e:? <=^<' O.C.O ^ ^'^.^. =■ "S^- ■'' CL C < . c etc ." c c < . cor ' c.cr«- ccx cscc: «Cf O - : ?^$'€i c:.t^«t fLIBILARYOFCOKGRESS.i I ^/'c// Id I I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | <5r cr «::;- the hall. MY ICXIM-:miON('K Ari A I)HTK(!TIVK 11 Whoii li(^ (lauf'lil. Hi'^lii <»r iiK* hn ciUiu^ iowjinl inc, {Miiiiiiii}^ alinoHl. from (lar io vnv iih Iki H!ii II oofloo Haloon." Tlio no'To, (witlouily 'li'l "ot im(l<»rHtaii(l nus ho I triod again. " 1 incaii OHO who arroHtw poopKi wlxni tlioy Ktoal ? " "()h,"Hai(l tlio AlVican, li^Mit l)o^Miiiiiii',Mo (lawn upon liin muddled brain, "d(» kouHtablo." "Y(!H tlio conHtablo. Go ininic(liatc.!y and briii^j liini to mo and I'll reward you for your troubh*." •' YoH," H;i.id tho U('iJ;ro nn ho liiirriod away. Wlion tho coiiHtabh! «'am(^ 1 oxplaino.l to him that I had trac^iod two murdorcrH, and tliat I wantod thcni (i«^tM,iuod until tho arrival of a dotoctivo fioni tho city. Ho promiHod to do all in hiH i)owvial in his maimer, llis whito nock-cloth and c^oss iudicaiiul ilio sanu>, Ilo usoil a travoler'H liconso to address uio, and niueh to my astonishment spoke my name. " How do you do, Mr. Schwartz?" " Well, I tliank you — let me see, wo met before at ' "Can liardly recall the place, ' he re]>lii>d, reco<^nizin<^ the interrogative nature of my remark. " J3ut there are two things I never forgot — a name or face." " Ah, indeed," said I, not icing a small, deep sooi* under the corncM" t>f hiH eve, which s(>enuHl to send *.»\it Hushes over the cheek, " that is a rare and happy faculty — I say so the more readily as I possess it in some degi'oo myself — but your name has — quite " "TTamiltiOM, at yi>nr service," and again two m* three nervous Hushes shot from tiie scar to the skin. A monotonous eonversation followed, during which IMr. Hamilton gavc> evidi>nce of oxoossivo weariness. At last, an hour having glided away, and most of the trav- elers (piioted themselves in sleep or euchre, my new friend yawned, blinked, stretched out his arms, and suggested i* game of cards — rennirking that "rt (jame of poker ivouldmake it F^iMuething about that, expression awalcened unpleasant memories — my eyes opened with stivprise, but if I made any discovery, or noticed more pai'tioulorly the ilush tlarting down his cheek from tlu^ wound, I subdued all oxprossion of it while his glance was yet averted. I thiuiketl him, an«l observed that I h.iil not played a game of cards for tiftoou years. M LOWS' UI'. - roH«n.l<^ !" ho brok(3 out, wiUi niill av(;riory with what now appcarB to bo itH ternunatiou. bhall latoitV" "01. ycM hu^<^^■A T Hliall l>c inost happy. Wc- }.otli B.ith.l down coinforta>>ly in our cliairH, and I b.,an, lto attract the noticf! of (jthcirB. _^ «Tf you arc at all convorHant with Btcan. -boating', I Ha.M. .. you know that a rnan on hiB firBt trip, in fonnor .layB. ran a gaunthit of gamblcrH." To which BtatcniCTit he i/nmU;'} aBBcnt. ..Did you ever run foul of the cloth? " I carelcBBly aBked. ^ .. Never," ho inr.ocently rcBpondcd, " except to rr.y Borrow! • ..Nor I In the Burnn.er of '54, I took paHHar,., from Cm- cinnati for New OrlcanB aB a raOBBonger for a banking houBO, with Bon,e ten thouBand dollarB in n.y valiBO-a ba anco duo the NewOrleauB correBpondent. I took the ' iidle Inland, aBhand«on.c a packet aB over Bcraped rockB with a copper botton.. ,, - T 1 t- ..You would naturally BuppoBO, Mr. Hamilton. th:.,t I kept . cloBO eye on that vnliBe. Such waB the caBC. It waB my firBt trip, but I felt fully equal to anything, OBpccially a. the amount of money wa» not large for a moBBonger to iranHport .'At the then ir.Bignificant swamp-town of Cairo a .^entle- ,n with a genteel, cultivated appearance boarded tl.= ' ii.Uo ,1 booked hiruBeli for the Ited lliver country. You Bee I man an 1 6 BLOWN UP. remember all the particulars. He was active in making my acquaintance, at which I did not much wonder, for the pas sengers were few, and of the rougher sort. In the course of two days we were very familiar with eaeh other, and had tired out almost every species of amusement, including every game of cards known to us except poker — a game which oc cupied othei tables constantly . " The second day we had been playing euchre, ' cut-throat,' with a third gentleman who apparently came into our midst accidentally. Millbank, — he ! you knew him ? No ! well, that was my friend's name — kept the sherry going around pretty lively. You know well that in those days everybody drank wine and played cards. Poker, with trifling stakes, was pop- ular enough. As we became pretty jovial and somewhat noisy, Millbank suggested the idea of adjourning to the state- room, where we could make as much noise as we pleased, to which I very readily assented. " 'Hold on, Schwai'tz,' said he, as we were passing down the cabin, ' you have a stateroom by yourself, haven't you ? There's a whopping big Hoosier in mine now.' " ' All right,' I said, for why should I have had any ob jection. So we squeezed ourselves into the box, and cut for a deal. " ' Now, what shall we play ?,' asked Millbank. *"I pass,' said I. .*' • I pass ' repeated Stranger. " ' Don't suppose you care to try a fippenny poker — a game of poker would make it lively ! ' BLOWK UP. 17 " The stranger instantly objected. Said he had funds in tx ust> and it would be decidedly unbusinesslike to play for stakes, even for so small a sum as a half- dime. At this time we were all considerably under the influence of wine— the stranger just enough to make the sanctimonious shake of his head ridiculous in the extreme. I said nothing ; had no objections that I remember now. At length Millbank suggested a deal without 'ante.' We each took our hands. Stranger held the cards with three kings and an ace. We dealt again, and again he swept us. "'By !' he exclaimed, getting excited, ' I will go ten cents on it.' " Little silver pieces appeared on the table, and two hours passed with good sport, the piles alternately building up and down around the board. Occasionally the wine passed around. Stranger won quite heavily— I won— Millbank won. Stakes slightly increased. Wine increased. Stranger lost heavily. Millbank and I won it. Then I won nearly every ' bit ' they had, and I remember ordering wine on account of it. Soon the Fates switched me ofif the track, fortune setting in strongly and steadily against me. I became greatly con- fused. They also appeared to be drunk. Memory is badly mixed here, but I remember taking out a handful of bills of exchange drawn, and accepted, on Eastern corporations. The cash must have been all lost at that time amounting to about five thousand dollars. The first bill laid down seems to have been a New York gold check in favor of a Texas house. How I do not know, but a fearful row sprang up at this time. I snatched the bill, put it in my valice and sprung the lock. 18 BLOWN UP. The commotion that followed was ended by other parties. As to what took place I never knew. We were all drunk — it least the other two appeared to be — and it was late in the evening. " The next I remember was about three in the morning. I awoke hot and feverish. The reflection sank into my mind like a red hot bolt that I was a defaulter, for I had no means to restore the money lost ! A reputation built up by ten years' faithful labor was crushed and blasted ! Here was a blight in the very prime of life. Besides that, Mr. Hamilton* I had recently buried a lovely wife and child — over whoso common grave a tombstone was not yet erected. This was misery heaped upon anguish. I felt sick and faint. The thoughts of my future condition of shame, made ten times more direful by the darkness and imagery of my wine stuj)ov> drove me to the depths of hell. I felt cursed. There was no escape from ruin ! The throb, throb, of the great engines below, the screeching of escaping steam, the sepulchral voices of the distant firemen, the rioting of fevered blood — all deep- ened my agony, and peopled my poor brain with desperate thoughts. " I reached my hand under my head and found there the valise in the usual place. Under it I felt the revolver. I ca- ressed the smooth, silvery handle, and felt a comfort in its presence. It was so cool and quiet. 'How soon,' thought I, 'could this abasement be prevented !' " The weapon was laid silently against my cheek ! It was refreshing — ^just then a little flash of light gleamed at the foot of my birth. In an instant I saw the door was partially BLOWN" UP. 19 open— then closed silently. All was still as death— again j caught the reflection of that light— it came from a dirk! My heart stopped beating, but the revolver was pointed in the direction of the flash. "For a moment not a sound was heard. Then the door slowly opened again, and a face peered in. '"8h ' whispered this second face, 'she's going by d n her, — wait.' " Then the person inside peered out, and I saw what was up outside. Not five rods from us abeam was the great body of another steamer plunging through the darkness. Then the straining timbers and the tremendous thuds of the engines told us we were racing ! She passed us— thank God ! for as she shot ahead, a gleam of light from her opened fire-room shot athwart my door and revealed two faces— the robbers— they were Millbank and the Stranger! " Then all was darkness. A shuffling noise— a footstep was stealthily approaching the head of my bed ! I thought two murderous eyes gleamed upon me— a bright streak rose u > ward-just above me-I pulled the trigger I There was a cry smoke, curses, shouts. ' " There was a heaving of timbers and a thunderclap! Curses gave way to the crash of a thousand crushed devils ! Smoke steam, fire shot up like hot and forked tongues, and the "Belle Island" swam a fiery wreck. " Were you ever blown up, Mr. Hamilton ? ' I asked, "eyeing him narrowly. " * No, sir,' he said, promptly. 2g BLOWN UP. " Well, I was ; but unlike a hundred of my fellow beings, I came down all right. My stateroom was directly over the boilers, and received a square pressure ; for a moment I felt myself flying through the air at a tremendous rate, and then as softly placed in a marsh, about ten rods off as if my mother had cradled me for a night's rest. It seems my birth and many upright splinters were torn off together, and thrown in such a manner that when these splinters stuck into the boggy muck of the marsh, I was left facing the fire, at an easy angle of forty -five degrees, head being the highest !" "Very wonderful, that! " " Yes, sir, very wonderful. I saw the steamer burn to the water's edge. Now what do you suppose became of Millbank ? "Why, my shot took effect just under the eye, I have lately dis- covered, and " " Excuse me, Mr. Schwartz. This is Columbia, and I must see the shipping agent — be back in a moment — " " One moment — I have seen Millbank since, but only once — I have no evidence with which to convict him. But the most remarkable part of my story remains — one moment, please — the blow-up, of course, concealed my loss. But now, after fif- teen years of quiet labor I am on my way to return to that bank the money I lost by — by — him — Millbank. And now after fifteen years have passed, is it not singular, Mr. — hm — Hamilton, that you should be the man to suggest a lively game of poker ?" The leathery-faced old gentleman dropped over the railing and disappeared. It was the same man who once held the dirk over my heart. VAGABOND WANDERINGS: OR, WESTERN SKETCHES FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF DR. COLUMBUS MAC ARONE. Edited by F. M. Macdonagh. I. ENTER MAC ARONE. Seeing that many great men, and many who are not so great, have written autobiographies, I see no reason why I, a Wandering Vagabond, should not emulate their self-sacrificing examples for the benefit of posterity before Death, with that little scythe of his, or some noble Red Man, with his little toma- hawk, or some Rocky Mountain road agent, with his little re- volver, or some jealous Vagabond of the mines, with his little bowie-knife, cuts my thread of life. There is another life-curtailing medium in the West — the Vigilantes, with his little rope — but I have so frequently eluded his vigilance, and slipped through his soapy fingers, that I don't count on the possibility of his ever abbreviating my existence. Vagabond that I have been, through the long, stern, rugged, weary years of the past, I have been so, not from choice, but the stern decrees of necessity seem to have forced on me such a life ; I have had hair-breadth 'scapes, and most unromantic incidents to record, if the world care to read the meanderings (21) 22 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. of one it spurned through life, and one who cared only for the world but just so far as he could use it. The world may not excuse my selfishness ; but, I beg to say at commencing, that I have oecn, met, and experienced noth- ing but selfishness in all my peregrinations through its varied scener}-^ and communities — everything tended to make me cool, calculating, selfish. I can not remember when, where, or how I was born. I have been told I was born in Italy — under the shadows of the Appenines. Perhaps so. At all events, I have had the dark hair and eyes, and swarthy complexion attributed to the sons of Italy. My first name — Columbus — seemed to be in (dis) honor of the Genoese discoverer of America. My second name — Mac Arone, or Maccaroni — I have not been able to trace very far on the genealogical trees of the European boot. My parents may have been poor and honest, or rich and roguish, for aught I know or care. I may have been the mor- ganic son of an Italian monarch, or the waif of a bandit. My mother may have been a prima donna or a beggar. But wherefore conjecture on my parentage ? your imagination is as lively as mine. The earliest knowledge I had of my existence was mani- fested from the electrical tip of a rawhide, applied to my tiny bones (for flesh I had none) by the strong arm of Antoine Broccoli, in a dank, cold cellar in Baxter street, in the city of New York. These appeals to my sense of feeling came three or four times a week, or as often as the chap that thrummed the harp didn't fetch home a stated amount, or when old An- toine wasn't too drunk or too sober to indulge in his favorite pastime of larruping us. VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 23 I played the violin. In ray misery I hud one saving conso- lation — I was not the only little pile of rags and bones on whom the rawhide danced. The fellow that picked the harp- strings, and the cliap that scraped the other violin got their shai'e of that immortal thong. And the three of us derived much comfort from the fact that were twenty-six of us lads looking up to Antoine, and that nearly a score would share our destiu}^ if Antoine wasn't too fatigued. Many a night, in ray drearas, 1 rasped ray few tune's on that old violin of mine, and viewed the stern figure of old Antoine beating time on my poor handful of bones with his inevitable rawhide. Many a morning I arose to practice the day's reper- toire of mechanical music-scraping, more dead than alive. But the persuasive influence of Antoine's rawhide overcarae any physical or mental reluctance any of us had to wrestle with the duties of the day. When I was ten or eleven years of age — I should think, comparatively judging — a lucky circumstance transpired — I might say two of 'em. One was, our harpist eloped with the harp, and one whole day's earnings ; and I, being the senior, was installed as harper, with a second-hand instrument from a Mulberry street pawn-shop, rigged out with a set of new strings. I was pretty apt, and soon acquired the mystery of fingering the chords with skill. The other circumstance was, I made the acquaintance of Pat Casey, a little chap who peddled papers for the support of an invalid mother and his little sister, mornings and evenings, and went to school in Mott street during