McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
MARCH
CONTRIBUTORS
Ray Stannard Baker Samuel Hopkins Adams John McAuley Palmer Mary Stewart Cutting William Butler Yeats
John La Farge James Hopper Edwin Lefevre Marion Hill Jeannette Cooper
[pgbrk] THE JOY OF CHILDHOOD
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THE PRIDE OF YOUTH
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THE COMFORT OF OLD AGE
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VIC TO «.
Highest Award at St. Louis
Here are a few from the hundreds of splendid new records made by the world's greatest artists for the Victor.
Partly for their great variety, partly for the superb quality of its tone, the Victor has received the Grand Prize—the highest award—at the St. Louis Exposition.
Latest Records
By Marcella Sembrlch, one of the grandest artists of modern times. Three brilliant arias in Italian. Bellini's " Ah 1 non giunge," the " Ah I fors' e lui " and the famous Strauss Valse; Gounod's masterpiece, " The Jewel Song"in French; two lovely songs in German by Schumann and Strauss, a Chopin song in her native language, Polish, and the sptendid aria from Don Giovanni, " Batti Batti."
By Sonsa*s Band—the greatest of all concert organizations. "The Diplomat," Sousa's latest march; brilliant and snappy. " Sho-Gun" selections,—the special successes of this popular opera. *' Zampa " and "Poet and Peasant " Overtures and others.
By Art h ur Pryor^e famous Band and Orchestra:—" Romeo and Juliet *' selection—the most beautiful numbers,including the famous ** Love Duet." " Die WalkQre Fantasia," containing the finest portions.
Mignon Overture, by Ambroise Thomas, "Tuneful Tunes of 63," " Waldmere March," " Lustspiel Overture," and more than two hundred other fine records.
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Contents for March, 1905
COVER DESIGN BY MAXF1ELD PARRISH
Illustration for "Service".........Frontispiece
DRAWN BY BLENDON CAMPBELL
The Subway "Deal".......Ray Stannard Baker 451
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS AND DIAGRAMS
Red Hanrahan's Vision.....William Butler Yeats 469
Service.............Anna H. Branch 472
A POEM
A Wasted Rehearsal........Jeannette Cooper 473
ILLUSTRATED IN TINT BY CHARLOTTE HARDING
Modern Surgery........ Samuel Hopkins Adams 482
Three Toes.........Frederick E. Scotford 493
ILLUSTRATED BY PHILIP R. GOODWIN
The Golden Flood.........Edwin Lefevre 503
PART TWO
ILLUSTRATED BY W. R. LEIGH
I Shall Have Lived.........A. E. Housman 512
A POEM
A Happy Lapse from Paradise......Marion Hill 513
ILLUSTRATED IN TINT BY F. Y. CORY
The Man in the Pigeonhole .... John McAuley Palmer 522
ILLUSTRATED BY DAN BEARD
One Hundred Masterpieces of Painting . . . John La Farge 529
THE PRIMITIVES
ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS IN TINT
In the Family.........Mary Stewart Cutting 538
The Maestro of Balangilang......James Hopper 543
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES S. CHAPMAN
Careless, Ignorant, and Defiant Postmasters. . Henry A. Castle 554
ILLUSTRATED BY F. RICHARDSON
Entered as Second-Class Matter at New York (N. Y."l Post-office, June 9, 1893. Copyright 1905. Published monthly by S. S. McClure Co., corner Fourth Ave. and 23d St., New York.
McClure's is 10 cents a copy, $1.00 a year. Get it from your newsdealer, any McClure agent, or the publishers. Beware of fraudulent agents. Foreign postage, 8 cents a copy, 96 cents a year extra.
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3
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The April McCLURE'S
THE ASTOR ESTATE: •
Founding An Aristocracy by
B. J. Hendnck
THE
GOLDEN FLOOD
The results of the farsightedness of a ragged German butcher's boy:
An increase of 20,000 per cent in the fortune he made by fur-trading, through the swelling of New York real estate values.
An established American aristocracy, whose riches are secure against financial depression, new inventions, or political upheavals.
John Jacob Astor the First.
Edwin Lefevre will unveil in this number the mystery of the gold. Where GrinnelPs enormous deposits of bullion came from, how they were amassed—by mining, manufacturing or what—the reader will discover.
CERVANTES Don Quixote's creator is the first of the Great Men
of Literature whom Mr. Woodberry will discuss in McClure's both personally and critically. Cervantes, poet-gallant, crusading, suffering in prison and in poverty, growing late to the broad humanity of his masterpiece, is a lovable figure.
by
George Edward Woodberry
STORIES OF TO-DAY ON LAND AND SEA
PICTURES Many in Color
Mary Stewart Cutting: the last Little Story of
Courtship; a sea story by PERCEVAL GlBBON (a new writer of brilliant force); WlLLA SlBERT CATHER'S study of "Paul's Case"; little Rhoda, FLORENCE TlNSLEY COX'S child-heroine, at "A Social Event" ; stories of factory life, and of touching horse character.
• • ¦—¦
Three artists contribute color-pictures—Jessie Willcox Smith, Frederick D. Steele, Urquhart Wilcox. Others by Jules Guerin, W. J. Aylward, Ch. Weber-Ditzler, W. R. Leigh. Special spring cover by Blendon Campbell.
Lincoln Steffens' next article will How She ^Became a Haven for the
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From the Editor's Mail
recent comment received
I value the magazine very highly, and follow with the greatest interest and satisfaction its investigations into the social and industrial life of the United States.
I have pleasure in saying that I do value the work that I believe the magazine to be doing for the public interests.
If I were restricted to one magazine, I would take McClure's. Success to you in your work for good government!
The quality of your work seems to some of us of the highest and noblest. It has become a religious duty with me to read McClure's.
It would be difficult to overestimate the immense service rendered by McClure's in its bold exposures of evil conditions that threaten the integrity of free institutions.
It is certainly fair to both blacks and whites {Pastor); The most just, unprejudiced I have as yet read from a Northern writer (Farmer); He neither anathematizes the South, nor spares it. That is as we want it {Lawyer) ; He has got at the heart of the matter—clearness of presentation, absolute justice (Author); A great work — discussion of this question from a philosophic standpoint ( U. S. Judge); He has voiced the sentiment of
the sane and thoughtful people of the entire South (Lawyer); The article bears throughout the stamp of impartiality (Editor); He has taken the pains to dig below the surface (Business Alan); If the Northern people and press would approach our problems in the fair, unbiased way of Mr. Baker, there would soon be no North and no South (Plantation Owner).
from
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Capt. Alfred T. Mahan
Pres. Dabney Univ. of Cinn.
A Brooklyn Clergyman
The Arena Magazine
SOUTHERN OPINIONS of RAY STANNARD
BAKER'S ARTICLE on LYNCHING in the SOUTH
be "Jersey" as a State of Treason; Financial ^Pirates of the United States
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THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
A. CONAN DOYLE
aP1
BACK to life for a brand new set of adventures, Sherlock Holmes has come, and it may safely be said that these thirteen stories surpass anything that has yet been recorded of the great detective. The titles themselves breathe excitement and mystery. They are:
The Adventure of the Empty House
The Adventure of the Norwood Builder
The Adventure of the Dancing Men
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
The Adventure of the Priory School
The Adventure of Black Peter
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton
The Adventure of the Six Napoleons
The Adventure of the Three Students
The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez
The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
The Adventure of the Second Stain
Cloth, i2mo. Illustrated by Charles R. Macauley. $1.50.
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IN THE ARENA BOOTH TARKINGTON
A collection of remarkable stories, in which the brilliant author of "The Gentleman from Indiana" and " Monsieur Beaucaire," returning to his native state at the present day, has drawn upon his own experiences and observations in its "political arena." Here he gives you all the types, drawn with a remarkably firm and bold hand, of political life, and a sense of how things are managed in that great drama with its intricate motives and wires.
Illustrated by A. I. Kellar, Power O'Malley, and J. J. Gould. Cloth, i2mo. Sr.jo.
Recent Publications of McClure, Phillips and Co.
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IN THE CLOSED ROOM
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PROFESSOR MUNSTERBERG'S THE AMERICANS
Universally recognized as the most important work on America by a foreigner since Bryce's "American Commonwealth."
" He has done as much as, if not more than, any of his predecessors .... to enable Americans to know themselves." Buffalo Commercial. " No thoughtful American can read this extremely interesting book without feeling that .... he understands more definitely the qualities that make him what he is and the impression which he produces." Hartford Courant. " Analyzes American traits with rare acumen and urbanity .... should do much to strengthen the entente cordiale between the two nations."
Pittsburg Gazette. Cloth, 8vo. Second Printing. Postpaid, $2.74; net, $2.50.
MISS TARBELL'S HISTORY OF THE
STANDARD OIL CO.
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"A liberal education in the fundamentals of the trust problem."
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Cloth, 8vo. Tivo 'volumes. Fully illustrated. Postpaid, $3.30; net, Sj.oo.
DOCTOR BRADY'S INDIAN FIGHTS AND
FIGHTERS
"The narratives are written with a vigor and absorbing style which make the reading a pure delight .... a noble presentation of indomitable courage and the highest fighting qualities." Salt Lake Tribune. "An interesting and worthy contribution to the history of modern times."
Pittsburg Times.
Cloth, large l2mo. Illustrations, maps and photographs, many of which have never befoic been published. Postpaid, $1.45; net, Sl.JO.
E. P. POWELL'S THE COUNTRY HOME
A practical hand-book for the country home-builder. Chapters on Selecting a Home, Water Supply, Lawns and Shrubberies, Windbreaks and Hedges, The Arbor, The Flower Garden, The Kitchen Garden, Animals, etc., etc.
" A piece of work which all lovers of rural life will appreciate .... full of common sense .... excellent good reading." New York Independent. Cloth, large l2mo. Beautifully illustrated. Postpaid, $1.68; net, $1.30.
PROFESSOR W. B. SMITH'S THE COLOR LINE
A brilliant study of the race problem in the South from the point of view at once of the anthropologist and the Southerner. A book that is sure to arouse a most useful discussion. In preparation.
m% Send for Complete Catalogue to the Publishers, McClure, Phillips fef Co., 44 E. 23d St., N. Y. #%
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The Popular Success by the New American Humorist
O. HENRY'S CABBAGES AND KINGS
"A most entrancing, tangled tale, told with all O. Henry's vivacity of style and unexpectedness of diction. Among the dreary heaps of humdrum novels, this book is like a sparkling jewel." Pittsburg Index. " Bubbles with humor of the dainty kind that made Lewis Carroll famous the characters are drawn with an artist hand." Milwaukee Sentinel. Cloth, i2tno. Si-jo.
is
difficult to find a
The Philadelphia Telegraph says: "It funnier book than Guy Wetmore Carryl's
FAR FROM THE MADDENING GIRLS
Another reviewer writes that "if it were for nothing more than the rules laid down for guests of country houses, as well as for the hosts themselves, this book must needs be generally recommended."
One of these rules reads : " Write a civil note to say you enjoyed yourself even if that was all you did enjoy."
Cloth, I2mo. Illustrated by Peter Newell. $f.2j.
McClure's Magazine is famous for its series of short stories about children. The last great series was Myra Kelly's Humors of School Life East of the Bowery which in book form have had great success under the title of
LITTLE CITIZENS
"These stories sparkle with a refreshingly original humor, and the dialect has the advantage of being easily read and understood . . admirable pictures of life among tenement house kids." Four Track News.
Illustrated.
Third Printing.
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EMMY LOU
By George Madden Martin Cloth, l2mo. Illustrated. $1.30.
THE MADNESS OF PHILIP
By Josephine Dodge Daskam Cloth, l2mo. Illustrated. $1.30.
THE COURT OF BOYVILLE
By William Allen White Cloth, I2mo. Illustrated. $1.30.
We announce that we have taken over from D. Appleton and Co. the early novel by Stewart Edward White. It is a story of love, laid in a mining camp in the West, and is full of adventure, and it is called
THE CLAIM JUMPERS
The promise of this first novel for Mr. White has been so amply fulfilled that it should be of great interest to all lovers of this artist's vital fiction.
Cloth, l2mo. New Binding. $1.30. Other novels by Mr. White
THE BLAZED TRAIL
Seventeenth Printing. Cloth,l2mo. Illustrated. $1.30.
THE SILENT PLACES
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BLAZED TRAIL STORIES
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CONJUROR'S HOUSE
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TORY OF THE WORLD
(The entire work now complete and ready for delivery)
translated from the French. J You start with a special essay by Professor Alfred Rambaud, the first living historian of France, explaining the exact causes of the Revolution. Presently you come to John Law's "Mississippi Bubble" and "frenzied finance" schemes, described by P. E. Levasseur. The Due de St. Simon reveals the vileness of Louis XV's court. The de Goncourts portray Madame de Pompadour—"Cotillon I"—who cost 500,000 lives from Rossbach to Quebec. The volume contains 660 pages. Many hundred passages of keenest interest treat of war, politics, American colonies, women, philosophy, literature.. J Then the Revolution — " Orcus and Black Night burst forth. ... A world engulfed and destroyed." Here we can but notice at random odd, striking passages — remember that the history is exhaustive, detailed, consecutive, complete. M. Thiers, the leading French statesman of the nineteenth century, writes of the Constituent Assembly and how poor Louis XVI. toyed with the Revolution, losing his own head, and how many
others! In words of immortal vividness Thomas Carlyle shows us the Bastile falling. You live through the Reign of Terror, the guillotine orgies, noyades and fusiU lades that cost at least 20,000 lives. The poet-statesman Lamartine depicts poor Charlotte Corday's career and execution for killing Marat. Nobler phases are appreciated. France's
marvellous fight against all Europe is described by H. Carnot, son of "the Organizer of Victory." Robespierre dragged with a broken jaw to the guillotine is the climax of the Terror. «H«'A whiff of grapeshot" (the 13th Vendemiaire) and Napoleon holds the stage. His victories from Rivoli to Friedland are described by Henri Martin, Victor Duruy and many others. Then the debacle. The finest battle picture ever penned, Victor Hugo's Waterloo, brings that catastrophe before your very eyes, while industrious writers like Sir Archibald Alison and Baron Jomini supply lacking details. ^ In short, this is the most complete and accurate, yet easy=to=read, pres=
CHARLOTTE CORDAY
From a painting in the Musee de Nantes snowing her just after killing Marat in his bath. She was guillotined in 1794, at the age of 25.
NAPOLEON (1769-1821) At the age of it when he crossed the Alps. One of his soldiers describes this feat, in The Historians' History.
entation of the most dramatic period in all modern history.
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THE RAVINE AT WATERLOO Napoleon's splendid cavalry, charging in a last effort to Name, break the British squares, fell into a ravine, according to Victor Hugo, and annihilated themselves (June 18, 1815). It was utter ruin for Napoleon. Mcll
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B«R*TirE- E- HALE' Dii)"„»n* other UNITARIAN L1TEKATOHK Sent tree. AddresB M. C, Arlington St. Church, Boston, Mass.
DEAF
Expert Lip Header, absolutely deaf 15 years: nioreonil pupilsofferedthnn accepted. Teaches hard-of-hearing persons most practica1, interesting, and inexpensive method by mail. M. C. Lipmaiin. 162 W. Lrookline St., boston.
14
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
The WanamaRer sale of The Century Diction* ary d Cyclopedia 6 Atlas will positively end with the disposal of the sets now on hand.
You will buy The Century some day—it is a necessity, not a luxury.
Why pay double by delaying your purchase until the half price is no longer available? You NOW have the privilege of immediate posses= sion on payment of $1, balance payable in little monthly instalments.
If you do not know about the WanamaRer offer and plan you should at once return the corner coupon and learn the details.
Details of the half-price closing offer, together with any of ^ ¦"' •' andty
the following interesting booklets, will be mailed, without ^y1 ^ •' •' \* J^*1
cost to you, on return of the corner coupon: e,* ¦*' ¦" X>° 4and cS ¦ , $
No. i— The Business Man. A \-v°V 6
No. 2—The Lawyer. 4>Jr ^N .-' •'G*x*V''v-
No. 3—The Clergyman. .-'U e. ° o *V
No. 4—The Physician. » .•' ¦'jand-' d jand- and OJn-^p
No. 5—The Teacher. * ¦•' a- "j*o^V\>* h No. 6—The Technical Worker. ^ A' ,v1 //v > , ^* / /*
No. 7—The General Worker. f ^°VVV * ^
Please mention McCIure's when you write to advertisers.
15
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
You Can Earn
from
f3000 (
U to \
_ $5000 ~
AYear™^ Re alEstate Business.'
We teach you by mail; appoint you our special representative; list with you all our choice salable properties and investments; help you secure customers; co-operate with you and assist you to a quick success. Do not spend the best days of your life working for others, when you can make an independent fortune for yourself.
Real Estate offers better opportunities than any other business, to men without capital. We also teach you General Brokerage and Insurance Business.
One of our correspondents writes: " I have received more real good from your method the past few days than from contact with a real estate agent for three years." Another writes: "Too much cannot be said in praise of your institution." Hundreds of others make similar statements. Write for particulars and Free Booklet. It will interest you.
Be A
Business
Man
H. W. CROSS and CO.
998 Tacoma Bldg., Chicago
Be Your Own
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# 25
.00
If You Earn Less
I can DOUBLE your Salary or Income
by teaching you how to write catchy, intelligent advertising. My System of Instruction by AIail ie the only one in existence that has the hearty endorsement of the great experts and publishers, and 1 am anxious to send my prospectus, together with the most remarkable facsimile proof ever given in the history of correspondence instruction, if you are interested. I will show you how to earn from $25 to $100 per week.
GEORGE H. POWELL, 1459 Temple Court, N. Y.
Per Week
AW BY MAIL
'Special course for each State. "Howto Study/ find the Law" and Brief Making spe-cially treated. Admission to the bar guaranteed. Books free. Degrees conferred. Write for free booklet.
National Correspondence Institute,
21-90 2d Nat'lBank Bldg,Washington, O.C.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DRAMATIC ARTS
Franklin h. Sargent, President.
Fromthe Xeio York Dramatic Neva: — "A close study of this matinee demonstrates one thing — the students receive the most careful training, and soou become proficient in all the detailB so hard to acquire by a novice; they are well-nigh professional in their work," Apply to £. P. Stephenson. General Manager, Carnegie Hall. New York.
_ -T TAUGHT BY K-V,
fc,ngineermg correspondence m
Our system of training by mail has helped r housiinrts he down in poor positions to rise to belter salaries and situ, tions. It will astonish you to read of the success whir many of our students have achieved. Your chance to rise is just as good as others. Write for our free i i lust rated book. "Can I Become an Electrical EngineerT' We teach by mail Electrical Enjlneering. Mechanical !• neineeriiip, Steam Knclnevr. Ing, Mechanical Drawing. Electric Lithium. Eleclric Railways.
Electrical Engineer Institute. Dent. R. 240 A West 23d St., New York
OOK-KEEPING
Complete business course, single and double entry Book-Keeping. Business Practice, Business Arithmetic, Commercial Law, Letter Writing, Penmanship, t:.,
TAUGHT BY MAIL Craduates receive degrees of B. Acct. and M. Acct. Positions secured for students.
Fee* cash or innta linen ts Write for announcement.
Mil,. CORRESPONDENCE INSTITUTE (Inc.), 21-45 Second National Bank Bide., Washington, I). C.
ILLUSTRATING CARTOONING
Law, Pharmacy, Medicine, Nursing, Bookkeeping, Stenography, Mechanical Drawing, Journalism. Ad-Writing, Story -Writing taught by mail. Our free book, " Profits of Knowing How," tells everything. Write to-dav. State course desired. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOLS, 23 N.Pcnn'aSt., IndianapolIs,U.8.A.
HOW I BECAME ANURSE'
A book of plainly told stories of unusual Interest In which a score of Chautauqua Nurses tell of success won by the study of our Courses. We teach this profession by mall. Hosts of our graduates earning $12 to $30 a week, to whom we refer. This book and full information of the nature of our work will be sent without expense to Interested readers. THE CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF NURSING, 272 Main Street. Jamestown, N. Y.
STORY=WRITINQ AND JOURNALISM
DUght by niuil; short Btories and book manusrriptg riiicised and revised; bIbo. placed on commission, d for free booklet. " Writing for Profit; " tells how.
THE NATIONAL PRESS ASSOCIATION, The Baldwin, Indianapolis, Ino.
MONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED
H fl M F Vou may deposit money in bank , to be refunded if you take BY STUDY MAIL our Bookkeeping, Shorthand or Penmanship course and are not satisfied. We have $300,000.00 capita], and 17 bankers on Board of Directors, to back our claims. Diplomas issued and positions secured. Let us tell you more about it. Address DRAUGHON'S BUS. COL., Nashville, Tenn., U.S.A.
-. taught thoroughly. Instirution established 1874. Endorsed
by officials Kailroads and VV.U. Tel. Co. Positions secured. I nil™
cost, tuition (telegraphy and typewriting), board and room, 6 « courac. #89. Can be reduced. Home instruction also gi Catalogue B free. Dodge's lutttitnte or Telegraphy, Valparaiso.
MORE SALARY
111 os.
"ven. lad*
We know of a profession in wbich situations are daily created in excess of the qualified persons, and which commands the highest salaries with no discrimination on account of sex. Would you like to know what it ib? Write ub.
HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL, Dept. C, Philadelphia. Pa,
DRflW/a/" MONEY
ILLUSTRATORS AND CARTOONISTS earn $25 to $100 a week. Send for free booklet, "COMMERCIAL ILLUSTRATING; »
tells how we reach illustrating by mail, successfully.
THE NATIONAL PRESS ASSOCIATION, 112 The Baldwin, Indianapolis, Ind.
MUSIC LESSONS AT YOUR HOME
We teach by mail only and guarantee success. Money refunded if not perfectly satisfied. Hundreds write- " Wish'Vhad known o^vou^schooi before. ' For booklet, testimonials and full information, address D. S. SCHOOL OF Ml'SIC, Box 83 A, 19 UNION SQUARE NEW YORK N. Y.
16
Piano, Organ, Banjo, Guitar, Cornet, Violin or Mandolin, Singing, Harmony and Compo-
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
Intercontinental Correspondence University
I want to say that whoever writes to me in regard to taking a course of study in the I. C. U. will not lay himself open to visits from a persistent and often tactless solicitor. This institution has no solicitors whatever except the advertising pages of the magazines and no means of communication from me except by correspondence. I have selected from among the hundred colleges of the I. C. U. the following five, but I want every reader of McClure''s who is interested in studying any subject whatever to write to me. I shall be glad to send you "The Personal Statement of the President," which fully describes the scope and work of this University.
COLLEGE OF COMMERCE, I. C. U.
This college already offers twenty courses for the business man, manufacturer, or strident of business economy who wisb'es to make the most of old markets or develop new markets for any product. This coifi^e is under the direct supervision of Dr. Crowell, for thirteen years the government's expert on commerce. A handsome booklet has been prepared describing the College of Commerce in full. It will be sent to you with my compliments, if you will write to me. -*-
COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, I. C. U.
ill
COLLEGE OF GOVERNMENT, I. C.
I)K, CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW Co-Founder
FOUNDERS AND TRUSTEES
David J. Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, Walter C. Clephane, Chauncey M. Depcw, Edward Everett Hale, George F. Hoar (deceased), Martin A. Knapp, Henry B. F. Macfarland, Channing Rudd.
The greatest field of work for the next ten years is going to be that of the engineer. The College of Technology has ready courses in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Sanitary Engineering, and sub-courses in Railroad, Highway, and Irrigation Engineering and Surveying, descriptions of which will be sent on request.
COLLEGE OF LAW, I. C. U.
Course in Civil Service The classified service of the government offers thousands of positions for young men and young women. The entrance to these courses is by examination. They are appointed in the order of their standing. The course in Civil Service in any branch prepares the student to take these examinations successfully. I shall be glad to send you a description of these courses.
John
Educational Director
Franklin Crowell, Ph.D., Ex-President Trinity College.
Chairman Advisory Faculty
William Torrey Harris, IL.D. United States Commissioner of Education.
The courses in Law have been prepared with the novel idea of offering, in addition to three courses in Professional Law, a course in Citizens' Law, covering the law which every man should know, and a course in Business Law, covering the law which every business man should know. If you will write tome, I will send you a complete description of these courses.
I am addressing this announcement to every man or woman who wishes to go on in some phase of his or her life work. The names of the founders and trustees of this University are a guarantee of the standard of the courses which are offered. Yours for Knowledge,
Write me: 359 I. C. U. Building, Washington, D. C.
PRESIDENT
For the Trustees.
Please mention McClure's when you write to advertisers. 16a
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
ATTEND
YTHE ILLINOIS /COLLEGE OF
PHOTOGRAPHY
What Is An Engineer?
He is the man who works with his head—in the office—who designs, invents, superintends—directs the work of others.
Do you want to gain the knowledge by which you can do these things?
We can teach you and equip you With the kind of knowledge which made possible the discoveries of Edison, Marconi, Langley, Maxim1—yoU can do what they have done, and go farther if you have it in you.
A few hours each day spent in pleasant, profitable study will make you a " Directing " Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Sanitary or Architectural Engineer.
Our Engineers hold positions of honor, responsibility and trust, arid command good salaries—they are among the highest type of brain workers.
Our Engineers are as far removed from the hardworking Engineer—the man with greasy overalls and grime-smeared face — aS the North Pole is from the South. Our Engineers plan, design and superintend the erection of the machines the other Engineer runs.
Perhaps you have not understood that our kind of an Engineer Is the real Engineer—the man who works with his head rather than with his hands, who thinks out problems — who originates ideas — who is always in demand at a good salary—the kind of an Engineer y_ou can be.
Some of the ablest instructors in this country in their several lines have laid out the Engineering courses of the American School of Correspondence at Armour Institute of Technology. Never before have the resources and equipment of a great resident engineering school combined with long experience in correspondence teaching been offered to ambitious men in their own homes without interfering with their regular work. Never before have such men had an opportunity to study under the direction of the same men who teach the classes of a regular engineering school of high standing.
The lessons progress by such easy steps that anyone with ordinary understanding, aptitude and ambition can learn at home, at a moderate cost, and thus become our kind of an Engineer. The work is so charged with intense interest that the course seems short. The work is easy, enjoyable — and almost before you know it you are ready for your new work at increased salary and a world of opportunity ahead.
Write me to-dav and I will tell you al] about our plan and how it concerns you, — and will send you our 200-page Bulletin, which goes into the details, free.
The Director
3321 Armour Ave., Chicago
Mention McClure'sI
A delightful profession, quickly and easily learned* Pays well. Good position secured for graduates. Only College of Photography in the world. Terms easy and living inexpensive. Write for our beautifully illust. catalogue. Address Illinois College of Photography
945 Wabash Avenue, Effingham, tlL
Can You Draw This?.ev
Copy it as well as you can, send to Us and We will r W give you a handsome portfolio of drawings by the noted artist, Charles Lederer. A course of lessons by mail, at horiie, may qualify ydu to earn a good salary as ah artist and cartoonist, instruction individual and exactly adapted to your talent.
The lederer school of drawing,
chattanooga,_^_tennessee
Government Positions
A___• 1__wart, mdnp tn fliVil KerVirfi rtlficeS
25,566 Appointments
were made to Civil Service places during the past year. EJtrel lent opportunities for yoUng people. Each year we instruct by rhttil hundreds of persons who pass these examinations and receive appointments to life positions at $840 to $1,200 a year. If you desire a position of thia kind, write for our Civil Service Announcement and learn how you may secure it. It will be sent free. Mention this paper.
COLUMBIAN CORRESPONDENCE COLLEGE 333-35 Pa. Ave., S. E. Washington, D. C.
LEARN
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16b
TELEGRAPHY BOOKKEEPING OR SHORTHAND
BY MAIL—A TYOURO WN HOME
Anyone can learn it eastly In a few weeks. "We are Unable to supply the demand for telegraph operators, bookkeepers and stenographers. No eharfcefor tuition until position 1b secured. Write today for particulars.
MICHIGAN BUSINESS INSTITUTE, Q?9 Institute Building, - Kalamazoo, Mich*
" How To Stop Stammering At Home."
A book that's worth its weight in gold. Why spend a large sum of money for institutional treatment when this book tells all ? Sufficient information to untie the stammer's tongue. Send money orderfor$2.ooand it is yours.
M. L. HATFIELD, 150 Eleventh Street, Portland, Ore.
STAMMERING CAN'T BE CONQUERED
by voice gymnastics or silly methods of talking. We remove the cause and give natural speech and perfect and permanent relief.
CARSWELL INSTITUTE, 2315 N. 7th Street, PHILADELPHIA.
STAMMERING
Advanced methodB and remedieB deviaed from phyaician's experience of 20 years Hive Rood permanent reBulu and make this school at least equal ti'thebest. Send forpamphlet "Causes and Treatment of Stammering " with references of highest character; also Voice Topics, a paper contain-nig articles for self-treatment. F. A. BRYANT, M.D., 62B W. 40th St., N.Y.
STAMMERING
by correspondence. Send for special rates and full particulars. tl. S. INSTITUTK, 479 B Bergen St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
SHORTHAND BY MAII ,Fastest method known. Anyone can SffllT SIlK i ^«rnIt- anl* particulars free.
SLOT1, FORESMAN and CO., 376-386 Wabash Ave., Chicago.
The Bryant school for [pgbrk]
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
N TO WRI ADVERTISEMENT
h. e. whekleh x, p. duncan e. c. smith, jr. r. a. brookover r. e. tucker
Mr. Wheeler is with the Mr. Duncan studied ad- Mr. E. C. Smith was Mr. Brookover is adver- Mr. Tucker is assistant
Otto Koch Advertising vertisement writing with made advertising manager tising manager for the advertising manager of the
Agency of Milwaukee.Wis- us nnd it opened his eyes and given an interest in Ashland Publishing Co., Rochester Evening Times,
consirt. He studied adver- to his opportunities. He one of the largest depart- of Ashland, Kentucky. Be- of Kochester, N. Y. Be-
tisement writing with the Becured a valuable conces- ment stores of S. E. Mis- fore preparing for this fore being prepared for this
Page Davis Company with sion from the City Govern- souri, after having quali- work in the Page-Davis work in the Page-Davis
trie intention of using this ment of Salt Lake City, fied in the Page-Davis School, he was military School, he was a reporter
knowledge to complete his Utah, for advertising on School. Previous to this, instructor in an academy, 0n the same paper, at a far
law education. His sue- the streets, and has been he was salesman for the entirely out of touch with smaller salary. His pn:s-
cess as an advertisement able to convert hitherto same firm on a salary of business life. His only ent responsible position is
writer caused him to aban- profitless space into a $40 per month, with small advertising experience was due wholly to our train-
don law altogether, splendidly paying medium. prospect of better pay. gained in our school. iug.
HOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR FORTUNE
Page-Davis Training School of Experience Will Lift You Into the Ranks of Successful Men and Women
LAST month we told you in a two-page advertise- Selma, California, than he once gave to wrapping
ment in McClure's Magazine about the busi- bundles in a dry goods house. You will hear the
ness of Advertising, its great possibilities, and same story everywhere from Page-Davis men—a story
the vast field for men and women who had been trained of interesting work, short hours and good pay, as
for its requirements in the Page-Davis School. This against a former condition of monotonous routine,
month we are going to convince you of two things : long hours and comparatively small pay. You have
That you should learn this business, and that we can their word for it and you have ours. Can you ask for
teach it to you. greater evidence ?
You should learn the business of advertising, no When you enroll with us you enter our practical matter what line you are in, because it is a funda- training school of experience and do the actual work mental requisite to success. It opens your eyes to new of an advertisement writer, under (he closest scrutiny ways of making money in your own line of business. of successful advertising men. You are helped to Of more definite advantage to you, however, is the write advertisements for your firm, to work up an ad-large salary with which you can begin as a regular vertising business in your own home, or to secure a ad-writer, and the unlimited opportunities that will position at not less than $25 a week, if you open before you for reaching heights which in your desire it.
present position are virtually impossible. We will send you, free, full details regard-It does not require a moment more time or a whit ing the opportunities for getting into im-more energy to earn $5,000 a year than it does to earn mediate employment ; and the latest list ^ $10 a week. Ask Mr. W. H. Barnes, of Los Angeles, of employed graduates earning up to California, if he really works as hard now that he is $100 a week, as a result of this very ^ pioe.davis advertising manager as he did formerly when driving training we now offer you. v company a laundry wagon. Mr. A. A. Brentano, of Evans- Just enter your name on the \^ Chicago or Sew York ville, Ind., will tell you that he finds it far more coupon and address your letter -sP send nm without cost.
, 1 . ¦ 1 j ^• ¦ O vour prospectus !ind all
pleasant and more remunerative to be advertising p rf n • p ^v other information setting
manager of a newspaper, than to work in a stove rage=DaVlS LO. A forth a most profitablepro-
, » ___. t r„, r J fession tor a man to enter.
factory. Write to Mr. W. A. McCall, of St. Louis, Address either office: 0
and see if he won't assure you that his work is really Dept. 365,90 Wabash Ave. ^ Name,
less arduous as advertising manager for the LaClede CHICAGO
Gas Co. than when employed as a newspaper solicitor. Dept. 365
Mr. J. C. Brockman gives much less time to writing 150 Nassau St. ^7 CityState,
advertisements for the firm of Walter Scott and Co., of NEW YORK
Please mention McClure's when you write to advertisers.
16c
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Sons—Send
your address by postal for a free copy of
...Our Home Leaflet...
telling you all about
"The Craftsman" and our Special Home Features
I. Home Training in Cabinet IVork
For "The Boys" and the "Grown-ups," a full course of instruction, by Gustav Stickley.
Complying with requests from many sources, especially from parents, Mr. Stickley will begin in the March number a new Series of articles under the above title, ranging from the simpler to the more difficult forms in a natural evolution of structural integrity in both design and workmanship.
These practical lessons will be clearly defined and fully illustrated with measured drawings, and are intended not only to teach the use of tools, but also the nature and beauty of natural woods, their proper selection and fashioning, and artistic treatment in the finish, grain development, staining, etc. Mr. Stickley's expert skill and experience, thus freely given, will aid the cabinet worker or the layman, in a wide range of cabinet making possibilities, and will serve to educate the young in sound principles of taste and construction, and in case of natural mechanical bent, to fit a boy, by practice, to become a skilled workman, builder or designer.
77. Our Home Department
A series of practical Home-Helpers for home-making women, giving each month illustrated, original designs with instruction in needlework and decorative housecraft. Also practical suggestions of color harmonies and arrangements of all the accessories which go to make a home artistic and a place to rest in. These choice designs culled from the best work of The Craftsman's artists for the artistic employment of fabrics, presented from month to month, are accompanied with full directions for their execution at home.
777. The Craftsman House Series
Will include designs and plans for inexpensive homes, ranging in price from fifteen hundred to three thousand dollars.
The March number will present a Craftsman Bungalow, with accompanying plans, adapted to the general requirements of such a temporary home. These complete plans will appear in season for spring building, and will be furnished free of charge to every annual subscriber to The Craftsman.
GUSTAV STICKLEY
Publisher, "The Craftsman," Syracuse, N. Y.
Three Dollars a Year. Single Copies, Twenty-five Cents.
Our new catalogue of Craftsman Furniture, by Mr. Stickley, will be sent to any address upon receipt of ten cents in stamps.
Please mention McClure's when you write to advertisers.
16d
[pgbrk] [pgbrk] drawn by blendon campbell
"SERVICE"
Page 472
[pgbrk] THE SUBWAY "DEAL"
HOW NEW YORK CITY BUILT ITS NEW UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
B Y
RAY STANNARD BAKER
AUTHOR OF ''THE LABOR BOSS,'' ' ' WHAT IS A LYNCHING?' ETC.
illustrated with portraits and diagrams
The story of the travail of a modern city in bringing forth a great public work : how the will of the people, opposed by the street-car monopolies, deflected through the Political Boss, ineffectively enforced by the Rapid Transit commission, blunted by its own dumbness, finally found expression in a great work ; and how, at last, following the common fate of such enterprises, the Subway is nourishing a new private monopoly, more piratical than any of its predecessors.
—The Editor.
ERE it is, then, the new Subway, laid down and finished, waiting to be judged. We have heard the loud voice of extreme eulogy, we have seen the Subway exposed for many weeks to the trying tests of actual usage, we have had the rebound to extreme faultfinding. Tin-framed advertisements, for instance, have been made to obscure the real significance of a great work !
What, then, is the truth in regard to this Subway ? How completely does it fulfil its purpose as a public enterprise ?
In visiting the Subway, it is not easy at first to avoid the overwhelming glamour of bigness. The thought of this work : a hole twenty-two miles long through rocks and bogs and sand, here just concealed under a corner swarming with humanity, there burrowing deep in a tunnel ; crooking through the very basement of an enormous steel building, with human occupation both above and below, darting out across a splendid
bridge, with glimpse of water and distant hills ; at places requiring passengers to climb over a hundred feet upward to take the cars, at other places demanding that they go over fifty feet downward ; at one end driven deep under the salt water of the harbor to Brooklyn, at the other lost in the farm lands of the Bronx. They show us the electric powerhouse with its unequaled machinery, they poin out the covered ways leading here into a great mercantile establishment and there, miles away, into a hotel, "so that ladies shopping on a rainy day need not go out of doors," they ask us to admire the perfect plumbing and water systems of the stations, and was there ever such perfect fire protection ? Cars, all of steel and copper; sunlight coming through from the streets above, outside entrances of some architectural pretense, inside waiting-rooms lined with costly tiling, arranged in forms of beauty !
A Confusion of Wonders
This is the first view of the new Subway— a dazzling confusion of wonders, an
Copyright, 1905, by The S. S. McClure Co. All rights reserved.
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
VOL. XXIV MARCH, 1905 No. 5
[pgbrk] Copyright, I 904, by Pach
AUGUST BELMONT
Banker, American representative of the Rothschilds, Democratic politician, and master of the street-car situation in New York City.
overwhelming impression of complex bigness— from which we return for sheer relief to the criticism of little things that we can really grasp—like the crowded, over-small car doorways, like the smell of new oil from the car tracks.
Many of us stop at this point, awed and uninquiring. "Is it the biggest on earth ?" we Americans are prone to ask of any new thing, and having been assured that it truly is the biggest we go about our business with an uncritical sense of satisfaction. Bigness satisfies our vanity— and obscures our vision.
But gradually, two or three minutes a
morning, dwelling on these diverse wonders, growing familiar with this bigness, we begin slowly to grasp its meanings.
If the people had not built up in lower Manhattan, they would not have had to build under here in the Subway. The true parent of the Subway is the elevator, or better yet, the grandparent. This is the line of succession : the elevator made possible the skyscraper : the skyscraper led to underground transportation. The Subway itself is, indeed, only a great elevator laid down on its side running from the basement offices, so to speak, to the living-rooms upstairs.
[pgbrk] Copyright, 1904, by Pach
john b. Mcdonald
The contractor who built the Subway—"a solid, grim man with a thick chest, brawny arms, and an iron jaw; masterful, self-controlled, capable."
The Subway is not more wonderful than the skyscraper. It came to us not as a heaven-born miracle, but as the next step in the evolution of a Modern City. It was as inevitable as the course of nature ; it was not due to the work of any one man or men, however large personalities may seem at the conclusion of the task. A great work like this gives us somehow the impression of having projected itself ; it was the city putting out an arm !
Looked at with the simple eye, therefore, we have no cause to fall down before this Bigness. Nor should we especially admire
ourselves for having done the work. We could not help it. We were driven to it — and we now brag the brag of the brawny day-laborer, the brag of brute force, so much work done that we were compelled to do !
The question of true moment does not concern the material fact of accomplishment, it has nothing whatever to do with the bigness of the Subway. It is rather a question of how the city prepared for its next step, how fearlessly, how deftly or how weakly ; it is preeminently a question of character, not of accomplishment,
[pgbrk] william barclay parsons
The engineer who designed the Subway and who is largely responsible for making it a thoroughgoing honest job. Mr. Parsons has recently been appointed a member of the Panama Canal Commission by President Roosevelt.
