitute a very merry, happy portion of the population, and it is seldom one can find a black girl without an infectious broad grin on her polished face. If she chooses to marry, as she often does, with her owner’s consent, she receives a dower and goes forth a “free” woman in the letter, though often as she finds to her cost, a greater bond slave in the spirit than in the days of her servitude.

The Trust Wall Within the Tariff Wall.

Boston Post.

> There is a tariff duty upon school slates of thirty per centum. They are made mostly in Lehigh county, in the state of Pennsylvania, and large quantities are exported and sold in Europe notwithstanding the competition of the “pauper labor” of Germany and Great Britain. But the home market is controlled by a combination, which within a year has advanced the price seventeen and one-half per centum. The tariff is not needed for protection, our slates going abroad in competition with foreign slates, but it enables the combination to put up the prices at home. Until the year [1887?] the steel parts of ploughs were furnished to the manufacturers at four and one-half cents a pound. In October last, however, an association was formed of the steel mill owners, and the price of these same steel parts was increased six cents a pound. As a result, the plough manufacturers formed their association and advanced the price of ploughs.

The manufacturers of threshers, reapers, mowers and binders have formed similar associations for the “curtailment of production and the fixing of a system of uniform prices.” In November last the manufacturers of table, shelf and stair oilcloths formed an association to control the prices of their products. The combination has closed fourteen mills and advanced the prices about 65 per centum. No member of the association can sell at less than the prices fixed by the combination, and it is agreed that prices shall not be reduced before June next, but may be advanced “at any time without notice.” The tariff duty on oilcloths is 40 per centum, or enough to prevent foreign competition and leave the home market to the tender mercies of the combination. How does the tariff in these cases protect the people?

p. 6, col. 4

Risen Indeed.

From Lend a Hand.

Aye, the lilies are pure in their pallor, the roses are fragrant and sweet, The music pours out like a sea wave, breaking in praise at His feet, Pulsing in passionate praises that Jesus has risen again, But we watch for the signs of His living in the life of the children of men.

Wherever a mantle of pity falls soft on a wound or a woe, Wherever a peace or a pardon springs up to o’ermaster a foe, Wherever a soft hand of blessing outreaches to succor a need, Wherever springs bealing for wounding, the Master is risen indeed.

Wherever the soul of a people, arising in courage and might, Bursts forth from the errors that shrouded its hope in the gloom of the night, Wherever in sight of God’s legions the armies of evil recede, And truth wins a soul or a kingdom, the Master is risen indeed.

So fling out your banners, brave toilers; bring lilies to altar and shrine; Ring out, Easter bells; He has risen; for you is the token and sign. There’s a world moving sunward and Godward; ye are called to the front; ye must lead; Behind are the grave and the darkness; the Master is risen indeed.

“OUR” INDIANS.

“Most of my Indians are living in houses,” writes W. L. Lincoln, Indian agent at Fort Belknap, Montana, in his seventh annual report to the commissioners of Indians affairs^sic, whereby the reader is left to infer that “Mr. Lincoln’s Indians” are being civilized. But the reader is further led to ask, “Well, what about my Indians?” for surely if Mr. Lincoln has for himself an Indian tribe or so, the rest of us must have some interest in at least a squaw or a papoose. The remainder of the voluminous report of the commissioner of Indian affairs for 1886, gives some sort of an answer to the question. And according as the report is opened on one page or another the American citizen finds that his Indians are drunken or sober, lazy or industrious; that they worship the Christian God, or long for their heathenish “sun dance;” that they are strong and healthy, or suffer from some of those loathsome diseases, the product of our civilization and morality, which “have taken hold on all and permeated the system with some to such an extent as to be beyond the reach of all remedial agents.” But the net result seems to be that our civilization, advancing with the bible and the whisky bottle, the saving drug and the destroying disease, affects the Indian more for bad than for good.

Many of the reports discuss the degeneracy of the Indians, their ignorance, their idleness and the causes. But there was a time when such discussion would have been needless, if not impossible. The Indian certainly lived a healthy life in years gone by, and attained to a certain personal dignity of character and bearing, and his people evolved a system of government which assured him liberty and life. Some of the refinements they had, too. Jefferson, in his early life, was struck with the grace and eloquence of their orators and the musical beauty of their language, and Sam Houston, once the governor of Tennessee and member of congress, was not the only man of ability who found a life with the as yet uncivilized red man perhaps even preferable to civilized life among the whites. Let us hear a few of the agents, part of whose duty it is to philosophize once a year, on the social status of their Indians.

From the Ouray agency, Utah, William A. McKewen writes:

He (the Indian) won’t work because he isn’t forced to it, and it is beneath his dignity. Besides, that far-away, mystical, beneficent Washington kindly furnishes him with food, clothing and pocket money. Then why should he work? He don’t. He placidly sits on the banks of the White and Green rivers, kicks his feet in the muddy waters, longing and dreaming, perhaps, of the coming of the Indian millennium—the downfall of the whites, his country regained, and the delights of the chase and the trail, as in days of yore.

To this might be added scores of quotations to the same effect—that government charity is ruining the red man.

M. W. Stevens of Flint, Mich., gives it as his opinion that “Whisky, the bane of the Indians, is their worst enemy.”

The Reverend Father Thomas at the Sacred Heart mission, Indian territory, says:

We are convinced that the best means to promote and carry on the work of civilization among them is a good practical education. We propose to open an industrial school where we can train them up from childhood, teach them the industrial arts, and put them on an equal footing with their white brother.

From Darlington, Indian territory, Captain J. M. Lee writes:

If those hard working philanthropists who are so fond of quoting the command, “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat,” would only insist with equal vigor, “If a man does work he must eat,” there would not be the constant dread to the Indian that as soon as he begins to merge from idleness^sic and barbarism the (governmental) assistance is to be withdrawn, and it were better for him to make no effort to become civilized. The discrimination should be on the side of industry and obedience.

And so they go on, giving all sorts of reasons for the ignorance, idleness and demoralization of the Indian. But there are one or two reports so different in their tone from the rest that they deserve notice. The missionary at Rosebud agency, Dakota, William J. Cleveland, says:

What we deprived him (the Indian) of, in actual fact, was his former means of making a living. Give him a substitute for that, one which shall at least call out as much of the true man in him as did his old tasks of warding off the enemy and slaying the buffalo.

But “his former means of making a living” was the prairie, the forest and stream; the land, in other words. Must we, then, if we are to do anything for the Indian, “provide him with a substitute” for the earth? Perhaps a better plan would be to guarantee to every Indian his right to a share of the earth or what part of it the government has left to his people. In this

p. 6, col. 5 connection, then, let us read what Robert L. Owen, the agent at Muscogee, Indian territory, says:

The most striking feature in the governments of the Indian nations of this agency, when contrasted with that of their white neighbors, is that the title to their entire domain is in the nation as a practically unqualified fee, and the individual has only the right to use and occupy. He may sell and devise to other citizens his improvement and the right acquired by the improvement and the right of use and occupancy of a certain tract, and in case he dies intestate it descends, according to Indian statute law, to his wife, children or nearest relatives. He has the right to use all he can, but he must use it, and on his abandonment another citizen can take possession. This insures to every Cherokee who is willing to work a certain home and a certain remuneration for his labor. They have availed themselves of this in proportion to their intelligence, ambition and several abilities. There is a constitutional provision against unseemly speculation or monopoly of improvements on the public domain.

