The devotion of Englishwomen to their families, and particularly to

their children, cannot be surpassed. I believe that they are the best,

the most self-sacrificing daughters, wives, and mothers in the world,

except the good daughters and wives and mothers in "America"; and even

them I believe they generally surpass in submissiveness and thoughtful

consideration. But this is the result of the general subordination which

in all things pervades English society.

It is generally believed in England, I cannot tell why, that women in

"America" take part in public affairs and are much more in the eye of

the world than Englishwomen are. Of this belief I met with an amusing

instance. One day at dinner in a "great house" I had on one side of me a

gentleman who had come in alone for lack of ladies enough to "go round";

it was a small family party. He was the brother of my hostess, a fine,

intelligent fellow about twenty-five years old, who had just taken his

bachelor's degree at Oxford. As I turned from his sister to him, in a

pause of conversation, he asked me with great earnestness, almost with

solemnity, "Is--it--true--that--in--America--the--women-- sit--on--juries?"

I answered instantly, and with perfect gravity, "Yes; all of them who

are not on duty as sergeants of dragoons." For one appreciable

delightful moment doubt and bewilderment flashed through his bright,

handsome eyes, and then he, as well as others within earshot,

appreciated the situation, and there was a hearty laugh and an

ingenuous blush mantled his cheeks--for young men can blush in England.

When I explained that in no part of that strange country "America" with

which I was acquainted did women sit on juries, or take any part in

public affairs, or even vote or go to public meetings, and that nine in

ten of the women that I knew would be puzzled to tell who represented

in Congress the districts in which they lived, who were the Senators

from their States, and possibly who were their Governors, I was

listened to with profound attention; and the surprise of my hearers was

very manifest, and was strongly expressed. It could hardly have been

otherwise; for nothing that I could have said would have brought into

clearer light the fact that women in America are very much less

informed upon public affairs and take very much less interest in them

than is the case with almost all Englishwomen of the cultivated

classes. In England almost all intelligent women of the upper and upper

middle classes take a very lively interest in politics, are tolerably

well informed upon the public questions of the day, and in many cases

they have no inconsiderable influence upon them. The reason of this is

that political life and the social life of the upper classes there are

so thoroughly intermingled. Politics form the chief concern of the

members of those classes; apart, of course, from their own private

affairs. Hardly a woman of that class is without a husband, brother,

kinsman, or friend who is, or who has been, or hopes to be a member of

Parliament, or who is in diplomacy, or connected in some way with

colonial affairs. Politics there are intimately connected with the

great object of woman's life in modern days--social success. It is

difficult for women in England, and even for men, to understand the

entire severance of politics and society which obtains in "America,"

and to believe that a man may be a member of Congress or even a

Senator, and yet be entirely without social position. Politics there

are the most interesting topic of conversation among intelligent and

cultivated people in general society, and such an acquaintance with

political questions and party manoeuvres as is here confined to a very

few women indeed, whose relations to public men are peculiar, and who

"go to Washington," is there very common among all women of superior

position.

Of this I met with a striking illustration on my way from Warwick to

Coventry. As I was about entering the railway carriage, a friend, an

Englishman, who was kindly travelling with me for a day or two, and

"coaching" me, told the porter who had my portmanteau to put it into the

carriage. This, by the way, is permitted there. If there is room, and no

one objects, you may take a huge trunk into a first-class railway

carriage. Indeed, one could hardly be taken into a second-class carriage

for lack of room; and a third-class carriage is hardly larger than that

marvellous institution known to American women--but to no others--as a

Saratoga trunk. I objected to my friend's proposal because there was a

lady in the carriage. She was standing with her back to me as I spoke,

but she immediately turned and said, in a clear, sweet voice, "Oh, yes;

bring it in; never mind me; there's quite room enough." I never saw a

more elegant woman. She was about forty years old, still very handsome,

tall, with a fine lithe figure, and a gentle loftiness of manner which I

might have called aristocratic, had she not reminded me strongly in

every way of an "American" woman whom I had known from my boyhood.

Nothing could have been more simple, frank, and good-natured than the

way in which she made me and my luggage welcome. Her maid, who was

standing by her, and who was herself a very lady-like person, soon left

us to take her place in a second-class carriage, and we three were left

in possession.

The train started with that gentle, unobtrusive motion which is usual on

English railways, and we fell into the chat of fellow travellers. I was

charmed with her. Her voice and her manner of speech would have made the

recitation of the multiplication table agreeable. She had a son at

Oxford, which I had left a few days before, and it proved that we had

common acquaintances there. She showed, with all her superiority of

manner, social and personal--for she was what would have been called in

the last generation a superior woman--that deference to manhood which I

have mentioned before as a trait of Englishwomen. Ere long my companion

mentioned that we had been at Kenilworth that day. She replied, "Oh, I

must go there. I have never been. Why! It is just like Americans to go

to Kenilworth. All the Americans go to Kenilworth, and to Warwick

Castle, and to Stratford." My companion replied that we had been at all

those places. She laughed merrily, and said, "You ought to have been

Americans to do that." My friend then told her that I was an "American."

She turned upon me almost with a stare, and after a moment of silence

spoke to me again, but with a perceptible and very remarkable change of

manner. It was very slight--of a delicate fineness. Her courtesy was not

in the least diminished, nor her frankness; but the perfectly

unconscious and careless expression of her face was impaired, and her

attention to me was a little more pronounced than it had been before.

She inquired if I had been pleased with my visit to Kenilworth, and told

me that a novel had been written about it by Sir Walter Scott. "But

perhaps you have read it," she added. "Have you met with it?" I

answered, "I have heard of it"; and my inward satisfaction was great

when I saw that I had done so with a face so unmoved that she replied

with a gracious instructiveness of manner, "Oh, you should have read it

before you went to Kenilworth; it would so have increased your pleasure.

But the next best thing for you is to read it now." I thanked her, and

said that I should like to do so. I think that she would have gone on to

recommend a perusal of the works of William Shakespeare to me in

connection with my visit to Stratford on Avon, although she looked at me

in a puzzled way once or twice. But my companion, although I saw he was

amused at something in her talk, marred whatever hopes I had of further

instruction by breaking in with some remark upon the politics of

Warwickshire. She rose to his fly like a trout on a hazy day, and in a

minute or two she had forgotten my existence in her discussion with him

of a topic which plainly was to her of far more interest than all the

Scotts that could have dwelt in Kenilworth, and all the Shakespeares

that could have stood in Stratford. He was a Birmingham magnate, and

knew everything that was going on in the country; but she was his equal

in information, and it seemed to me his superior in political craft. To

every suggestion of his she made some reply that showed that the

question was not new to her. She knew all the ins and outs of the

politics of the county: who could be expected to support this measure,

who was sure to oppose that. She knew all about the manufacturing

interests of Birmingham: who had retired from active management; who was

coming in; what money had been taken out of this establishment, what

changes had taken place in the other, and had an opinion as to what

effect this was going to have upon Parliament. I never heard the

beginning of such political talk from a woman in America, even from one

whose husband was in politics. The train stopped; her maid appeared, and

she bade us courteously good-by, with the puzzled look in her eye as it

rested upon the fellow passenger to whom she had recommended the perusal

of "Kenilworth"; and then my companion told me, what indeed I had been

sure of all along, that she was a member of the governing class.

A few days before, I had observed in Oxford, where a local election was

impending, small posters addressed to "The Burgesses," and these

invariably began "_Ladies_ and Gentlemen," a form of "campaign

document" as foreign to us as it would be to peoples subject to the

Salique law--than which worse laws have long prevailed in many

countries.

Not only in politics but in business women appear much more prominently

than they do in "America." If they do not keep hotels, which they

sometimes do, they manage them, whether they are great or small. The

place which in "America" is filled by that exquisite, awful, and

imperturbable being, the hotel clerk, is filled invariably in England by

a woman--so at least I always found it, and I found the change a very

happy one. To be met by the cheery, pleasant faces of these bright,

well-mannered women, to be spoken to as if you were a human being whom,

in consideration of what you are to pay, it was a pleasure to make as

comfortable as possible, instead of being treated with lofty

condescension, or at best with serene indifference, was a pleasant

sensation. And these women did their work so quietly and cheerfully, and

yet in such a businesslike way, that it was a constant pleasure to come

into contact with them. Dressed in black serge or alpaca, they affected

no flirting airs, and directed or obeyed promptly and quietly. And yet

their womanhood constantly appeared in their manner and in their

thoughtfulness for the comfort of those who were in their care. They

always had a pleasant word or a smile in answer to a passing remark,

were always ready to answer any question or give any information, and

were pleased at any acknowledgment of satisfaction. Naturally it was so;

for they were women; and they were chosen, it seemed to me, for their

pleasant ways as well as for their efficiency. From not one of them,

from one end of England to the other, in great cities or in quiet

country towns and villages, did I receive one surly word or look, or

anything but the kindest and promptest attention. I can say the same of

the shop women, who waited upon customers not as if they were

consciously condescending in the performing of such duties, but

cheerfully and pleasantly, and with a show of interest that a purchaser

should be satisfied. Their dress was almost invariably the same black

unornamented serge or alpaca, which, by the way, is the commonest street

dress of all women of their condition. In the telegraph offices the

clerks are generally women; and indeed, women seem to do everything

except plough, drive omnibuses and railway engines, and be soldiers and

policemen. They keep turnpikes, where turnpikes still exist; and in

Sussex I saw a woman's name with her husband's upon the pike-house.

