THE GALAXY. (continued 5)

The conversation of the society in which such women are found is far more interesting, far worthier of respect than that which is heard in fashionable society (and these women are fashionable) in "America." And this without any reproach to the latter. For how could it be otherwise than that women who are the daughters, sisters, and wives of men who are themselves highly educated, and who have the affairs of a great empire, if not in their hands, at least upon their minds, should in all that can be acquired by intercourse with such men be superior to others most of whom bear the same relations to men who are necessarily inferior in all these respects, who are absorbed in business, and know little beyond their business except what can be learned from the hurried reading of newspapers? In England there is not only accumulated wealth, but accumulated culture; and of this the result appears not only in the men, but in the women. It could not be otherwise. Englishwomen are companions, and friends, and helps to their fathers, their husbands, to all the men of their household. They are not absorbed in the mere external affairs of society; and society is not entirely in their hands. Men, men of mature years, form the substance of English society; they give it its tone; women its grace and its ornamentation. Even in the Englishwoman's drawing-room the Englishman is looked up to and treated with deference. The talk and the tone must be such as pleases him. She finds her pleasure as well as her duty in making it such as pleases him. She is even there his companion, his friend, his help. No matter how clever or brilliant she may be, she does not seek tenir salon like the French female bel esprit. No matter how beautiful or how fashionable she may be, she does not leave him out of her society arrangements; unless, indeed, in either case, she chooses to set propriety at naught and brave an accusation of "bad form." And indeed, should she attempt this she would probably soon be checked by a very decided interposition of marital authority. The result of all this is a soberer tone in mixed society than we are accustomed to, and the discussion of graver topics in general conversation.

And yet in the household the Englishwoman is quite supreme—much more so, I think, than she is in "America." She really manages all household affairs, troubling her husband with no details, but being careful to manage in such a way as to please him. For, as I have said before, the wish of the master of an English household is the law of that household. Notwithstanding all this, I have been led to the firm belief that hen-pecking is far more common in England than it is with us, and that curtain lectures are much oftener delivered there than here. "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures" would hardly have suggested themselves to an American humorist, although the thing itself—if not in its perfection, in its germ—is sufficiently known here to make the humor and the satire of that series perfectly appreciated. And, strange to say, the average English husband seems to be a less independent creature than the "American." English wives more generally insist upon their prerogative of sitting solemnly up for their husbands at night; and latch-keys are regarded as a personal grievance. What American wife would think of making a fuss about a man's having a latch-key? Not a few of them, indeed, have one themselves. And yet I have seen an Englishwoman of the lower middle class flush and choke and whimper when the subject of the inalienable right of a man to a latch-key to his own house was broached, and begin to talk about the worm turning when it is trampled upon.

The devotion of Englishwomen to their families, and particularly to their children, cannot be surpassed. I believe that they are the best, the most self-sacrificing daughters, wives, and mothers in the world, except the good daughters and wives and mothers in "America"; and even them I believe they generally surpass in submissiveness and thoughtful consideration. But this is the result of the general subordination which in all things pervades English society.

It is generally believed in England, I cannot tell why, that women in "America" take part in public affairs and are much more in the eye of the world than Englishwomen are. Of this belief I met with an amusing instance. One day at dinner in a "great house" I had on one side of me a gentleman who had come in alone for lack of ladies enough to "go round"; it was a small family party. He was the brother of my hostess, a fine, intelligent fellow about twenty-five years old, who had just taken his bachelor's degree at Oxford. As I turned from his sister to him, in a pause of conversation, he asked me with great earnestness, almost with solemnity, "Is—it—true—that—in—America—the—women— sit—on—juries?" I answered instantly, and with perfect gravity, "Yes; all of them who are not on duty as sergeants of dragoons." For one appreciable delightful moment doubt and bewilderment flashed through his bright, handsome eyes, and then he, as well as others within earshot, appreciated the situation, and there was a hearty laugh and an ingenuous blush mantled his cheeks—for young men can blush in England. When I explained that in no part of that strange country "America" with which I was acquainted did women sit on juries, or take any part in public affairs, or even vote or go to public meetings, and that nine in ten of the women that I knew would be puzzled to tell who represented in Congress the districts in which they lived, who were the Senators from their States, and possibly who were their Governors, I was listened to with profound attention; and the surprise of my hearers was very manifest, and was strongly expressed. It could hardly have been otherwise; for nothing that I could have said would have brought into clearer light the fact that women in America are very much less informed upon public affairs and take very much less interest in them than is the case with almost all Englishwomen of the cultivated classes. In England almost all intelligent women of the upper and upper middle classes take a very lively interest in politics, are tolerably well informed upon the public questions of the day, and in many cases they have no inconsiderable influence upon them. The reason of this is that political life and the social life of the upper classes there are so thoroughly intermingled. Politics form the chief concern of the members of those classes; apart, of course, from their own private affairs. Hardly a woman of that class is without a husband, brother, kinsman, or friend who is, or who has been, or hopes to be a member of Parliament, or who is in diplomacy, or connected in some way with colonial affairs. Politics there are intimately connected with the great object of woman's life in modern days—social success. It is difficult for women in England, and even for men, to understand the entire severance of politics and society which obtains in "America," and to believe that a man may be a member of Congress or even a Senator, and yet be entirely without social position. Politics there are the most interesting topic of conversation among intelligent and cultivated people in general society, and such an acquaintance with political questions and party manœuvres as is here confined to a very few women indeed, whose relations to public men are peculiar, and who "go to Washington," is there very common among all women of superior position.

Of this I met with a striking illustration on my way from Warwick to Coventry. As I was about entering the railway carriage, a friend, an Englishman, who was kindly travelling with me for a day or two, and "coaching" me, told the porter who had my portmanteau to put it into the carriage. This, by the way, is permitted there. If there is room, and no one objects, you may take a huge trunk into a first-class railway carriage. Indeed, one could hardly be taken into a second-class carriage for lack of room; and a third-class carriage is hardly larger than that marvellous institution known to American women—but to no others—as a Saratoga trunk. I objected to my friend's proposal because there was a lady in the carriage. She was standing with her back to me as I spoke, but she immediately turned and said, in a clear, sweet voice, "Oh, yes; bring it in; never mind me; there's quite room enough." I never saw a more elegant woman. She was about forty years old, still very handsome, tall, with a fine lithe figure, and a gentle loftiness of manner which I might have called aristocratic, had she not reminded me strongly in every way of an "American" woman whom I had known from my boyhood. Nothing could have been more simple, frank, and good-natured than the way in which she made me and my luggage welcome. Her maid, who was standing by her, and who was herself a very lady-like person, soon left us to take her place in a second-class carriage, and we three were left in possession.

The train started with that gentle, unobtrusive motion which is usual on English railways, and we fell into the chat of fellow travellers. I was charmed with her. Her voice and her manner of speech would have made the recitation of the multiplication table agreeable. She had a son at Oxford, which I had left a few days before, and it proved that we had common acquaintances there. She showed, with all her superiority of manner, social and personal—for she was what would have been called in the last generation a superior woman—that deference to manhood which I have mentioned before as a trait of Englishwomen. Ere long my companion mentioned that we had been at Kenilworth that day. She replied, "Oh, I must go there. I have never been. Why! It is just like Americans to go to Kenilworth. All the Americans go to Kenilworth, and to Warwick Castle, and to Stratford." My companion replied that we had been at all those places. She laughed merrily, and said, "You ought to have been Americans to do that." My friend then told her that I was an "American." She turned upon me almost with a stare, and after a moment of silence spoke to me again, but with a perceptible and very remarkable change of manner. It was very slight—of a delicate fineness. Her courtesy was not in the least diminished, nor her frankness; but the perfectly unconscious and careless expression of her face was impaired, and her attention to me was a little more pronounced than it had been before. She inquired if I had been pleased with my visit to Kenilworth, and told me that a novel had been written about it by Sir Walter Scott. "But perhaps you have read it," she added. "Have you met with it?" I answered, "I have heard of it"; and my inward satisfaction was great when I saw that I had done so with a face so unmoved that she replied with a gracious instructiveness of manner, "Oh, you should have read it before you went to Kenilworth; it would so have increased your pleasure. But the next best thing for you is to read it now." I thanked her, and said that I should like to do so. I think that she would have gone on to recommend a perusal of the works of William Shakespeare to me in connection with my visit to Stratford on Avon, although she looked at me in a puzzled way once or twice. But my companion, although I saw he was amused at something in her talk, marred whatever hopes I had of further instruction by breaking in with some remark upon the politics of Warwickshire. She rose to his fly like a trout on a hazy day, and in a minute or two she had forgotten my existence in her discussion with him of a topic which plainly was to her of far more interest than all the Scotts that could have dwelt in Kenilworth, and all the Shakespeares that could have stood in Stratford. He was a Birmingham magnate, and knew everything that was going on in the country; but she was his equal in information, and it seemed to me his superior in political craft. To every suggestion of his she made some reply that showed that the question was not new to her. She knew all the ins and outs of the politics of the county: who could be expected to support this measure, who was sure to oppose that. She knew all about the manufacturing interests of Birmingham: who had retired from active management; who was coming in; what money had been taken out of this establishment, what changes had taken place in the other, and had an opinion as to what effect this was going to have upon Parliament. I never heard the beginning of such political talk from a woman in America, even from one whose husband was in politics. The train stopped; her maid appeared, and she bade us courteously good-by, with the puzzled look in her eye as it rested upon the fellow passenger to whom she had recommended the perusal of "Kenilworth"; and then my companion told me, what indeed I had been sure of all along, that she was a member of the governing class.

