measures that the public is favored with the most edifying exhibition
of the universal contempt of the legislator for its interests. They
disclose all the scandalous practices of a political campaign. There
are misrepresentations, recriminations, and not infrequently, as in
the case of Sumner, personal assaults. A perverse inclination always
exists toward those discussions that will put some one "in a hole," or
enable some one to arouse party passion. For this purpose nothing is
so effective as a foreign question, like a Cuban belligerency
resolution, or a treaty for the annexation of Hawaii, or a domestic
question, like responsibility for the crime of 1873, or the panic of
1893, or a comparison of party devotion to the interests of the "old
soldier." Not the slightest heed, as has been shown on several
occasions during the past few years, is paid to the shock that may be
given to business or to the disturbance of pacific relations with
foreign powers. In fact, the greater the danger involved in the
discussion of a delicate question, the more prone are the demagogues
to mouth it. To such questions as bankruptcy, railroad pooling, and
currency reform will they give their time and wisdom only when
business interests have almost risen in insurrection and compelled
attention to them.
The same policy of hypocrisy, deception, favoritism, and proscription
is a dominant trait of the administration of the Government. The
object almost invariably in mind is the welfare or injury of some
party, or faction, or politician. The interests of the public are the
last thing thought of, if thought of at all. Take dismissals and
appointments. They may, as has been known to occur even in the United
States, be made to better the public service. Even then a careful
study of motive will disclose the characteristic purpose of the
politician. In a choice between two men of equal ability, or rather of
equal inability, which is more commonly the case, preference is given
to the one with the stronger "pull." Often, as has been shown within
the past year or two, convicted rascals are appointed at the behest of
Congressmen and in defiance of the wishes of the business community,
and, in spite of the civil-service laws, officials are dismissed
because of their politics alone. In the letting of contracts it is not
difficult to detect the observance of the same judicious rule. The
virtuous formality of letting to the lowest bidder may be gone through
with, and the public may be greatly pleased with this exhibition of
official deference to its interests. Yet an examination of the work
done under the supervision of complaisant inspectors, who may be
blinded in various ways to the defects of that of a political friend,
or made supernaturally alert to the defects of that of a political
enemy, will reveal a trail that does not belong to scrupulous
integrity. That is why dry docks, like that in Brooklyn, why harbor
works, like those in Charleston, turn out defective; why the
Government has to pay more for the transportation of the mails than a
private corporation; why the cost of the improvement of the Erie Canal
was concealed until nearly all the money voted for the folly had been
expended; why of the money expended one million dollars was wasted, if
not stolen; why so much of the State Capitol at Albany has been built
over again; why the City Hall in Philadelphia has been an interminable
job; why the supplies of prisons, asylums, and other public
institutions are constantly proving to be inferior to those paid
for--why, in a word, everything done by political methods is vitiated
by the ethics of war. In the enforcement of laws very little justice
or honesty can be found. As a rule, they bear much more harshly on the
poor and weak, that is, those with small political influence, than on
the rich and strong, that is, those with much political influence.
Take the enforcement of liquor laws, health laws, factory laws, and
compulsory school laws. If a man with political influence wishes to
keep his children at home for any purpose, no truant officer is
indiscreet enough to trouble him; if, however, a poor woman, just made
a widow, wishes to have her oldest son work in disregard of the
statute, in order to keep her and her younger children out of the
poor-house, his official zeal is above criticism. Politics poisons
even the fountains of justice. Criminals that have sufficient
political influence can escape prosecution or obtain pardon after
conviction. Prosecuting officers are importuned incessantly, even by
"leading citizens," to abandon prosecution of them or to "let them off
easily." In the appointment of receivers and referees, judges are much
more inclined to give preference to political friends than to
political enemies. Finally, if political exigencies require it, there
is no hesitation to invoke the latent savagery of a nation. In proof,
recall the Venezuelan message of Mr. Cleveland, which "dished" the
Republican jingoes, and the German emperor's assault upon Hayti and
China to secure the adoption of his naval bill. To make the record
complete, I ought to add that for a purpose more odious--namely, the
increase of sales--newspapers, always the ready recipients of
political patronage, commit the same atrocious crime against
civilization.
