CHAPTER XXVI.

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[Illustration: Henry W. Paine]

THE BAY STATE MONTHLY.

_A Massachusetts Magazine._

VOL. III. NOVEMBER, 1885. NO. VI.

* * * * *

HENRY W. PAINE.

BY PROF. WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D.

Among the callings acknowledged to be not only useful, but indispensable

to society, there is no one, except the medical, which has been oftener

the butt of vulgar ridicule and abuse than the legal. "Lawyers and

doctors," says a writer on Wit and Humor in the _British Quarterly

Review_, "are the chief objects of ridicule in the jest-books of all

ages." But whatever may be the disadvantages of the Law as a profession,

in spite of the aspersions cast upon it by disappointed suitors,

over-nice moralists, and malicious wits, it can boast of one signal

advantage over all other business callings,--that eminence in it is

always a test of ability and acquirement. While in every other

profession quackery and pretension may gain for men wealth and honor,

forensic renown can be won only by rare natural powers aided by profound

learning and varied experience in trying causes. The trickster and the

charlatan, who in medicine and even in the pulpit find it easy to dupe

their fellow-men, find at the bar that all attempts to make shallowness

pass for depth, impudence for wit, and fatal for wisdom, are instantly

baffled. Not only is an acute, sagacious, and austere bench a perilous

foe to the trickery of the ignorant or half-prepared advocate, but the

veteran practitioners around him are quick to detect every sign of

mental weakness, disingenuous artifice, or disposition to substitute

sham for reality. Forensic life is, to a large extent, life in the broad

glare of day, under the scrutiny of keen-eyed observers and merciless

critics. In every cause there are two attorneys engaged, of whom one is

a sentinel upon the other; and a blunder, a slip, an exaggeration, or a

misrepresentation, never escapes without instant exposure. The popular

reputation of a lawyer, it has been well said, is but the winnowed and

sifted judgment which reaches the world through the bar, and is

therefore made up after severe ordeal and upon standard proof.

These observations are deemed not inappropriate as an introduction to a

sketch of the life of one of the most eminent lawyers of New England,

whose career may be regarded as signally worthy of imitation.

HENRY WILLIAM PAINE was born August 30th, 1810, in Winslow,

Maine. His father, Lemuel Paine, a native of Foxborough, Mass., was a

graduate of Brown University, and a lawyer by profession, who began

practice in Winslow, Maine, in partnership with Gen. Ripley, afterwards

the hero of Lundy's Lane. Owing to poor health, Mr. Paine, sen., soon

abandoned the law for other pursuits. He was familiar with the

representative English authors, and specially fond of the Greek language

and literature, which he cultivated during his life. He had a tenacious

memory, and could quote Homer by the page. Henry Paine's mother, Jane

Thomson Warren, was the daughter of Ebenezer T. Warren, of Foxborough,

the brother of General Joseph Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill. Of the

three children of Lemuel and Jane T. (Warren) Paine, Henry William was

the second.

After the usual preparatory education, Mr. Paine entered Waterville

College (now Colby University) in 1826, and graduated in 1830, at the

age of twenty, with the highest honor of his class. During the last year

of the college course, he was principal of Waterville Academy, then just

founded for the preparation of young men for college. He spent eight

hours a day in charge of his pupils, of whom there were eighty-two, and

at the same time kept up with his class in the college studies. As a

teacher he was greatly beloved and respected by his pupils, whose

affection was won by no lack of discipline, but by his kindly sympathy,

encouragement, and watchful aid in their studies. He had an eye that

could beam with tenderness, or dart lightnings; and it was a fine moral

spectacle, illustrating the superiority of mental over physical force,

to see a bully of the school, almost twice his size, and who,

apparently, could have crushed him if he chose, quail under his eagle

gaze, when arraigned at the principal's desk for a misdemeanor. It is

doubtful if ever he flogged a scholar; but he sometimes brought the

ruler down upon the desk with a force that made the schoolroom ring, and

inspired the lawless with a very wholesome respect for his authority.

The fact that from that day to this his office has always been a kind of

Mecca, to which his old pupils, whether dwellers in "Araby the Blest" or

in the sandy wastes of life, have made pious pilgrimages, shows how

deeply he was loved and how highly he was honored as a teacher.

Immediately after graduation Mr. Paine was appointed a Tutor of

Waterville College, and discharged the duties of that office for a year.

He then began the study of law in the office of his uncle, the late

Samuel S. Warren, of China, Maine, and continued the study in the office

of William Clark, a noted lawyer in Hallowell, Maine, and, for a year,

in the Law School of Harvard University, where he was the classmate of

Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips and B.F. Thomas. In the autumn of 1834,

he was admitted to the bar of Kennebec County, Maine. Beginning his

professional career at Hallowell, he prosecuted it there with signal

success till the summer of 1854, having for twenty years a practice not

surpassed by that of any member of the Maine bar. During the sessions of

1836, 1837, and again in that of 1853, he represented the citizens of

Hallowell in the lower house of the State Legislature. He was also for

five years Attorney for Kennebec County. During his stay in Maine, he

was repeatedly offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court

of that State; but, having an unconquerable aversion to office of every

kind, civil or political, he declined to accept the honor pressed upon

him. In 1853 he was offered by his political friends, then the dominant

party in the Legislature, a seat in the United States Senate; but he

refused to be nominated. In the summer of 1854, in accordance with a

long cherished resolve, which he had been prevented from executing

before by a promise to his father that he would not leave Maine during

that parent's lifetime, he removed to Cambridge, Mass., and opened a

law-office in Boston. Here he at once entered upon a large and lucrative

practice, both in the State and Federal courts, which kept steadily

increasing for over twenty years, till declining health and partial

deafness compelled him to withdraw from the courts of justice, and

confine himself to office business. During this period, his opinion on

abstruse and knotty points of law was often solicited by eminent counsel

living outside of Massachusetts, and he sent written opinions to

attorneys in nine different states. As Referee and Master in Chancery,

he was called upon to arbitrate in a great number of difficult and

complicated cases, involving the ownership and disposition of large

amounts of property. His decisions in these vexed cases, which often

involved the unravelling of tangled webs of testimony, and the

consideration of the nicest and most delicate questions of law, were

luminous and masterly, and so impartial withal, that the litigants must

have often been convinced of their justness, if not contented,--_etaim

contra quos statuit, aequos placatosque dimisit._

In 1863 and 1864 Mr. Paine was nominated, without his consent, by the

Democratic party of Massachusetts, a candidate for the office of

Governor. With much reluctance he accepted the nomination, but, as he

expected, and doubtless to his joy, failed of an election. In 1867, on

the resignation of Chief Justice Bigelow, the office of Chief Justice of

the Supreme Court of Massachusetts was offered by Governor Bullock to

Mr. Paine, who, not wishing to give up his large and profitable practice

at the bar, declined to accept. This decision, though a natural one, is

much to be regretted by the citizens of this state. Coming from an

eminently judicial mind, his decisions, had he sat on the bench, would

have been models of close, cogent reasoning, clearness, and brevity,

worthy of the best days of the Massachusetts judiciary.

Shortly after his removal to this State Mr. Paine was associated with

Rufus Choate and F.O.J. Smith in the defence of Judge Woodbury Davis, of

Portland, Maine, who had been impeached by the Legislature of that State

for misconduct in his judicial office. In an editorial article upon the

trial, which appeared after its termination, in the Kennebec Journal,

published at Augusta, the Hon. James G. Blaine, the writer, declared

epigrammatically that, in the defence of Judge Chase, "Paine furnished

the logic, Choate the rhetoric, and Smith the slang."

From 1872 to 1883 Mr. Paine was Lecturer on the Law of Real Property

at the Law School of the Boston University, an office whose duties he

performed with great credit to himself, and profit to those whom he

addressed. So thoroughly was he master of his subject, difficult and

intricate as it confessedly is, that in not a single instance, except

during the lectures of the last year, did he take a note or scrap of

memoranda into the class room.

While he has always been a close and devoted student of the law, Mr.

Paine has yet found time for general reading, and has hung for many an

hour over the pages of the English classics with keen delight. For Homer

and Virgil he still retains the relish of his early days, and, in the

intervals of professional toil, has often slaked his thirst for the

waters of Helicon in long and copious draughts. How well he appreciated

the advantages of an acquaintance with literature, he showed early in a

suggestive and instructive lecture on "Reading," which we heard him

deliver before the Lyceum at Hallowell more than forty years ago. With

his lamented friend Judge B.F. Thomas, he believes that a man cannot be

a great lawyer who is nothing else,--that exclusive devotion to the

study and practice of the law tends to acumen rather than to breadth, to

subtlety rather than to strength. "The air is thin among the apices of

the law, as on the granite needles of the Alps. Men must find

refreshment and strength in the quiet valleys at their feet."

With his brethren of the bar Mr. Paine has always held the friendliest

relations, and he has enjoyed their highest esteem. To none, even the

humblest of his fellow advocates, has he ever manifested any of the

haughtiness of a Pinkney, or any of that ruggedness and asperity which

gained for the morose and sullen Thurlow the nickname of _the

tiger_. Amid the fiercest janglings and hottest contentions of the

bar, he has never forgotten that courtesy which should mark the

collision, not less than the friendly intercourse, of cultivated and

polished minds. His victories, won easily by argumentative ability,

tact, and intellectual keenness, unaided by passion, have strikingly

contrasted with the costly victories of advocates less self-restrained.

Though naturally witty and quick at retort, he has never used the weapon

in a way to wound the feelings of an adversary. In examining and

cross-examining witnesses, he has assumed their veracity, whenever it

has been possible to do so; and though he has had the eye of a lynx and

the scent of a hound for prevarication in all its forms, yet he has

never sought by browbeating and other arts of the pettifogger, to

confuse, baffle, and bewilder a witness, or involve him in

self-contradiction. Adopting a quiet, gentle, and straightforward,

though full and careful examination, winning the good-will of the

witness, and inspiring confidence in the questioner, Mr. Paine has been

far more successful in extracting the truth, even from reluctant lips,

than the most artful legal bully. He knows that the manoeuvres and

devices which are best adapted to confuse an honest witness, are just

what the dishonest one is best prepared for. It was not for all the

blustering violence of the tempest, that the traveler would lay aside

his cloak. The result was brought about by the mild and genial warmth of

the sun.

Few advocates have had more success with juries than the subject of this

sketch. The secret of this success has been, not more the admirable

lucidity and cogency of his addresses, than the confidence and trust

with which his reputation for fairness and truthfulness, and his

evident abhorrence of exaggeration, have inspired his hearers. Another

explanation is, that he has avoided that rock on which so many advocates

wreck their cases,--prolixity. Knowing that, as Sir James Scarlett once

said, when a lawyer exceeds a certain length of time, he is always doing

mischief to his client,--that, if he drives into the heads of the jury

unimportant matter, he drives out matter more important that he had

previously lodged there,--Mr. Paine has taken care to press home the

leading points of his case, giving slight attention to the others.

That Mr. Paine has been animated in the pursuit of his profession by

higher motives than those which fire the zeal of the mere "hired master

of tongue-fence," is shown by the comparative smallness of his fees,

especially in cases exacting great labor. Great as has been his success

in winning verdicts, and sound as have been his opinions, it is doubtful

whether there is another lawyer living of equal eminence, whose charges

for legal service have been so uniformly moderate.

Reference has been made to Mr. Paine's wit. Several striking examples

might be cited; but two must suffice. Some years ago, when he was County

Attorney, a man who had been indicted in Kennebec County for arson, was

tried, and acquitted by the jury on the ground that he was an _idiot_.

After the trial, the Judge before whom the case had been tried, sought

to reconcile Mr. Paine to the verdict by some explanatory remarks. "Oh,

I'm quite satisfied, your Honor," said Mr. Paine, "with the defendant's

acquittal. He has been tried by a jury of his _peers_"--On another

occasion, Mr. Paine was making a legal argument before an eminent judge,

when he was interrupted by the latter, who said: "Mr. Paine, you know

that that is not law." "I know it, your Honor," replied the advocate,

with a deferential bow; "but it _was_ law till your Honor just spoke."

From 1849 to 1862, Mr. Paine was a member of the Board of Trustees of

Waterville College. In 1851, he was elected member of the Maine

Historical Society, and also of the American Academy. In 1854, his Alma

Mater conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.

In the relation of marriage, Mr. Paine has been very happy. In May.

1837, he was united to Miss Lucy E. Coffin, of Newburyport, a lady of

rare endowments, both of head and heart.

Few men have started in a professional career with a more vigorous and

elastic constitution than Mr. Paine's. Endowed with an iron frame and

nerves of _lignum vitae_, he very naturally felt in youth that his

fund of physical energy was inexhaustible; but, like thousands of other

professional men in this fiery and impatient age, he finds himself in

the autumn of his life afflicted with bodily ills, which he feels that

with reasonable care he might have escaped. Toiling in his profession

year after year from January to December, with no recreation, no summer

vacation, no disposition to follow the wise advice of Horace to

Torquatus,--

rebus omissis

Atria servantem postico falle clientem,

--working double tides, and crowding the work of eighty years into

forty, Mr. Paine finds that, large as was his bank account with Nature,

he has been overdrawing it for years, and that he has now to repay these

drafts with compound interest. The lesson he would have young

professional men learn from his experience, is, that they should account

no time or money wasted, that contributes in any way to their physical

health,--that gives tone to the stomach, or development to the muscles.

Let them understand that, though suffering does not follow instantly

upon the heels of transgression, yet Nature cannot be outraged with

impunity. Though a generous giver she is a hard bargainer, and a most

accurate bookkeeper, whose notice not the eighth part of a cent escapes;

and though the items with which she debits one, taken singly are

seemingly insignificant, and she seldom brings in "that little bill"

till a late day, yet, added up at the end of three score years and ten,

they may show a frightful balance against him, which can have no result

but physical bankruptcy.

In Mr. Paine's physiognomy the most noticeable features are the broad,

massive, Websterian forehead, and the sparkling eyes.

In summing up the characteristics of Mr. Paine as a lawyer and as a man,

the writer, who was his pupil at Waterville Academy, and has enjoyed his

friendship to this day, cannot do better than to cite the words of an

acute observer who has known him intimately for many years. Chief

Justice Appleton, of Maine, did not exaggerate, when he said: "He is a

gentleman of a high order of intellect; of superior culture; in private

life, one of the most genial of companions; in his profession, a

profound and learned lawyer, as well as an accomplished advocate."

To conclude,--if the subject of this imperfect sketch has occasion to

regret his excessive devotion to his calling, he can have no other

regrets. At the close of a long, most useful, and most honorable career,

which has been marked throughout by the severest conscientiousness and

the most scrupulous discharge of every professional duty, he is happily

realizing that blessedness which Sir William Blackstone, when exchanging

the worship of the Muses for that of Themis, prayed might crown the

evening of his days:--

"Thus though my noon of life be past,

Yet let my setting sun at last

Find out the still, the rural cell,

Where sage Retirement loves to dwell!

There let me taste the homefelt bliss

Of innocence and inward peace;

Untainted by the guilty bribe,

Uncursed amid the harpy tribe;

No orphan cry to wound my ear,

My honor and my conscience clear;

Thus may I calmly meet my end,

Thus to the grave in peace descend."

* * * * *

PICKETT'S CHARGE.

BY CHARLES A. PATCH, MASS., VOLS.

In all great wars involving the destinies of nations, it is neither the

number of battles, nor the names, nor the loss of life, that remain

fixed in the mind of the masses; but simply the one decisive struggle

which either in its immediate or remote sequence closes the conflict. Of

the hundred battles of the great Napoleon, Waterloo alone lingers in the

memory. The Franco-Prussian War, so fraught with changes to Europe,

presents but one name that will never fade,--Sedan. Even in our own

country, how few battles of the Revolution can we enumerate; but is

there a child who does not know that Bunker Hill sounded the death-knell

of English rule in the land? And now, but twenty years since the

greatest conflict of modern times was closed at Appomattox, how few can

we readily recall of the scores of blood-stained battle-fields on which

our friends and neighbors fought and fell; but is there one, old or

young, cultured or ignorant, of the North or of the South, that cannot

speak of Gettysburg? But what is Gettysburg either in its first day's

Federal defeat, or its second day's terrible slaughter around Little

Round Top, without the _third_ day's immortal charge by Pickett and

his brave Virginians. In it we have the culmination of the Rebellion. It

took long years after to drain _all_ the life-blood from the foe,

but never again did the wave of Rebellion rise so gallantly high as when

it beat upon the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

The storming of the heights of Inkerman, the charge of the noble Six

Hundred, the fearful onslaught of the Guards at Waterloo, the scaling of

Lookout Mountain,--have all been sung in story, and perhaps always will

be; but they all pale beside the glory that will ever enshroud the

heroes who, with perhaps not literally "cannon to right of them" and

"cannon to left of them," but with a hundred cannon belching forth death

in _front_ of them, hurled themselves into the centre of a great

army and had victory almost within their grasp.

To describe this charge, we will go back to the evening of the 2nd of

July, and recall upon what basis the cautious Lee could undertake so

fearful a responsibility. The victorious Southrons fresh from their

triumphs at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville had entered the North

carrying consternation and dismay to every hamlet, with none to oppose;

their forward march was one of spoil, and it was not till the 1st of

July that they met their old foemen, the Army of the Potomac, in the

streets of Gettysburg, and after a fierce conflict drove them back. The

second day's conflict was a terrible slaughter, and at its close the

Federal Army, although holding its position, was to a certain extent

disheartened. Many of our best generals and commanding officers were

killed or wounded, scores of regiments and batteries were nearly wiped

out, Sickles' line was broken and driven in and its position was held by

Longstreet. Little Round Top, the key of the position, was held only at

a frightful loss of life, and Ewell upon the right had gained a footing

upon the Ridge. The Rebel army was joyful and expectant of victory. The

morning of the 3rd of July opened clear and bright, and one hundred

thousand men faced each other awaiting the signal of conflict; but,

except the pushing of Ewell from his position, the hours passed on

relieved only by the rumbling of artillery carriages as they were massed

by Lee upon Seminary Ridge, and by Meade upon Cemetery Ridge. At twelve

o'clock Lee ascended the cupola of the Pennsylvania College, in quiet

surveyed the Union lines, and decided to strike for Hancock's Centre.