the day. His father was accidi'utally killed, working 'longshore, and the support of a sick mother and little sister devolved upon him. lie was 24 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. about ray age. He not only posted me on the best localities for my harp and the two violins that accompanied me, but he initiated me into the mystery of spelling and reading from his own books, and some of the newspapers he failed to sell. Bless his heart ! he was the only unselfish little mortal I ever met in this great world. My hours of idleness — and they were few and far between — were spent in his dreary attic room on Eliza- beth street. Could 1 meet him or his little sister now, how gladly I'd give him a bag of gold-dust which would worry him to lift and carry away. By diligence, and watching the corners, I was enabled not only to give old Antoine Broccoli the stated amount and a few cents over, and escape the customary castigation, but also to treat myself and my two half-starved companions to an occa- sional beefsteak, or mess of oysters in Fulton market. I en- joined secrecy in this respect on the part of the fiddlers, and the growing strength of us three testified how reverently they complied with my injunction. It often grieved my pusillanimous soul to see the other chaps get their nocturnal drubbing ; but I dared not interfere. Neither dared I let them into the secret of my success, as that would interfere with my prospects. My education commenced under the Casey boy ; I tried to improve myself. I attended night-school when I could. I bought "Self-Instruction on the Violin," for a few cents, at a book-stall, and through it and my previous mechanical knowl- edge, I soon became quite proficient in the art, and surpassed old Broccoli himself, who soon installed me as the preceptor of his musical brigade. I didn't have any of them thrashed — they got enough of it nights. I learned to write fine-hand VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 25 legibly, and could read the New York Tribune (which Pat Casey would let me have at half price) by spelling the long words with which it abounds. There is a tide in the affairs of boys, which, taken on the spur, leads ah, where ? Mine came when I was about fif- teen. Times got a little tight, and fewer people got so. Broad- way swells smoked five-cent cigars ; the Bowery boys con- tented themselves with those which sold three for five cents at the head of Frankfort street. Everybody seemed to go on the cheap. The Sun increased in demand. The demand for the other papers decreased in proportion. Crossing-sweepers looked down in the mouth. Even Italian music and musicians were slighted ; and, one evening, not being able to pony up the required amount, old Antoine Broccoli was wroth, and was bracing himself up to wield his redoubtable rawhide, when I picked up a dilapidated, decrepit, rheumatic old chair, and, giving him a vigorous slap of it alongside of the head, he lay down to rest rather suddenly ; and I, fearing my passion would get the better of me, rushed out into the cool air, and off to Elizabeth street to where the Casey boy roosted. I searched among the "casualties" in the morning papers, and breathed a good deal freer. I never read that department so interestedly before. The Casey boy took me into partner- ship in the paper-peddling business, disguised in dress and under an assumed name, till one evening, strolling along Chat- ham square, I almost collided with my old tyrannical slave- holder, Antoine Broccoli. I believe he recognized me, for he followed me. I was quite nimble, and used my agility to some purpose. 1 thought it was about time to leave New York. 26 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. II. WESTWARD HO ! — TAKING STOCK. Tired, weary, worn out, I crossed the Missouri river, the boundary line separating the West from the Far West, and found myself in Omaha, on its western bank. The city has been described too frequently and variedly for me to conjure up the ghosts of my remembrance of its interesting or unin- teresting points, so Shirking the noisy hackmen and the importunate hotel run- ners, I gathered the skirts of my threadbare coat around me, picked up my flappy, dilapidated oil-cloth valise, containing all my real and personal property ; and determined to make the very best of my situation, I wended my way to the Herndon house, then the leading hotel in Omaha, and resolved to take a rest of a few days to recruit my health, spirits, and finances, before I sallied out to explore the mighty Far West. I have never forgotten, nor should I ever forget, were I to live to the age of a dozen Methusalas rolled into one, the amalgamated look of scorn, disgust, and suspicion with which Jim Allen, the host, and John Chapman, the clerk, eyed me, as I deposited my antiquated valise on the floor and proceeded to scratch on the register : Mac Arone, Washington, D. C. In a sweeping glance around the little office the legend, "Gentlemen without baggage are required to pay in advance," caught my eye, and, without pretending to notice it, I casu- ally remarked : "Gentlemen, I always make it a point, in securing rooms to pay in advance ; and as I shall be here more than a week, to VAGABOND WANDERINaS. 27 await my baggage and orders from home, I don't know how much longer I shall be able to enjoy your benign company, but give me a comfortable room, a clean bed, and," handing over the last and only fifty-dollar bill I had, " take the where- with out of that.'' It was amusing to see a pair of sardonic, scornful grins re- lax at the sight of that L drawn carelessly from the right- hand pocket of my old vest, and slapped on the counter before their astonished gaze. Money 1 what an all-powerful agent thou art 1 Monarchs and politicians fight for thee. The merchant and farmer toil and drudge for thee. The lawyer and doctor quibble and dis- semble for thee. Even the preacher, when he denounces thee the most, does so to possess thee. Money is the Archimedean hand-spike that could move the world. What a wealth of philosophy was in that practical father's advice who said to his son going out into the world : " My son, get money ; honestly, if you can; but get money 1" Yes, money can purchase com- fort, ease, happiness, beauty, attention, fawning, sycophancy • and we never learn to appreciate its value till we see the last dollar. While a dirty-faced scamp took the bill to get it changed and see if it wasn't bogus, I was shown assiduous attentions and — my room. A shock-headed little fellow carried up my ancient valise. The landlord, after extolling his beds and table, asked me a number of questions, that I, in my ignorance, deemed impu- dent, and among the rest what my business was. I answered him Yankee fashion, by asking him, if his guests were equally curious to know my business, what answer he'd give them. 28 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. "I'd tell them, it's none of their business," said he. "Right, my worthy friend," said I, shaking him warmly by the hand, "allow me to say the same to you. Until my busi- ness interferes with your business, you have no right to bother me. I would be alone. Depart. And send that imp of yours up with my change — when he gets back." I was again alone. The hotel Mercury arrived with twenty- nine dollars — the balance of my fifty, and, except a few shin- plasters, all the funds I had in my exchequer. But many a better man often found himself in a worse condition. Many a worthy man, who, if the earth were a ten cent loaf, couldn't buy a mouthful of bread. I had health, strength, and pluck, and would show a brilliant outside to a world that is, in itself, a mass of deception and rottenness — a regular Dead sea apple. I sent for a bottle of brandy and a few cigars, and after par- taking somewhat of both, I began to feel better ; and, resolved as I stood on the edge of the Far West, I would take a retro- spective inventory of stock ; and for that purpose, I laid open the inmost recesses of that antediluvian valise. Ha ! what is this ? A written phrenological character of Columbus Mac Arone, by Prof. Fowler, of Fowler & Wells of New York. This cost me a five dollar bill ; and let me see what I have got. Very largely developed — Health, breathing power, circula- tion, digestion, activity, amativeness, combativeness, alimen- tiveness, self-esteem, mirthfulness, individuality, language, etc. Very poorly developed — Conjugality, friendship, continuity, acquisitiveness, conscientiousness, veneration, ideality, sub- limity, etc. VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 29 All the other bumps seem to have run from fair to middling. To any one appreciating such a character, I would gladly give this for two dollars and a half. No bidders ? Then, go back ; you will do as a gauge to measure Indian skulls by, by and by. What's this ? A medical diploma from a celebrated medical and surgical college in the East, There is Columbus Mac Arone, plain enough for any body to read, and here are the names of the faculty in hieroglyphs which a Philadelphia law- yer couldn't decipher. This document has an imposing aspect with its flourishes and copper-plate. It is imposing in more senses than one. It imposed on me to the extent of forty-dol- lars, and attendance on four medical lectures ; and enables me to impose on all the gullible people I meet. But as everybody in the world seems to take advantage of everybody else, I don't see why I, a Wandering Vagabond, cursed by destiny, should not follow the scripture maxim of taking in the stranger, and the gudgeon, and the dupe. Next, comes a license to practice the legal profession in all the higher courts of the United States, including the lower ones by courtesy. This cost me many a game of billiards and many a night's carouse ; and they were called by my legal friends — studying law. This document cost me twenty-five dollars to the Judge, and a champagne supper to the examin- ing committee and the bar. I may be able to make my in- vestment out of it. And here comes my religious diploma, or license to preach the Divine Word in any of the orthodox churches. It is signed, countersigned, back-signed and admirably signed by a hundred or more of the most distinguished clergymen of half a dozen denominations. It recommends me to the orthodox 30 VAGABOND WANDERINaS. brethren and sisters, and particularly the Indians, in whose evangelization I am enlisted as a volunteer. Of course the noble Red Man will appreciate that license to preach, and recognize the grand viziers of Heaven whose names indorse my sanctity, zeal, eloquence, etc. Well, this document has cost six months of the hardest dissimulation I ever practiced. I had to wear a long face, to rack my brain to invent impossible stories for recital as my experience at class meetings and prayer meetings. I had to swallow doc- trines and interpretations of scripture as the whale swallowed Jonah — wholesale. I had to abstain from smoking and drink- ing lest the odor would offend the ladies, and euchre my chances of coming out an Apostle of the Lord. I cared no more for religion than a Sioux Indian cares for analytical chemistry, or Flora McFlimsey for her three-3'^ear-old bonnet. On investigation, I found that ninety-nine per cent, of the preachers and professors of religion thought as little of it as I did. They individually pursued it for the money or chances of pecuniary or social advantage there was in it, and that quieted what little qualms of conscience might have bulged out. Therefore I preached and prayed, and sang and played, the texts and tured I knew the people wanted. I have already made this investment pay, and may again ; so, go back, old stand-by. And here is a military commission, " Columbus Mac Arone, Colonel, by brevet." That is the only document I earned squarely and above board. For five years, although a humble volunteer private, I planned and directed the most important sieges and attacks in the noble effort to put down the slave- holders' rebellion I advised, planned, projected. Others did the work my thinking machinery conjured up, and took all the VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 81 credit. With innate pride I say it, had it not been for private Mac Arone, U. S. V., the Palmetto flag would be waving over the White house to-day. And after five years' labor to be a mere breveted colonel is rather attenuated. Here are letters from several colleges appreciating my worth, and offering to confer degrees and titles on me, ad lib., for a consideration. Believing I have as many titles as I can at present well manipulate, I shall "lay them on the table," by putting them back in that old valise for future consideration. No education, save what I got by the Casey boy and about ninety hours in an overcrowded night school in New York, and picked up in my Vagabond Wanderings among the know- ing ones of our enlightened countr3'. My musical attainments are very good, if I could only afford .in instrument. I have a great mind to invest in a jew's-harp or a mouth-organ, and play the gentle shepherd or romantic swain to raise my spirits and inflate my currency. Something must 1)6 done, and done quickly ; for to dig I am not able, and, to beg I am — not any in mine ! Here I am on the verge of the Far West, one week's board paid, thirty dollars ahead, one clean shirt and a soiled one, five paper collars, a seedy suit of clerical black, two-thirds of a bottle of brandy, a dozen cigars, a crumpled necktie, a pack- age of indorsements, and a few other little trifles. But, in facing the Great West, I will need something more. My greatest need now, is a little rest ; so, here Mac Arone, you peripatetic scapegrace of a Wandering Vagabond, tumble into your virtuous couch, and think of the most feasible method of "raising the wind," and let it be a stiff breeze — There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough, Hew them as we will. 32 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. ni. FIRE FIZZIO FINANCES. TiiiED by travel, light of heart and pocket, unburdened by luggage, innocent of the root of all evil, painting the oriental past in my thoughts, and the occidental future in my di-eams, I laid mo down, for the first time in the far west, on the hostel- ry's virtuous couch, to court the immortal Somnus, sweet na- ture's dear restorer, as the romancists would say. Lassitude impelled mo to sleep. Mosquitoes the size of spring chickens, and odoriferous bed-bugs of blood-thirsty in- spiration excited mo to wakefulness. After an hour's vigorous battle with the bed-bugs and mosquitoes, I had to cave in, and while Morpheus exerted his prerogative, allow my vampiri- cal foes to feast on my slumbering form. In my dreams, I was out among the noble Red men, the aboriginal children of the prairie, stream and foi-est, exclaim- ing with the poet — "Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind, Clotlit's him in front, and leaves liim bsu'e boliind." The antonniio of the mosquitoes seemed barbed barbarous arrows penetrating my epidermis; while the gentle fangs of the persevering bod-bugs romindod me of the coinbiucd efi'orts of a tomahawk and double-distilled, doublo-back-actiou blood pump. But I slept. I'd have slept on a bed of cactus, on a gorse hedge, on the bottom of a sewing circle's needle cush- ion, on a hackling machine, on the top of a paper pulping cylinder, on tlio sharp point of anything. I wanted to knock the worth of my money out of that bed irrespective of bugs or mosquitoes. VAGABOND WANDERINGS. -Lay on, Btarvcd bug, 88 And curs'd be he that cats this filthy rug. I slumbered. I snoozod. I Blopt. I Hnorod, though I didn't hear it. But somowhero in the middlo of the night, a most ear-piercing, heart-stirring yell nwoko mo. Dreaming o Indians, I tliought every red-skin in Nortli America was around nw, yolhng for my poor, miscral)!