The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 1
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Title: The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 1
Author: Various
Release date: April 26, 2010 [eBook #32147]
Language: English
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THE SCRAP BOOK.
Vol. I. MARCH, 1906. No. 1.
Something New in Magazine Making.
THE SCRAP BOOK will be the most elastic thing that ever happened, in the
way of a magazine--elastic enough to carry anything from a tin whistle to
a battle-ship. This elasticity is just what we should have in
magazine-making, but it is precisely what we do not have and cannot have
in the conventional magazine, such, for example, as _The Century_,
_Harper's_, MUNSEY'S, and _McClure's_.
A certain standard has grown up for these magazines that gives the editor
comparatively little latitude. Custom has decreed that they shall carry
nothing but original matter, and that it shall be dignified and
tremendously magaziny--so magaziny, in fact, that often it is as juiceless
as a dried lemon.
To republish, in successive issues of a magazine of this type, a
considerable proportion of the gems of the past, or the best things
printed in current publications, or to swing away recklessly from
convention in the illustrations and make-up, would be to switch the
magazine out of its class and into some other which the public would not
accept as standard.
In THE SCRAP BOOK we shall be bounded by no such restrictions, no
restrictions of any kind that come within the scope of good journalism.
With our average of two hundred pages of reading matter, we shall carry
the biggest cargo of real, human-interest reading matter that has ever
been carried by any magazine in the wide world.
In size alone it will be from forty to eighty pages larger than the
standard magazines, and by reason of the fact that its space is not taken
up by illustrations, and that we use a smaller, though perfectly distinct
type, the number of words in THE SCRAP BOOK will be a good deal more than
double that contained in these other magazines.
With such a vast amount and such a wide variety of reading, there is
something in THE SCRAP BOOK for every human being who knows how to read
and cares at all to read. Everything that appeals to the human brain and
human heart will come within the compass of THE SCRAP BOOK--fiction, which
is the backbone of periodical circulation; biography, review, philosophy,
science, art, poetry, wit, humor, pathos, satire, the weird, the
mystical--everything that can be classified and everything that cannot be
classified. A paragraph, a little bit, a saying, an editorial, a joke, a
maxim, an epigram--all these will be comprised in the monthly budget of
THE SCRAP BOOK. We are starting off with four good serial stories, and
next month another will be added, and then another, so that we can
maintain an average of six.
There isn't anything in the world just like THE SCRAP BOOK--nothing, in
fact, that compares with it at all. There are review magazines, and small
weekly reviews, and there are, or have been, eclectic magazines; but never
before has anything been attempted on the scale and magnitude of this
magazine. It is an idea on which we have been working for several years,
and for which we have been gathering materials. We have bought hundreds
and hundreds of scrap books from all over the country, some of them a
century old, and are still buying them. From these books we are gathering
and classifying an enormous number of gems, and facts and figures, and
historical and personal bits that are of rare value.
Furthermore, we have a corps of people ransacking libraries, reading all
the current publications, the leading daily papers, and digging out
curious and quaint facts and useful facts and figures from reference
books, cyclopedias, etc., etc.
This first number is but the beginning of what we have in mind for THE
SCRAP BOOK. It is so voluminous in the number of its words, and so varied
in its subjects, that in arrangement and matter it necessarily falls short
of the perfected magazine at which we are aiming. Our purpose, in a word,
is to give more first-rate reading, on a wide variety of subjects, for our
great big eighty millions of people than has ever before been presented in
any single periodical, and to give this magazine at the people's
price--the nimble dime.
FRANK A. MUNSEY.
The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While
James J. Hill Warns America of Dangers that Threaten Her
Future--Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Lord Avebury Deal
with the Questions of the Day in England--Dr. Martin
Predicts a Great Awakening in China--Governor Folk Foresees
the Downfall of "Graft"--Lewis Nixon Speaks of What He Saw
in Russia--Dr. Osler Explains His Philosophy of
Life--Russell Sage Gives Some Practical Advice--With Other
Striking Expressions of Opinion from People of National or
International Reputation.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
THE COMING TEST OF AMERICAN RESOURCES.
James J. Hill, Seeing Trouble Ahead,
Warns His Fellow Countrymen That
There Are Dangers to Be Met.
At last James J. Hill--the silent railroad king of the Northwest, has
given us his full and free opinion on the business policy of the United
States. Throughout his long career it has been his plan to "say nothing
and saw wood." He has been too busy to talk. The man who plunges into a
dense wilderness, as he did, and transforms it into four or five
prosperous States, has no time to run a public opinion factory.
But recently, while at a gathering of his friends in St. Paul, Mr. Hill
unlocked his tongue and spoke out. It was a remarkable address, made by a
remarkable man, and the meat of it was as follows:
The nation at large feels that it is immensely prosperous.
We are cutting a wide swath; there is no doubt of it. But if
we will get down closer and examine what we are doing, we
will find that we are living profligately and squandering
our heritage in every possible manner.
We should insist upon better cultivation of the land. For on
that one item depends your future growth and prosperity, and
there is no other item to which you can look; no other
source of wealth than that which comes out of the
cultivation of the soil.
If the soil is protected, if it is intelligently handled, if
your crops are properly rotated, if the land is fertilized
and rested and treated with proper care, you have a mine in
the soil that will never be exhausted; quite unlike the
other mine.
The millions and hundreds of millions of dollars coming into
the Northwest from the annual crops, while it is large,
isn't half as large as it ought to be.
Our Free Lands Are Gone.
Our public domain is exhausted. Last year over a million
people came from across the Atlantic to the United States,
and the natural increase certainly is a million and a half
more. What is to become of these people? They are to be
driven fairly into the factories and workshops and no place
else.
They can leave our country and go to the Canadian Northwest,
as many have gone. But that country will be populated to its
extent very soon, much sooner than you think. It has not an
unlimited area.
Try and cast your mind twenty or twenty-five years ahead. At
that time we should have one hundred and fifty or one
hundred and sixty millions of people. Where are they going?
Who is going to feed them? They can manufacture. We have
the raw material. We have the coal and the iron and the
copper and the lead. They can manufacture. Who will buy it?
We have got to a point where we are selling our heritage; we
are selling our rich deposits of iron and our coal and our
rich soil, and exhausting it as well.
People of other countries are exercising the utmost, closest
intelligence in everything that pertains to economy in
production. Take, for instance, the German nation to-day,
and they lead the world or any period in the history of the
world in industrial intelligence and industrial management.
Competition Grows Fiercer.
I was in England in November, and met a sad sight--Trafalgar
Square filled with idle people, large numbers of idle people
asking for bread up around Hyde Park. Why? The men who carry
on the work, who paid the pay-rolls, are no longer engaged
in the business.
What they had they have turned into money, and have bought
securities or something else, trying to save what they have
got.
In the west of England, which was a great center of
broadcloth manufacturing and of woolen goods, their output
is less than a quarter of what it was twenty-five years ago.
Germany is selling cutlery in Sheffield.
And I took pains to look around London, and to walk into the
shops and find out. I couldn't buy a pair of lisle-thread
gloves that were not made in Germany. Underclothing,
stockings, cloth, almost everything made in Germany. They
have a system of education in Germany. They educate their
men.
Now I am not going to undertake to say that their way is
better than ours, but I want to impress this on you, that
when this country has a hundred and fifty million people
they have got to do something; they have got to earn a
living.
Who will buy the goods? Who will employ them? In what shape
are they to meet the competition that England is meeting
to-day? And a million and a half of idle men asking for
bread in England, and no bread for them except such as
charity doles out. They have got to be carried out of Great
Britain and a new place found for them. There is no other
solution.
It is all well enough to talk about what we are doing.
Examine it closely and you will find that we are doing
nothing except selling our natural resources and exhausting
them. When you dig a ton of ore out of the ground you can't
plant another ton, as you could potatoes; it is gone. And
when the fertility of our fields, the fertility of the soil
is gone, where are we going to replace it from?
Teach the Boys to Work.
I am not going to find fault with education; it never hurt
anybody. But if, in place of spending so much time and so
much money on languages and higher studies, we fitted them
for the life that they are going to follow, for the sphere
in which they are going to move, we would do more for them.
I know that in two or three, more or less, railroads in
which I am interested, the pay-rolls cover eighty to ninety
thousand people. We have tried all manner of young
men--college men, high-school men, and everything else--and
I will take a boy at fifteen years old who has to make a
living--his chances will be better if he has to contribute
to the support of a widowed mother--I will take him and make
a man of him, and get him in the first place, before you
would get most of the others to enter the race with him;
simply because he has to work. He has to work, he has the
spur of necessity; he must work.
If there be anything that you can do, I feel sure that you
will all put your hands to the plow and help; but you will
never build a city faster than you have a country to support
it. And that is the first and the most important thing.
FREE TRADE IS VITAL TO GREAT BRITAIN.
Sir Henry Fowler Says that an Import
Tax Upon Food Would Be Ruinous
to the English People.
Free Trade, which has been the policy of England for sixty years, is again
on trial, and the battle waxes fierce. There is a growing effort to work
in the thin wedge of "a moderate tariff, not protective but defensive,"
but the opposition are fighting it with every weapon in their armory of
protest. England to-day is not self-supporting, her rural industries have
been declining for years, and the country receives from abroad the far
larger quantity of its food and raw material.
Thirty per cent of the people are underfed and on the verge of hunger.
Thirty per cent of forty-one millions comes to over twelve millions.
This significant statement comes from the lips of Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the new English premier, in a speech against the
proposal for preferential tariffs with the colonies, at Perth, on June 5,
1903. Three years has not changed the situation for the better.
Winston Churchill, M.P., puts the situation thus:
The mass of people are absolutely dependent for the food
they eat and the material they employ upon supplies of food
and raw material which reach them mainly from abroad. They
are dependent on the condition of a crop at one end of the
world and the state of a market at the other; and yet, upon
this artificial foundation, through this inestimable
advantage of unfettered enterprise and of unrestricted
sea-communication, they have been able to build up a vast
industrial fabric which it is no exaggeration to say is the
economic marvel of the world.
In 1904, the amount of merchandise brought into the United Kingdom was
nearly $2,740,000,000. For thirty years England's imports have been
rapidly increasing, while her exports, comparatively speaking, have
remained stationary. The situation can be put in a way readily appreciated
by Americans if we realize that the entire British Isles are smaller than
New Mexico, and yet contain about half as many people as are in the United
States.
It is the foreign trade of Great Britain that is claimed to be the
salvation of the nation. In 1904 this amounted to over $4,600,000,000, and
last year, the figures for which have not yet been published, was the
greatest in oversea trade in the history of the nation.
Sir Henry Fowler, a leader of the Liberals, said, in a recent speech:
The question of free trade is the greatest which has been
before the country for the past half century. The young men
of to-day are absolutely ignorant. They do not know what it
means and the issues it involves. If the great system of
free trade were interfered with, if the attempt were
successful which is being made to reverse the policy of the
past sixty years on which the overwhelming bulk of political
economists were united, I foretell for this country a time
of the greatest disaster. All classes would suffer,
especially the working class.
Dealing with the question of exports and imports, he pointed out:
Eighty per cent of what came into Great Britain represented
raw material necessary for manufactures and food necessary
for the people. Therefore the prosperity of this country
depends, not upon its exports, but upon its imports. We are
free-traders, not for the injury it does others, but in our
own interests. It is to our advantage to buy cheap. Our
greatest import is food and the next raw material. We can
only pay by our own manufactures.
ENGLAND'S DEFENSES, AND WHAT THEY COST.
It Is Not Military Strength That Makes a
Country Great, Says Lord Avebury,
but the Right Use of Power.
That the burden of armament lies heavy on Europe is well understood. It is
not so commonly known that in the last ten years the cost of army and navy
has increased much more rapidly in Great Britain than in any country of
the Continent. The fact is brought out in the _Nineteenth Century_ by Lord
Avebury, who is better known to Americans as Sir John Lubbock. He says:
In our own case there has been on the army an increase in
the past ten years of £24,800,000, and on the navy an
increase of £25,000,000; or, taking the two together, in
round figures an increase of no less than £50,000,000, of
which, however, only £39,000,000 is shown in the ordinary
estimates. In other words, while Italy has increased her
naval and military expenditures by £1,500,000; Russia,
£10,800,000; Germany, £8,700,000, and France, £6,000,000, we
have increased ours £50,000,000. Thus these four great
countries put together show an increase of £27,000,000,
while ours by itself is £50,000,000, or nearly double that
of Russia, Germany, France, and Italy put together. What
justification have we for this enormous increase?
I do not wish to exaggerate, nor to maintain that we are
going down-hill. But our progress has been checked, and if
we are not wise in time worse will follow.
Lord Avebury's political opponents would argue that the British military
expenditures have been exceptional because the Boer War proved the
country unprepared for any great military undertaking, and necessitated
elaborate efforts. However, the figures are startling, and give point to
Lord Avebury's conclusion:
We sometimes hear of "Little Englanders." I hope we shall
not let ourselves be stung into extravagance and war by any
such taunt. There are many who have strong views as to what
constitutes the true greatness of a country. It is not
wealth, but the application of it; not the numbers of the
people, but their character and wellbeing; not the strength,
but the use made of it. We do not wish for England the
dangerous power of dictation or the seductive glamour of
conquest, but that our people may be happy and contented;
that we may do what we can to promote the peace, progress,
and prosperity of mankind, and that we may deserve, even if
we do not secure, the respect, the confidence, and the
good-will of other nations.
Being once more happily at peace with all the world, our
financial policy should be to reduce expenditure, pay off
debt, increase our reserves, and lighten the taxes which now
press so heavily on the springs of industry.
THE CHEERY OPTIMISM OF LITTLE JAPAN.
A Nippon Statesman Tells How the
Britain of the East Looks Hopefully
to New Horizons.
The Japanese are winning fresh admiration for the cheerful optimism with
which they face the perplexing financial conditions following the war. In
the _Forum_ for January, Baron Shibuzawa expresses a sentiment general
among Japanese statesmen:
It would be out of tune with all things, for us, at this
hour, to be looking upon financial Japan after the war with
a sad eye. Nevertheless, as we are well aware of the
disturbances which the war has brought to our finances, we
must look to the best possible measures for restoring to
health and prosperity what the war has disturbed. That is
all. But the war and its conclusion have brought us one very
great and precious gift, namely, it has admitted us into the
household of the great economic world. In a word, it has
given a wider horizon to the economic circle of Nippon, and
has brought us into the very heart of the comity and
exchange of the economic interests of all human kind; and
has linked us, in a sense hitherto unknown to us, with the
markets of the world.
THE GREAT AWAKENING OF THE CHINESE GIANT.
Are China's Four Hundred Millions Preparing
Themselves to Turn Against
the Western Nations?
Dr. W.A.P. Martin, who has been identified with China since 1850, and
whose least statement about that country is authoritative, gives some
interesting and important facts in the _World's Work_ with reference to
how the sleeping Chinese giant is awakening. Referring to the work of
Chang, Viceroy of central China, Dr. Martin says:
The banks of the river in front of his capital, Wuchang, are
lined for miles with cotton mills, hempworks, silk
filatures, glassworks, iron foundries, and powder-mills,
whose high chimneys proclaim the coming war. When China can
supply her own markets, foreign steamers will cease to
ascend the Yang-tse-Kiang.
In view of the fact that China's educational system was established more
than twenty-five hundred years before Christ, and that up to only a few
months ago the official examinations were restricted exclusively to
subjects relating to China's literature and history, what Dr. Martin tells
us of the rapid growth of schoolhouses is surprising and significant.
Going within the walls, we are struck by the great number of
fine schoolhouses in foreign style that rise above the huts
of the natives. Our clever viceroy knows that the industrial
arts have their root in science and that science must be
taught in schools. He thus proclaims from the housetops his
gospel of the new education. He has embodied it in a book of
rhymes, which are sung by his soldiers to the beat of the
drum, and committed to memory by all the school children in
a population of fifty millions. The following are some of
his sounding periods:
We pride ourselves on our antiquity, But foreign nations
ridicule our weakness. Knowledge is power. What but their
newly acquired knowledge Enabled the Japanese to gain the
victory over us And win for themselves a place Among the
great powers of the earth? Over against their three small
islands Have we not a vast territory with four hundred
millions? If we of the yellow race learn to stand together
Where is the nation that will dare to molest us?
The empress dowager and all her grandees have become converts
to Chang's new gospel. Not merely has she reenacted the
emperor's ordinance for the establishment of graded schools
in all the provinces--ousting the idols and using their
temples for want of houses--she has cut down the annual
expenses of her theatrical troupe to one-third and devoted
the other two-thirds to the erection of schoolhouses.
Teachers for these Chinese schools are being largely provided by the
normal colleges in Japan, which contain over four thousand Chinese
students, including both sexes. Such, at least, is the claim of another
recent writer upon the Chinese awakening; this time a Japanese, Adachi
Kinnosuke.
WE MUST HAVE EQUAL LAWS FOR ALL.
But Every Law Looks Blue to the Man
Who Wants to Break It, Says
Governor Folk, of Missouri.
Governor Joseph W. Folk, who became the most popular man in Missouri
because he dared to enforce the laws without fear or favor, until lately
has been too busy putting grafters in jail to talk about his work. But in
a speech which he made the other day in Boston, he told pretty clearly
what he is aiming at. He said:
The trust manager defies the laws of the State against
combinations and monopolies, and then calls for the
protection of the State for his property.
