'tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I reckon
I'll go on. But when the time comes, I can't. I'm afeard, I tell 'ee."
He paused. "I've laid it before the Lord, but He don't seem to help.
There's two voices inside o' me. 'Tis a terrible responsibility."
"But the people, what are you afraid of their doing?"
"I don't know. You don't know what a runaway hoss will do, but you're
afeard all the same." He sank his voice. "There's wantonness, for one
thing--six love-children born in the parish this year, and more
coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her child. And Old
Man Johns--him they found dead on the rocks under the Island--he
didn't go there by accident. 'Twas a calm day, too."
As often as not Taffy worked late--sometimes until midnight--and blew
his forge-fire alone in the church, the tap of his hammer making
hollow music in the desolate aisles. He was working thus one windy
night in February, when the door rattled open and in walked a totally
unexpected visitor--Sir Harry Vyell.
"Good-evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows
dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in
for a chat. But go on with your work."
Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time
of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on
one of the belfry steps and, taking his seat, watched for awhile in
silence. He wore his long riding boots and an overcoat with the collar
turned up about a neck-cloth less nattily folded than usual.
"I wish," he said at length, "that my boy George was clever like you.
You were great friends once--you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare
say you've not seen much of each other lately."
Taffy shook his head.
"George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; made
a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn't go. I believe in wild oats to a
certain extent. I have told him from the first he must look after
himself and decide for himself. That's my theory. It makes a youngster
self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. If he comes home late
from hunting, I ask no questions; I don't wait dinner. Don't you agree
with me?"
"I don't know," Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted.
"Self-reliance is what a man wants."
"Couldn't he have learnt that at school?"
Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. "Well, you see,
he's an only son----. I dare say it was selfish of me. You don't mind
my talking about George?"
Taffy laughed. "I like it."
Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. "But you don't suppose I
rode over from Carwithiel for that? You're not so far wrong, though.
The fact is--one gets foolish as one grows old--George went out
hunting this morning, and didn't turn up for dinner. I kept to my
rule, and dined alone. Nine o'clock came; half-past; no George. At ten
Hoskings locked up as usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn't
sleep. After awhile, it struck me that he might be sleeping here over
at Tredinnis; that is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me
until I made sure; so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the
stables, saddled the mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis
great gates and crept down to Moyle's stables like a house-breaker;
looked in through the window, and, sure enough, there was George's
gray in the loose box to the right. So George is sleeping there, and
I'm easy in my mind. No doubt you think me an old fool?"
But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort.
"I couldn't wish better than that. You understand?" said Sir Harry,
slyly.
"Not quite."
"He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and for
him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a match....
And Carwithiel would be quite a different house."
Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows.
"I dare say it's news to you, what I'm telling. But it has been in my
mind this long while. Why don't you blow up the fire? I bet Miss
Honoria has thought of it too; girls are deep. She has a head on her
shoulders. I'll warrant she'd send half a dozen of my servants packing
within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, and I
haven't the pluck to interfere."
"What does the old Squire say?" Taffy managed to ask.
"It has never come to _saying_ anything. But I believe he thinks of
it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He'll be
pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see."
"I see."
"To tell you the truth, he's failing fast. This religion of his is a
symptom; all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn't
the constitution of a horse, he'd have been converted ten years before
this. What puzzles me is, he's so quiet. You mark my words"--Sir Harry
rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop prophetically--"he's
brewing up for something. There'll be the devil of a flare-up before
he has done."
* * * * *
It came with the midsummer bonfires. At nine o'clock on St. John's
Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to
celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and
some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these
services on the preceding Sundays; but no parishioner dreamed of
attending them.
To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone; and the lad was
standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his
arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these
vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the headland
over Innis village.
Almost on the moment a flame answered it from the point where the
lighthouse stood; and within ten minutes the horizon of the towans was
cressetted with these beacon-fires; surely (thought Taffy) with many
more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown out a
hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he had
called it).
The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented sands
had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow--orange-yellow--and
steady. He could see the dark figures of men and women passing between
him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in front of Tredinnis great
gates. Their voices reached him in a confused murmur, broken now and
then by a child's scream of delight. And yet a hush seemed to hang
over sea and land: an expectant hush. For weeks the sky had not
rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue possessed it, deepening with
night into duller purple, as if the whole heavens were gathering into
one big thunder-cloud, which menaced but never broke. And in the hush
of those nights a listener could almost fancy he heard, between
whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily in their burrows.
By and by, the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out specks
of light, which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own
volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger; the
voices grew more distinct. The spectators had kindled torches and were
advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, too,
were supposed to bless the fields they passed across.
The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a
fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the
churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a
creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming, while she whirled
her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in tar
and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain.
Lizzie's was fastened to a chain, and as he watched her uplifted arm
swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped
setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and
shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the
patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy's face. But in the
crowd he saw two figures clearly--Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and
the Bryanite's face was agitated and white in the glare. He had given
an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the procession,
and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes.
"He's saved!" a voice shouted.
Others took up the cry. "Saved!" "The Squire's saved!" "Saved
to-night--saved to glory!"
The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite's arm. While the
procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate, as a man who
had lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his eyes; but
the sight of Mr. Raymond's surpliced figure, standing behind Taffy's
shoulders in the full glare, seemed to rouse him. He lifted a fist and
shook it slowly.
"Com'st along, sir!" urged the Bryanite.
But the Squire stood irresolute, muttering to himself.
"Com'st along, sir!"
"Lev' me be, I tell 'ee!" He laid both hands on the gate and spoke
across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose.
"D'ee hear what they say? I'm saved. I'm the Squire of this parish,
and I'm going to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. Old
Satan's the fellow I'm after, and I'm going to have him out o' this
parish to-night or my name's not Squire Moyle."
"That's of it, Squire!" "Hunt' en!" "Out with 'en!"
He turned on the shouting throng.
"Hunt 'en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys--back to Tredinnis! No,
no"--this to the Bryanite--"we'll go back. I'll show 'ee sport,
to-night--we'll hunt th'ould Divvle by scent and view. I'm Squire
Moyle, ain't I? And I've a pack o' hounds, ha'n't I? Back, boys--back,
I tell 'ee!"
Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. "Back--back to Tredennis!" The crowd
took up the cry, "Back to Tredinnis!" The old man shook off the
Bryanite's hand, and as the procession wheeled and re-formed itself
confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat--
"Back!--Back to Tredinnis!"
"God help them," said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew
him back into the church.
* * * * *
The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour
father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow
gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath
the arched roof. And, in the silence, the lad wondered what was
happening up at Tredinnis.
* * * * *
Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had
suspected three of the hounds for a day or two--Chorister, White, Boy,
and Bellman--and had separated them from the pack. That very evening
he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a
queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the
Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it
was a false alarm--had thought it better to wait, and so on.
The Squire went down to the Kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering
behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready; and the
crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. The
Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two
seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. He
shouted to Jim to open the doors. "Better not, maister!" pleaded Jim.
The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end of his
whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half-stunned,
staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow which felled
him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister's kennel, the doors
of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body kept this one shut.
But he saw the other three hounds run out--saw the Squire turn with a
ghastly face, drop the lantern and run for it as White Boy snapped at
his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern and the snap of teeth,
and with that he fainted off in the darkness. He had cut his forehead
against the bars of the big kennel, and when he came to himself, one
of the hounds was licking his face through the grating.
* * * * *
Men told for years' after how the old Squire came up the drive that
night, hoof to belly; his chin almost on mare Nonesuch's neck; his
face like a man's who hears hell cracking behind him; and of the three
dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with clapping jaws and
eyes like coach-lamps.
* * * * *
Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his
plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. His mild
eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked, as plainly as words:
"What was _that_?"
"Listen!"
For a minute--two minutes--they heard nothing more. Then out of the
silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs; and Mr. Raymond clutched
Taffy's arm as a yell--a cry not human, or if human, insane--cut the
night like a knife and fetched them to their feet. Taffy gained the
porch first, and just at that moment a black shadow heaved itself on
the churchyard wall and came hurling over with a thud--a clatter of
dropping stones--then a groan.
Before they could grasp what was happening, the old Squire had
extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across
the graves.
"Hide me!----"
He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. Behind
him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds--horrible shuffling
sounds, and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the hounds above
the coping and his fore-paws clinging as he strained to heave himself
over.
"Save me! Save----"
They caught him by both arms, dragged him within and slammed the door.
"Save!----sa--!"
The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate
pavement. Through the barred door, the scream of the mare Nonesuch
answered it.
(To be continued.)
THE FOREIGN MAIL SERVICE AT NEW YORK
By E. G. Chat
[Illustration: Mail Arriving in Foreign Department.
On the left the Chief Clerk is checking off the returns from the
clerks, on the right, who have emptied sacks of mail. New loads are
coming in in the rear.]
"Steamer's mail!!!" This loud call, echoing throughout the foreign
room in the Post-office Building, is the equivalent of the "Clear ship
for action" on the man-of-war. Instantly distributors leave their
separating cases, stampers abandon their "blocks," the electric
stamp-cancelling machine temporarily ceases its humming, buzzing
rattle, every available clerk or porter gets ready for the fray, and
the whole force charges with alacrity on the fast accumulating pile,
as sack after sack is dumped on a low, large table, at times entirely
hid from sight by bags with labels indicating their origin, thousands
of miles away, whether from the confines of Siberia, or the shores of
the Indian Ocean.
The sight, even to men familiar with the work, is inspiring,
especially when at times two, and on certain occasions three, steamers
land their cargo of sacks at the same hour. Not infrequently this
happens when some one thousand and odd sacks have to be made ready for
an outgoing steamer, and then the foreign force is fairly on its
mettle, and may well be compared again to the crew of a battle-ship
when it has to fight fire inside and fire from the enemy outside. Here
again, as on the battle-ship, organization and years' training tell.
The wagon-loads of sacks melt before the vigorous and steady onslaught
as did the Spanish fleet before Dewey's guns, and in a short while the
room is cleared and the "field-day" over.
[Illustration: Sea Post-office Room.
One clerk empties the sacks, and throws the letter packages to
another clerk at the case while he distributes the papers into
the sack rack.]
It would be difficult, in this great cosmopolitan city of New York, to
find a person who does not make use of this foreign service, yet
strange to relate is the fact that, outside of the clerks immediately
handling these mails, hardly anyone can be found who knows, or even
has the slightest idea of the International Postal Union system.
Perhaps this is accounted for by the comparatively very recent
establishment of said system, and its growth so immediate and rapid
that the public has not so far "caught up" with it.
The system was aptly described by Postmaster-General Gary at the
opening of the Washington Postal Congress, in 1897, as "one of the
grandest projects of the century." No other agency is responsible to
such an extent for the tremendous expansion of great ideals and the
exchange of views between nations characteristic of the last quarter
of this century.
Previous to 1875, when the Treaty of Bern, assented to and ratified by
twenty-two nations, took effect, the exchange of mails between
separate nationalities was done under such difficulties, and subject
to delays and mishaps of so many kinds, that a normal growth and
improvement in keeping with the progress of civilization was out of
the question. In 1840 the foreign mail from England for the United
States, carried on the Great Western, consisted of two sacks of mail.