Meanwhile, Pickett with his three Virginia brigades had arrived from

Chambersburg and taken cover in the woods of Seminary Ridge. What Lee's

feelings must have been, as he looked at the hundred death-dealing

cannon massed on Cemetery Hill, and the fifty thousand men waiting

patiently in front and behind them, men whose valor he knew well in many

a bitter struggle--and then looked at his handful of brave Virginians,

three, small, decimated brigades which he was about to hurl into that

vortex of death,--no one will ever know. The blunder that sent the

Light Brigade to death at Balaklava was bad enough, but here were

five thousand men waiting to seek victory where, only the day before

ten thousand had lost their lives or their limbs in the same futile

endeavor. Leaving the college, Lee called a council of his generals at

Longstreet's headquarters, and the plan of attack was formed. It is said

that the level-headed Longstreet opposed the plan, and if so it was but

in keeping with his remarkable generalship. The attack was to be opened

with artillery fire to demoralize and batter the Federal line, and was

to be opened by a signal of two shots from the Washington Artillery. At

half-past one the report of the first gun rang out on the still, summer

air, followed a minute later by the second, and then came the roar and

flash of one hundred and thirty-eight rebel cannon. Almost immediately

one hundred Federal guns responded and the battle had begun. Shot and

shell tore through the air, crashing through batteries, tearing men and

horses to pieces; the very earth seemed to shake and the hills to reel

as the terrible thunders re-echoed amongst them. For nearly an hour

every conceivable form of ordnance known to modern gunnery hissed and

shrieked, whistled and screamed, as it went forth on its death-mission

till exhausted by excitement and heat the gunners slackened their fire

and silence reigned again.

Then Pickett and his brave legion stood up and formed for the

death-struggle; three remnants of brigades consisting of Garnett's

brigade:--the 8th, 18th, 19th, 28th, 56th Virginia; Armistead's

brigade:--the 9th, 14th, 38th, 53rd, 57th Virginia; Kempers's

brigade:--the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 11th, 24th Virginia. Their tattered flags

bore the scars of a score of battles and from their ranks the merciless

bullet had already taken two-thirds their number. In compact ranks,

their front scarcely covering two of Hancock's brigades, with flags

waving as if for a gala-day, Gen. Pickett saluted Longstreet and asked,

"Shall I go forward, sir?" but it was not in Longstreet's heart to send

those heroes of so many battles to certain death; and he turned away his

head,--when Pickett with that proud, impetuous air which has earned him

the title of the "Ney" of the Rebel army, exclaimed, "Sir! I _shall_

lead my division forward!" The orders now rang out, "_Attention_!

_Attention_!" and the men, realizing the end was near, cried out to

their comrades, "Good-by, boys! good-by!" Suddenly rang on the air the

final order from Pickett himself, as his sabre flashed from its

scabbard,--"_column forward! guide centre_!" And the brigades of

Kemper, Garnett and Armistead moved towards Cemetery Ridge as one man.

Soon Pettigrew's division emerged from the woods and followed in echelon

on Pickett's left flank, and Wilcox with his Alabama division moved out

to support his right flank--in all about fifteen thousand men. The

selection of these supports shows a lack of judgment which it would

almost seem impossible for Lee to have made. Pettigrew's division was

composed mostly of new troops from North Carolina, and had been terribly

used up in the first day's fight, and were in no condition to form part

of a forlorn hope. Wilcox's troops had also received very severe

punishment in the second day's engagement in his attack on the Ridge and

should have been replaced by fresh well-tried brigades. But the movement

had now begun and Lee with his generals about him watched anxiously for

the result.

[Illustration: MAJ. GEN. GEORGE E. PICKETT]

It was nearly a mile to the Union lines, and as they advanced over the

open plain the Federal artillery opened again, ploughing great lanes

through their solid ranks, but they closed up to '_guide centre_'

as if upon dress-parade; when half way over Pickett halted his division

amidst a terrible fire of shot and shell, and changed his direction by

an oblique movement coolly and beautifully made. But here occurred the

greatest mistake of all. Wilcox paid no attention to this change of

movement, but kept straight on to the front, thus opening a tremendous

gap between the two columns and exposing Pickett's right to all the

mishaps that afterwards overtook it. To those who have ever faced

artillery fire it is marvellous and unexplainable how human beings could

have advanced a mile under the terrific fire of a hundred cannon, every

inch of air being laden with the missiles of death; but in splendid

formation they still came bravely on till within range of the musketry;

then the blue line of Hancock's corps arose and poured into their ranks

a murderous fire. With a wild yell the rebels pushed on, unfalteringly

crossed the Federal line and laid hands upon eleven cannon.

Men fired in each others faces; there were bayonet thrusts, cutting with

sabres, hand to hand contests, oaths, curses, yells and hurrahs. The

second corps fell back behind the guns to allow the use of grape and

double canister, and as it tore through the rebel ranks at only a few

paces distant the dead and wounded were piled in ghastly heaps. Still on

they came up to the very muzzles of the guns; they were blown away from

the cannon's mouth but yet they did not waver. Pickett had taken the key

to the position and the glad shout of victory was heard, as, the very

impersonation of a soldier, he still forced his troops to the crest of

Cemetery Ridge. Kemper and Armistead broke through Hancock's line,

scaled the hill and planted their flags on its crest. Just before

Armistead was shot, he placed his flag upon a captured cannon and cried

"_Give them the cold steel, boys_!"; but valor could do no more,

the handful of braves had won immortality but could not conquer an army.

Pettigrew's weak division was broken fleeing and almost annihilated.

Wilcox, owing to his great mistake in separating his column was easily

routed, and Stannard's Vermonters thrown into the gap were creating

havoc on Pickett's flank. Pickett, seeing his supports gone, his

generals, Kemper, Armistead and Garnett killed or wounded, every field

officer of three brigades gone, three-fourths of his men killed or

captured, himself untouched but broken-hearted, gave the order for

retreat, but band of heroes as they were they fled not; but amidst that

still continuous, terrible fire they slowly, sullenly, recrossed the

plain,--all that was left of them, but few of five thousand.

[Illustration: Position of troops at time of attack on left centre on

3rd day of battle of Gettysburg.]

Thus ended the greatest charge known to modern warfare. Made in a

most unequal manner against a great army and amidst the most terrific

cannonade known in wars, and yet so perfect was the discipline, so

audacious the valor that had this handful of Virginians been properly

supported they would perhaps have rendered the Federal position

untenable, and possibly have established the Southern Confederacy.

While other battle-fields are upturned by the plough and covered with

waving grain, Cemetery Ridge will forever proudly uphold its monuments

telling of glory both to the Blue and the Gray, and our children's

children while standing upon its crest will rehearse again of Pickett's

wonderful charge.

* * * * *

THE PATRIOT, SAMUEL ADAMS.

BY EDWARD P. GUILD.

[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS. FROM COPLEY'S PAINTING.[1]]

Three years ago the old State House in Boston was restored to its

original architectural appearance. After having fallen a prey to the

ruthless hand of commerce, been surmounted with a "Mansard roof,"

disfigured by a legion of business signs, made a hitching place for

scores of telegraph wires, and lastly been threatened with entire

demolition by the ever arrogant spirit of "business enterprise"; the

sentiment of patriotic veneration asserted itself and came to the

rescue. With an appropriation of $35,000 from the city, work was begun

in the fall of 1881, and by the following July the ancient building had

been restored to almost exactly its appearance in the last century. As

the Old State House now stands, it is identical with the Town House

which Boston first used for its town meeting May 13, 1713. This was nine

years before the birth of the man destined to become the foremost

character in the Boston town meeting of the eighteenth century--Samuel

Adams. Probably no other man who ever lived has been so identified with

the history of the Old State House as was he. The town meetings were

held in Faneuil Hall after 1742, but through the stormy years when the

Assembly met in the old building, Samuel Adams was in constant

attendance as clerk. His desk, on which he wrote the first sentences

ever ventured for American independence, and by which he arose, and,

with hands often tremulous with nervous energy, directed the exciting

debates, is to-day in the old Assembly chamber in the western end of the

building. In 1774 he went to Congress, but for a long period afterward

the Old State House was again his field of labor, as senator, as

lieutenant governor and then as governor.

The life of Samuel Adams ought to be more familiar than it is to the

patriotic young men of to-day, but some excuse is found in the fact that

a popular, concise biography has, until lately, not been written. The

excellent three volume work of Mr. Wells, Adams' great grandson,

although admirable as an exhaustive biography, is too voluminous for the

common reader; but since the appearance of Prof. Hosmer's recent book[2]

there can be no reason why any schoolboy should not have a clear idea of

the life of the man who organized the Revolution.

It is only as a patriot that Samuel Adams claims our attention. Although

college bred he was a man of letters only so far as his pen could write

patriotic resolutions and scathing letters against the government of

King George. These letters were printed for the most part in the "Boston

Gazette," published by Edes & Gill in Court Street. As a business man he

was never a success. For years he kept the old malt house on Purchase

Street, but he gave the business little thought, for his mind was

constantly engrossed in public matters, and at last he made no pretext

of attending to any matter of private business, depending for support

only upon his small salary as clerk of the assembly. No one will ever

accuse Samuel Adams of any selfish ambition, and, although his every act

will not bear the closest application of the square and rule, yet he

never deceived nor used a doubtful method in the least degree for

personal gain.

Adams did not begin his public career early in life. In 1764 he was

chosen a member of the committee to instruct the representatives just

elected to the General Court, and the paper drafted on that occasion is

the first document from his pen of which we now have any trace, and is

memorable, moreover, because it contains the first public denial of the

authority of the Stamp Act. Adams was now forty-two, his hair was

already touched with gray, and "a peculiar tremulousness of the head and

hands made it seem as if he were already on the threshold of old age."

He had, however, a remarkably sound constitution, a medium sized,

muscular frame, and clear, steel-gray eyes.

[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1793.]

Among those closely connected with Adams in the public service, which,

from this time on, became his only thought, were John Hancock and James

Otis. Adams contrasted strongly with both of these men. Hancock was the

richest man in the province and as liberal as he was wealthy. In the

general jubilation that followed the repeal of the Stamp Act, he opened

a pipe of Madeira wine before his elegant mansion opposite the Common,

and so long as it lasted it was freely dispensed to the crowd. The dress

of Hancock when at home is described as a "red velvet cap, within which

was one of fine linen, the edge of this turned up over the velvet one,

two or three inches. He wore a blue damask gown lined with silk, a white

plaited stock, a white silk embroidered waistcoat, black silk

small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers." Adams was

in marked contrast with Otis in temperament. The former, always cool and

collected and his words based on deliberate reason, was the extreme of

the other who carried his arguments in a flood of impetuous eloquence.

"Otis was a flame of fire," says Sewall. But although Otis was once

almost the ideal of the people, his erratic tendencies at last unfitted

him for a leader.

One reason of Sam Adams' prestige with the masses was his common and

familiar intercourse with mechanics and artisans. Hancock, Otis, Bowdoin

and Curtis, on account of their wealth and ideas of aristocracy, kept

more or less aloof from the workmen; while Adams, plainly clad and with

familiar but dignified manner, was often found in the ship yards or at

the rope walks engaged in earnest conversation with the homely

craftsmen. Indeed, nothing pleased him more than to be talking with a

ship carpenter as they sat side by side on a block of oak, or with some

shopkeeper in a sheltered fence corner. Most of his writing was done in

a little room in his Purchase Street house where night after night his

busy mind and quill were kept at work on his trenchant letters for the

"Gazette," which were signed with significant nom de plumes in Latin.

The year 1768 was made notable by the arrival in Boston from England of

the 14th and the 29th regiments. The main guard was quartered in King

(now State) Street, with the cannon pointed toward the State House, and

the troops occupied various houses in the vicinity. In the next year the

Governor, Bernard, was recalled, and Thomas Hutchinson, although

remaining nominally lieutenant governor, became acting chief magistrate.

He now appeared the most conspicuous figure among the royalists, and

Samuel Adams became more distinctly the leader of the patriots.

Neglecting all other affairs, he was content to live on a pittance,

which he was enabled to do by a frugal and helpful wife.

Affairs were now approaching a crisis. A consignment of goods from

England, sent in defiance of the non-importation agreements, was not

allowed to land and had to be returned. One importer, a Scotchman, would

not sign the agreements, so after much remonstrance, Samuel Adams arose

in town meeting and grimly moved that the number present, about two

thousand, should resolve itself into a committee of the whole, wait upon

the obstinate merchant and use such persuasion as should be necessary to

secure a compliance. But no vote was needed, for the Scotchman was

present, and rushing to the front with knees trembling and in a

squeaking voice, rolling his r's like a well-played drum, exclaimed:--

"Mr. Mode-r-r-rater, I agr-r-ree, I agr-r-ree!" greatly to the amusement

of the people.

It was early in the next year, 1770, that the hostility between

towns-people and soldiers led for the first time to the shedding of

blood. In February a boy, Christopher Snyder, was shot and killed during

a disturbance, and in March occurred the "Boston Massacre." The story has

been many times told. Quarrels had grown frequent between the soldiers

and the rope-walk hands, the soldiers usually getting the worst of it.

On the evening of the 5th, an altercation began just below the Old State

House, between the sentinel of the guard and a crowd of townsfolk. An

alarm was rung from one of the steeples, and many citizens hurried to

the place, most of them thinking that a fire had broken out. A sentry

was at the corner of King and Exchange streets, where the Custom House

stood, and he was assaulted by the boys with snowballs. Captain Preston

with seven or eight men rushed to the scene, loaded their muskets and

made ready to fire. The mob hooted, struck their muskets and dared them

to fire. At last a volley came. Three were killed and eight wounded.

At once there was a tumult. The bells were all rung and the populace

hurried to and fro. The bodies of the slain lay on the ground which was

sprinkled with a light snow, serving to plainly reveal in the clear

moon-light the stains of blood.

[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1801.]

The 29th regiment repaired to the spot prepared for firing, and there

would have been a fierce contest but for the excellent conduct of the

acting governor, Hutchinson. He took Captain Preston severely to task

for firing at the people without the orders of a civil magistrate, and

then, quickly working his way to the State House, took his stand in the

balcony of the council-chamber looking down King Street, and made an

address promising that the law should prevail and justice should be done

to all. The next morning Hutchinson was waited upon by the selectmen who

informed him that there would be no peace until the soldiers should

depart. Hutchinson claimed, however, that the regiments were not under

his command.

A mass meeting was soon held in Faneuil Hall, and was addressed by

Samuel Adams. It may readily be believed that he advocated no

compromise, and a committee of fifteen was immediately appointed of

which Adams was a member. According to instructions, they at once

repaired to the council chamber, and demanded the instant removal of the

troops. At three o'clock a regular town meeting assembled in Faneuil

Hall, but, owing to the great number present, adjourned to the Old South

Meeting House. Then the committee of fifteen appeared making their way

from the council-chamber to the meeting-house. Samuel Adams was at the

head, and as the crowd made way on either hand he bared his head, and,

inclining to the right and left, as he passed through the line, kept

repeating: "Both regiments or none!" "Both regiments or none!"

[Illustration: STATUE IN ADAMS SQUARE.]

In the presence of the dense multitude in the Old South, the governor's

reply was rendered: the 29th regiment should go to the castle, but the

14th must remain. Then the cry arose, "Both regiments or none!" and as

the shout echoed from every quarter it was plain that the people had

caught the meaning of the watchword, given shortly before by Adams. A

new committee, also including Adams, was appointed and sent back to the

governor, and as they stood in the council chamber the scene was one

that John Adams pronounced long after as worthy a historical painting. A

few sentences from Adams' address to Hutchinson are clear enough to show

the intense earnestness and patriotism of the man.

"It is well known," he said, "that acting as governor of the Province,

you are by its charter the commander-in-chief of the military forces

within it; and as such, the troops now in the capital are subject to

your orders. If you, or Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to

remove one regiment, you have the power to remove both; and nothing

short of their total removal will satisfy the people or preserve the

peace of the Province. A Multitude highly incensed now wait the result

of this application. The voice of ten thousand freemen demands that

both regiments be forthwith removed. Their voice must be respected,

their demand obeyed. Fail not then at your peril to comply with this

requisition! On you alone rests the responsibility of this decision;

and if the just expectations of the people are disappointed, you must

be answerable to God and your country for the fatal consequences that

must ensue. The committee have discharged their duty, and it is for

you to discharge yours. They wait your final determination."

Hutchinson for a long time stood firm, but yielded at last and the

troops were removed.

It is not the purpose of this paper to follow Samuel Adams through his

active career in the years of the Revolution and the succeeding period.

It is always Samuel Adams, the unswerving patriot, the adroit leader,

the man of the people. It had long been felt in England that his was the

most active spirit in the cause of the patriots, and there was much talk

of effecting his arrest and bringing him to trial on the charge of

treason, but the move was never made. Adams' courage never failed. He

had long given up the idea of any compromise between the colonies and

the Crown, and there is nothing conciliatory in his words or acts. When

the tea was emptied into Boston Harbor it was easily understood that

Adams was the real leader in the action. No one familiar with the life

of the great town meeting man, as Prof. Hosmer likes to call him, can

doubt that he had the essential qualities of an adroit strategist.

Cromwell once locked Parliament out, Adams once locked the Assembly in.

He had secured a majority of the members to vote for a Continental

Congress, but could the resolve be presented and brought to a final vote

before Governor Gage could prorogue the Assembly, as he would use all

speed to do, the instant the first knowledge of the scheme reached his

ears? On the 17th of June, just one year before the Battle of Bunker

Hill, that question was answered. The resolve was offered that day

providing for the appointment of delegates to such a congress. Tory

members at once essayed to leave the hall to dispatch the news to

the governor, but the bolts were fast, and Samuel Adams had the key

in his pocket. Two months later the delegates were on their way to

Philadelphia,--Thomas Cushing, Samuel and John Adams and Robert Treat

Paine.