The dram-shop keeper wants the law enforced against the man
who robs his cash-drawer, but thinks he has a right to break
the law requiring his saloon to close on Sunday.
The burglar detests the law-breaking of the trust, but
considers the statute against housebreaking as an
interference with his personal liberty.
Governor Folk thinks that King Graft has just about come to the end of his
reign:
Wealth is not worshiped with the same devotion it used to
be. A new standard has been established; new, yet old--just
honesty; that is all. The remedy for corruption has been
found in the hearts of the American people.
RUSSIA WILL ADVANCE, SAYS LEWIS NIXON.
With the Birth of Democracy and Industrialism,
a New Day Will Dawn
For the Great Slavonic People.
Lewis Nixon, who has been suggesting plans for the reconstruction of the
Russian navy, believes that democracy is the proper medicine for the
Czar's distracted country. The people have been dwarfed by despotism, he
says, but they are now making wonderful progress in manufacturing and
opening up their enormous country. In a recent interview, Mr. Nixon says:
Russia needs two things to enable her to feed the rest of
Europe--cheap money and cheap transportation.
With railroad enterprise, such as that of J.J. Hill, lower
Russia and southwestern Siberia could raise wheat for the
world. But I believe that with the adoption of the new idea
of participation of the people in the government so
sincerely determined upon by the emperor, Russia will settle
down to tranquilly building up the empire and developing the
arts of peace instead of the arts of war.
The great difficulty in the Russian form of government is to
find great men equal to the task of carrying it on. Public
life, as we know it, has not existed there.
With the institution of the Douma, the strong men are bound
to make themselves felt, and the results will be that the
Czar will not lack for competent advisers and
administrators.
I am convinced that as soon as the Douma gets going
thoroughly a new day will dawn for Russia and her people.
There is bound to be wonderful commercial development, and
with this will come an awakening of intelligence and
exercise of limited constitutional government, which is
bound to result in peace and tranquillity and the
restoration of Russia to her high place among the powers of
the world.
DR. OSLER IN HIS MORE CHEERFUL PHASE.
Some Pet Philosophies of the Famous
Physician Whose View on the Age-Limit
Is Not His Only Idea.
When Dr. William Osler admitted his belief that man is fit for creative
intellectual work only up to his fortieth year he gained an undeserved
reputation for grimness. The age-limit theory is but one of many that he
has formed on various subjects. In his book, "Counsels and Ideals," are
many genial expressions of a ripe observation. Here is his advice as to
"work":
How can you take the greatest possible advantage with the
least possible strain? By cultivating system. I say
cultivating advisedly, since some of you will find the
acquisition of systematic habits very hard. There are minds
congenitally systematic; others have a life-long fight
against an inherited tendency to diffusiveness and
carelessness in work.
To counteract "the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the
non-essentials" he advises each of us to "consume his own smoke."
Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence
the minor aggravations, cultivate the gift of taciturnity,
and consume your own smoke with an extra draft of hard work,
so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and
soot of your complaints. More than any other the
practitioner of medicine may illustrate the great lesson
that we are here not to get all we can out of life for
ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happy....
Courage and cheerfulness will not only carry you over the
rough places of life, but will enable you to bring comfort
and help to the weak-hearted, and will console you in the
sad hours when, like _Uncle Toby_, you have "to whistle that
you may not weep."
Of the end of life, speaking both as a physician and as a philosopher, he
says:
With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but it is
commonly no easy matter to get out of it, Sir Thomas Browne says; and,
having regard to the uncertainties of the last stage of all, the average
man will be of Cæsar's opinion, who, when questioned at his last
dinner-party as to the most preferable mode of death, replied, "That which
is the most sudden."
I have careful records of about five hundred death-beds, studied
particularly with reference to the modes of death and the sensations of
the dying. The latter alone concern us here. Ninety suffered bodily pain
and distress of one sort or another, eleven showed mental apprehension,
two positive terror, one expressed spiritual exaltation, one bitter
remorse. The great majority gave no sign one way or the other; like their
birth, their death was "a sleep and a forgetting." The preacher was right:
in this matter man hath no preeminence over the beast--as the one dieth,
so dieth the other.
PRACTICAL TRAINING FOR NATIONAL GUARD.
Good Soldiers Must Know How to Shoot
Straight and How to Handle Themselves
in the Field.
A large delegation of members of the Interstate National Guard Association
was received by the President on January 22d. He strongly impressed
certain practical recommendations in regard to the training of both
militia and regular army. Parade-ground marching and tactical maneuvers
are, he said, nowhere near as important as training which will make men
good soldiers in time of war, and he continued:
As war is carried on nowadays, ninety per cent of the
ordinary work done either on the parade ground or in the
armory, either by a militia regiment or a regular regiment,
amounts to nothing whatever in the way of training except so
far as the incidental effect it has in accustoming the men
to act together and to obey; but they are not going to fight
shoulder to shoulder when they get out into the field. It is
absolutely not of the slightest consequence what their
alignment is, but it is of vital consequence that they shall
know how to take cover, how to shoot, and how to make
themselves at home under any circumstances.
THE NEGRO'S CHANCE IN THE SOUTH.
Booker T. Washington, the Negro
Educator, of Tuskegee, Pleads the
Right of His Race to Work.
Speaking of the future of the people of his race, President Booker T.
Washington says in the _American Illustrated Magazine_:
Whatever special difficulties the negro has to face,
whatever obstacles race prejudice or his own history may
place in his way, the negro, under freedom, has the right to
work, at least in the South, and work for the best things
the world offers. He has the opportunity to make himself
useful and to share the benefits that his genius and his
labor confer on those around him. That is, it seems to me,
what emancipation means, in practise, to the negro. That is,
after all, nearly all that it could mean.
THE DISADVANTAGES OF COEDUCATION.
Mrs. Craigie Declares It Makes Girls
Overbearing and Converts Boys
Into Dandies or Weaklings.
Mrs. Craigie, better known to the literary world as John Oliver Hobbes, is
an American woman who has spent many years in England. On her recent visit
to her native land she gave her impressions of English life. Her keen
observation, deepened and intensified by her life on two continents, and
her wide and close association with great thinkers, lend weight to any
subject upon which she expresses her opinions. She finds but two
objections to coeducation: one is its effect on the boys, and the other on
the girls.
Coeducation, she says, is not so dangerous to the working
classes as to those of higher rank. The English working
classes are a very sane lot, and, besides, the sexes seem
better balanced among them than in the higher classes. In
the board schools it may serve well enough, but in the
higher classes coeducation is impossible. It is not only the
girls that are to be considered. Coeducation not only makes
English girls tomboys, overbearing and feverish in the
pursuit of their masculine schoolmates, but it also has a
very bad effect upon the boys. The boys, being inevitably
outnumbered, five to one, either become silly little
dandies, ruling a feminine court, or are tyrannized over by
the girls until their spirits are broken and their ambition
destroyed. All they care for is comfort.
It is dreadful that young boys should be cowed in this way
and become submissive to their girl schoolmates, and yet
even sturdy boys must bow to superior numbers, and twenty
weak and sickly girls may tyrannize over four or five boys.
Mrs. Craigie's view seems to harmonize with that of Dr. G. Stanley Hall,
president of Clark University, and one of America's greatest educators. In
discussing higher education in this country, he says it reduces the rate
of both marriage and offspring, so that barely three-fourths of our male
graduates and only about half of our female graduates marry, and those who
do so, marry late and have few children. In an article contributed to
MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE, he says:
Recent studies show that a large per cent of girls actually
wish they were boys. Their ideals grow masculine, and we
seem slowly to be developing a female sex without a female
character. So far have the actions against the old restraint
gone that feminists still regard every effort to
differentiate as endangering a relapse to old conditions.
Again, the rapid feminization of our schools encourages
women teachers to give their own masculine traits and ideals
free rein.
Once more, girls' manners are roughened, and they do not
develop pride in distinctively feminine qualities, or the
grace and charm of their young womanhood, or lack a little
respect for their sex. Girls have much responsibility in
bestowing the stimulus of their approval aright. It is said
that association with boys makes high-school girls less
poetic, impulsive, romantic, their conduct more thoughtful,
but I maintain, women teachers to the contrary
notwithstanding, that this is unfortunate; that something is
wrong with the girl in the middle teens who is not gushy or
sentimental, at least at times.
So it is said that the presence of girls is humanizing for
boys, but there is something wrong with the boy at this age
who can truly be called a perfect gentleman. I do not like
to urge that he should be a little rowdy or barbaric, but
vigor must not be sacrificed to primness, and masculinity at
this age does not normally take a high polish. Nature impels
boys to get away, in certain respects, from girls and women,
whoever they are. Some suffer subtle eviration, while others
react, with coarseness toward femininity, if held in too
close quarters with girls.
THE LATE PRESIDENT HARPER AND HIS WORK.
Appreciations of the Man Who Built Up
Out of a Fresh-Water College the
Great University of Chicago.
The proposed monument to the late President William Rainey Harper of the
University of Chicago is to take the form of a library building. Thus will
be fittingly suggested the practical trend of his life, in which
scholarship was joined with utilitarianism. So businesslike were this
educator's methods in building up a great university upon the foundation
of a provincial college that he was severely criticized for the seeming
incongruity between his aims and the means he used. And yet, as the New
York _Evening Post_ has said:
Whatever may be thought of his policies, his personality now
appears in a fine and heroic light. No one can consider the
admirable fortitude and self-forgetting equanimity he
displayed in his long and hopeless fight against pain and
death, without perceiving that here was a heroic soul, to
which epithets borrowed from trade had no proper
application.
As his administration proceeded along the golden way laid by
Mr. Rockefeller, it became evident that President Harper
faced all problems as new problems, and that his optimism
admitted no difficulties. When it was discovered that the
University of Chicago lacked college life and spirit,
college life and spirit were straightway improvised, or at
least encouraged, by the appointment of a famous athlete to
the faculty, and later by the building of dormitories. No
detail of university life escaped him. If he lacked some of
the finer sympathies and perceptions that go to make the
ideal university president, he was a figure instinct with
vital energy, ingenious and resourceful in all matters--in
its qualities and defects thoroughly American and of our
time. The present, in which he lived by preference, will
give him an almost unbounded admiration; sober judgment
based upon the past will gradually smooth the inequalities
of his work.
President Harper was a man who did things. It is doubtful whether he
himself placed the highest importance upon his executive work; it is not
unlikely that he would prefer to be remembered as a Hebrew scholar and the
author of abstruse commentaries. But a man is not always himself the best
judge of the relative values of his own work. Professor Albert Bushnell
Hart, writing in the Boston _Transcript_, thus estimates President
Harper's career:
To sum up, the great characteristic of President Harper was
his unflagging and generous belief that things could be
done. In his thirteen years of service he saw Chicago
University rise to a place in the first rank of the world's
institutions of learning. It never seemed to occur to him
that a thing must be abandoned or even postponed because it
was difficult. When he felt that the time had come for a law
school, he created it. He found the Blaine School of
Training for Teachers in existence, and absorbed it. Nothing
seemed beyond his powers, yet he always had time for the
visitor and the guest, kept up his teaching to the last, and
was one of the chief citizens of Chicago and of Illinois.
Who can doubt that President Harper's intensity of love and
service for the university of which he was really the
founder and always the principal force shortened his days,
and yet who could wish to leave a more enduring monument
than his life-work?
The presidents of several colleges have spoken of him as follows:
President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University:
"President Harper's death deprives the country of one of the
most extraordinary and attractive figures, and the last
months of his life have added a touch of heroism through
which he won the warm admiration of the whole country. His
loss is very serious indeed."
President Schurman, of Cornell University: "President Harper
was preeminent as an educational administrator, and was the
greatest college president of the last fifteen years. The
University of Chicago will remain for all time as a monument
to his memory."
President Hadley, of Yale: "President Harper was a brilliant
instructor, skilful organizer, and a man of rare business
ability."
President Eliot, of Harvard: "His life, wonderfully active
and energetic, was brought, by excessive work, to too early
a close."
THE MEANING OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.
A Radical View of a Radical Policy, as
Expressed by a Well-Known
Radical of Chicago.
Publicists are generally agreed as to the meaning of the great changes now
progressing in American political sentiment. The country, we are informed,
after wrestling successfully with the problems of the accumulation of
wealth, is ready to concern itself with the equitable distribution of what
has been accumulated. We are growing rich almost too fast. We produce such
vast quantities of everything needed by mankind that we hear of
"production outrunning consumption."
In this new condition Clarence S. Darrow, the well-known Chicago lawyer
and student of economics, sees the explanation of the growth of sentiment
favoring public ownership. Writing in the _International Quarterly_, he
takes advanced Radical ground as follows:
Public ownership sentiment has had a remarkable growth in
the United States during the last ten years. This sentiment
is one of the many manifestations of the deep conviction
that the present division of wealth is at once unjust and
absurd. All sorts of theories for the more equitable
distribution of wealth have found ready advocates on the
platform and in the press in every enlightened nation of the
world. However various the plans and schemes of social
change, it is beyond dispute that the tendency of all
nations has been toward a wider and completer collective
life. In every country in the world the people have been
constantly enlarging the functions and duties of the State,
and political organizations are more and more becoming
industrial institutions.
In Europe, municipal and even national ownership of public
utilities is no longer looked upon as radical or new, and
the rapid growth of these ideas abroad has had much to do
with sentiment in the United States.
The most casual student of social questions has likewise
seen the enormous fortunes that have been built up by the
private ownership of public utilities. The larger part of
all the stocks and bonds issued by public-service
corporations are based upon franchises and not on private
property. By this means the public is constantly and
systematically taxed upon its own property, and this vast
tax, in the shape of interest on bonds and dividends on
stock, is taken by a handful of exploiters and
stock-jobbers--who have thus contrived to build up private
fortunes from public wealth.
GOOD ADVICE, GRATIS, FROM A RICH MAN.
The Characteristic Philosophy of Russell
Sage, the Most Contented Multi-Millionaire
in New York.
Nearly ninety years of age and weighted with scores of millions, Russell
Sage is to-day one of the most completely satisfied rich men in the world.
This is true, for "he himself has said it, and 'tis greatly to his
credit."
Russell Sage is now the oldest of the money-kings of New York. He was born
seventeen years before Andrew Carnegie, who threw off the harness of
business five years ago. The original John Jacob Astor died at
eighty-four, and Commodore Vanderbilt at eighty-two. But Russell Sage
still is standing at the tiller of his gold-ballasted craft, as keen and
sharp-eyed as he ever was. Of all the famous figures of Wall Street, only
Daniel Drew lived to greater years; and Drew lost all his millions before
he ended his long career as a speculator.
Mr. Sage is as saving in his opinions as in his money, and it is seldom
that he can be persuaded to make his mind an open book for the general
public. But recently he consented to give the New York _World_ the full
story of life as he sees it. It is the most complete description of the
Sage philosophy that he has ever given to the public. Whatever this advice
may be worth to you, it has been worth about a hundred millions to Russell
Sage:
I think, if I had my life to live over again, it would be as
honest, as simple, as home-loving as I could make it. I
would try with all my power for home-like comfort,
happiness, and long life, as against show, shallow pleasure,
and a short existence. Home life is best. Clubs are only a
place for idle old men and wasteful young men.
Great wealth is not everything, by any means. The mere
making of money is not the only criterion of success. Many
men whose names are our common heritage have died in very
moderate circumstances, or even in poverty. Money is not a
measure of brains.
Real success is often achieved after many failures. An
active man builds success upon a foundation of failure; a
passive man does not. A real man is not hurt by hard knocks.
Hard knocks make character.
I think, had I my life to live over again, I would make
charity a life study. It is a science. It cannot be learned
in a day. The older a man lives the more he gets to realize
this. From my own investigations I have found that there is
a large class of professional mendicants that prey upon the
well-to-do and charitably inclined.
From time to time I have taken a whole month's batch of
appealing letters and have had them thoroughly investigated
by trained agents. Very few have been found to possess real
merit. Most of the appeals were from persons who would not
help themselves even with the aid of a helping hand.
Real charity is dispensed without the blare of trumpets.
Notoriety and professional philanthropy, indiscriminate
alms-giving in any guise, have always been repugnant to me.
I have never asked for any publicity for what I have done.
Silence has invariably been my rule and practise.
If I had my life to live over again I am sure I should not
attempt to move in what is termed "society." I would rather
be one of a few gathered together by a bond of friendship
than to partake of all the glitter and hollowness of what is
called the "Four Hundred." The friendship of a few outlives
life itself. Friendship remembers; society forgets. In the
home only is there true happiness. It is there that a man's
best ideas get their birth and grow.
If I had my life to live over again I would marry even
earlier than I did. The tender care of a good wife is the
finest thing in the world. I am thankful, indeed, that I
have had this in the fullest measure.
Thrift is the first element of successful manhood. When you
have made your fortune, it is time enough to think about
spending it. Two suits of clothes are enough for any young
man. The only thought that a young man need spend about his
clothes is to look out for bargains at the lowest price.
Let him be on the lookout for cheap hats, bargains in shoes,
knockdowns in suits. He is fostering business traits that
augur well for his success in years to come.
The boy who knows bargains in socks makes the man who knows
bargains in stocks.