A few days before, I had observed in Oxford, where a local election was impending, small posters addressed to "The Burgesses," and these invariably began "Ladies and Gentlemen," a form of "campaign document" as foreign to us as it would be to peoples subject to the Salique law—than which worse laws have long prevailed in many countries.

Not only in politics but in business women appear much more prominently than they do in "America." If they do not keep hotels, which they sometimes do, they manage them, whether they are great or small. The place which in "America" is filled by that exquisite, awful, and imperturbable being, the hotel clerk, is filled invariably in England by a woman—so at least I always found it, and I found the change a very happy one. To be met by the cheery, pleasant faces of these bright, well-mannered women, to be spoken to as if you were a human being whom, in consideration of what you are to pay, it was a pleasure to make as comfortable as possible, instead of being treated with lofty condescension, or at best with serene indifference, was a pleasant sensation. And these women did their work so quietly and cheerfully, and yet in such a businesslike way, that it was a constant pleasure to come into contact with them. Dressed in black serge or alpaca, they affected no flirting airs, and directed or obeyed promptly and quietly. And yet their womanhood constantly appeared in their manner and in their thoughtfulness for the comfort of those who were in their care. They always had a pleasant word or a smile in answer to a passing remark, were always ready to answer any question or give any information, and were pleased at any acknowledgment of satisfaction. Naturally it was so; for they were women; and they were chosen, it seemed to me, for their pleasant ways as well as for their efficiency. From not one of them, from one end of England to the other, in great cities or in quiet country towns and villages, did I receive one surly word or look, or anything but the kindest and promptest attention. I can say the same of the shop women, who waited upon customers not as if they were consciously condescending in the performing of such duties, but cheerfully and pleasantly, and with a show of interest that a purchaser should be satisfied. Their dress was almost invariably the same black unornamented serge or alpaca, which, by the way, is the commonest street dress of all women of their condition. In the telegraph offices the clerks are generally women; and indeed, women seem to do everything except plough, drive omnibuses and railway engines, and be soldiers and policemen. They keep turnpikes, where turnpikes still exist; and in Sussex I saw a woman's name with her husband's upon the pike-house. Indeed, it seemed to me that in all public affairs, from politics down to turnpike keeping, women were very much more engaged and before the world in England than in America, although I saw no jury-women or she sergeants.

As to the manners of Englishwomen, they are, like the manners of other women, good, bad, and indifferent. And chiefly they are indifferent; being in this particular also like others, especially of the Teutonic races; which races, my readers may like to be reminded, are the Deutsch (which we call German), the Hollanders, the Anglo-Saxon (or better, the English), and the Scandinavians (Swedes, Norsemen, Danes, and Icelanders). The average manners of these peoples, even of the women among them, are on the whole truly indifferent. They are not coarse, but as surely they are not polished. Manner, however, is a very different thing from manners; and in manner Englishwomen, from the highest class to the lowest, are all more or less charming—strong-minded women and lodging-house keepers being of course excepted. This charm, like all traits and effects of manner, is not easy to describe; but it left upon me at this time, as it had left before, an impression of its being the outcoming of an intense consciousness of womanhood, and with this a feeling of modest but very firm self-respect. The most intelligent Englishwoman, even in her most exalted moments, never seems to resolve herself into a bare intelligence. Her mind is always clad in woman's flesh; and her body thinks. Thus conscious of her own womanhood, she keeps you conscious of it, not merely by the facts that her hair is long, her face beardless, and that her body (in the evening the lower part of it at least) is covered with voluminous and marvellous apparel—in a word, not merely by outer show.

All this is but the outward sign; and it might exist—as it so often does, I shall not say where—in women, without the least of that grace, not of movement or of speech, or even of thought, but of moral condition, which is to me the chiefest charm in woman. How often have I sat by one of such women talking—no, talked at (for it reduces me to silence)—in such a splendid and overwhelming manner, and with such a superior consciousness of intellectuality, that I could not but think that except for the silk and the lace, and the lack of moustaches, and the evident expectation of a compliment, I might as well have been talking with a man (only a man would have said more with less fuss), and that I longed for the companionship of some pretty, well-bred ignoramus, whose head was full only of common sense, and whose soul as well as whose body was of the female sex. England is not without women of the other kind, I suppose, but they are so rare that I met with none; while all the women that I did meet had the soft, sweet charm given by the contented consciousness of their womanhood. Womanhood looks out from an Englishwoman's eyes; it speaks in every inflection of her voice. No matter how clever she may be, how well informed, she never utters mind pure and simple; she never lays a bare statement of thought or of fact before you. She is too modest. A piece of her mind she does, indeed, sometimes give you. But then, be sure, she is, of all times, the most thoroughly womanlike and absolved from intellectuality; being, however, thus in her excitement not peculiar among her sex. At all other times she leaves an impression of gentleness, and a lack of intellectual robustness; and, if you are a man at least, she, without any seeming intention of so doing, keeps you constantly in mind that she is trusting to you—to your strength, your ability, your position—to ensure that she shall be treated with respect and tenderness, and taken care of; and that therefore she owes you deference, and that it becomes her to be not only as charming but as serviceable as possible. Even in the hardest women there is a remnant at least of this. An Englishwoman shall be a sort of she-bagman, a traveller for manufacturers, and in the habit of riding second or even third class alone, from one end of England to the other (and I talked with such women), and she shall yet show you this gentle, womanly consciousness. A woman's eye there never looks straight and steady into yours, saying, "I am quite able to take care of my own person, and interests, and reputation. Don't trouble yourself about me in those respects. Meantime, sir, I am taking your measure." There is always a mute appeal from her womanhood to your manhood. This charm belongs to the Englishwoman of all ranks, and beautifies everything that she does, even if she does it awkwardly, which is not always. She shows it if she is a great lady and welcomes you, or if she is a housemaid and serves you. Not actually every Englishwoman is thus of course; for there are hard, and proud, and cruel, and debased women there, as there are elsewhere. But, apart from these exceptions, this is the manner of Englishwomen; and, in so far as a man may judge, this manner, or the counterpart of it, does not forsake them when they are among themselves.

This soft charm of the Englishwoman's manner is greatly helped and heightened by her voice and her manner of speaking. In these she is not only without an equal, but beyond comparison with the women of any other people, except the few of her own blood and tongue in this country, who have like voices and the same utterance. The voices and the speech of Englishwomen of all classes are, with few exceptions, pleasant to the ear—soft and clear; their words are well articulated, but not precisely pronounced. They speak without much emphasis, yet not monotonously, but with gentle modulation. Their speech is therefore very easily understood—much more so than that of persons who speak louder and with stronger emphasis. You rarely or never are obliged to ask an Englishwoman to repeat what she has said because you have failed to catch her words. This soft, yet crisp and clear and easily flowing speech, is, as I have said, common to the whole sex there.

I remember that in one of my prowlings about London I found myself in a little, dingy court that opened off Thames street—a low, water-side street that runs under London Bridge. It was Sunday morning, and I had come down from Charing Cross in one of the little Thames steamers, to attend service at St. Paul's, and had half an hour to spare. The street was almost deserted, and so quiet that my footsteps echoed from the walls of the dull and smoke-browned houses. In this court I found two women talking. One was Sairey Gamp. I am sure it was Sairey. The leer upon her heavy face could not be mistaken, and she had grown even a little stouter than when I was so happy as to make her acquaintance years ago. The other was probably Betsey Prig; she was a mere wisp of a woman; or, indeed, she may have been Mrs. Harris herself—her shadow-like figure being the next thing in woman form to nonentity. As I passed these two humble people, I was struck by the tone and manner of their speech as they talked earnestly together. Their words and their pronunciation were vulgar enough; but, as a whole, the speech of both was rich and musical. The whole of that otherwise silent court was filled with the soft murmur of their voices. I had no business there, but I pretended to have, and went from dingy door to dingy door, lingering and loitering all round the court, that I might listen. They did not stare at me any more than I did at them—plainly, they would not have thought of such rudeness—but they went on with their talk, speaking their language and mine with tones and inflections that I never heard from two women of like position in "America."