Indeed, it seemed to me that in all public affairs, from politics down

to turnpike keeping, women were very much more engaged and before the

world in England than in America, although I saw no jury-women or she

sergeants.

As to the manners of Englishwomen, they are, like the manners of other

women, good, bad, and indifferent. And chiefly they are indifferent;

being in this particular also like others, especially of the Teutonic

races; which races, my readers may like to be reminded, are the Deutsch

(which we call German), the Hollanders, the Anglo-Saxon (or better, the

English), and the Scandinavians (Swedes, Norsemen, Danes, and

Icelanders). The average manners of these peoples, even of the women

among them, are on the whole truly indifferent. They are not coarse, but

as surely they are not polished. Manner, however, is a very different

thing from manners; and in manner Englishwomen, from the highest class

to the lowest, are all more or less charming--strong-minded women and

lodging-house keepers being of course excepted. This charm, like all

traits and effects of manner, is not easy to describe; but it left upon

me at this time, as it had left before, an impression of its being the

outcoming of an intense consciousness of womanhood, and with this a

feeling of modest but very firm self-respect. The most intelligent

Englishwoman, even in her most exalted moments, never seems to resolve

herself into a bare intelligence. Her mind is always clad in woman's

flesh; and her body thinks. Thus conscious of her own womanhood, she

keeps you conscious of it, not merely by the facts that her hair is

long, her face beardless, and that her body (in the evening the lower

part of it at least) is covered with voluminous and marvellous

apparel--in a word, not merely by outer show.

All this is but the outward sign; and it might exist--as it so often

does, I shall not say where--in women, without the least of that grace,

not of movement or of speech, or even of thought, but of moral

condition, which is to me the chiefest charm in woman. How often have I

sat by one of such women talking--no, talked at (for it reduces me to

silence)--in such a splendid and overwhelming manner, and with such a

superior consciousness of intellectuality, that I could not but think

that except for the silk and the lace, and the lack of moustaches, and

the evident expectation of a compliment, I might as well have been

talking with a man (only a man would have said more with less fuss), and

that I longed for the companionship of some pretty, well-bred ignoramus,

whose head was full only of common sense, and whose soul as well as

whose body was of the female sex. England is not without women of the

other kind, I suppose, but they are so rare that I met with none; while

all the women that I did meet had the soft, sweet charm given by the

contented consciousness of their womanhood. Womanhood looks out from an

Englishwoman's eyes; it speaks in every inflection of her voice. No

matter how clever she may be, how well informed, she never utters mind

pure and simple; she never lays a bare statement of thought or of fact

before you. She is too modest. A piece of her mind she does, indeed,

sometimes give you. But then, be sure, she is, of all times, the most

thoroughly womanlike and absolved from intellectuality; being, however,

thus in her excitement not peculiar among her sex. At all other times

she leaves an impression of gentleness, and a lack of intellectual

robustness; and, if you are a man at least, she, without any seeming

intention of so doing, keeps you constantly in mind that she is trusting

to you--to your strength, your ability, your position--to ensure that

she shall be treated with respect and tenderness, and taken care of; and

that therefore she owes you deference, and that it becomes her to be not

only as charming but as serviceable as possible. Even in the hardest

women there is a remnant at least of this. An Englishwoman shall be a

sort of she-bagman, a traveller for manufacturers, and in the habit of

riding second or even third class alone, from one end of England to the

other (and I talked with such women), and she shall yet show you this

gentle, womanly consciousness. A woman's eye there never looks straight

and steady into yours, saying, "I am quite able to take care of my own

person, and interests, and reputation. Don't trouble yourself about me

in those respects. Meantime, sir, I am taking your measure." There is

always a mute appeal from her womanhood to your manhood. This charm

belongs to the Englishwoman of all ranks, and beautifies everything that

she does, even if she does it awkwardly, which is not always. She shows

it if she is a great lady and welcomes you, or if she is a housemaid and

serves you. Not actually every Englishwoman is thus of course; for there

are hard, and proud, and cruel, and debased women there, as there are

elsewhere. But, apart from these exceptions, this is the manner of

Englishwomen; and, in so far as a man may judge, this manner, or the

counterpart of it, does not forsake them when they are among themselves.

This soft charm of the Englishwoman's manner is greatly helped and

heightened by her voice and her manner of speaking. In these she is not

only without an equal, but beyond comparison with the women of any other

people, except the few of her own blood and tongue in this country, who

have like voices and the same utterance. The voices and the speech of

Englishwomen of all classes are, with few exceptions, pleasant to the

ear--soft and clear; their words are well articulated, but not precisely

pronounced. They speak without much emphasis, yet not monotonously, but

with gentle modulation. Their speech is therefore very easily

understood--much more so than that of persons who speak louder and with

stronger emphasis. You rarely or never are obliged to ask an

Englishwoman to repeat what she has said because you have failed to

catch her words. This soft, yet crisp and clear and easily flowing

speech, is, as I have said, common to the whole sex there.

I remember that in one of my prowlings about London I found myself in a

little, dingy court that opened off Thames street--a low, water-side

street that runs under London Bridge. It was Sunday morning, and I had

come down from Charing Cross in one of the little Thames steamers, to

attend service at St. Paul's, and had half an hour to spare. The street

was almost deserted, and so quiet that my footsteps echoed from the

walls of the dull and smoke-browned houses. In this court I found two

women talking. One was Sairey Gamp. I am sure it was Sairey. The leer

upon her heavy face could not be mistaken, and she had grown even a

little stouter than when I was so happy as to make her acquaintance

years ago. The other was probably Betsey Prig; she was a mere wisp of a

woman; or, indeed, she may have been Mrs. Harris herself--her

shadow-like figure being the next thing in woman form to nonentity. As I

passed these two humble people, I was struck by the tone and manner of

their speech as they talked earnestly together. Their words and their

pronunciation were vulgar enough; but, as a whole, the speech of both

was rich and musical. The whole of that otherwise silent court was

filled with the soft murmur of their voices. I had no business there,

but I pretended to have, and went from dingy door to dingy door,

lingering and loitering all round the court, that I might listen. They

did not stare at me any more than I did at them--plainly, they would not

have thought of such rudeness--but they went on with their talk,

speaking their language and mine with tones and inflections that I never

heard from two women of like position in "America."

I was reminded of this afterward when one morning, at a great house, a

country seat, I lingered with my hostess at the breakfast table after

all the rest of the family had risen. She touched a bell, and a maid, an

upper servant, answered the summons. No servants, by the way, wait at

breakfast there, even in great houses. After you are once started, and

the tea is made, you are left alone, to wait upon yourselves--a fashion

full of comfort, making breakfast the most sociable meal of the day.

When the maid appeared the lady spoke at once, and the servant stopped

at the door and replied, and there was a little dialogue about some

household matter. The young woman's answers were little more than, "Yes,

my Lady," and, "No, my Lady," but I was charmed by them--more so than I

have ever been by a lecture or a recitation from the lips of one of the

sex. She spoke in a subdued tone; but every syllable was distinct,

although she was at the further end of a large dining-room. Her

mistress's voice was no less clear and sweet and charming, and as they

talked, in their low, even tones, with perfect ease and understanding at

this distance, the whole of the great room resounded sweetly with this

spoken music. When English is spoken in this way by a woman of superior

breeding and intelligence there is, of course, an added charm, and it is

then the most delightful speech that I ever heard, or can imagine.

Compared with it, German becomes hideous and ridiculous, French mean and

snappish, Spanish too weak and open-mouthed, and even Italian, noble and

sweet as it is, seems to lack a certain firmness and crispness, and to

be without a homely charm that it may not lack to those whose mother

tongue is bastard Latin.

One reason of this beauty of the speech of Englishwomen is doubtless in

the voice itself. An Englishwoman's voice is soft, but it is not weak.

It is notably firm, clear, and vibrating. It is neither guttural nor

nasal. While it soothes the ear, it compels attention. Like the tone of

a fine old Cremona violin, its softest vibrations make themselves heard

and understood when mere noise makes only confusion. Such voices are not

entirely lacking among women in "America"; but, alas! how few of the

fortunate possessors of such voices here use them worthily! For the

other element of the beauty of the Englishwoman's speech is in her

utterance. "Her voice is ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing

in woman." Shakespeare knew the truth in this, as in so many other

things. One of the very few points on which we may be sure of his

personal preferences is that he disliked high voices and sharp speech in

women. Singular man! I fear that his ears would suffer here. The

Englishwoman's voice is strong as well as sweet, but her speech is low.

She rarely raises her voice. I do not remember having ever heard an

Englishwoman try to compel attention in that way; but I have heard

French and Spanish and Italian women, ladies of unquestionable position

and breeding, almost scream, and that, too, in society. Nor does the

Englishwoman use much emphasis. Her manner of speech is calm, although

without any suggestion of dignity, and her inflections, which rise

often, although they are full of meaning, are gentle. I remarked this

difference in her speech of itself, but much more when I heard again the

speech of my own countrywomen. I had not been in their company five

minutes--not one--when I was pierced through from ear to ear. They

seemed to me to be talking in italics, to be emphasizing every word, as

if they would thrust it into my ears, whether I would or not. They

seemed to scream at me. They did scream. I am sure that to their

emphatic and almost fierce utterance is due, in a very great measure,

the inferior charm of their speech, when compared with that of their

sisters who have remained in the "old home." If they would be a little

more gentle, a little less self-asserting, a little less determined, and

a little more persuasive in their utterance as well as in their manner,

I am sure that, with all their other advantages, they need fear no

rivalry in womanly charm, even with the truly feminine, sensible,

soft-mannered, sweet-voiced women of England.

RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

LIFE INSURANCE.

The most certain, and at the same time the most uncertain of events, is

the period of the termination of human life. This is a seeming paradox;

nay, it is more than seeming. The time when any member of the human

family will shuffle off this mortal coil no science can forecast, no art

discover; but the successive numbers out of any thousand men of given

ages who will, year after year, die, has been ascertained by actual

count in so many instances and verified by experience for so long a

time, that it is safe to say that no law in nature is better established

by proof. Given these elements, how easy to erect the fabric of life

insurance--how easy to spread among the many the misfortunes of the

individuals who die untimely deaths, their numbers being known

beforehand.

Upon this paradox life insurance rests. It is at once one of the most

simple and one of the most beneficent methods ever invented for

alleviating the evils necessarily incident to our complex civilization.

For a trifling sum, a man may make provision for his family against

untimely death, and thus gain the quiet of soul and peace of mind

necessary for the pursuit of his avocation.

But I do not mean to sing a pæan to life insurance. It may be safely

said that the subject is not new, or the field uncultivated. On the

contrary, the topic has been said and sung in prose and verse for so

long that it ceases to attract for novelty's sake; while we have all

heard the ubiquitous agent sound its praises in our ears, until it

appeared to our excited imagination as if there were no need of any

further want, or care, or trouble in the world, and that life insurance

was, or was about to be, or at least

Might be the be-all and the end-all here.

The object of the present writer is to suggest the spots upon the sun,

to point out the fallacies, the faults, and the frauds which have been

allowed to grow up around the system, and to make some suggestions for

the cure of the evils and their prevention.

To begin with, the frauds in life insurance date from the period when

companies were started for the purpose of making money, and with the

appearance of being philanthropical institutions. Savings banks have

gone through the same experience, and it is a sad one. Men who attempt

to lead the public to believe that they are engaged in an enterprise

based, not upon the selfish principle of profit, but upon the unselfish

principle of doing good, and who then deliberately go to work to fill

their own coffers by means of the business, are, to say the least,

obtaining their money by false pretences.

The capital of the Continental Life Insurance Company was $100,000, and

although, by the original charter, the stock-holders were entitled to

share with the policy-holders in the profits of the business, yet some

years ago an arrangement was made, upon the transfer of the risks of

another company to the Continental, that only seven per cent. should be

paid to stock-holders. Ever since the yearly statement to the State

authorities set forth under oath that only seven per cent. had been paid

to stock-holders, all the rest of the profits being presumably divided

among the policy-holders. But now, when the light is let in upon this

company, it appears that it always paid its stock-holders eighteen to

twenty-eight per cent., and that while, of late years, only seven per

cent. was charged on the books, yet the money was paid just the same.

Then, too, lest the policy-holders should get too much profits to be

divided among them, princely salaries were paid to the officers and

agents, and upon these salaries annuities were predicated, which were

also commuted, capitalized, and surrendered to the company each year. I

hardly know how to characterize this scheme. It came out in the evidence

of an officer, who said he had $2,000 per annum, with an annuity of five

per cent. That sounds quite simple, and persons not fully informed on

the subject of life insurance would hesitate to expose their ignorance

by asking questions. The annuity turns out to be $100 per annum for

life, which at the time it is granted the company capitalized and

purchased back, paying about $1,000 therefor. But next year there is

another annuity for life granted, of the same amount, which is again

purchased, and so on continually. The effect is to add to the officers'

salaries, yearly, about fifty per cent., and at the same time conceal it

from the public, the State department, and the policy-holders. The

president's $17,500 thus became over $26,000, without attracting

attention. Besides, it helps demonstrate the scientific principles upon

which life insurance and life annuities are based, and by practically

illustrating to the managers themselves the potency of algebraic formula

in figuring large sums out of small, convinced them of the truth of the

arguments which they are to make to the agents, and the agents to the

public, by which the money is to be brought in to keep this fine system

going.

You will say that this is only one case, and that it is an exception,

and that companies honestly managed will not permit such things. I grant

you the latter part of your answer, but ask you to show me an honestly

managed company; I know but very few. It will be found, on

investigation, that these practices, or others quite as bad, flourish in

every company, in this State at least, with few exceptions.

Commuted commissions is another item under the thin disguise of which

the policy-holders are robbed, but I defer the consideration of that

topic for that of changing policies, to which more pressing interest

attaches.

When a life policy has run for a certain number of years, and the

company has received upon the policy a large number of premiums, it is

obliged, both by prudential reasons and by law, to hold against the

liability upon it a certain sum of money. This sum is called the

reserve. It is also called the reinsurance fund. It is in fact the sum

which the company has been improving at compound interest against the

day when the policy must be paid. If for any reason the policy

lapses--say for non-payment of premium--this sum becomes the property of

the company. No policy-holder knows what the reserve on his policy is,

and the company will not tell him. It is one of those interesting facts

which you are not expected to ask questions about. It requires a

complicated calculation to arrive at it. The officers tell you so. The

fact is that every company has a book of tables which will tell you the

reserve at any moment, and the policy register should show the reserve

returned to the department the previous January. It will be seen that if

the company can induce the policy-holder to sell his policy to them for

a sum less than the reserve, it makes the difference in profit. This is

what is known as freezing out. This is open, notorious, bold robbery.

But there is a secret method which accomplishes the same result. This is

known as changing. If the company is not ready to incur the odium of

attempting to purchase its policies, it sends accomplished agents to

persuade its policy-holders that some new form of policy is more

desirable than the old. Hence the numerous plans of insurance. In the

change, it is safe to say that the reserve on the old policy is pretty

well used up, and out of it the agent takes a slice, and a pretty good

slice, and who takes the rest of it is no mystery. Every policy-holder

in a life insurance company who is asked to surrender his policy and

take money for it, or another policy, may rest assured that there is a

fraud at the bottom of the transaction, and that whoever will make money

by it, he will not. In the reinsurance of companies, and the consequent

changes of policies from one company to another, this has been the

method by which the promoters of the scheme have realized large amounts

of money.

Leaving the fertile subject of changing policies, and the frauds of

which that operation has been made the vehicle, let me examine the

subject of supervision by the State over the companies, and the effect

which such supervision has had upon the business. Of course the theory

of a State department is that of supervision. It is based upon the power

of visitation, as exercised by the founders of hospitals and colleges,

for the purpose of seeing that the corporation is carrying out the will

of the founder. Here the State, having conferred a corporate franchise,

has the right to see that the franchise is properly exercised. To that

end an officer is appointed, to whom each corporation is to make annual,

detailed reports of its operations, and who is vested with the power of

examining the companies, to ascertain if their reports be correct, and

if the laws have been complied with. There is no doubt but that if the

power were properly exercised, the action of the Superintendent of

Insurance would have a beneficial effect. The great difficulty in

carrying out the supervision effectively has been, however, the

imperfect character of the legislation on the subject. The laws fix an

arbitrary standard of solvency, which binds the Superintendent hand and

foot.

Insurance experts differ very widely as to the correctness of this

standard. It obliges the companies to have on hand invested a sum of

money, being a certain arithmetical proportion to the amount of

outstanding insurance. A company may not have this amount and yet be

solvent, and have before it a long and prosperous career of usefulness.

Another company may have the technical amount of assets and yet be

rotten to the core. It is said that the very largest and best managed

companies have passed through periods when if this criterion were to

have been applied to their condition, they would have been weighed and

found wanting. The mere amount of assets at any given time cannot be a

positive test of the condition of the business. The expense of doing

business in one company may be small, and all of it taken out of the

premium for the first year, in which case the technical reserve at the

end of the year may be very much impaired; yet the company may be in a

most promising and flourishing condition, with a good business on its

books, and a large future income secure without further cost. On the

other hand, a company may have the full technical reserve and yet have

acquired its business at ruinous application, out of its future

premiums, of large commissions. With laws so imperfect, with no

provision for examining the commercial condition of a company, it is not

strange that State supervision should gradually fade into an empty form.

It is true the department has been for some years kept in full apparent

efficiency. There has been a respectable head, and a very full body of

clerks duly appointed at the suggestion of members of the Senate. These

clerks have been agreeably employed in receiving, folding, and filing

the reports of the various companies; in receiving applications for

licenses from agents of foreign companies; in issuing such licenses; in

furnishing printed copies of the charters of companies to all who apply

for the same, and also copies of the reports of the companies. These

duties are supplemented by that of collecting the fees for the various

services, and by the composition of answers to letters of policy-holders

of the most Delphic character. The head of the department, I suppose, is

meantime fully employed in digesting the statements of the companies and

preparing his annual report of their condition, to be presented to the

Legislature, and afterward printed and bound in gilt covers, for

distribution among his constituents. These reports are quite pleasant

reading. You will find year after year faint and delicate suggestions as

to amendatory laws, opinions that there is doubt of the legality of

amalgamations, and other twaddle. Not a word, however, denunciatory of

the frauds being perpetrated under the very nose of the department, and

which every man in the State can see quite plainly but himself. Of the

epistolary productions of the Superintendent, it is hard to speak. If

language be given to conceal thought, how well it is used by the

Department of Insurance. Complaints, charges, requests to examine--all

are met so politely, so evasively, that while you feel you are being put

off, and that your request will not be granted, you know not why you are

refused.