Fifty cents is enough for a straw hat; it will last two
seasons. You can get for thirty-nine cents an unlaundered
white shirt which is excellent. You can get a good
undershirt for twenty-five cents. Silk is not for salaried
men. Fine clothes bring sham pleasure. Don't try to rival
the flowers of the field.
A rich man does not work for himself alone. He is really the
nation's agent. He turns his wealth over constantly in a way
that helps others. No one need be alarmed over the constant
increase in the wealth limit. Big enterprises require big
men.
There is no such thing as a money-curse. It is the man, not
the money, that makes the amount of individual wealth wrong.
A good man cannot have too much money.
And so let me say in conclusion, if I had my life to live
over again, I would try just as hard as I knew how to turn
my money over and over again, that it might do the most good
to other men.
I would live no differently. I would do as hard a day's work
as I knew how. I would not feel it necessary to take
vacations to recuperate. I would get my pleasure simply. I
would dine simply on plain food. After dinner there would be
a little reading of the papers or of good books, a chat with
friends that might drop in, and maybe a game of whist. I get
plenty of relaxation from an exciting rubber. When the game
is over, my day is done. I sleep like a top till morning.
That would be my life if I had it to live over. All my life
my home has been my haven of happiness.
Roosevelt and the Labor-Unions.
BY ELISHA JAY EDWARDS.
An Authoritative Statement of the President's Views Upon the Greatest
Industrial Question of the Day.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
In the unseasonable heat of Labor Day, 1898, a committee, small in
numbers, but somewhat self-conscious and of impressive dignity, ventured
to Montauk Point that it might discuss with Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, of
the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, the expediency of nominating
him on an independent ticket for Governor of New York.
As these perspiring committeemen, who were followed by other politicians,
mounted the sand-dunes beyond which lay the camp of the Rough Riders, they
saw, silhouetted against a sky whose horizon is the sea, the commander of
that historic regiment.
A Commander of Men.
Roosevelt stood before his tent, not heeding the approach of these friends
and politicians. With eager eyes, and through a strangely unfamiliar pair
of spectacles, of polished steel or nickeled frame, he was watching the
movement of his troopers, who were moving over the sandy plain not more
than a quarter of a mile distant.
There came from Colonel Roosevelt quick and hearty ejaculations, as if he
was so rejoiced at the steady, disciplined marching of his regiment that
he could find no better way to express his joy than by fervent expressions
of "Good!" or, again, "Well done!"
The hot sun of that unusually heated September week caused a sort of
mirage--a quivering, visible movement of the atmosphere arising by
reflection from the sand, so that the Rough Riders seemed to be observed
as through a glass.
After a few moments of enthusiastic inspection of the distant regiment,
Colonel Roosevelt received his visitors cordially, and motioned them to
the open tent, which was furnished with the rigorous simplicity of a true
campaigner, yet offered abundant hospitality. As his friends were entering
the tent, he stopped for a moment, and, turning toward his regiment, said:
"There is perfect order, perfect discipline, and yet every man of that
regiment thinks!"
The Golden Rule Paraphrased.
In this comment there is to be discovered President Roosevelt's view of
what the wise and beneficial combination of men into labor organizations
may ultimately become. Years before, he had reasoned out what he believed
to be the true philosophy of the labor-unions. He did not fully accept the
familiar motto, "One for all and all for one." Instead, he formulated for
himself another, which was after all merely a paraphrase of the golden
rule:
"All for all, and every one for the best of which he is capable--the best
morally, mentally, and physically."
Roosevelt came into active life at a time when the labor-unions, under
sincerely well-meant leadership, were emerging from a period of struggle
and disorder. Their dominant idea, as it seemed to many observers, was to
use the weapon that is called the strike, and to intensify the power of
that weapon by acts of violence. He had just entered Harvard when the
anarchy and devastation that accompanied the railroad strikes of the
summer of 1877 spread terror throughout the country. He was deeply
interested in the progress of that fierce industrial conflict. He felt
even then that men who labored could not be brought to such a condition
of desperation that they were willing to use the torch unless they had
some sense of unjust treatment. On the other hand, the torch and the
shooting and the roll of drums and march of troops most gravely impressed
the college student, and led him to give much thought to the question of
the labor organizations.
Roosevelt and the Railway Men.
His attention was specially fixed upon the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers. He was persistent and insistent in his inquiries of all who
could give him information as to the philosophy upon which this body based
its organization. He was greatly interested in the personality of Mr.
Arthur, and of others who assisted Arthur in the creation of the
brotherhood.
Later, when he had become a member of the New York Legislature, he was
present at a State convention held in Utica. He was one of a considerable
number of delegates and politicians who went from Albany to Utica on a
cold and stormy winter afternoon. The train made its way against the
winter tempest with some difficulty. When it rolled into the station at
Utica, Roosevelt parted for a moment from his associates, and they saw him
making his way, with characteristic quick and decisive steps, to the
engine. Reaching up, he grasped the hands of the engineer and the fireman,
and gave them a hearty word of thanks, in which he conveyed his sense of
what they were as men and skilled artisans, and of what they had done that
afternoon.
Many have thought that President Roosevelt's custom of shaking hands with
the locomotive engineer and the fireman at the end of a journey was of
recent adoption, but he began it as long ago as the time when he entered
public life. Possibly, and it may be unconsciously to himself, in this
kindly courtesy he reflected his sense of the intellectual and economic
triumph which characterizes the perfecting of the organization of the
Locomotive Engineers.
His Interest In Labor's Battles.
A year before Roosevelt was candidate for mayor of New York, he being then
in his twenty-eighth year, there broke out the dangerous agitation that
has passed into history as the Missouri Pacific strike. The details of
this affair were eagerly sought by Roosevelt. He would stop whatever work
he had in hand in order to gather from any one who was well informed not
merely the incidents of the strike, but the characteristics of the leader
of the strikers, Martin Irons, and of his associates.
At that time, Roosevelt spoke with emphasis in deploring the acts of
violence which the greatly inflamed employees committed. He looked upon
the destruction of life and of property as not merely criminal in itself,
but as sure, if persisted in, to do harm to all labor organizations. But
he seemed to be attracted by the skill and energy, the personal force, the
power of discipline and of leadership, which had enabled a railway
mechanic like Irons to obtain supreme leadership and mastery over many
thousands of intelligent American working men.
When Roosevelt was president of the Police Board of New York he was almost
as greatly concerned about a strike involving the tailors,
garment-cutters, and others whose employment was with the needle,
sewing-machine, or shears, as if he himself was of their vocation. The
poverty of the strikers had been extreme, their wages being barely
sufficient to pay for a loaf of bread and a bit of meat once a week, and
for the narrowest and most squalid kind of tenement in which to sleep. He
learned that these conditions had been somewhat improved through the
formation of the garment-workers into a labor-union. He was greatly
interested in one Barondess, a man of crude and yet real force, who had
skilfully perfected their organization.
So it was at all times when there were important strikes or agitations
that Roosevelt displayed the keenest interest in the individual. The
creation of one or another labor-union by some man of original native
force of mind was sure to inspire him with a desire to know something of
the new leader. He has always seemed to be far more interested in the
personality, the temperament, and the intellectual gifts of those who
have emerged from the ranks of working men, and have taken leadership
among their fellows, than in the achievements of those who have built
railroads, concentrated industrial organizations of vast capital, or
mastered the secrets of nature by means of inventive apparatus.
His Belief in Individualism.
In nothing that President Roosevelt has said or done since he entered
public life has he so firmly and impressively illustrated his faith in
individualism, so to call it, as in his relations to the labor
organizations. He looks upon them as no more than a means to an individual
end. He has scant patience with those who dream of a grand socialism of
labor, with every man standing upon an equality.
The President is in entire sympathy with the efforts of the labor-unions
to secure agreement with all employers that eight hours shall constitute a
day's work. But he is fearful that any restriction of the amount of labor
that a man is permitted to do in one day is an economic blunder. He holds
that it runs counter to individuality, and will ultimately prove to impair
the fine opportunities for advancement and benefit which wisely managed
labor-unions will always have.
President Roosevelt's philosophy of life, of its obligations and its
opportunities, is that each individual should develop as perfectly as is
possible whatever his native talent may be. To do that, in his view,
involves struggle, and struggle always entails leadership. And it has
seemed to him that in this process of high development of native gifts the
man who is obliged to work for wages, whether he be a skilled artisan or a
humble mechanic, must look to his fellows for help. Therefore, inevitably,
there have sprung up associations of those who are engaged in the
production of like articles.
Roosevelt and the Mine-Workers.
Of all the addresses and writings in which the President has expounded his
philosophy of labor, he probably best epitomized his opinions when he
delivered his speech to the miners at Wilkes-Barre, last October.
"I strongly believe," he said, "in trade-unions wisely and justly
handled, in which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with
them is not accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I
believe in the duty of capitalists and wage-workers to try to seek one
another out, to understand one another's point of view, and to endeavor to
show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other."
That philosophy is entirely consistent with the President's strong faith
in what may be called individualism. In his view, the labor-union serves
its chief purpose when it makes possible the highest development of the
gifts bestowed upon each individual by his Creator.
With this understanding it is easy to explain the personal interest
President Roosevelt has in all of those who are leaders in labor
organizations. The energy, the far-reaching understanding, the tact, and
the frequent use of somewhat imperious power, all of which were necessary
to bring the army of mine-workers into one compact organization, and all
of which have been exemplified by John Mitchell, were sure to appeal very
strongly to Theodore Roosevelt.
Twice since he became President he has had executive opportunity for
showing, not merely by word but in deed, exactly what is his understanding
of labor organizations and of their rights and limitations. To this day
the world does not accurately measure Roosevelt's action at the time of
the portentous struggle between the anthracite coal-miners and their
employers. At that crisis, when there was danger of something like civil
war, or at least of industrial anarchy and suffering, he seemed to be
impelled by precisely the same motives as those that actuated him in
bringing about the conference for peace between Russia and Japan. After
confidential communication with ex-President Cleveland, who warmly
approved his proposed plan, he offered to open the door for a settlement
of the desperate struggle between the miners and the mine-owners. As his
correspondence with ex-President Cleveland shows, he did not consider,
except incidentally, the rights and limitations of the labor organizations
on the one hand, or, upon the other, the legal position of those who
control capital, credit, transportation, and mines. He spoke for the
much-suffering public. He realized that no other than he could with any
prospect of success offer to serve as mediator.
No Respecter of Persons.
When the representatives of capital first met the President, they were
under the delusion that he had invited them to meet him because he fully
sympathized with the miners' labor organization. But at that first meeting
these kings of finance and of transportation and of the mining industry
perceived that Roosevelt gloried in his sense of manhood, and that his
courtesy to John Mitchell, and his recognition of John Mitchell's
leadership, were in no way diminished by the presence of men possessed of
immense capital and consequently of great power.
Capital was mistaken, however, in its presumption that Roosevelt was its
enemy. It was learned in the course of the several interviews with the
President that he had as firm a conviction of the necessity of
combinations of capital and credit as he had in the imperative need that
those who work with the hand should also combine for common benefit.
In private, President Roosevelt has expressed his unbounded admiration for
the courage of that business statesmanship which, within a generation, has
so mastered the West as to make its prairies rich in harvests and its
population continuous and thriving between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
But he has quite as much admiration for the native qualities, and for the
stern training and disciplining of those qualities, whereby a coal-miner
succeeded in organizing for a common purpose a vast army of men whose toil
is hidden from the sunlight, and whose faces are blackened as they come,
with lanterns on their caps, from the dismal caverns where they delve.
Mr. George W. Perkins has spoken to his friends of the impression made by
the President upon the capitalists whom he met at these interviews in
which the way was prepared for a settlement of the anthracite coal strike.
Mr. Roosevelt made it clear that he was no respecter of persons by reason
of the incidental power any one might possess, but was only a respecter
and admirer of manhood.
The second of the executive opportunities came when a demand was made that
none but a member of the labor organization should be employed in one of
the government departments. The President's reply was emphatic. The
government as a government could not, he said, recognize either labor
organizations as against an individual or an individual as against a labor
organization. At one meeting between Mr. Roosevelt and some of those who
were of the labor world, he declared that no combination, whether of
capital, or of credit, or any wherein the bond of union is a common kind
of labor, can in the long run prosper if it forgets the rights of the
individual. He has over and over again inculcated the doctrine of
individual right of judgment, deeming that to contain the very spirit of
American institutions.
The Enjoyment in Labor.
The President is quoted by his friends as having recently expressed his
confident belief that the labor organizations are coming to see the wisdom
of the view that the right to exercise individual judgment must not be
forgotten or ignored. He has no doubt that ultimately, if wisely and
justly handled, they will give the fullest opportunity for the perfection
of the individual morally, intellectually, and physically.
The time, he thinks, is not far distant when the sense of individuality
may be sufficient to teach the lesson that in every kind of labor the
laborer may find enjoyment--the florist and the harvester in the mystery
of the growth and coloring of the products of the field, the
granite-worker in the tracings of geology, the carpenter in the beauty of
geometry and in the fine penciling which nature has left in the native
wood. Work undertaken in this spirit is no longer mere mercenary drudgery,
but partakes of the inspiration that follows high appeal to the
intellectual and moral faculty of the worker.
To give a final summing up of President Roosevelt's view of trade-unions
and labor organizations, it may be said that he believes in them because
he sees in such combinations the greater opportunity for each individual
to develop the best that is in him.
A Descent Into the Maelström.
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809, and
died in Baltimore, October 7, 1849. His father, David Poe,
while a law student in Baltimore, married Elizabeth Arnold,
a beautiful English actress, and went on the stage himself.
Several years later both died within a few weeks of each
other, leaving three children, of whom Edgar was the second.
Impressed by the boy's extraordinary beauty and
intelligence, John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond,
adopted him.
Poe was then sent to England to be educated. There he spent
five or six years in a school at Stoke Newington.
Subsequently he was sent to the University of Virginia and
to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but
remained only a few months at each institution. Finally he
quarreled with Mr. Allan, who died shortly afterward; and
Edgar was not mentioned in the will.
In 1833 the Baltimore _Saturday Visitor_ offered two prizes
of a hundred dollars each for a story and a poem. Poe won
both. This led to his employment in various editorial
capacities in Richmond and New York. Quarrels with his
employers usually resulted in his dismissal. During this
period he was distinguished by an extraordinary degree of
literary activity, however, and it was not long before he
was recognized as one of the most forceful figures in
American literature.
Scores of authors have found inspiration in the pages of
Edgar Allan Poe. Sardou, the celebrated French dramatist,
founded the main incident of his "Scrap of Paper" on Poe's
"The Purloined Letter," and Conan Doyle has admitted that
_Dupin_, the detective who appears in several of Poe's
tales, was the prototype of _Sherlock Holmes_. "A Descent
Into the Maelström" is generally regarded as one of the most
representative of his stories.
We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the
old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this
route as well as the youngest of my sons; but about three years past there
happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man--or at
least such as no man ever survived to tell of--and the six hours of deadly
terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul.
"You suppose me a very old man, but I am not. It took less than a single
day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs,
and to un-string my nerves so that I tremble at the least exertion and am
frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little
cliff without getting giddy?"
The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself to
rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was
only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and
slippery edge--this "little cliff" arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice
of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world
of crags beneath us.
Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink.
In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion
that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me,
and dared not even glance upward at the sky--while I struggled in vain to
divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were
in danger from the fury of the winds.
It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up
and look out into the distance.
"You must get over these fancies," said the guide; "for I have brought you
here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event
I mentioned, and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your
eye.
"We are now," he continued in that particularizing manner which
distinguished him--"we are now close upon the Norwegian coast--in the
sixty-eighth degree of latitude--in the great province of Nordland--and in
the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is
Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher--hold on to
the grass if you feel giddy--so--and look out, beyond the belt of vapor
beneath us, into the sea."
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean whose waters wore so
inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer's account
of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human
imagination can conceive.
To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay
outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horribly black and
beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly
illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and
ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever.
Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a
distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small
bleak-looking island; or more properly, its position was discernible
through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped.
About two miles nearer the land arose another of smaller size, hideously
craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of
dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean in the space between the more distant island
and the shore had something very unusual about it. Although at the time so
strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to
under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out
of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a
short, quick angry cross-dashing of water in every direction--as well in
the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the
immediate vicinity of the rocks.
"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the
Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward
is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and
Buckholm. Farther off--between Moskoe and Vurrgh--are Otterholm, Flimen,
Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places; but why
it has been thought necessary to name them at all is more than either you
or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the
water?"
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen--to which we
had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no
glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old
man spoke I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like
the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at
the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character
of the ocean beneath us was rapidly changing into a current which set to
the eastward.
Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each
moment added to its speed--to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes
the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury, but it
was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway.
Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand
conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion: heaving,
boiling, hissing, gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all
whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never
elsewhere assumes, except in precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more there came over the scene another radical
alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the
whirlpools one by one disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became
apparent where none had been seen before.
These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance and entering
into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided
vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly--very
suddenly--this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of
more than a mile in diameter.
The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray;
but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel,
whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining,
and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some
forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and
sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half
shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever
lifts up in its agony to heaven.
"This," said I at length to the old man--"this can be nothing else than
the great whirlpool of the Maelström."
"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the
Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."