Although this tenure of lands may seem strange to those who have not seen its qualities tested, it is a proposition which from a public standpoint might well be argued as superior to the fee simple in the individual. This system precludes a possibility of unjust pauperism so often imposed on worthy labor by force of modern circumstances or ancient customs surviving in modern times. However this question may be argued by political economists, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the true safeguard for the Indian people until they have grown, under the educational influences now working, up to the capacity of full American citizenship, until they are able to cope with that most ingenious of all thieves, the insidious land swindler.

Only, Mr. Agent, by your own acknowledgment that “unjust pauperism” exists among the whites, who are supposed to be able to cope with land swindlers, you have proved that the only way for the Indians to ward off this pauperism is to keep on, not for a time, but forever, recognizing the rights of all to the earth.

Add to this the testimony of W. L. Powell, the agent at Neah bay, Washington territory, who says, “These Indians do not desire, nor would it be to their interest, to have the land divided in severalty.”

Mr. Owen’s statement is that of a man who cannot be called a mere theorist. He does not say that if drinking were stopped the Indian question would be solved. What he says amounts to saying that where there is no private property in land there is no Indian question; there is then no possibility of unjust pauperism

Against this opinion are those of almost every other agent in the list. With but few exceptions, the agents seem to think that the best thing that can be done for the Indians is to divide their lands among them, to be held by them forever as private property, or sold to the land speculators, as the case may be. Our people are opposed to acting on mere theories, it is said. Good. They want precedents and facts. Equally good. Now, the prevailing theory as to the Indians is that allotting them lands in severalty as private property is going to make them better off. This theory is supported by say ninety-five per cent of the agents, and all the land speculators. But the fact is (as shown above) that recognizing the rights of all to the land has already solved the “labor question” among the Cherokees, and involuntary pauperism is unknown. Shall we act on the fact or the theory?

A GLOWING UTTERANCE.

The following extract from a recent communication in the Cincinnati Christian Standard, from Mrs. Frances M. Milne of San Luis Obispo, Cal., will be read with interest by the many people who have learned to know Mrs. Milne through her letters and poems in THE STANDARD. Our cause needs more such ardent and outspoken champions:

If it be true—as who but an atheist would deny—that God has made ample provision for the needs of all men during their residence upon earth, it must follow of necessity that the heaped up gain of some, and the direful want of others, must be alike due to some infringment^sic of the laws which a just creator ordained for his creatures’ good. But we are not merely the creatures of an omnipotent will, we are also the children of an all-wise, all-loving father, “for one is our father, even God, and all we are brethren.” And can we suppose our heavenly father less just, less merciful, less careful, for the physical and mental and moral welfare of all his children, than would be an earthly parent? What sort of a household were that where one child gorged while another starved? where one was given every advantage of moral training and the highest intellectual culture, and another groveled in brutish ignorance? where one was clothed in soft furs and velvets or coolest lawns, as befitted the season, while another flaunted in “unwomanly rags?” where one shivered or sweltered in a cheerless, unwholesome garret, while another monopolized the green play ground that should be common to all? Yet, does not our present social system in effect declare that such is the ordering of heaven?

No, never, never, shall my heart or lips acknowledge such a blasphemy, but with fullest gratitude and thrilling joy give thanks for even the humblest place in the ranks of those who carry forward the banner of love and light, and “vindicate the ways of God to man.”

Providing Work for Women.

The beneficent United States tariff encourages industry of mothers and housewives by a duty of twenty per cent on infants’ food, and a similar duty on “powder for custards” and plum puddings. Human hair, such as is grown by many of our most fashionable young ladies, is subject to a duty of twenty per cent when “unclean and not drawn,” and of thirty per cent when “clean and drawn.”

Single Tax and Double Tax.

Justice, the paper recently started by the Philadelphia anti-poverty society, says:

We had hoped that this split in the party would not occur, but that all those who really wish to emancipate labor could join hands and work together in the coming campaign. This, however, was not to be. It appears that a portion of the party do not understand the difference between a single and a double tax; that they do not see that the single tax means free trade, and that they still believe in the fallacy that a tariff makes wages high. Believing in these things, it is better that the split in the party should come at this time, for the result will be that if the issue between the old parties is free trade and protection, then we who believe in free trade will be able to aid it by our ballots, while the protectionists will waste their ballots, as far as this election is concerned, in the effort to elect a third party candidate.

p. 6, col. 6

Night.

By Blanco White.

Mysterious Night, when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet, ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came: And lo! Creation widened in man’s view! Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun? Or who could find, Whilst fruit and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind? Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

THE DUTY ON COFFEE.

Ode to a Pig, While His Nose Was Being Bored.

Robert Southey.

Hark! hark! that pig—that pig! the hideous note, More loud, more dissonant, each moment grows— Would one not think the knife was in his throat? And yet they’re only boring through his nose.

You foolish beast, so rudely to withstand Your master’s will, to feel such idle fears! Why, pig, there’s not a lady in the land Who has not also bored and ring’d her ears.

Pig! ’tis your master’s pleasure—then be still, And hold your nose to let the iron through[!?] Dare you resist your lawful sovereign’s will? Rebellious swine! you know not what you do.

To man o’er every beast the power was given, Pig, hear the truth, and never murmur more! Would you rebel against the will of Heaven! You impious beast, be still, and let them bore.

The social pig resigns his natural rights When first with man he covenants to live; He barters them for safer sty delights, For grains and wash, which man alone can give.

Sure is the provision on the social plan, Secure the comforts that to each belong: Oh. happy swine^sic! the impartial sway of man Alike protects the weak pig and the strong.

And you resist! you struggle now because Your master has thought fit to bore your nose! You grunt in flat rebellion to the laws Society finds needful to impose.

Go to the forest, piggy, and deplore The miserable lot of savage swine! See how the young pigs fly from the great boar! And see how coarse and scantily they dine.

Behold their hourly danger, when who will May hunt, or snare, or seize them for his food! Oh. happy pig^sic! whom none presume to kill Till your protecting master thinks it good!

And when, at last, the closing hour of life Arrives (for pigs must die as well as man), When in your throat you feel the long sharp knife. And the blood trickles to the pudding pan;

And, when at last, the death wound yawning wide, Fainter and fainter grows the expiring cry, Is there no grateful joy, no loyal pride, To think that for your master’s good you die?

MARY AND DICK.

Three years ago, when I was a delegate to the Central labor union, I was appointed on a committee to take charge of a strike of girl weavers employed in a silk factory on Forty-second street. My relations with the strikers were such that it was necessary that we should be more than acquainted—we should be confidential. In the course of this confidential acquaintanceship I met Mary, a very handsome girl of the Irish type. She was an active member of the weavers’ striking committee; and through having often to meet together to discuss matters connected with the strike, it was but natural that a feeling of friendship should spring up between us.