As late as 1873 a steamer from Europe with 20,000 letters on board was
considered a record breaker. To-day the Cunard steamers and other
transatlantic ships carrying what is called a "full European mail,"
usually bring some two hundred thousand letters, and an average of
three hundred sacks of newspapers and printed matter for New York
City, not to mention the five hundred and odd sacks for Canada,
Mexico, and transpacific countries, and a few United States exchange
offices, which are now taken direct to the trains and not handled at
the New York office.
The working unit of the International Postal Union system is the
"Exchange Office." Each postal administration selects these
despatching and receiving centres according to quantity of mail
handled at any particular point. In European countries many of these
offices are on trains from one important point to another, and are
called Travelling Exchange offices. They receive and despatch mails in
the same manner as offices located in large cities. There are also
exchange offices located on steamship lines, and they are called Sea
Post-offices. No matter where located, these offices all conduct
business on the same lines, and handle mail in the same manner
throughout the world. The rules and regulations of this service are
adopted by Postal Congresses, meeting about every six years and under
the general supervision of the International Bureau of the Postal
Union located at Bern, Switzerland, and supported by funds from all
governments represented in the Union according to the respective
importance of their mail service.
[Illustration: Transferring Mails from an Ocean Greyhound to the
Post-office Boat, Postmaster General, through the Chutes.]
Only through these exchange offices can correspondence go from one
country to another, as no other offices are provided with the clerical
force and system necessary to the handling of international mails. It
is at times difficult to explain to business people that a North
German Lloyd steamer calling at Gibraltar and Naples will carry mail
for Naples only, and that a letter addressed to Gibraltar by that
particular steamer cannot be delivered at that port, but will be
carried all the way to Naples, whence it will be re-despatched to
Gibraltar through a more or less circuitous route. This is because
Gibraltar is not an "exchange office" with New York, and "closed
mails" are not sent thereto from New York. A "closed mail," as the
name indicates, is a mail duly tied up, sealed, and labelled with the
name of the exchange office to which it is sent, and not to be opened
until it gets there, passing sometimes through four or five countries
before reaching its destination. No other kind of mails is carried by
steamers, yet the answer will often be made to inquiries, that a
certain letter would have been sent "in open mail" to London or
elsewhere. This does not mean that the mail in which the letter in
question would be sent is despatched "opened," but that it is sent in
the "closed" mail for London, there to be opened and disposed of by
the London clerks, just as if it had been mailed in London. This
course is followed with all correspondence for offices abroad, or even
entire countries, which is not in sufficient quantity to justify the
establishment of an exchange; and the mails for these offices or
countries is sent to the foreign exchange office with the best
facilities for disposing of it. Thus mail for Liberia will be sent
sometimes to Hamburg, Germany, and at other times to Liverpool,
England.
[Illustration: On Board the Postmaster General, at the End of the
Chute--Receiving, Piling, and Checking Off Sacks.]
[Illustration: Some Sample Labels from Abroad.
Belgian label--string made fast through wooden block with
wax seal and a second block of compressed lead.
Paraguay label--plain linen.
Austrian label--wooden block, string sealed with wax.
German white leather label.
Argentine label--strong, ordinary leather.
Norwegian label--cardboard--string sealed on back with wax.]
A closed mail consists of ordinary letters, printed matter, and other
articles, and of registered articles. Sometimes all these elements
will be enclosed in the same sack, or they may be despatched in
separate sacks, when in sufficient quantity. The registered mail is
tied up and sealed in distinctive red-striped sacks, and then these
sacks are enclosed in ordinary mail-sacks, tied up and labelled in
exactly the same manner as the sacks containing ordinary letters, so
that it is impossible to tell from the outside which sack contains
registered matter. A mail may consist of one sack only, containing all
classes of correspondence, or it may be composed of a large number of
sacks. In either case it is accompanied by a letter bill, enclosed in
one of the sacks. This letter bill is one of a series beginning on
January 1st of each year, being numbered with consecutive numbers to
each foreign exchange office. Thus when Naples receives a mail from
New York containing the letter bill numbered 65, and the previous mail
received at that office had Letter Bill No. 63, Naples knows that mail
with Letter Bill No. 64 is missing, and immediately notifies New York
of the fact in a form called "Bulletin of Verification." This form is
in use for official correspondence between all offices in the Postal
Union regarding irregularities of all sorts discovered in the mails of
one office for another. A record of the number of each mail and the
particulars of its despatch being kept by each office, the inquiry
from Naples in the above instance would immediately be investigated,
and that office notified that the missing mail had been sent on such a
date, by such a steamer, etc.; or, if more was known concerning its
fate, as in the case of the mails sent per La Bourgogne last July,
mention would be made of the fact. The Russian travelling exchange
office of Kibarty to St. Petersburg frequently receives the mails sent
from this office every Wednesday in inverted order, that is, the mail
sent by a fast White Star liner at noon on Wednesday, may be received
a few hours ahead of the mail sent by a slower American line steamer
which sailed at 10 A.M. on the same day. The occurrence is so often
repeated that one would think it would go unnoticed, and the Russian
office would wait a few hours anyway before notifying New York that a
mail is missing, but such is not the case, and the bulletin "Your mail
No. ---- is missing," is immediately sent to New York, followed next
day by another bulletin, "Your mail No. ---- has arrived." At the New
York office the first bulletin is always held until receipt of the
second, which is sure to follow and renders investigation unnecessary;
they are called "Katie didn't," and "Katie did." Many bulletins are
received subsequent to the holidays with best wishes for Christmas or
New Year from one office to another. They are mostly all in English,
French, or Spanish, and are, at times, more or less humorous, if not
pathetic, as was one received from Martinique about the time Cervera's
ill-fated fleet was hovering near that island. A mail from New York
had just been received at St. Pierre, and in one of the sacks the
horrified French Director of Posts had found a cat in the last stages
of decomposition. He had sent for the American Consul to view the
remains, and his bulletin to the New York office regarding this
irregularity was a model of official French. It stated how the smell
of that dead cat had penetrated every corner of his office, and one
could read between the lines that he suspected the whole affair to be
a joke played upon him by the Yankee postal clerks. The event was duly
investigated in the New York office, but beyond the fact that one
member of the numerous pussy tribe in the mail building was missing,
little else could be positively ascertained. That the cat could have
been sent in that bag as a joke was not to be thought of for an
instant, but it was presumed that in its wandering among the piles of
mail-sacks in the basement, pussy had found the sack for Martinique
awaiting to be sealed, and had concluded to take a nap therein. The
sack was probably tied up and sealed soon afterward, and the unwilling
stow-away had been sent to the steamer. Later on it was reported by
the purser of the steamer that he suspected there was something alive
in one of the mail-bags, but such is the respect for postal seals that
he never thought to open the sack in the presence of witnesses and
release the animal. Thrown in the mail-room with other sacks on top of
it, there could be no doubt that poor pussy had been smothered before
passing the Hook, and his condition when landed at Martinique must
have been such as to fully justify and explain the ill-disguised
indignation of the French officials.
[Illustration: In the Newspaper Division. Throwing papers into boxes
for all parts of the world.]
The letter bill describes minutely the mail it accompanies, states how
many sacks of letters, how many sacks of papers, and how many articles
registered, describing each registered article separately, except in
cases of heavy registered mails, when a separate descriptive list is
sent in addition to the letter bill. Thus it is easy for the office of
destination to verify the mail it receives and ascertain whether any
is missing.
Small closed mails are at times enclosed inside of closed mails for
other offices; for instance, the mails made up at Paris for Guatemala
are in a sack duly sealed and labelled as aforesaid, but this sack is
put inside of one of the bags for the New York office, and in such
cases the fact is noted on the letter bill sent with the New York
mail.
[Illustration: Samples of Ordinary Letters.
For Government of Simbursk, Russia. For Finland. For Hungary.]
The business of the foreign clerks when a foreign mail is received in
the manner described in our first lines is to open promptly every sack
received, inspect and dispose of contents, and report to the chief
clerk the result from each sack thus opened. Each clerk takes hold of
one of the sacks piled on the table, and throws it on another table
used for opening the mails. He cuts open the fastenings, keeping the
label separate, and also the letter-bill, if he happens to find it in
the sack; if several classes of mail matter are found therein, he
pushes the ordinary letters over to one side, sweeps the newspapers
into large four-wheeled baskets near by, takes to another place the
smaller enclosed mails addressed to other offices, and lays the
registered sack on the chief clerk's desk, where a man from the
registry division will receive it and give a receipt for it. The clerk
then calls out to the chief clerk the result of his examination,
"Lisbon-Reg.-Bill and 1 Honolulu"--which means that in the sack just
opened he found the mail from Lisbon for New York with the
letter-bill, registered articles and a smaller closed mail for
Honolulu. Like the rattle of musketry these calls are fired at the
chief clerk, who marks everything on a tally-sheet, which will later
on be compared with the advices received from the foreign offices on
each letter-bill; and if any discrepancy is found it will be
investigated, resulting in a bulletin of verification to office of
origin, or in something worse for the foreign clerk who made an
erroneous announcement of the contents, if the fault is laid to him.
In a few minutes, sometimes an hour or more, an entire mail is opened
and the room cleared, the registry man getting away to his department
with all the registered mails, and the newspaper force wheeling away
the baskets full of newspapers and packages. The letters are then
divided into four parts--those for New York City proper, those for the
rest of the United States and Canada, those for foreign countries
which have been sent in open mail to New York, and those which are
unpaid or partially prepaid. Many foreign offices make a separation of
the mails for New York City from those for other places, but this is a
matter of accommodation and reciprocal arrangements between exchange
offices; and the work of separation is, strictly speaking, that of the
foreign clerks in any office. The newspapers are treated in the same
manner as the letters. All city mail is then sent to the city
department for final distribution and delivery, and that for other
parts of the United States and Canada is sent to the domestic mail
division for despatch. All letters and mail addressed to other
countries are retained in the foreign division, and included in the
next mail for these countries. The unpaid and short-paid mail is
"rated up" before delivery to other divisions. This mail is put up
under distinctive labels. The despatching offices have marked on each
article the amount of deficiency in prepayment. No matter where
originating, this amount is marked in French money (centimes). The
letter "T" (initial of French word "tax") is also stamped on covers.
The foreign clerks at the receiving office calculate, in the money of
their country, the amount of deficiency and double it up, stamping
this charge on the covers for collection by office of delivery.
[Illustration: Despatching a Mail--Sacks Loaded on Trucks.
Despatching clerk, on the left, tallying off mails, sack by sack.
Foreign mails are delivered to trucks sent by the Steamship
Companies and are receipted for at the door of New York Post
Office.]
This work, and also that of separating New York mail and mail for the
principal States and cities, is done by the sea post-offices in
steamers of the North German Lloyd, Hamburg-American, and American
Lines; and when mails are received by either of these steamers they
are ready for delivery in a much shorter time than when received by
other vessels. In addition to the sea post-office service, the
transfer service has also in the last two or three years materially
reduced the work at the foreign department in the New York office.