Thus the Department of Insurance ran its natural course. It became a

storehouse of heaps of meaningless figures. The companies soon found

that their mistakes were not corrected, and it became convenient to make

mistakes. Gradually false statements grew out of exaggerated ones. Cash

in bank would continue to represent money which had been lost by a bank

failure. In one sense it was cash in bank--cash that would never again

come out. Then money in the hands of agents is an item which could rise

and sink with great facility. In some companies it grew to such

proportions as to warrant the suspicion that pretty soon all the money

of the company would be in the hands of agents, and very bad hands to be

in they have generally proven, have these agents' hands. The books of

the Continental Company show about a million of dollars in the hands of

those gentlemen, with very little chance of any considerable portion of

it ever getting into the hands of the receiver.

And the worst of this condition of affairs with respect to the Insurance

Department is that it is a delusion and a snare. If there were no

supervision, people would exercise their judgment themselves,

uninfluenced by annual reports and all the apparently officially

recognized, columnar, battalions of carefully disposed statistics. Then

instead of producing certificates with the departmental seal

authenticating solvency, the life insurance solicitor would be forced to

prove his company entitled to credit by other and more convincing

arguments. Naturally enough, the plain people suppose that when the

State undertakes to regulate the business, it will do the work which it

undertakes well and honestly. It has in fact done neither. While saying

to the country, our companies are under strict supervision; they are

obliged to make annual reports; and if there is any item in that report

which leads the Superintendent to believe the company should be

examined, it is immediately done, and we permit no company to continue

in business unless it has assets enough to reinsure all its outstanding

contracts. That is what in effect the State of New York says. How far

otherwise are its actual doings let the history of the Continental and

the Security answer. The receiver of the first named says it has been

insolvent for five or six years, and insurance people gravely suspected

that for some time. As to the Security, any boy in a life company will

tell you that its absolute insolvency has been well known for at least

two years to all persons having any knowledge of the business at all,

who have read their annual reports. Nevertheless the department did not

interfere. The Continental let it be understood in California that they

were insolvent, so that they could buy in their contracts at a low

price. At home they keep up the appearance of solvency, go through the

solemn farce of making out reports and filing them in the department,

showing a surplus of nearly a million, when in fact there was a

deficiency of two millions.

What an efficient department! What a splendid system! How careful of the

interests of the public! What a fatherly State to its expectant widows

and orphans!

Just here is the vice of the whole system. Relying on the care of the

State officers, the policy-holder takes out his policy and continues his

payments year after year. Relying on a broken reed!

Can it be conceived possible that the real owners of two hundred

millions of dollars would abandon to directors the entire charge of

their interests and the interests of those dear to them, unless they

were inspired by faith in that governmental supervision which they were

led to believe would be effectual to protect their interests, and to

make safe the provision which they had made, not for themselves, but for

those helpless ones whom it is the duty of the State to care for, and

the boast of our system of jurisprudence that it protects with jealous

care?

The result of all this faithlessness is seen in the present condition of

life insurance affairs. Is the remedy to be found in legislation, in new

attempts to make supervision on the part of the State more than a name,

or in the abandonment of the whole scheme of supervision and in leaving

the business to be carried on without any State control or supervision?

This is really the momentous question of the hour, and one that cannot

be too thoroughly discussed or too carefully considered.

In its consideration the status of a policy-holder in a life insurance

company must be taken into consideration. To thoroughly understand what

that status is, it is necessary to examine carefully the contract on

which it rests. Each policy in a life insurance company provides for a

life-long engagement on the part of the assured. He is to continue to

pay premiums as long as he lives, if he does not anticipate them by a

single payment, or by several payments. On its part the company agrees

to pay to the assured, or rather to his nominee at the death of the

assured, a certain sum. In addition, however, to this simple contract,

the policy-holder is entitled to a share in the profits of the company.

That share is greater or less as the case may be, as the organization of

the company provides. The policy-holder is thus in a certain sense a

partner in the business. He has an expectation of profits, either in the

shape of reduced premiums, increased insurance, or actual money. The

contract is not one of indemnity merely. It is a contract to pay at

death a fixed sum, in consideration of the payment during life of

certain sums known as premiums. It is an arrangement by means of which

the pecuniary hardships incident to premature death are borne by a great

number of persons instead of the family of the person who dies before

his expectation of life has been reached. It is apparent from this

contract that the company which issues it must in the nature of things

have the custody and management of large sums of money. It is

contemplated by the parties that accumulations in the hands of the

company must exist, and it is an incident of the contract that the

officers of the company shall have the management of that fund. Is the

fund a trust to be held by the company for the benefit of the

policy-holders? If it be, then the courts of equity have complete and

entire jurisdiction, and to them it should be left. They are competent

to enforce the proper execution of other trusts, and presumably of this.

Give perfect freedom of individual action to each policy-holder, take

off the leading-strings of State supervision, and leave the parties to a

life insurance contract where the parties to other contracts are left,

to themselves and the courts.

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES.

CONCERNING SOME IRREGULARITIES IN IT.

It is a somewhat singular fact that although the United States assumed

all the rights, powers, and dignities of a nation on the Fourth of

July, 1776, no great seal was adopted until about five months before

the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain in

1782. This is the more remarkable when we consider that our forefathers

were brought up under the shadow of the English law, which prescribed

that no grant nor charter was _factum_ until it was sealed, and of

English custom, which taught that even the sign manual of the sovereign

must be authenticated by an impression from the privy seal.

But the inception of our government was attended with other

informalities than the neglect to provide a seal. Silas Deane, our first

political agent to France, wrote from Paris to the secret committee of

Congress, under date of November 28, 1776, acknowledging the receipt of

the committee's letter of August 7, enclosing a copy of another letter

of July 8, the original of which never came to hand, and also a copy of

the Declaration of Independence, which, he complains, had been

circulated in Europe two months before. This last letter conveyed what

was intended to be the official notification to the court of France of

the act of separation of the colonies, but was so unofficial in form

that Mr. Deane was prompted to say in answer that he would have supposed

that "some mode more formal, or, if I may say, respectful, would have

been made use of, than simply two or three lines from the committee of

Congress.... I mention this as something deserving of serious

consideration, whether in your applications here and your powers and

instructions of a public nature, it is not always proper to use a seal?

This is a very ancient custom in all public and even private concerns of

any consequence."

But although Congress neglected to provide a seal, it was not because it

had not anticipated the need of one, for this record appears in its

journal, under date of Thursday, July 4, 1776:

_Resolved_, That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson be a

committee to prepare a device for a seal for the United States of

America.

We obtain an insight of the acts of this committee in a letter from John

Adams to his wife, under date of Philadelphia, August 14, 1776.

After discussing matters irrelevant to the question at issue, he says:

I am put upon a committee to prepare ... devices for a great seal

for the confederated States. There is a gentleman here of French

extraction, whose name is _Du Simitière_, a painter by profession,

whose designs are very ingenious, and his drawings well executed.

He has been applied to for his advice. I waited on him yesterday,

and saw his sketches.... For the seal, he proposes the arms of the

several nations from whence _America_ has been peopled, as

_English_, _Scotch_, _Irish_, _Dutch_, _German_, etc., each in a

shield. On one side of them, Liberty with her pileus; on the other,

a Rifler in his uniform, with his rifle-gun in one hand, and his

tomahawk in the other: this dress, and these troops, with this kind

of armour, being peculiar to _America_, unless the dress was known

to the Romans. Dr. Franklin showed me a book containing an account

of the dresses of all the _Roman_ soldiers, one of which appeared

exactly like it.... Doctor Franklin proposes a device for a seal:

Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the _Red Sea_, and

_Pharaoh_ in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters. This motto,

"Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God."

Mr. Jefferson proposed the children of _Israel_ in the wilderness,

led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night; and on the

other side _Hengist_ and _Horsa_, the _Saxon_ chiefs from whom we

claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles

and form of government we have assumed.

I proposed the choice of _Hercules_, as engraved by _Gribelin_, in

some editions of Lord _Shaftesbury's_ works. The hero resting on

his club; _Virtue_ pointing to her rugged mountain on one hand and

persuading him to ascend; _Sloth_, glancing at her flowery paths of

pleasure, wantonly reclining on the ground, displaying the charms

both of her eloquence and person, to seduce him into vice. But this

is too complicated a group for a seal or medal, and it is not

original.

On August 20 the committee reported to Congress as follows:

The great seal should on one side have the arms of the United States

of America, which arms should be as follows:

The shield has six quarters, parts one coupe two. The first or, a

rose, enamelled gules and argent for England; the second argent, a

thistle proper for Scotland; the third vert, a harp or, for Ireland;

the fourth azure, a flower de luce, for France; the fifth or, the

imperial eagle, sable, for Germany, and the sixth or, the Belgic

lion, gules, for Holland; pointing out the countries from which the

States have been peopled. The shield within a border, gules,

entwined of thirteen escutcheons, argent, linked together by a chain

or, each charged with initial sable letters as follows: 1st. N.H.;

2d, Mass.; 3d, R.I.; 4th, Conn.; 5th, N.Y.; 6th, N.J.; 7th, Penn.;

8th, Del.; 9th, Md.; 10th, Va.; 11th, N.C; 12th, S.C; 13th, Geo.;

for each of the thirteen independent States of America.

Supporters, _dexter_ the Goddess of Liberty, in a corselet of

armour, alluding to the present times; holding in her right hand

the spear and cap, and with her left supporting the shield of the

States; _sinister_, the Goddess of Justice, bearing a sword in her

right hand, and in her left a balance.