Events then transpired rapidly. So far, Samuel Adams was almost wholly

alone in the idea of independence, but it was declared by Congress less

than two years later. For more than twenty years longer, Adams continued

in public life, but his greatest work was before the Declaration of

Independence rather than after. There were times when the cause of the

patriots must have fallen through but for the nerve and skill of this

man. Bowdoin, Cushing, Hancock, Otis, and even John Adams could not have

been thoroughly trusted in the last years of the colony to bring affairs

to a successful issue. But Samuel Adams was fitted by intellect and

character, adroitness and courage, tireless energy and by never failing

devotion to the public good, to be the man for the time.

When America had become a Republic, and Adams had returned from Congress

to his native town, he served as presiding officer of the Senate, then

as lieutenant governor, and, upon the death of Hancock, governor, to

which office he was several times chosen by the people. He died in 1803,

and his dust lies to-day in the old Granary Burying Ground, close by the

common grave of the four victims of the Boston Massacre.

The statue in bronze now standing in Adams Square is noble in design,

and appropriate for situation. It is in almost the busiest position of

the great city, and daily across its shadow pass tens of thousands of

mechanics and artisans--the class of men with whom Samuel Adams used to

love to hold intercourse. The Old State House and Faneuil Hall are only

a stone's-throw distant from the statue, but the face is not looking in

the direction of either; it is turned directly toward the visible shaft

of granite on Bunker Hill--the monument which marks the first great

battle in the struggle for that Independence toward which, in all his

labors for so many years, the eyes of Samuel Adams were ever turned.

[Footnote 1: For the reproduction of the above portrait and the two

following views of the Old State House, we are indebted to the courtesy

of Messrs. Ticknor & Co., the well-known Boston publishers.--Ed.]

[Footnote 2: Samuel Adams. By James K. Hosmer, 1 vol., 442 pp. American

Statesmen Series. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1883.]

* * * * *

AUTHORITATIVE LITERATURE OF THE CIVIL WAR.

BY GEORGE LOWELL AUSTIN.

II.

THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, sixteenth

President of the United States: together with His State Papers,

including his Speeches, Addresses, Messages, Letters, and Proclamations,

and the closing Scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J.

Raymond. To which are added Anecdotes and Personal Reminiscences of

President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter, with a steel portrait, and

other illustrations, 1 vol. octavo, pp. 808. New York: Derby and Miller,

1865.

During the Presidential canvass of 1864, the author of this volume

prepared a work upon the administration of President Lincoln. That

canvass resulted in the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, whose death occurred

soon after his second inauguration. As the editor of the _New York

Times_, Mr. Raymond possessed at the time ample facilities to prepare

such a book as was needed to interest the public in the life of one

whose work was at once as great as it was successful. Up to the day of

its publication, this book was the best and most authoritative that had

been published. Twenty years have since elapsed, and in many respects it

still maintains a just superiority and a historical value that cannot be

questioned. Its errors are of omission, rather than of commission; while

its merits are so great as to render it indispensable to all future

writers on the subject. Every public speech, message, letter, or

document of any sort of Mr. Lincoln's, so far as accessible in 1865,

will be found included in the volume. The rapidly occuring events of

the civil war, with much of their secret history, are tersely and

graphically described. The "Reminiscences" of Mr. Carpenter, covering

about thirty pages, add interest to the volume.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The True Story of a Great Life. Showing the

inner growth, special training and peculiar fitness of the Man for his

work. By William O. Stoddard. Illustrated. 1 vol. octavo, pp. 508. New

York: Fords, Howard & Hurlbert, 1884.

Mr. Stoddard was one of President Lincoln's secretaries during the civil

war, and very naturally his work ought to have strong claims upon the

interest and attention of American readers. His book is not of a

profound or critical character; but a singularly honest and candid and

strictly personal biography, simply written for readers of all ages and

degrees of intelligence. It sheds considerable light on the political

history of the civil war and on the events which led to it. With the

military history, it deals but little. Still its brief, vigorous and

vivid sketches furnish an exceedingly fascinating bird's eye view of the

great struggle. But its most valuable feature is the clearness with

which it depicts Lincoln, the man,--his sagacity and patience at

critical moments, his keen perception of "popular" sentiment and

disposition, his _individuality_, his distinctive fitness for the

tasks and burdens which fell upon him. This work, at once so accurate,

so comprehensive, so discriminating and so well written, is one for all

Americans, and particularly for younger readers. It has in it a charm

possessed but by very few biographies, and a fascination that but few

novels can surpass. To enjoy it and to profit by it, one need not always

coincide with the author's judgments of men and measures, or his

criticisms of military leaders and policies.

THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Isaac N. Arnold. 1 vol. octavo,

pp. 462. Chicago: Jansen, McClurg & Co., 1885.

This work also possesses strong claims upon our attention. It was

completed only a few days before the death of its eminent author.

Furthermore, Mr. Arnold knew President Lincoln better than almost any

other man; they had been intimate friends for more than a quarter of a

century, thinking, conversing and working together during all that time.

When the civil war broke out, Mr. Arnold entered Congress; became one of

the most trusted advisers of the President; and no one better than he

knew and comprehended the latter's thoughts and intentions; even the

cabinet officers and the private secretaries never approached so near to

the heart and mind of President Lincoln as did his life long, trusted

and admired friend. In 1867, Mr. Arnold published a "History of Abraham

Lincoln and the Overthrow of Slavery" which is a work of rare interest

and of exceptional historic value. But this work, in the judgment of the

author, was unsatisfactory from the fact that, while it depicted well

enough the _times_, it failed to portray the _life_ of President

Lincoln. The later volume meets the deficiency, and in fact leaves

absolutely nothing to be desired. The spirit of tenderness broods over

its charmful pages. Singularly unpretentious, its very simplicity is

eloquent and inspiring, and makes the heart of the reader blend with the

grand and noble heart of its subject. Its accuracy is unmarred; it

explains all doubts that have ever existed in regard to Mr. Lincoln's

motives and acts; it asserts nothing without proving it; it tells the

plain, straightforward story, and leaves criticism to others. As a

_personal_ biography of Mr. Lincoln's life and character, this book

is not only unsurpassed, but it deserves to rank as one of the classics

in our native literature.

THE POLITICAL CONSPIRACIES PRECEDING THE REBELLION; or the True

Story of Sumter and Pickens, By Thomas M. Anderson, Lieut. Col. U.S.A. 1

vol. quarto, pp. 100. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1883.

The author assumes that there were "a number of conspiracies" antedating

the immediate outbreak of the civil war, but makes no claim that the war

was the result of such conspiracies. His narrative, then, is merely

descriptive of the events which took place in the period between October

1860 and April 1861, purely _resume_ in character and wholly based

upon the disclosures of the Official Records. The author allows himself

to criticise men and acts rather freely, and at times captiously; and

has evidently intended his book to be a defence of his brother, the hero

of Sumter, against certain charges which were once made against him. The

old hero needs no defender, even if we suppose that he ever merited

criticism. The volume is a small one,--trustworthy as regards its

statements and valuable for reference. It may profitably be read in

conjunction with the second volume of Mr. Curtis's _Life_ of _James

Buchanan_, also with the small volume, by General Doubleday, entitled

_The Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Pickens in 1860-61_.

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN OF GENERAL MCCLELLAN IN 1862. Papers read

before the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts in 1876-77-78

and 80. Printed for the Society. Vol. I, octavo, pp. 249. Boston: James

R. Osgood and Company, 1881.

The Military Society of Massachusetts was organized in 1876, with the

object of investigating questions relating to the civil war. Up to the

date of the publication of this volume, about forty papers were read,

six of them being devoted to the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, eleven

to General Pope's campaign of 1862, three to the campaign of

Chancellorsville, three to the Antietam campaign, sixteen to the

campaign of 1864, and one each to the battle of Mobile Bay and Grouchy

controversy,--all, with the exception of the last two, bearing upon the

operations of the Army of the Potomac in 1862 and 1864, and including

discussions from different standpoints of the objects and general plans

of the several campaigns and battles in which it participated, and of

the controverted questions that have arisen concerning them. The first

printed volume of the Society contains the following papers:--"General

McClellan's Plans for the campaign of 1862, and the Alleged Interference

of the Government with them," by John C. Ropes, Esq: "The Siege of

Yorktown," by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. John C. Palfrey, U.S.A.: "The Period

which elapsed between the Fall of Yorktown and the Beginning of the

Seven-Days-Battles," by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Francis W. Palfrey, U.S.V. "The

Seven-Days Battles--to Malvern Hill," by same author. "The Battle of

Malvern Hill," by same author; "Comments on the Peninsular Campaign,"

by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Charles A. Whittier, U.S.V. All of these are earnest

discussions,--but of unequal worth--of the various merits or demerits

of General McClellan in the Peninsular campaign, or the attitude of the

government toward him at that time. The ground is traversed as often

before; all the old arguments are again brought into comparison, and

a very small amount of _new_ evidence is discovered. What has

previously been said in many books and pamphlets and by a score of

writers, is here said in one volume by three writers. But nothing

appears to be _freshly_ said, and, as usual, the conclusions

reached are colored by the political likes or dislikes of their several

writers. The sole merit of the volume lies in the fact that its papers

embody a mass of very valuable material, gleaned from trustworthy

sources, for the future historian. It is very safe to assume, however,

that the future historian while expressing gratitude for their

investigations, will not be tempted to place much weight upon the

conclusions of the gentlemen who hold the monopoly of this volume but

have not solved a single mooted question.

LIFE OF JAMES BUCHANAN, Fifteenth President of the United

States. By George Ticknor Curtis. 2 vols. octavo, pp. 625, 707. New

York: Harper & Brothers, 1883.

The second volume of this exceedingly painstaking and meritorious

biography sheds much light upon the events preceding, and those

transpiring during, the civil war. As another writer has remarked,

"there is something very pitiable, something almost tragic, in the

figure of James Buchanan during the last months of his administration."

He found himself wavering between two factions, between Right and Wrong.

So long as he wavered, the South stood by him; when he ceased to be a

wary politician and manifested a decision of character such as the times

demanded, the South turned against him as one man. His biographer proves

conclusively that the weak and time-serving President was _opposed_

to secession; but as positively proves without intending to do so, that

he favored it by his singular unfitness and indifference in emergencies.

When secession threatened, Mr. Buchanan took the ground that he would

not precipitate war by applying force to prevent a State from seceding,

but that he would defend the flag and property of the United States.

With this policy in his heart, he permitted public property to be

seized, without striking a blow; he discovered treason in his cabinet,

and coolly allowed the traitors to consummate their work and to depart.

The fact was, that he was a very weak man, and his biographer is the

best authority for the statement. The work is important; it will always,

as it richly merits, be consulted by students, and may be read with

interest and profit by all.

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

ASSESSMENT LIFE INSURANCE.

BY SHEPPARD ROMANS.

Life insurance, by whatever system, plan or method, has, for its

fundamental basis, the laws governing the rates of mortality at the

different ages. These fundamental laws have been developed and made

clear by a vast amount of statistical data obtained from observations

among persons insured in life insurance companies among annuitants,

among inhabitants of various towns and cities, and among the whole

population in certain countries, notably in England and in Belgium. One

uniform, unvarying, certain law has been thus established, which is that

the rate of mortality, or in other words the cost of insurance,

increases as a man grows older. From this law there is no escape. We

must accept the inevitable. Hence any system of insurance which is not

in accordance with this first principle, this unalterable law of nature,

is unsound, and any company, whether charging level premiums or natural

premiums, which does not recognize and conform to this fundamental law

of nature, is doomed to disaster and wreck, sooner or later.

There are two methods of life insurance worthy of the name, and two

only. The one is by payments accurately adjusted to the cost of

insurance at each actual age, and which inevitably, unavoidably and

inexorably, must increase with the age of the person insured, and the

other is by level, or uniform payments extending over the whole duration

of life or for a stated number of years. The first is the natural system

and has been adopted _in part_, and imperfectly, by assessment

companies; the second is the artificial system, and is the one which has

been offered exclusively until lately, by all the regular life insurance

companies. Properly carried out, the one is as sound in theory and as

safe in practice as the other. In fact, the artificial premiums are the

exact mathematical or commuted equivalents of the natural premiums.

Until within the last decade, the level premium system was practically

the only one in use. Since then there have come into existence hundreds

of co-operative or assessment companies. These institutions have had a

wonderful growth. It is claimed that the number of members and the

amounts insured, double those, respectively, in the old or regular

companies.

Assessment companies do not, strictly speaking, grant insurance. They

are rather agencies, or trust companies, and their functions or

covenants are to make assessments upon survivors when deaths occur, and

to pay over the proceeds of such assessments to the beneficiaries of the

deceased members. There is no definite promise to pay in full, and no

obligation to pay more than the assessments yield. There is no capital,

no risk, no _insurance!_ It is a voluntary association of

individuals. There is usually but little if any penalty for

discontinuance of membership, and the permanence of such institutions

depends mainly upon the volition of their members. They spring into

existence suddenly by the voluntary association of a few individuals

without capital or personal risk, and as suddenly they may go out of

existence by the voluntary act or withdrawal of their members. A breath

may create, a breath destroy.

It must be evident then to the merest tyro, that the permanence and

success of assessment companies depend upon the most rigid observance of

those principles which science and sound business experience have

demonstrated to be fundamental. Among these principles may be mentioned

the following.

1. Rates of assessments or payments adjusted to the cost of insurance at

the actual age of each person. These rates must inevitably and

inexorably increase with the age of the individual.

2. The creation of a guaranty, or emergency fund, available not only to

meet extra mortality, but as a cement to secure cohesion among the

members, and prevent the exodus of the sound lives.

3. An assessment in advance at issue of certificate, otherwise some

persons will be insured for nothing and the cost will fall on the

persistent members.

As was well said by a contributor in your last number, assessment

insurance has its defects, and these are well known to the managers of

these institutions, and that great improvements have been made by the

National Convention of assessment companies, which is composed of

representatives from the best companies organized in almost every state.

They recognize existing defects, they point out the remedies, and yet,

but few seem to have the courage of their convictions. It is a fact

beyond dispute, that with perhaps a half-dozen exceptions, the rates of

assessment in every assessment company in the country remain constant as

at the age of entry. That is to say, a man entering at the age of forty,

pays the rate at forty only, as long as he remains a member. This is a

direct violation of the inexorable law of nature which says, that as a

man grows older the risk of dying, or in other words the cost of

insurance, increases. It is all nonsense to urge that the _average_

age and the average cost will be kept down by the influx of new members.

The contract is made with the individual, and unless each person pays

enough to compensate the company for the indemnity or insurance

furnished to him, it follows of necessity, that others will be

overcharged in order to meet the deficiency so occasioned. And this evil

is intensified each year as the company grows older. When younger and

fresher men find that they are overcharged in order to meet deficiencies

arising from the act that older and inferior risks pay less than cost,

they will either not enter, or, if members, will speedily desert and

join an institution which is on a sounder and more equitable basis. No

institution can be permanently successful which does not observe equity.

I have no hesitation in saying that every assessment or corporation

company which violates this fundamental law of nature by not making its

rates of assessment increase with the age of the individuals insured, is

_doomed_, and that disaster and wreck is only a question of time.

This is not a new opinion. It's truth is attested by more than one wreck

in this country already.

In every level, or uniform premium, there is a provision for the payment

to the company of the rate of insurance at the actual present age, (no

matter at what age the insurance was affected) on the net amount at

risk.

The great danger for co-oporative or assessment companies lies in the

facility with which such institutions may be organized, and by men

without capital, character, experience or financial ability, who may

thus be ushered into corporate existence by the indulgent laws of

different states.

The members of the National Association of assessment companies should

see to it that the laws of the different states should be so amended as

to require at least a small capital, say $25,000, as a guaranty of good

faith and ability on the part of the promoters, and that no company

should be admitted to membership unless its system was founded on sound

principles as demonstrated by science and business experience.

The managers of assessment companies should be careful lest their claims

should prove to be unfounded. For instance, the writer of the article in

your last number boldly asserts that it "is susceptible of mathematical

demonstration that one or two million of dollars of reserve is adequate

to perpetuate any well-conducted assessment company for all time,

however large or small it may be, while the spectacle is presented to us

of level premium companies holding fifty to one hundred millions of

accumulations belonging to their policy holders, from which no possible

benefit, in most cases, will ever accrue to them." On reflection he must

see the absurdity of such statements.

The level premium system is a combination of insurance and investments.

The hundred millions are _investments_, and are necessary for the

integrity of the level premium contracts. Any assessment company in

which the rates do not increase as the members grow older should be

compelled to have the full premium reserve required by state law and

actuarial science to be held on level premium contracts. This is capable

of mathematical demonstration.

It must be borne in mind that the cost of insurance _proper_, that

is, the provision to meet current death claims alone, is quite as high

in the best assessment company as in a regular life insurance company,

for this cost depends on the careful selection of lives. The difference

in the two institutions is that the former dispenses with the investment

element, while the latter exacts it in connection with all their

contracts. Hence the price to be paid is greater. But is not the

_guarantee_ also greater?

The beneficiary under a death claim in an assessment company has for her

security the _hope_, or promise if you please, that one thousand

men will pay ten dollars each for her account. The beneficiary under a

death claim in a regular life insurance company has for her security not

only the actual payments of ten dollars each by one thousand men, but

the definite promise to pay in full by an institution which has ample

capital, assets, and surplus to back its contracts.

Assessment insurance is yet on trial, and its only hope of permanent

business lies in a rigid compliance with the laws of mortality and of

sound business experience.

* * * * *

THE OLD STATE HOUSE.

BY SIDNEY MAXWELL.

The Old State House! Within these antique walls

The early fathers of the hamlet met

And gravely argued of the town's affairs.

Another generation came; and in

This hall the Tory Council sat in state

While from the burning lips of Otis, or

The stem, defiant tongue of Adams sprang

That eloquence whose echoes thundered back

From Concord, Lexington, and Bunker's Hill!

Between those years and ours a century lies;

Those patriot's graves are deep with moss and mould,

And yet these walls--the same whose shadows fell

Athwart the crimson snow where Preston charged[3]--

Still cast their shadows; not on troops, nor mob

Exasperated by their wrongs, but on

A jostling, hurrying throng--freeman each one,

Unless in bondage to himself. O Man:

Pass not all heedless by, nor imprecate

This aged relic of the past because

It lies across thy path! From avarice

Redeemed; restored unto its former self,--

We hail thee, noble Sentry of the years,

And greet thee with a thousand loving cheers!