No sooner has the "ticker" reported the Campania or other big liner
"off Fire Island" than a veteran of the transportation department,
accompanied by a few clerks and porters, hastens to the foot of
Cortlandt Street and boards the Postmaster-General, the flag-ship of
the post-office fleet. The boat was built for this service, and is
equipped with spacious mail-rooms, chutes for transboarding sacks, and
other expediting appliances. Steam is up, and she is off down the bay
to meet the big steamer. She makes fast to her sides, and the mails
are received aboard through the chutes, while the clerks check and
verify the number received on a sort of invoice called "way bill,"
prepared by the London, Havre, or sea post-office. Frequently the
passengers are still awaiting the quarantine doctor while the mails
are speeding on their way to the Battery, where the New York City
sacks are landed; then to the Pennsylvania Railroad, then to the foot
of Forty-second Street, where wagons await the mails for the Grand
Central Depot. Thus a great saving in time is often made, while
formerly the whole mail went first to the docks of the several
transatlantic lines, then by wagons to the General Post-Office, then
again by wagons to the different depots. When the mails are handled by
sea post-offices during the sea-trip, they generally arrive ready for
the trains, and little but what is for New York City proper comes to
the general office; but the large and heavy mails on the Cunard and
White Star Lines, also on the French Line, are not thus assorted, and
fully two-thirds has to come to the foreign division to be handled as
previously described.
We have explained to a great extent so far what seems to pertain to
the incoming mails only; but we said at the start that the foreign
mail is worked throughout the world in every exchange office very much
after the same pattern, and it will now be easier to explain the
handling of mail going from the United States to other countries.
There are in the United States several exchange offices besides New
York, but, with the exception of New Orleans and San Francisco, the
mails they make up consist only of matter originating at each of these
offices. Mail for some of the Central American republics is sent to
New Orleans, and mail for transpacific countries goes mostly to San
Francisco. All other mail, no matter where dropped in the letter-box,
comes to the New York office through the instrumentality of the
Railway Mail Service. Letters for abroad are tied up in bundles, and
labelled "New York Foreign." Some of the railway mail offices make a
preliminary separation by countries, and many bundles reach New York
labelled "Russia," "Switzerland," etc.; but as there are many exchange
offices in these foreign countries, these bundles have again to be
opened at New York, and assorted, although this first separation
facilitates the process. The bundles are cut open, and the letters are
all passed through the electric machine or stamped by hand, the
"back-stamp" thus impressed showing their date of arrival in New York.
This is not done with letters originating in New York City, the date
and time of mailing being in that case shown in the stamp-mark
cancelling the postage-stamps, and being held sufficient for records.
The mail having been "back-stamped," goes on a low shelf in front of
each distributor, and is then assorted according to destination. The
"separating case" consists of nine rows of boxes, ten boxes in each
row. Many of the boxes bear the names of exchange offices in Europe or
those reached by steamers for Europe. There are also boxes for other
parts of the world, in which letters are deposited to be later on
taken to another special "separating case" for these countries. In
each separating case there is a box where unpaid or short-paid letters
are deposited. A special clerk takes them out, weighs them, marks
thereon the deficient postage, and stamps them "T," when they are
assorted on a separate case and tied up in bundles under labels
indicating that the contents of the bundles consist of short-paid
mail. They go in the same sacks as ordinary letters. When a box
bearing the name of an exchange office is full (about one hundred and
fifty letters), the contents are taken out, divided into two parts,
the largest letters being laid across both parts, and the whole is
tied up in a sheet of strong manila paper. String is not spared in
this process, and so securely and strongly are these packages tied
that they have been known to remain in the water for days and weeks at
times, and when found, with the exception of the top letters and the
edges, they were yet in a condition to permit delivery to persons for
whom they were intended. Many people, no doubt, some weeks after the
Elbe disaster, remember having received letters with a paster
attached, stating that the letter had been found in the North Sea, in
a bag originating in Norway and sunk with the Elbe. This was the only
sack of mail ever recovered from that steamer. The same was true of
the mail recovered from the Oregon, sacks being found far down the
Jersey coast days after the wreck of that steamer, and forwarded to
New York, where, after being dried, most of the letters were found to
be deliverable.
The package thus wrapped and tied is labelled with the printed name of
the exchange office for which its contents are intended, and thrown
into a large basket. When the basket is full, it is wheeled over to
the pouching rack, an iron frame divided into sections, each section
bearing the name of an exchange office, and provided with four hooks
which hold open a mail sack. The pouching clerk takes the packages of
letters, reads the labels thereon, and throws them into the proper
sack. When full (about seventy-five pounds), the sack is taken down
and ready for tying and sealing up. The last sack taken down receives
the letter-bill for the exchange office of destination. The sack is
tied, and a label bearing the name of the office for which it is
destined is inserted in the string. After several turns have been
taken, both ends of the string are passed through the holes at the
bottom of a small tin cup which is subsequently filled with hot wax,
so that the string cannot be removed without its being cut open (see
illustration on page 71). In this country labels made of good Holland
linen are used fresh for each sack. In other countries other material
is employed, some using leather, some wood, some strong cardboard. The
return of labels of any value is generally requested, and they are
used over and over until worn out. Great Britain does not use labels
of any kind, but has the address of each sack stencilled on the sack
itself, thus: "London for New York." This, of course, renders the sack
useless for any other service. In the United States the labels are
white for letter sacks, buff for papers, and cardinal red for
registered mails.
The newspapers are assorted in the basement of the Post-office, very
much in the same fashion as letters, but they are not tied up in
bundles. The separating cases into which they are thrown are so made
that a sack hanging at the lower end of the box receives the mail thrown
therein, and when full, it is ready for tying, labelling, and sealing
up. In this department are received the queerest odds and ends going
through the mails to foreign countries, newspapers especially being
selected to hide in their folds sundry articles of every description
sent to friends "in the auld country." Jewelry, from the penny kind to
really valuable articles, handkerchiefs galore, baby's dressing
outfits, rattlesnake skins, plugs of tobacco, cucumbers--these and
many other curios of every description are found and stopped. If the
address of the sender appears on the package, it is returned to him
direct. Otherwise it goes to the Dead Letter Office, where it is kept
a certain length of time awaiting to be claimed. The unclaimed part is
finally sold at auction.
In the letter department there are also curiosities, but of another
kind. The greatest part of the letters addressed to Santa Claus in
Greenland, or other Northern lands, are treated by the foreign clerks.
There are also many mysteries to be unravelled in the queer
hieroglyphics which are supposed to be the addresses of letters,
especially those going to Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and even Italy.
Clerks of the foreign department are not linguists; but the same
characters recurring so constantly soon appear familiar, and they
experience no trouble in "boxing" the letters to the proper office.
When a mail has closed, no more letters or papers are put in the
assorting boxes, but everything that was there is taken out, tied,
labelled, and sacked. The letter-bills are then prepared, and after
all the sacks are sealed the way-bills are made up in duplicate
copies. A full European mail _via_ Queenstown or _via_ Southampton
averages nine to twelve hundred sacks, fully two-thirds of which have
been made up in the New York office. The way-bill describes this large
mail only as so many letter-sacks and so many paper-sacks from the New
York office, or the Chicago, or other office of origin, for Paris, or
for Dublin, etc., and when the steamers land the mail at its port of
arrival, the way-bills are used to check and verify the number of
sacks landed. One copy of the way-bill is returned to New York with a
receipt from the official at the port of destination, and the
responsibility of this office for the mails ceases. Their further
transportation will be the business of the administration which has
received them.
The Parcels Post system is also taken care of by the clerks of the
foreign department, but as it is a system based on special conventions
or agreements between any two countries, it is not within the sphere
of an article relating to the international mail service as regulated
by the Postal Union Conventions. The exchange of large parcels,
however, as well as of ordinary correspondence, is one of the
improvements which remain for future postal congresses to introduce in
the system. At present, the United States parcels' post exchange is
confined to the West Indies, Central America, Mexico, Hawaii, and
Newfoundland. Ordinary merchandise not exceeding eleven pounds can be
forwarded under that system for twelve cents a pound.
[Illustration: United States System of Tying, Sealing, and Labelling
Sacks.]
The general supervision over all American exchange offices is centred
in the Office of Foreign Mails, in Washington, but the fact that over
ninety per cent. of foreign mail matter is handled, or passes through
the New York office would make exceedingly advantageous, especially
for business interests all over the country, the transfer to New York
of the supreme direction of that service. Many times questions have to
be decided and steps taken at short notice, delay being the great
bugaboo of postal officials, and in such cases constant and daily
touch with a system ever increasing and improving would be of
incalculable benefit. The New York force, however, is so well trained,
its superintendents and clerks are so completely acquainted with every
detail of the system, that so far the business world has not suffered
from the present arrangement. It certainly has not gained. A
flattering testimonial of this efficiency of the New York foreign
force is found in a report to his government of the New Zealand Postal
Agent residing at San Francisco and in charge of the important
British-Australian Mail Service. "I find," says he, "that the New York
officials are extremely anxious to make the best connections and are
indefatigable in their efforts to expedite the transfer of mails.
Messrs. Maze and Boyle,[1] Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent
of mails in New York City, are particularly energetic and watchful,
and no stone is left unturned at that office to further our interests
in that direction, and the mails are often transferred to tugs and
sent after the Atlantic liners when late."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Lately appointed Post-office Inspector.
NEMESIS
_"Vicisti, Galilæo"_
I
Above the fallen sculpture
Of the pantheon of the Past,
One haggard face looks heavenward
A challenge to the last.
Behold that levelling NEMESIS,
Who rears her balance still,
Scorning a Good that flowers
From roots of good and ill:
A Tonic from the mixture
Of mortal gall and balm!
A foam of their equation--
Fume of waste and compensation,
Which the Cup of trituration
Wreathes with victory and calm!
But oh, thou ruthless goddess,
With never-favoring eyes,
Is Heaven so poor that justice
Metes the bounty of the skies?
So poor that every blessing
Fills the debit of a cost!
That all process is returning,
And all gain is of the lost!
How shalt thou poise the courage
That covets all things hard?
How pay the love unmeasured
That could not brook reward?
How prompt self-loyal honor--
Supreme above desire,
That bids the strong die for the weak,
The martyr sing in fire?
Why do I droop in bower,
And sigh in sacred hall?
Why stifle under shelter,
Yet where through forest tall
The rime of hoary winter
In stinging spray resolves,
I sing to the northwind's fury,
And shout with the starving wolves?
Up through a hundred tumults
I won to fields of peace:
A veteran scarred and grizzled,
On furlough, or release.
I roam the heights of freedom,
And through the mists of death
I hail the thrones supernal
With bold and jovial breath.
What of thy priests confuting
Of fate, and form and law--
Of being and essence, and counterpoise
Of poles that drive and draw?
Ever a compensation--
Some pandering purchase still!
But the vehm of achieving reason
Is the all-patrician WILL!