Crest. The eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, whose glory

extends over the shield and beyond the figures. Motto, _E Pluribus

Unum_.

Legend round the whole achievement: Seal of the United States of

America, MDCCLXXVI.

On the other side of the said great seal should be the following

device:

Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head, and a sword

in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in

pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud,

expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who

stands on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, causes it

to overthrow Pharaoh.

Motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God."

Mr. Adams's letter fortunately gives us the key to this elaborate

blazon, else we might have been left for ever in the dark in regard to

its authorship. In the general achievement we easily recognize the hand

of the "gentleman of French extraction," M. du Simitière, who perhaps

was induced to adopt the Goddess of Justice, with her sword and balance,

in lieu of his "Rifler with his rifle-gun," in deference to Mr. Adams's

taste for allegory. Dr. Franklin's happy if not original design,

illustrative of the preservation of the children of Israel from the maw

of Pharoah and the Red sea, with a squint also at the deliverance of the

colonies from George III. and the billows of tyranny, though sent to the

rear, was adopted in whole, as well as his motto. The pillar of fire in

the cloud was doubtless taken from the design of Mr. Jefferson, who

perhaps had to be propitiated because his children of Israel were

discarded in favor of Dr. Franklin's. It needed but the addition of his

Hengist and Horsa, and of Mr. Adams's irresolute Hercules between Vice

and Virtue, to make a great seal such as the world had never looked

upon.

We, who look back through the gloze of a hundred years and are

accustomed to regard this trio of patriots as men with whom the

degenerate legislators of the present have little in common, may well

express astonishment that their work did not meet with immediate

approval. But history is a stern mistress, and we cannot efface the

record. The journal of Congress shows that the report of the committee

was ordered "to lie on the table," and we hear no more of it for three

long and momentous years.

On March 25, 1779, it was ordered that the report of the committee on

the device of a great seal for the United States, in Congress assembled,

be referred to another committee. On May 10 this committee reported as

follows:

The seal to be four inches in diameter, on one side the arms of the

United States, as follows: the shield charged in the field with

thirteen diagonal stripes alternately red and white.

Supporters, _dexter_, a warrior holding a sword: _sinister_, a

figure representing Peace bearing an olive branch.

The Crest, a radiant constellation of thirteen stars.

The motto, _Bello vel Pace_.

The legend round the achievement, "Seal of the United States."

On the Reverse the figure of Liberty, seated in a chair, holding the

staff and cap.

The Motto, "Semper," underneath MDCCLXXVI.

This report was taken into consideration on May 17, and after debate

ordered to be recommitted. The result was another report:

The seal to be three inches in diameter, on one side the arms of the

United States, as follows: the shield charged in the field azure,

with thirteen diagonal stripes, alternate rouge and argent.

Supporters, _dexter_, a warrior holding a sword; _sinister_, a

figure representing Peace, bearing the olive branch.

The Crest, a radiant constellation, of thirteen stars.

The motto, _Bello vel Pace_.

The legend round the achievement, "The Great Seal of the United

States."

On the Reverse, _Virtute Perennis_, underneath MDCCLXXVII.

A miniature of the face of the great seal and half its diameter to

be prepared and affixed as the less seal of the United States.

But our critical forefathers were still dissatisfied, and exhibited no

more disposition to adopt the false heraldry of the committee of 1779

than the allegorical and Biblical monstrosity of that of 1776. Three

years more of incubation were needed to hatch the "bird o' freedom," and

it is not until 1782 that we hear of a further movement. On June 13 of

that year, William Barton of Philadelphia proposed the following for the

arms of the United States:

Arms, Paleways of thirteen pieces argent and gules; a chief azure,

the escutcheon placed on the breast of the American (the

bald-headed) eagle, displayed proper; holding in his beak a scroll

inscribed with the motto, viz., _E Pluribus Unum_, and in his

dexter talon a palm or olive branch, in the other a bundle of

thirteen arrows, all proper.

For the Crest, over the head of the eagle, which appears above the

escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and

surrounding thirteen stars forming a constellation, argent on an

azure field.

In the exergue of the great seal, "Jul. IV. MDCCLXXVI."

In the margin of the same, "Sigil Mag. Repub. Confed. Americ."

Mr. Barton proposed also a second device, which needs no notice, as it

did not meet with approval.

On the same day, the committee of Congress, then composed of Messrs.

Middleton (S. C), Boudinot (Penn.), and Rutledge (S. C), reported a

modification of Mr. Barton's device. The reports of the several

committees were then referred to the Secretary of Congress, and on June

20, 1782, the Secretary reported the following device for an armorial

achievement and reverse of the great seal of the United States, which

was formally adopted:

Arms. Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules, a chief, azure;

the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayed proper,

holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and in his sinister a

bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll

inscribed with this motto, _E Pluribus Unum_.

For the Crest. Over the head of the eagle, which appears above the

escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and

surrounding thirteen stars forming a constellation, argent, on an

azure field.

Reverse. A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a triangle,

surrounded with a glory, proper. Over the eye these words, _Annuit

Coeptis_. On the base of the pyramid the numerical letters

MDCCLXXVI. And underneath the following motto, _Novus Ordo

Seclorum_.

The interpretation of these devices is as follows: The escutcheon is

composed of the chief and pale, the two most honorable ordinaries.

The pieces pale represent the several States, all joined in one

solid, compact, and entire, supporting a chief which unites the

whole and represents Congress. The pales in the arms are kept

closely united by the chief, and the chief depends on that union and

the strength resulting from it, for its support, to denote the

confederacy of the United States of America, and the preservation of

their union through Congress.

The colors of the pales are those used in the flag of the United

States of America; white signifies purity and innocence; red,

hardiness and valor; and blue, the color of the chief, signifies

vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

The olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war, which

is exclusively vested in Congress. The constellation denotes a new

State taking its place and rank among the sovereign powers; the

escutcheon is borne on the breast of the American eagle, without any

other supporters, to denote that the United States of America ought

to rely on their own virtue.

Reverse. The pyramid signifies strength and duration: the eye over

it and the motto allude to the many and signal interpositions of

Providence in favor of the American cause. The date underneath it is

that of the Declaration of Independence; and the words under it

signify the beginning of the new era, which commences from that

date.

After the ratification of the Constitution, this seal was formally

declared to be the seal of the United States, on September 15, 1789, and

on March 2, 1799, its custody was given to the Secretary of State, who

was empowered to affix it to such commissions, etc., as had previously

received the signature of the President.

Lossing, in his "Field Book of the Revolution," has the following, in

relation to the origin of the device on the seal: "In a manuscript

letter before me, written in 1818, by Thomas Barritt, Esq., an eminent

antiquary of Manchester, England, addressed to his son in this country,

is the following statement: 'My friend, Sir John Prestwich, Bart., told

me he was the person who suggested the idea of a coat of arms for the

American States to an ambassador [John Adams] from thence, which they

have seen fit to put upon some of their moneys. It is this he told

me--party per pale of thirteen stripes, white and red; the chief of the

escutcheon blue, signifying the protection of heaven over the States. He

says it was soon afterwards adopted as the arms of the States, and to

give it more consequence, it was placed upon the breast of a displayed

eagle.'"

But it is far more probable that the colors of the shield were suggested

by the stripes and union of the flag, which was adopted nearly a year

before Mr. Adams's first visit to Europe. Yet it is worthy of note, in

this connection, that the stripes in the flag are arranged alternately

red and white, which gives seven of the former and six of the latter;

while in the arms they are white and red, thus making seven white and

six red pales. In the seal of the Board of Admiralty (now the Navy

Department), adopted May 4, 1780, the stripes are arranged as in the

flag.

The critical reader will not fail to note a few heraldic lapses in the

arms as blazoned by the secretary of Congress, such as the omission of

the tincture of the scroll, and the denominating the collection of stars

a crest. By a somewhat similar error in the law by which our flag was

adopted, no method of arrangement of the stars in the union is

prescribed.

Notwithstanding that the great seal as adopted had an obverse and a

reverse, there is nothing to show that the reverse was ever made. Why

this was neglected does not appear of record. Nor does there seem to be

any means of ascertaining by what authority one half of the seal is made

to do duty for the whole. It is certainly not authorized by any law. Is

not its use then by the State department technically illegal?

But this is not all. The seal as originally engraved was in accordance

with the requirements of the law, but in 1841, Daniel Webster then being

Secretary of State, a new seal was made, probably because the old one

had become worn, and for some reasons not now discoverable, several

alterations were made in the design. In the shield of the seal thus

made, the red pales are twice the width of the white ones, so that it

reads heraldically, argent, six pales gules, instead of "palewise of

thirteen pieces, argent and gules," as expressed in the adopted report.

In the original, too, the eagle held in his sinister talon a "bundle of

thirteen arrows," but the poor bird grasps but a meagre six in the new

seal. There was some significance in the former number, all of which is

lost in the change. Application to the State department for the reasons

for these deviations from the original seal resulted in only the

following: "This change does not appear to have been authorized by law,

and the cause of it is not known."

Is it possible that an arbitrary alteration can be made in the great

seal of the United States by officials temporarily in charge of it? And

if so, what is to prevent some future Secretary of State, with notions

of his own in regard to heraldic bearings, from discarding the old seal

altogether, in favor of some creation of his own? The nation was

providentially saved from the artistic efforts of Jefferson, Adams, and

Franklin; but what guaranty have we for the future?

JOHN D. CHAMPLIN, JR.

DRIFT-WOOD.

THE TIMES AND THE CUSTOMS.