And so, as we think of it, all these marvels of tiled walls, protected third rails, signaling devices, which have impressed us so strongly at first, begin to assume their proper places, as things of really minor import, the small clever things with which the Great Worker, in the excess of his energy, brightened his task. Not of much real meaning in themselves, they yet confuse us : and sometimes they are employed by designing men for the very purpose of confusion — to keep our minds from traveling straight back to the How of the thing.
Look into the interminable, arid reports and court decisions and critical pamphlets published in regard to this Subway — talk with the men concerned, visit the work itself, not once but many times in every part — and out of the waste of printer's ink, out of the utterly wearisome confusion of detail, one great fact slowly shapes itself; and that is the prodigious indirection of toil necessary to complete such a work as this in America :
the cross-purposes; everybody's business, nobody's business ; waste effort ; procrastination. The world's idea of the individual American is one of brisk efficiency : here we find a curious, shambling, timid, uncertain Civic American. This is the personality that grows upon us, as we examine the Subway.
It is said that when the Russians were ready to build a railroad between Moscow and St. Petersburg they laid a map before the Czar. With his pencil the Czar traced the route, he gave an order, and the work was begun. It is not so in a republic. The sovereign people here knew years ago that they must have some new means of rapid transit : the best citizens discussed a tunnel as long ago as 1868 — thirty-six years — but we procrastinated. We were herded into surface cars; we were crowded indecently, in a way marvelous to Europeans; we paid for seats — fares so large that the companies earned huge dividends — and
[pgbrk] alexander e. orr
President of the Rapid Transit commission. Capitalist, philanthropist, former president of the Chamber of Commerce — a representative of ail that is respectable, stable, old in financial and political ideals.
then we stood up or hung to straps. We grumbled and growled, but we would not really bestir ourselves. We enjoyed talking about our glorious system of self-government, but we would not work at it !
The result of this civic character of ours applied to a public work is that the Subway is at least ten years late in opening; it is so late that it hardly relieves the pressure of travel. We still hang to straps and grumble and curse — impersonally. We are so far behind that even if we keep on building at the present rate it will be a generation before we really catch up with street traffic.
Birth of the Subway Idea
It is unnecessary here to go into the details of the various periods of agitation or of the abortive attempts at building a subway. It can all be summed up almost in a word. Here stood the city, hands full of money, conscious of the cry that rose from the people herded into the street-cars. Here was the
plain knowledge of work to be done. Yet the city stood doubting. Those who really had the power to accomplish anything fought the scheme for their own private ends, and as usual the private ends were better served, employed better legal talent, than the public. Again and again the city entreated its creatures, the railroad companies, to furnish relief, to dig a subway. As far back as 1872 a perpetual franchise was presented to Cornelius Vanderbilt on the figurative silver platter. He did not build. A few years later other grants were made by the legislature, all to no purpose, and finally as a sort of substitute the elevated railroads were constructed — an ungraceful, noisy, unsatisfactory means of transit, which an enlightened city will sometime abolish entirely. In the meantime Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, a real public servant, continually advised and demanded a subway — and a subway to be owned by the city. In 1888, Mayor Hewitt endeavored to secure subway legislation, but
[pgbrk] Drawn by Birch Burdcttc Long
A THREE-DECK STREET-RAILWAY CROSSROADS
Three layers of street-railways are shuffled together at Fourth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, New York. The picture, looking uptown, cuts away the street-paving at Thirty-third Street, exposing the Subway underneath. It shows on top (crossing the picture) a car of the Thirty-fourth Street crosstown line ; in the middle, a car of the
Fourth Avenue surface line, the tracks of which disappear into the tunnel at the steep Thirty-fourth Street hill: underneath all, the Subway. A downtown express is passing; the express tracks (in the middle) are sunken here, since expresses do not stop at Thirty-third Street. A downtown local is pulling up at the platform.
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his bill was defeated by a combination of Tammany Hall and the street-railway lobbies — corrupt politics backed, as usual, by greedy business. The existing street-car companies wanted no competing subway and, above all, no subway owned by the city. At this point began, indeed, the remarkable history of obstruction and delay and corruption by which the street-car companies and capital generally have prevented New York from securing rapid transit relief.
Three years of discomfort and crowded cars followed Mayor Hewitt's subway campaign, and finally, in 1891, the rapid transit legislation so vociferously demanded by the people was actually passed. A commission was appointed, but the law was so juggled and the commissioners so influenced by the street-railway lobbies that when the franchise was offered for the construction of a subway by private capital, no bidders appeared — and the scheme was defeated. William C. Whitney, George Gould, Russell Sage, Ryan, Elkins, and the other street-railway owners would neither do anything themselves, nor would they permit the city to do anything. The new phrase, "stand pat", applies exactly to these men : they were making big profits from crowded cars ; they wanted no changes ; they had not the slightest concern for the public.
So we come down to the year 1894 — the year of angry public pressure — the year when the people, appealing to the legislature, succeeded in having the law of 1891 so amended as to make the Rapid Transit commission effective. That year was, in reality, the beginning of the work which culminated in the present Subway.
A remarkable body, this Rapid Transit commission — one of the most remarkable in the whole history of the country — not less unique than the work which it subsequently performed !
Here was the situation in New York state : a Republican boss Piatt in control of the legislature, a Tammany Hall Croker in control of the city, a Hill Democratic machine-governor sitting at Albany. As I have shown, the railroad companies wanted no rapid transit—-they were well contented with slow, certain dividend transit. Now, Tammany Hall was torn by conflicting emotions. It was highly profitable — as well as customary — to do the bidding of the street-railway companies. But Tammany Hall leaders saw that the people were determined to have a subway :
and the very thought of a 150,000,000 public work must have made their mouths water. Think of the pickings ! The people had no desire to see Tammany Hall spending any such sum of their money ; and the Republican bosses in this case quite agreed with the people. So Boss Piatt dickered with Boss Hill and, counting on the acquiescence of the don't-care-how-it-is-done public, they, brought into existence this most remarkable body — the Rapid Transit commission.
In order that the Subway might not fall into the pilfering hands of Tammany, and that it might clinch the hold of Piatt's upstate Republican machine, the act of the legislature named the members of the commission in the law — an almost unprecedented procedure ; it gave them office for life, it empowered them to appoint their own successors, it endowed them — a state body — with the power to incur a huge debt on behalf of the city of New York. In other words, they were not responsible to the people whose money they spent. They could not be removed by the governor, nor could the mayor discipline them. And as a sort of clincher, they were not obliged under the law to furnish the public with any account of their doings ! Their first report was made January 1, 1902 — eight years after they were appointed.
In short, the state of New York had created a despotic power — a Czar-like autocracy — to govern New York City in so far as this particular work was concerned. In spite of its serious needs, New York City, apparently, could not be trusted to spend $50,000,000 of its own money, for fear either that its political bosses would steal it, or its corporations would so cajole the willing politicians that the Subway would be indefinitely postponed or else the franchises would be frittered away.
But the people of New York were, as usual, not discriminating. It was, "Give us rapid transit : we don't care how." "Build the Subway : we're busy." An American attitude ! And when in November, 1894, the proposition to borrow money for subway building was submitted to the people, they carried it by an overwhelming majority. This was the only chance the real people had to speak, and they spoke vigorously ! A shout of joy arose :
" Now we shall have rapid transit." " Fifteen minutes to Harlem !"
But we find the Rapid Transit commissioners, though clothed with extraordinary
[pgbrk] PROFILE MAP OF THE NEW YORK SUBWAY
powers, though provided with money by the vote of the people, confronted by obstacles which, apparently, they could not overcome. The actual engineering and material problems, the building of the Subway—upon which we are now directed to expend our wonder — were the least of their troubles. No really great new engineering difficulties were involved, nothing that could not easily be accomplished with money and men. The commissioners had plenty of tested models in Europe and even in our own country — in Boston — to work from, and they were served by a highly able staff of engineers. It was not the task itself that delayed, but the difficulty of getting at it !
It is in this history of delay that we shall find the real meaning of this subway problem — the real questions, indeed, of every great public work in this country.
In the first place, beginning at the beginning, the law itself, through which the Rapid Transit commission drew the breath of life, was a curious piece of business. As it came out of the legislature it was fair to look upon, innocent enough in its intent, but really warped and deflected by its passage through the lobby. When private corporations perceive that they can no longer prevent the passage of popular reform legislation, they submit with apparent willingness, but somehow, somewhere, they sneak in provisionary clauses which are designed to defeat the real intent of the law. When the rapid transit bill was under consideration the street-railroad lobby was on hand, working craftily, deeply, silently, so that after the law went into effect the commissioners, newly created, found themselves hobbled at the very set off — and a hurdle race to run ! Under the guise of safeguarding the city's interests, absolutely impossible conditions as to bonds and forfeits were imposed by the law. For instance, a bidder for the contract to build and operate the new Subway was called up-
on, under the act, to deposit $1,000,000 in cash, and to furnish a bond which was later fixed at $15,000,000 ! During the six years after the commission came into existence, its members went before the legislature many times to secure amendments to the law.
Street-Car Companies Delay the Enterprise
Not only were the commissioners thus hobbled at the start, but they seemed troubled in their own minds as to how far or how fast they should run. Bear in mind that these commissioners were good men, really foremost citizens, of undoubted personal honesty, but they were themselves of the conservative, money-controlling class and, although they were empowered to go on and contract for the building of a subway with the funds of the city, still they were by nature and training uncertain how far this new thing, "municipal ownership," could be carried. And while they hesitated, the street-railway companies diligently set up more hurdles ! It was amusing, if it had not been so serious for the citizens of New York, to see how these good men were blocked by the street-railway owners — and by one of the hoariest tricks in business. The moment the commissioners made any real effort to begin work, the Manhattan Railway Company, which controlled the elevated roads, would come forward with a proposition for the extension or improvement of its lines : there would be talk, talk, talk — and delay — exactly what the companies wanted. When this "deal" fell through the Metropolitan Railroad Company, which controlled the surface street-car lines, would step up and the same solemn farce would be reënacted. Neither of these companies wanted any competitive subway : what they wanted was delay — and dividends — and they got both.
As an example of the kind of negotiations which delayed the building of the Subway I
[pgbrk] FROM BROOKLYN BRIDGE TO THE BRONX
quote this extract from the commissioners' own report for 1900-1901 :
Following close upon the announcement of the fact that the Rapid Transit Board would continue its efforts to secure the construction of a rapid transit railroad for and at the expense of the City, came an application from the Manhattan Railway Company that the Board would authorize it to build elevated railroads over a number of additional streets.
This application was vague and indefinite in some respects, and, in still others, it sought for privileges which the Board had no power to grant. A communication was accordingly sent to the Railway Company on August 6, 1896, pointing out these defects, and suggesting that an amended application be filed. No reply was returned to this communication, nor did the board receive any further intimation that the Manhattan Railway Company desired to extend its lines until, after the lapse of eighteen months, it had become evident that the Rapid Transit Railroad was likely to be constructed by the city.
Here was a straight delay of eighteen months, and every time the Rapid Transit commissioners really made a motion to do anything there were the same significant, "vague and indefinite" applications from the street-car companies.
There were other causes for delay traceable directly or indirectly to the street-railway companies. The commission, for instance, was attacked legally, and its existence had to be defended and confirmed in the Supreme Court. Property owners also objected ; they all wanted the Subway, but they wanted it in front of the other man's property. The storekeepers of lower Broadway were especially bitter, spurred on, there is evidence, by the street-car companies, until finally the Rapid Transit commission was compelled to change its plans and lay out a subway through Elm Street and Fourth Avenue.
Another difficulty which confronted the commission reminds us of the story of the miser who, to protect his treasure from robbers, surrounded himself with so many bolts, bars, alarms, and safeguards, that he could
not finally get at the treasure himself. So it was in New York City. We had surrounded ourselves with so many laws to prevent our servants — the politicians whom we ourselves select — from stealing us poor, that when we really wished to spend money on a new work, we could not get at our treasure. So the Rapid Transit commission found itself confronted by an inelastic "debt limit." That is, although the Rapid Transit commission was empowered by vote of the people to spend $50,000,000 of the city's money, the limit of indebtedness was so fixed by another law that for a time they could not go forward with the work.
Well, all these obstacles were finally swept aside : it took three years' time, during which the people of New York were helplessly subjected to indecent crowding. In 1897 the commissioners were ready to let a contract for building a subway. The people again shouted their hurrahs : Relief at last ! Now the Subway would be built. But the delay so cunningly engineered by the able street-car companies, had finally tolled the commissioners along to the beginning of the year 1898— highly unfavorable in two respects for the projection of any sort of public enterprise.
Tammany Hall Gets Hold
In the first place, the country was just emerging from the depths of business depression — a money panic : in the second place, on January 1, 1898, Tammany Hall returned to power with Van Wyck, the "worst mayor of New York," as Croker's figurehead. This was exactly what the street-car monopolies wanted. They could control Tammany. Moreover, Tammany naturally fought the Rapid Transit commission as the creation of the Republican up-state machine. Van Wyck, ex-officio member of the commission, would not even attend its meetings ; Coler, the comptroller, made difficulties, some of them real enough,
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about the debt limit; and Whalen, corporation counsel, who was required by law to pass on the legality of the contract, held up that document for eighteen months. Tammany Hall wanted to get its grip on this rich contract — and the street-car monopolies were naturally eager to assist Croker's ambition. For instance, in Whalen's criticism of the contract he made these suggestions, looking to some measure of profitable supervision by Tammany :
That the city itself, acting through its law department, should have sole charge of all proceedings for the condemnation of lands.
That the city should be represented on the work by a supervising engineer.
Tammany Hall, indeed, splendidly served the purposes of the street-car monopolies, by getting a delay of eighteen months. In this act — to be perfectly fair — Tammany had some good excuses, if not reasons, to offer.
It is usually the case, indeed, that the political boss and the lobbyist see some way of twisting a genuine sentiment to serve their purpose. After the rapid transit law was passed the fixing of the bond at a prohibitive figure emphasized the people's desire for security in spending public money ; when Van Wyck and Whalen fought the Rapid Transit commission they voiced the belief of many thoughtful citizens that an up-state board should not have the power to control the treasury of New York City. In the same way Tammany now pleaded the debt limit—which was, indeed, technically too low — though a really public-spirited administration could have overcome this difficulty. Moreover, the new City of Greater New York was just then in progress of organization and some of the outside boroughs, not directly to be benefited by a subway, objected to taxation — and so forth and so forth — the endless excuses to be found by persons who want excuses.
Left in this dilemma, the Rapid Transit commission was practically helpless. Having been led along by the railroad monopolies to the rough, dark road of panic times and Tammany, there was now a deliberate attempt of the railroad people to hold up and sandbag the commissioners. The Metropolitan Street Railway Company asked for a perpetual franchise outright — a practical gift of the streets to a private company. Having reduced the commissioners to hopelessness, Mayor Van Wyck consented to attend their meetings and the first important
thing he did (March 29, 1899), was to introduce a resolution asking the legislature to "grant to the board the power to contract for the construction and operation of the Rapid Transit Railway by private capital." (Page 65, Official Report, 1901.)
Following this guileless-looking resolution, one of the worst bills ever devised was introduced in the legislature with the full approval of the Rapid Transit commission. This bill (chiefly through the notorious "Section 32") would have enabled the commission to give away by private contract without competition to the Metropolitan Railway Company a perpetual franchise for a subway, allowing that company to charge a ten-cent fare on express trains ! The Metropolitan Company was not named in the bill, but was so described that there could be no mistake. It was as clear an attempt to sell out the city to a private corporation as was ever made. Attorney Boardman, the representative alike of Boss Piatt and of the Rapid Transit commission, was there to favor the bill, the Tammany machine, the real champion of the street-car companies, of course supported it, and the scheme was so skilfully and silently engineered in the legislature that no one awakened to the iniquity of the bill until near the close of the session. Then suddenly the people awoke : there were tremendous mass-meetings of the labor unions and citizens in New York City. John Ford, a state senator from New York, fought the bill in the legislature, and the whole matter came up before Governor Roosevelt. Acting with characteristic energy, Roosevelt summoned the Rapid Transit commission, and embarrassing explanations were made, with the result that the iniquitous measure was defeated.
In regard to this incident the report of the Rapid Transit commission says ingenuously that the bill " served to show the strength of the popular sentiment in favor of reserving the ownership of the railway by the people."
Failing thus in the attempt to gobble the subway franchises without compensation, the street-railway companies, assisted by Tammany, returned to their old and profitable tactics of delay and obstruction—of which the commissioners seemed easy victims.
How the Contract Was Let
"But finally in 1900, six years after the Rapid Transit commissioners were appointed,
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they really got to the point of asking for bids. By this time the street-railroad companies had grown so certain of their influence and of their own astuteness in delay (until the plum should fall of its own ripeness into their open jaws), that they failed to use due vigilance.
And the unexpected happened ! There were two bidders ! One of them was John B. McDonald, a bold Irishman, an experienced contractor, a Tammany Hall man. He had just been building the Jerome Park Reservoir, said to be a failing venture, and he had little or no money of his own. Apparently he bid for the new Subway as a sort of gigantic gamble : not much to lose, everything to gain. He had no money to build it — not even money enough to put up for the bonds, but he had something much more valuable : a close acquaintance with Croker and Tammany. There is evidence, in the first place, that the Tammany leaders had began to perceive that the public would punish them for much longer delay, and in the second place its leaders saw a way of getting something for themselves (if they couldn't get everything) out of the big contract, Croker and other Tammany leaders, for instance, were interested in several large firms of contractors, and there was a chance to secure profitable sub-contracts under McDonald — a consummation which actually followed. Moreover, it was good to have a strong hand in the employment for four years of 5,000 or 10,000 citizen voters from the East Side. It is significant that after McDonald placed his bid Tammany opposition disappeared. Tammany, indeed, really built the Subway : Tammany men made profits on the contracts : Tammany leaders gained thousands of votes by employing voting workers.
And McDonald won : a sort of foreordained winning!
It must have been a glorious study in astonishment — that success. With the Rapid Transit commission it was the astonishment of hopeful weakness ; the public was astonished that anything at all should finally happen; the street-car companies were vastly astonished — and contemptuous! Who was this McDonald, that he should enter their field ? And they knew he had no money anyway ! These two monoplies between them were sure that they were the only people who could bid, and they were just a little too sure of the loyalty of Tammany
Hall ! And was this confidence surprising? Behind them stood all the various related interests of Wall Street — the family, so to speak, of capital. The Elevated Railway Company was backed by all the vast Gould interests and connections and by the Russell Sage connections, the surface lines were owned by the so-called Whitney-Ryan-Elkins " crowd " — many of the same interests being connected with the notorious gas trust, and that led straight into the Standard Oil camp with its tremendous resources of capital and banks. Who was to prevail against these related interests ? What could the city do?
But if the railway monopolies were surprised, Tammany Hall was not; it is never astonished ; it always knows beforehand. If McDonald was surprised at his own success he did not show it. McDonald is one of the taciturn sort — a solid, grim man with a thick chest, brawny arms, and an iron jaw; masterful, self-controlled, capable. McDonald wore a poker face — said nothing.
There is evidence that McDonald, now that he had the contract, tried on his part to negotiate with the street-car monopolies, the natural allies of Tammany ; there is evidence that they bade him good-morning with finality. They were so confident : those streetcar companies.
August Belmont, His Character
But they did not quite know McDonald. He and Andrew Freedman, ex-baseball manager and expert political-financial manipulator, of Tammany persuasion, put their heads together and a few days later it was announced that August Belmont was backing the contractor with unlimited money — and that the Subway would really be built. Astonishment again ! Belmont was what is known as a "rank outsider." He was not "in" street-railways, and he was not supposed to know much about city transit. Although a banker of large interests, the American representative indeed, of the Rothschilds, he was regarded as a son of his father — the second generation which "goes in" for pictures and horses and politics, which sits on its money. A little, dapper man, Belmont, with a flower in his buttonhole : a good Democrat, too ! One quality alone had caused Wall Street to withhold a final judgment on Belmont — a suggestive ability of keeping his own council. In reality Belmont knew a great deal about the rapid transit problem : his father had been
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a Rapid Transit commissioner, and he himself had given the subject no little study. About the time McDonald appeared, Belmont had been squeezed out of one or two large financial interests by the big men of Wall Street, and he not only had idle money, but he felt aggrieved over his treatment.
Taciturn McDonald, silent Belmont : they came together and a company was formed. McDonald contributed his contract, his daring and his experience, his great and much needed influence with Tammany Hall, and Belmont furnished the money — and, if reports are true, McDonald still has his daring and experience, and Belmont has taken practically all the profits, leaving McDonald, at the close of the work, a negligible quantity, so negligible that he was all but overlooked when the program for the dedication of the Subway was made out, and was finally forced to resign before the work was completed. Which shows how much better it is to have money than to have boldness, initiative, capability, influence — without money.
We like to imagine that the old dog-in-the-manger street-car monopolies were really defeated and disgusted by this strange development, and there are evidences that they were. While they waited with wide-open jaws, this Irishman, McDonald, had picked the plum. We know that Russell Sage sold out his stock, and that when Whitney died it was found, to every one's astonishment, that he had fled from the Metropolitan. Indeed, when Belmont organized his new Interborough Company he found it easy to get control of the entire elevated railway system under a lease, thus removing the greatest competitor of the Subway, and laying the foundations of a more powerful street-railway monopoly than New York has ever known. A very large figure in Wall Street to-day, this hitherto unappreciated Belmont, a sort of new King !
McDonald Begins Work
Work was begun by McDonald in March, 1900, and completed on time in 1904. If there were room here I should like to detail some of the remarkable features of the actual work, planned by William Barclay Parsons, the engineer of the Rapid Transit commission, and worked out by McDonald and his sub-contractors. But the facts of this physical upheaval have been in evidence — to utter wearisomeness — for four years,
are now in evidence on the new extension in lower Broadway ; and the other thing, the greater How of the work, has been obscured. But it is well in passing to stop and admire the Subway as a material production. . Most American works, with which the public has anything to do are marked with more or less official corruption, are scamped in material — where it won't show—are excessively costly, but this Subway, in an engineering sense, has apparently been a thoroughgoing, honest job, well done, with some attention to real beauty, with some effort to protect and satisfy the public. The engineers of the commission, men of the highest standing in their profession, following the contractors step by step, have kept the work clean, as clean as a private enterprise, and better than a private enterprise in its aspects of beauty and convenience. That surely should mean a white mark for the American : he is not equaled in the world when it comes to the execution of a great material work, he is a brilliant engineer, great in inventive and constructive imagination, a matchless builder ! No obstacle turns him aside, he is orderly, patient, resourceful, with incredible energy and speed, and on the day that the contract expires, he says :
"Here is your work, finished," and without fuss or feathers he turns to the next job.
Due weight must be given to these noteworthy excellencies of the work. It was a private enterprise watched and guarded by public inspection. It was honest, and that is a tremendous gain, something to be grateful for.
But this very efficiency and honesty in material construction throws into vivid contrast the stumbling inadequacy of the American as a civic administrator.
All the reports and pamphlets connected with the Subway glow with the worship of the practical details of finance and engineering, but they seem largely unconscious of the real social welfare of the city, the real service of the public. The viewpoint of the commission itself — a civic body appointed to protect the rights of the public, is not far different from that of McDonald and Belmont. it is a business-engineering view, not a broad, public, civic view. The acts of the commission from the first have been marked not by a bold, free, clear advocacy of what is best for the people, but by the halting, timid, compromising air of men imbued with the
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old ideals of the utter sacredness of "business interests " as compared with the " public welfare." Indeed, we find the commissioners repeatedly going over, and weakly yielding to the demands of the street-car monopolies— as in 1899 — and only stiffening up under the angry protestations of the people.
A great point has been made recently by the commissioners of the fact that the city now owns the Subway. As a matter of fact these very commissioners and the Chamber of Commerce behind them did their best at the time the rapid transit law was passed to prevent real municipal ownership, to prevent a referendum vote on the subject by the people. In its report (1894), the Chamber of Commerce says of the referendum : "This provision of the law is very much to be regretted." Even Mayor Hewitt fought the plan to submit the question of municipal ownership to the people of New York. He said in a hearing before the legislature (April 5, 1894) : "The referendum proposed in this bill is in direct violation of American institutions. " It is probable that if it had not been for the activity and earnestness of organized labor, represented by the Central Federated Union of New York, assisted by many public-spirited citizens, by great petitions, by persistent agitation, the Subway to-day would not even be nominally a public enterprise. Yet we find the commissioners and the Chamber of Commerce now taking to themselves the entire credit for the public ownership of the Subway !
Character of the Commissioners
It is not pleasant to criticise men like these Rapid Transit commissioners, who have acted so consistently with personal honesty, when even personal honesty in public service is so difficult to obtain. And in any criticism which we make it must always be borne in mind that we ourselves are responsible for this commission.
But take the type members of this Rapid Transit commission : fine, high-minded, softhearted old gentlemen. They have worked nobly, none better ; their honesty is without blemish. They were put in as the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce —all that was respectable, stable, old. Theirs were the courtly ideas of respectability — the wealth of a man, the clubs he belonged to, the prominence of his family, his philanthropies, his church affiliation.
But what have all these things got to do,
except incidentally, with building a subway costing $50,000,000 and building it in opposition to alert, grim-jawed young men who stop at nothing — nothing — in getting what they want, and the public be damned ! These young men are in business strictly for themselves, for cash ; they employ the best lawyers in America, they control the political machines, they get up early in the morning and go to bed late — and we, the people, to protect our interests, set against them a board of fine old gentlemen ! Then we wonder why our Subway is fifteen years late, why we hang to straps, why we pay five-cent fares, and why we have all this silly dispute over tin-framed advertisements that mar the beauty of a $50,000,000 public work ! Why, we couldn't have selected any men that would have suited the street-car monopolies better than these gentlemen. No really bad men would have been half as serviceable !
Six members of the commission are of this old-gentleman type: the two others are-politicians, one, Mayor McClellan, who has, been, so far, a negative if not an obstructive influence in serving the people's interests. The other is Comptroller Grout, the member who has, perhaps, expressed the highest ideal of real public service of any of the eight : but who, with the curious contradictions which characterize most of his public acts, has failed to accomplish anything essential.
Here is the meat of the whole matter : We are striving in this country for two qualities in our public servants : honesty and efficiency. In most of them we secure neither, and it is rare indeed that we attain both. Efficiency is easier to secure than honesty, therefore we set a higher value upon honesty, therefore we cherish the ideal of the respectable business man in politics. In the Rapid Transit commission we secured business honesty — and monumental inadequacy ! We chose these good men, and set them against the impossibly alert young fellows of Wall Street, with their unlimited money, with their control of the political machines, with the best legal brain at their disposal — and expect such commissioners to get the best results ! It was inefficient honesty grappling with efficient dishonesty. When we, the public, propose to fight Wall Street and come away with anything left, we have got to employ real brains, and real energy inspired by the best civic ideals of the twentieth century—-and then pay our servants.
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But we are told — eagerly by the commission, eagerly by Mr. Belmont and his associates :
"This Subway is yours. It belongs to the people."
They tell us that at the very moment that our commission is trying to put out certain tin-framed advertisements which we don't want — and meeting the smiling defiance of Belmont ! These advertisements, which I have mentioned so often, are mighty instructive. They are the key which unlocks the whole problem.
Bargain of the City with Belmont
Let us see on what terms the Subway is ours — a public possession. Let us put down, like boys trading marbles, what we give in one pile and what we get in another.
We freely give the use of the streets, a possession of uncounted value, we provide all the money for building, we exempt the company from all taxation, we permit it to charge an unchangeable five-cent fare, no matter how cheaply the road can be operated, and then we throw in (like the famous Dutch farmer who, when he sold the tail, threw in the entire hide), a contract which shuts us off from any real control of the Subway for fifty years—and probably seventy-five years.
On their part, what do Mr. Belmont and his associates give in trade for this splendid possession ?
First, they pay the interest on the money which we supplied, about three and one-quarter per cent, and they pay one per cent sinking fund — or much less than what they would have had to pay had they borrowed the money in the open market and undertaken the work as a private enterprise. That is all they pay — everything. The question of equipment may be disregarded, because the city must purchase the equipment at the end of the contract term. As to the damage cases of adjacent property owners which most corporations have to pay — why, the city, in its goodness, also engages to satisfy all of them.
The city will not get, all told, as much as if the property were subject to ordinary taxation and no other payment whatever made to the city treasury. By the old perpetual franchise system, it was not impossible for the city to exercise some control over the street-car companies, but Belmont has a contract by which, in effect, the city has actually conveyed its right to govern. Of course, the Subway is nominally owned by the city —
nominally — at the end of seventy-five years. Upon this point we have the evidence of a remarkable letter of Edward M. Grout, now Comptroller of New York, and an ex-officio member of the commission. This letter was written to Andrew H. Green and part of it follows :
I know it is the fashion to speak of this subway as an instance of municipal ownership. It may be such three generations hence. To-day it is merely a lending of municipal credit with exemption from taxation for the benefit of individuals . . . When the voters of the former city of New York voted for municipal construction of a rapid transit road, how many of them contemplated the result which now exists ?
At the end of fifty or seventy-five years, when our great-grandchildren get control of the Subway, the Belmont corporation, protected by a cast-iron contract that gives them an unregulatable five-cent fare, will have paid untold millions in profits. In Boston, the city not only built the subway, but kept control 0} it. And Boston found a subway easy to build and to lease on these terms.
But the commissioners claim that under the circumstances which existed at the time the contract was signed — a combination of Van Wyck and post-panic times — they made the best terms possible to get a subway.
It is certainly a fact that capital was timid at that time regarding the enterprise, that it was concerning itself in the organization of great industrial trusts, that it looked askance upon the municipal ownership phase of the enterprise — and the commissioners may have had to make these onerous terms or get no subway. Let us assume this to be a fact, nor lay the previous delay up against them We should have expected then, very much better terms for any new subways or extensions that might be built after the success of the first great venture was assured. What do we find ? When the contract for the Brooklyn extension was let (in 1902) the Belmont syndicate got it, practically on the same terms. The only real improvement was a shorter franchise term — thirty-five years instead of fifty. It is true that the Belmont syndicate agreed to do a $11,000,000 job with the use of only $3,000,000 of the city's credit ; but on the same principle they could have afforded to do this $11,000,000 work for $1 — to get control of the new extension. They simply borrowed from the banks instead of from the city, and the only
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thing the city gained by this much heralded transaction was an additional borrowing capacity of $8,000,000. In its essential features of control, the new contract was no better than the old.
Municipal Control the Real Issue
And this problem of control is the only real question, for no one cares who owns the street-railways so long as the city is truthfully the controlling master. Some thinkers suggest "municipal operation" only because they believe that the city cannot really control its street railroads when they are owned by private individuals : the political corruption fund is too enormous. New York to-day, indeed, instead of controlling its street-car systems and other public utilities may truthfully be said to be controlled by them. Witness the contract just signed (December, 1904), by the city with the gas trust !
Do not for a moment imagine that there have not been men of public spirit in New York City who have perceived the real significance of these subway enterprises, and have watched with alarm the looming development of the new Belmont monopoly. Many such citizens have expressed their beliefs through organizations like the Citizens' Union, the Municipal Art Society, the Central Federated Union (labor) and others, and they have had the generous support of most of the newspapers of New York City. But, as usual in municipal reform, the burden of work has fallen upon the shoulders of a very few men, who have had against them the powerful, thoroughly organized forces of wealth, backed by the corrupt political machines.
In several legislatures these watchful citizens have appeared with reform measures, the aim of all of which has been, not to crush the Belmont syndicate, not even to interfere with the profits which it is earning on the Subway already constructed, but to secure to the city the proper control of its creatures, the street-car companies.
Forces That Fought Reform
But let us see what forces these public-spirited citizens had to combat in the legislature. In the first place here stood the Belmont syndicate, with its influence through Andrew Freedman and McDonald with Tammany Hall, with its grip through related interests upon the Boss Piatt Republican ma-
chine. Here also stood the Rapid Transit commission, a public body, supposedly working tooth and nail for the real interests of the people, but in reality timid, old, uncertain— a dull tool—inclined toward the Belmont interests. It is wonderfully significant, wonderfully American that this Rapid Transit commission should have been represented legally and in the legislature by the law firm of Tracy, Boardman and Piatt (now Boardman, Piatt and Soley). The Piatt mentioned is the son of Boss Piatt, and the firm has for years been recognized as the peculiar instrument of the Republican machine in New York state: a giant in the lobby. But besides representing this public body, the Rapid Transit commission, Boardman, Piatt and Soley were also the attorneys of some of the most piratical corporations in the country — corporations whose interests might clash at any time with those of the public as represented by the Rapid Transit commission. For instance, the firm represented the gas trust — the so-called "Rockefeller crowd," the worst of the lot, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Out of these curious connections arose two most significant incidents.
Problem of the Corporation Lawyer
First, the Rapid Transit commission was negotiating with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for its great tunnel under Manhattan Island. Attorney Boardman, of the Rapid Transit commission, dealt with Attorney Boardman, of the Pennsylvania Railway Company. It may be inferred that the negotiations were entirely satisfactory ! In strong contrast with such curious legal ethics we find Edward M. Shepard, for a time one of the attorneys of the Rapid Transit commission, promptly resigning his office when the Pennsylvania Railway offered him a larger retainer. The action of both of these attorneys is significant of the methods of great corporations generally. Shepard, whose legal ethics forbade him to serve two opposing clients at the same time, they hired away from the commission by paying him a huge retainer, leaving the public supported only by Boardman, who could be better used where he was. Nothing, surely, could show how completely a rich corporation can cajole a public commission !
But there is a second case, still more interesting. One of the things which the Citizens' Union and other public bodies, wished
[pgbrk] especially to secure was the addition along the Subway of pipe galleries : that is, small tunnels in which could be carried all gas and water pipes, electric mains and the like. These could have been built easily and cheaply, for in building the tunnel all these various pipes had to be reset. Such galleries would have saved immense sums of money in the future both to the city and to private corporations, because workmen could have made necessary repairs without digging up the pavements. And think of the gain in cleanliness and comfort in a city like New York from undisturbed streets! Everyone admitted the great value of a pipe gallery system; the Rapid Transit commissioners
themselves were in favor of it. One interest only opposed it, but it outweighed all the others : the gas trust — which means, in reality, most of the great concentrated money interests of Wall Street, especially the " Rockefeller crowd." The gas trust feared that a pipe gallery might mean an opening for a rival company to obtain a franchise and lay pipes and electric wires, which would interfere with its monopoly and high prices. So when the measure was before the legislature we find Attorney Boardman, presumably casting off for a moment his mantle as lawyer for the Rapid Transit commission, and taking up his mantle as lawyer for the gas trust, arguing against pipe galleries — and.
GIANT PROPORTIONS OF THE NEW BELMONT MONOPOLY The diagram shows the number of street-railway lines already controlled by August Belmont.
[pgbrk]
467
RAY STANNARD BAKER
having the enormous power of the dominant Republican machine behind him, supplemented by the Tammany machine (also controlled by the gas trust), easily defeating the will of the people.
Citizens Demand Changes in the Subway Law
It may be imagined, then, what obstacles the citizens' committees had to meet in trying to force reforms through the legislature. They asked for nothing extreme nor revolutionary — not even for municipal operation of street-car lines — only for such plain provisions as would give the people some degree of control of its public utilities. Here are some of the things they fought for.
1. The law under which the Rapid Transit commission operates compels the letting of contracts for the construction and operation of subways at the same time and to the same person. The result of this is that only enormously wealthy street-car corporations can bid at all : in short, it reduces the bidders practically to three — the Belmont syndicate, the Metropolitan Street Car Company and possibly the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the last two of which are so involved in financial tangles that they are no match for Belmont. This provision is a direct means for strengthening and extending the Belmont monopoly. If the contracts were separated, the absurd requirement eliminated which compels every bidder to deposit $1,000,000, and the Rapid Transit commission allowed to let the work by sections, there would be a hundred bidders for the construction to every one that could bid under the present law. This would furnish wholesome competition and enable the public, when a new subway was built, to force really favorable terms with Belmont's monopoly — in some such way as the citizens of Boston have done with their street-car companies. Upon this very point we have the written advice of Comptroller Grout, a present member of the Rapid Transit commission (in his Green letter) :
The construction and operation of a tunnel railway should never be let in one contract, but always separately, and with power in the city either to construct or to operate without contract. The present contract was, we are informed, instantly sublet in sections, with a profit, said to be eight millions, which will go far toward equipping what will surely be one of the most profitable railways in the world. There were but two real and responsible bidders. . . . Had the contract been
for construction alone, divided into sections, the bidders would have been many and the city would have saved the millions. There would scarcely have been difficulty, after construction, in leasing the railway on profitable terms for less than the fifty years period with twenty-five years renewal, for many, many cities have found it possible to lease their railways on good terms for twenty-five year periods. . . .
2. The citizens recommended the construction of pipe galleries.
3. The citizens sought to enlarge the powers of the commissioners by permitting them to operate future subways as well as to build them — provided no private company would pay a reasonable rental. This would have given the people a whip-hand over the monopoly.
4. The citizens recommended short-term contracts for operation and proper taxation. By a curious provision, not hard of understanding to those who know the ways of the lobby, the present law provides that contracts shall be let for not less than thirty-five years, so that the Rapid Transit commission, even if it had the chance, could not make a better bargain for the city.
Every one of these recommendations involved only the common practice of many other municipalities in Europe and America which operate subways ; every one was reasonable ; every one was backed by the demand of the people as expressed in great public meetings and through the newspapers; and every one of them was promptly defeated.
But that was not the worst. The Citizens' Union and the affiliated bodies not only failed to get relief legislation, but they had all they could do to prevent the passage of legislation which would place the people still more completely in the grip of the monopoly. Witness the Bostwick bill, a measure introduced with the consent and approval of the Rapid Transit commission, which would have so tied the commission's hands that practically no other bid for future extensions of' the Subway than that of Belmont could have been accepted. The Belmont syndicate was so accurately described in the bill that its name might as well have been inserted. This bill was fathered by Mayor Low, of the reform administration, then ex-officio member of the Rapid Transit commission, but the cry raised by the people had such an angry tone that the measure was, happily, withdrawn.
At the coming session of the legislature (1904-5), another attempt will be made by
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THE SUBWAY "DEAL"
the citizens at securing control legislation, along the lines already laid down. The passage of these measures is absolutely essential to the welfare of the people of New York, and with proper enlightenment and proper agitation perhaps the legislature can be frightened into passing remedial laws, and perhaps the Rapid Transit commission can then be so stiffened in the knees that it will really make a good bargain for the people. There is time yet to defeat the Belmont monopoly — if the people s action is vigorous and prompt.
For this is a great and continuing problem. Within the next few years hundreds of millions of dollars must be expended in rapid transit enterprises : there is no more room for surface-car lines : the elevated roads were always an abomination. The city must, therefore, resort to extensive subways, running in every direction to Brooklyn, to Staten Island, to the Bronx : how essential is the proper control of all this vast business !
Giant Proportions of 'the New Belmont Monopoly
The people do not realize what this Belmont monopoly has already come to be. It is not only the greatest combination of streetcar interests New York ever had, but it promises to be the most piratical. The aim of Belmont—and the European Rothschilds behind him — is complete monopoly. Already he controls the Subway and all the elevated railroads in Manhattan, he owns the surface-car lines in Long Island City, and he has just acquired the old perpetual franchise of the Steinway Tunnel Company, which enables him to build another tunnel to Brooklyn ; and he is on the way to obtain other important rights. Through his associates, also, he is interested in the new Hudson River tunnel which recently obtained a franchise up Sixth Avenue, thereby giving him a grasp of the passage traffic of Jersey City.
And now he is trying to get hold of the financially distressed Metropolitan Railway Company, which controls the surface-car lines of Manhattan. When he gets that he can rest with smiling content, having captured the city.