[Footnote 3: The "Boston Massacre," March 5th, 1770.]

* * * * *

THE PRECIOUS METALS.

BY DAVID N. BALFOUR.

From the earliest times to the commencement of the Christian Era, the

amount of the gold and silver obtained from the surface and mines of the

earth is estimated to be $5,084,000,000; from the latter event to the

epoch of the discovery of America, $4,363,374,000 were obtained; from

the date of the last event to the end of 1842, an addition of

$8,500,000,000 was made; the extensive working of the Russian gold mines

in 1843, and subsequent years, added to the close of 1852,

$1,400,000,000 more; the quadruple discovery of the California gold

mines in 1848, those of Australia in 1851, of New Zealand in 1861, and

the silver mines of Nevada and other countries bordering upon the

Pacific slope of the United States, added, at the close of 1884,

$7,093,626,000, making a grand total at the present time of

$26,441,000,000.

The average loss by the attrition of coin is estimated by Prof. Bowen

at one-fortieth of one per cent, per annum; and the average loss by

consumption in the arts, and destruction by fire and shipwreck, at

$9,000,000 per annum. The amount of the precious metals in existence is

estimated to be $13,670,000,000, of which gold furnishes $8,166,000,000,

and silver $5,504,000,000. Of the amount now in existence,

$10,500,000,000 are estimated to be in coin and bullion, $2,000,000,000

in watches, and the remainder in plate, jewelry, and ornaments. Of the

amount now in existence, $9,448,000,000 is estimated to have been

obtained from America, $1,908,000,000 from Asia (including Australia,

New Zealand, and Oceanica); $1,004,000,000 from Europe, and

$1,310,000,000 from Africa.

The following statement will exhibit the product of the precious metals

throughout the world in 1884:--

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.

Alaska, $300,000 $30,000 $320,000

British Columbia, 2,000,000 80,000 2,080,000

United States, 30,800,000 48,800,000 79,600,000

Mexico, 1,000,000 30,000,000 31,000,000

Guatemala, 40,000 200,000 240,000

Honduras, 50,000 50,000 100,000

San Salvador, 100,000 150,000 250,000

Nicaragua, 100,000 100,000 200,000

Costa Rica, 50,000 50,000 100,000

Columbia, 1,900,000 500,000 2,400,000

Venezuela, 3,000,000 200,000 3,200,000

Guiana, 75,000 50,000 125,000

Brazil, 400,000 50,000 450,000

Bolivia, 50,000 12,980,000 13,030,000

Chili, 60,000 5,000,000 5,060,000

Argentine Republic, 50,000 200,000 250,000

Patagonia, $10,000 $5,000 $10,000

Other countries, 15,000 45,000 60,000

__________ __________ ___________

Total, $40,000,000 $98,480,000 $138,480,000

EUROPE.

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.

Russia, $22,000,000 $300,000 $22,300,000

Prussia, 900,000 8,000,000 8,900,000

Spain, 70,000 2,500,000 2,570,000

Austria, 950,000 1,500,000 2,450,000

Norway, 60,000 300,000 360,000

Other Countries, 20,000 320,000 340,000

__________ __________ ___________

Total, $24,000,000 $12,920,000 $36,920,000

ASIA.

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.

Borneo, $700,000 $470,000 $1,170,000

China, 600,000 450,000 1,050,000

Japan, 120,000 353,000 473,000

__________ __________ ___________

Total, $1,420,000 $1,273,000 $2,693,000

Australia, $26,000,000 $80,000 $26,080,000

New Zealand, 4,000,000 500,000 4,500,000

Africa, 2,000,000 500,000 2,500,000

Oceanica, 580,000 247,000 827,000

__________ __________ ___________

Grand Total, $98,000,000 $114,000,000 $212,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the annual product of the precious

metals at different periods:--

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.D. 14, $800,000 $4,200,000 $5,000,000

A.D. 500, 200,000 2,800,000 3,000,000

A.D. 1000, 120,000 880,000 1,000,000

A.D. 1492, 100,000 150,000 250,000

A.D. 1550, 800,000 3,200,000 4,000,000

A.D. 1600, 2,000,000 9,000,000 11,000,000

A.D. 1700, 5,000,000 18,000,000 23,000,000

A.D. 1800, 17,000,000 38,000,000 55,000,000

A.D. 1843, 52,000,000 42,000,000 94,000,000

A.D. 1850, 106,000,000 47,000,000 153,000,000

A.D. 1853, 236,000,000 49,000,000 285,000,000

A.D. 1863, 208,000,000 63,000,000 271,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the amount of the precious metals

estimated to be in existence at different periods:

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.D. 14, $427,000,000 $909,000,000 $1,327,000,000

A.D. 500, 100,000,000 400,000,000 500,000,000

A.D. 1000, 65,000,000 200,000,000 265,000,000

A.D. 1492, 57,000,000 135,000,000 192,000,000

A.D. 1550. 76,000,000 284,000,000 360,000,000

A.D. 1600, 105,000,000 391,000,000 496,000,000

A.D. 1700, 351,000,000 1,410,000,000 1,761,000,000

A.D. 1800, 1,125,000,000 3,622,000,000 4,747,000,000

A.D. 1843, 1,975,000,000 5,040,000,000 7,015,000,000

A.D. 1850, 2,368,000,000 4,963,000,000 7,331,000,000

A.D. 1853, 2,942,000,000 4,945,000,000 7,887,000,000

A.D. 1863, 5,107,000,000 4,945,000,000 10,052,000,000

A.D. 1884, 8,166,000,000 5,504,000,000 13,670,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the amount of the precious metals

estimated to have been obtained from the surface and mines of the earth,

from the earliest times to the close of 1884:--

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.C. $2,171,000,000 $2,913,000,000 $5,084,000,000

A.D. to 1492, 3,842,374,000 521,000,000 4,363,374,000

1493 to 1842, 2,700,000,000 5,800,000,000 8,500,000,000

1843 to 1852, 900,000,000 500,000,000 1,400,000,000

1853 to 1862, 1,869,000,000 560,000,000 2,429,000,000

1863 to 1884, 3,145,626,000 1,519,000,000 4,664,626,000

______________ ______________ ______________

Grand Total, $14,628,000,000 $11,813,000,000 $26,441,000,000

During the first period (prior to the commencement of the Christian

Era,) the annual product of the precious metals was $2,000,000; during

the second period (prior to the discovery of America,) it was

$3,000,000; during the third period (prior to the extensive working of

the Russian gold mines, in 1843,) it was $26,000,000; during the fourth

period (prior to the double discovery of the California gold mines in

1858, and the Australia gold mines in 1851,) it was $140,000,000; during

the fifth period (which immediately succeeded afore-mentioned

discoveries,) it was $243,000,000; during the sixth period (immediately

succeeding the double discovery of the New Zealand gold mines in 1861,

and the silver mines of Nevada and other countries bordering on the

Pacific slope of the United States,) it was $212,000,000. The annual

products of the precious metals attained its acme in 1853, when it was

$285,000,000. The increase in the amount of the precious metals in

existence has been greater during the last forty-years than during the

previous two hundred and ninety-four. Of the amount ($6,441,000,000) of

the precious metals estimated to have been obtained from the surface and

mines of the earth, from the earliest times to the close of 1884,

$12,100,000,000 are estimated to have been obtained from America

$6,724,000,000 from Asia (including Australia, New Zealand and

Oceanica), $3,751,000,000 from Europe, and $2,866,000,000 from Africa.

* * * * *

AMESBURY: THE HOME OF WHITTIER.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK.

Amesbury is only a town. It has defects that would strike a stranger,

and beauties that one who has learned to love them never forgets; they

linger in glimpses of wood and hill and river and lake, and often rise

unbidden before the mind's eye. The poet Whittier says that those who

are born under the shadow of Powow Hill always return sometime, no

matter how far they may have wandered. He himself, though not Amesbury

born, has found it impossible to desert the old home, full of

associations and surrounded by old friends. He always votes in Amesbury,

and he often spends weeks at a time in his old home. The river that he

has sung, the lake that he has re-christened, the walks and drives with

which he is so familiar, all exercise their spell upon him; he loves

them, just as he loves the warm hearts that he has found there and

helped to make warm and true.

But what a stranger would first notice in coming into town is, that the

houses, instead of being on land regularly laid out for building, seem

to have grown up here and there and everywhere, a good deal in

accordance with their own sweet wills, and without the smallest regard

to surroundings.

But there are handsome houses in Amesbury, and these are growing more

numerous every year. The people themselves would assert that the walks

and drives about the village, the hills and the river are the things to

be longest remembered about the place. If they were inclined to

boasting, they might say also that they had as good a right as any

people in America to be considered of ancient stock, for some of the

names of the earliest settlers are the familiar names in the town

to-day, and few towns in America are older than Amesbury. The names

Barnard, Challis, Weed, Jones, and Hoyt, appear on the first board of

"Prudenshall," and that of Richard Currier as town clerk. This was in

April, 1668, the year after the new town was named.

Early in 1735 the settlement of Newbury (then spelled Newberry) was

begun. In a little over three years a colony was sent out across the

Merrimac. The plantation was at first called merely from the name of the

river. In 1639 it was named Colchester by the General Court; but October

7, 1640, this name was changed to Salisbury, so that in 1638, almost two

hundred and fifty years ago, Salisbury began to be settled. It seemed as

if there was need of new settlements at that time to counteract the

depletions in the Old World, for the Thirty Years' War was still

impoverishing Germany; Richelieu was living to rule France in the name

of his royal master, Louis XIII; England was gathering up those forces

of good and evil which from resisting tyranny at last grew intoxicated

with power, and so came to play the tyrant and regicide. For it was

about that time that Charles I had disbanded his army, trusting to the

divinity that, in the eyes of the Stuarts, did ever hedge a king, and at

the same time thrown away his honor by pledging himself to what he never

meant to perform. While this farce, which preceded the tragedy, was

being set upon the stage of history, here, three thousand miles away,

nature had begun to build up the waste, and to prophesy growth.

Salisbury, and afterwards Amesbury, were named from the two towns so

famous in England, the Salisbury Plain of Druidical memory, on which is

the celebrated Stonehenge, and near by, the Amesbury where was one of

the oldest monasteries in England. It is supposed that the towns were so

named because many of the new settlers came from those old English

towns. The latter name used to be spelled Ambresbury, and Tennyson in

his "Idylls of the King" spells Almesbury. After the discovery by Modred

of the guilt of King Arthur's fair and false wife, he says:--

"Queen Guinevere had fled the court and sat

There in the holyhouse at Almesbury

Weeping."

Describing her flight, he tells us that she sent Lancelot

"Back to his land, but she to Almesbury

Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald."

There Arthur sees her for the last time and mourns over her before he

goes forth to his last battle with Modred.

On the whole, it is not strange, considering its associations, and

moreover the fact that this town in Massachusetts is the only Amesbury

in America while so many other names are duplicated, that the people of

Amesbury are not willing to merge the name of their town into that of

the elder sister, even when those parts called in each "the Mills" are

so closely united in interests and in appearance that no stranger could

recognize them as two towns. It is only the Powow that makes the

dividing line here. Blocks of offices and stores on both sides of the

street, among them the post-office, common to both towns, hide the

narrow stream at that point, and further up and down the towering walls

of the factories make it unobserved. It is not here that one sees the

Powow. But there is, or a little time ago there was, a place not far off

from this main street where the river is still harassed, yet as it slips

past in its silent toil with a few trees hanging low on the right, it

has a fascination in spite of its prosaic surroundings; it takes

naturally to picturesqueness and freedom.

One of Whittier's early poems speaks of an Indian re-visiting the stream

that his forefathers loved, and standing on Powow Hill, where the chiefs

of the Naumkeaks, and of the other tribes held their powows. Here for a

moment, says the poem, a gleam of gladness came to him as he stooped to

drink of the fountain and seated himself under an oak.

"Far behind was Ocean striving

With his chains of sand;

Southward, sunny glimpses giving

'Twixt the swells of land,

Of its calm and silvery track

Rolled the tranquil Merrimack."

The Indian's feeling about "These bare hills, this conquered river," was

not strange. But to us it naturally occurs that we are more likely to

wake up with our scalps on our heads, instead of sleeping our last

sleep, while they dangle at a red man's girdle. Yet the very state of

warfare that at that time existed between the races showed that in the

settlers themselves was an element of savagery not yet eliminated. For

in all this fierce strife of the tomahawk and the gun, the Quaker

ancestors of the poet Whittier who met the Indians, armed only with

kindness and the high courage of their peaceful convictions, were

treated by the red men as friends and superiors. In the raids of general

devastation they were unmolested. Their descendant has a natural right

to express the pathos of the Indian's lot.

There is a fine exhibition of human nature in the records of the first

settlement of Amesbury. The place was called "Salisbury new-town" until

1669, and was merely an offshoot of the latter, though much larger in

extent than it is today, for now it is only about six miles by three.

Then it reached up into what is now Newton, N.H. But why should not the

people of those days have been generous as to the size of townships, for

as to land, they had the continent before them where to choose?

But in regard to the human nature. The settlers of Salisbury went at

first only beyond the salt marshes, their town being what is now East

Salisbury. The forests beyond had a threatening look, and were much

too near. It was determined, therefore, to drive them back by having

clearings and settlements across the Powow. So, December 26, 1642, about

three years after this little colony had crossed the Merrimack, a town

meeting was held in which it was voted:--"Yere shall thirtie families

remove to the west side of ye Powowas river." This motion was very easy

to carry. But it had not been voted what families were to move on beyond

the immediate protection of the small colony at East Salisbury. Who was

to go? Every man sat still in his place and nodded to his neighbor with

a "Thou art the man," in manner if not in words. It seems to us a very

little thing to give or take the advice, "Go West young man,--or woman."

But it was very different then. To do it meant, besides living encircled

by forests, to be obliged to go on Sunday through these forests, worse

than lonely, to the meeting-house at East Salisbury, and always with the

possibility of being at any moment obliged to flee all the distance to

that town for comparative safety, perhaps of being obliged to flee in

the night. Signals of alarm were arranged by the General Court. Alarm

was to be given "by distinctly discharging three muskets, or by

continual beat of the drum, or firing the beacon, or discharging a pesse

of ordnance, and every trained soldier is to take the alarm immediately

on paine of five pound." It was also ordered, "That every town provide a

sufficient place for retreat for their wives and children to repaire to,

as likewise to keepe safe the ammunition thereof." And also, "That all

watches throughout this country bee set at sunset at the beat of the

drums, & not bee discharged till the beate of the drum at sunne rising."

But those old Puritans were not men to be bundled by any of the

weaknesses of human nature. In ten days, when it was found that nobody

had started "westward, ho!" another town-meeting was held, in which, in

spite of the dangers to be encountered by the new colony, the first vote

was re-affirmed, and it was decided that "the thirtie families be chosen

by ye seven men," probably the selectmen. And to ensure the matter,

it was determined that this vote should not be repealed except by the

consent of every freeman in the town. So, in the spring, this tiny

colony went out to Salisbury new-town.

In 1647, a law was passed requiring every township of fifty families to

maintain a school. This is the way that the preamble reads:--

"It being one chiefe pr'ject of yt ould deluder, Satan, to keepe men

from ye knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in former times by keeping ym in

an unknown tongue, so in these latt'r times by pr'suading from ye use of

tongues yt so at least ye true sense & meaning of ye original might be

clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, yt learning may not

be buried in ye grave of o'r fath'rs in ye church & commonwealth, the

Lord assisting our endeavor. It is therefore resolved," &c.

It seems overturning the cornerstone of our forefathers' intentions to

banish from our schools the Scriptures, those finest examples of the

strength and beauty of the English language, to say nothing of their

lessons in individual self-government, which is the only foundation that

a republic can be built upon.

From this old law have grown up all the public schools of Amesbury.

There is now a high school, and there are, of course, the required

number of small schools; some of these in the outlying districts having

very few scholars.

Several years ago Mr. Whittier, who has the keenest sense of humor, told

a friend that in one of these the whole number of pupils was three,

average attendance one and a half! He was deeply interested in that half

child.

Amesbury has among its attractions a Lion's Mouth! In the old days of

Indian ambushes it must have earned its right to the name. But now the

only existing danger is lest one should be eaten up--with kindness.

It is a short mile from the mills, and a pleasant walk in spite of its

ending! At last there comes a little hollow with a large farm-house on

the left, and a grass road winding past it at right angles with the main

road and leading into beautiful woods. These woods are the very jaws of

the lion; and it is very hard, on a hot summer's day, for those who go

into them to come out again. A few rods up the road from the hollow are

other houses. People bearing some of the earliest recorded names in

Amesbury, descendants of the brave pioneers, are to be found here, or

having departed this life, have left good records behind them. One of

these latter lived here in the pleasantest way. He and his wife carried

on their large farm in an ideal manner; everything was upon a generous

scale. There was money enough not to wear out life in petty economies,

and largeness of soul enough not to put the length of a bank account

against the beauties and refinements of life. The loss of their only

child, and a few years afterward of their grand-daughter, one of the

loveliest children earth ever held, was--not compensated for, that

can never be, but made much less dreary by a friendship of many years'

standing between them and their summer neighbors. In this case, too, the

gentleman is a native of Amesbury, proud and fond of his birthplace.

Every summer he comes to the cottage of this friend, a charming little

house only a few rods from the larger one, and spends the summer here

with his family and servants. He has made a great deal of money in New

York, but fortunately, not too much, for it has not built up a Chinese

wall around his heart; his new friends are dear, but his early friends

are still the dearest.

Between the Mills and this formidable Mouth of the Lion, is the Quaker

Meeting House, a modest, sober-hued building on a triangular green, on

which, before it was fenced in, the boys delighted to play ball on the

days and at the hours (for the Quakers have meeting Thursday also) on

which the grave worshippers were not filing into what cannot fairly be

called the house of silence, because it has been known to echo to

exhortations as earnest, if not as vehement as one may hear from any

pulpit. Still, there are sometimes long intervals of silence, and then

the consciousness that silent self-examination is one purpose of the

coming together, gives an impressiveness to the simple surroundings. It

must have been here that Mr. Whittier learned to interpret so

wonderfully that silent prayer of Agassiz for guidance when he opened

his famous school from which he was so soon called to a higher life.

