  The saying “politics makes strange bed-fellows,” never had a more dramatic exhibition than in the case of Henry Ward Beecher. In the late campaign, he was violently handled by the only paper in New York which supported and defended him in his trial; and he has been on the same side with the papers which at that time most infamously abused him. The press is also fairly representative of the public around him; his life-long friends have now been opposed to him; and one friend of other years has been branded by him as “a continental liar,” whatever that may be. “It is,” say his present friends, “the fate of a prophet.” His older friends say “he is growing old.” In England, in one county, 30,000 acres of good land are tenantless because the laborers and farmers have gone to manufacturing towns. To cure this evil Lady Catherine Gaskell wants to put a stop to educating the poor. She is a picturesque reformer who may be safely classed with the Roman pontiff. She would forbid the humble classes to wear clothes such as other people wear, send them to the fields at three o’clock in the morning, and keep them with the cattle. The dear soul is probably mad, at least “south by southwest.” It is said that the Jesuits are creeping back into Rome and buying property in the names of private persons. The Pope is very busy and hopeful in his work of strengthening the church. One aspect of this matter of the Papacy and its Jesuit agents, is too much overlooked. Italy can not successfully fight either the Papacy or Jesuitory with atheism. So long as the Catholics have the religion of the country they will actually rule it, whatever may be the form of government. A dreadfully perverted Christianity is still a positive force, advancing and aggressive. Atheism is not a force; it is a barren negation. A Protestant Italy is the want of liberty in that peninsula. Wm. H. Vanderbilt has given $500,000 to the New York City College of Physicians and Surgeons. The gift is wise and generous, and it breaks a disagreeable silence. It is only by such gifts that very rich men can satisfy our moral sense. The vast wealth can be justified only as a stewardship for one’s fellow men; and we want to see the proofs that the stewardship is righteously exercised. A Chinese pamphlet, instigated by the French invasion, and designed to inflame the passion of the celestials, says that Europeans are not human beings at all, but wild animals descended from monkeys. We fear that an imperfect copy of Darwin has fallen into the hands of this pamphleteer; but he gives us a chance to see ourselves as others see us. October is the month of political parades in the political almanac. This year the display at some points was magnificent. Broadway, New York, with from thirty to sixty thousand men in line, in the picturesque costumes of contemporary politics, is the most imposing sight in the world. And our sober-sided people seem to like and enjoy this single form of public theatrical effects. Now and then a good man is plentifully advertised as “a man with a conscience.” Would it not be easier and more wholesome to morals to confine this kind of advertising to the men who are without consciences? The men who have consciences must be very numerous. The appointment of the Hon. Hugh McCullough as Secretary of the Treasury reminds us, not only that President Lincoln nominated him to the same office, but also that he returns to the most arduous office in the United States at the age of seventy-three. His health is perfect, and he has the vigor of middle age. The old men are holding out in American public life about as well as they do in English politics. Mr. Wm. J. Stillman, an American artist and writer who has lived abroad for twenty-five years, makes a practical suggestion which all who have crossed the Atlantic just once will appreciate. He proposes that the eating on ocean steamers be done on the restaurant principle, each passenger paying for what he eats, at fixed prices. If the plan is adopted, it will considerably reduce the cost of that trip to Europe of which most of our readers are dreaming. Eating and a first voyage are antipathetic. It is a very amusing thing (to us Americans) which Professor Goldwin Smith says in a recent number of the Contemporary Review, that the organization of a government in England can not be long delayed. The fictitious constitution has broken down, he thinks, and a real one (somewhat like ours, but better) must be made for modern England. But the Professor always was hysterical. The result of the French war in China is still in doubt. Three months ago the French papers were writing about their great victory and proposing that their Tonquin army conquer the Christian queen of Madagascar. Now the latest public statement is that the army in Tonquin is sufficient for defensive operations. There is a gradual growth of manifestations of hostility by the Chinese against all foreigners, and an outbreak is possible which might arm the Christian world against China; but that seems to be the only door of escape for the French from a long and costly war. The desperate condition of railroad property has been made more desperate by a rate-cutting war. There are more roads than are needed, and this state of things reduces the fares and freights to be divided among an increased number. The result is a still further reduction by reduced fares of passengers. The problem of this class of property is a difficult one; and it is a large one and closely related to