December 15, 1888 Vol. IV, No. 24Whole No. 102

THE STANDARD

NO. 102—VOL. IV, NO. 24. | NEW YORK, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1888. | PRICE FIVE CENTS

p. 1, col. 1 Subscribers of the “Chicago Euquirer^sic” will receive “The Standard” until the expiration of their terms of subscription to that paper.

THE PETITION.

The petition is printed on a blank similar to

p. 2, col. 2 those circulated during the recent campaign, and it reads as follows:

To the Honorable the House of Representatives of the United States: The undersigned respectfully prays for the appointment by your Honorable Body of a special committee for the purpose of making a full inquiry into and report upon the expediency of raising all public revenues by a single tax upon the value of land, irrespective of improvements, to the exclusion of all other taxes, whether in the form of tariffs upon imports, taxes upon internal productions, or otherwise.

THE CHAIRMAN’S LETTER.

Accompanying the address and ten blank petitions is a letter from Mr. Croasdale, chairman of the committee, from which we make the following extracts:

It is not the purpose or desire of this committee to attempt the organization of a new political party. Experience has shown that such a course antagonizes many who would otherwise be helpful, and arouses interests and passions that militate against unselfish devotion to our principles. Without attempting to forecast the future, it is clear that for the present our work is the promotion of the growth of sound economic views and the assistance of all efforts that tend our way. This committee claims no authority over those enlisted in the single tax movement, and its relation with all existing organizations, as with individual single tax advocates, must be merely advisory and suggestive. . . .

The fixed expenses of this work will be met by the voluntary contributions of a few friends of the cause, but such an enlargement of it, as we hope for through the growth of the enrollment and the wide distribution of petitions and documents, will depend wholly on the further contributions from all parts of the country. In thus asking contributions, we, at the same time, assure those who are unable to give money that their personal services in securing signatures and promoting the cause will be appreciated as a full equivalent.

When any of our friends receive documents that they have already read, they are requested to pass them promptly to some neighbor. If the means at the committee’s disposal permit, it will, from time to time, send out sample copies of THE STANDARD. Should any of these fall into the hands of regular readers of that paper, they are requested to consider the extra copies as merely entrusted to them for distribution.

Our effort will assist those engaged in the circulation of petitions to State legislatures by enabling us, from time to time, to furnish them the names of signers, and we shall ask local committees to reciprocate by assisting us in the circulation of the petition to congress. We inclose a number of blank petitions. Please sign one yourself and procure as many other signatures as possible. Remember that the blank is the petition that is to be forwarded to congress and it must contain the actual signature of the petitioner. No one else can sign for him. Be particular to permit only one signature to each blank. New blanks will be sent to you whenever you ask for them. Do not hold back signed blanks in order that you may be enabled to forward a large number at once. Send them in as rapidly as possible, so that the signers may, in turn, receive blanks themselves and begin the work of procuring signatures among their own friends. When the proper time comes, the petitions will be bound into books, classified by towns, counties and states, and forwarded to congress.

As the blanks will constitute the actual petition that is to be forwarded eventually to congress it is desirable that they shall be uniform and hence instead of printing it in THE STANDARD copies of the address letters and petitions will be mailed to all persons on this paper’s subscription list whose names do not appear on the committee’s enrollment. The two lists have been compared to avoid duplication, but it is possible that some persons may receive two packages. Those who are not subscribers to THE STANDARD, but who buy it at news stands, can obtain blank petitions by writing to William T. Croasdale, No. [921?] Broadway, New York, N. Y.

The committee particularly desires that all who receive the petitions will promptly sign one and return it, and then secure the signature of others. Every new signer will receive a package of blanks, but those to whom the blanks are first sent out will not receive others unless they write for them. All applications for additional blanks will be promptly attended to.

THE NEW DEMOCRACY.

Let the monopolists carry things with a high hand now, for the day is not remote when the accursed system of reciprocal rapine, which enables them to plunder the country and to buy with a part of their plunder a license to continue their robberies will come down with a great crash.—(Indianapolis Sentinel^sic.

There is no good in protection. It destroys statesmanship. It defies quackery^sic. It justifies plunder.—[Chicago Herald.

There is no use in crying over spilt milk. There are just two things to do. One is for the democratic legislature to pass an election law providing for the absolute secrecy of the ballot, thus killing bulldozing and bribery. The other thing is to teach the people what tariff protection is until the word protection is as hateful as slavery.—[Terre Haute Gazette.

In rising from the dust of defeat to subscribe afresh to the dogma of free trade Grover Cleveland shows himself to be a democrat of the usual type.—[Chicago Inter-Ocean.

Exactly! And call it “free trade” as much as you like. The harder you try to make it an issue of “free trade” against protection, the quicker the corporation communism will be stamped out. Freedom is what this country needs.—[St. Louis Republic.

That protection protects the employer none will dispute, but will some one please inform us what percentage of this protection goes to the employe? This is a vital question.—[Minneapolis Industrial Times.

The whole idea of “protection” is to force people to unnatural and expensive production, when they would do otherwise unless restrained by law.—[Rockville, Ind., Tribune.

The coal operators could quickly reduce their surplus by reducing their prices, and thus promoting rapid consumption, but they prefer the opposite method of freezing the consumer and starving the laborer into submission, and this is the method which the law favors by shutting out any supply of fuel which high prices might induce to come from other countries.—[Detroit Daily News.

A steel bark for the Hawaiian trade has just been built in Glasgow instead of in San Francisco as it would have been if our labor had been untaxed. The men in the Union iron works will please score one more for the beneficent tariff.—[San Francisco Examiner.

It seems an easy matter to keep the tariff question before the people. Every day the people are getting to understand more about the question. And every day more people are taking the tariff for what it really is—a tax.—[[Mascoutah?], Ill., Herald.

As Long as He Lives.

SHAKER STATION, Conn.—I hereby gladly renew my subscription for THE STANDARD for one year. I am more than pleased with it. I hope to get it as long as I live.

THOMAS FISHER.

Solid Comfort for Those Who Have Their Wages Reduced.

Brooklyn Standard-Union (rep).

Free trade papers will probably have an extra sneer at the tariff because the carpet factories are reducing wages; but the workmen understand that the tariff is what keeps the factories going at all, and there is some comfort in that.

p. 2, col. 3

THE NINTH DISTRICT CLUB.

EDWARD ATKINSON TO SPEAK.

From the Nor’ Nor’ West.

SEATTLE, W. T.—“Ginger bread” democrats look very gloomy in this territory. Single tax men and free traders are very jubilant. They unite in saying, ‘The ball set a-rolling by ’Grover’^sic cannot be stopped by a dozen Benjamins.” The democrats got badly thrashed in this territory. The trouble was that there was not enough of free trade orators called into service. The “ginger breads” had the “ins,” but they failed to save anything but a “goose-egg.” The funny thing about it is that they attributed their defeat to the free traders, saying that they scared the workingmen, while the fact of the case is that a majority of the free traders in this section are workingmen, and at least a majority of these free trade democrats voted against the “learned fraternity” that sought to control the politics of the territory, and who held up their hands in holy horror when free trade was mentioned to them. The defeat of the democratic party in this territory was indeed well deserved. In the first place the people of this territory think themselves as capable as a gang of lawyers to frame the laws by which they will be governed. In the second place, the people here have not yet learned that if a little protection is good a little more is bad, nor are they likely to learn it either. Aside from Cleveland’s defeat, we have every reason to be satisfied, as we have gained many recruits—at least 100 in this city alone.

I think our next efforts should be towards the introduction of the Australian system, of course keeping in view the exemption of all personal property, as well as all imports from taxation.

THE STANDARD is now to be found on every newsstand here, and the number of readers has grown largely. We do not all know each other yet, however; and I am sure that one of our men who ran for office would have got a much larger vote if it had been known generally that he was a single tax man.

F. P. MORROW.

A Fight to the Death for the Privilege of Working Cheaply.

At Bevier, Mo., some miners went out on a strike or were locked out and their places were taken by Swedes on the operators’ terms. The strikers declared war on the Swedes, who they mistakenly thought were depriving them of their unquestionable right to get a living by their labor. The result was two pitched battles in which some 2,000 shots were fired and several men killed and wounded. The mine owners had no share in the rumpus. They simply own the coal mines, determine how much or how little coal shall be dug, and say upon what terms they are willing it shall be dug.

The Swedes thought that they had a perfect right to accept the offer of the mine owners or even to dig coal for nothing if they chose, and no doubt the owners agree with them. But the locked out or striking miners disputed that right, and the fight that ensued was obviously between the Swedes and strikers only. The state militia was called upon to keep the peace and preserve the principle that miners, as well as all other workingmen shall enjoy the privilege of disposing of their own labor, as the coal mine owner enjoys the right to dispose of his coal, on the best terms they can get, without let or hindrance.

Why the Historical Society Cannot Build.

Some unknown philanthropist thirking that the New York historical society ought to have larger and grander quarters offered a gift of $100,000 toward providing them, provided the society would raise $150,000 for the same purpose before November 30. The society now has a cash building fund of $250,000—money enough to rear a magnificent building. But the building cannot be built because the charter of the society will not permit it to contract a debt, and a suitable lot

p. 2, col. 4 upon which to put the building would cost more than the entire fund. There are many acres of vacant land about the lower end of Central park which would be most desirable locations for the historical society. These acres have never been used nor do the holders at present, at least, want to use them, but they will not allow the historical society to use them either without first paying several hundred thousand dollars for the privilege.

The Victor’s Thanksgiving.

O Thou who answerest the prayers Addressed to thee by millionaires; Thou who hast lifted all the cares From our great party, And sent to Satan mugwump tares, We thank thee hearty.

That foe of “trusts” and other wrongs Has met the fate that still belongs To him who trusts in thought, not gongs. Tis therefore meet We raise our voice in thankful songs O’er his defeat.

And then those civil service chumps By 4th of March will have the dumps, When Charlie Farwell on them jumps With both his feet. He’ll show them all his cards are trumps As soon’s they meet.

Oh! what a victory this has been. We’ve swept the field of foemen clean, And now with taxes high we mean To s(h)ave the nation, If those free traders don’t begin Their agitation.

The cranks ne’er seem to know they’re beat; But rise afresh from each defeat, And with a mortal challenge greet Our tariff fetich. Lord grant it that next time we meet They may not beat us.

JAMES BROWN, Chamberlain, Dakota.

For an Organization in Kansas City.

KANSAS CITY, Dec. 4th.—All single tax men of Kansas City and vicinity are requested to be present at a meeting to be held Sunday afternoon Dec. 16, at Kumph’s hall, corner Tenth and Main streets for the purpose of organizing a single tax club.

WM. MAHONEY.

The Few and the Many.

Below is a short excerpt from an address by Edwin Chadwick, C. B., before the sanitary inspectors of Great Britain, at Brighton, England, August 25, 1888, as reported in The Sanitarian:

I have obtained a return, in form appended, which, it will be seen, vindicates the high position of Brighton as a health resort for the few. For the few—gentry and professional persons—the death-rate of children is only 8.93 of children under five years of age. But for the many of the wage classes, the death rate of children under five years of age is 45.44. For the few the mean age of death of all who die—men, women and children—is sixty-three years, a very high average, and befitting a health resort; but for the many, the wage classes, it is only 28.8. Of the few the proportion per cent of males who attain and die of old age alone is 13.33, and of females 14.93; but of the wage classes it is, of males, only 3.59; of females, 5.25. I am convinced that the death rate of Brighton may be reduced by at least five per 1,000: the rate, which is now seventeen, may be reduced to twelve in a thousand.

The Business of Bribery.

New York World.

On November 6, 1888, the bribers employed by the Herkimer county republican committee bought 198 votes in the village of Herkimer. On the same day the bribers employed by the democratic county committee bought 78 votes. The republicans expended in the village alone, where there are 1,260 voters, the sum of $2,420; the democrats spent a little over $900. The prices paid by the republicans are scheduled as follows:

Choice farmers, 48 at $[20?] …….. $960 Farm laborers (professional floaters) 50 at $15 …….. 750 Village professionals, 50 at $5 …….. 250 Rag, tag and bobtail, 50 at $3 …….. 150 Total …….. $2,110 Fees for six bribers …….. 300 Incidentals …….. 10 Total …….. $2,420

The democrats did it this way:

Choice farmers, 18 at $15 …….. $270 Professional floaters, 30 at $10 …….. 300 Tramp vote, 30 at $5 …….. 150 Total …….. $720 Fees for four bribers …….. 200 Total …….. $920

Incomes of Irish and English Landlords Compared.

Is the Irish landlord really any worse off than the English landlord? Here is the substance of an interesting calculation which Sir George Trevelyan gave the house of commons recently upon the average outgoings upon an Irish and English estate of £1,300 respectively:

Irish.

Income tax and half poor rate …….. £70 Agent’s salary …….. 50 Tithe rent charge …….. 50 Rents reduced 20 per cent …….. 260 £430 Leaving net rental of …….. 870 £1,300

English.

Maintenance, tithes, rents and agent …….. £325 Rents reduced 25 per cent …….. 325 Leaving net rental of …….. 650 £1,300

Results Talk.

Age of Steel (high protection).

The improvement in trade since the election has been rather disappointing. Speculative activity, in spite of the abundance of money and the liberal disbursements of the treasury, has declined rapidly, while, at the same time, mercantile failures have increased in marked degree in some localities. Possibly these unfavorable symptoms will pass away quietly and soon, and it is to be hoped they may; but that remains to be seen. Foreign trade, as has been repeatedly remarked in this column, persistently avoids any improvement, thus leaving the grain speculators on this side to the profits and losses of trading among themselves at forced values. True, exports in October exceeded imports by about $13,000,000, amounting to $54,767,000; but this was a decline of 5 1-2 per cent as compared with October last year; and for the first two weeks of November the adverse difference, taking also the figures for the corresponding period of 1887, was 8 per cent at New York.

Just One Left.

Exchange.

Wealthy city man (who has taken a fancy to revisit his village birthplace)—Ah, me! There is the little red school house, and yonder is the old church; how well I remember them! But the dear familiar faces are gone! not one remains to recall those happy—

The oldest inhabitant (advancing)—You’re Bill Judd, ain’t ye? I knew ye the minute I sot eyes onto ye! I trusted your father for a codfish in 1843, an’ if ye’ve got the money handy, I’d be obleeged if ye’d settle for it!

The Dakota Farmer.

The average assessed valuation, as given in the auditor’s report for the whole territory of Dakota and which is approximately accurate for the proposed state, for 1885 was:

Land, per acre …….. $3 55 Horses, per head …….. 46 57 Mules, per head …….. 56 47 Cattle, per head …….. 14 00 Sheep, per head …….. 1 15 Swine, per head …….. 2 00

p. 2, col. 5

FOR A SINGLE TAX CLUB.

Jersey City Men Hard at Work.

JERSEY CITY, Dec. 11.—The single tax league of Hudson county, N. J., desire the assistance of all our friends throughout the state in pushing for ballot reform. We have communicated with the committee of the federation of trades and labor unions of New Jersey, and will have their hearty co-operation. We have printed forms of the appeal, and will mail same to any of our friends who desire to aid us. Over one thousand persons have signed the appeal within the last ten days. A public meeting to agitate the subject will be held in Jersey City in January. Communications can be addressed to either Joseph Dana Miller, 86 Ege avenue, Jersey City, or to John W. Jakeway, president, 45½ South street.

One Point in the Electoral Reform System.

A correspondent to the Chicago Herald, who signs himself Samuel B. Miles, supplies the following information regarding features of the electoral system of voting up before the various states for adoption that has excited considerable criticism:

I see it stated that a difficulty occurs to the minds of those interrested^sic in the matter as to the mode in which the ballots of illiterate, blind, or otherwise incompetent voters can be taken so as to secure the intention of the voter being carried out.

The plan described by you as at work in Australia is very similar to that in practice in England, but differs from it in this respect: Instead of one poll clerk being with and filling up the ballot for the voter, in England the plan is as follows: The whole proceedings are under the control of a “presiding officer,” who is appointed by the authorities. He has a staff of clerks to assist him. The candidates seeking election are represented by agents (who, as well as the before named gentlemen, are sworn to secrecy), whose duty it is to look after the interests of the said candidates. In case a voter of the class of whom we are speaking comes to the poll he has to state to the “presiding officer” his infirmity or incompetency and his desire to receive assistance in recording his vote. The room is cleared of every one except the voter and officials, and the presiding officer then, in the presence of the candidates’ agents, reads over the names of the candidates to the voter and asks him for whom he wishes to vote, and (still in the presence of the agents) marks the ballot paper according to the voter’s wish. I have had many years’ experience both as presiding officer and agent, and am convinced that this plan entirely precludes the possibility of the voter’s intention being frustrated.

To Gentlemen Residing in Mulberry Bend.

The Tailors’ Art Journal.