"Then the Master in his place

Bowed his head a little space

And the leaves by soft airs stirred

Lapse of wave and cry of bird

Left the solemn hush unbroken

Of that wordless prayer unspoken

While its wish, on earth unsaid,

Rose to Heaven interpreted.

As in life's best hours we hear

By the spirit's finer ear

His low voice within us, thus

The All-Father heareth us:

And his holy ear we pain

With our noisy words and vain.

Not for him our violence

Storming at the gates of sense,

His the primal language, his

The eternal silences."

Mr. Whittier always goes to this meeting when he is well enough. The May

Quarterly Meetings of the Society of Friends are held at Amesbury. There

are a good many members of this Society in the town, and there is among

them a hospitality, a kindness, and a cordiality that added to their

quiet ways and the refined dress of the women makes them interesting.

It goes without saying that Amesbury has also the allotment of churches

of other denominations usual to New England towns.

Thirty years ago and more, the Amesbury and Salisbury Mills were two

distinct companies. The agent of the former mills, Mr. Joshua Aubin,

was a gentleman of fine presence. After he left Amesbury, he sent to

the town as a gift the nucleus of its present Public Library, which,

although not absolutely free has only a nominal subscription to pay the

services of the librarian, and for keeping the books in order.

[Illustration: John G. Whittier]

Mr. James Horton, agent of the Salisbury mills, was more of the

rough-and-ready type of man, a little bluff, but frank and kind-hearted.

Both gentlemen as it happened, lived in Amesbury and were of one mind in

regard to the character of their operatives. It was before the influx

of foreign labor, and the men and women in the mills belonged to

respectable, often well-to-do American families. Rowdyism was a thing

unknown to them, and as to drunkenness, if that fault was found once in

an operative, he was reprimanded; if it occurred again, he was at once

discharged. And so Amesbury, though a manufacturing town, was in its

neatness and orderliness an exquisite little village with the Powow Hill

at its back and the hem of its robe laved by two beautiful rivers. After

Mr. Aubin's ill health had made him resign his place, the father of

Prof. Langley, well-known to science, was agent for a time, and carried

on matters in the spirit of his predecessors. But there came a change,

the mills were united under one control, and an agent was sent to

Amesbury for the purpose of forcibly illustrating the fact that

corporations have no souls. He did it admirably. Work was started at

high pressure, there came a rush of foreigners into the place, many of

the old towns people moved away in disgust, and the new took the place

of the old as suddenly as if an evil magician had waved his wand

and cried: "Presto!" But this agent soon gave evidence that great

unscrupulousness doesn't pay, even as a financial investment. After

several other short regimes the present agent, Mr. Steere, came to

Amesbury, and the corporation has found it worth while to keep him.

The effect of the sudden influx of foreign population into Amesbury

has never done away with; it has its "Dublin" in a valley where the

corporation built houses for its operatives. And with what indifference

to cleanliness, or health these were built! The poor operatives were

crowded together in a way that would make neatness difficult to the most

fastidious. A physician in Amesbury who considered the poor, presented

this state of things so strongly and so persistently to the agent, spoke

so forcibly of the moral degradation that such herding increased, or

induced, that when it became necessary to build new tenements they were

much better arranged. Every manufacturing town in New England has now

its unwholesome because untaught population, a danger signal on the line

of progress of the republic. It is only popular education that can

remove this obstruction of ignorance. The foreign population of Amesbury

today is large, and although it gives hands to the mills, it adds

neither to the beauty nor the interest of the town. But it gives a

mission to those who believe in the possibilities of human nature, and

the right of every man to have a chance at life, even if the way he

takes it be not agreeable to his cultivated neighbor.

The mills in the days of their greatest prosperity were all woolen mills:

now a part of them are cotton mills. They are all running, and,

although not with the remarkable success of a score of years ago, have a

future before them.

The making of felt hats, now so important a business, was started here

a number of years ago by a gentleman who built a hat factory near his

house at the Ferry. He was a gentleman in that true sense in which,

added to his nerve and will (and he had abundance of both) were those

knightly qualities of generosity and kindliness that have made his

memory dear, while the Bayley Hat Company, called after him as its

founder, bears witness to his business ability.

The great, oblong, many-windowed carriage manufactories meet one at

every turn, and often the smithy stands near with its clangor. This

business used to be confined to West Amesbury, now Merrimac. At the

beginning of the century it was started on an humble scale by two young

men, one a wood-worker, the other a plater, while another young man was

trimmer for them. One of the firm lived in West Amesbury, the other in

South Amesbury, now Merrimac Port, and after each had built his share of

the carriage, it was found a little difficult to bring the different

parts together. This was the beginning, and now Amesbury ships its

carriages over the world. One of the first to bring this business from

what was then West Amesbury to the Mills was a young man who in the

beginning of the war had been unfortunate in business. He gave his

creditors all he had, and went to the front. After serving his time

there he came home, went into the carriage business, made money this

time instead of losing it, and paid up his old creditors one hundred

cents on the dollar. He deserves a big factory and success. And he has

both. And he is not the only one of whom good things could be said.

They have a Wallace G.A.R. Post in Amesbury, not in commemoration of the

Wallace of old Scottish fame, but of a man no less patriotic and brave

who lived among themselves, an Englishman, a shoemaker. He was lame, but

so anxious during the Rebellion to have his share in the struggle for

the Union that he tried to get a place on board a gunboat, saying that

he could "sit and shoot." As this was impossible, the town sent him to

Boston as its representative, and he was in the Legislature when the

members voted themselves an increase of pay. Mr. Wallace believed the

thing illegal. He took the money in trust. One day after his return to

Amesbury he limped up to his physician (the same one who had brought

about the better construction of the new corporation houses) and handed

him fifty dollars of this over pay, to be used at his discretion among

the poor, explaining as he did so where the money came from, that he

felt that it belonged to Amesbury, and that he returned a part through

this channel.

Half way between the Mills and the Ferry stands an old well that a

native of Amesbury dug by the roadside for the benefit of travellers

because he had once been a captive in Arabian deserts, and had known the

torments of thirst. Here was a man to whom the uses of adversity had

been sweet, for they had taught him humanity. Mrs. Spofford has written

an appropriate poem upon this incident.

The elms in Amesbury are very beautiful, and they are found everywhere;

but on the ferry road there are magnificent ones not far from the river.

They are growing on each side of the road, arching it over with their

graceful boughs.

[Illustration: WHITTIER'S HOME, AMESBURY.]

The Ferry proper near which was born Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers

of the Declaration of Independence, is at the foot of the street that

runs from the Mills down to the river. In old times there was a

veritable ferry here a few rods above where the Powow empties into the

Merrimack. This ferry is mentioned in the records, two years after the

town had been set upon its feet. In a book written about Amesbury by Mr.

Joseph Merrill, a native of the town, it is stated that the town

petitioned the general Court for leave to keep a Ferry over the river at

this place. This is the record from the same source:--

"The County Court held at Hampton, ye 13th of ye 8th month 1668, Mr.

Edward Goodwin being presented by ye Selectmen of ye town of Amesbury to

Court to keep ye Ferry over Merrimac river about ye mouth of ye Powow

river where ye said Goodwin now dwelleth, the Court do allow and approve

of ye sd person for one year next following and until ye Court shall

take further orders therein, and ye prices to be as followeth so, for

every single passenger two pence, for a horse and man six pence, and for

all great cattle four pence, for sheep and other small cattle under two

years old two pence per head."

In 1791 there came up a question of a bridge being built across the

Merrimac. A town meeting was called to oppose the measure, and in this

it was argued that a bridge would throw into disuse the ferry with which

much pains had been taken. Precious old fogies! In those days, too, they

lived, for they were as old as the centuries. Nothing of the mushroom

about them. There is a tradition that once in Revolutionary days,

Washington was carried across this ferry. But it is impossible to say

what the tradition is founded upon, and how much it is worth.

As to the river, there are rivers and rivers, as the saying is; at some

we marvel, some we fear and to some we make pilgrimages as to the Mecca

of the faithful. But the Merrimac is a river to be loved, and to be

loved the better the more familiar it is. What its poet, Whittier, says

about it must be literally true:

"Our river by its valley born

Was never yet forgotten."

It is worth while to try to imagine it as he writes it in "Cobbler

Keezer's Vision" two hundred and more years ago, when that old fellow

was so amazed at the prospect of mirth and pleasure among the

descendants of the stern Puritans that he dropped his lapstone into the

water in bewilderment.

This was the time when

"Woodsy and wild and lonesome,

The swift stream wound away,

Through birches and scarlet maples

Flashing in foam and spray."

"Down on the sharp-horned ledges

Plunging in steep cascade,

Tossing its white-maned waters

Against the hemlock's shade."

"Woodsy and wild and lonesome,

East and west and north and south;

Only the village of fishers

Down at the river's mouth;"

"Only here and there a clearing,

With its farm-house rude and new,

And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,

Where the scanty harvest grew."

What a picture that is! And then behind these tree-stumps, the great

forest with its possibilities of comfort and even of competence in its

giant timbers,--when they were fairly floored, but; as it stood, a

threatening foe with a worse enemy in its depths than the darkness of

its shadows, or the wild beasts.

Several of Mr. Whittier's songs of the Merrimac were written for

picnics, given at the Laurels on the Newbury side of the river by a

gentlemen and his wife from Newburyport. They were early abolitionists,

friends and hosts of Garrison, of George Thompson and others of that

brave band, and of course friends of the poet. This hospitable couple

gave a picnic here every June for twenty years. The first was a little

party of perhaps half-a-dozen people, the twenty-first was a large

assembly. Mr. Whittier was present at these picnics whenever able, and,

as has been said, sometimes wrote a poem to be read there. He never

reads in public himself.

Although the Powow river has been made so emphatically a stream of use,

there are glimpses of a native beauty in it that its hard fate has never

obliterated; these are still there, as one stands upon the little bridge

that spans its last few rods of individual life and looks up the stream

upon a wintry landscape, or upon summer fields, and longingly toward the

bend.

Whether the Powow has any power to set in motion the wheels of fancy as

it does the wheels of the factories it is impossible to say, but this

much is certain; on its banks was born an artist who has made his name

known on the banks of the Seine. The father of Mr. Charles Davis, our

young artist of great promise and of no mean performance, was for years

a teacher in Amesbury, and the garden of the house where this son was

born bordered upon the Powow.

[Illustration: THE OLD SANDY HILL MEETING HOUSE]

At Pond Hills, between Amesbury and Merrimac, is lake Attitash, which,

before Mr. Whittier took pity upon it, rejoiced in the name of Kimball's

Pond. There is a slight suspicion that it is still occasionally called

by its old name. In dry seasons the water is used by the mills. But the

blue lake is as beautiful as if it were never useful. On its shore

enough grand old pines are left to dream under of forests primeval, of

Indian wigwams, and of canoes on the bright water; for the red men knew

very well the hiding places of the perch and of the pickerel. So did the

white men who chose the region of the Merrimac for their new home. In

the "Maids of Attitash" is described the lake where

"In sky and wave the white clouds swam,

And the blue hills of Nottingham

Through gaps of leafy green

Across the lake were seen."

All these are still here, but one misses the maidens who ought to be

sitting there

"In the shadow of the ash

That dreams its dream in Attitash."

No doubt they are about here somewhere, only it takes a poet's eye to

find them. And yet it was not very far from here that there lived a few

years ago a young girl, a descendant of one of the early settlers of

Amesbury, who on her engagement said to a friend proudly:--"I am going

to marry a poor man, and I am going to help him." And so she always

nobly did, in ways different from tawdry ambition. The courage of the

old Puritans has not died out here any more than the old beauty has

deserted the land.

* * * * *

KATE FIELD'S NEW DEPARTURE.

BY EDWARD INCREASE MATHER.

Miss Kate Field has been so exclusively identified with artistic and

literary success that her new departure as a lecturer on existing

political evils has excited no little surprise and comment. An

exceptional degree of public interest as well as of purely private and

personal regard has followed her almost, indeed, from childhood; partly

due, it may be, to a certain indefinable magnetism of temperament which

always makes the place where she chances to be at the time seem a social

centre, and somewhat, too, from a life that has not been without its

picturesque setting of scenery and circumstance. "Kate Field was started

right,"--remarked Miss Frances E. Willard of her one day. "As a child

Walter Savage Landor held her on his knee and taught her, and she grew

up in the atmosphere of Art." The chance observation made only _en

passant_, never the less touched a salient truth in that vital manner

in which Miss Willard's words are accustomed to touch truth. She was,

indeed, "started right." The only child of gifted parents, endowed with

a rare combination of intellectual and artistic talent; with a nobility

and genuineness of nature that has ever been one of her most marked

characteristics; attuned by temperament to all that is fine, and high,

and beautiful,--it is little wonder that her life has presented a series

of advancing achievements. She has studied, and read, and thought; she

has travelled, and "sipped the foam of many lives;" and a polished and

many-sided culture has added its charm to a woman singularly charming by

nature and possessed of the subtle gift of fascination. When very young

she studied music and modern languages abroad in Florence, and in

London. To music she especially devoted herself studying under Garcia

and under William Shakespeare, the great English tenor, whose favorite

pupil she is said to have been. Walter Savage Landor conceived a great

fondness for her, gave her lessons in Latin, and left her at his death a

valuable portfolio of old drawings. In some verses addressed "To K.F."

he alludes to her as:--

Modest as winged angels are,

And no less brave and no less fair.

[Illustration: MISS KATE FIELD.]

His interest was richly repaid by the young girl who, after his death,

wrote reminiscences of Landor in a manner whose sympathetic brilliancy

of interpretation added an enduring lustre to his life and achievement.

In her early girlhood as, indeed, in her womanhood, her brilliancy and

charm won all hearts. It was in Florence that she met George Eliot, and

a moon-light evening at the Trollope villa, where Marion Lewes led the

girl, dream-enchanted, out on the fragrant and flowery terrace, left its

picture in her memory, and exquisitely did she portray it in a paper on

George Eliot at the time of her death. By temperament and cultivation

Miss Field is admirably adapted to interpret to the world its masters,

its artists. Her dramatic criticism on Ristori ranks among the finest

ever written of the stage; her "Pen Photographs of Dickens's Readings"

have permanently recorded that memorable tour. Her Life of Fechter wins

its praise from the highest literary authorities in our own country and

London. She has published a few books, made up from her fugitive

articles in the _Tribune_, the _London Times_, the _Athenæum_, and

the magazines, and more of this literature would be eminently refreshing

and acceptable. It is no exaggeration to say that among the American

writers of to-day no one has greater breadth, vigor, originality

and power than Kate Field. She is by virtue of wide outlook and

comprehension of important matters, entirely free from the tendency to

petty detail and trivial common-place that clogs the minds and pens of

many women-writers. Her foreign letters to the _Tribune_ discussed

questions of political significance and international interest. Miss

Field is a woman of so many resources that she has never made of her

writing a trade, but has used it as an art; and she never writes unless

she has something to say. This fact teaches a moral that the woman of

the period may do well to contemplate.

Yet with all the varied charms of foreign life, passed in the most

cultivated and refined social circles of Europe, Kate Field never forgot

that she was an American, and patriotism grew to be a passion with her.

She became a student of English and American politics, and her

revelations of the ponderous machinery of the British Parliament, in a

series of strong and brilliant press letters, now collected into the

little volume called "Hap-Hazzard," was as fine and impressive in its

way as is her dramatic criticism or literary papers. All this, perhaps,

had paved the way for her to enter into a close and comprehensive study

of the subject which she is now so ably discussing in her notable

lectures on the social and the political crimes of Utah. The profound

and serious attention which she is now giving to this problem stamps her

lectures as among the most potent political influences of the time. Miss

Field's discussion of Mormonism is one of those events which seem

pre-determined by the law of the unconscious, and which seem to choose

the individual rather than to be chosen by him. In the summer of 1883,

by way of a change from continental travel, Miss Field determined to

hitch her wagon to a star and journey westward. She lingered for a month

in Denver where she received distinguished social attention and where,

by special request, she gave her lecture on an "Evening with Dickens"

and her charming "Musical Monologue." Of this Dickens' lecture a western

journal said:--

"Charles Dickens was the novelist of humanity, and Kate Field is,

to-day, his most sympathetic and intelligent interpreter. Those who

were so fortunate as to attend her reading last evening enjoyed an

intellectual pleasure not soon forgotten. They saw a slender, graceful

woman, dressed in creamy white, with soft laces falling about her; with

low, broad brow, and earnest, sympathetic eyes, under a cloud of soft

dark hair. With a rich and finely modulated voice of remarkable power

of expression, she held her audience for two hours spellbound by the

magic of her genius."

In Colorado Miss Field enjoyed an unique and picturesque holiday.

Picnics and excursions were gotten up in her honor; special trains were

run; she rode on horseback with gay parties of friends twenty-five miles

a day; she joined friends from New York who were camping out on "The

Needles," and she made a visit to the San Juan Silver-mining district.

Among other diversions she had the honor of naming a new watering place,

located on "The Divide," an hour by rail from Denver, to which, in honor

of General Palmer who has practically "made" that region, Miss Field

gave the name of Palmero, the Spanish for Palmer.

How unconsciously Miss Field came to study the problem presented by the

peculiar institutions of Utah is curiously indicated in a letter from

Salt Lake City, under date of Jan. 16, 1884, which she wrote to the

Boston _Herald_, and which opens thus:--

"I know of nothing that would do Bostonians so much good as a prolonged

trip across this continent, giving themselves sufficient time to tarry

at different points and study the people. For myself--about half a

Bostonian--I became so ashamed of sailing east year after year, that

last summer I made up my mind to hitch my wagon to the star of empire

and learn as much of my own country as I knew of Europe. I started from

New York in July, expecting to be absent three months, and in that

period obtain an intelligent idea of the far West. After passing two

months and a half in wonderful Colorado and only seeing a fraction of

the Centennial state, I began to realize that in two years I might,

with diligence, get a tolerable idea of this republic west of the

Mississippi. Cold weather setting in, and the fall of snow rendering

mountain travelling in Colorado neither safe nor agreeable, I came to

Utah over the wonderful Denver & Rio Grande railroad, intending to

pass a week prior to visiting New Mexico and Arizona. My week expired

on the 22nd day of October and still I linger among the 'saints.'