The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what
I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of
any, cannot impart the faintest conception either of the magnificence or
of the horror of the scene, or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel
which confounds the beholder.
I am not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it,
nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of
Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his description,
nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect
is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.
"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the water is between
thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side, toward Ver, this
depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient passage for a vessel,
without the risk of splitting on the rocks, which happens even in the
calmest weather.
"When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and
Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to
the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts--the
noise being heard several leagues off; and the vortices or pits are of
such an extent and depth that if a ship comes within its attraction it is
inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there beat to
pieces against the rocks; and when the water relaxes the fragments thereof
are thrown up again.
"But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and
flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its
violence gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its
fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile
of it.
"Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against
it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that
whales come too near the stream and are overpowered by its violence; and
then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their
fruitless struggles to disengage themselves.
"A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the
stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on
shore. Large stocks of firs and pine-trees, after being absorbed by the
current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew
upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among
which they are whirled to and fro."
In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this could have
been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the vortex. The
"forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions of the channel close
upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden.
The depth in the center of the Moskoe-ström must be unmeasurably
greater.... Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon
below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest
Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the
whales and the bears; for it appeared to me a self-evident thing that the
largest ships of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the
hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.
"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the guide; "and if you
will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar
of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to
know something of the Moskoe-ström."
I placed myself as he desired, and he proceeded:
"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of about
seventy tons' burden, with which we were in the habit of fishing among the
islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea
there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if one has only the
courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Lofoden coast-men we
three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the
islands, as I tell you.
"The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish
can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places are
preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only
yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we often
got in a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape
together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation:
the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for
capital.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than
this; and it was our practise, in fine weather, to take advantage of the
fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the
Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage
somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so
violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack
water again, when we weighed and made for home.
"We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for
going and coming--one that we felt sure would not fail us before our
return; and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice, during
six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor, on account of a
dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had
to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale
which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too
boisterous to be thought of.
"Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of
everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently that
at length we fouled our anchor and dragged it), if it had not been that we
drifted into one of the innumerable cross-currents--here to-day and gone
to-morrow--which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where by good luck we
brought up.
"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered 'on the ground'--it is a bad spot to be in, even in good
weather; but we made shift always to run the gantlet of the Moskoe-ström
itself without accident, although at times my heart has been in my mouth
when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack.
"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell
you occurred. It was on the 10th of July, 18--; a day which the people of
this part of the world will never forget, for it was one in which blew the
most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens.
"And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there
was a gentle and steady breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone
brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what
was to follow.
"The three of us--my two brothers and myself--had crossed over to the
islands about two o'clock P.M., and soon nearly loaded the smack with fine
fish; which, we all remarked, were more plenty that day than we had ever
known them. It was just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started
for home, so as to make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we
knew would be at eight.
"We set out with a fresh wind at our starboard quarter, and for some time
spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger; for indeed we saw
not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once we were taken aback
by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was most unusual; something that had
never happened to us, and I began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly
knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all
for the eddies; and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the
anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a
singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.
"In the meantime, the breeze that had headed us off fell away; and we were
dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things,
however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it.
"In less than a minute the storm was upon us; in less than two the sky was
entirely overcast; and what with this and the driving spray, it became
suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the smack.
"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt to describe. The
oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our
sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but at the first puff both
our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off--the mainmast
taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for
safety.
"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It
had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near the bow; and this
hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the
Ström, by way of precaution against chopping seas. But for this
circumstance we should have foundered at once; for we lay entirely buried
for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say,
for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I
had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet
against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a
ring-bolt near the foot of the foremast.
"It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this, which was undoubtedly
the very best thing I could have done; for I was too much flurried to
think.
"For some moments I was completely deluged, I say; and all this time I
held my breath and clung to the bolt. When I could stand it no longer I
raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with my hands, and thus
got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as
a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself in some
measure of the seas.
"I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had come over me,
and to collect my senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt
somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother--and my heart leaped for
joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard; but the next moment all
this joy was turned into horror--for he put his mouth close to my ear and
screamed out the word 'Moskoe-ström!'
"No one will ever know what my feelings were at that moment. I shook from
head to foot as if I had the most violent fit of the ague. I knew what he
meant by that one word well enough--I knew what he wished to make me
understand. With the wind that now drove us on, we were bound for the
whirl of the Ström, and nothing could save us!
"You perceive that in crossing the Ström channel we always went a long way
up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then had to wait and
watch carefully for the slack; but now we were driving right upon the pool
itself, and in such a hurricane as this!
"'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack--there
is some little hope in that'; but in the moment I cursed myself for being
so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were
doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.
"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps
we did not feel it much as we scudded before it; but at all events the
seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind, and lay flat and
frothing, now got up into absolute mountains.
"A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every
direction it was still as black as pitch; but nearly overhead there burst
out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky--as clear as I ever saw,
and of a deep bright blue--and through it there blazed forth the full moon
with a luster that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything
about us with the greatest distinctness--but, O God, what a scene it was
to light up!
"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother; but in some manner
which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not
make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in
his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held
up one of his fingers, as if to say, 'Listen!'
"At first I could not make out what he meant; but soon a hideous thought
flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not going. I
glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung
it far away into the ocean. It had run down at seven o'clock! We were
behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!
"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the
waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from
beneath her--which appears very strange to a landsman; and this is what is
called riding, in sea phrase.
"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a
gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with
it as it rose--up--up--as if into the sky. I would not have believed that
any wave could rise so high.
"And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me
feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a
dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around, and that
one glance was all-sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The
Moskoe-ström whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead, but no
more like the every-day Moskoe-ström than the whirl as you now see it is
like a mill-race.
"If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not
have recognized the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my
eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.
"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we suddenly
felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp
half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a
thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was
completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek; such a sound as you might
imagine given out by the water-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels,
letting off their steam all together.
"We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I
thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the
abyss--down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing
velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink
into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of
the surge.
"Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the
world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us
and the horizon.
"It may appear strange--but now, when we were in the very jaws of the
gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having
made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror
which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my
nerves.
"It may look like boasting, but what I tell you is the truth: I began to
reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how
foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own
individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power.
"I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea crossed my mind.
After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about
the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at
the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I
should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the
mysteries I should see.
"These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such
extremity--and I have often thought since that the revolutions of the boat
around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.
"There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
self-possession, and this was the cessation of the wind, which could not
reach us in our present situation--for as you saw yourself, the belt of
surf is considerably lower than the general bed of the ocean, and this
latter now towered above us, a high, black, mountainous ridge.
"If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you can form no idea of
the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They
blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away all power of action or
reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances;
just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences,
forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.
"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to say. We
careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating,
getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then
nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge.
"All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the
stern, holding on to a small empty water cask which had been securely
lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that
had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us.
"As we approached the brink of the pit, he let go his hold upon this and
made for the ring, from which in the agony of his terror he endeavored to
force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure
grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act,
although I knew he was a madman when he did it--a raving maniac through
sheer fright.
"I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could
make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have
the bolt, and went astern to the cask.
"This there was no great difficulty in doing, for the smack flew round
steadily enough, and upon an even keel--only swaying to and fro with the
immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in
my new position when we gave a wild lurch to starboard and rushed headlong
into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was
over.
"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctively
tightened my hold upon the barrel and closed my eyes. For some seconds I
dared not open them; while I expected instant destruction and wondered
that I was not already in my death-struggles.
"But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had
ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before
while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along.
I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene.
"Never shall I forget the sensation of awe, horror, and admiration with
which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic,
midway down upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference,
prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been
mistaken for ebony but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun
around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth as the
rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the
black walls and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The
general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I recovered
myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this
direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in
which the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool.
"She was quite upon an even keel--that is to say, her deck lay in a plane
parallel with that of the water; but this latter sloped at an angle of
more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam
ends.
"I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more
difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation than if we
had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at
which we revolved.
"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound
gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick
mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a
magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which
Mussulmans say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity.
"This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great
walls of the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom, but the yell
that went up to the heavens from out of that mist I dare not attempt to
describe.
"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had
carried us to a great distance down the slope; but our further descent was
by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept; not with any uniform
movement, but in dizzying swings and jerks that sent us sometimes only a
few hundred yards, sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our
progress downward, at each revolution, was slow but very perceptible.
"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were
thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the
embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of
vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many
smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes,
barrels, and staves.
"I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the
place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer
and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange
interest, the numerous things that floated in our company.
"I must have been delirious, for I even sought amusement in speculating
upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam
below. 'This fir-tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly
be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears'; and then I
was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook
it and went down before.
"At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being
deceived in all--this fact, the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set
me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my
heart beat heavily once more.
"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more
exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present
observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that
strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth
by the Moskoe-ström.
"By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most
extraordinary way--so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance of
being stuck full of splinters; but then I distinctly recollected that
there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now, I could not
account for this difference except by supposing that the roughened
fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed; that the
others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or from some
reason had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the
bottom before the turn of the flood came--or of the ebb, as the case might
be.
"I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might be thus
whirled up again to the level of the ocean without undergoing the fate of
those which had been drawn in more early or absorbed more rapidly. I made
also three important observations. The first was, that as a general rule,
the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that
between the two masses of equal extent, the one spherical and the other of
any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere;
the third, that between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and
the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly.
"Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject with an
old schoolmaster of the district; and it was from him that I learned the
use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me--although I
have forgotten the explanation--how what I had observed was in fact the
natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments; and showed me
how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more
resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty, than
an equally bulky body of any form whatever.
"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing
these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and
this was that at every revolution we passed something like a barrel, or
else the yard or the mast of the vessel; while many of those things which
had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the
whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little
from their original station.
"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to
the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter,
and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother's
attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and
did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do.
"I thought at length that he comprehended my design, but, whether this was
the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from
his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the
emergency admitted of no delay; and so with a bitter struggle I resigned
him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings
which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the
sea, without another moment's hesitation.
"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself
who now tell you this tale--as you see that I did escape, and as you are
already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and
must therefore anticipate all that I have further to say, I will bring my
story quickly to conclusion.
"It might have been an hour or thereabout after my quitting the smack,
when, having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or
four wild gyrations in rapid succession, and bearing my loved brother with
it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below.
The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the
distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped
overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the
whirlpool.
"The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less
steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By
degrees the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf
seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and
the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on
the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above
the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström had been.
"It was the hour of the slack, but the sea still heaved in mountainous
waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the
channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into
the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up--exhausted from
fatigue, and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory
of its horror.
"Those who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions, but
they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from the
spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day before, was as
white as you see it now. They say too that the whole expression of my
countenance had changed. I told them my story; they did not believe it. I
now tell it to you; and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it
than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden."
FAVORITE POEMS
OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
However practical a man may be--however deeply he may be engrossed in
pursuits that would seem to be almost as barren of poetry as a city
pavement is of verdure--there is some chord in his heart that the right
poet may strike and fill his soul with melody. There is scarcely a man in
any walk of life who has not at some time in his life come upon a poem
which seemed to voice his own ideals.
In the private office of President Roosevelt, in the White House, hangs,
in the handwriting of its author, a poem by the late Senator John J.
Ingalls, of Kansas. The title of the poem is "Opportunity." This framed
manuscript and a portrait of President Lincoln are the only objects on the
walls of the apartment.
In singular contrast with the favorite poem of Theodore Roosevelt is that
of Abraham Lincoln--"Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" by
William Knox. Lincoln cut the poem from a newspaper and committed it to
memory. Several years later he said to a friend: "I would give a great
deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain."
Subsequently he learned that the author was Knox, a Scottish poet, who
died in 1825.
OPPORTUNITY.
By the late Senator John J. Ingalls.
Master of human destinies am I!
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once, at every gate!
If feasting, rise; if sleeping, wake before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death. But those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and ceaselessly implore;
I answer not, and I return--no more.
Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?
BY WILLIAM KNOX.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure--her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed,
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course that our fathers have run.
They loved, but their story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.
They died--aye, they died; and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draft of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud--
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Superstitions of the Theater.
Nearly Everything That Occurs in the Actor's World Has Some Promise
of Good or Threat of Evil for "the Show" or the Individual.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Besides believing in many of the prevailing superstitions the people of
the theater have a number which are distinctly their own. In fact, there
is hardly anything that occurs in the actor's world that has not some
superstitious meaning attached to it, and accidents of the most trivial
character are construed by him into good or evil omens.
To the actor, such simple things as the lodging of a drop-curtain or the
upsetting of his make-up box, are sure forerunners of bad luck, as
likewise is the breaking of a stick of black grease-paint in the
performer's hand. If he stubs his toe on making a stage entry, he
considers himself irretrievably "hoodooed" for the rest of the evening.
Yellow is an Unlucky Color.
There are certain shades of yellow that are supposed to exert an evil
influence when worn in a play. This superstition does not apply to the
general dressing of the chorus or stage, but only to an individual costume
or part of a garment, such as a tie, vest, or hat.
There is hardly an orchestra leader who would allow a musician to play a
yellow clarinet under his direction, believing that if such a thing were
to happen the entire orchestra would go wrong.
Nor are yellow costumes the only kind that are supposed to cast an evil
spell over their wearer. If, for example, an accident happens to an actor
while wearing a certain costume, or if he forget his lines three or four
times while he has it on, the misfortune is invariably blamed on the
costume.
Certain wigs are considered harbingers of good luck, and actors will often
wear one when the part doesn't really require it. Moss hair, which is used
by the actors to make beards, mustaches, etc., plays its part in
superstition. A certain amount must be used at each performance if the
actor would keep in the good graces of the fates.
To use another's liquid glue (a glue used to stick moss hair to the face)
is a very good way to invite misfortune. If an actor's shoes squeak while
he is making his first entrance, it is a sure sign that he will be well
received by the audience.
To kick off his shoes and have them alight on their soles and remain
standing upright means good luck to him, but if they fall over, bad luck
is to be expected. They will also bring him all kinds of misfortune if
placed on a chair in the dressing-room.
If, when an acrobat throws his cuffs on the stage, preparatory to doing
his turn, they remain fastened together, all will go well, but if on the
other hand they separate, he must look out for squalls.
Cats have always been considered the very best fortune-producing
acquisitions a theater can possess, and are welcomed and protected by
actor and stage-hand alike. But if a cat runs across the stage during the
action of the play, misfortune is sure to follow. Bad luck will also come
to those who kick a cat.
Mirrors and Peep-Holes.
The actor goes the layman one better in mirror superstitions. He believes
it will bring him bad luck to have another person look into the mirror
over his shoulder while he is making up before it.
As much care must be taken by the actor on making his entrances as in the
repeating of the lines. Not for their importance as an effect on the
audience, but to avoid the "hoodoo" attached to certain entries. For
example: To stumble over anything on making an entrance, the actor firmly
believes, will cause him to miss a cue or forget his lines.
If his costume catches on a piece of scenery as he goes on, he must
immediately retrace his steps and make a new entrance, or else suffer
misfortunes of all sorts during the rest of the performance.
Even the drop-curtain contributes its share of stage superstitions, as
nearly every actor and manager believes it is bad luck to look out at the
audience from the wrong side of it when it is down. Some say it is the
prompt side that casts the evil spell, while others contend that it is the
opposite side. The management, not being sure of which side the bad luck
is likely to accrue, places a peep-hole directly in the center.
There is another superstition which passed away with the advent of the
frame curtain. In those days the curtain was rolled up like a window-shade
instead of running up and down in a groove as the modern ones do. In those
days for one to sit on the curtain-roller was a sure method of bringing
the boss carpenter or property man with a stage brace for the prompt
removal of the sitter. To them it was an infallible sign that salaries
were not going to be paid.
Vaudeville performers believe it is bad luck to change the costumes in
which they first achieved success, and many of them cling to these
costumes until they literally fall apart.
The Witches' Song is Side-Stepped.
The older members of the profession have always considered the witches'
song in Macbeth to possess the uncanny power of casting evil spells, and
the majority of them have strong dislikes to play in the piece. If you but
hum this tune in the hearing of an old actor, the chances are that you
will lose his friendship.
An actor who has been on the stage long enough to acquaint himself with
its superstitions, will not repeat the last lines of a play at rehearsals,
nor will he go on the stage where there is a picture of an ostrich
displayed if he can help it.
Some actors believe that if they accidentally try the wrong door of an
agent's or manager's office when looking for an engagement, their mission
will be a failure. It is also considered bad luck to change the position
of any piece of furniture or "props" of any description whatever, after
the stage has once been set, and before the rise of the curtain.
Whistling is Tabooed.
It is considered by all theatrical people to be the worst luck in the
world for any one to whistle in the theater, and there is no offense for
which the manager will scold an employee more quickly.
The players are not the only ones in the theater having superstitions. The
"front of the house" have their pet ones as well.
In the box-office, if the first purchaser of seats for a new production is
an old man or woman, it means to the ticket-seller that the play will have
a long run. A young person means the reverse. A torn bank-note means a
change of position for the man in the box-office, while a gold
certificate, strange to say, is a sign of bad luck.
The usher seating the first patron of the evening fondly imagines that he
will be lucky until the end of the performance, but if the first coupon he
handles calls for one of the many thirteen seats, he is quite sure that it
will bring him bad luck for the rest of the night.