It will be four years in September since the crash of Jay Cooke

announced that hard times had come. During the _débacle_ continuing

from that day to this, the exposed rascalities of swindling

corporations have shown how full the world still is of sheep eager to

be fleeced, of geese to be plucked. Government officers prey on the

people; the people, on each other; the giant plunderer is the stock

company, to whose vast gobblings the pilfering of a Tweed or Winslow is

a mere sugar-plum. The individual swindler feels himself a rogue,

whereas the chartered thief holds a high head, builds him a palace from

the spoils of his victims, and curses their impudence when they

complain. They are legion, these mismanaged or fraudulent mining

companies, land improvement companies, artificial light companies,

normal food companies (for introducing camel-hump steaks to the

American breakfast-table), and, above all, railroad companies, savings

funds, and life insurance companies.

Satirists lash the sham enterprises--"Universal Association for Squaring

the Circle," "American and Asiatic Consolidated Perpetual Motion

Society," and what not; nowadays the main mischief is done not by these

transparent humbugs, but by the genuine companies, that fairly invite

trust and then betray it. Salted mines, watered stocks, lying

prospectuses, bribed experts, bought legislatures, packed meetings,

borrowed dividends, thimble-rig reports--we all know the tricks of

"substantial" enterprises. It is not the seedy adventurers, the Jeremy

Diddlers and Montague Tiggs of our day, that entrap the thrifty and ruin

the intelligent, but the high-toned trust and commercial companies,

seeming to be solid. These have wheels within wheels, rings within the

ring, whereby many shareholders can be tricked by few; for, as the

shellfish has foes that bore through his tough house and suck out the

unfortunate tenant within, so crédit mobiliers, fast freight lines,

super-salaried officers, contractors for supplies, construction agents,

and the like, suck out the value of a stock company, and leave the

shareholders the shells. Let not a posterity of _laudatores temporis

acti_ sigh over ours as the Golden Age of commercial honesty. It is

only the Greenback Age. It is not even the Silver Age, unless, haply,

the German Silver--that is to say, the Plated or Pinchbeck Age. We might

perhaps style it the Brazen Age, in view of the all-pervading brass of

corporation claqueurs and drummers; or we might very well call it the

Shoddy or the Peter Funk Jewelry Age.

Still, our ancestry were worse beset with quack corporations. Mackay

mentions over eighty speculative companies that rose with the South Sea

bubble and were all crushed in a bunch by the privy council: one, a

company for getting silver out of lead; another, for developing

perpetual motion; a third, for insuring householders against losses by

servants--capital, $15,000,000; a fourth, "a company for carrying on an

undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is"--capital,

$2,500,000 in 5,000 shares of $500 each, on $10 deposit per share, which

deposit nearly a thousand persons actually paid on the first half day

the books were opened, so that before night the rascally manager was off

with $10,000 booty. Besides the matured projects, many companies

existing only on paper were able to sell "privileges to subscribe," when

formed, at $200 or $300 each; for in that day of manias people in Great

Britain paid premiums for the first chance to put their money into

companies for freshening salt water, extracting oil from sunflowers,

buying forfeited estates, capturing pirates, insuring children's

fortunes, fattening hogs, fishing for wrecks, and importing jackasses

from Spain--which last was surely bringing coals to Newcastle. As for

such really solid enterprises as the South Sea bubble, their shares rose

to a thousand per cent, above par.

Perhaps another South Sea bubble could not easily be blown; the Darien

canal will hardly excite a fever of speculation like William Paterson's

Darien project of one hundred and eighty years ago, for which prayers

were offered in the Edinburgh churches; we are not likely to see a

Mississippi scheme of the sort which caused cooks to struggle with

courtiers for places in the Rue de Quinquempoix to buy John Law's

shares, while office rents in that stock-jobbing thoroughfare rose from

five hundred to sixty thousand livres a year. But our late American

experience shows how swift men are to trust their hard-earned gains to

corporate enterprises simply on the reputation of the managers.

Insurance frauds and railroad wreckings thrive on the trustfulness of

professional men and the narrow scope of tradesmen. The latter find

sufficient occupation in the little gains of each day, and often are

puzzled how to employ the surplus. To spend it would be unthrifty; to

roll it in a napkin, bad stewardship; they are apt to be caught by the

popular stock companies or by some scheme of speculation. These

glittering prizes also attract sapient "men of business" who have been

entrusted with investing the funds of widows and children. From such

sources flow the rills that make the mighty rivers of stock enterprises,

so that, having gathered up the spare cash of the shopkeepers and the

annuitants, their bursting makes wide havoc.

Goodman Thompson's simple skill and joy are to gain five cents here, ten

there, a dollar yonder; three customers have bought at nine o'clock

to-day, at eleven the sales number fifteen, at noon no fewer than two

dozen; whereas at midday yesterday they were only twenty-three. Brooding

over these statistics, worthy Thompson fills up the day, the year, the

lifetime in modest local glory, until the name of John Thompson, grocer,

is taken from his door and put upon his coffin-plate, and John

Thompson's son continues the trade in his stead. Absorbed, I say, in

such details, some men seem strangely careless what the gross of their

gains is, or how secured--their pleasure is "doing business" rather than

growing rich, and equal fortunes by bequest would hardly give them the

same comfort; others, and the majority, are not so careless, but are as

surprisingly stupid, incautious, and gullible in investing their daily

gains as they are sharp and shrewd in getting them. That is why they put

their trust in treacherous princes of finance and railroad kings; that

is why sharpers of good moral character in savings and insurance

companies make many victims. It is wonderful how many tradesmen, subtle

and sagacious in their callings, thrive in the hard task of driving

bargains, only to lose their earnings to palpable knaves, or else by

making hap-hazard investments. Their faculty of accumulation seems like

that of the bee or the ant, good only to a given point, and within the

use of given methods; it seems to fail when sober judgment on

speculative fevers is called for.

But the hard times have temporarily taught first, caution; next,

economy. Caution unluckily has run to suspicion, while economy has

issued in a dearth of employment: thus the correctives applied to hard

times have perpetuated them. People are buying not only less, but

sometimes at second hand, so that every trade suffers--unless it be that

of the coffin-makers; I never knew anybody who wanted a second-hand

coffin. The economy that America usually needs is perhaps less that of

refraining from buying than that of turning things to account. The man

who needlessly cuts down his expenses is hardly so praiseworthy as the

one who only makes every thread yield its best uses.

A national fault of ours is that of not getting the full use of things.

European cities, for example, earn millions a year by selling their

street dirt. American cities pay millions to get rid of it. In Europe

it dresses sterile soil; in America it is dumped into channels to

obstruct navigation. One can almost admire the humble Paris

_chiffoniers_, as being a guild employed in redeeming to a hundred

services what has been thrown away as useless--they rescue vast

fortunes yearly. On the Pennsylvania oil lands twenty men put up a

derrick, sink a test well, and fail. Sixteen out of the twenty

reorganize, sink a new well within fifty rods of the other, build a new

derrick, and never touch the old one, leaving it to rot. The expense of

this kind of machinery is great; and yet out of the abandoned derricks

in the oil regions you could almost build a timber track from Corry to

New York. It is, I say, almost a national trait to accumulate what will

be left to rust unused--although it is doubtless not American ladies

alone that fill their wardrobes with garments never worn out. When a

European friend of mine came to travel in this country, one of his

first surprises was the hundreds of miles of expensive fences he saw

enclosing very ordinary fields; next he noted the unused ground along

the tracks of railroads. "That land would all be covered with

vegetables in our country," he said. At his hotels he thought there was

more wasted in labor, food, and superfluities than would have sufficed

to reduce the cost of living by a third; indeed, I fancy he believed

that despite our cry of "hard times" and "enforced economy," the sheer

current _waste_ of America would pay the national debt in a year.

VICTOR HUGO.

What freshness and fecundity in the veteran poet who signalizes his

seventy-sixth birthday by publishing the "Légende des Siècles"!

Hugoesque alike in its grand apostrophes and its gentle idyls, in its

resounding declamation and its simple pathos, this new outcome of an old

mint has every coin stamped with the image and superscription of its

creator--Hugo's in thought, feeling, audacious style, easy

versification, quaint novelty of metaphor; Hugo's in its cadence by

turns joyous and mournful, now in sonorous, thrilling ballads of battle,

anon in charming genre fireside pictures, here riotous in rhetoric,

there pedantic in research, everywhere lofty in aspiration, though

pushing oddity almost to madness.

Through all his works, what a mixture of genius and grotesqueness, of

majesty and absurdity in that wonderful man! Take his "Ninety-Three"--a

novel monstrously nonsensical and surprisingly splendid--a novel

demonstrating that to pass from the ridiculous to the sublime, as well

as the other way, needs but a step. With what magnetic power one of its

first incidents, the rushing about of the loose gun on shipboard, is

wrought out! You begin by despising the frivolity of the scene, and

momentarily wait to see the writer ludicrously break down in his

preposterous attempt at imposing on your credulity. By degrees the

situation is filled in till each successive objection of skepticism is

somehow spirited away, and even the foreign reader, sympathetically

following the working of the French mind, is startled at his own

yielding. This episode of the roving cannon ranks with the devil-fish

scene in the "Toilers of the Sea," where also the reader finds

appreciative horror overcoming his first impulse of contemptuous

incredulity.

Or, again, if you take the boat scene in "Ninety-Three," between the

sailor and count, you agree, at the end, that it is not overstrained.