It is to be noted, also, that large profits are accruing to Belmont from advertising privileges in the Subway, and that there are also provisions in the contract for a freight and express service and even a parlor car service in the Subway — of which gifts to
Belmont we shall probably hear a great deal more in the future.
All these transactions have their solemnly humorous side. To the simple mind it appears that the Belmont syndicate has made a very good bargain. No outsider probably knows definitely, but it is commonly reported that McDonald and Belmont made a profit of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 on the actual building of the Subway. And we have the authority of no less a person than Edward M. Shepard, for a time one of the attorneys of the Rapid Transit commission, and closely in touch with its affairs, that over a year before the Subway was even finished the "value of the future profits from the operating part of this contract ... is estimated at $30,000,000 and for aught we know may, in the future, come to be worth upwards of $50,000,000."* In other words, the estimated future profits of the Belmont syndicate, long before the first train was run, equaled nearly the entire cost of the Subway. Out of all this the city will get not one cent — though the city has no right now to begrudge Belmont his earnings on the original enterprise. He ventured and he won.
Mr. Shepard's figures as to profits are borne out by the present quotations of the stock of the Belmont company although, as usual in such enterprises, Belmont is already so confusing his operations—jumbling the earnings of the elevated roads with those of the Subway — that it is all but impossible for an outsider to learn anything about real values or real profits.
Silver Loving-Cup for Belmont
A banquet was given at Sherry's on the night after the opening of the Subway, attended by prominent financiers, by the mayor, by the Rapid Transit commissioners and others, to thank and praise Mr. Belmont for his daring and his boldness. I quote from the New York Herald:
At the conclusion of the mayor's speech two men came into the room bearing the massive silver loving-cup for the guest of the evening. This cup stood more than two feet high, was more than a foot in diameter, and its three handles, composed of twined oak and laurel leaves, were several inches thick. Around the base ran a wreath of oak and laurel leaves, in bas-relief. On one side was an inscription reading thus :
" Presented to August Belmont by the directors of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company in
?*Article in Municipal Affairs, Winter, 1903.
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RED HANRAHAN'S VISION
appreciation of his services as president in the construction of the rapid transit subway, October 27, 1904."
The letters forming the monogram "A. B." were in raised letters of dull gold on another part of the surface, and the third was simply a polished shield of silver.
It is easy to understand why the directors of Belmont's company present him with a silver cup — has he not doubled their cash in four years ? — but why the Rapid Transit commission and the public should rejoice in such a bargain it is difficult to see !
Here is the plain truth : if the history of the Subway shows anything at all, it shows that capital all the way through has not only been greedy, not only pursued a dog-in-the-manger policy, but it has been wholly unoriginal, non-progressive. Capital wants no changes; capital "stands pat." Nothing could show more clearly the utter failure of private monopolies in furnishing the public — promptly — with new conveniences. The public suggested the Subway, the public through its engineers made the plans and proved the feasibility of the enterprise, the public forced the building of the Subway through a threat of municipal construction (the worst bogy of capital), and finally furnished all the money for the work — and
then, deliberately, gave Mr. Belmont all the property and afterwards tied itself up for fifty years by a contract which prevents city control ! Oh, the financiers might well present a cup to Mr. Belmont ! Surely he is unmatched, unequaled in all this country ! Talk about financial genius ! Is not this its supreme manifestation ?
And one word more about Mr. Belmont. In his speech at the dedication exercises there was a certain delightfully satirical note of satisfaction with this method of building subways, coupled with a warning, not un-humorously ingenuous, of the dangers of municipal ownership. Mr. Belmont said :
That the enterprise in its results has been conspicuously successful, should be the subject of cordial congratulations by all citizens.
At a time when there are so many ill-digested and ill-considered plans under discussion, having for their object not only municipal ownership, but municipal operation of transportation lines, the State of New York has reached the true solution of this problem — that municipal participation is justified to the extent of furnishing credit for the construction of such a work, but should stop short of the operation of the property when constructed. To private interests should be committed the risks and the burden as well as the profit of constructing, equipping and operating the road, the latter not being within the governmental functions or other legitimate province of a municipality.
RED HANRAHAN'S VISION
BY
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
AUTHOR OF ''THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN, "IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL,1' "THE WIND
AMONG THE REEDS. ETC.
IT was in the month of June Hanrahan was on the road near Sligo, but he did not go into the town, but turned towards Beinn Bulben ; for there were thoughts of the old times coming upon him, and he had no mind to meet with common men. And as he walked, he was singing to himself a song that had come to him one time in his dreams :—
I went out to the ha\el wood,
Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a ha\el rod,
And put a berry on a thread ; And when white moths were on the wing.
And stars like moths were shining out, I dropped the berry in a stream
And hooked a Utile silver trout.
When I had laid it on a stool I stooped to blow the fire aflame,
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RED HANRAHAN'S VISION
But something rustled on the floor, And some one called me by my name.
It had become a laughing girl, With apple blossoms in her hair,
That called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.
Hanrahan had begun to climb the mountain then, and he gave over singing, for it was a long climb for him, and every now and again he had to sit down and to rest for a while. And one time he was resting he took notice of a wild briar bush with roses on it, that was growing beside a rath,* and it brought to mind the wild roses he used to bring to Maire Lavelle, and to no woman after her. And he tore off a little branch of the bush, that had buds on it and open blossoms, and he went on with his song :—
Though I am old with wandering
Through hilly lands and hollow lands, I will find out where she is gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands ; And walk and walk through summer grass,
And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
And then he went on climbing the hill, and left the rath, and there came to his mind some of the old poems that told of lovers, good and bad, and of some that were awakened from the sleep of the grave itself by the strength of one another's love, and brought away to a life in some shadowy place where they are waiting for the judgment and banished from the face of God.
And at last, at the fall of day, he came to the Steep Gap of the Strangers, and there he laid himself down along a ridge of rock, and looked down into the valley, that was full of gray mist, spreading from mountain to mountain.
And it seemed to him as he looked that the mist changed to shapes of shadowy men and women, and his heart began to beat with the fear and the joy of the sight. And his hands, that were always restless, began to pluck off the leaves of the roses on the little branch, and he watched them as they went floating down into the valley in a little fluttering troop.
Suddenly he heard a faint music, a music that had more laughter in it and more cry-
*Rath—The ruined fortress-dwelling of one of the ancient Irish chiefs.
ing than all the music of this world. And his heart rose when he heard that, and he began to laugh out loud ; for he knew that music was made by some that had a beauty and a greatness beyond the people of this world. And it seemed to him that the little soft rose-leaves as they went fluttering down into the valley began to change their shape till they looked like a troop of men and women far off in the mists, with the color of the roses on them. And then that color changed to many colors, and what he saw was a long line of tall, beautiful young men, and of queen-women, that were not going from him but coming towards him and past him, and their faces were full of tenderness for all their proud looks, and very pale and worn, as if they were seeking and ever-seeking for high sorrowful things. And shadowy arms were stretched up out of the mist as if to take hold of them, but could not touch them, for the quiet that was about them could not be broken. And before them and beyond them, but at a distance as if in reverence, there were other shapes, sinking and rising and coming and going, and Hanrahan knew them by their whirling flight to be the Sidhe, the ancient defeated gods, and the shadowy arms did not rise to take hold of them, for they were of those that can neither sin nor obey. And they all lessened then in the distance, and they seemed to be going towards the white square door that is in the side of the mountain.
The mist spread out before him now like a deserted sea washing the mountains with long gray waves; but while he was looking at it, it began to fill again with a flowing, broken, witless life that was a part of itself, and arms and pale heads covered with tossing hair appeared in the grayness. It rose higher and higher till it was level with the edge of the steep rock, and then the shapes grew to be solid, and a new procession half lost in mist passed very slowly with uneven steps, and in the midst of each shadow there was something shining in the starlight. They came nearer and nearer, and Hanrahan saw that they also were lovers, and that they had heart-shaped mirrors instead of hearts, and they were looking and ever-looking in one another's mirrors on their own faces. They passed on, sinking downward as they passed, and other shapes rose in their place, and these did not keep side by side, but followed after one another, holding out wild, beckoning arms; and he saw that those who were
[pgbrk] WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
471
followed were women, and as to their heads they were beyond all beauty, but as to their bodies they were but shadows without life, and their long hair was moving and trembling about them as if it lived with some terrible life of its own. And then the mist rose of a sudden and hid them, and then a light gust of wind blew them away towards the northwest, and covered Hanrahan at the same time with a white wing of cloud.
He stood up trembling and was going to turn away from the valley, when he saw two dark and half-hidden forms standing as if in the air just beyond the rock, and one of them that had the sorrowful eyes of a beggar said to him in a woman's voice : " Speak to me, for no one in this world or any other world has spoken to me for seven hundred years."
"Tell me who are those that have passed by," said Hanrahan
"Those that passed the first," the woman said, "are the lovers that had the greatest name in the old times, Blanad and Grania and Deirdre and their dear comrades, and a great many that are not so well known, but are as well loved. And because it was not only the blossom of youth they were looking for in one another, but the beauty that is as lasting as the night and the stars, the night and the stars hold them for ever from the warring and the perishing, in spite of the wars and the bitterness their love brought into the world. And those that came next," she said, "and that still breathe the sweet air and have the mirrors in their hearts are not put in songs by the poets, because they sought only to triumph one over the other,
and so to prove their strength and beauty, and out of this they made a kind of love. And as to the women with shadow bodies, they desired neither to triumph nor to love, but only to be loved, and there is no blood in their hearts or in their bodies until it flows through them from a kiss, and their life is but for a moment. All these are unhappy, but I am the unhappiest of all, for I am Dervadilla, and this is Dermot, and it was our sin brought the Norman into Ireland, and the curses of all the generations are upon us, and none are punished as we are punished. It was but the blossom of the man and of the woman we loved in one another, the dying beauty of the dust and not the everlasting beauty. When we died there was no lasting unbreakable quiet about us, and the bitterness of the battles we brought into Ireland turned to our own punishment. We go wandering together forever, but Dermot that was my lover sees me always as a body that had been a long time in the ground, and I know that is the way he sees me. Ask me more, ask me more, for all the years have left their wisdom in my heart, and no one has listened to me for seven hundred years."
A great terror had fallen upon Hanrahan, and lifting his arms above his head he screamed out loud three times, and the cattle in the valley lifted their heads and lowed, and the birds in the wood at the edge of the mountain awaked out of their sleep and fluttered through the trembling leaves. But a little below the edge of the rock, the troop of rose-leaves still fluttered in the air, for the gateway of Eternity had opened and shut again in one beat of the heart.
[pgbrk]
BY
ANNA H. BRANCH
ILLUSTRATION (FRONTISPIECE) BY BLENDON CAMPBELL
IF I could only serve him,
How sweet this life would be! Last night I dreamed my darling Alive — returned to me.
I brought him from the cupboard The things he liked to eat:
The little piece of honey, The rye bread and the meat.
I sang the song he asked for The night he went away.
How was it, when I loved him, I could have said him nay ?
I took the time to please him, With hand upon his brow.
Amid the awful leisure There was no hurry now.
How strange I once denied him What took so little while!
A kiss would seem so simple, So slight a thing a smile!
With pleased sweet looks of wonder He took what I could give;
Such words as we deny them Only because they live.
The pale light of the morning Shone in upon the wall;
Come back to me, my darling, And I will give you all!
[pgbrk]
A WASTED REHEARSAL
BY
jEANNETTE COOPER
AUTHOR OF '"A CANDID VIOLET, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLOTTE HARDING
JANE glared resentfully into the soft gray-green charm of a Corot landscape.
"I don't see why you told her," she said. "You know I can't talk to strangers."
"I explained to you," said the other patiently, " that she made me promise to let her know when you came. She likes literary people."
"Josephine !" in plaintive protest.
"Well, I'm only quoting," said Miss Baldwin. "I wouldn't call your silly rhymes literature. I always wonder myself how you get the things published."
Jane dropped her catalogue to clasp ecstatic hands.
"And I, too, Josephine," she cried. " How we do think alike about things !"
Josephine gazed back suspiciously : "Which doesn't alter the fact that you will have to go to Mrs. Cravath's dinner," she said.
Miss Lenham picked up her catalogue and returned sadly to the Corot.
" You are too ridiculous, Jane," continued Miss Baldwin energetically. "It isn't as if you really didn't know anything."
"The effect is the same," said Jane. "With strangers my mind refuses to call up anything but the number of bones in the foot, or a recipe for ginger-snaps."
"Well, you can at least respond to the subjects he introduces."
"He?" in a panic-stricken tone.
"The man you go in with."
"Oh," added woe in her voice, "I shouldn't know what to do with him, Jo."
" You talk like an idiot, Jane. "
" I know I do, when I talk at all. And a dinner ! You might have got her to compromise on something short."
"The trouble is," remarked Miss Baldwin, with emphasis, "that being the family genius, you have been allowed to shirk all social duties. It is simply a habit. To call it bashfulness is too absurd. What are you going to wear ?"
"A phonograph concealed among my laces," responded Jane.
[pgbrk] 474
A WASTED REHEARSAL
The situation demanded tact. Miss Baldwin was seized with an idea.
"Come over here and sit down, and we'll practice," she said vivaciously.
Jane turned a despondent but inquiring gaze upon her.
"It is so early there is no one here," exclaimed Josephine. "We can rehearse the conversation. We will think up a lot of
"Jane glared resentfully into the soft gray-green charm of a Corot landscape "
topics. A woman can always keep the conversation in her own hands."
"But I don't want to keep it in my own hands," objected Jane. " I don't want anything to do with it."
"Come on. It is the simplest thing," urged Josephine.
"Simple !" repeated Jane with gloomy scorn, and stalked after her friend, unmindful of the fact that she ran into a man and two small girls.
"Now," said Josephine, unfolding her handkerchief and spreading it on her knees with an air that would almost persuade one it was a dinner napkin. " I am the man you go in with." She paused for Jane to throw herself into the spirit of the game. "Can't you look as though you were attending a dinner?" she suggested.
"I do," returned Jane.
"You look more as if you were attending an Armenian massacre," snapped Josephine.
"Yes," said Jane. "They inspire me with similar sentiments."
"Make an effort," urged Josephine.
Jane summoned an unhappy smile. Then Josephine's attitude and expression and the white handkerchief spread carefully over one knee sent her into a fit of laughter, in which the other finally joined, and they sat and looked at each other and wiped away the tears of mirth.
Josephine straightened up first, with a businesslike air.
" I hope you are enjoying New York, Miss Lenham," she said, bending slightly toward Jane, and speaking in the tone of an amiable stranger.
"Oh, very much, thank you," responded Jane glibly. "I —I- Well, that's all there is to that."
"It isn't," expostulated Miss Baldwin. " You can't make such choppy little answers. Compare it with some other city. "
"Cedarville ?" Cedarville was the small town in which she lived.
"You are not trying, Jane. Compare it with Chicago."
" New York is larger than Chicago," began Jane, with touching docility. "It has no signs on the lamp-posts. If you wish to know which way to go, you ask some one passing, and he says, ' I do not know. I do not live in New York.'" She paused and looked up inquiringly.
Josephine frowned. Then she giggled a little, unwillingly.
"Let's not go," said Jane coaxingly. " I'll have tonsilitis. I can always have that if I give myself a silent treatment."
Miss Baldwin ignored this. "You can think of something sensible to say about New York."
"Brooklyn Bridge ?" amiably.
"What will you say about it?"
"I think a walk across Brooklyn Bridge is one of the most delightful things I ever experienced," said Jane brightly. "The
[pgbrk] 475
J EANN ETTE COOPER
shifting charm of the bay; the tall narrow buildings of the city ; the rags and tatters of smoke in the air- "
"Good! go on!" cried Jo.
"Well, I hope he doesn't expect me to talk in paragraphs," protested Jane aggrievedly. She was developing a violent resentment against her prospective dinner companion.
"Talk about the pictures here at the Metropolitan," suggested Miss Baldwin, pacifically.
" I haven't seen any of them yet. Not but what I can converse quite as interestingly before as after seeing them."
"We will look them up later. Now, try books."
"I better put these things down," said
Jane, producing a note-book. " Let me see — first he asks if I enjoy New York. What if he doesn't ask that first?" She paused with suspended pencil and glared darkly at her friend.
" He will, " returned Josephine.
"I depend upon you," murmured Jane, writing busily. "If he began on art, and I made my lamp-post response, it might nick the symmetry of the conversation."
"What have you next?" inquired Josephine, peeking over her shoulder.
"Next I have the Brooklyn Bridge. That I introduce myself. Following that" — she consulted her note-book— "the Metropolitan Museum. I leave a few pages there to be filled in with brilliant repartee, after I have seen the pictures, and hasten on. Next is books. That won't last through eight
"' / better put these things down,' said Jane, producing a note-book"
courses, or however many that woman gives us."
"Politics," suggested Josephine, "or religion. "
"Are you a Baptist?" said Jane, gravely addressing her companion. "What will he say to that ? " she demanded.
"There's a lace sale at Stern's, Jane," said Josephine suddenly. " I nearly forgot it. Let's go down before everything is gone."
"But the pictures," objected Jane.
"We'll come again and anyway you've plenty of topics."
"Very well," said Jane obligingly, putting away her note-book. " I need some lace myself. And if there should be a lull in the
conversation, which hardly seems possible, I will ask him if his grandmother was a monkey."
The evening arrived. Jane was hysterically ridiculous all the way over, but relapsed into gloomy silence in the dressing-room. Josephine gazed at her with consternation.
"You look awfully distinguished, Jane," she said, applying the best and oldest remedy. "That brown crepe is just the color of your hair, and you know, yourself, how lovely your hair is."
Jane's depressed countenance showed a momentary humorous recognition of the attempt.
"No use, Jo," she said. " I am no doubt beautiful, but that won't enable me to talk two hours to a strange man. Never mind; we'll go through it some way."
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"You will be all right. Come on, now," and Josephine swept her white draperies downstairs and up to their hostess, with an extra vivaciousness to cover the silence of the golden-brown young woman in her wake.
Mrs. Cravath was a thin woman, with nervous eyes and a determinedly animated expression.
"What's that, my dear? Impossible!" she said in response to a confidential murmur from Josephine. " I have given her to Robert Davies. I thought he would enjoy a clever, bright girl like — Oh, she must be funny to write those verses. I wouldn't
happily counting up the number of topics he had introduced. He had begun with the Metropolitan Museum, apropos of nothing, and now, as each subject faded swiftly to its close, he went back, with touching and persistent hopefulness, to his first choice. He had just allowed The-best-way-to-cook-game to follow The-situation-in-China back into the silence, from which he had vainly struggled to hold them, when some one said something about French wines.
"How do you like the Jeanne d'Arc in the Museum, Miss Lenham?" he inquired, as if the connection were obvious.
" ' I leave a few pages there to be filled in with brilliant repartee, after I have seen the pictures ' "
have Robert Davies bored for — " Distress sat upon her countenance.
"You are going out with Robert Davies," said Josephine dramatically, as Mrs. Cra-vath turned to another guest. " If he doesn't have a good time she will never forgive either of us. Jane," with sudden hope, "you can talk about his big speech in the House. You have read it ?"
Jane nodded miserably. Some one touched her arm. It was Mrs. Cravath, who had hurried her greeting to the latest comer to rush after them.
"Whatever else you do," she breathed, "don't talk politics to him. He hates it."
The soup was gone. Mr. Davies had roamed bravely from the Taj Mahal to the Rocky Mountains. Mahatmas and mermaids, Buddhism and breakfast foods, had been presented to the attention of Miss Len-ham, and by her commented upon with modest brevity. She found herself un-
" I have not seen it," said Jane, wishing she could change places with that happy martyr.
"You did not get into that room, I suppose?"
"No."
"There are some good Corots in the gallery, don't you think so ?"
" I have not seen them," said Jane. Why did he insist upon cross-questioning her about the Metropolitan Museum, when all she knew was that there was a leather seat in the middle of the first room ?
One of the pretty, fluffy, restless young girls said something to Mr. Davies, and he was drawn into the talk across the table. Jane drew a long breath and glanced about her. Josephine, trying to talk for two, sent her a surreptitious and pleading look. She read desperation in Mrs. Cravath's eyes, as a floury lady in pale blue began to dilate on the distinguished people she was entertaining in the near future.
[pgbrk] "Jane was hysterically ridiculous all the way over"
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" ' You will be all right. Come on, now' "
"It was regular Inness coloring," said some one.
" I am very fond of Inness," said Mr. Davies, addressing Jane. "The Metropolitan has some of his best things."
Heavens! What ailed the man ? Was he a monomaniac on the subject of art-galleries ? Sooner or later he would find out that that, too, was barren soil, and then he would stop trying, and she would sit in disgraced silence, Mrs. Cravath's party would be spoiled, and Josephine would be miserable.
"It is odd you don't remember that Corot," said Mr. Davies.
Interiorly Jane was a-quiver with wonder and laughter and shame, but she only said, stiffly :
" I did not see it."
" But you did," said Mr. Davies.
Astonishment raised Jane's long brown eyes to her neighbor's. Astonishment kept them there until he had time to decide that they exactly suited the rest of her coloring. "What do you mean?" said Jane's low tones, voicing astonishment.
He waited a minute, enjoying the new interest in her glance and the new energy in her voice, before he explained.
"I was in the gallery one morning with two small nieces," he said finally, "and I saw you. You were standing before a Corot landscape."
Her startled eyes dwelt on him an instant longer.
"Was that a Corot ?" she said helplessly.
"Do you mean to tell me," he returned, "that you did not know it was a Corot ?"
" I didn't even know it was a landscape," said Jane desperately.
His eyes lighted.
"And you had a catalogue, and you stood before it for nearly ten minutes," he said.
If Jane had not happened to look at Josephine she would never have gone on, but the budding hope that animated Miss Baldwin's anxious countenance startled her into speech.
"We were not looking at the pictures," she said. "We were busy," after which brilliant effort she flushed pink through the clear brown of her skin.
"In a picture-gallery," he suggested, "people are usually busy looking at the pictures."
"We were talking," murmured Jane, and then, as his pause seemed to demand something further, she stumbled on. "We were talking about this dinner," she said.
"Ah, indeed," said Mr. Davies; "pleasantly anticipating, I suppose-
A look from Miss Lenham ended this little speech. It was too brief for him to grasp the various expressions of which it was made up, but it impressed him as worth investigating. No wonder she did not talk, with those eyes to save her the trouble.
" How hampering are rules of behavior ! " he said. "It is forbidden me even to wonder what you were saying about the dinner."
Again his pause forced a reply.
"We were talking about you," said Jane.
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"About me?" he protested, amazed. "But you did not see me even when you ran into me."
"Was it you I ran into ?" said poor Jane. " I did not know."
"And yet you expect me to believe that you were talking about me?"
"Not about you personally," she explained. His expression lost interest. He looked bored.
"Oh, I'm not going to mention your
speech," said Jane, on an impulse. "We were not talking about that."
He laughed outright. "In your company, Miss Lenham, I shall hereafter refrain from egotistical thoughts," he said.
"Please, we want to hear the funny things," playfully plaintive Mrs. Cravath's voice broke in. Jane looked up, startled. Mrs. Cravath's words and Mr. Davies's laugh had drawn the attention of half the table. She stared an instant, helpless to give the gay response that was expected. She turned to
"'We were not looking at the pictures,' she said. 'We were busy'"
her companion, with panic appeal in her eyes.
"You can't hear it now," he said promptly to Mrs. Cravath,"but I am going to say some very funny things myself presently, if you will be patient."
The others laughed amiably and the prettiest of the pretty girls leaned forward and begged Mr. Davies not to postpone them too long. They had some animated conversation, during which Jane sat, miserably
wondering what Josephine would say if she knew.
"Well?" said Mr. Davies.
Miss Lenham's long brown eyes looked up at him an instant and dropped. They said plainly that confidences were at an end, and it seemed to him surprisingly worth while to make her go on.
"I hate to insist," he said, "but you will understand my very natural desire to know why I am to blame for your shocking ignorance of New York art galleries."
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A faint little curve came into Miss Len-ham's lips. It was only a sketch of a smile, but it pleased the guest of the evening.
"We had got, when we were interrupted," he prompted, "to where you turned away from the Corot and ran into a defenseless man and two small children."
Miss Lenham was silent.
"Then," he continued, "you went over to a seat and talked. It looked like a very jolly conversation."
" It was," said Jane. " It was a rehearsal of the one we are having to-night." The depths of self-reproach in which she had been sunk all evening had resulted in a reaction. The tragic appeal in Miss Baldwin's face stirred her to no further penitence. She was past that. The party was spoiled anyway. It did not matter what she said or whether she said anything.
"Ah !" said Mr. Davies tentatively, and then Miss Lenham's labor-saving eyes were raised again, just long enough for him to see the guilty merriment in them. "But why the need of a rehearsal ?" he demanded.
"I don't go to dinners," murmured Jane explanatorily.
"You don't care for them?"
" I hate them."
"Then why- "
"Miss Baldwin accepted this for me before I came," undeniable resentment mingled with the explanatory nature of her tone.
He laughed. "What must your feelings have been toward your prospective partner!" he said.
" Yes," assented Jane, "and the worst was when Mrs. Cravath told me it was you."
" We must hear that." Mrs. Cravath's face was radiant as she listened to the Honorable Mr. Davies's boyish laughter.
He shook his head. "It is one of those things that needs to be led up to," he said. "You will have to wait."
' I did not mean that," murmured Jane, very scarlet, when he turned to her again ; "but Josephine said that if you were bored, Mrs. Cravath would never get over it, and they have both looked at me all the evening as if I had robbed widows and orphans."
"I mustn't laugh any more," he said, "or Mrs. Cravath will demand an explanation. Did I do my part of the conversation at all properly ? "
She shook her head.
"You were to have asked first how I am enjoying New York."
"Now, how did I come to omit that? " he said vexedly. "That was the height of carelessness. And what were you to say ?"
"'Jane Lenbam! What have you done?'"
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" I was to say that I like it very much. Then I was to recite a paragraph about the difference between New York and Chicago. I wrote it in my note-book and learned it."
"That's it," he assented eagerly. "I saw you writing something down and you were both laughing. Won't you recite it, please ?"
"It wouldn't do without the question," she answered gravely, "and it is too late for that now."
"Well, what came next ?"
"You were to speak of the pictures in the galleries. You did your part there," her voice rippled, "but we spent so much time on the conversation that there was none left for the pictures."
"I see," with great enjoyment. "And then?"
"There wasn't very much more."
"There must have been. You were writing for quite a time and then you read what you had written to Miss Baldwin."
"I don't see—" began Jane, and paused with a swift upward look.
" How I had any time for the pictures, myself," he concluded for her promptly. "To be quite frank I don't believe I looked at them."
The man on Jane's other side said some-thing to her and Mr. Davies was drawn into the conversation across the table. Jane sat listening after she had made a sufficient number of bread and butter replies to satisfy her neighbor that her scintillations were not for him. Mr. Davies was leading the talk, the others throwing in remarks and questions and waiting for his answers. Again Jane was filled with poignant pangs of mortification. What awful things she had been led on to say ! What would Josephine say if she knew ? She should sit in silence during the rest of the dinner. It was the only safe way.
When Mr. Davies turned back to her presently it was with the effect of having awaited the opportunity.
" You live in a little town, don't you ?" he said.
"Deduced?" said Jane unpleasantly.
"No; Mrs. Cravath told me. I think a little town is delightful; just a cluster of houses with a setting of woods and wild flowers."
"My little town is ugly," said Jane. "It won't stay in a cluster. It has strayed about and then retreated, until it has stepped on all the wild flowers."
"Tell me about it," he said, and Jane did, quite to her own amazement when she thought it over afterward.
There was music in the drawing-room after dinner — a wonderful violinist — and Jane sat rapt, and listened, and was glad she had come, even if she had bored the chief guest and spoiled Mrs. Cravath's dinner. Various people tried to talk to her and found her stiff and uninteresting.
" I can't say 1 like to see a girl save all her agreeableness for one man," said the much-powdered lady, settling her blue draperies beside her hostess as the music began. "Of course the man likes it, but it certainly isn't the best form."
" I am sorry you haven't been able to get her to talk," said Mrs. Cravath sweetly. "She is positively the cleverest, wittiest creature."
Mrs. Ogden's large light blue eyes expressed some doubt. They worked independently of the rest of her face which was always kept as immovable as possible to prevent wrinkles.
"1 asked her where 1 could find her verses," she went on, "and she said 'way at the back of the magazine right next to the soap advertisements,' and she refused to quote any of them. I only asked her, to be polite. People that scribble always want you to talk about their stuff."
"Miss Lenham is exactly the opposite of that," said Mrs. Cravath, who, all things considered, was displaying a marvelous insight into Miss Lenham's character. "I dare say that with all the conversation she and Mr. Davies had, neither his speech nor her verses were mentioned. I am sorry Mr. Davies was obliged to leave right after dinner, but that was understood when he came. You would enjoy him so much if you knew him well."
It was with a humbly apologetic feeling that Jane followed Josephine to bid her hostess good-night. They left early, Josephine having conceded that from the beginning, and there being nothing to stay for, from Jane's standpoint, when the music was over. To her unbounded astonishment, Mrs. Cravath took both her hands and held them while she said a most cordial, almost loving, farewell.
"You are coming to me again on Tuesday," she said. "You simply must. Mr. Davies is to be here. I will write you about it. Good-night, my dear. Good-night,"
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and with a last pressure she released her to be led away in a state of bewilderment by Josephine.
"Why, Mr. Davies was the only one she cared about," explained Jo, in the carriage, in answer to Jane's demand for light. "The others she can get any time, but if Mr. Davies, the Mr. Davies had had a stupid time — " She paused with dramatic effect.
" But Jo, I didn't say anything clever to Mr. Davies," said Jane guiltily.
" Didn't you ?" Josephine laughed. " He seemed well entertained, and of course the others thought that you simply did not choose to waste your brilliance on them. I was so amused watching the whole thing. But Jane,—" curiously, "what did you talk about ?"
Jane smiled thoughtfully.
"Not wishing to lose the lofty place I have acquired in your esteem, my Josephine," she said, " I think I will not tell you
that. Who was the lady that looked as if she were prepared ready to fry ?"
"That is Mrs. Ogden. She is simply wild because Mrs. Cravath succeeded in getting Mr. Davies to-night."
" Does she run a day nursery for little lions, too?" inquired Jane.
"Yes. You will go to Mrs. Cravath's on Tuesday, won't you, dear?" coaxingly.
"Oh, I don't mind if you want to. And, Jo, Mr. Davies wanted to know if he could come to see us. I said yes. Is that all right ?"
"All right ?" gasped Josephine. " Do you know who Mr. Davies is, Jane ? Why every girl I know will simply want to walk by the house."
"I'm glad I did the correct thing that time," said Jane. "He said also that he is coming up some morning this week to take me to the Metropolitan. He wants to show me a Corot landscape."
"Jane Lenham ! What have you done ?" said Josephine solemnly.
MODERN SURGERY
BY
SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS
AUTHOR OF ''TUBERCULOSIS: THE REAL RACE SUICIDE," ETC
SURGERY is the most modern of sciences. Up to within twenty years it had been, in the main, the last expedient of desperate needs, or the alleviant of minor or surface ailments. In its extraordinary recent development it has extended its scope to every organ in the human body, not only for radical operations, but for the relief of conditions formerly believed to be beyond aid. Of the major operations now fearlessly undertaken every day, ninety per cent would have been considered by the surgeon of the last generation extremely hazardous, if not actually murderous.
To two great medical devices the possibility of surgical advance must be ascribed : anesthetics, discovered in the late forties,
by Morton, of Hartford, and Simpson, of Edinburgh, independently, which, with their inestimable blessing of insensibility, vastly broadened the range of practicable operations; and antiseptics, discovered by Pasteur and applied to surgery in the early seventies by Sir Joseph Lister, which reduced the danger of blood-poisoning, the operator's deadliest foe, to a comparatively small consideration. One instance in each case will serve to illustrate. In the wars preceding the middle of the last century, before anesthetics had come into general use, thousands of wounded men, operated upon with a bullet between their teeth to bite on, succumbed to sheer agony and shock. Other thousands died as "inoperable cases," because, in their weakened condition, the torture of the knife would have been fatal before the ordeal could be finished. Before
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the use of antiseptics, an ordinary compound fracture of the arm or leg, where the bone was exposed to the infection of the outer air, resulted in death from blood-poisoning in more than sixty per cent of cases. That is, a compound fracture was more deadly than cholera and about as fatal as the bubonic plague. To-day, under the best hospital conditions, this mortality has been reduced to one-seventh of one per cent.
The Era of Enthusiasm
Under the influence of these discoveries a tremendous impetus was given to the science. Unbridled enthusiasm for the new worlds thrown open to their conquering progress, carried the great body of surgeons too far. They operated wherever operation was remotely indicated and, in many cases, where it wasn't indicated at all. They proposed to include in their practice ailments now recognized as quite beyond the reach of surgery, such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. And their operations were all radical ; the man who got the most tissue out of a patient was hailed as the successful and progressive practitioner. An anonymous contributor to one of the medical journals of that time sounded a warning in a philippic against what he described as "highway robbery of the abdomen," protesting that because a man was operated on for ulcerated liver was no reason why the attending surgeon should take advantage of the opportunity to filch away his vermiform appendix. Another complaint declared that "our younger surgeons look upon their diplomas as licenses to dissect the living body." This period of magnificent experimentation (at the cost of many lives, indubitably) was followed by a reaction to saner methods, and it was then that the safe and sure, but marvelously swift development, which has now almost reached its climax, appeared. Where, twelve or fifteen years ago, the operator carried away with him a diseased organ, or all of it that he could get, to-day he excises the disease instead of the organ, performing not as much as he may, but as little as he can. This is the touchstone of modern surgery: to save not life alone, but the structure of the human body. Its watchword is conservation.
The Ordeal of a Pioneer
It is in the abdominal region that surgery has been most triumphant. In fact, this
branch may fairly be regarded as a completed science, although certain details will doubtless be worked out to greater perfection. A century ago there was no such thing as abdominal operating. Such use of the knife would have been regarded as madness. Stomach and intestinal troubles and ailments of the principal organs were for "physic," and physic of a sort which our generation happily knows not. The pioneer was Dr. Ephraim McDowell, of Dansville, Kentucky, who, in 1809, determined to operate upon a Mrs. Crawford for ovarian tumor. Other physicians denounced his plan as murderous and raised the people against him. On the day of the operation a mob gathered outside the woman's windows, carrying guns and ropes, and McDowell operated with their threats ringing in his ears. Had the patient died he would probably have been lynched. She lived. Two other similar operations were successful. Then came the reward of the pioneer. Press, pulpit and — bitterest of all — his own profession attacked McDowell and his methods, with a degree of savagery unparalleled outside of religious controversy. But ovariotomy was established and it spread, though slowly. The Atlee brothers of Philadelphia practised it, and successfully, in the face of a powerful opposition. Nearly fifty years after McDowell, Marion Sims, later New York's most distinguished gynecologist, called a consultation upon a similar case. When he told his colleagues of his determination to remove the diseased ovary, they not only threw up the case but threatened him with legal prosecution for malpractice. His operation was successful; so were scores of others. The years of life saved to the women of America by McDowell's courage and skill alone, may be reckoned in the tens of thousands.
But there is another and darker side. Reckless operators removed ovaries wholesale, often for unimportant or curable ailments, and the victims of their zeal filled the hospitals or, worse, the insane asylums. These were not the leaders of the profession so much as the younger and less practised men, possessing more ambition than knowledge. Conservative surgery finally interposed and won its first important triumph in this department, probably because in no other branch were the evils of radical surgery so terribly in evidence. "Operate only where you are certain ; cut out the disease, not the
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organ." Such is the dictum of men like Kelly of Baltimore, Senn of Chicago, Park of Buffalo, Richardson of Boston, and other leaders. Even to-day there is too much, rather than too little, ovarian operating; but, in the main, this may be regarded as the greatest of surgery's confessed and forsaken errors.
The Conquering of Appendicitis
With the establishment of ovariotomy, the superstition that it was fatal to cut into the abdominal cavity was exploded. Tentatively, and with occasional success, the more daring surgeons essayed operations upon the liver, the kidneys, the stomach, the intestines, and other organs of the abdomen. But, until recent years, such practices were considered justified only as a last resort, in cases of extreme necessity. Now there is no organ in the abdominal cavity that is not daily explored. Perhaps the most notable success is in appendicitis. Twenty years ago the sufferer from appendicitis died — by another name, preferably " inflammation of the bowels" or " peritonitis." To-day the death-rate in the best equipped hospitals is not two per cent. For years after the ascription of the disease to the troublesome little sac, whose useful function has been entirely superseded in the processes of evolution, it was supposed that the cause of it all was some such foreign substance as a grape-or lemon-seed entering the vermiform appendix. Occasionally the explorer with the knife will find something in the appendix that doesn't belong there (a recent case produced a lump of solder from canned tomatoes) but this is the rare exception. Appendicitis is caused by +he development of bacteria in the sac, usually associated with inactivity of the intestine. Theoretically the operation is as simple as digging a pearl out of an oyster. An incision, a stroke of the knife, a careful sterilization, a suture to close the intestine, a dressing of the wound — and it's all over in twenty to thirty minutes. More than half the time it happens that way. The other cases present so wide a range of circumstance as to make this operation the most interesting and variable known. About once out of five times the appendix, instead of being at the front of the intestines and easily get-at-able, as it ought to be, is somewhere else. Then the practitioner begins his search. He may locate it two or three inches from the normal position or he may
find it far around behind, or he may discover it anywhere between ; sometimes he misses it entirely. Even where it is normally placed, it often presents great difficulties. It may be so far destroyed that the surgeon must leave what remains of it and devote his attention to draining the intestinal abscess which has resulted. Or it may be so deeply involved that it cannot be safely cut out, but can only be relieved of its poisonous matter. Or it may have burst and scattered its contents through the abdominal cavity, in which case the method is to clean and disinfect the whole area, in the hope — not a very strong one—of warding off peritonitis. For it is these cases which form the death-rate, and it is for this reason that timely operations for appendicitis are so important. A diseased appendix, diagnosed early, can be removed with practical assurance of complete success.
Reducing an Insane Asylum by Surgery
Another very common operation is for abscess of the gall-bladder or liver. Until within ten years such abscesses were opened and drained, a slow and tedious process, attended often with fatal results from exhaustion. The modern method is to remove the cause, stones in the bladder, which is accomplished with small mortality. Occasionally these stones are as large as a goose-egg. Sometimes the small ones are found in great numbers, more than a thousand having been taken from the late Chief Justice Marshall.
As a relief to human suffering this operation ranks next to ovariotomy. Before it was practised many sufferers were driven to suicide by the pain caused by these calculi ; and in every asylum there were inmates whose melancholia arose from this disease. It is said that, shortly after the establishment of the operation, a visiting surgeon to an insane asylum released more than thirty per cent of the women victims of melancholia simply by removing the source of their suffering.
As in the case of ovariotomy, the medical profession united in declaring that the proposition to cut stones out of the gall-bladder was the theory of a butcher — until it was successfully achieved. For years after the recognition of this treatment, Americans in need of it went abroad. The awakening to the fact that our own surgeons were as competent in this field as the foreigners came
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about in this way. At a surgical convention in Washington, Hans Kehr, of Halberstadt, Germany, the greatest of all authorities on this operation, read a paper citing more than six hundred cases. In the discussion following, William Mayo, of the little city of Rochester, Minn., was able to cite more than half as many operations as Kehr, and with a better percentage of successes. Since then few European medical scientists cross the American continent without visiting the hospital of the Mayo brothers, which is the most remarkable surgical institution of its kind.