The dress sack or Cowes or Tuxedo coat or whatever it may be called, is intended to be worn only (and is only so worn by gentlemen of taste) when a display of shirt sleeves might be open to objection, when a smoking jacket would be too suggestive of luxurious dissipation, and when, though ladies in demi-dress are present, the regular dress coat is not imperatively necessary.

A few who respect the eternal fitness of things have raised the cry in really fashionable circles, “Down with the dress sack,” but they are unreasonable. The dress sack is an elegant and useful garment when it is not offensively obtruded where it has no right to appear, and it fills a long felt want. It is the

p. 2, col. 6 connecting link between elegant neglige and elegant evening dress, and should be much more extensively used than it is at present. But it can be worn for full dress no more appropriately than boxing gloves can be worn at a wedding.

BALLOT REFORM.

Ballot reform is one of the necessities of the immediate future in this country. It is a necessity, to stop the purchase of votes. The ballot must be secret, the voter must be removed from all chances of being overlooked and watched when depositing his vote, so as to take away all motive for the purchase of votes.—[Albany Independent Citizen (labor).

The Australian system has many earnest supporters. Let us try it, amended if need be to suit our peculiar surroundings.—[Indianapolis Industrial Times (labor).

The use of money in politics is deplored by all decent citizens, regardless of party. A partial remedy lies in the adoption of improved systems of receiving the ballots.—[St. Louis Post-Dispatch (dem).

The electoral reform bill may not be framed “so as to meet the objections of Governor Hill,” but if it is framed so as to overcome bribery and cheating at the polls it will pass in spite of his objections.—[Brooklyn Standard Union (rep).

In arguing for electoral reform The Workman of Grand Rapids, Mich., says: “The downfall of the Roman republic began when the ballot became an article of commerce. We have already gone beyond the beginning. Election to-day has no bearing whatever as an expression of the people. The ballot is as surely an article of commerce as a pound of flour or a pair of stockings.”

A. J. Streeter, the union labor candidate for the presidency, contributes to the growing demand for pure elections in a letter to the Chicago Sentinel, in which he says: “History will write it down that the late campaign, so far as the old parties are concerned, has been the most venal, unscrupulous and corrupt of any in the history of the country, and is enough to shake man’s confidence in a government of the people. Voters in doubtful states and districts were bought like sheep in the market by both old parties, and this was done with the knowledge of the general public. The Australian system of voting is, in my opinion, what we need.”

The interest that is being manifested in the Australian system of voting proves that the thinking people of our country see the danger that threatens us in a purchasable ballot.—[Providence, R. I., Independent Citizen.

There is scarcely a form of iniquity known to our election methods which a good ballot law would not eradicate. We should be rid, at one stroke, of the assessments upon candidates, of the bribing and bulldozing of voters, of the nomination of notoriously unfit candidates, of “deals” and “dickers” and “trades” at the polls. All these would disappear, for the simple reason that the machinery of elections would be taken out of the hands of irresponsible and often dishonest men. Such an obvious and imperative reform as this cannot be long delayed.—[Topics of the Time in Century for December.

The feeling in favor of ballot reform, in this and other states, is daily growing stronger, and Governor Hill will undoubtedly have another opportunity to sign an electoral reform bill. There can be no greater reform.—[Cohoes, N. Y., Journal.

There will be no labor trouble of any extent in the United States until the next commercial panic throws large numbers out of employment, thus providing the material on which the revolutionary anarchists, socialists and communists can work. But even then the danger of a social revolution threatening the rights of property will not be half so imminent as is the danger to the liberties of the people to-day from the corruption and fraud that has crept into our electoral system and that on election day is everywhere rampant and triumphant. If our law makers will put that “down” by wise rules governing and guarding the secrecy of the ballot box, what the “rampant reds” do in Chicago will be of little consequence.—[Detroit Evening News.

The demand for election reform is universal. Every state, the whole United States, demand it. New Jersey is very decidedly “in the Union” on that point. Without regard to party she insists upon reformation.—[New Jersey Unionist.

Governor Gray declares himself very emphatically in favor of the enactment of an election law on the lines of the Australian system—a law which will exclude all surveillance over the voter and prevent congregating and electioneering about the pools^sic, and which will provide for the printing of the ballots by the government. Upon this subject the governor voices the sentiments of the democratic masses of Indiana. They are emphatically for ballot reform, and we have no doubt the legislature will respond to their demand.—[Indianapolis Sentinel.

The “Statesman.”

I am a statesman great and good, I always do as statesmen should; I never sell my vote for pelf; But still, do I neglect myself? Of course I don’t; why should I?

When now and then a chance I see To serve my country and serve me Myself, while I am serving her, Do I object? Do I demur? Of course I don’t; why should I?

My sleeping and my waking dreams Are filled with schemes, and schemes, and schemes, All patriotic ventures too; Do I devise them just for you? Of course I don’t; why should I?

When some contractor’s got a job That makes his heart with rapture throb, And I have helped to hook his fish, Do I refuse a small commish? Of course I don’t; why should I?

Misrepresentation Provokes the Telling of the Truth.

In an article about the misrepresentions^sic printed in some of the Minneapolis papers of the personal property exemption petition being circulated in Minnesota, the Minneapolis Star says:

The single tax principle is up for discussion before the American people, and it ought to be candidly discussed, and plenty of time taken to ventilate its merits and demerits. There is no such imminent danger of harm to come from its enactment into our laws as to justify misrepresentation and falsehood in the statement of the question.

The talk of the single tax destroying the homestead and confiscating every farm is sheer nonsense. In the first place, it would relieve the owner of the homestead from the burden of taxation upon the home itself, the house, furniture and all improvements, and compel the owner of vacant property adjoining to come in and share with the farmer an equal burden of taxation in proportion to the number of acres he holds. Can the intelligent farmer see any confiscation in this? We guess not.

Is There Free Trade So Long as There is a Monopoly of the Coal?

Buffalo Evening News.

The strike of the Belgian coal miners is spreading and it is expected to become general. Trouble is expected and the gendarmes are patrolling the mining district. Can this be possible, or is it another protection yarn? According to the free traders, protection begets strikes, and surely trade is free enough in Belgium.

A Sign of the Times.

Toronto Grip.

The young liberals have decided by a good majority in favor of the proposal to exempt houses from taxation to the extent of $600.

WHAT WE SHOULD DO.

Here are some expressions of opinion from single tax men in various places as to plans for work in the future.

ANOTHER WHOLESALE EVICTION CASE.

AN ENGLISH VIEW OF IT.

A London cablegram to the New York Herald of date December 1 reports an inter- esting address on the previous night by Sir Lyon Playfair to a great meeting of his constituents at Leeds on the comparative purchasing power of wages in England and this country:

Sir Lyon recently returned from America, where he made extended investigations, and his speech on the subject was awaited with great interest. “Wages are higher in America than in this country,” he said, “but nominal wages mean so many shillings per week, while real wages are necessaries which can be bought with them.

“What makes wages higher in America, republicans assert, is protection, which creates industries and gives work.

A workman does not live on work, but works to live, therefore he wants living at the lowest cost. How can protection, which taxes all comforts of life, give him that end? In America each man as a consumer pays taxes to himself as a producer. If protection makes more wages, where does the “more” come from?

It restricts the market for commodities to home consumption. In consequence there comes a glut, and many workingmen have enforced idleness for a third or a fourth of the year. It means seven months’ pay for twelve months’ living.

Only in times of grave depression in trade does England experience this difficulty, because her export trade carries off the excess.

Perhaps you would like to know why such extensive emigration goes to America if protection does not keep up wages there. The American workman has the advantage over workmen of other protected countries because his territory is sparsely settled and undeveloped.

Protection leads slowly to socialism. If the state can tax workingmen for the benefit of manufacturers, on the same principle workingmen can say when they come into power: “Now we propose to tax you manufacturers to guarantee our wages.” That would be socialism approaching communism, but so is protection.

England has made more progress in her forty years under free trade than she had under protection both in manufactures and increased population. Any nominal difference in American and English wages depends upon conditions which prevail in a new and undeveloped country. All European countries, save Belgium and Holland, unite to protect their cheaper labor from goods produced in England, where wages are from eighty to one hundred per cent higher. What the skilled English workman fears is not low priced, inexpert labor, but high priced, expert work.

THE SINGLE TAX AND OKLAHOMA.

GETTING INTERESTING IN MINNESOTA.

HAMMERING AWAY IN INDIANAPOLIS.

HERE’S A CHANCE FOR WASHINGTON.

WHAT WE HAVE DONE.

TO HELP SINGLE TAX STR[illegible]

The following list contains the addresses of men active in the cause in their respective localities[illegible] believers wishing to join in the [illegible] may communicate:

Akron, O—Jas K Angier, 1[illegible]9 Allen street. Albany, N Y—Robert Baker, 172 Madison av[illegible] [Roshart?], 23 Third avenue, or James J Mano[illegible] tary Single Tax Cleveland and Thurma[n?] [illegible] Myrtle avenue. Alhambra, Mon Ter—W E Brokaw. Altoona, Pa—Joseph Sharp, jr., secretary [illegible] club, 411 Tenth street; Albert C Ronzee[illegible] avenue. Amsterdam, N Y—Harvey Book. Anacostia, D C—Carroll W Smith, office An[illegible] company, Harrison and Monroe streets. Anaheim, Cal—James E Hassett. Anton Chico, N M—Lewis T Granstam. Ashtabula, Ohio—A D Strong. Auburn, Me—F W Beals, secretary Single [illegible] Avon, N Y—Homer [Sabin?]. Ballston Spa, N Y—Richard Feeney, 63 M[illegible] Baltimore, Md—John W Jones, sec Single t[ax?] [illegible] Maryland, 125 N Bond street; John Salmo[n?] [illegible] George club, 415 N Eutaw street; Dr Wm [illegible] E Baltimore street. Bayside, Long Island, N Y—Antonio M Mo[illegible] Braceville, Ill—William Matthews, secre[tary?] [illegible] form club. Bradford, Pa—J C De Forest, secretary La[illegible] club, 26 Newell place. Binghamton, N Y—E W Dundon, 33 Maide[n?] [illegible] Boston, Mass—Edwin M White, 208 Main str[eet?] [illegible]ton; J R Roche, 29 Converse avenue, Ma[illegible] Garland, chairman Single tax league, Ja[illegible] Brooklyn, N Y—J Hickling, 41 Sidney plac[e?] [illegible] Single tax club. Burlington, Iowa—James Love, bookseller, [illegible] Spencer. Burlington, Vt—Charles N Monahan, ciga[illegible]urer. Cambridgeport, Mass—Wm Ford, 116 Nor[illegible] secretary Single tax organization. Canisteo, N Y—H W Johnson, P O box 255. Canon City, Col—Frank P Blake, M D. Chamberlain, Dak—James Brown. Charles City, Iowa—Irving W Smith, M D, [illegible]site Union house. Chicago, Ill—Frank Pearson, secretary Lan[illegible] club No 1, 45 La Salle street. Cincinnati, O—Dr David De Beck, 139 [illegible] street; Jones’s news and stationery st[illegible] street. Clanton, Ala—O M Mastin or Alex G Dake. Cleveland, O—Frank L Carter, 152 Chestnut [illegible] Clinton, Ind—L O Bishop, editor Argus. Cohoes, N Y—J S Crane. Columbus, O—E J [Brackens?], president Sing[illegible] 565 North High street; Sam F. [Caen?], c[illegible] secretary, care Edward Hyneman, 348 [illegible] street. Cornwall, Cal—Jeff A Bailey. Cramer Hill, Camden county, N J—Chas P [illegible] Danbury, Conn—Sam A Main, 34 Smith str[eet?] Dayton, O—W W Kile, 33 E Fifth street; [illegible] 283 Samuel street. Denver, Col—Charles G Buck, chairman [illegible]tive committee National tax reform as[illegible] Tritch block. Detroit, Mich—J K [Finehart?], 45 Waterlo[o?] [illegible] Duncan, 279 Third street, secretary Ta[illegible]sociation. Diamond Springs, Eldorado county, Cal—J [illegible] Dunkirk, N Y—Francis Lake. East Cambridge, Mass—J F Harrington, St[illegible]erary Institute. East Northport, Long Island, N Y—J K Rud[illegible] East Rindge, N H—Edward Jewett. Elizabeth, N J—Benjamin Urner. Elmira, N Y—William Bergman, 712 East M[illegible] Fitchburg, Mass—E D Terry. Farmington, Iowa—F. W. Rockwell. Gardner, Ill—T S Cumming. Glen Cove, Long Island, N Y—Herbert Doro[illegible] Glens Falls, N Y—John H Quinlan. Gloversville, N Y—Wm C Wood, M D. Grand View-on-the-Hudson, N Y—Henry L [illegible] Harrison, Tex—[illegible] J McCollum. Hartington, Neb—J H [Felber?]. Haverhill, Mass—Arthur F Brock. Hornellsville, N Y—George H Van Winkle. Hot Springs, Ark—W Albert Chapman. Hoosick Falls, N Y—F S Hammond. Houston, Tex—H F Ring, corporation attor[illegible] Hutchinson, Kas—J G Malcolm, M D. Ilion, N Y—George Smith, P O box 502. Indianapolis, Ind—Herman Kuehn, 14 Ta[illegible] L P Custer, member of Single tax club. Ithaca, N Y—C C Platt, druggist, 75 East [illegible] Janvier, N J—S B Walsh. Jersey City, N J—Joseph Dana Miller, sec[illegible]son county Single tax league, 26 Ege ave[illegible] Kansas City, Mo—Chas E Reid, 2,123 Woo[illegible] Keithsburgh, Ill—M McDonald. Kingston, N Y—Theodore M Romeyn. Lansingburgh, N Y—James McMann, 21 E[illegible] Lonsdale, R I—Dr L F Garvin. Lexington, Ky—James E [illegible] Los Angeles, Cal—W H Dodge, [33?] North Ala[illegible] W A Cole, 19 South Hill; or A Vinette, P[illegible] Lynchburg, Va—Thos Williamson, cor Fifth [illegible] streets. Lynn, Mass—Theodore P Perkins, 17 Sou[illegible] street. Madison, Dak—E H Evenson. Mahanoy City, Pa—J N Becker, presiden[t?] [illegible] club; Robert Richardson, secretary. Manistee, Mich—Albert Walkley or W R Ha[illegible] Marlboro, Mass—Geo A E Reynolds. Marlborough, N Y—C H Baildon. Mart, Tex—J L Caldwell, chairman Ninth co[illegible] district organizer. Massillon, O—Samuel T Wright, 62 West M[illegible] Memphis, Tenn—R G Brown, secretary T[illegible] club, 59 Madison street. Middletown, Conn—John G Hopkins, P O b[illegible] Middletown, N Y—Chas H Fuller, P O box [illegible] Milwaukee, Wis—Peter McGill, 147 Fourth [illegible] Minneapolis, Minn—C J Buell, presiden[t?] [illegible] League, 402 W Franklin avenue; E. E. [illegible] Mt Pleasant, Iowa—A O Pitcher, M D. Mt Vernon, N Y—Richard Watson. [Murrayville?], Ill—William [Camm?], president [illegible] club. Nashville, Tenn—P H Carroll, 235 N High [illegible]tary American land league. Neponset, Mass—Q A Lothrop, member He[illegible] club, 21 Walnut street. Newark, N J—Rev Hugh O Pentecost, 5[illegible] street. Newburg, N Y—D J McKay, secretary Single [illegible] 255 Broadway. Newport, Ky—Joseph L Schraer, secretary [illegible] league, 317 Southgate street; Will C James, [illegible] street. New Westminster, Brit Col—Alex Hamilt[illegible] Tax reform association. Norfolk, Va—Edward K Robertson, secre[illegible] club, [illegible] bank. Oberlin, O—Edw B Haskell. Omaha, Neb—John F [Embler?], 823 Virginia a[illegible] [Ordway?], Dak—R H Garland, member Tax r[illegible]ciation. Passaic, N J—J J Barnard, P O box 151. Paterson, N J—E W Nellis, Chairman Pas[illegible] Single tax Cleveland campaign committ[illegible] Main street. Parkersburg, W Va—W I Boreman, memb[illegible] tax league. Pawtucket, R I—Edward Barker, 25 Good[illegible] Peoria, Ill—J W Avery. Philadelphia, Pa—Wm J Atkinson, 925 Che[illegible] or A. H. Stephenson, 211 Chestnut stre[illegible] Henry George club. Piermont, N Y—Charles E Hood, P O box 1[illegible] Pittsburg, Pa—Mark F Roberts, 1727 Carey [illegible] Portland, Ore—S B Riggen, 48 Stark str[illegible] Kohler, [334?] Grand street, or R H Thomps[illegible] Poughkeepsie, N Y—William C Albro. Providence, R I—Robert G [illegible], 32 Sut[illegible] Dr Wm Barker, pres Rhode Island single [illegible]ciation. Pulaski, N Y—C V Harbottle. Ravenswood, Ill—W H Van Ornum. Reading, Pa—Chas S Prizer, 1013 Penn str[illegible] [illegible], 251 Penn street. Richmond, Ind—D [Quigley?], 105 South Third [illegible] Ridgeway, N Y—[D?] C Sullivan. River Falls, Wis—George H Bates. Rochester, N Y—Charles [Avrill?], 7 Morrill st[illegible] Roselle, N J—Read Gordon. Rutland, Vt—T H Brown, 11 Cherry street. San Francisco, Cal—Judge James G Magu[illegible] [illegible] San Luis Obispo, Cal—Mrs Frances M Milne [illegible] Seattle, Wash Ter—[illegible] Seneca Falls, N Y—Wm H Atkinson, P O box [illegible] Shenandoah, Pa—Morris Marsh, president [illegible] club; Thos [Potts?], secretary. Southboro, Mass—S H Howes. South Gaston, N C—W L M Perkins. Sparrow Bush, Orange county, N Y—C L[illegible] president Progressive association; John She[illegible] retary. Spirit Lake, Iowa—J W Schrimpf, secretary [illegible] form club. Springfield, Mo—H A W Juneman, [66?] Nichols [illegible] St. Louis, Mo—Geo S Bonnell, president [illegible] League, 1527 Leffingwell avenue; Sidney A [illegible] retary, [1108?] Olive street. Stockton, Cal—D A Learned. Syracuse, N Y—Charles S Hopkins, 9 Seymo[illegible] [illegible] R Perry, 149 South Clinton street; or F[illegible] Walton street; or James K McGuire, secret[illegible] tax club, 30 Greene street. Toronto, Can—W A [Douglass?], president an[illegible] [society?], 218 Wellesley street. Trenton, N J—H R Mathews, 9 Howell street. Troy, N Y—B B [Martin?]. Tuckahoe, N Y—Albert O Young. Unionville, Conn—John McAuliffe. Utica, N Y—Thomas Sweeney, 156 Elizabeth s[illegible] Daniel M Buckley, grocer, southwest corner [illegible] [Catharine?] [illegible] Vincennes, Ind—Hon Samuel W Williams, roo[illegible] [illegible] block. Waco, Tex—Frank Grady, lawyer, 163 South [illegible] Wakefield, R I—David [Harrower?]. Washington, D C—Dr. William Geddes, [221?] E [illegible] W, secretary anti-poverty society. Weatherford, Tex—William M Snell. West New Brighton, Staten Island, N Y—A P[illegible] Whitestone, Long Island, N Y—George Harn[illegible] Whitman, Mass—C P [Bolin?], cigar store; Tho[illegible] president Single tax league. Wilmington, Del—Geo W Kreer, 717 West N[illegible] Woodstock, Ill—A W [Cummins?]. Worcester, Mass.—E K Page, Lake View. Yonkers, N Y—Joseph Sutherland. Youngstown, O—Billy Radcliffe, Radcliffe [illegible] Zanesville, Ohio—W H Longhead, 27 Van [illegible]

