for once the chaplain is made a positive quantity in Congress. Eventually he may compose his prayers in pithy paragraphs, so that they may readily be adopted in sections by the House, and added to future party platforms. Certainly there is a ludicrous side to this sudden and graphic recital before the Deity of the evils that are so intensely typified in Congress; but is there not a sad reproach to our Congressmen that the only sharp references to the distresses of the country, and the only aspirations for their speedy cure should be expressed by their chaplain ?" Washington Telegram, April 10.

In his prayer this morning the chaplain of the House drew a deplorable picture of the times; when the masses of men were drifting farther and farther from the churches; when educated men were asking: "Is life worth living?" when men in the market places and other centers of resort were teaching, with tongue and pen, the doctrines of despair, pessimism, agnosticism, and atheism; when lotteries, gambling-houses, and grog-shops were sapping the health and prosperity of great bodies of the people; when scarcely a day passed but brought to light some new evil to crimson the face of the patriots; when leaders in great cities were putting up their votes for sale to the highest bidder and bartering the franchise of the people; when obscene books and pictures were corrupting the imagination and debauching the character of children and youth; when boys were becoming hoodlums and girls were bought and sold like dumb, driven cattle in the shambles; when people were building churches to vie with club houses in cost, show, and luxury, where the poor were never expected to enter; when Divine charity took the form of a machine and was administered by proxy, and when our boasted civilization was stained with blots as dark as death.

Philadelphia Record, April 11.

CHAPLAIN MILBURN is becoming the foremost orator of the House of Representatives. Leonidas C. Houk, of Tennessee, Captain Boutelle, of Maine, and Major Ben Butterworth, of Ohio, will have to look to their laurels.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper, April 17.

It has long been the custom to open the session of our legislative bodies with devotional services. Such services are appropriate. They are a recognition that the United States and its Commonwealths represent a Christian nation. They are usually so conducted as not to give offense to the adherents of any faith. They are based upon the fundamental principles of the being of a God, of the truth of the Bible, and of the individual responsibility-truths upon which the great majority of all citizens are agreed.

In recent years, however, these services have in not a few instances been conducted in a manner far removed from that simplicity and reverence which should belong to them. The prayers have too often been orations addressed to the auditors, rather than petitions to the Supreme Being. A recent prayer, made by the chaplain of the House at Washington, illustrates the evils to which we allude. As reported:

"He besought the Lord to enable the educated and intelligent men and women of the land to comprehend that in this republican country there could be no privileged class, and in this democratic age no aristocracy could be founded and built on the fabled blood of Norman, Guelph, or Ghibelline; on title to gold or land or stock; on power of public office or private corporation; but that our best society must be the growth of sound brains, informed by wide instruction; on good hearts, and living fervently, bending with reverence toward God and love to man, and with supreme devotion to noble uses; sweet and generous behavior, learned not from the dancing-master, nor in the courts of princes, but in the school of selfreliance; wills braced to heroic endeavor and endurance, capable of sacrifice of self for the common weal, the wants and the woes of others. He also prayed that God might forbid the rich and prosperous from attempting to import and reproduce on our new soil the pomps and shows, the folly and fashions, the luxury and pride, of other climes, lest the Giant Anarchy, blind through ignorance and rage, like sightless Samson, be goaded to madness by oppression."

If this prayer be a fair example of the daily petitions of the House chaplain, he is doing more to destroy a fitting sentiment of reverence and of worship than all the Washington preachers can do to build it up. Brevity, simplicity in language and thought, sincerity and general appropriateness, should characterize all public prayers, and especially those of the legislative bodies of the nation and its commonwealths.

Toledo Evening Blade, April 9.

THE recent prayers of the blind chaplain of the House of Representatives, the Rev. W. H. Milburn, have provoked much discussion. That the country at large accepts these prayers with less remonstrance than the members of the House is, evident from the fact that when, after the prayer of March 27, Mr. Grosvenor, of Ohio, asked unanimous consent to have the prayer printed in the Congressional Record. Mr. James, of New York, objected, remarking that he refused to consent because the prayer was an incendiary speech. Although the prayers received the sanction of many of the public prints, others were outspoken in their condemnation. One of the prominent New York journals calls it an abuse of prayer. The prayer in question was directed against the stock brokers and others of that ilk. "Deliver us," the chaplain prayed, " from the influence and power of robbers, who, enticing their victims to boards of trade and stock exchanges and bucket shops, name their practice of plunder 'shearing the lambs.'" The chaplain's prayer against the brokers was so telling that he next treated the labor question in the same way. He said: But now the many have learned the secret of organization, of drill and dynamite. Rouse the rich of the world to understand that the time has come for the grinding, selfish monopoly to cease. Teach the rich men of this country that the great fortunes are lent them by Thee for other purposes than to build and decorate palaces, to found private collections of art, to stock wine cellars, to keep racing studs and yachts, and find better company than hostlers, grooms and jockeys, poolsellers and bookmakers," etc. accordance with the views of many members of the House, Mr. Milburn has, however, moderated his transports.

In

Kate Foote, in The Independent, April 8.