*! scalp. Another yell thoroughly aroused me, and a clattering along the halls sot me into thinking at the rate of 2,500 strokes pi3r second- The excited crowd yelled — "Fire!" "Murder!" '*Firo!" I didn't know which it was. As "fire !" was the predomi- nating ejaculation, I thought it must ho fire. So I jumped out from the bugs and mosquitoes, and into my trowserloons. The insects wanted to jump after me. I gave most of 'em the slip, and slipped into the hall. Meeting an excited mortal, <^ii, dci^lialnllc., I asked : "Friend, is the hotel on fire; or, has a brutal murder been perpetrated?" '• No, sir," said he. " It's that infernal fortune-teller in ' 3G' has got the cholera, or some other continental complaint." I breathed more easily, for I hud most of my wardrobe acroHH my shoulder, and my baggage in my h;ind. I had no sooner returned to my room, deposited my baggage on the floor, and my wardrobe on a chair, than a messenger appeared at the door, and asked : "Be you a doctor, sir?" "Yes," retorted I, " May I have the pleasure of letting you see my diploma ?" 34 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. "Diploma be !" said the Mercury. "Come to *36' immediately. Madame LeVert, the fortune-teller, is dying. She's got the cholera or something." A lusty old groaning, interspersed by frequent unearthly yells, kept going on unabatedly the whole time. One thing sure, she didn't have the consumption. Her lungs would con- vince you of that. When I entered ' 36,' the woman lay across the bed, on her face, moaning, groaning and yelling in rapid succession. She was en deshabille. Three or four of the guests and hotel people, were around her fussing and — doing nothing. "Here's the doctor !" shouted two or three of those present. Who else they were telling I didn't stop to consider. " Madam," said I, " what have you been eating ?" " O — h — h — h ! Green cucumbers 1" said she, with a groan and a yell. I made the landlord fetch me some oil and English mustard, and mixing them in a cup, got him to rub her vigorously with the mixture. I then poured out about four fingers of brandy, and putting into it a little morphia, red pepper, tanzy bitters, and some other ingredients I had among my luggage, I made her drink it off She soon felt much better, but a little boosy and inclined to sleep. She was laid gently back in her place in the bed, fell asleep ; and the rest of us resolved to go and do likewise. I had another bloody tussle with the bugs and mosquitoes, and, as before, had to resign my tenderest spots to their tender mercies. VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 35 Breakfast was over when I awoke. I regretted to lose it, as I felt hungry, and it was already paid for. No help for it. So I resolved to make even at the dinner table. Despite the insects and the alarm, I felt refreshed, and felt capable of wrestling with a square feed. I made my toilet, and sat rumi- nating on things past, present and to come. Clock struck ten. Tap at the door. " Come in !" said I. A fuzzy headed urchin came in, and announced that Madam Le Vert, the celebrated fortune-teller, would like to see me at room 36. "I'll be there in a few seconds," said I. I rebrushed my duds and hair, and stroked my whiskers and set off for ' 36.' I tapped at the door. A squeaking " Come in !" greeted my auricular organs. I went in, and said—" Madam Le Vert, I presume ?" " The illustrious Doctor Mac Arone," said she, springing from the chair, and imprintng a fat, luscious, soft, melting kiss on my innocent lips, she continued — " Preserver of my life ! how can I ever repay you for snatch- ing me from the icy clutch of death last night ?" " Madam," said I, " your good opinion and appreciation re- quite me sufficiently for what little I have done." " Please be seated," said she, pointing to a chair, and I squatted. She was evidently handsome in some dim period of the past; black hair, dark eyes, and a tendency to plumpness; but the roses had faded from her cheeks, the luster from her eyes the coral from her lips. That unwelcome old cuss. Father 36 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. Time, had planted a few grey liairs amid her raven tresses; and plowed some pretty deep furrows on her marble brow and down her cheeks, which the "Bloom of Youth" failed to hide. She might have passed for any age from thirty to fifty, as the discrimination of the critic might determine. I inclined to the latter theory. " Well, Dr. MacArone," said she, as soon as I was seated, " you have performed a miraculous cure; and not so much by our medicine, as by your psychological influence over me. Yon believe in psychology, don't you, doctor ?" " To some extent," I answered, although I didn't know the meaning of the term. It was new to me . " The facts and provable parts I accept, but the fancies and speculative por- tions I am not prepared to subscribe to." " That's what all our learned men say;" quoth the dame, "but you must admit of mesmeric and magnetic sympathy among affinities.' " Of course," I said, although her jargon was like Egyptian hieroglyphics to me. " Well," said she, " I recognise in you my affinity, and I feel that you reciprocate the talismanic sway of the great psycho- logical power." Not knowing what the deuce to answer, I merely nodded — gave her a sort of a ram's buck. " I suppose," continued she, " that you have no faith in fortune telling?" " I like the fortune part of it very well," said I, trying to be witty, " but as to prying into futurity by cards, cauls, spiritual mediums and second sight, I haven't much faith in it. I be VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 37 Ueve with my friend Aleck Pope— you didn't know Aleck?— that ' Heaven from all creatures hides the Book of Fate, All but the page prescribed- their present state.'" "I thought as much," continued she, "but the sphere of woman is closed in all directions. The people want to be humbugged, and are wilhng to pay roundly for the greatest humbug. I have no more faith in futurity than you; but I follow it for the money that's in it. Among my patrons are lawyers, doctors, preachers, old maids, young girls, soft- headed gents and hard-headed business men. It is easy to tell their wants, wishes, desires, and so forth, when a person knows human nature." "Not a doubt of it. Madam," said I ; " and I suppose you have made it pay ?" "0! yes," she replied, "I measure every person's fortune by the money they give; and, if I only had a good agent, like you, for instance, who would act as a herald, I might retire from business in a few years, but a lone woman cannot do much without compromising her dignity." " Why not get a good agent, then?" queried I. "Bless your innocent soul !" said she, " I have tried scores of agents, and failed. They all cheated and robbed me . The principle of the world seems to be, to have everybody take ad- vantage of everybody else. By the way, Doctor, if you and I, who are natural and eternal affinities, were to go into partner- ship in traveling this country, you could attend to special dis- eases and act as my agent, and I could prosecute my profession." " Would it pay ?" I inquired. 38 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. " Pay !" said she. " Why, Doctor, we could mate piles of wealth. But, Doctor, you mustn't be so eccentric. You must put on more style. Wear good clothes, sport a big gold watch and heavy chain, and carry a gold-headed cane. All our great men have been eccentric in dress. Now, there's Horace Greeley never changes his clothes, till they drop off him in rags; and thousands of others I could name." " But, Madam, my baggage being so heavy had to be sent from Washington by freight, and my wardrobe, and by an un- fortunate blunder my financial vouchers arc among them, and won't be here for several days yet. In the meantime, I in- tend to preserve a quiet incognito till they arrive, when I have some very important missions to perform for my friend, Vic- tor Emanuel, the King of Italy." This was a sort of bleached falsehood, but you can't expect to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from a Wandering Vagabond. " Well, doctor, what do you think of the partnership and agency business?" asked my new acquaintance. " Keally, the affair is so sudden, I haye not had time to con- sider it; but, I will think it over, and let you know the result in a few days." " Now, think favorably over it, that's a dear, good, naughty man. By the way, Doctor, as we are to be friends, what is your real name?" "Columbus MacArone," said I. " Indeed ! I thought that was a noti de plume, as we say in France. Well, my professional name is Mme. Le Vert, the great French astrologer and clairvoyant, but to you my name VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 39 is Libbie Jones, of Rhode Island. You can call me your dear Lib, as often as you like." " Thank you, for your confidence and the privilege," I said. "I shall never betray either." " I know it dear Col — allow me to call you Col," said she, " my mesmeric nature teaches me to confide in you. Consider me your banker for the present. If I had died last night, some thankless scullion would have my savings, and the least I can do is to place some of it at the disposal of him who saved my life." So saying, she opened a small reticule, and handed me five one-hundred dollar bills, remarking — " There s plenty more where that came from." I raised some weak objections, but thcj^ were all tabled by Madam Le Vert, alias Libbie Jones. First gong for dinner, I took the bills and my departure, humming — Dame Fortune, at your shrine I bow, Let you be fat or bony, While you're as good as you are now To Uoctor Mac A rone. 40 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. IV. COMPARING NOTES. When a fellow feels tired, weary, and has been disturbed the night previous, and has not indulged in the luxury of a breakfast, he fully appreciates the music of a dinner gong, and the poetry of a half-passible dinner. He does not investigate the. age of the chicken, nor how often the ox that the piece of roast beef originally belonged to was walloped across the plains and back again; he half disregards the strength of the butter, and the weakness of the coffee. Hunger is the best of sauce. It is a rare tonic in itself It beats Worcestershire, Leistershire or any other sheer sauce all to perdition ; and as Private Mac Arone often partially al- layed the cravings of a long-cultivated appetite with maggoty hard-tack and pork that smelled like sulphuretted hydrogen gas he is not now going to. fall out with a western dinner, even if it be tough. I had digested too many tough things in my past career, both physically and mentally, to shirk the masti- catory task I had then on hand. After dinner, I retired to my room, and having a blank cart or a carte blanche for funds to an indefinite extent, I concluded to treat myself to a suitable suit of new clothes that would suit the role I intended to appear in. So, I sent for the best tailor in the city, and having selected the goods, allowed him to take my measure for a professional suit, to be ready by 10 o'clock next morning. VAGABOND WANDERINQS. 41 Taking a nip of brandy to help to digest a tough dinner that lay on my stomach like a nightmare, I lit a cigar, and amid its smoke, was reviewing the past, present and future, when a tap at the door aroused me. A messenger had come to inform me that Mme. Le Vert, the Fortune Teller, desired to see me at her room. Seeing that the fortune teller was the nauseating personifi- cation of the blind goddess herself, who was showering her most welcome gifts — greenbacks — at my feet, or into my fist, I complied with all the suavity I could conjure up for the oc- casion. Can you imagine how the old man hugged and Kissed the prodigal son ? Can you feel how a pair of spoony lovers hug and kiss at the garden gate ? It is nothing to how the old cro- bate kissed and hugged and slobbered me, and twined her bony, muscular arms about my neck, till I imagined I had been tak- ing an overdose of ipecac, and was being lynched by a grizzly bear. But the overshadowing prospect of funds, prompted me to endure her caresses with a fortitude worthy of a mar- tyr's star- gemmed crown. When she got tired, she let go. I dropped into a chair. She squatted into another. She said : " Dr. Mac Arone, Preserver of my life 1 the more I think of it, the more I realize how much I owe you. My soul tells me you are my affinity ; and that I ought to devote the bal- ance of my days in requiting you for your self-sacrificing suc- cess in dragging me from the shadow of the silent tomb." "Madame," replied I, when I could get in a word, "the tri- fling service I rendered you is not worth mentioning, much less such demonstrative enthusiasm." 42 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. "Forgive me, Doctor," said she, "but, I am one whose im- pulsive nature cannot manifest itself by halves." "Another thing," said I, "along with being a physician, I am a minister of the Gospel, came to the west on two very important missions, and our familiarity with each other might compromise us both ; for, remember we are both strangers in this strange land, where Mme. Rumor and her thousand tongues would find pleasure in retailing scandal about us." "You a minister, too?" said she, "and of what denomina- tion pray?" "Fact, Madame," said I, handing her my divine commission, amply signed by the leading divines of the east, "I am above and beyond sect, being a true, genuine orthodox evangelical dispenser of the sacred truths contained in the blessed scrip- tures." I noticed several expressions pass over her countenance panoramically as she glanced over the long roll of names at- tached to my commission. " It strikes me, Madame," said I, "that you recognize some of these names and appreciate their endorsement ?" "I do," said she, "and the names of some of them conjure up memories I would fain forget. I would tell you, if I could rely on your discretion and confidence. This says you are going out to convert the Indians — what other mission have you, pray ?" " You know already that I am an Italian ; and I have full power from the King of Italy to select and purchase a terri- tory whereon to locate the disafiected citizens of that sunny land. His commission is among my more important papers with my baggage, and may be here in a few days." VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 43 " Dr. Mac Arone, I am drawn to you now more closely than ever. I have a spiritual as well as a psychological affinity towards you. I will share your trials and labors in this two- fold mission, and you will realize the benign influence of woman in the arduous undertakings you have embraced. I feel I can confide in you, so, I will tell you a story of my past life: THE FORTUNE TELLER'S STORY. " Born in one of the Atlantic cities, I grew up a beautiful young girl of poetic temperament, romantic ideas, and deep re- ligious convictions. The pastor of the church I attended, during my Sabbath school days, was one of the most promi- nent in the country. He was angelic looking, was eloquent, poetic and original. He had vast powers of observation and a pleasing power of description that won the hearts not only of his own congregation, but of thousands in the different other churches. He was idolized by the women. They thought he was a second Christ. I loved him too ; yea, I worshipped him. But, he had a wife already, and I could have no aspirations in that direction, without harboring sin. But the man I would marry should be distinguished for his intellectual qualities, should in some way resemble the preacher I so madly adored. Finally, I met one, good-looking, poetic, romantic, a vigorous thinker, a forcible writer, and one whose intellectual attributes were superior to the preacher's, but, not being commissioned to preach to a rich and fashionable congre- gation, he was not so beloved by the masses. He was an 44 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. editor, and one of the ablest of his day ; and commanded a good salary and had hosts of friends. " I married this talented young editor. My beloved pastor performed the ceremony, and he was the first to greet my lips with a warm unctuous kiss, as the ceremony was concluded. That kiss haunted me for many a day ; and I wished in my heart that my editor-husband would receive a divine call to preach the Word, and I felt he would excel my first love. But 1 couldn't prevail on him to do it ; and so I loved my husband with true wifely love. My husband and our pastor were in- timate friends, and the pastor came to our house very fre- quently, and often when my husband was absent. Once, he repeated the marriage salutation, and I chided him, but, he pointed to the text that encourages the salutation with a holy kiss. Time and time again, would the pastor draw scriptural distinctions between marital love and religious love, till he convinced me that both could exist without infringing on any of the ordinances of God. For years, I resisted his arguments and blandishments, till one evening, he got my soul under his religions influence so completely, that I fell from my allegiance to my husband. Once in his power, I lost all power over my- self. The question now was how to keep the afi'air secret from my husband, who would look upon it as a great crime against nature, and would not view it in the religious light the min- ister threw over it. Although I tried to conceal the fact that my affection for my husband was decreasing, and my love for my pastor increasing, it was beginning to be apparent. I tried my best to hide my feelings ; for, as Shakspeare says : ' He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, let him not VAGABOND WANDERINGS. 