Since politics is a form of civil war, involving aggressions upon
person and property, any extension of its field of operation must be
attended by precisely the same moral and economic effects that attend
the pursuit of civil war itself. No concession of suffrage to women,
nor any legal machinery, however ingenious, that may be invented, will
alter that fact. Already we are confronted with alarming
manifestations of the decadence of society that have always
accompanied civil strife. The public burdens are becoming so great,
equaling the per capita rate prevailing at the outbreak of the French
Revolution, that people in cities as well as in the country are being
driven from their homes by the sale of their property for unpaid
taxes. Both classes are joining the ranks of "the disinherited," just
as similar classes joined the brigands in France and Italy, and are
clamoring for the trial of the thousand absurd schemes for social ills
known as populism and socialism, all meaning an increase of the
functions of government, still further aggressions upon persons and
property, and an aggravation of the evils already complained of. At
the same time the moral tone of society is rapidly sinking to a low
level. "It is a melancholy reflection," says the report of the New
York State tax commission, dwelling upon the desperate efforts of
people to escape the aggressions committed on them and disclosing the
observance of a code of ethics committed in every walk in life, "that
in this Christian age neither the memory of early moral training, nor
present religious profession, hopes or fears for the hereafter, the
penalties of the law, nor any other possible considerations are
sufficient to restrain the average possessor of personal property
from forcing other men to pay the taxes for which he is justly liable,
by methods unquestionably immoral, if not absolutely criminal."
Further evidence of the same startling and deplorable fact, one
recalling the cruel indifference of the privileged classes of the
ancient _régime_ to the sufferings of the people that bore the burdens
that they ought to have shared, is to be found in the universal
tendency of people to get public improvements at the expense of
others, such as free baths, normal schools, interoceanic canals, etc.,
and the shocking prevalence of crimes of violence in every part of the
country. To be sure, there are coupled with this alarming decadence
extraordinary religious, philanthropic, and pedagogic efforts to
rescue society from the depths of degradation to which it is sinking.
But, as is shown by the history of the unparalleled moral enthusiasm
of thousands of ascetics and teachers of the highest character during
the decadence of Rome and the disorders of the middle ages, they will
be absolutely ineffective as long as the conditions prevail that
engender envy, hatred, deception, plunder, and murder, destroying not
only morality, but every vestige of fellow-feeling and patriotism.
"There is a nation," says Mr. Bodley in his new book on France,
bringing out this profound and important truth, "to the members of
which Frenchmen are more revengeful than to the Germans, more
irascible than to the Italians, more unjust than to the English. It is
to the French that Frenchmen display animosity more savage, more
incessant, and more inequitable than to any other race." Precisely the
same effect is to be noticed in the United States--the inevitable
effect of every form of aggression, even though it have the most
benevolent object in view.
Yet the conclusion is not that people should abstain from politics.
That would involve greater evils than those that now prevail. It would
be submission to aggression--freedom to predatory politicians to
continue their pillage. The thing to be done is to take up arms
against them, and to wage relentless war on them. But the object of
the struggle must not be the substitution of one set of politicians
for another, but to reduce to the smallest possible limits the sphere
of all political activity. Until this is done there can be no release
from so important a duty to self and to the community.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] An absurd suggestion made by the State Superintendent of New York.
[2] In order to get at the full amount of plunder, I ought to know how
much the beneficiaries of tariff and other laws pocket. But statistics
on this point are unfortunately not to be had. The amount must,
however, be very large.
[3] These figures represent the expenditures before the war with
Spain. That deplorable event will increase them considerably.
[4] It has been suggested by J. Novicow that, by a competition of this
kind among nations, an improvement in legislation might be forced upon
them.