the general prosperity. A first step would seem to be getting speculators out of the directorates. The Northern Pacific Railroad recently transported a solid wheat train containing one hundred and ten cars. Ten years ago the whole region in which this wheat grew was a wilderness. But the farthest great wheat field has now been opened to culture. Wheat will not always be cheap, though it need not be scarce. With the rise in price will come a vast increase of production in the older states. We are entertained by the solemn pleadings of certain journals that boys be allowed to take exercise, that the schools be restrained from spoiling their bodies while cultivating their minds. Any one who knows a boy when he sees one must “laugh consumedly” over this reform. Teachers will find special and boundless amusement in the idea that a boy can be kept from abundant and even violent exercise. An interesting side-light on our civilization is the fact that some of the Sitting Bull Indians have been exhibiting themselves and their costumes and customs in a New York theater—“to make money to build houses and buy furniture,” the manager says. This is more heroic than taking scalps for glory. Once when the superior generalship of General Lee was explained to General Grant, he replied with his usual modesty of tone: “I believe I beat Lee.” We are reminded of the incident by an elaborate explanation that England had all the points of success in her favor, and had them all properly counted in our two wars with her. And yet—we seem to have heard that—we came out ahead. These metaphysical victories are not very satisfactory. Artemas Ward said: “I pulled my enemy down on top of me and firmly inserted my nose between his teeth.” Still, his nose got the worst of it. The humors of campaign politics are often good enough to keep. After the October election in Ohio a Republican paper said: “John R. McLean, the Democratic manager, married a wife a few days before the election, and after the state was lost to his party, was the only happy Democrat in Ohio.” We hope Mrs. McLean saw the neat compliment to herself. Farmers are peaceable people, and yet the lawyers would starve to death if farmers did not furnish them lawsuits. A movement is on foot in New York state to settle farmers’ differences by arbitration. The Patrons of Husbandry recommend this method, and there is some prospect of its adoption on a considerable scale. We commend the plain common sense of it to our agricultural readers. King Humbert distinguished the throne of Italy by visiting the plagued cities and following the cholera into hospitals. The Pope, as the pretender to the temporal throne of Rome, had to demonstrate also. He has called for an organized assault by prayer on the heart of the Virgin Mary. It is easier than visiting plague-infested towns, and safer. But the Pope proposes to pay those who pray. All who take part in the “rosary prayer” will get absolution for seven years—not from cholera, but from their sins. How many people will be in the world in 2000 A. D.? is one of the questions pressing for settlement in the heads of statisticians. It is comforting to know that these interesting and romantic persons assure us that the United States will have six hundred millions, if nothing in the nature of a preventing Providence intervenes. It is a comfort to know that the jury have no personal interest in this verdict in our favor. This country will have to make some laws on the subject of timber. The big forests are rapidly becoming only memories. We make some kinds of lumber from straw, and iron has taken the place of other kinds. But the woods have climatic uses, and a treeless land is exposed to evils more costly than the value of the timber we are wasting. The annual floods are one item of the cost of destroying trees; changes of climate, which can hardly be measured, are another item but little thought of. The trees are a part of natural economy of the earth. Public debts are made with far too much carelessness; but people who wish to evade taxes so arising, repudiate en masse; and hence comes the interesting question: “Are we a nation of rascals?” If one judges by the number of worthless (or little worth) bonds of all sorts which are in existence, we are a nation of rascals. There must, in other words, be some rascally element in the national character, or all these promises to pay would not be dishonored. The genesis of the good-for-nothing bonds ought to be written philosophically; that may be a necessary preface to writing it with a moral purpose. The Boston Traveler of November 6th contains, in its editorial department, the following noble compliment to the C. L. S. C.: “This society that teaches the use of leisure hours and inspires the men and women of America with an intelligent aspiration to learn something of all that it is practicable to learn in home study by imparting the enthusiasm of companionship in work, has this year almost twice as many ardent, self-sacrificing students of its curriculum as the combined membership of all the American colleges from Maine to Washington Territory. When we consider the influence of a single collegiate institution, many of whose students attend from parental rather than personal aspirations, and think how much money is annually raised through benevolence for them, exceptional praise is due him who has by his own wit and wisdom, without financial appeal or charitable pretence, called into line for the study of history, philosophy, science