To the usher, a tip from a woman for a program also spells misfortune, and
few of the old-timers will accept it. A woman fainting in the theater is
sure to bring bad luck to the usher in whose section she is seated. Not to
hear the first lines of the play is to invite misfortune, so he believes.
An usher feels sure that if he makes a mistake in seating the first person
in his section, it is sure to be quickly followed by two more. The first
tip of the season is always briskly rubbed on the trousers-leg and kept in
the pocket of the recipient for the rest of the season as a "coaxer." To
receive a smile over the footlights from one of the company also brings
luck.
GRAVE, GAY, AND EPIGRAMMATIC.
PAYING THE PIPER.
By Virginia Woodward Cloud.
The Piper sat by the river, his tireless pipe in his hand,
But ere the sun set and the white stars met
He scratched with a stick on the sand.
"My bills are due," quoth the Piper, "and now they pay," quoth he,
"Who danced and played from the sun into shade
Now render account to me.
"Here is one for a year," quoth the Piper; "a year of love's delight;
A heart that is dead and a soul unwed
Shall cancel a debt so trite!
I need not dun," quoth the Piper--and laughed, but nobody heard,
A chill in the air, and a shudder somewhere--
"They will render without one word.
"And this for my maddest playing"--oh, he wrote as he chuckled and
laughed--
"I will make my dole an immortal soul;
They shall drain where they only quaffed!"
So, he did his sum in addition, till the rose and the star had met,
But although he tried to thrust it aside
One name lay unchallenged yet.
Complacently, knave and sinner, apportioned he each his due,
But when it was o'er there remained one more,
And its pattern the Piper knew.
"Rascal or thief," mused the Piper, "I play for their dancing and
smile,
They have their way for a little day,
I have mine after a while.
"I can score each knave," quoth the Piper, "in Life's ill-sorted
school,
For they take and they take their greed to slake,
But I am no match for the Fool!
For he pays as he goes," frowned the Piper, "pain, laughter, passion of
tears!
He claims no pelf from Life for himself,
But gives his all without tears.
"The rest of my dancers laugh not, and I hold each one as a tool,
But he pays as he goes, be it rapture or woes,
And I have no bill for the Fool!
He loves and he lives," frowned the Piper, "and such poor returns
suffice,
For he cries '_Voilà le diable!_' and gives himself as the price!"
Then, with chagrin and reluctance, as the star sank into the pool,
The Piper made claim on each separate name,
But receipted in full--for the Fool.
_The Bookman._
MARK TWAIN'S RESPONSE.
A friend wrote to Mark Twain, asking his opinion on a certain matter, and
received no reply. He waited a few days, and wrote again.
His second letter was also ignored. Then he sent a third note, enclosing a
sheet of paper and a two-cent stamp.
By return mail he received a postal card, on which was the following:
"Paper and stamp received. Please send envelope."--_Boston Herald._
WHAT THE AILMENT WAS.
A New England statesman was referring to the dry humor of the late Senator
Hoar, when he was reminded of the following:
One day Hoar learned that a friend in Worcester who had been thought to
have appendicitis was in reality suffering from acute indigestion.
Whereupon the senator smiled genially. "Really," said he, "that's good
news. I rejoice for my friend that the trouble lies in the table of
contents rather than in the appendix."--_New York Tribune._
THE FARMER'S SYMPATHY.
A large touring automobile containing a man and his wife in a narrow road
met a hay wagon fully loaded. The woman declared that the farmer must back
out, but her husband contended that she was unreasonable.
"But you can't back the automobile so far," she said, "and I don't intend
to move for anybody. He should have seen us."
The husband pointed out that this was impossible, owing to an abrupt turn
in the road.
"I don't care," she insisted, "I won't move if we have to stay here all
night!"
The man in the automobile was starting to argue the matter when the
farmer, who had been sitting quietly on the hay, interrupted.
"Never mind, sir," he exclaimed, "I'll try to back out. I've got one just
like her at home!"--_Philadelphia Ledger._
PROVED.
"Your son is a philosophical student, I hear?"
"Yes, I believe he is. I can't understand what he's talking
about."--_Detroit Free Press._
EQUALITY.
By Matthias Barr.
Come, give me your hand, sir, my friend and my brother.
If honest, why, sure, that's enough!
One hand, if it's true, is as good as another,
No matter how brawny or rough.
Though it toil for a living at hedges or ditches,
Or make for its owner a name,
Or fold in its grasp all the dainties of riches--
If honest, I love it the same.
Not less in the sight of his Heavenly Maker
Is he who must toil for his bread;
Not more in the sight of the mute undertaker
Is majesty shrouded and dead.
Let none of us jeeringly scoff at his neighbor
Or mock at his lowly birth.
We are all of us God's. Let us earnestly labor
To better this suffering earth.
A FISH STORY.
Brown had returned from a fishing expedition, and, after partaking of a
most welcome dinner, was relating some of his fishing experiences.
"Last year," said he, "while fishing for pike, I dropped half a sovereign.
I went to the same place this year, and after my line had been cast a few
minutes I felt a terrific pull. Eventually I landed a line pike, which had
swallowed the hook, and, on cutting it open to release the hook, to my
amazement----"
"Ah," said his friends, "you found your half-sovereign?"
"Oh, no," replied Brown, "I found nine shillings and sixpence in silver
and threepence in copper."
"Well, what became of the other threepence?" queried his friends.
"I suppose the pike paid to go through the lock with it," answered
Brown.--_Pearson's Weekly._
BYRON ON WOMAN.
Oh! too convincing--dangerously dear--
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue--at once her spear and shield.
_Corsair, Canto 2._
WOMAN'S RETORT.
The mild business man was calmly reading his paper in the crowded
trolley-car. In front of him stood a little woman hanging by a strap. Her
arm was being slowly torn out of her body, her eyes were flashing at him,
but she constrained herself to silence.
Finally, after he had endured it for twenty minutes, he touched her arm,
and said:
"Madam, you are standing on my foot."
"Oh, am I?" she savagely retorted. "I thought it was a valise."--_Kansas
City Independent._
SHAKESPEARE ON WOMAN.
She is mine own;
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona._
A MAIDEN SPEECH.
Very few persons acquit themselves nobly in their maiden speech. At a
wedding feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual, to
respond to the given toast.
Blushing to the roots of his hair, he rose to his feet. He intended to
imply that he was unprepared for speechmaking, but, unfortunately, placed
his hand upon the bride's shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered
out his opening (and concluding) words: "This--er--thing has been thrust
upon me."--_Tit-Bits._
TWO VIEWS OF OLD AGE.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
At Twenty He Smiled at the Picture Presented by a Patriarch--At
Three Score and Ten He Told of an Old Man's Dreams.
THE LAST LEAF.
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said--
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago--
That he had a Roman nose
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
AS SEEN AT SEVENTY.
I was a little over twenty years old when I wrote "The Last Leaf." The
world was a garden to me then; it is a churchyard now. And yet those are
not bitter or scalding tears that fall from my eyes upon "mossy marbles."
The young who left my side early in my life's journey are still with me in
the unchanged freshness and beauty of youth. Those who have long kept
company with me live on after their seeming departure, were it only by the
mere force of habit; their images are all around me, as if every surface
had been a sensitive film that photographed them; their voices echo about
me as if they had been recorded on those unforgotten cylinders which bring
back to us the tones and accents that have imprinted them as the extinct
animals left their tracks on the hardened sand.
The melancholy of old age has a divine tenderness in it, which only the
sad experience of life can lend a sad soul.
The Gridiron.
BY SAMUEL LOVER.
Samuel Lover was born in Dublin in 1797. As a novelist he
was one of the most popular of the period in which he lived.
He is acknowledged to have written the best Irish peasant
sketches and the best Irish peasant songs in the language.
Lover was the son of a Dublin stock-broker, who attempted to
prepare his son for that business. At the age of seventeen,
however, the boy turned his back on the office, and, with
his scanty savings, he took up the study of art. Three years
later he began to win success as a painter of miniatures. An
admirable miniature of Paganini painted by Lover excited so
much attention in London that the young artist was induced
to go to the metropolis. There he spent a considerable part
of his time in literary work.
"The Gridiron" was one of his first productions. His
three-volume novel, "Rory O'More," appeared in 1836. This
was dramatized and met with such success that its versatile
author for a time devoted himself to playwriting. He also
wrote the words and music of several operettas. As a song
writer he now became one of the most popular in the United
Kingdom.
On the day that Victoria was crowned Queen of England she
was escorted to Buckingham Palace to the strains of "Rory
O'More." His most popular novel was "Handy Andy." Lover
visited the United States in 1846. He died in 1868. Besides
his literary talent, he possessed a high degree of musical
ability. Among Samuel Lover's descendants is Victor Herbert,
the well-known musical director and composer.
A certain old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the
ridiculous quite equaled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont,
upon certain festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his
friends by drawing out one of his servants who was exceedingly fond of
what he termed his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer
stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services, had
established a right of loquacity.
He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his
master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture
to set him right.
If the squire said, "I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say,
"throth you won't, sir"; and Pat was always right, for if any altercation
arose upon the subject-matter in hand, he was sure to throw in some good
reason, either from former service--general good conduct--or the
delinquent's "wife and childher," that always turned the scale.
But I am digressing. On such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the
master, after making certain "approaches," as a military man would say, as
the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant,
might, perchance, assail Pat thus:
"By the by, Sir John" (addressing a distinguished guest), "Pat has a very
curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You
remember, Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice paid
to himself)--"you remember that queer adventure you had in France?"
"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise. "Was Pat ever in France?"
"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and farther, plase
your honor."
"I assure you, Sir John," continues mine host, "Pat told me a story once
that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French."
"Indeed!" said the baronet. "Really, I always supposed the French to be a
most accomplished people."
"Throth, then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.
"Oh, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.
"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?" says the
master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the "full
and true account"--(for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for
"a raison he had," in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).
"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic," a favorite phrase of his,
which he gave with a brogue as broad almost as the Atlantic itself.
"It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad Atlantic, comin' home,"
began Pat, decoyed into the recital; "whin the winds began to blow, and
the sae to rowl, that you'd think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name)
would not have a mast left.
"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the board, at last, and the pumps
was choaked (divil choak them for that same), and av coorse the wather
gained an us, and throth, to be filled with water is neither good for man
nor baste; and she was sinkin' fast, settlin' down, as the sailors calls
it, and faith I never was good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it
then less nor ever. Accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the
boat, and got a sack o' bishkits, and a cashk o' pork, and a kag o'
wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little mathers we could
think iv in the mortal hurry we wor in--and, faith, there was no time to
be lost, for my darlint, the Colleen Dhas, went down like a lump o' lead,
afore we wor many sthrokes o' the oar away from her.
"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we put up a
blanket an the ind av a pole as well as we could, and thin we sailed
illigant, for we dar'n't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase
it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's
the wondher of the world we worn't swallyed alive by the ragin' sae.
"Well, away we wint for more nor a week, and nothin' before our two
good-looking eyes but the canophy iv heaven, and the wide ocean--the broad
Atlantic--not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though
the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're
no great things whin you've nothin' else to look at for a week
together--and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more
welkim.
"And then, sure enough, throth, our provisions began to run low, the
bishkits, and the wather, and the rum--throth that was gone first of
all--God help uz!--and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us
in the face. 'Oh, murther, murther, captain, darlint,' says I, 'I wish we
could see land anywhere,' says I.
"'More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for sitch a good
wish, and, throth, it's myself wishes the same.'
"'Oh,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen in heaven--supposing it
was ony a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid Turks, sure they
wouldn't be such bad Christhans as to refuse uz a bit and a sup.'
"'Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain; 'don't be talkin' bad of any
one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may want a good word put in
for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th' other world all
of a suddent,' says he.
"'Thrue for you, captain, darlint,' says I--I called him darlint, and made
free wid him, you see, bekase disthress makes uz all equal--'thrue for
you, captain, jewel--God betune uz and harm, I owe no man any spite'--and,
throth, that was only thruth.
"Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and, by gor, the wather itself was
all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld. Well, at the brake
o' day the sun riz most beautiful out o' the waves, that was as bright as
silver and as clear as cryshtal.
"But it was only the more crule upon uz, for we wor beginnin' to feel
terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land--by gor, I
thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minnit, and 'Thundher and
turf, captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.
"'What for?' says he.
"'I think I see the land,' says I. So he ups with his
bring-'um-near--(that's what the sailors call a spy-glass, sir), and looks
out, and, sure enough, it was.
"'Hurrah!' says he, 'we're all right now; pull away, my boys,' says he.
"'Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; 'maybe it's only a fog-bank,
captain, darlint,' says I.
"'Oh, no,' says he, 'it's the land in airnest.'
"'Oh, then, whereabouts in the wide world are we, captain?' says I; 'maybe
it id be in Roosia or Proosia, or the Garman Oceant,' says I.
"'Tut, you fool,' says he--for he had that consaited way wid him--thinkin'
himself cleverer nor any one else--'tut, you fool,' says he; 'that's
France,' says he.
"'Tare an ouns,' says I, 'do you tell me so? And how do you know it's
France it is, captain, dear,' says I.
"'Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he.
"'Throth, I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, 'by the rowl it has; for I
often heerd av it in regard o' that same;' and, throth, the likes av it I
never seen before nor since, and, with the help o' God, never will.
"Well, with that my heart begun to grow light, and when I seen my life was
safe, I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever--so says I, 'Captain, jewel,
I wish we had a gridiron.'
"'Why, then,' says he, 'thundher and turf,' says he, 'what put a gridiron
into your head?'
"'Bekase I'm starvin' with the hunger,' says I.
"'And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, 'you couldn't ate a gridiron,' says
he, 'barrin' you wor a pelican o' the wildherness,' says he.
"'Ate a gridiron!' says I. 'Och, in throth, I'm not such a gommoch all out
as that, anyhow. But sure if we had a gridiron we could dress a
beefsteak,' says I.
"'Arrah! but where's the beefsteak?' says he.
"'Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork?' says I.
"'By gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. 'You're a clever
fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.
"'Oh, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.
"'Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.
"'Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant' (for we were
nearin' the land all the time), 'and sure I can ask thim for to lind me
the loan of a gridiron,' says I.
"'Oh, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in airnest, now,'
says he. 'You gommoch,' says he, 'sure I towld you before that's
France--and sure they're all furriners there,' says the captain.
"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a furriner myself as
any o' thim?'
"'What do you mane?' says he.
"'I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you, that I'm as good a furriner myself
as any o' thim.'
"'Make me sinsible,' says he.
"'By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,' says I;
and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I'd pay him off for his
bit o' consait about the Garman Oceant.
"'Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you, and tell me what it is
you mane at all at all.'
"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'Oh, your humble sarvant,' says he. 'Why, by gor, you're a scholar,
Paddy.'
"'Throth, you may say that,' says I.
"'Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin' like.
"'You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you joke or no.'
"'Oh, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain. 'And do you tell me, Paddy,'
says he, 'that you spake Frinch?'
"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs the
devil. I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,' says he. 'Pull away, boys,
and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we won't get a good bellyfull before
long.'
"So with that, it was no sooner said nor done--they pulled away and got
close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a little
creek; and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white sthrand, an
illigant place for ladies to bathe in the summer; and out I got, and it's
stiff enough in my limbs I was afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and
perished with the cowld and hunger; but I conthrived to scramble an, one
way or the other, towards a little bit iv a wood that was close to the
shore, and the smoke curlin' out of it, quite timpting like.
"'By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I; 'there's a house
there'--and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men, women, and
childher, ating their dinner round a table quite convainent. And so I wint
up to the dure, and I thought I'd be very civil to thim, as I heerd the
Frinch was always mighty p'lite intirely--and I thought I'd show them I
knew what good manners was.
"So I took off my hat, and making a low bow, says I, 'God save all here,'
says I.
"Well, to be sure, they all stopt ating at wanst, and begun to stare at
me, and faith they almost looked me out of countenance--and I thought to
myself it was not good manners at all--more be token from furriners, which
they call so mighty p'lite; but I never minded that, in regard of wantin'
the gridiron; and so says I, 'I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for the liberty
I take, but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of ating,' says I,
'that I make bowld to throuble yez, and if you could lind me the loan of a
gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be intirely obleeged to ye.'
"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before, and with that, says
I (knowing what was in their minds), 'Indeed it's thrue for you,' says I;
'I'm tathered to pieces, and God knows I look quare enough, but it's by
raison of the storm,' says I, 'which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're
all starvin',' says I.
"So then they began to look at each other agin, and myself, seeing at
wanst dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor
beggar comin' to crave charity--with that, says I, 'Oh! not at all,' says
I, 'by no manes; we have plenty o' mate ourselves, there below, and we'll
dhress it,' says I, 'if you would be plased to lind us the loan of a
gridiron,' says I, makin' a low bow.
"Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever,
and faith I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that it
was not France at all at all--and so says I--'I beg pardon, sir,' says I,
to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver--'maybe I'm
undher a mistake,' says I, 'but I thought I was in France, sir; aren't you
furriners?' says I--'Parly-voo frongsay?'
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if you plase?'
"Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had siven heads; and faith
myself began to feel flusthered like, and onaisy--and so, says I, making a
bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a liberty I take, sir,' says I, 'but
it's only in the regard of bein' cast away, and if you plase, sir,' says
I, 'Parly-voo frongsay?'