II
Lo! where the world is quiet
That heeds not me, nor thee,
I watch while the healing planets
Refreshen the brackish sea;
My vision of hope and progress
Has passed with thin day-light,
And the SAME, in its ancient splendor,
Is new in the blooming night:
Then swathe thy locks with shadows,
And poppied wreaths entwine,
And steep in thy pagan nectar
The nightshade's 'trancing vine:
Yet a voice shall pierce thy stupor,
And thou shalt not forget:
"My locks, which the dews have laden,
With drops of the night are wet....
Take thought for no to-morrow!...
Let the dead bury their dead!..."
What boots it that IMMANUEL hath
Not where to lay His head!
III
Sorrow no more nor glory
Shall toss my even beam.
Rest, rest thy weary balance!
I am dreaming of the dream
Wherein neither pain nor pleasure--
Wherein neither toil nor treasure--
Wherein neither guess nor measure
May be, nor yet may seem,--
A dream of life Ideal,
That knows its own control,--
Whose ends are at the centre,
And whose balance is the whole.
DANIEL WEBSTER
WITH UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS AND SOME EXAMPLES OF HIS PREPARATION FOR
PUBLIC SPEAKING
By George F. Hoar
In one respect Daniel Webster is the most striking figure in our
history, and one of the few most striking figures in all history. That
is, in the impression he made on everybody--that, great as were his
achievements, he was himself greater than his greatest achievement.
Franklin, Webster, and Emerson are the three great New Englanders.
Each of them was a great public teacher. If Webster did not lack, at
least he did not manifest, Franklin's wonderful common-sense, as
applied to common things and common life. He had not Emerson's
profound spiritual discernment or wonderful poetic instinct. But his
intellect seems like a vast quarry. When you have excavated the great
rocks at the surface, you know there is an inexhaustible supply left.
When he died, the people felt as if the corner-stone of the Capitol
had been removed; as if the elephant had died that bore the universe
on its back.
Emerson's portraiture of Webster at Bunker Hill is made up of a few
strokes. But it reveals the whole secret. Great as were the things
that Webster said, profound as was his reasoning, lofty as are the
flights of his imagination, stirring as are his appeals to the
profoundest passions of his countrymen, there is a constant feeling
that Jove is behind these thunderbolts. That is the contrast between
him and so many other orators. Even in Choate and Phillips you are
admiring the phrase and the elocution, and not the men. In Webster you
are thinking of the man, and not the phrases. The best things that he
said do not seem to his listener to be superior, and rarely seem to
his listener to be equal, to the man who said them. There is plenty of
reserve power behind--
... Half his strength he put not forth, but checked
His thunder in mid-volley.
Emerson also said of him, "His strength was like the falling of a
planet; his discretion, the return of its due and perfect curve."
Nothing certainly can be more profitable for youth who desire to
cultivate the capacity for public speaking for the purpose of
addressing juries, legislative bodies, or popular assemblies, than the
study of the style, the delivery, and the method of preparation of him
whom nearly all his countrymen think the foremost American orator, and
whom many of them think the foremost orator who ever spoke the English
tongue. Many admirable critics have dealt with these topics.[2]
Mr. Winthrop has told,[3] in his own delightful way, the story of one
of Webster's compositions, famous at the time, now almost forgotten.
Mr. Winthrop says also truly of Daniel Webster:
"Daniel Webster, unlike Everett or Choate, was all deliberation, both
in matter and manner. I do not believe that it ever occurred to him
what gestures he should make, or that he ever remembered what gestures
he had made. His words seemed to flow spontaneously and often slowly,
whether from his lips or his pen, as from a profound and exhaustless
reservoir of thought. Of him it might be, and perhaps often has been,
said:
"... Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care."
He says of Webster's eloquence that it was the eloquence of clear,
cogent argument, and of occasional deep emotion, expressed in clear,
forcible Saxon words--sometimes adorned by most felicitous quotations
and sometimes by magnificent and matchless metaphors.
James Parton says:
"He discovered, he says, that the value as well as the force of a
sentence depends chiefly upon its meaning, not its language, and that
great writing is that in which much is said in a few words, and those
words the simplest that will answer the purpose. Having made this
notable discovery, he became a great eraser of adjectives, and toiled
after simplicity and directness."
Edward Everett, who knew Mr. Webster very intimately, says:
"Perhaps the noblest bursts--the loftiest flights, the last and
warmest tints of his discourses of this kind--were the unpremeditated
inspiration of the moment of delivery."
I suppose, from all I can gather, that Mr. Webster, with very few
exceptions indeed, committed to writing nothing but the heads of his
speeches. But they were, nearly all of them, upon subjects constantly
in his thoughts. He had undoubtedly matured sentences and phrases
which came to his mind in leisure moments, and which came to his
memory under the stimulant of great occasions and great audiences, in
addressing juries or public assemblies or the Senate, with which he
ornamented his discourses, or strengthened his argument. Most of the
speeches we have only as they came to us in the imperfect reporting of
the time. Some of them, like the oration at Plymouth, he probably
revised carefully before they were published. We have his own
testimony that this was true of the well-known "morning drum-beat"
passage in the speech on the President's Protest.
Still, the testimony is abundant that some of his best passages must
have come from an inspiration while he was upon his feet. Mr. Winthrop
gives an account of one; Mellen Chamberlain, a most accomplished
critic and observer, another. And there are plenty of others floating
about. Judge Chamberlain says one thing of him, which I dare say may
have been said before and since. It explains Webster's influence over
his auditors and over posterity. He says:
"He was perfectly sane, and it may be the most perfectly sane orator
who ever spoke English."
* * * * *
I have in my possession a good many of Mr. Webster's manuscripts,
including his preparations for speeches, letters from him to intimate
friends and from his intimate friends to him, a good many bound
volumes of political pamphlets, some of them with the autographs of
famous authors, and some of his books. From these I select a few which
relate to important and interesting events in his life, or throw some
additional light upon his habit and method of preparation for public
speaking, adding some explanation and comment.
One of the greatest debates in our parliamentary history, only
surpassed in importance in Mr. Webster's public life by the debate
with Hayne on Foot's Resolution and the debate on the Compromise
measures in March, 1850, is the debate on the Sub-Treasury in the
early part of the year 1838. Silas Wright introduced the Sub-Treasury
Bill January 16, 1838. January 30, 1838, the bill came on for a second
reading, and Mr. Wright made an elaborate speech in its support. The
next day Mr. Webster spoke. His speech, which is wholly a reply to
Wright, makes no allusion whatever to Mr. Calhoun. It is reported in
the fourth volume of his works, page 432. I have before me Mr.
Webster's notes of preparation for that speech. They constitute a mere
brief, all included on six pages of letter-paper, and mostly
consisting of mere catch-words. The first sentence or two, however,
indicate the difference between Webster and the supporters of the
Sub-Treasury:
"Let the government attend to its own business; and let the people
attend to theirs."
"Let the government take care of the currency for its own revenue; for
all other purposes, let it leave it to the States and to the people."
"Ominous and disheartening sentences. Yet the whole spirit of the
Administration and of this bill."
There is no hint in these notes, except the above, of any of the
eloquent and weighty sentences with which the speech abounds.
February 15, 1838, Mr. Calhoun spoke on the Independent Treasury Bill.
(See, for this speech, his Works, vol. 3, page 202.) He makes an
allusion to one of Mr. Webster's arguments, viz., his claim that the
government should furnish paper currency. But the speech contains
nothing personal or calculated to excite challenge and reply. March
10, 1838, Calhoun makes a second speech on the same bill (reported,
Works, vol. 3, page 244). That speech, also, contains hardly any
allusion to Mr. Webster. It is devoted almost wholly to a reply to
Clay, between whom and Calhoun a very angry personal altercation had
arisen. March 12, 1838, Mr. Webster delivered his second speech on the
Sub-Treasury, which is reported in his Works, vol. 4, page 424. It
occupies seventy-six pages there. Of this, the last thirty-three are a
reply to Mr. Calhoun. Calhoun said in his answer, which was made on
the 22d of the same month, that Webster delivered this part of his
speech with great vehemence, and evidently considered it the most
important portion of his remarks. So much of the speech as is a reply
to Mr. Calhoun, however, deals chiefly with a speech made by him at
the extra session in September, 1837, and with a letter known as the
"Edgefield Letter," written by Mr. Calhoun to his constituents in the
vacation. I have Mr. Webster's entire preparation for this speech. It
is in Webster's handwriting, and consists of eight heads, all on one
page of a sheet of small note-paper, labelled on the back, in
Webster's handwriting, "Heads of my speech on the Sub-Treasury," and
is as follows:
"No. 1. General state of the country and credit system."
"No. 2. Our pecuniary condition and question of excess."
"No. 3. Is the measure suited to the condition of the country?"
"No. 4. Is it a just exercise of our powers?"
"No. 5. Mr. C.'s speech, September 19."
"No. 6. Mr. C.'s letter, November 3."
"No. 7. Mr. C.'s speech, February 15."
"No. 8. Identity of commerce."
Besides this, Mr. Webster wrote out the concluding part of the speech
in twenty-one pages of a rather small letter-paper, of which I have
the last eight, which correspond to about three of the seventy-six
pages which the whole speech occupies in the printed report. This part
seems to have been corrected again and again. A fac-simile of a part
of one of these pages is here given, showing how careful was Mr.
Webster's revision and correction. The whole page runs:
"Sir, the spirit of Union is particularly liable to temptation, &
seduction, in moments of peace & prosperity. In war, this spirit is
strengthened, by a sense of common danger, & by a thousand
recollections of ancient efforts, & ancient glory, in a common cause.
"In the calms of a long peace, & the absence of all apparent causes of
great alarm, things near gain an ascendancy over things remote. Local
interests & feelings overshadow national sentiments. Our attention,
our regard, & our attachment, are ever more solicited to what touches
us closest, feel less and less the attraction of a distant orb. Such
tendencies, we are bound by true patriotism, & by our love of union,
to resist."
Mr. Calhoun replied to this speech of Webster, March 22, 1838, in a
speech reported in his Works, vol. 3, pages 279-330. Calhoun had both
Webster and Clay on his hands in this debate. He certainly bore
himself with great courage and ability. The South had no reason to be
ashamed of her champion, so far as this was a struggle of pure
intellect. When Calhoun got through, Webster instantly rose and
answered him in the speech beginning with the famous passage about
carrying the war into Africa, reported in Webster's Works, vol. 4,
page 500, but not found in the _Globe_. The _Globe_ at that time was a
weekly paper, containing very imperfect reports of the daily debates
in the Senate. An appendix was published at the end of the session,
which had some of the more important speeches written out from the
reporters' notes or from other sources, probably under the supervision
of their authors. This speech ended the discussion between Calhoun and
Webster on this particular measure, although the debates on financial
and other questions for several preceding and succeeding years make,
in substance, but one long debate between these two famous champions,
in which the whole issue between North and South, slavery and freedom,
State rights and national powers, was under discussion.
[Illustration: Fac-simile of a part of one of the concluding pages of
Webster's draft of his speech in reply to Calhoun, March 12, 1838.]