Young women, when they feel that they are with male friends desiring to advance their interests, often throw aside their habitual reserve and tell their real thoughts and aspirations. These girl weavers were young women—were about the same as other young women—and among other interesting topics, they would talk about the young men of their acquaintance; and those who had “fellers”—or steady company—would talk about them. I wish to say here that these talks would go on when I was present just the same as if I had not been there. I was in no danger, for I had been captured years before. I will say for the girls, though, that whenever any, to my mind, more important matters were on hand, the “fellers” and the “steadies” were banished from the talks, and were not allowed to return until there was nothing else to talk about.

Mary had a “steady.” The other girls knew him, and he used often to be brought up for discussion or dissection. He was a butcher, and his first name was Dick. “He was a nice fellow;” “he worked in his father’s butcher store;” “he had a beautiful complexion;” “when any poor person bought meat of him, especially a poor woman, he was always pleasant and gave good weight” (a virtue, by the way, that butchers do not all possess); “he had such a sweet mustache and laughing blue eyes;” “he didn’t hang around corners of an evening;” “he liked to have fun, but took Mary along;” and so on, and so on. Evidently Dick was a paragon.

Hearing his praises sung so often I could not but become curious about Dick myself, so I took the liberty once to ask Mary about him. She told me a whole mass of things about him—all good, of course—and I said I would like to see him some time. Mary said she would get him to come down to a meeting some night, when she would introduce him. I also got her to promise me an “invite” when the wedding should come off. Dick never came to any of the meetings, however.

In the course of time the strike ended, the girls being defeated, and we gradually drifted from each other’s sight.

. . . . . . .

Probably a year had passed when I met Mary one evening on the Third avenue elevated road. She was working in a silk factory at Union Hill, New Jersey, but living in New York, up town. The work was “pretty fair,” but she had to get up very early in the morning in order to be at the factory by seven o’clock, and she hardly ever got to her home before half past seven or eight at night. Yes, it was pretty hard work, and the earnings were small, and from five o’clock in the morning to eight o’clock at night was fifteen hours; but a girl must work; her earnings were needed to help support the house. No, she was not married yet.

“What has become of Dick—your Dick?”

He was still working with his father. “You see,” she said, “we were to be married as soon as Dick’s father took him into partnership. The business was good and growing; Dick’s father and Dick were so nice that the customers kept increasing,

p. 7, col. 2 and Dick’s father half-way promised that Dick should be made a partner last May. Before May came round, Dick’s father’s landlord raised his rent three hundred dollars. That made Dick’s father decide to postpone the partnership affair, and now Dick and I must wait until the business is built up a little more, for that three hundred dollars’ rise in the rent rather upset Dick’s father. Oh, no, when I do get married I want you to be present.”

. . . . . .

One evening, some time after, perhaps nine or ten months, I was walking up Tenth avenue. Women and children were streaming from a large building—a factory. I was making my way against this human tide as best I could, when suddenly I heard my name called. I looked up, and there was Mary.

She was working in this factory now, and had just got through her day’s work. Was “awfully glad” to see me. I turned back and walked with her to the corner, where she was to take a cross-town car. She had had to quit work at Union hill on account of crossing the ferry twice a day and the walk from the landing to the factory during the cold weather. It had laid her up sick. The wages were not so good on Tenth avenue, but she didn’t have to face the cold winds on the North river in winter, although she had to get up early to be in time for her work where she was now. She rode across in the Forty-second street cars to Second avenue and then walked to where she lived—Eightieth or Ninetieth street, I forget which. Why didn’t she ride up Second avenue? That would cost five cents more, and she couldn’t afford it. Up and down the ride would cost ten cents extra a day; that was sixty cents extra a week. No, she couldn’t afford it, so she walked. Yes, she had to get up earlier on that account, but her mother needed that extra sixty cents to help keep up the house.

“Well, what has become of Dick?”

He was still working with his father. Dick said his father was feeling somewhat discouraged. Business was good in the butcher store, but it needed to be, for the rent had to be raised. “No, not again—oh! yes, I told you about it on Third avenue—but Dick’s father told Dick that that rise of three hundred dollars had discouraged him. It seemed to him (Dick’s father) that even if the business were to double he would get no good of it, because if it did do so, it was more than likely that the landlord from whom he rented would raise him again next May.”

What did Dick and his father intend to do? Well, Dick’s father had told Dick that the best thing he could do would be to go down to Washington market and try to get a job there. Dick’s father himself seriously thought of shutting up his store—in fact, said he would do it if his rent was raised again. “I don’t know now,” she said, sadly, “when Dick and I will get married. The time seems farther off than it did two years ago.”

We had reached her corner by this time, and as I helped her on to the car, I jokingly said to her, “Don’t forget that I am to be invited to your wedding.” She turned toward me and tears welled up into her eyes as she said: “I hope it will be soon, but I am afraid some one has set the day a long way off.”

. . . . . .

Three or four months ago some engagement called me up one evening to Third avenue and about Ninetieth street. I was a little ahead of my appointment, and was killing time looking in the shop windows and reading the signs, when I heard some one say “Good evening.” There was Mary again, but this time she had an escort; and, taking a quick glance at him, and remembering how the girls had described him when we used to meet during the Forty-second street strike, I judged that I was facing the redoubtable Dick. And I judged correctly, for Mary introduced him to me. He shook my hand very cordially; was glad to know me, for Mary had often talked to him about me; he had often been almost [jokingly] jealous because she praised me so much, etcetera. They invited me to stroll along with them, and I accepted the invitation.

Dick was a fine looking young fellow, a typical New Yorker. As we walked along it seemed to me that both Mary and he acted as if they were very happy. The hade of care^sic that I had noticed on Mary’s face when I saw her last on Tenth avenue was gone, and in its place was the same happy look she wore when I first met her.

“Surely,” I thought, “Mary’s fears as to the future have proved to be groundless. Evidently the time is near when she and Dick will have that wedding which has been so long postponed.”

As soon as I got the opportunity I asked Mary what news she had. Oh, nothing new. She was still working on Tenth avenue. What were the prospects? “Splendid! Ask Dick.”

I turned to Dick and asked him how he was getting along. Well, he hadn’t been doing anything since his father closed up his store.

“What?” said I, “has your father closed out his business?”

“Yes; the landlord wanted a second rise, and the old man couldn’t stand it.”

“What are he and you doing now?”

“Well, the old man got a job in Washington market.”

“What about you?”

“I haven’t got a place there yet. I guess I won’t need it; some of my friends with a pull are going to get me on the park police, if I pass; and I am pretty certain to pass.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yes,” Mary broke in; “and when he gets on we are going to get married; and mind, you must come to the wedding.”

Oh, yes, I would be there. But it seemed sad to me that this young man should—in order to place himself in a position where he could marry the girl who thought so much of him—have to put himself under such binding obligations to some politician or set of politicians—for I know from what I have seen how subservient a person must be to the “boss” whose influence gets him a public position of any kind.

The time of my appointment had about come, and I bade them good evening and went my way.

. . . . . .

Two weeks ago I met Mary again, this

p. 7, col. 3 time in a street car. The happy look was gone, and in its place was a haggard, pinched expression. She had got very thin. It seemed to me as if she had aged five years. I must confess that I was startled at her appearance. She did not see me until I spoke to her.