"'We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.
"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron?' says I, 'and you'll
obleege me.'
"Well, sir, the old chap begun to munseer me, but the divil a bit of a
gridiron he'd gie me; and so I began to think they were all neygars, for
all their fine manners; and, throth, my blood began to rise, and says I,
'By my sowl, if it was you was in disthress,' says I, 'and if it was to
ould Ireland you kem, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you if you
ax'd it, but something to put an it too, and a dhrop of dhrink into the
bargain, and cead mille failte.'
"Well, the word cead mille failte seemed to stchreck his heart, and the
ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I'd give him another offer, and
make him sinsible at last; and so says I, wanst more, quite slow, that he
might undherstand--'Parly--voo--frongsay, munseer?'
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad scran to you.'
"Well, bad win' to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould chap begins
bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other about a long tongs.
"'Phoo!--the devil sweep yourself and tongs,' says I, 'I don't want a
tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison,' says I--'Parly-voo
frongsay?'
"We, munseer.'
"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld your prate.'
"Well, what would you think but he shook his owld noddle, as much as to
say he wouldn't; and so says I, 'Bad cess to the likes o' that I ever
seen--throth if you were in my country, it's not that-a-way they'd use
you; the curse o' the crows on you, you ould sinner,' says I; 'the divil a
longer I'll darken your dure.'
"So he seen I was vexed, and I thought, as I was turnin' away, I seen him
begin to relint, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I,
turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give you one chance more--you owld thief--are
you a Chrishthan at all at all?--are you a furriner,' says I, 'that all
the world calls so p'lite? Bad luck to you, do you undherstand your own
language?--Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.
"'We, munseer,' says he.
"'Then, thundher and turf,' says I, 'will you lind me the loan of a
gridiron?'
"Well, sir, the divil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me--and so with that,
'The curse o' the hungry on you, you owld negardly villain,' says I; 'the
back o' my hand and the sowl o' my foot to you; that you may want a
gridiron yourself yet,' says I; 'and wherever I go, high and low, rich and
poor, shall hear o' you,' says I; and with that I lift them there, sir,
and kem away--and in throth it's often since that I thought that it was
remarkable."
TRICKS THAT WORDS MAY BE MADE TO PLAY.
Odd Jobs for Unemployed Minds in the Arrangement of Freak Sentences.
When _Polonius_, addressing _Hamlet_, asked, "What do you read, my lord?"
and _Hamlet_ answered, "Words, words, words," _Polonius_ didn't pursue
that particular line of inquiry any farther. If he had, _Hamlet_ might
have given him a vast deal of interesting information.
Words sometimes have a trick of expressing more than is intended by those
who write or utter them. They have strange customs, too, and of these the
man who interrupted _Hamlet_ doubtless had much to learn.
For instance, _Polonius_ might have asked:
Grave prince, in thirty-one words how many "thats" can be
grammatically inserted?
And _Hamlet_ might have replied:
Fourteen: He said that _that_ that that man said was not
_that_ that _that_ one should say, but that _that_ that
_that_ man said was _that_ that _that_ man should not say.
This reminds us of the following "says" and "saids":
Mr. B----, did you say or did you not say what I said you
said? Because C---- said you said you said you never did say
what I said you said. Now if you did say that you did _not_
say what I said you said, then what did you say?
The following is an example of that form of humor which is known as
"word-twisting":
While parents pay May rents, it must be admitted
They pay rents for houses that they have not quitted;
If parents pay May rents then may rents pay parents
And May rents and pa-rents will be voted rare "rents."
Idle minds which conscientiously seek employment are willing to take
almost any odd job that comes along. Some have devoted a few hours to the
formation of sentences in which each word begins and ends with the same
letter. Here are a couple of samples:
A depraved tyrant seeks devoted slaves; a growing empire
seeks rather loyal subjects; America, a nation, growing
yearly richer, secures equitable legal exchange.
Ships, gliding seawards, scatheless that endure
High seas, excessive storms, that sailors dread,
Experience, ere gaining destined shores,
A rougher tempest grasping doomèd dead.
Pugilism's Invasion of the Drama.
A Characteristic Article from the New York "Sun" Affords a Striking
Example of the Sort of "Higher Criticism" That Is Now In Order.
The appearance of a former pugilist as a star in a Broadway theater, which
for many years was the greatest temple of the Shakespearean drama in the
United States, has given a serious jolt to a large number of playgoers who
are loath to free themselves from the influences of old traditions.
The relations of ring and stage have been becoming more and more close in
recent years, and have constituted a favorite theme for newspaper
discussion. It is doubtful, however, whether it would be possible to find
a better review of the situation than the following characteristic essay
in dramatic criticism which appeared in the New York _Sun_:
It is long since the playgoers and first-nighters of
Brooklyn had such a treat as was tendered them last season
by the re-appearance of that bright star in the dramatic
constellation, James J. Corbett. Mr. Corbett came back to us
with his new drama, "Pals," an admirable vehicle for the
display of his singular dramatic talents.
The fact that it was the Lenten season marred somewhat the
attendance, otherwise the society folk of Brooklyn might
have made it a brilliant function. Yet Mr. Corbett's welcome
lacked nothing of warmth or appreciation.
Sacrificed Ring to the Drama.
Since the time when, in "The Naval Cadet," Mr. Corbett took the American
Theater by storm, his art has broadened and deepened. It is an older, a
more mature, dare it be said a shiftier, Corbett who returns to us. So
often of late has the assertion been made that Mr. Corbett is the best
actor in the pugilist division of the stage that it is time for a
comparison between his art and that of those other eminent gentlemen who
have left the ring for the everlasting good of the drama, Messrs. John
Lawrence Sullivan, Terence McGovern, James E. Britt, and J. John Jeffries.
It is true that any comparison between the art of these five eminent
artists must be superficial, and to a certain extent banal, owing to the
diversity of the dramas by which they have seen fit to show forth their
talents.
The stanch art, honest and straightforward as a right swing, of "Honest
Hearts and Willing Hands," is not to be compared to the romantic yet often
superficial "Bowery After Dark," which Mr. Terence McGovern has so ably
interpreted, and neither can be compared exactly with the jarring
right-cross force of Mr. Jeffries's "Davy Crockett."
As those who observe Mr. Corbett practising his now abandoned profession
of pugilism have remarked, he is characteristically lacking in repose of
manner. In this, he is distinctly inferior to Mr. J. Lawrence Sullivan.
John L.--on the stage--was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those
lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old
playgoers:
"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]
In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he
shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his
delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using
too much slang:
"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"
When the "Blocks" Went Off.
Mr. Corbett's delivery of these lines is certainly humorous, more humorous
than he knows; yet has it the genuine comic force of the acting of James
Edward Britt, an artist little known to the stage of the Atlantic coast,
when, in his drama, "Jimmie Britt the Frisco Boy," he conquers the comic
Chinaman in a burlesque boxing bout by slapping him with the end of his
pig-tail?
There is considerable dramatic force in Mr. Corbett's delivery of the
lines:
"There's my hand, Ned. If you can take it honestly, here goes--if not, you
are no pal of mine!"
Yet, after all, would it not be better if, instead of standing on guard
when he delivered them, he accompanied them with a side step and a right
shift on the solar plexus, as does Terence McGovern when he delivers that
famous climax:
"Unhand her, or I'll knock your block off--see?" [Bing!]
Or by a clinch followed by a short-arm jolt and an uppercut, as does Mr.
J. John Jeffries in that most intense of all climaxes in the pugilistic
drama:
"Carry the woman away? Not while Davy Crockett has a punch up his sleeve!"
[Slap! Thud!]
Conscientious and Two-Handed.
To summarize, therefore, Mr. Sullivan was a conscientious, two-handed
actor with a great punch; Mr. Terence McGovern and Mr. J. Edward Britt
have a clear delivery and a great straight left; Mr. Robert
Fitzsimmons--an artist for whose peculiar intensity there has been no room
in this brief and necessarily superficial summary--an awkward stage
presence, but a fine short-arm jab that has been known to put the villain
to sleep six times in one act; Mr. Jeffries, a left hook to the body which
always brings home the money, and Mr. Corbett, a comic intensity and great
foot work.
A word about the drama which Mr. Corbett had chosen last season. The
author of "Pals" violated all conventionalities by failing to have the
hero meet the unknown in the last act. He has, however, done one great
service to the drama and to an eminent university. Never before has the
atmosphere of Harvard been caught for the stage. The first act of "Pals"
takes place at Harvard, and presents a haunting picture of college life.
From it we learn that the following are characteristic features of life
in the great center of learning at Cambridge:
Solar Plexus for College Etiquette.
The 'varsity football captain and the champion hammer-thrower, who are
described as the most popular men in college, and so rich that they can't
count it, live in a boarding-house, in which the landlady's daughter dusts
off the champagne bottles which they keep on the sideboard and is sought
as wife by the star boarders.
When the "lady friends" of the inmates come to visit the rooms they go in
to dinner arm in arm with the landlady's daughter.
After the 'varsity game with Yale, in which Harvard has scored a great
victory, the 'varsity football captain comes back to the boarding-house
for dinner, remarking mildly that he is tired, and, after dusting off the
sleeves of his jersey, goes in to dinner with the ladies in his football
suit.
The freshmen sports wear silk hats and sack suits to the annual
Yale-Harvard game.
These shadowings of dear old college scenes brought tears to the eyes of
the many Harvard alumni who made part of the brilliant first night
assemblage.
Jeffries's Dramatic Recitals.
For weeks Jersey City had looked forward with a pleasurable thrill to the
appearance of that eminent artist, J. John Jeffries, in his series of
dramatic recitals. The pleasure had not been without a tinge of jealous
triumph totally unbefitting the social season; for Jersey City, that
modest home of the arts, was the first community on the Atlantic coast to
extend to Mr. Jeffries in "Davy Crockett" the welcome which must have been
as new wine to the true artist he is.
To what end will not managers go in their sordid and squalid zeal for
advertising? Evidences of this tendency flamed on every hoarding in Jersey
City; flaunted themselves on every fence. For the managers and press
representatives had been attempting to create a false and fatuous interest
in this eminent artist by advertising him as champion pugilist of the
world.
What does it matter to their art that Forbes Robertson loves canaries,
that Edwin Booth was fond of waffles? What does it matter how Mr. Jeffries
amuses himself in his leisure hours? Yet in the large and fashionable
audience which assembled at the Bijou Theater there were evidently many
persons who were drawn by no other motive than a curiosity to see the
champion pugilist of the world.
These made their presence felt by ejaculating in Mr. Jeffries's tender yet
stalwart love passages:
"Uppercut her, Jim!" Or by crying out at that supreme moment when Mr.
Jeffries defied the villain:
"Soak him, kid! Soak him!"
It may be said in defense of Jersey City that not all of this was due to
the blindness of her citizens toward great art. Some of it may be laid to
the incompetence of the Bijou bouncer.
"Davy Crockett," which this robust and sterling young artist had chosen as
the medium of introduction to the stage of New York, is a drama which has
not been seen of late on the American boards. Mr. Jeffries brings to it a
freshness and a style all his own.
The Heroine is Nifty.
Right here is where the gent who has being doing falsetto pulls off his
wig, shows the genuine whiskers, and strikes low G on the bass clef to
show that he can do it.
You see, the villain is after the bunch of calico. She's certainly nifty.
The villain has staked out his nephew to be her steady company, but the
minute she trims her luscious lamps on _Crockett_, any dub can see that
he's her candy kid.
The orchestra rips off a few yards of the "Flower Song," while Jim sinks
his voice down to the solar plexus and puts her wise that she's his'n and
he's her'n, only it can never be.
But in the next act _Davy_ rescues her from the wolves by putting his
biceps against the door while the property man wiggles three stuffed wolf
heads through the chinks in the cabin and the gallery helps out on the
howls.
But the villain drops in with the deeds that he's forged on her uncle, and
_Davy_ is foiled. And the girl has put him wise to young Lochinvar, so in
the next act _Davy_ drops in just when they're going to marry the girl.
Jim rolls up his sleeve and holds out his right and the girl hops up on it
like a canary on a perch, and it's all over but the foiling of the villain
and the marriage in the last act.
The Lady Takes the Count.
The girl was pretty nearly down and out in the second act, and took the
count of nine, but by clinching with _Davy_ she managed to stay the act
out. Jim's love-making was great. He never bored in so hard that there
wasn't room for a breakaway, and any one could see that he was all ready
to break the clinch the minute the girl loosed an uppercut.
When Jim crinkled up his forehead and looked on her with a love smile that
reached the remotest boundary of his face, he looked just the way he
looked at Ruhlin in the third round. But the girl didn't seem to mind. She
knew he was only funning, and she cuddled right up to his solar plexus and
said:
"I am your Nell, the same saucy Nell that sported among the daisies when
we were a little boy and girl together." That statement made Jim look
sincere.
It must be confessed that the epilogue was the most successful part of the
piece. The epilogue was a more or less rapid three-round go. Mr. Yank
Kennedy, an eminent pugilistic artist from California, was advertised as
Mr. Jeffries's support in this scene. But the cordial welcome of New
Jersey society had proved too much for the artistic temperament of Mr.
Kennedy.
Mr. Hennesy of Princeton University was announced by that eminent
impresario Mr. Billy Delany as Mr. Kennedy's understudy. Mr. Hennesy's
acting was finished in leading and countering, but sadly deficient in
guarding and side-stepping. He was entirely overshadowed by the great
artist who played opposite him.
At one period of the performance the shadows grew so thick that Mr.
Hennesy went down for the count of nine. It was plain, however, from the
cordial, if somewhat unsteady, handshake he gave Mr. Jeffries as the
curtain fell that Mr. Hennesy harbored no artistic jealousy.
Little Glimpses of the 19th Century
The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record of Each Decade.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
In many respects the nineteenth century was the most
remarkable in the history of the world. In no corresponding
period did science vouchsafe to men so many revelations, or
did wars result in such sweeping political changes. It was
the age of steam, electricity, and steel; of Napoleon,
Wellington, Nelson, Grant, Lee, and Moltke; of Bismarck,
Gladstone, and Lincoln; of Garibaldi and Bolivar; of
Stephenson, Fulton, Morse, and Edison; of Darwin, Huxley,
and Emerson; of Wagner and Verdi; of Byron and Scott, of
Tennyson and Victor Hugo, of Dickens and Balzac, of
Hawthorne and Poe.
In the nineteenth century were all the glories of the
Victorian Era, and in it slavery was abolished in the United
States and serfdom in Russia. It saw the liberation of South
America, the unification of Italy, and the creation of the
kingdoms of Greece, Servia, and Rumania. It saw the United
States grow from a small nation to a rich and powerful one;
it witnessed the development of Great Britain's scattered
colonies into the most extensive empire the world has yet
known; and in its latter years it beheld the rise of Germany
to commanding military power and great industrial
prosperity. The progress made in the field of invention was
astounding. The coming of the railroad and the steamship
revolutionized the history of civilization. The art,
literature, and drama of the world were greatly enriched,
and music entered upon what may truly be said to be its
golden age.
But, confronted by this great mass of events, how many
persons are there who are able to tell the story of the
years in which those events occurred? Several histories of
the nineteenth century have been written, but none of them
has yet succeeded in giving the clear, concise view that the
one now published in THE SCRAP BOOK purposes to give. This
will be complete in ten instalments, each instalment
covering a period of ten years. We begin with the year 1800,
the last of the eighteenth century, in order to give the
reader a clearer understanding of the situation of affairs
at the opening of the nineteenth.
1800
Napoleon, then the dominating figure of the world, continued the work of
reorganizing the government, centralizing power in his own hands; subdued
the last of the French loyalists, and took the Tuileries as his residence.
Only Paul, the imbecile Czar of Russia, returned a favorable answer to the
request for friendly relations sent by Napoleon to the powers the previous
December.
In Egypt, General Kléber, commander of the French forces, agreed with the
English admiral, Sir Sydney Smith, to evacuate the country; treaty
rejected by the English Parliament; Kléber drove the grand vizier into
Syria; restored French rule in Egypt; assassinated by an Arab; succeeded
by General Menou.
War resumed between France and Austria; General Moreau defeated the
Germans and Austrians under Kray at Engen and Moeskirch in Baden and at
Biberach in Würtemberg; in Bavaria Lecourbe and Ney took Memmingen; Ney
defeated General Mack at Ulm; and at Hochstädt Moreau again defeated the
Austrians. Finally, at Hohenlinden, the Austrians suffered a crushing
defeat, and sued for an armistice.
Meanwhile the French under Masséna were hemmed in in Genoa by an English
fleet and an Austrian army. Napoleon started from France with a force of
thirty-six thousand men, in four days crossed the Alps into Piedmont, and
attacked the Austrians under Melas at Marengo; Napoleon saved from defeat
by General Desaix's division, which arrived in time to make a brilliant
charge when Napoleon's army was retreating; Desaix killed; Melas sued for
an armistice; French masters of Italy. Genoa surrendered, fifteen thousand
men having died of starvation, but was returned to the French. England
reduced Malta. Russia joined with Denmark and Sweden in an armed
neutrality against England. The English stood firm against Napoleon. The
English navy grew stronger, and maritime trade increased. The French navy
dwindled, and trade was at a standstill. The Irish Parliament met for the
last time, one hundred members from Ireland being admitted to the next
session of the English Parliament. Bread riots in England.
