The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 1, by Various
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Title: The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 1
March 1906
Author: Various
Release Date: April 26, 2010 [EBook #32147]
Language: English
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THE SCRAP BOOK.
Vol. I. MARCH, 1906. No. 1.
Something New in Magazine Making.
THE SCRAP BOOK will be the most elastic thing that ever happened, in the
way of a magazine--elastic enough to carry anything from a tin whistle to
a battle-ship. This elasticity is just what we should have in
magazine-making, but it is precisely what we do not have and cannot have
in the conventional magazine, such, for example, as _The Century_,
_Harper's_, MUNSEY'S, and _McClure's_.
A certain standard has grown up for these magazines that gives the editor
comparatively little latitude. Custom has decreed that they shall carry
nothing but original matter, and that it shall be dignified and
tremendously magaziny--so magaziny, in fact, that often it is as juiceless
as a dried lemon.
To republish, in successive issues of a magazine of this type, a
considerable proportion of the gems of the past, or the best things
printed in current publications, or to swing away recklessly from
convention in the illustrations and make-up, would be to switch the
magazine out of its class and into some other which the public would not
accept as standard.
In THE SCRAP BOOK we shall be bounded by no such restrictions, no
restrictions of any kind that come within the scope of good journalism.
With our average of two hundred pages of reading matter, we shall carry
the biggest cargo of real, human-interest reading matter that has ever
been carried by any magazine in the wide world.
In size alone it will be from forty to eighty pages larger than the
standard magazines, and by reason of the fact that its space is not taken
up by illustrations, and that we use a smaller, though perfectly distinct
type, the number of words in THE SCRAP BOOK will be a good deal more than
double that contained in these other magazines.
With such a vast amount and such a wide variety of reading, there is
something in THE SCRAP BOOK for every human being who knows how to read
and cares at all to read. Everything that appeals to the human brain and
human heart will come within the compass of THE SCRAP BOOK--fiction, which
is the backbone of periodical circulation; biography, review, philosophy,
science, art, poetry, wit, humor, pathos, satire, the weird, the
mystical--everything that can be classified and everything that cannot be
classified. A paragraph, a little bit, a saying, an editorial, a joke, a
maxim, an epigram--all these will be comprised in the monthly budget of
THE SCRAP BOOK. We are starting off with four good serial stories, and
next month another will be added, and then another, so that we can
maintain an average of six.
There isn't anything in the world just like THE SCRAP BOOK--nothing, in
fact, that compares with it at all. There are review magazines, and small
weekly reviews, and there are, or have been, eclectic magazines; but never
before has anything been attempted on the scale and magnitude of this
magazine. It is an idea on which we have been working for several years,
and for which we have been gathering materials. We have bought hundreds
and hundreds of scrap books from all over the country, some of them a
century old, and are still buying them. From these books we are gathering
and classifying an enormous number of gems, and facts and figures, and
historical and personal bits that are of rare value.
Furthermore, we have a corps of people ransacking libraries, reading all
the current publications, the leading daily papers, and digging out
curious and quaint facts and useful facts and figures from reference
books, cyclopedias, etc., etc.
This first number is but the beginning of what we have in mind for THE
SCRAP BOOK. It is so voluminous in the number of its words, and so varied
in its subjects, that in arrangement and matter it necessarily falls short
of the perfected magazine at which we are aiming. Our purpose, in a word,
is to give more first-rate reading, on a wide variety of subjects, for our
great big eighty millions of people than has ever before been presented in
any single periodical, and to give this magazine at the people's
price--the nimble dime.
FRANK A. MUNSEY.
The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While
James J. Hill Warns America of Dangers that Threaten Her
Future--Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Avebury Deal
with the Questions of the Day in England--Dr. Martin
Predicts a Great Awakening in China--Governor Folk Foresees
the Downfall of "Graft"--Lewis Nixon Speaks of What He Saw
in Russia--Dr. Osler Explains His Philosophy of
Life--Russell Sage Gives Some Practical Advice--With Other
Striking Expressions of Opinion from People of National or
International Reputation.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
THE COMING TEST OF AMERICAN RESOURCES.
James J. Hill, Seeing Trouble Ahead,
Warns His Fellow Countrymen That
There Are Dangers to Be Met.
At last James J. Hill--the silent railroad king of the Northwest, has
given us his full and free opinion on the business policy of the United
States. Throughout his long career it has been his plan to "say nothing
and saw wood." He has been too busy to talk. The man who plunges into a
dense wilderness, as he did, and transforms it into four or five
prosperous States, has no time to run a public opinion factory.
But recently, while at a gathering of his friends in St. Paul, Mr. Hill
unlocked his tongue and spoke out. It was a remarkable address, made by a
remarkable man, and the meat of it was as follows:
The nation at large feels that it is immensely prosperous.
We are cutting a wide swath; there is no doubt of it. But if
we will get down closer and examine what we are doing, we
will find that we are living profligately and squandering
our heritage in every possible manner.
We should insist upon better cultivation of the land. For on
that one item depends your future growth and prosperity, and
there is no other item to which you can look; no other
source of wealth than that which comes out of the
cultivation of the soil.
If the soil is protected, if it is intelligently handled, if
your crops are properly rotated, if the land is fertilized
and rested and treated with proper care, you have a mine in
the soil that will never be exhausted; quite unlike the
other mine.
The millions and hundreds of millions of dollars coming into
the Northwest from the annual crops, while it is large,
isn't half as large as it ought to be.
Our Free Lands Are Gone.
Our public domain is exhausted. Last year over a million
people came from across the Atlantic to the United States,
and the natural increase certainly is a million and a half
more. What is to become of these people? They are to be
driven fairly into the factories and workshops and no place
else.
They can leave our country and go to the Canadian Northwest,
as many have gone. But that country will be populated to its
extent very soon, much sooner than you think. It has not an
unlimited area.
Try and cast your mind twenty or twenty-five years ahead. At
that time we should have one hundred and fifty or one
hundred and sixty millions of people. Where are they going?
Who is going to feed them? They can manufacture. We have
the raw material. We have the coal and the iron and the
copper and the lead. They can manufacture. Who will buy it?
We have got to a point where we are selling our heritage; we
are selling our rich deposits of iron and our coal and our
rich soil, and exhausting it as well.
People of other countries are exercising the utmost, closest
intelligence in everything that pertains to economy in
production. Take, for instance, the German nation to-day,
and they lead the world or any period in the history of the
world in industrial intelligence and industrial management.
Competition Grows Fiercer.
I was in England in November, and met a sad sight--Trafalgar
Square filled with idle people, large numbers of idle people
asking for bread up around Hyde Park. Why? The men who carry
on the work, who paid the pay-rolls, are no longer engaged
in the business.
What they had they have turned into money, and have bought
securities or something else, trying to save what they have
got.
In the west of England, which was a great center of
broadcloth manufacturing and of woolen goods, their output
is less than a quarter of what it was twenty-five years ago.
Germany is selling cutlery in Sheffield.
And I took pains to look around London, and to walk into the
shops and find out. I couldn't buy a pair of lisle-thread
gloves that were not made in Germany. Underclothing,
stockings, cloth, almost everything made in Germany. They
have a system of education in Germany. They educate their
men.
Now I am not going to undertake to say that their way is
better than ours, but I want to impress this on you, that
when this country has a hundred and fifty million people
they have got to do something; they have got to earn a
living.
Who will buy the goods? Who will employ them? In what shape
are they to meet the competition that England is meeting
to-day? And a million and a half of idle men asking for
bread in England, and no bread for them except such as
charity doles out. They have got to be carried out of Great
Britain and a new place found for them. There is no other
solution.
It is all well enough to talk about what we are doing.
Examine it closely and you will find that we are doing
nothing except selling our natural resources and exhausting
them. When you dig a ton of ore out of the ground you can't
plant another ton, as you could potatoes; it is gone. And
when the fertility of our fields, the fertility of the soil
is gone, where are we going to replace it from?
Teach the Boys to Work.
I am not going to find fault with education; it never hurt
anybody. But if, in place of spending so much time and so
much money on languages and higher studies, we fitted them
for the life that they are going to follow, for the sphere
in which they are going to move, we would do more for them.
I know that in two or three, more or less, railroads in
which I am interested, the pay-rolls cover eighty to ninety
thousand people. We have tried all manner of young
men--college men, high-school men, and everything else--and
I will take a boy at fifteen years old who has to make a
living--his chances will be better if he has to contribute
to the support of a widowed mother--I will take him and make
a man of him, and get him in the first place, before you
would get most of the others to enter the race with him;
simply because he has to work. He has to work, he has the
spur of necessity; he must work.
If there be anything that you can do, I feel sure that you
will all put your hands to the plow and help; but you will
never build a city faster than you have a country to support
it. And that is the first and the most important thing.
FREE TRADE IS VITAL TO GREAT BRITAIN.
Sir Henry Fowler Says that an Import
Tax Upon Food Would Be Ruinous
to the English People.
Free Trade, which has been the policy of England for sixty years, is again
on trial, and the battle waxes fierce. There is a growing effort to work
in the thin wedge of "a moderate tariff, not protective but defensive,"
but the opposition are fighting it with every weapon in their armory of
protest. England to-day is not self-supporting, her rural industries have
been declining for years, and the country receives from abroad the far
larger quantity of its food and raw material.
Thirty per cent of the people are underfed and on the verge of hunger.
Thirty per cent of forty-one millions comes to over twelve millions.
This significant statement comes from the lips of Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the new English premier, in a speech against the
proposal for preferential tariffs with the colonies, at Perth, on June 5,
1903. Three years has not changed the situation for the better.
Winston Churchill, M.P., puts the situation thus:
The mass of people are absolutely dependent for the food
they eat and the material they employ upon supplies of food
and raw material which reach them mainly from abroad. They
are dependent on the condition of a crop at one end of the
world and the state of a market at the other; and yet, upon
this artificial foundation, through this inestimable
advantage of unfettered enterprise and of unrestricted
sea-communication, they have been able to build up a vast
industrial fabric which it is no exaggeration to say is the
economic marvel of the world.
In 1904, the amount of merchandise brought into the United Kingdom was
nearly $2,740,000,000. For thirty years England's imports have been
rapidly increasing, while her exports, comparatively speaking, have
remained stationary. The situation can be put in a way readily appreciated
by Americans if we realize that the entire British Isles are smaller than
New Mexico, and yet contain about half as many people as are in the United
States.
It is the foreign trade of Great Britain that is claimed to be the
salvation of the nation. In 1904 this amounted to over $4,600,000,000, and
last year, the figures for which have not yet been published, was the
greatest in oversea trade in the history of the nation.
Sir Henry Fowler, a leader of the Liberals, said, in a recent speech:
The question of free trade is the greatest which has been
before the country for the past half century. The young men
of to-day are absolutely ignorant. They do not know what it
means and the issues it involves. If the great system of
free trade were interfered with, if the attempt were
successful which is being made to reverse the policy of the
past sixty years on which the overwhelming bulk of political
economists were united, I foretell for this country a time
of the greatest disaster. All classes would suffer,
especially the working class.
Dealing with the question of exports and imports, he pointed out:
Eighty per cent of what came into Great Britain represented
raw material necessary for manufactures and food necessary
for the people. Therefore the prosperity of this country
depends, not upon its exports, but upon its imports. We are
free-traders, not for the injury it does others, but in our
own interests. It is to our advantage to buy cheap. Our
greatest import is food and the next raw material. We can
only pay by our own manufactures.
ENGLAND'S DEFENSES, AND WHAT THEY COST.
It Is Not Military Strength That Makes a
Country Great, Says Lord Avebury,
but the Right Use of Power.
That the burden of armament lies heavy on Europe is well understood. It is
not so commonly known that in the last ten years the cost of army and navy
has increased much more rapidly in Great Britain than in any country of
the Continent. The fact is brought out in the _Nineteenth Century_ by Lord
Avebury, who is better known to Americans as Sir John Lubbock. He says:
In our own case there has been on the army an increase in
the past ten years of £24,800,000, and on the navy an
increase of £25,000,000; or, taking the two together, in
round figures an increase of no less than £50,000,000, of
which, however, only £39,000,000 is shown in the ordinary
estimates. In other words, while Italy has increased her
naval and military expenditures by £1,500,000; Russia,
£10,800,000; Germany, £8,700,000, and France, £6,000,000, we
have increased ours £50,000,000. Thus these four great
countries put together show an increase of £27,000,000,
while ours by itself is £50,000,000, or nearly double that
of Russia, Germany, France, and Italy put together. What
justification have we for this enormous increase?
I do not wish to exaggerate, nor to maintain that we are
going down-hill. But our progress has been checked, and if
we are not wise in time worse will follow.
Lord Avebury's political opponents would argue that the British military
expenditures have been exceptional because the Boer War proved the
country unprepared for any great military undertaking, and necessitated
elaborate efforts. However, the figures are startling, and give point to
Lord Avebury's conclusion:
We sometimes hear of "Little Englanders." I hope we shall
not let ourselves be stung into extravagance and war by any
such taunt. There are many who have strong views as to what
constitutes the true greatness of a country. It is not
wealth, but the application of it; not the numbers of the
people, but their character and wellbeing; not the strength,
but the use made of it. We do not wish for England the
dangerous power of dictation or the seductive glamour of
conquest, but that our people may be happy and contented;
that we may do what we can to promote the peace, progress,
and prosperity of mankind, and that we may deserve, even if
we do not secure, the respect, the confidence, and the
good-will of other nations.
Being once more happily at peace with all the world, our
financial policy should be to reduce expenditure, pay off
debt, increase our reserves, and lighten the taxes which now
press so heavily on the springs of industry.
THE CHEERY OPTIMISM OF LITTLE JAPAN.
A Nippon Statesman Tells How the
Britain of the East Looks Hopefully
to New Horizons.
The Japanese are winning fresh admiration for the cheerful optimism with
which they face the perplexing financial conditions following the war. In
the _Forum_ for January, Baron Shibuzawa expresses a sentiment general
among Japanese statesmen:
It would be out of tune with all things, for us, at this
hour, to be looking upon financial Japan after the war with
a sad eye. Nevertheless, as we are well aware of the
disturbances which the war has brought to our finances, we
must look to the best possible measures for restoring to
health and prosperity what the war has disturbed. That is
all. But the war and its conclusion have brought us one very
great and precious gift, namely, it has admitted us into the
household of the great economic world. In a word, it has
given a wider horizon to the economic circle of Nippon, and
has brought us into the very heart of the comity and
exchange of the economic interests of all human kind; and
has linked us, in a sense hitherto unknown to us, with the
markets of the world.
THE GREAT AWAKENING OF THE CHINESE GIANT.
Are China's Four Hundred Millions Preparing
Themselves to Turn Against
the Western Nations?
Dr. W.A.P. Martin, who has been identified with China since 1850, and
whose least statement about that country is authoritative, gives some
interesting and important facts in the _World's Work_ with reference to
how the sleeping Chinese giant is awakening. Referring to the work of
Chang, Viceroy of central China, Dr. Martin says:
The banks of the river in front of his capital, Wuchang, are
lined for miles with cotton mills, hempworks, silk
filatures, glassworks, iron foundries, and powder-mills,
whose high chimneys proclaim the coming war. When China can
supply her own markets, foreign steamers will cease to
ascend the Yang-tse-Kiang.
In view of the fact that China's educational system was established more
than twenty-five hundred years before Christ, and that up to only a few
months ago the official examinations were restricted exclusively to
subjects relating to China's literature and history, what Dr. Martin tells
us of the rapid growth of schoolhouses is surprising and significant.
Going within the walls, we are struck by the great number of
fine schoolhouses in foreign style that rise above the huts
of the natives. Our clever viceroy knows that the industrial
arts have their root in science and that science must be
taught in schools. He thus proclaims from the housetops his
gospel of the new education. He has embodied it in a book of
rhymes, which are sung by his soldiers to the beat of the
drum, and committed to memory by all the school children in
a population of fifty millions. The following are some of
his sounding periods:
We pride ourselves on our antiquity, But foreign nations
ridicule our weakness. Knowledge is power. What but their
newly acquired knowledge Enabled the Japanese to gain the
victory over us And win for themselves a place Among the
great powers of the earth? Over against their three small
islands Have we not a vast territory with four hundred
millions? If we of the yellow race learn to stand together
Where is the nation that will dare to molest us?
The empress dowager and all her grandees have become converts
to Chang's new gospel. Not merely has she reenacted the
emperor's ordinance for the establishment of graded schools
in all the provinces--ousting the idols and using their
temples for want of houses--she has cut down the annual
expenses of her theatrical troupe to one-third and devoted
the other two-thirds to the erection of schoolhouses.
Teachers for these Chinese schools are being largely provided by the
normal colleges in Japan, which contain over four thousand Chinese
students, including both sexes. Such, at least, is the claim of another
recent writer upon the Chinese awakening; this time a Japanese, Adachi
Kinnosuke.
WE MUST HAVE EQUAL LAWS FOR ALL.
But Every Law Looks Blue to the Man
Who Wants to Break It, Says
Governor Folk, of Missouri.
Governor Joseph W. Folk, who became the most popular man in Missouri
because he dared to enforce the laws without fear or favor, until lately
has been too busy putting grafters in jail to talk about his work. But in
a speech which he made the other day in Boston, he told pretty clearly
what he is aiming at. He said:
The trust manager defies the laws of the State against
combinations and monopolies, and then calls for the
protection of the State for his property.
The dram-shop keeper wants the law enforced against the man
who robs his cash-drawer, but thinks he has a right to break
the law requiring his saloon to close on Sunday.
The burglar detests the law-breaking of the trust, but
considers the statute against housebreaking as an
interference with his personal liberty.
Governor Folk thinks that King Graft has just about come to the end of his
reign:
Wealth is not worshiped with the same devotion it used to
be. A new standard has been established; new, yet old--just
honesty; that is all. The remedy for corruption has been
found in the hearts of the American people.
RUSSIA WILL ADVANCE, SAYS LEWIS NIXON.
With the Birth of Democracy and Industrialism,
a New Day Will Dawn
For the Great Slavonic People.
Lewis Nixon, who has been suggesting plans for the reconstruction of the
Russian navy, believes that democracy is the proper medicine for the
Czar's distracted country. The people have been dwarfed by despotism, he
says, but they are now making wonderful progress in manufacturing and
opening up their enormous country. In a recent interview, Mr. Nixon says:
Russia needs two things to enable her to feed the rest of
Europe--cheap money and cheap transportation.
With railroad enterprise, such as that of J.J. Hill, lower
Russia and southwestern Siberia could raise wheat for the
world. But I believe that with the adoption of the new idea
of participation of the people in the government so
sincerely determined upon by the emperor, Russia will settle
down to tranquilly building up the empire and developing the
arts of peace instead of the arts of war.
The great difficulty in the Russian form of government is to
find great men equal to the task of carrying it on. Public
life, as we know it, has not existed there.
With the institution of the Douma, the strong men are bound
to make themselves felt, and the results will be that the
Czar will not lack for competent advisers and
administrators.
I am convinced that as soon as the Douma gets going
thoroughly a new day will dawn for Russia and her people.
There is bound to be wonderful commercial development, and
with this will come an awakening of intelligence and
exercise of limited constitutional government, which is
bound to result in peace and tranquillity and the
restoration of Russia to her high place among the powers of
the world.
DR. OSLER IN HIS MORE CHEERFUL PHASE.
Some Pet Philosophies of the Famous
Physician Whose View on the Age-Limit
Is Not His Only Idea.
When Dr. William Osler admitted his belief that man is fit for creative
intellectual work only up to his fortieth year he gained an undeserved
reputation for grimness. The age-limit theory is but one of many that he
has formed on various subjects. In his book, "Counsels and Ideals," are
many genial expressions of a ripe observation. Here is his advice as to
"work":
How can you take the greatest possible advantage with the
least possible strain? By cultivating system. I say
cultivating advisedly, since some of you will find the
acquisition of systematic habits very hard. There are minds
congenitally systematic; others have a life-long fight
against an inherited tendency to diffusiveness and
carelessness in work.
To counteract "the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the
non-essentials" he advises each of us to "consume his own smoke."
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence
the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity,
and consume your own smoke with an extra draft of hard work,
so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and
soot of your complaints. More than any other the
practitioner of medicine may illustrate the great lesson
that we are here not to get all we can out of life for
ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happy....
Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the
rough places of life, but will enable you to bring comfort
and help to the weak-hearted, and will console you in the
sad hours when, like _Uncle Toby_, you have "to whistle that
you may not weep."
Of the end of life, speaking both as a physician and as a philosopher, he
says:
With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but it is
commonly no easy matter to get out of it, Sir Thomas Browne says; and,
having regard to the uncertainties of the last stage of all, the average
man will be of Cæsar's opinion, who, when questioned at his last
dinner-party as to the most preferable mode of death, replied, "That which
is the most sudden."
I have careful records of about five hundred death-beds, studied
particularly with reference to the modes of death and the sensations of
the dying. The latter alone concern us here. Ninety suffered bodily pain
and distress of one sort or another, eleven showed mental apprehension,
two positive terror, one expressed spiritual exaltation, one bitter
remorse. The great majority gave no sign one way or the other; like their
birth, their death was "a sleep and a forgetting." The preacher was right:
in this matter man hath no preeminence over the beast--as the one dieth,
so dieth the other.
PRACTICAL TRAINING FOR NATIONAL GUARD.
Good Soldiers Must Know How to Shoot
Straight and How to Handle Themselves
in the Field.
A large delegation of members of the Interstate National Guard Association
was received by the President on January 22d. He strongly impressed
certain practical recommendations in regard to the training of both
militia and regular army. Parade-ground marching and tactical maneuvers
are, he said, nowhere near as important as training which will make men
good soldiers in time of war, and he continued:
As war is carried on nowadays, ninety per cent of the
ordinary work done either on the parade ground or in the
armory, either by a militia regiment or a regular regiment,
amounts to nothing whatever in the way of training except so
far as the incidental effect it has in accustoming the men
to act together and to obey; but they are not going to fight
shoulder to shoulder when they get out into the field. It is
absolutely not of the slightest consequence what their
alignment is, but it is of vital consequence that they shall
know how to take cover, how to shoot, and how to make
themselves at home under any circumstances.
THE NEGRO'S CHANCE IN THE SOUTH.
Booker T. Washington, the Negro
Educator, of Tuskegee, Pleads the
Right of His Race to Work.
Speaking of the future of the people of his race, President Booker T.
Washington says in the _American Illustrated Magazine_:
Whatever special difficulties the negro has to face,
whatever obstacles race prejudice or his own history may
place in his way, the negro, under freedom, has the right to
work, at least in the South, and work for the best things
the world offers. He has the opportunity to make himself
useful and to share the benefits that his genius and his
labor confer on those around him. That is, it seems to me,
what emancipation means, in practise, to the negro. That is,
after all, nearly all that it could mean.
THE DISADVANTAGES OF COEDUCATION.
Mrs. Craigie Declares It Makes Girls
Overbearing and Converts Boys
Into Dandies or Weaklings.
Mrs. Craigie, better known to the literary world as John Oliver Hobbes, is
an American woman who has spent many years in England. On her recent visit
to her native land she gave her impressions of English life. Her keen
observation, deepened and intensified by her life on two continents, and
her wide and close association with great thinkers, lend weight to any
subject upon which she expresses her opinions. She finds but two
objections to coeducation: one is its effect on the boys, and the other on
the girls.
Coeducation, she says, is not so dangerous to the working
classes as to those of higher rank. The English working
classes are a very sane lot, and, besides, the sexes seem
better balanced among them than in the higher classes. In
the board schools it may serve well enough, but in the
higher classes coeducation is impossible. It is not only the
girls that are to be considered. Coeducation not only makes
English girls tomboys, overbearing and feverish in the
pursuit of their masculine schoolmates, but it also has a
very bad effect upon the boys. The boys, being inevitably
outnumbered, five to one, either become silly little
dandies, ruling a feminine court, or are tyrannized over by
the girls until their spirits are broken and their ambition
destroyed. All they care for is comfort.
It is dreadful that young boys should be cowed in this way
and become submissive to their girl schoolmates, and yet
even sturdy boys must bow to superior numbers, and twenty
weak and sickly girls may tyrannize over four or five boys.
Mrs. Craigie's view seems to harmonize with that of Dr. G. Stanley Hall,
president of Clark University, and one of America's greatest educators. In
discussing higher education in this country, he says it reduces the rate
of both marriage and offspring, so that barely three-fourths of our male
graduates and only about half of our female graduates marry, and those who
do so, marry late and have few children. In an article contributed to
MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE, he says:
Recent studies show that a large per cent of girls actually
wish they were boys. Their ideals grow masculine, and we
seem slowly to be developing a female sex without a female
character. So far have the actions against the old restraint
gone that feminists still regard every effort to
differentiate as endangering a relapse to old conditions.
Again, the rapid feminization of our schools encourages
women teachers to give their own masculine traits and ideals
free rein.
Once more, girls' manners are roughened, and they do not
develop pride in distinctively feminine qualities, or the
grace and charm of their young womanhood, or lack a little
respect for their sex. Girls have much responsibility in
bestowing the stimulus of their approval aright. It is said
that association with boys makes high-school girls less
poetic, impulsive, romantic, their conduct more thoughtful,
but I maintain, women teachers to the contrary
notwithstanding, that this is unfortunate; that something is
wrong with the girl in the middle teens who is not gushy or
sentimental, at least at times.
So it is said that the presence of girls is humanizing for
boys, but there is something wrong with the boy at this age
who can truly be called a perfect gentleman. I do not like
to urge that he should be a little rowdy or barbaric, but
vigor must not be sacrificed to primness, and masculinity at
this age does not normally take a high polish. Nature impels
boys to get away, in certain respects, from girls and women,
whoever they are. Some suffer subtle eviration, while others
react, with coarseness toward femininity, if held in too
close quarters with girls.
THE LATE PRESIDENT HARPER AND HIS WORK.
Appreciations of the Man Who Built Up
Out of a Fresh-Water College the
Great University of Chicago.
The proposed monument to the late President William Rainey Harper of the
University of Chicago is to take the form of a library building. Thus will
be fittingly suggested the practical trend of his life, in which
scholarship was joined with utilitarianism. So businesslike were this
educator's methods in building up a great university upon the foundation
of a provincial college that he was severely criticized for the seeming
incongruity between his aims and the means he used. And yet, as the New
York _Evening Post_ has said:
Whatever may be thought of his policies, his personality now
appears in a fine and heroic light. No one can consider the
admirable fortitude and self-forgetting equanimity he
displayed in his long and hopeless fight against pain and
death, without perceiving that here was a heroic soul, to
which epithets borrowed from trade had no proper
application.
As his administration proceeded along the golden way laid by
Mr. Rockefeller, it became evident that President Harper
faced all problems as new problems, and that his optimism
admitted no difficulties. When it was discovered that the
University of Chicago lacked college life and spirit,
college life and spirit were straightway improvised, or at
least encouraged, by the appointment of a famous athlete to
the faculty, and later by the building of dormitories. No
detail of university life escaped him. If he lacked some of
the finer sympathies and perceptions that go to make the
ideal university president, he was a figure instinct with
vital energy, ingenious and resourceful in all matters--in
its qualities and defects thoroughly American and of our
time. The present, in which he lived by preference, will
give him an almost unbounded admiration; sober judgment
based upon the past will gradually smooth the inequalities
of his work.
President Harper was a man who did things. It is doubtful whether he
himself placed the highest importance upon his executive work; it is not
unlikely that he would prefer to be remembered as a Hebrew scholar and the
author of abstruse commentaries. But a man is not always himself the best
judge of the relative values of his own work. Professor Albert Bushnell
Hart, writing in the Boston _Transcript_, thus estimates President
Harper's career:
To sum up, the great characteristic of President Harper was
his unflagging and generous belief that things could be
done. In his thirteen years of service he saw Chicago
University rise to a place in the first rank of the world's
institutions of learning. It never seemed to occur to him
that a thing must be abandoned or even postponed because it
was difficult. When he felt that the time had come for a law
school, he created it. He found the Blaine School of
Training for Teachers in existence, and absorbed it. Nothing
seemed beyond his powers, yet he always had time for the
visitor and the guest, kept up his teaching to the last, and
was one of the chief citizens of Chicago and of Illinois.
Who can doubt that President Harper's intensity of love and
service for the university of which he was really the
founder and always the principal force shortened his days,
and yet who could wish to leave a more enduring monument
than his life-work?
The presidents of several colleges have spoken of him as follows:
President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University:
"President Harper's death deprives the country of one of the
most extraordinary and attractive figures, and the last
months of his life have added a touch of heroism through
which he won the warm admiration of the whole country. His
loss is very serious indeed."
President Schurman, of Cornell University: "President Harper
was preeminent as an educational administrator, and was the
greatest college president of the last fifteen years. The
University of Chicago will remain for all time as a monument
to his memory."
President Hadley, of Yale: "President Harper was a brilliant
instructor, skilful organizer, and a man of rare business
ability."
President Eliot, of Harvard: "His life, wonderfully active
and energetic, was brought, by excessive work, to too early
a close."
THE MEANING OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.
A Radical View of a Radical Policy, as
Expressed by a Well-Known
Radical of Chicago.
Publicists are generally agreed as to the meaning of the great changes now
progressing in American political sentiment. The country, we are informed,
after wrestling successfully with the problems of the accumulation of
wealth, is ready to concern itself with the equitable distribution of what
has been accumulated. We are growing rich almost too fast. We produce such
vast quantities of everything needed by mankind that we hear of
"production outrunning consumption."
In this new condition Clarence S. Darrow, the well-known Chicago lawyer
and student of economics, sees the explanation of the growth of sentiment
favoring public ownership. Writing in the _International Quarterly_, he
takes advanced Radical ground as follows:
Public ownership sentiment has had a remarkable growth in
the United States during the last ten years. This sentiment
is one of the many manifestations of the deep conviction
that the present division of wealth is at once unjust and
absurd. All sorts of theories for the more equitable
distribution of wealth have found ready advocates on the
platform and in the press in every enlightened nation of the
world. However various the plans and schemes of social
change, it is beyond dispute that the tendency of all
nations has been toward a wider and completer collective
life. In every country in the world the people have been
constantly enlarging the functions and duties of the State,
and political organizations are more and more becoming
industrial institutions.
In Europe, municipal and even national ownership of public
utilities is no longer looked upon as radical or new, and
the rapid growth of these ideas abroad has had much to do
with sentiment in the United States.
The most casual student of social questions has likewise
seen the enormous fortunes that have been built up by the
private ownership of public utilities. The larger part of
all the stocks and bonds issued by public-service
corporations are based upon franchises and not on private
property. By this means the public is constantly and
systematically taxed upon its own property, and this vast
tax, in the shape of interest on bonds and dividends on
stock, is taken by a handful of exploiters and
stock-jobbers--who have thus contrived to build up private
fortunes from public wealth.
GOOD ADVICE, GRATIS, FROM A RICH MAN.
The Characteristic Philosophy of Russell
Sage, the Most Contented Multi-Millionaire
in New York.
Nearly ninety years of age and weighted with scores of millions, Russell
Sage is to-day one of the most completely satisfied rich men in the world.
This is true, for "he himself has said it, and 'tis greatly to his
credit."
Russell Sage is now the oldest of the money-kings of New York. He was born
seventeen years before Andrew Carnegie, who threw off the harness of
business five years ago. The original John Jacob Astor died at
eighty-four, and Commodore Vanderbilt at eighty-two. But Russell Sage
still is standing at the tiller of his gold-ballasted craft, as keen and
sharp-eyed as he ever was. Of all the famous figures of Wall Street, only
Daniel Drew lived to greater years; and Drew lost all his millions before
he ended his long career as a speculator.
Mr. Sage is as saving in his opinions as in his money, and it is seldom
that he can be persuaded to make his mind an open book for the general
public. But recently he consented to give the New York _World_ the full
story of life as he sees it. It is the most complete description of the
Sage philosophy that he has ever given to the public. Whatever this advice
may be worth to you, it has been worth about a hundred millions to Russell
Sage:
I think, if I had my life to live over again, it would be as
honest, as simple, as home-loving as I could make it. I
would try with all my power for home-like comfort,
happiness, and long life, as against show, shallow pleasure,
and a short existence. Home life is best. Clubs are only a
place for idle old men and wasteful young men.
Great wealth is not everything, by any means. The mere
making of money is not the only criterion of success. Many
men whose names are our common heritage have died in very
moderate circumstances, or even in poverty. Money is not a
measure of brains.
Real success is often achieved after many failures. An
active man builds success upon a foundation of failure; a
passive man does not. A real man is not hurt by hard knocks.
Hard knocks make character.
I think, had I my life to live over again, I would make
charity a life study. It is a science. It cannot be learned
in a day. The older a man lives the more he gets to realize
this. From my own investigations I have found that there is
a large class of professional mendicants that prey upon the
well-to-do and charitably inclined.