“What is the matter, Mary? Have you been sick?”

“No,” she said despondently, “I haven’t been sick, bodily; but I am sick at heart.”

“What has happened? Oh, I see; you and Dick have had a quarrel. Is that it?”

“No.”

“Anything the matter at home?”

“No.”

“Well, then, what is the matter? The last time I saw you, when you were with Dick, you seemed to be perfectly happy. What has happened?”

“Well, you see, when you walked up the avenue with us that evening we told you that Dick was going on the park police and then we were going to get married.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, he was sure he would pass the examination, and he did in all but one thing.”

“And what was that, Mary?”

“He was half an inch too short.”

WM. MCCABE.

Teaching that Teaches.

A correspondent in a large western city writes:

I was much interested in the letter from the teacher friend of August Lewis. I also realize how much is to be gained by interesting teachers. Six months ago I began talking the single tax to a teacher in our high school. The inclosed question paper on the subject of political economy, for the current high school examination, indicates the progress she has made and the method she has taken to sow the good seed:

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

1. Define value. Upon what does it depend? Give reasons why a laborer should have a share in the profits of a business.

2. Upon what is the right of property based? State your opinion of the right of private ownership in land. Define and illustrate wealth and capital.

3. What is price? Causes of fluctuations. What considerations affect the rate of wages?

4. Upon what does the rate of interest depend? Objections, if any, to usury laws.

5. Distinguish between money and credit. Name three uses and three abuses of credit.

6. Describe the banking system of the United States. What objections can be raised to it?

7. Are you in favor of protection or free trade? Give the strongest arguments in support of your opinion.

8. What are the principles of equitable taxation? What is Henry George’s theory? Reasons for or against.

9. Difference between direct and indirect taxation? Which is the better? Why? Describe the operation of a “clearing house.”

10. When is a strike justifiable? When is it wise? Has a man a right to interfere with the labor of another? What causes tend to promote differences between employers and employed?

First the Game, and Then the Crofters—Its English, You Know^sic.

Baltimore Sun.

A party of gentlemen went from this city yesterday morning on an inspection tour over the eastern shore with an ultimate purpose of making extensive land purchases for a shooting preserve. Prominent New York and Maryland sportsmen are interested in the enterprise. That section of the state has been selected in preference to localities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania because of its climate, topographical and geographical advantages. One important feature in its favor is that winter weather is less severe, particularly snow storms, which cause heavy losses among partridges, a breed of birds that it is contemplated to raise in large numbers. This game will shelter aside logs, trees, and in holes, and be snowed in to die because unable to work their way through the surface, which generally freezes. As soon as suitable property can be obtained a club will be formed, with a local and visiting membership. An effort will be made to have increased transportation facilities, especially by steamers, from here. Pheasant shooting will also be included, and to secure the game in plenty it is intended to get some of the stock of Mr. Robert Garrett, from his country seat, Uplands, as well as from other sources, and breed the birds extensively.

Is Not the Reason of This That Social Conditions Make Wrong Doing a Condition of Existence?

James Payn.

I sometimes wonder—but always to myself, lest the susceptibilities of those who hold “whatever is, is right,” should be wounded—whether it might not be of advantage to the human race if less time were given us for reflection. On the whole, the impulses of men are, at least, as good as their principles; and certainly self-interest asserts itself more and more, the longer the opportunity that is afforded her to do so. How often do we say, “That is right,” and then after a little thought—though the act remains as right as ever—“But is it expedient?” or, “Is it advantageous?” after which the good deed is postponed indefinitely. . . . Where the question lies between “What is right?” and “What is pleasant?” to hesitate is indeed to be lost.

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In sympathy with every movement toward the realization of the Lord’s kingdom on earth, and having no desire to build up a sect or to interfere with any one’s church relation, it opens its columns to all religious, moral and social questions, guided by one principle alone—the thought and love of USE.

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$5.00 LABOR LIBRARY.—30 STANDARD works by 24 authors—Marx, Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Krupotkin, Rechus^sic, Hyndman, Gronlund, Bebel, Annie Besant, Lassalle, Bradlaugh, George. Speeches of anarchists and trial, etc., bound in 3 vols.; cloth, $5; postpaid, $5.50. Complete list mailed free.

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p. 7, col. 4

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THE LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY.—We are now publishing under the title of “The Land and Labor Library” a series of short tracts on various phases of the social problem. These pamphlets contain facts, figures and arguments expressed in concise, vigorous language easily understood. As a means of propaganda we recommend them to all who desire to help on the movement for social reform. Those who wish to have these tracts placed where they will do good but who are unable personally to attend to their distribution, can remit the price to us, as we have every facility for sending them where they are needed and will be read.

The following have already appeared:

No. 1. “First Principles.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 2. “Land and Taxation.” A conversation between David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages. No. 3. “The Right to the Use of the Earth.” By Herbert Spencer. 4 pages. No. 4. “A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty.” A sermon by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost of Newark, N. J. 2 pages. No. 5. “A Sum in Proportion.” By T. L. McCready. [2?] pages. No. 6. “The Settler’s Nightmare.” By Louis F. Post. 4 pages. No. 7. “New York’s Docks: The True Mode of Raising Revenue.” By J. W. Sullivan. 4 pages. No. 8. “Unemployed Labor.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 9. “Voices for Reform.” 2 pages. No. 10. “A Mysterious Disappearance.” By Lewis Freeland. 6 pages. No. 11. “How to Increase Profits.” By A. J. Steers. 2 pages. No. 12. “The American Farmer.” By Henry George. 4 pages. No. 13. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 14. “The Collegiate Church and the Shoemaker’s Field.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 15. “Only a Dream.” By Abner C. Thomas. 4 pages. No. 16. “The Anti-Poverty Society.” Dr. McGlynn’s address at the first meeting. 8 pages. No. 17. “The Cross of the New Crusade.” A poem. By David Rorty. 2 pages. No. 18. “It is the Law of Christ.” By Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages. No. 19. “My Landlord. By John Jones^sic. 4 pages. No. 20.”Thou Shalt Not Steal.” An address by Henry George before the Anti-Poverty Society. [8?] pages. No. 21. “Christianity and Poverty.” An address by Father Huntington before the Anti-poverty society. 4 pages. No. 22. “Poverty and Christianity.” An address by Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the Anti-poverty society. 8 pages. No. 23. “The Single Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages. No. 24. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 1. 4 pages. No. 25. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 2. 4 pages. No. 26. “Religion vs. Robbery.” Address by Rev. Dr. McGlynn before the New York Anti-poverty society, June 12, 1887. 8 pages. No. 27. “Back to the Land.” Bishop Nulty’s letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese. 16 pages. Price, 5 cents. No. 28. “Anti-Slavery and Anti-Poverty.” An address by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the New York Anti-Poverty Society, June 19. 8 pages. No. 29. “Tenement House Morality.” Rev. J. O. S. Huntington in the Forum. 4 pages. No. 30. “The Case Plainly Stated.” A speech by H. F. Ring before the Knights of Labor at Houston, Texas. 8 pages. No. 31. “Questions and Answers.” Questions by Rev. Howard Henderson of the Sixty-first street M. E. church of New York; with answers by Henry George. 2 pages. No. 32. “Objections to the Land Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages. No. 33. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 34. “Horse Sense.” W. C. Woods. 2 pages. No. 35. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages. No. 36. “Citycus and Rusticus.” Tudor S. Jenks. [4?] pages. No. 37. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pp. No. 38. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 39. “What We Want.” Everett Glackin, president Typographical Union No. 6. 2 pages. No. 40. “Protection or Free Trade.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents. No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. (German.) 2 pages. No. 42. “First Principles.” (German.) Henry George. 4 pages. No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. (German^sic.) Henry George. 4 pages. No. 44.”How John’s Father Saw the Light.” W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages. 45. Platform of the United Labor Party^sic. 2 pages. No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” (German.) Henry George. 8 pages. No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” (German.) Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pages. No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (German). H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 49. “The Distribution of Wealth.” Thomas G. Shearman. 16 pages. No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” (German.) Henry George. No. 51. “Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers.” Rev John W. Kramer. 4 pages. No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish). H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” (German.) Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages. No. 54. “What the United Labor Party Want.” Henry George. 2 pages. No. 55. “Stories for Farmers.” 4 pages. No. 56. “Electoral Reform.” A. T. Rice. 4 pages. No. 57. “Protection as a Universal Need.” Henry George, 4 pages. No. 58. “To a College Professor.” Bartholomew Appleby. 4 pages. No. 59. “Before a Royal Commission.” W. A. Douglass. 4 pages. No. 60. “The Tariff Question.” Henry George. [4?] pages. No. 61, “A Practical Illustration.” Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages. No. 62. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents. No. 63, “American Protection and British Free Trade.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 64. “Hints as to What You Can Do.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 65. “To a Bookkeeper.” Bartholomew Appleby. 2 pages. No. 66. “A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms.” Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages. No. 67. “A Piece of Land” By^sic the late Francis G. Shaw. 2 pages. No. 68. “The Tax on Buildings.” William T. Croasdale. 8 pages. No. 69. “Protection and Wages.” Henry George. [8?] pages.