One passage in this speech explains the following note here given in
fac-simile, from John Tyler to Mr. Webster, his Secretary of State,
written when Jackson broke the silence of the Hermitage:
[Illustration: "The old Lion still roars. See Genl. Jackson's letter
among those which are sent.
J. T."]
"On the broad surface of the country, Sir, there is a spot called 'the
Hermitage.' In that residence is an occupant very well known, and not
a little remarkable both in person and character. Suppose, Sir, the
occupant of the Hermitage were now to open that door, enter the
Senate, walk forward, and look over the chamber to the seats on the
other side. Be not frightened, gentlemen; it is but fancy's sketch.
Suppose he should thus come in among us, Sir, and see into whose hands
has fallen the chief support of that administration, which was, in so
great a degree, appointed by himself, and which he fondly relied on to
maintain the principles of his own. If gentlemen were now to see his
steady military step, his erect posture, his compressed lips, his
firmly knitted brow, and his eye full of fire, I cannot help thinking,
Sir, they would all feel somewhat queer. There would be, I imagine,
not a little awkward moving and shifting in their seats. They would
expect soon to hear the roar of the lion, even if they did not feel
his paw."
This speech Mr. Everett declared to be the ablest and most effective
of Mr. Webster's speeches on the currency. Lord Overstone, than whom
there was never a higher authority upon finance in England, produced a
copy of it before a committee of the House of Commons, by whom he was
examined, and said it was one of the ablest and most satisfactory
discussions of these subjects he had ever seen. He afterward spoke of
Mr. Webster as a master who had instructed him upon these matters.
There are notes of a speech on the currency which occupy two pages and
three and one-half lines of common letter-paper. The two sentences at
the close sum up not only Webster's final conclusion after a life of
reflection upon the subject, but, I believe, the final conclusion of
the country as to the great doctrine of protection. "The sacrifice
made by reducing prices must necessarily fall on labor."
"If price of cotton reduced, at home, may be not abroad. So other
articles.
"But labor is fixed down to the place. If you reduce its price, it has
no escape. The whole result, then, of reducing cost of production
comes merely to this--that the capitalist shall manufacture at a less
price, and deduct the loss in price from the labor of his workmen.
This is the whole of it.
"I am for protecting labor. I am for enabling it to clothe itself
well, feed itself well, and educate itself. I am desirous of giving to
labor here, in its competition with capital, advantages which it does
not possess elsewhere.
"Every man, who contemplates reduction, must survey the condition of
other countries, with which we have great intercourse."
Mr. Webster went to Washington to attend the session of December,
1832, under the burden of a great responsibility. He had borne his
share in the great debate in which he established the authority of the
Union against the doctrine of nullification in a manner which had won
for him the undying regard of the vast majority of his countrymen.
President Jackson had done his part in asserting his determination to
uphold the Constitution at all hazards and against all enemies. In all
that, the President and Mr. Webster were in thorough accord. But he
had no sympathy with President Jackson's desire to overthrow the
banking system, to provide simply instrumentalities for the government
to transact its business, leaving the business of the country to look
out for itself. On the other hand, a considerable portion of his own
party, led by Mr. Clay, desired to compromise with nullification, and
so to modify the tariff as to leave South Carolina a substantial
victory, and save her pride from being compelled to submission to the
superior strength of the government. With this element Mr. Webster had
no sympathy. Again, Jackson claimed to be the direct representative of
the people, desired to extend the power of the executive and to
circumscribe the legislative power, especially that of the Senate. In
resisting that encroachment Webster and Calhoun were in complete
accord. So Mr. Webster could have no permanent alliance or
co-operation either with Jackson, Calhoun, or Clay.
[Illustration: Fac-simile of the First Paragraph of Webster's
"Principles."]
Mr. Webster prepared for himself the following statement of the
principles which were to govern his own course in this great
emergency. Some of its language is found in his speech in the Senate
of February 8, 1833. But with that exception, it has never, I believe,
been made public until now. It is the chart which governed his course
in that part of his public life of far greatest public importance, and
the part of his public conduct on which his own fame must rest:
"PRINCIPLES.
"1. To sustain the administration, in executing the laws; to
support all measures, necessary to supply defects in the
existing system; & to counteract the proceedings of South
Carolina; to limit all their measures, & all this support, to
the fair purpose of executing the laws, with moderation &
temperance, but with inflexible firmness;--to share this
responsibility with the Administration, frankly & fairly,
without expressing any want of confidence, & without mingling
other topics, with the consideration of these measures.
"2. Not to give up, or compromise, the _principle of
protection_; nor to give any pledges, personal or public, for
its abandonment at any time hereafter.
"3. To bring down the revenue to the just wants of the Govt.:
but this not to extend so far as to prevent Congress from
making, for a limited time, a distribution of the proceeds of
the sales of the public lands among the States, if Congress
shall see fit to make such distribution: nor so far as to
prevent appropriations to such objects of Internal improvement,
as Congress may think deserving of national aid.
"4. To revise the Act of last session, with close scrutiny, &
entire candor; & to reduce duties, in all cases, where such
reduction can, with any fairness, be asked, & with any safety,
granted; having just regard, to the necessities of the Country
in time of war, to the faith plighted by existing & previous
laws to the reasonable protection of capital, & especially to
the security of the interests of _labor & wages_.
"5. If Congress shall not, before the end of the next session
of Congress, pass a law for the distribution of the proceeds of
the public lands, among the States, those proceeds to be
regarded as so much general revenue, applicable to the ordinary
purposes of Government; & the duties on imports to be so much
farther reduced as may, by this means, become necessary.
"6. Provision to be made to direct the framing of proper issues
in law, feigned or real, with a view to submit to the judgment
of the Supreme Court of the U. S. the question, whether
Congress possesses the Constitution to lay & collect duties on
articles imported, for the avowed and only purpose of
protecting & encouraging domestic products & manufactures.
"7. If the land bill shall pass, then some measure to be
adopted to limit, practically, grants by Congress to objects of
Internal Improvement, to such as in their nature transcend the
powers & duties of separate States.
"8. A Comee. of the Senate to sit in the recess to take into
consideration the law of the last session (according to Art.
4),--to make a detailed Report, the first day of next session;
accompanied by such a bill, as they may recommend, for the
purpose of adjusting the Revenue to the necessities of
Government.
"NOTE.--My idea would be, that this Comee. should meet in
Boston, Oct. 1, & prosecute its inquiries, in Boston,
Providence, N. Y., Philadelphia & Pittsburg, if thought
necessary.
"The Comee. to consist of one N. E. member
one from Middle States,
one from N. W. States,
one from S. W. States,
one from Southern States."
It is very unpleasant to think that the great sentences of the Reply
to Hayne, which the country knows by heart, were never delivered by
Mr. Webster in the Senate chamber as we have them. Yet so it is. The
speech was taken down in short-hand by Joseph Gales, one of the
editors of the _National Intelligencer_, and one of the best
stenographic reporters of that day. He was requested by Mr. Webster
beforehand to report his speech, which he did. He wrote out his
short-hand report at length. That report was submitted to Mr. Webster,
and he, with it in his possession, wrote out in his own hand a revised
version of the speech. Mr. Everett says, in the Life prefixed to his
edition of Mr. Webster's Works, that Mr. Webster had Gales's report
but a part of a day. But it is absolutely impossible that Mr. Everett
is correct, although the statement was published in Mr. Webster's
lifetime. The short-hand notes, and the speech as written out from
them by Gales, and the speech in Mr. Webster's handwriting, are now
all in the possession of the Boston City Library. They were purchased
of Mrs. Gales, widow of Joseph Gales, for the sum of $575 by Robert C.
Winthrop, acting in behalf of himself and twenty-two other subscribers
who gave $25 each for the purpose. Mr. Webster wrote out the whole of
it, although about a third of his manuscript is missing, not, however,
the most important or the best known portion. The draught itself shows
traces of revision and reconsideration by Mr. Webster in the matter
of the structure of some important sentences. He changes Gales's
report a great deal, and then in revision makes corrections again and
again of his own draught. We give the famous passage about
Massachusetts, and the noble peroration, as they are reported by the
accurate short-hand writer, doubtless literally as they were spoken,
and the passages as finally composed by Mr. Webster and now familiar
to the world. The sentences actually spoken well account for the great
impression made upon the auditors. They are such as Webster would have
been likely to utter on a great occasion and great theme. But we do
not like to think that any word or syllable among those that have
stirred our hearts from our earliest boyhood did not, in fact, come
from the inspired lips of the great patriot and orator. The emotion is
like that felt when a lover of Milton sees the manuscript of Comus or
Lycidas in the library at Cambridge, and learns that any other than
the fit word and perfect phrase could ever have occurred to the poet
to express his thought. The exquisite beauty of the verse still
abides. But the sense that it was an inspiration is gone.
It is said that when Milo in his exile read Cicero's speech in his
defence, he exclaimed, "O Cicero, hadst thou spoken thus, Milo would
not be now eating figs at Marseilles." We cannot say that of the Reply
to Hayne. Its grandeur is there as it came unpremeditated and fresh
from heart and brain. But it is a little unpleasant to think that the
phrases that all Americans know by heart differ so much from those
which commanded the applause of the listening Senate on that great day
which settled in the tribunal of reason the fate of the Republic.
_The Passage about Massachusetts as Actually Spoken_
"Sir, I shall be led on this occasion into no eulogium on
Massachusetts. I shall paint no portraiture of her merits, original,
ancient or modern. Yet, sir, I cannot but remember that Boston _was_
the cradle of liberty, that in Massachusetts (the parent of this
accursed policy so eternally narrow to the West), etc., etc., etc. I
cannot forget that Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill _are_ in
Massachusetts, and that in men and means and money she _did_
contribute more than any other State to carry on the Revolutionary
war. There was not a State in the Union whose soil was not wetted with
Massachusetts blood in the Revolutionary war, and it is to be
remembered that of the army to which Cornwallis surrendered at
Yorktown a majority consisted of New England troops. It is painful to
me to recur to these recollections even for the purpose of
self-defence, and even to that end, sir, I will not extol the
intelligence, the character and the virtue of the people of New
England. I leave the theme to itself, here and everywhere, now and
forever."
_As Written Out by Mr. Webster and Printed_
"Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. She
needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There
is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is
secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill;
and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in
the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of
every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie
forever. And Sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and
where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in
the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If
discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind
ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if
uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in
separating it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made
sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which
its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of
vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it
will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of
its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin."
_Peroration as Actually Spoken_
"When my eyes shall be turned for the last time on the meridian sun, I
hope I may see him shining bright upon my united, free and happy
country. I hope I shall not live to see his beams falling upon the
dispersed fragments of the structure of this once glorious Union. I
hope I may not see the flag of my country with its stars separated or
obliterated; torn by commotions, smoking with the blood of civil war.