[5] As in the demand of Johnny Powers, the great Chicago boss, for the
removal of Hull House from his ward, politics often leads to hostility
to the work of philanthropists to ameliorate the condition of the
poor. Another striking example of the same evil was the failure of a
Quay legislature to provide for the maintenance of the State
charitable institutions of Pennsylvania, and its sham investigation of
the pitiful condition of the inhabitants of a mining district.
* * * * *
SIR W. MARTIN CONWAY, with his two Swiss guides, Antoine
Maquiguez and Louis Pellissier, on September 9, 1898,
reached the top of Yllimani, Bolivian Andes, near La Paz.
The party were five days reaching the summit, 22,500 feet
above the sea, from the highest point of cultivation. The
guides were the same who ascended Mount St. Elias in 1897
with Prince Luigi of Savoy.
MY PET SCORPION.
BY NORMAN ROBINSON.
When I first came to Florida I heard terrible accounts of the deadly
work of a poisonous "bug," popularly known as the "grampus" or
"mule-killer."
My first informant was a "Florida cracker," who seemed fairly
intelligent, and whom I had employed in a little woodcraft. He
happened to encounter one of those terrible creatures, and promptly
"smashed" it with his axe. On expressing regret that I had no
opportunity of seeing it before it was crushed into so shapeless a
mass, he gravely assured me that he "didn't take no resks on them
varmints. Them's the pisenest things in Floridy. Rattlers ain't
nowhar! A man what gits bit by one of them critters--no medicine can't
save him! We calls 'em mule-killers, cause they's wust on mules. A
hoss nor a dog don't seem to mind 'em, but a mule is done dead when
one of them varmints strikes 'em."
I cross-questioned my informant a little as to his personal knowledge
of the matter, and especially as to the fatal results following the
bite of this very astonishing "bug." "Did you ever know," said I, "of
a mule's dying from the bite of this 'mule-killer'?"
"Oh, yes, I've knowed of several, and I hearn tell of lots. Ole man
Jernigan, he loss a likely mule what got struck by one of them
critters, and there was a man what died down to the Johnson place, bit
by one of them things. They tells me he took whisky enough to kill two
men, but it didn't do him no bit of good. He was powerful fond of
whisky, anyway, and he died mighty easy."
I subsequently made some inquiries in regard to these supposed
casualties, and came to the conclusion that my informant's accounts of
them were largely mythical. A mule had died in the neighborhood
mentioned, but the "mule-killer" was colic; and in the case of the
man, although he claimed to have been bitten by a "grampus," it was
generally believed that the "serpent of the still" was the most deadly
"varmint" he had recently encountered.
I soon found, however, that the belief in the venomous character of
this "whip scorpion," or _Thelyphonus giganteus_, as it proved to be,
was almost universal. The negroes, especially, are in mortal terror of
it. Only a few days since a colored boy that I had employed in hauling
wood brought me a small specimen, completely crushed, with the
triumphant announcement, "I've got him, but he like to done strike me
'fore I seed him."
"But how do they bite?" I asked, "with their claws?"
"Dey don't bite at all! Dey jes' strike you with de tail, and dey's a
pizen juice comes out, and den no doctor kain't save you!"
Newspaper stories confirming this belief occasionally go the rounds. I
remember reading one particularly circumstantial account of the
mishaps of a camping party somewhere in south Florida. "They were a
long way," said this veracious chronicler, "from any human habitation,
and the loss of their one mule from the bite of this pestiferous
scorpion brought with it no end of inconvenience and trouble."
The distressing story was told with great detail, and it was certainly
not calculated to diminish the popular dread with which this supposed
venomous creature is regarded. Even in scientific journals we find an
occasional echo of this general belief. Dr. Packard, too, certainly
good authority, in his Study of Insects accepts the current theory.
In the Proceedings of the Washington (D. C.) Entomological Society
there is an interesting discussion of this very question (vol. ii, No.
2). Professor Howard stated that a case of the bite of the
_Thelyphonus_ with fatal results was vouched for by a Mr. Dunn, a
professed naturalist, and that his testimony was entitled to weight.