Scope of a "Country Practice"
Although a private enterprise, it handles more surgical cases annually than any institution in the United States, including the great Johns Hopkins Hospital. No other private hospital in the world records anything like its list of operations. Curiously enough, the name of the Mayos is little known outside the profession. They are the surgeon's surgeons. To illustrate the regard in which they are held by their fellows, a story is told of a Southern practitioner of some note, who, finding himself compelled to undergo a serious abdominal operation, went to New Orleans to put himself in the hands of a celebrated specialist. He found the specialist's office closed on account of illness. There was a fine operator at Memphis. Thither the patient went only to be confronted with the announcement: " Away for a month." Cincinnati was his next stop. The man he wanted to see there was in Europe. He telegraphed to the Mayos and took a train for Rochester.
"You've come quite a distance, Doctor," said the superintendent, who greeted him.
"Yes ; but not direct," replied the Southerner. " Frankly, I intended to go to Dr. M-
of New Orleans, but failed to find him."
"Yes," said the superintendent. "He's been here for ten days and is convalescent now."
"Then," pursued the patient, "I tried Dr. S-of Memphis, but-"
" He'll be able to see you by the time you're able to see him," said the smiling superintendent. " He's in the second room down the hall."
" You haven't got Dr. L-of Cincinnati,
here, have you ?" asked the other, looking at him suspiciously. "They told me he was in Europe."
"He is, by this time. We shipped him off last week to recuperate after a gastrot-omy operation."
What Surgery Does to the Human Stomach
The stomach proper has ceased to be a serious problem to the surgeon. He can invade and explore it with impunity. He can even, if circumstances demand, relieve the owner of it entirely, and so arrange the loose ends that the functions of nutrition are successfully maintained. To be sure, the patient can never thereafter derive much pleasure from his meals ; he must restrict himself to a rigid diet; but for all the other affairs of life he may be as competent as before. There are, to-day, several stomachless men who are earning their daily predigested ration in occupations varying from clerk to expressman.
A common stomach ailment, and one which in the long run often proves fatal, is gastric ulcer. About ninety per cent of these ulcers occur near the end of the stomach, where it opens into the smaller intestine. When healed, the sore leaves a scar which contracts the walls of the stomach, narrowing the exit and thus causing disturbances ranging from slight discomfort to poisoning and death. In serious cases the method of treatment has been to cut out the ulcer or scar—a complicated and dangerous resource because of the proximity to the solar plexus, which (as everyone knows, since Mr. Fitzsimmons operated upon Mr. Corbett at Carson City, for the removal of a championship belt) is a nerve center highly susceptible to shock.
Several years ago a German surgeon, named Wolfler, contrived an operation which is nothing more nor less than a skilful plumbing device. He cut a hole in the stomach in front of the ulcer, clipped off the smaller intestine, and spliced the two together with a Murphy button, leaving the ulcer to take care of itself. This process short-circuited the food route. The ulcer, relieved of irritation from the passing over of food, soon healed; the resultant contraction didn't matter because the old exit was«now out of commission, and the system of plumbing promptly took its place among recognized useful operations. A record of twenty-five cases operated on previous to 1875 for ulcers and strictures of the stomach, shows a result of twenty-five
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deaths. Now, the process is not regarded as dangerous.
A Strong-Stomached Patient
What a long-suffering receptacle the human stomach may be, is shown in the case of a young man named Fasel, who came to St. John's Hospital, Brooklyn, in 1900, and asked to be operated on for indigestion.
"Nonsense," said the house-surgeon. "We don't operate for indigestion. What have you been eating that hasn't agreed with you ?"
" I think it was the brass watch chain, but it may have been the horseshoe nails," said the patient.
After locating a mass of foreign substance with the X-ray, they opened him and listed the following miscellany : Six hair-pins, two horseshoe nails, eleven two-and-a-half-inch wire nails, one two-inch wire nail, two door keys, two steel watch chains, one brass watch chain, one imitation diamond finger ring, and a hundred and twenty-nine pins.
In a month he was back at the dime museum. Four years later his stomach again rebelled, and the surgeons found the following evidence that he had made alterations in his diet : Six knives, one door key, one desk key, four Yale keys, one gold plated watch chain, one key-ring chain, fourteen wire nails, one button-hook, four horseshoe nails, and two pins. Fasel was broken in health and declared his intention of giving up his freak trade.
Antiseptic Surgery of the Abdominal Organs
Before the discovery of antiseptics, operations upon the intestines were practically hopeless, as blood-poisoning from the action of the colon bacillus, always present in the intestine, almost invariably followed. For some years after the use of antiseptics, intestinal surgery was ventured upon only when there was no other chance of life. Doctors were helpless in cases of perforation. "If you want to kill your man sure," was a Western desperado's counsel, "don't shoot at his head or his heart, shoot at his belly." Sound advice up to the middle eighties, when Dr. William T. Bull was the visiting surgeon at the Chambers Street Hospital, New York City. Several slums delivered the products of debate to this institution, and Dr. Bull had unusual opportunities for studying bullet and knife wounds from 'longshore and the Italian quarters. In a few isolated cases
hitherto, perforations of the intestines had been sewed up, usually without success. Dr. Bull decided to try it systematically. He found that cases which weren't operated on all died, usually of peritonitis caused by the leakage of the bowels into the abdominal cavity. So he opened up the cavity, washed it out with sterilized water, and sewed up the intestine. The first case recovered. The second died. The third died. Some of Dr. Bull's associates became discouraged. But he kept on, and presently the hospital records showed a mortality reduced from nearly one hundred per cent to below fifty per cent. Steadily the mortality has declined, until now, in this class of cases, some hospitals show a rate of only twenty-five per cent. In these experiments was formulated a principle which has since become fundamental in all intestinal surgery : that the chances of recovery bear a direct and vital relation to the promptness of operation.
Like the stomach, the kidneys are practically a solved problem, surgically speaking. Formerly they were regarded with the same awe as the heart, so far as major operating is concerned. The sufferer from stone, ulcer, or tumor in the kidney was left to die. Then it was found that where one kidney was removed, the other would shoulder the extra working, and for a time the laboratories were enriched by large accessions of these useful organs. Here again conservative surgery called a halt. Nowadays the surgeon knows that the patient can get along better without the disease than without his kidney. The stone, ulcer, or what not is removed, and the organ left. Mortality, ten per cent — a considerable reduction from the former one hundred per cent.
Another interesting treatment is the handling of floating kidneys. In this disease the organ gets loose from its attachments and moves about, to the discomfiture of the other organs and the deterioration of its own habits. The old treatment was to put a painfully tight belt about the patient's stomach, which tended to give him or her a sylphlike form, considerable personal discomfort, and a permanent difficulty of digestion, but had no other effect whatsoever. To handle a floating kidney now the doctor makes an incision along an established and unvarying line, catches his kidney, then sews it firmly to the adjacent wall. Thus inhibited from vagrancy it adjusts itself to regular habits [pgbrk]
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again. Besides being simple the scheme is commonly successful.
Life Brought Back after the Heart is Stilled
Much that is interesting has been done in surgery of the heart, but unfortunately it is interesting rather than important in a general sense. Fifteen years ago a surgeon would no more have thought of taking out a man's heart than of giving him an ounce of prussic acid. Within three years, however, this feat has been successfully performed. A negro, stabbed in the heart, walked to a Philadelphia hospital, a block away. The chest was opened and the heart carefully lifted out and laid on the breast, where the wound was stitched up. Then the organ, which had never stopped beating, was replaced and the cavity closed. Against the opinion of all concerned in the operation the man recovered. A similar case of stab wound of the heart was successfully treated by suture in St. Louis, and there have since been several other instances. In cases of collapse from chloroform, a sensational method of restoring life—for it amounts to that — has been described by Dr. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, who stands in the first rank of American practitioners. This consists in opening the chest, inserting the hand and exerting pressure upon the heart from inside while, with the other hand, counter pressure is exerted from the outside. In four cases out of twenty-seven, where the heart had actually ceased to beat, the mechanism responded and the patient returned to life. One of these four cases was successful after the last natural beat had been given two minutes before the artificial pressure began.
As a remedy for structural disease of the heart, however, surgery is hopeless of accomplishing anything. It is impossible to get inside of the organ without causing death. Nevertheless, one very serious form of heart disease, hitherto regarded as hopeless, has been found susceptible to a highly ingenious surgical device. This is where the heart is united to the rigid wall of the chest by adhesion, causing it constantly to pull against the chest and resulting in painful breathing, dropsy, enlargement of the liver, and eventually death. To break up the adhesions would be fatal. But the heart must be free to move, so the surgeon cuts the chest wall above the heart away fr`om the remainder of the chest, permitting the detached portion to
move freely in accord with the throbs. Five cases of this unusual operation are on record : in all of them there has been great relief, and in two, apparent cure.
Among the Mysteries of the Brain
American brain surgery started in a Massachusetts stone-quarry. An Irish laborer, jamming a crowbar into a hole where part of a charge of dynamite was lying in wait, produced the logical result, the crowbar entering the head at the side of the jaw and projecting a foot out beyond the vault of the skull. The foreman notified the coroner; someone else sent for a doctor. The doctor got there first, removed the crowbar and took the patient to the hospital, where, to the amazement of the entire profession, the man recovered. Up to that time the brain substance had been regarded as prohibited territory, but, the doctors reasoned, surely a surgeon's knife can go where a one-inch crowbar can pass without fatal results.
The golden age of brain surgery seemed dawning. It was a false hope. There are few practitioners of this specialty, I think, who would be willing, for the honor of their profession, to have the history of the following decade of experimentation frankly related. Insanity, idiocy, and death were the results which brought the adventurous operators to their better senses and to this conclusion : that the cerebellum, or lower lobe of the brain, in which lie the nerve centers, can never be touched by the knife with impunity, and that only as the last hope and on the surest diagnosis should the knife be used there. For, even though the operator, pushing boldly in where, to quote Sir Astley Cooper, "there is only the thinness of paper between eternity and his instrument," evade adroitly the infinitely delicate mechanism that controls life itself ; even though his completed task be followed by no hemorrhage, as is usually the fatal case ; yet such is the nature of the substance on which he operates, that the scar he leaves is in itself hardly less baneful than the eradicated injury. Surgery of the cerebellum has hardly gone beyond diagnosis. Wonderful indeed is this diagnosis, which traces a sensation at the finger-tip, along the infinitely diversified telegraph system of the nerves, to its destination in the recesses of the brain ; or refers the sudden twitching of a toe-muscle to stimulation of some exactly defined portion of the cerebral apparatus. But, except in the
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case of a few maladies like epilepsy, or injuries producing removable pressure from without upon the brain substance, it indicates no cure. The area of knowledge is small, the area of ignorance great, and the best men dare prophesy no radical progress.
Long Distance Operating
With the surroundings of the brain proper it is not so. Here we see remarkable achievements, some of them in operations performed half a body's length from the disturbed organ. Between the brain proper and its lining is a shallow sea of fluid which extends all the way down the hollow inside of the spine, around the spinal cord. If this fluid becomes deranged or compressed the brain is affected. Now, in one part of the head this liquid substance constitutes a little spirit-level, like a carpenter's level, which serves to keep the human machine properly balanced. Sometimes the fluid in this level increases beyond the normal capacity. Then the patient is annoyed by constant ringing in the ears and presently becomes subject to severe and dangerous vertigo. This is because the unconscious sense of balance is disturbed. A few years ago the medical faculty were at a loss for a cure. Now they know that the brain fluids may be controlled from the spine. So they tap the victim of the deranged spirit-level near the base of the spine, draw off the surplus fluid, and send him on his way, relieved, balanced, and rejoicing. This lumbar tapping promises to be the most important advance yet made in the department of the brain, for not only is it employed in relieving and curing certain brain ailments, but it is of inestimable value in the diagnosing of meningitis, abscesses, and other cerebral diseases ; the examination of the fluid drawn from the spine, in fact, affording diagnosis for all brain diseases other than the purely nervous affections.
The dura mater, or outer lining of the brain, which encloses this fluid, is susceptible to various operations, the chief one being for Jacksonian epilepsy, which is caused by the pressure of the lining down upon the brain, usually from some injury affecting the skull. Trephining for epilepsy hardly has place in a consideration of modern surgery, since it is older than the records of mankind. Trephined skulls of prehistoric periods have been found; the only change is improvement in diagnosis and in technical skill. In the region of the ear,
a number of important cerebral operations have recently been devised, such as opening the veins that drain the brain to relieve inflammation (a process, until recently, considered fatal) and draining brain abscesses through the ear cavity. In fact the whole tendency of late has been to reach the cerebellum through the mastoid cavity back of t'he ear, rather than by cutting through the skull.
Insanity proper is beyond reach of the knife. But in the records are a few curious instances where it has been indirectly cured
by operation, of which the case of Mr. N-,
of Philadelphia, is typical. One day he had an attack of earache, and after it stopped he began to hear voices. These voices were, as he expressed it, "all wicked." They overwhelmed him with abuse, vilification, and threats. In the course of time they drove him insane. He attempted suicide. His family were about to send him to an asylum, when one of the attending physicians suggested an attempt to remove the cause of the voices. This was, as he inferred, an inflammation of the nerve, producing a sound within the ear which the brain of the sufferer interpreted as voices. By a simple operation the trouble was corrected, the voices
silenced, and Mr. N-was saved from the
asylum and was, at latest accounts, back at his business.
Operations to Make Life Endurable
A case of similar nature, but much more difficult, is, at the present writing, interesting New York medical circles. Mr. C-,
a wealthy Hebrew merchant, developed a buzzing in one ear which increased until, to use his own description, it was like a locomotive blowing off steam within a yard of him. There was even the same sub-concussion. From an annoyance this grew to be unbearable torture. He became unable to fix his attention upon the most ordinary conversation. Sound sleep was impossible. For more than a year he has done nothing more than doze, for the noise never for an instant stops. On three different occasions he has attempted suicide. He is now practically a maniac.
The case has been diagnosed as inflammation of the auditory nerve, at some point within the brain. Although no actual sound is produced, the irritation is transmitted along the nerve to the brain as a loud and incessant noise. The problem is to find the
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inflamed portion of the nerve and cut it out. Theoretically this would not be a dangerous process, but the actual difficulties are great, for if the operator reach the nerve through the upper portion of the brain there is the peril of hemorrhage, whereas, if the incision be made through the cerebellum, the compression of this susceptible and little comprehended portion of the brain is likely to interfere permanently with the vital functions. German operators have succeeded in excising diseased portions of the auditory nerve with curative results, but the patient died from the effects. However, it is probable that Mr. C-will be operated on, as
he is doomed unless relief from the noise can be afforded. An experiment in Boston has shown that eradication of the ear-drum is unavailing in cases of this sort.
The most agonizing disease known to medical science is tic doloureux, or tri-facial neuralgia. All the nerves of the face are involved in the exquisite agony. One of the specialists at the Johns Hopkins Hospital estimates that ninety per cent of those upon whom this dreadful ailment fixes itself either commit suicide or go insane. I remember a clue which he gave me to a much talked of accident, where a prominent New Yorker, after a few days' illness, had "fallen" out of his own fifth floor window.
"Where you find a case of a man not insane accidentally tumbling out of a high window," said this doctor, "you can pretty safely diagnose it as tri-facial neuralgia. No other agony, mental or physical, will so surely drive a sufferer to that form of suicide."
Medicine knew no cure and but little alleviation for this. When the nerve functions were accurately mapped out it was found that the ganglion lying almost in the midline of the skull, on its floor, was the point of convergence of the sensory nerves of the face. If this could be removed, all but the deepest seated cases of tri-facial neuralgia could be relieved. But would the patient survive? Much discussion followed the suggestion. On the theory that the victim's life was not worth living, and with the full consent of a patient who gladly accepted any chance of relief, even with death as the probable alternative, a daring surgeon undertook the feat. It was triumphantly successful. The patient's face is now dead so far as any sensation is concerned, a condition not without its dangers, but there is
no loss of motor ability. Since then this delicate experiment, calling for a high degree of exactness and technical skill, has been performed often enough to be established as a regular operation.
Dr. Lorenz and the American Orthopedists
Orthopedic science received a decided impetus in America from the visit of the famous Dr. Lorenz, of Vienna, last year. His operations for the relief of congenital dislocation of the hip joint by manipulation, transferred to the category of operable diseases a malady hitherto set down as hopeless. Not all of his operations were successful, but many of them were. His method calls for no surgical instrument; only his wonderful hands, comparable, so an anatomist tells me, to no others except the hands of the steel-sinewed Paderewski. Exerting his phenomenal muscular power, Lorenz kneads and stretches the hip until muscles, ligaments, and arteries are gradually elongated : then, with a final effort, he draws forward the displaced joint and it retracts into the socket. For his first exposition in this country, at the New York Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, Doctors Gibney and Whitman, perhaps the most eminent American orthopedic specialists, presented an eight-year-old child from one of the wards. The child was etherized and placed upon the table, and Dr. Lorenz began, talking as he worked. He seemed to exert no special effort, yet, at the end of five minutes there was a distinct click, and the physicians present broke into applause. They recognized the sound as the snapping of the bone into place.
An invited guest who was near the platform, turned to a physician near him and asked :
"Why did they give him so easy a case ?"
"Easy !" exclaimed the physician. "That's one of the worst subjects in the hospital. Some of our best men have worked over that child until they had to stop from exhaustion, and without the slightest result."
Wherever Dr. Lorenz went it was the same; he successfully reduced dislocations that had defied the best efforts of others. Undoubtedly this is due to his remarkable physical power as well as his skill. His is an individual system ; the regular practitioner can never achieve his results, but if, in the present generation, only one man with the necessary physique shall be inspired to
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acquire the technical skill, hundreds and perhaps thousands of pitifully crippled children can be made sound, and Lorenz's visit will have been inestimably valuable.
For a time, it must be confessed, the harmful effects of his work here seemed to overbalance the good, and from this arose unjustified criticisms of the great Viennese. Many little sufferers were put through agonizing courses of treatment by well-meaning but incompetent followers of Lorenz, and sometimes in disregard of the principles which he laid down, such as that no child more than ten years old should be subjected to this form of treatment. Not the system but the violations of it were responsible for evil results.
Making the Halt to Walk
For the relief of club-footed children some remarkable expedients have been devised in tendon transplantation. Club-foot is caused by paralysis of the muscles on one side of the leg, while the other side is normal. Now, every person has more muscles leading to the foot than he actually needs. That is, if we were deprived of the tendons enabling us to wiggle our toes we should still be able to make a living, and would not even be deprived of many of the pleasures of life. On this principle the surgeon takes his club-footed patient, cuts certain of the tendons which can be spared from the normal side of the foot, carries them around the leg, and unites them to the dead muscles with a length of silk cord. Soon the foot assumes its normal shape, and though it is never quite as good as an ordinary foot, it transforms a pitiful cripple into a sound, healthy child with nothing worse than a slight limp.
More radical than the transplanting of tendons is the grafting of nerves for infantile palsy, the disease which causes a majority of the world's cripples. It is yet too early to predict success for this, but a very remarkable case is contained in the recent records of the Philadelphia Polyclinic Hospital. The subject was a four-year-old girl. Examination showed that the nerve controlling the movements of the foot, which forks just below the knee, was dead. The operator exposed the dead branch, clipped it off close to the main stem, opened a path to the corresponding nerve branch on the opposite side of the leg, and spliced the dead nerve into the living. A month later the plaster of paris cast was removed from the limb, and the foot, which was helpless before, moved at the
owner's control. Should the promise of this operation be verified in other cases, results of incalculable value in the relief of suffering may be looked for.
It is along lines of mechanical skill and contrivance that surgery of the limbs and minor organs has achieved its brilliant results. Ingenuity is here the keynote of success. Hip joint or knee joint fractures or diseases, and congenital deformities, present puzzling and occasionally insoluble problems; but, generally speaking, the modern orthopedic specialist can handle the human subject with almost the certainty that a watchmaker exhibits in his craft. If the deranged machinery is repairable, he will repair it; if it isn't, he will fix up a substitute.
Commonest of the ailments to which the human limb is subject, is tuberculosis of the joints. This is caused by the same bacillus which kills one out of every ten Americans by consumption. Formerly, in advanced cases, the leg or arm was amputated ; then the operation was reduced to excising the diseased joint. Now the surgeon begins with iodoform injections which sometimes cure, and if this fails, he takes out only such portion of the joint as is actually diseased, leaving the member still fit for modified use. There are cases of extirpation of the elbow joint and the contrivance of an artificial joint from the cartilage and the ends of the bones, where the patient retained control of his hand and was able to perform any ordinary work. Where the limb cannot be preserved the next best thing is an aluminium limb. In this line America easily leads all other nations. A graduate of one of our hospitals, who has two aluminium legs, is able, not only to walk perfectly well, but even to run. Another ex-patient carries on the business of a pharmacist and compounds medicines, including the delicate weighing, with two artificial hands. Repairing surface wounds by grafting five skin from healthy subjects is so common as hardly to occasion mention. It is not so well known that this has been successfully performed to line the inner cavity of the ear, after removal of the drum. An operation which has become classic is the metamorphosis of a finger into a nose for those who have been born without or lost that facial promontory. The third finger of the left hand is the one usually selected. The end is trimmed off, the forehead opened, the finger inserted in the opening, and the arm supported with
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splints. Thus the patient remains, facing an untoward fate in the posture of derision, until union is obtained. Then the finger is cut off from the hand and, with the bone for a bridge, almost any kind of a nasal organ that the patient may order is contrived. This has been done many times with success. A case was reported from New Orleans some time ago where a newly arrived resident scandalized the community by sprouting a finger-nail from his left nostril; but no one need believe this who doesn't want to. Artificial jaw-bones have been made and successfully used in rare cases, for many years. A recent contrivance in the case of extirpation of the larynx because of cancer, is the provision of a new larynx by surgical rearrangement of the throat. The patient has to learn speech by a new method.
Yankee Ingenuity in Surgery
Not alone in surgery of the extremities, however, has Yankee handicraftmanship played an important part. Murphy, of Chicago, in a speech once suggested the following explanation of American surgery's tremendous progress in recent years : that this is the golden age of mechanics and America its natural home, and that surgical progress has been largely the result of applying mechanical principles to the solution of pathologic problems. Hardly an advance of importance has been made in mechanical science but that surgery has had some profit of it. The list is too long for more than a few instances. No sooner had the electric light come into general use than surgeons devised tiny lamps for the exploration of internal troubles. These are inserted through the incisions and are one of the greatest aids to the operator. Incases of stomach diagnosis the tiny lamp is pushed down the throat without serious inconvenience. Bell's notable invention has been applied to surgery, in the telephone-probe. When a bullet or other bit of metal is imbedded in the body and cannot readily be found, a fine needle attached to a tiny battery with a telephone receiver, is inserted. If the needle touches a bone there is no response, but the instant it meets with metal the current is completed and the warning "click" is carried to the operator's ear. Dennis, of New York, reports a case where an O'Dwyer tracheotomy tube (itself a device which, by affording an air passage to the lungs when the throat is closed by diphtheria or other cause, has
saved thousands of lives) had slipped down the patient's throat, and was located by the telephone after all other means had failed. The X-ray is commonly and successfully used to locate foreign substances beyond the reach of the probe. Intestinal operations have been enormously simplified by the Murphy button, a two-part silver cylinder which is riveted by pressure on a screw surface. The severed ends of an intestine are caught in the cylinders and joined in such a way that they unite in healing, after which the button passes out through the intestine. This jointure with the Murphy button takes two minutes, as against twenty or thirty for the old method of sewing, and the mortality is greatly reduced.
Time Saving in Operations
This matter of time saving, by the way, is one of the most important considerations in all surgery. Any major operation lasting more than an hour and a half entails an additional risk; in operations of long duration the chances of recovery are comparatively small. This is due to shock, to the cumulative effect of the anesthetic, to loss of blood, and to lowering of the patient's temperature by the exposure of internal areas to the air. Because of this the best surgeons work with a mechanical precision and economy of movement. Everything is ready before the operation commences ; an assistant is at hand to look after the details of actual work, such as holding back the edges of the incision, adjusting the ligatures, etc.; an expert in anesthesia handles the chloroform and watches the subject's pulse and respiration, in order that the operator's time may be devoted wholly to one point, and a deft nurse, adept in the use of every instrument, needle, and chemical preparation, is at the surgeon's elbow, ready to hand out at a word — sometimes before the word —the shining implements already filed in the order of their probable use.
Two visiting surgeons, at one of the New York hospitals, got a markedly varying percentage of mortality in a common abdominal operation.
"What is the difference between the two operators ?" I asked of one of the house staff in attendance.
"About twenty minutes," he said succinctly.
Sometimes this very swiftness defeats its own end, as in the case last year of a surgeon
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who, after performing a hospital operation for intestinal trouble, was unable to find his forceps. Some weeks later the patient, who had made a fair recovery, complained of pain and swelling at a point near the waist line. Examination showed a peculiar formation there. The man was cut open and the lost forceps found inside. The surgeon had absent-mindedly laid them down and forgot to take them up again. But for the fact that they were sterilized the patient would have died of blood-poisoning. Owing to accidents of this sort, it is now the custom to make an inventory of all implements and sponges used in an operation.
The Surgeon and the Public
With increased knowledge, the attitude of the surgeon toward the public is changing. Men like Murphy of Chicago, Keen of Philadelphia, Kelly of Baltimore, and Richardson of Boston, are in revolt, more or less open, against the old tenet that the truths of medical science must not be profaned by exposure to the ignorant lay mind. Within certain limits, they are making good use of the public press on a principle which 1 recently heard expressed thus :
"It is an axiom of surgical practice that the earlier the case is taken, the better the chance of success. It follows that, if we can educate the public in the matter of the common surgical ailments, our patients will come to us more promptly, and we can get better results. Besides, with the mystery dissipated, the terror of operations will be greatly diminished. Take a very common case: appendicitis. I venture to say that the majority of persons believe the operation for appendicitis a very dangerous one. In point of fact, the mortality is less than in diseases which are not feared at all: measles, for instance, or whooping-cough. Could we implant that fact in the public mind and get all our appendicitis cases early, instead of at the last development as many of them now come to us, we could reduce the present low mortality by half. The policy of silence is a relic. It was made for the days when a physician who talked exposed his ignorance. Surgery is no longer empirical: we know what we are doing and we can afford to tell it."
To prophesy that any science has reached its highest development is hazardous. Near-
ly a century ago, Boyer, a distinguished French scientist wrote: "Surgery, in our day, appears to have attained, or nearly so, the highest perfection of which it is capable." And at that time surgery, in its modern sense, did not exist! Yet, to-day, there is no high authority in America who does not believe that on the side of technique the surgeon of to-day has almost reached the limit, and that modern surgery is a craft perfected.
Regarding it as a science the forelook is not so clear. Medical genius built for the operative branch of the profession its foundation in the discovery of anesthetics and antiseptics. The surgeon has developed his art as far as may be within these limits. Now he waits and looks to the chemist and bacteriologist. The great desideratum is a serum which shall conquer the different kinds of blood-poisoning as effectually as the diphtheria anti-toxin has won the battle from that once terrible scourge. Antisepsis is only a preventive, and it does not always prevent. Once provide for the surgeon a guard against blood-poisoning and he can successfully perform any operation which the diagnostician dare point out. In the process of time the surgeon will become more and more his own diagnostician, as the masters of the guild now are. Otherwise he degenerates into a mere tinker, a repairer of the human machine working by the light of another man's vision. Senn, of Chicago, has pointed out this danger, in biting words :
"We have waded through the slough of fads. We have left behind us such errors as opening the skull for idiocy, and in hundreds of insane asylums the needless victims of our rage for ovariotomy mark the path by which we have come back to rational methods in gynecology. There are still many who, led into surgery by the hope of rich rewards, have had no time to learn its scientific principles. Brilliant operators, they diagnose with the knife. Remember this : that, with rare exceptions, the knife should never be taken up until the trouble is determined. The time for conservatism has come. We are here to assist nature, not to dictate. The great art of modern surgery is to limit operations to the cases where they can be of benefit."
[pgbrk] THREE TOES
BY
FREDERICK E. SCOTFORD
ILLUSTRATED BY PHILIP R. GOODWIN
BY the mischance of a rifle shot which deprived her of her mother when she was less than three months old, Three Toes' early education was cut short just at that delightful period when she learned that there are lovely white grubs and delicious little ants in rotten logs ; that a dainty lot of bugs and ants of a larger variety are found under stones; that blueberries are delightful to the taste, but eaten too freely bring on a colic which it takes much chewing of the bark of a young cedar to allay ; and that frogs and dead fish, provided they are not too dead, help to make a cub bear spry and strong.
Of the deeper lore of the wilds, which teaches of men, and dogs, and traps, she knew nothing.
One day in the late fall a new smell greeted her nose — a smell which thrilled her through and through and sent the wet pink lining of her nostrils into a multitude of ecstatic wrinkles.
Up the wind she trotted, into a neighboring thicket, and was not long in discovering a dripping lump of honeycomb, hanging by the side of a tree.
Now, any well-educated young bear would have detected the clumsily hidden trap immediately. This bear had never heard of traps or the men who set them, and as she upreared beside the tree to reach for the dainty, a trap closed upon her left hind foot.
For two whole days and nights the cub struggled and tore at the cruel steel, and in a frenzy of rage pulled up every shrub and plant within reach, and chewed and clawed the bark from everything too large to uproot.
At dawn of the third day the approach of the owner of the trap roused her to one last, desperate effort and, summoning all her remaining strength, she tore the foot from the
jaws, leaving two toes and a mass of hair and bleeding flesh in its cruel clutch.
In her weakened condition she was easily overtaken and captured, and for six months led a hateful life, chained to the logs of a settler's cabin.
That these months were not wasted was shown in her later life. The knowledge she had gained of men and dogs stood her in good stead during many a foraging expedition, and her familiarity with the house, in the end, contributed largely to her downfall.
Her hatred of men increased as her fear grew less, and there was little sorrow in the cabin one morning when the broken strap, which had served as a collar, explained her absence.
But a new name had come into the bush, for from the day, a few weeks later, when she raided Bud Fannister's pig-pen and made off with a suckling porker, she was known as the three-toed bear, and ultimately as Three Toes.
The spring David Henderson and his young wife, Molly, took up a homestead on the North fork of the Saskatchewan, Three Toes was ranging miles away along the lower river where natural food was abundant, and the more thickly settled condition of the country offered superior advantages in the way of fat shotes and an occasional beehive.
Among the wedding gifts of the Hendersons was a runt pig, sent by a neighbor with a reputation for stinginess, and, as it was openly hinted that he had been selected because it was thought impossible to fatten him for the market, Molly christened him Belshazzar, "for," said she, "he has been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
When the newly-married couple left the settlements to carve a home and fortune from the wilderness, Belshazzar went with them, and, being fed with mast from the surrounding hills, grew as only a pig can after he gets a fair start.
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By the last of October, when the first snow came, the warm log-cabin was up and well chinked and banked ; a comfortable stable of poles, roofed with saplings and sods, sheltered the oxen, and Belshazzar rejoiced in a commodious pen behind the stable.
One evening, after the supper dishes had been cleared away, and David and Molly sat watching the ruddy flames leap up the throat of the wide fireplace, David broke the silence by saying :
"I believe I'll take the wagon and drive over to Howard's to-morrow, and borrow their cauldron. If I wait much longer there's likely to be a snow so deep I can't use the wagon, and besides, Belshazzar is as big and fat as he will get this year, and we can't winter him, even if we want to. I want to get him salted down before cold weather sets in for keeps.
" By the way, I saw a big bald-face to-day over in the timber, near the back-clearing. I didn't get a shot at him, because my rifle was a couple of rods away against a stump. Before I could reach it he was gone."
"I saw him, too, just for a minute," said Molly, "down by the spring. He was so big he scared me. You know what Sandy Mc-Leod told us when we were coming out from Saskatoon ; maybe 'twas Three Toes."
" Fiddlesticks," retorted David. "I have my doubts about the existence of any such ferocious bear as McLeod told of. Possibly there is a bear with only three toes on one of her feet, but you must remember, my dear, that these old trappers and voyageurs are fond of telling hair-raising stories, and can't tell the truth if they try. I only wish this Three Toes they tell about would make us a call. She'd be fine eating this winter."
It was an all-day trip to and from the Howard place, and after David was gone Molly, busy with her housework and winter sewing, scarcely noticed the flying hours, until it was almost dark and she commenced the preparation of the evening meal. She sung as she worked, and from time to time went to the door to listen for the slow, jolting, creaking rattle which would herald from afar David's approach over the rough bit of corduroy road which crossed a low place in the muskeg.
"Why doesn't David come? 1 wonder what keeps him so late. Surely he should have been here an hour ago. I'll just give
him a good- "
But whether she intended to add, "scold-
ing," or "supper," can only be surmised, for at that moment a terrible uproar arose from the pig-pen, and Molly stopped abruptly to listen.
Evidently Belshazzar was in trouble.
He was squealing, as Molly afterward said, "like a dozen pigs."
"Another porcupine, of course," she exclaimed, and throwing her shawl over her head, she picked up her broom as the handiest weapon of offense, and ran in the direction of the noise.
Around the corner of the stable she sped, and fairly ran against a huge, bald-face bear, walking man-fashion, and carrying the still struggling pig in her powerful embrace.
Molly instinctively recoiled a step and stood, mute with fear, almost paralyzed by the awfulness of the predicament in which she found herself.
The bear seemed equally surprised, and dropped the crippled hog, at the same time uttering a " hoo-woo-oo-oof" of consternation. It was the first time since her escape from the settler, two years before, that she had been face to face with a human being.
Perhaps it was instinct, or it may be that it was a memory of that morning when she had torn her foot from the trap, and the hateful months of captivity which followed, that caused the terrible paw to strike out, and so great was the force of the blow that Molly spun into the bushes twenty feet away, bleeding and unconscious, while the bear picked up Belshazzar and ambled off into the bush, with a new and strange idea in her head.
She had learned that human beings are no more proof against the blow which will fell a moose or an elk, than any other creatures.
A half-an-hour later the noisy complaint of the ox-drawn wagon sounded near at hand, and the "haw, Buck, gee Bright," gave way to a cheery call through the gathering gloom.
"Oh, Molly, is supper ready? I'm as hungry as a bear."
A moment later the wagon entered the little clearing, and David's eyes sought the house. He fully expected to see Molly shading a light in the doorway. Instantly he noted the unnatural silence and the absence of light from window or door.
"Molly! Oh, Molly," he shouted. "What's the matter, girl? Are you asleep? I'm tired and cold and hungry."
By this time the oxen had stopped before the door, and David, his mind filled with unformed misgivings, alighted and entered,
[pgbrk] 495
THREE TOES
only to find the fire almost out and Molly gone.
As the little home marked the end of the trail, David knew she could not have gone far by the road without meeting him, and a great fear chilled him as he pictured Molly lost in the woods, a prey for wolves and other prowling creatures, made bold by the night.
Although the evening was cloudy, the snow threw a ghostly light over everything not in the shadow, and without waiting to stable the patient oxen, he took his rifle and stepped out into the night.
" Molly ! Oh, Molly !" he called, and stood breathless, straining his hearing for an answer.
The only sound which broke the evening stillness was the hateful and fear-breeding killing-cry of a wolf off in the hills.
"Molly! Oh, Molly!" The call was repeated. Still no reply.
" I can never track her in this snow, at night," he said. "As soon as I get into the bush it will be as dark as a pocket. Perhaps she went to the stable for eggs, and hurt herself." And with sickening certainty that this could not be so, he turned in that direction.
" I should never have left her here alone all day," he almost sobbed. "God knows what has happened to her. If she's lost in the bush she'll freeze to death, even if she should escape the wolves."
The stable was empty. He stood in the door and once more raised his voice in that hopeless call : "Molly ! Oh, Molly !"
A silence, such as only the trackless bush can boast, was his reply.
Mechanically following the path which led to the pig-pen, his foot caught in something soft, and he stooped and picked up the shawl which had been torn from Molly's head by the blow that had rendered her unconscious.
An irregular blotch in the snow caught his eye. He struck a match and his heart almost stopped beating as the blotch, under the light, glowed into a pool of blood. The man-like tracks of the bear told the rest of the story, and the picture of Molly dragged bleeding into the bush, the prey to a bear, fired him to frenzy.
How plainly the whole horrible tragedy stood before him! Molly had gone to feed the pig and had been attacked by a bear which she had caught trying to make off with Belshazzar.
"I'll get a torch and follow that bear until
I kill him or he kills me," he exclaimed, and was turning to hurry to the house when a movement in the brush near at hand brought his rifle to his cheek and his heart to his throat.
The moaning plea, " Davy, where am I ? I'm cold, Davy. Help me, dearie," caused him to drop his gun, and Molly was gathered tenderly into the strong arms and carried gently to her bed.
An examination showed that she was not seriously injured. The blow, although of terrific power, had been a glancing one, and had been deadened to some extent by the heavy shawl. The shawl, also, had prevented the chisel-like claws from cutting very deeply, and beyond a few light scratches and a dislocated shoulder the blow had done no damage.
By the morning light, David found and studied the footprints of the bear and knew that Three Toes was no myth.
II
After the untimely end of Belshazzar, occasional reports of the wide-spread depredations of Three Toes reached David, and Molly, but as her raids never again extended as far as the Henderson homestead, and the arrival of little David gave them something outside themselves to think of, the rogue bear of the Saskatchewan was almost forgotten.
Tales of hunters hunted, of trackers baffled, of crippled or missing dogs, and of the almost supernatural cunning of the great hulking brute which had created a veritable reign of terror along the Saskatchewan drifted to the little homestead from time to time, through some wandering hunter, or trapper, but as the weeks rolled into months and the months stretched on to years, Three Toes became little more than an ugly memory — a household tradition.
Bud Fannister, who had hunted bears since he was able to shoulder a gun ; Jean Bourjoise, the cunningest trapper who brought furs to Factor McKenzie, at the fort; Jim Howard, who could drive a nail with a ball from his rifle from a point more distant than most men could see it, and the half-breed Blackfoot, " Fish Eagle," the cleverest tracker in all the great Northwest, pitted their wit and cunning against the strength and sagacity of the bear, and utterly failed.
Bourjoise, the trapper, fairly voiced the sentiment of the region, when, in speaking
[pgbrk] 496
THREE TOES
of his latest adventure with the bear, he
said :
"Zat ol' Tree Toe, he onjoy protection from ze lowaire region. Ze gon is not make, nor ze bullait cast zat can keel heem. For two night an' one day he kip me shot op on ze tree, an' I tail yo' le Diable shine een hees eye laik ze fire coal."
Truly Three Toes seemed to bear a charmed life. Time and again she came within easy range of rifles which could find the eye of a squirrel at twice the distance, and escaped unscathed or with a trifling scratch which, if possible, made her still uglier.
When followed, she would lead her pursuer into a tangle of underbrush, or among the rocks and gullies of her native hills, and doubling back on her track would hide herself within easy reach of the trail; and when the unsuspecting hunter had passed, would rush suddenly and silently up behind him, and he was indeed fortunate who could save himself by swinging into the branches of the nearest tree.
She took a savage delight in concealing herself somewhere along the line of some unfortunate trapper, whence she would deliberately rob every trap of its bait or if she found a mink or an otter fast in the jaws she would maul the carcass beyond the hope of value, and leave it.
Sometimes she rushed the trappers as she did the hunters, and sent them scurrying to the shelter of a friendly tree. Finally she became a veritable scourge, and, even in that region of venturesome men, few trappers went forth alone. This lessened the catch of fur for the district so seriously that Factor McKenzie took upon himself the responsibility of offering a reward of twenty-five dollars to the man who should bring in the pelt of Three Toes.
"She will ruin the post," he reported to his superiors. "No trapper is safe so long as she is alive and she seems to delight in pestering us along every line we are covering."
" Is it possible," came the reply from headquarters, "that your men are all squaws, that you allow a bear to stop the trapping and spoil the season's catch for the post ? Send every mother's son you have out after this so-called terror and keep them out until the pelt comes in. 1 am beginning to think that perhaps we shall need a younger and less timid Factor at Crooked Knee."