I was reminded of this afterward when one morning, at a great house, a country seat, I lingered with my hostess at the breakfast table after all the rest of the family had risen. She touched a bell, and a maid, an upper servant, answered the summons. No servants, by the way, wait at breakfast there, even in great houses. After you are once started, and the tea is made, you are left alone, to wait upon yourselves—a fashion full of comfort, making breakfast the most sociable meal of the day. When the maid appeared the lady spoke at once, and the servant stopped at the door and replied, and there was a little dialogue about some household matter. The young woman's answers were little more than, "Yes, my Lady," and, "No, my Lady," but I was charmed by them—more so than I have ever been by a lecture or a recitation from the lips of one of the sex. She spoke in a subdued tone; but every syllable was distinct, although she was at the further end of a large dining-room. Her mistress's voice was no less clear and sweet and charming, and as they talked, in their low, even tones, with perfect ease and understanding at this distance, the whole of the great room resounded sweetly with this spoken music. When English is spoken in this way by a woman of superior breeding and intelligence there is, of course, an added charm, and it is then the most delightful speech that I ever heard, or can imagine. Compared with it, German becomes hideous and ridiculous, French mean and snappish, Spanish too weak and open-mouthed, and even Italian, noble and sweet as it is, seems to lack a certain firmness and crispness, and to be without a homely charm that it may not lack to those whose mother tongue is bastard Latin.

One reason of this beauty of the speech of Englishwomen is doubtless in the voice itself. An Englishwoman's voice is soft, but it is not weak. It is notably firm, clear, and vibrating. It is neither guttural nor nasal. While it soothes the ear, it compels attention. Like the tone of a fine old Cremona violin, its softest vibrations make themselves heard and understood when mere noise makes only confusion. Such voices are not entirely lacking among women in "America"; but, alas! how few of the fortunate possessors of such voices here use them worthily! For the other element of the beauty of the Englishwoman's speech is in her utterance. "Her voice is ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman." Shakespeare knew the truth in this, as in so many other things. One of the very few points on which we may be sure of his personal preferences is that he disliked high voices and sharp speech in women. Singular man! I fear that his ears would suffer here. The Englishwoman's voice is strong as well as sweet, but her speech is low. She rarely raises her voice. I do not remember having ever heard an Englishwoman try to compel attention in that way; but I have heard French and Spanish and Italian women, ladies of unquestionable position and breeding, almost scream, and that, too, in society. Nor does the Englishwoman use much emphasis. Her manner of speech is calm, although without any suggestion of dignity, and her inflections, which rise often, although they are full of meaning, are gentle. I remarked this difference in her speech of itself, but much more when I heard again the speech of my own countrywomen. I had not been in their company five minutes—not one—when I was pierced through from ear to ear. They seemed to me to be talking in italics, to be emphasizing every word, as if they would thrust it into my ears, whether I would or not. They seemed to scream at me. They did scream. I am sure that to their emphatic and almost fierce utterance is due, in a very great measure, the inferior charm of their speech, when compared with that of their sisters who have remained in the "old home." If they would be a little more gentle, a little less self-asserting, a little less determined, and a little more persuasive in their utterance as well as in their manner, I am sure that, with all their other advantages, they need fear no rivalry in womanly charm, even with the truly feminine, sensible, soft-mannered, sweet-voiced women of England.

Richard Grant White.

LIFE INSURANCE.

T he most certain, and at the same time the most uncertain of events, is the period of the termination of human life. This is a seeming paradox; nay, it is more than seeming. The time when any member of the human family will shuffle off this mortal coil no science can forecast, no art discover; but the successive numbers out of any thousand men of given ages who will, year after year, die, has been ascertained by actual count in so many instances and verified by experience for so long a time, that it is safe to say that no law in nature is better established by proof. Given these elements, how easy to erect the fabric of life insurance—how easy to spread among the many the misfortunes of the individuals who die untimely deaths, their numbers being known beforehand.

Upon this paradox life insurance rests. It is at once one of the most simple and one of the most beneficent methods ever invented for alleviating the evils necessarily incident to our complex civilization. For a trifling sum, a man may make provision for his family against untimely death, and thus gain the quiet of soul and peace of mind necessary for the pursuit of his avocation.

But I do not mean to sing a pæan to life insurance. It may be safely said that the subject is not new, or the field uncultivated. On the contrary, the topic has been said and sung in prose and verse for so long that it ceases to attract for novelty's sake; while we have all heard the ubiquitous agent sound its praises in our ears, until it appeared to our excited imagination as if there were no need of any further want, or care, or trouble in the world, and that life insurance was, or was about to be, or at least

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

The object of the present writer is to suggest the spots upon the sun, to point out the fallacies, the faults, and the frauds which have been allowed to grow up around the system, and to make some suggestions for the cure of the evils and their prevention.

To begin with, the frauds in life insurance date from the period when companies were started for the purpose of making money, and with the appearance of being philanthropical institutions. Savings banks have gone through the same experience, and it is a sad one. Men who attempt to lead the public to believe that they are engaged in an enterprise based, not upon the selfish principle of profit, but upon the unselfish principle of doing good, and who then deliberately go to work to fill their own coffers by means of the business, are, to say the least, obtaining their money by false pretences.

The capital of the Continental Life Insurance Company was $100,000, and although, by the original charter, the stock-holders were entitled to share with the policy-holders in the profits of the business, yet some years ago an arrangement was made, upon the transfer of the risks of another company to the Continental, that only seven per cent. should be paid to stock-holders. Ever since the yearly statement to the State authorities set forth under oath that only seven per cent. had been paid to stock-holders, all the rest of the profits being presumably divided among the policy-holders. But now, when the light is let in upon this company, it appears that it always paid its stock-holders eighteen to twenty-eight per cent., and that while, of late years, only seven per cent. was charged on the books, yet the money was paid just the same. Then, too, lest the policy-holders should get too much profits to be divided among them, princely salaries were paid to the officers and agents, and upon these salaries annuities were predicated, which were also commuted, capitalized, and surrendered to the company each year. I hardly know how to characterize this scheme. It came out in the evidence of an officer, who said he had $2,000 per annum, with an annuity of five per cent. That sounds quite simple, and persons not fully informed on the subject of life insurance would hesitate to expose their ignorance by asking questions. The annuity turns out to be $100 per annum for life, which at the time it is granted the company capitalized and purchased back, paying about $1,000 therefor. But next year there is another annuity for life granted, of the same amount, which is again purchased, and so on continually. The effect is to add to the officers' salaries, yearly, about fifty per cent., and at the same time conceal it from the public, the State department, and the policy-holders. The president's $17,500 thus became over $26,000, without attracting attention. Besides, it helps demonstrate the scientific principles upon which life insurance and life annuities are based, and by practically illustrating to the managers themselves the potency of algebraic formula in figuring large sums out of small, convinced them of the truth of the arguments which they are to make to the agents, and the agents to the public, by which the money is to be brought in to keep this fine system going.

You will say that this is only one case, and that it is an exception, and that companies honestly managed will not permit such things. I grant you the latter part of your answer, but ask you to show me an honestly managed company; I know but very few. It will be found, on investigation, that these practices, or others quite as bad, flourish in every company, in this State at least, with few exceptions.

Commuted commissions is another item under the thin disguise of which the policy-holders are robbed, but I defer the consideration of that topic for that of changing policies, to which more pressing interest attaches.

When a life policy has run for a certain number of years, and the company has received upon the policy a large number of premiums, it is obliged, both by prudential reasons and by law, to hold against the liability upon it a certain sum of money. This sum is called the reserve. It is also called the reinsurance fund. It is in fact the sum which the company has been improving at compound interest against the day when the policy must be paid. If for any reason the policy lapses—say for non-payment of premium—this sum becomes the property of the company. No policy-holder knows what the reserve on his policy is, and the company will not tell him. It is one of those interesting facts which you are not expected to ask questions about. It requires a complicated calculation to arrive at it. The officers tell you so. The fact is that every company has a book of tables which will tell you the reserve at any moment, and the policy register should show the reserve returned to the department the previous January. It will be seen that if the company can induce the policy-holder to sell his policy to them for a sum less than the reserve, it makes the difference in profit. This is what is known as freezing out. This is open, notorious, bold robbery. But there is a secret method which accomplishes the same result. This is known as changing. If the company is not ready to incur the odium of attempting to purchase its policies, it sends accomplished agents to persuade its policy-holders that some new form of policy is more desirable than the old. Hence the numerous plans of insurance. In the change, it is safe to say that the reserve on the old policy is pretty well used up, and out of it the agent takes a slice, and a pretty good slice, and who takes the rest of it is no mystery. Every policy-holder in a life insurance company who is asked to surrender his policy and take money for it, or another policy, may rest assured that there is a fraud at the bottom of the transaction, and that whoever will make money by it, he will not. In the reinsurance of companies, and the consequent changes of policies from one company to another, this has been the method by which the promoters of the scheme have realized large amounts of money.