From time to time I have taken a whole month's batch of
appealing letters and have had them thoroughly investigated
by trained agents. Very few have been found to possess real
merit. Most of the appeals were from persons who would not
help themselves even with the aid of a helping hand.
Real charity is dispensed without the blare of trumpets.
Notoriety and professional philanthropy, indiscriminate
alms-giving in any guise, have always been repugnant to me.
I have never asked for any publicity for what I have done.
Silence has invariably been my rule and practise.
If I had my life to live over again I am sure I should not
attempt to move in what is termed "society." I would rather
be one of a few gathered together by a bond of friendship
than to partake of all the glitter and hollowness of what is
called the "Four Hundred." The friendship of a few outlives
life itself. Friendship remembers; society forgets. In the
home only is there true happiness. It is there that a man's
best ideas get their birth and grow.
If I had my life to live over again I would marry even
earlier than I did. The tender care of a good wife is the
finest thing in the world. I am thankful, indeed, that I
have had this in the fullest measure.
Thrift is the first element of successful manhood. When you
have made your fortune, it is time enough to think about
spending it. Two suits of clothes are enough for any young
man. The only thought that a young man need spend about his
clothes is to look out for bargains at the lowest price.
Let him be on the lookout for cheap hats, bargains in shoes,
knockdowns in suits. He is fostering business traits that
augur well for his success in years to come.
The boy who knows bargains in socks makes the man who knows
bargains in stocks.
Fifty cents is enough for a straw hat; it will last two
seasons. You can get for thirty-nine cents an unlaundered
white shirt which is excellent. You can get a good
undershirt for twenty-five cents. Silk is not for salaried
men. Fine clothes bring sham pleasure. Don't try to rival
the flowers of the field.
A rich man does not work for himself alone. He is really the
nation's agent. He turns his wealth over constantly in a way
that helps others. No one need be alarmed over the constant
increase in the wealth limit. Big enterprises require big
men.
There is no such thing as a money-curse. It is the man, not
the money, that makes the amount of individual wealth wrong.
A good man cannot have too much money.
And so let me say in conclusion, if I had my life to live
over again, I would try just as hard as I knew how to turn
my money over and over again, that it might do the most good
to other men.
I would live no differently. I would do as hard a day's work
as I knew how. I would not feel it necessary to take
vacations to recuperate. I would get my pleasure simply. I
would dine simply on plain food. After dinner there would be
a little reading of the papers or of good books, a chat with
friends that might drop in, and maybe a game of whist. I get
plenty of relaxation from an exciting rubber. When the game
is over, my day is done. I sleep like a top till morning.
That would be my life if I had it to live over. All my life
my home has been my haven of happiness.
Roosevelt and the Labor-Unions.
BY ELISHA JAY EDWARDS.
An Authoritative Statement of the President's Views Upon the Greatest
Industrial Question of the Day.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
In the unseasonable heat of Labor Day, 1898, a committee, small in
numbers, but somewhat self-conscious and of impressive dignity, ventured
to Montauk Point that it might discuss with Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, of
the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, the expediency of nominating
him on an independent ticket for Governor of New York.
As these perspiring committeemen, who were followed by other politicians,
mounted the sand-dunes beyond which lay the camp of the Rough Riders, they
saw, silhouetted against a sky whose horizon is the sea, the commander of
that historic regiment.
A Commander of Men.
Roosevelt stood before his tent, not heeding the approach of these friends
and politicians. With eager eyes, and through a strangely unfamiliar pair
of spectacles, of polished steel or nickeled frame, he was watching the
movement of his troopers, who were moving over the sandy plain not more
than a quarter of a mile distant.
There came from Colonel Roosevelt quick and hearty ejaculations, as if he
was so rejoiced at the steady, disciplined marching of his regiment that
he could find no better way to express his joy than by fervent expressions
of "Good!" or, again, "Well done!"
The hot sun of that unusually heated September week caused a sort of
mirage--a quivering, visible movement of the atmosphere arising by
reflection from the sand, so that the Rough Riders seemed to be observed
as through a glass.
After a few moments of enthusiastic inspection of the distant regiment,
Colonel Roosevelt received his visitors cordially, and motioned them to
the open tent, which was furnished with the rigorous simplicity of a true
campaigner, yet offered abundant hospitality. As his friends were entering
the tent, he stopped for a moment, and, turning toward his regiment, said:
"There is perfect order, perfect discipline, and yet every man of that
regiment thinks!"
The Golden Rule Paraphrased.
In this comment there is to be discovered President Roosevelt's view of
what the wise and beneficial combination of men into labor organizations
may ultimately become. Years before, he had reasoned out what he believed
to be the true philosophy of the labor-unions. He did not fully accept the
familiar motto, "One for all and all for one." Instead, he formulated for
himself another, which was after all merely a paraphrase of the golden
rule:
"All for all, and every one for the best of which he is capable--the best
morally, mentally, and physically."
Roosevelt came into active life at a time when the labor-unions, under
sincerely well-meant leadership, were emerging from a period of struggle
and disorder. Their dominant idea, as it seemed to many observers, was to
use the weapon that is called the strike, and to intensify the power of
that weapon by acts of violence. He had just entered Harvard when the
anarchy and devastation that accompanied the railroad strikes of the
summer of 1877 spread terror throughout the country. He was deeply
interested in the progress of that fierce industrial conflict. He felt
even then that men who labored could not be brought to such a condition
of desperation that they were willing to use the torch unless they had
some sense of unjust treatment. On the other hand, the torch and the
shooting and the roll of drums and march of troops most gravely impressed
the college student, and led him to give much thought to the question of
the labor organizations.
Roosevelt and the Railway Men.
His attention was specially fixed upon the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers. He was persistent and insistent in his inquiries of all who
could give him information as to the philosophy upon which this body based
its organization. He was greatly interested in the personality of Mr.
Arthur, and of others who assisted Arthur in the creation of the
brotherhood.
Later, when he had become a member of the New York Legislature, he was
present at a State convention held in Utica. He was one of a considerable
number of delegates and politicians who went from Albany to Utica on a
cold and stormy winter afternoon. The train made its way against the
winter tempest with some difficulty. When it rolled into the station at
Utica, Roosevelt parted for a moment from his associates, and they saw him
making his way, with characteristic quick and decisive steps, to the
engine. Reaching up, he grasped the hands of the engineer and the fireman,
and gave them a hearty word of thanks, in which he conveyed his sense of
what they were as men and skilled artisans, and of what they had done that
afternoon.
Many have thought that President Roosevelt's custom of shaking hands with
the locomotive engineer and the fireman at the end of a journey was of
recent adoption, but he began it as long ago as the time when he entered
public life. Possibly, and it may be unconsciously to himself, in this
kindly courtesy he reflected his sense of the intellectual and economic
triumph which characterizes the perfecting of the organization of the
Locomotive Engineers.
His Interest In Labor's Battles.
A year before Roosevelt was candidate for mayor of New York, he being then
in his twenty-eighth year, there broke out the dangerous agitation that
has passed into history as the Missouri Pacific strike. The details of
this affair were eagerly sought by Roosevelt. He would stop whatever work
he had in hand in order to gather from any one who was well informed not
merely the incidents of the strike, but the characteristics of the leader
of the strikers, Martin Irons, and of his associates.
At that time, Roosevelt spoke with emphasis in deploring the acts of
violence which the greatly inflamed employees committed. He looked upon
the destruction of life and of property as not merely criminal in itself,
but as sure, if persisted in, to do harm to all labor organizations. But
he seemed to be attracted by the skill and energy, the personal force, the
power of discipline and of leadership, which had enabled a railway
mechanic like Irons to obtain supreme leadership and mastery over many
thousands of intelligent American working men.
When Roosevelt was president of the Police Board of New York he was almost
as greatly concerned about a strike involving the tailors,
garment-cutters, and others whose employment was with the needle,
sewing-machine, or shears, as if he himself was of their vocation. The
poverty of the strikers had been extreme, their wages being barely
sufficient to pay for a loaf of bread and a bit of meat once a week, and
for the narrowest and most squalid kind of tenement in which to sleep. He
learned that these conditions had been somewhat improved through the
formation of the garment-workers into a labor-union. He was greatly
interested in one Barondess, a man of crude and yet real force, who had
skilfully perfected their organization.
So it was at all times when there were important strikes or agitations
that Roosevelt displayed the keenest interest in the individual. The
creation of one or another labor-union by some man of original native
force of mind was sure to inspire him with a desire to know something of
the new leader. He has always seemed to be far more interested in the
personality, the temperament, and the intellectual gifts of those who
have emerged from the ranks of working men, and have taken leadership
among their fellows, than in the achievements of those who have built
railroads, concentrated industrial organizations of vast capital, or
mastered the secrets of nature by means of inventive apparatus.
His Belief in Individualism.
In nothing that President Roosevelt has said or done since he entered
public life has he so firmly and impressively illustrated his faith in
individualism, so to call it, as in his relations to the labor
organizations. He looks upon them as no more than a means to an individual
end. He has scant patience with those who dream of a grand socialism of
labor, with every man standing upon an equality.
The President is in entire sympathy with the efforts of the labor-unions
to secure agreement with all employers that eight hours shall constitute a
day's work. But he is fearful that any restriction of the amount of labor
that a man is permitted to do in one day is an economic blunder. He holds
that it runs counter to individuality, and will ultimately prove to impair
the fine opportunities for advancement and benefit which wisely managed
labor-unions will always have.
President Roosevelt's philosophy of life, of its obligations and its
opportunities, is that each individual should develop as perfectly as is
possible whatever his native talent may be. To do that, in his view,
involves struggle, and struggle always entails leadership. And it has
seemed to him that in this process of high development of native gifts the
man who is obliged to work for wages, whether he be a skilled artisan or a
humble mechanic, must look to his fellows for help. Therefore, inevitably,
there have sprung up associations of those who are engaged in the
production of like articles.
Roosevelt and the Mine-Workers.
Of all the addresses and writings in which the President has expounded his
philosophy of labor, he probably best epitomized his opinions when he
delivered his speech to the miners at Wilkes-Barre, last October.
"I strongly believe," he said, "in trade-unions wisely and justly
handled, in which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with
them is not accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I
believe in the duty of capitalists and wage-workers to try to seek one
another out, to understand one another's point of view, and to endeavor to
show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other."
That philosophy is entirely consistent with the President's strong faith
in what may be called individualism. In his view, the labor-union serves
its chief purpose when it makes possible the highest development of the
gifts bestowed upon each individual by his Creator.
With this understanding it is easy to explain the personal interest
President Roosevelt has in all of those who are leaders in labor
organizations. The energy, the far-reaching understanding, the tact, and
the frequent use of somewhat imperious power, all of which were necessary
to bring the army of mine-workers into one compact organization, and all
of which have been exemplified by John Mitchell, were sure to appeal very
strongly to Theodore Roosevelt.
Twice since he became President he has had executive opportunity for
showing, not merely by word but in deed, exactly what is his understanding
of labor organizations and of their rights and limitations. To this day
the world does not accurately measure Roosevelt's action at the time of
the portentous struggle between the anthracite coal-miners and their
employers. At that crisis, when there was danger of something like civil
war, or at least of industrial anarchy and suffering, he seemed to be
impelled by precisely the same motives as those that actuated him in
bringing about the conference for peace between Russia and Japan. After
confidential communication with ex-President Cleveland, who warmly
approved his proposed plan, he offered to open the door for a settlement
of the desperate struggle between the miners and the mine-owners. As his
correspondence with ex-President Cleveland shows, he did not consider,
except incidentally, the rights and limitations of the labor organizations
on the one hand, or, upon the other, the legal position of those who
control capital, credit, transportation, and mines. He spoke for the
much-suffering public. He realized that no other than he could with any
prospect of success offer to serve as mediator.
No Respecter of Persons.
When the representatives of capital first met the President, they were
under the delusion that he had invited them to meet him because he fully
sympathized with the miners' labor organization. But at that first meeting
these kings of finance and of transportation and of the mining industry
perceived that Roosevelt gloried in his sense of manhood, and that his
courtesy to John Mitchell, and his recognition of John Mitchell's
leadership, were in no way diminished by the presence of men possessed of
immense capital and consequently of great power.
Capital was mistaken, however, in its presumption that Roosevelt was its
enemy. It was learned in the course of the several interviews with the
President that he had as firm a conviction of the necessity of
combinations of capital and credit as he had in the imperative need that
those who work with the hand should also combine for common benefit.
In private, President Roosevelt has expressed his unbounded admiration for
the courage of that business statesmanship which, within a generation, has
so mastered the West as to make its prairies rich in harvests and its
population continuous and thriving between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
But he has quite as much admiration for the native qualities, and for the
stern training and disciplining of those qualities, whereby a coal-miner
succeeded in organizing for a common purpose a vast army of men whose toil
is hidden from the sunlight, and whose faces are blackened as they come,
with lanterns on their caps, from the dismal caverns where they delve.
Mr. George W. Perkins has spoken to his friends of the impression made by
the President upon the capitalists whom he met at these interviews in
which the way was prepared for a settlement of the anthracite coal strike.
Mr. Roosevelt made it clear that he was no respecter of persons by reason
of the incidental power any one might possess, but was only a respecter
and admirer of manhood.
The second of the executive opportunities came when a demand was made that
none but a member of the labor organization should be employed in one of
the government departments. The President's reply was emphatic. The
government as a government could not, he said, recognize either labor
organizations as against an individual or an individual as against a labor
organization. At one meeting between Mr. Roosevelt and some of those who
were of the labor world, he declared that no combination, whether of
capital, or of credit, or any wherein the bond of union is a common kind
of labor, can in the long run prosper if it forgets the rights of the
individual. He has over and over again inculcated the doctrine of
individual right of judgment, deeming that to contain the very spirit of
American institutions.
The Enjoyment in Labor.
The President is quoted by his friends as having recently expressed his
confident belief that the labor organizations are coming to see the wisdom
of the view that the right to exercise individual judgment must not be
forgotten or ignored. He has no doubt that ultimately, if wisely and
justly handled, they will give the fullest opportunity for the perfection
of the individual morally, intellectually, and physically.
The time, he thinks, is not far distant when the sense of individuality
may be sufficient to teach the lesson that in every kind of labor the
laborer may find enjoyment--the florist and the harvester in the mystery
of the growth and coloring of the products of the field, the
granite-worker in the tracings of geology, the carpenter in the beauty of
geometry and in the fine penciling which nature has left in the native
wood. Work undertaken in this spirit is no longer mere mercenary drudgery,
but partakes of the inspiration that follows high appeal to the
intellectual and moral faculty of the worker.
To give a final summing up of President Roosevelt's view of trade-unions
and labor organizations, it may be said that he believes in them because
he sees in such combinations the greater opportunity for each individual
to develop the best that is in him.
A Descent Into the Maelström.
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809, and
died in Baltimore, October 7, 1849. His father, David Poe,
while a law student in Baltimore, married Elizabeth Arnold,
a beautiful English actress, and went on the stage himself.
Several years later both died within a few weeks of each
other, leaving three children, of whom Edgar was the second.
Impressed by the boy's extraordinary beauty and
intelligence, John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond,
adopted him.
Poe was then sent to England to be educated. There he spent
five or six years in a school at Stoke Newington.
Subsequently he was sent to the University of Virginia and
to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but
remained only a few months at each institution. Finally he
quarreled with Mr. Allan, who died shortly afterward; and
Edgar was not mentioned in the will.
In 1833 the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_ offered two prizes
of a hundred dollars each for a story and a poem. Poe won
both. This led to his employment in various editorial
capacities in Richmond and New York. Quarrels with his
employers usually resulted in his dismissal. During this
period he was distinguished by an extraordinary degree of
literary activity, however, and it was not long before he
was recognized as one of the most forceful figures in
American literature.
Scores of authors have found inspiration in the pages of
Edgar Allan Poe. Sardou, the celebrated French dramatist,
founded the main incident of his "Scrap of Paper" on Poe's
"The Purloined Letter," and Conan Doyle has admitted that
_Dupin_, the detective who appears in several of Poe's
tales, was the prototype of _Sherlock Holmes_. "A Descent
Into the Maelström" is generally regarded as one of the most
representative of his stories.
We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the
old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this
route as well as the youngest of my sons; but about three years past there
happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man--or at
least such as no man ever survived to tell of--and the six hours of deadly
terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul.
"You suppose me a very old man, but I am not. It took less than a single
day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs,
and to un-string my nerves so that I tremble at the least exertion and am
frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little
cliff without getting giddy?"
The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself to
rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was
only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and
slippery edge--this "little cliff" arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice
of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world
of crags beneath us.
Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink.
In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion
that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me,
and dared not even glance upward at the sky--while I struggled in vain to
divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were
in danger from the fury of the winds.
It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up
and look out into the distance.
"You must get over these fancies," said the guide; "for I have brought you
here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event
I mentioned, and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your
eye.
"We are now," he continued in that particularizing manner which
distinguished him--"we are now close upon the Norwegian coast--in the
sixty-eighth degree of latitude--in the great province of Nordland--and in
the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is
Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher--hold on to
the grass if you feel giddy--so--and look out, beyond the belt of vapor
beneath us, into the sea."
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean whose waters wore so
inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer's account
of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human
imagination can conceive.
To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay
outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horribly black and
beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly
illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and
ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever.
Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a
distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small
bleak-looking island; or more properly, its position was discernible
through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped.
About two miles nearer the land arose another of smaller size, hideously
craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of
dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean in the space between the more distant island
and the shore had something very unusual about it. Although at the time so
strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to
under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out
of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a
short, quick angry cross-dashing of water in every direction--as well in
the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the
immediate vicinity of the rocks.
"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the
Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward
is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and
Buckholm. Farther off--between Moskoe and Vurrgh--are Otterholm, Flimen,
Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places; but why
it has been thought necessary to name them at all is more than either you
or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the
water?"
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen--to which we
had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no
glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old
man spoke I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like
the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at
the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character
of the ocean beneath us was rapidly changing into a current which set to
the eastward.
Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each
moment added to its speed--to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes
the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury, but it
was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway.
Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand
conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion: heaving,
boiling, hissing, gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all
whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never
elsewhere assumes, except in precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more there came over the scene another radical
alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the
whirlpools one by one disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became
apparent where none had been seen before.
These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance and entering
into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided
vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly--very
suddenly--this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of
more than a mile in diameter.
The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray;
but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel,
whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining,
and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some
forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and
sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half
shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever
lifts up in its agony to heaven.
"This," said I at length to the old man--"this can be nothing else than
the great whirlpool of the Maelström."
"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the
Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."
The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what
I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of
any, cannot impart the faintest conception either of the magnificence or
of the horror of the scene, or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel
which confounds the beholder.
I am not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it,
nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of
Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his description,
nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect
is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.
"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the water is between
thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side, toward Ver, this
depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient passage for a vessel,
without the risk of splitting on the rocks, which happens even in the
calmest weather.
"When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and
Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to
the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts--the
noise being heard several leagues off; and the vortices or pits are of
such an extent and depth that if a ship comes within its attraction it is
inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there beat to
pieces against the rocks; and when the water relaxes the fragments thereof
are thrown up again.
"But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and
flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its
violence gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its
fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile
of it.
"Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against
it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that
whales come too near the stream and are overpowered by its violence; and
then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their
fruitless struggles to disengage themselves.
"A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the
stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on
shore. Large stocks of firs and pine-trees, after being absorbed by the
current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew
upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among
which they are whirled to and fro."
In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this could have
been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the vortex. The
"forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions of the channel close
upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden.
The depth in the center of the Moskoe-ström must be unmeasurably
greater.... Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon
below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest
Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the
whales and the bears; for it appeared to me a self-evident thing that the
largest ships of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the
hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.
"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the guide; "and if you
will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar
of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to
know something of the Moskoe-ström."
I placed myself as he desired, and he proceeded:
"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of about
seventy tons' burden, with which we were in the habit of fishing among the
islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea
there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if one has only the
courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Lofoden coast-men we
three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the
islands, as I tell you.
"The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish
can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places are
preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only
yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we often
got in a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape
together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation:
the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for
capital.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than
this; and it was our practise, in fine weather, to take advantage of the
fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the
Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage
somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so
violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack
water again, when we weighed and made for home.
"We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for
going and coming--one that we felt sure would not fail us before our
return; and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice, during
six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor, on account of a
dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had
to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale
which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too
boisterous to be thought of.
"Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of
everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently that
at length we fouled our anchor and dragged it), if it had not been that we
drifted into one of the innumerable cross-currents--here to-day and gone
to-morrow--which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where by good luck we
brought up.
"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered 'on the ground'--it is a bad spot to be in, even in good
weather; but we made shift always to run the gantlet of the Moskoe-ström
itself without accident, although at times my heart has been in my mouth
when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack.
"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell
you occurred. It was on the 10th of July, 18--; a day which the people of
this part of the world will never forget, for it was one in which blew the
most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens.
"And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there
was a gentle and steady breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone
brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what
was to follow.
"The three of us--my two brothers and myself--had crossed over to the
islands about two o'clock P.M., and soon nearly loaded the smack with fine
fish; which, we all remarked, were more plenty that day than we had ever
known them. It was just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started
for home, so as to make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we
knew would be at eight.
"We set out with a fresh wind at our starboard quarter, and for some time
spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger; for indeed we saw
not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once we were taken aback
by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was most unusual; something that had
never happened to us, and I began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly
knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all
for the eddies; and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the
anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a
singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.
"In the meantime, the breeze that had headed us off fell away; and we were
dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things,
however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it.
"In less than a minute the storm was upon us; in less than two the sky was
entirely overcast; and what with this and the driving spray, it became
suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the smack.
"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt to describe. The
oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our
sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but at the first puff both
our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off--the mainmast
taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for
safety.
"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It
had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near the bow; and this
hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the
Ström, by way of precaution against chopping seas. But for this
circumstance we should have foundered at once; for we lay entirely buried
for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say,
for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I
had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet
against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a
ring-bolt near the foot of the foremast.
"It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this, which was undoubtedly
the very best thing I could have done; for I was too much flurried to
think.
"For some moments I was completely deluged, I say; and all this time I
held my breath and clung to the bolt. When I could stand it no longer I
raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with my hands, and thus
got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as
a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself in some
measure of the seas.
"I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had come over me,
and to collect my senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt
somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother--and my heart leaped for
joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard; but the next moment all
this joy was turned into horror--for he put his mouth close to my ear and
screamed out the word 'Moskoe-ström!'
"No one will ever know what my feelings were at that moment. I shook from
head to foot as if I had the most violent fit of the ague. I knew what he
meant by that one word well enough--I knew what he wished to make me
understand. With the wind that now drove us on, we were bound for the
whirl of the Ström, and nothing could save us!
"You perceive that in crossing the Ström channel we always went a long way
up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then had to wait and
watch carefully for the slack; but now we were driving right upon the pool
itself, and in such a hurricane as this!
"'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack--there
is some little hope in that'; but in the moment I cursed myself for being
so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were
doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.
"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps
we did not feel it much as we scudded before it; but at all events the
seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind, and lay flat and
frothing, now got up into absolute mountains.
"A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every
direction it was still as black as pitch; but nearly overhead there burst
out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky--as clear as I ever saw,
and of a deep bright blue--and through it there blazed forth the full moon
with a luster that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything
about us with the greatest distinctness--but, O God, what a scene it was
to light up!
"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother; but in some manner
which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not
make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in
his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held
up one of his fingers, as if to say, 'Listen!'
"At first I could not make out what he meant; but soon a hideous thought
flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not going. I
glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung
it far away into the ocean. It had run down at seven o'clock! We were
behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!
"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the
waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from
beneath her--which appears very strange to a landsman; and this is what is
called riding, in sea phrase.
"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a
gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with
it as it rose--up--up--as if into the sky. I would not have believed that
any wave could rise so high.
"And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me
feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a
dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around, and that
one glance was all-sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The
Moskoe-ström whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead, but no
more like the every-day Moskoe-ström than the whirl as you now see it is
like a mill-race.
"If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not
have recognized the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my
eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.
"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we suddenly
felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp
half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a
thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was
completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek; such a sound as you might
imagine given out by the water-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels,
letting off their steam all together.
"We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I
thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the
abyss--down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing
velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink
into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of
the surge.
"Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the
world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us
and the horizon.
"It may appear strange--but now, when we were in the very jaws of the
gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having
made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror
which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my
nerves.
"It may look like boasting, but what I tell you is the truth: I began to
reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how
foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own
individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power.
"I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea crossed my mind.
After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about
the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at
the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I
should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the
mysteries I should see.
"These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such
extremity--and I have often thought since that the revolutions of the boat
around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.
"There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
self-possession, and this was the cessation of the wind, which could not
reach us in our present situation--for as you saw yourself, the belt of
surf is considerably lower than the general bed of the ocean, and this
latter now towered above us, a high, black, mountainous ridge.
"If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you can form no idea of
the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They
blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away all power of action or
reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances;
just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences,
forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.
"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to say. We
careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating,
getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then
nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge.
"All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the
stern, holding on to a small empty water cask which had been securely
lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that
had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us.
"As we approached the brink of the pit, he let go his hold upon this and
made for the ring, from which in the agony of his terror he endeavored to
force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure
grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act,
although I knew he was a madman when he did it--a raving maniac through
sheer fright.
"I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could
make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have
the bolt, and went astern to the cask.
"This there was no great difficulty in doing, for the smack flew round
steadily enough, and upon an even keel--only swaying to and fro with the
immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in
my new position when we gave a wild lurch to starboard and rushed headlong
into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was
over.
"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctively
tightened my hold upon the barrel and closed my eyes. For some seconds I
dared not open them; while I expected instant destruction and wondered
that I was not already in my death-struggles.
"But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had
ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before
while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along.
I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene.
"Never shall I forget the sensation of awe, horror, and admiration with
which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic,
midway down upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference,
prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been
mistaken for ebony but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun
around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth as the
rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the
black walls and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The
general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I recovered
myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this
direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in
which the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool.
"She was quite upon an even keel--that is to say, her deck lay in a plane
parallel with that of the water; but this latter sloped at an angle of
more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam
ends.
"I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more
difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation than if we
had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at
which we revolved.
"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound
gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick
mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a
magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which
Mussulmans say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity.
"This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great
walls of the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom, but the yell
that went up to the heavens from out of that mist I dare not attempt to
describe.
"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had
carried us to a great distance down the slope; but our further descent was
by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept; not with any uniform
movement, but in dizzying swings and jerks that sent us sometimes only a
few hundred yards, sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our
progress downward, at each revolution, was slow but very perceptible.
"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were
thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the
embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of
vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many
smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes,
barrels, and staves.
"I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the
place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer
and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange
interest, the numerous things that floated in our company.
"I must have been delirious, for I even sought amusement in speculating
upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam
below. 'This fir-tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly
be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears'; and then I
was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook
it and went down before.
"At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being
deceived in all--this fact, the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set
me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my
heart beat heavily once more.
"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more
exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present
observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that
strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth
by the Moskoe-ström.
"By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most
extraordinary way--so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance of
being stuck full of splinters; but then I distinctly recollected that
there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now, I could not
account for this difference except by supposing that the roughened
fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed; that the
others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or from some
reason had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the
bottom before the turn of the flood came--or of the ebb, as the case might
be.
"I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might be thus
whirled up again to the level of the ocean without undergoing the fate of
those which had been drawn in more early or absorbed more rapidly. I made
also three important observations. The first was, that as a general rule,
the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that
between the two masses of equal extent, the one spherical and the other of
any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere;
the third, that between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and
the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly.
"Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject with an
old schoolmaster of the district; and it was from him that I learned the
use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me--although I
have forgotten the explanation--how what I had observed was in fact the
natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments; and showed me
how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more
resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty, than
an equally bulky body of any form whatever.
"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing
these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and
this was that at every revolution we passed something like a barrel, or
else the yard or the mast of the vessel; while many of those things which
had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the
whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little
from their original station.
"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to
the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter,
and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother's
attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and
did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do.
"I thought at length that he comprehended my design, but, whether this was
the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from
his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the
emergency admitted of no delay; and so with a bitter struggle I resigned
him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings
which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the
sea, without another moment's hesitation.
"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself
who now tell you this tale--as you see that I did escape, and as you are
already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and
must therefore anticipate all that I have further to say, I will bring my
story quickly to conclusion.
"It might have been an hour or thereabout after my quitting the smack,
when, having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or
four wild gyrations in rapid succession, and bearing my loved brother with
it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below.
The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the
distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped
overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the
whirlpool.
"The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less
steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By
degrees the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf
seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and
the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on
the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above
the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström had been.
"It was the hour of the slack, but the sea still heaved in mountainous
waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the
channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into
the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up--exhausted from
fatigue, and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory
of its horror.
"Those who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions, but
they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from the
spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day before, was as
white as you see it now. They say too that the whole expression of my
countenance had changed. I told them my story; they did not believe it. I
now tell it to you; and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it
than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden."
FAVORITE POEMS
OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
However practical a man may be--however deeply he may be engrossed in
pursuits that would seem to be almost as barren of poetry as a city
pavement is of verdure--there is some chord in his heart that the right
poet may strike and fill his soul with melody. There is scarcely a man in
any walk of life who has not at some time in his life come upon a poem
which seemed to voice his own ideals.
In the private office of President Roosevelt, in the White House, hangs,
in the handwriting of its author, a poem by the late Senator John J.
Ingalls, of Kansas. The title of the poem is "Opportunity." This framed
manuscript and a portrait of President Lincoln are the only objects on the
walls of the apartment.
In singular contrast with the favorite poem of Theodore Roosevelt is that
of Abraham Lincoln--"Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" by
William Knox. Lincoln cut the poem from a newspaper and committed it to
memory. Several years later he said to a friend: "I would give a great
deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."
Subsequently he learned that the author was Knox, a Scottish poet, who
died in 1825.
OPPORTUNITY.
By the late Senator John J. Ingalls.
Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once, at every gate!
If feasting, rise; if sleeping, wake before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death. But those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and ceaselessly implore;
I answer not, and I return--no more.
Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?
BY WILLIAM KNOX.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure--her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed,
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course that our fathers have run.
They loved, but their story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.
They died--aye, they died; and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draft of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud--
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Superstitions of the Theater.
Nearly Everything That Occurs in the Actor's World Has Some Promise
of Good or Threat of Evil for "the Show" or the Individual.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Besides believing in many of the prevailing superstitions the people of
the theater have a number which are distinctly their own. In fact, there
is hardly anything that occurs in the actor's world that has not some
superstitious meaning attached to it, and accidents of the most trivial
character are construed by him into good or evil omens.
To the actor, such simple things as the lodging of a drop-curtain or the
upsetting of his make-up box, are sure forerunners of bad luck, as
likewise is the breaking of a stick of black grease-paint in the
performer's hand. If he stubs his toe on making a stage entry, he
considers himself irretrievably "hoodooed" for the rest of the evening.
Yellow is an Unlucky Color.
There are certain shades of yellow that are supposed to exert an evil
influence when worn in a play. This superstition does not apply to the
general dressing of the chorus or stage, but only to an individual costume
or part of a garment, such as a tie, vest, or hat.
There is hardly an orchestra leader who would allow a musician to play a
yellow clarinet under his direction, believing that if such a thing were
to happen the entire orchestra would go wrong.
Nor are yellow costumes the only kind that are supposed to cast an evil
spell over their wearer. If, for example, an accident happens to an actor
while wearing a certain costume, or if he forget his lines three or four
times while he has it on, the misfortune is invariably blamed on the
costume.
Certain wigs are considered harbingers of good luck, and actors will often
wear one when the part doesn't really require it. Moss hair, which is used
by the actors to make beards, mustaches, etc., plays its part in
superstition. A certain amount must be used at each performance if the
actor would keep in the good graces of the fates.
To use another's liquid glue (a glue used to stick moss hair to the face)
is a very good way to invite misfortune. If an actor's shoes squeak while
he is making his first entrance, it is a sure sign that he will be well
received by the audience.
To kick off his shoes and have them alight on their soles and remain
standing upright means good luck to him, but if they fall over, bad luck
is to be expected. They will also bring him all kinds of misfortune if
placed on a chair in the dressing-room.
If, when an acrobat throws his cuffs on the stage, preparatory to doing
his turn, they remain fastened together, all will go well, but if on the
other hand they separate, he must look out for squalls.
Cats have always been considered the very best fortune-producing
acquisitions a theater can possess, and are welcomed and protected by
actor and stage-hand alike. But if a cat runs across the stage during the
action of the play, misfortune is sure to follow. Bad luck will also come
to those who kick a cat.
Mirrors and Peep-Holes.
The actor goes the layman one better in mirror superstitions. He believes
it will bring him bad luck to have another person look into the mirror
over his shoulder while he is making up before it.