THE STANDARD, Vol. 4, No. 24 (Whole No. 102), December 15, 1888 — Page 4

THE STANDARD, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1888.

p. 4, col. 1

[Editorial note: on this scan the left portion of column 1 (roughly the first third to half of every line) is lost in the binding/gutter. Column 1 is therefore given line by line as printed fragments; “[…]” marks the lost beginning of each line. No words have been supplied.]

STRAWS WHICH SHOW THE WIND.

The Pueblo, Col., Daily Press publishes a communication by J. W. Brentlinger, in which he shows how the single tax would encourage improvements and the production of wealth generally. The Press headlines the article “A Good Plan.”

The election laws of Indiana must be changed before another election. A country that employs such methods as were resorted to by the republican party last Tuesday to elect its officers is worse than an anarchy.—[Spencer Democrat.

The single tax men are making converts in Dakota by the hundreds, and no personal property will be taxed in those two new states.—[Superior, Wis., Inter-Ocean.

The single tax theory grows more popular as people come to understand its true import. The subject is worthy of careful consideration.—[Colton?, Wyoming, Eagle.

To the argument that monopolies in such articles as sugar cannot exist, the answer is that they do; that, as a matter of fact, new conditions have arisen, which nobody foresaw even twenty-five years ago, under which it is possible for a small body of persons, in any of the great states of Christendom, to extinguish the competition, to restrict production, and to maintain for a period greater or less according to their resources in capital, prices out of all proportion to the cost of production. About the remedy for this we here say nothing. That there is no legal remedy beyond opening the gates to competition as widely as possible, seems to us an opinion which may be reasonably held; but the first step toward a remedy of any kind is a frank and full recognition of the existence of the evil.—[New York Evening Post.

With the natural increase of population and the great influx of immigrants, this section will soon be thickly populated, and the prices of land will advance without any effort or enterprise of the owners, until a foothold on God’s green earth will cost a man a little fortune, or a life time of slavery at the plow or the bench, or in any of the ordinary occupations of this life. How to prevent the use of land as a mere means of gain and speculation, and how to reserve it for the actual use and occupation of the citizen, are questions now receiving universal attention.—[San Antonia^sic, Tex., Tribune.

There are many citizens of various politics who think that a government railroad or a government telegraph would be no worse infliction than a government post office, and not nearly as much of one as a private railroad or a private telegraph. And now it looks as though a fair opportunity to test the whole question will be presented by the predicament of the Union Pacific railway company. And as to that, it may be said that it is a pity that the government’s first experiment in railroad operation, if it decide to undertake it, is not with one of the roads owned and now used against the people by the Pennsylvania coal trust.—[Brooklyn Standard-Union.

If there is any justice in making a manufacturer pay, in taxes upon the land occupied by him, ten times as much as is paid upon vacant land across the street from him, which is, exclusive of improvements, of exactly equal value, but is held idle by a speculator in anticipation of a further rise in value, we would like to have it pointed out.—[American Machinist.

The single land tax, too, is believed in most thoroughly by many republicans, and the more it is advocated the more will the substantial relief from its operations be shown.—[Detroit, Mich., Onward.

MR. BROWNE’S APOLOGY.

Philip Edwardes Browne. Yes sir, Philip Edwardes Brown, is my name^sic. And a very good name, too, I flatter myself. A name to inspire confidence. A name which, when borne by a man of my appearance and address, sets distrust at defiance. I am always very particular about my names. Equally so about my dress; also about my manners. It’s just as easy to have a good name as a poor one, and really easier to have good clothes than shabby ones. As for manners, of course that’s a different thing. My manners are the result of early education, improved by constant practice. They are my stock in trade. And a very profitable business I manage to do on them, too.

Yes, you are quite right; you have seen me before. I am the gentleman who called on you last year, with a card of introduction from your minister, to see if you couldn’t aid me to get some employment for that unfortunate widow in Thirty-sixth street. You remember the case, of course. The poor lady’s husband had just been killed in a railroad accident out west—I showed the newspaper story with his name in it—leaving his affairs in unexpected confusion and her without a cent. I told you that she couldn’t accept charity, and only wanted honest work. She had a boy of sixteen, a bright young fellow, and I thought perhaps you might be able to find a place for him. Dr. Allthings—your clergyman, you know—had given me a little list of his most prominent parishioners—I could see it pleased you to be reckoned in that class—and I was going round amongst them to see what could be done. Of course I had taken care that the poor lady and her children shouldn’t come to actual want, but my own means were limited, and the bread of dependence was very bitter to her, and so on. I dare say you remember the story better than I do. You got quite interested, promised to do your best to find the boy a place, and persuaded to let you contribute fifty dollars toward her present expenses. You were also kind enough to give me a letter to one of your friends, who you thought might be able to do something. I called on your friend and got thirty dollars from him. In one way and another, that unfortunate widow brought me in more than a thousand dollars within a month.

You understand, of course, that Philip Edwardes Browne is not my only name. I have others, just as well selected, that have done me just as good service. Once I was the Right Reverend father in God, Frederick Nelson, Lord Bishop of the Cannibal Islands. I signed my letters Frederick Cannibals, wore gaiters and a shovel hat, and looked venerable enough to be the archbishop of Canterbury himself. That was in Chicago. The religious racket—the truly aristocratic religious racket, understand me—always pays well in our large American cities. His lordship the bishop arrived in Chicago from San Francisco and registered at one of the principal hotels. Twenty reporters visited me the next morning. Every one of them wrote a full account of me, of my gaiters, of my shovel hat, of my diocese in the South seas, and within twenty-four hours I had all the friends I needed. Of course my remittances failed to arrive, and of course I felt a positive embarrassment in stating my circumstances (in the strictest confidence) to a dozen or more of my new acquaintances. I conquered my reluctance, however, and accepted a temporary loan from each and every one of them. They were all delighted to accommodate me. I can assure you the pleasure was mutual.

You wonder I wasn’t found out? My dear sir, how could I be found out? There really was a Frederick Nelson, bishop of the Cannibals, and he really did visit England via San Francisco. I had his whole history at my tongue’s end. I knew where he was born. where he was educated^sic, where he got his appointment, what noble families he was related to. I had a file of the Cannibal island Gazette. I had letters from half the peerage of England. There’s nothing easier than to write letters from the peerage. I knew my part so thoroughly and acted it so well that I really almost thought I was the bishop. Find me out, indeed!

But that’s just the mistake that men like you make about men like me. You think we’re lazy—that we don’t work. I tell you it requires as much care and study and energy and watchfulness to run one of my schemes as it does to manage a corner in cotton or wheat. And the profits aren’t half as great.

There was my great silverware distribution scheme, for example—think what work I had to do and what money I had to spend before I brought that to a successful issue. I advertised in every newspaper and magazine in the country that I would send a set of silver teaspoons worth [$3?] for $1.50, and guaranteed to refund the money if the goods were not as I described them. And I did it, too. I lost a dollar on every set I sent out. Of course, when the people who got the teaspoons showed them to their neighbors, and they began to send, I got my money back, and a big profit besides, by simply keeping the remittances, and sending no spoons. But think of all I had to spend before the returns came in. And after all, the scheme might not have succeeded. My estimate of human nature might have turned out altogether wrong. I tell you, it takes nerve to put through such an operation as that. It was like chumming for blue fish, with dollars for chum and a good deal of uncertainty about the fishing.

What was that you said? So I’m nothing but a swindler after all—was that it, eh? Oh, you needn’t stammer and flush up. You haven’t hurt my feelings at all. I don’t mind one name more than another. I feel just as easy and comfortable when you say swindler, as I did when my Chicago friends said “Me lord Cannibals.” One name or the other, what difference does it make? It means me just the same.

Yes, I am a swindler. Since we are alone, and in confidence, I don’t mind acknowledging it. But how do you know it^sic. You never caught me in any dishonesty, did you? That story about the p. 5, col. 3 widow was gospel truth to you, until I told you it was a lie. If you’d met me when I was playing Cannibals, you would have admired my shovel hat, and my spiritual; ascetic looking features^sic just as much as anybody else. You only know that I’m a swindler because I’ve taken a fancy to tell you the truth about myself. Well now, just suppose you tell me the truth about yourself, and let me judge what kind of a fellow you are. You won’t do it—of course not. You daren’t do it. Well, I will do it for you.

I saw your name in the papers a few weeks ago—it’s part of my business to keep track of you rich men. You went to that village, over there in Jersey, where you own a factory, and made a campaign speech at a public meeting. A protectionist speech, of course; your little industry must be nursed and coddled, like all the rest of them. I didn’t hear your speech, nor read it; but, bless your heart! I know what it was just as well as if I’d been there. You called the workmen your friends, and told ’em how your interests and theirs were just the same; they made tin dippers, or whatever else it is they do make, and you sold ’em. You gave them ninety-five per cent of what the dippers sold for, and kept only a modest little five per cent for yourself; really not as much, you said, as you could get for your money on bond and mortgage. Then you pointed to their happy homes—you know all about them, because you sold ’em, and hold the mortgages on ’em—and in a general way gave them taffy about the dignity of labor, and being the peers of any other men, and all that sort of thing. Then you asked them to consider what would happen if you should have to sell the dippers at a dollar a gross instead of three dollars. Their ninety-five per cent would come to a pretty small figure, wouldn’t it? You laughed when you said that, and they gave you a round of applause. Oh, you did it nicely.

Then you told them that away off on the other side of the ocean, where the kings and paupers live, tin dippers really were sold for a dollar a gross, and the poor wretches who made them lived in garrets and shanties, and only tasted meat once a year, when they ate their Christmas dinners in the poorhouse. And how, you asked them, would they like to have this country deluged with those pauper made tin dippers?

That was about it, wasn’t it? And all this time you knew you’d joined the great tin dipper trust, and were going to cut their wages down as soon as election was over. You humbugged them about protection, just as I humbugged you about the widow! Protection was your widow. Now what have you got to say for yourself?

Oh, the cases are different, are they? You must have protection, or shut your tin dipper factory up. Well, I must have the widow or suspend my industry. You mustn’t think you’re the only man that wants to live.

You see, my friend, there isn’t so much difference between you and me after all, except that you work on a bigger scale and do more mischief. There was the great East by West and South by North railroad that you and your friends built. Good investment that, wasn’t it! First you got the charter and issued three million dollars’ stock—took it all yourselves, and paid for it with checks that were never cashed. Then you issued another three million of bonds and made a contract with yourselves to build the road for them. Then you sold the bonds in Europe and made a pretty good thing by them. Then you juggled with the stock awhile, until you’d managed to unload all that, except just enough to qualify you for directors. You made contracts with yourselves as a fast freight company, and as an express company, and the deuce knows what besides. Then the road defaulted its interest payments, and you came forward as bondholders and had a receiver appointed—one of yourselves, of course. Oh, you did it thoroughly. After the receiver had had charge for two or three years there was precious little left for the bondholders and nothing at all for the stockholders. Then when you thought the bonds had gone about as low as they could go, you bought them up and reorganized the road. You sly dog! You’d got possession of those coal fields along the line, and now the E., W. and S. N. is a great trunk road, with a dozen or more of leased lines, and ten million dollars of stocks and bonds, paying dividends and interest to the day, and every share of stock worth $175 and going up in value. It was a grand scheme, wasn’t it? But if my silver teaspoon operation was a swindle, pray what was your E., W. and S. N. railway?

Well, you never pretended to be a bishop, anyhow. No, you never did. You couldn’t. It wouldn’t be any use. You aren’t smart enough. But you’ve pretended to be a Christian, and I’d like to know which is worse. Bishop, indeed! Why, if you knew how to do it, and there was money enough in it, you’d buy a shovel hat and gaiters to-morrow.

It makes me laugh to see how you and the reverend Dr. Allthings play it off on one another. You pay him a big salary to run a fashionable church, and you chip in for his charities and his slum-missions, and all the rest of it. And he takes your money and gives you a fine sermon every Sunday, and makes parochial visits at your house and extols you as a philanthropist, and a successful, self-made, Christian man. He gives you a first-class certificate of Christianity, so to speak, and its worth a heap to you^sic. It gives you and your family a standing in society, and gets your name into the papers, and makes your fellow citizens admire you. But the reverend doctor is mighty careful not to poke any real Christianity at you, and you know it. You’d bounce him if he did—say he was a socialist, or an anarchist, or something else that was dreadful and heterodox, and hire another preacher in short order. He’s very strong on “the poor ye have always with you,” and accepts that text literally enough. But when it comes to the rich man and the needle’s eye, or the sermon on the mount, why he brings exegesis into play, and shows that he knows what Christ meant a good deal better than Christ did himself. He plays at preaching Christianity,

p. 5, col. 4 and you and the rest of the congregation play at being Christians. You know that he’s humbugging, and he knows that you’re humbugging; and each of you knows that he isn’t fooling the other for a cent. But you keep it up just the same. When I played at being old Cannibals, the other fellows really believed I was Cannibals. But when you play at being a follower of Christ, you do it so badly that you actually have to pay a professional Christian to pretend to believe in you. Now what have you got to say for yourself?

There is this difference between you and me, my friend, that I’m a swindler because I’ve no other way of making a living, while you do your swindling from pure love of it. You could reform to-morrow and have enough to live honest all the rest of your days, and leave your children rich—that is, if you didn’t carry the thing too far, and take to genuine repentance and making restitution. But if I were to give up my business, I should starve. I could take to honest labor, could I? Yes, and be lucky if I earned twelve dollars a week. Did you ever know a man get rich by honest labor? Would you be rich if you’d stuck to honest labor? That sort of talk does well enough for you and Dr. Allthings to get off in public, but here, between ourselves, we may as well be truthful, and confess it’s nonsense.