I am regarded as more or less demented by eastern friends. If becoming

interested in a most extraordinary anomaly to such an extent as to

desire to study it and to be able to form an intelligent opinion

therein is being demented, then I am mad indeed, for I've not yet got

to the bottom of the Utah problem, and if I lived here years, there

would still be much to learn. Despite this last discouraging fact,

I have improved my opportunities and am able to paragraph what has

come under my own observation or been acquired by absorption of Mormon

and Gentile literature. If the commissioners sent here by Congress to

investigate the Mormon question, at an annual expense of forty thousand

dollars per annum, had studied this question as earnestly as I have,

they never would have told the country that polygamy is dying out. One

or two members of that commission know better, and sooner or later they

must tell the truth or stultify their own souls."

This extract reveals how deeply the anomaly of Mormon life had at once

impressed her. Miss Field was too keen and cultivated an observer not to

see beneath the surface of this phase of living a problem whose roots

struck deep into national prosperity and safety. The distinguished

essayist and critic, Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, said of her study of

Mormonism:--

She undertook a perfectly original method of arriving at the truth, by

intimate conversations with Mormon husbands and wives, as well as with

the most intelligent of the "Gentiles." She discarded from her mind

pre-conceptions and all prejudices which discolor and distort objects

which should be rigidly investigated, and looked at the mass of facts

before her in what Bacon calls "dry light." Cornelius Vanderbilt, the

elder, was accustomed to account for the failures and ruin of the

brilliant young brokers who tried to corner the stocks in which he had

an interest, by declaring that "these dashing young fellars didn't see

things as they be." Miss Field saw things in Utah "as they be." She

collected facts of personal observation, analyzed and generalized them,

and, by degrees, her sight became insight, and the passage from insight

to foresight is rapid. After thorough investigation, her insight

enabled her to penetrate into the secret of that "mystery of iniquity"

which Mormonism really is; while her foresight showed her what would

be the inevitable result of the growth and diffusion of such a horrible

creed.

The winter lapsed into spring and still she lingered in Salt Lake City.

She relinquished all pleasure for the real work of studying deeply the

anomaly of a Polygamous hierarchy thriving in the heart of the Republic.

Every facility was accorded to her by United States officials, military

officers, leading Gentiles and Apostates. Prominent "Latter Day Saints"

offered her marked courtesy. She pursued this research unremittingly for

eight months and when, at last, she left Salt Lake City, the leading

Gentile paper, the Tribune, devoted a leading editorial to Miss Field's

marvellously thorough study of Mormon conditions, and, on her departure,

said:--

"Miss Field is probably the best posted person, outside the high

Mormon church officials, and others who have been in the church, on

this institution, in the world, and its effects upon men, women and

governments. With a fixedness of purpose which nothing could swerve,

and with an energy which neither storm, mud, snow, cold looks, the

persuasions or even the loss of friends, could for a moment dampen, she

has held on her course. In the tabernacle, in the ward meeting house,

in the homes of high Mormons, and, when these were closed to her, in

the homes of the poor, she has worked upon the theme, while every scrap

of history which offered to give any light upon the Mormon organization

she has devoured. Mormonism has been to her like a fever. It has run

its course and now she is going away. If she proposes to lecture, she

ought to be able to prepare a better lecture on Mormonism than she has

ever yet delivered; if a book is in process of incubation it ought to

be of more value than any former book on this subject. Lecture or book

will be intense enough to satisfy all demands. The 'Tribune' gives the

world notice in advance that Miss Field has a most intimate knowledge

of the Mormon kingdom."

Returning to the East she stopped on the way in Missouri and at Nauvoo,

Illinois, looking up all the old camping-grounds of Mormonism, and

meeting and interviewing people who had been connected with it,

including two sons of Joseph Smith, Miss Field opened her course of

lectures on this subject in Boston last November, before a brilliant and

distinguished audience, including the Governor and other officials of

state, Harvard University professors, and men and women eminent in art,

literature and society. She dealt with the political crimes of the

Mormons, arguing that the great wrong was not, as many had believed,

polygamy, but treason! Polygamy, though "the cornerstone of the Mormon

church," was not inserted in its printed articles of faith and was not

taught until the unwary had been "gathered to Zion." The monstrosity of

the "revelation" on celestial marriage; the tragic unhappiness of Mormon

women; the elastic conscience of John Taylor, "prophet, seer and

revelator" to God's chosen people, were vividly depicted. Her extracts

from Brigham Young's sermons, and from those of his counsellors, are

forcible arguments on the Gentile side. Indeed, throughout her entire

discourse, Miss Field clinches every statement with Mormon proof, rarely

going to Gentile authorities for vital facts connected with her subject.

The lecturer's sense of humor betrayed itself now and then, when, with

fervor, she related an incident in her own experience, or quoted a "Song

of Zion." The refrain of one of these songs still rings in our ears:

Then, oh, let us say

God bless the wife that strives

And aids her husband all she can

To obtain a dozen wives!

The prodigious contrast between the preaching and practice of polygamy

was fully displayed. Mormons claim that there is a vast difference

between bigamy and polygamy; that only good men are allowed to take

plural wives; that no saint takes more wives than he can support, and

that a muchly married "man of God" exercises the most rigid impartiality

in the bestowal of his affections upon his various women. Miss Field

upsets these beautiful theories by graphic pictures drawn from life, and

cited Brigham Young himself as "a bright and shining lie to the boast of

impartiality." Brigham Young's coup d'etat in granting woman suffrage in

1871 was illuminated, and emphasized by the assertions:--"A territory

that has abolished the right of dower, that proclaims polygamy to be

divine, that has no laws against bigamy and kindred crimes, that has no

just appreciation of woman, is unworthy of self-respecting humanity,

woman suffrage or no woman suffrage." Miss Field makes in these lectures

a telling exposition of the doctrine of blood atonement, passing on to

these Mormon missionaries and their methods, and the people who become

"fascinated with the idea of direct communication with heaven through

the medium of a prophet," and to whom the missionary brethren prudently

"leave the mysteries of polygamy to the imagination," while they

inculcate the importance of "gathering to Zion." She outlined the

educational status and the discouragement given by Brigham Young to all

educational progress. Of Mormon treason she says:--

"Five years after the United States had established the Territory of

Utah its people were in armed rebellion because the government dared to

send a Gentile governor and national troops to Utah."

Nor does she spare the United States in its responsibility for these

crimes. "The United States to-day," said Miss Field, "is responsible for

thirty years' growth of polygamy, with its attendant degradation of

woman and brutalization of man." As an illustration of this conclusion,

she told a most interesting story of which Governor Harding of Utah,

Brigham Young, Benjamin Halliday, Postmaster General Blair, Abraham

Lincoln and William H. Seward were the characters. The story is a

dramatic and significant bit of Mormon history, related for the first

time. It led up to an earnest and eloquent peroration of which the final

words were: "'I'll believe polygamy is wrong when Congress breaks it up;

not before!' exclaims a plural wife. Men and women of New England! You

who forge public opinion; you who sounded the death knell of slavery,

what are you going to do about it!"

William Lloyd Garrison used to tell his friends that it was worth an

admission fee just to see Kate Field on the platform, as she made so

lovely a picture. Her attitudes--for they are too spontaneous and

unconscious to be termed poses--are the impersonation of grace, and,

aside from the enjoyment of the intellectual quality and searching

political analysis of her lectures, is that of the artistic effect.

She gave a course of three lectures on this "Mormon Monster." They were

efforts whose invincible logic, graphic presentation and thrilling power

held spellbound her audience. They were a drama of social and political

life, and almost unprecedented on the lyceum platform was this eloquence

and splendor of oratory, combined with the trained thought, the

scholarly acquirement, and the finished eloquence of its delivery. This

course of lectures finished there was a popular call for Miss Field to

repeat one at Tremont Temple which, by invitation of Governor Robinson,

the Mayor and a number of distinguished citizens, she consented to do.

The triumph was repeated. From Boston she was invited to lecture in

Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Washington. Press and people were alike

enthusiastic. It is to the work of Miss Kate Field more than to any

other cause, that the present disintegration of Mormon treason is due.

Other travellers in Utah have made but the briefest stays, and have been

ready to gloss over the tale. Miss Field is telling the truth about it,

and she does it with a courage, a vigor, an honesty, and a power that

renders it one of the most potent influences in the national life of the

times. Kate Field holds to-day the first place on the Lyceum platform of

America. She has a rare combination of judicial and executive qualities.

She is singularly free from exaggeration, and her sense of justice is

never deflected by personal feeling or emotional impulse. She has that

exceptional balance of the intellectual and artistic forces that enables

her to give to her lecture a superb literary quality, and to deliver it

with faultless grace of manner and an impressiveness of presence rarely

equalled. In Kate Field America has a woman worthy to be called an

orator.

* * * * *

THE MONUMENT AND HOMESTEAD OF REBECCA NURSE.

BY ELIZABETH PORTER GOULD.

Perhaps the greatest incentive to ideal living in a changing world is

the firmly held conviction that truth will finally vindicate itself.

When this vindication is made apparent, as in the case of Rebecca

Nurse, one of the most striking martyrs of the Salem witchcraft days of

1692, the cause of human progress seems assured. For it is thus seen

that truth has within itself a living seed which in its development

is destined to become man's guide to further knowledge and growth.

This idea was impressed upon me anew as I stood before the granite

monument, some eight and a half feet high, erected this past summer in

Danvers,--originally Salem,--to the memory of Mrs. Rebecca Nurse, by

her descendants. A carpet of green grass surrounded it, and a circle of

nearly twenty pine trees guarded it as sentinels. The pines were singing

their summer requiem as I read on the front of the monument these

words:--

REBECCA NURSE,

YARMOUTH, ENGLAND,

1621.

SALEM, MASS.,

1692.

O Christian martyr, who for Truth could die

When all about thee owned the hideous lie,

The world, redeemed from Superstition's sway,

Is breathing freer for thy sake to-day.

I lingered a moment over these fitting lines of Whittier, whose charming

home, "Oak Knoll," a short distance off, had just given me a restful

pleasure. Then I walked around to the other side of the monument, where

I read, with mingled feelings, the following words:--

Accused of witchcraft

She declared,

"I am innocent, and God will

clear my innocency."

Once acquitted yet falsely

condemned, she suffered

death July 19, 1692.

In loving memory of her

Christian character,

even then truly attested by

forty of her neighbors,

this monument is erected.

These last lines reminded me of the fact that the paper with its forty

signatures, testifying to the forty years' acquaintance of the good

character of Rebecca Nurse, was still in existence. Alas! why couldn't

such a testimony of neighbors and friends have saved her? But it was not

so to be. The government of the colony, the influence of the magistracy,

and public opinion elsewhere, overpowered all friendly and family help;

and on the 19th July, 1692, at the advanced age of seventy-one years,

Rebecca Nurse was hung on Gallows hill.

As I left the monument, which is in the old family burying-ground, and

wandered up the time-honored lane towards the homestead where she was

living when arrested, the March before, my thoughts would go back to

those dreadful days. I thought of this venerable mother's surprise and

wonder, as she learned of the several distinct indictments against her,

four of which, for having practised "certain detestable acts called

witchcraft" upon Ann Putnam, Mary Walcot, Elizabeth Hubbard, and Abigail

Williams, were still to be found in the Salem records. I thought of the

feelings of this old and feeble woman as she was borne to the Salem

jail, then a month later sent off, with other prisoners, to the jail

in Boston (then a whole day's journey), to be sent back to Salem for

her final doom. I pictured her on trial, when, in the presence of her

accusers, the "afflicted girls," and the assembled crowd, she constantly

declared her innocence ("I am innocent, and God will clear my

innocency"), and showed a remarkable power in refuting the questions of

the magistrate. I thought of her Christian faith and courage, when, upon

seeing all the assembly, and even the magistrate, putting faith in the

"afflicted girls'" diabolical tantrums (what else can I call them?) as

there enacted, and now preserved in the records of the trial, she calmiy

said, "I have got nobody to look to but God." I again pictured her, as,

just before the horrors of execution, she was taken from the prison to

the meeting-house, by the sheriff and his men, to receive before a great

crowd of spectators the added disgrace of excommunication from the

Church.

But I could picture no more. My heart rebelled. And as I had now reached

the old homestead on the hill I paused a moment, before entering, to

rest under the shade of the trees and to enjoy the extensive views of

the surrounding country. This comforted my troubled feelings, and

suggested the thought that in the fourteen years that Rebecca Nurse had

lived there she must have often come under the shade of the trees,

perhaps after hours of hard work and care, to commune alone with her

God. How could I help thinking so when there came up before me her

answer to the magistrate's question, "Have you familiarity with these

spirits?"--"No, I have none but with God alone." Surely, to one who knew

Him as she did, who in calm strength could declare her innocence when

many around her, as innocent as she, were frightened into doubt and

denial, the quiet and rest of nature must have been a necessary means of

courage and strength.

Then what did not the old house, with its sloping roof, tell me, as it

still stood where Townsend Bishop had built it in 1636, upon receiving a

grant of three hundred acres? Yes, this old "Bishop's mansion," as the

deed calls it, had felt the joys and sorrows of our common human life

for almost two hundred and fifty years. It had known the friends whom

Townsend Bishop, as one of the accomplished men of Salem village, had

gathered about him in the few years that he had lived there. It must

have heard some of Hugh Peters' interesting experiences, since, as

pastor of the First Church those very years (1636-1641), he was a

frequent visitor. Why couldn't one think that Roger Williams had often

come to compare notes on house-building, since he owned the "old witch

house" (still standing on the corner of Essex and North streets) at the

same time that Mr. Bishop was building his house? It certainly was a

pleasure to remember that Governor Endicott once owned and lived on this

farm. He bought it in 1648, for one hundred and sixty pounds, of Henry

Checkering, to whom Mr. Bishop had sold it seven years before.

I recalled many other things, that summer day, concerning this ancient

place. Shall I not tell them? While the Governor lived on it he

continued his good work for the general opening of the country around

about. Among other things he laid out the road that passes its

entrance-gate to-day.

Here his son John brought his youthful Boston bride, and gave to her the

place as a "marriage-gift." Then, some years later, she, the widow of

John, having become the bride of a Mr. James Allen, gave it to him as a

"marriage-gift;" and upon her death, in 1673, he became the possessor.

Five years later he sold it to Francis Nurse, the husband of Rebecca,

for four hundred pounds. Mr. Nurse was an early settler of Salem, a

"tray-maker," whose articles were much used. He was a man of good

judgment, and respected by his neighbors. He was then fifty-eight years

of age, and his wife fifty-seven. They had four sons and four daughters.

The peculiar terms of the purchase had always seemed interesting to me;

for the purchase-money of four hundred pounds was not required to be

paid until the expiration of twenty-one years. In the meantime a

moderate rent of seven pounds a year for the first twelve years, and ten

pounds for each of the remaining nine years, was determined upon.

Suitable men were appointed to estimate the value of what Mr. Nurse

should add to the estate while living upon it, by clearing meadows,

erecting buildings, or making other improvements. This value over one

hundred and fifty pounds was to be paid to him. These various sums, if

paid over to Mr. Allen before the twenty-one years had expired, would

make a proportionate part of the farm at Mr. Nurse's disposal.

The low rent and the industrious, frugal habits of Mr. Nurse and his

family, added to the fact that not a dollar was required to be paid down

at first, led to the making of such good improvements that before half

the time had elapsed a value was created large enough to pay the whole

four hundred pounds to Mr. Allen. When Mr. Nurse thus became owner of

this estate he gave to his children, who had already good homes within

its boundaries, the larger half of the farm, while he reserved for

himself the homestead and the rest of the land. By the deeds he gave

them, they were required to maintain a roadway to connect with the old

homestead and with the homes of each other.

While the different members of the Nurse family were thus working hard

for the money to buy the place there was hanging over its owner the

shadow of litigation for its possession. But this was Mr. Allen's

affair, not theirs, so they went on their way in peace. Indeed, it has

been thought that their steady success in life was one cause of their

future trouble. They became objects of envy to those restless ones less

favored. And so, when the opportunity came to merely whisper a name for

the "afflicted girls" to take up, Rebecca Nurse's fate was in the hands

of an enemy. A striking example of the innocent suffering for the

guilty. Does not vicarious suffering seem to be an important factor in

the development of the race? Two years after, this faithful wife and

mother had been led from her peaceful home to suffer the agonies of

prisons, trials, and hanging. When the children had all married, the

father gave up the homestead to his son Samuel, and divided his

remaining property among his sons and daughters. He died soon after,

in 1695. He was a kind, true father, whose requests after death were

heeded. This homestead was in the Nurse name as late as 1784, when it

was owned by a great-grandson of Rebecca. He sold it to Phineas Putnam,

a descendant of old Nathaniel Putnam, who, in the hour of need, wrote

the paper for the forty signatures above mentioned. The estate descended

to the great-grandson of Phineas, Orin Putnam, who, in 1836, married the

daughter of Allen Nurse. And thus a direct descendant of Rebecca Nurse

was again placed to preside over the ancestral farm, and to their

descendants it belongs to-day.

After thus thinking over this interesting history of the old place,

as I reclined under the shade of its trees, I was better prepared to

enjoy the kind hospitality which it then offered me. I felt a peculiar

pleasure in stepping into the same little front porch which Townsend

Bishop had built so many years ago. And upon ascending the stairs I

found myself lingering a while by the old original balusters, the

building of which Roger Williams had perhaps viewed with interest. Upon

reaching the attic it was a pleasure, indeed, to see in this new world

the frame-work of a house which for two hundred and fifty years had

stood so well the test of nature in all her moods. No saw was used in

shaping those oaken timbers. They knew only the broad-axe. From this

attic I descended to the sitting-room, to spend a while under the same

low beams which had greeted the first visitors of the house. Here I

imagined the Nurse family living in quiet and peace. Here I pictured the

son Samuel, as, later, he wondered over and over again how he could

remove the reproach which was on his mother's name. And I thought that

to him his descendants owed much, for it was mainly to his pleadings

that the General Court exonerated her in 1710, and the Church in 1712.

While sitting there I learned of some alterations which had been made

from time to time: how the front of the house, before which the old

roadway used to be, had been widened by extending the western end beyond

the porch.