As much care must be taken by the actor on making his entrances as in the
repeating of the lines. Not for their importance as an effect on the
audience, but to avoid the "hoodoo" attached to certain entries. For
example: To stumble over anything on making an entrance, the actor firmly
believes, will cause him to miss a cue or forget his lines.
If his costume catches on a piece of scenery as he goes on, he must
immediately retrace his steps and make a new entrance, or else suffer
misfortunes of all sorts during the rest of the performance.
Even the drop-curtain contributes its share of stage superstitions, as
nearly every actor and manager believes it is bad luck to look out at the
audience from the wrong side of it when it is down. Some say it is the
prompt side that casts the evil spell, while others contend that it is the
opposite side. The management, not being sure of which side the bad luck
is likely to accrue, places a peep-hole directly in the center.
There is another superstition which passed away with the advent of the
frame curtain. In those days the curtain was rolled up like a window-shade
instead of running up and down in a groove as the modern ones do. In those
days for one to sit on the curtain-roller was a sure method of bringing
the boss carpenter or property man with a stage brace for the prompt
removal of the sitter. To them it was an infallible sign that salaries
were not going to be paid.
Vaudeville performers believe it is bad luck to change the costumes in
which they first achieved success, and many of them cling to these
costumes until they literally fall apart.
The Witches' Song is Side-Stepped.
The older members of the profession have always considered the witches'
song in Macbeth to possess the uncanny power of casting evil spells, and
the majority of them have strong dislikes to play in the piece. If you but
hum this tune in the hearing of an old actor, the chances are that you
will lose his friendship.
An actor who has been on the stage long enough to acquaint himself with
its superstitions, will not repeat the last lines of a play at rehearsals,
nor will he go on the stage where there is a picture of an ostrich
displayed if he can help it.
Some actors believe that if they accidentally try the wrong door of an
agent's or manager's office when looking for an engagement, their mission
will be a failure. It is also considered bad luck to change the position
of any piece of furniture or "props" of any description whatever, after
the stage has once been set, and before the rise of the curtain.
Whistling is Tabooed.
It is considered by all theatrical people to be the worst luck in the
world for any one to whistle in the theater, and there is no offense for
which the manager will scold an employee more quickly.
The players are not the only ones in the theater having superstitions. The
"front of the house" have their pet ones as well.
In the box-office, if the first purchaser of seats for a new production is
an old man or woman, it means to the ticket-seller that the play will have
a long run. A young person means the reverse. A torn bank-note means a
change of position for the man in the box-office, while a gold
certificate, strange to say, is a sign of bad luck.
The usher seating the first patron of the evening fondly imagines that he
will be lucky until the end of the performance, but if the first coupon he
handles calls for one of the many thirteen seats, he is quite sure that it
will bring him bad luck for the rest of the night.
To the usher, a tip from a woman for a program also spells misfortune, and
few of the old-timers will accept it. A woman fainting in the theater is
sure to bring bad luck to the usher in whose section she is seated. Not to
hear the first lines of the play is to invite misfortune, so he believes.
An usher feels sure that if he makes a mistake in seating the first person
in his section, it is sure to be quickly followed by two more. The first
tip of the season is always briskly rubbed on the trousers-leg and kept in
the pocket of the recipient for the rest of the season as a "coaxer." To
receive a smile over the footlights from one of the company also brings
luck.
GRAVE, GAY, AND EPIGRAMMATIC.
PAYING THE PIPER.
By Virginia Woodward Cloud.
The Piper sat by the river, his tireless pipe in his hand,
But ere the sun set and the white stars met
He scratched with a stick on the sand.
"My bills are due," quoth the Piper, "and now they pay," quoth he,
"Who danced and played from the sun into shade
Now render account to me.
"Here is one for a year," quoth the Piper; "a year of love's delight;
A heart that is dead and a soul unwed
Shall cancel a debt so trite!
I need not dun," quoth the Piper--and laughed, but nobody heard,
A chill in the air, and a shudder somewhere--
"They will render without one word.
"And this for my maddest playing"--oh, he wrote as he chuckled and
laughed--
"I will make my dole an immortal soul;
They shall drain where they only quaffed!"
So, he did his sum in addition, till the rose and the star had met,
But although he tried to thrust it aside
One name lay unchallenged yet.
Complacently, knave and sinner, apportioned he each his due,
But when it was o'er there remained one more,
And its pattern the Piper knew.
"Rascal or thief," mused the Piper, "I play for their dancing and
smile,
They have their way for a little day,
I have mine after a while.
"I can score each knave," quoth the Piper, "in Life's ill-sorted
school,
For they take and they take their greed to slake,
But I am no match for the Fool!
For he pays as he goes," frowned the Piper, "pain, laughter, passion of
tears!
He claims no pelf from Life for himself,
But gives his all without tears.
"The rest of my dancers laugh not, and I hold each one as a tool,
But he pays as he goes, be it rapture or woes,
And I have no bill for the Fool!
He loves and he lives," frowned the Piper, "and such poor returns
suffice,
For he cries '_Voilà le diable!_' and gives himself as the price!"
Then, with chagrin and reluctance, as the star sank into the pool,
The Piper made claim on each separate name,
But receipted in full--for the Fool.
_The Bookman._
MARK TWAIN'S RESPONSE.
A friend wrote to Mark Twain, asking his opinion on a certain matter, and
received no reply. He waited a few days, and wrote again.
His second letter was also ignored. Then he sent a third note, enclosing a
sheet of paper and a two-cent stamp.
By return mail he received a postal card, on which was the following:
"Paper and stamp received. Please send envelope."--_Boston Herald._
WHAT THE AILMENT WAS.
A New England statesman was referring to the dry humor of the late Senator
Hoar, when he was reminded of the following:
One day Hoar learned that a friend in Worcester who had been thought to
have appendicitis was in reality suffering from acute indigestion.
Whereupon the senator smiled genially. "Really," said he, "that's good
news. I rejoice for my friend that the trouble lies in the table of
contents rather than in the appendix."--_New York Tribune._
THE FARMER'S SYMPATHY.
A large touring automobile containing a man and his wife in a narrow road
met a hay wagon fully loaded. The woman declared that the farmer must back
out, but her husband contended that she was unreasonable.
"But you can't back the automobile so far," she said, "and I don't intend
to move for anybody. He should have seen us."
The husband pointed out that this was impossible, owing to an abrupt turn
in the road.
"I don't care," she insisted, "I won't move if we have to stay here all
night!"
The man in the automobile was starting to argue the matter when the
farmer, who had been sitting quietly on the hay, interrupted.
"Never mind, sir," he exclaimed, "I'll try to back out. I've got one just
like her at home!"--_Philadelphia Ledger._
PROVED.
"Your son is a philosophical student, I hear?"
"Yes, I believe he is. I can't understand what he's talking
about."--_Detroit Free Press._
EQUALITY.
By Matthias Barr.
Come, give me your hand, sir, my friend and my brother.
If honest, why, sure, that's enough!
One hand, if it's true, is as good as another,
No matter how brawny or rough.
Though it toil for a living at hedges or ditches,
Or make for its owner a name,
Or fold in its grasp all the dainties of riches--
If honest, I love it the same.
Not less in the sight of his Heavenly Maker
Is he who must toil for his bread;
Not more in the sight of the mute undertaker
Is majesty shrouded and dead.
Let none of us jeeringly scoff at his neighbor
Or mock at his lowly birth.
We are all of us God's. Let us earnestly labor
To better this suffering earth.
A FISH STORY.
Brown had returned from a fishing expedition, and, after partaking of a
most welcome dinner, was relating some of his fishing experiences.
"Last year," said he, "while fishing for pike, I dropped half a sovereign.
I went to the same place this year, and after my line had been cast a few
minutes I felt a terrific pull. Eventually I landed a line pike, which had
swallowed the hook, and, on cutting it open to release the hook, to my
amazement----"
"Ah," said his friends, "you found your half-sovereign?"
"Oh, no," replied Brown, "I found nine shillings and sixpence in silver
and threepence in copper."
"Well, what became of the other threepence?" queried his friends.
"I suppose the pike paid to go through the lock with it," answered
Brown.--_Pearson's Weekly._
BYRON ON WOMAN.
Oh! too convincing--dangerously dear--
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue--at once her spear and shield.
_Corsair, Canto 2._
WOMAN'S RETORT.
The mild business man was calmly reading his paper in the crowded
trolley-car. In front of him stood a little woman hanging by a strap. Her
arm was being slowly torn out of her body, her eyes were flashing at him,
but she constrained herself to silence.
Finally, after he had endured it for twenty minutes, he touched her arm,
and said:
"Madam, you are standing on my foot."
"Oh, am I?" she savagely retorted. "I thought it was a valise."--_Kansas
City Independent._
SHAKESPEARE ON WOMAN.
She is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona._
A MAIDEN SPEECH.
Very few persons acquit themselves nobly in their maiden speech. At a
wedding feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual, to
respond to the given toast.
Blushing to the roots of his hair, he rose to his feet. He intended to
imply that he was unprepared for speechmaking, but, unfortunately, placed
his hand upon the bride's shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered
out his opening (and concluding) words: "This--er--thing has been thrust
upon me."--_Tit-Bits._
TWO VIEWS OF OLD AGE.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
At Twenty He Smiled at the Picture Presented by a Patriarch--At
Three Score and Ten He Told of an Old Man's Dreams.
THE LAST LEAF.
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said--
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago--
That he had a Roman nose
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
AS SEEN AT SEVENTY.
I was a little over twenty years old when I wrote "The Last Leaf." The
world was a garden to me then; it is a churchyard now. And yet those are
not bitter or scalding tears that fall from my eyes upon "mossy marbles."
The young who left my side early in my life's journey are still with me in
the unchanged freshness and beauty of youth. Those who have long kept
company with me live on after their seeming departure, were it only by the
mere force of habit; their images are all around me, as if every surface
had been a sensitive film that photographed them; their voices echo about
me as if they had been recorded on those unforgotten cylinders which bring
back to us the tones and accents that have imprinted them as the extinct
animals left their tracks on the hardened sand.
The melancholy of old age has a divine tenderness in it, which only the
sad experience of life can lend a sad soul.
The Gridiron.
BY SAMUEL LOVER.
Samuel Lover was born in Dublin in 1797. As a novelist he
was one of the most popular of the period in which he lived.
He is acknowledged to have written the best Irish peasant
sketches and the best Irish peasant songs in the language.
Lover was the son of a Dublin stock-broker, who attempted to
prepare his son for that business. At the age of seventeen,
however, the boy turned his back on the office, and, with
his scanty savings, he took up the study of art. Three years
later he began to win success as a painter of miniatures. An
admirable miniature of Paganini painted by Lover excited so
much attention in London that the young artist was induced
to go to the metropolis. There he spent a considerable part
of his time in literary work.
"The Gridiron" was one of his first productions. His
three-volume novel, "Rory O'More," appeared in 1836. This
was dramatized and met with such success that its versatile
author for a time devoted himself to playwriting. He also
wrote the words and music of several operettas. As a song
writer he now became one of the most popular in the United
Kingdom.
On the day that Victoria was crowned Queen of England she
was escorted to Buckingham Palace to the strains of "Rory
O'More." His most popular novel was "Handy Andy." Lover
visited the United States in 1846. He died in 1868. Besides
his literary talent, he possessed a high degree of musical
ability. Among Samuel Lover's descendants is Victor Herbert,
the well-known musical director and composer.
A certain old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the
ridiculous quite equaled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont,
upon certain festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his
friends by drawing out one of his servants who was exceedingly fond of
what he termed his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer
stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services, had
established a right of loquacity.
He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his
master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture
to set him right.
If the squire said, "I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say,
"throth you won't, sir"; and Pat was always right, for if any altercation
arose upon the subject-matter in hand, he was sure to throw in some good
reason, either from former service--general good conduct--or the
delinquent's "wife and childher," that always turned the scale.
But I am digressing. On such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the
master, after making certain "approaches," as a military man would say, as
the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant,
might, perchance, assail Pat thus:
"By the by, Sir John" (addressing a distinguished guest), "Pat has a very
curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You
remember, Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice paid
to himself)--"you remember that queer adventure you had in France?"
"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise. "Was Pat ever in France?"
"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and farther, plase
your honor."
"I assure you, Sir John," continues mine host, "Pat told me a story once
that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French."
"Indeed!" said the baronet. "Really, I always supposed the French to be a
most accomplished people."
"Throth, then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.
"Oh, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.
"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?" says the
master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the "full
and true account"--(for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for
"a raison he had," in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).
"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic," a favorite phrase of his,
which he gave with a brogue as broad almost as the Atlantic itself.
"It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad Atlantic, comin' home,"
began Pat, decoyed into the recital; "whin the winds began to blow, and
the sae to rowl, that you'd think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name)
would not have a mast left.
"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the board, at last, and the pumps
was choaked (divil choak them for that same), and av coorse the wather
gained an us, and throth, to be filled with water is neither good for man
nor baste; and she was sinkin' fast, settlin' down, as the sailors calls
it, and faith I never was good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it
then less nor ever. Accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the
boat, and got a sack o' bishkits, and a cashk o' pork, and a kag o'
wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little mathers we could
think iv in the mortal hurry we wor in--and, faith, there was no time to
be lost, for my darlint, the Colleen Dhas, went down like a lump o' lead,
afore we wor many sthrokes o' the oar away from her.
"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we put up a
blanket an the ind av a pole as well as we could, and thin we sailed
illigant, for we dar'n't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase
it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's
the wondher of the world we worn't swallyed alive by the ragin' sae.
"Well, away we wint for more nor a week, and nothin' before our two
good-looking eyes but the canophy iv heaven, and the wide ocean--the broad
Atlantic--not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though
the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're
no great things whin you've nothin' else to look at for a week
together--and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more
welkim.
"And then, sure enough, throth, our provisions began to run low, the
bishkits, and the wather, and the rum--throth that was gone first of
all--God help uz!--and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us
in the face. 'Oh, murther, murther, captain, darlint,' says I, 'I wish we
could see land anywhere,' says I.
"'More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for sitch a good
wish, and, throth, it's myself wishes the same.'
"'Oh,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen in heaven--supposing it
was ony a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid Turks, sure they
wouldn't be such bad Christhans as to refuse uz a bit and a sup.'
"'Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain; 'don't be talkin' bad of any
one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may want a good word put in
for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th' other world all
of a suddent,' says he.
"'Thrue for you, captain, darlint,' says I--I called him darlint, and made
free wid him, you see, bekase disthress makes uz all equal--'thrue for
you, captain, jewel--God betune uz and harm, I owe no man any spite'--and,
throth, that was only thruth.
"Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and, by gor, the wather itself was
all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld. Well, at the brake
o' day the sun riz most beautiful out o' the waves, that was as bright as
silver and as clear as cryshtal.
"But it was only the more crule upon uz, for we wor beginnin' to feel
terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land--by gor, I
thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minnit, and 'Thundher and
turf, captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.
"'What for?' says he.
"'I think I see the land,' says I. So he ups with his
bring-'um-near--(that's what the sailors call a spy-glass, sir), and looks
out, and, sure enough, it was.
"'Hurrah!' says he, 'we're all right now; pull away, my boys,' says he.
"'Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; 'maybe it's only a fog-bank,
captain, darlint,' says I.
"'Oh, no,' says he, 'it's the land in airnest.'
"'Oh, then, whereabouts in the wide world are we, captain?' says I; 'maybe
it id be in Roosia or Proosia, or the Garman Oceant,' says I.
"'Tut, you fool,' says he--for he had that consaited way wid him--thinkin'
himself cleverer nor any one else--'tut, you fool,' says he; 'that's
France,' says he.
"'Tare an ouns,' says I, 'do you tell me so? And how do you know it's
France it is, captain, dear,' says I.
"'Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he.
"'Throth, I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, 'by the rowl it has; for I
often heerd av it in regard o' that same;' and, throth, the likes av it I
never seen before nor since, and, with the help o' God, never will.
"Well, with that my heart begun to grow light, and when I seen my life was
safe, I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever--so says I, 'Captain, jewel,
I wish we had a gridiron.'
"'Why, then,' says he, 'thundher and turf,' says he, 'what put a gridiron
into your head?'
"'Bekase I'm starvin' with the hunger,' says I.
"'And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, 'you couldn't ate a gridiron,' says
he, 'barrin' you wor a pelican o' the wildherness,' says he.
"'Ate a gridiron!' says I. 'Och, in throth, I'm not such a gommoch all out
as that, anyhow. But sure if we had a gridiron we could dress a
beefsteak,' says I.
"'Arrah! but where's the beefsteak?' says he.
"'Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork?' says I.
"'By gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. 'You're a clever
fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.
"'Oh, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.
"'Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.
"'Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant' (for we were
nearin' the land all the time), 'and sure I can ask thim for to lind me
the loan of a gridiron,' says I.
"'Oh, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in airnest, now,'
says he. 'You gommoch,' says he, 'sure I towld you before that's
France--and sure they're all furriners there,' says the captain.
"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a furriner myself as
any o' thim?'
"'What do you mane?' says he.
"'I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you, that I'm as good a furriner myself
as any o' thim.'
"'Make me sinsible,' says he.
"'By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,' says I;
and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I'd pay him off for his
bit o' consait about the Garman Oceant.
"'Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you, and tell me what it is
you mane at all at all.'
"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'Oh, your humble sarvant,' says he. 'Why, by gor, you're a scholar,
Paddy.'
"'Throth, you may say that,' says I.
"'Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin' like.
"'You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you joke or no.'
"'Oh, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain. 'And do you tell me, Paddy,'
says he, 'that you spake Frinch?'
"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs the
devil. I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,' says he. 'Pull away, boys,
and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we won't get a good bellyfull before
long.'
"So with that, it was no sooner said nor done--they pulled away and got
close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a little
creek; and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white sthrand, an
illigant place for ladies to bathe in the summer; and out I got, and it's
stiff enough in my limbs I was afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and
perished with the cowld and hunger; but I conthrived to scramble an, one
way or the other, towards a little bit iv a wood that was close to the
shore, and the smoke curlin' out of it, quite timpting like.
"'By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I; 'there's a house
there'--and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men, women, and
childher, ating their dinner round a table quite convainent. And so I wint
up to the dure, and I thought I'd be very civil to thim, as I heerd the
Frinch was always mighty p'lite intirely--and I thought I'd show them I
knew what good manners was.
"So I took off my hat, and making a low bow, says I, 'God save all here,'
says I.
"Well, to be sure, they all stopt ating at wanst, and begun to stare at
me, and faith they almost looked me out of countenance--and I thought to
myself it was not good manners at all--more be token from furriners, which
they call so mighty p'lite; but I never minded that, in regard of wantin'
the gridiron; and so says I, 'I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for the liberty
I take, but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of ating,' says I,
'that I make bowld to throuble yez, and if you could lind me the loan of a
gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be intirely obleeged to ye.'
"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before, and with that, says
I (knowing what was in their minds), 'Indeed it's thrue for you,' says I;
'I'm tathered to pieces, and God knows I look quare enough, but it's by
raison of the storm,' says I, 'which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're
all starvin',' says I.
"So then they began to look at each other agin, and myself, seeing at
wanst dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor
beggar comin' to crave charity--with that, says I, 'Oh! not at all,' says
I, 'by no manes; we have plenty o' mate ourselves, there below, and we'll
dhress it,' says I, 'if you would be plased to lind us the loan of a
gridiron,' says I, makin' a low bow.
"Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever,
and faith I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that it
was not France at all at all--and so says I--'I beg pardon, sir,' says I,
to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver--'maybe I'm
undher a mistake,' says I, 'but I thought I was in France, sir; aren't you
furriners?' says I--'Parly-voo frongsay?'
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if you plase?'
"Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had siven heads; and faith
myself began to feel flusthered like, and onaisy--and so, says I, making a
bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a liberty I take, sir,' says I, 'but
it's only in the regard of bein' cast away, and if you plase, sir,' says
I, 'Parly-voo frongsay?'
"'We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron?' says I, 'and you'll
obleege me.'
"Well, sir, the old chap begun to munseer me, but the divil a bit of a
gridiron he'd gie me; and so I began to think they were all neygars, for
all their fine manners; and, throth, my blood began to rise, and says I,
'By my sowl, if it was you was in disthress,' says I, 'and if it was to
ould Ireland you kem, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you if you
ax'd it, but something to put an it too, and a dhrop of dhrink into the
bargain, and cead mille failte.'
"Well, the word cead mille failte seemed to stchreck his heart, and the
ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I'd give him another offer, and
make him sinsible at last; and so says I, wanst more, quite slow, that he
might undherstand--'Parly--voo--frongsay, munseer?'
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad scran to you.'
"Well, bad win' to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould chap begins
bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other about a long tongs.
"'Phoo!--the devil sweep yourself and tongs,' says I, 'I don't want a
tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison,' says I--'Parly-voo
frongsay?'
"We, munseer.'
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld your prate.'
"Well, what would you think but he shook his owld noddle, as much as to
say he wouldn't; and so says I, 'Bad cess to the likes o' that I ever
seen--throth if you were in my country, it's not that-a-way they'd use
you; the curse o' the crows on you, you ould sinner,' says I; 'the divil a
longer I'll darken your dure.'
"So he seen I was vexed, and I thought, as I was turnin' away, I seen him
begin to relint, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I,
turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give you one chance more--you owld thief--are
you a Chrishthan at all at all?--are you a furriner,' says I, 'that all
the world calls so p'lite? Bad luck to you, do you undherstand your own
language?--Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then, thundher and turf,' says I, 'will you lind me the loan of a
gridiron?'
"Well, sir, the divil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me--and so with that,
'The curse o' the hungry on you, you owld negardly villain,' says I; 'the
back o' my hand and the sowl o' my foot to you; that you may want a
gridiron yourself yet,' says I; 'and wherever I go, high and low, rich and
poor, shall hear o' you,' says I; and with that I lift them there, sir,
and kem away--and in throth it's often since that I thought that it was
remarkable."
TRICKS THAT WORDS MAY BE MADE TO PLAY.
Odd Jobs for Unemployed Minds in the Arrangement of Freak Sentences.
When _Polonius_, addressing _Hamlet_, asked, "What do you read, my lord?"
and _Hamlet_ answered, "Words, words, words," _Polonius_ didn't pursue
that particular line of inquiry any farther. If he had, _Hamlet_ might
have given him a vast deal of interesting information.
Words sometimes have a trick of expressing more than is intended by those
who write or utter them. They have strange customs, too, and of these the
man who interrupted _Hamlet_ doubtless had much to learn.
For instance, _Polonius_ might have asked:
Grave prince, in thirty-one words how many "thats" can be
grammatically inserted?
And _Hamlet_ might have replied:
Fourteen: He said that _that_ that that man said was not
_that_ that _that_ one should say, but that _that_ that
_that_ man said was _that_ that _that_ man should not say.
This reminds us of the following "says" and "saids":
Mr. B----, did you say or did you not say what I said you
said? Because C---- said you said you said you never did say
what I said you said. Now if you did say that you did _not_
say what I said you said, then what did you say?
The following is an example of that form of humor which is known as
"word-twisting":
While parents pay May rents, it must be admitted
They pay rents for houses that they have not quitted;
If parents pay May rents then may rents pay parents
And May rents and pa-rents will be voted rare "rents."
Idle minds which conscientiously seek employment are willing to take
almost any odd job that comes along. Some have devoted a few hours to the
formation of sentences in which each word begins and ends with the same
letter. Here are a couple of samples:
A depraved tyrant seeks devoted slaves; a growing empire
seeks rather loyal subjects; America, a nation, growing
yearly richer, secures equitable legal exchange.
Ships, gliding seawards, scatheless that endure
High seas, excessive storms, that sailors dread,
Experience, ere gaining destined shores,
A rougher tempest grasping doomèd dead.
Pugilism's Invasion of the Drama.
A Characteristic Article from the New York "Sun" Affords a Striking
Example of the Sort of "Higher Criticism" That Is Now In Order.
The appearance of a former pugilist as a star in a Broadway theater, which
for many years was the greatest temple of the Shakespearean drama in the
United States, has given a serious jolt to a large number of playgoers who
are loath to free themselves from the influences of old traditions.
The relations of ring and stage have been becoming more and more close in
recent years, and have constituted a favorite theme for newspaper
discussion. It is doubtful, however, whether it would be possible to find
a better review of the situation than the following characteristic essay
in dramatic criticism which appeared in the New York _Sun_:
It is long since the playgoers and first-nighters of
Brooklyn had such a treat as was tendered them last season
by the re-appearance of that bright star in the dramatic
constellation, James J. Corbett. Mr. Corbett came back to us
with his new drama, "Pals," an admirable vehicle for the
display of his singular dramatic talents.
The fact that it was the Lenten season marred somewhat the
attendance, otherwise the society folk of Brooklyn might
have made it a brilliant function. Yet Mr. Corbett's welcome
lacked nothing of warmth or appreciation.
Sacrificed Ring to the Drama.
Since the time when, in "The Naval Cadet," Mr. Corbett took the American
Theater by storm, his art has broadened and deepened. It is an older, a
more mature, dare it be said a shiftier, Corbett who returns to us. So
often of late has the assertion been made that Mr. Corbett is the best
actor in the pugilist division of the stage that it is time for a
comparison between his art and that of those other eminent gentlemen who
have left the ring for the everlasting good of the drama, Messrs. John
Lawrence Sullivan, Terence McGovern, James E. Britt, and J. John Jeffries.
It is true that any comparison between the art of these five eminent
artists must be superficial, and to a certain extent banal, owing to the
diversity of the dramas by which they have seen fit to show forth their
talents.
The stanch art, honest and straightforward as a right swing, of "Honest
Hearts and Willing Hands," is not to be compared to the romantic yet often
superficial "Bowery After Dark," which Mr. Terence McGovern has so ably
interpreted, and neither can be compared exactly with the jarring
right-cross force of Mr. Jeffries's "Davy Crockett."
As those who observe Mr. Corbett practising his now abandoned profession
of pugilism have remarked, he is characteristically lacking in repose of
manner. In this, he is distinctly inferior to Mr. J. Lawrence Sullivan.
John L.--on the stage--was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those
lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old
playgoers:
"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]
In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he
shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his
delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using
too much slang:
"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"
When the "Blocks" Went Off.
Mr. Corbett's delivery of these lines is certainly humorous, more humorous
than he knows; yet has it the genuine comic force of the acting of James
Edward Britt, an artist little known to the stage of the Atlantic coast,
when, in his drama, "Jimmie Britt the Frisco Boy," he conquers the comic
Chinaman in a burlesque boxing bout by slapping him with the end of his
pig-tail?
There is considerable dramatic force in Mr. Corbett's delivery of the
lines:
"There's my hand, Ned. If you can take it honestly, here goes--if not, you
are no pal of mine!"
Yet, after all, would it not be better if, instead of standing on guard
when he delivered them, he accompanied them with a side step and a right
shift on the solar plexus, as does Terence McGovern when he delivers that
famous climax:
"Unhand her, or I'll knock your block off--see?" [Bing!]
Or by a clinch followed by a short-arm jolt and an uppercut, as does Mr.
J. John Jeffries in that most intense of all climaxes in the pugilistic
drama:
"Carry the woman away? Not while Davy Crockett has a punch up his sleeve!"
[Slap! Thud!]
Conscientious and Two-Handed.
To summarize, therefore, Mr. Sullivan was a conscientious, two-handed
actor with a great punch; Mr. Terence McGovern and Mr. J. Edward Britt
have a clear delivery and a great straight left; Mr. Robert
Fitzsimmons--an artist for whose peculiar intensity there has been no room
in this brief and necessarily superficial summary--an awkward stage
presence, but a fine short-arm jab that has been known to put the villain
to sleep six times in one act; Mr. Jeffries, a left hook to the body which
always brings home the money, and Mr. Corbett, a comic intensity and great
foot work.
A word about the drama which Mr. Corbett had chosen last season. The
author of "Pals" violated all conventionalities by failing to have the
hero meet the unknown in the last act. He has, however, done one great
service to the drama and to an eminent university. Never before has the
atmosphere of Harvard been caught for the stage. The first act of "Pals"
takes place at Harvard, and presents a haunting picture of college life.
From it we learn that the following are characteristic features of life
in the great center of learning at Cambridge:
Solar Plexus for College Etiquette.
The 'varsity football captain and the champion hammer-thrower, who are
described as the most popular men in college, and so rich that they can't
count it, live in a boarding-house, in which the landlady's daughter dusts
off the champagne bottles which they keep on the sideboard and is sought
as wife by the star boarders.
When the "lady friends" of the inmates come to visit the rooms they go in
to dinner arm in arm with the landlady's daughter.
After the 'varsity game with Yale, in which Harvard has scored a great
victory, the 'varsity football captain comes back to the boarding-house
for dinner, remarking mildly that he is tired, and, after dusting off the
sleeves of his jersey, goes in to dinner with the ladies in his football
suit.
The freshmen sports wear silk hats and sack suits to the annual
Yale-Harvard game.
These shadowings of dear old college scenes brought tears to the eyes of
the many Harvard alumni who made part of the brilliant first night
assemblage.
Jeffries's Dramatic Recitals.
For weeks Jersey City had looked forward with a pleasurable thrill to the
appearance of that eminent artist, J. John Jeffries, in his series of
dramatic recitals. The pleasure had not been without a tinge of jealous
triumph totally unbefitting the social season; for Jersey City, that
modest home of the arts, was the first community on the Atlantic coast to
extend to Mr. Jeffries in "Davy Crockett" the welcome which must have been
as new wine to the true artist he is.
To what end will not managers go in their sordid and squalid zeal for
advertising? Evidences of this tendency flamed on every hoarding in Jersey
City; flaunted themselves on every fence. For the managers and press
representatives had been attempting to create a false and fatuous interest
in this eminent artist by advertising him as champion pugilist of the
world.
What does it matter to their art that Forbes Robertson loves canaries,
that Edwin Booth was fond of waffles? What does it matter how Mr. Jeffries
amuses himself in his leisure hours? Yet in the large and fashionable
audience which assembled at the Bijou Theater there were evidently many
persons who were drawn by no other motive than a curiosity to see the
champion pugilist of the world.
These made their presence felt by ejaculating in Mr. Jeffries's tender yet
stalwart love passages:
"Uppercut her, Jim!" Or by crying out at that supreme moment when Mr.
Jeffries defied the villain:
"Soak him, kid! Soak him!"
It may be said in defense of Jersey City that not all of this was due to
the blindness of her citizens toward great art. Some of it may be laid to
the incompetence of the Bijou bouncer.
"Davy Crockett," which this robust and sterling young artist had chosen as
the medium of introduction to the stage of New York, is a drama which has
not been seen of late on the American boards. Mr. Jeffries brings to it a
freshness and a style all his own.
The Heroine is Nifty.
Right here is where the gent who has being doing falsetto pulls off his
wig, shows the genuine whiskers, and strikes low G on the bass clef to
show that he can do it.
You see, the villain is after the bunch of calico. She's certainly nifty.
The villain has staked out his nephew to be her steady company, but the
minute she trims her luscious lamps on _Crockett_, any dub can see that
he's her candy kid.
The orchestra rips off a few yards of the "Flower Song," while Jim sinks
his voice down to the solar plexus and puts her wise that she's his'n and
he's her'n, only it can never be.
But in the next act _Davy_ rescues her from the wolves by putting his
biceps against the door while the property man wiggles three stuffed wolf
heads through the chinks in the cabin and the gallery helps out on the
howls.
But the villain drops in with the deeds that he's forged on her uncle, and
_Davy_ is foiled. And the girl has put him wise to young Lochinvar, so in
the next act _Davy_ drops in just when they're going to marry the girl.
Jim rolls up his sleeve and holds out his right and the girl hops up on it
like a canary on a perch, and it's all over but the foiling of the villain
and the marriage in the last act.
The Lady Takes the Count.
The girl was pretty nearly down and out in the second act, and took the
count of nine, but by clinching with _Davy_ she managed to stay the act
out. Jim's love-making was great. He never bored in so hard that there
wasn't room for a breakaway, and any one could see that he was all ready
to break the clinch the minute the girl loosed an uppercut.
When Jim crinkled up his forehead and looked on her with a love smile that
reached the remotest boundary of his face, he looked just the way he
looked at Ruhlin in the third round. But the girl didn't seem to mind. She
knew he was only funning, and she cuddled right up to his solar plexus and
said:
"I am your Nell, the same saucy Nell that sported among the daisies when
we were a little boy and girl together." That statement made Jim look
sincere.
It must be confessed that the epilogue was the most successful part of the
piece. The epilogue was a more or less rapid three-round go. Mr. Yank
Kennedy, an eminent pugilistic artist from California, was advertised as
Mr. Jeffries's support in this scene. But the cordial welcome of New
Jersey society had proved too much for the artistic temperament of Mr.
Kennedy.