I heard the doctor deliver an address before the Good Samaritan society once. He called it: “How the poor might help themselves.” He said what the poor most needed was self respect. It was a bad plan to give them anything, he said. We ought to visit them and advise them and encourage them to have self respect. Self respect would do it all. If they only had that, they would leave off drinking and that would make them weary of their squalid surroundings, And then they’d^sic begin to want things, and when they wanted them badly enough, they’d go to work and get them. I thought a good deal of that discourse. There was a heap of sense in it. A good deal of flummery, too, but sense enough to carry off the flummery. I thought it suited my case exactly.

Now, I have self respect. That makes you smile, does it? Haven’t you got self respect? Why, of course you have, and I have just as much as you. I have as much self respect as I can afford to have. If I were as rich as you are I’d have more, but I have all I can afford. I have too much self respect to go to the poor house, too much self respect to sleep in a twenty-five cent hotel, too much self respect to live in a tenement house, too much self respect to go hungry, too much self respect to wear shabby clothes, too much self respect to beg. That’s as much as I can afford. If I tried to have any more I should be like the boy that tried to carry too many apples, and lose the whole of it. So I stop right there and take to swindling, and work mighty hard at it, too. It’s about the only kind of hard work there’s any money in. You know that by experience.

Talk about self respect, indeed! If ever the poor alms seeking wretches you and your Dr. Allthings are so fond of preaching at should begin to get any self respect, it would be a sorry day for you and him. But the doctor knows what he’s about. And so, I guess, do you.

JOHN JONES.

WORSTED HOODS AND WAGES.

ERIE, Pa., Nov. 27.—In your last issue Mr. T. L. M’Cready says:

“If a lot of well to do women should conclude to keep our retail stores supplied with some description of fancy work—say knitted hoods, for instance—absolutely without any charge,” no one would be injured but “the women who had been making their living by knitting hoods,” and they would be injured “just as men who make their living by building are injured when a house on fire doesn’t burn down.”

I am astonished at such a statement from a free trader. To my mind it is perfectly clear that not even the women who had made their living by knitting hoods would be injured. If people could get hoods for nothing, or next to nothing, they would have money to spend for other things, and the hood makers thrown out of work would find work again in the production of those “other things.” They would have, after suffering the temporary inconvenience incident to a change of vocation, as much work as before, and would share in the benefit of cheap hoods. I claim that the cheapening of a product will injure no one so long as the benefits are equitably distributed; that the less labor it takes to procure one article the more will be devoted to the procuring of other articles, and that, with fair distribution, the effect of cheapened production is to give to all more comforts and necessaries with less exertion. Is not that what the effect ought to be?

N. BALDWIN.

If Mr. Baldwin will think the matter over, he will see that there is a good deal of difference between free hoods and free trade in hoods. Free hoods would not mean, as he thinks, that the women who now have to pay for hoods would have money to spare for other purchases. It would mean that they could afford to work that much cheaper. The people who now make their living by knitting hoods would be thrown out of work, but no other opportunity of work would be opened to them in consequence. But free trade in hoods would be an altogether different thing. If a hood wearer preferred to buy her hoods from an English instead of an American hoodmaker, she could only do so by producing, or hiring someone to produce for her, something with which to pay for the hood; and that something would necessarily be a thing that could be produced here to more advantage than hoods could be; so that, supposing the American hood maker to transfer her energies to this new occupation—and mediately or immediately she would certainly do so—she would produce more wealth than she did while she was making hoods, and therefore, for a time at least, earn better wages.

If Mr. Baldwin will inquire I think he will find that printers and other artisans work for lower wages in Erie than they do in New York city. That is because it costs them less for rent. If their wives and daughters could get worsted hoods for nothing they would work for lower wages still^sic.. If they got all their clothing free, their wages would fall proportionately.

T. L. M’CREADY.

p. 5, col. 5

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE.

The burden of the message is a warning against the dangers to our nation’s stability arising from an accumulation of money in the treasury and the temptations to misappropriate it for unnecessary public expenditures, a warning against the oppression of the poor through the formation of trusts and other moneyed powers.—[Cincinnati Post.

He repeats the fallacies of his message of 1887, insisting that protective duties increase the cost of living, and appeals to farmers, workingmen and persons of fixed incomes to array themselves against the manufacturers. The farmers are those who have most vigorously rebuked his attempt to strike down protection, and they know that in their opposition to his fallacies they have sought the welfare of the whole country. The sinister threats of communism and the reckless epithets hurled at the majority of the people of the states of diversified industries, because they refuse to follow his lead, are indefensible in a state paper, are indecent in their utterance and their application.—[Utica Herald (rep^sic).

“Still harping on my daughter.” The burden of President Cleveland’s annual message to congress is the tariff. He continues to argue in the direction of free trade, the same as if the people had not repudiated that hobby of his by defeating him for re-election.—[Chicago Evening Journal (rep).

The president stands up to what he said last year on the tariff, and gives no sign that he understands that the people have rendered their verdict of condemnation.—[Pittsburg Times (rep.).

Mr. Cleveland’s message is practically an official scolding of the American people because they did not accept his views on the tariff. He repeats, in different phraseology, the time worn free trade arguments which made up his noted message of one year ago, in language that fails to cover the bitterness of spirit in which it was penned.—[Toledo Blade (rep.).

The introductory to the message, which we give in full, is the most remarkable indictment of congress ever emanating from the White House.—[Albany Press and Knickerbocker.

It is possible that the United States have never before received from a president an arraignment so pointed.—[Chicago Herald.

The president, in his thoughtful and noble message, instinct with the spirit of democracy, shows how the question of tariff reform reaches to the very heart of our institutions and involves the principle of equality upon which the federal constitution is based. His picture of the evils which now threaten the country is vivid, but free from exaggeration, and should receive the careful consideration of every patriotic citizen.—[Paterson, N. J., Guardian.

SOCIETY NOTES[.?]

The details of club life, so far [illegible]hattan club is concerned, have [illegible] mensely during the past year. [illegible] of the servants are neater than [illegible] be and the minutiæ of personal [illegible] are more faithfully considered [illegible] vants, doubtless in obedience to [illegible] Men who have been out of New [illegible] the past six months notice [these?] [illegible] are congratulating themselves a[illegible] the new and improved order of [illegible]

A Central park policeman [found?] [illegible] had just shot himself on a bench [illegible] last Thursday night. His name [illegible] be John Bein. A World repor[ter?] [illegible] his home, No. 415 West Twenty[illegible] and was told by Mrs. Bein tha[t?] [illegible] was her husband. She said that [illegible] out of work for several months, [illegible] news was not a surprise, as [illegible] threatened to take his life.

Charles H. Wheeler of the B[illegible] gives a very elaborate dinner [illegible] Merrill of the same [organization?] [illegible] days and under rather unusual c[illegible] I seems that during the [recent?] [illegible] Merrill was made the victim of [illegible] among club men as a “pursuing” [illegible] is to say, a man in the club o[illegible] Merrill various sums of money e[illegible] expressed an opinion as to the out[illegible] election. Merrill did not want t[illegible] bets, but finally was to some ex[illegible] into backing up his opinion that [illegible] would win, with money. Then [illegible] Wheeler, who is a millionaire and [illegible] most popular men in the club, ca[illegible] and said that if Merrill lost the [illegible] seek to honor him in some pecu[illegible] ticeable manner, so that the ta[illegible] “pursuing” better might be appro[illegible] demned. So Merrill will be the s[illegible] at an elaborate banquet, whe[illegible] decorations will be superb and [illegible] will discourse music behind a ban[illegible] and ferns.

Konrad Burkhardsmaier, the [illegible] a small saloon in New York, fo[illegible] ness was poor, and concluded th[illegible] not worth living. He plunged h[illegible] the roof of the house, and came [illegible] first on the iron newel post of the [illegible] ting his head in two from crown t[illegible] wife and son, who had followed h[illegible] came out on the roof just in tim[illegible] throw himself off.

Opera parties are in favor. Th[illegible] sidered socially and financially [illegible] theater parties.

A short time ago a carpenter n[illegible] came from Cincinnati, where he [illegible] working on the exposition buil[illegible] burg in search of employmen[illegible] contractors were stopping wor[illegible] were being laid off. Ten days h[illegible] the fruitless effort, and was then [illegible] with the fact that his pockets w[illegible] Saturday night he paid out his [illegible] lodgings, and when Monday ca[illegible] money to buy food. That night h[illegible] Allegheny mayor’s office and as[illegible] Tuesday morning he renewed h[illegible] work, but did not succeed, and [illegible] called at the mayor’s office. H[illegible] the front office men if he could [illegible] to get work. The officer answ[illegible] give you a job if you go out and [illegible] that policeman,” pointing to O[illegible] who was standing at the corn[illegible] hardly knowing what he was [illegible] count of his exhausted condition, [illegible] the policeman and struck him w[illegible] of clothes, whereupon he was ar[illegible] mayor gave him thirty days in the [illegible] The Pittsburg Times describes [illegible] being good looking, pleasant m[illegible] evidently well educated. He i[illegible] rather jovial but seems to rea[illegible] outlook, at fifty-two years of [illegible] promising.

Mrs. Jay Gould is said to h[illegible] fortune of $2,000,000; [$1,920,000?] [illegible] sents the accretions which ha[illegible] themselves to her dowry of [illegible] the clever manipulations of he[illegible] wizard. He took her mone[illegible] married, and, keeping it sepa[illegible] own, invested and reinvested a[illegible] with it until Mrs. Jay can now [illegible] for seven figures—and have it h[illegible]

Frederick Engel, a German la[illegible] old, who lived in West 41st str[illegible] out of employment for severa[illegible] was despondent. Last Saturday [illegible] dead in his room; he had swa[illegible] green.

Medical bulletins which inte[illegible] great many Englishmen are thos[illegible] the wonderful race horse Or[illegible] grand racer has a sore throat a[illegible] just now very badly. The quee[illegible] tor and numerous other hors[illegible] looking after him, and it is exp[illegible] will be well in a few days. Eng[illegible] consider Ormonde beyond all [illegible] first race horse in the world, a[illegible] at the tale which is current tha[t?] [illegible] bought by an American for £[illegible] be true the American is not goi[ng?] [illegible] for some time, as, according to [illegible] he goes to Newmarket to rem[illegible] uary.—[Cable dispatch to New Y[illegible]

Two waifs of the street were [illegible] Tombs on Sunday by Policeman [illegible] were [Domenico?] [Patrio?], aged six, [illegible] R[osa?], aged five. They do not r[illegible] having seen their father, but [illegible] recollection of their mother, v[illegible] with friends, where they remain[illegible] days ago when they were refused [illegible] ter. The children were provide[d?] [illegible] the neighbors and slept in hall[illegible] man Baker found them soli[illegible] James street Saturday night.

An odd book soon to be publi[shed?] [illegible] York for private circulation is [illegible] catalogue of the very wealthy [illegible] United States. About forty [illegible] similar book was printed, and [illegible] of wealth then was fixed at $1[illegible] is [$1,000,000?].

Six attempted suicides in N[illegible] were reported in the morning p[illegible] Friday. All occurred the day b[illegible]

Invitations for Christmas hol[illegible] at country houses are now in fu[illegible] culation.

There is now no doubt that [illegible] Mlle. E. De Villers, who shot [illegible] mouth Thursday at the Gran[illegible] was due to temporary insanity [illegible] cuniary embarrassment. As to [illegible] she opened a school in Freder[illegible] was a failure, and she came t[illegible] assistance. Notwithstanding [illegible] book, showing a balance of sev[illegible] dollars to her credit in the Fre[illegible] national bank, was found in her [illegible] learned yesterday that the w[illegible] funds in any of the banks in [illegible] that she left the place in des[illegible] stances.

Frederick Vanderbilt has bro[ke?] [illegible] walk record, that is, he has had [illegible] transported to the city the lar[gest?] [illegible] sidewalk stone ever seen in [illegible] Heretofore the great stone in [illegible] Vanderbilt houses, between Fiftie[th?] [illegible] first streets and Fifth avenue, a[illegible] haps equally large one in front [illegible] the dry goods man’s, house^sic on E[illegible] street and Fifth avenue were [illegible] things of the kind, but this one o[illegible] lays over these. It will be laid [illegible] his house, No. 459 Fifth avenue. [illegible] feet wide by twenty feet long, w[illegible] in Chenango county, New York, [illegible] have a special car built for its [illegible] tion. The total cost is not kno[wn?] [illegible] smaller one in front of the other m[illegible] $2,000 for transportation alone.

Francis E. London, a young Pole[illegible] at 47 Forsyth street a few days a[illegible] been employed as a clerk in a C[illegible] clothing store, but was dis[illegible] bought with his last quarter a v[illegible] num and drank it on the stre[illegible] went to his room on the top flo[illegible] syth street tenement and lost [illegible]

[PO]LLY’S FATHER.

[Headline: the first letters (“PO”) are lost at the cut left edge; the apostrophe is not clearly visible in the scan.]

[…]y means I could picture Polly […]stinctly to your mental vision […]take as keen an interest in her […]er father as I did, I am sure. […][illegible] of my being able to do […]s alone is the same as if one […]ever seen a living rose should […]a handful of the dried dead […]ead of the blooming flower, but […]an never know what her face […]like I will say that whenever I […]e reminded me irresistibly of […][accini’s?] famous daughter. […] “Straight black hair, a dark […]the red blood glowing beneath […]ws, now arched”like the scim- […]ce,” and now “bent like the […]ead,” two long lashed eyes […]sh and sparkle in them that […]hen it is poured against the […]was Polly, and might have […][illegible] Indian maid who broke […]r’s counsels and calculations […]s and [protestations?]. Her com- […][illegible], was the smallest part […][resemblance?]. The quick, shy […]the [buoyant?] freedom of step […][illegible], the sometimes far-away […]to come in her eyes—a [illegible]- […]gence perhaps in the conven- […][illegible] [illegible]—and, above all, […][rate?] impulsiveness of temper […]ered the comparison complete. […][illegible] came bounding by any [illegible] […]fine morning dressed in a deer- […] with wampum girdle and a […]arrows at her back, it would […]ve seemed as if she had [illegible] […]e proper element. And after […][illegible] it may appear a little […]to say that when I [made?] her […]nce she was my neighbor’s […] and her business was to [illegible] […][daily?] on the sunny side of [illegible] […] [end of short line lost in missing strip] […]ody liked Polly, everybody, no- […] There was [illegible] that men […]re always [illegible] it was, and this […] the [illegible] [illegible] which, in the […]hich are [illegible]. When she began […][illegible] [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] […][illegible] [somebody?], she would blush […]n be ashamed and [illegible] […]it’s because I’m so awful black.” […] But I knew the day was com- […] Polly would be wiser and not […][illegible]. The quick, shy [illegible] […]not her [illegible] her beauty, [illegible] […] her color, and the wickedness […]e all against her, and in the […]r she was more sinned against […] you may judge for yourself. […]realized until I saw them to- […] fragile the baby was, but […]y lifted it tenderly in her arms […]to me, and pressed her cheek […] fair face, the contrast was in- […]ling. Life’s mysterious [illegible] […]its highest in Polly, and faintly […]t its lowest in the child. Look- […]m, I felt that the shadow of the […]Death would darken, at no dis- […] my neighbor’s hearthstone. […] present, at least, I found that […]e in my forebodings. So hope- […]husiastic, so unreasonable was […]nurse, that she spoke of the […] the girlhood, even of the […] of her charge, as if they […]few hours hence. The future, […]ous future, held nothing but […] brilliant, good and entirely […] the two souls whom Polly […]r father and the baby. There […]al difficulty for the former in […]r of wages, but next season […]le that as for the latter, the […]a few teeth was all that pre- […]e perfection of happiness to the […] concerned, and to a wide circle […]s and friends. […]n one her faith almost fooled […]heerfulness and I fancied that […] was growing stouter and […]less waxen white, but in my […]I knew better: the hidden dews […]d have nourished the frail snow- […]withheld, earth’s weather was […]r it and day by day it slowly […]n if what is to be is the natural […]ed fruit of what has been, if the […]rrows of now have their roots […]k nights and bright suns of a […]dred years ago, while Polly […] golden dreams and breezily […]coach along, let me tell you […]g of her past. […]her. Hiram Supplee, was a shoe- […] trade, had served his appren- […]his boyhood and when he was […]k his place as journeyman in […] establishment in the city. At […]en he married the girl of his […]oung tailoress, and as they had […]ed by the process of induction […]of a dollar, they immediately […]save for that “squally” period […]known as “a rainy day,” and […]l, industrious and self-respect- […]wife was even more, she was […]ht and ambitious, being to her […]s the steam is to the engine. By […]power he was capable of manly […]ed exertion. Without her he […][illegible], ignorant of his own […]and too richly endowed with […]excellent passivity” ever to set […]a fire. They had various draw- […]starting out, not fatal, but […]dering to the development of […]day fund, and in fact, for a year […]r marriage as Hiram said in his […] tone, “blessed if it didn’t rain […]ng till Polly came—she brought […] [end of short line lost in missing strip] […]his widowed mother died, then […]’s parents, both old and ailing, […]d away. To these they gave, […]had always given, generously. […]selves no disaster could come, […] were armed from head to foot, […]boasted, in suits of proof. They […]proud and unshaken reliance in […]—”the old folks gave us both […]ades and that is better than a […] No one can take your trade […]ou, though you may lose your […] [end of short line lost in missing strip] […]truth there was in this remains […]n. […] Polly’s advent, as Hiram de- […]ame prosperity. They had not, […]uch “to the fore,” but they had […]ted seven years of such exquis- […]ness that in the shoemaker’s […]ot a cloud appeared. His child

[Bottom margin: a few stray characters (“th”, “Ye”) visible at the cut-off left edge; not part of the text.]

p. 6, col. 2 grew and thrived, and almost from the hour of her birth attached herself to him with an affection remarkable in one so young. Endowed with the dark beauty of her mother, whom she greatly resembled, her vigorous, passionate nature seemed to need the amiable serenity of his as its natural complement, and from one end of the street to the other his own name was almost forgotten—with Polly’s first articulate speech he was called “Polly’s father,” and neither man, woman nor child thought of speaking of him otherwise. The earliest use to which she put her toddling feet was to run away from home in the direction whither he disappeared every morning, and the big policeman who rescued her from beneath carriage wheels and trampling horses laughed at her indignant protest against his interference. “She said she was going to find her father,” he explained to the laughing mother, in whose arms he restored her, [adding?], that she might have been killed on the spot if he’d a been a minute slow.