I hope I may not see the standard raised of separate State rights,
star against star, and stripe against stripe; but that the flag of the
Union may keep its stars and its stripes corded and bound together in
indissoluble ties. I hope I shall not see written as its motto,
'_First_ liberty, and _then_ union.' I hope I shall see no such
delusive and deluded motto on the flag of that country. I hope to see,
spread all over it, blazoned in letters of light and proudly floating
over land and sea, that other sentiment, dear to my heart, 'Union
_and_ Liberty, now and forever, one and inseparable.'"
_Peroration as Written Out by Mr. Webster and Printed_
"When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in
heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored
fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be,
in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather
behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted,
nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable
interrogatory as 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of
delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards'; but
everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on
all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and
in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
every true American heart, Liberty _and_ Union, now and forever, one
and inseparable!"
The family of one of Mr. Webster's colleagues have a story which has
been repeated to me several times, but, so far as I know, has never
been published, that the delegation were somewhat anxious lest Mr.
Webster did not fully appreciate the strength of Hayne's attack, and
the grave responsibility he had to bear in the reply. One of them at
the request of his associates called on Mr. Webster that morning at
his boarding-house, to communicate to him their great anxiety. He
found him alone in the parlor of his dwelling, walking up and down,
and humming to himself the refrain of the old English hunting-song:
Tantivy, tantivy,
This day a stag must die.
He concluded there was no occasion for any further alarm.
When Mr. Webster went to the Senate next morning, as he made his way
through the crowded chamber to his seat, John M. Clayton, of Delaware,
said to him: "Mr. Webster, I hope you are primed and loaded this
morning." "Five fingers, sir," was the reply, with a gesture as if
pointing to a gun-barrel.
Mr. Winthrop says: "Of his emotions he said himself not long
afterward, 'I felt as if every thing I had ever seen or read or heard
was floating before me in one grand panorama, and I had little else to
do than to reach up and cull a thunderbolt and hurl it at him.'"
What he said to Hiram Ketcham, of the Reply to Hayne, is true of
nearly all his great speeches:
"In one sense I had no preparation whatever, but in another sense I
was fully prepared. I did not know what words I should use when I rose
to my feet, nor the order of argument in which I should proceed. These
came to me under the excitement of debate. But I understood the
subject as well as I was capable of understanding it. I had studied
it; I had often urged similar arguments before other tribunals, and in
this sense of the term I was thoroughly prepared."
It is clear that there was absolutely no time for the preparation of
the language of Webster's Reply to Hayne. He had made an
extemporaneous reply to Hayne--to an elaborate speech of Hayne's--the
morning after it was delivered. Hayne replied to him, and Webster,
after a single night's interval, made in two successive days the most
famous speech in American history.
We may sum up what we know of Mr. Webster's habit of preparation and
composition as follows:
First. He spoke always upon great subjects.
Second. They were subjects upon which he had long meditated with the
expectation that he would be called upon to discuss them in public.
Third. He had matured in his mind the arguments on great public
questions, and also eloquent thoughts and sentences which had occurred
to him during such meditations, ready for use when such occasion came.
Fourth. With these exceptions his speeches were usually
unpremeditated, both as to language and order of arrangement, except
so far as he jotted down some points or heads just before he spoke.
Fifth. In some few instances he wrote out his speeches beforehand,
making occasional corrections and interlineations, which in general
did not seriously change or improve his first expression.
Sixth. Many of the speeches we have, especially those made in the
Senate or made to political assemblies, are as taken down by the
reporters, and not revised by him.
Seventh. Some few, as for example, the Plymouth Oration and the Reply
to Hayne, were carefully revised and largely written out by him
afterward.
Eighth. He was quite susceptible to the stimulant of the audience or
the occasion, which not infrequently excited him to the very loftiest
and most effective eloquence.
Ninth. In general, Webster's style was not a Saxon style. It was of a
somewhat ponderous latinity. But on a few occasions, when his mind
rose to a white heat, all the resources of our language, whatever
their origin, were at his command in amplest measure.
Tenth. In general he mastered his subjects; his subject did not master
him. Solidity, sincerity, gravity, self-restraint, characterized his
every thought and every utterance. But sometimes the volcano poured
out its molten lava.
Mr. Webster made an impression upon the people of Massachusetts, in
his time, as of a demi-god. His magnificent presence, his stateliness
of manner, his dignity, from which he never bent, even in his most
convivial and playful moments, his grandeur of speech and bearing, the
habit of dealing exclusively with the greatest subjects, enabled him
to maintain his state. His great, sane intelligence pervades every
thing he said and did. But he has left behind few evidences of
constructive statesmanship. There is hardly a great measure of
legislation with which his name is connected, and he seems to us now
to have erred in judgment in a great many cases, especially in
undervaluing the great territory on the Pacific. He consented readily
to the abandonment of our claim to the territory between the
forty-ninth parallel and that of fifty-four forty, which would have
insured our supremacy on the Pacific, and have saved us from the
menace and rivalry there of the power of England. He voted against the
treaty by which we acquired California. That, however, is a proof of a
larger foresight than that of any of his contemporaries. Alone he
foresaw the terrible Civil War, to which everybody else of his time
was blind. What even he did not foresee was the triumphant success of
the Union arms. It is hardly to be doubted that if the Civil War had
come in 1850 or 1851 instead of 1861 its result would have been
different. But Mr. Webster's great service to the country, a service
second to that of Washington alone, is that he inspired in the people
to whom union and self-government seemed but a doubtful experiment,
the sentiment of nationality, of love of the flag, and a passionate
attachment to the whole country. When his political life began, we
were a feeble folk, the bonds of the Union resting lightly upon the
States, the contingency of disunion contemplated without much
abhorrence by many leading men, both North and South. Mr. Webster
awoke in the bosom of his countrymen the conception of national unity
and national greatness. It has been said more than once that the guns
of our artillery in the great battles of the Civil War were shotted
with the Reply to Hayne.
A few years ago the State of New Hampshire presented to the United
States for the Memorial Hall a statue of Webster--a ceremonial in
which I had some part. After it was over, I got a letter from a brave
Union soldier, who told me he had been stationed as a sentinel in a
place in the woods where several sentries had been killed within a
short time by a shot from the thicket. As he paced up and down on his
midnight watch, thinking that at any moment his death-shot might ring
out from the darkness and gloom about him, he kept up his heart by
repeating to himself, over and over again, the great closing sentences
of the Reply to Hayne, ending with the well-known words, "Liberty and
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
* * * * *
History has not yet settled the question of the motive that inspired
the 7th of March speech.[4] Doubtless there were good and patriotic
men, men who had loved him till that hour, who went to their graves
believing that Webster fell--fell like Lucifer, Son of the Morning.
There are doubtless men living who think so to-day. To the thought of
these men Whittier gave voice in his terrible Ichabod, which is said
to have wounded the great heart of its subject more than any other
stroke that ever smote his mighty forehead. But the general judgment
of his countrymen, first mellowing and softening into the belief which
Whittier himself expressed in his later and tender poem, "The Lost
Opportunity," seems gradually coming to the conclusion that Webster
differed from the friends of freedom of his time, not in a weaker
moral sense, but only in a larger and profounder prophetic vision.
When he resisted the acquisition of California, he saw what no other
man saw, the certainty of the Civil War. It was not given even to him
to foresee its wonderful and victorious result. When he compromised he
saw in like manner the danger he tried to avert. He did not see the
safety only to be attained through the path of danger and strife. I
was one of those who in the conceit and presumption of youth, a lover
of the liberty to which he then seemed to me to be recreant, judged
him severely. But I have learned better in my old age. I think of him
now only as the best type of the farmer's boy of the early time; as
the great example of the New England character of the day of his
earlier manhood; as the great defender and lover of Massachusetts, as
the orator who first taught his country her own greatness, and who
bound fast with indissoluble strength the bands of union; as the first
of American lawyers, the first of American orators, the first of
American statesmen, and as the delightful citizen and neighbor and
friend, of whom the people of his town said when he was laid in the
grave:
"How lonesome the world seems;" and of whom his nearest friend said,
when he died:
"From these conversations of friendship no man--no man, old or
young--went away to remember one word of profanity, one allusion of
indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving suggestion, one doubt
cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the
progress of man--one doubt cast on righteousness, or temperance, or
judgment to come."
[A second paper to follow.]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Among them are:
Edward Everett. See Life of Webster prefixed to his
works.
Article in _North American Review_, October, 1830, Vol.
31, p. 463.
Article in _North American Review_, July, 1835, Vol. 41,
p. 231.
Article in _Littell's Living Age_, 1859, Vol. 63.
Eulogy, "Daniel Webster Speeches," Vol. 4, p. 186.
Robert C. Winthrop, SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, January,
1894, Vol. xv., p. 118. "Speeches," Vol 4, p. 377.
Rufus Choate, "Speeches," pp. 479, 493.
Edwin P. Whipple. "Webster's Great Speeches," Introduction,
_North American Review_, July, 1844.
Mellen Chamberlain, in _Century Magazine_, September,
1893, p. 709.
Henry Cabot Lodge, in _Atlantic Monthly_, Vol. 49, February,
1882.
Julius H. Ward, in _International Review_, February,
1882, p, 124.
General S. P. Lyman, "Daniel Webster," 2 Vols., D.
Appleton & Co., 1853.
James Parton, in _North American Review_, January,
1867, Vol. 104, p. 65.
J. H. B. Latrobe, in _Harper's Magazine_, February,
1882, Vol. 64, p. 428.
Charles W. March, "Reminiscences of Congress."
[3] SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE, 1894, Vol. xv., p. 118.
[4] When I came into the House of Representatives in 1869, one of the
reporters told me that he had the manuscript of Mr. Webster's 7th of
March speech, which Mr. Webster gave him. It contained a few sentences
carefully composed, but which were spoken almost exactly as they were
written. But the larger part of the speech, according to this
reporter, seemed to be extempore.
Perhaps, however, I ought to say that I told this story to Mr.
Winthrop, who told me he thought it could not be accurate, because he
called at Mr. Webster's house the evening before the 7th of March, and
as he went in heard Mr. Webster reading aloud to his son, Fletcher,
parts of the speech which he delivered the next day, and when he was
shown into the room he found Mr. Webster with a considerable pile of
manuscript before him, which he had no doubt was the speech for the
next day.
THE CELEBRANTS
By Carolyn Wells
With a shout of joy the rocket stars
Shot up through the evening air,
Triumphantly they reached the sky
And the stars of God were there.
"Make way!" the rocket stars cried out.
"Make way, and give us place;
We have a mission to perform,
We've travelled leagues of space.
We're sent up here to celebrate
A glorious country's birth--
Make way! But a moment we can stay,
Ere we die and fall to earth."
Then spake the old and kindly stars,
"Ye be bright, oh rocket-spawn,
But we are here since the morning stars
Sang at Creation's dawn.
By the Master Hand we were hurled on high
To celebrate the day.
We, too, but shine for the moment Time,
And then we fade for aye.
But have your way, oh tiny sparks,
And while ye may, shine on."
Ere the kindly voices ceased to speak,
The rocket stars were gone.
[Illustration: Entrance to Havana Harbor, showing Mud-dunes in the
Foreground.]