GERMAN TRACTS.

No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages. No. 42. “First Principles.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages. No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pages. No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages. No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish.) H. F. Ring. 8 pages. No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.

SWEDISH.

No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” H. F. Ring. [8?] pages.

Prices, free by mail: 2-page tracts—50 copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, 15 cents; 1,000 copies, $1; 5,000 copies, $4.25. Four-page tracts—25 copies, 10 cents; 100 copies, 25 cents; 1,000 copies, $2; 5,000 copies, $8.50. Six-page tracts—25 copies, 15 cents; 100 copies, 37 cents; 1,000 copies, $3; 5,000 copies, $12.75. Eight-page tracts—25 copies, 20 cents; 100 copies 50 cents; 1,000 copies, $4; 5,000 copies, $17. Twelve-page tracts—25 copies, 30 cents; 100 copies, 75 cents; 1,000 copies, $6; 5,000 copies, $22.50. Sixteen-page tracts—25 copies, 40 cents; 100 copies, $1; 1,000 copies, $8; 5,000 copies, $34.

A special selection, comprising thirty or more of the most popular tracts, will be sent for 20 cents.

Other numbers in preparation.

Address HENRY GEORGE, 12 Union square, New York city.

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HEAVEN AND HELL,

From things heard and seen by Emanuel Swedenborg. [Cheap?] [edition?], [paper?], fifteen cents, postpaid. This work unfolds the [laws?] of the spiritual world and describes the condition of both good and evil men after death. It treats, among other things, of the sun of heaven and the [light?] and heat thence proceeding, of the garments and [habitations?] of the angels, their government, worship, [occupations?], conjugal relations, etc., of the state of the heathen and young children, of the rich and poor, and of the wise and simple in heaven.

[Intercourse?] Between the Soul and the Body, paper, five cents; and all other writing of Swedenborg and of New Church authors. Catalogue free. Address New Church Board of Publication, [Room?] 20, Cooper Union, New York.

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[Advertisement] Anti-Poverty Doctrines in a Nutshell

ANTI-POVERTY DOCTRINES IN A NUTSHELL.

Thirty pamphlets on various phases of the social problem. The question of the hour. All should understand it. Will be sent post paid on receipt of fifteen cents in stamps, or will be sent free to any one sending twenty-five cents for six months’ subscription to the Tax Reformer, a sixteen page journal. Address, ANTI-POVERTY PRESS, 1791 Lexington ave., N. Y.

[Advertisement] The Democrat

THE DEMOCRAT.

A RADICAL REVIEW MONTHLY.

The Democrat advocates Land Resumption and those reforms which are necessary to make the English people a free people. It asks “compensation” not for those who have benefited by unjust legislation, but for those who have suffered thereby.

For one dollar the Democrat is supplied for 18 months to any address in the United States or Canada.

Address 5 New Bridge street, London, E. C.

PUBLISHER’S NOTES.

“I love THE STANDARD dearly,” writes a lady from the Pacific coast, sending an order for a dozen recruit subscriptions. “I love THE STANDARD dearly. But dearly as I love it, and anxious as I am for its success, if the object of these recruit subscriptions were merely to get new subscribers for THE STANDARD I shouldn’t send them. I couldn’t afford it.” And then our friend goes on to tell us that what she feels she ought not to afford for the paper, she is perfectly certain she ought to afford for the cause. “I want to make converts,” she writes. “I want to bring people to see the truth as I see it. I want to hasten the coming of God’s kingdom upon earth. And scanty as are my means I cannot afford not to spend money for such a purpose.”

Do you catch our friend’s idea? Do you see the thought in her mind? She has learned to look upon this paper of ours, not as an end, but as a means—as an instrument to be used in doing her work.

And, good readers of THE STANDARD, this is just the sort of interest we want you to take. THE STANDARD is your paper, published to aid you in your work, and can never fill its proper sphere of usefulness until you utilize it to the utmost. It can do good work for you if you will use it; its force will largely go to waste if you do not.

Have you ever considered what the duty is that you owe to the cause in which you are interested? It is very simple. The problem before us is to turn public opinion our way—to make people think as we do. We must make our converts one by one, and we must do this largely by individual effort, each one of us striving to bring into the fold his own little band of converts. Our anti-poverty societies, our tax reform associations, our land and labor clubs, our political organizations, our STANDARD, our tracts and other literature are all of them only means to this end—instruments which we can use to advantage if we will, or suffer to lie idle if we prefer. To win success each one of us must make himself a center of individual effort—must feel himself responsible for bringing in the men and women in his neighborhood and whom he knows.

Ah! if we would only do this, how soon would our triumph come. If each one of us would but number his friends and swear that he would know no rest and abate no effort until every one of them should be brought to our side! Who is there among us who couldn’t attack a least half a dozen^sic? And with each new convert fired in turn with the same missionary zeal, making himself the center of a new circle of effort—with the leaven of thought spreading and working more and more, day by day, through the whole lump of humanity—a single year would bring the victory.

Friends, the work is your work; the responsibility for its doing rests upon you; not one of you can evade his share. The tools lie ready to your hands. Will you use them?