“It’s a blessing you were not,” exclaimed the [sympathizing?] neighbors, “indeed it was!” and they meant it sincerely though some of them have since recalled the day only to regret that for Polly’s own sake her happy life, while it was so pure and innocent, had not been mercifully ended then and there. By the time she had learned to read and to print upon her slate in most aggressive capitals, “Polly has the best father in the whole world,” fortune’s weathercock veered around to a stormy quarter—not suddenly, but slowly, surely, and a cloud blurred the sunshine. If we could but see, not into futurity, but into the present, with the sharpened vision of omniscience, what a different face the world would wear to most of us. To Hiram Supplee the trouble that sprang upon him was as inexplicable as lightning from a summer sky, yet it had been a solemn certainty, an inevitable consequence of the past, for years before. The black, poisonous seeds of our misfortunes are not sown upon the day they bear their bitter harvest. Long they lie hidden, many suns, many showers nourish them, then when the hour of fruition comes and fate presses to our lips these apples of Sodom, with their ashes in our teeth we cry, “unjust! unjust!”

Polly’s mother, as an ambitious girl of fifteen, had settled down to her sewing machine as a matter of course, and stuck to it, heavy as it was, until she had mastered all the mysteries of laps, [illegible] and welts, and made a first class hand at her business. At twenty she married, and there were times when she acknowledged secretly that it was a good thing for her that Hiram Supplee had asked her to be his wife. Setting aside the fact that she loved him, she felt she had escaped through him a new and awful peril which had not entered into her calculations when she left school to learn her trade—the peril of ruined health. To take a rugged, blooming young creature as she was then, and bind her, if not by actual ropes, yet by obligations that act as effectually, to a course of life whose labor begins at sunrise, and often does not end at sunset, and expect her to come to the physical perfection of womanhood, is to sow thistles and expect grapes. However, no matter what fools expect, the fruit is inexorably according to the seed, and nature made no provision for the driving of a machine either by steam or foot power during the period that she herself is at work fashioning the delicate mechanism of a girlish frame. None of her daughters ever sat down to such work under such conditions and escaped bodily injury, and for all her bright face, her brilliant color, her high spirit, there was somewhat amiss with Polly’s mother on her wedding day, and she knew it. She could look back and name the very hour, [were?] bending over her glancing needle, she was first startled by the sudden, frightful beating of her own heart, when she seemed to suffocate, and the disordered blood streaked her cheeks with purple. She was as brave, physically, as she was ignorant hygienically. She had learned many times at school about the globe upon which she dwelt, but of her own body and its needs she knew no more than she knew of how the inhabitants of Mars exist. Her teachers, spiritual pastors and masters had respectively enlightened her as to the interior of Africa, the topography of heaven and the structure of a cloth machine, but of herself she had no knowledge whatever. The girls who were her associates were equally wise, and though they often had what they vaguely called “spells,” they had but one remedy for such unaccountable freaks—the heroic remedy of “working it off.” Playing it off was a suggestion which, even if it had occurred to them, was almost impossible of accomplishment, and its reverse succeeded so ill in her case that, as I have said, it was deliverance from death itself when Hiram Supplee asked her to marry him. She never spoke of her trouble, even to him, though it came and went again till she had grown almost used to it, but one day, just after Polly was seven, such a paroxysm seized her as rendered further concealment vain.

There is no household scent so distasteful to the nostrils of a man, be he lord or laborer, as the steam of wash day; and when Hiram Supplee came home that night and stumbled into the midst of a disorder as unusual as it was amazing, he knew that his wife’s illness was alarming. Like a man, he was scared, unreasonable, tender and angry by turns. It was the d—d washing, of course, that had done it, and there should be no more of it in his house! He would kick the tubs out of doors himself. Did she wash to kill herself? Had he ever exacted or asked her to do it? Did she intend to die and leave him, and what would become of him when the light of his life went out? All this, while she gradually recovered breath and strength; and then, with his arms around her and his tears upon her cheek, she promised to set upon the drabbled throne of a Monday morning a new queen, one Mrs. Muldoon, the garrulous washwoman of an adjoining alley. The shock of his wife’s indisposition was the cloud that blurred the sun, and it was months before he regained his peace of mind; but as men learn to live, to plant, to laugh, and even

p. 6, col. 3 to sleep in dangerous proximity to the volcano whose hot overflow may destroy them, so he learned at last to go to work in the morning and to return at night without the torturing anxiety which at first had haunted him, and by degrees the matter would have been forgotten by them both except for the continued reign of Mrs. Muldoon. “Do as you please in anything else,” said he, “but Mrs. Muldoon has come to stay;” and as there was no recurrence of the trouble he came to regard that invaluable servant as a sort of mascot who kept away the evil he dreaded.

But like other invaluable servants, Mrs. Muldoon was subject to vicissitudes of fortune, and one bright Monday morning she was among the missing. Doggedly resolved that wash days should not hereafter go from under her personal supervision, Hiram Supplee set out with his dinner kettle under his arm to interview the worthy woman as to the cause of her defection. He found her in a state of outrageously obstreperous grief, with all the other inhabitants of the alley gathered around her in various degrees of sympathy. Mikey, her only boy, had been “[hurt off?]” that very morning and brought home to her apparently dying. But this was not the worst: some one, he did not understand exactly who, had sent for the “gardeens,” and the “gardeens” had sent for an ambulance, and both Mikey and his mother, with the undisguised and utterly [illegible] terror of almshouse hospitals which characterizes people in their circumstances, and with behavior that maddens philanthropists one and all, were bewailing, entreating, demanding to be let alone in the corner of the rookery they called home. One look at the deadly white face of the Irish lad, with his soul in his blue eyes, melted the soft heart of Hiram Supplee.

“Do you want to keep him here?” he asked the half-crazed mother.

“Kape him!” she cried, “kape him is it? [I’ll mar?] the face of the man touches me boy!” and with eyes flashing, hair flying and the anger and pathos of her voice piercing the marrow she gave every indication of carrying out her threat.

The greatest trouble was that while she nursed Mikey she would probably “be in the rears wi’ me rint,” and it presently transpired that the landlord himself had undertaken to relieve her of her burden and himself of a shortage by sending the boy to the almshouse. Pressed as he was for time, it was not in the nature of Polly’s father to look on such distress unmoved. With his dinner kettle still under his arm, he “went her security” for a month’s rent, promised that neither Mikey nor his mother should be troublesome charges to the “gardeens,” and returned to his own home to tell his wife what he had done.

“You take some money Mary,” said he hurriedly, “and run ’round there and straighten things out for them. It’s an awful thing to die in the almshouse—awful!—but I’ve got to go”—and again he started for the factory and cheerfully submitted to the docking for lateness which awaited him, the discipline of the work day world grimly refusing to countenance unpunctuality and having no leisure whatever for the amenities or charities of life.

There was good material in Mikey and he did not die, nor, owing to Hiram’s suretyship was he again molested. When he arose from his bed he crept around to the house of Polly’s father, and while Polly herself stood by and heard it all, he thanked them for their kindness, and in the grateful [effusiveness?] of his heart promised to repay the debt when he was able. His mother had already begun to “wash it out,” but the boy insisted that money could not pay it and grasping Hiram’s hard hand he exclaimed, “Livin’ I’ll pray for ye, and if ye die I’ll rivirince yer dust!”

“And then how father laughed,” said Polly when she told me. “Oh, you might have heard him at the corner, for it was like the mouse who was grateful to the lion! Father was almost six feet high, and Mikey looked so sick and thin, and it did sound funny to promise to reverence a big man’s dust.”

Hibernian Mikey could have said nothing more absurd indeed, nor could fate have done anything to equal its absurdity except to bring it true.

A year afterward Hiram Supplee came home one night, but there was, for the first time in his recollection, no little Polly in the doorway to meet him and kiss him hard enough and often enough to get her cheeks “all grimey” from the dirt upon him. He entered the house; no supper sizzled on the stove, though the table was set; but that was Polly’s work he knew “by the look of things;” the mother’s hand was wanting. Wondering, he crept softly up the stairs and chuckled to himself when he saw that he had stolen a march upon them as the pair lay napping on the bed. Polly’s arms were round her mother’s neck, her red mouth pressed so near that her breath stirred the hair upon her mother’s temple. He had brought the child some flowers he had bought of a belated “darkey” at a corner, and these he still carried, having forgotten to lay them down with his kettle.

“I’ll just stick them in between the two, and I’ll get the supper myself for a joke,” said he mentally. Bending lightly over he opened Polly’s warm fingers and placed the flowers within them; in so doing his hand came in contact with his wife’s cheek. It was the merest touch, casual as a falling leaf, soft as the brushing of a butterfly’s wing, but it’s icy chill^sic struck terror to his very heart, and told him all there was for him to know—she was dead; though he had not planted this fruit of Sodom, he was compelled to eat thereof, and for that night he “supped full of horrors.”

There is no need to dwell upon his grief and misery, it is with their consequences alone that we have to do. Some natures recover gradually from such blows, others, less elastic, go scarred to the grave, and Hiram Supplee was of the latter.

Regardless of advice, he sold his possessions, gave up the key of his home, and taking his dark-eyed little girl by the hand he went out into the world to find a new foot-hold for himself and for her in a boardinghouse. He felt instinctively that

p. 6, col. 4 where he might have gone among men and roughed it, Polly could not go; and though he was glad to have women care for her and praise and pet her, he fought shy of them himself, and no more thought of marrying again than he thought of turning Mahommedan. Gradually life for him and for Polly resolved itself into a periodic pulling up of stakes and moving from one caravansary to another. It was not easy to take root in places whose financial basis was so unsteady that the constable was a constant menace, nor in refuges where the daughters of the landlady, and often the landlady herself, were bent upon forming matrimonial alliances, however unwilling the party of the second part might be. It was not conducive to health to be half starved, nor was it altogether comfortable to be robbed, and so, though these rolling stones gathered very little moss, they gained a vast amount of experience which, like a collection of old keys none of which by any chance ever fitted the particular lock to be opened, never did them any good whatever in the seven years it took to acquire it. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, as his grief grew more bearable under time’s softening influence, and as Polly grew taller, slenderer, more companionable, Hiram Supplee once more lifted his head, took heart and hope, and began to feel that there was still light in the world and good days, though he had long groped in despairing darkness.

“I’ve saved nothing,” said he to himself, “for how can a man save who has neither home nor wife? But I’m a rich man still. There’s Polly, as pretty as a picture and as true as steel, and there’s my trade”—and then he resolved that when Polly was sixteen they would go to housekeeping together, and quit forever the Sahara of boarding. But a man has only to set his feet upon the Avernian slope to find out how vicious a kick fate can give him to facilitate his descent into the depths below. He had prided himself upon his trade, he had been loyal to it, and what is rarer, he had loved it. In the years that had elapsed since the death of his wife, changes, almost unnoticed by the silent, depressed workman, had been busy in the factory, but they had not affected him, and he toiled on assiduously, sure of his own ground whatever happened about him. Like a bather who has kept his face oceanward too long he suddenly became aware how far from land he had been borne by the current, and when he turned, it was too late. His trade indeed!—the firm that employed him was one of the most enterprising in the United States, and one fine morning saw a machine set up in their work rooms which could do not only what he could do, but for all his skill, do it better, quicker, cheaper, and multiply his productions fifty fold. His trade was worth no more to him then than Robinson Crusoe’s gold was to him on his island—but he could learn a new one; he could feed the machine that did his work if he chose to take half price for the service. Now he was poor indeed, and in bitterness of spirit he cursed what he called his “luck,” and like a fool, “a precious fool,” his employer said, he took down his hat, gathered up his tools and shook the dust of the old factory from his feet. From one shop to another, from one firm to another he went with his two skillful hands trying to earn his bread in the accustomed manner, and wherever the spirit of invention had not yet entered he found work readily.

But it was a duel between the man and the times in which he lived, and inevitably the man was worsted. Like a bankrupt whose assets are in inverse ratio to his liabilities, as his own value depreciated the value of all that was precious or necessary to him grew overwhelmingly fast. Living was dearer, board higher, a few yards of material no longer clothed Polly, nor a half dollar bought her baby shoes. With the money he had realized seven years ago from the sale of his household effects he had insured his life in her behalf, and this he sternly resolved should never lapse if he could help it. It was but for five hundred dollars, and he had been punctual in his payments, but he began to be anxious and uneasy lest even this should slip from his grasp as all else had done, and it was in his hour of greatest depression that Polly herself, who had never known a care as yet, flew to his rescue. Cunningly, as is the way of women, she set about it. She told him she was tired to death of the boarding house, she stroked his beard so thickly streaked with grey, and wished she could go elsewhere, anywhere, somewhere, and have something to love—for she could not even have a kitten. She knew the sweet-est lady and the loveliest baby in the world, and if he would let her go and wheel the coach she would be the happiest girl under the sun. She managed it so well that she had been gone a month before he realized that little Polly was earning her own living and had wheedled him into a cheerful compliance with her wishes.

It was about this time that I made her acquaintance, and a prouder, lovelier girl I had never seen. To watch the flush with which she mentioned “my father,” to note her enthusiastic belief in him, and her admiration for him, eminently unsuccessful as he had ever been, was a most curious study. Love like hers ought to have saved him—for my part, I thought it would, but upon Avernus is neither pause nor resting place, and from the day Polly undertook to help him his troubles descended upon him like the hail that strips the strong oak of its branches. A complaint which he had inherited, but which had never caused him an hour’s discomfort, quickened by grief, anxiety and poor living, and probably aggravated by his occupation, suddenly made its appearance, but so lightly he counted pain, and so great were his powers of endurance that it never conquered him into what he called “coddling himself” for so much as a day. He had only himself now to support, and though work fluctuated and prices were poor, he still held his own, drawing, heaven only knows, how much of comfort from his devoted Polly. She was cheerful and radiant of face; she told him, as she had already told me, her golden dreams, and he, too, half believed them possible.

p. 6, col. 5 Then, long as I had foreseen the event, baby May died, and Polly’s place knew her no more. This was Polly’s first sorrow, for child as she was, she had never realized how great her loss had been in the death of her mother, but it was not Polly’s way to grieve and die; she fought her griefs, tooth and nail, and lived them down.

“I’ve found work,” she said; such nice work^sic in an office, where there are only two other girls. The gentleman is as old as father, and he’s very kind to me. I’ve told him all about father, and that’s the reason, I know.”

Poor lonely bird! flung from the nest to be trampled under foot of men—a week later Polly, humiliated to the very dust, knew differently. When the postman brought her a note bidding her hasten to her sick father’s side she laid her head upon her desk and wept. It was her dinner hour, and as her fellow clerks went home, she was done, or thought she was, when an arm stole round her, and a voice whispered words in her ear that caused her to spring, quivering with shame and terror, from her chair. She was face to face with the man who employed her, but she waited for no more than that assurance. Snatching her hat from its peg, wild with nervousness and fright, she flew through the street, and fell almost fainting, at my feet. “Don’t tell, don’t tell, never tell father,” she entreated, “it would kill him if he knew it,” and soothed at last, she departed to go to his lodgings at the other end of the town. For months after this I did not see her again, but I knew she had obtained work in a shirt factory, and then the winter and the long distance and her twelve or fourteen hours’ work seemed sufficient reasons for her continued silence. All that happened in the interval I had from her own lips since, and will give you without embellishment or comment.