McKenzie read, and his wrath was beautiful to behold.
" If there's anything in all this wide world that I hate," said he, "it's the man who from his easy-chair in the settlements calls his underlings hard names for not doing a thing the mere suggestion of which would throw him into a blue funk."
Nevertheless the Factor felt that something must be done at once, and the price on Three Toes' head was increased to fifty dollars, and when that failed to elicit more than an ominous shake of the head from the hunters and trappers, he drove every man of them afield with the promise of an even hundred dollars, cash, to the trapper, hunter, or settler who should produce her pelt.
Two days later Fish Eagle crawled into the post with a shoulder and three ribs broken.
A trapper on Ten Mile Creek was found with just enough breath left in his body to tell how he had caught Three Toes stealing a dead otter from a trap and had been mauled for his pains.
A hunter, when he had been missing from the post two weeks, was tracked and found wandering through the hills, crazy, with one arm useless and his scalp hanging from his skull in ribbons.
A settler, seeking a strayed ox near the outskirts of the post, barely saved his life by scrambling up a small tree within sight of the company store.
This was miles from the North fork of the Saskatchewan, and the Henderson homestead was undisturbed. It was weeks before David and Molly heard of the reward.
"One — hundred — dollars for a bearskin?" said David, '"Tis a small fortune. Why, Molly, your old friend is wearing around with her as much as we have saved in four years. I'm fairly itching to look at her over the sights of my rifle: 'Twould be a blessing if she would make us another visit."
" Don't say that, David," said Molly. "I'm terribly afraid of that old brute. Don't make foolish wishes, dearie. Much as we need the money, 1 need my husband more."
The very next morning, as David was helping Molly strain honey from some comb he had taken from a newly discovered bee-tree, the eldest son of Jim Howard rode up to the cabin with the message that Three Toes had visited their home the night before and made off with a calf, after killing one dog and wounding another.
"Pap has trailed her to where she has got the veal cached," reported the boy, "an' he wants you to come over and watch out with
[pgbrk] " fairly ran against a huge, bald-face bear, walking man-fashion, and carrying the still struggling
fig in her powerful embrace "
[pgbrk] "Time and again she came within easy range of rifles which could find the eye of a squirrel at twice
the distance, and escaped unscathed"
him. She's shore to come to-night for another meal, an' Pap an' you kin shore git 'er."
"I'm afraid to have you go, Dave," said Mrs. Henderson ; "some way that bear has made me nervous. She's crippled so many men and done so much damage that I'm afraid she'll hurt you if you try to kill her. She's not like other bears, David, and what would become of little Davy and me if anything should happen to you?"
"Oh, pshaw, Molly," replied David, tapping his rifle; "if Three Toes once lets me squint along these sights at her, there'll be an opening for ventilation that'll take all the tuck out of her in short meter.
"Howard and I will go together and we will take the hounds if we follow her. She sha'n't get a chance to rush us as she does the hunters who follow her alone. She'll be back to the place where she has cached that calf, it's likely, by dark. You know that's a habit bears have, and it's mighty convenient for hunters."
"You'll not get Three Toes, David," said Molly ; " I have a feeling that something is going to happen. Surely Jim and the boys can get along all right without you to-day, and honestly, Davy, I'm frightened. Don't leave me alone with little David to-day, please."
"What in the world ails you, Molly?" questioned David. "You're not yourself
this morning. Must have climbed out of the wrong side of the bed when you woke up, wifey. I must go. I thought you had lived in the bush long enough to get over being frightened at being alone."
David climbed upon the horse behind the Howard boy. "Good-by, Molly," he called. "Good-by, Davy-boy; take good care of mama while daddy is gone to get a big old Three Toes' skin to wrap the baby Davy in," and the turn in the trail took him out of sight of his wife. Molly stood looking at the point in the bush where he had passed from sight long after the sound of the horse's hoofs had died in the distance. Then with a sigh she turned and entered the house.
By eleven o'clock the honey was strained and sealed securely. Molly carried the heavy jars one by one to the capacious root-house, or out-door cellar, which David had made for her near at hand. This root-house was a rectangular room dug in the clay of the hillside, and "upholstered with slabs," as David expressed it. It was closed by a trap-door placed at an angle of about forty-five degrees.
With so much to do the time passed swiftly, and the sun said it was midday before the last jar of honey had taken its place upon the rough shelf along the rear of the root-house, and Molly found time to begin her preparations for dinner.
[pgbrk] 499
TH REE TOES
"I believe I'll make a good kettleful of porridge," she said to herself; "David is so fond of it fried for breakfast."
The cheerful bubbling of the kettleful of corn meal set Molly to singing as she went quietly about her work.
She took up a pail and started for the spring beyond the barn, singing as she went :
" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide-"
But the stanza was not completed, for as she stooped to dip the water from the spring, she saw a big bear ambling slowly up the path into the clearing. The great head was swaying from side to side, and beyond question bruin was bent on mischief.
As she ran past the stable, Molly stopped long enough to swing the heavy slab door shut, and then ran to the house and barricaded both doors.
There was no window in the rear of the house, looking toward the barn, but the chinking in the logs had worked loose in places, and feeling perfectly secure from attack, Molly peeped through one of these narrow openings at the approaching bear.
She could see him snuffling about the frail walls of the stable, and the terrified bellowing of the oxen, as they strained at the slender stanchions which confined them, told of their alarm.
Molly had seen bears many times before during her four years in the bush, but this bear was as unlike the timid, sneaking beasts she knew, as day is unlike night. There was an unmistakable air of resolution and fearlessness about this one that none of the others had possessed.
Could it be ? Yes, it surely was — Three Toes !
Molly bitterly pictured David miles away, guarding a dead calf, while she was besieged by the very bear he was seeking to kill.
" I wish I had a gun," thought Molly; "I believe I could shoot that ugly old beast right from here."
A crash from the stable told
her that one or both of the oxen had broken the stanchions, and she could hear them racing about the narrow enclosure, snorting and bellowing, half crazed by the smell of the beast outside.
Three Toes was evidently making a critical examination of the structure with a view to forcing an entrance, for she walked slowly around the building, inspecting it from all sides. She even clawed and rattled at the door, but it opened outwardly and her efforts had no other effect than to render the oxen still more frantic.
"scurrying to the shelter of a friendly tree"
[pgbrk] 500
THREE TOES
Failing to open the door, the bear walked deliberately to a corner of the roughly put together structure of large poles, and with a lift and a push forced one of them from its joint. A second, third, fourth and fifth followed and the bear was ready to enter by the opening thus provided.
She thrust her head into the aperture, but before she could get inside one of the oxen charged and sent her back upon her haunches, growling and bristling with rage. Again and again the attempt was made with the same result.
Suddenly the corner of the stable settled, and an avalanche of sods and bark slid from the roof and almost buried her.
Molly could not restrain a laugh as she saw the discomfited brute extricate herself and move off into the bush. She thought the bear had abandoned her raid and gone away in disgust.
She misjudged Three Toes.
Little David had been asleep until now, but he awakened hungry and Molly bade him lie quietly where he was, while she set the table. This done she turned to get him, just in time to see the bear uprear outside the window.
With a little scream of terror she snatched the boy from the bed a second before the bear sent the glass and sash spinning across the room in a thousand pieces with a single blow of her mighty paw.
What if she were to try to enter ?
"I must hide Davy," Molly thought, and she gathered the child into her arms and moved the big clothes chest by the wall farthest from the window.
"Baby must not cry," she said; "there's a bad bear by the window and you must lie as quiet as a mouse until mama takes you out."
Davy, trying to hush his frightened sobs, was laid in the great chest, and the lid was lowered so that only a crack was left for air.
A scratching on the logs and a darkening of the room told her that the bear was trying to enter.
"Oh, God," prayed the frightened mother, "no matter what happens to me, save little David !"
But the bear was not having an easy time getting in, for the window was small, and the massive head and shoulders almost refused to be pushed through it.
Molly had an inspiration. Why not use the boiling mush for a weapon ?
Seizing a ladleful of the scalding mixture,
she walked close to the window and threw it straight into the face of the bear.
With a growl of rage, which terminated in a whimper of pain, Three Toes attempted to retreat, but she was tightly wedged into the narrow opening and before she succeeded in extricating herself Molly had plastered her head and shoulders liberally with the boiling mush and the bear was roaring with pain.
But she was not of the sort of stuff which acknowledges defeat easily, and Molly could see and hear her from the window, growling and whimpering, as she pawed and scratched at the sticky mess.
When the bear again upreared before the open window her face and shoulders were comically streaked with the cold mush, and the wicked mouth drooled hungrily, as she rocked back and forth sniffing eagerly at the opening.
"What can it be that attracts her?" thought Molly. " I wonder if it's the honeycomb ! I believe it is."
She threw a great piece of the still dripping comb out of the window, and the bear immediately began to lick it. For an hour or more she kept her busy in this manner until the slender stock of honeycomb was entirely exhausted.
Would Three Toes again attempt to force an entrance or would she go about her business ?
The question solved itself naturally when the bear sighted the open door of the root-house. She shambled to the hole and stood snuffling eagerly at the honey she could smell within, yet evidently afraid of a trap, for she left the door in an undecided manner and started toward the bush a number of times, only to be lured back again by the odor of her favorite dainty, before she threw caution to the winds, and entered.
A moment after, a crash told Molly that her treasure was discovered.
Another and another crash from the root-house made it evident that the bear was breaking the jars out of pure maliciousness.
"I just believe I could run out and slam that door shut before ever Three Toes can realize what is the matter," Molly said to herself. " I don't believe she could possibly see me, and " — the very magnificence of the idea appalled her — "and if 1 could only keep her shut up in the cellar until David comes, we'd earn that hundred dollars! "
Carefully she removed the barricade from the door, and listened at the window until
[pgbrk] "What if she were to try to enter?'"
another crash showed her that the bear was still busily engaged. She opened the door and slipped out, creeping on hands and knees until she reached the heavy door leading down into the root-house. Exerting her strength to the utmost she managed to slam the great door shut, and before Three Toes had recovered from her surprise and bewilderment, Molly had piled wood upon it from the supply near at hand, until even the gigantic strength of the bear was quite unequal to the task of moving it. Three Toes had reached the end of her
wicked career, and by the irony of fate, retribution had come from a woman.
Molly and David carried the great skin, scarred and ugly, to Factor McKenzie at the post, and as he counted out the money into Molly's hands, the Factor remarked to Jean Bourjoise, who was an interested spectator : "Jean, I should think you trappers and hunters would be shamed to be beaten by a woman."
And again Bourjoise voiced the sentiment of the region when he replied: " I haf alwaysay zat it tak ze womaine to outwit le Diable."
[pgbrk] "'After us,' said the young man, 'the deluge!' "
[pgbrk] THE GOLDEN FLOOD
BY
EDWIN LEFEVRE
AUTHOR OF "WALL STREET STORIES"
ILLUSTRATED BY W. R. LEIGH
PART II
THE GOLD
ON Thursday — the president, a keen psychologist, to reassure the richest man in the world, had jocularly called it Consternation Day — Mr. William Mellen and Mr. Richard Dawson entered the bank. They had ridden from Mr. Mellen's house in Mr. Mellen's brougham. They had discussed Mr. Grinnell at great and painful length many times in that week. In the carriage, on the way downtown, they had talked of nothing else. The president was certain that the mystery no longer was a mystery. The burden of his argument had become that a condition, not a theory, confronted them. The time for idle speculation had passed. It behooved them to act. The lingering indecision of Mr. Mellen did not come from inability to change his lifetime's plans in the twinkling of an eye, but from unwillingness to accept at second-hand the inevitableness of something unspeakably disagreeable. All great business generals are opportunists. But at times the greatest minds work femininely.
"The question of whether he makes his gold or not, or how he gets it, now has merely an academic interest, William. The thing is, that he has the gold." Dawson said it in a playfully exaggerated pedagogical air, yet ready to become deadly earnest in a twinkling.
"I don't see it," said Mellen seriously. "We must find the explanation. What he can do, we can do."
"We have tried."
"We must succeed."
" Your coachman says to himself : ' If Mr. Mellen has made five hundred millions of dollars in thirty years, what he can do, I can do.' Do you see him doing it ? I tell you the man has the gold. He isn't trying to sell us any secret. All he asks is to be let alone. That is the alarming thing. "
" It must be a mine. Where else could so much gold come from ?" Mellen's thoughts were on the source of the gold.
"My dear William, we can account for every ounce of gold produced in the world. There is no mine capable of producing such a quantity secretly."
" He may have hoarded it; accumulated it for months."
"If a mine produced a thousand ounces a month we'd know it; and Grinnell has deposited in our bank and others, as far as I have been able to trace, at the rate of a million ounces a month. He is too young to have hoarded it for years. He has no accomplices. That is certain. He visits nobody, but stays home. His father did not leave it to him. He has not unearthed any secret treasure, and, moreover, there never was or could be a hidden treasure of such magnitude. Why, his gold must weigh something like seventy-five tons ! Nobody could have given it to him, for nobody had it to give except our bank or the Commercial, and we certainly didn't. The Assay Office say Grinnell's is not quite like any of the other bullion that goes to the Assay Office. Its only impurity is a little platinum, and it isn't always present. We know, within a negligible quantity, where almost every ounce of gold in the world is, and who holds
[pgbrk] " Mellen, his gaze fixed on the rug, stepped on alternate squares as he walked up
and down the room"
it. There is not a bank anywhere or a bullion dealer whose supply is not known, approximately, to us. It's my business to know. There's no mystery about that. The mystery is Grinnell's gold supply. He cannot store vast quantities in his house. Our men have been in every room in it. Costello. disguised as a driver from the dealers from whom Grinnell buys his chemical supplies, says there is no place for vaults. The only
alterations made in the house since Grinnell bought it, that he can see, were to transform the basement into a metallurgical laboratory. We can say almost certainly that the gold is melted in his electric furnace. But all that we know positively is this: NOTHING GOES IN, AND GOLD COMES OUT! Grinnell is making it, I tell you."
The president turned to his morning mail. Mellen stopped him.
[pgbrk] 505
EDWIN LEFEVRE
" But that is impossible. You know it is."
"It is a scientific impossibility ; but it is also an actual fact. Maybe it isn't gold at all. But the Assay Office and chemists who have analyzed samples I secured from the Assay Office say it is. Where can he get it ? Not from a mine outside of New York, for we could easily trace it, no matter how long ago it came. Not from a mine in Thirty-eighth Street, or we'd know it. Not from sea-water. I even had the street torn up in front of Grin-nell's house under pretense of fixing the gas-main. He can't get it from the air. The whole thing is impossible. That's why I'm afraid."
" If he makes it, he must make it out of something," said Mellen controversially.
"Wilkins and Gross, the chemical people, say that last year Grinnell bought large quantities of iridium, osmium, ruthenium, and other metals of the platinum group. They understood that he had been experimenting with an electrical furnace. Costello saw a gas-engine and a dynamo in the laboratory, and a lot of electrical apparatus. That's his specialty, it seems. And the Columbia people say he is quite an authority on radium. I tell you the man makes it; at least, to all intents and purposes he does. Perhaps it's radium rays applied to some base metal in some way which he has discovered accidentally. Wait till you see him," and Mr. Dawson began composedly to rip the edges of the envelopes with a long, sharp paper-cutter.
The richest man in the world walked up and down the office. Once his lips moved. Dawson, who happened to look up from his work at that very moment, asked him : "What did you say, William ?"
"The government would be justified in stopping him."
" If the world knew the secret of making gold what would be gained ? He has us in his power. No sense to blind your eyes to it."
The face of the richest man in the world flushed. He said, with an impressive, because calm, determination: "He must be stopped !" He paused. Looking at his friend steadily, he repeated, very quietly — too quietly : "At any cost!"
" If we can stop him by fair words, all right. No use to try anything else. He has provided against everything!"
The richest man in the world stared at his friend ; his head was bent forward as if to
listen better. At Dawson's last words he resumed his pacing. The pattern of the big Oriental rug consisted of ornate squares surrounded by a profusion of arabesques. Mellen, his gaze fixed on the rug, stepped on alternate squares as he walked up and down the room. The president began to read his mail. From time to time he looked up and saw the richest man in the world striding up and down the room, carefully stepping on alternate squares in the rug.
An office-boy entered.
"Mr. Grinnell is here, sir," he announced.
The richest man in the world halted abruptly and waited, his eyes on the door.
"Show him in at once. Ah, good morning, Mr. Grinnell." The president rose and walked toward the young man with outstretched hand.
"Good morning, Mr. Dawson," said Grinnell cheerfully. He became aware of Mr. Mellen, who was staring at him unblinkingly, and hesitated.
"Mr. Grinnell, let me introduce my friend, Mr. William Mellen."
" How do you do, Mr. Mellen ?" said Grinnell. Mr. Mellen shook hands and Grinnell gazed attentively at the richest man in the world. After a slight pause, he added dep-recatingly, as if to explain his scrutiny : " I have read so much about you, Mr. Mellen, I hope you will pardon my rudeness."
" I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Grinnell. 1 have heard a great deal about you, lately. " Mellen said this almost impatiently. He was a man whose business soul was dark and tortuous, like his methods. His speech was habitually non-committal, and he had won more battles and more millions by patience than by aggression. But now he was eager to plunge into a cross-examination of the young man before him. Yet, he looked ill at ease. Perhaps he feared to find that Dawson was not mistaken in his wild surmises.
" Yes, " put in the bank president, with an ingratiating smile at the young man, " I have taken the liberty of speaking to Mr. Mellen about you." A slight frown appeared on Grinnell's face. The president hastened to add : " He is the only soul on earth to whom I have spoken. You see, Mr. Grinnell, I was very anxious to bring you two together. Yours is an extraordinary case; and Mr. Mellen is not only a director of this bank, but I consider him, as a business man and financier, one of the-
[pgbrk] 506
THE GOLDEN FLOOD
"Never mind all that, Dawson," interrupted Mellen, with a curious mixture of habitual smoothness and an unwonted sharpness, as if deprecating flattery, and at the same time resenting the president's apologetic attitude. " Mr. Grinnell, I am sure you must realize that you have created a condition which may become of national importance, since it contains a dire menace to this country's business." He assumed, toward the end of his speech, or his voice and manner did, that Mr. Grinnell and he were in accord on that point.
Grinnell looked distinctly surprised. When he spoke, both his hearers felt absolutely assured that he wished to gain time, to plan a defense.
" I certainly do not realize anything of the kind, Mr. Mellen."
"Then, sir, it is high time you did," returned Mellen. His face was composed, but in the composure there was menace. Mr. Dawson made haste to offset the effect which he feared Mr. Mellen's words might have on Mr. George K. Grinnell. He said, with flattering deference :
"As I explained to you, Mr. Grinnell, the money market is a delicate piece of mechanism. Unusual shocks produce unusual disturbances ; and all disturbances are highly detrimental to business." He smiled dep-recatingly but forgivingly : the money market was a pampered child ; no need to be too harsh.
"Yes, I know that. But what unusual shock have I given to the delicate mechanism of the money market ? " Grinnell's effort to conceal his annoyance was apparent to the two capitalists.
"You have not yet, sir; but what assurance have I, have all business men, that you will not?" The richest man in the world asked this with a frown, as if Mr. Grinnell had not met him half-way and might as well now throw off his mask and reveal himself frankly, as the criminal disturber of the world's business peace, to be dealt with accordingly.
"Assurance that I will not ? Why should I disturb the money market ? The money market does not disturb me." Grinnell said it not at all jocularly, but very calmly, as if he meant it literally.
" But you will disturb it if you keep on," said Mellen, drumming with his finger-tips on the top of the president's desk. He perceived this and ceased with an abruptness that
betokened remorse over the absence of self-control. He was an introspective man.
"There is nothing unusual going on, is there ? No stringency anywhere : in fact, I gather from the newspapers that money rates are very low," Grinnell went on.
"Your deposits are, in some measure, responsible for it," said Dawson, with a placating smile.
"I am glad of it," said the young man simply. "It is a good thing that people should be able to borrow money cheaply, isn't it?"
"Not too cheaply." Mr. Dawson shook his head and smiled, as at a favorite son who is in error, but is young.
"Oh, I know what you mean. It isn't profitable for the banks with money to lend ; it makes the supply greater than the demand, and you get lower interest rates on your loans; and then it is apt to be a sign that business is slack, and people have no need to borrow. But just now, unless all the newspapers lie, business is quite active in all lines and — " Grinnell's speech savored slightly of the pedagogical, like a school-boy enunciating obvious truths, but using his teacher's professional solemnity.
"That is not the point," interrupted the richest man in the world.
"What is the point, then?" asked Grinnell, with an air of forgiving Mellen's impoliteness.
" Do you propose to flood the world with gold?" Mr. Mellen's voice rang rather unpleasantly.
"That," said the young man slowly, "is a very remarkable question, Mr. Mellen."
"Mr. Grinnell" — Mr. Dawson spoke with a half-jocular voice — "I have told Mr. Mellen of your extraordinary deposits, and he naturally wishes to know if you are ever going to stop."
"Yes, Mr. Dawson, I am going to stop at once. I shall transfer my account to another bank. Will you be good enough to- "
"No, no, no ! You misunderstand me."
"Mr. Dawson, I have told you several times that if the fact that I was one of your depositors disturbed you, you could rid yourself of your suffering by telling me to seek some other bank. The reason why I selected this one was because it was the richest and, I supposed, the most ably managed in the country. Nothing but the fear of arousing a curiosity I could not gratify made me deposit my gold gradually. If a man deposited [pgbrk]
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EDWIN LEFEVRE
fifty or a hundred millions at once, and everybody knew it, he could not live in peace in this country. The sensational newspapers would hound him to death. You know what my views are, and that I hope to do some good to my fellow-men in this world. But I see that I was mistaken in my assumption that I could deposit some of my funds
with you. To prevent further-"
"Mr. Grinnell, I beg that you will not close your account with us. Your money is yours to do with as you see fit; but don't withdraw it because of a misunderstanding. We are very glad indeed to have your account. But really, my dear Mr. Grinnell, you must see how natural it is that we should wish to know, not so much the source of your gold, but the quantity controlled by you."
"And the source too," said the richest man in the world, in a tone that showed there should be no argument about a purely family matter. "Where does it come from ?"
"-Mr. Dawson," said Grinnell, distinctly ignoring Mellen, "Mr. Mellen is one of your largest depositors, is he not?"
"Yes; he-"
" Do you insist upon his telling you where he gets the money that he deposits here ?" "Mr. Grinnell-- "
" Is my gold any different from his gold ? Is an Assay Office check not as good as an International Distributing Syndicate check? I don't mean ethically, but financially."
Mr. Mellen flushed. Mr. Dawson said with the dignity of suppressed anger : " It is not that; but if gold is to become as cheap as pig-iron-
"Why should it?" interrupted Grinnell icily. "Does Mr. Mellen intend to give all his money to the poor?"
"This is— " began Mellen, in a rebuking voice.
"Mr. Grinnell," said the president, still with much dignity, "we have no desire to pry into your private affairs. But great wealth means great responsibilities, and what is permissible to a pauper is not permissible to you. You must admit that there is no limit to the harm that can be done from a too rapid increase in the gold supply of the world."
" I realize that. You agreed with me that an increase of one hundred millions a year, in addition to the normal output of the mines now in operation, was not excessive. Since I saw you I have carefully studied the matter "
—Grinnell's voice and manner showed profound conviction — " and I have come to the conclusion that the world could not only stand two hundred and fifty millions more than it is now getting, but be all the better for it. That is only a billion more in four years. Four years is a long time." He looked pensive — as if he were thinking how very long that would be.
Mr. Mellen started. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Grinnell went on quickly : "Tell me, Mr. Dawson, is it not true that the expansion in business all over during the past few years, while it has been followed by a great expansion in bank credits, has not been followed by a proportionate increase in the supply of actual cash ? That being the case, why couldn't it be possible to add two hundred and fifty millions a year without disturbing business, by distributing one hundred millions among banks in Germany, France, and England, and one hundred and fifty millions scattered among banks in various sections of the United States?"
"Do you propose to do this?" Mr. Dawson was looking at the young man with an intentness which he could not help tinge-ing with anxiety.
"That isn't the question," said Grinnell, a trifle impatiently, as if unwilling to lose the thread of his argument. " Do you deny that such a thing could be done ? "
"Yes, I do ! It would mean wild inflation ; it would lead to a world panic !." said Mellen, not altogether composedly.
" Do you think so, Mr. Dawson ?" Grinnell persistently ignored Mr. Mellen.
"1 think," replied the president, nervously, "that $250,000,000 in gold a year more than the world is now getting would be too much. Without definite knowledge of the source and limit of the new supply, sentiment would become so alarmed that it would mean a disastrous panic, probably the worst in the history of humanity, since there would be the keenest apprehension over the possibility of gold being demonetized. An inexhaustible supply of gold could lead to nothing else ; and then —God help us all !" The president was so impressed by his own words that his face grew livid. Mr. Mellen was breathing quickly.
"Who said anything about an inexhaustible supply of gold?" said Grinnell angrily. " I, of all people, do not wish gold to be demonetized. What would my gold be worth if that happened ?"
[pgbrk] 508
THE GOLDEN F LOO D
" Precisely ; that's why we wish you to confide in us," said Mr. Dawson, with a very friendly smile.
" But I still believe," said Grinnell doggedly, "that two hundred and fifty millions a year would not do harm. I have made up my mind on that point, and I will not change it. Mr. Dawson, you have asked me several questions. Now, let me ask you one : Do you, or do you not, wish me to make any additional deposits in this bank ?"
"Certainly I wish you to if you do."
"Very well." The young man took from his pocket-book a package of slips. He read one after another — the bank president could see that they were Assay Office checks — and finally selected one. He said, " Here is a check for eleven millions two hundred thousand," and returned the others — there were at least eight — to his pocket-book. " I shall deposit this."
Mellen walked over to the desk and took the slip from Mr. Dawson's hand with a calm authoritativeness, as though the bank president were his clerk, which, indeed, was what Wall Street thought, though erroneously.
"What assurance will you give that you will do nothing to ruin us? If the world knew your secret it would mean ruin for all, absolute ruin !" The sound of that word, uttered by himself, seemed to shake Mellen's composure. He glared at the young man.
"Mr. Mellen," said Grinnell, very quietly, "you are an older man than I. I shall try not to forget it."
" I must know ! At once ! Do you hear me?" said Mr. Mellen loudly. It was not exactly anger which burned in his eyes, but a sort of overgrown petulance at being baffled. There was an obstacle ; it might be insurmountable. The uncertainty was in itself a check. An invincible pugilist had been knocked down for the first time in his career as champion.
"William !" said Mr. Dawson, approaching his friend; "you are excited." Then to the young man, apologetically : " He has been under a severe strain for some time past."
The richest man in the world grew composed as by magic. For the first time that day he became his normal self. He had crushed all opposition to his Syndicate twenty years before by the exercise of stupendous will-power. For a decade he had not been called upon to weigh his words or
his actions. Through disuse the qualities that had made him the richest man in the world had atrophied. But now he was again the William Mellen his competitors had feared.
"Mr. Grinnell," he said, with a politeness that was not excessive, " I apologize. I beg that you will forgive the nerves of a man who, as you say, is much older than you, and has many more troubles."
"Have you thought of any investment yet, Mr. Grinnell?" interposed Mr. Dawson. It was to change the conversation. At the same time the answer would be interesting, possibly valuable. Mr. Mellen sat down and listened attentively.
"No, I have decided to wait until my deposits at the various banks are larger."
"How much do you propose to deposit with us ?"
"Oh," said Grinnell, with a smile full of an ingratiatory humor, " if you are still frightened I'll only deposit a million a week. I suppose I ought to start a bank of my own." Mr. Dawson and Mellen exchanged quick glances, unperceived by the young man, since the young man continued to smile, almost boyishly.
"Yes; you must not dream that you can produce two hundred and fifty millions a year," said Mr. Mellen, ignoring the last bomb, about the bank. "That would not do at all."
"I think it would. Even at that rate it would take a man some time to catch up with your fortune, Mr. Mellen."
"It isn't a question of my fortune, Mr. Grinnell," Mellen said in a kindly voice, "but of the fortunes of all the world ; yours as well."
"I have no objections to seeing my fortune many times larger than it is, I assure you."
"Neither have we, provided you take your time about it," said Mr. Dawson earnestly.
"I know I am young, but there are many things I wish to do before I die. Life is uncertain. "
"Yes, it is. And if you died?" asked Mellen. He leaned forward slightly as he spoke, his eyes on the young man's.
"My sister would do what she could."
"And if she dies ?"
"AFTER US," said the young man, "THE DELUGE !"
A deluge of gold ; a deluge of ruin, devastation, and misery ! financial anarchy ;
[pgbrk] 509
EDWIN LEFEVRE
commercial chaos ! thought the richest man in the world. He leaned back in his chair and breathed a bit quickly.
"Mr. Grinnell," said Mr. Dawson, "your fortune already makes you independent. But I think Mr. Mellen will join with me in saying that if you care to consider a working alliance with us, commercial or financial, we should be glad to have your cooperation."
Mr. Mellen was again leaning forward, almost as if ready to shake hands with his dear friend and comrade, Grinnell, to whom he would be as a father whose love made him over-indulgent.
"Mr. Dawson, you will realize how little of a business man I am when I tell you that I desire to stand alone. If it were a question of doubling a fortune of ten or fifteen millions I suppose I'd be only too glad. But I must work out my salvation unaided. You will grant that the possession of such money as I have deposited in this bank may conceivably kill the desire for more, unless it is to be used in carrying out plans nearer to the heart than mere physical comforts. There are many things I'd like to do which, with my present capital, I am not yet able to do. So I'll choose those that I can and let the others wait. For example, do you deny that, if a man had two or three hundred millions of dollars and started a bank with that capital he could solve many problems of vital importance to the community?"
" I see great possibilities for evil — appalling possibilities for harm," said Mr. Mellen, with impressive solemnity.
"Infinite possibilities for good also, Mr. Mellen," said the young man, a trifle sternly. "A bank designed, not so much to pay big dividends to its stockholders, but to protect the public and to help business men and the entire community in time of distress. An income of a quarter of a million a year is sufficient to gratify the most luxurious tastes of any man. It's much more than enough for me. The rest might be devoted to the good of humanity."
"Is that one of your plans?" asked Mr. Dawson very quietly.
"Not at present. I realize that more is required than merely honest motives. I may have the will to do good as the president of such a bank, but I lack the ability and experience to conduct it. I am satisfied to see Mr. Dawson," with a pleasant smile, "at the head of the richest bank in America."
"Thank you, Mr. Grinnell," returned Mr.
Dawson, with the cordiality of immense relief. "What are your plans, then ?"
"My first plan is to make more — ah — to make arrangements to deposit more gold."
"You were going to say 'make more' something — when you stopped," said Mellen, with a sort of nonchalant curiosity. At least, that is what he meant it to look like.
" I was going to say," answered the young man, very quickly, "make more deposits."
"I thought," said Mellen with a smile, though his eyes were serious, "that you were going to say ' make more gold.' " He was speaking in the quiet, self-possessed way that had so impressed the Congressional Committee which had "investigated" his Syndicate's business and its violation of the law, because it so resembled the self-possession of an utterly honest man to whom there had never come a thought of the possibility of a doubt of the righteousness of his every action. It made logical the impression that the richest man in the world believed himself the instrument of Providence.
The young man laughed. "That would be dreadful. We'd be in a terrible fix if we had to re-create the science of chemistry. It would mean a scientific panic, a slump in the molecular theory market." He laughed again as if pleased at the application of Wall Street phraseology to chemical science.
"Don't you make it?" persisted Mellen; his voice had an insinuating quality, as though he were inviting spiritual confidences. He was not a persuasive man, but he often looked so much as though he had persuaded himself, that it had the effect of persuasion — on stubborn and misguided competitors.
Grinnell looked at the richest man in the world seriously. "It is perfectly astonishing," he said, musingly, "how many people still believe in alchemy. That comes from the tommy-rot they read in the Sunday newspapers about scientific discoveries."
"You haven't answered my question." Mellen's persistence was not offensive. He might have been a Sunday-school teacher trying to make a shy boy tell how good he was.
" Mr. Mellen, the chemical laboratory which you built for the Lakeside University is the finest in the country. Professor Ogden is one of our foremost scientists. Ask him if it is possible for any living man to make gold. "
" I'd rather ask you if you make it." The voice was still of the Sunday-school, and Grinnell the favorite but shy scholar.
[pgbrk] 510
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" If you insist upon asking such questions I insist upon refusing to answer them. If I did make it, would I tell you ? You'd tell everybody."
"Indeed not !" exclaimed Mellen eagerly. He could not help it. He was almost human.
"Well, Mr. Dawson," turning to the president, "I'll deposit these eleven millions."
"You have more gold with you?" asked Mr. Dawson.
The young man felt in his vest pockets, ostentatiously, one after another. Then he shook his head and said : "No."
Mr. Dawson smiled to hide his anger. "I meant Assay Office checks," he explained.
" I'm going," confessed Grinnell, " to make some deposits with the Eastern, Agricultural, and Marshall National banks. But the Metropolitan," he added with a pleasant smile, "is my first love. Good morning, gentlemen." He turned to go.
"Mr. Grinnell, one moment, please. I should like to ask a favor. I think you are depositing too much. Ten .millions a week means five hundred millions a year."
"So it does. But I thought— " He checked himself ; and then went on : "What is the favor you were about to ask ?"
"Could you abstain from depositing any more gold in any bank for, say a month or two ? "
The young man's eyes were thoughtful for a moment.
"Well, I have some gold I must deposit, as I have no facilities at present for storage, save in bank vaults. You see, I had not figured upon — well, one does not always think carefully enough in advance of what he is going to do, and he finds himself confronted by conditions he had not reckoned on. How was I to tell I couldn't deposit even fifty millions without disturbing you ? I fear I must deposit a little more. In fact, I can't stop, even if I wish to. But I'll think over what you have said."
" Have you much more on hand ?"
"Quite a chunk of it !"
" How much ?" asked Dawson. The richest man was leaning forward again, his eyes fixed on the young man because the young man was not looking at him.
"I don't know. I haven't weighed it," answered Grinnell.
"You are commencing to disturb the money market. People have begun to wonder where the gold is coming from. The news-
papers will take it up. You will find the financial reviews already speaking about it. It is lucky a lot of Klondike gold has been coming to New York lately. But unless you let up, there will be glaring headlines, and then-
"The newspapers must not take it up," said Mellen, almost tenderly. "That must be seen to, Richard. It must be stopped at any cost. " The president nodded.
The young man was thinking. He turned a perplexed face to Dawson.
"How long must I stop depositing my gold?"
"It isn't so much a question of stopping as of reducing the amounts deposited."
"I can't reduce them. I must deposit several millions a week or stop altogether. My arrangements are peculiar because—" he paused ; then went on quickly, with a smile as if pleased at being able to cease to flounder — "because I don't like halfway measures. But I think I can stop for a month." He thought for a moment. Somehow Mr. Mellen felt as if the young man were speaking of a factory. "Yes," finished Grinnell, "I can stop for a month, Mr. Dawson, out of regard for what you say."
"Thank you. I appreciate it more than I can say."
"Then say nothing. I'll make another deposit in a day or two, and then I'll give you a nice long rest. How does that please you, Mr. Dawson ?"
"Very much. Only be sure to do the same by all the other banks." Dawson tried to show gratitude, but the anxiety was uppermost.
" I will."
Mr. Grinnell extended his hand. The president grasped it; his own was very cold — and very dry. Mr. Mellen was gazing intently at the arabesques in the rug at his feet. He did not answer when Grinnell said "Good-morning."
As the door closed, Dawson rose and approached Mellen.
" William ?" he said.
Mellen did not look up. Dawson laid his hand on his friend's shoulder and repeated : "William!"
Mellen turned an expressionless face to the president.
"He makes it !" said Dawson.
"He makes it !" repeated the richest man in the world, hypnotically.
[pgbrk] 511
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"Do you feel certain of it?" Dawson's voice betrayed his eagerness to find comfort in Mellen's assent.
Mellen's mind awoke. "What's that? Certain of what ?" But he still looked blankly puzzled. It made the president uncomfortable. He repeated :
"That he is making gold."
"It can't be," said the richest man in the world. "It can't be. Of course not. And yet — " He paused. He clenched his hands; his lips were pressed tightly together. Into his eyes there came a straining look. Gradually the tense lines about his mouth relaxed. He murmured doubtfully: "But he might as well make it. Perhaps he does. He has the gold. He will have more."
"I am sure of that," agreed Dawson, not over-cordially, but still as if that were his firm conviction.
" We must find out more about him. Are we going to take his word for all he says ? Even if he made it he must make it out of something. Where does the gold come from ? How does it come ?"
" It comes from his furnace. Costello all but saw it. He-
"Why didn't he see it?" interjected Mellen, glaring at Dawson. "Why don't you put a hundred men at work ? Is that all you can learn about this man ?"
Dawson had never before seen his financial backer display vehemence, ever so slightly, for the power of fabulous wealth had given an almost pious severity to Mellen. The years of golden invulnerability seemed to have rolled away from the richest man in the world, and left him an impatient youth, crossed in some cherished plan, exasperated, after long and soothing immunity from attack, at being forced into defensiveness. The president said to him, not servilely at all, but nevertheless with more than a suggestion of self-defense :
"We have done all that men could do. Grinnell has been at this work only eight or ten weeks, and he already has fifty millions in cash. If it were not for that you might call him a charlatan, a trickster of some sort. You believed what he said when he spoke of his plans; you did not think he was lying. You know men as well as I do. What impression did he produce on you ? The gold comes out of his house. His servants won't talk. I told Costello to offer them any price for information. But he was convinced it could not be done without Grinnell's learning
of it, and we don't want him to know ; or, how do we know what complications might follow? Costello doesn't think they know anything, anyhow. The house is guarded day and night. Costello himself went into the cellar with a load of coal. There is no doubt that Grinnell takes no gold into the house, and that the gold comes out of the electrical furnace. He has fifty millions now, and he won't rest until he has a billion. That is his minimum. And, in the meantime, if somebody learns his secret-
"We must find out," shouted the richest man in the world, shaking his fist wildly in the air. "A billion in gold. What will become — " He checked himself as he caught Dawson's half-frightened look. He drew in' a deep breath, and began to walk to and fro. At length he stopped by Dawson and said, more composedly: "Richard, I think as you do, yet it doesn't seem right; but I can't tell what is wrong. If he produces gold at will, and we knew how he did it, we'd still have to sell our bonds. It is better to prepare for the worst now. Begin at once. Sell those that are in my box, here. You have the list. Tell Thompson to bring you the list of those in the safety vault at the office."
"Yes," said Dawson, with less relief in his voice than might have been expected. "We'll have to be very careful. The market won't-
"This is no time to think of eighths and quarters," said Mellen with decision. "If we are right, of what use are our bonds ? If we are making a mistake— " He hesitated. Doubt again showed in his face. Dawson hastened to speak :
"If we could be perfectly sure he's not going to- "
Mellen's doubts and convictions came and went like irregular pulse-beats — he had been disturbed to his very depths, and his mind did not work with its normal precision. He became calm again, and he spoke with quiet decision : "This young man means well. That is what makes him dangerous. He will flood the world with gold, and think he is doing good. Yes. Sell the bonds."
"Very well," Dawson sighed. It came easier to him to believe the worst; he had seen more of Grinnell. But he knew the bonds would have to be sold at grievous sacrifices.
" It's the only thing we can do," the richest man said, almost consolingly ; he knew
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Dawson's thoughts. "But," he added, "you must keep on trying to find out where he gets the gold. Send Costello to me. And you must buy stocks."