———

——, Pa.—Inclosed find $2.50, for which continue my subscription to THE STANDARD. Every paper received is a literary feast. May God hasten the day when the ignorant people will get their eyes open.

G. ——.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—There is a great field of usefulness for THE STANDARD here, and it shan’t be my fault if it isn’t worked for all it is worth, or pretty nearly. Our adversaries, the monopolists of earth, are working hard to help us. They are getting people into such a frame of mind that they really begin to see the cruel injustice of private land ownership for themselves without waiting for us to come and tell them about it.

I don’t suppose there ever was a place where a man’s labor ought to bring him in better returns than here. There are vast mineral deposits under ground, a fertile soil on top, and easy communication with the rest of the country. There is no limit to the wealth that labor might produce here. Yet, instead of labor being drawn here by high wages, we find capitalists urged to buy mining properties because labor is cheap, and we see men hunting for work in our streets, and tramps hauled to our jails. Fancy tramps in Alabama!

Merchants ought to make money here, if anywhere in the world. There is an increasing population to be fed and clothed and housed, and our merchants ought to do an increasing and profitable trade. And they do do it, too. They make stacks and cords of money, buying and selling. Only they’re not allowed to keep it. Just as soon as a merchant gets fairly established, has a good run of customers coming to his store, and begins to see money ahead of him, Mr. Landlord comes snoopin’ around, trying to find out what he’s making, and raises the rent on him just enough not to drive him out of business. A merchant said to me the other day: “Blamed if I ain’t goin’ to change my name and put out a new sign. This store is kept by Sponge & Co.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Why,” he said, “I been to work here more’n a year, workin’ early and late, makin’ sacrifices, givin’ folks bargains, and doing everything to draw trade to this stand. And now, when I’ve just got ready to go in and make money—when I was calculatin’ to fill myself full of profits next year—my landlord steps in and squeezes me nigh about dry. He was here yesterday. Asked me if I wanted to stay another year. Said he was very sorry (an’ he lied when he said it), but he had an offer for the place, and just about double my rent. If that ain’t makin’ a sponge outen a man, I don’t know what is!”

I gave my merchant friend a few tracts and STANDARDS and a little straightout talk. It didn’t take five minutes for him to see the cat. Pussy jumped right into his lap and mewed so loud you might have heard her a mile off.

I inclose a list of recruit subscriptions and an order for some tracts and copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” Don’t publish my name, for I’m a sponge myself and work for a sponge squeezer. If he found out what I am doing he’d give me one last squeeze and throw me away like a rotten orange. Yours for the cause,

E—— ——.

That’s the sort of a letter the publisher likes to get—pleasant to read, and pleasant to lay before the readers of THE STANDARD. Why don’t we get more like it? This country of ours, whose boast it is that every man is guaranteed just as good a chance as every other man, is full of Birminghams. There isn’t a country village, there isn’t a western prairie, where the voice of the great tax gatherer isn’t heard, crying, “Come up here, you foolish sponges, and be squeezed.” The farmer who works p. 8, col. 2 his own acres and flatters himself that he pays tribute to no man, has to do the sponge act just the same as everybody else. When he buys a plow, a Pennsylvania mine owner takes a squeeze at him. When he builds a house, a timber monopolist compresses him, and a hundred other monopolists give him smaller pinches. When he sends his crops to the market—ah! then he gets a squeeze that makes him fairly rain his wealth for Mr. Squeezer’s benefit. His wife’s dress pays tax to one monopolist. His children’s shoes are taxed to benefit another. On everything he eats, and drinks, and wears, and buys, and sells, and wastes or uses. the tax gatherers^sic, public and private, lay their hands. The sponges are all around you, friends. Just look about your own neighborhood and let the rest of THE STANDARD readers know what squeezing system is most in vogue where you live. And don’t imagine that in doing this you will merely gratify curiosity. By studying your own neighborhood you will learn its point of least resistance. You will find out how to approach your neighbors and how to talk to them so as to make the cat, as our Birmingham friend puts it, fairly jump into their laps.

And one thing more. When you write to THE STANDARD, always say whether you are willing that your name should be published or not. Let us use it if you can—a name stamps a letter with the writer’s individuality, and so adds to its weight; but if for any reason you feel compelled to act the part of Nicodemus, be sure we will respect your wishes.

———

Here are our terms for subscriptions to THE STANDARD:

One subscription, one year, . . . . $2 50 One subscription, six months, . . . . 1 25 One subscription, three months, . . . 63

Three or more subscriptions:

One year, each, . . . . . . . . . . . $2 00 Six months, each, . . . . . . . . . . 1 00 Three months, each, . . . . . . . . 50

After the first club of three has been sent, subsequent subscriptions may be forwarded at the same reduced rates.

Recruit subscriptions, for four weeks, will be received, singly or in clubs, to different addresses at fifteen cents each.

How many subscriptions have you sent us? How many have you a prospect of getting? How many have you tried to get? You needn’t answer these questions to us. Answer them to yourself. And bethink you, while you are doing it, of what our California correspondent says in the letter quoted above. THE STANDARD is your instrument—one of the tools with which you must do your work. Nobody else can do your work for you; you must do it yourself, or suffer it to go undone. Up, then, and be doing! Your field of labor is right before you—all around you. And the more unpromising it is the greater the need that you should bestir yourself.

These recruit subscriptions, for example. Why don’t you use them more? Have you used them at all yet? Have all of your acquaintances been reached? Have your clergyman, your lawyer, your doctor, your storekeeper—even your landlord, why not?—been given a chance to learn the truth? If not, then your work is going undone.

And there is one suggestion the publisher would like to make about these recruit subscriptions. It may not be always safe or possible to let your friends know that you are having THE STANDARD sent to them, but whenever this can be done, it ought to be. A man will usually read a paper with twice the attention he might otherwise pay to it, if he knows it represents a friend’s ideas. Even if he considers his friend’s notions utter bosh, he will be apt to read nevertheless, if only for the purpose of confuting foolishness. And all we need ask him to do is to read. The rest will take care of itself.

———

The recruiting fund. That is another tool, which gathers more rust than it ought to. Its object is to furnish literature—tracts, books and STANDARDS—to people who have the opportunity to distribute them, but can’t afford to buy them. The fund has done good work in the past. It is doing good work now. It can do good work in the future. But see how slowly it grows. Think of all it might do, and how little it can do with its present feeble support. The fault is yours, STANDARD readers. The tool is idle because you don’t use it, and for no other reason. Read the list of contributors for the week just past, and ask yourselves how many village churches there are in the United States that would not in a single week contribute more to send missionaries to the heathen than you are doing to aid in lifting the yoke of poverty from the necks of sixty millions of your fellow countrymen.

The contributions to the recruiting fund for the past week have been:

J. Loeffner, New York………. $3 00 [N.?]………. 1 50 Two friends………. 2 00 E. B. H., Chicago………. 5 00 Nicodemus again………. 1 00

Total for the week………. $12 50 Previously acknowledged………. 2,271 [64?]

Total to date………. $2,284 14

———

Clipping a Piece from Every Man’s Blanket.

Philadelphia Record.