45 know it, and he's not robbed at all.' A sister of the church similarly situated and I soon compared notes, and I soon found that our holy pastor was playing the religious Lothario with nearly every married woman in the congregation, and with many of the old maids, too ; for he had discretion enough to let the lambs of the flock alone. " By some means or other my husband found out something of the relations between me and my pastor, and upbraided me. I made a clear confession to him of the facts and the religious influence brought to bear on me ; and begged him for the love he once bore me, for the sake of our children to forgive and forget the past, and I would be true to him in the future. He consented, and kept the matter secret, till my pastor used his influence to throw mj^ husband out of situation, hoping thereby to humble his soul to more convenient terms. Still my husband bore it, till my pastor by covertly working de- prived my husband of his good name and fair fame. Then my husband exposed the whole matter, sacrificing me as well as his own feelings. " My pastor chose a committee to investigate the matter. He urged me to side with him, sue for divorce, and he'd keep me till his wife died and then marry me. I did. I swore my pastor was innocent. He was acquitted. My husband in a fit of despair took poison and died. Our children were sent to diflTerent friends. The pastor then spurned me, as if I was the veriest wretch on the streets. His popularity as a writer and preacher rapidly declined. So did he. Either slow poi- son or swift remorse hurried him to the grave. I fled the scenes of my happiness and misfortunes, and taking an as- 46 VAGABOND WANDERINGS. Bumed name, ply the superstitions of the credulous by telling their fortunes for a fee, and I've made lots of money at it." It was a sad tale of a soft heart ; and I adjourned contem- plating on the stern mvsteries of life and its changes. v- A DAY IN MUNICH; OR, THE PEARL NECKLACE. Hope and I, two enterprising American girls, were wander- ing through the grand old art galleries in Munich with our escort, a Bavarian lady of rank and high culture. , Standing one day in the Glyptotheca, before the exquisitely carved lay figure of " The Dead Pearl Diver," Hope sighed and said : " What is the costliest pearl worth when bought by the sac- rifice of a human life ?" "Yet yonder comes a lady," said Madame Stahl in alow voice, "who measures a husband's love by those she now wears, and love with some is worth more than life." We turned to encounter a party nearing us, the only lady of which was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman I had yet seen in Europe. Her beauty was of the true German type, of the peculiar fairness beheld in no other country which I have visited. Her complexion was as delicate as the inner petals of a Basanquet rose — a pale pink, rarely seen in nature, and almost impossible to produce by any artificial means. Her lips of deep carna- tion ; small and exquisitely formed teeth ; eyebrows of the darkest brown, with eyes of deepest blue, and hair in soft silky masses, glimmering like burnished gold, made up a combina- tion I have never before, nor since, seen in one fiace. (47. 48 A DAY IN MUNICH. The only peculiarity of her truly elegant, but very modest, street apparel was a necklace of pearls, evidently of much value, the clasp of which seemed riveted upon her neck. " With that necklace," said Madame Stahl, when she had passed us, "is interwoven one of the prettiest romances of this prosaic age. The lady was, until recently, Miss Mendel, an actress, of Augsburg, who, amid all the perils, temptations, and unusual successes of her theatrical life, had preserved a reputation for virtue and honest worth as unsullied as her beauty. "All this so deeply impressed the heart of Louis, Duke of Bavaria, that from the moment he first beheld her on the stage of a Munich theater he consecrated himself to the worship of this one earthly idol. But Miss Mendel, conscious of her great talent and its responsibility ; knowing, also, that the Imperial family of Austria expected great things from his al- liance with a scion of nobility, resisted every overture on the part of the Duke, even that of marriage. " She wore at that time'a velvet neckband, with a clasp or- namented by a single pearl, literally of great price, which had been presented her by the King of Saxony, and in order to quell all hope in the bosom of her princely suitor, she laugh- ingly declared to him one day touching the clasp, "'My Lord, I have vowed to bestow my heart and hand on him alone who can match this single pearl with as many like it as will form the whole necklace.' " "Bah!" I interrupted; "she was mercenary and weak." "Not so," replied Madame earnestly. "She loved the Duke — and he is a gallant man — with the strength of her ar- dent temperament ; but knowing that the difference in their A DAT IN MUNICH. 49 rank would be an insurmountable obstacle to their union, with a delicacy equal to her power of self-sacrifice she raised this^ as she thought, impassable barrier. Impassable, because the Duke, with his extravagant habits, lived fully up to his income. She laughed still more merrily when she noticed the disconso- late expression of his countenance ; but the laugh was only on the surface, for she realized the impossibility of his exe- cuting such a herculean task. "A week passed without her seeing him, when she heard that, having sold his horses and broken up his establishment, he had gone to live in the strictest retirement in a small cot- tage belonging to the park of his brother, the Emperor. "'Extraordinary whim I' she exclaimed; yet that very night, when about to complete her toilet by placing the velvet band upon her neck, she found, to her great surprise, that a second pearl had been most mysteriously added to it. " Her heart told her well enough from whence it came, but with the thrill of pleasure was also one of sadness at the need- lessness of the sacrifice she felt sure Duke Louis was making for her sake. By degrees the velvet band became covered with pearls, each one rivaling in beauty that bestowed by the King of Saxony, but they might have been placed there by fairy fingers for all that she ever saw of the donor. " One night while on the stage, in a scene where (divested of all ornaments) she was thrown in prison, news was pri- vately brought her that her dressing-room had been entered and the narrow collar, with its priceless pearls, had been stolen. " Notwithstanding the assurance of the chief of police — who happened at that moment to be in the theater — that he already 50 A DAY IN MUNICH. had a clue to the thief, and -would find him in a few hours, poor Miss Mendel was so overcome by the shock that her memory entirely failed her, so that, upon returning to the stage, she found it impossible to recall one word of her part. The large audience, knowing nothing of her loss, waited for some time in astonishment at her unusual silence. She gazed upon them in piteous embarrassment, until, suddenly remem- bering that she had her rehearsal copy in her pocket, she un- hesitatingly drew it forth, and with wonderful self-possession began to read. " Her amazed auditors knew not whether to laugh or be angry ; but soon memory, pathos, forgetfulness of all but her art returned to her, and in the utterance of one of the most impassioned sentiments of her speech, she impulsively tossed her rehearsal copy into the orchestra, and went on with her part like one inspired. "My husband, who was present, says that the enthusiastic applause of the audience was so tremendous that the monster chandelier in the center of the roof vibrated like a pendulum. " Returned to her dressing-room, the reaction of her excite- ment came, and she fainted. "When she aroused to consciousness, it was to find Duke Louis at her feet, and the head commissaire standing by her side. "'Take courage, Mam'selle,' said the latter; 'the pearls have been found.' " ' Where are they ? Have none been stolen ? Are you sure not one is missing ? ' she eagerly asked. " 'None,' said the Duke ; ' the necklace is now as complete as my love and devotion,' clasping around her beautiful throat A DAY IN MUNICH. 51 the string of almost matchless pearls, no longer sewn on to the velvet collar, but strung with symmetry, and fastened with a diamond clasp." "Did she marry him?" we, woman-like asked with quick breath. " Of course. He had spared neither labor nor sacrifice to attain his end, and did he not deserve her? His sister, the Empress, moved by his manly courage, suggested the nomina- tion of the bride elect to the title of Baroness de^ Waller- see, thus equalizing the rank of the Ranees, and enabling them to marry without difficulty. " The Duke took his bride to a little chateau on Lake Stahn- berg, where they live a most retired, useful, and beautifully domestic life. This is the first time I have seen the Dutchess in Munich since their marriage, which was attended with un- usual pomp and splendor. " Rumor says she never puts ofl" her necklace night or day, hence she is known all the country around by the name of ' Fairy Perlina,' from the old German legend of the Magic Pearl, and, moreover, like poor Desdemona, that •' • Her love does so approve him. That all he says, and does, and thinks, Has grace and favor in them.' " Hope and I turned from " The Dead Pearl Diver " with a feeling that this little episode of the gossip of an hour would be a gem, pure as a pearl, in our after memories of " A day in Munich." Nellie Eyster. TWO LOVES; OR, «'A HEARTLESS COQUETTE." BY MRS. B. F, BAER. " Now seriously, Maud, you are not in earnest ? you wouldn't sacrifice my happiness in such a manner ? " "Happiness, Charlie? Is it happiness for you to visit sa- loons with wild young men, and lay the foundation for your eternal misery ? Is this your happiness — or does it consist in daily companionship with me? Now, Charlie, as well as I love you, I am too practical to throw away every chance of domestic joy by marrying a moderate drinker. My husband must be o, prohibitionisV " Maud, did you ever see me drunk ? did you ever see me under the influence of liquor, even ? If you have, I am ready to yield; if you have not, then I will not give up." The beautiful girl stood with a longing, wistful look on her fair face ; the light in her eyes half irresolute from the rich love that nearly obscured it. Charles Vinton stood neai', toying a velvet-bound volume of Longfellow's poems in his hands, looking steadfastly away from his betrothed. "Well, Charlie," she spoke at last, "I never did see you drunk. I should be very sorry if I had ; but I have seen your eyes brighten, and your cheeks flushed, and your breath laden TWO LOVES ; OR, 53 with the fumes of wine. I have reasons for wishing you to discontinue this habit, dear Charlie, for I have felt the sting of the deadly serpent. Listen, while I tell you some of them. Years ago, before I knew you, when I was a little girl, I well remember a handsome, talented, noble brother, full of generous impulses, overflowing with love for his little sister. Then, as I grew older, I noticed his flushed cheeks, his bright eyes, and his wild, boisterous laugh when he came in of an evening ; and I saw, too, the tears of my gentle mother, as she pleaded with him, begged of him to renounce the fatal cup ; but it was all in vain. He went on from wine to brandy; from moderate drinking to the regular drunkard, and died as the drunkard dies, bowing my mother's head with shame and grief, and blighting my young life with a disgraceful sorrow. Shortly after his death my mother followed, and was laid beside my father, whom I had never seen to know. Charles, I promised her on her death-bed I would never marry a man that drank ; and I wori^t break that promise." " Am I to understand this as an annulment of our engage- ment?" " Just as you have it, sir," she replied, a little proudly. " The choice lies between me and the wine bottle." " Maud Ashburn, you are a heartless coquette, undeserving a pure love." " Sir ? " she cried, her eyes flashing with a righteous indig- nation ; and drawing herself up proudly she went on to say, ' I see I am mistaken in your character ; that you are ti'ying to evade the issue. It can't be done, Mr. Vinton. Your choice is the wine, take it ; but never presume to charge me with fickleness again. Take this ring, the seal of our betrothal, and forget me as soon as possible." 54 "A HEARTLESS COQUETTE." He took the ring from her hand as he said : " You are cruel, Maud ; very cruel to one who loved you better than his life." " But not better than his wine," she said, a little bitterly. " You are very sarcastic," he said. " But I could overlook that, if you would not send me from you. Maud, I am a man, with a man's liberties and privileges ; and these you have no right to interfere with. I shall never come home to you drunk, no fear of that ; but I don't want to bind myself by an oath to abstain from a social glass with a friend. Come, Maud, let us be reasonable, compromise, and make up," and he held out his hands coaxingly. " No," she said ; " I am firm. It is useless to prolong this interview, for you will not yield, nor will I. I knew it would come to this ; would to God that I had known it before I ever gave you my love." " You are obstinate. Miss Ashburu ; so good-by," and he went out. Thus they parted, these two loving hearts, parted by a habit which was so strong that Charles Vinton deliberately sacrificed the love of his affianced wife for its sake. As the door shut behind him, she sank down in an agony of helpless woe, for she had given him her heart's best affection, all of which she was sacrificing for principle. But she bore it bravely — woman as she was — knowing full well that she had only done her duty ; and taking up her old life again, with her accustomed cheerfulness, she soon found contentment, if not happiness. Charles Yinton left the town at once; and nothing was heard of him for some time, save that he had settled in a fron- tier village of the far West. TWO LOVES. 