“Father was so ill all winter, but nothing could keep him in bed when there was a day’s work to be had, for it was like death to him to owe a week’s board, and to the last he never did. But the lady where he had his lodgings took him up a cup of coffee one day when he was almost delirious with pain, and she asked him if it wouldn’t be better for him to go to some hospital. He said he thought it would, but charged her not to tell me when I came, and so she promised, because of course she could not keep us both for nothing, and she wanted father to go.

“By night he was out of his mind, and she had him taken away, and then she sent me a postal and told me he had gone to the hospital. I work in the factory, you know, and the rules are so strict that no messages are allowed, nor no notes delivered, until work is done, and there the card lay all day—and I thought he was so much better!—and it was long after 7 o’clock when I got it. If it had only said where the hospital was, but it did not, and I never waited, but flew to father’s lodgings to find out. The snow was over my shoe-tops, and I had no money, because I had spent every penny to get him medicine when I was there before, and it took me so long. When I did reach the place at last, and the lady told me where he was”—oh, if you had but seen Polly when she said ‘where he was!’—“I dropped right down at her feet like a stone—for they had taken him to the almshouse! ‘You must excuse me,’ she said, ‘but it is the only place you can get a man into without any trouble, and a lodginghouse is no place for a man as sick as he was. He was out of his mind, and never knew a thing about it, so you need not worry over that.’

“If you could die when you want to,” cried Polly with her lips pressed tight and her face as white as the wall, “I would have died there from the horror of it all, but you must live to suffer,” said the child of sixteen, “and I never knew how strong I was until then. I knew where the alms house was, but it was nine o’clock and the snow drifts were awful, but nothing—not if it had snowed fire—could keep me from father. I ran, and I stumbled, and I tore my way through the streets, and the wind and the storm seemed to help me more than they hindered, for the snow hid me so that I wasn’t afraid and the wind blew me along, and by half-past ten I was at the gate, but it was locked and barred, and they never heard me, though I beat on it with my hands and feet, and begged them to let me in. I wrapped my shawl tight around me, and I sat down on the stone step and waited till it was morning, then a man came and let me in. When I told him my business he directed me to an office farther on, and there a man looked over a book for father’s name, and he found it and gave me a card, and he sent me still farther on to the doctors. The one to whom it was directed took it, and then tossed it aside, saying:”You can’t see Hiram Supplee, he’s dead.” By this time I was crazy, and though I tried hard to keep very still I heard myself as if it was far off, screaming, ‘Father, father,’ and I could not stop though they said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s a mistake! Quit crying so loud and you shall see him.’ It was only when they threatened to put me out that I could cry softer, and then a man told me to come with him, and he’d show me a patient who had been operated on that morning at four o’clock, and perhaps, after all, it might not be the person I wanted. He took me to a place, ‘the dead house’ he called it, and said: ‘Now, when I stop before one of those boxes you’ll know that is the one to look into;’ so we went in, and when he stopped—oh! my God, there lay father with his gray beard all streaked with blood—my father—dead!”

And so it was that in the end Mikey, whose words Polly never forgot, did reverence to the dust of Hiram Supplee, for he buried him as he might have buried his own father, and did not count the cost. The insurance money never became available while I knew Polly, for by some crick of the law^sic the officers of the company would not pay it to a minor, and Polly wanted five years of being twenty-one. Her work and mine finally separated us, but it was only a month ago that I saw her—who could ever mistake Polly?—pass like a flash, and she wore a silk dress, and a brave show of jewelry, and I knew by

p. 6, col. 6 that that she, too, is swiftly descending Avernus, for it was night, and she was “not afraid.”

C. L. ECKEL.

Not Bedtime Yet!

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Not bedtime yet! The night winds blow, The stars are out—full well we know The nurse is on the stair; With hand of ice, and cheek of snow, And frozen lips, that whisper low, “Come, children, it is time to go, My peaceful couch to share.”

Not bedtime yet! We long to know What wonders time has yet to show, What unborn years shall bring; What ship the Arctic pole shall reach, What lessons science waits to teach, What sermons there are left to preach, What poems yet to sing.

And when, our cheerful evening past, The nurse, long waiting, comes at last, Ere on her lap we lie, In wearied nature’s sweet repose, At peace with all her waking foes, Our lips shall murmur, ere they close, “Good night!” and not “Good bye!”

The Proposed English National Party.

Nineteenth Century.

Such a party would not, however, be a party of moderation only, for moderation is but a negative virtue; it would be also actively constructive. Keenly alive to the spirit of the times, it would recognize the fact that Demos is now master of the situation, and would set itself to redress every form of social injustice that could be dealt with by amending the statute book. It would be the party of liberty as distinguished from the party of license. While opposed to all schemes of confiscation like those advocated by Mr. Henry George, it would acknowledge to the full the duties attaching to the ownership of land, and frankly admit that there may be an unearned increment which ought to be laid under contribution for the general benefit. While repudiating the absurd notion that in a civilized or any other country all men are, or can become, equal, it would seek to perfect the system of our national education, so as to help to efface the dividing line between class and class. Proceeding on these lines, it would gain the confidence of the steadiest of our workmen and of the whole of the middle class, whose interests are bound up with the security of private property and the maintenance of public order. It would, in a word, embody the principles of true liberalism as well as of progressive conservatism. And it would be a safeguard against the tyranny of the multitude, the greatest danger to which a democracy is exposed, for its method would be the reverse of the socialistic one—individual rather than state action.

A Wag in the London School Board^sic.

London Truth.

They have some funny fellows, it would seem, upon the Swansea School Board. The other day, Mr. James Rees a humorist^sic of the unconscious order, gave notice of the following motion:—

“That in the opinion of this Board, the time has arrived when the services of all married women employed as teachers by this Board should cease, and that three months’ notice be given to all such teachers to terminate their engagements, and that in future no married women shall be employed as a teacher under this Board.”

Moved by this and another notice, the Rev. J. R. Wolfe then came down with the following resolution:—

“That having seen Mr. Harris’s and Mr. James Rees’s notices of motion, and believing that it is a cheap electioneering dodge to catch votes, this Board resolves not to listen to either.”

Whereupon, Mr. John Powell capped the collection with the following:—

“That in the opinion of this Board, the time has arrived when the services of all married men employed as teachers by this Board should cease, and that three months’ notice be given to all such teachers to terminate their engagements, and that no married men shall be engaged as teachers, and that in the opinion of this Board marriage is a failure and a fraud.”

“Take Away That Bauble.”

Pall Mall Gazette.

Something occurred in the house of commons last night to parallel which we must go back to the days of Cromwell. As every one knows, when the speaker is presiding, the great golden mace lies before him on the table. When the house is only in committee it is supended^sic down below. A chief duty of the serjeant-at-arms is to place the mace in position, but this he, or rather the deputy, somehow forgot to do when Mr. Speaker mounted the chair at the fag end of this sitting. Debate began—it was too late. A whisper passed—the unhappy official saw—he was horrified. A long quarter of an hour, then the adjournment. No one had called attention to the missing mace. Promptly the deputy serjeant, with a sigh of relief, shouldered it and whisked it out of the chamber. A reporter of forty years’ experience assured me that never was there precedent for the omission; and it is doubtful whether the neglect of the sacred immemorial ordinance does not nullify all transactions done during the period which to one official at least must have been very literally a mauvais quart d’heure.

It Lasted Fourteen Years.

“Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce” sinks into comparative insignificance says the New York World, beside the patent infringement suit of the Webster loom company against Messrs. Higgins, the carpet manufacturers. An accounting has been rendered on the judgment secured by the plaintiffs, who sued for almost $30,000,000, and they have been awarded—nothing. Of the two defendants one—Nathaniel Higgins—died during the litigation. Of their original counsel both are dead—Judge Hoar and George Gifford. Senator Conkling, who had long ago resigned the case to Mr. Griffin, is also dead. The patentee of the motion which brought Messrs. Higgins into trouble, and the two brothers, the Messrs. Duckworth, who invented subsequent improvements, are also gone. William Duckworth died suddenly from an accident, and his testimony had to be rushed to his death bed to be signed a few hours before his decease. All of the defendants’ original experts are dead, and on the other side similar fatalities have marked the contest. William G. Smith, the president of the Webster company, once worth $250,000, has sunk his fortune in the fight, and Mr. Webster, after sixteen years’ struggle, sees everything lost.

Just Think of It!

The London Star remarks that the British constitution was in terrible danger the other day. It says:

It is an invariable rule of house of commons procedure that whenever the speaker is in the chair the mace should lie on the table. Only in committee does it take a modest place underneath. But when the speaker was unexpectedly summoned to the chair at six yesterday evening, young Mr. Go[sset?]t, the assistant sergeant-at-arms, had no time to get at the sacred relic, and had to let it lie under table^sic. The house shivered and looked at the glass roof as if they expected it to fall on them. Mr. Gossett was in a quandary as to whether he should interrupt the sitting and place the mace on the table or let it lie. Ultimately he decided on a policy of masterly inactivity. No point of order was raised and to-day the British constitution is much as usual.

Another Pest.

Iowa Health Bulletin.

“I tell you, sir,” said Dr. —— one morning to the village apothecary, “I tell you, sir, the vox populi should not—must not be regarded.”

“What, doctor?” exclaimed the apothecary, rubbing his hands, “you don’t say that’s broken out in town, too, has it! What unhealthy times these are!”

QUERIES AND ANSWERS.

What Lies at the Root of the Whitechapel Murders.

London Star.

It becomes a serious and solemn question for us whether we are to accept these hideous crimes not simply as beyond the power of detective agencies, but as incidents in the growth of what we call civilization, erratic development of brain pressure, the result of morbid tendencies in overworked men. There is no precedent for these deeds, with the possible exception of the Texan atrocities. They have sprung upon us like a thief in the night. They are as unfamiliar to ordinary experience as the wildest of nightmares. One thing, however, we can do, and that is tell the truth about them, and admit that truth to our own consciences. Could the murder fiend, looking the wide world over, find a choicer field of operations than Whitechapel? We hear of missionary efforts in the east end. Year by year, no doubt, a few heroic men and women

p. 7, col. 2 pluck some brands from the burning, but what impression do they make on the mass? Little enough, we fear. Here is a population thousands of whom live on the brink of starvation; thousands of whom live in one room; thousands of whom have no past, no future, no joy in childhood, no hope for age, no rest, and yet no healthful toil. Thousands of them scrape together exactly one-half of a pitiful wage in order to keep a hovel over their heads. Even the workaday blessings of science—light, well paved streets, decent drainage—they do not know. Their girls work for thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hours at a stretch. They marry—if they marry—at a terribly early age; they have children who reproduce the physical and moral ailments of their parents, and add to them. Their physique is deplorable; their want of interest in any subject but what concerns their daily bread is more deplorable still; the absence of gaiety and light and color in their lives is, perhaps, the most deplorable of all. No tongue can utter the truth about their lives, no pen can picture their lot, and we have not even a chastened Zola to do for London what he, on the whole, manfully and truly did for Paris.

Something, at all events, we can and must know, and something we can and must do. . . . Let us look to Whitechapel and the sweating system, and content ourselves with no solution of labor questions which does not solve them. There lies our crux; there lies our duty, and if we do it, our hope of better things than the horrors which fill our minds to-day.

Mr. Summers Certainly Never Saw Senator Ingalls, Voorhees or Riddleberger in a Coping Mood.

London Echo.

Mr. William Summers, M. P., is not by any means impressed with the oratorical level prevailing in the American senate. They have no Gladstones and Brights over there, but, instead, “long winded speeches of the dreariest imaginable kind, read from MS.” An American senator’s eloquence is, as a rule, nothing more than “unnatural bombast.” Public speaking must, indeed, be at a low stage when in their very senate they have no one who, according to Mr. Summers, can cope even with Lord Randolph Churchill.

The Irish ;Landlords^sic and the English Democracy.

Reynolds’s Newspaper, London.

The government proposal to make another present of £5,000,000 of the British workers’ earnings to the most infamous section of Irish rack renters is one of boundless effrontery.

In the first place, the toilers cannot, in their present miserable condition, afford to play the part of money lenders, even if they were assured of interest the most handsome. Many thousands of them are out of employment, many more are homeless wanderers, many are immured in work house bastiles, and many are slowly, silently, but surely dying of insufficient food, shelter and clothing. They are harassed by inexorable rates, taxes and other burdens to such a degree that it can be confidently predicated of the majority of them that “life is not worth living.”

Those of them that have any leisure to reflect on the causes of this untold misery have for some time—thanks especially to the enlightened teaching of the “Prophet of San Francisco” (Henry George), whom we are once more delighted to welcome to our shores—come to the conclusion that the cause of causes is the ungodly institution of landlordism. To the rent demon they have learned primarily to trace their woes. He is the monster that has desolated the fair face of the country, and peopled the towns with vagrants, paupers, prostitutes, thieves, and “Jack Rippers.”

This being so, if there is one clear determination in the popular heart stronger than every other, it is that landlords great and small, titled and untitled, shall on the earliest available opportunity receive, metaphorically speaking, “a short shrift and a long rope.”

To the British “masses,” the Irish landlords in particular are peculiarly obnoxious. The toilers now know Ireland’s sad story pretty well, and understand the full dread significance of such words as “absenteeism,” “eviction” and “coercion.” They loathe the whole system of rent rapine, and would as soon think of paying an Irish landlord five millions sterling, or even fivepence, as of sacrificing their own children to Moloch.

They Don’t Fancy Sixteen-Story Buildings.

London Star.

The kindly offer of the American elevator company to find room for us all in London by piling us up to the skies until our houses, as Hamlet said, “make Ossa like a wart,” is plausible enough. The imagination pursues the scheme until it sees a dozen superposed Londons, with a snow line at the ninetieth story or thereabouts. But what would be the temperature of our streets when overshadowed by these horrible brick precipices or roofed in by their viaducts? There would be at least four stories of blackbeetles to begin with, not to mention rats. In low lying regions like Thames street the stray dogs would lose their eyes in the cellar-like gloom, like the fishes in the caves of Kentucky. The beats of the postmen and policemen would be vertical instead of horizontal. Window cleaning would be done exclusively by steeple jacks. The clearing of the snow from the roofs would produce avalanches. And, though we should all go up in elevators, we should come down in the manner of Mr. Baldwin, who ought to lose no time in negotiating with the elevator company, since his parachute is obviously the complement to their machine.

Isn’t It About Time for the American People to be Undeceived?

New York Evening Post.

All arguments which import that trusts are good for trade, or at all events not demonstrably-bad^sic, are equally applicable to the monopolies granted by the Tudor and the Stuart sovereigns of England. The greatest monopoly the world has ever seen, and the most baleful, was the East India company. The arguments for sustaining the exclusive privileges of the company were exactly those which are now adduced to sustain trusts. It was contended that nobody could monopolize the products of India to any harmful extent because the Dutch, the French and the Portuguese bad equal rights^sic of trading with that country, and that their competition would regulate prices satisfactorily—the East India company all the time trying to expel them from the country, for the most part with success. This specious and sophistical argument deceived the British public for above a century, but it finally broke down with a crash: and the real prosperity of Indian trade, both in Great Britain and India itself, dates from the destruction of the monopoly.

Burdette on Cranks.

What would we do were it not for the cranks? How slow the tired old world would move, did not the cranks keep it rushing along. Columbus was a crank on the subject of circumnavigation, and at last met the fate of most cranks—was thrown into prison, and died in poverty and disgrace. Greatly venerated now! Oh yes, Teelmachus^sic, we usually esteem a crank most profoundly after we starve him to death. Harvey was a crank on the subject of the circulation of the blood. Galileo was an astronomical crank; Fulton was a crank on steam navigation; Morse was a telegraph crank. All the bold abolitionists were cranks; John Bunyan was a crank, and any one who doesn’t think as you do, my son, is a crank. And, bye and bye, the crank you despise will have his name in every man’s mouth, and a half complete monument to his memory crumbling down in a dozen cities, while nobody outside of your native village will know that you ever lived.

Deal gently with the cranks, my boy. Of course some cranks are crankier than others, but do you be very slow to sneer at a man, because he knows only one thing and you can’t understand him. You thank heaven you are

p. 7, col. 3 not a crank? Don’t do that, my son. May be you couldn’t be a crank if you would. Heaven is not very particular when it wants a weather vane; almost aay man can do for that. But when it wants a crank, my boy, it looks very carefully for the best man in the community. Before you thank Heaven that you are not a crank, examine yourself carefully and see what is the great deficiency that debars you from such an election.

NEW IDEAS, METHODS AND INVENTIONS.