As I came out of the house upon the green grass around it, I enjoyed

again the grand outlook over the surrounding country,--the same which in

the days of agony had strengthened human souls,--and then walked down

the hill, by the family burying-ground, out through the entrance-gate

into Collins street, the public thoroughfare.

I left the monument and its interesting associations that August day of

1885 (it was dedicated only the July 30 before) with the feeling that as

the present descendants of Rebecca Nurse owe much to her son Samuel, so

their future descendants will be indebted to them for the appropriate

manner in which they have still further striven to vindicate before the

world the innocence of a much-wronged ancestor.

* * * * *

THE PRESENT RESOURCES OF MASSACHUSETTS.

BY H.K.M.

Massachusetts is a busy state. The old time factory bell has not

entirely given way to the steam whistle, nor the simple village spire to

the more pretentious ecclesiastical tower of to-day, yet the energizing

force of material prosperity has quickened the blood in nearly every

hamlet, modernized the old, or built up a new, so that throughout the

state there is a substantial freshness indicative of progressive thrift.

The Tenth Census of the United States classifies the entire

working population of the state in four divisions of labor as

follows:--Agriculture, 64,973; Professional and Personal services,

170,160; Trade and Transportation, 115,376; Mechanical, 370,265; with a

total population of 1,941,465.[4] The aggregate steam and water power in

1880 was 309,759 horse power; the motive power of 14,352 manufacturing

establishments having an invested capital of $303,806,185; paying

$128,315,362 in wages to 370,265 persons who produced a product value of

$631,135,284. These results, in proportion to area and population, place

Massachusetts first in the Union as a manufacturing state. In mechanical

science a complete cotton mill has been considered the cap stone of

human ingenuity. In 1790 Mr. Samuel Slater established in Pawtucket,

R.I., the first successful cotton mill in the United States, but the

saw gin, a Massachusetts invention of Mr. Eli Whitney in 1793, laid the

foundation of the cotton industry throughout the world.

There are 956 cotton mills in the United States with an invested capital

of $208,280,346, with a wage account of $42,040,510. The relative

importance of the four leading states in the manufacture of cotton goods

is shown as follows:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

206 Mass. $74,118,801 $16,240,908 $74,780,835

133 R.I. 29,260,734 5,623,933 24,609,461

97 Conn. 21,104,200 3,750,017 17,050,126

41 N.H. 19,993,584 4,322,622 18,226,573

As in cotton, so also in the manufacture of woolen goods has

Massachusetts maintained from the first the leading position. In 1794

in Byfield parish, Newbury, Mass., the first woolen mill went into

successful operation. In 1804 a good quality of gray mixed broadcloth

was made at Pittsfield, Mass., and it is said that in 1808 President

Madison's inaugural suit of black broadcloth was made there.

The five leading states in the production of woolen goods are thus

classified:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

167 Mass. $24,680,782 $7,457,115 $45,099,203

324 Penn. 18,780,604 5,254,328 32,341,291

78 Conn. 7,907,452 2,342,935 16,892,284

50 R.I. 8,448,700 2,480,907 15,410,450

159 N.Y. 8,266,878 1,774,143 9,874,973

In its kindred industry, dyeing and finishing textiles, Massachusetts is

a controlling force; as seen in the classification of the three leading

states in this department of labor:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

28 Mass. $8,613,500 $1,815,431 $9,482,939

16 R.I. 5,912,500 1,093,727 6,874,254

60 Penn. 3,884,846 1,041,309 6,259,852

Nearly one half of the entire American production of felt goods comes

from her, as indicated in the classification of the four leading

states:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

11 Mass. $820,000 $163,440 $1,627,320

6 N.J. 313,000 86,170 685,386

4 N.Y. 157,500 35,289 257,450

1 Penn. 150,000 80,000 450,000

Massachusetts is also an all-important factor in the total production of

American carpets. The 59 mills in the United States made in 1880 a

wholesale product valued at $31,792,802. Massachusetts made the most

Brussels, 1,884,723 yards; Pennsylvania came next with 919,476 yards.

She came next to New York in yards of Tapestry, and next to Connecticut

in Wiltons, a good second in these important grades. The three leading

carpet states are thus classified:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

10 N.Y. $6,422,158 $1,952,391 $8,419,254

172 Penn. 7,210,483 3,035,971 14,304,660

7 Mass. 4,637,646 1,223,303 6,337,629

In the manufacture of Boots and Shoes Massachusetts stands conspicuously

at the front; her position in this great industry is clearly seen in the

three states controlling this special product:--

No. of Capital Wages Value

Factories. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

982 Mass. $21,098,133 $24,875,106 $95,900,510

272 N.Y. 6,227,537 4,902,132 18,979,259

145 Penn. 3,627,840 2,820,976 9,590,002

One evidence that Massachusetts is not sitting down all the time is the

fact that she stands up to manufacture so many chairs. From a small

beginning of wood and flag seated chairs, Mr. James M. Comee in 1805,

with his foot lathe, in one room of his dwelling in Gardner. Mass., laid

the foundation of this important industry, which has given the town of

Gardner, where over 1,000,000 of chairs are annually made, a world wide

reputation.

The relative positions of the five leading chair states:--

No. of Capital Wages Value

Factories. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

62 Mass. $1,948,600 $1,028,087 $3,290,837

62 N.Y. 991,000 472,974 1,404,138

45 Penn. 111,700 143,037 437,010

37 Ohio 497,026 321,918 821,702

37 Ind. 395,850 232,005 632,746

In the currying of leather Massachusetts is a notable leader:--

No. Capital Wages Value

Establishments. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

194 Mass. $4,308,169 $1,939,122 $23,282,775

185 N.Y. 1,720,356 366,426 6,192,002

455 Penn. 2,570,969 334,950 7,852,177

56 N.J. 1,983,746 762,697 8,727,128

61 Wis. 1,299,425 281,412 4,496,729

18 Ill. 534,786 141,096 2,391,380

Her position in the manufacturing of worsted goods is also an all

important one:--

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

23 Mass. $6,195,247 $1,870,030 $10,466,016

28 Penn. 4,959,639 1,473,958 10,072,473

11 R.I. 4,567,416 1,222,350 6,177,754

Again we find her at the head of another very important industry, the

manufacture of paper.

The five leading states in production are given their relative positions.

No. Capital Wages Value

of Mills. State. Invested. Paid. of Product.

96 Mass. $11,722,046 $2,467,359 $15,188,196

168 N.Y. 6,859,565 1,217,580 8,524,279

60 Ohio 4,804,274 839,231 5,108,194

78 Penn. 4,099,000 752,151 5,355,912

65 Conn. 3,168,931 656,000 4,337,550

In 1880 Massachusetts manufactured 27,638 tons of printing paper, 24,746

tons of writing paper, 10,255 tons of wrapping paper, 945 tons of wall

paper, 3,706,010 pounds of colored paper, 255,000 pounds of bank note

paper, 878,000 pounds of tissue paper, and 27,607,706 pounds of all

other kinds of paper.

She manufactures more shovels than any other state, about 120,000 dozen

annually. Rhode Island comes next with about one-half the quantity, and

Ohio stands third, her product being about 7,000 dozen annually.

It also falls to her lot to manufacture more Hay and Straw cutters,

about 6,000 annually. In the manufacture of hard soap Massachusetts

falls a little behind some of her sister states, but she comes smilingly

to the front with her 16,000,000 pounds of soft soap, about one half of

the total production. New York brings her annual offering of about 5,000

pounds.

The 4,000 boats she annually builds constitute nearly one half of the

number built in the United States.

There are 131,426 persons in the United States engaged in the fisheries.

The prominent share of Massachusetts in this industry is seen in the

classification of the five leading states.

State. No. of Capital Value

Persons Invested. of Product.

Employed.

Mass. 20,117 $14,334,450 $8,141,750

Md. 26,008 6,342,443 5,221,715

N.Y. 7,266 2,629,585 4,380,565

Me. 11,071 3,375,994 3,614,178

Vir. 18,864 1,914,119 3,124,444

She has invested:--Over $1,000,000 in the manufacture of Baskets and

Rattan goods; over $1,600,000 in the manufacture of Brick and Tile; over

$2,000,000 in the manufacture of Wagons and Carriages; over $5,000,000

in the manufacture of Men's Clothing; over $1,500,000 in the manufacture

of Cordage and Twine; over $2,000,000 in the manufacture of Cutlery;

over $3,000,000 in the manufacture of Fire Arms; over $16,000,000 in the

Foundries and Machine Shops; over $2,000,000 in the manufacture of

Furniture; over $2,000,000 in the manufacture of Iron Nails and Spikes;

over $6,000,000 in the manufacture of Iron and Steel; over $1,500,000 in

the manufacture of Jewelry; over $3,000,000 in the manufacture of

Liquors, Malt; over $3,000,000 in Slaughtering and Packing; over

$2,000,000 in Straw goods; over $2,000,000 in Sugar and Molasses,

refined; over $2,000,000 in the manufacture of Watches; over $2,000,000

in the manufacture of Wire, and over $11,000,000 in unclassified

industries.

The limitations of this article will only allow brief reference to a few

of the leading industries of Massachusetts. The facts presented give her

a commanding position in the sisterhood of manufacturing States, while

the condition of her operatives, their moral and intellectual character,

has no parallel in any other manufacturing district in the world.

On her well known but dangerous coast special provisions are made to aid

the mariner; so likewise upon her more dangerous coast of sin we find

2,397 ministerial light houses whose concentrated spiritual lens-power

upon an area of 8,040 square miles, make the rocks of total depravity

loom up far above the white capped waves of theological doubt. The lower

law being less important than the higher, it takes but 1,984 lawyers to

successfully mystify the juries of the Commonwealth. Of physicians and

surgeons there are 2,845. It requires the constant services of 2,463

persons to entertain us with music, and just one less, 2,462 barbers,

who are in daily tonsorial conflict with our hair, either rebuking it

where it does grow, or teasing it to come forth where heretofore the

dome has been hairless.

Of the 4,000,000 farms of 536,081,835 acres in the United States, 38,406

farms of 3,359,097 acres valued at $146,197,415 yielding an annual

income of $24,160,881 lie within the borders of the state. Her 150,435

cows produce 29,662,953 gallons of milk, which is the foundation of her

annual product of 9,655,587 pounds of butter, and 829,528 pounds of

cheese. She would be unjust to her traditional sense of justice were she

to send her beans out into the world single handed, with true paternal

solicitude she provides them with the charmed society of 80,123 swine,

thus hand in hand Massachusetts' pork and beans stride up and down the

earth, supremely content in the joyous ecstasy of their Puritan conceit.

While Massachusetts has well known agricultural tendencies, and her

Agricultural college is one of the most important factors in her system

of practical instruction, it cannot be claimed that she is a controlling

element in the agricultural interests of the country. Of all her

influences for good, perhaps her educational interests would command the

greater prominence. She has ever regarded the instruction of her youth

as one of her most sacred trusts, and in all the details of her public

school system she ranks second to no state in the Union.

In the various departments of technical instruction, she has a national

reputation. Her colleges and universities so richly endowed secure the

highest attainable advantages. These privileges supplemented by the free

public libraries of the state, place possibilities within the reach of

every young man or young woman, the value of which cannot be

approximated by human estimate.

Six of the leading states are thus classified:--

Public School Sittings School

Schools. State. Buildings. Provided. Property.

6,604 Mass. 3,343 319,749 $21,660,392

15,203 Ill. 11,880 694,106 15,876,572

11,623 Ind. 9,679 437,050 11,907,541

18,615 N.Y. 11,927 763,817 31,235,401

16,473 Ohio 12,224 676,664 21,643,515

18,618 Penn. 12,857 961,074 25,919,397

The following institutions for higher education have about $5,000,000

invested in grounds and buildings, about $9,000,000 in endowments,

yielding an annual income of about $1,000,000, having about 4,000

students and about 400,000 volumes in libraries, Universities and

Colleges.

UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES.

Amherst College, organized 1821

Boston College, organized 1864

Boston University, organized 1872

College of the Holy Cross, organized 1843

Tufts College, organized 1852

Harvard College, organized 1636

Williams College, organized 1793

COLLEGES FOR WOMEN.

Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, organized 1837

Sophia Smith College, organized 1872

Wellesley College, organized 1874

THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS.

Andover Theological Seminary, organized 1808

Boston University School of Theology, organized 1847

Divinity School of Harvard University, organized 1816

Episcopal Theological School, organized 1867

Tufts College Divinity School, organized 1867

Newton Theological Institution, organized 1825

New Church Theological School, organized 1866

LAW SCHOOLS.

Boston University School of Law, organized 1872

Law School of Harvard University, organized 1817

SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE.

Boston University School of Medicine, organized 1869

Harvard Medical School, organized 1782

New England Female Medical College, organized 1850

Boston Dental College, organized 1868

Dental School Harvard College, organized 1867

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, organized 1823

THE SCHOOLS OF SCIENCE.

Massachusetts Agricultural College, organized 1867

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, organized 1861

Lawrence Scientific School, organized 1848

Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial

Science, organized 1868

While Massachusetts is a model state in all her educational interests,

we do not forget that there are 75,635 persons in the state who cannot

read, and 92,980 persons who cannot write, but of the 990,160 native

white persons of ten years and upwards only 6,933 are unable to write,

being seven-tenths of one per cent., the lowest ratio of any state.

Arkansas, per cent, being 25.0; Alabama, 24.7; Georgia, 22.9; Kentucky,

22.0; No. Carolina, 31.0; So. Carolina, 21.9; Tenn., 27.3; West

Virginia, 18.2; Connecticut, 5.5; Illinois, 5.9; New Hampshire 5;

Pennsylvania, 6.7; New York, 5.3.

There are 15,416 colored persons in the state, of 10 years and upwards;

of this number 2,322 are unable to write, but from 10 to 14 years of

age, both inclusive, these being 1,504, but 31 persons are reported as

unable to write, or 2.1 per cent. South Carolina out of a colored

population of 75,981 between the same ages, reports 57,072 persons as

unable to write or 74.1 per cent. There are 1,886 colored persons in the

state between the ages of 15 and 20, and only 70 are reported as unable

to write, or 3.7 per cent.; we find this also the lowest ratio of any

state.

South Carolina's per cent. being 71.9; Alabama, 64.9; Georgia, 76.4;

Texas, 69.2; and North Carolina, 68.5.

Her density of population makes it exceedingly convenient for her 52,799

domestic servants to compose notes over neighborly fences. Her 281,188

dwelling houses house 379,710 families, placing 6.34 persons to the

credit of each dwelling, and 4.70 persons to each family. This density

gives her 221.78 persons to a square mile, a far greater ratio than any

state except Rhode Island. This neighborly proximity has its social

tendencies, which may account in part for the hospitable amenities which

are a rightful part of Massachusetts' well known loyalty to a higher

regard for the purest type of home, a comparative statement of the

density of population of a few states.

State. Square Miles. Persons to Square Miles.

Rhode Island, 1,085 254.87

Massachusetts, 8,040 221.78

Connecticut, 4,845 128.52

Georgia, 58,980 26.15

Illinois, 56,000 54.96

Iowa, 55,475 29.29

Maine, 29,895 21.71

Michigan, 57,430 28.50

New Hampshire, 9,005 38.53

New York, 47,620 106.74

Pennsylvania, 44,985 95.21

West Virginia, 24,645 25.09

As inseparable as night is from day, so also are the ills of life from

life itself. Massachusetts is no exception to the inexorable law which

defines the conditions of human society; but through her public and

private charities so wisely administered, she humanely softens the

asperities which shadow the life of her unfortunates. To her lot fall

1,733 idiotic persons, 978 deaf mutes, 5,127 insane, 1,500 of whom are

cared for at home, and 3,659 prisoners, 1,484 of whom are of foreign

birth. Human life teaches that the boundary lines of a smile and tear

are the same, for where happiness is, there sorrow dwells. In the

general estimate of 391,960 annual deaths in the United States, about

33,000 occur in Massachusetts.

One evidence of her unswerving faith in the national credit is seen by

her holdings in U.S. registered bonds. The four leading states are

reported as follows:--

No. of Per cent. of

Persons. State. Bondholders. Amount.

16,885 Massachusetts, 23.05 $45,138,750

10,408 Pennsylvania, 14.23 40,223,050

14,803 New York, 20.24 210,264,250

4,130 Ohio, 5.65 16,445,050

In the classification of the four leading states, of assessed valuation

and taxation, it appears that the assessed valuation of her personal

property exceeds that of any state.

The four leading states are thus classified:--

Area Real Personal Total

State. Sq. M. Estate. Property. Total. Tax.

N.Y. 47.620 $2,329,282,359 $323,657,647 $2,651,940,006 $56,392,975

Penn. 44,985 1,540,007,657 143,451,059 1,683,459,016 28,604,334

Mass. 8,040 1,111,160,072 473,596,730 1,584,756,802 24,326,877

Ohio 40,760 1,093,677,705 440,682,803 1,534,360,508 25,756,658

The grandest monument of human skill in modern railway science is

unquestionably the St. Gothard Tunnel which connects the valley of the

Reuss with the valley of the Ticino, which is from 5,000 to 6,500 feet

below the Alpine peaks of St. Gothard, being a little over 9-1/4 miles

in length, costing over $47,000,000, one-half of which was paid by the

governments of Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Until its completion in

1880, there was but one railway tunnel, Mont Cenis, that outranked our

own Hoosac Tunnel of nearly 5 miles in length and costing about

$10,000,000.

The service, equipment, and management of Massachusetts' railway system

is well nigh perfect. Out of 4,100 miles of track in the state, 2,453

are laid with the steel rail. Including the 1,150 engines, 1,554

passenger cars, 394 baggage cars, and 24,418 freight cars, the total

cost of railroad equipment in the state has been $178,862,870; from this

investment the total earnings in 1884 reached $33,020,816 from which

$4,568,274 were paid in dividends. The number of passengers carried were

57,589,200 and 17,258,726 tons of freight moved. One of the most

important elements in her system is the Boston and Albany. Its engine

service the past year was 5,680,060 miles, the company carried 94,721

through passengers and 8,699,691 way, whose total earnings were

$8,148,713.34 and total expenses were $5,785,876.98.