55" Twelve years had passed and gone ; and Maud Ashburu— now Mrs. Colbum — listened for her husband's return. " What can make him so late ? " she asked herself, as she pushed back the mass of dark hair from her brow. " He is coming. I hear his footsteps ; " and in an instant he was with her. But she recoiled a step from his pale face, and wild with alarm inquired : " What is the matter, George ? are you ill ? " " No ; but I have just witnessed a horrible sight — a human being cut to pieces on the railroad. Both limbs were com- pletely severed from his body ; nothing left but his face to tell the old story of maudlin, drunken insensibility to danger." " Oh, George ! Had he a family ? did he live around here ? " " No, Maud ; but I think he came here to die. He used to live in this place, dear — he was an old acquaintance of yours." The color died out of her face as she exclaimed, almost wildly — " Don't tell me that it was Charles Vinton ; don't say that he has come to such an end." " Yes, it was he, my darling ; did you love him so much ? " She looked up into his face with a sweet smile, as she re- plied : " Not as I love and honor you, with your staunch, firm prin- ciple and love of right. The news of his death only shocked me, that is all ; for my heart knows not a throb which does not beat for you, my husband — my more than life." THOUGHT. WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF "THE GULF STREAM?" By Rev. Charles Wheeler Denison. The presence in the North Atlantic Ocean of that remarka- ble current of waters commonly called " The Gulp Stream," has long been attributed to a variety of natural causes. But the great majority of writers on this deeply interesting subject have invariably described its eflfects rather than discussed the obvious facts which prove its origin. It has been shown by all the treatises on the physical geog- raphy of the sea, that the length of the stream extends several thousand miles, as far as yet discovered ; that it varies in its width from eighty to two hundred miles ; that it has an aver- age current, off the North American Continent, of three knots, or three nautical miles, an hour; that it differs in its color, and also in its temperature, from the usual waters of the ocean through which it flows; and that it presents certain climatic and electrical phenomena not to be found, in equal extent and force, in any other waters of our planet. All these facts have been known to exist, and the effect of their influence has been felt for centuries. But opinions have been and still are various as to the origin of the cause that produced them. In general terms, the stream has been called "The Gulf Stream" because it has been, and usually still is, supposed that it originates in the Gulf of Mexico. (1) 2 WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF "THE GULF STREAM?" It is not necessary, in order to a correct understanding of this subject, that the different theories with regard to the stream should Tbe described. They are almost as various as the names of their authors. Perhaps the most commonly received theory is this : The steady prevalence of the Trade Winds, as they are de- nominated, drives the waters of the Atlantic Ocean along the line of the Equator, from the south, east, and the north-east, to the south-west and piles them up in the semi-circle that is called the " Horse-Shoe Bend " of the Gulf of Mexico. Meet- ing here, of course, the natural resistance of the shore, they are turned in a northern direction, and then north-east, being forced along the coast between the State of Florida and the contiguous islands in the Caribbean Sea. At this point, being narrowed in width, and in other ways obstructed, the stream becomes more rapid in its current, and sweeps along the shores of the United States of America, with all its wonderful peculiarities still intact. It thence bears away on its outward-bound voyage directly for the western slopes of Ireland, and thence again in a more northerly course for Greenland and the open sea of the North Pole. All these facts being admitted, the practical question still recurs : What is the Origin of the Gulf Stream ? To this may be added another question — What is the proof that this extraordinary stream of water originates in the Gulf of Mexico ? May it not have another, a deeper, a more distant origin ? The first distinct appearance of this so-called " Gulf Stream" in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean is off the coast of WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OP " THE GULF STREAM?" 3 Yucatan. Here is the Channel of Yucatan, which is only sixty-five miles wide, between the eastern shores of Yucatan and the western extremity of Cuba. It is just at this point that the singular peculiarities of the stream appear : I. Its color. II. Its heat. III. Its current. IV. Its sedges. In all these respects, and in others of a cognate character, it is distinct from the contiguous waters of the Atlantic. What, then, is the origin of this distinct color ? It is known to be of a clear blue, sometimes quite dark. There are places where it approximates in this color to the remarkable ocean current in the Pacific, off the coast of Japan, which is of so dark a blue as to be called by the maratime Japanese " The Kuro Sirro, or Black Stream." It has been asserted by certain theorists that this deep blue color is caused by the extreme saltness of the waters of the current. But this can not be true, inasmuch as there are many other waters, not only oceans, but bays, gulfs, and lakes — some of the latter far in the interior of continents, like the Great Salt Lake in the Utah Territory of the United States, which are well known to be much more salt than the "Gulf Stream," and yet they are not blue in color. There are places in the ocean, immediately contiguous to the full current of the stream, where the ^line of demarkation is so distinct, that a vessel sailing in a longitudinal direction may draw her stern through the pea-green waters of the Atlantic while her bow is dipping into the ultramarine blue of the 1 WHAT IS THE OEIGIN OP "THE OULP STREAM?" stream. Or, if she be sailing in a latitudinal direction, steering west she may have her starboard side in green waters, while her larboard side is in blue. It has been asserted by the same and other theorists, that the blueness of the stream is caused by its unusual depth. But this, again, can not be true ; inasmuch as there are many places, of frequent occurrence, and of great extent in width and length, where these blue waters of the stream are not as deep as the surrounding green waters of the ocean through which it is constantly passing, and where this diversity of color is invariably observed, and has been from time immemorial. "What, then, is the cause of this remarkable diversity of color ? Is it any way connected with the origin of the stream, as a distinct and unvarying phenomenon among the marine wonders of our globe ? May not this extraordinary blue color be caused by certain chemical action in the waters of the stream, materially different from any other in the ordinary waters of the ocean ? May not this difference also aid us in ascertaining the origin of the stream. Passing to the invariable current of the stream, may not the same inquiries properly arise with regard to that, as have already arisen respecting its color ? May it not be equally conclusive in proving the origin of the stream ? This extraordinary current, like a blue river of flowmg warm water, has for ages poured through the ocean at the average rate of three knots an hour, sometimes slightly in- creased, especially during or soon after the prevalence of a violent and long continued south-west gale. The stormy waters of the Stream, much agitated and extremely dangerous to all who are then upon them, are at such times driven for- WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OP "THE GULP STREAM?" 5 ward, in a north-east direction, at the rate of five, or even six, knots to the hour. This speed is lessened as these strong south-west winds sub- side. It is very much decreased as the waters of the Stream are spread out more widely over the more eastern surface of the Atlantic, but is quite perceptible again at the resumed set to the north-east, off the west coasts of England and Ireland. From this point after leaving the genial influence of its moisture, impregnated with the peculiar fertilizing vapors it bears upon its wings, on the forests and fields of the western counties of Albion, and all over the truly-named Emerald Isle, it debauches toward Greenland, where its magic breath touches with verdure the icy lagoons and snow-covered peaks of that far-distant region of the North. What is the cause of this wonderful current ? Is it the Gulf of Mexico ? The answer to these questions is one of the answers to the still greater question. What is the origin of the stream ? It can not be that this steady current of three knots an hour, off the western coasts of England, Ireland, and Greenland, three thousand miles distant from the supposed fountain, where it is said by modem theorists, to originate, in the Gulf of Mexico, could be kept flowing all that distance by the mere impulse with which it starts from its reputed outlet, or by the force of the expansion of its tepid waters over the cooler surface of the more eastern Atlantic. It must be remembered, too, in this immediate connection, that the north-east and south- east winds which facilitate its passage along the south-west coast of America, do not and can not render it any aid in voyaging from the south-west to the north-east, over the 6 WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OP "THE GULP BTREAM?" broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. On the contrary, it has to propel a large part of its eastern course against these winds and at some seasons of the year for considerable periods of time. During a permanent portion of these seasons the east- ward set of the current of the stream is constantly met by the strongest north-east and south-east gales that blow over the stormy Atlantic. Yet onward it presses, always in the same direction, always at the same average rate, until, appar- entl}', it disappears in the frigid realms of the Arctic Circle. What is the origin of this regular, steady, long-continued current ? Why do not the contiguous waters of the Atlantic Ocean move along with it, in the same direction ? Whence these boiling eddies on its moving surface ? It can not be the force which is supposed by theorists to propel it north and east along the coast of Yucatan, and around, across, and out of the Bay of Campeachy and the Gulf of Mexico ; inasmuch as it is unreasonable to suppose that a current of water, over a hundred miles in width, thou- sands of fathoms deep, and more than three thousand miles in length, could be driven by such a comparatively local and weak force through the dense body of the Atlantic, and against the powerful gales from the east that stately sweep over it. Neither is it any more reasonable to suppose that the heat which so clearly distinguishes the stream from the adjoining surface waters of the Atlantic, and which continues so to dis- tinguish it, to a considerable degree, nearly the whole of its course through that ocean, is caused, as some other theorists contend, by the vertical power of the sun in the tropics ; inas- much as this theory demands and must prove that the same WHAT IS THE OEIGIN OP "THE GULF STREAM?" t sun that shines on all the waters of the Bay of Campeachy, which are comparatively shallow, and therefore the more easily heated, and, also, on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, at the same moment of time, heats those concurrent waters to a tem- perature corresponding to that of the Stream. Whereas, it is a well-established scientific fact that the waters of the Stream are invariably warmer, by several degrees of Fahrenheit, than the immediately adjacent waters of the Bay of Campeachy and of the Gulf of Mexico ; and are nearly ten degree^ warmer than the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, off the entire coasts of North America and Western Europe. Whence is this extraordinary heat derived ? If not from the sun, where from ? Can the heat of the sun continue to warm thousands of miles of ocean waters in their passage through northern ice ? It only remains to treat of the sedges of the stream. These are admitted by all men of science to be among its greatest mysteries. They are suddenly met, floating in its dark, eddy- ing waves, from the eastern coast of Yucatan to the icy shores of Greenland. In some places they spread out over the sur- face of the current, for many miles in extent, composed of plants, bulbs, and flooting globular vesicles. Large masses of these weeds drift into eddies, and comparatively calm portions of the stream, where but little or no current is perceptible. In other places they sometimes rise suddenly around vessels navigating through the middle of the stream, where the cur- rent is much stronger; coming to the surface in detached masses, as if torn off from some sub-aqueous projection, and whirled or belched to the upper strata of waters by some hid- den force below. 8 WHAT 18 THE ORIGIN OF "THE GULF STEEAM?" It is a very singular fact connected witli these marine floats that the most careful scrutiny has never yet been able to trace their origin. They are as mysterious in this respect as the origin of the stream itself. Two things, at least, have been proved of them : 1st. They do not originate on any of the shores along which the mighty stream bears its way. 2d. They do not increase among themselves, after oemg brought to the surface of the waters. Isolated travelers on the heaving bosom of the sea-wonder of the world, they float on from tropic to arctic realms ; never vegetating, never flowering, never producing their kind ; hav- ing neither living seeds nor roots'; doomed only to blacken, de- cay, and sink forever to the voids of the great deep. There have been found among them torn and broken seg- ments of far Eastern productions ; such as pieces of bamboo, tinted flowers, faded and shriveled, like the lentils of the river Nile, and grasses from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Some of these have been discovered far out in the North-west Atlantic, and still others have been picked from the rocks and beaches of the western shores of England, borne thither by the tireless voyage of the stream, from the south-west to the north-east area of the ocean. Where, then, do these sedges originate ? Certainly not in the Gulf of Mexico. What do they prove in connection with the mystery of the origin of the wonderful river of the sea ? It is a satisfaction to know that as scientific discoveries pro- gress, all these oceanic phenomena will be developed ; and, WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OP "THE GULP STREAM?" 9 with them, the origin of the stream will be established beyond the possibility of a doubt. The electric and bituminous forces which have been long known to exist in the atmospheric phenomena of this surpris- ing body of waters, must eventually render much material aid in the complete establishment of its origin. These stupendous forces of the atmosphere have never been known to operate anywhere else as they do in this ocean stream. It is perfectly conclusive that the rolling vapors, filled alternately ^ith sul- phurous fires and storms of hail, that so often burst over the stream, in certain latitudes and longitudes, and at certain sea- sons of the year, are all produced by the action of its waters, under the combined influence of the sun and wind. The mate- rials for these terrific storms of thunder and lightning, these awful hurricanes of wind, that at times sweep everything be- fore them, on sea and land, are directly traceable to the deep, dark, warm, and semi-poisonous waters of the stream. May they not be among the elements that will finally solve the mystery of its origin ? Another established scientific fact is the general absence of all large and active fish from these waters. It is well known that they invariably avoid them, as far as possible. The fish most common where the stream is most active, where its waters are the warmest and most disturbed by whirlpools and eddies, are universally malformed, hybrid creatures ; such as are found in like numbers and like variety of malformation, in no other waters on the globe. Coming up from the vast min- eral caverns of the stream, moving in its tepid and sulphated currents, may they not, also, help to establish the real nature of its origin ? 