The United States Congress met for the first time at Washington. Voltaic
pile discovered by Volta. Mary Kres, for a straw-weaving device, obtained
the first patent granted a woman in America. William Cowper, English poet,
died.
=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 3,210; New York City (with boroughs now
forming Greater New York), 79,216; New York (Manhattan), 60,515; London
(including Metropolitan District, census 1801), 864,484; London (old city,
census 1801), 158,859; United States, 5,308,433; Great Britain (census
1801), 10,942,646.=
=RULERS--United States, John Adams; Great Britain, George III; France,
Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul; Spain, Charles IV; Prussia, Frederick
William III; Russia, Paul; Germany, including Austria, Francis II; Sweden,
Gustavus IV; Portugal, Maria Francesca--eldest son, John, regent; Pope,
Pius VII.=
1801
Peace of Lunéville between France and Germany; the Rhine as far as the
Dutch frontier made the boundary of France, the Helvetian (Swiss),
Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics to be recognized, and the treaty of
Campo Formio confirmed. Spain ceded Louisiana to France. Peace between
France and Naples closed the ports of Naples to England, and began a
continental embargo. Pitt resigned as English prime minister. King George
III suffered a recurring attack of insanity; recovered. English defeated
the French at Aboukir and Alexandria and captured Cairo. French evacuated
Egypt; Turkish rule restored.
Paul, Czar of Russia, struck down by Prince Zubov and strangled by the
prince's followers. Alexander I, his successor, favorable to the English;
Denmark and Sweden continued armed neutrality, and on Denmark's refusing
terms offered by England, a fleet under Parker, Nelson second in command,
prepared to attack Copenhagen. Nelson commanded the attack; seemed to
fail; was signaled to retreat; put his blind eye to the telescope and
said, "I really do not see the signal," and then "Damn the signal! Keep
mine for closer action flying." Continued the attack, took or destroyed
eighteen vessels out of the Danish fleet of twenty-three, and summarily
ended the dispute.
In San Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture led an unsuccessful revolt against
the French. Exhausted resources necessitated a cessation of hostilities
between France and England, October 1. Catholic Church, under state
supervision, restored in France. Robert Fulton offered to build steam
vessels for Napoleon, who rejected the idea as visionary.
In the United States, Congress decided the tie vote of the previous year
between Jefferson and Burr in Jefferson's favor; Burr Vice-President;
Jefferson inaugurated March 4, first President to be inaugurated in
Washington; wore long trousers and aroused a storm of protest, many
considering them a dangerous innovation. Open conflict between America and
the Barbary pirates. Jacquard weaving-loom invented. Lavater,
physiognomist, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Thomas Jefferson
became President of the United States March 4, and Alexander I succeeded
Paul as Czar of Russia.=
1802
General destitution prevailed in England; governmental expenses reduced.
The Italian Republic succeeded the Cisalpine Republic, and Napoleon was
elected President. The Peace of Amiens between England and France, Holland
and Spain; France, Spain, and Holland received back all colonies except
Trinidad and Ceylon, retained by England, and England to have an open port
at the Cape of Good Hope; Malta to be restored by England to the Knights
of St. John; France to leave Elba, Rome, and Naples; integrity of the
Turkish Empire to be maintained. Napoleon permitted all but one thousand
French loyalists to return; a portion of their lands was restored, but all
hereditary privileges were denied.
Napoleon reformed the French educational system, established the Legion of
Honor, and restored slavery in the West Indies. Toussaint, after a short
and horrible war, was treacherously captured in Hayti, taken to France,
and died in a French dungeon the year following. Turkey allowed France
access to the Black Sea. English embassy reestablished in Paris.
Switzerland invaded by the French, and Napoleon's course in Italy caused
friction with the English; in reply to protests, Napoleon declared Italy,
Switzerland, and Holland were at the absolute disposal of France. In
carrying out the terms of the Peace of Lunéville France began a systematic
encroachment on German territory. British naval mutiny in Bantry Bay,
Ireland, quelled and six leaders hanged. Hortense, daughter of Josephine,
married Louis, brother of Napoleon.
Humphry Davy produced light by using two carbon points and an electric
current--the forerunner of the arc light, and entered on studies that led
to photography. One thousand persons drowned in Lorca, Spain, by a
bursting reservoir. West Point Military Academy founded. Ohio admitted to
the Union.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1803
April 30, the American commissioners, Monroe and Livingston, signed the
transfer treaty whereby France ceded Louisiana for sum of fifteen million
dollars. The United States ship Philadelphia captured by pirates in the
harbor of Tripoli, and three hundred American sailors sold into slavery;
Stephen Decatur entered the harbor, blew up the Philadelphia, and escaped.
Emmet rebellion in Ireland suppressed; Emmet hanged. Active work on the
Code Napoléon begun, and part of the civil code promulgated. English
travelers in France declared prisoners; Napoleon announced that England,
alone, was powerless against him; a feint made of invading England; war
declared by England May 13; French commerce almost destroyed. French
driven out of Hayti, having suffered from disease, and lost heavily in a
war in which atrocities were practised by both sides.
Mahratta War in India; natives in some cases incited and led by French
officers; Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward Duke of Wellington,
distinguished himself; much of northern India came under British rule.
English troops massacred in Colombo, Ceylon. Treaty between France and
America; Bank of France founded; censorship of the press in France,
English papers excluded from the country. Robert Fulton failed in his
steamboat experiments on the Seine. Mme. de Staël again exiled from
France.
United States made grants of land to colleges. September 30, corner-stone
of New York City Hall laid. Malthus published his "Essay on Population."
The first printing press in New South Wales set up. Alfieri, Italian poet,
and Sir William Hamilton, British diplomat, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1804
England recalled Pitt to power. Napoleon made costly and futile
preparations to invade England. Moreau and Pichegru conspiracy against
Napoleon; Pichegru found strangled in prison; Moreau exiled; Duc d'Enghien
captured and shot; twenty persons guillotined. France ordered German
states to expel French loyalists and English subjects. French Senate urged
Napoleon to found a hereditary monarchy, succession to be in the male
line, or, in default of issue, the crown to go to Joseph, and, if he died,
to Louis Bonaparte. May 18, Napoleon accepted, and December 2 he and
Josephine were crowned; when Pius VII went to place the crown on
Napoleon's head, the latter snatched it and crowned himself. Napoleon
created a new nobility and eight marshals. Prussia and Austria recognized
him as Emperor of France. Dessalines, a Haytian negro, followed
Bonaparte's example, and created himself Emperor Jean Jacques I.
Lewis and Clark set out on their trip across the American continent. Burr
killed Hamilton in a duel. America continued a running fight with the
Barbary pirates. Shaft sunk for a Thames tunnel; work later abandoned.
England captured Spanish ships bearing ten million dollars' tribute to
Napoleon; Spain declared war. English Bible Society founded. Immanuel
Kant, German philosopher, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Napoleon Bonaparte
became Emperor of France, and Francis II of Germany assumed the title of
Emperor Francis I of Austria.=
1805
Russia and Sweden joined in the coalition against Napoleon. Active war
preparations in France; grand review of the French army on the field of
Marengo; Genoa annexed by France; Napoleon crowned King of Italy. France,
Spain, and South German states pitted against England, Russia, Austria,
and Sweden. Admiral Villeneuve moved against the British fleet; bottled up
in Cadiz by Admiral Collingwood; threats of disgrace caused Villeneuve to
make a desperate rush; met near Cape Trafalgar by Nelson and Collingwood,
October 21; in the ensuing battle the French and Spanish fleet was
practically destroyed. Nelson was fatally shot in the hour of victory;
Villeneuve was captured, and later committed suicide.
Abandoning his plan to invade England, Napoleon marched into Germany,
threw the badly battered Austrian forces under General Mack into Ulm, and
captured the city with twenty-three thousand men. In Italy, Masséna,
French commander, inflicted heavy losses on Archduke Charles, and forced
him to sue for an armistice. Vienna captured by Murat. Prussian prime
minister demanded reparation for French violation of Prussian territory,
but was temporized with in negotiations by Talleyrand while Napoleon
prepared to move against the Russians and Austrians. On December 2 he
inflicted a crushing defeat on the allies at Austerlitz, and the Russian
army withdrew. Austria forced to grant all demands. Dalmatia and Venice
taken from Austria and given to Italy; alliance against France temporarily
broken; England left to fight alone.
Jefferson began his second term as President of the United States. The
Barbary pirates beaten by an American force under General Eaton and forced
to relinquish their claims to tribute. Agitation in the United States
strong for a war with Spain and for the annexation of Texas and part of
Mexico; the agitation subsided when the French ambassador declared France
would side with Spain. Aaron Burr went West, and began planning for the
invasion of Texas. Jerome Bonaparte married Miss Eliza Patterson, an
American.
Five thousand persons killed by an earthquake near Naples. Schiller,
German poet, historian, and dramatist; Paley, English theologian; and
Mungo Park, Scottish traveler, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1806
Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in Naples, and made Joseph Bonaparte King
of Naples and Sicily; Louis Bonaparte made King of Holland, and Jerome
Bonaparte was commanded to leave his American wife and child, marry
Catherine of Würtemberg, and rule Westphalia; Lucien Bonaparte exiled for
refusing to leave his wife and become a king. Napoleon parceled out
acquired territory among his followers and members of his family; obliged
neighboring countries to harbor and support the French army, and ordered
the completion of the Louvre.
The English admirals Strachan, Duckworth, Warren, and Hood destroyed
almost all of the few remaining French war-ships. England and France
mutually laid embargoes. English interference with the commerce of all
nations; President Jefferson protested without avail; anger in America
because of the killing of an American sailor by a stray shot from the
British cruiser Leander.
At Maida, Calabria, four thousand English under Sir John Stuart killed or
captured four thousand out of seven thousand French, and lost but
forty-five men killed. France, however, suppressed the revolt in Calabria
at great loss of lives.
The Holy Roman Empire dissolved, and the Confederation of the Rhine
formed. Denmark annexed Holstein. Palm, a Nuremberg publisher, shot for
circulating an anti-Napoleonic book. Queen Louise led the Prussian
opposition to Napoleon, and Prussia joined the war against him. Germany
invaded, and at Auerstadt, Davoust defeated Charles William of Brunswick,
while at Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe; in both battles, fought
August 14, the Prussians lost nearly fifty thousand killed, wounded, and
captured, while the French lost about sixteen thousand. The French entered
Berlin, and Napoleon despoiled Frederick the Great's tomb with his sword.
Napoleon constructed the kingdom of Westphalia from a part of Prussia,
Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and upper Saxony; exacted an indemnity of thirty
million dollars from Prussia; forbade trade with Great Britain, and
stirred the Poles to revolt against Russia, then at war with Turkey. He
advanced through Poland against Russia, won hard-fought battles at
Moehrungen, Golymin, and Pultusk. The French army wintered around Warsaw.
Here Napoleon met Countess Walewski, who later became the mother of his
son Alexander.
Lewis and Clark returned from their trip across America. William Pitt and
Charles Fox, English statesmen, died. Public funeral of Nelson.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1807
The winter quarters of Napoleon's army in Warsaw were unendurable, and in
attempting to move on Königsberg the French were attacked by the Russians
at Eylau, where both sides lost sixty thousand men in a desperate but
indecisive battle. The Russian Czar Alexander freed the serfs of the
Baltic Provinces. England declared war against Turkey in order to assist
Russia. Continuation of the fight of the Russians and Prussians against
the French in Poland. The Prussian fortress of Dantzig captured by the
French. Sweden was forced to a truce with Russia. At Heilsburg the
Russians and Prussians inflicted a loss of ten thousand on the French.
June 14, anniversary of Marengo, Napoleon won a superb victory at
Friedland, Ney saving the day by a splendid charge. Russia and Prussia
forced to ask for an armistice.
Napoleon met Alexander on a richly carpeted raft on the Niemen, and peace
was arranged; Russia to break with England and annex Finland; Prussia to
be left out of the Federation of the Rhine; the Ionian Isles and
Montenegro to be taken from Turkey, and war to be begun against Sweden,
Denmark, and Portugal, unless they join in the blockade against England.
The British evacuated Egypt. Napoleon began internal reforms at home and
aided manufacturers.
Encounter between the American frigate Chesapeake and the British ship
Leopard; three Americans killed and eight wounded; Commodore Barron, of
the Chesapeake, disgraced; three of the sailors taken from the Chesapeake
received five hundred lashes each, and one was hanged. America threatened
war, but English authorities approved. England seized the Danish fleet to
prevent Napoleon from turning it against her. The slave-trade abolished by
the English Parliament. England forbade American vessels to trade between
any but its own or British ports. The Sultan Selim was deposed by his
followers. Sweden lost Stralsund to the French. Prussia abolished serfdom
and feudal social distinctions. French troops occupied Portugal, driving
the Portuguese court and royal family to Brazil. America laid an embargo
on British goods. The trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and his acquittal,
the growing discussion of slavery in the American Congress, and the
trouble with England harassed Jefferson and made his position almost
unendurable.
In August, Robert Fulton at last succeeded in his experiments on the
Hudson, and his steamship, the Clermont, on September 14, began a trip
from New York to Albany, one hundred and ten miles, taking twenty-four
hours. A great Sanhedrim, or convention, of Jewish rabbis, in Paris passed
upon and modified the interpretation of the Mosaic dispensation.
Artificial aeration of waters discovered. First capitol built at Albany.
Davy separated potassium and sodium. Illuminating-gas first used in
London.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1808
France seized strongholds in northern Spain; Murat took command of the
French forces. Spanish Minister Godoy, possessor of immense wealth looted
from the government, resigned power. King Charles of Spain abdicated in
favor of his son Ferdinand. Murat entered Madrid; riots there against the
French. Ferdinand of Spain, decoyed to meet Napoleon, forced to abdicate
and held prisoner. Rome invaded by Napoleon, who, threatened with
excommunication, seized part of the Papal States. Joseph Bonaparte made
King of Spain. England sent troops and money to aid Spain against France.
Murat crowned King of Naples. Spanish guerrillas harried the French
troops, but Napoleon neglected to take command of his forces. A French
force looted Cordova, was captured at Baylen, and sent to the galleys. The
French repulsed at Saragossa and Gerona. King Joseph, after nine days in
Madrid, fled with the Spanish royal treasure. Wellington landed in
Portugal. Spanish soldiers in the French army deserted with their leader,
Marquis Romana.
Austria, Prussia, and Turkey--where the Janizaries had deposed Mustapha
and made Mahmoud Sultan--prepared to follow up advantages won by Spain.
Napoleon attempted to enlist the United States against England, but
Jefferson kept away from the conflict. The Spanish colonies in America
expelled French settlers. Napoleon oppressed Prussia and extorted money.
Goethe decorated by Napoleon with the cross of the Legion of Honor. Russia
and France formed an alliance and unavailingly submitted peace proposals
to England. Napoleon took command in Spain, routed the Spaniards at
Espinoza, Burgos, and Tudela, and forced his way to Madrid. China
suspended trade with England.
Trade in America ruined by the embargo, and great suffering resulted.
Madison elected President; George Clinton, Vice-President. Importation of
slaves to the United States prohibited. Anthracite coal first used as a
fuel in the United States. First printing press in Brazil set up. First
American temperance society founded, Saratoga County, New York.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Charles IV of Spain
abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand VII, who, in turn, was forced by
Napoleon to abdicate in favor of Joseph Bonaparte.=
1809
In the retreat to Corunna the British lost heavily, made a stand there,
repulsed the French, and successfully embarked; Sir John Moore was killed;
many British transports were wrecked, and the troops returned in a
deplorable condition. The Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the British
forces, compelled to resign for malfeasance in office. Mrs. Clark was his
agent in selling military commissions. The Earl of Chatham resigned as
master-general of the ordnance, after having allowed ten thousand British
troops to die in the swamps of Walcheren, Holland.
Napoleon returned to Paris, at one stage covering eighty-five miles on
horseback in five hours, quarreled with Talleyrand and Fouché, reproved
Louis Bonaparte, and openly insulted Josephine. Saragossa taken by the
French, after a marvelous resistance. War between France and Austria. The
Austrians defeated at Abendsberg, Eckmühl, and Regensburg, and forced to
retreat. The French occupied Vienna. The remaining Papal States annexed to
Italy. Napoleon excommunicated; seized Pius VII and imprisoned him at
Savona. The French armies in Spain and Portugal suffered reverses. At
Aspern and Esslingen, Austria, Napoleon was defeated; but he retrieved
this disaster in the great battle of Wagram, in which sixty thousand men
fell on both sides, and Austria sought an armistice, Napoleon exacting an
indemnity of forty-seven million dollars. The British destroyed a French
fleet at Aix. At Talavera, Wellington defeated the French, but was forced
later to retreat. The Spaniards were defeated at Ocana, and the French
captured Cordova, Seville, and Gerona. Andreas Hofer, leader of the
Tyrolese, was betrayed, and executed by the French the following February.
Peace signed at Vienna, October 14. Napoleon leveled the fortifications of
Vienna, and took fifty thousand square miles of Austrian territory. He
also ordered all American merchandise confiscated, and issued a decree
divorcing Josephine.