This wool tax is in spirit similar to the old law of England which, in order to encourage the sheep growers, provided that the dead should be buried in none but woolen shrouds. The wool duties in this country are more cruel than was the old protectionist statute of England, inasmuch as the former seriously afflicts the living. To the dead it made no difference whether their shrouds were of wool or of any other fabric; but in a climate like that which prevails in most portions of this country multitudes of the living suffer in diminished health and comfort from the duties on wool. All the blessings that the tariff is imagined to confer on the growers of sheep cannot outweigh the real privations which the wool duties inflict upon the American people.

———

Why Not Stay East and Vote to Make It Easier to Get Land By Taxing the Rent.

Todd County, Minn., Argus.

The principal reason why ambitious young men do not want to farm in the eastern states is that the vocation there requires a heavy capital if the farmer wishes to own his farm. If he works as a renter he can get but little more than the lowest interest on his capital employed and laborer’s wages for his work. Young men ambitious to engage in farming, come west!

p. 8, col. 3

LIFE ON THIRTY SHILLINGS A WEEK.

Miss Miranda Hill in the Nineteenth Century.

People have been talking and writing on the subject of how to live on a moderate income. When I heard £700 a year treated as a small sum on which a family had to manage economically, the thought came to me, “And yet, what good and happy homes one knows of where the income can hardly be more than one-tenth of that, say £78, or 30s. weekly! Many working people manage on 30s. a week. How is it done?”

I determined to put down the details of the expenditure from one of my working friends, and, thinking over those who were likely to be able to give me the information I wanted, I remembered one home specially, whose bright, cheerful aspect and well cared for children I had known for some years.

The father, John Howe, a Cumberland man, had been a farm laborer in his youth. He had taught himself to read and write after he grew up, had saved money out of his small earnings in order to apprentice himself to a trade, and, after having thus become a skilled workman, had married and come to London, where he had found regular employment.

The father of that family is a man who has solved the problem, “How to live on thirty shilling a week^sic, I doubt not,” said I to myself, “and if he has, I know well that neither wife nor children have suffered stint, either mentally or bodily. I will ask him to tell me how he has managed his income.”

So I called at his home—he occupies two rooms in a small street in the northwest of London—and asked his little daughter to tell him that I should be glad if he would call and speak to me in the evening when he came back from work. He did so and the following conversation took place between us:

I.—You can, perhaps, give me some information I want if you will. Some friends and I have been talking over the question of means and working people’s earnings and spendings and have been wondering whether we could learn how a working man with a family manages on 30s. a week.

My Friend.—I can pretty well tell you that, because that was near about what I spent when my wife was at home. (She is very ill just now and absent from home.)

I.—You spent about 30s.?

Friend.—Yes, about eight-and-twenty or thirty shillings.

I.—Did that include clothes and everything?

Friend.—Yes.

I.—But you sometimes earn more than 30s., don’t you?

Friend.—Oh, yes; I earn a little more sometimes, but I don’t spend it; I save it.

I.—Then I may reckon yours as an example of how a family can live on 30s. a week?

Friend.—You may.

I.—Then I will put down the items as you tell me. You won’t object to my doing that, I suppose?

Friend (smiling).—Not at all. (Doubtfully) You are not going to publish them—with my name?

I.—Neither with your name nor without, if you object to it. But, to tell you the truth, I did want to make use of the facts you tell me for publication, if you don’t mind.

Friend.—Oh, no, I don’t mind.

I.—Then, first, as to food. What do you spend on meat?

Friend (promptly).—Four shillings a week.

I.—Four shillings a week! Why, that is just half what a working woman told me she should spend for a smaller family than yours.

Friend.—I dare say; but then she probably buys her meat about here, where it costs 7d. or 8d per pound^sic. I go down to the meat market, and at this time of year, when meat keeps well, I get in a week’s supply. I can buy beautiful meat at 3d. or even at 2[½?]d. per pound. I got a splendid piece of leg of beef, 18 pounds, for 3s. I buy a piece of the leg like that because I find it useful. I can get sirloin very cheap too at 5d. or 5½d. per pound.

I.—Then, as to bread?

Friend (after some reflection and calculation).—Reckon ten of Neville’s loaves a week, and that costs just now 2¾d. a loaf.

I.—That makes 2s. 3½d. I notice you say Neville’s bread. You take that in preference to baker’s bread?

Friend (smiling).—The baker’s is generally cheaper to buy, but you eat more of it. It does not go so far as Neville’s; so it is no cheaper in the end.

I.—And what do you reckon for flour?

Friend—About two quarterns^sic in the week, at 6d. each.

Then followed the estimate for groceries, milk and vegetables as given in the table below:

I asked about fruit.

Friend.—Oh yes. We spend a good deal on fruit in the summer—as much as 1s. 6d. a week perhaps. That’s what the flour is wanted for—the fruit puddings, you know.

I.—Then you must reckon for suet. Or do you get that with your meat?

Friend.—That comes with the meat. I never object to half a pound of nice white suet with the meat.

I.—And I suppose that, in winter, currants and raisins would take the place of the fresh summer fruit?

Friend.—Yes. They would. The estimate as to^sic coal and paraffine was given with great promptitude and accuracy, as if the amount used was quite well known, only my friend struck the average of cost because of the variation in winter and summer prices.

I.—Are you a teetotaler, or must we reckon something for beer?

Friend.—No, I am not a teetotaler. We take beer sometimes—for supper occasionally. In summer, when it is too hot to bear a fire, and we have a cold dinner, toward the end of the week, when we are finishing up the scraps, we have beer instead of tea.

I.—Then do I understand that you take tea with dinner sometimes?

Friend.—Yes, if it is a cold dinner like that; and if the weather is too hot for us to bear the fire, then we have beer. But I don’t take that cheap beer. I don’t approve of it. I take that at 3½d. per pint. Put down three pints a week for beer—that is 10½d.

I.—Then as to rent?

Friend.—Well, you know that—5s. 6d. a week.

I.—We must not forget school fees. How much are they?

Friend.—They are not much—only 1d. a week for each child at the board school.

I.—That makes 4d. And what about club money? I know you belong to a provident society.

Friend.—Yes; the club money comes to a good deal. I pay 1s. 6d. a week. But I pay more because I did not join till I was forty-one. A youth of eighteen who joins pays only 9d. a week and gets all the privileges that I have.

I.—And what are the privileges?

Friend.—Twenty shillings a week during sickness for one year, and after that ten shillings a week as long as the illness lasts. There is a man in our society who has had ten shillings a week for five years.

I.—And I think you told me once that there were some advantages of medical attendance for your family connected with your society, did you not?

Friend.—I did. The club doctor told me

p. 8, col. 4 that he would attend my wife and children whenever they needed it if I paid regularly 3d. a week for the wife and 1½d. for each child, if there were more than one who joined.

We reckoned up what this came to, and put it down. And here I may, remark, by the way^sic, how gladly the thrifty and independent working people avail themselves of anything of the nature of a provident dispensary. They did not wish to receive medical attendance quite free, as a charity, and yet they cannot afford to pay ordinary fees. They gladly pay the small regular sum weekly to insure attendance during illness. “It is a capital plan, if the doctor is a good one,” said one working woman to me; “and then, you see, it is to his interest to get you well soon.”