10 WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF "THE GULF STREAM?" May it not yet appear, to a demonstration, that the so-called "Gulf Stream " does not, after all, have its origin in the Gulf of Mexico ? May it not be conclusively proved, by the infallible deduc- tions of science, that this prodigy of the waters is subterra- nean and sub-acqueous in its origin ? May it not in time be a recorded and undeniable historical fact that it has its origin in one portion of the Atlantic Ocean pouring into another portion through the caverns of the earth ? May not here be the sources of its color, its heat, its cur- rent, and its sedges ? May not careful investigation finally establish the fact that this marvelous ocean current has its origin in the ocean through which it flows ? This fact being established and admitted, the following cor- responding facts will be made evident : 1. The original blue color of the stream is caused by con- tact and cohesion with the sulphates and minerals among which its waters are mingled, as they pass through their subterran- eous and sub-acqueous channels, in the interior of this planet. 2. The unusual heat of the stream is caused by the flowing of its waters along the sides of the hidden caverns, where the igneous deposits of the earth are concealed. 3. The constant and regular current of the stream is caused by the pressure which gives it perpetual supply, accelerated by the heated portions of the earth it encounters while rising perpetually to the natural level which water always seeks and must everywhere obtain. 4. The sedges of the stream are caused by the action of the waters against the sides of the interior rocks on which they WHAT 18 THE ORIQIN OP "THE GULP STREAM?" 11 grow ; tearing them from their fastenings, and carrying them, with their roots and branches attached, to the floating surface of the outer sea. 5. The meteoric and bituminous vapors of the stream are caused by the semi-poisonous discharges thrown upward from its depths ; which first appear in its variegated eddies, then rise into its surrounding atmosphere, where, being operated upon by the sun and atmospheric forces, are generated into the vast, and, sometimes, appalling storms with which portions of the stream are infested. Thus, in the advancing lights of science, may there not yet be read a conclusive answer to the question, "What is the Origin op the Gulp Stream?" MATEEIAL AND MENTAL FORCE.' In entering on this subject our attention is at once strongly arrested by the new book of Dr. Carpenter on Mental Physiology; and this, therefore, wiU receive considerable at- tention, as it propounds a new theory on this topic. I. INCONSISTENCIES OF DR. CARPENTER ON FORCE. One of the first things that impresses a reader unpleasantly in following Dr. Carpenter's Mental Physiology is the discovery that he is radically inconsistent in his propositions and pro- cedure. He aflElrms in his most fundamental principles that mind only possesses any active power, and that matter is wholly forceless and passive. Yet he says that mind and matter are " two distinct agencies." But there is no agency in what is passive and forceless. Yet causation and " efficient causation" are attributed to matter . "Sensation is that primary change in the condition of the conscious ego which results ♦The offer made by the Atjthoes' Publishing Company for a Prize Essay on any subject was open from Nov. 15, 1873, to July 20, 1874. A large number of competing MS8. were received and fairly considered, and the award was made to MS. No. 110, entitled '■'■ Emlution and Progress" by Rev. Wm. I. Gill, A. M. The Committee awarded the Prize to this book, (and the Authors' Publishing Company have issued it in their International Prize Series,) because of its solid force, its logical thoroughness and consistency, and its crystal clearness. The Committee have nothing to say for or against its conclusions. On this point, as on many others, its members would disagree, and as a body they express no opinion or preference whatever. It is from this volume that we are permitted to extract this article. 14 MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. frrnn, some change in the non-ego or external world." To re- sult from is to be an effect of. It is very evident that all through the volume power and causation are by him attributed to matter. Matter is everywhere made to modify and control, not only matter itself but also mind, inasmuch that mind often and generally appears a cypher, except as the effect of the combination and action of matter. If such an agency is not active and forceful we have yet to learn what an active power is. Further, if all active power is mind, all action of the body must be mental action; and the body never stirs the soul, or in any way affects it. Yet no one would ever suspect that he has any such view as this of the relation between body and mind. On the contrary, the reader will infer from the general tenor of the work that the body exerts more power over the mind than the mind over the body. From the distinction between mind and matter as respec- tively forceful and forceless, it follows that body and mind are not the same, and in logical consistency we should expect him to admit and hold the doctrine of dualism in our nature as to body and soul, or spirit. If the body is the " material instru- ment of mind," and if matter is merely the vehicle of the mind's force, the duality of body and soul, of matter and spirit, is necessarily involved. Yet in the preface he unequivocally indorses the following language from Charles Buxton: " Irresistible, undeniable facts demonstrate that man is not a den wherein two enemies are chained together, but one being, that soul and body are one — one and indivisible." MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. 15 II. DEFINITION OF THE TEEMS PASSIVE AND ACTIVE. The respective meanings of the terms active and passive Dr. Carpenter has not definitely given. He has simply re- peated old words, without determining what is their meaning, or whether they have any meaning. We demand a proof that active and passive agents or substances are not equally forces, whether called matter or mind. The passive, as passive, is known only as that which presents to some force operating on it a degree of resistance less than is necessary to remain apparenthj impassive and unmodified. The wax is passive to the seal, while the seal is active and supposed to be impassive But in reality the seal is not impassive in the sense of acting without being acted on and modified; and the wax is not passive or inactive in the sense that it does not operate on the seal and modify it. The seal and the wax are in reality equallj active, and equally resist each other; but the softer sub- stance is called passive relative to the harder substance to whose force it yields and whose impress it receives. Active and passive are terms which express simply the relative degrees of resistance of two opposing bodies or forces; and hence what is called passive in one relation will be called active in another. Wax is passive in relation to the seal which presses it, but not in relation to the water into which it may fall. In this latter relation the wax is active and the water passive. The water again is considered as active when dashing in a flood of resistless weight and momentum against its barriers and the latter are conceived as relatively passive. As far as Dr. Carpenter's views approach definiteness, he seems to think that volition is the characteristic of active 16 MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. power, and all other change and motion is passive, forceless. But this certainly does not accord with the common notion of the relative or respective meanings of the words active and passive. Nor will science accept such a distinction and defini- tion without due proof, and he furnishes none. On this view the ball and the target, or lightning and the tree which it shatters, are both passive relative to each other. But neither in popular nor scientific use has the term passive ever been applied to the action of a ball, or the lightning, on the objects which they strike. They may be considered passive relatively to theif causes, but never relatively to their effects. Every- thing is considered as passive relatively to its causes, but active relatively to its effects. III. NO BRIDGE BETWEEN EGO AND NON-EGO, NOR BETWEEN THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL. Dr. Carpenter makes matter serviceable as being necessary to bridge over the gulf between the ego and non-ego or the external world. This is unfolded in the first paragaph of page first. But a bridge must be neither gulf nor opposite shores. If matter bridges the gulf between the ego on the one side and the non-ego or external world on the other, it must be neither ego nor non-ego, neither internal self nor the external world . But this is impossible because self contradictory. The ego must be connected with and percipient of the non- ego immediately, if at all. If the body is non-ego, the spirit or ego, in its connection with the body, is connected immedi- ately with the non-ego. If the body is ego, and if the exter- nal world is non-ego, then the ego and non-ego are connected immediately in virtue of the body's immediate connection with the external world. ' MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. 17 IV. MATTER KNOWN ONLY IN VIRTUE OF ITS FORCE. On the nature and relations of matter and force, Carpenter starts with the asserted general admission " that we neither know, nor can know anything of matter, save through the medium of the impression it makes on our senses; and those impressions are derived from the forces of which matter is the vehicle." When men affect to teach science and philosophy, or anything else, they should consider consistency of thought — which involves clearness and distinctness of thought — and accuracy of expression, as prime requisites. We have just ex- posed a self-contradiction in his assured deliverance respect- ing matter as the bridge which spans the gulf between ego and non-ego. We have a similar criticism to make on this sentence. It is indeed a general admission, as he says, that matter, ex- ternal to our organism, is known only by the impression it makes on our senses; but what he adds to this by way of philosophical or metaphysical explanation of it contradicts it, though the author, of course, does not see it. The general admission, an admission in which we concur, is that "it," matter, ("it" being the relative pronoun of matter) makes an impression on our senses, and so it is itself accounted a force. In Carpenter's addition and philosophical explanation, matter is divested of force and transmuted into a mere vehicle of force; and we are told now that it is this immaterial force, and not matter, which makes the impression on our senses. We accept the general admission consistently conceived, that is, really conceived, or so conceived as not to be self- nullified, so that we have as the result a real admission, a real thought and possible fact — that external matter is known by the impression 18 MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. which it itself makes on our senses, logically implying that matter is itself a force and makes itself known by its force. V. MATTER KNOWN ONLY AS FORCE. But while matter is known by its force in the impression which it makes on our senses, it is not merely the impression which is known, but the matter itself. We do not simply believe the existence of matter; we know it. Nor is our knowl- edge inferential, but direct and immediate, as the object of our senses. We do not conclude by logical process that there is such a thing as matter as the cause of our sensations; for matter is itself objectively sensible. If therefore matter is known only by its force, it is known only as force. The force is not known as something different from the matter, and the matter is not known at all if it is not known as the force. To the senses the force and the matter are one and indivisible, and they must be the same to the intellect. Thus by a short route we arrive, with logical certainty and necessity, and in accordance with the testimony of our senses, at the exact con- trary of his doctrine of the forceless passivity of matter — that matter is an active force or power whose kind and degree are known directly in the experience of the senses. * * Matter, it is said, is " merely the vehicle of force," or " the instrument of force," not force itself. Will the Doctor show us the vehicle or instrument apart from the force; or if this cannot be done, will he give us an intelligible criterion of the distinction between the two. We have always supposed that all " vehicles" and a 1 " instruments" have some force, and that they are available only in virtue of their force. If the club of Hercules was intrinsically without force, it was MATEEIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. 19 useless; for in that case club xfist=fist only. If Carpenter's book, the matter of it, is essentially forceless, he has, in making it, been guilty of a superfluous labor of immense magnitude, and all language and printing are worse than nothing, because they add nothing to the force of thought. VI. GOD AS THE SOUL OF NATURE. We shall see that this absurdity is the chief or only weapon with which thorough evolution is assailed by its opponents of all stripes. Here we may observe how fluently a writer by the name of Bowne discourses on this theme in his refutation of Spencer. We will give a few extracts from him, as he is decidedly more vivacious on this subject than Dr. Carpenter or any man of science. In Spencer's writings a " ridiculous confusion of force and motion is apparent." " But psycholo- gy has yet another word to offer to the New Philosophy- It demands the authority for the behef in force at all. It summons the evolutionist to tell where he discovered this force with which he conjures so mightily. And just here every system of mechanical atheism is speechless. For it is admitted now by all (/) that force is not a phenomenon, but a mental dictum. * * Science refers all change to one universal force; what is that ? It is either the activity of a person, the determination of a will, or nothing. The mental law which warrants the belief in external power, warrants the interpretation of that power into the divine activity. If science likes not this alternative, then it has no warrant for behef in force at aU." THIS CONCLUSION IS CONFIRMED BY HUMAN SUPERSTITION. •' The uncultured mind in all ages has persisted in referring 20 MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. external phenomena to external wills. Was there a storm, Neptune was angry or Eolus had let slip the winds. Waa there a pestilence, some malignant demon had discovered the fountain of life and charged it with deadly poison. Every order of fact had its god, to whose agency it was referred. Absurd as were many of the beliefs begot of this tendency, it was far truer to psychology than is the prevailing scientific conception of impersonal force. Nature is the abode and manifestation of a free mind like our own. * * Will- power, or none is the alternative offered by inexorable logic." This last paragraph is the stock argument of sermons and theological lectures, and all theistic metaphysics. Dr Car- penter from dire necessity condescends to repeat it as follows : The conviction that the source of all power is, mind " has its foundation in the primitive instincts of humanity. By our own remote progenitors, as by the untutored savage of the present day, every change in which human agency was not apparent, was referred to a particular Animating Intelligence. * These deities were invested with more than human power; but they were also supposed capable of human passions and subject to human capriciousness." The progress of science rectifies the errors thus involved without destroying the testimony of human instincts to personal agency as the only source of power. The discovered unity of nature now reveals the unity of a personal God, and this is all the differ- ence between savage instinct and modern science. All are but parts of oue stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul. This doctrine of God as the soul of nature is entirely agree- able to evolution, if our form of conscious and volitional MATERIAL AND MENTAL FORCE. 