Yet think of that frail skiff in the open British Channel, with the

waves running high, and say if the scene was possible. When Halmalo put

down his oars and the old man stood up at full height in the bow, the

boat must have swung into the trough of the sea and capsized in an

instant; if lack of steering failed to upset her, the old man's

performance would have done so; but we forget that trifle in the

dramatic intensity of the situation. The learned Sergeant Hill, talking

with a young law student regarding the will of "Clarissa Harlowe," told

him, "You will find that not one of the uses or trusts in it can be

supported." A sergeant of artillery would be equally severe on the

evolutions and skirmishes in "Ninety-Three"; but the genius of Hugo

triumphs over such blunders, like Shakespeare's over the seaports in

Bohemia.

"A poet is a world shut up in a man," says the "Légende," whose own

variety of theme helps to justify the definition. We have here the

majestic conceptions of the "Mur des Siècles," the "Vanished City," the

"Hymn to Earth," the "Epic of the Worm"; therewith we also have the

music and beauty of the "Groupe des Idylles." On one page the reader

is touched with sympathy by the "Cemetery of Eylau" and the "Guerre

Civile"; on another he is stirred by the scorn in the "Anger of the

Bronze," or by the hate in "Napoleon III. after Sedan":

_Cet homme a pour prison l'ignominic immense,

On pouvait le tuer, mais on fût sans clémence._

The city whose praise Victor Hugo never tires of sounding, and that has

adored and lampooned him for almost half a century, breaks out in a

prolonged concord of eulogy for these old-age strains, which recall no

little of the force, fire, and finish of twenty, forty years ago. Well

may the Parisians laud this man of mingled ruggedness and delicacy,

whose imagination has not yet lost its boldness with age, nor the heart

its warmth--the bard, in mockery of whom, nevertheless, they were lately

repeating with gusto the comical parody of a local wit:

_Oh, huho, Hugo! où huchera-t-on ton nom

Justice encore rendue que ne t'a-t-on?

Et quand sera-ce qu'au corps qu' Academique on nomme,

Grimperas-tu de roc en roc, rare homme?_

EVOLUTIONARY HINTS FOR NOVELISTS.

We have Sheridan's authority that an oyster may be crossed in love--in

fact, Miss Zimmern has written a story about an oyster that actually was

a prey to the tender passion; we have Shakespeare's authority that a

hind will die of it, if she unfortunately seeks to be mated with a lion;

while it is a regular thing in the land of the cypress and myrtle (if

Lord Byron can be trusted) for the rage of the vulture to madden to

crime.

Still it was reserved for Darwin himself to give the great modern cue

to novelists in their study of human nature, by his "Descent of Man,"

where he says that "injurious characters tend to reappear through

reversion, such as blackness in sheep; and with mankind some of the

worst dispositions which occasionally without any assignable cause make

their reappearance in families, _may perhaps he reversions to a savage

state_ from which we are not removed by many generations. _This view

seems recognized in the common expression that such men are the 'black

sheep of the family.'_"

Now, whatever we may think of the odd logic of this passage, it clearly

stakes out a ground and preëmpts a claim for evolution as applied to

romantic literature. None of us could really blame the modern lover if,

in making a woful ballad to his mistress's eyebrow, he should slyly but

anxiously examine whether that eyebrow contained "a few hairs larger

than the rest, corresponding to the vibrissæ of the lower animals." This

does occur in some eyebrows, we know; and as it is also clear from the

authorities first quoted, and many more that might be cited, that the

lower animals are capable of human passions, the cautious and

scientifically disposed lover of the modern epoch can hardly be asked to

take a mere manifestation of the heavenly instinct as proof of many

grades of removal, in his Dulcinea, from the condition of the oyster,

the hind, or, alas! the vulture.

Hence, even in protesting that his lady's beauty hangs on the cheek of

night like a rich jewel in an Æthiop's ear, naturally the modern Romeo

may not avoid a glance to see whether his Juliet's ear contains that

fatal auricular "blunt point" denoting assimilation to the lower

animals. And so it is with the work henceforth laid out for novelists:

the stereotyped heroine, with coral lips, pearly teeth, eyes of a

gazelle, raven locks, swan-like neck, and so on, should be carefully

guarded from too great animal resemblances, and above all from

"rudiments" or signs of reversion.

Perhaps it would be going too far to announce bluntly that "Lady

Amarantha's toes had not the remotest indication of ever having been

webbed," or to put on record the official declaration of Fifine, the

maid, that her fair mistress never had been able to erect her ears;

still the novelists might do well to take note of those two or three

points in which Mr. St. George Mivart and Mr. Wallace have pointed out

the great distinctions between men and apes, and so adroitly work them

up in those personal descriptions which form a delicious part of modern

novels, as to give their heroes and heroines a pedigree impregnable to

the most critically scientific scrutiny. Hints, also, I think, might be

gathered from the treatment of love on the evolution hypothesis, which

has been essayed by no less an authority than Herbert Spencer, who has

besides traced the changes in the methods of expressing passionate

emotions by gestures and cries, as our humble ancestry developed to

women and men.

Physiology, too, is not the only department into which the novelist of

the future must extend his studies. Under the doctrine of evolution,

sexual selection is at the basis of the variation of species; and what

new fields are open to the novelist, when he reflects for a moment that

his main task is only to depict the prosperities and adversities

attending such a mutual selection on the part of Albert and Angelina!

PHILIP QUILIBET.

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

* * * * *

THE TELEPHONE.

Great interest in telegraphic subjects has lately been aroused in the

American public by exhibitions of the telephone, an instrument for

transmitting sound vibrations by electricity. Two general forms of this

instrument are known, in one of which a series of tuning forks

communicates with a precisely similar series at the other end of the

wire, and the signals made to one are repeated by the other. A more

interesting form, and the one that has lately attracted so much

attention, is that which receives and transmits ordinary vocal sounds.

The operator talks to a membrane, and at the other end of the wire is a

resonator of some kind which talks to the auditor there. The fundamental

idea of the machine is not new. It was at first proposed to use it for

transmitting electric signals without a wire, and in that view a trial

was made with it during the siege of Paris. The armistice interrupted

the operations, but M. Bourbouze, the experimenter, and other inventors

have continued to study the subject, Mr. A. G. Bell, professor of vocal

physiology in Boston, being among them. M. Bourbouze used a vibrating

needle the movements of which were effected by sound waves, and another

Frenchman, M. Reuss, introduced the sounding box with its membrane. This

is a box with a membrane stretched over the top and a short tube of

large diameter in the side. The operator talks to this tube, and the box

strengthens the sound, which finally affects the membrane, causing it to

vibrate. Resting upon this membrane is a thin copper disc attached to a

wire leading from the electrical battery. Above and very near it hangs a

metallic point, which forms the end of a wire leading to the place to

which the message is to be sent. The membrane rises slightly with every

vibration, and touching the point, a current is established and

communication effected with the distant point; but this communication

ceases as soon as the vibration stops, and the membrane assumes a state

of rest. As every simple note is produced by a definite number of air

vibrations, and every compound sound is made up of the sum of several

simple notes, the apparatus transmits a definite number of vibrations

for each sound which it receives; and if those vibrations can be

communicated to the air at any point, however distant, the original

sounds will be reproduced. In short, the instrument may be explained as

one invented to transmit air vibrations by electricity.

The receiver consists of an iron rod about the size of a knitting

needle, wound with insulated copper wire, and supported on a wood box

having very thin sides. The rod vibrates with every passage of the

current, and the thin box increases the amount of these vibrations and

makes them audible. It is found best to introduce several rods into the

insulated coil, as with only one the sound produced is rather snuffling.

In either case, however, the vibrations of the rod are exactly the same

as those of the membrane, and even the character of the sound is

automatically reproduced.

The description here given is that of Reuss's instrument, which was

illustrated last year in the French paper "La Nature." The exact

construction of Mr. Bell's telephone has not been made public, but it

seems to be quite similar. He is said to make his vibrating membrane of

metal. The greatest distance to which sounds have been sent is one

hundred and forty-three miles, from Boston to North Conway, N.H. The

instrument is not yet perfect, the sounds being frequently indistinct.

With a private wire and two persons accustomed to each other's voices it

would probably be a greater success. It is therefore likely to be

quickly introduced into business uses. At present some rather wild

anticipations are indulged in by the daily press, but the instrument

probably has a really remarkable future before it.

* * * * *

DAMAGES BY AN INSECT.

Traffic on railways and canals has diminished, public taxes do not pay

for collection, and poverty, privation, and misery have come upon

twenty-five departments of France from the ravages of the phylloxera

insect which attacks the roots of the grapevines. Such is the official

report of a committee appointed by the Academy of Sciences. The

important districts of Champagne, Burgundy, the Loire, and the Cher, are

now threatened, and from the greatly extended foothold which the insect

has now gained it is feared that its operations will be very rapid. It

is not impossible that the principal industry of France will be crippled

for years. In spite of all this, wine is now quite cheap. The hard times

have lessened consumption, and the product is so huge--900,000,000

litres, or 180,000,000 gallons yearly from France alone--that the stock

in the market is maintained in spite of the great ravages of the insect.

The cheapest claret is sold in New York for $40 a cask, or about 66

cents a gallon. Of this 24 cents is for duty.

* * * * *

THE SUMMER SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS.