Mr. Hennesy of Princeton University was announced by that eminent
impresario Mr. Billy Delany as Mr. Kennedy's understudy. Mr. Hennesy's
acting was finished in leading and countering, but sadly deficient in
guarding and side-stepping. He was entirely overshadowed by the great
artist who played opposite him.
At one period of the performance the shadows grew so thick that Mr.
Hennesy went down for the count of nine. It was plain, however, from the
cordial, if somewhat unsteady, handshake he gave Mr. Jeffries as the
curtain fell that Mr. Hennesy harbored no artistic jealousy.
Little Glimpses of the 19th Century
The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record of Each Decade.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
In many respects the nineteenth century was the most
remarkable in the history of the world. In no corresponding
period did science vouchsafe to men so many revelations, or
did wars result in such sweeping political changes. It was
the age of steam, electricity, and steel; of Napoleon,
Wellington, Nelson, Grant, Lee, and Moltke; of Bismarck,
Gladstone, and Lincoln; of Garibaldi and Bolivar; of
Stephenson, Fulton, Morse, and Edison; of Darwin, Huxley,
and Emerson; of Wagner and Verdi; of Byron and Scott, of
Tennyson and Victor Hugo, of Dickens and Balzac, of
Hawthorne and Poe.
In the nineteenth century were all the glories of the
Victorian Era, and in it slavery was abolished in the United
States and serfdom in Russia. It saw the liberation of South
America, the unification of Italy, and the creation of the
kingdoms of Greece, Servia, and Rumania. It saw the United
States grow from a small nation to a rich and powerful one;
it witnessed the development of Great Britain's scattered
colonies into the most extensive empire the world has yet
known; and in its latter years it beheld the rise of Germany
to commanding military power and great industrial
prosperity. The progress made in the field of invention was
astounding. The coming of the railroad and the steamship
revolutionized the history of civilization. The art,
literature, and drama of the world were greatly enriched,
and music entered upon what may truly be said to be its
golden age.
But, confronted by this great mass of events, how many
persons are there who are able to tell the story of the
years in which those events occurred? Several histories of
the nineteenth century have been written, but none of them
has yet succeeded in giving the clear, concise view that the
one now published in THE SCRAP BOOK purposes to give. This
will be complete in ten instalments, each instalment
covering a period of ten years. We begin with the year 1800,
the last of the eighteenth century, in order to give the
reader a clearer understanding of the situation of affairs
at the opening of the nineteenth.
1800
Napoleon, then the dominating figure of the world, continued the work of
reorganizing the government, centralizing power in his own hands; subdued
the last of the French loyalists, and took the Tuileries as his residence.
Only Paul, the imbecile Czar of Russia, returned a favorable answer to the
request for friendly relations sent by Napoleon to the powers the previous
December.
In Egypt, General Kléber, commander of the French forces, agreed with the
English admiral, Sir Sydney Smith, to evacuate the country; treaty
rejected by the English Parliament; Kléber drove the grand vizier into
Syria; restored French rule in Egypt; assassinated by an Arab; succeeded
by General Menou.
War resumed between France and Austria; General Moreau defeated the
Germans and Austrians under Kray at Engen and Moeskirch in Baden and at
Biberach in Würtemberg; in Bavaria Lecourbe and Ney took Memmingen; Ney
defeated General Mack at Ulm; and at Hochstädt Moreau again defeated the
Austrians. Finally, at Hohenlinden, the Austrians suffered a crushing
defeat, and sued for an armistice.
Meanwhile the French under Masséna were hemmed in in Genoa by an English
fleet and an Austrian army. Napoleon started from France with a force of
thirty-six thousand men, in four days crossed the Alps into Piedmont, and
attacked the Austrians under Melas at Marengo; Napoleon saved from defeat
by General Desaix's division, which arrived in time to make a brilliant
charge when Napoleon's army was retreating; Desaix killed; Melas sued for
an armistice; French masters of Italy. Genoa surrendered, fifteen thousand
men having died of starvation, but was returned to the French. England
reduced Malta. Russia joined with Denmark and Sweden in an armed
neutrality against England. The English stood firm against Napoleon. The
English navy grew stronger, and maritime trade increased. The French navy
dwindled, and trade was at a standstill. The Irish Parliament met for the
last time, one hundred members from Ireland being admitted to the next
session of the English Parliament. Bread riots in England.
The United States Congress met for the first time at Washington. Voltaic
pile discovered by Volta. Mary Kres, for a straw-weaving device, obtained
the first patent granted a woman in America. William Cowper, English poet,
died.
=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 3,210; New York City (with boroughs now
forming Greater New York), 79,216; New York (Manhattan), 60,515; London
(including Metropolitan District, census 1801), 864,484; London (old city,
census 1801), 158,859; United States, 5,308,433; Great Britain (census
1801), 10,942,646.=
=RULERS--United States, John Adams; Great Britain, George III; France,
Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul; Spain, Charles IV; Prussia, Frederick
William III; Russia, Paul; Germany, including Austria, Francis II; Sweden,
Gustavus IV; Portugal, Maria Francesca--eldest son, John, regent; Pope,
Pius VII.=
1801
Peace of Lunéville between France and Germany; the Rhine as far as the
Dutch frontier made the boundary of France, the Helvetian (Swiss),
Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics to be recognized, and the treaty of
Campo Formio confirmed. Spain ceded Louisiana to France. Peace between
France and Naples closed the ports of Naples to England, and began a
continental embargo. Pitt resigned as English prime minister. King George
III suffered a recurring attack of insanity; recovered. English defeated
the French at Aboukir and Alexandria and captured Cairo. French evacuated
Egypt; Turkish rule restored.
Paul, Czar of Russia, struck down by Prince Zubov and strangled by the
prince's followers. Alexander I, his successor, favorable to the English;
Denmark and Sweden continued armed neutrality, and on Denmark's refusing
terms offered by England, a fleet under Parker, Nelson second in command,
prepared to attack Copenhagen. Nelson commanded the attack; seemed to
fail; was signaled to retreat; put his blind eye to the telescope and
said, "I really do not see the signal," and then "Damn the signal! Keep
mine for closer action flying." Continued the attack, took or destroyed
eighteen vessels out of the Danish fleet of twenty-three, and summarily
ended the dispute.
In San Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture led an unsuccessful revolt against
the French. Exhausted resources necessitated a cessation of hostilities
between France and England, October 1. Catholic Church, under state
supervision, restored in France. Robert Fulton offered to build steam
vessels for Napoleon, who rejected the idea as visionary.
In the United States, Congress decided the tie vote of the previous year
between Jefferson and Burr in Jefferson's favor; Burr Vice-President;
Jefferson inaugurated March 4, first President to be inaugurated in
Washington; wore long trousers and aroused a storm of protest, many
considering them a dangerous innovation. Open conflict between America and
the Barbary pirates. Jacquard weaving-loom invented. Lavater,
physiognomist, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Thomas Jefferson
became President of the United States March 4, and Alexander I succeeded
Paul as Czar of Russia.=
1802
General destitution prevailed in England; governmental expenses reduced.
The Italian Republic succeeded the Cisalpine Republic, and Napoleon was
elected President. The Peace of Amiens between England and France, Holland
and Spain; France, Spain, and Holland received back all colonies except
Trinidad and Ceylon, retained by England, and England to have an open port
at the Cape of Good Hope; Malta to be restored by England to the Knights
of St. John; France to leave Elba, Rome, and Naples; integrity of the
Turkish Empire to be maintained. Napoleon permitted all but one thousand
French loyalists to return; a portion of their lands was restored, but all
hereditary privileges were denied.
Napoleon reformed the French educational system, established the Legion of
Honor, and restored slavery in the West Indies. Toussaint, after a short
and horrible war, was treacherously captured in Hayti, taken to France,
and died in a French dungeon the year following. Turkey allowed France
access to the Black Sea. English embassy reestablished in Paris.
Switzerland invaded by the French, and Napoleon's course in Italy caused
friction with the English; in reply to protests, Napoleon declared Italy,
Switzerland, and Holland were at the absolute disposal of France. In
carrying out the terms of the Peace of Lunéville France began a systematic
encroachment on German territory. British naval mutiny in Bantry Bay,
Ireland, quelled and six leaders hanged. Hortense, daughter of Josephine,
married Louis, brother of Napoleon.
Humphry Davy produced light by using two carbon points and an electric
current--the forerunner of the arc light, and entered on studies that led
to photography. One thousand persons drowned in Lorca, Spain, by a
bursting reservoir. West Point Military Academy founded. Ohio admitted to
the Union.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1803
April 30, the American commissioners, Monroe and Livingston, signed the
transfer treaty whereby France ceded Louisiana for sum of fifteen million
dollars. The United States ship Philadelphia captured by pirates in the
harbor of Tripoli, and three hundred American sailors sold into slavery;
Stephen Decatur entered the harbor, blew up the Philadelphia, and escaped.
Emmet rebellion in Ireland suppressed; Emmet hanged. Active work on the
Code Napoléon begun, and part of the civil code promulgated. English
travelers in France declared prisoners; Napoleon announced that England,
alone, was powerless against him; a feint made of invading England; war
declared by England May 13; French commerce almost destroyed. French
driven out of Hayti, having suffered from disease, and lost heavily in a
war in which atrocities were practised by both sides.
Mahratta War in India; natives in some cases incited and led by French
officers; Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward Duke of Wellington,
distinguished himself; much of northern India came under British rule.
English troops massacred in Colombo, Ceylon. Treaty between France and
America; Bank of France founded; censorship of the press in France,
English papers excluded from the country. Robert Fulton failed in his
steamboat experiments on the Seine. Mme. de Staël again exiled from
France.
United States made grants of land to colleges. September 30, corner-stone
of New York City Hall laid. Malthus published his "Essay on Population."
The first printing press in New South Wales set up. Alfieri, Italian poet,
and Sir William Hamilton, British diplomat, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1804
England recalled Pitt to power. Napoleon made costly and futile
preparations to invade England. Moreau and Pichegru conspiracy against
Napoleon; Pichegru found strangled in prison; Moreau exiled; Duc d'Enghien
captured and shot; twenty persons guillotined. France ordered German
states to expel French loyalists and English subjects. French Senate urged
Napoleon to found a hereditary monarchy, succession to be in the male
line, or, in default of issue, the crown to go to Joseph, and, if he died,
to Louis Bonaparte. May 18, Napoleon accepted, and December 2 he and
Josephine were crowned; when Pius VII went to place the crown on
Napoleon's head, the latter snatched it and crowned himself. Napoleon
created a new nobility and eight marshals. Prussia and Austria recognized
him as Emperor of France. Dessalines, a Haytian negro, followed
Bonaparte's example, and created himself Emperor Jean Jacques I.
Lewis and Clark set out on their trip across the American continent. Burr
killed Hamilton in a duel. America continued a running fight with the
Barbary pirates. Shaft sunk for a Thames tunnel; work later abandoned.
England captured Spanish ships bearing ten million dollars' tribute to
Napoleon; Spain declared war. English Bible Society founded. Immanuel
Kant, German philosopher, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Napoleon Bonaparte
became Emperor of France, and Francis II of Germany assumed the title of
Emperor Francis I of Austria.=
1805
Russia and Sweden joined in the coalition against Napoleon. Active war
preparations in France; grand review of the French army on the field of
Marengo; Genoa annexed by France; Napoleon crowned King of Italy. France,
Spain, and South German states pitted against England, Russia, Austria,
and Sweden. Admiral Villeneuve moved against the British fleet; bottled up
in Cadiz by Admiral Collingwood; threats of disgrace caused Villeneuve to
make a desperate rush; met near Cape Trafalgar by Nelson and Collingwood,
October 21; in the ensuing battle the French and Spanish fleet was
practically destroyed. Nelson was fatally shot in the hour of victory;
Villeneuve was captured, and later committed suicide.
Abandoning his plan to invade England, Napoleon marched into Germany,
threw the badly battered Austrian forces under General Mack into Ulm, and
captured the city with twenty-three thousand men. In Italy, Masséna,
French commander, inflicted heavy losses on Archduke Charles, and forced
him to sue for an armistice. Vienna captured by Murat. Prussian prime
minister demanded reparation for French violation of Prussian territory,
but was temporized with in negotiations by Talleyrand while Napoleon
prepared to move against the Russians and Austrians. On December 2 he
inflicted a crushing defeat on the allies at Austerlitz, and the Russian
army withdrew. Austria forced to grant all demands. Dalmatia and Venice
taken from Austria and given to Italy; alliance against France temporarily
broken; England left to fight alone.
Jefferson began his second term as President of the United States. The
Barbary pirates beaten by an American force under General Eaton and forced
to relinquish their claims to tribute. Agitation in the United States
strong for a war with Spain and for the annexation of Texas and part of
Mexico; the agitation subsided when the French ambassador declared France
would side with Spain. Aaron Burr went West, and began planning for the
invasion of Texas. Jerome Bonaparte married Miss Eliza Patterson, an
American.
Five thousand persons killed by an earthquake near Naples. Schiller,
German poet, historian, and dramatist; Paley, English theologian; and
Mungo Park, Scottish traveler, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1806
Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in Naples, and made Joseph Bonaparte King
of Naples and Sicily; Louis Bonaparte made King of Holland, and Jerome
Bonaparte was commanded to leave his American wife and child, marry
Catherine of Würtemberg, and rule Westphalia; Lucien Bonaparte exiled for
refusing to leave his wife and become a king. Napoleon parceled out
acquired territory among his followers and members of his family; obliged
neighboring countries to harbor and support the French army, and ordered
the completion of the Louvre.
The English admirals Strachan, Duckworth, Warren, and Hood destroyed
almost all of the few remaining French war-ships. England and France
mutually laid embargoes. English interference with the commerce of all
nations; President Jefferson protested without avail; anger in America
because of the killing of an American sailor by a stray shot from the
British cruiser Leander.
At Maida, Calabria, four thousand English under Sir John Stuart killed or
captured four thousand out of seven thousand French, and lost but
forty-five men killed. France, however, suppressed the revolt in Calabria
at great loss of lives.
The Holy Roman Empire dissolved, and the Confederation of the Rhine
formed. Denmark annexed Holstein. Palm, a Nuremberg publisher, shot for
circulating an anti-Napoleonic book. Queen Louise led the Prussian
opposition to Napoleon, and Prussia joined the war against him. Germany
invaded, and at Auerstadt, Davoust defeated Charles William of Brunswick,
while at Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe; in both battles, fought
August 14, the Prussians lost nearly fifty thousand killed, wounded, and
captured, while the French lost about sixteen thousand. The French entered
Berlin, and Napoleon despoiled Frederick the Great's tomb with his sword.
Napoleon constructed the kingdom of Westphalia from a part of Prussia,
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and upper Saxony; exacted an indemnity of thirty
million dollars from Prussia; forbade trade with Great Britain, and
stirred the Poles to revolt against Russia, then at war with Turkey. He
advanced through Poland against Russia, won hard-fought battles at
Moehrungen, Golymin, and Pultusk. The French army wintered around Warsaw.
Here Napoleon met Countess Walewski, who later became the mother of his
son Alexander.
Lewis and Clark returned from their trip across America. William Pitt and
Charles Fox, English statesmen, died. Public funeral of Nelson.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1807
The winter quarters of Napoleon's army in Warsaw were unendurable, and in
attempting to move on Königsberg the French were attacked by the Russians
at Eylau, where both sides lost sixty thousand men in a desperate but
indecisive battle. The Russian Czar Alexander freed the serfs of the
Baltic Provinces. England declared war against Turkey in order to assist
Russia. Continuation of the fight of the Russians and Prussians against
the French in Poland. The Prussian fortress of Dantzig captured by the
French. Sweden was forced to a truce with Russia. At Heilsburg the
Russians and Prussians inflicted a loss of ten thousand on the French.
June 14, anniversary of Marengo, Napoleon won a superb victory at
Friedland, Ney saving the day by a splendid charge. Russia and Prussia
forced to ask for an armistice.
Napoleon met Alexander on a richly carpeted raft on the Niemen, and peace
was arranged; Russia to break with England and annex Finland; Prussia to
be left out of the Federation of the Rhine; the Ionian Isles and
Montenegro to be taken from Turkey, and war to be begun against Sweden,
Denmark, and Portugal, unless they join in the blockade against England.
The British evacuated Egypt. Napoleon began internal reforms at home and
aided manufacturers.
Encounter between the American frigate Chesapeake and the British ship
Leopard; three Americans killed and eight wounded; Commodore Barron, of
the Chesapeake, disgraced; three of the sailors taken from the Chesapeake
received five hundred lashes each, and one was hanged. America threatened
war, but English authorities approved. England seized the Danish fleet to
prevent Napoleon from turning it against her. The slave-trade abolished by
the English Parliament. England forbade American vessels to trade between
any but its own or British ports. The Sultan Selim was deposed by his
followers. Sweden lost Stralsund to the French. Prussia abolished serfdom
and feudal social distinctions. French troops occupied Portugal, driving
the Portuguese court and royal family to Brazil. America laid an embargo
on British goods. The trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and his acquittal,
the growing discussion of slavery in the American Congress, and the
trouble with England harassed Jefferson and made his position almost
unendurable.
In August, Robert Fulton at last succeeded in his experiments on the
Hudson, and his steamship, the Clermont, on September 14, began a trip
from New York to Albany, one hundred and ten miles, taking twenty-four
hours. A great Sanhedrim, or convention, of Jewish rabbis, in Paris passed
upon and modified the interpretation of the Mosaic dispensation.
Artificial aeration of waters discovered. First capitol built at Albany.
Davy separated potassium and sodium. Illuminating-gas first used in
London.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1808
France seized strongholds in northern Spain; Murat took command of the
French forces. Spanish Minister Godoy, possessor of immense wealth looted
from the government, resigned power. King Charles of Spain abdicated in
favor of his son Ferdinand. Murat entered Madrid; riots there against the
French. Ferdinand of Spain, decoyed to meet Napoleon, forced to abdicate
and held prisoner. Rome invaded by Napoleon, who, threatened with
excommunication, seized part of the Papal States. Joseph Bonaparte made
King of Spain. England sent troops and money to aid Spain against France.
Murat crowned King of Naples. Spanish guerrillas harried the French
troops, but Napoleon neglected to take command of his forces. A French
force looted Cordova, was captured at Baylen, and sent to the galleys. The
French repulsed at Saragossa and Gerona. King Joseph, after nine days in
Madrid, fled with the Spanish royal treasure. Wellington landed in
Portugal. Spanish soldiers in the French army deserted with their leader,
Marquis Romana.
Austria, Prussia, and Turkey--where the Janizaries had deposed Mustapha
and made Mahmoud Sultan--prepared to follow up advantages won by Spain.
Napoleon attempted to enlist the United States against England, but
Jefferson kept away from the conflict. The Spanish colonies in America
expelled French settlers. Napoleon oppressed Prussia and extorted money.
Goethe decorated by Napoleon with the cross of the Legion of Honor. Russia
and France formed an alliance and unavailingly submitted peace proposals
to England. Napoleon took command in Spain, routed the Spaniards at
Espinoza, Burgos, and Tudela, and forced his way to Madrid. China
suspended trade with England.
Trade in America ruined by the embargo, and great suffering resulted.
Madison elected President; George Clinton, Vice-President. Importation of
slaves to the United States prohibited. Anthracite coal first used as a
fuel in the United States. First printing press in Brazil set up. First
American temperance society founded, Saratoga County, New York.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Charles IV of Spain
abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand VII, who, in turn, was forced by
Napoleon to abdicate in favor of Joseph Bonaparte.=
1809
In the retreat to Corunna the British lost heavily, made a stand there,
repulsed the French, and successfully embarked; Sir John Moore was killed;
many British transports were wrecked, and the troops returned in a
deplorable condition. The Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the British
forces, compelled to resign for malfeasance in office. Mrs. Clark was his
agent in selling military commissions. The Earl of Chatham resigned as
master-general of the ordnance, after having allowed ten thousand British
troops to die in the swamps of Walcheren, Holland.
Napoleon returned to Paris, at one stage covering eighty-five miles on
horseback in five hours, quarreled with Talleyrand and Fouché, reproved
Louis Bonaparte, and openly insulted Josephine. Saragossa taken by the
French, after a marvelous resistance. War between France and Austria. The
Austrians defeated at Abendsberg, Eckmühl, and Regensburg, and forced to
retreat. The French occupied Vienna. The remaining Papal States annexed to
Italy. Napoleon excommunicated; seized Pius VII and imprisoned him at
Savona. The French armies in Spain and Portugal suffered reverses. At
Aspern and Esslingen, Austria, Napoleon was defeated; but he retrieved
this disaster in the great battle of Wagram, in which sixty thousand men
fell on both sides, and Austria sought an armistice, Napoleon exacting an
indemnity of forty-seven million dollars. The British destroyed a French
fleet at Aix. At Talavera, Wellington defeated the French, but was forced
later to retreat. The Spaniards were defeated at Ocana, and the French
captured Cordova, Seville, and Gerona. Andreas Hofer, leader of the
Tyrolese, was betrayed, and executed by the French the following February.
Peace signed at Vienna, October 14. Napoleon leveled the fortifications of
Vienna, and took fifty thousand square miles of Austrian territory. He
also ordered all American merchandise confiscated, and issued a decree
divorcing Josephine.
Madison inaugurated as President of the United States. The embargo against
England removed. American trade ruined. Jefferson went out of office,
generally condemned. New British ministry repudiated the agreement with
the United States, and friction between the two countries increased.
Staaps, a German student, executed for attempt on Napoleon's life. General
destitution and bread riots throughout England; the whole continent
plunged in want and misery. Gustavus IV of Sweden deposed, and his uncle
became Charles XIII. Russia turned against France. Finland formally ceded
to Russia.
Thomas Paine, publicist, and Joseph Haydn, musician, died. Mammoth Cave,
Kentucky, discovered.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that James Madison
became President of the United States, March 4, and Charles XIII succeeded
Gustavus IV of Sweden.=
1810
Anti-Ministerial riots in London. French successful in Spain, winning at
Beylen, Cordova, Seville, Granada, and Malaga. At Valencia they were
defeated, but slaughtered the garrison at Hostalrich. Napoleon married
Archduchess Marie Louise at Vienna, by proxy, the ceremony being repeated
later in Paris. Ordered all American ships in French ports seized. Louis
Bonaparte objecting, a French force marched into Holland, and Louis
abdicated. Holland annexed by France. Lucien Bonaparte went into voluntary
exile. The Crown Prince of Sweden having died, Marshal Bernadotte, once a
common soldier in the French marines, became crown prince.
Wellington repulsed the French in Portugal from his position at Torres
Vedras. Cadiz bravely resisted the French. War between Turkey and Russia
stopped by Russia's approaching conflict with France. Napoleon ordered all
goods of English manufacture burned. Spanish provinces throughout America
revolted. The British seized French Guadeloupe and Ile de Bourbon. Fouché
sent into exile. Queen Louise of Prussia died.
Daniel O'Connell began agitation for a repeal of the Irish union with
England. Trade throughout the world ruined, and many merchants committed
suicide. Prince of Wales became regent; George III absolutely demented.
Sweden declared war against England. Henry Cavendish, scientist, died.
Astoria, Oregon, founded. Dr. Hahnemann, Leipsic, announced the theory
that is the foundation of homeopathic medicine.
=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 8,208; New York (with boroughs now forming
Greater New York), 119,734; New York (Manhattan), 96,373; London
(including Metropolitan District, census 1811), 1,009,546; London (old
city), 120,909; United States, 7,239,881; Great Britain and Ireland
(census 1811), 15,547,720.=
=RULERS--United States, James Madison; Great Britain, George III; France,
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor; Spain, Joseph Bonaparte; Prussia, Frederick
William III; Russia, Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Sweden, Charles
XIII; Portugal, Maria Francesca--eldest son, John, regent; Pope, Pius
VII.=
POEMS OF GOOD-FELLOWSHIP.
Some Verses That May Serve as Guides to Good Samaritans When They Come
Upon Pilgrims Who are Down on Their Luck and Unable to See
June Sunshine Through February Skies.
THE FRIEND OF MY HEART.
Commend me to the friend that comes
When I am sad and lone,
And makes the anguish of my heart
The suffering of his own;
Who coldly shuns the glittering throng
At pleasure's gay levee,
And comes to gild a somber hour
And give his heart to me.
He hears me count my sorrows o'er,
And when the task is done
He freely gives me all I ask--
A sigh for every one.
He cannot wear a smiling face
When mine is touched with gloom,
But, like the violet, seeks to cheer
The midnight with perfume.
Commend me to that generous heart
Which, like the pine on high,
Uplifts the same unvarying brow
To every change of sky;
Whose friendship does not fade away
When wintry tempests blow,
But, like the winter's icy crown,
Looks greener through the snow.
He flies not with the flitting stork
That seeks a southern sky,
But lingers where the wounded bird
Hath laid him down to die.
Oh, such a friend! He is in truth,
Whate'er his lot may be,
A rainbow on the storm of life,
An anchor on its sea.
_Answers._
THINGS TO FORGET.
If you see a tall fellow ahead of a crowd,
A leader of men, marching fearless and proud,
And you know of a tale whose mere telling aloud
Would cause his proud head to in anguish be bowed,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
If you know of a skeleton hidden away
In a closet, and guarded, and kept from the day
In the dark; and whose showing, whose sudden display,
Would cause grief and sorrow and lifelong dismay,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
If you know of a thing that will darken the joy
Of a man or a woman, a girl or a boy,
That will wipe out a smile or the least way annoy
A fellow, or cause any gladness to cloy,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
_Answers._
FRIENDS.
When a fellow's kind of wobbly and uncertain on his feet,
And has to work like sixty for to get both ends to meet--
When he's not of much account and has to take what he can get--
The people don't come flockin' to be friends of his, you bet!
They don't come sayin', "Old chap, I'm the only friend you've got,"
And "Remember that we're brothers," and that kind of tommyrot.
No, indeed!
And they don't get jealous of you when friends are what you need.
If a fellow's kind of lonesome and would like a friend or two
Just to come around and jolly him when things are lookin' blue;
If the shirt that he's wearin' is the only one he's got,
And he never showed the public that he's really on the spot,
They don't come crowdin' round him, nor stick out their hands and say,
"We're your friends, old man; we love you--we've the same blood
anyway"--
No, indeed!
But they watch to give the boot to you when friends are what you need.
When things have got to comin' as a fellow wants 'em to,
When his pockets are all bulgin' and his clo's are fine and new;
When he steps out proud and lordly and ain't got a thing to fear,
There's a sudden change comes over folks that used to wink and sneer.
They come runnin' then to tell you that they're all your friends, and
say
That they've always been dead anxious for to help you out some way--
Yes, indeed!
Friends are always mighty plentiful when friends ain't what you need.
_Tit-Bits._
BETTER LUCK ANOTHER YEAR.
By W. Gilmore Simms.
Oh, never sink 'neath Fortune's frown,
But brave her with a shout of cheer,
And front her fairly--face her down--
She's only stern to those who fear!
Here's "Better luck another year!"
Another year!
Aye, better luck another year!
We'll have her smile instead of sneer--
A thousand smiles for every tear,
With home made glad and goodly cheer,
And better luck another year--
Another year!
The damsel Fortune still denies
The plea that yet delights her ear;
'Tis but our manhood that she tries--
She's coy to those who doubt and fear--
She'll grant the suit another year!
Another year!
Here's "Better luck another year!"
She now denies the golden prize;
But, spite of frown and scorn and sneer,
Be firm, and we will win and wear,
With home made glad and goodly cheer,
In better luck another year!
Another year! Another year!
"HULLO!"
By S.W. Foss.
W'en you see a man in wo,
Walk right up and say "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do?"
"How's the world a-usin' you?"
Slap the fellow on his back,
Bring yer han' down with a whack;
Waltz right up, an' don't go slow,
Grin an' shake an' say "hullo!"
Is he clothed in rags? Oh, sho!
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
Rags is but a cotton roll
Jest for wrappin' up a soul;
An' a soul is worth a true
Hale an' hearty "how d'ye do?"
Don't wait for the crowd to go;
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
W'en big vessels meet, they say,
They saloot an' sail away.
Jest the same are you an' me,
Lonesome ships upon a sea;
Each one sailing his own jog
For a port beyond the fog.
Let yer speakin'-trumpet blow,
Lift yer horn' an' cry "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do?"
Other folks are good as you.
W'en ye leave yer house of clay,
Wanderin' in the Far-Away,
W'en you travel through the strange
Country t'other side the range,
Then the souls you've cheered will know
Who ye be, an' say "hullo!"
HE'S NONE THE WORSE FOR THAT.
What though the homespun suit he wears,
Best suited to the sons of toil--
What though on coarsest food he fares,
And tends the loom, or tills the soil--
What though no gold-leaf gilds the tongue,
Devoted to congenial chat--
If right prevails, and not the wrong,
The man is not the worse for that.
What though within his humble cot
No costly ornament is seen--
What though his wife possesses not
Her satin gowns of black and green--
What though the merry household band
Half naked fly to ball and bat--
If Conscience guides the heart and hand,
The man is none the worse for that.
True worth is not a thing of dress--
Of splendor, wealth, or classic lore;
Would that these trappings we loved less,
And clung to honest worth the more!
Though pride may spurn the toiling crowd,
The faded garb, the napless hat,
Yet God and Nature cry aloud--
The man is none the worse for that.
FROM LORD TENNYSON.
His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about
A silent court of justice in his breast,
Himself a judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.
Winter Photography for Amateurs.
Valuable Hints to the Disciples of the Camera Who Wish to Get the Best
Results When the Earth is Snow-Carpeted.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Many amateurs do not realize the fact that very beautiful pictures may be
taken in the wintertime, and in all too many cases when the summer
vacation is over the camera is laid aside.
Snow scenes, when properly handled, will be found among the most
interesting and effective bits in the artist's collection, and are well
worth the trouble expended upon them. So keep your camera ready at hand;
when you go for a walk, if you are lucky enough to live in the country,
take it with you. If you are a dweller in the city, watch for a good
old-fashioned snowstorm; go out in the thick of it, and you will be
surprised at the many charming scenes you can secure.
Atmospheric conditions, the sharp contrasts of black objects against a
background of glaring snow, the effect of shadow and sunlight on an
expanse of unbroken white, the fall of heavy, cottony flakes in a silent,
white-shrouded street, under the foggy glow of electric lights--all these
necessitate a course of treatment different from that of ordinary
photographic work; and all, by these very contrasts, can be made
strikingly effective.
Watch Man Who "Does the Rest."
Owing to the cold of winter and the difficulty of handling the apparatus
with stiff fingers or heavy gloves, it is well to have as simple an outfit
as possible. An ordinary fixed focus camera is good for this kind of work.
The lens on this style of camera usually works at F-16 and the shutter at
about 1-20 of a second. If the sun is bright, the next smaller stop will
do.
In taking snow pictures, the amateur who presses the button and lets the
dealer do the rest should advise the latter to develop the film with less
contrast than usual. The average dealer usually develops with as much
contrast as possible, and this method would produce a print with blank
white for the snow and hard blocks for the trees.
For more serious workers, a stand camera should be used. The camera should
be provided with a reversible back and a long bellows. An expensive lens
is not necessary. A medium angle lens will be found most useful.
Shutters are apt to work badly when out in the cold, owing to contraction
of the metal parts. This must be allowed for in making the exposure, by
setting it at greater speed.
The focusing cloth should be fastened to the camera. The Eureka focusing
hood is convenient to use. It is made to fit the camera exactly, and has
little elastic loops which slip over the ears and hold the eyepiece in
place while focusing.
A steady tripod and a stay to keep it from slipping are desirable
additions to the outfit. The camera should be protected as much as
possible from dampness and falling snow.
For best results a non-halation plate is necessary. Backed plates will
give better results than plates unbacked. The reason that the light
effects come out so extremely white and hard in many landscapes is because
the strong light from the snow penetrates the sensitive film and is
reflected into it again from the back of the plate, thus making undue
contrasts, and practically giving double exposure. This is known as
halation.
Other Necessary Precautions.
A corrected plate is essential in snow photography, in order that the
effects of light and shadow may not be too glaringly contrasted. The
isochromatic and orthochromatic plates on the market are corrected, and
are the best to use.
The early morning and the late afternoon are the times best suited for
taking snow pictures. The long shadows give interest and character to what
would otherwise be a meaningless expanse of white. The foreground is often
of the greatest interest in snow pictures. The shadows and gradations on
the surface often form the motif for fine compositions.
Never try to crowd too much on one plate. Much may be done with just a few
bushes projecting above the snow. Newly fallen snow should sometimes be
broken up for pictorial effect; and walking once or twice over the
foreground will also aid matters. In doing this, be careful to notice just
how the tracks should run to give the best lines to your picture.
Three Classes of Snow Pictures.
There are practically three classes of snow pictures, of which each
demands its own appropriate development and treatment.