Leaving the fertile subject of changing policies, and the frauds of which that operation has been made the vehicle, let me examine the subject of supervision by the State over the companies, and the effect which such supervision has had upon the business. Of course the theory of a State department is that of supervision. It is based upon the power of visitation, as exercised by the founders of hospitals and colleges, for the purpose of seeing that the corporation is carrying out the will of the founder. Here the State, having conferred a corporate franchise, has the right to see that the franchise is properly exercised. To that end an officer is appointed, to whom each corporation is to make annual, detailed reports of its operations, and who is vested with the power of examining the companies, to ascertain if their reports be correct, and if the laws have been complied with. There is no doubt but that if the power were properly exercised, the action of the Superintendent of Insurance would have a beneficial effect. The great difficulty in carrying out the supervision effectively has been, however, the imperfect character of the legislation on the subject. The laws fix an arbitrary standard of solvency, which binds the Superintendent hand and foot.

Insurance experts differ very widely as to the correctness of this standard. It obliges the companies to have on hand invested a sum of money, being a certain arithmetical proportion to the amount of outstanding insurance. A company may not have this amount and yet be solvent, and have before it a long and prosperous career of usefulness. Another company may have the technical amount of assets and yet be rotten to the core. It is said that the very largest and best managed companies have passed through periods when if this criterion were to have been applied to their condition, they would have been weighed and found wanting. The mere amount of assets at any given time cannot be a positive test of the condition of the business. The expense of doing business in one company may be small, and all of it taken out of the premium for the first year, in which case the technical reserve at the end of the year may be very much impaired; yet the company may be in a most promising and flourishing condition, with a good business on its books, and a large future income secure without further cost. On the other hand, a company may have the full technical reserve and yet have acquired its business at ruinous application, out of its future premiums, of large commissions. With laws so imperfect, with no provision for examining the commercial condition of a company, it is not strange that State supervision should gradually fade into an empty form. It is true the department has been for some years kept in full apparent efficiency. There has been a respectable head, and a very full body of clerks duly appointed at the suggestion of members of the Senate. These clerks have been agreeably employed in receiving, folding, and filing the reports of the various companies; in receiving applications for licenses from agents of foreign companies; in issuing such licenses; in furnishing printed copies of the charters of companies to all who apply for the same, and also copies of the reports of the companies. These duties are supplemented by that of collecting the fees for the various services, and by the composition of answers to letters of policy-holders of the most Delphic character. The head of the department, I suppose, is meantime fully employed in digesting the statements of the companies and preparing his annual report of their condition, to be presented to the Legislature, and afterward printed and bound in gilt covers, for distribution among his constituents. These reports are quite pleasant reading. You will find year after year faint and delicate suggestions as to amendatory laws, opinions that there is doubt of the legality of amalgamations, and other twaddle. Not a word, however, denunciatory of the frauds being perpetrated under the very nose of the department, and which every man in the State can see quite plainly but himself. Of the epistolary productions of the Superintendent, it is hard to speak. If language be given to conceal thought, how well it is used by the Department of Insurance. Complaints, charges, requests to examine—all are met so politely, so evasively, that while you feel you are being put off, and that your request will not be granted, you know not why you are refused.

Thus the Department of Insurance ran its natural course. It became a storehouse of heaps of meaningless figures. The companies soon found that their mistakes were not corrected, and it became convenient to make mistakes. Gradually false statements grew out of exaggerated ones. Cash in bank would continue to represent money which had been lost by a bank failure. In one sense it was cash in bank—cash that would never again come out. Then money in the hands of agents is an item which could rise and sink with great facility. In some companies it grew to such proportions as to warrant the suspicion that pretty soon all the money of the company would be in the hands of agents, and very bad hands to be in they have generally proven, have these agents' hands. The books of the Continental Company show about a million of dollars in the hands of those gentlemen, with very little chance of any considerable portion of it ever getting into the hands of the receiver.

And the worst of this condition of affairs with respect to the Insurance Department is that it is a delusion and a snare. If there were no supervision, people would exercise their judgment themselves, uninfluenced by annual reports and all the apparently officially recognized, columnar, battalions of carefully disposed statistics. Then instead of producing certificates with the departmental seal authenticating solvency, the life insurance solicitor would be forced to prove his company entitled to credit by other and more convincing arguments. Naturally enough, the plain people suppose that when the State undertakes to regulate the business, it will do the work which it undertakes well and honestly. It has in fact done neither. While saying to the country, our companies are under strict supervision; they are obliged to make annual reports; and if there is any item in that report which leads the Superintendent to believe the company should be examined, it is immediately done, and we permit no company to continue in business unless it has assets enough to reinsure all its outstanding contracts. That is what in effect the State of New York says. How far otherwise are its actual doings let the history of the Continental and the Security answer. The receiver of the first named says it has been insolvent for five or six years, and insurance people gravely suspected that for some time. As to the Security, any boy in a life company will tell you that its absolute insolvency has been well known for at least two years to all persons having any knowledge of the business at all, who have read their annual reports. Nevertheless the department did not interfere. The Continental let it be understood in California that they were insolvent, so that they could buy in their contracts at a low price. At home they keep up the appearance of solvency, go through the solemn farce of making out reports and filing them in the department, showing a surplus of nearly a million, when in fact there was a deficiency of two millions.

What an efficient department! What a splendid system! How careful of the interests of the public! What a fatherly State to its expectant widows and orphans!

Just here is the vice of the whole system. Relying on the care of the State officers, the policy-holder takes out his policy and continues his payments year after year. Relying on a broken reed!

Can it be conceived possible that the real owners of two hundred millions of dollars would abandon to directors the entire charge of their interests and the interests of those dear to them, unless they were inspired by faith in that governmental supervision which they were led to believe would be effectual to protect their interests, and to make safe the provision which they had made, not for themselves, but for those helpless ones whom it is the duty of the State to care for, and the boast of our system of jurisprudence that it protects with jealous care?

The result of all this faithlessness is seen in the present condition of life insurance affairs. Is the remedy to be found in legislation, in new attempts to make supervision on the part of the State more than a name, or in the abandonment of the whole scheme of supervision and in leaving the business to be carried on without any State control or supervision? This is really the momentous question of the hour, and one that cannot be too thoroughly discussed or too carefully considered.

In its consideration the status of a policy-holder in a life insurance company must be taken into consideration. To thoroughly understand what that status is, it is necessary to examine carefully the contract on which it rests. Each policy in a life insurance company provides for a life-long engagement on the part of the assured. He is to continue to pay premiums as long as he lives, if he does not anticipate them by a single payment, or by several payments. On its part the company agrees to pay to the assured, or rather to his nominee at the death of the assured, a certain sum. In addition, however, to this simple contract, the policy-holder is entitled to a share in the profits of the company. That share is greater or less as the case may be, as the organization of the company provides. The policy-holder is thus in a certain sense a partner in the business. He has an expectation of profits, either in the shape of reduced premiums, increased insurance, or actual money. The contract is not one of indemnity merely. It is a contract to pay at death a fixed sum, in consideration of the payment during life of certain sums known as premiums. It is an arrangement by means of which the pecuniary hardships incident to premature death are borne by a great number of persons instead of the family of the person who dies before his expectation of life has been reached. It is apparent from this contract that the company which issues it must in the nature of things have the custody and management of large sums of money. It is contemplated by the parties that accumulations in the hands of the company must exist, and it is an incident of the contract that the officers of the company shall have the management of that fund. Is the fund a trust to be held by the company for the benefit of the policy-holders? If it be, then the courts of equity have complete and entire jurisdiction, and to them it should be left. They are competent to enforce the proper execution of other trusts, and presumably of this. Give perfect freedom of individual action to each policy-holder, take off the leading-strings of State supervision, and leave the parties to a life insurance contract where the parties to other contracts are left, to themselves and the courts.

THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNITED STATES.

CONCERNING SOME IRREGULARITIES IN IT.

It is a somewhat singular fact that although the United States assumed all the rights, powers, and dignities of a nation on the Fourth of July, 1776, no great seal was adopted until about five months before the signing of the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1782. This is the more remarkable when we consider that our forefathers were brought up under the shadow of the English law, which prescribed that no grant nor charter was factum until it was sealed, and of English custom, which taught that even the sign manual of the sovereign must be authenticated by an impression from the privy seal.

But the inception of our government was attended with other informalities than the neglect to provide a seal. Silas Deane, our first political agent to France, wrote from Paris to the secret committee of Congress, under date of November 28, 1776, acknowledging the receipt of the committee's letter of August 7, enclosing a copy of another letter of July 8, the original of which never came to hand, and also a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which, he complains, had been circulated in Europe two months before. This last letter conveyed what was intended to be the official notification to the court of France of the act of separation of the colonies, but was so unofficial in form that Mr. Deane was prompted to say in answer that he would have supposed that "some mode more formal, or, if I may say, respectful, would have been made use of, than simply two or three lines from the committee of Congress.... I mention this as something deserving of serious consideration, whether in your applications here and your powers and instructions of a public nature, it is not always proper to use a seal? This is a very ancient custom in all public and even private concerns of any consequence."

But although Congress neglected to provide a seal, it was not because it had not anticipated the need of one, for this record appears in its journal, under date of Thursday, July 4, 1776:

Resolved, That Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, and Mr. Jefferson be a committee to prepare a device for a seal for the United States of America.

We obtain an insight of the acts of this committee in a letter from John Adams to his wife, under date of Philadelphia, August 14, 1776.