Mr. Ashmead and Mr. Banks, both of whom had been familiar with the
_Thelyphonus_ in Florida, had handled them frequently, and believed
them harmless. Dr. George Marx confirmed this view by stating that
dissection failed to show the presence of any poison sac or fangs, a
statement which it seems has been confirmed by subsequent
investigations.
Altogether here was a "muddle" of conflicting testimony, which could
only be accounted for by supposing "some one had blundered."
A few months since, for my own satisfaction, I determined to make a
special study of our Florida "grampus." Not the least curious question
that first suggests itself is how this name, "grampus" (French, _Grand
poisson_, _great fish_), one of the _Cetaceæ_, ever got tacked on as a
popular label for our Florida _Thelyphonus_. I am utterly at a loss to
account for it.
Before catching "my bird" I, of course, had to make a cage for it.
This was constructed out of a large cigar box. About half of one end
was removed and replaced by wire gauze. In addition to the hinged
wooden cover, with which the box was furnished, I arranged a second
one of wire gauze, hinged on the opposite side, and closing underneath
the wooden one. This gave full control of light and air, both by day
and night, without disturbing my future prisoner, and at the same time
diminished the danger of his escape.
I knew very well that the scorpion I was after was of a very modest
and retiring disposition, and was never seen above ground in daylight
except by accident or mistake. I was also under the impression that
they were becoming rather rare, as it was more than a year since I had
seen one. Still, it was with the most abundant confidence, to say
nothing of the more prosaic requisites of a stout pair of gloves, a
paper bag, and a hoe, that I started out one afternoon to find my
_Thelyphonus_. I directed my course to the nearest wood, not for a
moment doubting that a few hours' work would bring to light the object
of my search. I labored faithfully until dark, overturning rotten
logs, sticks, bark, old rails, and other field and woodland _débris_
under which my "grampus" would be likely to be hiding, but the search
was altogether fruitless.
I then concluded to try a plan which I have usually found quite
successful. I told some of the bright boys in town what I wanted, and
offered them a liberal price for every live "grampus" they would
bring, cautioning them that their bite was said to be poisonous, and
at the same time instructing them exactly how to catch and handle
them. This scheme was also a failure. I then asked several friends who
are interested in natural history to aid me in the search. One
gentleman, who is a surveyor, and who in the pursuit of his profession
passes much of his time in the woods, entered with special interest
into my quest. These plans were all equally barren of results.
One day, after I had practically given up the search, I was hoeing
among the sprouts at the base of an old orange tree that had fallen a
victim to the "big freeze" when, under a pile of chips at the base of
the old stump, I suddenly unearthed my long-looked-for _Thelyphonus_.
It was a fine, full-grown specimen, decidedly resentful at this sudden
intrusion upon its privacy, and if a formidable pair of expanded
claws, brandishing tail, and a generally vicious look meant anything,
it was a customer that a prudent man would not care to pick up with
bare hands. With the aid of a wide-mouthed preserving jar and a stick
it was, however, soon secured, and in a short time transferred to the
cage that had been so long waiting for its occupant.
A few words may not be amiss concerning the great family of which my
little captive is not the least interesting member. The _Thelyphonidæ_
belong to the great spider family, _Arachnida_, which includes not
only the true spiders, but also the mites (_Acarids_), the ticks
(_Ixodes_), the _Tartarides_, _Phrynides_, _Phalangides_, and other
more or less related and mostly tropical groups. The whole subclass
has certain pretty well-defined characteristics. They are almost
without exception carnivorous (_insectivorous_). They are seldom
subject to metamorphosis. The legs are usually eight in number. The
eyes are always situated on the cephalo-thorax (head and breast
plate), and not infrequently are the same in number as the legs. Not a
few are fitted with poison sacs and fangs, and in the case of some of
the larger true spiders and scorpions the venom is very virulent, and
in some instances has proved fatal to human life.
As this is hardly the place for a technical description of my
_Thelyphonus_--a female--I shall content myself with a few facts and
measurements. Those who are curious as to her personal appearance can
consult the accompanying photograph. Most persons will conclude that
her beauty is not even "skin deep."