Class 1--Where an expanse of snow is relieved only by delicate shadows, or
where the picture is taken during a snowstorm, when all objects are
rendered more or less indistinct and of a light tone by intervening
particles of snow. For these, the exposure should be short, the rule being
that short exposures increase contrasts, and in scenes of this
description, contrast is what is needed. On a bright day, 1-100 of a
second would be time enough. Very early in the morning or very late in the
afternoon 1-25 of a second will give ample time.
The development for plates in this class may safely be rather
vigorous--that is, with a normal developer and the plate carried to a
fairly good printing destiny. This method gives character to the high
lights, and a pleasing richness to the slight shadows that are present on
the surface of the snow. A pyro developer is good.
Rodinal is a good developer for contrasts when used in these proportions:
Rodinal, one-quarter ounce; water, five ounces; bromide potash; ten per
cent solution, five drops. The temperature of the developer should be kept
from sixty-five to seventy degrees Fahrenheit.
Class 2--When dark masses are in the foreground, with the middle distance
fairly open, and snow broken up--also, when strong contrasts appear in the
view between the snow and other objects--then a longer exposure is
needed--from one-tenth to a full second, according to the light. Use No. 8
stop.
This class of pictures should be developed in a weak solution. A suitable
metal hydroquinone developer is made as follows: Metal, thirty grains;
hydroquinone, thirty grains; twenty ounces of water. Then add sulphide of
soda (crystals) one ounce, and carbonate of soda (crystals) three-quarter
ounce.
Take two ounces of this, and add four ounces of water when there are no
very heavy masses of dark in the foreground, and eight ounces of water
when there are such masses. Before using, add one drop of ten per cent
solution of potassium bromide to each ounce of the solution.
Class 3 embraces snow pictures with figures, street scenes, skating and
sleighing scenes, etc. Short exposure is required here because of the
motion of the figures. The correction must be made in development.
The development of plates of this kind where there are dark objects and
brightly lighted snow or ice in the view is practically the same as in No.
2.
TIME IN WHICH MONEY WILL DOUBLE AT SEVERAL RATES OF INTEREST.
+------- +--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
|Rate of | Simple | Compound |Rate of | Simple | Compound |
| Int. | Interest. | Interest. | Int. | Interest. | Interest. |
| | | | | | |
+------- +--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
| 1% | 100 years. | 69 years and | 5% | 20 years. | 14 years and |
| | | 245 days. | | | 75 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 2% | 50 years. | 35 years. | 6% | 16 years and | 11 years and |
| | | | | 243 days. | 327 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 2½% | 40 years. | 28 years and | 7% | 14 years and | 10 years and |
| | | 26 days. | | 104 days. | 89 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 3% | 33 years and | 23 years and | 8% | 12 years and | 9 years and |
| | 4 months. | 164 days. | | 183 days. | 2 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 3½% | 28 years and | 20 years and | 9% | 11 years and | 8 years and |
| | 208 days. | 54 days. | | 40 days. | 16 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 4% | 25 years. | 17 years and | 10% | 10 years. | 7 years and |
| | | 246 days. | | | 100 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 4½% | 22 years and | 15 years and | | | |
| | 81 days. | 273 days. | | | |
+--------+--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
THE PROGRESS OF WOMEN.
BY LYDIA KINGSMILL COMMANDER.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Nothing is more wonderful, in this age of wonders, than the progress of
women in all the civilized countries of the world. Never before were the
doors of opportunity so widely opened; never before were the barriers of
sex so low.
The modern young woman does not face the one choice of her
grandmother--marriage or the fate of the "old maid." Before her so many
paths open that her only trouble is to choose.
Her grandmother's girlhood was spent at home. She was told that "the happy
woman is the woman with no history"; and "a woman's name should be in the
newspapers just three times--when she is born, when she marries, and when
she dies."
This is dead doctrine to the girl who goes whirling across the continent
or around the world, unchaperoned and alone, and returns to meet the
admiration of her friends and the interest of the public.
As she sits on the deck of the incoming steamer, giving opinions on kings
and countries, chatting of the book she is about to write and handing out
her photographs to a group of reporters, she bears slight resemblance to
the fainting Amandas and Clarissas who "raised their weeping eyes to
heaven," or fell swooning every time a mysterious sound was heard or when
even a stray cow crossed their path.
HOW TRAVEL IS MADE TO PAY.
If our traveler is practical and depends upon her own pocketbook instead
of papa's she adopts a specialty and makes her trips pay for themselves.
She may be attached to some paper or magazine; for the blue-stocking is as
fashionable to-day as once she was disgraced. Some women make capital of
their travels in extraordinary ways. One breaks records climbing mountain
peaks at the risk of her life and then lectures to thousands upon the
perils and pleasures of her feats.
Another is with her husband on the Congo searching for traces of ancient
African civilizations for the British Museum. In Mexico and South America
several women archeologists are at work digging out relics of the Aztecs,
Peruvians, and the original tribes of the Amazon River. A recent book on
Egyptian hieroglyphics was partly the work of a woman.
Then there are the women who take parties abroad, arranging for steamers,
trains, boats and hotels; buying tickets; looking after baggage, and
keeping everybody interested, instructed, and satisfied.
Such women--and there are many of them--must know half a dozen languages,
be familiar with the history, customs, and attractions of the countries
visited, be quick in an emergency, full of tact so as to keep the party
harmonious, and clever enough business women to give every one bargain
rates and come out with handsome profits at the end of each trip.
But traveling for business takes other forms. In the United States there
are nearly a thousand feminine commercial travelers, selling everything
from perfumery to men's shoes and babies' soothing syrup. There are women
factory inspectors who travel constantly from place to place. The United
States government employs a woman as Superintendent of Indian schools. She
covers thousands of miles every year and wields absolute power over the
institutions under her care.
The woman who does not travel no longer need stay at home in the old
sense. Indeed she has little to keep her there. The spinning, weaving,
sewing, and knitting which formerly were the home industries have been
swept off into great factories. In consequence the woman who does not want
to be idle follows the work outside of the home and down-town.
IN AMERICA SEVENTY YEARS AGO.
In 1834, when Harriet Martineau visited this country, she found only seven
occupations open to women--housekeeping, keeping boarders, needlework,
teaching, working in cotton factories, bookbinding, and typesetting.
Only the last four could really be counted as out-of-home occupations, for
keeping boarders and sewing called for no new knowledge or skill apart
from the training in housekeeping which all girls received.
It is safe to say that of those seven occupations, six at least were not
overcrowded. The work of the world was done in the homes and housekeeping
was the occupation of women. There were few spinning-mills, but the
old-fashioned wheel was in every house. It was not kept in a drawing-room
alcove to prove its long ancestry, but steadily, busily hummed all day
long as the soft rolls of wool changed into skeins and balls of yarn or
thread.
After the work of the spinning-wheel came the loom and the
knitting-needles. Cloth and stockings, blankets, mittens, and mufflers
were fashioned by the hands of the housewife and her daughters.
There were no factories for canned fruits, pickles, or preserves. All
these had to be made and stored up for winter use.
Now the stores furnish everything from a handkerchief to a ball-gown, and
from bread to canned roast beef. The washing and ironing can go to the
laundry and the family supplies can be bought.
THE RUSH INTO BUSINESS LIFE.
Since women had been working since work began, they could not consent to
remain at home idle. The result is seen in the rush of the modern woman
into business life.
The last census shows that in the United States women are following every
trade and profession except the army and the navy. Even the army has a
woman physician, Dr. Anita McGee, who wears a uniform. In Europe, the
uniformed woman is by no means a rarity. Almost every royal woman wears
military honors.
It will be remembered that Queen Victoria was carried to her grave on a
gun-carriage like an officer, because as Queen of England and Empress of
India she was head of the British army and of the greatest navy in the
world.
To have an occupation is almost as natural to the American girl of to-day
as to her brother. For a woman to go into business used to be like
climbing a mountain; now it is almost like going down a toboggan slide.
When she leaves school she expects to work.
Sometimes she finishes her education in a public school and goes into a
shop, factory, or mill. She may become one of the 75,000 milliners, the
100,000 saleswomen, the 120,000 cotton workers, the 275,000 laundresses,
or the 340,000 dressmakers.
If she can stay longer in school, she may become one of the 320,000 school
teachers. Or she may go to a college, which sternly closed its doors in
the face of her grandmother, and carry off the prizes and the honors from
the men. She can enter a university, come out B.A., M.A., or Ph.D., and
join the thousand women who are already college professors.
IN THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF MAN.
If she fancies law, medicine, or the church, her way is clear. All three
professions number their women members by the thousand, though a
generation ago the pioneers in each line were struggling against ridicule
and opposition.
Painting and sculpture were once considered masculine accomplishments, but
to-day 15,000 women have studios. The musicians are three times as
numerous.
Even the more unusual occupations are well represented. There are 261
wholesale merchants, 1,271 officials in banks, 1,932 stock raisers, 378
butchers, and 193 blacksmiths. There are 200 women to mix cocktails or
serve gin-fizzes behind the bar. If they sell after hours or to minors,
there are 879 policemen and detectives to watch them.
The traveling public depends for its safety and its accidents principally
upon men. But women already claim 2 motor-men, 13 conductors, 4
station-agents, 2 pilots, 1 lighthouse keeper, 127 engineers, and 153
boatmen among their number.
Almost every paper one picks up tells of women's successes in some line of
work. A dozen women in Chicago, and probably three times as many in New
York, are making ten thousand dollars a year or more, either as salaries
or profits from business.
The property owned by actresses and singers must pay a handsome sum in
taxes. It is said that Hetty Green, the shrewdest business woman in the
world, can stand in City Hall Square, New York, and see five million
dollars' worth of her own property; and every one knows she owes her
millions to her own cleverness, not to either husband or father.
A Woman's Building has been a feature of many of our great national
expositions. They have been filled with the products of women's labor; but
so far the structures, though designed by women, have been erected by men.
This can be remedied at any time it is necessary.
There are women builders of every sort: 167 are masons, 545 carpenters, 45
plasterers, 126 plumbers, 1,750 painters and glaziers, and 241
paper-hangers. It is true the roofing would be a long job, for only two
feminine roofers and slaters are to be found in the whole country. But the
1,775 tin-workers might help out. If a steel frame were called for, 3,370
iron and steel workers would stand ready; and the eight steam-boiler
makers would put in the heating and power plant.
CALLINGS PECULIAR TO THE SEX.
Not only have women conquered all the established callings, but they have
invented some of their own. Professional shoppers were never heard of in
the old days, though since the idea was started some men have adopted the
business. The welfare secretary, who is "guide, philosopher, and friend"
to the girls in factories or department stores, has recently come into
existence. Then there is the shopping adviser, who pilots the uncertain
Mrs. Newbride over one store or through many, helping her to furnish the
new home harmoniously, fashionably, and for a given sum.
One woman owes her prosperity to her creation of the profession of
"dramatists' agent." A Western woman raises animals for menageries and
zoos. Another clears three thousand dollars a year by growing violets,
while a third is getting rich out of the proceeds of her ostrich farm.
Altogether five and a quarter million American women--or one-fifth of all
the workers in the country--are making their own money.
WOMAN'S STATUS IN EUROPE.
The women of the United States lead in this rush for education and for
labor, but in other countries the same advance is being made, if more
slowly.
Great Britain has thirty-five hundred university graduates. Fifteen
hundred of these are from Girton, Newnham, and the Oxford Halls for Women,
annexes of the historic universities, but with examinations just as stiff.
It is a dozen years since Miss Fawcett carried off the highest
mathematical honors an English university can bestow.
Germany looks askance at any education for woman that gives to her
interests outside of the home. The Kaiser's four K's, which become C's in
translation--Clothes, Cooking, Church, and Children--are popularly
supposed to define the world of the German hausfrau. The American's joke
about "woman's sphere" has long been obsolete; but that sphere is very
real and very limited in most of the European countries.
Yet even in the more conservative lands women are progressing. The older
dentists in Germany and Austria had to come to America for their diplomas.
To-day professional schools, universities, and colleges can be found where
a woman can follow any line of study and fit herself for the professions.
In Russia, although the struggle for democracy is barely begun, and
representative government is as yet only a demand, the higher education of
women has been an accomplished fact for a number of years. Russian women
doctors, lawyers, and professors are not uncommon.
Norway and Sweden have experienced a feminine revolution in the last
quarter-century. The laws have been overhauled and revised; the schools
and colleges thrown open; the trades and professions have flung down their
barriers; and work, once a disgrace, has become an honor to women. Sweden
led in this movement, but Norway was quick to follow, and it is now a
question as to which will first reach the goal of full equality between
women and men.
In political rights English and Scandinavian women stand about on a level.
Neither can vote for members of Parliament, but both have municipal and
local suffrage, which gives them power to exercise their gifts for
housekeeping and economical management in civic as well as home affairs.
A WOMAN'S LEGAL RIGHTS.
This growing liberty of women has affected her position as wife and
mother. In the days when she had no sphere but the home and no career but
marriage, she was a very insignificant creature even within those limits.
She could not own her home, could not choose its location, or have
anything at all to say about it. The home, the children, and she herself
belonged to the husband, who was "lord and master" in the sense of owner
and dictator.
Now, in those countries where women have gained financial, industrial, and
political standing, they hold a more dignified position in the home.
Formerly a widow could be left penniless and her children willed away from
her.
The present English law gives to the widow one-third of the property, and
half the guardianship of the children. In case of divorce, the children
under sixteen belong to the mother, unless she is notoriously unfit to
have them.
Very similar to these are the laws in the British colonies, the United
States, and Scandinavia. In these countries, too, with the exception of
certain of our States, a married woman can own property, earn money, and
collect her own wages, sue or be sued, make a contract with others, and in
some places with her own husband.
She is also entitled to support for herself and her children, and to a
divorce for various causes, including infidelity, brutality, intoxication,
desertion, failure to provide, and felony.
In Germany the wife is legally entitled to a certain proportion of her
husband's income, a right which women have in no other country. Everywhere
else the vague term "support" is used, and even that is not granted in
seven of our States.
In Holland, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and Denmark the woman's movement is
recent and slow. The Dutch Queen is the only woman there who is not ruled;
and the Dutchman wanted her called "king," so as to lessen their dislike
of being subject to a woman's commands.
Switzerland, though it boasts of its democracy, excludes its women from
influence and political power. It does not deny them work, but like the
German, French, and Russian peasants, the Swiss women carry the heavy
burdens of field work and street-cleaning without any reason to believe
that there is dignity in labor.
In Italy, Spain, and Portugal the upward movement of women has come mainly
from the masses, not, as in Russia, from the aristocrats, or, as among the
English-speaking races, from the middle class.
IN GREECE AND THE ORIENT.
In Greece the educated women are leading the crusade. The principal of a
girls' college in Athens said recently: "It is true and beyond dispute
that the Greece of to-day owes its rapid progress to its women."
While Greek women cannot vote, they take an active part in political life.
During campaigns they make speeches for their husbands and brothers, and
at other times traverse the country expounding the doctrines of the party
they espouse. They resemble the English political woman of the style of
Mrs. Humphrey Ward's "Marcella," a type scarcely to be found in any other
country.
Even into slumbering Turkey, land of harems, Greek women are carrying
modern ideas of education. There is a Greek girls' school in
Constantinople; and, principally through Greek influence, Turkish women
are studying European languages, reading foreign books, and looking toward
the great world where women can be the comrades, friends, and equals of
men, instead of their playthings and slaves.
All through the Orient the conditions of Turkey are practically
reproduced. In spite of the abolition of the suttee, the poor widows of
India have a mournful lot. It is only the most daring of Chinese mothers
who would leave her little daughter's feet unbound. A few Japanese women
rebel at giving up home and children simply because milord has tired of
his wife; but to most the thought of opposing the customs of centuries is
still remote.
Even Asiatic women, nevertheless, are progressing. Some come to America
for the education their own continent cannot furnish. A Chinese woman
doctor recently lectured on her country all through the United States; and
Japanese women are found in our colleges.
THE LANDS OF EMANCIPATION.
In the Pacific Ocean, far beyond China and Japan, lie the only two
countries in the world which fully acknowledge the equality of men and
women by giving political rights to all citizens of twenty-one, regardless
of sex. They are New Zealand and Australia.
New Zealand was the first by a dozen years to put her daughters on an
equality with her sons. It was in 1867 that the cry was raised. "Shall our
mothers, wives, and sisters be our equals or our subjects?"
The answer was given in 1893 by the full enfranchisement of women. In
Australia the change came more gradually, province by province. But a few
months ago the final concession was made and now Australian women, like
their sisters of New Zealand, are the equals and not the subjects of their
husbands, brothers, and sons.
More conservative than England's colonies of the Southern Seas is her
great Northern possession, Canada. There widows and spinsters are held in
high favor, for full municipal suffrage belongs to them. But the married
woman is barred out. This is probably a survival of the subordination of
the wife; but the Canadian woman is asking whether the acceptance of a
husband should be considered unfailing proof of her inferior judgment.
PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
There are four States in the Union--Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and
Utah--where women have full political rights. They vote on every election
from school trustee to President. They are eligible for every office from
pound-keeper to Governor. They have sat in the different Legislatures and
have filled many executive offices.
These four States do not, however, hold a monopoly of the women voters.
Four more have some form of local suffrage, and in twenty-five women can
vote on school elections. In New York, for instance, women taxpayers may
vote on all propositions for the expenditure of public money. In addition,
they have school suffrage and are eligible as trustees.
There are clubs and societies which enroll in this country about four
million women. There are associations of different nations to forward the
interests of all women regardless of country. Such is the International
Council of Women, representing twenty lands. Its great congresses, meeting
every five years, are the event of the year in the land where they
convene.
There is the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance and the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, with its branches in every country. Indeed the
boundaries of countries are disappearing before this new sisterhood of
woman.
Of famous women it would be folly to attempt to speak. America is justly
proud of her many clever daughters, but every nation has its brilliant
women. Mme. Curie, who was awarded the Nobel prize for science, was born
and reared in Poland and lives in France. This year the Nobel peace prize
fell to the Austrian Baroness von Suttner.
Considering the progress of the past half-century, one can but wonder what
the next one hundred years will bring.
RHYMES BY THE BARDS OF GRAFT.
SEVEN AGES OF GRAFT.
All the world is graft,
And all the men and women merely grafters.
They have their sure things and their bunco games,
And one man in his time works many grafts,
His bluffs being seven ages. At first the infant
Conning his dad until he walks the floor;
And then the whining schoolboy, poring o'er his book,
Jollying his teacher into marking him
A goodly grade. And then the lover,
Making each maiden think that she
Is but the only one. And then the soldier,
Full of strange words and bearded like a pard,
Seeking the bubble reputation,
Even in the magazines. And then the justice,
Handing out the bull con to the bench
And jollying the jury till it thinks
He knows it all. The sixth age shifts
To lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose--his is a graft!
For he is then the Old Inhabitant
And all must hear him talk. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans graft, sans pull, sans cinch, sans everything.
_Chicago Tribune._
WHATCHY GOIN' T' GIMME?
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" says the youngest boy to pa;
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" says the youngest girl to ma;
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" says the maiden to her beau;
Everywhere the answer is, "Oh, sumpin, I dunno."
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" asks the little boy at school--
His just 'fore Christmas goodness makes him mindful of each rule;
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" sings the gamin in the street;
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" on our every hand we meet.
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" asks the yawning money-box
Meant to catch the coin to feed the hungry folks in flocks;
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" asks the wretched and the poor,
Living in their penury a stone's throw from your door.
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" asks the great big world, of you;
"Lifetime full of usefulness, heart sincere and true?"
"Whatchy goin' t' gimme?" Hear it everywhere you go--
Always comes the answer, "Oh, just sumpin, I dunno."
_Baltimore American._
THE ORIGINAL GRAFTER.
"And Croesus lifted up his voice and cried, 'Solon!
Solon!' And King Cyrus ordered that the fire be extinguished
and the captive released."--_Herodotus._
There's a basis for a thesis in the history of Croesus--
Mr. Croesus, Greece's captain of finance;
It contains an exegesis on the clippings of the fleeces
Of the lambs, when Wall Street's breezes are not tempered, and the
geese's
Ravished feathers pay the piper for the dance.
"In the days of old Rameses, this here story had paresis"--
So says Kipling, and what he says goes with me,
But old or new, it pleases me at times to save the pieces
Of the stories of the glories and the grandeurs that were Greece's,
When they prophesy a modern case, you see.
The capture of old Croesus was a stunt of the police's
That for up-to-dateness seizes me with joy.
He was roasted like a cheese is, out there on the Chersonesus,
Till he hollered for his lawyer--"Solon!"
Ay, that's where the squeeze is--
"Technicality"--trial ceases--"vindication"--this release is
What the grafters count on nowadays, my boy!
_Cleveland Leader._
The Devil and Tom Walker.
BY WASHINGTON IRVING.
Washington Irving was born in the city of New York, April 3,
1783, and died at Sunnyside, near Tarrytown, New York,
November 28, 1859. Irving is frequently spoken of as the
founder of American literature. Though fond of reading, he
had little taste for study in his youth, and did not attend
college.
Failing health caused him to go to Europe, where he traveled
for several years. His first literary work of importance was
his "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Shortly
afterward, while engaged in a commercial venture with his
brothers, he found it necessary to make a second visit to
England. The firm failed, and, while still in England,
Irving again devoted all his attention to literature.
The "Sketch Book" was the first of the young author's works
to win favor on the other side. This was followed by
"Bracebridge Hall" and "Tales of a Traveler." Irving then
went to Spain, and in the course of the several years that
he spent there he wrote "A Life of Columbus," the "Conquest
of Granada," and "The Alhambra." Subsequently he wrote his
two most celebrated biographical works--"The Life of
Washington" and "The Life of Goldsmith."
Irving was noted principally for his quaint humor and
graceful literary expression. The following story, "The
Devil and Tom Walker," is taken from "The Tales of a
Traveler."
A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding
several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and
terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this
inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises
abruptly from the water's edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few
scattered oaks of great age and immense size.
It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that
Kidd the pirate buried his treasure. The inlet allowed a facility to bring
the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill.
The elevation of the place permitted a good lookout to be kept that no one
was at hand, while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the
place might easily be found again.
The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the hiding of
the money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it is well
known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been
ill gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his wealth,
being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there
hanged for a pirate.
About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in
New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there
lived near this place a meager, miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker.
He had a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even
conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she
hid away; a hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the
new-laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect her
secret hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place
about what ought to have been common property.
They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of
starvation. A few straggling savin-trees, emblems of sterility, grew near
it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveler stopped at its
door. A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a
gridiron, stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely
covering the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantalized and balked his
hunger, and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, look
piteously at the passer-by, and seem to petition deliverance from this
land of famine.
The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom's wife was a tall
termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice
was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband, and his face sometimes
showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one
ventured, however, to interfere between them; the lonely wayfarer shrunk
within himself at the horrid clamor and clapper-clawing; eyed the den of
discord askance, and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his
celibacy.
One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighborhood, he
took what he considered a short cut homeward through the swamp. Like most
short cuts, it was an ill-chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with
great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made
it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. It
was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses,
where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black
smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the
tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water-snake, and where trunks of pines and
hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping
in the mire.
Tom had long been picking his way cautiously through this treacherous
forest; stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots which afforded
precarious footholds among the deep sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a
cat, among the prostrate trunks of trees; startled now and then by the
sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quacking of a wild duck, rising on
the wing from some solitary pool.
At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground which ran out like a
peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the
strongholds of the Indians during their wars with the first colonists.
Here they had thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as
almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and
children. Nothing remained of the Indian fort but a few embankments
gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already
overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which
formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp.
It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort,
and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Any one but he would have
felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common
people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time
of the Indian wars, when it was asserted that the savages held
incantations here and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker,
however, was not a man to be troubled with any fears of the kind.
He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock,
listening to the boding cry of the tree-toad, and delving with his
walking-staff into a mound of black mold at his feet. As he turned up the
soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it
out of the vegetable mold, and lo! a cloven skull, with an Indian tomahawk
buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time
that had elapsed since this death-blow had been given. It was a dreary
memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold
of the Indian warriors.
"Humph!" said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the dirt
from it.
"Let that skull alone!" said a gruff voice.
Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated directly
opposite him on the stump of a tree.
He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one
approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the
gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither negro nor
Indian.
It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt
or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper
color, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been
accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black
hair that stood out from his head in all directions, and bore an ax on his
shoulder.
He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.
"What are you doing in my grounds?" said the black man, with a hoarse
growling voice.
"Your grounds?" said Tom, with a sneer; "no more your grounds than mine:
they belong to Deacon Peabody."
"Deacon Peabody be d----d," said the stranger, "as I flatter myself he
will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his
neighbors'. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring."
Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of
the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and
saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind was
likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of
Deacon Peabody.
He now looked round and found most of the tall trees marked with the names
of some great men of the colony, and all more or less scored by the ax.
The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently just been
hewn down, bore the name of Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty
rich man of that name, who had made a vulgar display of wealth, which it
was whispered he had acquired by buccaneering.
"He's just ready for burning!" said the black man, with a growl of
triumph. "You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for
winter."
"But what right have you," said Tom, "to cut down Deacon Peabody's
timber?"
"The right of prior claim," said the other. "This woodland belonged to me
long before one of your white-faced race put foot upon the soil."
"And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold?" said Tom.
"Oh, I go by various names. I am the Wild Huntsman in some countries; the
Black Miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the
Black Woodsman. I am he to whom the red men devoted this spot, and now and
then roasted a white man by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red
men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by
presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great
patron and prompter of slave dealers, and the grand master of the Salem
witches."
"The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not," said Tom sturdily,
"you are he commonly called 'Old Scratch.'"
"The same at your service!" replied the black man, with a half civil nod.
Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though
it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to
meet with such a singular personage in this wild, lonely place would have
shaken any man's nerves; but Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily
daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife that he did not
even fear the devil.
It is said that after this commencement they had a long and earnest
conversation together as Tom returned homeward. The black man told him of
great sums of money which had been buried by Kidd the pirate, under the
oak-trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All these were under
his command and protected by his power, so that none could find them but
such as propitiated his favor. These he offered to place within Tom
Walker's reach, having conceived an especial kindness for him, but they
were to be had only on certain conditions.
What these conditions were may easily be surmised, though Tom never
disclosed them publicly. They must have been very hard, for he required
time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where
money was in view. When they had reached the edge of the swamp the
stranger paused.
"What proof have I that all you have been telling me is true?" said Tom.
"There is my signature," said the black man, pressing his finger on Tom's
forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the swamp, and
seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth, until he
totally disappeared.
When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it
were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.
The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom
Crowninshield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with the
usual flourish that "a great man had fallen in Israel."
Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and
which was ready for burning. "Let the freebooter roast," said Tom; "who
cares!" He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no
illusion.
He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence, but as this was an
uneasy secret he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was
awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to
comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them wealthy
for life. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the
devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife; so he flatly
refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the
quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she talked the more
resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she determined
to drive the bargain on her own account, and, if she succeeded, to keep
all the gain to herself.
Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old
Indian fort toward the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent.
When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke
something of a black man whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the
root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms;
she was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she
forbore to say.
The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily
laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight came, but she
did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night returned, but still she
did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her safety, especially as he found
she had carried off in her apron the silver teapot and spoons, and every
portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another morning came;
but no wife. In a word, she was never heard of more.
What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many pretending
to know. It is one of those facts that have become confounded by a variety
of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way among the tangled mazes
of the swamp and sunk into some pit or slough; others, more uncharitable,
hinted that she had eloped with the household booty, and made off to some
other province; while others assert that the tempter had decoyed her into
a dismal quagmire, on top of which her hat was found lying. In
confirmation of this it was said a great black man with an ax on his
shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying
a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph.
The most current and probable story, however, observes that Tom Walker
grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set
out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer's
afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen.
He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The
bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the
bullfrog croaked dolefully from a neighborly pool.
At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls
began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his attention was attracted by
the clamor of carrion crows that were hovering about a cypress-tree. He
looked and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in the
branches of a tree; with a great vulture perched hard by, as if keeping
watch upon it. He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife's apron, and
supposed it to contain the household valuables.
"Let us get hold of the property," said he consolingly to himself, "and we
will endeavor to do without the woman."
As he scrambled up the tree the vulture spread its wide wings, and sailed
off screaming into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check
apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in
it.
Such, according to the most authentic old story, was all that was to be
found of Tom's wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man
as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though a female
scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance
she appears to have had the worst of it.
She must have died game, however: from the part that remained unconquered.
Indeed, it is said, Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped
about the tree, and several handfuls of hair that looked as if they had
been plucked from the coarse black shock of the woodsman. Tom knew his
wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at
the signs of a fierce clapper-clawing. "Egad," said he to himself, "Old
Scratch must have had a tough time of it!"
Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property by the loss of his wife;
for he was a little of a philosopher. He even felt something like
gratitude toward the black woodsman, who he considered had done him a
kindness. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a further acquaintance with
him, but for some time without success; the old black legs played shy, for
whatever people may think, he is not always to be had for calling for; he
knows how to play his cards when pretty sure of his game.
At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the
quick, and prepared him to agree to anything rather than not gain the
promised treasure, he met the black man one evening in his usual woodsman
dress, with his ax on his shoulder, sauntering along the edge of the
swamp, and humming a tune. He affected to receive Tom's advance with great
indifference, made brief replies, and went on humming his tune.
By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, and they began to haggle
about the terms on which the former was to have the pirate's treasure.
There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally
understood in all cases where the devil grants favors; but there were
others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly
obstinate. He insisted that the money found through his means should be
employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it
in the black traffic--that is to say, that he should fit out a slave ship.
This, however, Tom resolutely refused; he was bad enough, in all
conscience, but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn
slave-dealer.
Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it, but
proposed instead that he should turn usurer; the devil being extremely
anxious for the increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar
people.
To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom's taste.
"You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next month," said the black man.
"I'll do it to-morrow if you wish," said Tom Walker.
"You shall lend money at two per cent a month."
"Egad, I'll charge four!" replied Tom Walker.
"You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive the merchant to
bankruptcy----"
"I'll drive him to the d----l!" cried Tom Walker eagerly.
"You are the usurer for my money!" said the black legs, with delight.
"When will you want the rhino?"
"This very night."
"Done!" said the devil.
"Done!" said Tom Walker.
So they shook hands and struck a bargain.
A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting-house
in Boston. His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money
out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the
days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a
time of paper credit.
The country had been deluged with government bills; the famous Land Bank
had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people
had run mad with schemes for new settlements, for building cities in the
wilderness; land jobbers went about with maps of grants and townships and
Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which everybody was ready to
purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out every
now and then in the country had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody
was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual, the fever
had subsided; the dream had gone off, and the imaginary fortunes with it;
the patients were left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded
with the consequent cry of "hard times."
At this propitious time of public distress did Tom Walker set up as a
usurer in Boston. His door was soon thronged by customers. The needy and
the adventurous; the gambling speculator; the dreaming land-jobber; the
thriftless tradesman; the merchant with cracked credit; in short, every
one driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices
hurried to Tom Walker.
Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and he acted like a
"friend in need"--that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good
security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness
of his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages; gradually squeezed his
customers closer and closer, and sent them at length, dry as a sponge,
from his door.
In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich and mighty man,
and exalted his cocked hat upon 'change. He built himself, as usual, a
vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of it unfinished
and unfurnished out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fulness
of his vainglory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and
as the ungreased wheels groaned and screeched on the axletrees, you would
have thought you heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing.
As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good
things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He
thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and
set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became,
therefore, all of a sudden, a violent churchgoer. He prayed loudly and
strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one
might always tell when he had sinned most during the week, by the clamor
of his Sunday devotion.
The quiet Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly traveling
Zion-ward were struck with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly
outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in
religious as in money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of
his neighbors, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account
became a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the
expediency of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a
word, Tom's zeal became as notorious as his riches.
Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, Tom had a
lurking dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. That he might
not be taken unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a small
Bible in his coat-pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his
counting-house desk, and would frequently be found reading it when people
called on business; on such occasions he would lay his green spectacles on
the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to drive some usurious
bargain.
Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his old days, and that,
fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled, and
bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost, because he supposed that at
the last day the world would be turned upside down; in which case he
should find his horse standing ready for mounting, and he was determined
at the worst to give his old friend a run for it. This, however, is
probably a mere old wives' fable. If he really did take such a precaution
it was totally superfluous; at least, so says the authentic old legend,
which closes his story in the following manner:
On one hot afternoon in the dog days, just as a terrible black
thunder-gust was coming up, Tom sat in his counting-house in his white
linen cap and India silk morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing
a mortgage by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land
speculator, for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor
land-jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown
testy and irritated, and refused another day.
"My family will be ruined and brought upon the parish," said the
land-jobber.
"Charity begins at home," replied Tom. "I must take care of myself in
these hard times."
"You have made so much money out of me," said the speculator.
Tom lost his patience and his piety. "The devil take me," said he, "if I
have made a farthing!"