Another new process for converting iron into steel has been patented this time by the joint efforts of an American and a Frenchman. The American is John W. Bookwalter, a large manufacturer of agricultural implements and the man who made a strong light for the governorship of Ohio on the democratic ticket several years ago. He is quite a traveler and when last in Europe he met a French inventor, whom he brought to this country. As the result of their joint labors, says the World, and experiments in in steel works which Bookwalter erected at Springfield, Ohio, a process has been discovered whereby a pig of iron can, in eight minutes, be converted into the rarest quality of steel at an expense of over $2 less per ton than by the Bessemer method. This product is of such a quality that a piece six inches long can be tempered at one end into the finest tool material, while the other end can, while cold, be bent double without breaking, and even, so great is its malleability, flattened like a pancake. Car wheels of one-half the weight of those now in use can be manufactured from it with case-hardened rims and their bodies as tough and fibrous as wrought iron. Bookwalter’s next trip to Europe will be for the purpose of establishing in England and France factories of this steel, which now threatens to revolutionize one of the greatest industries of this country.

According to a recent report in some of the Philadelphia newspapers, a large company, backed by millions of dollars, has proposed to the secretary of the navy a striking and possibly effective scheme for the defense of that harbor and the harbors of other cities from the attacks of an enemy’s fleet by shooting ignited petroleum at the unfriendly ships from the bottom of the river and burning them up. The rear admiral has been directed to study closely the harbor of Philadelphia and its approaches. The petroleum defense scheme, the originators of which have induced the government to make this preliminary examination of the Philadelphia harbor, is a brilliant one in more respects than one. A company has been organized at Washington to develop the plan and to show its practicability. It is proposed to sink perforated iron pipes in the river bed and the approaches to the harbor, through which petroleum can be forced to the surface of the river by machinery and at a high pressure. In this way a fierce stream of blazing oil can be sent down on the enemy’s fleet to destroy it or drive it away.—[Scientific American.

A French engineer who rejoices in the name of Imbs has invented a method of aerial transit, by which he proposes to convey passengers from Paris to Calais in an hour and from Paris to St. Petersburg in eight hours. M. Imbs, it should be stated, is not a baloonatic. His principle somewhat resembles that of “telphrage^sic,” invented by Professor Fleeming Jenkin. A shuttle shaped boat of enormous length is to be supported on elevated rails, and drawn by cables passing over rotatory drums, whirling at [fatuous?] speed. The railway (if such a term may be used) need not be horizontal, but each section of it must of course be straight. The system, as the inventor remarks, is only applicable to long distances, and will leave the local traffic of the existing railroads undisturbed.—[Pall Mall Gazette.

In the way of advertising, a new device has been hit upon by one of our large dry goods firms. At a small, but conspicuous, stand in the store a neat girl sells postal cards and stamped sheets of paper at less than the face value of the stamps. The postal card is only three-quarters of a cent, and a large sheet of writing paper, made so as to enclose itself by folding, with a two cent stamp in the corner, is only a cent and a half. These are sold in as small quantities as desired, provided only that the fractional prices multiply into even cents. How does the seller get a recompense? By printing announcements of his goods, with notices of particular bargains and special inducements across the edges of the cards and sheets. By this means he circulates his advertisements at a low cost. I asked him if it paid. “Not directly,” he answered. “It attracts momentary attention, sets customers to talking, and is therefore worth doing for a little while; but the only advertising that proves solidly advantageous is that which is done in newspapers of a large circulation. We have tried everything, and we have found that advertising in good journal invariably pays, while these odd devices are only of transient worth.”—[New York Sun.

The new “drop a cent in the slot” weighing machines which are rapidly displacing the “drop a nickel” style, are made in such a way that when one person has weighed and the index hand has come to a rest, the machine locks itself, and cannot be used again until another copper is fed into its maw. The nickel machines can be made to weigh a dozen persons for one payment by having the person who is being weighed remain on the stand until the next person gets on, after which No. 1 gets off, No. 2 watches the hand move back until it stands still at his weight, when No. 3 gets on and No. 2 off, and so on. This machine does not lock until all are off and the index moves back to zero again.

The methods at present in use for the prevention of rusting of steel and iron have all the same object, namely, the formation of a coating of magnetic oxide of iron; but all of them are more or less unsatisfactory. Considerable time is usually required, and there is no certainty that the protection will be perfect. M. de Meritens has been experimenting for some time on an electrolytic method of obtaining the same result, and has finally been successful. The article is exposed to a current of electricity in a bath of warm water. The article to be coated is made the positive pole or anode, while a strip of carbon, copper or iron, serves for the negative pole or cathode. The current is slightly stronger than that required to decompose water. The operation should be conducted in the same manner as electrotyping. In the course of a few minutes, black coloration appears on the article, and after one or two hours the coating of magnetic oxide of iron is of sufficient solidity to resist polishing. The processes employed hitherto for coating steel goods require at least eight or ten days, and only imperfect results are obtained when applied to wrought or cast iron. De Meritens’s process treats all sorts of iron and steel effectually in a few hours, requires no preliminary preparation, and can be applied as easily to rough as to polished surfaces. The coating is a brilliant black, is very hard, and it is difficult to attack it with lime; moreover it is not easily wet by water.

An ascension was made in Peter C. Campbell’s air ship on Coney island last Saturday in the presence of 500 spectators. James K. Allen, a professional aeronaut of Providence, had been on Coney island for two weeks, awaiting an opportunity to ascend, and as the weather was suitable he concluded to make the ascent that afternoon. The balloon is cigar shaped, 60 feet long, and 42 feet in diameter in the center. The car and flying machine is suspended from a bar running lengthwise under the balloon. The car is provided with several propeller wheels similar in form to those of steam ships, and they are so placed that the aeronaut, working one or more with his hands or feet, may drive the ship ahead, back her, or raise or lower her, provided the air is sufficiently still. She is steered with a rudder at the forward end. There are two oars to facilitate the landing of the ship. The oars have long handles and are in the shape of a fan. Hydrogen gas was used. Mr. Allen first went up 250 feet and then brought the ship back to the spot it started from in order to allow photographs to be taken, he seemed to have no difficulty in doing this. Then he ascended some 500 feet, where the ship remained stationary for a few minutes and finally under the guidance of the aeronaut moved about in differ-

p. 7, col. 4 ent directions. After half an hour’s manœuvering he directed its course to the northeast and descended in the village of Sheepshead bay. He said that in all its movements, with a few minor exceptions, the ship obeyed the actions of the propellers.

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[Advertisement] BELFORD’S MAGAZINE.

Edited by Donn Piatt.

Published monthly and devoted to literature, politics, science and art.

A complete long novel in each number.

The publishers of BELFORD’S MAGAZINE recognizing the fact that “revolutions never go backwards,” have nailed the colors of TARIFF REFORM to the mast and “prepare to fight it out on this line” until the uninformed are educated up to the truth, that “unnecessary taxation is unjust taxation.”

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[Advertisement] THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

HUGH O. PENTECOST, Editor.

Contains, besides other interesting matter, the Sunday addresses of Hugh O. Pentecost before Unity congregation. Devoted to the betterment of this world as the best preparation for any other world.

Issued weekly. Annual subscription, one dollar. Sample copies free. Address the publisher,

FRED C. LEUBUSCHER, 36 Park Row, New York City.

[Advertisement] International Land Co. 

CALIFORNIA.—TWENTY AND THIRTY Acre Farms in Colusa county for Fruits, Vines and Cereals: $[20?] to $30 per acre; one-quarter cash, balance in one, two and three years, 6 per cent interest. Lithograph maps of California sent free. Good government land at $1.50 per acre; 50 cents per acre cash, balance in three years, without interest. INTERNATIONAL LAND CO., 809 Market street, San Francisco.

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CONCORD CO-OPERATIVE PRINTING COMPANY (Ld.)

104 Elm street, cor. Canal, N. Y.

BOOK, JOB AND NEWSPAPER PRINTING.

[Advertisement] The Standard Association

ANY PERSON holding a receipt for one year’s subscription to THE STANDARD may become a member of “The Standard Association” by applying to W. C. BOHANNON, Secretary, 2,219 Chestnut street, St. Louis, Mo.

[Advertisement] T. R. Co. 

OWN a Single Tax Paper, see 7th page, 4th column, Standard, Nov. 24. T. R. Co., 52 Concord st., B’klyn

p. 7, col. 5

[Advertisement] PRANG’S ART PUBLICATIONS.

WHO TAKES THE PRIZE?

[Illustration: outline engraving of six babies in a row, the one at left in a bonnet; the “Prize Babies” picture. No caption or lettering within the picture.]

The above illustration gives only the outlines of a picture which bids fair to be one of the most popular we have ever issued. It is one of our latest productions, and has all the charm of novelty. It is called the

PRIZE BABIES

and represents a baby judging upon the respective merits of a row of the most bewitching little babies that the suns of six months have shone upon. The face of the sweet baby judge is clothed in doubt, and well it may be, for surely such a collection of ideal darlings was never seen before.

The colors are exquisitely soft and tender, and the expression of the baby faces run the whole gamut of delight and wonder. It is a picture which will appeal forcibly to every mother’s heart, and is altogether an admirable selection for a Christmas gift.

The picture comes mounted with a wide mat of two styles, one plain and one on which in choice hand decoration are daisies on meadow grass. Size, ready for framing, 17 by 11 inches.

Copies of this latest and most attractive picture can be found at any leading stationers. Ask for Prang’s “Prize Babies.” We will supply them by mail, if not found in stores, post paid on receipt of price, viz.: In plain mat, $1; in daisy mat, $2.

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for the use of children learning to paint.

These paints represent all the latest art colors and tints, and can be given to even the youngest children with absolute safety. They come mounted upon neat, tin palettes, or in tin boxes. They are all specially prepared for us by the most eminent manufacturer of colors in Europe—Mr. Gunther Wagner, of Hanover, Germany. They must not be classed with ordinary children’s paints, put up in cheap form and made of injurious and poisonous materials. They are really fine art colors in convenient form for use and made especially non-poisonous for the needs of children.

PRANG’S OUTLINE PICTURES.

With these non-poisonous colors for children we issue several series of outline illustrations of familiar subjects as practice sheets. The original design is furnished in each case by some leading artist, and is strictly correct in form and detail. Directions how to paint them are furnished with every series. One specimen sheet of each series is furnished, colored by hand, in order to serve the children as a guide for harmonious coloring, and as an example of artistic work is the foundation of taste. The instruction is all the more successful because supplied in the form of amusement.

PRICE OF PRANG’S NON-POISONOUS COLORS:

Palette Colors— Palette A, containing six colors with brush, 10 cents. Palette B, containing nine colors with brush, 15 cents.

Eagle Colors— Box No. 2, containing eight colors and brush, 25 cents. Box No. 4, containing twelve colors and two brushes, 40 cents.

One box No. 2 of Prang’s non-poisonous colors and one package of Prang’s outline pictures (eight in a package with an extra copy of one of them painted by hand and full directions) [50?] cents.

Or one box No. [2?] of Prang’s non-poisonous colors and three packages of Prang’s outline pictures (each package different in design), $1.00.

To be found at all leading stationers, or will be sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price.

L. PRANG & CO., ART PUBLISHERS, Boston, Mass. NEW YORK—38 Bond street. CHICAGO—79 Wabash avenue. SAN FRANCISCO—529 Commercial street.

A descriptive list of Christmas and New Year cards, novelties, booklets and satin art prints sent on application.

[Advertisement] Everlasting Wick

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GEORGE WILSON,

(Formerly with Henry Poole, London.)

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[Advertisement] UNITY CONGREGATION.

HUGH O. PENTECOST, MINISTER.

MASONIC TEMPLE, Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street.

SERVICES, Sunday Morning, 11 o’clock.

[Advertisement] Holland’s

HOLLAND’S COFFEE AND DINING ROOMS, [illegible] Fourth avenue, Bet. 13th and 14th sts.

[Advertisement] Mrs. Agatha Munier Atkins

MRS. AGATHA [MUNIER?] ATKINS WILL continue to receive pupils in solo singing and vocal sight reading at her residence, [illegible] E. [23d?] street, New York.

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[Advertisement] Single Tax Doctrines in a Nutshell

SINGLE TAX 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, SINGLE TAX PRESS, [illegible] Lexington ave., N. Y.

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[Advertisement] Bible & Land

BIBLE & LAND. Rev. JAMES B. CONVERSE. $1.00, post-paid. MORRISTOWN, TENN.

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JAMES BOGAN, PRINCIPAL AGENT for James Means’ $3 and $4 shoes. 226 BOWERY, near Prince street.

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HOLMAN’S PULMONIC SYRUP is the best Cough Remedy. Prices, 25c., 50c. and $1. Depot, 381 Fourth ave., New York.

p. 7, col. 6

[Advertisement] HENRY GEORGE’S WORKS.

[Advertisement] LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY

The following is a list of tracts in print:

1. First Principles. Henry George. 4 pages.
2. Land and Taxation. David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages.
3. Right to the Use of the Earth. Herbert Spencer. 4 pp.
4. A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty. Hugh O. Pentecost. 2 pages.
5. A Sum in Proportion. T. L. McCready. 2 pages.
6. Settler’s Nightmare. Louis F. Post. 4 pages.
7. New York’s Docks. J. W. Sullivan. 4 pages.
8. Unemployed Labor. Henry George. 4 pages.
9. Mysterious Disappearance. Lewis Freeland. 6 pp.
10. How to Increase Profits. A. J. Steers. 2 pages.
11. The American Farmer. Henry George. 4 pages.
12. Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm. W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
13. The Collegiate Church and Shoemaker’s Field. W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.
14. Only a Dream. Abner C. Thomas. 4 pages.
15. It is the Law of Christ. Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pp.
16. My Landlord. John Jones. 4 pages.
17. “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” Henry George. 8 pages.
18. Christianity and Poverty. Father Huntington. 4 pp.
19. Poverty and Christianity. H. O. Pentecost. 8 pages. [25?]. The Single Tax. Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages. [26?]. Religion vs. Robbery. Rev. Dr. McGlynn. 8 pages.
20. Back to the Land. Bishop Nulty. 16 pages.
21. Anti-slavery and Anti-poverty. H. O. Pentecost. 8 pp.
22. Tenement House Morality. J. O. S. Huntington. 4 pp.
23. The Case Plainly Stated. H. F. Ring. 8 pages.
24. Questions by [Rev. Edward?] Henderson, with answers by Henry George. 2 pages.
25. Objections to the Land Tax. Thos. G. Shearman. 4 pp.
26. Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. Henry George. 4 pages.
27. Horse Sense. W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages.
28. Taxing Land Values. Henry George. 8 pages.
29. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages.
30. What We Want. Everett Glackin, ex-president Typographical union No. 6. 2 pages.
31. How John’s Father Saw the Light. W. C. Woods. 2 pp.
32. The Distribution of Wealth. T. G. Shearman. 16 pp.
33. Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers. Rev. John W. Kramer. 4 pages. [54?]. What the United Labor Party Want. Henry George. 2 pages.
34. Stories for Farmers. 4 pages.
35. Electoral Reform. A. T. Rice. 4 pages. [61?]. A Practical Illustration. Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages. [64?]. Hints as to What You Can Do. Henry George. 4 pp.
36. To a Bookkeeper. Bartholomew Appleby. 2 pages.
37. A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms. Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.
38. A Piece of Land. The late Francis G. Shaw. 2 pp.
39. The Tax on Buildings. William T. Croasdale. 8 pp.
40. My Butcher Woman and My Grocery Man. William McCabe. 4 pages. [78?]. Election Reform. Louis F. Post. 12 pages.
41. The Single Tax in Canada. 2 pages.
42. The Onward March. William Lloyd Garrison. 4 pp.
43. A Republican’s Reasons for Supporting Cleveland. Judge Frank T. Reid. 2 pages.
44. A Catechism. D. A. [46?]. 2 pages. [86?]. Jefferson and Hamilton. Chauncey F. Black. 8 pp.

[Advertisement] 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.

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

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[Illustration: engraving of the Coogan Brothers store, a five-story building with carts, horses and pedestrians in the street. Signs on the facade, as far as legible: “COOGAN BROTHERS” (top band); “WHOLESALE & RETAIL FURNITURE & CARPETS” (second band, partly illegible); third and fourth bands [illegible]; shop sign “125 COOGAN BRO’S 121”.]

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[Advertisement] FOR A SINGLE TAX CLUB HOUSE.

We, the undersigned, hereby agree to buy, at ($1.00) one dollar apiece, the number of Tontine shares set opposite our respective names, and pay for the same at any time as soon as the minimum number of (5,000) five thousand shares be subscribed for.

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When filled out please forward to William McCabe, [236?] East Fourteenth street, New York city.

p. 8, col. 2 bound to give justifiable offense to somebody. If we keep the prisoners in idle separate confinement, they become first sick, then melancholy, then crazy. If we set them to work at productive labor, their competition takes the bread out of the mouths of non-criminal laborers, who very naturally object to being made to suffer for the sake of punishing men who never did them any harm. If we put them to purely penal labor, such as crank turning or shot carrying, experience shows that they become brutalized to a frightful extent. And if we let them herd together in idleness they lose all discipline, and become an unmanageable mob of ruffians. A few years ago we rented out the labor of our convicts to manufacturers; more lately, we set the convicts to producing wealth for the state’s benefit under official superintendence; now, we have given that up, and keep our prisoners idle in their cells. And the prisoners are showing signs of sickness and insanity. What are we going to do about it?