[Illustration: Photograph of a _Thelyphonus_]
The following post-mortem data will perhaps aid in giving a clearer
idea of this curious little creature. The length of the body from the
front of the cephalo-thorax to the end of the last post-abdominal
segment was fifty-two millimetres--a little more than two inches; the
length of the tail was fifty millimetres, thus making the total length
about four inches. The width of the abdomen in its widest part, near
the center, was thirteen millimetres, or approximately half an inch.
The claw-bearing palpi, or "feelers," which are large and very
powerful, have an extreme expansion of fifty-eight millimetres, nearly
two and a half inches. The tail is a curious organ, and consists of
forty-four short, jointed sections of a pale wine color, with a light
yellow ring at the base; a few short, scattered pointed hairs are
found on each segment. It is about two thirds of a millimetre in
thickness at the base and tapers to about half this diameter at the
end. When alarmed, the _Thelyphonus_ holds it curved over forward
after the manner of the true scorpions; a habit that probably points
to some common ancestor. Its true function appears to be that of an
extra palpus or "feeler."
The _Thelyphonus_ is generally of a wine color. In some places, as on
the cephalo-thorax, this color is black; around the mouth parts, the
legs, the sternal plate, and the under side of the abdomen, this wine
color is very pronounced.
The eyes are eight in number. Two of them are close together, on
opposite sides of a slightly elevated ridge at the front of the
cephalo-thorax. These eyes are bright, black, and beadlike, and about
two thirds of a millimetre in diameter. A little farther back, on the
outer edges of the cephalo-thorax, are placed the remaining six eyes,
three on a side, in a triangular group. These eyes are not quite as
large as those in front, but they are of a shining yellow color, and
altogether give the face of the whip scorpion a decidedly uncanny
look.
But to return to the history of my pet. As Madam Thelyphonus had
obviously been accustomed to rather primitive furniture, I did not
overburden her new apartments. A thickly sanded floor, a salt dish
filled with fresh water, a square of pine bark the size of my hand,
slightly elevated, with a few nice pieces of green moss to remind her
of the country home she had left, and my involuntary guest was ready
for housekeeping. She accepted her new quarters without question or
examination, and promptly retired to her bedroom under the bark.
But housekeeping, even for a whip scorpion, involves the food
question. Here I was upon uncertain ground. The strictly nocturnal
habits of the _Thelyphonus_ render all such investigations difficult.
Naturally, the authorities on this point are somewhat indefinite or
conflicting. The first things which I placed in the cage were a number
of roaches of assorted sizes. One investigator claims that they are
readily eaten by the _Thelyphonus_. Twenty-four hours passed and not a
roach was missing.
The matter, however, in which I felt a more immediate interest was the
supposed venomous character of my new pet. My experiments were,
therefore, especially directed to the settlement of this question. The
next night a large, full-grown toad, that for some time had made his
home in my back yard, was placed in the cage. The roaches were still
there, and right here a very interesting thing happened. The largest
cockroach, nearly two inches in length, was upon the side of the cage.
The toad had hardly got comfortably seated immediately in front of him
when the cockroach suddenly disappeared. I could not say that I saw
him disappear. I was looking directly at both, but the "dissolving
view" was too rapid for the eye to follow. To say that it was "quick
as a flash" would depend somewhat on what kind of a "flash" was meant.
I think nitroglycerin would undoubtedly have kept up with my _bufo_;
but, judging from what I saw, or rather didn't see, I should say that
this toad could have swallowed about six cockroaches while gunpowder
was getting ready to go off! Any one who wishes to get an entirely new
view of the meaning of the phrase "with neatness and dispatch" should
by all means try this "lightning combination" of cockroaches and a
Florida toad!
And now I was all ready for the coming "battle royal" that I had
reason to suppose would take place between my little captives. I
cautiously removed the bark under which Madam Thelyphonus was hiding,
and then awaited results.