HAVANA SINCE THE OCCUPATION
By James F. J. Archibald
[Illustration: Milk Vender.]
It is six months since the American administration in Havana began,
and in that time many important changes have been made and many more
are well under way; and the new ideas that are eventually destined to
supplant the customs of the last century are fast taking a firm hold
on the country. Even for those who have tried to follow this progress
in detail in the newspapers it is not easy to realize the full extent
of what has been accomplished, or of the steady hard work that is
going on. Very few bear in mind the fact that a comparatively large
section of our regular army is engaged in it here and elsewhere in
Cuba. Without the blare of trumpets and without the inspiring strains
of music the same heroes that came home fever-stricken, wan, and worn
from that terrible struggle before Santiago are again facing a more
subtle danger and fighting none the less hard and all in the same
cause, but now there are no flaring headlines in our daily press, no
bulletins to tell of the fight, because it is only against an unseen
foe and there is no noise--but the hard work is there. Regiment after
regiment of the volunteers goes home, but these men who "serve for
pay" are sent down to the island again before they have rid themselves
of the fever contracted while standing knee-deep in water in the
trenches around Santiago. Now, it is hard work all day long under a
burning tropical sun and many nights of weary patrol in the pest-hole
of all creation--plain hard work to start a republic on the list of
nations, to teach a people how to govern themselves who have before
known nothing but the lash. All honor is due to these men who are
doing this work; and our people are too prone to forget it, simply
because the actual results are not immediately and always in evidence.
I saw the Eighth United States Infantry, just plain regulars from
nowhere, before El Caney, and again I saw them in Havana patrolling
the streets night and day, with two nights a week in bed. The
regiment had by no means recovered from the Santiago campaign, and
every day some one would be taken with that bone-racking fever that
burns the life slowly out unless checked by a transfer to a Northern
clime. But with it all there was no complaining, and they were
soldiers in these times as well as in the field. Every private seemed
to have the success of the commanding general at heart, and every
officer watched with pride the daily improvement in the capital city.
[Illustration: The Lieutenant-Governor's Palace.
Two of the largest sewers of the city empty into the harbor at this
point.]
The staff shares the danger with the line, and their work is the same
steady, uninteresting grind. The engineers face death just as surely
constructing sewers as they do digging trenches during an advance, the
aides whether carrying despatches to a brigade on the firing line or
reporting on some infested quarter in the city, and the surgeons
whether attending the wounded at the front or Yellow Jack in some
charity hospital. There is no glory for them if they succeed in this
fight against death and disease, and they will get no thanks, for it
is simply their duty.
[Illustration: Poultry Vender.]
The work has been going steadily on and is now well in hand, but it
will be a long time before we shall be able to turn the island over to
the Cuban people, and we cannot withdraw our forces until every detail
of the new government has been thoroughly tested. A generation of
education seems to be the only solution of the Cuban problem that
confronts the American people, that they may keep the promise made to
the civilized world to establish a stable form of government for an
excitable little nation that does not know its own mind, and that is
so divided that internal strife is always inevitable. Not merely an
education of letters is needed, but an education in cleanliness, in
religion, and in respect for superior knowledge of affairs; and it is
that education that the American army officer has been giving since
the first day of January, in the face of obstacles thrown in the way
by the very people who will eventually reap the benefits of his
labors. That the American people should for any other object than
personal gain want to cleanse their city, organize their government,
and teach them how to rule themselves, does not seem possible to them,
and it is on account of this distrust that the work of establishing
order is made difficult and at many times disagreeable.
[Illustration: A Street Corner.]
During the sovereignty of Spain no Cuban was ever consulted on any
part of the administration of the affairs of the island, and for this
reason they are largely ignorant of all the requirements of
organization, unmindful of the necessity of proper municipal sanitary
arrangements, and incompetent to cope with the suffering of their own
people.
When our forces first occupied Havana the city was in a state of
chaos, without the restraint of law, and the officers and men of the
evacuating army had virtually an officially recognized license to do
their will, no matter what it might dictate. Some Spanish officials
had destroyed nearly all of the records of the island in the archives
of the public buildings; and the result of this work, apparently done
merely from spite, will be felt for many years to come, especially in
the matter of the records of real-estate transfers, as at the present
time it is almost impossible to obtain a clear title to any piece of
property. In some cases the records were totally destroyed or carried
away, and in others they were hopelessly disarranged so as to render
them quite useless; the work showing that it was done by someone who
understood the records and knew just what papers would be missed the
most. An instance of this mischief may be given in the Department of
Engineers, where they either destroyed or carried away every map or
plan showing the location or construction of the sewers of the city;
and by the loss of those plans the American engineers are compelled to
hunt out the different mains, and it more than doubles their labor. In
the matter of the real-estate records it will take years to get them
in a condition that will be satisfactory to the demands of legal
evidence in the transfer of property.
General Ludlow is doing excellent work in the matter of bringing
Havana out of the unhealthful condition it was in when he took
command, and it is a work that will take many months of hard labor and
in which, in all probability, many lives will be sacrificed. He is
greatly hampered in his work by not being able to make his department
reports direct to Washington, as the course through division military
channels is exceedingly slow.
[Illustration: A Typical Street.]
The condition of Havana in December, when the first of our Army of
Occupation arrived, was filthy beyond all possibility of description.
There being no sanitary arrangements for the poor or in the abodes of
the poorer classes, the streets and the court-yards of some of these
houses were in a disgusting condition. The most surprising feature was
the total lack of all modesty; and these people really considered it
in the light of a great oppression, and as a direct infringement upon
their liberty and upon their rights, that the Americans should compel
them to obey sanitary laws. The people of all classes were in the
habit of throwing refuse of all sorts into the street, and there was
no attempt made to carry it away, the rains being depended upon to
clean the streets. There were carcasses of animals that had reached
such a state of decay that it was possible to detect the terrible odor
for many blocks, and yet the presence of this nuisance did not seem to
annoy, in the slightest degree, those at whose door it lay, while to
an American it was almost impossible to pass in the vicinity.
[Illustration: Columbus Market, showing Street Cleaners in the
Distance.]
The lack of a proper sewerage system is the cause of nearly all the
disease and pestilence that have made Havana one of the most dreaded
ports of the world. There are more and better sewers than is generally
supposed, but the cause of their breeding sickness is the fact that
they are, in many cases, open to the street by man-holes, and they all
empty into the harbor immediately in front of the city. Two of the
main sewers flow into the channel of the harbor directly under the
Lieutenant-Governor's Palace, in which General Ludlow lives and in
which he has his head-quarters; one empties under the Maestranza de
Artilleria, in which some of the troops were quartered; and from these
mains flow all the filth of Havana, that pest-hole of disease, while
at all times there arises a sickening odor, and it will be the
greatest of wonders if there is not much sickness among our troops,
who are accustomed to cleanliness at home. The one thing that always
is the most noticeable to Americans on their arrival in any of the
towns or cities of Cuba is the offensive odor that is ever present.
The public buildings were in such a condition that not one of them
could be used until they had been thoroughly cleaned. General Brooke
made his head-quarters in the Vedado, a charming suburb, on account of
the condition of the Captain-General's Palace, which, although it was
occupied at the time of the evacuation by the Captain-General, was in
such a condition that there were over thirty wagon-loads of filth
hauled out of it.
All of the prisons, except the Presidio of Havana, were in a
disgusting state of filth, but the same hard work has turned them into
healthy buildings.
[Illustration: The New Havana Police, Organized Under the Supervision
of Ex-Chief McCullagh, of New York, Parading in the Prado.
Chief McCullagh and Chief-of-Police Menocal on the sidewalk to the
right of the picture.]
Under the direction of Lt-Colonel W. M. Black, an officer of the
regular Engineer Corps, the city has already become clean, and the
death-rate is decreasing every month; and if the dreaded plague is
averted this summer it will be owing to his labors, although he would
in no wise be at fault were it to appear. Colonel Black has had most
of the undesirable work, for in his department is included all of the
street cleaning, sewers, harbor dredging, and cleaning all of the
public buildings. Havana must remain in the same unhealthful condition
as long as the main sewers empty into the harbor, as this is almost
tideless and is little better than a stagnant pond; and although the
water at the surface does not appear to be very foul, its condition is
seen when a steamer moves along in the harbor and her screw stirs up
the bottom, which creates the usual vile odor. It is the plan of the
new administration to turn all of the sewers into the sea several
miles from the city, the natural grade making the work comparatively
easy, and in this way the greatest fault will be remedied--that of
pouring the refuse into the harbor. When the dredging of the harbor
commences in earnest and the narrow streets are dug up to lay the
sewers, then will probably come a terrible sickness; and as a great
portion of the labor must come from the United States we are surely
destined to pay still more dearly for the freedom we are establishing
for the Cuban people.
[Illustration: General Ludlow, Military Governor of Havana.]
Surface street cleaning has done more to make Havana cleanly than
anything else, and it was but a short time after the occupation that
the city began to show the effects of this work. It was amusing to
note the astonishment of many of the inhabitants when the first few
squads of sweepers commenced work; and the idea of cleaning an unpaved
street seemed to amuse them more than to impress them, as the majority
did not know what it meant to sweep even their houses. Large gangs of
native labor were given work in this department at good wages, not
only for the sake of the work that was to be done, but also to allow
them to earn their support; and among these street workmen were many
gentlemen of standing in society who embraced the first opportunity to
earn bread for starving families. The residents of Havana did not fare
badly during the war, but the planter from the interior, whose estate
had been burned and devastated, whose stock had been killed, by both
the Cuban and the Spanish forces, and who had been compelled to move
into the city by an edict from the Spanish, although there had been no
arrangement made for his maintenance, suffered terribly.
[Illustration: Captain General's Palace and the Mayor's Office.
Camp of the Second United States Artillery in the foreground.]
The employment of these large numbers of men will also solve the
problem of ridding the island of the depreciated Spanish currency, for
all of this labor is paid in American money, and already the merchants
are showing their preference for it.
One of the most interesting features of the change in affairs in Cuba
is the Church, and the change that must be made in the administration
of the affairs of that body. The Church being a part and department of
the state and entirely dependent upon the government for its support,
suddenly finds itself compelled to find other means of revenue. The
Church of Cuba is not one that Catholicism could be proud of, except
in the orders of women, for nearly all of the men's orders live in old
monasteries a picturesque but inactive life of comparative comfort.
Here are the same monks that one sees in Spain, the brown garb of the
Franciscan with the sandalled feet, or the white and black of the
Dominicans. Captain E. St. J. Greble, of General Ludlow's staff, has
had charge of the poor of the Havana province and has worked night and
day, with his heart in the work, to relieve the suffering; and he
called at all of the churches to see what they needed, but none of
them seemed in need, and yet their people were dying of want. Not so,
however, with the women of the Church, for they had worked faithfully
to accomplish what had been left undone. The Sisters of Mercy, the
Sisters of Charity, the Order of the Sacred Heart, and several others
had their convents filled with women and children of all ages and in
all conditions of want, caring for them and many times denying
themselves to feed their charges. One sister told us that they had not
expected any help from us, as we were considered a Protestant nation
and they dreaded our coming; and great tears rolled down her cheeks as
we unloaded food and medicines for her charges. These noble women
assist our officers in their work and are a marked contrast to the
monks. There seems to be a total lack of any religious feeling; and on
Sundays very few ever enter the churches, but the day is spent in
pleasure and revel. Each Sunday of the Carnival which takes place
during Lent, crowds of maskers throw flour and _confetti_ all day and
spend the night in dancing. Many pounds of flour were thus thrown away
every Sunday, while thousands were suffering from hunger, yet great
indignation was raised when the waste was prohibited, much of the
flour used being what had been issued to Cuban Relief Committees for
the poor.