Just then there were three loud knocks at the street-door. He stepped out
to see who was there.
A black man was holding a black horse which neighed and stamped with
impatience.
"Tom, you're come for!" said the black fellow gruffly.
Tom shrunk back, but too late. He had left his little Bible at the bottom
of his coat pocket, and his big Bible on the desk buried under the
mortgage he was about to foreclose. Never was sinner taken more unawares.
The black man whisked him like a child astride the horse and away he
galloped in the midst of a thunder-storm.
The clerks stuck their pens behind their ears and stared after him from
the windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing down the street, his white cap
bobbing up and down, his morning-gown fluttering in the wind, and his
steed striking fire out of the pavement. When the clerks turned to look
for the black man he had disappeared.
Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman who
lived on the borders of the swamp reported that in the height of the
thunder-gust he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and a howling along
the road, and that when he ran to the window he just caught sight of a
figure such as I have described on a horse that galloped like mad across
the fields, over the hills and down into the black hemlock swamp toward
the old Indian fort, and that shortly after a thunderbolt fell in that
direction which seemed to set the whole forest in a blaze.
The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders,
but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the
devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony, that
they were not so much horror-struck as might have been expected.
Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom's effects. There was
nothing, however, to administer upon. On searching his coffers, all his
bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and
silver, his iron chest was filled with worthless chips and shavings; two
skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half-starved horses, and the
very next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the ground.
Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all griping
money-brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be
doubted. The very hole under the oak-trees, from whence he dug Kidd's
money, is to be seen to this day, and the neighboring swamp and old Indian
fort are often haunted on stormy nights by a figure on horseback, in a
morning-gown and white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the
usurer.
In fact, the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin
of that saying prevalent throughout New England of "The Devil and Tom
Walker."
SHELLEY ON CHILDREN.
They were earth's purest children, young and fair,
With eyes the shrines of unawaken'd thought,
And brows as bright as spring or morning.
VICTOR HUGO ON WOMAN.
=You gaze at a star for two motives: because it is luminous
and because it is beyond your reach and comprehension. You
have by your side a sweeter radiance and greater
mystery--woman.=
_Les Misérables._
The Beginnings of Stage Careers.
By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.
A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued From Month to Month
and Include All Players of Note.
How did he start? How did she manage to get the chance to show what she
could do? Was it "pull," persistence, or the fact of being born in the
profession?
These are the things playgoers--and who is not a playgoer these
days?--want to know about the players who have "arrived." There is a good
deal of variety in the answers herewith set down. In some cases it is
rather difficult to state just when the real start was made; in others,
baby-day débuts can scarcely be considered to "count."
But of one thing the reader may be certain: in no instance has permanent
success been won without work, be the actor a recruit from the business
world, the society drawing-room, or the ranks of the Thespians themselves.
MANSFIELD'S OPPORTUNITY.
He Failed to Earn a Livelihood as a
Painter, and Was Graduated from
Comic Opera to the Drama.
Although Richard Mansfield's mother was Mme. Rudersdorf, the prima donna,
he was in no sense cradled in the theater. His infant eyes first looked on
the light in Heligoland, an island in the North Sea that then belonged to
England. This was in the year 1857, and he was brought up with the idea
that one day he should become a painter. It was while he was a schoolboy
at Derby, England, that he received the first lift toward the career which
has placed him at the head of his fellows on the American boards.
The boys arranged to act "The Merchant of Venice" on a certain grand
occasion known as "Speech Day," and young Mansfield was cast for
_Shylock_. So well did he acquit himself then that no less exalted a
personage than a bishop shook him by the hand with the words that must
still ring in the now mighty Richard's ears: "Heaven forbid that I should
encourage you to become an actor; but should you, if I mistake not, you
will be a great one."
Preparatory schooling over, his art studies at South Kensington were
broken in upon by failing family fortunes, and the necessity of earning
money in the present rather than waiting to gather in perhaps greater
amounts in the future. So, through the agency of friends of his father, he
set sail for Boston, where an opening had been made for him in the big
dry-goods house of Jordan, Marsh & Co.
But business was not his forte. He spent all his leisure time in painting
pictures, which he found, moreover, he could sell very readily. He burned
for the more artistic atmosphere of the city by the Thames, and,
encouraged by his success in disposing of his paintings, he threw up his
mercantile job and departed for London.
And now began for him seven memorable years--years of keen disappointment,
of deep bitterness, of hope deferred, of actual suffering in body as well
as mind. The kind of pictures he had been able to sell with ease in Boston
found no buyers in England, and matters went speedily with him from bad to
worse.
The incident he had used in his play "Monsieur," of his hero's engagement
to play the piano and toppling from the stool through weakness induced by
hunger, is drawn from his own experience. The episode occurred at a
concert-hall, when he was possessed of only one suit of clothes and no
home.
Mansfield Meets W.S. Gilbert.
It was his ability to play and sing that really kept his body and soul
together in these awful days and nights, for once in a while, by a clutch
at the fringe of friendships left him from the old days, he could obtain
an engagement to entertain a company of literary or stage folk. He fell in
with W.S. Gilbert on one of these occasions. "Pinafore" had just taken the
public by storm, and the makers thereof were hastening to utilize the
wave of popular favor by thrusting all of their available wares to a ride
upon its crest.
"I think that young man will do for _Wellington Wells_ in 'The Sorcerer,'"
Gilbert remarked to his manager, R. D'Oyly Carte.
It was to be a company for the provinces, and as Mr. Carte thought that
the rather shabbily attired young person who officiated at the piano would
not be exorbitant in his demands for salary, he decided that he would do,
and offered Mansfield three pounds, or fifteen dollars, a week.
To the out-at-elbows, fate-buffeted artist, this seemed a princely sum,
and he accepted the position with an eagerness he hoped was not as
apparent as his necessities demanded it should be. But his spine stiffened
a little later on when, having made good with _Wellington Wells_ and one
or two other impersonations in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire, he
asked for a raise of salary amounting to two dollars a week. Mr. Carte
declined to grant it, and Mansfield quit.
But, on the strength of his first engagement, it was not a heaven and
earth raising matter to secure a second, and, like all the rest of his
ambitious British brother actors, he steered his course across the
Atlantic. He found a chance to appear as _Dromez_ in the comic opera "Les
Manteaux Noirs," which was done in New York at the Standard Theater, now
known as the Manhattan.
This was in the early eighties. His next venture was _Nick Vedder_ in a
musical setting of "Rip Van Winkle," after which he returned to the
Gilbert and Sullivan line and appeared as the _Lord Chancellor_ in
"Iolanthe."
A Lucky Misfortune.
And right here steps in one of the luckiest misfortunes that ever befell a
man. For had Mansfield not turned his ankle while dancing as the
_Chancellor_ in Baltimore he _might_ have remained in comic opera until he
disputed twentieth century honors in the field with De Wolf Hopper and
Jeff De Angelis.
The accident put him out of the cast and sent him back to New York, right
in the path of A.M. Palmer, who happened to be looking for somebody to do
_Tirandel_ in "A Parisian Romance." This was a small part, but, being in
straight drama rather than comic opera, was regarded by Mansfield as a
step upward, and he did not hesitate about accepting the engagement.
What followed has been told so often from the Mansfield side that the
reader may be glad to get the story in the words of the man who made it
possible for a fellow actor to lift himself in a night from obscurity to
fame. I quote from "Recollections of a Player," by James H. Stoddart,
whose last creation on the boards was _Lachlan_, in "The Bonnie Brier
Bush," and who is now living in retirement at his home in Sewaren, New
Jersey.
From the Memoirs of James H. Stoddart.
"After the reading of the play the company were unanimous in their opinion
that 'A Parisian Romance' was a _one-part piece_, and that part the
_Baron_, and all the principals had their eye on him. After some delay and
much expectancy, the rôle was given to me. Miss Minnie Conway, who was a
member of the company and had seen the play in Paris, said that she
thought the _Baron_ a strange part to give me.
"'It's a Lester Wallack part,' she said.
"This information rather disconcerted me, but I rehearsed the part for
about a week, and then, being convinced that it did not suit me, I went to
Mr. Palmer and told him I felt very doubtful as to whether I could do him
or myself justice in it.
"He would not hear of my giving it up, saying that he knew me better than
I did myself; that I was always doubtful; but that he was willing to take
the risk. He also read a letter which he had received from some one in
Paris giving advice regarding the production, in which, among other
things, it was said that _Baron Chevrial_ was the principal part, that
everything depended on him, and that 'if you can get Stoddart to look well
in full dress he is the man you must have to play it.'
"I left Mr. Palmer, resolved to try again, and do my best. Mr. Mansfield
was in the play for a small part, and, I discovered, was watching me like
a cat during rehearsals.
"A lot of fashion-plates were sent to my dressing-room, with instructions
to select my costume. As I had hitherto been, for some time, associated
with vagabonds, villains, etc., I think these fashion-plates had a
tendency to unnerve me more than anything else. So I again went to Mr.
Palmer and told him I could not play the _Baron_.
Young Mansfield's Triumph.
"'You must,' said Mr. Palmer. 'I rather think Mr. Mansfield must have
suspected something of the sort, for he has been to me, asking, in the
event of your not playing it, that I give it to him. I have never seen Mr.
Mansfield act; he has not had much experience, and might ruin the
production.'
"At Mr. Palmer's earnest solicitation I promised to try it again. I had by
this time worked myself into such a state of nervousness that my wife
interfered.
"'All the theaters in the world,' said she, 'are not worth what you are
suffering. Go and tell Mr. Palmer you positively cannot play the part.'
"Fearing the outcome, I did not risk another interview with my manager,
but sought out Mr. Cazauran, and returned the part to him with a message
to Mr. Palmer that I positively declined to play it.
"The result was that Mr. Mansfield was put in my place. The result is well
known.
"Mr. Palmer was delighted, and _I_ consoled myself with the thought that
my refusal of the part had proved not only far better for the interests of
the production, but was also the immediate cause of giving an early
opportunity to one who has since done much for the stage."
Back To Comic Opera.
Oddly enough, in spite of his sensational success as the senile _Baron_,
Mansfield's next engagement after "A Parisian Romance" had run its course
at the Union Square Theater, was as _Koko_ in Gilbert and Sullivan's
"Mikado." But the halt of this company in Boston brought the young actor a
chance to connect himself with the famous Museum stock there, and he bade
good-by to comic opera for good when he first trod the Museum boards as
_Chevrial_, following this up with the title rôle in "Prince Karl."
A dramatization of Robert Louis Stevenson's powerful story, "Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde," followed, also at the Museum. It was in New York, in the
summer of 1886, twenty years ago, that saw Mansfield's practical start as
a star, with "Prince Karl," at the Madison Square Theater, where he
submitted "Beau Brummel" four years later.
Meanwhile he had been invited by Henry Irving to play in London, where he
made his first Shakespeare production in the shape of "King Richard III."
RISE OF MISS ANGLIN.
The Clever Canadian Woman, in the Role
of Roxane, Leaped from Obscurity
in a Single Night.
From Mr. Mansfield it is but natural to pass to Margaret Anglin, who, from
practical obscurity, leaped to distinction in a night as _Roxane_, the
heroine of "Cyrano de Bergerac." This was produced at the Garden Theater,
New York, on the 2d of October, 1898, and the next morning readers of the
papers were asking themselves why they had never heard before of this
young woman, who had almost shared equal honors with the redoubtable
Richard himself.
The first meager information about her was furnished by Acton Davies, in
his _Evening Sun_ notice of the play, from which it may prove interesting
to quote a couple of paragraphs:
"It rarely happens that an actress scores a success so unostentatiously as
Miss Margaret Anglin. All that had previously been known of her were the
facts that she was a Canadian, and that last season, while understudy in
the Sothern company, she played _Lady Ursula_ in Hope's play with such
amazing success that it compelled Miss Virginia Harned to recover from a
somewhat serious illness and resume her rôle after missing one
performance. When Miss Anglin first appeared as _Roxane_ last night, a
sigh went up from all parts of the house: 'Here's another blond and
simpering ingénue.'
"But as soon as she spoke Miss Anglin arrested attention. Her voice was
charming, and she moved about the stage with an ease which showed that,
however short her training may have been, she was in every sense an
experienced actress. As the play progressed, this young girl, who has
neither beauty nor a fine stage presence to assist her, fairly captivated
the audience by the grace and tenderness with which she invested a most
thankless and trying rôle."
Thus was Miss Anglin started on a career in which she has taken no
backward step. On the night before the twentieth century came in, when, as
leading woman of the Empire stock, she came forward in "Mrs. Dane's
Defense," she justified every prediction that had ever been made regarding
the trend of her attainments, which she had varied since the _Roxane_
days, by proving herself an exquisitely pathetic _Mimi_ with Henry Miller
in "The Only Way." And during the present season as the star _Zira_ in
Wilkie Collins's revamped "New Magdalen" she kept people coming to the
Princess from September until the middle of January.
How did she obtain her opening in the first instance, you ask? I had the
reply to this from her own lips for the benefit of THE SCRAP BOOK
audience.
"I had the ambition to become a professional reader. Rather an absurd one,
wasn't it? The stage itself seemed to hold no special lure for me. Well,
after some opposition on the part of my family, I came to New York at
seventeen, with money enough to pay for a season's tuition at a school of
acting, which had just been opened in connection with the Empire Theater.
"I was one of the very first pupils to be enrolled, and in spite of my
indifference to the theatrical side of elocution I could not but be
dazzled by the bait which Charles Frohman dangled before the eyes of the
students. This was the promise of an engagement to four of the pupils who
should acquit themselves with the most credit at the public performances
of the school.
"The crucial afternoon arrived, and I went through my part. I dare say
Mr. Wheatcroft, our principal, was more excited than I, as it was the
initial performance of his pupils, and I knew that I had several other
opportunities in which to make good in case my part did not show me up to
the best advantage on the present occasion. Judge of my amazement, then,
when word came from Mr. Frohman that he stood ready to give me the part of
_Mildred West_ in 'Shenandoah' right away.
"To be sure, it was only a tiny rôle, but in my recollection now it bulks
big, as it proved the gateway to a career which I had no idea of following
when I paid down my four hundred dollars for a year's tuition in the
dramatic school."
MRS. CARTER'S HARD FIGHT.
Compelled to Earn Her Own Living, She
Had Difficulty in Persuading Managers
to Give Her a Hearing.
The speed with which theatrical fame is made and lost is startlingly
demonstrated by a glance through a book on celebrated actors of the day,
published only ten years ago. Out of thirty players, only five are now as
much in the center of the limelight as they were then. The others are
either dead or have sunk back into obscurity.
The volume contains no mention, for instance, of a name now so high on the
dramatic scroll of to-day as that of Mrs. Leslie Carter. It was in that
very year of 1896 that Mrs. Carter was laying the foundation of her vogue
by her swing from the belfry in David Belasco's "Heart of Maryland."
She hails from the West, and grew up as Caroline Louise Dudley, with never
an aspiration for the stage. She recalls the first performance she ever
saw as being "Joe" Jefferson in "The Cricket on the Hearth" at MacCauley's
Theater, Louisville. She was not particularly carried away by it, although
for some time thereafter her father facetiously dubbed her "Tilly," after
the _Tilly Slowboy_ of Dickens's story.
After her father's death the family moved from Kentucky to Ohio, and here
she met the wealthy Leslie Carter, of Chicago, and married him. But the
match proved an unhappy one, a divorce followed, and Mrs. Carter was very
ill for a long time. On her recovery she faced the necessity of earning
her own living, and as she could neither sew, teach, nor manipulate a
typewriter, she turned to the stage, as so many others, in similar cases,
had done before her.
But it was a heart-breaking task to find some one to give her even a
chance to show what she could do. The haunting of managers' offices day
after day, the making of appointments with them that they never kept nor
thought of keeping, the lying in wait for them at dark turns on the
stairs, and the dashing across the street to intercept them in their walks
abroad--all this fell to the lot of Louise Leslie Carter, as she was known
when Belasco finally consented to put her out in "The Ugly Duckling," by
Paul Potter.
But the play failed, and all seemed lost except two things: Mr. Belasco's
faith in Mrs. Carter and her trust in his judgment of her abilities.
Another essay was made the next year--1891--this time in a vehicle of an
altogether different description, "Miss Helyett," a musical comedy with
the score by Edmond Audran, who wrote "Olivette" and "The Mascot," and in
which Mrs. Carter played the part of a Quaker maiden who has droll
adventures among the Spanish Pyrenees.
This did better than "The Ugly Duckling," but still the star failed to
"arrive," and still she and her manager kept up their belief in each
other. Mr. Belasco now decided to try a play of his own making, and with
this the victory was won.
No, not quite all. It remained for "Zaza," adapted from the French, and
brought out at the Garrick in New York, January 9, 1899, to round out the
little story which David Belasco told in his curtain speech on that now
historic night. He spoke only two sentences, but they comprised the career
of the star who came to be the inspiration of all the theaters that now
bear his name.
And this is what he said:
"Nine years ago a poor woman threw herself at my feet and asked me to help
her. Now she is the happiest woman in the world, for she can telegraph to
her son that you like her in 'Zaza,' and that the boy may be proud of his
mother."
The next day's papers told the story of that evening in headlines like
these: "Genius the Word for Mrs. Carter," "Mrs. Carter Scores the Greatest
Hit of Her Time," "The New Bernhardt."
RICHMAN DESERTED TRADE.
He Was Employed in a Chicago Store
and Spent Many of His Evenings
in Amateur Dramatics.
Reference to the première of "Mrs. Dane's Defense," in the paragraph on
Margaret Anglin, recalls the fact that that occasion marked the first
appearance of Charles Richman with the Empire stock company, he having the
opposite rôle to Miss Anglin. He had won golden spurs as leading man with
Annie Russell in "Miss Hobbs" and "A Royal Family," to which company he
had passed from "The Great Ruby" at Daly's, where he had been playing with
Ada Rehan at the time of Mr. Daly's death.
Mr. Richman went from trade to the theater by way of the amateur stage. He
was employed in a Chicago store, and spent many of his evenings with an
amateur dramatic association, of which he was one of the most active
members. A benefit performance for some charity on one occasion proved
such a success that a friend with money and a desire to sprout the wings
of an "angel" proposed to put the troupe on the road for a summer season.
"I was immensely excited and pleased over the notion," Mr. Richman
explained in telling me of his start as a professional, "but the rest of
the cast were rather dubious about undertaking the experiment, and their
friends and relatives were decidedly opposed to it. But I persuaded and my
wealthy friend cajoled, and finally we set out.
"Three mothers insisted on going along, so we must have resembled a moving
boarding-house. The outcome may be imagined. The man of money parted with
this in exchange for experience, but, happily, nobody had to walk the ties
home. However, the die was cast so far as I was concerned. I had smelled
of the calcium, and there was no more clerking for me. I came to New York,
managed to meet the late James A. Herne, who cast me for _Philip Fleming_
to the _Margaret_ of his wife. Under his management I was also _The
Stranger_ in that oddly impressive play, 'Hannele.'"
Mr. Richman, who was sadly handicapped by mismanagement in his starring
venture of two seasons ago, is now awaiting the completion of a new play
to launch forth once more into the active midstream of theatrical
endeavor, where his undoubted ability justifies his presence. During his
career as leading man at Daly's he demonstrated his right to that high
post by the worthy portrayal of characters as wide apart as Shakespeare
comedies and Drury Lane melodrama could make them.
FAY TEMPLETON BORN TO IT.
This Popular Actress Has Made Successes
in Three Distinct Lines as a
Result of Changing Weight.
Fay Templeton has made three separate and distinct starts in her career,
and this without counting her baby days one, when, her father being
manager of a theater in Saint Joseph, Missouri, she was put in the bill
whenever an infant was needed. In due course, however, she was whisked
away from the footlights and sent abroad to be educated. On her return,
Rice secured for her _Gabriel_ in "Evangeline" and thus launched her--in
tights--on the first of her three epochs--that of man's attire.
As _Gabriel_ she became the talk of the town, but when she appeared at the
same theater--the Fourteenth Street--some seasons later as _Hendrik
Hudson_, in a burletta of that name, her former admirers declared that she
was fat, and declined to worship longer at her shrine. Thus it came about
that when Edward E. Rice, her old manager in "Evangeline," engaged her to
break the title rôle in "Excelsior, Jr.," with which he opened the theater
part of his Olympia in 1895, he stipulated that when the time came for
rehearsals she must not weigh over one hundred and fifty pounds.
Whether she succeeded in getting herself down to just this figure is not a
matter of veracious record, but it is true that she made a hit with her
men's clothes and became an authority in the yellow journals on masculine
attire. But the banting process was not to her liking, so that Miss
Templeton finally decided to seek the sort of parts where her avoirdupois
would cut no figure in the artistic results. In this way she came to join
Weber & Fields's, entering upon the second phase of her career as a
burlesque actress of the first rank.
Her imitations of Irene Vanbrugh in "The Gay Lord Quex," of Ethel
Barrymore in "Captain Jinks," of Annie Russell in "The Girl and the
Judge," were all of them wonders in their way, and possibly had she been
content to remain at the Twenty-Ninth Street music-hall for more than a
season after Lillian Russell's advent, the two partners might never have
split. But quit she did, and went up to the New York, where her imitation
of Fougère in "Broadway to Tokio" was called by one of the critics a
classic.
Incapacity of authors to provide the proper sort of vehicle is responsible
for Miss Templeton's passage to her third stage of triumph. This has just
been reached in "Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway," that classless
concoction of George M. Cohan which shows her as a sedate housemaid of
somber clothes and repressed demeanor. But so subtle is her art that she
fills the huge New Amsterdam Theater as only Mansfield has ever succeeded
in filling it before. There is no tinsel, no dancing, not a single
imitation, but in an entirely new field Fay Templeton has blazed a path by
the sheer finesse of her skill in attaining results by the simplest
means.
WHEN WE OLD BOYS WERE YOUNG.
LONG AGO.
I once knew all the birds that came
And nestled in our orchard trees;
For every flower I had a name--
My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees;
I knew where thrived in yonder glen
What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe--
Oh, I was very learned then--
But that was very long ago.
And, pining for the joys of youth,
I tread the old familiar spot,
Only to learn the solemn truth--
I have forgotten, am forgot.
Yet here's this youngster at my knee
Knows all the things I used to know;
To think I once was as wise as he--
But that was very long ago.
I know it's folly to complain
Of whatsoe'er the Fates decree;
Yet, were not wishes all in vain,
I tell you what my wish should be;
I'd wish to be a boy again,
Back with the friends I used to know;
For I was, oh! so happy then--
But that was very long ago.
_Eugene Field._
WHEN ADAM WAS A BOY.
Earth wasn't as it is to-day
When Adam was a boy;
Nobody's hair was streaked with gray
When Adam was a boy.
Then when the sun would scorch and stew
There wasn't anybody who
Asked, "Is it hot enough for you?"
When Adam was a boy.
There were no front lawns to be mowed
When Adam was a boy;
No kitchen gardens to be hoed
When Adam was a boy.
No ice-cream freezers to be turned,
No crocks of cream that must be churned,
No grammar lessons to be learned,
When Adam was a boy.
There was no staying after school,
When Adam was a boy,
Because somebody broke a rule
When Adam was a boy.
Nobody had to go to bed
Without a sup of broth or bread,
Because of something done or said,
When Adam was a boy.
Yet life was pretty dull, no doubt,
When Adam was a boy;
There were no baseball clubs about
When Adam was a boy.
No street piano stopped each day
In front of where he lived to play;
No brass band ever marched his way,
When Adam was a boy.
There were no fireworks at all
When Adam was a boy;
No one could pitch a drop curve ball
When Adam was a boy.
But here is why our times are so
Much better than the long ago--
There was no Santa Claus, you know,
When Adam was a boy.
_Nixon Waterman, in the
Woman's Home Companion._
CASTLE YESTERDAY.
In the Valley of Contentment, just beyond the Hills of Old,
Where the streams are always silver and the sunshine always gold,
Where the hour is ever morning and the skies are never gray,
In the yellow haze of springtime stands the Castle Yesterday.
Oh, the seasons that we spent there when the whole wide world was
young;
The friends we've had as maid and lad, the songs that we have sung!
The echoes of their music cannot quite have died away,
But still must thrill the roof-tree of the Castle Yesterday.
And the loving hearts we knew there in the time of trust and truth,
Surely still they wait behind us in the Pantheon of Youth!
But the angel of the valley at the portal bars our way,
And a flaming sword forbids us from the Castle Yesterday.
When the pilgrimage is ended, may we turn then, may we change
To the vanished and familiar from the present and the strange?
Who so chooses to his heaven--I shall be content to stay
Where the ghosts of dead years wander through the halls of Yesterday.
_Saturday Evening Post._
Definitions of "A Friend."
The first person who comes in when the whole world has gone
out.
A bank of credit on which we can draw supplies of
confidence, counsel, sympathy, help, and love.
One who combines for you alike the pleasures and benefits of
society and solitude.
A jewel whose luster the strong acids of poverty and
misfortune cannot dim.
One who multiplies joys, divides griefs, and whose honesty
is inviolable.
One who loves the truth and you, and will tell the truth in
spite of you.
The Triple Alliance of the three great powers, Love,
Sympathy, and Help.
A watch which beats true for all time, and never "runs
down."
A permanent fortification when one's affairs are in a state
of siege.
One who to himself is true, and therefore must be so to you.
A balancing pole to him who walks across the tight-rope of
life.
The link in life's long chain that bears the greatest
strain.
A harbor of refuge from the stormy waves of adversity.
One who considers my need before my deservings.
The jewel that shines brightest in the darkness.
A stimulant to the nobler side of our nature.
A volume of sympathy bound in cloth.
A diamond in the ring of acquaintance.
A star of hope in the cloud of adversity.
One truer to me than I am to myself.
Friendship, one soul in two bodies.
An insurance against misanthropy.
A link of gold in the chain of life.
One who understands our silence.
The essence of pure devotion.
The sunshine of calamity.
A second right hand.
* * * * *
As a result of offering a prize for the best original
definition of "A Friend," several years ago, London
_Tit-Bits_ came into possession of thousands from all parts
of the world. From these the foregoing were selected as the
most striking. The prize was awarded to the first.
Dress For All Occasions.
A Brief Code of Sartorial Etiquette for Men and Women--What to
Wear, and When to Wear It.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
"What shall I wear?" is often one of the most perplexing questions we can
ask ourselves. Nothing gives one sensations much more unpleasant than to
find oneself dressed inappropriately for any occasion. Men suffer on this
score, even as women, and are frequently as much in need of help.
To be well dressed does not necessarily mean that one must be "got up
regardless" in the extreme of fashion and with the utmost limit of
expense. Style consists in knowing how to wear your clothes as much as in
knowing what to wear. But no matter how stylish in appearance a person may
be, if he or she is wearing the wrong things at the wrong time the effect
will go for nothing.
The following hints will, therefore, be found of service, for him as well
as for her:
MORNING DRESS.
=For Women.=--This should be as simple as possible. Nothing is in worse
taste than to appear in the mornings, down-town, shopping, or at business,
in over-elaborate costumes. They may be silk-lined through and through, of
the finest materials that money can buy, but they must be simple. For
business, wear a plain shirt-waist, preferably white, not of too sheer
material, so that it may be easily and frequently laundered. A dark skirt,
with jacket to match; a simple hat and belt harmonizing with the rest of
the costume; a linen stock, or collar and tie, and dark gloves. No
jewelry, except perhaps a simple ring or pin.
For wear around the house in the mornings, a little more latitude may be
permitted, although the golden rule for morning dressing should be
simplicity.
=For Men.=--The same golden rule holds good. A plain, dark business suit,
sack coat and vest to match; derby or soft hat, and heavy dark gloves.
Never wear a high hat in the morning, unless for some special occasion,
nor a frock coat, which properly should be reserved for afternoon wear.
AFTERNOON DRESS.
=For Women.=--This may be simple, or as elaborate as one pleases, the only
restriction being that it must be high in the neck, and should also be of
heavier material than that which may be put into an evening gown.
For afternoon teas, receptions, etc., the hostess wears a high-necked,
long-sleeved gown of any rich cloth, velvet or silk, elaborately trimmed,
always long in the skirt, and with jewels. No hat should be worn by the
hostess or those who are assisting her. White kid gloves are usually worn,
unless the affair is exceedingly small and informal. If the hostess wears
gloves, her assistants must do so also.
Guests at a tea never remove their hats, unless they have been asked to
receive, or are especially requested to do so by the hostess. Light hats
or bonnets may be worn; white or very light gloves, and dress shoes.
A débutante should always wear white, made as becomingly and elaborately
as possible. For her assistants, white or very light-colored gowns.
=For Men.=--When calling, at afternoon teas, receptions, etc., during the
fall and winter, the correct dress is a double or single breasted frock
coat of black or very dark gray, soft cheviot or vicuna, with double or
single breasted vest, either to match the coat or of fancy cloth. Trousers
of gray; white linen; a broad, folded tie of light-colored silk; top hat,
gray gloves, and patent-leather shoes.
EVENING DRESS.
=For Women.=--This should never be worn before six o'clock in the evening.
In general, it is the same for balls, dinners, receptions, etc., and for
large affairs may be as elaborate and expensive as the purse of the
wearer will permit. It should always be low in the neck, cut square,
round, or heart-shaped over the chest and shoulders, and with short
sleeves. Long gloves, coming at least to the elbow, must be worn. Slippers
should either match the gown in color, or be of patent leather.
For small affairs, and those in summer, gowns of simpler material and with
fewer jewels are in better taste.
A girl in her first season should wear few jewels, and her gowns should be
light in color. A hat should not be worn with evening dress. A lace scarf
thrown over the head will give ample protection.
It is not good form for a woman to wear full evening dress for certain
occasions--such as the theater, dining in a public place, etc.
=For Men.=--Evening dress may be worn on any occasion after six o'clock.
Full dress is obligatory for all large and formal functions. Black
claw-hammer coat, with trousers to match; white waistcoat, cut low in
front to display a stiffly starched and immaculate shirt-front; white lawn
tie, with high white collar; broad cuffs, pearl buttons and studs, and
patent-leather shoes. White gloves should also be worn at the opera, a
ball, or a formal reception.
There are but two possible variations of this costume: one, the Tuxedo,
which may be worn for informal affairs (a black tie goes with this); the
other is the short dinner-jacket, always worn with a black tie, which is
suitable only when dining at home without guests.
DRESS FOR THEATER AND OPERA.
=For Women.=--High-necked and long-sleeved gown, such as might be worn at
an afternoon reception. Gloves, white, or of a very light color. The hair
should be carefully and becomingly dressed. For an orchestra chair at the
opera, the same costume may be worn, or it may be more elaborate. For a
box at a theatrical performance, light gowns, also high in the neck, are
suitable, to be worn with white gloves, and dress hats. For a box at the
opera, full dress should be worn.
=For Men.=--When with ladies, or in a box at the theater, opera, or
concert, full dress should be worn. White gloves are often worn, but are
not obligatory. A short dinner-jacket is permissible when the wearer is
with a man friend, but never when he is one of a party, or is with a lady
not nearly related to him. With the dinner-jacket a black silk or satin
bow tie, and a waistcoat matching the coat, are worn. With a long-tailed
evening coat, a stiff silk-top hat, or a crush opera-hat, is proper.
DRESS FOR WEDDINGS.
=For Women.=--Elaborate afternoon and reception gowns are worn at church
or house weddings held in the morning or afternoon. Hats are to be worn at
the following reception or breakfast, and gloves should be laid aside only
while one is eating. For the immediate family of the bride or groom, deep
mourning should be left off for the wedding-day, and gray and lilac, or
black and purple, be worn instead.
At an evening wedding, full dress may be worn, or else very elaborate
high-throated, long-sleeved gowns, without hats, and with white gloves.
A maiden bride should dress in white, and should wear a veil, of lace,
tulle, or gauze. Whatever the material of the wedding-dress may be, its
skirt should be trained, and for a noon or afternoon ceremony the waist
should be high-necked and with long sleeves. For an evening wedding, the
bodice may be cut out in the throat, and be without sleeves. Few jewels
should be worn, and those preferably the gift of the family or the groom.
White gloves and shoes should be worn.
For a second marriage, the bride should wear a traveling dress, or, if the
wedding is elaborately celebrated in church, a handsome reception gown. In
both cases, a hat should be worn. The costume must not be purely white,
but should be light and not somber in color.
=For Men.=--Guests at a noon or afternoon wedding should wear the
conventional afternoon costume: black frock coat, gray trousers, a
four-in-hand or Ascot tie of light color, waistcoat of white piqué or one
matching the coat, patent-leather shoes, gray gloves, and a silk hat. At
an evening wedding only full dress is permissible. For a morning wedding,
the same costume may be worn as in the afternoon, but it is more usual to
wear a full suit of silver-gray wool, the coat being what is known as the
English walking coat, a rather long cutaway. A black cutaway waistcoat to
match and gray trousers are always proper. Gray gloves, patent-leather
shoes, white linen and broadly folded silk or satin ties are suitable with
these latter costumes.