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

I am put upon a committee to prepare ... devices for a great seal for the confederated States. There is a gentleman here of French extraction, whose name is Du Simitière, a painter by profession, whose designs are very ingenious, and his drawings well executed. He has been applied to for his advice. I waited on him yesterday, and saw his sketches.... For the seal, he proposes the arms of the several nations from whence America has been peopled, as English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, German, etc., each in a shield. On one side of them, Liberty with her pileus; on the other, a Rifler in his uniform, with his rifle-gun in one hand, and his tomahawk in the other: this dress, and these troops, with this kind of armour, being peculiar to America, unless the dress was known to the Romans. Dr. Franklin showed me a book containing an account of the dresses of all the Roman soldiers, one of which appeared exactly like it.... Doctor Franklin proposes a device for a seal: Moses lifting up his wand, and dividing the Red Sea, and Pharaoh in his chariot overwhelmed with the waters. This motto, "Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God."

Mr. Jefferson proposed the children of Israel in the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night; and on the other side Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon chiefs from whom we claim the honor of being descended, and whose political principles and form of government we have assumed.

I proposed the choice of Hercules, as engraved by Gribelin, in some editions of Lord Shaftesbury's works. The hero resting on his club; Virtue pointing to her rugged mountain on one hand and persuading him to ascend; Sloth, glancing at her flowery paths of pleasure, wantonly reclining on the ground, displaying the charms both of her eloquence and person, to seduce him into vice. But this is too complicated a group for a seal or medal, and it is not original.

On August 20 the committee reported to Congress as follows:

The great seal should on one side have the arms of the United States of America, which arms should be as follows:

The shield has six quarters, parts one coupe two. The first or, a rose, enamelled gules and argent for England; the second argent, a thistle proper for Scotland; the third vert, a harp or, for Ireland; the fourth azure, a flower de luce, for France; the fifth or, the imperial eagle, sable, for Germany, and the sixth or, the Belgic lion, gules, for Holland; pointing out the countries from which the States have been peopled. The shield within a border, gules, entwined of thirteen escutcheons, argent, linked together by a chain or, each charged with initial sable letters as follows: 1st. N.H.; 2d, Mass.; 3d, R.I.; 4th, Conn.; 5th, N.Y.; 6th, N.J.; 7th, Penn.; 8th, Del.; 9th, Md.; 10th, Va.; 11th, N.C; 12th, S.C; 13th, Geo.; for each of the thirteen independent States of America.

Supporters, dexter the Goddess of Liberty, in a corselet of armour, alluding to the present times; holding in her right hand the spear and cap, and with her left supporting the shield of the States; sinister, the Goddess of Justice, bearing a sword in her right hand, and in her left a balance.

Crest. The eye of Providence in a radiant triangle, whose glory extends over the shield and beyond the figures. Motto, E Pluribus Unum.

Legend round the whole achievement: Seal of the United States of America, MDCCLXXVI.

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

Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on his head, and a sword in his hand, passing through the divided waters of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites. Rays from a pillar of fire in the cloud, expressive of the Divine presence and command, beaming on Moses, who stands on the shore, and extending his hand over the sea, causes it to overthrow Pharaoh.

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

Mr. Adams's letter fortunately gives us the key to this elaborate blazon, else we might have been left for ever in the dark in regard to its authorship. In the general achievement we easily recognize the hand of the "gentleman of French extraction," M. du Simitière, who perhaps was induced to adopt the Goddess of Justice, with her sword and balance, in lieu of his "Rifler with his rifle-gun," in deference to Mr. Adams's taste for allegory. Dr. Franklin's happy if not original design, illustrative of the preservation of the children of Israel from the maw of Pharoah and the Red sea, with a squint also at the deliverance of the colonies from George III. and the billows of tyranny, though sent to the rear, was adopted in whole, as well as his motto. The pillar of fire in the cloud was doubtless taken from the design of Mr. Jefferson, who perhaps had to be propitiated because his children of Israel were discarded in favor of Dr. Franklin's. It needed but the addition of his Hengist and Horsa, and of Mr. Adams's irresolute Hercules between Vice and Virtue, to make a great seal such as the world had never looked upon.

We, who look back through the gloze of a hundred years and are accustomed to regard this trio of patriots as men with whom the degenerate legislators of the present have little in common, may well express astonishment that their work did not meet with immediate approval. But history is a stern mistress, and we cannot efface the record. The journal of Congress shows that the report of the committee was ordered "to lie on the table," and we hear no more of it for three long and momentous years.

On March 25, 1779, it was ordered that the report of the committee on the device of a great seal for the United States, in Congress assembled, be referred to another committee. On May 10 this committee reported as follows:

The seal to be four inches in diameter, on one side the arms of the United States, as follows: the shield charged in the field with thirteen diagonal stripes alternately red and white.

Supporters, dexter, a warrior holding a sword: sinister, a figure representing Peace bearing an olive branch.

The Crest, a radiant constellation of thirteen stars.

The motto, Bello vel Pace.

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

On the Reverse the figure of Liberty, seated in a chair, holding the staff and cap.

The Motto, "Semper," underneath MDCCLXXVI.

This report was taken into consideration on May 17, and after debate ordered to be recommitted. The result was another report:

The seal to be three inches in diameter, on one side the arms of the United States, as follows: the shield charged in the field azure, with thirteen diagonal stripes, alternate rouge and argent.

Supporters, dexter, a warrior holding a sword; sinister, a figure representing Peace, bearing the olive branch.

The Crest, a radiant constellation, of thirteen stars.

The motto, Bello vel Pace.

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

On the Reverse, Virtute Perennis, underneath MDCCLXXVII.

A miniature of the face of the great seal and half its diameter to be prepared and affixed as the less seal of the United States.

But our critical forefathers were still dissatisfied, and exhibited no more disposition to adopt the false heraldry of the committee of 1779 than the allegorical and Biblical monstrosity of that of 1776. Three years more of incubation were needed to hatch the "bird o' freedom," and it is not until 1782 that we hear of a further movement. On June 13 of that year, William Barton of Philadelphia proposed the following for the arms of the United States:

Arms, Paleways of thirteen pieces argent and gules; a chief azure, the escutcheon placed on the breast of the American (the bald-headed) eagle, displayed proper; holding in his beak a scroll inscribed with the motto, viz., E Pluribus Unum, and in his dexter talon a palm or olive branch, in the other a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper.

For the Crest, over the head of the eagle, which appears above the escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and surrounding thirteen stars forming a constellation, argent on an azure field.

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

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

Mr. Barton proposed also a second device, which needs no notice, as it did not meet with approval.

On the same day, the committee of Congress, then composed of Messrs. Middleton (S. C), Boudinot (Penn.), and Rutledge (S. C), reported a modification of Mr. Barton's device. The reports of the several committees were then referred to the Secretary of Congress, and on June 20, 1782, the Secretary reported the following device for an armorial achievement and reverse of the great seal of the United States, which was formally adopted:

Arms. Paleways of thirteen pieces, argent and gules, a chief, azure; the escutcheon on the breast of the American eagle displayed proper, holding in his dexter talon an olive branch, and in his sinister a bundle of thirteen arrows, all proper, and in his beak a scroll inscribed with this motto, E Pluribus Unum.

For the Crest. Over the head of the eagle, which appears above the escutcheon, a glory, or, breaking through a cloud, proper, and surrounding thirteen stars forming a constellation, argent, on an azure field.

Reverse. A pyramid unfinished. In the zenith an eye in a triangle, surrounded with a glory, proper. Over the eye these words, Annuit Cœptis. On the base of the pyramid the numerical letters MDCCLXXVI. And underneath the following motto, Novus Ordo Seclorum.

The interpretation of these devices is as follows: The escutcheon is composed of the chief and pale, the two most honorable ordinaries. The pieces pale represent the several States, all joined in one solid, compact, and entire, supporting a chief which unites the whole and represents Congress. The pales in the arms are kept closely united by the chief, and the chief depends on that union and the strength resulting from it, for its support, to denote the confederacy of the United States of America, and the preservation of their union through Congress.

The colors of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; white signifies purity and innocence; red, hardiness and valor; and blue, the color of the chief, signifies vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

The olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace and war, which is exclusively vested in Congress. The constellation denotes a new State taking its place and rank among the sovereign powers; the escutcheon is borne on the breast of the American eagle, without any other supporters, to denote that the United States of America ought to rely on their own virtue.

Reverse. The pyramid signifies strength and duration: the eye over it and the motto allude to the many and signal interpositions of Providence in favor of the American cause. The date underneath it is that of the Declaration of Independence; and the words under it signify the beginning of the new era, which commences from that date.

After the ratification of the Constitution, this seal was formally declared to be the seal of the United States, on September 15, 1789, and on March 2, 1799, its custody was given to the Secretary of State, who was empowered to affix it to such commissions, etc., as had previously received the signature of the President.