Madison inaugurated as President of the United States. The embargo against
England removed. American trade ruined. Jefferson went out of office,
generally condemned. New British ministry repudiated the agreement with
the United States, and friction between the two countries increased.
Staaps, a German student, executed for attempt on Napoleon's life. General
destitution and bread riots throughout England; the whole continent
plunged in want and misery. Gustavus IV of Sweden deposed, and his uncle
became Charles XIII. Russia turned against France. Finland formally ceded
to Russia.
Thomas Paine, publicist, and Joseph Haydn, musician, died. Mammoth Cave,
Kentucky, discovered.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that James Madison
became President of the United States, March 4, and Charles XIII succeeded
Gustavus IV of Sweden.=
1810
Anti-Ministerial riots in London. French successful in Spain, winning at
Beylen, Cordova, Seville, Granada, and Malaga. At Valencia they were
defeated, but slaughtered the garrison at Hostalrich. Napoleon married
Archduchess Marie Louise at Vienna, by proxy, the ceremony being repeated
later in Paris. Ordered all American ships in French ports seized. Louis
Bonaparte objecting, a French force marched into Holland, and Louis
abdicated. Holland annexed by France. Lucien Bonaparte went into voluntary
exile. The Crown Prince of Sweden having died, Marshal Bernadotte, once a
common soldier in the French marines, became crown prince.
Wellington repulsed the French in Portugal from his position at Torres
Vedras. Cadiz bravely resisted the French. War between Turkey and Russia
stopped by Russia's approaching conflict with France. Napoleon ordered all
goods of English manufacture burned. Spanish provinces throughout America
revolted. The British seized French Guadeloupe and Ile de Bourbon. Fouché
sent into exile. Queen Louise of Prussia died.
Daniel O'Connell began agitation for a repeal of the Irish union with
England. Trade throughout the world ruined, and many merchants committed
suicide. Prince of Wales became regent; George III absolutely demented.
Sweden declared war against England. Henry Cavendish, scientist, died.
Astoria, Oregon, founded. Dr. Hahnemann, Leipsic, announced the theory
that is the foundation of homeopathic medicine.
=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 8,208; New York (with boroughs now forming
Greater New York), 119,734; New York (Manhattan), 96,373; London
(including Metropolitan District, census 1811), 1,009,546; London (old
city), 120,909; United States, 7,239,881; Great Britain and Ireland
(census 1811), 15,547,720.=
=RULERS--United States, James Madison; Great Britain, George III; France,
Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor; Spain, Joseph Bonaparte; Prussia, Frederick
William III; Russia, Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Sweden, Charles
XIII; Portugal, Maria Francesca--eldest son, John, regent; Pope, Pius
VII.=
POEMS OF GOOD-FELLOWSHIP.
Some Verses That May Serve as Guides to Good Samaritans When They Come
Upon Pilgrims Who are Down on Their Luck and Unable to See
June Sunshine Through February Skies.
THE FRIEND OF MY HEART.
Commend me to the friend that comes
When I am sad and lone,
And makes the anguish of my heart
The suffering of his own;
Who coldly shuns the glittering throng
At pleasure's gay levee,
And comes to gild a somber hour
And give his heart to me.
He hears me count my sorrows o'er,
And when the task is done
He freely gives me all I ask--
A sigh for every one.
He cannot wear a smiling face
When mine is touched with gloom,
But, like the violet, seeks to cheer
The midnight with perfume.
Commend me to that generous heart
Which, like the pine on high,
Uplifts the same unvarying brow
To every change of sky;
Whose friendship does not fade away
When wintry tempests blow,
But, like the winter's icy crown,
Looks greener through the snow.
He flies not with the flitting stork
That seeks a southern sky,
But lingers where the wounded bird
Hath laid him down to die.
Oh, such a friend! He is in truth,
Whate'er his lot may be,
A rainbow on the storm of life,
An anchor on its sea.
_Answers._
THINGS TO FORGET.
If you see a tall fellow ahead of a crowd,
A leader of men, marching fearless and proud,
And you know of a tale whose mere telling aloud
Would cause his proud head to in anguish be bowed,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
If you know of a skeleton hidden away
In a closet, and guarded, and kept from the day
In the dark; and whose showing, whose sudden display,
Would cause grief and sorrow and lifelong dismay,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
If you know of a thing that will darken the joy
Of a man or a woman, a girl or a boy,
That will wipe out a smile or the least way annoy
A fellow, or cause any gladness to cloy,
It's a pretty good plan to forget it.
_Answers._
FRIENDS.
When a fellow's kind of wobbly and uncertain on his feet,
And has to work like sixty for to get both ends to meet--
When he's not of much account and has to take what he can get--
The people don't come flockin' to be friends of his, you bet!
They don't come sayin', "Old chap, I'm the only friend you've got,"
And "Remember that we're brothers," and that kind of tommyrot.
No, indeed!
And they don't get jealous of you when friends are what you need.
If a fellow's kind of lonesome and would like a friend or two
Just to come around and jolly him when things are lookin' blue;
If the shirt that he's wearin' is the only one he's got,
And he never showed the public that he's really on the spot,
They don't come crowdin' round him, nor stick out their hands and say,
"We're your friends, old man; we love you--we've the same blood
anyway"--
No, indeed!
But they watch to give the boot to you when friends are what you need.
When things have got to comin' as a fellow wants 'em to,
When his pockets are all bulgin' and his clo's are fine and new;
When he steps out proud and lordly and ain't got a thing to fear,
There's a sudden change comes over folks that used to wink and sneer.
They come runnin' then to tell you that they're all your friends, and
say
That they've always been dead anxious for to help you out some way--
Yes, indeed!
Friends are always mighty plentiful when friends ain't what you need.
_Tit-Bits._
BETTER LUCK ANOTHER YEAR.
By W. Gilmore Simms.
Oh, never sink 'neath Fortune's frown,
But brave her with a shout of cheer,
And front her fairly--face her down--
She's only stern to those who fear!
Here's "Better luck another year!"
Another year!
Aye, better luck another year!
We'll have her smile instead of sneer--
A thousand smiles for every tear,
With home made glad and goodly cheer,
And better luck another year--
Another year!
The damsel Fortune still denies
The plea that yet delights her ear;
'Tis but our manhood that she tries--
She's coy to those who doubt and fear--
She'll grant the suit another year!
Another year!
Here's "Better luck another year!"
She now denies the golden prize;
But, spite of frown and scorn and sneer,
Be firm, and we will win and wear,
With home made glad and goodly cheer,
In better luck another year!
Another year! Another year!
"HULLO!"
By S.W. Foss.
W'en you see a man in wo,
Walk right up and say "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do?"
"How's the world a-usin' you?"
Slap the fellow on his back,
Bring yer han' down with a whack;
Waltz right up, an' don't go slow,
Grin an' shake an' say "hullo!"
Is he clothed in rags? Oh, sho!
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
Rags is but a cotton roll
Jest for wrappin' up a soul;
An' a soul is worth a true
Hale an' hearty "how d'ye do?"
Don't wait for the crowd to go;
Walk right up an' say "hullo!"
W'en big vessels meet, they say,
They saloot an' sail away.
Jest the same are you an' me,
Lonesome ships upon a sea;
Each one sailing his own jog
For a port beyond the fog.
Let yer speakin'-trumpet blow,
Lift yer horn' an' cry "hullo!"
Say "hullo," an' "how d'ye do?"
Other folks are good as you.
W'en ye leave yer house of clay,
Wanderin' in the Far-Away,
W'en you travel through the strange
Country t'other side the range,
Then the souls you've cheered will know
Who ye be, an' say "hullo!"
HE'S NONE THE WORSE FOR THAT.
What though the homespun suit he wears,
Best suited to the sons of toil--
What though on coarsest food he fares,
And tends the loom, or tills the soil--
What though no gold-leaf gilds the tongue,
Devoted to congenial chat--
If right prevails, and not the wrong,
The man is not the worse for that.
What though within his humble cot
No costly ornament is seen--
What though his wife possesses not
Her satin gowns of black and green--
What though the merry household band
Half naked fly to ball and bat--
If Conscience guides the heart and hand,
The man is none the worse for that.
True worth is not a thing of dress--
Of splendor, wealth, or classic lore;
Would that these trappings we loved less,
And clung to honest worth the more!
Though pride may spurn the toiling crowd,
The faded garb, the napless hat,
Yet God and Nature cry aloud--
The man is none the worse for that.
FROM LORD TENNYSON.
His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about
A silent court of justice in his breast,
Himself a judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.
Winter Photography for Amateurs.
Valuable Hints to the Disciples of the Camera Who Wish to Get the Best
Results When the Earth is Snow-Carpeted.
_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Many amateurs do not realize the fact that very beautiful pictures may be
taken in the wintertime, and in all too many cases when the summer
vacation is over the camera is laid aside.
Snow scenes, when properly handled, will be found among the most
interesting and effective bits in the artist's collection, and are well
worth the trouble expended upon them. So keep your camera ready at hand;
when you go for a walk, if you are lucky enough to live in the country,
take it with you. If you are a dweller in the city, watch for a good
old-fashioned snowstorm; go out in the thick of it, and you will be
surprised at the many charming scenes you can secure.
Atmospheric conditions, the sharp contrasts of black objects against a
background of glaring snow, the effect of shadow and sunlight on an
expanse of unbroken white, the fall of heavy, cottony flakes in a silent,
white-shrouded street, under the foggy glow of electric lights--all these
necessitate a course of treatment different from that of ordinary
photographic work; and all, by these very contrasts, can be made
strikingly effective.
Watch Man Who "Does the Rest."
Owing to the cold of winter and the difficulty of handling the apparatus
with stiff fingers or heavy gloves, it is well to have as simple an outfit
as possible. An ordinary fixed focus camera is good for this kind of work.
The lens on this style of camera usually works at F-16 and the shutter at
about 1-20 of a second. If the sun is bright, the next smaller stop will
do.
In taking snow pictures, the amateur who presses the button and lets the
dealer do the rest should advise the latter to develop the film with less
contrast than usual. The average dealer usually develops with as much
contrast as possible, and this method would produce a print with blank
white for the snow and hard blocks for the trees.
For more serious workers, a stand camera should be used. The camera should
be provided with a reversible back and a long bellows. An expensive lens
is not necessary. A medium angle lens will be found most useful.
Shutters are apt to work badly when out in the cold, owing to contraction
of the metal parts. This must be allowed for in making the exposure, by
setting it at greater speed.
The focusing cloth should be fastened to the camera. The Eureka focusing
hood is convenient to use. It is made to fit the camera exactly, and has
little elastic loops which slip over the ears and hold the eyepiece in
place while focusing.
A steady tripod and a stay to keep it from slipping are desirable
additions to the outfit. The camera should be protected as much as
possible from dampness and falling snow.
For best results a non-halation plate is necessary. Backed plates will
give better results than plates unbacked. The reason that the light
effects come out so extremely white and hard in many landscapes is because
the strong light from the snow penetrates the sensitive film and is
reflected into it again from the back of the plate, thus making undue
contrasts, and practically giving double exposure. This is known as
halation.
Other Necessary Precautions.
A corrected plate is essential in snow photography, in order that the
effects of light and shadow may not be too glaringly contrasted. The
isochromatic and orthochromatic plates on the market are corrected, and
are the best to use.
The early morning and the late afternoon are the times best suited for
taking snow pictures. The long shadows give interest and character to what
would otherwise be a meaningless expanse of white. The foreground is often
of the greatest interest in snow pictures. The shadows and gradations on
the surface often form the motif for fine compositions.
Never try to crowd too much on one plate. Much may be done with just a few
bushes projecting above the snow. Newly fallen snow should sometimes be
broken up for pictorial effect; and walking once or twice over the
foreground will also aid matters. In doing this, be careful to notice just
how the tracks should run to give the best lines to your picture.
Three Classes of Snow Pictures.
There are practically three classes of snow pictures, of which each
demands its own appropriate development and treatment.
Class 1--Where an expanse of snow is relieved only by delicate shadows, or
where the picture is taken during a snowstorm, when all objects are
rendered more or less indistinct and of a light tone by intervening
particles of snow. For these, the exposure should be short, the rule being
that short exposures increase contrasts, and in scenes of this
description, contrast is what is needed. On a bright day, 1-100 of a
second would be time enough. Very early in the morning or very late in the
afternoon 1-25 of a second will give ample time.
The development for plates in this class may safely be rather
vigorous--that is, with a normal developer and the plate carried to a
fairly good printing destiny. This method gives character to the high
lights, and a pleasing richness to the slight shadows that are present on
the surface of the snow. A pyro developer is good.
Rodinal is a good developer for contrasts when used in these proportions:
Rodinal, one-quarter ounce; water, five ounces; bromide potash; ten per
cent solution, five drops. The temperature of the developer should be kept
from sixty-five to seventy degrees Fahrenheit.
Class 2--When dark masses are in the foreground, with the middle distance
fairly open, and snow broken up--also, when strong contrasts appear in the
view between the snow and other objects--then a longer exposure is
needed--from one-tenth to a full second, according to the light. Use No. 8
stop.
This class of pictures should be developed in a weak solution. A suitable
metal hydroquinone developer is made as follows: Metal, thirty grains;
hydroquinone, thirty grains; twenty ounces of water. Then add sulphide of
soda (crystals) one ounce, and carbonate of soda (crystals) three-quarter
ounce.
Take two ounces of this, and add four ounces of water when there are no
very heavy masses of dark in the foreground, and eight ounces of water
when there are such masses. Before using, add one drop of ten per cent
solution of potassium bromide to each ounce of the solution.
Class 3 embraces snow pictures with figures, street scenes, skating and
sleighing scenes, etc. Short exposure is required here because of the
motion of the figures. The correction must be made in development.
The development of plates of this kind where there are dark objects and
brightly lighted snow or ice in the view is practically the same as in No.
2.
TIME IN WHICH MONEY WILL DOUBLE AT SEVERAL RATES OF INTEREST.
+------- +--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
|Rate of | Simple | Compound |Rate of | Simple | Compound |
| Int. | Interest. | Interest. | Int. | Interest. | Interest. |
| | | | | | |
+------- +--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
| 1% | 100 years. | 69 years and | 5% | 20 years. | 14 years and |
| | | 245 days. | | | 75 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 2% | 50 years. | 35 years. | 6% | 16 years and | 11 years and |
| | | | | 243 days. | 327 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 2½% | 40 years. | 28 years and | 7% | 14 years and | 10 years and |
| | | 26 days. | | 104 days. | 89 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 3% | 33 years and | 23 years and | 8% | 12 years and | 9 years and |
| | 4 months. | 164 days. | | 183 days. | 2 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 3½% | 28 years and | 20 years and | 9% | 11 years and | 8 years and |
| | 208 days. | 54 days. | | 40 days. | 16 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 4% | 25 years. | 17 years and | 10% | 10 years. | 7 years and |
| | | 246 days. | | | 100 days. |
| | | | | | |
| 4½% | 22 years and | 15 years and | | | |
| | 81 days. | 273 days. | | | |
+--------+--------------+--------------+--------+--------------+--------------+
THE PROGRESS OF WOMEN.
BY LYDIA KINGSMILL COMMANDER.
_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Nothing is more wonderful, in this age of wonders, than the progress of
women in all the civilized countries of the world. Never before were the
doors of opportunity so widely opened; never before were the barriers of
sex so low.
The modern young woman does not face the one choice of her
grandmother--marriage or the fate of the "old maid." Before her so many
paths open that her only trouble is to choose.
Her grandmother's girlhood was spent at home. She was told that "the happy
woman is the woman with no history"; and "a woman's name should be in the
newspapers just three times--when she is born, when she marries, and when
she dies."
This is dead doctrine to the girl who goes whirling across the continent
or around the world, unchaperoned and alone, and returns to meet the
admiration of her friends and the interest of the public.
As she sits on the deck of the incoming steamer, giving opinions on kings
and countries, chatting of the book she is about to write and handing out
her photographs to a group of reporters, she bears slight resemblance to
the fainting Amandas and Clarissas who "raised their weeping eyes to
heaven," or fell swooning every time a mysterious sound was heard or when
even a stray cow crossed their path.
HOW TRAVEL IS MADE TO PAY.
If our traveler is practical and depends upon her own pocketbook instead
of papa's she adopts a specialty and makes her trips pay for themselves.
She may be attached to some paper or magazine; for the blue-stocking is as
fashionable to-day as once she was disgraced. Some women make capital of
their travels in extraordinary ways. One breaks records climbing mountain
peaks at the risk of her life and then lectures to thousands upon the
perils and pleasures of her feats.
Another is with her husband on the Congo searching for traces of ancient
African civilizations for the British Museum. In Mexico and South America
several women archeologists are at work digging out relics of the Aztecs,
Peruvians, and the original tribes of the Amazon River. A recent book on
Egyptian hieroglyphics was partly the work of a woman.
Then there are the women who take parties abroad, arranging for steamers,
trains, boats and hotels; buying tickets; looking after baggage, and
keeping everybody interested, instructed, and satisfied.
Such women--and there are many of them--must know half a dozen languages,
be familiar with the history, customs, and attractions of the countries
visited, be quick in an emergency, full of tact so as to keep the party
harmonious, and clever enough business women to give every one bargain
rates and come out with handsome profits at the end of each trip.
But traveling for business takes other forms. In the United States there
are nearly a thousand feminine commercial travelers, selling ev
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