Bonds are payable, principal and interest, in gold coin of the present standard of weight and fineness. If Grinnell's operations made gold as cheap as pig-iron, each $1,000 bond would be worth fifty ounces of iron, and no more. If some other metal took the place of gold, the corporations would take pains to be paid in the new coin, whatever that might be, and they would pay dividends on their stocks in the same. But the interest on bonds they must pay in gold. Bondholders would be ruined, and stockholders would profit by the others' losses. All this Dawson and Mellen had realized on their first interview; it was perfectly obvious. The president of the Metropolitan National Bank merely had wished the richest man in the world to be as certain of the existence of the Grinnell gold-factory as he himself had become, before selling bonds and buying stocks.
"Which stocks?" asked Dawson.
The richest man in the world did not answer. He was looking at Dawson, meditatively. At length he said musingly: "If he dies? And if his sister dies? 'After us, the deluge!' he said. The danger lies in that man's secret becoming known. Yes. We have no time to lose."
In winning his fabulous fortune, the richest man in the world had gambled stupendously. His stakes had been hundreds of fortunes, thousands of lives. But after the first hundred millions he always had gambled calmly—he had grown to think he was doing his duty, and that Providence, whose confidential servant he was, had dealt cards marked for his benefit. What had unnerved him was the sudden realization that his financial life hung by a thread. The armor in which thirty years of success had encased him had been broken. It had fallen from him. He had acted as he might have acted at the time when he was not the richest man in the world.
He went to the president's desk and wrote out a long list — all stocks of steam and street railroads, gas companies, and industrial concerns. His writing was very even, and the letters were small, but the figures were very plain.
"It's only a question of time," he told Dawson, as he finished, " when Grinnell's gold process will be known to the world." He rose, and seeing the president's serious look, he said, with an air of conscious jocularity (for he did not jest often, and when he did he had to announce it beforehand, with his face, that there might be no misunderstanding) : "Cheer up, Richard. The worst is still to come I"
I SHALL HAVE LIVED
BY
A. E. HOUSMAN
You smile upon your friend to-day,
To-day his ills are over ; You hearken to the lover's say,
And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,
But better late than never; I shall have lived a little while
Before I die for ever.
From "A Shropshire Lad "
(To be concluded)
[pgbrk]
A HAPPY LAPSE FROM PARADISE
BY
MARION HILL
AUTHOR OF ' 1 H I S JOURNEY TO THE GATES, ' ' ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY F. Y. CORY
HEREDITY and environment " were words very often upon Mrs. Pettison's tongue when she talked about the future of her children, but, as she was in her inmost mind rather doubtful of the blessings she might reasonably expect from "heredity," she pinned most of her faith to "environment." Consequently, when she made up her mind that the twins had to be artistic whether they wanted to or no, she went most practically to work about it. She bought a volume of Whistler's etchings for Rex, and for Regina a richly colored collection of pictures entitled "Children of Sacred History," and she made the infants devote an hour a day to "art," which meant sitting awfully quiet and looking fixedly at the illustrations.
To the twins, art was the crowning unpleasantness of life. Lessons and music and rigid recreations and health food and deportment were bad enough, but art was the worst. They could have stood the pictures had it not been for their white pique dresses.
Mrs. Pettison was thorough in her methods, and knew that radiant apparel has an uplifting effect upon the mind, so each day she made the twins dainty from top to toe, as a rational and necessary preliminary to their art hour. The starch is what upset them. Starched pique acts upon neck, wrist, and armpit like a buzz-saw. Moreover, it is too abominably tell-tale. It keeps a tally for every time you sit down, particularly if you sit down where you should not. And the white stockings ! They were the last hopeless touch of foolish apparel. In black stockings you can do a sane amount of contraband things — on your knees — and not get caught ; whereas to have on white stockings is the same as being under the eyes of detectives. No wonder that the combination of pique and art seemed to the twins almost too much to be borne.
To-day, fairly creaking with cleanliness, as they entered their nursery for the art dose, they were forlorner than ever. It had been dry weather and the starch was in fine form.
"Gimme the scared history," was Regina's gruff order to her brother.
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With his hand upon the door of the low bookcase — the nursery was perfect in its equipment — he turned a pained little face in her direction. He was a pronounced purist even at that early age.
"Sister," he said, with extra gentleness, to show that correction was a duty and not pleasure, "there is no such word as 'gimme.'"
("There is !")
"You should have said 'give me.'"
("Did !")
"And the history is sacred, not ' scared.'"
"Just you look at the pictures once," said Re-gina. "If they're not scared I'd like to know !"
She had in mind plenty of blood and slaughter. The book certainly confined itself to Biblical childhood at its worst, sacrificed upon altars, or put to the sword, or eaten by bears, or something.
He silently gave her the volume. He knew that mood of hers. Time alone could mellow it, not present gentleness.
Each with a book, they climbed into their desk-chairs and set dutifully about their task. Their mother would soon come to superintend it. She was going to have no slackness where art was concerned. It goes without saying that neither she nor Mr. Pettison had the artistic temperament. It is always safe to assume that parents lack the qualities they are most anxious for their children to possess.
Downstairs the door-bell rang. With eyes still glued to their pictures, the children listened intently. When the front door opened a voluble voice flooded the house.
"Mrs. Gidge," announced Regina, in a preoccupied whisper.
"Isn't it a thin-sounding name for a fat person ?" meditated Rex, out loud.
The voices came nearer, showing that the visitor was being escorted to the nursery ; and the twins did not like it at all. To be talked at and under and over and around, and not be allowed to talk back, was a
"Sister," he said, with extra gentleness, "there is no such word as ' gimme '
form of torture of which they got a great deal and to which they could never grow used.
This fate, however, promised not to be theirs, for Mrs. Pettison was putting on her hat. She was evidently going out with Mrs.
Gidge. In truth, her visit to the nursery was to state that fact to the twins.
They stood, at the entrance of the ladies, and looked very little, very spotless and alluring.
"The darlings ! How do you do, Rex?" clucked the visitor.
" I am pleased to see you, Mrs. Gidge. I am very well, thank, you, and hope you are the same," came trickling politely from Rex. He was an all-around comfort where manners were concerned.
"How do you do, Regina?" Regina had not the faintest idea, nor could she have put it into words, had she known. Yet something must be said and said quickly. All signs pointed that way. Mrs. Gidge looked expectant, Rex nervous, and Mrs. Pettison outraged. Punishment loomed on the horizon unless Regina could open her mouth and get something out. It came.
" If I had a tail, I could walk on the tightrope," she muttered bashfully. Both parent and visitor took it as the utterance of an imbecile and ignored it accordingly. Yet it was a coherent and intelligent observation and was reached by orderly steps. Mrs. Gidge was fat. Regina had seen a fat woman at the Fair. There was a circus at the Fair. Besides the fat woman there were other things. There was a man who walked on the tight-rope. He balanced himself by means of a stick. He waved the stick the way a cat does her tail when she is precariously traveling on a fence-edge. Regina ached to be able to walk the tight-rope. She knew she would drop the stick. A tail would stay where it belonged. Hence her remark.
[pgbrk] 515
MARION HILL
The twins were banished back to their desks and were supposed to hear nothing whatever of the conversation which followed.
It was a splendid conversation, too — all about poverty and drink and wretchedness and crime and slums and two neglected little children whom Mrs. Gidge and Mrs. Pettison, as President and Secretary of the Ministering Mothers' Society, were going to hunt up and rescue, that very hour.
"Fancy, my dear," was Mrs. Gidge's awful climax, "they have nothing to eat but what they find in garbage-cans !"
"Oh, don't; I can't bear to hear it," cried Mrs. Pettison, sick at the thought. She cast a thankful glance at her scientifically fed children.
With eyes fixed unseeing upon the infant about to be bisected by Solomon, Regina left "scared" history and mentally dove head first into a garbage-can. She found a wonderfully attractive lot of things there and quite cheered up.
"The boy, a little chap about as old as your Rex, has been driven from the house night after night, to crawl into a shed and sleep with a billy-goat !"
"Oh, poor abused child !¦" gasped Mrs. Pettison, buttoning her gloves with frantic haste.
Rex heaved a sigh of gnawing envy. What luck some boys have ! To sleep with a billy-goat ! Who would not barter one's soul for a night of such varied rapture ?
"Their only home has been the gutter. They know nothing of refinement or decency. They simply wouldn't believe me if I were to tell them that some little boys and girls actually live in a — a — Paradise like this." Her admiring sweep of the hand indicated the nursery. "A perfect Paradise."
This room was Mrs. Pettison's especial hobby, and even at the risk of keeping the waifs waiting she could not resist the temptation of talking about it a little.
"This nursery is the most carefully planned room in the house," she said, with excusable pride. "And it cost the most, too. But we let nothing stand in the way of the
welfare of our children. Our aim is to make them feel that home is the best place on earth. Look at the walls. They are finished in hard paint and are washed almost as often as the windows. Wall-paper is merely another name for grime and soot. We haven't a shred of it. Pictures are just as bad. Nor have we any carpet, to grow greasy and fusty and harbor disease. My dear, carpets are dangerous! Some scientists recently analyzed a bit of old ingrain, and what do you suppose they found? — Thirty million typhoid germs, thirty-three million of diphtheria, over fifty million of tuberculosis, and eighty-eight million of less virulent bacilli !"
"Lord save us," ejaculated Mrs. Gidge. " Do you make up those numbers as you go along or do you really remember them?"
Having listened to his mother intently, though covertly, Rex felt dreadfully sorry that they had no floor covering. So teeming a carpet would be a most companionable sort of thing to have around. No one need feel lonely with so much liveliness right underfoot.
"The figures are correct. They were too impressive to forget," said Mrs. Pettison. "Do you wonder that I have polished floors? And no rugs ? It is the only safe way."
Regina, with her rebellious little head ducked down into her book, questioned the safety of the arrangements. Once she had slipped on the admirable, sanitary polish and had broken her collar-bone. For herself, she preferred to take chances with germs.
Here, the ladies' conversation was checked by the canary-bird. It had been doing a lot of ear-splitting chirping, and now broke into a deafening, nerve-racking, shrilly prolonged warble.
"Mercy me ! Dear little mite," breathed the visitor, her face all wrinkled up in spontaneous protest. "How cheerful he makes things."
"Fie is not here for cheerfulness alone," explained Mrs. Pettison. "The care of a pet develops child nature, cultivating responsibility, and teaching respect for the claims of the lower animals. It spurs affection and makes duty a pleasure. My children share
" ' God-screecher' struck her as being exactly right "
[pgbrk] 516
A HAPPY LAPSE FROM PARADISE
between them the privilege of attending to the canary's needs. Rex takes one day and Regina the next. Each is too fond of the task to relinquish it entirely to the other."
During this speech Regina got the fidgets. She kept her eyes discreetly nailed to a page, but tugged at her braids with a nervousness which indicated a mind both roving and afraid.
Her mother took some subtle hint and went quickly to the bird-cage to inspect it. Her tone, as she faced about, was rousing in the extreme.
"Rex! Regina! This poor bird is without
" he was hack with a pitcher of water, diligently refreshing the same "
seed or water. Whose day is it to care for him?"
Rex raised guiltless eyes, and waved a sadly thankful hand toward his sister.
She reddened, wriggled, stood up, and was silent. Her mother was doing the talking,
anyway.
" Regina, you grieve me. You pain mother. Attend to the little thing at once. Your thoughtlessness is a crime when it causes suffering to even a tiny bird — God's creature that it is."
This last expression, as she understood it. seemed admirable to Regina. "God-screecher" struck her as being exactly right. The scowl with which she attended to her
"pet" would have stretched it dead had it been of a sensitive disposition.
Meanwhile, Rex was dominated by the same influence which causes a murderer to visit the grave of the slain — he kept glancing backward at a flower-pot on a pedestal.
Mrs. Gidge caught him at it, and made haste to mention the thing in his thoughts — to give him pleasure.
"What a lovely rubber-plant," she said gushingly, "and how the children must appreciate having it all for their own !"
Rex wilted. He quietly closed the book of etchings and prepared for the prompt action which he foresaw would be necessary.
"The plant has a moral more than an esthetic value," explained Mrs. Pettison, largely — (even while his zone of danger narrowed, Rex enjoyed the word "esthetic," and he put it into a pocket of his mind for safe keeping. He had no time to dally with it now) — "also hygienic, consuming carbonic gas exhaled from the lungs," continued Mrs. Pettison, "but its greatest worth lies in the fact that, like the bird, it teaches the children their duty to all forms of life intrusted to their care. They would sooner themselves go thirsty than allow- "
She approached the pedestal. With the scurry of a weasel, Rex sped to an adjoining lavatory, and at the very moment that Mrs. Pettison was sternly prodding her gloved finger into the accusingly baked soil, he was back with a pitcher of water, diligently refreshing the same, while the scorching reproof in the maternal gaze seemed to sear the marrow of his embarrassed little spinal column.
Regina let out a long and loud breath of relief.
" 1 thought it couldn't be my day for watering the old — the pretty rubber-plant," she said, expansive out of sheer thankfulness, "because 1 forgot it yesterday and had to write ' Pity the herring' ten times in my copy-book as a punishment."
"'Erring, erring,'" interpolated Rex pleadingly.
" Write ! Can these babies write ? " asked the visitor.
" It is as easy to teach babies their letters as to teach them pat-a-cake and kindred absurdities. Rex and Regina could write before their fourth birthday," said Mrs. Pettison complacently.
" I must confess to a prejudice for keeping babies babies," stated Mrs. Gidge, rather warmly.
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MARION H I LL
Her eight-year-old infant was still pat-a-caking. Mrs. Pettison knew it and put it into a deprecating smile. Then the visitor left off thinking about the twins' failure to care for the forms of life intrusted to them. Which was Mrs. Pettison's intention.
"Hadn't we better be going?" sharply asked the President of the Ministering Mothers.
"Indeed we had," agreed Mrs. Pettison. "Good-by, Rex and Regina. Mother will be back in two hours or so."
"Gracious, I thought you never left them alone," criticised the President.
"No more do I. They are constantly under adult supervision. After she has put the baby to sleep, Catherine will attend to the children by reading them Froebel's Mother-Play. Then Miss Schmidt comes to give them piano lessons, "and each remains in the room all the while the other is receiving a lesson ; thus both gain the benefit of two hours' instruction instead of one."
"Ah," said Mrs. Gidge, almost in a snort. Mrs. Pettison's executive ability was so great that she envied it. Then her usual goodnature reasserted itself and she cried gur-glingly: "And to think I had forgotten baby. 'Ow is tunnin' 'ittle Toodle-Oodles ?"
Mrs. Pettison arched one eyebrow in acute disapproval of nicknames and baby-talk.
"Constantia," she said pointedly, "though indisposed to-day, is generally in perfect health, thank you. Come, dear."
The two went. The twins had been politely standing since the first hint of good-by. Why or wherefore, they knew not. They only knew they had to. It was a custom. And it dreadfully made their legs ache, for the reason that the economic comfort of one leg was strictly forbidden. They had to use both — which made their stiff bodies sway insecurely. The distant closing of the front door liberated them, and they glumly limbered.
A clock struck. Rex took his book, put a marker at the picture where he had left off, closed the volume, and methodically returned it to the bookcase. Regina viciously slapped her book shut, doubled up a few pictures by so doing, and elbowed the whole scared business out of her way.
She hated art. She hated plants. She chiefly hated the canary, which was again ruffling its throat in wildest pipings.
"Hush, you God-screecher, you!" she commanded, shaking her fist at it.
But beyond everything she hated Miss Schmidt and the music lesson — and both were imminent.
However, fate interfered. Constantia, who had been coquetting with colic for hours, now embraced it unreservedly, and Catherine sent word to the twins that they would have to occupy themselves as best they could until Miss Schmidt's arrival. On top of this came a message from Miss Schmidt that the lessons were postponed till next day.
Three hours at their disposal. The twins were agonized. What should they — what could they do ? They were wrecks, and rudderless. They could not possibly play, because the playtime was already over— it was an inexorable hour, beginning by the clock and ending by the clock; like sleep time, or dinner time, or lesson time, or study time, or bath time. No; play was out of the question. They had no wish to roam the house, either; it was too full of mantraps and spring-guns, furniture too good to sit on, floors too shiny to walk on, glass too polished to breathe on, cushions too embroidered and plumped-up to lie on, books too clean and precious to be touched. Three awful hours in that sanitary barracks of a nursery, out of whose windows they could not even hope to loll pleasantly and watch the happy world, because those windows were all shuttered at the bottom and ventilated from the top.
"What are we to do ?" asked Rex blankly, his innocent eyes as desolate as a deer's.
Mother Eve looks after her own. Regina had an idea.
"If we put on our hats and go out, we might find Mama and ask her," she suggested, beginning plausibly, but ending with a flush of conscious guilt.
Honest Rex was about to protest when he paused — thought —yearned — weakened — fell, and replied stammeringly : "So we might."
" her eight-year-old infant was still pat-a-caking "
[pgbrk] " With one accord, they flopped over on their nice white stomachs "
"Cm' on, then," hissed Regina, clutching his hand.
They flew downstairs — little white angels in frantic haste. Colicky cries covered their escape, enabling them unchallenged to reach the freedom of the street. Such glittering freedom !
"Which way?" asked Rex, dizzy by reason of limitless opportunity.
"To a billy-goat," doggedly said Regina. She had intentions.
He threw her a look of startled admiration. Just so must Tancred have gazed upon defiant Sigismunda, so Pyrrhus upon Andromache the staunch. With these heroines of old Regina, too, possessed, besides the soft womanly, some of the sterner attributes — man's. She too hankered for tumultuous repose with a billy-goat. Sister of sisters! He put his feelings into a squeeze of her hand as he inquired :
" How can we find a goaty place ?"
"Ask him," was her brilliant and immediate reply, as she pointed her finger imperatively at a junkman approaching in his foully filled cart.
This black-visaged, unwashed individual stopped his horse.
"Vat is?" he shouted gutturally.
Too polite to shout back, criminals though they were, the twins wandered into the middle of the street and stood by the cart. Rex politely raised his cap and asked in his best Chesterfield :
"Will you have the kindness to direct us to some place that is — is — er — unsanitary ?"
Regina yanked him impatiently. This was no time for "language." She despised it, always.
"Where's there an alley with a gutter in it?" she demanded, flinging her nouns like knives, so that they carried understanding with them.
For return courtesy, he bored into her with his fierce eyes.
"Vat pusiness you doin' oudt py yousel-luf ?" he demanded.
Regina recklessly but successfully brandished the truth.
"We've sneaked," she said, "to try find some dirty children to play with. We'll be punished for it. We'll go home in an hour, maybe, but not before. Where's an alley ?"
"Oh, choomp," said the man, with apparent ferociousness. "Hoory. Choomp."
Regina's erratic brilliance enabled her to understand him perfectly. She "hurried
[pgbrk] 519
MARION HILL
and jumped," clambering upon the wagon seat. Rex meekly copied her. He was not depressed at finding himself playing a subordinate part, for well he knew that the candle of woman's wits soon blows out, when she most needs it, leaving her dependent as usual upon her natural superior. He was glad of the chance to rest his overworked intelligence. It would have plenty to do by and by.
"Pepper-eggs! Geddup !" bawled the junkman.
The horse lurched forward and with a royal jerk the twins found themselves off upon the highways of happiness.
To ride upon a rag-wagon is bliss enough, goodness knows, but to ride sitting upon a seat without a back, in danger every minute of being pitched under a horse's hoof is too lovely. In such a situation, one can stand
even a white hat, a white pique dress, white silk stockings, and patent-leather shoes.
The driver was consideration itself. Afflicting the twins with no painful adult attention, he quite held his spotted soul aloof, and really might have been dead to the world, but that he intermittently bawled :
" Pepper-eggs ! Geddup !"
"Geddup is to the horse," confided Rex in a whisper, "but I can't tell what's pepper-eggs."
"Pooh, I know," said Regina; "here's pepper-eggs right behind us in the bags."
' Added to the delights of freedom, they had congenial companionship '
With one accord they flopped over on their nice white stomachs, balancing themselves upon the board seat, their white legs waving towards the horse, their contented hands finding employment among the weirdly unclean "paper-rags" in the cart. Upon their faces stole the expression which Mrs. Pettison had long and in vain striven to cultivate by means of art and music, an expression sweet, gentle, esoteric, ambitious, and inspired. Something akin to the divine settled down as a last abiding grace upon their countenances when they found a pile of disreputable hats and tried them all on, dutifully.
Few things are, on the surface, unbearable. It is correlated ideas which make all the trouble. To the twins, the old hats were simply old hats; to their mother they would have meant also strange heads and
unwashed hair, and she would have suffered accordingly.
While Regina enjoyed all the rags with a wide impartiality, Rex seemed to hunt among them with a specific aim which seemed to be partially accomplished when he unearthed a scrap of mildewed carpet. This he examined patiently and lovingly but evidently without some expected success.
"They've all hopped off," he said sadly and enigmatically. Then he nervously dropped the carpet. Regina had startled him out of a year's growth.
[pgbrk] " The twins discontinued swimming and looked up "
"Whoa!" she had yelled, in true rag-bottle-sack manner. "Whoa, I say ! This will do."
She meant the neighborhood. And measured by their need, it was indeed perfect. The horse having whoa-ed, the children slid to the ground unmissed by the swarthy pirate who had conveyed them.
"Pepper-eggs ! Geddup !" he roared and, thus roaring, passed harmlessly out of their lives.
In the squalid, evil-smelling, unpaved street where the twins found themselves, they spent an hour of enjoyment so fierce as to resemble an orgy : not that they met a billy-goat, nor any urchin who would play with them, but dirt was both handy and plentiful, and that was the main thing.
Just why these children, clean of mind, delicate of habits, and trained to neatness, should have burst their sterilized bonds and gone hunting for grubbiness, is a question not to be lightly handled. Chronicled, their excesses would sound stupid and tame. They merely investigated refuse, poked into garbage-cans, climbed ash-piles, ate such articles as appeared passably edible, drank everything that looked like water, examined into the anatomy of one or two creatures that were very exceedingly dead, and kept a
record upon their clothing of all that was smeary in the vicinity. Yet it was rapture.
Added to the delights of freedom, they had congenial companionship, for Rex had won the allegiance of a trusting yellow pup with the mange, and Regina had adopted a kitten. This kitten was sore-eyed and puny and too sick to stand, but Regina took it to her heart and to her arms and fondled it dearly.
Her long hair had become unbraided and fell softly about her face. She twined it around the shivering kitten. Warm mother-love shone in her eyes and made them brooding and beautiful, ridding them of the noncommittal wary glitter which usually masked their limpidness. Noting the change and charm, Rex fleetingly thought that if she weren't his sister she'd be pretty. He had never before thought her so, nor dreamed that she was affectionate.
With her new affection there was apprehension. Regina, pressing the abused little animal against her cheek, asked anxiously :
"Will I be able to keep her? Will Mama let me?"
Rex pondered. He grew anxious too.
" I don't see why not," he said at length. "It is a God's creature and it's estheticker than the rubber-plant. Why not?"
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MARION HILL
He was speaking more bravely than he felt. He eyed his dog in grief.
But grief was short, and was completely drowned in a gutter of honest mud, commend-ably deep, a very river of gutters. They came upon its richness when their hour of freedom was almost up, and the sense of near relinquishment made them desperately indulgent.
"Now is as good a time as any to learn to swim," announced Rex. He put his hat on the curb and carefully tucked the pup in it. Regina copied him faithfully, imbedding her kitten in hers. In their white chip dishes the animals looked like rolled roasts. Rex comfortably laid himself in the gutter, chest down, and issued directions.
"Don't mind your dress, sister. It couldn't get blacker than it is. Lie down. On your stomach. That's it. Now move your arms — like me."
It was immense. In the middle of her swimming Regina was attacked by thought. She raised her head and gazed questioningly at her twin. They looked like two confiding mud-turtles.
"What," asked she, remembering the future planned by the Ministering Mothers' President for the waifs, "is a 'good Christian home' ?"
" It's a — it's a — well, a house on a nice street."
"Is ours a good Christian home ? " darkly. "Oh, yes."
" Poor things," this very darkly. "Who?"
"Those billy-goat children. To give up all this fun for a good Christian home. Poor things."
They luxuriously went on swimming. An echo startled them.
"Poor things, poor things," said a third voice, overhead, and referring unmistakably to themselves. The Secretary and President of the Ministering Mothers were returning home.
The twins discontinued swimming and looked up. Then they would gladly have discontinued living, had they known how. Yet — is it not odd that a situation of transcendent horror is mostly wordless ? True, the President broke into sound, but it was fragmentary and banal.
" Lord 'a' mercy ! Who'd 'a' thought ? What the world !" neither invite reply nor merit it. Mrs. Pettison turned very pale but maintained magnificent composure.
"Get your hats," she said quietly and" evenly. "Precede us home. Say nothing. Explanations will come later."
This calm terrified the twins. Their jaws refused to stay shut. Their little mouths fell open. Yet some of her mother's presence of mind cropped out in Regina, for she cleverly hid the kitten while putting on her hat. The pup stuck to Rex's heels. The cavalcade moved.
The twins' brains were reeling. The world whizzed about their ears. Whether or no the adults in the rear discussed the frenzied affair, they cared not. The universe buzzed. Rex was sick with fear — for his dog. Would it be offered a home? He was now to know. At the Pettison door the puppy was driven off with sticks.
"Hydrophobia is my dread," observed the President approvingly as Mrs. Pettison drew a yelp from the fleeing cur.
"Oh, my dog, my dog," cried Rex, growing white. "I promi.ed it dinner!"
"Hush," said his mother witheringly; "when I hear from you it will be about something totally different."
Regina produced her kitten — from her hair — like a conjuror.
" Let me keep it," she begged shakingly. " Let me feed it and care for it and warm it and cure it and love it. I have nothing to love, and I want something so ! Let me keep my kittie !" Its sore eyes caught Mrs. Pettison's entire attention.
" My gracious, where is Catherine ?"she called, taking the kitten by enclosing it in a sheet of newspaper. "This little beast may carry disease and infection into scores of homes, unless I do my painful duty. Catherine! Here, take this poor, wretched creature and humanely dispose of it."
Regina's cry, had she fathomed " dispose," would have been a shriek.
To meet they knew not what, except that it would be sufficiently awful, the twins took each other's hands and crept into the house, sobbing.
Paradise once more closed round about them.
[pgbrk]
THE MAN IN THE PIGEONHOLE
COLONEL LUMPKIN'S SATIRE ON THE BEAUTY OF PARTY LOYALTY
BY
JOHN McAULEY PALMER
author of "colonel lumpkin's campaign,'' etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY DAN BEARD
ON the last Saturday night before election Colonel Lumpkin closed his campaign in a speech at Union Music Hall. This speech is known in Westport as the Pigeonhole Speech. Grimes and Comegys and Whittaker agree with me that the colonel's candor on that memorable occasion had much to do with the surprising victory that made him mayor. But Atwood, the colonel's manager, has never admired it. He calls it bad politics.
"It isn't according to Hoyle," said Atwood. "It's like leading a 'sneak.' Of course it may win, but it's poor whist." But to return to the speech : "Fellow-citizens," said Colonel Lumpkin, " I am going to be elected mayor of West-port next Tuesday, and I want you to understand why, and how 1 know it.
" I never ran for mayor before, but this is not the first time I have had a candidate. In the old days, when I was making my fortune in street-railways, it was very im-
portant for me and my associates to help you select your mayors and aldermen. We wanted franchises from you, and it was therefore our business to help you select rascals or fools as your agents and trustees. And, frankly, for twenty years we succeeded. Apparently there was rotation in office. You got disgusted with our Democratic mayor, and then we accommodated you with a Republican mayor. You raised a storm against our Republican city council, and after overwhelming them at the polls you found that their successors also were ours. It didn't make any difference which way the election went. We controlled the game both ways. You shifted from one party to the other without seeing that one party is corrupt and that the other wants to be.
"Now, before I tell you how I am going to carry the city of Westport, I am going to explain how we used to carry it. Of course this is telling tales out of school, and I am probably guilty of treason to my former financial and political associates. No doubt a more chivalrous and high-spirited man than
[pgbrk] 523
JOHN McAULEY PALMER
Timothy Lumpkin, when once embarked in the business of robbing the public, would stick to his colors. But I am not running on my consistency.
"Because a popular majority elects a corrupt government, it might appear at first glance that a majority of the people are corrupt. But that is not true. The boss is able to manipulate his virtuous constituents, not because they are knaves but because they are fools. Now 1 know from experience that you people of Westport are not deficient in civic virtue. But, gentlemen, 1 hope you will pardon me if I am not able to speak so well for your intelligence. And when I tell you what a beautiful little confidence game I used to play on you I shall expect you to agree with me. I shall rely upon your sense of humor.
"To illustrate the strategy of the boss, take the case of Precinct Number One, in the First Ward. Its issues are the issues of every precinct in the city of Westport. There are one hundred voters in Precinct Number One. Forty-six of these always vote the Democratic ticket in spite of the devil. Another forty-six always vote the Republican ticket in spite of the devil. Of the remaining eight, three are what we call 'scattering,' sometimes voting one way and sometimes another; and the other five are essentially venal, ready to vote for money, or for a political job, or for the way the election may affect their street-railway or gas company shares.
"Now suppose Mr. Boodle is the Republican candidate for alderman and Mr. Shanks is the Democratic candidate and we want to carry the precinct for the Westport Consolidated Traction Company. First, we weigh the candidates. We find that Mr. Boodle is conservative, and disposed to leave
" 'we immediately recognise that Mr. Shanks is a socialist, if not a red-handed anarchist
the welfare of the community to the great and benevolent financial interests that are so generously developing the material prosperity of the city. On the other hand we find that Mr. Shanks believes that franchises ought to be administered in the public interest. We are horrified, and as good citizens we immediately recognize that Mr. Shanks is a socialist, if not a red-handed anarchist. We decide that on account of the immense interests entrusted to us by the Almighty we cannot support Mr. Shanks. Of course we don't announce our opposition to Mr. Shanks, for he is the regular Democratic candidate and some of us are Democratic bosses. We do not denounce Mr. Shanks ; we simply betray him, thereby preserving our sacred sense of party regularity.
" We come now to the practical problem of carrying the precinct for Mr. Boodle. But this is so easy that it is hardly worth while explaining it. If there are one hundred voters in Precinct Number One, how many will be required to make a majority?" Here the colonel paused as if waiting an answer from the audience, but as he received no reply he stepped to the front of the platform and pointed his forefinger at a well-dressed young man in the front row. "My young friend," said the colonel, "will you kindly tell us? If there are one hundred voters in Precinct Number One, how many votes will be necessary for a majority ?"
"Fifty-one votes," replied the young man.
"No!" exclaimed Colonel Lumpkin. "That is just forty-six votes more than we need. It only takes five votes to carry Precinct Number One, my young friend."
" I don't see how you figure it," muttered the young man, confused.
[pgbrk] 524
THE MAN IN THE PIGEONHOLE
524
"Why it is this way," continued the colonel. "As I told you before, only eight in the precinct really vote. The other ninety-two are pigeonholed. Forty-six of them lie snug in the Democratic pigeonhole, and forty-six of them lie snug in the Republican pigeonhole. If we get five of the remaining eight we carry the precinct for Mr. Boodle. It is only necessary to have five good men and true and, as we have been playing the game for some time, we have five such worthies handy. In fact, we see to it that they live in the precinct.
"Now note the perfection of this arrangement. We have carried a precinct where ninety-two per cent of the voting population is honest. Isn't it beautiful ? We keep the ninety-two honest men permanently paired, their voting power canceled, their sovereignty absolutely abdicated and nullified. But it would be misleading to say that it is necessary to buy all of our five. Some venal voters are born and not made. For the astute politician to buy such men would be a superfluous outlay of good money. Men of this type have a religious reverence for mere wealth, and are endowed with just enough economic pedantry to digest Professor Gammon's syllogism. You have all heard Professor Gammon's syllogism. I will omit its general discussion and simply state it as applied to the present campaign. The syllogism is as follows (here Colonel Lumpkin referred to a memorandum) :
1. Major premise: — All good citizens desire prosperity.
2. Minor premise: — The Westport Consolidated Traction Company is prosperous, and Alderman Boodle is its candidate.
3. Conclusion: — Therefore every good citizen should vote for Alderman Boodle. Q. E. D.
" Fellow-citizens, the man who can swallow that deduction not only does not have to be bought but can be relied upon to stay safe. It is only necessary for us to control the newspaper he reads, and see that he gets a daily dose of the syllogism in its editorial columns.
" But the main problem is to keep our ninety-two honest men in their pigeonholes, and we accomplish this by having our campaign orators discuss irrelevant and archaic issues. Of course if we should permit it to be known that the real issue is whether we are to have honest government or dishonest government, the voters might leave their pigeonholes and play the very deuce with our calculations. But we don't discuss that
issue. We don't consider it in good taste. We therefore instruct our orators to talk about something else. We employ Judge Wriggle to regale the inmates of the Democratic pigeonhole with the beauties of the Twaddleport platform of 1842 and to point out the absurdity of the Republican position as laid down by the Tweedleport convention of 1846. We employ Mr. Ramble to convulse the Republican pigeonhole with his humorous analysis of the Twaddleport platform of 1842 and to inspire its pride in the heroic patriotism of the Tweedleport convention of 1846. Judge Wriggle's eloquence glows with the glories of the Democratic party and smokes with the infamy of the Republican party. Mr. Ramble's speeches burn with his magnificent allusions to the noble record of the Republican party and to the stupidity and turpitude of the Democratic party. And yet both agree in praising one virtue and in denouncing one crime. They both agree that the highest of all civic virtues is party loyalty and that the basest of all civic crimes is independence of political thought. They both agree that good citizens should stay in their pigeonholes, and thus permit their party bosses to cancel them out of all political calculations.
" Permit me to read a few lines from one of Judge Wriggle's speeches."
Here Colonel Lumpkin took a clipping from his pocket and began to read :
"'Gentlemen,' said Judge Wriggle, placing one hand over his vermiform appendix and the other under his coat tails. 'Gentlemen, I am a Democrat. (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, I have been a Democrat for more than forty years. My fellow-citizens, I have enjoyed some measure of success in life. I have received many honors at the hands of my countrymen ; more perhaps than I deserved. (Cries of No! No!) Of these honors I speak humbly, but on one thing I pride myself, and stand erect in the full and defiant arrogance of my integrity. I have always been loyal to my party. Gentlemen, I have laid one hundred and sixty-three Democratic ballots on the altar of my country and not one of them was ever sullied by an irreverent pencil scratch. Gentlemen, I have no use for a deserter. When I enlisted in that great moral army known as the Democratic party, I enlisted for life. I have suffered with it in defeat, I have triumphed with it in victory, and when my race is run 1 would ask no nobler epitaph than the
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simple words: "Here lies a loyal Democrat. "'
" 'Gentlemen, we can scarce find words to express our contempt for Benedict Arnold, but Arnold only betrayed his country. It exhausts the language of scorn to express our disgust for Judas, but, fellow-citizens, Judas only betrayed his Master. How then shall we find words to describe the unspeakable turpitude of the man who betrays his party ? Where in all the vocabulary of invective shall we find terms vile enough to express our opinion of the man who scratches his ticket, of the conceited egotist who imagines that his own reason is a valid measure of the collective wisdom of his party ? Gentlemen, I believe in the wisdom of the majority. Why do we believe in the law of gravitation ? Because the majority of college professors believe in it, of course. Suppose that 1 should announce on this platform that stones fall upward instead of downward. {Laughter and cries of derision.) But that is the position of the ticket scratcher. The majority of scientists who have studied the law of gravitation and who are competent to pass upon it, have decided after careful determination and exact measurement,
and not on mere superficial appearances, that stones do fall downward. They have settled that question finally. And nowhere comes a ticket-scratching enthusiast who says, "No, I will not accept that platform. I don't care a cuss what any majority says on the subject ; I'm going to decide for myself. I'm just as competent to ground a brickbat as all the scientists in Christendom." Gentlemen, we haven't time to decide for ourselves on all the great questions that agitate the public mind. We are all fallible, taken individually, and therefore in seeking our canons of political wisdom we should take pains to consolidate as many individual opinions as possible. Truth is to be obtained by the multiplication of errors. Perhaps the wisest Democrats will have no opinions at all until after the convention meets, but if we do venture to form any we should consider them only tentative and subject to revision after they are passed on by the platform committee.'"
Colonel Lumpkin paused a moment to fold the clipping and deposit it in his waistcoat pocket, and then he continued as follows :
"We circulate Judge Wriggle's speeches in the Democratic pigeonhole and we publish
ELECTION DAY
'the highest of all civic virtues is party loyalty"
[pgbrk] 526
THE MAN IN THE PIGEONHOLE
them under glaring headlines in the Daily Democrat. We circulate Mr. Ramble's speeches in the Republican pigeonhole and circulate them in the Daily Republican. The Daily Democrat prints a caricature of Judge Wriggle wiping up the floor with Mr. Ramble, and the same artist in the Daily Republican sketches Mr. Ramble wiping up the floor with Judge Wriggle. And both orators sit in our private office and laugh with us. For Mr. Ramble is the general counsel of the Consolidated Traction Company, and Judge Wriggle is one of its attorneys, though just now he is on leave of absence to occupy a seat on the bench.
"Finally election day arrives. The first to vote is Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones votes the straight Republican ticket because his father voted the straight Republican ticket, and because the Marquis de Lafayette graciously kissed his grandmother when she was a little girl. Then comes Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith votes the straight Democratic ticket because his father always voted the straight Democratic ticket, and because his great-grandfather left him an autograph letter from General Jackson complimenting him upon his skill in brewing mint-juleps. Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith go into their pigeonholes. Then comes Mr. Bilker. Mr. Bilker votes for Alderman Boodle because he has weighed the situation and has a good and valid reason in the shape of a ten-dollar bill. Mr. Bilker is voting relevantly, and with some sovereign discretion and intelligence. Mr. Bilker's political conceptions are not very high, but he is not a nincompoop to be ignored and canceled out as a political cipher. Then comes Mr. Floyd-Smugley,
who lives in a brownstone house and is driven to the polls in his carriage. He has swallowed the Gammon syllogism, and in voting for Mr. Boodle prides himself that he is voting for social stability. Then come three more who are filed away in the Republican pigeonhole. They are followed by Mr. Casey, who is to have a 'job on the city' if Mr. Boodle is elected. Mr. Casey votes with volition and has not abdicated his sovereignty. Then come four more Democrats, to be filed away in the Democratic pigeonhole. And then comes Judge Wriggle. Perhaps you think that he will scratch his ticket and vote for Alderman Boodle. If you think that you do the judge an injustice. Not at all. He has always voted the straight Democratic ticket and he will not stultify himself now. He may have soiled his judicial ermine but he will keep his party record as white as snow. He knows that the Traction Company has insured the election of Mr. Boodle and that he is safely paired with Mr. Ramble.
" By six o'clock the returns are in and stand as follows:
Shanks, Democratic.......... 47 votes
Boodle, Republican........... 52 votes
Sniffles, Prohibitionist......... 1 vote
Total vote................... 100 votes
Boodle's plurality............ 5 votes
"The result is substantially the same in the other precincts of the First Ward. Mr. Boodle, elected by the suffrages of honest voters, is given full powers to betray the public interests to the Westport Consolidated Traction Company, and other benevolent corporations. The result is substantially the same in the other wards.
JUDGE WRIGGLE
"He may have soiled his judicial ermine but he will keep his party record as white as snow "
[pgbrk]
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JOHN McAULEY PALMER
We have divided the great respectable majority into two futile factions. We control the city of Westport by controlling a small but united minority of rascals.
"Of course the street-railway company gets its new franchises. Of course all ordinances in the interest of public health and public comfort are defeated. Of course the gas company is guaranteed another period of license. And of course a city council which is easy on the high finance will not be too severe on the low finance, with its gambling dens and dives. Westport is to be run once more on business principles.