Lossing, in his "Field Book of the Revolution," has the following, in relation to the origin of the device on the seal: "In a manuscript letter before me, written in 1818, by Thomas Barritt, Esq., an eminent antiquary of Manchester, England, addressed to his son in this country, is the following statement: 'My friend, Sir John Prestwich, Bart., told me he was the person who suggested the idea of a coat of arms for the American States to an ambassador [John Adams] from thence, which they have seen fit to put upon some of their moneys. It is this he told me—party per pale of thirteen stripes, white and red; the chief of the escutcheon blue, signifying the protection of heaven over the States. He says it was soon afterwards adopted as the arms of the States, and to give it more consequence, it was placed upon the breast of a displayed eagle.'"

But it is far more probable that the colors of the shield were suggested by the stripes and union of the flag, which was adopted nearly a year before Mr. Adams's first visit to Europe. Yet it is worthy of note, in this connection, that the stripes in the flag are arranged alternately red and white, which gives seven of the former and six of the latter; while in the arms they are white and red, thus making seven white and six red pales. In the seal of the Board of Admiralty (now the Navy Department), adopted May 4, 1780, the stripes are arranged as in the flag.

The critical reader will not fail to note a few heraldic lapses in the arms as blazoned by the secretary of Congress, such as the omission of the tincture of the scroll, and the denominating the collection of stars a crest. By a somewhat similar error in the law by which our flag was adopted, no method of arrangement of the stars in the union is prescribed.

Notwithstanding that the great seal as adopted had an obverse and a reverse, there is nothing to show that the reverse was ever made. Why this was neglected does not appear of record. Nor does there seem to be any means of ascertaining by what authority one half of the seal is made to do duty for the whole. It is certainly not authorized by any law. Is not its use then by the State department technically illegal?

But this is not all. The seal as originally engraved was in accordance with the requirements of the law, but in 1841, Daniel Webster then being Secretary of State, a new seal was made, probably because the old one had become worn, and for some reasons not now discoverable, several alterations were made in the design. In the shield of the seal thus made, the red pales are twice the width of the white ones, so that it reads heraldically, argent, six pales gules, instead of "palewise of thirteen pieces, argent and gules," as expressed in the adopted report. In the original, too, the eagle held in his sinister talon a "bundle of thirteen arrows," but the poor bird grasps but a meagre six in the new seal. There was some significance in the former number, all of which is lost in the change. Application to the State department for the reasons for these deviations from the original seal resulted in only the following: "This change does not appear to have been authorized by law, and the cause of it is not known."

Is it possible that an arbitrary alteration can be made in the great seal of the United States by officials temporarily in charge of it? And if so, what is to prevent some future Secretary of State, with notions of his own in regard to heraldic bearings, from discarding the old seal altogether, in favor of some creation of his own? The nation was providentially saved from the artistic efforts of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin; but what guaranty have we for the future?

John D. Champlin, Jr.

DRIFT-WOOD.

THE TIMES AND THE CUSTOMS.

It will be four years in September since the crash of Jay Cooke announced that hard times had come. During the débacle continuing from that day to this, the exposed rascalities of swindling corporations have shown how full the world still is of sheep eager to be fleeced, of geese to be plucked. Government officers prey on the people; the people, on each other; the giant plunderer is the stock company, to whose vast gobblings the pilfering of a Tweed or Winslow is a mere sugar-plum. The individual swindler feels himself a rogue, whereas the chartered thief holds a high head, builds him a palace from the spoils of his victims, and curses their impudence when they complain. They are legion, these mismanaged or fraudulent mining companies, land improvement companies, artificial light companies, normal food companies (for introducing camel-hump steaks to the American breakfast-table), and, above all, railroad companies, savings funds, and life insurance companies.

Satirists lash the sham enterprises—"Universal Association for Squaring the Circle," "American and Asiatic Consolidated Perpetual Motion Society," and what not; nowadays the main mischief is done not by these transparent humbugs, but by the genuine companies, that fairly invite trust and then betray it. Salted mines, watered stocks, lying prospectuses, bribed experts, bought legislatures, packed meetings, borrowed dividends, thimble-rig reports—we all know the tricks of "substantial" enterprises. It is not the seedy adventurers, the Jeremy Diddlers and Montague Tiggs of our day, that entrap the thrifty and ruin the intelligent, but the high-toned trust and commercial companies, seeming to be solid. These have wheels within wheels, rings within the ring, whereby many shareholders can be tricked by few; for, as the shellfish has foes that bore through his tough house and suck out the unfortunate tenant within, so crédit mobiliers, fast freight lines, super-salaried officers, contractors for supplies, construction agents, and the like, suck out the value of a stock company, and leave the shareholders the shells. Let not a posterity of laudatores temporis acti sigh over ours as the Golden Age of commercial honesty. It is only the Greenback Age. It is not even the Silver Age, unless, haply, the German Silver—that is to say, the Plated or Pinchbeck Age. We might perhaps style it the Brazen Age, in view of the all-pervading brass of corporation claqueurs and drummers; or we might very well call it the Shoddy or the Peter Funk Jewelry Age.

Still, our ancestry were worse beset with quack corporations. Mackay mentions over eighty speculative companies that rose with the South Sea bubble and were all crushed in a bunch by the privy council: one, a company for getting silver out of lead; another, for developing perpetual motion; a third, for insuring householders against losses by servants—capital, $15,000,000; a fourth, "a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is"—capital, $2,500,000 in 5,000 shares of $500 each, on $10 deposit per share, which deposit nearly a thousand persons actually paid on the first half day the books were opened, so that before night the rascally manager was off with $10,000 booty. Besides the matured projects, many companies existing only on paper were able to sell "privileges to subscribe," when formed, at $200 or $300 each; for in that day of manias people in Great Britain paid premiums for the first chance to put their money into companies for freshening salt water, extracting oil from sunflowers, buying forfeited estates, capturing pirates, insuring children's fortunes, fattening hogs, fishing for wrecks, and importing jackasses from Spain—which last was surely bringing coals to Newcastle. As for such really solid enterprises as the South Sea bubble, their shares rose to a thousand per cent, above par.

Perhaps another South Sea bubble could not easily be blown; the Darien canal will hardly excite a fever of speculation like William Paterson's Darien project of one hundred and eighty years ago, for which prayers were offered in the Edinburgh churches; we are not likely to see a Mississippi scheme of the sort which caused cooks to struggle with courtiers for places in the Rue de Quinquempoix to buy John Law's shares, while office rents in that stock-jobbing thoroughfare rose from five hundred to sixty thousand livres a year. But our late American experience shows how swift men are to trust their hard-earned gains to corporate enterprises simply on the reputation of the managers. Insurance frauds and railroad wreckings thrive on the trustfulness of professional men and the narrow scope of tradesmen. The latter find sufficient occupation in the little gains of each day, and often are puzzled how to employ the surplus. To spend it would be unthrifty; to roll it in a napkin, bad stewardship; they are apt to be caught by the popular stock companies or by some scheme of speculation. These glittering prizes also attract sapient "men of business" who have been entrusted with investing the funds of widows and children. From such sources flow the rills that make the mighty rivers of stock enterprises, so that, having gathered up the spare cash of the shopkeepers and the annuitants, their bursting makes wide havoc.

Goodman Thompson's simple skill and joy are to gain five cents here, ten there, a dollar yonder; three customers have bought at nine o'clock to-day, at eleven the sales number fifteen, at noon no fewer than two dozen; whereas at midday yesterday they were only twenty-three. Brooding over these statistics, worthy Thompson fills up the day, the year, the lifetime in modest local glory, until the name of John Thompson, grocer, is taken from his door and put upon his coffin-plate, and John Thompson's son continues the trade in his stead. Absorbed, I say, in such details, some men seem strangely careless what the gross of their gains is, or how secured—their pleasure is "doing business" rather than growing rich, and equal fortunes by bequest would hardly give them the same comfort; others, and the majority, are not so careless, but are as surprisingly stupid, incautious, and gullible in investing their daily gains as they are sharp and shrewd in getting them. That is why they put their trust in treacherous princes of finance and railroad kings; that is why sharpers of good moral character in savings and insurance companies make many victims. It is wonderful how many tradesmen, subtle and sagacious in their callings, thrive in the hard task of driving bargains, only to lose their earnings to palpable knaves, or else by making hap-hazard investments. Their faculty of accumulation seems like that of the bee or the ant, good only to a given point, and within the use of given methods; it seems to fail when sober judgment on speculative fevers is called for.

But the hard times have temporarily taught first, caution; next, economy. Caution unluckily has run to suspicion, while economy has issued in a dearth of employment: thus the correctives applied to hard times have perpetuated them. People are buying not only less, but sometimes at second hand, so that every trade suffers—unless it be that of the coffin-makers; I never knew anybody who wanted a second-hand coffin. The economy that America usually needs is perhaps less that of refraining from buying than that of turning things to account. The man who needlessly cuts down his expenses is hardly so praiseworthy as the one who only makes every thread yield its best uses.