21 activity is not imposed on God. In that case it will contain no evident absurdity or revolting paradox. But such a union of nature with the god ol Theism is unmitigatedly revolting. If God acts throughout the universe by distinct volition, as we do within the sphere of our organism, and if there is no force or power but this, then, in the most shocking of all possible meanings, " there is no evil in the city but God has done it," nor any where else. There is no force in the assassin's dagger or arm, and it is God only who kills in obedience to the assasin's volition. Carry the thought through all the mazes of natural phenomena, and of brute violence, and human vice and malignity. Every effort, however cruel, or loathsome, or horrible, is directly and in the most implicit sense the act of God and of him only. Man has the power of volition, but as all nature is powerless, man can do nothing but will. There his power ends; and nothing would follow his volition but for the coinciding efficiency of God's volition. Further, if man's soul and will are a part of the universe of which God is the soul, as they must be, then man's volition is itself an immediate effect of God's volition in all cases. This is not merely pantheism, but it combines such horrible conceptions of the universal and eternal Power as to put it infinitely beneath all forms of impersonal pantheism. That God should operate all that takes place of evil by a distinct and deliberate volition, as a conscious " free agent," as Bowne calls him, purposing and thus effecting each and all, is very different from working out such things by necessity of nature, in virtue of immutable force operating variously according to the relations of the parts of these forces to each other. Though the latter be called Atheism, we should infinitely 22 MATERIAL AND MENTAL FOECE. prefer it to the former, whether it be called Theism or by any other favored term. VII. BARBARIAN BELIEF NO PROOF OF THE FORCELESSNESS OF MATTER. It is with a genuine and profound shame on behalf of Theism that we have seen a man like Dr. Carpenter condescending to support his bad metaphysics by retailing afresh the opinions of savages, barbarians and uncultured peasants. Is philosophy to sit forever at the feet of barbarism and ignorance ? Are we to accept a notion because fear, or hope, or vice, or crime has engendered it in a brain only just beginning to be streaked with the qualities of mentality ? I grieve for outraged science and philosophy that such an argument at this date should emanate from such a source. If Carpenter had been silent here, others should have passed unnoticed, because the argu- ment itself is worthy of only severe contempt, which even our courtesy to the author cannot restrain. These " Instincts of humanity," that is, of savages, barba- rians and peasants, find a sufficient explanation in their weak- ness and wants and ignorance and danger, whence they are evidently evolved or may be; so that they at least coincide with evolution instead of arguing against it. It is enough for evolution that they may so originate. . < PHYSICAL SCIENCE IK PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Almost every public school in the United States, of any size or character, has a department of natural science, in which natural philosophy, chemistry and physiology are taught ; an . many of them include geology, botany and astronomy. From these schools, and from these particular departments, thousands of young men and women are being turned out every year as practically educated citizens, prepared to fight the battle of lite successfully. And yet, strange to say, scarcely one out of a hundred thus certified as " educated," but could learn the commonest facts of chemical sciene for the first time from a brick-layer, who knows what lime is when he sees it, and what it is for. Not only in physics, but in natural history do we find that the practically educated youth is proficient only in that material which never comes within the sphere of the common citizen. In botany for instance, girls and boys will giggle over passion flowers and honey- suckles in the conservatory; and then go home and take quinine and rhubarb in delectable ignorance of Calisaya and " pie-plant." Indeed, a great majority of the certified gradu- ates of seminaries and public-schools could not tell their grandmothers why they made bread with the aid of cob ashes! 24 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. I know teacliers will, in the main, deny this statement. Why? Because it is under instruction which is so wonder- fully faulty that this non -practical education is developed ! I remember with what dreamy wonder I entered the room devoted to natural science in a certain famous seminary. There are still pictures in my mind of irregular rows of bottles of costly, shiny apparatus; of huge stains on broad tables; of a fearful display of Greek or Syriac characters on the board! Then my exceedingly bad raemory takes me through three years of devoted worship at that philosophic shrine. Natural philosophy was fair sailing. (The day will come speedily when natural philosophy and rudimentary geometry will univer- sally precede grammar and geography). "When we emerged from this beautiful study, into chemistry, a new and delightful field opened before us. For two years those bottles, retorts and crucibles "suffered." I became quite a " master mechanic." Oxygen, hydrogen, pop-guns and blow-pipes became play- things to amuse the younger classes. A sort of guardianship of the sacred retreat was given me. In the height of oui* per- fections we loved to be called a chemist ! It came into our lot to enter a University where there was a magnificent "Laboratory," so we determined to enter for a thorough course, supposing that our elaborate attainments would materially shorten the time. When the entrance door of that little brick building closed behind us the scales fell from our eyes. There were no lofty air-pumps, nor costly gal- vanic batteries ! The room did not blaze in a flood of brassy glory ! I found fifty young men at work at as many stands, every stand being alike, and the out-fit of each stand costing. PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 25 perhaps, $75. Twenty-six bottles and a wash-bowl ! A few- little accessories in drawers completed the collection. It took just two sentences from an instructor to show us that we were the most ignorant person in the room! In the profundity of our obscurity we discovered that after two or three years of hard study, most of our time was wasted, and we almost cursed the whole hst of theoretical, constructive chemical text- books which are prepared for our common schools. One of the worst features of the usual system, is that School Boards are beared to death for the two or ten thousond doUars to fill a laboratory with expensive apparatus, when a practical analytical course, which leads the pupil into r" ilosophical chemistry without /ws knowing it, can be success, fully taught with an outlay of $150.00. If we had the power, we would play French revolution in every one of these complicated nurseries of speculation, doubt, mystery, brain-fuddUngs and ornamentations called the " laboratory," and put the practical reagents in the students' hands. Then if Thomas or Abijah couldn't provide his mother with a httle sal soda from the salt bag on bakm' day we'd excuse him on examination day ! We have had experience in teaching chemistry to medical classes, and the tangled and muddled condition of those brains, on the subject of chemical science, which have passed through our public schools is a shame and disgrace. This is strong language, but it means something— it conveys a meaning which will be understood by all the practical artisans who have had sons and daughters educated at public expense. It is an almost universal custom to teach chemistry by means of the ordinary text-book of constructive chemistry in which 55b PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. philosophical, theoretic and synthetic science is taught on the very first pages, and nowhere can be found the simple re- lations which reagents bear to the salts and simples which enter into the work-shops of the world. There are theories of combi- nation, classifications of affinities, laws of substitution, of gase- ous volume and combination. There are histories and details of the elements, and manipulations which only concern the experimental philosopher of rare experience. This is the "make-up" of Fownes, Koscoe, Barker, "Wells, Toumans,* Silliman, etc., etc. Appfield, in a medical chemistry, and Elliott and Storer, in an incomplete work, have attempted a more practical system, but no one has yet brought forth a text- book which answers the demand of our public schools for practical education. The chiefest of all the difficulties is that only one out of a hundred of our teachers know anything of practical chemistry. How shall this deficiency be overcome ? What remedy can be applied ? These are most difficult questions to answer. In the first place, science should be inculcated by "object TEACHING." No teacher of chemistry should speak of sulphuric acid, or use it in preparing class experiments, without laying his hand upon it before the class, and reciting constantly its practical features — its useful attributes — its place in the de- tection of the acids, and how detected in analysis ! Why? We all know what oil of vitriol is ; every house-keeper knows it by name ; every artisan is familiar with it ; every school boy has heard of it. Yet not one in ten thousands understand the ■"Since this paragraph was written we learn that Prof. Youmans is prepar- ing a chemistry that will overcome the objections of which we complain. PHYSICAL SCIEN-CE IN" PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 27 practical relation it bears to all the other mineral agents in phy- sical economy ! One man takes his Glauber's salts— and an- other salts his beef— how many know the difference between the salts ? So with muriatic acid, hydrochloric acid, chlorhy- dric acid, salt spirit, etc. Tinners use it to solder, but I have seen them use it when they would not had the common school told them why they used it when it was used properly. How many know the plain practical relations of muriatic acid to silver, lead and mercury, who have passed excellent examina- tions in chemistry? So with aqua ammonia, blue vitriol, green vitriol, red precipitate, sal volatile, cream tartar, soda I How many high-school graduates — fully competent to unravel quadratics, or translate De Amacitia — can tell why it is that baking powder lightens their mother's bread ? How many are there who repeat that piece of foolishness that "alcohol exists in everything ?" How many believe ordinary fresh water to be full of animalculse, and amuse their less favored parents with such nonsense ? The fact is that the dead drift-wood of science, kicked about under the shelves of scientists, is picked up by ingenious men and sold all over the country as valuable and wonderful recipes! And thus fortunes are made by men who could not tell the cream tartar in their mother's buttery from corrosive suplimate, or calomel, or pulverized pumice ! And yet how many have studied chemistry one year. How many can tell us what vinegar will do to common salt ? Why, the fact is that 999 physicians out of 1,000, who want a farthing's worth of iodide of mercury will send hundreds of miles (by means Of their druggists) for a fancy labeled bottle, and pay fifty cents 28 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN" PUBLIC SCHOOLS. for it, -when iodide of potasium and chloride of mercury stood lazily in their chests doing nothing ! And in five minutee they could have had enough to destroy a race of giants ! The fact that physical science is shabbily taught in oui public schools can be so easily proven that you need not go ofl your own street to do it. Ask the first young man or vpoman adorned with academic honors what fusel oil is, that poisons liquor, or why their grandmothers burned cobs to make bread with, or any other question that would yield practical homely results if correctly understood, and see if you get a satisfactory reply. Now then, this being the condition of things, we repeat that the beginning of all instruction in physical science should be by object teaching. Every school board should supply the labratory with salt and tincture bottles filled with every com- pound and simple, agent and reagent, which enters into do- mestic and artisan economy. No student should enter upon systematic study of their properties until he knows them by sight, taste and smell, providing they possess these '* dis- tinguishing" features. Then they should be taught their ex- ceedingly beautiful and simple relations to each other. And by this we mean such relations as this : Their proximate solubilities ; what muriatic acid will precipitate from water solution; what hydrosulphuric acid will precipitate; what other reagents will throw down; what precipitates are, and why they are; how to use the blow-pipe; and such a system as constitutes an elementary analytical chemistry. After such a course, the student will rapidly acquire that theoretical knowledge which is so fearfully abstruse, as ordinarily taught, PHYSICAL SCIElSrCE IN" PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 29 and when his year is finished, he will never thereafter take Perry Davis' Painkiller, or any other compound organic mix- ture, and ask a chemist to analyze it ! For the microcosm will reveal itself as it is, and he will know just how broad and how limited are the capabilities of the science he has studied. FANCIES. skeleto:n^s. 