The groom at a noon or afternoon wedding should wear a black or dark-blue
frock coat; high, white, double-breasted piqué waistcoat or one matching
the coat; gray trousers; white linen; a full-folded silk or satin tie, of
light color, with a pearl pin; gray, suède gloves, patent-leather shoes,
and a top hat. For a night wedding, full evening dress is necessary.
The best man dresses as nearly as possible like the groom.
The ushers should dress as nearly alike as possible. For day weddings,
black frock coats, gray trousers, white piqué or black waistcoats,
full-folded necktie, of dark silk with a lighter pattern, and gray gloves.
Hats should not be carried during the service, but left in charge of some
one in the vestibule. For evening weddings, full dress must be worn. The
boutonnières sent by the bride are always to be worn, as are the groom's
gifts, whether sleeve-links or scarf-pins. Gloves should be kept on while
serving in the aisles.
FOR LUNCHEONS AND BREAKFASTS.
=For Women.=--Guests as well as hostess should wear at a large luncheon
simply the best afternoon gown they possess. The hostess should wear no
hat; the guest a dressy one, with white or light gloves. In summer, a thin
dress of light silk, or organdie, a flower-trimmed hat, white gloves, thin
dress shoes, and a bright parasol are suitable.
=For Men.=--In winter, conventional afternoon costumes should be worn for
a luncheon. For a noon breakfast, the same. For an earlier breakfast, a
complete morning suit, with sack coat. With this, a colored shirt is
permissible; a four-in-hand tie, derby, morning gloves, and black shoes.
For summer luncheons and breakfasts, white duck or very light striped
flannel may be worn; tan or white Oxford ties, and a straw hat.
DRESS FOR MUSICALES, PRIVATE THEATRICALS, ETC.
=For Women.=--At an evening performance, full dress, jewels, and white
gloves. For an afternoon performance, dress appropriate for luncheons,
receptions, etc.
=For Men.=--If the performance is in the evening, full dress must be worn.
If in the afternoon, frock coat, gray trousers, and so on, as before
described.
MOURNING DRESS.
=For Women.=--A widow wears for her first mourning dress, a black worsted
skirt and waist, made as simply as possible, and trimmed with folds of
English crêpe; a small bonnet, made entirely of crêpe, with a long crêpe
veil falling in the rear to the knees, and for the first month a veil of
equal length covering the face. Inside the front of the bonnet is set a
white ruche of lisse, the unmistakable insignia of widowhood. If desired,
bands of hemstitched organdie may be worn without impropriety at wrists
and throat. Black kid gloves, a black-bordered handkerchief, black shoes
of soft dull finish complete the costume. After a year and a half or two
years, crêpe-de-chine, lusterless silk, etc., may be worn in place of the
crêpe-trimmed gowns, with black hats or bonnets, and dull jet ornaments.
Six months later, white and lilac may be used sparingly, and after six
months again, colors may be resumed if desired.
A married woman in mourning for child, sister, brother, or parent, wears
the above costume, with the exception of the white ruche in the bonnet.
Mourning should be worn for about the same length of time.
It is optional whether or not mourning be worn for infants. If so, simple
black, without crêpe, is sufficient.
For a mother-in-law or father-in-law, black without crêpe for one month
should be worn; to be followed by black and white, or gray, with lilac,
for another month.
Young unmarried women should not wear the black bonnet and veil. A black
gown trimmed with crêpe, a hat trimmed entirely with crêpe, small
face-veil of black net with a wide crêpe border; black gloves, a
black-bordered handkerchief, and ornaments of dull jet are proper for the
first six months or year. For second mourning, white is used with the
black, and lilac.
Middle-aged, unmarried women wear what a married woman wears, with the
exception of the widow's weeds, and for the same length of time.
For an aunt, uncle, or grandparent, simple black without crêpe, worn for
three months, is customary. Jewelry that is not noticeable may be worn
with this.
Children under fifteen should not be put into mourning. No girl under
seventeen should wear crêpe.
=For Men.=--A widower, for the first eighteen months, should wear complete
suit of black, black lusterless silk cravats, white linen, cuff-links of
dull black enamel, dull black leather shoes, black gloves, and a crêpe
hat-band. After a year, the band may be left off. For second mourning,
gray or black clothes, black-and-white silk neckties, gray gloves, and
white or black-and-white linen are proper.
Mourning for parent, child, sister, or brother is worn six months or a
year, according to desire. In these cases, also, the crêpe hat-band is
used, but is narrower than that worn by a widower.
The custom of sewing a black cloth or crêpe band on the left coat-sleeve
is not to be commended.
The Box Tunnel.
BY CHARLES READE.
Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, England, June 8, 1814, and
died in London, April 11, 1884. After leaving Oxford in 1835
he studied law and was called to the bar in 1843. Soon
afterward he resolved to devote himself to literature. He
published his first novel in 1852. This was "Peg
Woffington," and its success was so unqualified that if the
author had any doubts concerning his wisdom in changing his
profession they were soon dispelled. Among his subsequent
novels were "It Is Never Too Late to Mend," "The Cloister
and the Hearth," "Hard Cash," "Foul Play," "Put Yourself in
His Place," and "A Terrible Temptation."
Most of the novels of Charles Reade had to do with certain
social and legal abuses then existing in England, and they
did much to effect a pronounced improvement in the
conditions attacked.
"The Box Tunnel," which appears herewith, is a short story
written in 1857. It is an excellent specimen of that
peculiar quality of humor for which its gifted author was
famous.
The 10.15 train glided from Paddington, May 7, 1847. In the left
compartment of a certain first-class carriage were four passengers; of
these, two were worth description. The lady had a smooth, white, delicate
brow, strongly marked eyebrows, long lashes, eyes that seemed to change
color, and a good-sized, delicious mouth, with teeth as white as milk. A
man could not see her nose for her eyes and mouth; her own sex could and
would have told us some nonsense about it. She wore an unpretending
grayish dress buttoned to the throat with lozenge-shaped buttons, and a
Scottish shawl that agreeably evaded color. She was like a duck, so tight
her plain feathers fitted her, and there she sat, smooth, snug, and
delicious, with a book in her hand, and the soupçon of her wrist just
visible as she held it. Her opposite neighbor was what I call a good style
of man--the more to his credit, since he belonged to a corporation that
frequently turns out the worst imaginable style of young men. He was a
cavalry officer, aged twenty-five. He had a mustache, but not a very
repulsive one; not one of those subnasal pigtails on which soup is
suspended like dew on a shrub; it was short, thick, and black as a coal.
His teeth had not yet been turned by tobacco-smoke to the color of juice,
his clothes did not stick to nor hang to him, he had an engaging smile,
and, what I liked the dog for, his vanity, which was inordinate, was in
its proper place, his heart, not in his face, jostling mine and other
people's who have none--in a word, he was what one oftener hears of than
meets--a young gentleman.
He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow
officer; they were talking about what it is far better not to--women. Our
friend clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a
furtive glance at his fair _vis-à-vis_ and lowered his voice. She seemed
completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him.
At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper (the truth must be told),
the one who got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds
to three, that he who was going down with us to Bath and immortality would
not kiss either of the ladies opposite upon the road. "Done, done!"
Now I am sorry a man I have hitherto praised should have lent himself,
even in a whisper, to such a speculation; "but nobody is wise at all
hours," not even when the clock is striking five and twenty; and you are
to consider his profession, his good looks, and the temptation--ten to
three.
After Slough the party was reduced to three; at Twylford one lady dropped
her handkerchief; Captain Dolignan fell on it like a lamb; two or three
words were interchanged on this occasion.
At Reading the Marlborough of our tale made one of the safe investments of
that day, he bought a _Times_ and _Punch_; the latter full of steel-pen
thrusts and woodcuts. Valor and beauty deigned to laugh at some inflamed
humbug or other punctured by _Punch_. Now laughing together thaws our
human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking match--at Swindon who so
devoted as Captain Dolignan?--he handed them out--he souped them--he
tough-chickened them--he brandied and cochinealed one, and brandied and
burnt-sugared the other; on their return to the carriage, one lady passed
into the inner compartment to inspect a certain gentleman's seat on that
side of the line.
Reader, had it been you or I, the beauty would have been the deserter, the
average one would have stayed with us till all was blue, ourselves
included; not more surely does our slice of bread and butter, when it
escapes from our hand, revolve it ever so often, alight face downward on
the carpet.
But this was a bit of a fop, Adonis, dragoon--so Venus remained
_tête-à-tête_ with him. You have seen a dog meet an unknown female of the
species; how handsome, how impressé, how expressive he becomes; such was
Dolignan after Swindon, and to do the dog justice, he got handsome and
handsomer; and you have seen a cat conscious of approaching cream--such
was Miss Haythorn; she became demurer and demurer; presently our captain
looked out of the window and laughed; this elicited an inquiring look from
Miss Haythorn.
"We are only a mile from the Box Tunnel."
"Do you always laugh a mile from the Box Tunnel?" said the lady.
"Invariably."
"What for?"
"Why, hem! It is a gentleman's joke."
Captain Dolignan then recounted to Miss Haythorn the following:
"A lady and her husband sat together going through the Box Tunnel--there
was one gentleman opposite; it was pitch dark; after the tunnel the lady
said, 'George, how absurd of you to salute me going through the tunnel.'
'I did no such thing.' 'You didn't?' 'No! Why?' 'Because somehow I thought
you did!'"
Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavored to lead his companion to
laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.
Miss Haythorn. Ah!
Dolignan. What is the matter?
Miss Haythorn. I am frightened.
Dolignan (moving to her side). Pray do not be alarmed; I am near you.
Miss Haythorn. You are near me--very near me, indeed, Captain Dolignan.
Dolignan. You know my name?
Miss Haythorn. I heard you mention it. I wish we were out of this dark
place.
Dolignan. I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring you, my dear
lady.
Miss Haythorn. Nonsense!
Dolignan. Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the next pretty
creature you meet or you will understand what this means.)
Miss Haythorn. Eh! Eh!
Friend. What is the matter?
Miss Haythorn. Open the door! Open the door!
There was a sound of hurried whispers, the door was shut and the blind
pulled down with hostile sharpness.
If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a dialogue as
above, I answer with all the insolence I can command at present, "Hit boys
as big as yourself"; bigger perhaps, such as Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes; they began it, and I learned it of them, sore against my
will.
Miss Haythorn's scream lost most of its effect because the engine whistled
forty thousand murders at the same moment; and fictitious grief makes
itself heard when real cannot.
Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself
whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is
supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.
With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door; his late friends
attempted to escape on the other side--impossible! they must pass him. She
whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited somewhere at his feet a
look of gentle, blushing reproach; the other, whom he had not insulted,
darted red-hot daggers at him from her eyes; and so they parted.
It was perhaps fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be a friend
to Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at by the youngsters,
for the major was too apt to look coldly upon billiard-balls and cigars;
he had seen cannon-balls and linstocks. He had also, to tell the truth,
swallowed a good bit of the mess-room poker, which made it as impossible
for Major Hoskyns to descend to an ungentlemanlike word or action as to
brush his own trousers below the knee.
Captain Dolignan told this gentleman his story in gleeful accents; but
Major Hoskyns heard him coldly, and as coldly answered that he had known a
man to lose his life for the same thing.
"That is nothing," continued the major, "but unfortunately he deserved to
lose it."
At this blood mounted to the younger man's temples; and his senior added,
"I mean to say he was thirty-five; you, I presume, are twenty-one!"
"Twenty-five."
"That is much the same thing; will you be advised by me?"
"If you will advise me."
"Speak to no one of this, and send White the three pounds, that he may
think you have lost the bet."
"That is hard, when I won it."
"Do it for all that, sir."
Let the disbelievers in human perfectibility know that this dragoon
capable of a blush did this virtuous action, albeit with violent
reluctance; and this was his first damper. A week after these events he
was at a ball. He was in that state of factious discontent which belongs
to us amiable English. He was looking in vain for a lady, equal in
personal attraction to the idea he had formed of George Dolignan as a
man, when suddenly there glided past him a most delightful vision! a lady
whose beauty and symmetry took him by the eyes--another look: "It can't
be! Yes, it is!" Miss Haythorn! (not that he knew her name) but what an
apotheosis!
The duck had become a peahen--radiant, dazzling, she looked twice as
beautiful and almost twice as large as before. He lost sight of her. He
found her again. She was so lovely she made him ill--and he, alone, must
not dance with her, speak to her. If he had been content to begin her
acquaintance the usual way, it might have ended in kissing: it must end in
nothing.
As she danced, sparks of beauty fell from her on all around, but him--she
did not see him; it was clear she never would see him--one gentleman was
particularly assiduous; she smiled on his assiduity; he was ugly, but she
smiled on him. Dolignan was surprised at his success, his ill taste, his
ugliness, his impertinence. Dolignan at last found himself injured; "who
was this man? and what right had he to go on so? He never kissed her, I
suppose," said Dolle. Dolignan could not prove it, but he felt that
somehow the rights of property were invaded.
He went home and dreamed of Miss Haythorn, and hated all the ugly
successful. He spent a fortnight trying to find out who his beauty was--he
never could encounter her again. At last he heard of her in this way: A
lawyer's clerk paid him a little visit and commenced a little action
against him in the name of Miss Haythorn, for insulting her in a railway
train.
The young gentleman was shocked; endeavored to soften the lawyer's clerk;
that machine did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of the term. The
lady's name, however, was at last revealed by this untoward incident; from
her name to her address was but a short step; and the same day our
crestfallen hero lay in wait at her door, and many a succeeding day,
without effect.
But one fine afternoon she issued forth quite naturally, as if she did it
every day, and walked briskly on the parade. Dolignan did the same, met
and passed her many times on the parade, and searched for pity in her
eyes, but found neither look nor recognition, nor any other sentiment; for
all this she walked and walked, till all the other promenaders were tired
and gone--then her culprit summoned resolution, and taking off his hat,
with a voice for the first time tremulous, besought permission to address
her.
She stopped, blushed, and neither acknowledged nor disowned his
acquaintance. He blushed, stammered out how ashamed he was, how he
deserved to be punished, how he was punished, how little she knew how
unhappy he was, and concluded by begging her not to let all the world know
the disgrace of a man who was already mortified enough by the loss of her
acquaintance.
She asked an explanation; he told her of the action that had been
commenced in her name; she gently shrugged her shoulders and said, "How
stupid they are!" Emboldened by this, he begged to know whether or not a
life of distant, unpretending devotion would, after a lapse of years,
erase the memory of his madness--his crime!
"She did not know!"
"She must now bid him adieu, as she had preparations to make for a ball in
the Crescent, where everybody was to be."
They parted, and Dolignan determined to be at the ball, where everybody
was to be. He was there, and after some time he obtained an introduction
to Miss Haythorn, and he danced with her. Her manner was gracious. With
the wonderful tact of her sex, she seemed to have commenced the
acquaintance that evening.
That night, for the first time, Dolignan was in love. I will spare the
reader all a lover's arts, by which he succeeded in dining where she
dined, in dancing where she danced, in overtaking her by accident when she
rode. His devotion followed her to church, where the dragoon was rewarded
by learning there is a world where they neither polk nor smoke--the two
capital abominations of this one.
He made an acquaintance with her uncle, who liked him, and he saw at last
with joy that her eye loved to dwell upon him, when she thought he did
not observe her. It was three months after the Box Tunnel that Captain
Dolignan called one day upon Captain Haythorn, R.N., whom he had met twice
in his life, and slightly propitiated by violently listening to a
cutting-out expedition; he called, and in the usual way asked permission
to pay his addresses to his daughter.
The worthy captain straightway began doing quarter-deck, when suddenly he
was summoned from the apartment by a mysterious message. On his return he
announced, with a total change of voice, that "It was all right, and his
visitor might run alongside as soon as he chose." My reader has divined
the truth; this nautical commander was in complete and happy subjugation
to his daughter, our heroine.
As he was taking leave, Dolignan saw his divinity glide into the
drawing-room. He followed her, observed a sweet consciousness deepen into
confusion--she tried to laugh and cried instead, and then she smiled
again; when he kissed her hand at the door it was "George" and "Marian"
instead of "Captain" this and "Miss" the other.
A reasonable time after this (for my tale is merciful and skips
formalities and torturing delays), these two were very happy; they were
once more upon the railroad, going to enjoy their honeymoon all by
themselves. Marian Dolignan was dressed just as before--duck-like and
delicious; all bright except her clothes; but George sat beside her this
time instead of opposite; and she drank him in gently from her long
eyelashes.
"Marian," said George, "married people should tell each other all. Will
you ever forgive me if I own to you; no----"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Well, then, you remember the Box Tunnel." (This was the first allusion he
had ventured to it.) "I am ashamed to say I had three pounds to ten with
White I would kiss one of you two ladies," and George, pathetic
externally, chuckled within.
"I know that, George; I overheard you," was the demure reply.
"Oh! You overheard me! Impossible."
"And did you not hear me whisper to my companion? I made a bet with her."
"You made a bet! how singular! What was it?"
"Only a pair of gloves, George."
"Yes, I know; but what about it?"
"That if you did you should be my husband, dearest."
"Oh! but stay; then you could not have been so very angry with me, love.
Why, dearest, then you brought that action against me."
Mrs. Dolignan looked down.
"I was afraid you were forgetting me! George, you will never forgive me?"
"Angel! Why, here is the Box Tunnel!"
Now, reader--fie! No! No such thing! You can't expect to be indulged in
this way every time we come to a dark place. Besides, it is not the thing.
Consider, two sensible married people. No such phenomenon, I assure you,
took place. No scream in hopeless rivalry of the engine--this time!
SAYINGS IN EVERY-DAY USE.
Where They Come From, Who Said Them First, and How in Course of Time
They Have Become Changed.
Many of our common sayings, so trite and pithy, are used without the least
idea from whose mouth or pen they first originated. Probably the works of
Shakespeare furnish us with more of these familiar maxims than any other
writer, for to him we owe: "All is not gold that glitters"; "Make a virtue
of necessity"; "Screw your courage to a sticking place" (not point); "They
laugh that win"; "This is the long and short of it"; "Make assurance
double sure" (not doubly); "As merry as the day is long"; "A Daniel come
to judgment"; "Frailty, thy name is woman"; and a host of others.
Washington Irving gives us "The almighty dollar"; Thomas Norton queried
long ago, "What will Mrs. Grundy say?" while Goldsmith answers, "Ask me no
questions and I'll tell you no fibs." Charles C. Pinckney: "Millions for
defense, but not one cent for tribute." "First in war, first in peace, and
first in the heart of his fellow citizens" (not countrymen) appeared in
the resolutions presented to the House of Representatives in December,
1790, prepared by General Henry Lee.
Thomas Tusser, a writer of the sixteenth century, gives us: "It's an ill
wind turns none to good," "Better late than never," "Look ere thou leap,"
and "The stone that is rolling can gather no moss." "All cry and no wool"
is found in Butler's "Hudibras."
Dryden says: "None but the brave deserve the fair," "Men are but children
of a larger growth," and "Through thick and thin." "No pent-up Utica
contracts your powers," declared Jonathan Sewall.
"When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war."--Nathaniel Lee
(1655-1692).
"The end must justify the means" is from Matthew Prior. We are indebted to
Colley Cibber for the agreeable intelligence that "Richard is himself
again." Johnson tells us of "A good hater"; and Sir James Mackintosh, in
1791, used the phrase often attributed to John Randolph, "Wise and
masterly inactivity."
"Variety's the very spice of life," and "Not much the worse for wear,"
Cowper; "Man proposes, but God disposes," Thomas à Kempis.
Christopher Marlowe gave forth the invitation so often repeated by his
brothers in a less public way, "Love me little, love me long." Sir Edward
Coke was of the opinion that "A man's house is his castle." To Milton we
owe "The paradise of fools," "Fresh woods and pastures new," and "Peace
hath her victories no less renowned than war."
Edward Young tells us "Death loves a shining mark," "A fool at forty is
indeed a fool," but alas for his knowledge of human nature when he adds
that "Man wants but little, nor that little long"!
From Bacon comes "Knowledge is power."
A good deal of so-called slang is classic. "Escape with the skin of my
teeth" is from Job. "He is a brick" is from Plutarch. That historian tells
of a king of Sparta who boasted that his army was the only wall of the
city, "and every man is a brick." We call a fair and honest man "a square
man," but the Greeks describe the same person as _tetragonos_--"a
four-cornered man."
"Every dog has its day" is commonly attributed to Shakespeare, in
_Hamlet's_ speech, "The cat will mew and dog will have his day." But forty
years before "Hamlet" Heywood wrote, "But, as every man saith, a dog hath
his daie."
LITTLE STORIES OF BIG PEOPLE.
EDISON'S "FAKE" CIGARS.
A friend of the inventor says that Thomas A. Edison is very fond of
smoking, but that sometimes he becomes so absorbed in work that he even
forgets that he has a cigar in his mouth.
Mr. Edison once complained to a man in the tobacco business that he, the
inventor, could not account for the rapidity with which the cigars
disappeared from a box that he always kept in his office. The "Wizard" was
not inclined to think that he smoked them all himself. Finally, he asked
the tobacco man what might be done to remedy the situation.
The latter suggested that he make up some cigars--"fake" them, in other
words--with a well-known label on the outside. "I'll fill 'em with
horsehair and hard rubber," said he. "Then you'll find that there will not
be so many missing."
"All right," said Mr. Edison, and he forgot all about the matter.
Several weeks later, when the tobacco man was again calling on the
inventor, the latter suddenly said:
"Look here! I thought you were going to fix me up some fake cigars!"
"Why, I did!" exclaimed the other, in hurt surprise.
"When?"
"Don't you remember the flat box with a green label--cigars in bundle
form, tied with yellow ribbon?"
Edison smiled reflectively. "Do you know," he finally said, in abashed
tones, "I smoked every one of those cigars myself!"--_Saturday Evening
Post._
THE "DEAD-BEAT" AND THE PASS.
Among after-dinner speakers, Joseph Jefferson ranked as one who could tell
a good story in a dry, delightful way. His stories dealt principally with
theatrical subjects.
"While starring through Indiana several years ago," he said at a dinner
one night, "my manager was approached by a man who had the local
reputation of being a pass 'worker,' or dead-beat. He told the usual yarn
about being a former actor, and ended by asking for professional
courtesies.
"'I would be glad to oblige you,' said the manager, 'but, unfortunately, I
haven't a card with me.' Just then a happy thought struck him, and he
added: 'I'll tell you what I'll do. I will write the pass where it will be
easy for you to show it.'
"Leaning over, with a pencil he wrote 'Pass the bearer' on the fellow's
white shirt-front, and signed his name. The beat thanked him and hastened
to the gate. The ticket-taker gravely examined the writing and let him
take a few steps inside, then called him back, saying, in a loud voice:
"'Hold on, my friend; I forgot. It will be necessary for you to leave that
pass with me.'"--_Harper's Weekly._
THE HOST WAS PLEASED.
"Edward Everett Hale," said a lawyer, "was one of the guests at a
millionaire's dinner.
"The millionaire was a free spender, but he wanted full credit for every
dollar put out.
"And, as the dinner progressed, he told his guests what the more expensive
dishes had cost. He dwelt especially on the expense of the large and
beautiful grapes, each bunch a foot long, each grape bigger than a plum.
He told, down to a penny, what he had figured it out that the grapes had
cost him apiece.
"The guests looked annoyed. They ate the expensive grapes charily. But Dr.
Hale, smiling, extended his plate and said:
"'Would you mind cutting me off about $1.87 worth more, please?'"--_New
York Tribune._
CHOPIN'S "INSPIRATION."
Many people have heard the "Marche Funèbre" of Chopin, but few are aware
that it had its origin in a rather ghastly after-dinner frolic.
The painter Ziem, still living in hale old age, relates how, about
fifty-six years ago, he had given a little Bohemian dinner in his studio,
which was divided by hangings into three sections. In one section was a
skeleton sometimes used by Ziem for "draping" and an old piano covered
with a sheet.
During the after-dinner fun Ziem and the painter Ricard crept into this
section, and, wrapping the old sheet like a pall around the skeleton,
carried it among their comrades, where Polignac seized it, and, wrapping
himself with the skeleton in the sheet, sat down to play a queer dance of
death at the wheezy old piano.
In the midst of it all, Chopin, who was of the party, was seized with an
inspiration, and, seating himself at the piano with an exclamation that
brought the roisterers to their senses, extemporized then and there the
famous "Marche Funèbre," while his Bohemian auditory applauded in frantic
delight.--_London Globe._
VERY SUPERIOR CLAY.
The late Eugene Field, while on one of his lecturing tours, entered
Philadelphia.
There was some delay at the bridge over the Schuylkill River, and the
humorist's attention was attracted by the turbid, coffee-colored stream
flowing underneath. He asked the colored porter:
"Don't you people get your drinking-water from this stream?"
"Yassir! Ain't got no yuther place to git it frum, 'cept th' Delaweah.
Yassir!"
"I should think," said the humorist, "that you would be afraid to drink
such water; especially as the seepage from that cemetery I see on the hill
must drain directly into the river and pollute it."
"I reckon yo' all doan' know Philadelphy ve'y well, sah, aw yo'd know
dat's Lau'el Hill Cemete'y!" said the son of Ham.
"Well, what of that?" asked Field.
"Dat wattah doan' hu't us Philaydelphians none, sah," replied the native
son. "W'y, mos' all of de folkses bu'ied theah aw f'om ouah ve'y best
fam'lies!"--_Success._
MR. CRAWFORD'S ENDEAVOR.
"W.B. Yeats, the English poet, got off a good thing when he was at the
Franklin Inn for lunch the other day," said the Literary Man. "Of course
he's all for art for art's sake, but he told of a woman who once said to
Marion Crawford, the novelist:
"'Have you ever written anything that will live after you have gone?'
"'Madam,' Crawford replied, 'what I am trying to do is to write something
that will enable me to live while I am here.'"--_Philadelphia Press._
THE HOT WATER CURE.
Dr. William Osler is always exceedingly precise in his directions to
patients. He relates an experience which a brother practitioner once had
which illustrates the dangers of lack of precision.
A young man one day visited this doctor and described a common malady that
had befallen him.
"The thing for you to do," the physician said, "is to drink hot water an
hour before breakfast every morning."
The patient took his leave, and in a week returned.
"Well, how are you feeling?" the physician asked.
"Worse, doctor; worse, if anything," was the reply.
"Ah! Did you follow my advice and drink hot water an hour before
breakfast?"
"I did my best, sir," said the young man, "but I couldn't keep it up
more'n ten minutes at a stretch."--_Woman's Home Companion._
THE UGLIEST FAMILY IN ENGLAND.
It is not unusual in life to see an awkward fellow making a false step. He
attempts to recover himself and makes another; the second is followed by a
third, and down he comes. Here is an illustration of what we mean:
A gentleman once said to Lord North, "Pray, my lord, who is that extremely
ugly woman sitting over there?"
"That's my youngest sister," said his lordship.
"Good gracious!" said the gentleman, "I don't mean her, I mean the next."
"That is my eldest sister," replied the nobleman.
"I protest," cried the unhappy gentleman, "I don't mean her, but the
third."
"That is my wife," said Lord North.
"The devil!" ejaculated the poor fellow.
"You may well say that," said Lord North, "for she is as ugly as one. But
console yourself, my dear sir, we are the ugliest family in
England."--_Golden Penny._
THE MAN WHO STRUCK THE KING.
The Earl of Wemyss, who, though an octogenarian, is one of the most fiery
members of the Upper House, may boast of being the only man who has ever
struck the King in public. It occurred when his majesty was Prince of
Wales, and in the House of Lords during a debate.
The prince, as Duke of Cornwall, attended, and sat immediately before Lord
Wemyss. The noble lord made a speech, during which he, as usual, became
heated, and, in the course of a gesture, brought his fist down bang on His
Royal Highness's hat.
The prince, appreciating the force of the earl's argument, retired to a
place farther from him. Lord Wemyss was well known, before succeeding to
the earldom, as Lord Elcho, an enthusiast of volunteering and
rifle-shooting.--_Pearson's Weekly._
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
A TYPICAL AMERICAN CITIZEN.
Bicentenary of the Famous Man Whom Joseph H. Choate Has
Styled "The Greatest of American Diplomats"--Contrasts of a
Successful Career--Franklin's Own Practical Rules of
Conduct, and the Epitaph He Wrote for Himself.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
It is two hundred years since Benjamin Franklin was born. The anniversary,
important though it is, has led to reflections concerning the man rather
than enthusiasm over him. We are struck by the great variety of his
activities and accomplishments, and by the sanity of his conduct.
Benjamin Franklin is not named as the greatest American. Washington and
Lincoln always will be ranked before him, because in certain achievements
they stand altogether alone. The deeds which made Washington and Lincoln
great required special gifts in mind and character--endowments found in
such full measure only in few men and at rare intervals.
Mr. Choate's Eloquent Tribute.
Joseph H. Choate, recently ambassador to Great Britain, in his inaugural
address as president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, in 1903,
paid eloquent tribute to Franklin:
His whole career has been summed up by a great French
statesman, who was one of his personal friends and
correspondents, in six words, Latin words of course:
"_Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis_," which,
unfortunately for our language, cannot be translated into
English in less than twelve: "He snatched the lightning from
the skies, and the scepter from tyrants."
Surely the briefest and most brilliant biography ever
written. He enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge by
discovering laws and facts of Nature unknown before, and
applying them to the use and service of man; and that
entitles him to lasting fame.
But his other service to mankind differed from this only in
kind, and was quite equal in degree. For he stands second
only to Washington in the list of heroic patriots who on
both sides of the Atlantic stood for those fundamental
principles of English liberty which culminated in the
independence of the United States, and have ever since been
shared by the English-speaking race the world over.
In view of his fifteen years' service in England and ten in
France, of the immense obstacles and difficulties which he
had to overcome, of the art and wisdom which he displayed,
and the incalculable value to the country of the treaties
which he negotiated, he still stands as by far the greatest
of American diplomats.
Though greatest in no one thing, Franklin was great in many things. He
was, in his time and place, a great statesman, a great diplomat. He was a
great scientist, a great philosopher, a great inventor, a great man of
letters, a great business man.
The Variety of His Talents.
All his qualities were made valuable by his practical sense. He was
interested in nothing unless he saw in it some use. The result was that he
found use in almost everything. It is no wonder that he is called "the
many-sided Franklin."
This practical nature makes Franklin a typical American. Most of the
larger figures of the eighteenth century, when we look back to them now,
seem a little remote in their way of thinking and acting. They carry the
peculiar flavor of their period. But Franklin, as we know him, might be a
man of the present day--of any day in American history.
In the course of his life he worked his way up through every social
stratum. A self-made man, he was virtually unassisted in his efforts to
advance himself. He was the fifteenth child of a poor tallow-chandler and
soap-maker. All his public-school education was received before his
eleventh year.
A Manager of Men.
Yet we see him in his later life the idol of the French court, pitted
against the shrewdest diplomats of the Old World to plead for the
struggling American colonies, and gaining his ends almost as much through
social tact and charm as by the power of a well-trained mind. He did not
lead men--he managed them.
The contrasts in his career can be seen in this condensed biography:
1706--Born in Boston, January 17.
1716--Taken from school and put to work
in his father's tallow-chandler's shop.
1718--Apprenticed to his brother in the
printing trade.
1723--Ran away to Philadelphia, where he
worked as a printer.
1725--Stranded in London and forced to
work at his trade.
1729--Began publication of the _Pennsylvania
Gazette._
1732--First appearance of "Poor Richard's
Almanac." Founded a Philadelphia
library, first circulating library in
America.
1737--Appointed postmaster of Philadelphia.
Organized first fire company in America.
1742--Invented the first stove used in this
country.
1743--Founded the American Philosophical Society
and the University of Pennsylvania.
1748--Retired from active business with an
estimated fortune of $75,000.
1752--The kite demonstration to prove that
lightning is electricity.
1755--Led in the defense of Pennsylvania
against the Indians.
1757--Sent to London as agent of the
Colonial Assembly of Pennsylvania.
1763--Traveled sixteen hundred miles, extending
and improving postal system.
1766--Gave testimony on the Stamp Act and spoke
for the colonies before the House of Commons.
1775--After eleven years in England returned to
America to take part in the contest for
independence, and was elected to the second
Continental Congress.
1776--On Committee of Five to frame the
Declaration of Independence. Appointed
commissioner to solicit aid from France.
1778--Secured a treaty of alliance with
France.
1781--Member of the commission to negotiate
a treaty of peace with Great Britain.
1785--President of the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
1787--Assisted in framing the Constitution
of the United States.
1790--Died at his home in Philadelphia,
eighty-four years of age.
"Stranded in London in 1725;" in 1748 retiring from business "with an
estimated fortune of seventy-five thousand dollars"--a real fortune in
those days--besides an assured income of five thousand dollars a year from
his publishing business. Here is advancement!