Mr. Superintendent Brockway of the Elmira reformatory tells us in the December Forum what he thinks ought to be done. And Mr. Brockway’s opinion is entitled to much respect. For he is a penologist of experience and reputation. He fully appreciates the fact that the object of imprisonment is not only punishment, but reclamation. And in his conduct of the reformatory he is said to have been remarkably successful in redeeming younger criminals to honesty.

Here is Mr. Brockway’s plan, stated in his own language:

Three several specific objects are included in any proper prison labor system organized for the public welfare. First of all, the prisoner must be prepared, in his capabilities and his disposition, to subsist by honest effort in legitimate pursuits. Secondly, his labor in prison must contribute considerably toward his support. Thirdly, the products of his labor must be so marketed as to minimize the effects of competition. To attain these ends, three general conditions are required, namely: centralized control of the industrial prisons in each state, aided by mutual agreement between several states, for the control and conduct of prison labor; classification of the prisoners in each state into at least two classes, the corrigible and the incorrigible; and the employment of prisoners, mainly within the penitentiaries, at mechanical work, solely under direction of the state, without the intervention of agents commonly termed contractors.

Almost any experienced warden can, from his personal knowledge of them, easily draw up two accurate lists of his prisoners: one of such as cannot probably be now reclaimed to honesty, the other of those whom it is possible to reclaim. The incorrigibles must work for production alone, simply to pay their way, and may be employed in certain large, coarse industries which shall be monopolized by the state. If by such monopolization of an industry private interests are invaded, let the state properly compensate therefor, at the beginning, when injury can clearly be shown. The state condemns to the use of chartered railroad corporations private property, and provides the means of determining the amount of compensation due owners. Why then should not the state, when it desires itself to appropriate an industry for the general public good as concerned in the efficient management of its prisons, provide compensation for actual monetary losses thereby occasioned to individuals? It is believed that the payments to be made on a proper showing of real damages would be, or might be, inconsiderable in amount; but whether these would be large or small, the plan seems equitable, and would remove every semblance of argument against prison labor for this class of prisoners—the incorrigibles. Let the confirmed criminals, who cannot or will not be persuaded to live industriously and properly when at liberty, be compelled to contribute, by their labor, while imprisoned for crimes, toward their own support. Who will object, since nobody in particular is injured and everybody is more or less benefited? The particular labor system for these incorrigibles becomes now a matter of trifling concern; the tax payer alone is interested.

For the remainder of the criminals, the corrigible class, estimated to comprise about two-thirds of the prisoners in any state, quite different arrangements must be made with regard to employment. The purpose now is not merely profit, but rather rehabilitation. Society requires that corrigible criminals shall be fitted for freedom in the shortest time and returned to be absorbed in the orderly and provident population. If a prisoner of this selected class proves to be incorrigible he should be relegated to his proper division, to be employed in state-absorbed industries, solely for production, always provided, of course, that apparently incorrigible criminals on giving evidence of a capacity for improvement, may be assigned to the higher classification, there to receive preparation, in industries and otherwise, for their safe return to liberty. Prisoners of the corrigible class should be trained to habits of industry in the particular branches wherein they should and naturally would have been engaged, if instead of becoming criminals they had remained good citizens.

For this class of prisoners, in the more populous states, unremitting, systematic, mechanical employment is indispensable; a great diversity of occupations is required, with the same machinery and the same methods which prevail in free shops or factories; in quality of workmanship and in the daily output per man, the work of the prisoners must equal that of free laborers of like ability and experience engaged upon similar work outside of prisons; the wages paid the prisoners should also be the same, the prisoner, like the citizen, paying fairly out of his honestly earned wages for everything supplied him; and the merchandise thus produced, of equal quality and at equal cost, must be marketed as other merchandise is marketed. Then the corrigible prisoner may be allowed, and should be restricted to, the minimum volume of expenditure properly and probably required by him in his station after release; and he should also be required, out of his earnings, to contribute his proportion to maintain the indigent of his prison community, as frugal citizens contribute to the support of the dependent among them.

That such a system might be productive of singularly good results, so far as the convicts themselves are concerned, we are very willing to admit. It would be strange indeed if any class of men should fail to be improved in morals by a guarantee of never failing employment at remunerative wages. Even the incorrigible class would, it seems to us, be made somewhat less incorrigible by such organization into state protected trades unions, with absolute security against competition, strikes and lockouts. But in his zeal for the welfare and improve

p. 8, col. 3 ment of his prisoners, Mr. Brockway seems to us somewhat forgetful of the rights of the non-convicts who form the majority of the population.

If individuals have a right to monopolize the privilege of using certain portions of the earth’s surface, they have an equal right to monopolize the privilege of productive industry. Mr. Brockway evidently sees the connection between the two things, and it is to his credit that he does. If it is right for the state to compensate individuals out of the public purse, for land taken for public purposes, it can be no less right for it to compensate other individuals, in the same way, for occupations similarly appropriated. But this is not to say that both things are right, but rather that both are wrong; and to create labor monopolies, for the mere purpose of buying them out, would be simply to add another public robbery to the one already existing. Moreover, who is to be recognized as entitled to payment—the employers or the employed? There would be a queer stir if that proposition should ever come to be seriously discussed.

As for Mr. Brockway’s plan for the corrigible prisoners, it may be sufficient to note that, were it adopted, there would be few more promising careers open to the average American youth than the serving of a twenty-years’ term in state prison. He would go in, say, at twenty; he would have steady employment at good wages for twenty-five years; he would be kept out of the way of temptation; he would have excellent food, clothing and shelter, with the best of medical attendance when ill; he would live, perforce, a life of virtuous frugality, putting by money all the time; he would get the best sort of religious instruction and plenty of good books to read; he would have nothing to worry him, and he would come back to the world at forty-five with robust health, with confirmed good habits, with an appetite for pleasure not dulled, but bridled, and with capital sufficient to start in a business which he would have thoroughly learned. If Mr. Brockway could get an institution started on that system and call it a Familistere, or a united protective association, instead of a state prison, he could charge a premium for admission and fill the institution in a month. But it would be pretty rough on the unfortunates who couldn’t afford to enter.

No, Mr. Superintendent Brockway. You came pretty near seeing the truth when you talked about buying out industry franchises; but elsewise you are fearfully astray. So long as some men are allowed to monopolize the privilege of utilizing natural opportunities, so long will the privilege of labor continue to be a boon to be begged, or a franchise to be bought. And honest men who have to struggle in fierce competition for permission to employ their brains and muscles in production will never cease to protest against the bestowal, on men convicted of dishonesty, of a right of which they themselves are robbed.

So the paradox comes up again. The Sphinx repeats her riddle: “What are you going to do about it?” Well, what are we going to do about it?

WHAT IT COSTS TO DRESS AN AMERICAN GIRL.

Clothes, as Carlyle’s ingenious professor of things in general long since pointed out, have a considerably higher mission than the mere protection of the human body from the scorching sun or the freezing blast. They are a part of society, just as stamps are a part of the postal system; and as the one-cent engraving that suffices for a pound of newspapers bound to Alaska would be out of place and useless on the letter addressed to somebody across the way, so the clothes that would be in every way suitable for Asbury Park or Ocean Grove during the bathing season, would attract attention and censure if worn at a meeting of the society for the regeneration of the heathen by the distribution of moral pocket handkerchiefs and tracts. Especially is this true of female clothing. As there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, so is there one style of dress for the young woman confessing herself a miserable sinner in church, and another, totally different, for the same young woman approving herself a remarkably happy sinner at a ball, and still a third, when she stands up to be united in the bonds of matrimony to another sinner of the male persuasion. The young lady’s dress is an index to her thoughts and momentary occupation; and by a simple inspection of her costume, the expert in such matters can tell whether she is going to take her mistress’s baby out for an airing in the perambulator, or waiting for a gentleman to accompany her to the Patriarchs’ ball.

What does it cost to dress a young woman? Not a European aristocrat, of course—that’s different. Those purple blooded females are kept in stock for the admiration and occupation of the ordinary red blooded vulgar herd, and have of course to be dressed up accordingly. But the plain every day democratic American girl, with the every day sort of venous and arterial circulation—what does it cost to dress her? This is an interesting question, and an important one too. Because if the ordinary American girl’s ordinary American papa knows authoritatively how much it ought to cost him to dress his ordinary American daughter, he can judge whether his ordinary American income is adequate to the expense, and, if necessary, insist on having his wages raised, or apply to congress for more protection for his industry. If a thousand dollars a year is enough to provide a girl with the necessary changes of raiment, it is well to know it, and keep her within that limit. If [$5,000?] a year is necessary, it’s well to know that too. “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead,” should be the motto of the happy American workingman in settling his daughter’s dress allowance. General Harrison’s apophthegm about cheap coats and cheap men applies to either sex. Surely no American carpenter or bricklayer wants to have a cheap daughter.

A Herald reporter has been wrestling with this question, and publishes the result of his perquisitions in a recent issue of that paper. Like a sensible man, he went to headquarters for information. Wanting to know the cost of dressing a young woman, he went to a young woman and got a statement in detail. What he learned cannot be better told than in his own words. It will be understood that he is interviewing his young lady informant:

I have a very nice wardrobe this year, and it cost papa just [$3,6??]. When we came home from Europe I brought just two Paris dresses, because, don’t you know, if you can’t say, “Some of my things are imported,” you are really nobody. One was a perfect love of a ball dress, you know. I wore it the other night, that pale yellow tulle, all embroidered in silver, with the big yellow sash and satin bodice. It looked very simple, but it cost me [$500?], and then papa had lots of duty to pay on it. It was made from a special design and the design destroyed, so that it could not be duplicated.

Then I brought over a carriage dress. I haven’t worn it yet—I’m waiting until the other girls wear theirs, then I shall come out in mine. It was quite a cheap gown; only cost [$150?]. It is in four shades of fawn and of silk and velvet, made in one of those long directoire redingotes that are so much worn, with a sash of crimson. It was made for the Princess Somebody, I believe, but she would not pay her last bill, so they sold it to me for half price. You need not say anything about that, though.”

Here she paused for a moment, and I asked her if her dresses were as costly as those of the Misses de Patteur up the avenue.

“I should hope so! Why, those girls employ a $5 dressmaker and do all the plain sewing themselves and their father dresses the whole five of them on [$3,000?] a year! I do not think I am at all extravagant, but I could not dress on [$500?] a year.”

Then we came back to the subject of her clothes and what they cost.

“Some sweet little dancing gowns, one for each of the Delmonico balls, only cost me $100 each. I have a specially nice one for the Patriarchs to-morrow—a white silk crepe lisse, with an accordion pleated skirt all tucked with white satin ribbon, and a jardiniere of lilies of the valley down one side and about the waist of the brocade, and an empire sash of cloth of silver. Ghormley made that.

“Then there is one for the new year’s ball of light red Brussels net, all caught up with tiny black humming birds, and one for the last assembly, of rose pink gauze, made a la Grecque—awfully sweet gown! I have just seven of them. I need a fresh one for each ball, you know, and then I wear each one four or five times at small dances and the opera and dinners. With my imported dress that makes only eight ball dresses—not at all extravagant, do you think?”

After assuring her that I would not do such a thing, we proceeded.

“Well, you see, I needed two new street costumes, so I went down to Redfern, and he turned me out two beauties for [$150?] each, both with hats and jackets to match. One is that dark green and black cloth gown that fits like a glove. I wore it yesterday, you remember—big buttons down the front and long, strait flaps to the polonaise. Directoire, you know. Everything is directoire and empire this year. I have a plain cloth jacket with that and a little velvet toque, with a prince’s feather in it. This blue cloth, touched up with the silver braid, is the other dress. I wear it with a long boa.”

But when I asked about the coat to go with it I was informed that none was required, because the gown was lined all through with chamois skin, and was as warm as a sealskin without the bulk of the latter. So do not imagine when you see one of your feminine friends walking about without a jacket, and the thermometer down to zero, that she is silently freezing. She isn’t. If she hasn’t a chamois lining to her dress she has one of cotton batting; but this latter only in case she is very thin, when it serves a twofold purpose of giving her warmth and rounding out her angles.

“My tea gowns were marvellously cheap. You know that green and pink brocade, all bordered with humming birds’ wings, so bizarre?” continued my tutor. “Well, I only paid [$82?] for that. A perfect bargain I call it. Then I have that morning dress of pink and white flannel made Marguerite fashion and the one of pearl gray cashmere. They cost me [$30?] each. I had them made at home. I should like two more tea gowns. I hear one of the Van Vantry girls has seven, but I can not afford it this year, shoes and stockings cost so much, you know.”

It was quite shocking to hear that ball slippers of satin were $12 a pair, and you could pay more for them if you wished. Swell walking shoes, with patent leather tips, were either [$5?] or [$8?] and house slippers [$3?], and as for silken stockings, [$3?] and $4 were the prices always paid for plain ones, and I was told

p. 8, col. 5 you could dance a hole in the heels in one evening without much trouble.

A church dress is quite necessary. It is the fashion to be very plain at church, and the women, I believe, try to see who can dress the plainest. A black alpaca, with a very quiet short seal jacket or a cloth with scroll braid, is the correct thing, and a small velvet or cloth bonnet, without strings. This rig, without the sacque, can be procured for something like $50.

Furs form quite an important item. My debutante said every one had to have a fur wrap of some kind, that short sealskins cost $150, shoulder capes $50 and $75, sable ones $150, and monkey skins and beavers $22, so I decided on the monkey skin, with a muff for $5. As for these long boas that look like boa constrictors, they come at all prices, from $5 for a Russian hair up to $500 for one of finest Russian sable. Mrs. Astor, I learned, wore a $4,000 sable garment when she felt like it.

“A pretty opera cloak is very necessary,” said my debutante, after we had wandered away from the furs. “I have a Red Riding Hood one this winter, made out of cardinal cloth and lined with swan’s down. It cost $53. My cousin Lulu has one of silver brocade, lined with azure and edged with black fur. Her’s cost $70, I think. You can get an opera cloak for very little if you wish; and as for gloves, I only wear two dozen pairs a winter, and at $3 each they scarcely count; but for ruchings and handkerchiefs and lingerie I spend about $50 a year on each of them.”

“Is the summer expensive?” I asked.

“Expensive!” she echoed, “why, I hope you don’t think me expensive.” I spend more on my summer clothes, of course. You see there are new Easter dresses to get, and for Newport it is absolutely necessary to have two lace gowns, four or six of silk mousseline, crepe, gauze and similar fluffy materials, and they all cost so much, just for the material. Even a plain white mull, the way they are made with ribbons and lace, costs about $50. You cannot get a fashionable modiste to make a gown under $20, and most of them charge double that amount. Four serge, cashmere and flannel dresses, two of pique, three of satteen and parasols and hats to match each one is about what one needs. Of course if you wear white you can do with less.

“I get two riding habits—one for summer and one for winter wear. They are both made of Melton cloth, and cost me $100 each, with [$50?] extra for a covert jacket. The two will last me three years I expect.”

“Anything else?” I asked, feeling my heart faint.

“Oh, yes! Hairpins. They are pretty expensive now. Real tortoise shell ones cost $1 each, and then a Japanese dressing gown and veils and hat pins and all those little things.”

I went down to my club and made out this little bill:

Two imported ball gowns………. [$450?] Six home made ball gowns………. [600?] Two street dresses………. 300 Tea gown………. 82 Two house dresses………. [60?] Two pairs satin shoes………. 24 Two pairs walking boots………. [10?] Three pairs house slippers………. 6 Church dress………. 50 Monkey skin furs………. [27?] Opera cloak………. [53?] Ruchings, handkerchiefs and lingerie………. 150 Hairpins………. 10 Total………. $1,822 Ditto for summer clothes………. 1,822 Grand total………. [$3,644?]

And so we know all about it. If you want your daughter to be dressed as an ordinary, self-respecting American girl should be dressed, it will cost you between [$3,000?] and $4,000 a year. If you are willing to sacrifice some of the self respect, employ “a five-dollar dressmaker,” and let your daughter do her own plain sewing. It can be done for [$50?] a month; but you must expect to be talked about. The Herald reporter’s investigation is all very well, as far as it goes, but it leaves some matters in painful uncertainty. There is that five-dollar dressmaker—how does she get along? Does she spend [$3,600?] a year on her dress, or only [$600?]; and where does she get it? But perhaps she is only a pauper laborer, recently landed from Europe, and not yet awakened to a proper sense of self respect.

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