'There is a Skeleton In every house." SKELETON OF LOVE. When the sweetest eyes e'er seen, Deep, dark eyes of dear Irene, Looked up in mine. Two souls caught the choral rhyme Of eternity and time, And on sward of euchlorine, Sat and sipped through shade and sheen, Lushly blushing hippocrene — Life's nectar-wine. SKELETON OF VANISHED TEABd. Kind ? So kind, and fond and gentle 1 Loved her ? Yes, far more than life, More than eaj-th and God and heaven, — She was all of these — a wife ! When one heart went bowed and breaking, Round a weary sweep of years, It kept striving, and kept watching One bright image through its tears. SKELETON OF A DREAM. Only a dream? It may foretell: A stranded boat, a storm-laslied sea, A prayer unheard, a sharp farewell, A thriUing cry of misery! Of one pleading for a rescue, With the faith and zeal of yore; And one deaf tiU both are broken On a frozen, rock-ribbed shore. (1) SKEXHTON OF THE MO.VNINO SEA. Does she see iis? — iis, stark visions Of hopes and joys that she hath slain? Can she number the petitions We once offered her in vain? Though the empty, dismal future, Prove or disprove what is said, Can atonement reach the smitten, After love and faith are dead ? SKELETON OF A SHADOW. Though one flayed love's twining tendrils^ When the flushing blooms were rife ; Though one wronged too deep for naming Every holy thing of life — Like a Judas, or a Janus, False and double 'twixt each tide — One brings only veils to cover, Nor accuse, nor taunt, nor chide. SKELETON OF A PRAYER. Some introspective days Will faU, like rain, around and in each heart; While one kneels down and prays, Can one withhold forgiveness of its part? Forgive ! Tears burn and make one tired Of the perpetual knawing of shajp pain, And life all undesired : Forgive, ere it shall be too late and vain I Forgive ! Though love whereon two stood, Be opened like a chasm 'twixt their feet, In spite of bad or good, Two mounds of earth, and — they shall never meet- Forgive 1 HISTORIC HUREYGRAPHS. I. THE CARPET-BAGGERS OF THE NILE; OK, THE LAST OF THE MAMELUKES. The Mamelukes were a famous band of black and tau bum- mers, who bossed Egypt for several centuries. Egypt, as is well known, is the name given to the southern portion of Illinois, and is noted chiefly for its fine watermelons. The chief seaport, and metropolis of the country, is Cairo, situated at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers. The Mamelukes were first imported into Egypt about 600 years ago, by the Sultan Es-salih, having bought them in a job lot at a closing-out sale somewhere in Asia. He made slaves of them, hence their name, from the Arabic word, niemalik^ a slave. The experiment proved profitable to the old sultan, and his reign was peaceful, and his subjects loyal. At his death he vvas succeeded by his son, Tooran Shah, grandfather to the present Mr. Shah of Persia, but he soon became unpopular, and the Mamelukes cut ofl" his head and placed one of their own number upon the throne. Being originally carpet-baggers, their rule was turbulent, and they were frequently obliged to slice up a few hundred natives to keep them in submission. Converting their fellow-men into hash was always a favorite 4 HISTOEIC HUEEYGEAPHS. pastime with them. They wore expensive clothes, and spent most of their time prowling about on fine Arabian horses, equipped with gorgeous trappings and a profusion of small arms. They were sudden, and hard to whip, as Napoleon found during his attack on the Pyramids. Notwithstanding frequent rebellious outbreaks, they managed, by the free use of edge tools, to maintain their supremacy with some varia- tions, until the early part of the present century, when a war broke out between them and the Turks. In a square fight the Lukes were the best men, but the Turks practiced the Modoc strategy, inveigling their foes by friendly invitations to social enjoyments, and then butchering them without mercy. In this way their final destruction was accomplished, in 1811, by the Turkish bashaw, Mehemet Ali, the last name being orig- inally, Ali-ar. He was one of the worst liars known in history. He had a fine residence in Cairo, surrounded by spacious grounds and a high fence, except on one side, where there was a steep bluff, at the foot of which ran the "Wabash canal. Wabash is a corruption of Bashaw, in honor of whom the canal was named. Mehemet pretended that a conspiracy was on foot to murder him. Confronting the ringleaders, the bashaw, looking fiercely at them, and brandishing a large- carving-knife, exclaimed, in a scary voice, " There are traitors among ye ! " They replied, calmly, " Bosh, ah ! Bosh, Mehemet ! A-li ! A-li ! " He Avas determined, however, to exterminate the Mamelukes, without being at all scrupulous as to the means. Gaining the confidence of their chiefs, he invited them all to a grand oyster supper. They assembled, accordingly, at the appointed time, unconscious of the impending danger that surrounded them. At a preconcerted signal, just after the soup had been served, CAKPET-BAGGEKS OF THE NILE. the soldiers of Mehemet, who had secretly surrounded the house, rushed in with knives and revolvers, and commenced a bloody slaughter of the unarmed guests. The outside gates had been previously closed to prevent their escape. In the dining-room the scene was horrible beyond description. No less than 327 dead Mamelukes lay there in that room weltering in their gore. But one Mameluke, among that trusting band of 470 chiefs, escaped. He crawled out of the basement win- dow unobserved, mounted his horse, which he had. tied to a cherry tree, and spurred him over the edge of the bluff. The horse and rider struck with tremendous force upon the tow- path, more than a hundred feet below. The horse was instantly killed, but, strange to say, Jimi Okhan, the last of the Mame- lukes, was unharmed. He plunged into the river, swam across, and escaped into Missouri. After many perilous adventures, he found himself at Pike's Peak, among the miners. Sad to relate, he here fell into vicious habits, and gambled away the shekels he had carefully saved since that eventful night of Mehemet's oyster supper. Hearing that all his brother Mamelukes had been massacred throughout all Egypt, he wandered eastward, and, in 1832, landed at New York, where he set up a peanut-stand in Park Row. He subsequently removed to the corner of Broome street and Broadway, where he remained until his death, in 1860, the last sad relic of a once powerful race. h. e. h. 6 KNIQHT-ERBANT VS. POLICEMAN. II. KNIGHT-ERRANT vs. POLICEMAN. In the ashes of Pompeii there has been unearthed the skele- ton of a sentinel who is held up often, and with emphasis, as an illustration of the fact that the Roman soldier would stand fire. It is not proposed to place this veteran at his post again, and clothe him in the armor he wore, nor imagine that Diomed sent him mulled wine from his banquet when standing guard at his gate ; for his armor is rusty, and his sword's edge is gone, and not an amphora did mine host leave to clear his military throat of the dust which had clogged it for eighteen hundred years. But this gens d'arme of Rome was the em- bodiment of an idea in civil government which, manipulated and molded in the constitution of the patent government of ours, resurrects the veteran, not in coat of steel with broad- sword and spear, but sets him before us in gilt-buttoned coat and espantoon, that epitome of executive law, the modern policeman. And though this may seem rude treatment of the divine militaire, yet as we seek the old patrician in the modern lazzironi, so the old guard of the city gate wakes up after a long sleep as the modern roundsman. The same necessity of government begat the one as the other, and the same authority of law spake from the spear's point as now from the baton. With the individual, whether he be born on the banks of the Shannon or the Rhine, or, as sometimes happens by mistake, he be native, we have nothing to do ; but in this extensive and compact machinery we recognize that power which is the safe- KNIOHT-ERRANT VS. POLICEMAN. 1 guard and necessity of civilized society. We spend our days in the acquisition of wealth, content that no lordly hand of might can wrest it from us. We sit down calmly by our hearthstone and enjoy its blessings, so secure that no ruthless invader shall mar its divinities. We go forth in the full light of day without rapier at our side or retinue at our back, safe in the majesty of the law, which, with unresting eye and unwea- rying arm, ever shields us. The might of millions is ours, though we be the humblest artisan that toils for his daily bread. But step between the former civilization and ours, to the times when the world was ruled by "The good old rule, the simple plan, That he should take who had the power, And he should keep who can." The Knight of Weehawken is a goodly warrior, and from his castle in the hills he looketh down upon the stately palace of my Lord Manhattan and his goodly possessions, and espieth the Lady Geraldine, who, with bright face and sun-flecked tresses, sallies forth from her father's gate on mettled palfrey with unnumbered suitors at her side ; and the brave knight lives in his castle alone, when he might possesst his lovely prize for the taking. And as the lord of the isle is away on foray bent, the valiant knight swoops down from his aerie, and lo! the dove is transferred to the eagle's nest. Now multiply this one Lord of Manhattan by all the wealthy denizens of Fifth Avenue, in the castle of each of which there is some gen- tle lady (which is true), and all around there are valiant knights eager to capture them (as they are) ; then consider the comforts of being a, pater familias on such terms. 8 KNIGHT-ERBANT VS. POLICEMAN Or, fancy the Black Kuight unannounced, as he always went, steppmg into a Broadway bank and politely and chivalrously, at his lance's point, presenting his check for an untold amount, would it not be suddenly found that he kept his account there, and his check was good for any amount he might be pleased to name, though the frantic stockholders should clamor for their next dividend, and a deluge of certificates would not water the capital sufficiently to meet the loss ? Bring the muscular law of the fifteenth century into contact with the industrial civilization of the nineteenth, and it is for- tunate that the spear of Don Quixote was broken on t .e wind- mills. It is the province of freemen to complain, and dreamy philosophers will plan Utopias, and the truth that all human things are fallible, will provoke the one and blast the other. The law in its many phases seeks justice, and doeth it substan- tially. The price per capita to the citizen would not equip a single retainer to follow his robber lord; and the treasure oi the modern Isaacs is safe. a. o. t. CONDENSED SERMONS. 9 An Iowa judge lately began a charge to the jury : " Gentle- men of the jury, you must now quit eating peanuts." " Who's there ? " said Jenkins, one cold winter night, disturbed in his repose by some one knocking at the street door. " A friend," was the answer. " What do you want?'* " Want to stay here all night." "Queer taste, ain't it? But stay there by all means," was the benevolent reply. Slightly sarcastic was the clergyman who paused and ad- dressed a man coming into church after the sermon had began? with the remark : " Glad to see you, sir, come in; always glad to see those here late who can't come early;" and decidedly self- possessed was the man thus addressed, in the presence of an astonished congregation, as he responded : " Thank you ; would you favor me with the text ?" The Burlington (Iowa) HawTcetje relates the followmg incident : " Yesterday morning a boy sauntered up to a yard on Eighth street, where a woman was scratching the bosom of the earth with a rake, and leaning' on the fence, said : 'Are you going around the back yard after awhile ?' The woman said she didn't know; maybe she would; why? 'Because,* the boy said, I saw the cistern lid drop on the baby's head a minute ago, and thought if you went aroimd you might lift it oflf.' " Orange peels are found to be much inferior, for upsetting purposes, to large Cali:oruia pea-pods. Saw a lady step on one of the latter yesterday. She kicked with both feet as high as a ballet star, gave the peculiar shrill, feminine scream, sat down, said " Oh, my !" smoothed down her disordered attire, looked around wildly, rose quickly, shook herself to see if any- thing was loose, gave a withering glar-oo at the place where she had fallen, and with all the spare blood she had in her face, went on with her shopping. — San. Fran. Alia. TETE-A-TETE. WHAT HE SAID: .i Hear me, for my love, my darling, Is all constant and divine. Clinging round thee, like a garment, ,, Wholl}'^ and forever thine. i Trust me: This strong hand out -reaches, To encourage and defend ; ' It will hold thee very gently. And will bless thee to the end. j I Trust me ! This right arm out-stretches, j True and strong above thy head, | It will carry all thy burden, ■ When all other strength has fled. j ! Nestle, thou, right close beside me — j Tremble not, nor fear nor start — I will drive the shadows from thee, ' And the f egj from out thy heart. 8peak, and with thine own heart's pledging, j Give me this one sacred vow — ] That, come tempest or come sunshine, osltion and defence of abso- lute evolution. — Rev. Joseph A. Owen, A. M., Rutherford Park, N. J. It is dedicated to '« Herbert Spencer and the Great Hrotherhood of Evangelical Divines," — a conjunction unusual, unexpected, yet com- forting to the spirit Chapter VI., on »♦ Creation, Miracles, and a Personal God," contains views which will probably not be prevalent in Evangelical pulpits at present. The argument, from the author's standpoint, is very clearly and succinctly stated, and worthy of perusal. — Daily Press, Portland, Me. It Is a book of original thinking on one of tlie greatest themes. Mr. Gill firmly believes in the doctrine of evolution, which he has trans- lated out of technical phraseology into his own simpler language. He has been an extensive reader of philosophical works, as well as scien- tific A keen, thoughtful, vigorous volume — Oolden Age. THE authors' publishing COMPANY'S CATALOCUR. One of tlie most manly, thorough, wmdid, and natural productions of this contury, exliibiting great researcli, with unbounded splendor of thouglit and loyal attachment to trutii, — permeated everywhere with forcible evidences of a Ixiglily cultivated and original mind,— lift- ing the author into tlie front rank of minds,— rendering, throughout time, his name and logical genius immortal and imperishable. The healthiest, holiest and most heroic emanation from the pnlpit or press of this nineteenth century.— i2. Ri>gerson, M. /)., L. R. C. P. The reader will be startled with the boldness of his attacks; and, for the most part, will find himself compelled to concede the thorough- ness of his iconoclastic handling of his adversaries He drives at his mark with wonderful directness, and certainly makes plain the fact that the stock arguments of anti-evolutionists are leaky in some ossontial particulars, and need a thorough overhauling. We recom- mend the book to all who love the truth and have a taste for close, incisive reasoning, in the verbal dress of a highly cultivated mind.— Baltimore Methodist Protestant. Trial of Rev. Wm. I. Gill, before the Newark Methodist Confer ence, for Writing " Evolution and Progress." [From the N. Y. Sun, April 1, 1875.] The Newark Conference of the M. E Church met In Trinity Church, Jersey City, yesterday morning. Bishop Bowman, presiding. A inotum to api)<>int a ciininiit- tee to investigate llnM'liart,'f.sor liercsy pre- ferred against Dr. tJill Ird to a protiacled and warm discussion. His worit on " Evo- lution AND I'KoouESS" was Criticised as rejecting "Bibleisin, miracleism, and out liumlng Hume," the quotation being from a review pul)lished in a Methodist periodical. Dr. Adams charged that the book was llioroughly infidel in its tenden- cies, and tliat its llieory of evolution was not only opposed to revelation, but a clear denial of the personal existence of God. The motion to appoint a committee was then adopted. [From the N. Y. Times, April 2, 1875.] Yesterday the Bishop announced the names of acommittee appointed to investi- gate a charge of heresy preferred against Kev. Wm. I. Gill. [From the .V. Y. Sun, April 6, 1875.] In tlie Newark M. K. Conference yester- day, the Gill heresy committee reported. I'lie report was laid over. [From the N. Y. Herald, April 7, 1875.] The session of the Newark Methodist Conferenc^e, at Jersey City yesterday, was tlie most lively since the commencement of tlie proceedings. 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