Franklin the Scientist.
If Franklin had remained in retirement he would be remembered as a
successful colonial gentleman who contributed many maxims and proverbs to
the literature of common sense.
But about this time men who had the leisure were everywhere playing with
electricity. Experiments in natural science happened to be a fad, much as
in recent years have been experiments in table-lifting, automatic writing,
and other phenomena of what is called the "subliminal self."
Franklin studied electricity with the rest, but with the difference that
he made his electrical work amount to something. The results of his
experiments were published, arousing a great deal of interest in Europe.
The suggestion that thunder and lightning are electrical phenomena similar
to those produced artificially was made by Franklin in 1749. The idea was
not altogether new. He, however, emphasized it, and proposed an experiment
by which the identity of the two manifestations of the electric fluid
might be proved.
His scheme involved the erection of an iron rod on a church steeple or
high tower to draw electricity from passing clouds. The experiment was
first actually carried out by a Frenchman, D'Alibard.
When Franklin made his famous experiment with the kite in 1752 the theory
he was seeking to prove had already been established. Yet the credit of
the discovery belongs to him by right of prior suggestion.
Franklin offered, instead of the two-fluid theory of electricity, the then
revolutionary one-fluid theory; discovered the poisonous nature of air
breathed out from the lungs; made important meteorological discoveries,
including the fact that the Gulf Stream is warmer than the surrounding
ocean; proved, by experiment with colored cloths on snow, that different
colors absorb the heat of the sun in different quantities.
These are among his scientific achievements. From each he drew some
practical inference. He invented the lightning-rod; devised systems of
ventilation for buildings, and suggested that white, since it absorbs the
least heat, is the best color to wear in summer.
IN LITERATURE AND PUBLIC LIFE.
His reputation as a man of letters rests upon his journalistic work,
essays, and correspondence, and his unique autobiography. He founded the
first literary newspaper in America, thus becoming the first editor as
distinguished from the mere news-gatherer. He founded the first literary
club in America--the famous Junto. He was the first to illustrate a
newspaper, and to point out the advantages of illustrated advertisements.
Though his claim to eminence as a man of letters is not to be gainsaid, he
was not, in the finer distinction, a literary man. He represented no
literary tradition, nor did he establish one. His practical genius
confined the elements of his literary manner to lucidity, simplicity, and
directness. There was no really idealistic touch in his writing. But his
frankness and his genial humor kept him from ever becoming dull. His
autobiography is one of the most interesting personal narratives ever
written.
But Franklin's greatest work was his work as a statesman and diplomat.
Between 1757 and 1775 he represented in England first his own colony of
Pennsylvania and later the group of colonies. His zeal got him into
trouble, for he made public, though by permission, some letters written
by Governor Hutchison, of Massachusetts, in which the English government
was advised to use harsh measures with the colony.
Attacked in the Privy Council for his "bad faith," Franklin stood silent
until the vituperation ended, and then quietly withdrew. His demeanor
inspired Horace Walpole's famous epigram:
The calm philosopher, without reply,
Withdrew, and gave his country liberty.
On that fateful day Franklin was dressed in "a new suit of spotted
Manchester velvet." The man's sense of humor appears in the fact that he
deliberately laid that suit aside and did not put it on again until the
day when he signed the treaty of alliance between France and the American
colonies.
His labors in France during the period of the American Revolution are part
of the history of the time. As the French historian Lacretelle says:
His virtues and renown negotiated for him; and before the
second year of his mission had expired no one conceived it
possible to refuse fleets and armies to the countrymen of
Franklin.
A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.
How did Franklin make himself so effective a man? How did he succeed where
others failed? The secret lies in his practical philosophy of life.
Fortunately he bequeathed that secret to us in the maxims which he
composed for his own guidance during his voyage back to America from
England when he was twenty-two years of age. The pithy phrases are full of
vitality to-day.
Eat not to dulness; drink not to elevation.
Speak naught but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid
trifling conversation.
Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut
off all unnecessary actions.
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if
you speak, speak accordingly.
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or
unavoidable.
Drive thy business; let not thy business drive thee.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy,
and wise.
One to-day is worth two to-morrows.
Buy what thou hast no need of and ere long thou shalt sell
thy necessaries.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half-shut
afterward.
They that won't be counseled can't be helped.
A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his
nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a
groat at last.
Worldly wise, these maxims; but sound rules of conduct. Franklin was no
doddering _Polonius_, looking for advantage where others could have none.
He was worldly wise, but he employed his worldly wisdom to serve not only
himself but his friends, his neighbors, and finally his country.
FRANKLIN AS A RELIGIOUS MAN.
The venerable Edward Everett Hale, whose span of years reaches far back to
almost touching distance with the great and good ones of the nation's
infancy, sheds new light upon Benjamin Franklin's religious life in a
recent article in the _Independent:_
Franklin had an indifference, almost amusing, to the
sectarian divisions of the Christian Church. Because of this
ever-amusing indifference to sect, there has grown up a
doubt in extreme circles whether Franklin was what is called
a religious man. But it is quite certain, nothing is more
certain, that he recognized the Divine Providence, the being
and love of God, the work and gospel of Jesus Christ, and
immortality of man, and that he was eager to take part as a
Christian man in the best work of the Christian Church.
Dr. Hale admits that Franklin "did not know the difference between an
Episcopalian and a Roman Catholic," but thinks that he was nevertheless
"one of the men who, as the English Prayer Book says in its grand way,
'profess and call themselves Christians.'"
After Franklin's death, an epitaph, written by himself when twenty-three
years of age, was found among his papers. Though it was not chiseled upon
his tomb, we may quote it here:
=The body of
B. FRANKLIN,
Printer,
Like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out,
and stripped of its lettering and gilding,
lies here, food for worms.
But the work shall not be wholly lost;
for it will, as he believed, appear once more,
in a new and more perfect edition,
corrected and amended
by the Author.
He was born January 17, 1706.
Died 17. B.F.=
THE OSTRICH PUNCHING OF ARROYO AL.
I was broke in Arizony, and was gloomy as a tomb
When I got a chance at punchin' for an outfit called Star-Plume;
I didn't ask no wherefores, but jest lit out with my tarp,
As happy as an angel with the newest make o' harp.
When I struck out from the bunkhouse, for my first day on the range,
I thought the tracks we follered was peculiar like and strange,
And when I asked about it, the roundup foreman sez:
"You ain't a punchin' cattle, but are herdin' ostriches."
Well, we chased a bunch o' critters on the hot and sandy plain,
Though 'twas like a purp a-racin' with a U.S.A. mail train;
But at last we got 'em herded in a wire fence corral,
And the foreman sez, offhand like: "Jest go in and rope one, Al."
Well, the first one that I tackled was an Eiffel Tower bird,
But the noose ain't pinched his thorax 'fore several things occurred:
He spread his millinery jest as if he meant to fly,
And then he reached out with a stilt and kicked me in the eye.
They pulled me out from under that millin' mass o' legs,
And they fed me on hot whisky and the yelks of ostrich eggs;
And, as soon as I was able, I pulled freight fer Cattle Land,
And the ostrich punchin' bizness never gits my O.K. brand.
_Denver Republican._
A Horoscope of the Months.
BY MARION Y. BUNNER.
=What it Means to be Born Under the Sign "Pisces," Which Represents the
Period Between February 19 and March 20.=
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
From time immemorial man has striven to read the mystery of the stars and
to discover what influence the constellations may have upon his life. The
ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Greeks have handed down to us
their knowledge and their fancies, and others have augmented and
embellished their work, until astrology has become a veritable
treasure-house of picturesque legends. Even to-day, in this most literal
and materialistic of the world's ages, when some of our most cherished
myths and fairy tales have been relegated to a limbo of contempt, there
are many who place a certain credence in the magic lore of the stars.
The present series of articles will set before the readers of THE SCRAP
BOOK the most interesting and notable of the old astrological traditions,
treating the signs and portents of the successive months in their proper
places, and giving their application, real or fancied, to the lives of
their "subjects."
PISCES: THE FISHES.
FEBRUARY 19 to MARCH 20.
CUSP: FEBRUARY 19 to FEBRUARY 25.
The twelve signs of the zodiac represent the physical framework of
man--head, neck, shoulders, heart, loins, hands, feet, etc. The four
elements, fire, earth, air, and water, are the four Triplicities which
govern these signs, and there are three signs in each Triplicity. Seven
planets in turn control these latter: Jupiter and Venus, which are
favorable; Mars and Saturn, which are unfavorable; Mercury, which is most
undecided and variable; and the Sun and Moon, which modify the favorable
or unfavorable influences of the others.
The sun passes through each of the zodiacal signs successively in the
course of a year; and the duration of each sign is about thirty days. But
the change begins about the twentieth of each month, so that a sign
extends over only two-thirds of its own month, and holds about ten days of
the month preceding.
When the sun is passing from one sign to another, the period is known as a
cusp. Those born during the cusps will partake of the characteristics of
both the old sign which the sun is leaving and the new one which it is
entering. This may be an advantage or a disadvantage, according to whether
or not the two signs are in harmony. The sun must have resided in the new
sign for six days; any time less than this endows one with some of the
characteristics of the preceding sign.
There is a strong and lasting sympathy among persons belonging to signs of
the same group, or Triplicity. They will always be congenial, either as
friends or in the business world.
The constellation Pisces, the twelfth sign of the zodiac, is a phlegmatic,
nocturnal, effeminate, watery sign, governing the feet. It is the last
sign of the Water Triplicity, its companion being Cancer and Scorpio. Its
higher attributes are emotion and silence.
Those born under this sign are thoughtful, industrious, sensible, and
persevering. They are ambitious to gain knowledge on every subject,
especially on scientific and mechanical matters, and have great mechanical
ability. They are logical and positive in their opinions; and while
affable and apparently submissive, are in reality very determined in the
accomplishment of their plans, which are always the result of long and
careful deliberation.
In the fulfilment of a duty or promise, they are equally determined and
faithful. They exact a reason for everything, and can always give reasons
for their own actions in any matter. They are skeptical, and thoroughly
materialistic.
They have strong ideas of justice, and are conscientious, anxious to earn
what they possess, and dread to be dependent upon others.
These people are fond of responsibility, and can usually be relied on to
fill acceptably places of trust. They have generous and self-sacrificing
impulses, and are active in works of charity. They do not willingly submit
to a master.
They, love beautiful things in nature and in art, and among them are to be
found artists and writers. There is an innate modesty in both old and
young who are born under this sign.
Pisces people are usually full-faced, with placid, sleepy eyes. They are
apt to be round-shouldered. The physical temperament will be
lymphatic-bilious in southern climates, and lymphatic-nervous in northern
latitudes.
They will find their most congenial friends among Virgo and Capricorn
people. When a Pisces and either a Virgo or a Capricorn subject are united
in marriage, the offspring are bright and intellectual. Domestic comfort
and satisfaction will be found the general results of such marriages.
Many precocious little ones are born under this sign. Every possible care
should be given to the development of the willpower of these children.
They sometimes show a peculiar obstinacy, which should be broken. They
should be led to act and to decide for themselves, by means of
principles, which they will be exceedingly quick to understand.
A few of the famous people who have been born under this sign are Victor
Hugo, Charles Darwin, Rachel, and Philip H. Sheridan. These are good
examples of the persistency and conscientiousness typical of Pisces
subjects.
March, the third month of our modern year, contains thirty-one days. There
is an old saying, common to England and Scotland, that the last three of
the thirty-one were borrowed by March from April; and they are still
sometimes called the "borrowed days." In the Roman calendar, March--or, in
Latin, Martius, the month of Mars--was the first month of the year. The
Saxons called it Hlyd, the loud or stormy month. In England, it is often a
month of excessive rains; hence the old proverb which says that "a bushel
of March dust is worth an earl's ransom."
In astrology, Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio are termed the "fruitful signs,"
because of their watery character. This coincides with the ancient
allegory of Creation, and the belief that all living things "rose out of
the waters."
The fortunate day of the week for a Pisces subject is Thursday. May and
June are the months in which he should start any business enterprise which
he wishes to be successful.
The governing planets of March are Jupiter and Neptune. The gems of the
month are chrysolite and bloodstone. The astral colors are white, pink,
emerald green, and black. The flower is the daffodil.
The following are the zodiacal signs in their regular order, with proper
dates, and the four triplicities.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| THE ZODIACAL SIGNS. |
| |
| 1. Aries The Ram. Reigns from March 21 to April 19. |
| |
| 2. Taurus The Bull. Reigns from April 20 to May 19. |
| |
| 3. Gemini The Twins. Reigns from May 20 to June 18. |
| |
| 4. Cancer The Crab. Reigns from June 19 to July 23. |
| |
| 5. Leo The Lion. Reigns from July 24 to August 23. |
| |
| 6. Virgo The Virgin. Reigns from August 24 to September 21. |
| |
| 7. Libra The Scales. Reigns from September 22 to October 21. |
| |
| 8. Scorpio The Scorpion. Reigns from October 22 to November 20. |
| |
| 9. Sagittarius The Archer. Reigns from November 21 to December 20. |
| |
| 10. Capricornus The Sea-Goat. Reigns from December 21 to January 19. |
| |
| 11. Aquarius The Water Bearer. Reigns from January 20 to February 18. |
| |
| 12. Pisces The Fishes. Reigns from February 19 to March 20. |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
---------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| THE FOUR TRIPLICITIES. |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| DOMAINS. HEAD. MIDDLE. NEGATIVE. |
| |
| Fire Aries Leo Sagittarius. |
| |
| Earth Taurus Virgo Capricornus. |
| |
| Air Gemini Libra Aquarius. |
| |
| Water Cancer Scorpio Pisces. |
|---------------------------------------------------------------|
FATE.
BY SUSAN MARR SPALDING.
Two shall be born the whole wide world apart,
And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no heed:
And these o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands,
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death;
And all unconsciously shape every act
And bend each wandering step to this one end--
That one day out of darkness they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
* * * * *
And two shall walk some narrow way of life,
So nearly side by side that should one turn
Ever so little space to left or right,
They needs must stand acknowledged face to face;
And yet with wistful eyes that never meet,
With groping hands that never clasp, and lips
Calling in vain to ears that never hear,
They seek each other all their weary days,
And die unsatisfied. And this is Fate.
* * * * *
Susan Marr Spalding was born in Maine, and though she has
written comparatively little for the public, she has
thousands of admirers among lovers of true poetry. Her
beautiful poem "Fate," which is reprinted above, was first
published in the New York _Graphic_ thirty years ago. Had it
not been for the keepers of scrap books it doubtless would
have disappeared a few years after it was written. Instead,
however, it has found a place in recently published
collections of verse, and is regarded as one of the most
beautiful and expressive utterances in English.
FROM THE LIPS OF ANANIAS.
A Collection of Gems that Would Have Made the Late Baron Munchausen Get
Up and Leave the Room in Despair.
A LION'S GRATITUDE.
John Burroughs, the naturalist, was laughing about the story, widely
published not long since, of a wild duck that got a salt-water mussel
caught on its tongue and had intelligence enough to fly from the salt to
the fresh water, where it dipped the mussel, sickening it through osmosis,
and thus causing it to loosen its firm grip.
"I believe that story of the duck that understood the theory of osmosis,"
said Mr. Burroughs. "I believe it as implicitly as I believe the story of
the crippled lion and the young lieutenant.
"A young lieutenant, during an African campaign, came one day upon a badly
crippled lion. The great brute limped over the tawny sand on three paws,
holding its fourth paw in the air. And every now and then, with a kind of
groan, it would pause and lick the injured paw piteously.
"When the lion saw the young lieutenant it came slowly toward him. He
stood his ground, rifle in hand. But the beast meant no harm. It drew
close to him; it rubbed against him with soft feline purrs; it extended
its hurt paw.
"The lieutenant examined the paw and found that there was a large thorn in
it. He extracted the thorn, the lion roaring with pain, and he bound up
the wound with his handkerchief. Then, with every manifestation of relief
and gratitude, the animal withdrew.
"But it remembered its benefactor. It was grateful. And in a practical way
it rewarded the young man.
"This lion ran over the regiment's list of officers, and ate all who were
the lieutenant's superiors in rank. Thus, in a few weeks the young man,
thanks to the astute animal, became a colonel."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
THE KANSAS BRAND.
News comes from southern Kansas that a boy climbed a cornstalk to see how
the sky and clouds looked and that now the stalk is growing faster than
the boy can climb down.
The boy is clear out of sight.
Three men have taken a contract for cutting down the stalk with axes to
save the boy a horrible death by starving, but the stalk grows so rapidly
that they can't hit twice in the same place. The boy is living on green
corn alone and has already thrown down over four bushels of cobs.
Even if the corn holds out there is still danger that the boy will reach a
height where he will be frozen to death. There is some talk of attempting
his rescue with a balloon.--_Topeka Capital._
A REMINISCENCE.
"It has been so wet for the last three or four years," remarked Truthful
James, "that a good many people have forgot how dry it used to be.
"I remember one year when the Missouri River was dusty all the way down
from Kansas City to the Mississippi. Of course the river was running all
the while, but the water in it got so dry that it turned to dust and blew
away. I took a boat down the river at that time, but it was so dusty on
the boat that you couldn't see the hind end of it when you was standing on
the front end. It was a little the worst I ever see. My mouth got so much
grit and dust in it that I could strike a match on the roof of it any
time.
"One day the boat got stuck in fifteen feet of Missouri River water. It
was so dry and dusty that the wheel couldn't turn. What did we do? Well,
sir, we went out and hired a farmer to haul fresh well water for fifteen
miles to mix with the river water until it was thin enough to run the boat
through."--_Kansas City Journal._
TO "FOOL" HIS COWS.
Frank Leidgen, who lives northeast of town, came in one day this week in
search of green eye-glasses for his cattle. Of course our men who deal in
glasses were forced to give it up as a hard proposition. When asked why he
wanted his cattle to wear them, Leidgen replied:
"When in the pasture the green glasses will make the grass look green and
the cattle will think it is spring and the pasture green."
It is true that it had not rained in this part of Oklahoma for some time,
and the grass is very dry. We have patents on everything we can think of
but patent eye-glasses for cows.
Can't some one accommodate the gentleman?--_Frederick (Oklahoma) Free
Press._
SQUIRREL BECAME WOOD.
The following story is given us by a gentleman whose veracity we would not
doubt:
About six years ago in the fall a hunter shot a squirrel, which lodged
between two small twigs, the size of a lead pencil. This being near the
man's house, he watched the squirrel each week.
The first spring the twigs grew, and the squirrel remained in the position
it lodged.
The second year the twigs, which had grown to be the size of a man's
fingers, died; so did the limb die.
The third year no change, but during the fourth year the tail of the
squirrel dropped off, and the man noticed no change the fifth, but the
sixth year he secured the limb and squirrel and found, to his surprise,
that the squirrel had become a white oak bump.
Under the microscope could be seen the hairs in the wood. The places for
the eyes and ears were perfect, and where the chin and forelegs had
touched the twig it grew to them. The legs were intact, but the feet had
disappeared. The body of the squirrel had grown to be about four inches in
diameter.
What puzzled the gentleman who gave us this is, through what process could
the dead animal become wood? As proof of the story, we can furnish the
name of the man who has the "freak of nature" in his possession, and who
watched it from the time it first lodged.--_Smith's Grove (Kentucky)
Times._
THE REAL WASHINGTON.
By Max Adeler.
"You say," I remarked to the old negro who drove the hack, "that you were
General Washington's body-servant?"
"Dat's so! Dat's jes so, mossa. I done waited on Washington sence he was
so high--no bigger 'n a small chile."
"You know the story then about the cherry-tree and the hatchet?"
"Know it? Why, I was dar on de spot. I seen Mossa Gawge climbe de tree
atter de cherries, and I seen him fling de hatchet at de boys who was a
stonin' him. I done chase dem boys off de place meself."
"Do you remember his appearance as a man? What he looked like?"
"Yes, indeedy. He was a kinder short, chunky man; sorter fat and
hearty-lookin'. He had chin whiskers and mustache and spectacles. Mos'
generally he wore a high hat; but I'se seed him in a fur cap wid
ear-warmers!"
"You were not with him, of course, when he crossed the Delaware--when he
went across the Delaware River?"
"Wid him? Yes, sah; I was right dar. I was not more'n two feet off'n him
as he druv across de bridge in his buggy! Dat's a fac'. I walked 'longside
de off hind wheel ob dat buggy all de way."
"You saw him then when he fought the British at Trenton?"
"Sho's you're born I did! I held Mossa Gawge's coat an' hat while he
fought the British at dat werry place. Mossa Gawge clinched him and den
dey rassled and rassled, and at first he frew Mossa Gawge, and den Mossa
Gawge flung him, and set on him and done hammered him till he cried 'nuff!
Mossa Gawge won dat fight. I seed him wid me own eyes! An' I come home wid
him in de kyars!"
"You weren't with him, though, when he shot the apple off the boy's head?"
"Who wa'n't wid him? I wa'n't? I was de only pusson dar 'ceptin' one white
man. I loaded Mossa Gawge's revolver and han'ed it to him, and picked up
de apple an' et it soon as he'd knocked it off. Nobody can't tell dish yer
old niggah nuffin' 'bout dat circumstance."
"You knew all of the general's relations, too, I suppose? Martin Luther,
and Peter the Hermit, and the rest?"
"Knowed um all. Many and many's de time I done waited on de table when
Mossa Gawge had um to dinner. I remember dem two gemmen jes' 's well 's if
I'd a seen um yesterday. Yes, sah; an' I druv 'em out often!"
"I've frequently seen pictures of Washington in which he is represented
sitting upon a white horse. Did he really ride a white horse, or don't you
recall the color of his horse?"
"Why, bress your soul; 'call de color ob de hoss--'call de color ob it? Do
you see dish yer nigh hoss dat I'm a drivin' now, right yer? Well, dat's
de werry hoss Mossa Gawge used to ride. He lef it to me in his will!"
Just then we reached the station, and I dismounted from the hack and paid
Washington's body-servant for his service. No doubt a longer conversation
with him would have revealed other new and startling facts relating to the
Father of His Country.
LITTLE GEMS FROM WEBSTER.
Venerable men! You have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven
has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this
joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very hour,
with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife
of your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over
your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed!
You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke
and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewn with the dead
and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse;
the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to
repeated resistance a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an
instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death--all these you
have witnessed, but you witness them no more.... All is peace; and God has
granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber
forever in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the
reward of your patriotic toils; and He has allowed us, your sons and
countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation,
in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!--From
"_Oration on Laying the Corner-Stone of Bunker Hill Monument,_" _June 17,
1825._
* * * * *
If anything be found in the national Constitution, either by original
provision or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the
people know how to get rid of it. If any construction be established
unacceptable to them, so as to become practically a part of the
Constitution, they will amend it at their own sovereign pleasure. But
while the people choose to maintain it as it is, while they are satisfied
with it and refuse to change it, who has given or who can give to the
State legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference,
construction, or otherwise?--_From a Speech delivered in the United States
Senate_, _January 26, 1830._
* * * * *
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our
American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have
entitled them to the respect of mankind.--_From Speech on the Completion
of Bunker Hill Monument_, _June 17, 1843._
* * * * *
He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of
revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it
sprung upon its feet.--_Speech on Hamilton_, _March 10, 1831._
* * * * *
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the
founders of human civilization.--From "_Remarks on Agriculture,_" _January
13, 1840._
* * * * *
Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the
patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.--_Speech_,
_April 1824._
* * * * *
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is
confession.--_From Argument on the Murder of Captain White_, _April 6,
1830._
* * * * *
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart
to this vote.--_Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson_, _August 2, 1826._
* * * * *
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to
guard and defend it.--_Speech_, _June 3, 1834._
* * * * *
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.--_From a
Speech at Plymouth_, _December 22, 1820._
* * * * *
One country, one constitution, one destiny.--_Speech_, _March 15, 1837._
VAGARIES OF MATHEMATICS.
"As dull as arithmetic" is a phrase that is familiar to almost every
schoolboy, and is a figure of comparison that is frequently evoked by
those sages who hold down empty cracker-boxes in rural general stores. The
fact is, however, that arithmetic is not always half so dull as it looks.
Like some of those persons who earn a livelihood by teaching it to the
young, it has a dry humor and a few vagaries of its own.
One of these vagaries has to do with the figure 9, and it is thus
described by William Walsh in his "Handy Book of Literary Curiosities":
It is a most romantic number, and a most persistent,
self-willed, and obstinate one. You cannot multiply it away
or get rid of it anyhow. Whatever you do, it is sure to turn
up again, as did the body of Eugene Aram's victim.
A mathematician named Green, who died in 1794, is said to
have first called attention to the fact that all through the
multiplication table the product of nine comes to nine.
Multiply by any figure you like, and the sum of the
resultant digits will invariably add up as nine. Thus, twice
9 is 18; add the digits together, and 1 and 8 make 9. Three
times 9 is 27; and 2 and 7 is 9. So it goes on up to 11
times 9, which gives 99. Very good. Add the digits together;
9 and 9 is 18, and 8 and 1 is 9.
Go on to any extent, and you will find it impossible to get
away from the figure 9. Take an example at random: 9 times
339 is 3,051; add the digits together, and they make 9. Or
again, 9 times 2,127 is 19,143; add the digits together,
they make 18, and 8 and 1 is 9. Or still again, 9 times
5,071 is 45,639; the sum of these digits is 27, and 2 and 7
is 9.
This seems startling enough. Yet there are other queer
examples of the same form of persistence. It was M. de
Maivan who discovered that if you take any row of figures,
and, reversing their order, make a subtraction sum of
obverse and reverse, the final result of adding up the
digits of the answer will always be 9 As, for example:
2941
Reverse, 1492
----
1449
Now. 1 + 4 + 4 + 9 = 18; and 1 + 8 = 9.
The same result is obtained if you raise the numbers so
changed to their squares or cubes. Start anew, for example,
with 62; reversing it, you get 26. Now, 62 - 26 = 36, and 3
+ 6 = 9. The squares of 26 and 62 are, respectively, 676 and
3844. Subtract one from the other, and you get 3168 = 18,
and 1 + 8 = 9.
So with the cubes of 26 and 62, which are 17,576 and
238,328. Subtracting, the result is 220,752 = 18, and 1 + 8
= 9.
Again, you are confronted with the same puzzling peculiarity in another
form. Write down any number, as, for example, 7,549,132, subtract
therefrom the sum of its digits, and, no matter what figures you start
with, the digits of the product will always come to 9.
7549132, sum of digits = 31.
31
-------
7549101, sum of digits = 27, and 2 + 7 = 9.
Again, set the figure 9 down in multiplication, thus:
1 × 9 = 9
2 × 9 = 18
3 × 9 = 27
4 × 9 = 36
5 × 9 = 45
6 × 9 = 54
7 × 9 = 63
8 × 9 = 72
9 × 9 = 81
10 × 9 = 90
Now, you will see that the tens column reads down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
9, and the units column up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Here is a different property of the same number. If you arrange in a row
the cardinal numbers from 1 to 9, with the single omission of 8, and
multiply the sum so represented by any one of the figures multiplied by 9,
the result will present a succession of figures identical with that which
was multiplied by 9. Thus, if you wish a series of fives, you take 5 × 9 =
45 for a multiplier, with this result:
12345679
45
--------
61728395
49382716
--------
555555555
A very curious number is 142,857, which, multiplied by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or
6, gives the same figures in the same order, beginning at a different
point, but if multiplied by 7 gives all nines. Multiplied by 1, it equals
142,857; multiplied by 2, equals 285,714; multiplied by 3, equals 428,571;
multiplied by 4, equals 571,428; multiplied by 5, equals 714,285;
multiplied by 6, equals 857,142; multiplied by 7, equals 999,999.
Multiply 142,857 by 8, and you have 1,142,856. Then add the first figure
to the last, and you have 142,857, the original number, the figures
exactly the same as at the start.
The number 37 has this strange peculiarity: multiplied by 3, or by any
multiple of 3 up to 27, it gives three figures all alike. Thus, three
times 37 will be 111. Twice three times (6 times) 37 will be 222; three
times three times (9 times) 37 gives three threes; four times three times
(12 times) 37, three fours, and so on.
The wonderfully procreative power of figures, or, rather, their
accumulative growth, has been exemplified in that familiar story of the
farmer, who, undertaking to pay his farrier one grain of wheat for the
first nail, two for the second, four for the third, and so on, found that
he had bargained to give the farrier more wheat than was grown in all
England.
My beloved young friends who love to frequent the roulette-table, do you
know that if you begin with a dime, and were allowed to leave all your
winnings on the table, five consecutive lucky guesses would give you
almost a million and a half of dollars, or, to be exact, $1,450,625.52?
Yet that would be the result of winning thirty-five for one five times
hand-running.
Here is another example. Take the number 15, let us say. Multiply that by
itself, and you get 225. Now multiply 225 by itself, and so on until
fifteen products have been multiplied by themselves in turn.
You don't think that is a difficult problem? Well, you may be a clever
mathematician, but it would take you about a quarter of a century to work
out this simple little sum.
The final product called for contains 38,589 figures, the first of which
are 1,442. Allowing three figures to an inch, the answer would be more
than a thousand feet long. To perform the operation would require about
500,000,000 figures. If they can be made at the rate of one a minute, a
person working ten hours a day for three hundred days in each year would
be twenty-eight years about it.
NUMBERS THAT EQUIVOCATED.
The _Woman's Home Companion_ repeats a good story that is told of a
quick-witted Irishman with a natural aptitude for mental arithmetic who
was working in a field with a Dutchman, when they unearthed a box of
silver coins. The covetous Dutchman at once laid claim to the whole booty,
because he was the first to break it open and discover its valuable
contents.
"Go softly," said the Irishman, "for the whole business is mine. It's a
bit of money that was left me by an uncle, and I buried it here for
safe-keeping. There was a thousand dollars."
"All right with that," replied the Dutchman, as he caught on to the bait.
"If you tell me how much money there is, it's with you; if you miss, she's
mine."
"That's fair, and you have the sentiments of a gentleman," replied Pat, as
he made a quick mental calculation from the weight of the box that there
must be somewhere between fifty and three hundred and fifty dollars. "I
sent six hundred and forty-two dollars and fifty-three cents to my mother
in the old country, so add that amount to what there is in the box."
"That is done so quick," said the Dutchman.
"Then deduct that amount from the sum of one thousand dollars, which was
left me," said Pat.
"Done again," said the Dutchman.
"Now deduct those figures from three hundred and fifty-seven dollars and
forty-seven cents, which I had to pay the lawyers, and it leaves the exact
amount to one cent that you will find in the box."
"That's the right money to a penny," said the Dutchman, after he had
counted it carefully, "and it proves that you are an honest man."
It is not every one who can see through the mathematics of this puzzle so
as to know that Pat's problem would work out all right if the box
contained any sum up to three hundred and fifty dollars.
FREAK COMBINATIONS.
A well-known professor has drawn attention to the following series of
numbers, which are here given without remark:
1 × 9 + 2= 11
12 × 9 + 3 = 111
123 × 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 × 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 × 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 × 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 × 9 + 8 = 11111111
123456789 × 9 + 9 = 111111111
1 × 8 + 1 = 9
12 × 8 + 2 = 98
123 × 8 + 3 = 987
1234 × 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 × 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 × 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 × 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 × 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 × 8 + 9 = 987654321
Eulogy on the Dog.
BY GEORGE G. VEST.
Gentlemen of the Jury:--The best friend a man has in this world may turn
against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared
with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest
to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may
become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It
flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may
be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are
prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be
the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon
our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves
ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
Gentlemen of the jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in
poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground,
where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may
be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to
offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the
roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he
were a prince. When all other friends desert he remains. When riches take
wings and reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the
sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth
an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no
higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to
fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death
takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold
ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his
graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes
sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.
One of the most famous speeches ever made by the late
Senator Vest, of Missouri, was made in the course of the
trial of a man who had wantonly shot a dog belonging to a
neighbor. Vest represented the plaintiff, who demanded two
hundred dollars' damages. When Vest finished speaking, the
jury, after two minutes' deliberation, awarded the plaintiff
five hundred dollars. The full text of the speech is printed
above.
Abou Ben Adhem.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed--
And lo, Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
* * * * *
Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate, Middlesex, England,
October 19, 1784; and died at Putney, near London, August
28, 1859. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at
Christ's Hospital, under the same master as Coleridge and
Lamb.
He was an ardent political reformer, and it was while in
prison for libel against the Prince Regent that he first met
Lord Byron, whose biography he afterward wrote.
Besides this, a long poem, "Rimini," and an "Autobiography,"
his works are principally essays and shorter poems, of which
"Abou Ben Adhem" is perhaps the most famous.
There are few school children who have not recited "Abou Ben
Adhem," and in the more serious business of life it has
served to point a moral, under most varied circumstances; in
the marts of trade and the senate chamber it is equally
familiar, for, short though it be, it is an epitome of true
Christianity.
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