"And now, my fellow-citizens, who is responsible ? First, of course, is Timothy Lumpkin and his brother Captains of Industry. But with them business is business. With them political corruption is just as much a legitimate business expedient as advertising or fire insurance. Then there are Mr. Ramble and Judge Wriggle. If you accuse them
they will rest on the fact that they are retained by the Westport Consolidated Traction Company. They will prove to you that an attorney must not judge his clients and thus usurp the functions of the court and jury. Then we have Mr. Bilker and Mr. Casey. But if franchise wealth is to be squandered in building palaces and game preserves, in buying yachts and keeping racing stables; why shouldn't a poor devil like Bilker have his ten-dollar bill for a night's debauch, and why shouldn't Casey have a soft snap in the City Hall ? Let us at least divide the spoils fairly. And then there is poor Mr. Floyd-Smugley with his intellectual tastes and his syllogism. Surely we cannot blame it all on him, so let us swallow the gnat and look for the camel. Whom have we left to blame?
MR. CASEY " who is to have ' a job on the city ' if Mr. Boodle is elected
"Gentlemen, here is the secret. It is not the capitalist, it is not the boss, it is not the venal voter. It is the man in the pigeonhole.
"The issue to-day in Westport is whether public utility corporations are to serve the people or rule the people; whether the people's wealth is to be exploited for all of the people or for only a few of the people.
The effect of rigid party lines is to transfer our municipal wealth to a few of the people, for with the respectable voters pigeonholed, Mammon is able to throw the deciding venal vote to the most complacent or available candidate. Mammon is non-partizan, except in cities where one party always has a safe majority, and there he belongs to the party in power. In the practical problem of weighing candidates, I know of no better guide than the old text : ' Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' If you will ponder that proposition for a moment, you will find that it is not merely a religious abstraction. It is a basic law of human society, a fundamental political truth. The aim of good government is to convert our friend Mammon into a useful and well-disciplined domestic servant. But as Mammon does not want to be domesticated, it is not at all likely that his chosen candidates will cooperate very zealously in that operation.
"My fellow-citizens," continued Colonel Lumpkin, after pausing for a moment to take a drink of water and to clear his throat : "you have often heard the phrases 'popular sovereignty,' and 'sovereign people,' but I will venture to say that very few of you have ever considered what they really mean. Did it ever occur to you that if there is such a thing as a sovereign people, some of this royal power and prerogative must be within the
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reach of every citizen ? Now, it is not necessary to wear a golden hat or to carry a gilded ball and bat in order to exercise our prerogative. But there is always one occasion, gentlemen, where our kingship demands a material emblem of office. Those of us who are kings in fact will always carry a scepter on election day, not necessarily in our hand but behind our ear or conveniently stowed away in our waistcoat pocket. 1 have mine with me- now and if you will pardon me I will hold it up for your inspection."
At this point Colonel Lumpkin paused in his speech and produced what appeared to be an ordinary lead-pencil. Holding this instrument above his head he advanced with it to the front of the stage. " This scepter," he continued, "is decorated with a crown jewel which the chemists say is first cousin to the diamond itself. It is perhaps a very homely scepter, but it is a most useful instrument of kingly discretion. Its object is to enable you to pass on the lists of servants that the Mayors of the Palace prepare for your royal hands, and if there are any knaves
or ignoramuses on the lists, it is your kingly prerogative and duty to scratch them. The Mayors of the Palace would like you to loll back in your pigeonholes, and leave the whole matter to them, but if you do, they will be the kings and not you.
"And now, gentlemen," said Colonel Lumpkin in conclusion, " I will tell you why I know that I am to be elected mayor of Westport. When I went into this campaign I did not devote myself to the discussion of the Tweedleport convention of 1846 and the Twaddleport platform of 1842. I did not consider that they had anything more to do with the franchise question in Westport than the Salic Law or the Pragmatic Sanction. I had studied the art of keeping you pigeonholed, and so, in this campaign, I exerted myself to get you out of your pigeonholes. I don't expect all of you to come out, but down in my office I have a card catalogue which contains the names of several thousand prospective ticket-scratchers. And while I am not at liberty to tell you just how many there are, I can safely assure you that there are more than enough."
THE PEOPLE'S WEAPON The only one the monster fears
[pgbrk] ONE HUNDRED MASTERPIECES
OF PAINTING
BY
JOHN LA FARGE
AUTHOR OF ''GREAT MASTERS''
THE PRIMITIVES — THE FLEMISH
of sight, the feeling for the reality of things, the analysis of character, the exquisite lighting, as well as the rich and harmonious coloring, and above all, a singular and separate spiritual expression, so satisfied the eye and the mind, that one could forget that others, still greater, had painted since that day. And the wonder remained, that a couple of men had passed from the inefficiency of the painting of the Middle Ages, to such complete perfection in the course of a few years. Of course, they had around them the splendors of stained glass and of painted and gilded architecture and statuary. John Van Eyck, we know, had also been a painter of statues, and we even know what he was paid for such work. His elder brother must also have been trained in that way, and his invention of a beautiful way of painting is simply based on the experience of previous decorative work. Hubert, the elder, began, and John, the younger, continued the system. Hubert died in 1426, having begun the great triptych of St. Bavo at Ghent. John, his younger brother, finished it in 1432, and died the 9th of July, 1440. In twenty years they had completed a first expression of things in correct and exact forms, had given the first realization of air, and sky, and landscape in truthful color, with the richness of reality, and within this first correct physical representation of all that we see together, they had imparted to the creatures placed within their pictures, a spiritual life, a delicacy of sentiment, or a distinctness of character which was never to be excelled, notwithstanding that nobler forms and grander movements would belong to later artists.
LAST year, at an exposition at Bruges, while looking with me at that celebrated painting by John Van Eyck, where St. Donatian stands clad in a cope, so painted that even a photograph could not have a greater appearance of ease of execution, an intelligent Oriental asked me why the men who did such work were called "primitives," when, certainly, no painter of to-day could hope to rival the wonderful execution of that time, now some five hundred years ago. The question seemed natural,—five hundred years had done less damage to the paintings of the early Flemish than the last thirty or forty years have done to most modern paintings. The panels where they remained intact from restoration, still glowed with a richness and a delicacy of color that made them a pleasure to the senses. A feeling of complete and finished work, based on long experience, was the steady impression ; and yet, we were looking at the first paintings made in the modern way ; that is to say, according to the custom that we call oil-painting. From one point of view, these painters were properly the "primitives"; they were the first, and within a single lifetime they had developed this process of painting so far, that there might be variations, but there could be no improvement. What was lacking to them were the previous combined studies of many men ; what we have to-day: a full knowledge of anatomy, of perspective, and moreover, the influence of the pagan past. But the wonderful grasp
[pgbrk] THE CENTRAL PANEL OF THE TRIPTYCH
THE WORSHIP OF THE LAMB
FROM THE PAINTING BY HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK
[pgbrk] 531
JOHN LA FARGE
Almost all that was to be discovered had been opened up.
It may be difficult to determine the proportion of each brother's task in the triptych "The Worship of the Lamb." Hubert painted the great figures that accompany the subject, — the Heavenly Father, the Virgin, St. John, and Adam and Eve, parts of the great work which 1 do not reproduce. The story is in the long centre panel, and the side ones which continue the landscape in which the figures are placed. In the vast space of this earliest of landscapes, under real light, a pale sky, bluer above, sheds the light of a beautiful morning on a wide park of grass and flowers, framed by distances of hills, hidden behind trees and bushes of myrtle and orange filled with flower and fruit. Behind the darker hills, edged by palm and cypress, rise the ecclesiastical towers of the New Jerusalem. In the centre of the Park of Paradise is placed the altar and table draped with purple, and upon it stands the White Lamb of Sacrifice. Around the altar kneel the adoring angels ; some of them toss censers, others hold the symbolic images of the Passion. They are clad in white or in pale blue, or rosy gray. Around them is a sacred space of untrodden grass, spotted with white stars of innumerable daisies. Right in front, by us, is the Fountain of Life sending up a jet of water that falls back into a marble basin running over. By it kneel a mass of prophets, in far-away Oriental costumes, their books open in their hands, as if following on the altar the accomplishment of their words. Next to them are a crowded group of men in strange, foreign costumes, draped and mantled and bearded. They are those who, from the beginning, have announced the Christ, or have developed doctrine, or in some shape kept up the spiritual thought, whether in belief or doubt. There are ancient bards, pagan doctors, philosophers, or unbelievers, and they accept or hesitate, according to their character. An extraordinary reality of expression, with scarcely a movement, gives the sense of abundant meaning. They represent the world of thought before and after Christ.
On the right-hand side of the fountain, as a balance to the kneeling prophets, kneel also the twelve apostles, all in pale violet, their hands lifted in prayer— men with great beards, long hair, and powerful features, contrasting again with the right-hand standing group of the officers of the Church ; priests,
bishops, archbishops, popes and monks, mostly shaven, following the text of their prayer-books, adoring in the full security and continuance of their office, and clad in all the splendors of Church vestments, embroidered with gold, and pearls, and rubies, and emeralds, which play on the rich red of their many draperies. Each one of these ecclesiastics looks like a portrait in every detail. Far back, issuing from green woods, come the Chorus of the Holy Women. They are clad in pale blue and rose-color and lilac, and we discern each face in a gentle monotone of variety.
On the left, further back, to balance the assembly of the women, comes the beginning of the noble army of martyrs. They are mostly bishops or churchmen, of high rank, — what we see of them, — and they are clad in symbolic blue mantles; they, like the women, carry the palm of triumph.
In the four side panels the Army of the Just ride or walk to join the Holy Company of the centre panel. No greater poem of Holy War has been made, than the group of knights who ride past on their war-horses, clad in armor, holding their banners, guiding their horses with steel gauntlets. The serene faces and resolute faces are like a portrait of Mediaeval chivalry, and for the first time in painting, we see the horse fully represented in weight and strength, and solid tread. Behind the knights ride the Company of the Just Judges, clad in garbs of peace or office, their faces portraits of consciences clear of wrong. Tradition makes one of them to be the portrait of the older painter. Behind him, on a darker horse, rides his brother, who completed the picture. But this is mere tradition, perhaps of a later day.
In the two right panels, round the base of one of the rocks that enclose the Paradise, comes a straggling band of pilgrims, — ascetics, monks, saints of the desert, bare-headed, with pilgrim hats or folded cloths upon their heads, each one according to his story. Among them, as a manner of leader, stalks St. Christopher, the giant, the long wading-pole in his right hand, and draped in a single cloth of red. Long, matted hair, and rosaries, and staves belong to most of these anxious followers of the Truth. Behind them, emerging from some cleft in the rocks, are the contrasting forms and features of two women, saints of the desert probably ; Mary Magdalen, certainly, and Mary of Egypt, perhaps. The gentle faces and calm expressions
[pgbrk] THE TWO LEFT PANELS OF THE TRIPTYCH
THE WORSHIP OF THE LAMB
THE PAINTING BY HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK
[pgbrk] THE TWO RIGHT PANELS OF THE TRIPTYCH
THE WORSHIP OF THE LAMB
FROM THE PAINTING BY HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK
[pgbrk] THE VIRGIN AND ST. DON ATI AN
FROM THE PAINTING BY JOHN VAN EYCK
[pgbrk] 535
JOHN LA FARGE
accentuate still more the energy of the male pilgrims. Against the sky, in the furthest corner, stand a solitary palm and cypress, which also close the scene, and add to its surprising reality. Its reality is of the most simple and visible description. It is more than realism. It is an abstraction of reality, and contrariwise to the imitations of the real, a realization of facts taken from Nature. All this elaboration of facts, this accumulation of little details, almost prosaic, recalls a dream, and forces the mind to the perception of some latent meaning — of something inexpressible, either by words or other forms of art. In that way, it is a masterpiece of masterpieces, of a value far beyond even the astounding merits of its artistic execution. And tradition, which gives its order, its arrangement, and its programme to the older brother, is probably in the right. No other painting of John, the younger, notwithstanding its beauties, would carry in its realism that strange message that only a great man can send.
One would like to know what Albrecht Du-rer said, and what he thought when, late in life, having accomplished so much, after seeing Italy, he looked at this picture, — the full bloom of what he had tried to do as a younger painter, when he sought to study under Martin the Beautiful, of Colmar. He, almost alone besides, in his great painting of "The Trinity, Adored by All the Saints," painted just one hundred years later, has been able to use persistent literal realism as a means of suggesting a spiritual impression. But, in Dürer's great work, the effort is more visible, as well as the mechanism. As painting, it has not the astounding perfection of the earlier work, nor does its energy replace the sweetness based on power, of the great Van Eyck.
In 1436, four years after the painting of the "Lamb," John Van Eyck finished the picture called "The Virgin and St. Dona-tian." It is the ancient work which, however, realizes most of the demands of modern art. The art of painting would seem entirely expressed in this realization of a scene. It is a transcript of Nature, spiritualized by its wonderful execution, by the accuracy of its observation, and the art through which, without apparent means, and without blurring or concealing, the enormous detail occupies only our necessary attention. The suggestion of light, and air, and space, and of relative obscurity, is so subtle, that we only
think of the scene. It is not a complicated one. The Virgin sits in the centre upon a throne, against which hangs a dais, black with red designs. She and the Child, the saints, and the kneeling donor of the picture are in some churchlike building, upon a marble floor, lit by the windows, which Van Eyck so wonderfully painted, recalling, perhaps, his days of glass staining. Beneath the feet of the Virgin is unrolled a Persian carpet minutely copied and realized. The Virgin is one of the most prosaic that Van Eyck has painted, and the Child is strangely devoid of beauty, copied, apparently, without change from some baby underfed. But on the right of the Virgin stands St. Donatian, the patron of the Cathedral, whence the picture came, astonishing in realism and in choice of church character. He is mitred in gold, and nothing could be more perfect than the painting of his cope. On the left of the Mother and Child, St. George, a portrait of a strange but beautiful type, clad in Damascened armor, lifts his helmet, with a smile, as he presents the donor of the picture, Canon van der Paele. He is dressed in a white surplice. He holds in his wrinkled hands a prayer-book and its cover, and an eye-glass, whose lentil is a marvel of imitation. He is old and bald ; a few gray hairs play upon the hard skull that we feel under the thin skin. The drawn eyes and face wrinkled and seamed by age, are a marvel of portraiture, equal to any that the great Holbein will paint later. That is the great wonder in the wonderful picture whose color is so rich, whose tone is so full, that the mere decoration of the surface is almost a sufficient pleasure to the eye.
An astonishing resemblance and astonishing difference come in with the painting of Memlinc. The art and the school are the same, but the personal feeling appears with a distinctness, with a delicacy that singles out the painter from every school. So impressive is this sentiment that one almost regrets the legend that made a story, of Mem-linc's having painted as a thank-offering to the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, the picture which I have chosen, and which has long been known as "The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine." The story was that one night of January, 1477, a young soldier begged for help, and care, and food at the door of the hospital. He had escaped from the defeat at Nancy, which saw the death of Charles the Rash of Burgundy, his lord, and had made his way through that week of cruel
[pgbrk] THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE
FROM THE PAINTING BY MEMLINC
weather, as far as the city of Bruges. Taken in, and sheltered, and cured, he had painted for the hospital, during the following year, "The Shrine of St. Ursula," his painting of "St. Catherine," and other paintings that are there. Like so many legends, the story seems to have no foundation. On the contrary, we know that he was fairly successful, that he came from far away, born in May-ence, but of Dutch extraction. In 1478, a master painter, he had the freedom of the city ; but in 1480 he was well off, and had purchased a large stone house and two others ; we know that his wife's name was "Anne," that he had three children, that she died in 1487 and he on the 11th of August, 1494. This account would certainly be better for him than the more poetic story. But
the paintings that bear his name were executed slowly, and needed means and time.
We know only this much of Memlinc. He dies half a century after John Van Eyck, and his teaching comes through some other direct influence, though the sequence is undoubted.
John Van Eyck, at least, we know did well. He was painter and chamber servant to Philip of Burgundy, and besides the work that he painted, he seems to have been employed on certain secret and far-away travels which the Duke commanded him to make "into certain places of which he desired no further mention made." If Philip trusted him, or trusted his accurate sight and opinion as to a future wife, it may have been thus that he went to Spain, and then to Portugal, and painted the Infanta Isabella, who shortly
[pgbrk] 537
JOHN LA FARCE
afterwards was engaged to Philip. Once more, in 1435, he was sent "upon certain far-away voyages and strange marches," and then returned to his own house. To his one son, Duke Philip stood godfather. We have the portrait of his wife, painted a year before he died, and inscribed "My husband, John, painted me in the year, 1439, my age was thirty years." "Ah ich kan," is the motto on this picture and on many others, and certainly, the paintings are well inscribed, as being done as well as possible.
I have, naturally, chosen part of a masterpiece by Memlinc for our subject. It is the centre of the triptych of the high altar, at St. John's Hospital at Bruges, painted in 1479, towards the latter part of his life. As I said, it is usually known as "The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine," an allegorical subject, much beloved by painters, partly because, perhaps, often required of them on account of the many meanings of its symbolism. The Virgin is seated on a metal faldstool with the infant Jesus upon her lap. On the canopy above her hangs a cloth of honor, a large-patterned brocade, accentuating the perpendiculars of the dark columns which frame the throne, and repeating the many columns of the temple or building where the scene is laid. Two tiny angels, the size of big birds, hold the crown far up over the head of the Virgin, and their gowns and wings melt gently into the space above. Two others, full-grown, with sweet faces, dressed like choristers, kneel alongside of her. The one plays upon a portable organ, the other holds open for her the Book of Wisdom, of which the Virgin turns a leaf, apparently absorbed in some thought connected with her reading. The right hand supports the infant Christ. He holds an apple in his left hand, in the uncertain way of a baby, and with a similar gesture he places a bridal ring on the finger of the left hand of St. Catherine who is seated a little nearer to the front. St. Catherine wears a long skirt, black, embroidered with gold ; her sleeves are of crimson velvet, her bodice is cut open, showing an exquisite neck; a diadem of gold and pearls covers her forehead above the veil, — a white veil, so delicate as to be almost like a film of water. No description could render the expression of her face, — so young, so feminine, so gentle, and yet so decided, as if the type of what we call "The Lady"; with whom everything becomes refined, whose gestures and movements are guided by habit
into accomplished rhythm. And no arm and hand could be more calmly beautiful in gesture or in make, than hers, as she lifts her long, tapering finger for the wedding ring. A sword and a wheel lie beside her, the usual emblems of her martyrdom, which tell us her name. Opposite her, further away, is seated St. Barbara, absorbed in her book, which she holds with both hands, looking down with attentive eyes, attentive lips, in that special manner that the painter must have seen in high-bred maidens fond of books. Like St. Catherine, she is another type of refined, courtly training. One would say that nothing but the habit of a life under constant observation could give to these two personages such manners as rule every line, every modulation of their gestures. Compared to their elegance, the figures behind them, though beautiful and noble, fall almost into commonplace. No one else has ever gone further in these suggestions, — not even Memlinc himself.
The two St. Johns who stand behind the women, are John the Baptist with his lamb, and John the Evangelist, making the traditional sign of the cross over the poisoned chalice, according to one of his legends. Tradition thinks the latter a portrait of the painter ; and there is a certain something of contemplative absorption and innocence in the face that might well justify this possible invention of fancy. Outside the building is seen an earthly landscape, with many figures that have a story connected with the story of St. John. The picture was painted at the suggestion of John of Floreins (who at that time was hospital treasurer), for the Hospital Church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Divine, at the cost of the devout men and women who took care of the Hospital, thus dividing their time between labor and prayer, as typified by St. Catherine and St. Barbara, who represent, in the symbolism of painting, the active and the contemplative religious life.
Apart from the beautiful methods of the painting which renders with absorbed interest the delicacy of flesh and its complexion, the preciousness of stuffs, and gold, and pearls and metals, and holds all these many interests in one balance of due proportion, what is it that has given to Memlinc this perception of the exquisite refinement of woman ? The painter has seen in these women a beauty even greater than they could have had, and the charm of
[pgbrk] 538
IN THE FAMILY
their daintiness is nothing but an exterior covering for a beautiful mind. Carefulness and attention to the rendering of these charms of body and mind, the exquisite finish of the painting, seem a form of respectful regard and caress. Who were the models that sat to the painter? These are not pure inventions any more than his other figures. The sense of portraiture runs throughout his work. But the original model has been transmuted, probably, into finer gold. In no other painting of the time, — a time of many portraits — are there such
types. The times were cruel, harsh, brutal, debased, violent. Every variety of crime, and assertion of its necessity, injustice, perfidy, treason, oaths carefully sworn and broken, revolt and massacre, superstition and debauchery, are carefully recorded by the general historians of the day. The pictures bear testimony to the love of gold, and show, and pomp, and festival, and extraordinary display that mark the time. But how out of all that did the painter build these images of sweet sanctity, these flowers of simple perfection ?
IN THE FAMILY
A LITTLE STORY OF COURTSHIP
BY
MARY STEWART CUTTING
AUTHOR OF " L1T T»L E STORIES OF MARRIED LIFE,' ETC.
IF it were only Maudie Caswell instead of that Miss Slombruger that Latimer was attentive to !"
Mrs. Lane looked appeal-ingly at her pretty brown-haired daughter, a two-months' bride, who, brave in her wedding finery, sat now with a temporary effect in a big arm-chair, watching the clock, at the close of a day spent in her old home.
"Do you supppose I ought to go and call on her, Anna ?"
"Oh, mother, no ! Of course not \" Young Mrs. Harland Lloyd's tone was final. "It isn't as if anything had been announced ; we're not supposed to know about it at all."
"Yes, I know, Anna, but still—" Mrs. Lane was plainly unconvinced. "When everybody is asking me if they are engaged — the Caprons go to all those club-dances in Bridgeroad and bring back all kinds of reports — when even that Mrs. Wagner actually congratulated me, it seems to me very singular that his molher should be expected to take no notice of it whatever. When you
read love stories they always make it seem as if there were only the two young people in the world — I dare say they think so themselves — but they're very much mistaken. I think the family has a great deal to go through." Mrs. Lane paused to add uncomfortably: "Slombruger seems such an extraordinary name — and Anemone Slombruger ! It doesn't sound quite — ladylike."
"They say it was originally Von Slombruger," interrupted Anna, over whose lovely face little causeless, tremulous blushes had been coming and going, as if, while her mother talked, she herself were holding secret converse with Love. "They say there was a castle on the Rhine — before the father went to Nevada."
"Yes, my dear, so I've heard. But she seems such an unnatural sort of person for my boy to like — Latimer has just the same look in his eyes that he had when he was a baby, and his hair falls over his forehead the same way, for all he is so grown up and so broad, and has done so well in business. I can't seem to hear anything about this Miss Slombruger except that she only cares for
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dancing and is very attractive to men. Now you know yourself, Anna, you can't make a home for a man on thai. I wish I had taken more notice of her at your reception — I did see that she was very tall, and white, and thin, and dressed magnificently, but I never thought of her in connection with Latimer; she put me out a little by shaking my hand up by my ear, with that odd, mannish kind of a grip that some girls have. It seems so odd that she should have come on to visit at the Caswells'— such nice, comfortable, old-time people — making such a long stay too, and the brother coming out from town so often. He was quite nice looking."
"They say he is devoted to Maudie," interpolated Anna again.
"Yes, so you told me. When Latimer began suddenly going there, I did hope it was for her. She was always such a dear child, and there's been something in her manner to me since her mother's death that has always appealed to me — though since they moved to Bridgeroad and that grandmother came to live there, we've sort of lost sight of them. She got along with your father so beautifully at the reception ; he was very much pleased with her. Do you know, Anna — you'll laugh at me — but there was something, just a little something in her eyes when she handed Latimer her oyster plate that made me feel as if she cared."
"Miss Slombruger is terribly bad style," said Anna decidedly. " She tried to flirt with Harland at the reception — that placed her at once with me ; the brother was very nice to me. But Latimer has had so many affairs, probably this won't amount to anything."
"Oh, my dear! You needn't tell me." Mrs. Lane shook her head with melancholy certainty. "You may think a person is in earnest — but when you see the real thing you know. Why he never has his Sunday dessert any more, not even when it's Nesselrode pudding, and you know how fond he is of that — because he is in such a hurry to get that two o'clock train that makes connection for Bridgeroad. If dinner isn't on the table at the moment, he goes around with his watch in his hand counting the seconds, and you know how your father hates to have anything hurried. Oh, Latimer isn't like himself at all. He looks so strained and excited."
"Harland's mother invited him to her musicale — she counted on his violin — and
he never came, and never sent any word. I was so ashamed," said Mrs. Lloyd. "Of course Harland wouldn't have minded for himself, but when it was his mother-"
"Well, Harland will have to stand it like anybody else," said Mrs. Lane stubbornly. "I hardly see Latimer at all — he never comes in before one o'clock at night. The other evening I tried to get a chance to speak to him while he was buttoning his collar, saying people had been asking me about him, about his going so much to Bridgeroad, and he only said, in that emphatic way of his, 'When there's anything to tell you, mother, you may be sure I'll tell it.' Oh, dear me ! You don't have to put on your things and go already, do you ?"
"Yes, I'd better," said Anna, who had risen and was putting on her hat. The lovely color deepened in her soft cheeks — she looked with starry eyes at her mother. " Harland is so foolish ; if he gets home before I do he feels so lonely, he won't even sit down until I come in."
" Yes. Oh, well, he'll get over that," said Mrs. Lane absently. She returned yearningly to her troubles. " I can't get used to your living out of the house, Anna, and going to Harland's mother's to Sunday nights' tea. Of course it's all right, but I can't say I don't miss you ; even Harland couldn't expect me to say that I don't miss you, Anna."
"Now you know you have me every day in the week," said the daughter cheerfully, stopping in the arrangement of her veil to lean caressingly against the motherly shoulder near her, with a quick little upward, loving glance that took in the tears Mrs. Lane was bravely endeavoring to keep under cover. " I wouldn't worry about Latimer. She is horrid, but something may come to break it off. Didn't you say I was to have some of those biscuits to take home with me ?"
Mrs. Lane brightened visibly. "I've got them in a box downstairs for you, dear, and a piece of the chocolate cake. And, Anna, you'll laugh at me, but I put in two of those croquettes; you liked them so much for lunch, dear. Don't let Gunda burn them up when she warms them over."
She would have liked to send around a whole dinner, but Harland mightn't like it. The Lloyds' little dwelling was charming, but Anna as her mother's helper and Anna as housekeeper on her own account were two very different things. The meals those two young people sat down to wrung Mrs. Lane's
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heart. The thought of Latimer, her darling boy, starving with a Miss Slombruger who only cared for dancing, was really too much. Miss Slombruger! In spite of being still young, and in spite of daily association with the present generation, Mrs. Lane had a queer little old-fashioned streak in her that didn't belong in this age — she was, like her bedroom, black walnut to the core. The United States of America consisted of a territory some twenty-five miles square, in which everybody lived and the capital of which was her home. People who came from otherwhere might be nice, but even then she was relieved when they went back to their strange outlands. She was so very much herself that it was hard for her to put herself in the place of her children, though she yearned unspeakably for some real, living sympathy in her care for the beloved son, her strong young Prince among men, whose future happiness was, alas ! in his own inexperienced hands.
"Is Latimer detained to-night?" asked Mr. Lane at dinner, looking at the place opposite James, the younger son. Mr. Lane's high, gray-crowned forehead and Roman nose made anything he said impressive.
"Why, I suppose so," said the wife hurriedly. " It's dreadful the way he is kept at the office. He has hardly been home to dinner a night this week."
" Well, he isn't kept at the office to-night," said James the care-free. James was a college youth who enjoyed life. " I met him on the train to-night coming out with Maudie Caswell."
"Maudie!" Mrs. Lane's heart gave a glad leap.
"Well, he was with her at first, and then they paired off with that Slombruger crowd — they make me tired. Latimer had on one of my new neckties, too, one I've been saving to wear. Oh, you bet he tried to dodge, but I saw him. When he forgets to send his things to the laundry he just walks in and takes mine. I won't stand it any longer, and I'll tell him so, too, when I get the chance. He acts as crazy as a loon over that girl — he acts craiyl "
" If you will allow me to speak," said Mr. Lane, with dignified displeasure, " I would like you, my dear, to request Latimer to lock the hall door when he comes in so late. Ellen informed me this morning that the key had not been turned in the lock nor the chain put up for two nights."
" I don't see why she told you," murmured Mrs. Lane with a flash of resentment and a quick decision to muzzle Ellen for the future. " Poor Latimer ! He's so tired when he comes in these nights after that long journey from Bridgeroad, I suppose he can hardly see to get upstairs."
The father waved an impatient hand.
" Latimer is old enough to look after himself. If he is tired, it's his own lookout. / want that door locked."
"Very well, dear," said Mrs. Lane abjectly. She was the recognized means of transmission between her husband and his household. She hastened, now, to place the evening lamp in the little study off the library, wondering whether she ought to speak to him about Miss Slombruger or not. That little old-fashioned streak was answerable for her position toward her husband. Mr. Lane, an intelligent and upright man, somewhat stiff and diffident by nature, had been so surrounded with sacred observances by a sacrificial wife that his every peculiarity had been heightened, until he was now a being apart. In the inclosure in which he lived, every pebble had been so carefully removed that a grain of misplaced sand irritated him. He always sat in the study, no matter what went on in the house, and when mistaken strangers hospitably insisted on entertaining him, under the impression that he was being neglected, "the family "always got nervous. Yet there were times when "father" had been known to come out of his shell and talk delightfully, and there was an implicit confidence in his affection. As he smiled now at his wife she took the plunge.
"Theodore !"
" Well, my dear ? "
" Latimer is — well, I don't know that he is, but — he hasn't told me that he was engaged yet, but I think that's what it is. She is considered a very — attractive girl, the daughter of the Hon. Zachary Adolphus Slombruger, of Nevada, but I think he comes from — Germany."
"Germany!" Mr. Lane sat up straight, his Roman nose looking like an ensign. "He comes from a little back Jersey town. A daughter of Zak Slombruger's ! " A dull red crept up to his narrow temples, his eyes glittered. "Then all I can say is, she's the daughter of one of the worst scoundrels unhung. The way he behaved about that Undine water deal was a notorious scandal — he's a man I wouldn't let come inside my
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door. Will you kindly push that footstool a quarter of an inch further this way ? Thank you."
" But, Theodore! What am I to do about it?" Poor Mrs. Lane was agonized. "If Latimer loves her, Theodore--"
"I don't know what you're going to do about it. I wash my hands of the whole affair. But I give you fair warning, you'll be very sorry if you encourage Latimer in any such folly. If you take my advice you'll put a stop to the whole thing at once. I don't care what the girl is like, it's bad stock, Nannie. That's what it is, it's Bad Stock ! Have this lamp taken out of the room at once, if you please, and attended to properly. The odor is disgusting."
"Oh, Theodore !" said poor Mrs. Lane again, with a heart whose swift sympathy leapt beyond the trivial manifestation of his perturbation to the real cause of it. Bad stock ! She knew what the words meant to him — and to her, too. An honorable, upright, God-fearing ancestry — that was the foundation of family living that everyone must have. Yet Anemone might be the flower on a dunghill.
She went to the hall door to look out for a moment in the hope of seeing her boy, and surprised two large ladies about to ring.
"Why, Aunt Margaret !" she cried. "And Maggie too. How did you get here ? Come right in. Have you had your dinner?"
"Oh, don't speak of dinner!" said the younger woman, who was not so very young, and who had an air of brisk sharpness where the mother had an air of brisk benevolence. "We came up this afternoon from Bridgeroad to a meeting of the Daughters, and there was such a collation ! We thought we would just drop here for five minutes on our way back to the train; we see you so seldom."
"I'm so glad you did," said Mrs. Lane warmly. " I do wish the boys were home to see their Aunt Margaret, but James has just gone out, and Latimer is hardly ever home to dinner now ; he works so hard in the office."
"Indeed! We hear of Latimer quite frequently at the Caswells' in the next street," said Aunt Margaret. "Mrs. Slope — she lives next door to them — runs in two or three times a week to have a little chat with us. She says old Mrs. Caswell is really worn out with so much company. Ever since that dreadful girl from the West arrived the house has been full of young men,
staying until all hours. Poor Maudie is so tired she doesn't look like herself at all."
"Well, I must say I don't think old Mrs. Caswell puts herself out very much," retorted Mrs. Lane, a furious tide rising in her. " I know Latimer has gone there straight from the office, without any dinner, several times when he has been kept late, and has never been offered a thing to eat. No young man ever comes to my house in that way without my finding out if he's had his dinner, but when it's my child, he has to go without. I suppose it's because Mrs. Caswell is just a grandmother, and doesn't want the trouble. If those boys stay too late it's her own fault. I'm sure I've often wished she'd allude to the time in some way, pleasantly, of course, so they'd have some idea of the hour. One night Latimer missed the last train, and had to walk three miles to the trolley, and they never even asked him to stay all night."
"Well, of course, if you're satisfied to have him there so often, Nannie, it's all right— if you're satisfied with his attentions to Miss Slombruger. Mother thought — but if you are satisfied it's all right," said Cousin Maggie agreeably, with, however, a mysterious air of reservation all through the rest of the visit that Mrs. Lane scorned to inquire into. She was trembling with an indignation which, however, left her forlorn when they departed ; she was sick of the sound of Miss Slombruger's name, and sick of the whole thing. The tide of report ran but one way. The blue eyes of her eldest born, her bright, warm-hearted, honest, whole-souled boy looked at her as for the last time. Some way she must not let him make this suicidal marriage — the dreary years of consequences stretched murderously before her. But how to stop him ? If she pleaded he would not listen ; if his father commanded he would not obey. What could you do with children who were bent on folly after they were grown up ? She had a sudden yearning for Maudie, for the little, homelike girl with- the tender eyes, who had looked as if she also cared for him.
"Oh, Latimer! My dear boy." She ran to the head of the stairs as he came up. " I could hardly believe it was you — so early. Oh, my boy ! What 15 it ? Latimer!" She clasped her hands around his arm, and he pushed along toward his room without turning to her, but stopping when he got there to say mechanically :
"What did you say, mother?"
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Then he broke out, suddenly and strangely. "They came up to the dance at the Club Hall here to-night, and they didn't ask me to go with them. What do you think of that? What do you think it means? Anemone said — " He stopped, with an odd, twisted, breathless smile, his eyes staring past her as if through a haze.
"I'm as jealous — as — the deuce!" he said in an odd, breathless tone that matched his smile. "I'm as — jealous — as the deuce! It's the fire of— Go, mother!"
She felt his arm around her for a moment, as he suffered her embrace, and then she was outside the door he had closed, trembling and shaken at this glimpse of a great, primitive passion. It was so strange that anything like this should happen "in the family."
She had a fierce rage at the girl who was playing with her boy's heart, yet an exultant, traitorous hope that she might throw it quite away. That would settle everything. What mattered the knife thrust of a little pain now, if it was to save the tragedy of a marred future? She was already beginning to plan the desserts she would have for him when he stayed at home once more for his Sunday dinner, and stopped her planning only to head off tall young J ames as he came up to the landing.
" Latimer doesn't feel very well," she said. " I think he's in some trouble about that girl." James was always a rather combative confidant, but she was fain of any at the moment.
"All right; better leave him alone, then," said James philosophically.
"Oh, James ! You are so unsatisfactory. All my children are so — so intense, in their own way." Poor Mrs. Lane wandered off distractedly. " / don't get any good of anybody. There is Harland ; we used to be so intimate when he was coming here to the house, but now there's that little feeling — I can't explain it. He is just as nice and respectful to me as he can be, and he brought me that lovely pitcher from their wedding trip, but, somehow, he seems to feel as if Anna belonged to him. Well, I suppose she does, in a way, but still--"
James put up a quick, detaining hand.
" Hark, mother ! What's that?"
The street had suddenly become full of voices, and the noise of people running heavily in one direction. Some one called shrilly to another in answer—"The Club Hall! The Club Hall! Awful accident!
The flooring's given way !" The Club Hall — that was where the big dance was to-night !
James had gone as his mother turned to him. Then Latimer's door opened and he shot down the stairway. She cried out helplessly at the sight of his face and hid her eyes.
"Oh, my God ! Don't let him suffer like that. Give him anything he wants, anything, as long as it isn't wrong," she sobbed, wringing her hands. "Oh, my God! Don't let him suffer." Then she caught up a cloak and ran out into the night too, though it was the time that Mr. Lane always had his glass of milk.
As she tried to hasten along she heard somebody say, "Why, it's Mrs. Lane! Is there anybody you know down there? What? Jump right in. I'll get you there in a second," and she was being whizzed in an automobile through the hurrying crowd. Wherever they went there was a crowd abreast of them, and Latimer's face somewhere in the darkness ahead. When the car stopped, just outside the lines, she seemed to be waiting endlessly amongst shouting, and calling, and darkness, and confused runnings to and fro. Then, somehow, that was Maudie who was handed into her arms, crying, "Oh, Mrs. Lane ! Oh, Mrs. Lane !" and then — " Latimer is with her — I sent him. She isn't killed. She isn't killed ! Tell me she isn't !"
"No, dear. Oh, no!" said Mrs. Lane mechanically. " Poor little girl ! Poor little girl !" She held the shaking form fast to her motherly bosom with a sudden, intuitive knowledge of womankind, brought by the touch of the arms that clung to her. Maudie clung to her that way because she was Latimer's mother and they both loved him—she seemed to have known always that Maudie loved her boy. There was a bond between them that must forever remain unspoken. They must both give him up. To give him up for what was not the best — there lay the hurt. Oh, how much a man might lose for not being able to see the best that could come to him, for not wanting to see it ! — Then she was, somehow, not surprised to find her husband beside them, taking charge of her and Maudie, too.
"Well, mother, now you look something like !" Anna Lloyd gave a last, affectionate dab with the comb at her mother's hair. "The
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idea of your running off to that dreadful place, and then collapsing up here as soon as father got you back! You're just like a child when you haven't me to look after you."
"You're sure everything is all right ?"
"How many times must I tell you? Anemone came to long before they got her here ; she was smiling at Latimer when he carried her in. She's on the sofa in the library. The doctor said she was to be kept quiet for half an hour after what he gave her, and Maudie's in the next room. Latimer has been telephoning all over. Father has had his glass of milk — he was very good about waiting for it — and Harland is with him now. Harland's promised not to talk of any of the Subjects of the Day, they differ so about them."
"That is very kind of Harland," murmured Mrs. Lane. "Go down now, Anna. I'll be there in a moment."
Her quick ear had detected Latimer's footstep coming to her door. She forced herself to meet his shining eyes that seemed to perceive her through a great light.
"Mother !"
"Yes, my son."
"I said I'd tell you when there was anything to tell, and now there is — so much."
She tried to draw him down to her, but he still stood erect, as beautiful as an angel, she thought, in his happiness.
"It was all — a mistake. I told you I was jealous — well, she was jealous, too. She thought I didn't care for her. Think of it ! And so we misunderstood, until to-night, when I found her — until to-night. Then we knew. Mother, I know you and the rest haven't taken to Anemone, but you don't know her. She's got a heart of gold. She wanted to get a chance to tell me just as soon as she found it out. . . . Mother, will you come downstairs ? There's a little girl there who wants you to love her. She's waiting now for you to take her into the family."
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Lane quietly, and went down on his supporting arm, feeling very queer and tottering on her legs — they seemed to buzz, somehow, like the automobile. But, as she entered the library and saw who awaited her, she stopped short, bewildered, her mind rushing backward with a lightning stroke, to take swift tally of her boy's actions, of his words, and find that the meaning she had read into them was all hers — and the world's ! Not his at all, not his ! This girl, whose sweet eyes sought hers with a lovely, eager confidence in her oneness with this happiness-
"Maudie !" cried Mrs. Lane, as she put her joyful arms around the two. "Maudie, my dear, dear child! Oh, Maudie, Maudie, Maudie!"