and literature nearly double the constituency of all our colleges.” A story comes from one of the Southern states that a man recently committed suicide rather than pay his taxes. Of the two inevitable things, death and taxes, he seems to have preferred, contrary to the common choice, to suffer death. The story furnishes a text for a sermon on the modification of general feeling relative to taxation. The suicide of the story was a survival; taxes are no longer regarded with aversion; they are paid, as grocers’ bills are, with equanimity. The desire to fly “springs eternal in the human breast,” and the balloon is a very fascinating field of experiment. A Frenchman seems to have gained a point, and a good one. By using stored electricity he has succeeded in going where he wanted to go, moving for four hours against the wind. An Englishman has invented a means of keeping a balloon at the same level, he thinks. Perhaps ballooning may yet become a practical science. Eccentric opinions sometimes have a fine and ancient flavor combined with a modern taste. Such is the statement recently made in a public meeting that insanity is increasing among the colored people, and that education is the cause of it. The reader can pick out the two tastes. We fear that the colored people are not yet educated enough to cause insanity, and we do not seem to know that education ever caused anybody to become insane. Among the “fashions” is the rage for old furniture. Grandmother’s spinning wheel adorns the parlor, and worm-eaten old bureaus flank it on either side. But a dealer in this kind of goods, speaking of course against his rivals in trade, says that most of this old furniture is made at modern factories. Even the old spinning wheels are imitated to perfection. A story—wicked, perhaps—says that a Connecticut man is getting rich making “Mayflower heirlooms.” Persistent rumors of this kind will kill the fashion. One of the notable events of October was the celebration throughout the world of the hundredth birthday of Sir Joseph Montefiore, the wealthy Jew whose philanthropy has shed luster on his race. In this celebration the Hebrews have the sympathy and congratulations of Christians everywhere. The venerable philanthropist has shown what wealth is good for, and set an example of faithful stewardship which ought not to be lost on other millionaires. Some one has figured out that “just now, in the United States,” twenty-one deaths in a hundred are caused by violence. It is safe to avoid this kind of statistics. There is no means of knowing what the rate of death by violence really is “just at present,” and it is perfectly certain it is not twenty-one. It is only seven in England, where statistics are kept. We keep none except in large cities, but we certainly are not three times as bloody-handed as Englishmen. New York had pending in the late election an amendment to the constitution limiting the debts of towns and cities in the ratio of population. In Illinois, in 1870, the new constitution put in force a similar rule. The effect, in many towns, was a series of “improvements,” carrying the debt up to the constitutional limit. The towns were ashamed of themselves when they found that they did not owe as much as the law allowed them to owe. The horror of being buried alive is the most blood-curdling one known to civilized life, and yet cases of people being buried alive continue to be reported. The death of a woman at Hornellsville, N. Y., was certified by a physician. She was removed from the grave, and report says that, though in all other respects apparently dead, the body perspired freely. It looks like a case of trance. At all events she was buried too soon, and it is probable that in other cases bodies are frozen to death a few hours after apparent death. The whole subject of trance invites study of a more thorough sort than it has hitherto had. Unpunctuality is a seductive vice in social matters. When a party or a dinner is announced for a given hour, it should begin at that hour, and not an hour or two later. The French custom is to allow half an hour for dilatory guests at dinners; but in other matters the French way is for each of the parties who have made a rendezvous—unless as duelists—to give the other half an hour’s margin, which being taken on both sides makes in all an hour. This system of addition is analogous to what a Californian said of a big tree—it grew so high that it took two men and a boy to see to the top. Errata.—Dr. Felix Oswald, speaking of the principle governing schools of medicine, in The Chautauquan for November, made a quotation concerning the school of Homoeopathy, to which a few of our readers filed exceptions. It was not Dr. Oswald’s design to reflect on this honorable class of people, beside, The Chautauquan is not sick, and needs no physician; therefore it is not a partisan among medical men. In Miss Frances E. Willard’s article, “Romance vs. Reality,” in The Chautauquan for November, the statement that in Ohio in 1883 only 90,000 votes were cast against constitutional prohibition is misleading. There were cast at that election 721,310 votes; now the constitution of Ohio requires that an amendment to be adopted must receive a majority of all the votes cast, which would be 360,655, while the actual vote cast for the amendment was but 223,189. The class of ’84 “shines for all.” Up to November 1st 1,387 have graduated, and still more to come. |
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