Then came the question of clothes. My friend knew exactly what he had spent for boots in the last six months, and from this we found 1s. 8d. the average per week for that large and important item. He had also one fact very clear—that when first he came to London it had taken just 1s. 6d. a week to clothe him. He knew this because he had joined a loan society, and took three shares each of 6d. a week, and this just sufficed for his clothes. “But then I was very low in clothes. I don’t spend so much now, and it included boots, so we must deduct for those,” he said. We did so, and thus obtained 1s. a week for his clothes.

My friend explained to me the plan of these loan societies, and how useful he had found them. They had been a great help to him in furnishing and getting clothes when he first came to town, and he knew a man who had made a business in five years owing to their help.

“But is not the interest that you pay very high?” I asked.

Friend.—Yes, it is high; but then as long as you have “stock” in the society you receive interest as well as paying it.

I.—And is there no danger of the society’s failing through dishonest management?

Friend.—Well, it is the fault of those who join it if it does, because there are quarterly meetings, and every man who has a share has a voice in the management. Of course, if you can’t be present, you must abide by the decision of those that can.

I.—We have not put anything down yet for the clothes for your wife and children.

Friend.—Yes. That is where I am at a loss; I cannot tell so well about that as my wife could.

He considered the matter a good deal, and finally made a rough guess at 2s. 6d. per week. I think myself that this was probably a little above the mark, comparing the sum with that for his own clothes. I noticed, in speaking to another working friend—a woman—that she had more difficulty in reckoning what was spent on clothes than anything else, the sums being larger and paid at irregular intervals. It was evidently the expenditure on clothes that would have to be cut down if means failed. “You would have to go shabbier, that is all!” she said.

The final result of my friend’s calculations is shown in the following table. The family consists of himself, his wife and five children, one an infant in arms:

The Growth of Berlin.

Berlin Correspondence London Weekly Dispatch.

The Berliners who had land in what used to be the outskirts of Berlin should be grateful to William and Bismarck for the glory they brought to Prussia. Its first effect was to make their city the banking and political capital of Germany. Berlin, which a quarter of a century ago was quite a small place, is now almost as big as Paris. Owners of sandy lots too poor to grow anything but broom, have now fortunes comparable to those enjoyed by many of the great London landlords.

This extension of the city quickened speculation in building lots to fever height, and with the building of new quarters every trade received a powerful impetus; all the houses had to be furnished, and so cabinet makers, upholsterers, gas fitters, stove makers, butchers, bakers and what not, gathered from other parts of Germany; but somehow the poor seem to get poorer while the rich grow richer.

p. 8, col. 5

How Nature Deals With Us.

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leaves his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted, By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; So nature deals with us, and take away^sic Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Lead us to rest so gently that we go, Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being to full of sleep^sic to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

———

PERSONAL.

R. M. Maxwell of Douglas, Iowa, contributes to the Harlan Industrial American an extremely calm and candid letter on the situation.

The Chicago Labor Enquirer of March 24 contains an able article from Robert Cumming of Braceville, Ill., in which the doctrine of the single tax is expounded and defended.

Henry George will lecture in Brockton, Mass., on Friday evening, April 27, for the tariff reform league, and in Tremont temple, Boston, on Saturday evening, April 28, on free trade.

John F. Duncan has an article on “The folly of strikes,” in a recent issue of the Detroit Advance, showing that industrial emancipation can be effected only by the destruction of land monopoly.

The North American Review for April contains a short but well written article by Benjamin Doblin in answer to W. M. Fishback’s essay on “Communism and Protection” in the February issue.

George J. Klinger of Brooklyn spoke on behalf of the Brooklyn single tax club at a recent debate between that organization and the prohibition club. Mr. Klinger traced poverty to its source in land monopoly and showed how little prohibition could do toward its cure.

An eight-year-old boy, guilty of petty larceny, was sentenced to ten days’ imprisonment with hard labor, a whipping and five years in a reformatory. The same sentence was pronounced on three other boys—two of them ten years old and the other twelve.—[London Echo.

A. E. Collier contributes a short article to the “Notes and Comments” department of the current number of the North American Review, in which he effectually disposes of Mr. Adams’s “Georgeism making the rich richer,” which appeared in a previous issue of the same magazine.

Miss Mary Leggett of Beatrice, Neb., was ordained a minister at the recent Unitarian conference at Kansas City. Miss Esther Frame, a Quaker, is said to have just finished a series of successful revival services in Nashville; but what a Quaker revival service can be like it is hard to imagine.

James W. Stillman of Boston has published a good essay on “The unconstitutionality, injustice and folly of the protective system.” But, unfortunately, Mr. Stillman does not see the injustice and folly of a revenue tariff, and his essay lacks the force it would gain from the advocacy of real free trade.

William Morris is a poet, a painter and a scholar; he is likewise a carver of wood, a a weaver of tapestries and a shopkeeper. To the homes of those who wish to have their rooms made beautiful he goes with his rule in his hand as a British workman—a title in which he glories. His clothes are of stout rough material, he wears a woollen shirt and a soft hat.

The improvement in the condition of James Redpath still continues, and on Easter Sunday he was able to attend Father Ducey’s church. It will be a long time, however, before he is able to do any work. Contributions for the testimonial fund, which is intended to give him the long rest he so well deserves and so much needs, should be sent to Charles F. Wingate, 119 Pearl street, New York.

Professor Thorold Rogers, whose investigations during the past twenty years have shed so much light on the social economy of the middle ages, has been elected to the professorship of political economy in Oxford university. Professor Rogers is an oldish man, with a heavy stoop, a pair of hawk eyes, an unequaled and inexhaustible power of conversational invective, a tongue with the rough side often uppermost, and a heart as tender as a woman’s.

Our correspondent, H. F. Ring, author of one of the most popular land and labor tracts, “The Case Plainly Stated,” and head of the Tax reform association, is city attorney of Houston, Texas. Some complaint has been made of the reappointment of Mr. Ring by the present mayor of Houston on the ground that he is a “land crank.” The Houston Echo says of it: “We look upon the appointment of Mr. Ring as the wisest the present administration has made. There is not an abler lawyer in the city.”

P. H. Cummins of Amsterdam, who was the candidate of the united labor party for state treasurer last fall, has invented a skeleton wheel which promises to be very valuable. Labor’s [Stage?] says it is constructed upon an entirely new principle, and is a beauty. It can be made one-third lighter, and yet fifty per cent stronger than any wheel yet made. These qualities render it very desirable for bicycles and tricycles. But the main advantage is that this wheel can be made at about half the cost of the cheapest wheel now in use, while being at the same time a great deal more durable.

W. B. Estell of Freeland, Pa., worthy foreman of district 87, K. of L., comprising the Lehigh region, is in New York endeavoring to obtain financial aid for the ostracised Lehigh miners, whose condition he speaks of in a communication in another column. Freeland, by the by, is so named because it is built upon the only spot in that region that was not the property of the great coal kings, and where, consequently, people who wanted to build houses could buy land. For the policy of the great coal kings is to neither sell nor lease; they prefer to be monarchs of all they can survey on their part of this earth.

———

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