THE MAESTRO OF BALANGILANG
BY
JAMES HOPPER
AUTHOR OF "THE COMING OF THE MAESTRA," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES S. CHAPMAN
HE Maestro of Balangilang opened the door of his nipa-hut and started down the crazy bamboo ladder on his way to the school. It was early. The sun was pumping back the water that had fallen through the night, and the grass-disheveled common, the palm-groves
about, the musty mountains to the east, the whole landscape, steamed like one great caldron. Caribaos were wallowing in the mud-holes, a dozen dogs were fighting at the church portals, a stream of brownies were pouring into the schoolhouse, and, in front of the cuartel, the company of native scouts were going through scientific evolutions.
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The Maestro stopped at the bottom of the steps and took in the scene with a wistful attempt at admiration. A vague discouragement oozed into his soul, but he shook himself vigorously and started across. Through the viscid atmosphere he cut his way in sprightly fashion. His long legs snapped back and forth like springs. At regular intervals his chest swelled ; it remained puffed out like that of a pouter-pigeon while he took twenty steps, then collapsed with the hollow report of an air-gun. He was finishing up his morning calisthenics.
As he reached the center of the plaza an unfamiliar object stopped him abruptly. It was only a cross, a rough cross made of two pieces of bamboo fastened at right angles with behuca and stuck into the ground, but it seemed to have meaning to the Maestro. He walked up close to it and examined it carefully. He was disappointed for a moment ; then his fingers, passing along the horizontal piece, touched a thorn stuck like a nail in the axis of the cross. Holding his breath, for it was not yet time to exhale, he nodded knowingly and his eyes searched the ground about him. They soon lit upon what he wanted. He pounced upon a bunch of wild palay, stooped, and was up again with something white in his hand.
It was a piece of paper, limp and bespattered with the night's rain, but on which characters in native Visayan were still visible. The Maestro pored over it closely, then his pent-up breath exploded.
"Papa Isio," he exclaimed gaily. "The Mad Pope is coming to see us."
He stopped, with thought upon his brow. " I lost my home and punching-bag at it once," he said reflectingly. "Well, we'll give him a scrimmage this time."
After which somewhat incoherent remark he folded the sodden bit of paper carefully into his pocket, took a new deep breath, and walked on. As he approached the drilling company of Scouts he saw with pleasure that Lieutenant Roberts was back from his tour of inspection and was at their head.
"Hello, Roberts," he shouted, with easy cordiality as he came within hearing distance. " Hello, Roberts, old man ; putting the boys through signal-practice, eh ?"
The officer, who had just assumed a fine attitude — arms folded at the height of the chin, legs glued together in a gracefully curved column, chest projected forward till
it threw a shadow upon the ground — did not respond with effusion.
"Present —Hums, "he said. "Carr-ie-ie — Hums. Shoulder—Hums."
The Maestro took off his cap and, raising his freckled face to heaven, shook his head vigorously. A wealth of carrot-red hair parted at the crown and cascaded down the temples ; and with the thus restored vision of two green eyes, he observed the performance of the little brown soldiers critically.
" Pretty fine, Lieut," he said encouragingly. "Very fair team-work ; they'll do. You ought to see what I've taught them, though. I'll show you after drill. It's something scrumptious."
"Parade—Rest. Attentio-ion. Port — Hums ! Shoulder—Hums," said the officer.
"Yes, they'll do for signal-practice all right," resumed the youth, in soothing, patronizing tones. " But," he went on, with a little of suggestive criticism in his voice, "what about the real thing, Lieut? What about their shooting, eh? I'm blest if I've ever seen them discharge anything except blanks, have you ?"
"Fours right — March. Column left."
"Hep, hep, hep," came the column straight for the schoolmaster. The Lieutenant was muttering something in his mustache that sounded like a benediction. For a long six months, since the organization of the company, a prudent government had denied his pleadings for permission to give his men target practice. The Scouts were an experiment, and there was a vague feeling that they should not be taught too much.
"Why is that, Roberts?" persisted the Maestro, calmly dodging the advancing phalanx and dropping into the confidential manner. "Why don't you let them shoot? Are you afraid that they might begin on your broad back ? Are you-"
A sudden start of pain closed his mouth. The Lieutenant had quietly planted his heel, in passing, upon the Educational toe, crushing down upon it with all the enthusiasm of two hundred pounds a-thrill with long suppressed rage.
The Maestro's eyes followed the officer, marching at the side of his company. His mouth opened in a broad grin that displayed a startling vacuum where once had been two good teeth, now lying peacefully on the sod of the old Berkely gridiron.
"Guess it's school-time," he said.
He sprinted fifty yards, leaped an eighteen
[pgbrk] "The Maestro pored over it closely"
foot ditch, hurdled a little goat, bucked a caribao around till its tail was where its head had been, and bounded into the schoolroom.
Two hundred brown niños sprang to their feet.
"Guda morrneen," they howled in unison.
"Good-morning," answered the Maestro briskly. "Come, let's get at this. No shirking, quick! Arm exercise! One, two ; one, two."
He led them through a furious set of exercises in which he himself took part enthusiastically, the perspiration cascading down his nose.
"You poor, scrawny weaklings," he said at last, beaming upon the breathless little assemblage. "Never you mind; I'll make men of you."
Then he started to go. "Give them reading," he shouted to his native assistant from the door, "and breathing exercises every half hour."
But he came back, on an after-thought, and placed under the nose of his faithful colleague the piece of sodden paper picked up on the plaza.
The man's skin went yellow beneath the brown. "Papa Isio," he whispered.
"Just what I thought," said the Maestro, nodding to himself. "And he says he is coming here, doesn't he ?"
"Yes, sir. He will come and burn the pueblo. That is the way he burned Caba-yan last year."
"Gol darn it, don't I know it ?" ejaculated the pedagogue fiercely. "And didn't I lose my brand-new seven-dollar Spalding punch-ing-bag? Well, we'll set him on his head this time."
" Yes, sir," meekly answered the assistant, who had not caught the full import of the explosive questions.
But the Maestro did not hear him. He was out already and making his way to the cuartel. Roberts was dismissing the company when he arrived.
" Hello, you take them now," said the officer, as he saw the Maestro — Professor of Military Gymnastics also, by common consent'— near him. "And, by the way," he added, with suppressed glee, "how's the toe?"
The Maestro did not answer. He was working at the inside of his khaki jacket. With some trouble he drew out a flat, oblong box. From this he took a piece of yellow leather and a shining object that looked like a bicycle pump. He inserted the mouth of the pump into a hole in the leather and worked the handle up and down in rapid movement. The thing began to swell and take shape. Finally it looked like a great leather egg. He threw it on the ground
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toward one of the loafing soldiers, and the latter, as an automaton worked by some powerful spring, hurled himself head first at it, grasped it inside of both arms, and lay on it while the rest of the company poured upon him in an avalanche.
"How's that, eh?" asked the schoolmaster, turning upon the Lieutenant an eye that winked.
He did not wait for an answer. At a signal the company had formed into a long, crouching line. He placed himself behind it, took a quick step, and booted the pigskin a resounding whack. At the sound the whole line galloped off in ferocious pursuit, and when, after describing a beautiful parabola, the ball bumped along the ground, it was smothered at the second bounce beneath the gross weight of the company.
"And how's that ?" asked the Maestro, in tone still more compelling.
He turned to his men. "The 'Varsity," he called, a trifle pompously.
Eleven men stood out from the rest and lined up in a team.
" Six, eight, fifteen ! " he shouted.
The team went through the pantomime of a fierce mass on center.
" Four, fifteen, twenty-two."
The team swirled around in an end-run.
Then he hurled signals at them, and, in quick succession, with a tangle here and there, it is true, they went through an entire repertory—cross tackle bucks, straight openings, tandems, kangaroos, revolving masses, double and delayed passes, fake kicks. They massed and bucked the air about as if it offered no resistance. It was beautiful to see.
"And now, behold !" said the engineer of this fine performance, pausing solemnly.
He drew a line in the earth with his heel and placed the ball upon it. The quarterback took his position near the ball and the rest of the team gathered some twenty yards away.
"Five, twenty-four, six X!" barked the Maestro.
There was a rapid movement among the men and then they shot out in a long V. On the walk at first, then on the trot, then at full gallop the V swept down toward the line. The quarter-back stooped, picked up the ball, and dexterously passed it as the formation thundered down upon him. The ball disappeared, swallowed up within the V which, passing the line with tremendous impetus,
rumbled on like a battering-ram to a glorious touch-down.
"The flying-wedge," announced the Maestro, in the tone of the knickerbockered flunkey ushering his Grace the Lord Hunter of the Billion Mark into the Reception Hall. " Barred out in the States, but, lordy, we're so far away and it's such a good one that 1 thought I'd give it to them anyhow. Well, what do you think of my team work, eh ?"
The Lieutenant pondered a moment in silent malevolence.
"Yes," he said," pretty fair for signal-practice. But what about the real thing, eh? Why don't they get at each other? I don't see them scrimmage, do you ?"
A cloud obscured the radiance of the Maestro's visage.
"Well," he said ruefully, "we're in the Philippines. My team can run signals, but you can't expect them to play. And," he added, in sudden consolation, "your Scouts can drill, but they won't fight."
The situation had become tense beyond words, and the Maestro gracefully evoluted.
" Papa Isio is coming," he said. " I picked up his announcement this morning in the middle of the plaza."
"Papa Isio is a common caribao thief," said the Lieutenant. " Besides, our troops have killed him already five distinct times and he doesn't exist. And it's not up to me, anyhow. Go see Hafner."
So the Maestro went off to see Hafner. Leopold Joseph Hafner, First Lieutenant of Scouts, U. S. A., Commandant of the Post of Balangilang, was reclining in an easy-chair on his veranda, a bottle of gin under his nose. He greeted his visitor with a blank stare. The Commandant disapproved of pedagogues, and, in fact, of civilians in general.
"Hello, Lieut," shouted the Maestro, with an irreverence that would have sent a shudder along the spine of a neutral witness. " Here's a piece of paper for you."
The Commandant examined the paper.
"Well ?" he said at length, with an indifference calculated to crush.
"Oh, nothing. Only that Papa Isio is coming. That's the way he announced his visit when I was at Cabayan last spring, and he burned the town down and my punching-bag, and made hash of the-"
He stopped with a little gurgle of dismay. Hafner had risen from the ranks by a Teutonic adhesion to regulations, and rumor, supported by his mannerisms, had it that his
[pgbrk]
"A big black man with upraised arms, terminating in a kriss. stood out in relief"
[pgbrk] 548
THE MAESTRO OF BALANGILANG
debut in the army had been culinary. The remark about the fate of the inhabitants of Cabayan was harmless ; the little gurgle was not.
"And what business is that of yours?" asked the Commandant with a snort.
"Not much. Thought you'd like to know so as to get ready-"
"Sir," interrupted the Commandant pompously, "the American Army is always ready."
" I was speaking of your Scouts, sir," the Maestro corrected suavely.
He had been maneuvering toward the door during the latter part of the dialogue, and with the last word he waved an airy good-by and hop-skip-jumped down the stairs.
The next day Papa Isio was in town.
The Commandant and his Second Lieutenant were aware of the fact at the same time. For, startled out of their morning slumbers by a screeching tumult, they sprang to their
"And then from the depths of the trench there slowly emerged a strange, inchoate, human thing "
windows to see the whole population of Ba-langilang driving past as if the demon were after them — men, women, children, half dressed, disheveled, their eyes bursting out of their sockets, carrying bundles of hastily snatched goods or squalling babies. And from this multitude, flying by like nightmare creatures, there came one long, wailing cry : " Papa Isio ! Papa Isio !"
Against the black-blue background of the mountains, over which one golden ray of
sun was just sliding like a long rapier lunging toward the heart of the city, volutes of smoke were rising heavily in the water-logged air. Beneath, spiteful red tongues leaped up and out again with explosive cracklings. The whole eastern part of the pueblo was burning.
The officers ran to the cuartel. The men were in an uproar. With the force of habit, acquired through the countless parade drills which had been their sole military experience, they had made a concerted rush and were ferociously fighting among themselves
[pgbrk] 549
JAMES HOPPER
for the combs and brushes and shoe-blacking.
"Here, here," thundered Roberts, while Hafner fumbled at the iron door of the store-room where was the carefully guarded ammunition ; " here, here, you don't need to comb your hair. Get your guns and cartridge-belts."
His additional persuasion was physical and evidently potent for, when the men filed past Hafner to get their ammunition, they all had their rifles in hand and their belts around their waists, though some had not had time to don other garments generally regarded, in more social crises at least, a.-, indispensable. They poured out, were rapidly formed in front of the cuartel, and, as they deployed across the plaza, from the smoke ahead Papa Isio's mad mountaineers emerged in convulsive charge. A drainage ditch cut the town transversely and the Scouts dropped neatly into it ; then their rifles slid out between the grass-tufts like venomous things.
"Fire at will!" bellowed the Commandant.
Here the Regulations, which hitherto had unwaveringly rewarded Hafner for his respect of them, suddenly went faithless.
"During the final rush of the attacking party," they say categorically, "firing should be at will, for then the rapidity of fire and the flatness of trajectory are more to be relied upon than accuracy."
But — alas ! — the peculiar moral characteristics of the Balangilang Scouts had not been considered when the Regulations were elaborated.
The flatness of trajectory worked poorly. At first pop the majority of the Scouts emptied their magazines like bunches of firecrackers. Most of the bullets sped towards the rising sun, to whisper the story of their masters' unsteady nerves to the trees in the hills. To be just, however, it must be recorded that some plowed up the ground directly beneath the marksmen's noses. Even then the mere noise — which was positively tremendous — might have checked the advance of the attackers had they not been Papa Isio's own Dios-Dios crew of mad, weird fellows, hurled on by that religious spirit which kills so finely. Their Mad Pope was sending them to everlasting glory, and Death would only expedite the voyage. On they came, howling, mouth-distorted, muscles convulsively tense, a foaming, maniacal
band. At their head a big black man with rolling eyeballs bounded, waving a long lance ending in a blood-dipped standard. The war drums hummed in rhythm.
The Scouts were not at ease. Some were still peppering at the sun, but the majority were fighting their rifles, trying to reload them with stiff, clutching fingers that did not work expeditiously, or pounding at them with a rage that told of something jammed. Running up and down behind the line the two officers were waving their swords, shouting and cursing in an attempt to reinstill in their men that automatic regularity which had been their fond pride. But the strings were broken and the puppets worked spasmodically. The incoming rush was only a hundred yards away. Suddenly, with a wonderful burst of speed, the big standard-bearer spurted ahead of his companions. A Scout rose from the trench and aimed his rifle, when the blood-dripping rag described a rapid parabola and was sticking flaccidly on the soldier's khaki, the handle quivering behind. Hafner saw the hands go up, clutching at the sun.
"With the bayonet —charge," he bellowed.
"Hold on," screamed Roberts, in frenzied warning, "they haven't had that yet."
And then he found himself surrounded, pushed, jostled, swept away in a furious stampede. Though they "hadn't had it" the men were charging, but it was in the wrong direction. Across the plaza they avalanched, toward the stone church, and when Roberts flowed in with the tumultous current he had a vision of the Commandant, purple and spitting with rage, at his elbow. The heavy doors clanged shut behind them.
There was a moment of silence. 1 he men were panting in a corner with the "I-couldn't-help-it " air of a young dog whose inherited tendencies have proved too strong for his acquired characteristics. The officers looked at each other blankly.
"Well," said Roberts, "we ought to hold 'em here, sure."
" Hold them'" screeched the Commandant. "Why, blank blankety blank blank, these forsaken, evil-parented, divinity-doomed curs should drive the measly, meanly-pedigreed caribao thieves clean off this evil earth. Why, doom my soul-"
"Well, let's see about it," said Roberts briskly, while his superior choked in a be-fuddlement of rage.
He ran up the gallery steps to one of the
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THE MAESTRO OF BALANGILANG
six great windows which overlooked the plaza. He peered out guardedly, then with more confidence ; his nose went out, then his head ; his shoulders followed, his whole bust, and he was standing in the opening, his whole wide area in full view. His lower jaw hung in limp astonishment.
For what he saw was not at all what he had expected to see.
The Dios-Dios men were not surrounding the church. For some inexplicable reason they had stopped at the ditch. From his elevated position the Lieutenant could see them inside the trench, huddled like fish in a basket. Their fine ardor had singularly cooled. Grovelingly they flattened themselves at the bottom of the ditch, fighting for the underneath position, squirming in such convulsions as are ascribed to a certain gentleman of mediaeval legends when sprinkled with holy water. And as Roberts searched for some possible explanation, a fresh surprise puckered his lips in a low whistle. For, strewn over a space extending some fifty yards on the near side of the trench, there were six or seven bodies lying face downward, with arms outstretched towards the church. The Dios-Dios men had not stopped at the trench ; they had passed it and had been driven back to it by some mysterious catastrophe. Among the bodies Roberts recognized that of the big epileptic leader of the charge, his gory standard a red spot in a bunch of wild palay.
The movements in the trench were increasing in vehemence. Suddenly Roberts knew the cause. To his ears, inattentive from the very intensity of his visual observation, there now came a significant sound. At regular, business-like intervals, the sharp pinging of a Mauser carbine split the air, dying off in a long-drawn whistle. The Lieutenant succeeded in locating the sound. It came from a deserted hut — seemingly from its roof — at the upper end of the ditch.
The thing was clear now. The mysterious sharp-shooter had the Dios-Dios men enfiladed. And the movements in the ditch were not all actuated by search for shelter. They were convulsive somersaults; stiff hands clutched at earth and grass. A little red stream began to trickle out of the lower end of the ditch.
The Dios-Dios men were becoming demoralized. The report of a Mauser is difficult to locate to the most experienced ; to the fanatics the thing was impalpable mystery.
And the plaza was deserted. If there had been only some human presence to rekindle their rage, they might have gone on in their mad race. But there was nothing. The Scouts were secure in the big stone church. The long, flat plaza was dead ; the sun dripped into craniums like molten lead, and from the nowhere hailed the weird missies, shattering arms, puncturing bodies, bursting open heads. One man crawled back, two followed, ten in a bunch, and in another minute the tall grass was all alive with sinuous movements and there was nobody in the trench, nothing except limp heaps of what looked like cast-off clothing.
The door of the hut marked by Roberts flew open as if by explosion and the Maestro burst out, a smoking gun in his right hand, a revolver in his left, another revolver and a bolo in his belt. With a piratical yell he raced across the plaza, his long legs working smooth as well-greased machinery, his red hair flying behind him. When midway along the trench he leaped upon a mound left by the excavators and stretched out in bold relief. A strange war-cry, beginning with something about some husky wow-wow (whoever he might be), passing on to a no less interesting fact about a whisky wee-wee, rising through a tremulous crescendo about some sort of a yah, and culminating in a long, shrill whoop, reverberated atrociously over the deserted battle-field. Then the gun that had waved through these vocal convulsions dropped back to the Maestro's shoulder, and a rapid fusillade gave a pronounced accentuation to the waving of the grass along the line of smoldering nipa-huts.
Roberts tried to dodge away from the window, but he was too late. The Maestro, through with his flourish, had turned and spied him. Roberts could see the tooth-lacking mouth agape in a broad grin. The Maestro waved his hand amiably "Come on," said the gesture reassuringly. "Come on ; it's all right now." A violent blush rose to the officer's face.
But he had not time for self-analysis. Along the ruins, at the far edge of the plaza, the Dios-Dios men were reforming. The panic-stricken groups were being coalesced in a triple line, and between these lines a strange being in a long robe and incongruous helmet, was slowly passing in weird ceremony. It was the Mad Pope himself. He was locking the lines hand in hand. As he passed before his followers each took his bolo
[pgbrk] " ' Five, twenty-four, six X !' again wailed the lamentable voice "
[pgbrk] THE MAESTRO OF BALANGI LANG
between his teeth and grasped the hand of the man to the right ; and over the clasp the illumined leader made the sign of the cross. It was grotesque, but not laughable. The puerility of garb and ceremonial was lost in the significance of the result. The Dios-Dios hysteria flamed anew. It was as if a monkey had invoked the Death Angel and the Death Angel had answered.
Roberts was leaving the window in haste when his last sweeping glance over the plaza froze him again in attention.
It seemed to him that the red rag which signaled the position of the leader of the first charge had moved. It seemed nearer, fully ten paces nearer, to the ditch than when he had first spied it. And now, even as he looked, the thing advanced sinuously and a bronze body glistened between the bunches of grass in a rapid crawl of ten feet or more toward the unconscious schoolmaster who, with his back to the subtle danger, was now watching alertly ahead.
The Lieutenant's hands went to his mouth in a warning halloo.
"Hey, there," he shouted, "look out in back there. In back, in back."
But the Maestro did not understand. The word "back," which he caught, was not to his liking.
"Oh, shucks !" floated back the irreverent answer. "I'm all right. Come on, you fellows. I'll hold them."
Roberts desisted. There was no time for further dialogue. The Dios-Dios lines were beginning to move forward. And besides, at that particular moment, the Lieutenant did not care much what happened to the amiable pedagogue. He clattered downstairs.
The men were lined up, blinking before the flashes of Hafner's sword and language. The doors were thrown open and the company rushed out. Almost at the same time, from the other side of the plaza, the triple line of hand-locked fanatics began to move forward.
It was a race for the ditch and the Maestro, and a comfortable one, seemingly, for the Scouts, who had but half of the distance to go. But Roberts, through with the temporary vexation caused by the Maestro's peculiar ways, led his men at a furious pace. His sword in his left hand, his revolver in his right, his whole big frame vibrating with the effort, he raced ahead with an energy that seemed very unnecessary to Hafner who, puffing, was falling farther and farther behind. For the Dios-Dios men were being seriously hampered in their advance. The Papa's hand-locked formation doubtless had its advantages morally, but it had also its disadvantages materially. The Maestro's carbine was working busily, and soon there were dents in the Dios-Dios lines, and some of the hand-clasps were strong with the tenacity not of life, but of death. The Scouts
552
" ' Put that ball back, you scalawag. Our ball! ' "
[pgbrk] 553
JAMES HOPPER
had the race well in hand, but still Roberts tugged ahead, snarling with the effort. Behind the Maestro he could see a tell-tale undulation of the high grass, nearer and nearer. He was only a few yards from the trench now. Suddenly a panther-lithe form bounded from the ground behind the schoolmaster and a big black man with upraised arms, terminating in a kriss, stood out in relief. Roberts's revolver spit. The black arms whizzed down with a velocity hardly lessened by the limpness of death. There was a dull thud ; the schoolmaster rolled slowly into the ditch, and the big black man pitched headlong down upon him.
" By-, too bad," muttered Roberts,
and then his revolver spluttered. The situation was not bad. The Scouts had gained the trench in good time. Bunched together and firing by platoon, they were doing better. The Dios-Dios lines received each volley with a shivering bow, and if this involuntary courtesy proved the firing to be still too high, it no less showed that it was at least within whistling distance. The ardor of the advance waned gradually ; at last the lines stopped in indecision. The more rabid fanatics were still tugging forward, the others were holding back, and the lines vibrated between the two impulses without advancing. It was the psychological moment.
"Time for a charge, eh ?" Roberts shouted, turning to his superior.
But that gentleman was sleeping quietly, his face in the grass, and a shivered lance-handle by his side.
I "With the bayonet—charge!" bellowed Roberts, taking command.
He took a few steps in advance and found himself alone. The Scouts were satisfied with their position ; they settled a little deeper in the trench and peppered away valiantly.
"Charge, darn you, charge ! " screeched Roberts, pricking the nearest men with his sword.
But the few minutes of oral instruction as to charging, given in the church, proved inadequate. Three or four — those who had come in closest contact with Roberts's persuasion— started out convulsively, took a few steps, and suddenly flopped back into the ditch like frogs into a puddle.
The Dios-Dios lines were stiffening now. With the Maestro's rifle quiet, their immunity from punishment was encouraging.
Back of them, upright on a mound, the pseudo-sainted form of Papa Isio stood with arms stretched to Heaven in fervent exhortation. The more valiant began to prevail. The lines began to move forward again.
"Oh, Lord," groaned Roberts. "If the little skunks would only charge."
And then from the depths of the trench there slowly emerged a strange, inchoate, human thing. As it rose it segregated ; one half of it fell off in a big black, limp body. The rest continued unfolding, up and up, till finally it stood in full view, a weird, bloody, red-haired, disheveled specter. It tottered unsteadily on the talus and then a shrill, unearthly voice quavered :
" Five, twenty-four, six X !"
There was a movement in the trench.
"Five, twenty-four, six X !" again wailed the lamentable voice.
A little group of men sprang out of the trench and charged in a V adown the square ; the rest of the company poured out in helter-skelter pursuit. Before this incongruous advance the Dios-Dios lines, who had seen enough miracles for one day, broke, turned, and fled. A small body held their ground, and the Scouts struck them with a crumpling crash. For three minutes it was bayonet against bolo, and Roberts's revolver turned the scales. In another minute the plaza was cleared and the last of Papa Isio's forces were disappearing among the burned huts with bayonets at their backs.
When Roberts returned with his elated soldiers he found the pueblo occupied by a detachment sent from Bago. A stretcher was starting on a tour of the field, but Roberts ran ahead of it to the center of the plaza.
His attention had been caught by a vague movement there. Through the high grass he could see something struggling and bounding in sudden, sharp movement.
It was the inevitable Maestro. He was on top of Hafner, who also had come back to life, and was "kneeing" him with characteristic enthusiasm.
"Mr. Referee," screamed the gentle educator, when he had been pulled away by Roberts, aided by a corporal's squad; "Mr. Referee, he crawled after you blew the whistle! Put that ball back, you scalawag. Our ball!"
Then he fainted, which, considering the day's work, was about the proper thing to do.
[pgbrk]
CARELESS, IGNORANT, AND DEFIANT
POSTMASTERS
BY
HENRY A. CASTLE
AUDITOR FOR THE POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, 1897-1904
ILLUSTRATED BY F. RICHARDSON
WHILE political influence largely controls in the appointment of postmasters of all grades, the force of public opinion compels the selection of competent men as a rule. Hence, in every community, the postmaster is usually a leading representative citizen. But as no stream can naturally achieve a greater altitude than its source, where the educational acquirements of the average man in a remote rural district are small, the "representative citizen" chosen for postmaster often fails to attain the not exacting standard of efficiency.
The compensation of more than 20,000 of the fourth-class postmasters of the United States falls below fifty dollars a year, many
of them receiving less than twenty dollars. Hence allowance may reasonably be made for lack of attention to their duties, for lack of knowledge as to laws and forms, and for an occasional display of independent spirit which is a legitimate outgrowth of poorly requited service.
The carelessness of many postmasters, even to their own serious financial risk and official injury, is seen in the large aggregate amount of money improperly sent every year to the Auditor's office contrary to specific regulations. The disbursing clerk of the Auditor's bureau, being the only bonded officer attached thereto, is required to receive and account for all registered packages and all remittances of money which reach the bureau in whatever manner or from whatever source. Although postal laws prohibit
[pgbrk] HENRY A. CASTLE
555
money remittances being sent there, many careless or ignorant postmasters persist in sending money with their statements, instead of depositing it as required by law and their instructions. The responsibility of caring for this money and the labor of correcting these errors constitute a large portion of the work of the disbursing clerk. The sums thus received show reduction year by year as postmasters become familiar with their duties and amenable to proper direction, but they still amount to many thousands of dollars annually, and the flow will never cease until human nature is perfected.
A Kansas postmaster has been sued for $1,000 for failure to deliver a postal card announcing the death of the father of the addressee. It is expected that the defense will be that the postmaster wished to break the news gently. If that plea in extenuation shall prove effective in court, many equally meritorious excuses can doubtless be found for other lamentable failures in promptness.
Mrs. Hayfork (in country post-office) : Anything for me ?
Rural Postmaster : I don't see nothin'.
Mrs. Hayfork : I was expectin' a letter or post-card from Aunt Spriggs tellin' what day she was comin'.
Rural Postmaster (calling to his wife) : Did you see a post-card from Mrs. Hayfork's Aunt Sally ?
His Wife : Yes. She's comin' on Thursday.
A young man from New York went to one of the little places in the old state to visit a relative, and having occasion to write, secured a postal card.
"You had better not write anything private on that card," remarked his sister. "The old cobbler who is postmaster here reads every card."
But the young man was writing to a chum, and they had been studying shorthand together, so he put his message in pothooks, curves, and dashes and mailed it. He had not gone far from the office when the old cobbler rushed after him, shouting :
"Here, you! I can't read what you've written on this card !"
A Western business man had some exasperating experiences in a careless town down East. Important letters were expected ; the visitor figured out about when they ought to arrive, and went to the post-office to inquire for them. "No letters here for you," said the postmaster, who was also a justice of the
peace. "They ought to have been here yesterday." "Couldn't have got here yesterday, as old Brown, who carries the mail, was drunk, and didn't go over to Bosco after it." "And how about to-day ?" "Well, he's sober enough to-day, but his old woman has cut her foot." " But there will be a mail tomorrow?" "Skassly, sir. We don't have no mail on Thursdays." "Then how about the next day?" "Friday is sort of off day with the Bosco postmaster, and he generally goes fishing. If he don't, he sends the boy over. I never count on it, however." "You seem to have a slipshod way of running postal affairs out in this country," said the disgusted addressee. "Waal, I dunno but we have," the postmaster admitted, as he looked out over the top of his spectacles, " but as long as nobody but Uncle Bill Simpson gets any mail, and that's only a circular about how to kill cockroaches, we take things easy and let the United States run along as best she kin."
One postmaster seems to assume that it is the function of the department to look after the sanitation of his surroundings. He thus
"'Here, you! I can't read what you've written on this card!
[pgbrk] Friday is sort of off day with the Bono postmaster'
applies for the services of an inspector : "It is neer time that Your expacter looks up der nooshans in roots Adishun. Laws Said that Nomanure shud be put in de Alleway dem folks have pigs in de barn and a Pil of Manure in de Alleway rite bakof Nikels Barn it schmell lik a Slacter Hose."
A Texas citizen complains to the department of a postmistress who had undertaken to improve the manners of the residents of the town, which he admits are somewhat ragged from disuse, but the means adopted to attain this praiseworthy end are considered rather harsh. He says : "We don't set up any claim that our manners are all they should be, but we'd like to be reasoned with and helped along. The postmistress here is a worthy woman, all right, but she certainly is rude and hasty. One day last week, the mayor being some flushed up and careless, refused to move his hat and bow on asking for the official mail, whereupon his hat was shot off and plumb ruined. There's another thing we don't think is fair. This postmistress won't let niggers and greasers come into the office under any consideration. We ain't over fond of niggers and greasers ourselves, but it is sure discommoding for the leading citizens to have to go to the post-office personally to get their mail, just because this lady don't like to see anything but a gentleman. We don't like to appear faultfinding and picayunish where a lady is concerned, but this one I'm talking about is sure arbitrary and abrupt, and we'd like to
have her toned down some."
A Georgia man who is dissatisfied with the Post-Office Department sends the following to his home paper: "I want you to put in a Piece to the Guvment about the Way the post-office is Run. 1 haint got nary letter sence the New Postmaster went in. He is a Republican, while I is a Demmercrat, and He wont Give Dem-mercrats thair male. There is a widder lady, both husbands killed in the war, what would Give folks thare male if she was appointed by guvment. Both husbands fout tell they was kilt. She is a confederate vitaran, and will give demmer-crats thare male. Will you Please speak to the Guvment."
The vehemence with which some postmasters denounce free delivery may be taken as a measure of their wounded self-interest. One victim says: "It is an infernal, damnable outrage that such cussedness should prevail and gain a foothold in this free country of ours. If the discontinuance of fourth-class post-offices on rural routes has a tendency to increase the emoluments of favored offices and thus build up a pampered class of postmasters, an aristocracy of officeholders, the sooner Congress abolishes such business the better it will be for the general welfare of the people. Great Scott! are we to have a postmasters' trust, too, in addition to all the other great combinations now preying upon the vitality of the people ?" One of the fourth-class postmasters who
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HENRY A . CASTLE
wants more pay writes to the papers : "If you want to pay the postmaster, I would suggest that you pay the office that only pays $100, $50 extra, and the $200 office, $25 extra, or in that proportion for expenses, then the postmaster that gets $200 and $25 for expenses will still have more pay for his work than the postmaster that keeps the $100 office. This is the kind of a bill that would favor the poor man or postmaster, while on the other hand, the more the office pays the more the bill allows the postmaster. Please turn the bill around and see what you think of it. If some one will get up a bill that will even put the little office that pays $25 a year on a footing with the one that pays $300 or $400, then I am ready to support the bill."
Since the postmaster of "the little office that pays $25 a year," or even $50, gets every dollar of its earnings, or cancelations, the modesty of the proposition that he be lifted to the equality with his $400 brother may be appreciated.
An aspiring incumbent of a fourth-class office breaks into poetry in describing his tribulations. From-a production of twenty-one stanzas as published in all seriousness in the official organ, after winning a $5 prize for literary excellence, we cull these samples :
" For a poem or essay on the Fourth-Class Postmaster,
Whose labors may seem surprisingly light. His duty it is to wait on the public,
And he keeps up his trot from morning till night.
" The people intrust him with business and errands,
' Tell the mail-carrier this! tell the mail-carrier that!' And though he is honest and upright and faithful,
He will not, I am sure, get excessively fat.
"And there are the postals, you surely won't read them,
Because they are private, and as such they should go,
Yet still in your wisdom you must know what is written,
To have it all lawful and proper, you know.
"And the quarterly report! Oh, that is a terror ;
You study it over to know that it's right; The auditor sure will examine it carefully, For to find a mistake is his special delight.
' The postmistress here is a worthy woman, all right, but she certainly is rude and hasty'
[pgbrk] 558
CARELESS, IGNORANT, AND DEFIANT POSTMASTERS
'' 0 Congress! we pray you, with wise legislation,
Please give us a salary that's honest at sight,
Our pay is so meager, unequal, uncertain, It's a lottery, you know, and that is not right."
In August, 1903, a letter was received at the White House and referred by the Secretary to the President, to the Postmaster-General for attention, which was unique in its demands upon the personal consideration of the chief executive of the nation. It was addressed to the President and was written by a former postmaster in a far Western state. It stated in quaintly uncouth language and in painfully inaccurate orthography that the writer had been unjustly treated by the Cleveland administration. After working his office up to doing a large business under Postmaster-General Wanamaker's instructions, he had been removed by Cleveland, and his successor, failing to do so much business, had accused him of fraudulent acts to increase the compensation by false claims of cancelations. The grievance and the concluding plea for assistance are as follows:
"I was forst to Pay in the Department over $200 which I Payd in under Proatest, and commenst suit to Recover it back. You see General Wanamaker and Get him to see the Judge of the court of Claims, and get him to Decide the case in My favior according to the evidence produst by me, Which will show that the Increase in cancylation was caused by My owne hard labiour in Obaying orders of P. M. General Wanamaker, which He will recolect. And it is worse than higeway Rob-ery to ceap Me out of the youse of the Money Rongley, when I did not ow it. Your most Respectfully."
A painful error occurred in a North Carolina office, with serio-ludicrous consequences. The incumbent of a small, unprofitable office desired to resign. Not being informed about the etiquette of resignations from office, he consulted a friend, who is the postmaster of a prosperous office. The latter consented to write the resignation and to send it by messenger. But after the prosperous postmaster had written out the resignation for his friend, he was called away unexpectedly and left the resignation, with an envelope addressed to the Postmaster-General, lying upon the table. A smart clerk observed the papers, supposed they were routine matters, signed
the prosperous postmaster's name to the letter of resignation, and away it went to Washington. There was consternation in the postmaster's bailiwick when he heard what had been done, followed by a telegraphic announcement from Washington that the resignation would be accepted. He hurried there by the fastest express train that travels northward, and succeeded in getting the resignation canceled.
A letter was written to a postmaster respecting a rural free delivery route, the department desiring to be advised of its success the day it first went into operation, and the postmaster was directed to "telegraph answer" that day. When the message came, it contained, besides the name and title of the postmaster, the word "answer." He thought "answer" meant something contained in the postal cipher code and used it.
The following is a literal copy of a postmaster's letter to the department protesting against rural free delivery : " Poast Master General Washington D C Dear Sir as this Tock of Rheual free Delivery has Got up heare and so many is Dissathisfide is the cause of the Patishron Being sent you and if you will Nodes you will See that Several Names Appear on Boath Patishrons and About Nine out of Evrey Ten that Assign for Rheual Free Delivery Mail surves is Dissat-isfide and doant Want hit and Ses thay Wars Fool and Lyde in to sign the Patishron for Rheual Free Delivery."
The line of demarcation between carelessness and ignorance is often hard to draw with absolute distinctness. But there is the independent, belligerent, defiant class, the grand army of " kickers," who, though alsb often both careless and ignorant, constitute a well-known species, entitled to separate mention. Some are measurably reasonable; some are jolly and humorous ; some are simply stupid and brutal. A postmaster who is not afraid to assert his claim for a large measure of consideration writes : " I have been handing out stamps and mail matter for over five years, and haven't very much to complain of personally in my relations with the Department at Washington. But I am impressed with the fact that, in the newspapers, the communications of the Department to Congress, nor anywhere else under the Star Spangled canopy, does it occur to any one that improvement is needed in the condition of things as far as Fourth Class postmasters
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are concerned. Over 70,000 of us and we have less influence than a little bunch of letter carriers or railway mail clerks. Of course the secret is organization, and the ability to impress Congressmen. But I don't grudge them what they get, it is none too much ; it is we who don't get enough."
This man knows what he wants and what he is talking about. A Colorado postmaster, having grown weary of applying repeatedly to the department for increased help without success, forwarded this irresistible appeal : "The citizens of this neglected but necessary
region are painfully aware that the people of our Eastern water-front are created superior, self-endowed with certain riparian rights, among which are universal knowledge, infallible wisdom and inherited supremacy. But when it is proclaimed that the constitution can only be properly expounded and the mandates of destiny and duty correctly interpreted by a coterie of Latin experts with acute indigestion, torpid livers and unmistakable symptoms of incipient paresis, they vociferously demur. This government is not exclusively for the benefit of curled darlings of
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CARELESS, IGNORANT, AND DEFIANT POSTMASTERS
swelldom, educated beyond the limits of their intellect and ashamed of the country where they condescended to be born. And therefore, when we see that the intellectual giants of Canal Street, New York City, get eight mail deliveries a day and want ten, whereupon the postmaster who has sixteen hundred carriers calls for two hundred more — why then our people of Cactus Fork, who have three carriers and two deliveries, feel warranted in again demanding one more carrier for the outskirts where there is no delivery. And we must have him !" They got him.
Much less genteel and presumably much less effective, was the following letter sent to the department in response to some reminder of flagrant delinquency on the part of a postmaster whose business of a few dollars a year caused more trouble at headquarters than that of many large cities: " Sir it is queer to me that you ignorant backwoods men think that you people are the only smart people on earth. I want you to understand that I take you for no God and do not have to worship you as God. You and all the others that it may concern—You had better get to business and stop that foolishness or I am going to use the law on you. 1 think you are ignorant of the law or have positively lied. You have not attended to business since I have been in this office, and as I told you before you had better get to work and quickly
get there to, for we have better men both in principle and in education and in law than you. There has been two quarterly reports went in to you and you have ignored both of them and as soon as you thought you had the advantage of me you began to try to drive me. I am not your slave nor beast of burden. I am a common man and not a God — so you are the same in my sight (and as to size I think you are about the same as a small gnat) so you understand that we have law and men to execute them. So you had better comply with them. The next time I have to write to you on such matters, some good A. T. L. will do the work. So I will advise you to comply with the law and stop fireing your smart game letters to me."
The fifteen-dollar-a-year postmaster is, as a rule, in spite of his scanty remuneration, a gentleman, as well as a faithful officer. But occasionally the small pay fits the small mind and yet smaller manners. Until the advent of the foregoing epistle, the following, received ten or twelve years ago, held the record : " I have received all your letters regarding some reports you want from me, and sir, they have annoyed me very much. And further I will say to you that you may write no more concerning those reports, for I
don't intend to waste time sending any-
reports to Washington, until I get through cutting my hay."