Summer schools of science proved very popular last year, and are to be

continued this season. A lady who studied in the botanical school at

Harvard said that work began properly at nine o'clock and continued to

twelve; but the pupils were so eager to reap all possible benefit from

the six weeks' course, that some were in the laboratory by 7:30 in the

morning. One lady made herself sick in a week by over study, and many

others injured themselves by too close application. The Professor

finally prohibited work out of the regular hours. The schools will be

reopened July 6, and continue to August 17, the term being six weeks

long; applications to be made by June 1. The courses will be five in

number, as follows: General chemistry and qualitative analysis, under

Mr. C. F. Mabery, to whom (at Cambridge) applications must be sent; fee,

$25 and cost of supplies. Phænogamic botany, by Prof. George L. Goodale;

fee, $25. For lectures without laboratory practice the charge is $10.

Cryptogamic botany will be taught by Prof. W. G. Farlow; fee, $25.

Microscopes, etc., are provided by the university. Students in this

course should have a previous knowledge of phænogamic botany. In

addition to laboratory practice excursions will be made and lectures

given. Prof. Farlow's address is 6 Park Square, Boston.

Prof. N. S. Shaler and Mr. Wm. M. Davis, Jr., will give a course in

geology, including instruction in Cambridge, and a trip through

Massachusetts to New York. The tuition fee is $50, and other costs

_about_ $50 for board and lodging, and $25 for travelling expenses.

When the regular excursion is finished a more extended trip will be made

if desired, to the Mammoth Cave and other localities, on the way to

Nashville, where the American Association will have its next meeting.

Lastly, the school provides a course on zoölogy, by Mr. W. Faxon and Mr.

W. K. Brooks; fee, $25. It will comprise lectures, laboratory work, and

excursions to the neighboring seashores. Apply to Mr. W. Faxon,

Cambridge, Massachusetts.

_The Cornell Excursion._

Cornell university also has its summer school of natural history, and it

will take a peculiar form this year. Prof. Theodore B. Comstock

proposes, if sufficient encouragement is given before May 1, to charter

a steamer and spend six weeks on the great lakes. The cheapness of

steamer travel makes a trip of this kind in very comfortable style

possible at moderate expense. The price is fixed at $125, which includes

tuition fee and every other expense, for thirty days; and $3.50 per day

for ten days more. The time may be extended beyond forty days by a

majority vote of the excursionists. Buffalo or Cleveland will be the

starting point, and the line of travel will be around the south shore of

the lakes Erie, Huron, and Superior, returning by the north shore. The

steamer will be a free rover, and visit places outside of the usual

lines of travel. Lectures will be given and dredging done, the results

of which will be distributed among the pupils, and shares may also be

subscribed for by schools, teachers, and others. These shares will

entitle the holders to part of the botanical and zoological collections

made.

_Williams Rocky Mountain Excursion._

A more private but very extended excursion will be made by Williams

college students, under the care of Prof. Sanborn Tenney, who holds the

chair of natural history in the college. No fees are charged, and Prof.

Tenney receives no compensation. The number of students is limited to

fifteen, who will for the most part pay their own expenses, and the

expedition is not open to the public. The students are selected with

reference to the study of geology and mineralogy, botany, and the

various departments of zoölogy, entomology, ornithology, ichthyology.

Extensive collections will be made in all departments of natural

history, which will be deposited in the Williams college natural history

museum and the lyceum of natural history in the college. The excursion

will start early in July and return in time for the regular autumn

college opening. This is evidently intended to be one of the most

important enterprises of the year for field instruction.

_A Texas Trip._

Butler college, Irvington, Indiana, will send an expedition to Texas,

with headquarters at Dallas in that State. Studies in geology and

natural history will be mainly pursued, and collections made of birds,

fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, and fossils. The number of students

will be from ten to twenty-five, and they will leave Indianapolis June

20, under the charge of Prof. John A. Myers. Mammoth Cave, Lookout

mountain, and other places of interest in Tennessee and Alabama, will be

visited, and the party will return in time for the Association for the

Advancement of Science meeting at Nashville. Dallas, which is to be the

centre of operations, is a thriving town in the grazing region of Texas,

and is a good place for the study of botany and zoölogy.

Another lake excursion is projected by the Institute of Mining

Engineers, who expect to spend two weeks in visiting the famous mining

districts of that region. Though not precisely a "summer school," this

will be both a professional and social excursion.

A committee of Wisconsin teachers recommend the introduction of this

system of summer schools in that State. They want to have a class formed

under Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, State geologist, to commence at St. Croix

Falls, and make geological, zoölogical, and botanical studies down the

Mississippi to Rock Island. Headquarters would be on a large boat.

Directors of other summer schools are requested to send notices of the

work they are planning to do to the office of this magazine.

* * * * *

AN INTELLIGENT QUARANTINE.

The quarantine history of New York was quite remarkable in 1876. Yellow

fever was epidemic at several ports along the Gulf and Atlantic coast,

and no less than 363 vessels came into New York from those ports,

ninety-nine of which had the disease on board, either during the voyage

or in port. Under these circumstances, it may be supposed that the

authorities were not disposed to encourage commerce between the city

and the infected towns. Philadelphia and Baltimore adopted an

interdiction of all trade with Savannah, as a precaution. But a bolder

and wiser policy has gradually been introduced into the New York

quarantine. Instead of being a loser by the yellow fever, that city was

called upon to take the whole trade, and did so without hesitation,

though the voyage from Charleston and some other ports occupied less

time than the average incubation period of the disease, which might be

introduced unnoticed into the city unless preventative measures were

taken. Orders were given to receive no passengers from the afflicted

cities, so that the quarantine authorities had only the cargo and crew

to deal with. The ship was thoroughly fumigated and the cargo

discharged as rapidly as was consistent with safe supervision. This

rapid discharge is advised because a ship's heated hold is just the

place for the full development of the fomites. If the cargo does carry

the germs of the disease, the worst thing that can be done is to leave

it in the ship, which is then likely to become a pest-house. Prompt

removal reduces the danger to a minimum. By this intelligent course New

York was able to keep open her communication with Savannah in the

height of the epidemic, and she was the only city on the Atlantic to do

so. More cotton than ever came to her harbor. The hygienic results are

noticeable. Although more than a thousand deaths occurred in Savannah,

not one case of yellow fever reached the _city_ of New York by water.

Two or three cases of sickness from vessels occurred in that city and

Brooklyn; but though these were said to be yellow fever, their

subsequent history did not sustain the supposition. They were probably

a form of malarial fever which so nearly resembles the more dreaded

disease that time is required to distinguish between them. Two cases of

real yellow fever reached the city by rail, but all others were stopped

at quarantine, which contained patients from January to the latter part

of October, excepting one month--May. In all, sixty were treated there,

most of whom were supposed to have yellow fever; but of these only

thirty-nine really had that disease, the remainder having the peculiar

form of malarial fever before spoken of. These results sustain the

intelligent action of the quarantine officers who have stripped off the

terrors which once hung about the name quarantine, and still do in so

many parts of the world and of our own country.

* * * * *

THE "GRASSHOPPER COMMISSION."

The last Congress made an appropriation of $18,000 for an Entomological

Commission, and for once the Government has made a perfectly

satisfactory series of appointments. Prof. C. V. Riley, the

distinguished and experienced State entomologist of Missouri, is the

chief of the commission, while Prof. Cyrus Thomas, State Entomologist of

Illinois, one of the most noted American authorities, and Dr. A. S.

Packard, author of several works on insect and other morphology, are its

other members. They will have their headquarters at Dr. Hayden's office,

in Washington, and also a Western office in St. Louis. In the division

of work Prof. Riley takes the country east of the Rocky mountains and

south of the forty-eighth parallel, Prof. Thomas has Minnesota,

Nebraska, South Dakota, and East Wyoming, and Dr. Packard the remainder

of the country west of these two areas. The object of the commission may

be stated to be the discovery of the best means of lessening the ravages

of insects upon American crops; but to learn this it will be necessary

to study not only the life histories of the grasshopper and Colorado

beetle, but also their climatic and geographical relations. The damage

done by insects probably amounts to some scores of millions yearly, and

it has long been apparent that one of the next services demanded of

scientific men would be efficient aid and direction in the warfare of

man against his smallest foes in the animal world. In the early history

of a country, it is possible to provide against these losses by

cultivating an excess of land, but when population becomes concentrated

it is necessary to avoid the loss. The destructiveness of insects has

never attracted so much attention as within the last half century, which

is also notable as a period of extraordinary increase in the population

of the civilized portions of the world. Now that the welfare of a great

empire has been seriously threatened by the operations of one insect,

and several States in our own country have been so overrun with another

insect that both the States concerned and the general Government have

been compelled to modify their laws in order to afford relief to

farmers, the important relation of insect to human life has become

clear, and is receiving due attention.

* * * * *

SURVEYING PLANS FOR THE SEASON.

The work of the Government surveys will not be stopped by the

unfortunate failure of Congress to pass an appropriation for the army.

Hayden's party Will be in field by the middle of May, and Wheeler will,

no doubt, be equally prompt. The former will confine his work to the

region north of the Pacific railroad and east of the Yellowstone Park.

The triangulating party, under Mr. A. D. Wilson, will survey a system of

triangles, and locate the principal peaks. Mr. Henry Gannett will take

charge of the topographical work in the western and Mr. G. B. Chittenden

in the eastern half of the field. A fourth division, under Mr. G. R.

Bechler, will survey in the northern portion, near the Yellowstone Park.

Each of these divisions contains about ten thousand square miles, so

that if the parties are able to complete their work, the ground covered

will be quite large.

* * * * *

THE CAUSES OF VIOLENT DEATH.