A national fault of ours is that of not getting the full use of things. European cities, for example, earn millions a year by selling their street dirt. American cities pay millions to get rid of it. In Europe it dresses sterile soil; in America it is dumped into channels to obstruct navigation. One can almost admire the humble Paris chiffoniers, as being a guild employed in redeeming to a hundred services what has been thrown away as useless—they rescue vast fortunes yearly. On the Pennsylvania oil lands twenty men put up a derrick, sink a test well, and fail. Sixteen out of the twenty reorganize, sink a new well within fifty rods of the other, build a new derrick, and never touch the old one, leaving it to rot. The expense of this kind of machinery is great; and yet out of the abandoned derricks in the oil regions you could almost build a timber track from Corry to New York. It is, I say, almost a national trait to accumulate what will be left to rust unused—although it is doubtless not American ladies alone that fill their wardrobes with garments never worn out. When a European friend of mine came to travel in this country, one of his first surprises was the hundreds of miles of expensive fences he saw enclosing very ordinary fields; next he noted the unused ground along the tracks of railroads. "That land would all be covered with vegetables in our country," he said. At his hotels he thought there was more wasted in labor, food, and superfluities than would have sufficed to reduce the cost of living by a third; indeed, I fancy he believed that despite our cry of "hard times" and "enforced economy," the sheer current waste of America would pay the national debt in a year.

VICTOR HUGO.

What freshness and fecundity in the veteran poet who signalizes his seventy-sixth birthday by publishing the "Légende des Siècles"! Hugoesque alike in its grand apostrophes and its gentle idyls, in its resounding declamation and its simple pathos, this new outcome of an old mint has every coin stamped with the image and superscription of its creator—Hugo's in thought, feeling, audacious style, easy versification, quaint novelty of metaphor; Hugo's in its cadence by turns joyous and mournful, now in sonorous, thrilling ballads of battle, anon in charming genre fireside pictures, here riotous in rhetoric, there pedantic in research, everywhere lofty in aspiration, though pushing oddity almost to madness.

Through all his works, what a mixture of genius and grotesqueness, of majesty and absurdity in that wonderful man! Take his "Ninety-Three"—a novel monstrously nonsensical and surprisingly splendid—a novel demonstrating that to pass from the ridiculous to the sublime, as well as the other way, needs but a step. With what magnetic power one of its first incidents, the rushing about of the loose gun on shipboard, is wrought out! You begin by despising the frivolity of the scene, and momentarily wait to see the writer ludicrously break down in his preposterous attempt at imposing on your credulity. By degrees the situation is filled in till each successive objection of skepticism is somehow spirited away, and even the foreign reader, sympathetically following the working of the French mind, is startled at his own yielding. This episode of the roving cannon ranks with the devil-fish scene in the "Toilers of the Sea," where also the reader finds appreciative horror overcoming his first impulse of contemptuous incredulity.

Or, again, if you take the boat scene in "Ninety-Three," between the sailor and count, you agree, at the end, that it is not overstrained. Yet think of that frail skiff in the open British Channel, with the waves running high, and say if the scene was possible. When Halmalo put down his oars and the old man stood up at full height in the bow, the boat must have swung into the trough of the sea and capsized in an instant; if lack of steering failed to upset her, the old man's performance would have done so; but we forget that trifle in the dramatic intensity of the situation. The learned Sergeant Hill, talking with a young law student regarding the will of "Clarissa Harlowe," told him, "You will find that not one of the uses or trusts in it can be supported." A sergeant of artillery would be equally severe on the evolutions and skirmishes in "Ninety-Three"; but the genius of Hugo triumphs over such blunders, like Shakespeare's over the seaports in Bohemia.

"A poet is a world shut up in a man," says the "Légende," whose own variety of theme helps to justify the definition. We have here the majestic conceptions of the "Mur des Siècles," the "Vanished City," the "Hymn to Earth," the "Epic of the Worm"; therewith we also have the music and beauty of the "Groupe des Idylles." On one page the reader is touched with sympathy by the "Cemetery of Eylau" and the "Guerre Civile"; on another he is stirred by the scorn in the "Anger of the Bronze," or by the hate in "Napoleon III. after Sedan":

The city whose praise Victor Hugo never tires of sounding, and that has adored and lampooned him for almost half a century, breaks out in a prolonged concord of eulogy for these old-age strains, which recall no little of the force, fire, and finish of twenty, forty years ago. Well may the Parisians laud this man of mingled ruggedness and delicacy, whose imagination has not yet lost its boldness with age, nor the heart its warmth—the bard, in mockery of whom, nevertheless, they were lately repeating with gusto the comical parody of a local wit:

EVOLUTIONARY HINTS FOR NOVELISTS.

We have Sheridan's authority that an oyster may be crossed in love—in fact, Miss Zimmern has written a story about an oyster that actually was a prey to the tender passion; we have Shakespeare's authority that a hind will die of it, if she unfortunately seeks to be mated with a lion; while it is a regular thing in the land of the cypress and myrtle (if Lord Byron can be trusted) for the rage of the vulture to madden to crime.

Still it was reserved for Darwin himself to give the great modern cue to novelists in their study of human nature, by his "Descent of Man," where he says that "injurious characters tend to reappear through reversion, such as blackness in sheep; and with mankind some of the worst dispositions which occasionally without any assignable cause make their reappearance in families, may perhaps he reversions to a savage state from which we are not removed by many generations. This view seems recognized in the common expression that such men are the 'black sheep of the family.'"

Now, whatever we may think of the odd logic of this passage, it clearly stakes out a ground and preëmpts a claim for evolution as applied to romantic literature. None of us could really blame the modern lover if, in making a woful ballad to his mistress's eyebrow, he should slyly but anxiously examine whether that eyebrow contained "a few hairs larger than the rest, corresponding to the vibrissæ of the lower animals." This does occur in some eyebrows, we know; and as it is also clear from the authorities first quoted, and many more that might be cited, that the lower animals are capable of human passions, the cautious and scientifically disposed lover of the modern epoch can hardly be asked to take a mere manifestation of the heavenly instinct as proof of many grades of removal, in his Dulcinea, from the condition of the oyster, the hind, or, alas! the vulture.

Hence, even in protesting that his lady's beauty hangs on the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Æthiop's ear, naturally the modern Romeo may not avoid a glance to see whether his Juliet's ear contains that fatal auricular "blunt point" denoting assimilation to the lower animals. And so it is with the work henceforth laid out for novelists: the stereotyped heroine, with coral lips, pearly teeth, eyes of a gazelle, raven locks, swan-like neck, and so on, should be carefully guarded from too great animal resemblances, and above all from "rudiments" or signs of reversion.

Perhaps it would be going too far to announce bluntly that "Lady Amarantha's toes had not the remotest indication of ever having been webbed," or to put on record the official declaration of Fifine, the maid, that her fair mistress never had been able to erect her ears; still the novelists might do well to take note of those two or three points in which Mr. St. George Mivart and Mr. Wallace have pointed out the great distinctions between men and apes, and so adroitly work them up in those personal descriptions which form a delicious part of modern novels, as to give their heroes and heroines a pedigree impregnable to the most critically scientific scrutiny. Hints, also, I think, might be gathered from the treatment of love on the evolution hypothesis, which has been essayed by no less an authority than Herbert Spencer, who has besides traced the changes in the methods of expressing passionate emotions by gestures and cries, as our humble ancestry developed to women and men.

Physiology, too, is not the only department into which the novelist of the future must extend his studies. Under the doctrine of evolution, sexual selection is at the basis of the variation of species; and what new fields are open to the novelist, when he reflects for a moment that his main task is only to depict the prosperities and adversities attending such a mutual selection on the part of Albert and Angelina!

Philip Quilibet.

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

THE TELEPHONE.

Great interest in telegraphic subjects has lately been aroused in the American public by exhibitions of the telephone, an instrument for transmitting sound vibrations by electricity. Two general forms of this instrument are known, in one of which a series of tuning forks communicates with a precisely similar series at the other end of the wire, and the signals made to one are repeated by the other. A more interesting form, and the one that has lately attracted so much attention, is that which receives and transmits ordinary vocal sounds. The operator talks to a membrane, and at the other end of the wire is a resonator of some kind which talks to the auditor there. The fundamental idea of the machine is not new. It was at first proposed to use it for transmitting electric signals without a wire, and in that view a trial was made with it during the siege of Paris. The armistice interrupted the operations, but M. Bourbouze, the experimenter, and other inventors have continued to study the subject, Mr. A. G. Bell, professor of vocal physiology in Boston, being among them. M. Bourbouze used a vibrating needle the movements of which were effected by sound waves, and another Frenchman, M. Reuss, introduced the sounding box with its membrane. This is a box with a membrane stretched over the top and a short tube of large diameter in the side. The operator talks to this tube, and the box strengthens the sound, which finally affects the membrane, causing it to vibrate. Resting upon this membrane is a thin copper disc attached to a wire leading from the electrical battery. Above and very near it hangs a metallic point, which forms the end of a wire leading to the place to which the message is to be sent. The membrane rises slightly with every vibration, and touching the point, a current is established and communication effected with the distant point; but this communication ceases as soon as the vibration stops, and the membrane assumes a state of rest. As every simple note is produced by a definite number of air vibrations, and every compound sound is made up of the sum of several simple notes, the apparatus transmits a definite number of vibrations for each sound which it receives; and if those vibrations can be communicated to the air at any point, however distant, the original sounds will be reproduced. In short, the instrument may be explained as one invented to transmit air vibrations by electricity.