In this connection we would refer to the city and suburban tramway

service, which has taken an important part in the development of the

state. The total cost of the 336 miles of road and equipment, including

8,987 horses and 1,918 passenger cars is stated at $9,093,935. Number of

passengers carried in 1884 was 94,894,259, gross earnings $4,788,096,

operating expenses $3,985,617, total available income $924,440. When we

consider that the street railway service carried more than 37,000,000

passengers in excess of the steam railways, we realize its importance.

While there are 66,205 more females than males in the state, in the

wider distribution of the sexes their equality indicates that it could

not happen by chance, and that marriage of one man to one woman was

intended.

An authentic estimate of the numerical proportions of the sexes is as

follows:--

United States, 983 women to 1,000 men; America, (at large) 980 women to

1,000 men; Scotland, 1,096 women to 1,000 men; Ireland, 1,050 women to

1,000 men; England and Wales, 1,054 women to 1,000 men; France, 1,007

women to 1,000 men; Prussia, 1,030 women to 1,000 men; Greece, 940 women

to 1,000 men; Europe, (at large) 1,021 women to 1,000 men; Africa,

(estimated) 975 women to 1,000 men; Asia, 940 women to 1,000 men;

Australia, 985 women to 1,000 men. In an aggregate of 12,000 men there

is a surplus of about 161 women.

Massachusetts has been making notable history ever since 1620, and in

picking out here and there a few of the influences which have tended to

develope her material resources, we would not be unmindful of those

Christian influences which are also a part of her imperishable history.

To the lover of nature, perhaps no state in range of rugged coast and

water views blended with mountainous background, can offer more pleasing

bits of picturesque scenery. The historic hills of Berkshire and the

beautiful Connecticut River, with its 50 miles of sweep through the

state, ever hurrying on to the sea, have inspired the tireless shuttles

of descriptive imagery to weave some of the finest threads in American

thought.

Nowhere within the range of human vision can the eye find a more

restful scene of quiet simplicity and softer blending of river, hill and

foliage, than in the valley of the Deerfield on any sunny summer day.

Let him who would have a sterner scene of majestic grandeur stand upon

the storm-beaten cliffs of some rock-fringed coast, while the

silver-crested sea and the dark, deep toned clouds, like mercy and

righteousness, kiss each other.

To us who love Massachusetts, her principles, her institutions, her

hills, valleys and rocks, her future is but the lengthening out of a

perfect present; and at last, when the scroll of states is finally

rolled up, may her eternal record stand for the highest type of

Christian citizenship.

[Footnote 4: Census of 1885.]

* * * * *

ELIZABETH.[5]

A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."

CHAPTER XXVI.

A GRAVE DECISION.

After the greetings were over, Elizabeth, looking at Stephen Archdale,

realized fully the difficulties of her task. She was to go through with

it alone she perceived, for her father had turned away and taken up a

spyglass that had been brought him at the moment, and was absorbed in

looking through it at the new fascine battery. Evidently he expected her

to give Captain Archdale the history of the facts and conclusions that

had brought her father and herself to Louisburg. As she looked at the

young man in his strength, she felt more than ever the necessity for

speaking. He knew well enough that Mr. Edmonson hated him, and that was

necessary to be known. And yet, speech was hard, for even though he

could never imagine Edmonson's contemptible insinuations, still before

he believed in his own danger he might have to learn his enemy's foiled

purpose toward herself; and to be sought for her fortune was not a thing

that Elizabeth felt proud of. Her head drooped a little as the young man

stood watching her, and the color began to come into her face. Then the

courage that was in her, and the power that she had of rising above

petty considerations into grandeur, came upon her like an access of

physical strength. The strong necessity filled her, and the thought that

she might be bringing life where she had almost brought death, at least

death of joy, lighted her face. Still she hesitated for a moment, but it

was only to study how she should begin. Shall she give him Katie's

letter at once, and in her name warn him to take care of the life that

was of so much value to his betrothed? No, for with Katie's letter in

his hand, he could not listen carefully to Elizabeth's words, he could

think only of what was within. His thoughts would refuse to have to do

with danger; they would be busy with joy. That must wait.

"We have come here, my father and I," she began, "to say one word to

you, Captain Archdale. We talked it over, and we saw no other way."

"You are pale," cried Stephen suddenly. "You must be very tired. Let us

sit down here while you tell me." And he pointed to a coil of rope at

hand. But she shook her head.

"I am not tired, thank you; I am disappointed that I can't go back

immediately, that I must wait until to-morrow, when the dispatches will

be ready."

"You need not," he cried. "The General shall let you go if you wish it.

I will insist upon it. The dispatches can go some other way. If the

Governor wants news in such haste, he would do better to send us some

powder to make them out of. He was enough in a hurry to get us off, to

give us something to do after we are here."

"I should think you had something to do," she said pointing to the

battlements of Louisburg which at that distance and from that angle

looked as if no shot had ever been fired against them. "But don't on any

account speak to the General. We are glad to do even so little for the

cause. And perhaps it's not that that makes me pale. I don't know. I

have a warning hard to deliver to you. I have come hundreds of miles to

do it. I will give it to you immediately, for you may need it at any

moment." She drew closer to him, and laid one hand upon his arm as if to

prevent his losing by any chance the words she had to say. Her gesture

had an impressiveness that made him realize as much as her face did how

terribly in earnest she was.

"It must be something about Katie," he thought. And the vision of Lord

Bulchester rose before him clearly.

"Listen," said Elizabeth absorbed in her attempt to make him feel what

she feared would seem incredible to him. "Stray shots have picked off

many superfluous kings in the world--and men and the world not been the

wiser. This is what some one said when the war was being talked of, said

at your house, and said in speaking of you."

"Said it to you?" interposed Archdale with a quick breath.

"Oh, no, but about you, I am sure, _sure_, though it has taken me

all this time to find it out. And,--oh, wait a moment,--the man who said

it was your guest then, and he is here now, else we should not have

come; he is here, perhaps he is close by you every day, and he,--he is

meaning the shot for you." She waited a moment drawing a breath of

relief that she had begun. "You know he is your enemy?" she went on with

a longing to be spared explanations.

She was spared them.

"I do know it," said Archdale looking at her, and as she met his eyes a

great relief swept over her. Her warning had been heard and believed,

she was sure of that. She heard Archdale thanking her, and assuring her

that he would give good heed to her warning. And she had not had to tell

why Edmonson hated him, she had not even been obliged to utter the name

that she was coming to hate. "Do you know?" she had asked wonderingly,

and he had told it to her. Did he know the man so thoroughly, then? And

were there other causes of hatred, possibly money causes, that had

spared her?

She had told her listener more than she dreamed, far more than her

words. She had stood before him in the noblest guise a human being can

wear, that of a preserver from evil fate; she had looked at him out of

holy depths in her clear eyes, she had turned upon him a face in which

expression had marvellously brought out physical beauty. Also, in her

unconsciousness that he knew the reason of his danger, she had looked at

him with a wonder at his ready credulity before there had come her smile

of relief that she need speak no more. He knew Edmonson's story, knew

how this play at marriage between Elizabeth and himself had interfered

with the other's plans, guessed the further truth, looked at her, and

muttered under his breath:--"Poor fellow!" It was with his own eyes, and

not another man's that Archdale saw Elizabeth. Yet, it was not in human

nature that she should not seem the more interesting as she stood there,

since he had learned his own life to be in danger because another man

had found her so desirable, and so unapproachable. Watching Elizabeth,

he acquitted Edmonson of mercenary motives, whatever they might once

have been. His appreciation had no thought of appropriation in it. Katie

was his love. But comprehension of Elizabeth made him glad that their

mistake had saved her from Edmonson. And then again after a moment he

muttered under his breath:--"Poor fellow!"

"You are very, very kind," he said to her.

"Don't think me rude," she answered with a smile. "But, you know we must

have done this for any one. Only,"--and her voice became earnest again,

"I was very grateful that the least thing came to me for you and Katie.

I have not done with Katie yet" she added, "here is something that I

have brought you from her." And she handed him a letter. "She gave me

this as I was leaving," she said.

"Thank you," he said again, and holding it clasped in his hand, stood

not looking at it, but as if he still had something to say. "Has

Bulchester gone yet, Mistress Royal?" he asked abruptly at last.

"No. But I think that he must be very hard to send away, and Katie you

know hates to say anything unkind. She doesn't see that it is the

kindest way in the end. We shall not go until to-morrow, you know. If

you have any letters, we shall be so glad to take them."

"Thank you once more." He stood still a moment. "The earl may be wise to

stay on the field," he said. "I may be swept off conveniently. Yes, he

is wise to wait and see what the fortunes of war will do for him."

"Oh! Mr. Archdale," cried Elizabeth, between indignation and tears at

his want of faith. "How can you not trust her? Your letter that she was

so eager to send will prove how wrong you are." Here Mr. Royal sauntered

up, and the conversation turned upon the scene before them.

But in the midst of Archdale's description of one of their skirmishes a

signal was given from the new battery. "They are signalling for me," he

said. "My place is in command of those guns. I am sorry to leave my

story half told, but I must go. I shall try to see you to-morrow." And

with a hasty farewell he sprang into the boat. As he was rowed away,

Elizabeth saw him put his hand into the pocket where he had slipped

Katie's letter, and draw this out.

She sat down again in her favorite place on deck, laid her arms on the

railing of the schooner and her face upon them. Now that her errand was

done, she became aware that she was very tired. She sat so quiet that

she seemed to be asleep. But she was only in a day-dream in which the

thought of which she was most conscious was wonder that Archdale could

doubt Katie. Had she not always been a coquette? And had she not always

loved him? Yet Elizabeth wished that she could have said that Lord

Bulchester had gone, wished that she could have seen Stephen Archdale's

face brighten a little before he left them, perhaps forever; she had not

forgotten the danger of his post. Nancy softly drew her chair close.

But Elizabeth made no movement. She sat with her face still buried,

thinking, remembering, longing to be at home again, counting the hours

until they should probably sail.

Suddenly she started up. For there had come light that she saw through

the dark folds that she had been pressing her eyes against. To her there

was a sound as if the heavens were being rent, and she felt a trembling

of the earth, as if it shook with terror at the spectacle. She stood a

moment bewildered. It seemed as if the light never paled at all, but

only changed its place sometimes; the roar was terrific, it never

ceased, or lulled, and the water beneath them tossed and hissed in rage

at its bed being so shaken. Nancy's hand sought her companion's with a

reassuring pressure, for speech was impossible. But Elizabeth had only

been unprepared. She recovered herself and smiled her thanks. Then she

sat down again with her face toward the city and watched this cannonade,

terrible to men grown grey in the service, as officers from the fleet

bore witness, and to the enemy deadly.

For the fascine battery had opened fire.

At midnight General Pepperell sent for Archdale to detail him for

special service the next day.

"Why! what's the matter?" he cried, looking at the young man as he came

into the tent.

"Nothing, General Pepperell. I am quite ready for service," replied

Stephen haughtily.

"Ah!--Yes. Glad of that," returned the General, and he went on to give

his orders, watching the other's pale face as he did so, and reading

there strong emotion of some kind.

When he was alone, and his dispatches had all been written, he sat

musing for a time, as little disturbed by the glare and the thunder

about him as if stillness were an unknown thing. His cogitations did not

seem satisfactory, for he frowned more than once. "What's the matter

with the fellow?" he muttered. "Something has gone wrong. I've seen an

uneasiness for a long time. Now the blow has fallen. Poor fellow! he

doesn't take life easy. The news is it, I wonder? or the letter?" He sat

for a while carefully nursing his left knee, while his thoughts

gradually went back to military matters, and worked there diligently. At

last he straightened himself, clapped this same knee with vigor, put

both feet to the ground and, rising, took up from his improvised

table--a log turned endwise,--a paper upon which he made a note with a

worn pencil from his pocket. "Yes," he cried, "I can do that. It's the

only thing I can do. And I need it so much they will not mind." He

finished by a smile. "Strange I hadn't thought of it before," he said.

Then he threw himself down upon his bed of boughs and moss, and with the

terrific din about him slept the sleep of weariness. At sunrise,

according to his directions, an orderly roused him.

Archdale had already gone with his reconnoitering party. His heart was

bitter against the conditions of his life, and he felt that it would be

no misfortune, perhaps quite the contrary, if Edmonson's plan were not

interfered with. "It's beyond her comprehension," he said to himself.

"How confident she was. What will she say when she knows?"

In the morning, Elizabeth standing beside her father turned a tired face

toward the shore as she watched General Pepperell's approach. Sleep had

been impossible to her in the strangeness and terror of her surroundings.

"You are very thoughtful to come to bid us good-bye," she said, giving

him her hand as he stepped on board.

He smiled, and still holding it, asked after a moment's hesitation,

"Should you be very much disappointed if I begged you not to return this

morning?"

She certainly looked so for a moment, before she answered: "If it will

help, if I can be of any use, I am ready to stay. Are there soldiers in

the hospitals? Can we do anything for them, Nancy and I?"

He caught at the diversion readily. "The hospitals? Yes, I should be

very glad, infinitely obliged to you, if you would pay them a visit.

I've not a doubt that your suggestions would make the poor fellows more

comfortable, and there are a number of new ones there this morning.

I'm sorry to say our health record is discouraging. Not that I'm

discouraged, but I want to put this business through as quickly as

possible." Then he turned to Mr. Royal. "I must tell you both," he said,

"that I came to you this morning bent upon purposes of destruction,

(though, happily, not to yourselves,) and not purposes of health, except

of saving lives by making the work as short as possible. I should like

this schooner. I have an immediate use for it, and in two days, or, at

the outside, three, I'm going to send to Boston. Will you permit me to

take this as a fire-ship, and will you remain under my especial care

until this other vessel sails?" He turned to Elizabeth as he spoke. "If

you consent," he said to her, "I am quite sure your father will. It will

be a great favor to me, and I hope to the cause, if you do. But I won't

insist upon it. If you say so you shall go this morning."

Elizabeth glanced at her father, "But I don't say so," she answered.

"I am compelled to stay if my father consents. It's not you that make

me but a stronger power. You won't be offended if I call patriotism a

stronger power?" And she smiled at him.

"Thank you, my dear," he said with a gravity which showed that she had

touched him. "You shall not regret your sacrifice."

In the course of conversation he told Mr. Royal that Archdale had been

sent off at dawn upon an exploring expedition. "I want to find out how

near to us the Indians are," he said, "they are hanging about somewhere.

You will not see him to-day."

That morning, Elizabeth was rowed ashore with Nancy, and under an escort

they went to the hospitals; not for a visit of inspection, as it turned

out, but as workers. Nancy had had experience in illness, and Elizabeth

was an apt pupil. Before the day was over the poor fellows lying there

felt a change. There were no luxuries to be had for them, but their

beds were made a little softer with added moss and leaves, the relays

of fresh water from the brook running through the encampment were

increased. One dying man had closed his eyes in the conviction that the

last words he had sent to his mother would reach her; he had watched

Elizabeth write them down, and she had promised to put a lock of his

hair into the letter. He was sure that she would do it, and he died

happier for the thought. Altogether, in many ways the comfortless tents

grew less comfortless, for Elizabeth interpreted literally the general's

permission to do here what she chose. The eyes of the soldiers followed

both women with delight, and one rugged fellow, a backwoods man, whose

cheerfulness not even a broken leg and a great gash in his forehead

could destroy, volunteered the statement: "By George! whether in peace

or war we need our women." This was responded to by a cheer from the

inmates of his tent. The demonstration was all the more touching,

because its endeavor to be rousing was marred in the execution by the

physical weakness of the cheerers.

They spent that night on shore. Elizabeth's tent was next her father's

and a few rods from the general quarters. As Mr. Royal left her, she

stood a moment at the swinging door of her strange room, and looked at

the stars and at the scene so new to her on which they were shining.

Then leaving it reluctantly, for it fascinated her, she laid down upon

the woodland couch prepared for her, and was soon as soundly asleep as

her maid near by, while around the tent patrolled the special guard set

by General Pepperell.

The next day also was spent in the hospital. In the course of the

afternoon, Nancy, looking over the Bay in a vain search for the schooner

which had brought them, said; "I wonder how we really shall get home,

and when?"

"As General Pepperell promised us," answered her mistress. "And probably

we shall leave to-morrow. I expect to hear from him about it then. So

does my father; he was speaking of it this morning."

They were right; the next day the General told them that the

"Smithhurst" would sail that afternoon with prisoners of war from the

"Vigilant," a captured French vessel. "She is one of the ships that

Governor Shirley has sent for to guard the coast," he said to Elizabeth

speaking of the "Smithhurst." "She goes to Boston first to report and

discharge her prisoners. Be ready at four o'clock. If I can, I will take

you to the vessel myself; but if that is impossible, everything is

arranged for your comfort. Your father is at the battery, I have just

left him there. He is undeniably fond of powder. I've told him about

this." Elizabeth was in one of the hospital tents when Pepperell came to

her with this news. She staid there with Nancy all the morning, and at

noon when her father came and took her away for awhile to rest, she had

an earnest talk with him upon some subject that left her grave and

pleased.

After a time she went back to the hospitals again. At the last moment

the General sent an escort with word that he had been detained. Just

before this message arrived, Elizabeth called her maid aside.

"Nancy," she said, "you see how many of our soldiers are here, hundreds

of them, almost thousands. They are fighting for our homes, even if the

battle-ground is so far away. And see how many have been sent in, in the

short time we have been here. Do you want to desert them? Tell me how

you feel? Shall we go back to our comfortable home, and leave all this

suffering behind us, when we might do our little to help? Shall we,

Nancy? I have no right to insist upon your staying; but don't you think

we ought to stay? and won't you stay with me?"

"Indeed I will," was the quick answer. "I hated to leave the poor

fellows, but I did not see what else to do. The General won't like it

one bit though. And your father, Mistress Elizabeth?"

"The General has no authority over me. I'm not one of his soldiers. And

as to my father, it's all right with him."

Yet she felt very desolate when the ship which was to have carried them

had gone with its companion vessel, and from the door of one of the

hospital tents she stood watching the white sails in the distance. But

it was not that resolution had failed her; for she would have made the

same decision over again if she had been called upon at the moment.