[Illustration: The Cathedral of Havana.
In the foreground can be seen one of the sewer openings, and to the
right of the picture a second one appears.]
Organizing the police and the courts for the city was one of the most
difficult tasks that were accomplished during the reconstruction; and
although it is well started it will take many months to perfect these
departments. Major John Gary Evans, U.S.V., a former Governor of
South Carolina, has had this portion of the work under his care and
has organized a creditable force from the material at hand. Major
Evans has been recently mustered out of the service, and Captain W. L.
Pitcher, of the Eighth Infantry, has been put in charge of the work,
and being a thorough soldier and a man of great diplomatic tact, he is
just the man for the position at this critical period.
Always having been governed, the Cubans here again showed their lack
of power to govern. The officers seemed to think their duties
consisted of wearing a smart uniform and sitting over some liquid
refreshment in a café; and only as they realize the importance of
their office under American teaching will they cease to be dismal
failures.
[Illustration: Street in the Poor Quarter, showing Sunday Decoration
of Flags.]
[Illustration: Beggars at a Church Entrance.]
Cuban politics also enter into the difficulty. When the Assembly
deposed Gomez from the head of the army, and the parade and mass
meeting in his honor were called, General Ludlow gave orders that they
should be allowed to have their celebration as long as they were
orderly; but in direct violation of this order, Chief Menocal
instructed the police, who had only been patrolling a few days, to
stop the parades, and in this way the rioting was caused. There is a
total disregard for keeping the rolls, although they are told about it
every day. One of the police officers was found dead in the grounds of
the Summer Palace, where Gomez and his followers were living, having
been shot through the head and having been dead several days; yet at
police head-quarters they had not noticed that he was absent from
duty, from the fact that no roll was kept. It is this sort of thing
that it is well for the persons to know who will very soon commence to
demand that we withdraw our forces and allow the Cubans to govern
themselves.
Two of the most characteristic and at the same time unpleasant
features, may be noted among those that have disappeared during the
new administration of affairs. One is the ever-present professional
street-beggar who infested the streets, invaded the cafés, and stood
guard at every church-door; the other is the horrible bone-pit in the
Cristobal Colon Cemetery. There are few prettier places allotted to
the resting of the dead than this cemetery, on the outskirts of the
city.
[Illustration: Harbor Boats.]
[Illustration: A Court-yard in the Tenement District.]
The entrance to the enclosure is superb, the chapel is impressive, and
the monuments are costly works of art, but away off in a far corner of
the unused part of the cemetery was an enclosure about seventy-five
feet square and fifty feet deep, with ghastly skulls and bones in all
conditions of preservation, and piles of burial cases of all degrees
from a costly casket down to a cracker-box or an oil-can. This is the
inhuman manner of disposing of the bodies buried in a plot upon which
the rental is not renewed every three years. There is ample room that
is unused, so it is not the lack of space that causes the disturbing
of the rest of the dead; it must be merely for gain for the cemetery
corporation. In many cases the bodies of the poor are never buried at
all, but at one side of the cemetery is a building, called the
"Dead-house," in which arrangements are made for burning the bodies
with lime until there is nothing left but the bones, which are then
thrown into this pit. Thousands upon thousands were here in a pile
that was fully forty feet deep and as large as the area of the pit.
The residents of Havana did not seem to know of the presence of this
place, and if any did they seemed to take it as a matter of course,
and no notice was taken of the horrible custom; but when the Americans
took charge it was the most talked-of place in Havana, and became one
of the sights of the city, creating such an amount of adverse
criticism that the cemetery authorities caused dirt to be thrown in
the pit to cover the bones.
[Illustration: A Franciscan Monk.]
Not only in Havana have reforms been going on, but all over the island
the same work is being done by the American officers and men. Under
General Fitzhugh Lee the province of Havana has seen the same radical
changes, and all of the little towns have been washed and fed and
begin to live anew.
[Illustration: Court-yard of the Carcel, the City Prison.]
The entire island is a great park that needs no artificial training to
enhance its beauty, and it is destined to become the winter resort of
all the Eastern States. But great administrative improvements in the
ports, besides the police and material ones noted, will be necessary
before this can happen. For instance, it would do much for the island
if the port of Havana could be freed from the high pilot fees,
anchorage fees, docking fees, and fees of all sorts that make it
impossible for small craft to enter. Even the large steamers do not
dock, but cargo has to be lightered out and passengers are compelled
to use the small boats that swarm the harbor.
The people have not even begun to realize that the soldiers are there
to help them in the establishment of their republic; to them a soldier
means oppression, and the presence of armed troops gives them the idea
that we are trying to keep the territory that we have paid so dearly
to conquer. Not only must the Cubans realize what our troops, both
officers and men, are doing, but our own people should realize it in
the same sense. It is easy to criticise, but a nation cannot be built
in a day; and whether they are establishing stable government in Cuba
and Porto Rico by diplomacy, or by the sword in the Philippines,
Americans should feel, concerning these new duties, that those on the
spot often know best the needs of the situation; that the regular army
are American soldiers, and that of what they are doing the nation will
be proud in years to come.
THE WHITE BLACKBIRD
By Bliss Perry
Mid-afternoon in August; a scarcely perceptible haze over the line of
hills that marched northward into the St. Lawrence valley; and here,
under the fir balsams back of the great dingy Morraway Hotel, coolness
and quiet. Through the lower boughs of the balsams gleamed the lake,
blue-black, unsounded, reticent. Behind their slender cone-darkened
tops glistened the bare shoulders of Morraway Mountain in full
sunlight; and overhead hung one of those caressing, taunting,
weather-breeding skies that mark the turning point of the brief
northern summer.
Curled up at one end of a broken rustic seat under the shadow of the
balsams was a strenuous little woman of thirty-five, conscientiously
endeavoring to relax. The habitual distress of her forehead was
mitigated by a negligent, young-girlish manner of doing up her hair;
she was carelessly dressed, too, and as she read aloud to her
companion from _The Journal of American Folklore_ she kept swinging
one foot over the edge of the seat until the boot-lacings were
dangling. The printed label upon the cover of the _Journal_ bore the
name of Miss Jane Rodman, Ph.D.
Miss Rodman's niece was stretched on the brown, fragrant,
needle-covered slope, pretending to listen. Her face was turned
dreamily toward the lake. Her head rested upon her left hand, which
was long, sunburned, and bare of rings. In the palm of her right hand
she balanced from time to time a little silver penknife, and then with
a flash of her wrist buried the point in the balsam-needles, in a
solitary and aimless game of mumble-the-peg. She was not particularly
attracted by what her learned aunt was reading to her about the
marriage rites of the Bannock Indians. In fact she buried the knife
with a trifle more spirit than usual when the article came to an end.
Miss Rodman pencilled some ethnological notes upon the margin of the
_Journal_. "There's another valuable article here, Olivia," she said,
tentatively. "It's upon Blackfeet superstitions. Don't you think I'd
better read that too?"
The younger woman nodded assent, without looking up. She was
gloriously innocent of any scientific interest, and yet grateful for
her aunt's endeavor to entertain her. Miss Rodman began eagerly, and
Olivia Lane silently shifted her position and tried to play
mumble-the-peg with her left hand. Ten minutes passed.
"Then there's a footnote," Miss Rodman was saying, mechanically.
"Compare the Basque legend about the white blackbird whose singing
restores sight to the blind."
The girl looked up suddenly. "What was that?" she asked.
"The white blackbird whose singing restores the sight to the blind,"
repeated Miss Rodman, in a softer voice.
Olivia moved restlessly and then sat up, with fingers clasped about
her knees. There was a red tinge upon her round sun-browned cheek,
where it had nestled in the palm of her hand. "A--white--blackbird?"
she inquired, with the incredulous inflection of a child.
The elder woman nodded--that kindly pitying nod with which a
science-trained generation recognizes and, even in recognizing,
classifies, the old poetic superstitions of the race. But her pity was
really for the tall, supple, low-voiced girl at her feet: this brave,
beautiful creature who was slowly growing blind.
Olivia glanced at her, with great brown eyes that betrayed no sign of
the fatal web that nature was steadily weaving in their depths. There
was a slight smile upon her lips. Each of the women knew what was in
the other's mind.
Miss Rodman laid down the _Journal_. "I shouldn't have read it, dear,"
she said, at last. "I didn't know what was coming."
"But it is such a pretty fancy!" exclaimed Olivia. "I shall be looking
for white blackbirds under every bush, Auntie."
She drew a long breath--too long, alas! for a girl of twenty--and then
with a sort of unconscious feminine instinct patted her heavy hair
more closely into place and began to brush the balsam-needles from the
folds of her walking-skirt.
Miss Rodman made no answer. There seemed to be nothing to say. In this
matter of Olivia's eyes nature was playing one of her countless petty
tragedies; science, the counter-player, stood helpless on the stage,
and Olivia herself was outwardly one of the coolest of the few
spectators.
She had done all that could be done. Dr. Sands, the rising specialist,
an intimate friend of the Lanes and the Rodmans, had sent her to
London to consult Watson, and Watson's verdict was not reassuring.
Then he had sent her to Forget, at Paris, and Forget had shaken his
head. Finally Dr. Sands had advised her to come here to the Morraway
region for the air and the perfect quiet. Once a month he dropped
everything in New York and came up himself to make an examination and
give his brief report. At the end of June he had told Miss Rodman that
Olivia had perhaps one chance in five of keeping her eyesight. A month
later he pronounced it one chance in fifty. Dr. Sands stayed three
days at the Morraway Hotel that time, before giving his opinion, and a
more difficult professional duty he had never had to perform. If she
were only some girl who walked into his office and out again, like the
hundreds of others, it would have been different, but to tell Olivia
Lane seemed as brutal as it would have been to strike her. And on this
August evening he had promised to come again.
By and by Miss Rodman slipped down from the rustic bench and seated
herself by her niece. The girl stroked her aunt's shoulder lightly.
Everything that could be said had been said already, when the horror
of that great darkness had not drawn quite so near.
And yet there was one question which Olivia longed to ask, though she
feared the answer; trembling either way, as a child that asks whether
she may run to snatch a glistening shell upon the beach even while
another wave is racing to engulf it. Olivia's blindness was that
black, all-engulfing wave. And the treasure which she might catch to
her bosom, childlike, ere the dark wave fell?
"Auntie," demanded Miss Lane, abruptly, "have you told Mr. Allan about
my eyes?"