The receiver consists of an iron rod about the size of a knitting needle, wound with insulated copper wire, and supported on a wood box having very thin sides. The rod vibrates with every passage of the current, and the thin box increases the amount of these vibrations and makes them audible. It is found best to introduce several rods into the insulated coil, as with only one the sound produced is rather snuffling. In either case, however, the vibrations of the rod are exactly the same as those of the membrane, and even the character of the sound is automatically reproduced.

The description here given is that of Reuss's instrument, which was illustrated last year in the French paper "La Nature." The exact construction of Mr. Bell's telephone has not been made public, but it seems to be quite similar. He is said to make his vibrating membrane of metal. The greatest distance to which sounds have been sent is one hundred and forty-three miles, from Boston to North Conway, N.H. The instrument is not yet perfect, the sounds being frequently indistinct. With a private wire and two persons accustomed to each other's voices it would probably be a greater success. It is therefore likely to be quickly introduced into business uses. At present some rather wild anticipations are indulged in by the daily press, but the instrument probably has a really remarkable future before it.

DAMAGES BY AN INSECT.

Traffic on railways and canals has diminished, public taxes do not pay for collection, and poverty, privation, and misery have come upon twenty-five departments of France from the ravages of the phylloxera insect which attacks the roots of the grapevines. Such is the official report of a committee appointed by the Academy of Sciences. The important districts of Champagne, Burgundy, the Loire, and the Cher, are now threatened, and from the greatly extended foothold which the insect has now gained it is feared that its operations will be very rapid. It is not impossible that the principal industry of France will be crippled for years. In spite of all this, wine is now quite cheap. The hard times have lessened consumption, and the product is so huge—900,000,000 litres, or 180,000,000 gallons yearly from France alone—that the stock in the market is maintained in spite of the great ravages of the insect. The cheapest claret is sold in New York for $40 a cask, or about 66 cents a gallon. Of this 24 cents is for duty.

THE SUMMER SCIENTIFIC SCHOOLS.

Summer schools of science proved very popular last year, and are to be continued this season. A lady who studied in the botanical school at Harvard said that work began properly at nine o'clock and continued to twelve; but the pupils were so eager to reap all possible benefit from the six weeks' course, that some were in the laboratory by 7:30 in the morning. One lady made herself sick in a week by over study, and many others injured themselves by too close application. The Professor finally prohibited work out of the regular hours. The schools will be reopened July 6, and continue to August 17, the term being six weeks long; applications to be made by June 1. The courses will be five in number, as follows: General chemistry and qualitative analysis, under Mr. C. F. Mabery, to whom (at Cambridge) applications must be sent; fee, $25 and cost of supplies. Phænogamic botany, by Prof. George L. Goodale; fee, $25. For lectures without laboratory practice the charge is $10. Cryptogamic botany will be taught by Prof. W. G. Farlow; fee, $25. Microscopes, etc., are provided by the university. Students in this course should have a previous knowledge of phænogamic botany. In addition to laboratory practice excursions will be made and lectures given. Prof. Farlow's address is 6 Park Square, Boston.

Prof. N. S. Shaler and Mr. Wm. M. Davis, Jr., will give a course in geology, including instruction in Cambridge, and a trip through Massachusetts to New York. The tuition fee is $50, and other costs about $50 for board and lodging, and $25 for travelling expenses. When the regular excursion is finished a more extended trip will be made if desired, to the Mammoth Cave and other localities, on the way to Nashville, where the American Association will have its next meeting.

Lastly, the school provides a course on zoölogy, by Mr. W. Faxon and Mr. W. K. Brooks; fee, $25. It will comprise lectures, laboratory work, and excursions to the neighboring seashores. Apply to Mr. W. Faxon, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Cornell Excursion.

Cornell university also has its summer school of natural history, and it will take a peculiar form this year. Prof. Theodore B. Comstock proposes, if sufficient encouragement is given before May 1, to charter a steamer and spend six weeks on the great lakes. The cheapness of steamer travel makes a trip of this kind in very comfortable style possible at moderate expense. The price is fixed at $125, which includes tuition fee and every other expense, for thirty days; and $3.50 per day for ten days more. The time may be extended beyond forty days by a majority vote of the excursionists. Buffalo or Cleveland will be the starting point, and the line of travel will be around the south shore of the lakes Erie, Huron, and Superior, returning by the north shore. The steamer will be a free rover, and visit places outside of the usual lines of travel. Lectures will be given and dredging done, the results of which will be distributed among the pupils, and shares may also be subscribed for by schools, teachers, and others. These shares will entitle the holders to part of the botanical and zoological collections made.

Williams Rocky Mountain Excursion.

A more private but very extended excursion will be made by Williams college students, under the care of Prof. Sanborn Tenney, who holds the chair of natural history in the college. No fees are charged, and Prof. Tenney receives no compensation. The number of students is limited to fifteen, who will for the most part pay their own expenses, and the expedition is not open to the public. The students are selected with reference to the study of geology and mineralogy, botany, and the various departments of zoölogy, entomology, ornithology, ichthyology. Extensive collections will be made in all departments of natural history, which will be deposited in the Williams college natural history museum and the lyceum of natural history in the college. The excursion will start early in July and return in time for the regular autumn college opening. This is evidently intended to be one of the most important enterprises of the year for field instruction.

A Texas Trip.

Butler college, Irvington, Indiana, will send an expedition to Texas, with headquarters at Dallas in that State. Studies in geology and natural history will be mainly pursued, and collections made of birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, and fossils. The number of students will be from ten to twenty-five, and they will leave Indianapolis June 20, under the charge of Prof. John A. Myers. Mammoth Cave, Lookout mountain, and other places of interest in Tennessee and Alabama, will be visited, and the party will return in time for the Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Nashville. Dallas, which is to be the centre of operations, is a thriving town in the grazing region of Texas, and is a good place for the study of botany and zoölogy.

Another lake excursion is projected by the Institute of Mining Engineers, who expect to spend two weeks in visiting the famous mining districts of that region. Though not precisely a "summer school," this will be both a professional and social excursion.

A committee of Wisconsin teachers recommend the introduction of this system of summer schools in that State. They want to have a class formed under Prof. T. C. Chamberlin, State geologist, to commence at St. Croix Falls, and make geological, zoölogical, and botanical studies down the Mississippi to Rock Island. Headquarters would be on a large boat.

Directors of other summer schools are requested to send notices of the work they are planning to do to the office of this magazine.

AN INTELLIGENT QUARANTINE.

The quarantine history of New York was quite remarkable in 1876. Yellow fever was epidemic at several ports along the Gulf and Atlantic coast, and no less than 363 vessels came into New York from those ports, ninety-nine of which had the disease on board, either during the voyage or in port. Under these circumstances, it may be supposed that the authorities were not disposed to encourage commerce between the city and the infected towns. Philadelphia and Baltimore adopted an interdiction of all trade with Savannah, as a precaution. But a bolder and wiser policy has gradually been introduced into the New York quarantine. Instead of being a loser by the yellow fever, that city was called upon to take the whole trade, and did so without hesitation, though the voyage from Charleston and some other ports occupied less time than the average incubation period of the disease, which might be introduced unnoticed into the city unless preventative measures were taken. Orders were given to receive no passengers from the afflicted cities, so that the quarantine authorities had only the cargo and crew to deal with. The ship was thoroughly fumigated and the cargo discharged as rapidly as was consistent with safe supervision. This rapid discharge is advised because a ship's heated hold is just the place for the full development of the fomites. If the cargo does carry the germs of the disease, the worst thing that can be done is to leave it in the ship, which is then likely to become a pest-house. Prompt removal reduces the danger to a minimum. By this intelligent course New York was able to keep open her communication with Savannah in the height of the epidemic, and she was the only city on the Atlantic to do so. More cotton than ever came to her harbor. The hygienic results are noticeable. Although more than a thousand deaths occurred in Savannah, not one case of yellow fever reached the city of New York by water. Two or three cases of sickness from vessels occurred in that city and Brooklyn; but though these were said to be yellow fever, their subsequent history did not sustain the supposition. They were probably a form of malarial fever which so nearly resembles the more dreaded disease that time is required to distinguish between them. Two cases of real yellow fever reached the city by rail, but all others were stopped at quarantine, which contained patients from January to the latter part of October, excepting one month—May. In all, sixty were treated there, most of whom were supposed to have yellow fever; but of these only thirty-nine really had that disease, the remainder having the peculiar form of malarial fever before spoken of. These results sustain the intelligent action of the quarantine officers who have stripped off the terrors which once hung about the name quarantine, and still do in so many parts of the world and of our own country.