THE Rev. Mr. Milburn has been regarded with interest for a week or so because of the prayers he has been addressing to-the House, some say. He is the chaplain of the House, and some of the members think he is making it unpleasant by a sort of "offensive partisanship" in his prayers. Regarded critically, and from that point alone, his sentences are too long; he should not specify so many things; but he is right in his main idea, which is to ask for the things which the country and its public men need; and I think there is among the members a feeling of this, so that they forgive him, while they condemn much that he says.

"I reckon we'll have to stop hay-carting to morrow," said a laborer to me one splendid cloudless July day. Why?"

"'Cause I heerd one o' them old woodpeckers hallerin' fit to bust hisself while I was a gettin' my dinner."

Next morning the daily paper spoke of settled fine weather, but the rustic was right-it rained heavily. He was a man utterly uneducated, who, without reference to any scientific instrument, could forecast the morrow's weather with accuracy, when the Meteorological Office, with all its appliances, was at fault. Hinery was only a specimen of hundreds of his fellows who can predict to-morrow's (and often longer) weather with unerring accuracy, merely from noticing common details of natural phenomena open to every one. The newspaper forecasts are gen. erally correct as applying to large areas, several hundred miles square; but, as a rule, at fault with respect to localities. Take, for instance, to day's newspaper fore. cast, "N. W. winds, moderate or fresh." "Fair as a whole." The direction of the wind is correct, but it is now, and has been since midnight, raining heavily and continuously. Any observant countryman could have foretold by three o'clock yester. day there was not the faintest prospect of "fair" weather. To ninety nine in every hundred the barometer is of but little value. Its proper use requires long and careful training-merely noting the fall and rise being comparatively valueless. But, with a little practice, any one living inland can, from the following signs, correctly prognosticate for his own neighborhood:

The man who is out of doors at sunrise can form a pretty accurate opinion of what the day will be. If just before sunrise the sky-especially in the west--is suffused with red, rain generally follows in the course of the day. In winter, often snow. If, however, it be frosty weather, the downfall is sometimes delayed. On the other hand, if the sky be a dull gray, and the sun rises clear, gradually dispersing the vapors, it will be fine. If he retires behind the clouds, and there are reddish streaks about, it will rain. Should the sun, later in the day, shine through a gray watery haze, it will probably be a rainy night.

The sunset is very unreliable. Often a beautiful sunset will be followed by a bad day. After a rainy day, suddenly at sunset, in the far west, will appear a magnificent streak of crimson (not copper colored)--this generally foretells a fine day. A A tinted halo round the sun at setting occurs in long-continued rainy weather. halo round the moon, especially if some distance from it, is a sure indication of downfall at hand.

Rainbows are unreliable, except they occur in the morning, when rain may be expected. Sun-dogs and fragments of prismatic colors during the day, show continued unsettled weather. A dazzling metallic luster on foliage, during a cloudless day in summer, precedes a change.

Huge piled-up masses of white cloud in a blue sky, during winter, indicate snow or hail. If small, dark clouds float below the upper ones, moving faster than they, rain will follow, as it will if, in the morning, low-hanging, pale brown, smokelike clouds are floating about. Red tinged clouds, high up, at evening, are followed by wind; occasionally by rain.

Mists at evening over low-lying ground or near a river, precede fine and warm days. If a mist in the morning clears off as the sun gets higher, it will be fine; but if it settles down again after lifting a little, rain is at hand. No dew in the morning is mostly followed by rain; and a heavy dew in the evening by a fine day. Rain follows two or three consecutive hoar frosts. A shower of hail in the daytime is usually followed by frost at night. If, after a rain, drops of water still hang on the branches and twigs and to window-frames, the rain will return; but if they fall and the woodwork dries, fine weather is at hand.

Stones turn damp before wet; at the same time it must be observed that the fact of their doing so does not invariably indicate rain, for they will do so occasionally

before heat

Smoke descending heavily to the ground is a sign of very doubtful weather. Objects at great distances, which are generally indistinctly seen, or even not seen at all, sometimes loom out clear and distinct. When this happens bad weather or changes of wind ensues. A well-known instance of this is the Isle of Wight, as seen from Southsea. If the opposite shore is clearly seen, there is rain about. If, at night, after being blown out and exposed to the outer air, the wick of a candle continues to smoulder a long time, the next day will be fine. Green-colored sky betokens unsettled bad weather, often long continued.

If, on a fine day, the dust suddenly rises in a revolving, spiral column, rain is near. The howling of the wind indicates in most houses, but not invariably, that down. fall is near. In some houses, owing to their construction, the wind always moans. Wherever the wind is at the time of the vernal equinox (March 21 and thereabouts), that will be the prevailing wind throughout the next three months.

If the stars appear unusually numerous and the "milky way" very clearly defined, with the surrounding sky dark, or if there be a misty appearance over the stars, rain is coming; while if there be but few stars and those very bright and sparkling, in a pale steely sky, it will be fine.

Swine, before rain, are unusually noisy and restless. Swallows, in fine weather, will fly high, and at the approach of rain, close to the ground; but the latter does not apply if the day is cold, in which case they hawk very low.

Common sparrows washing vigorously in a puddle on the road or at the edge of running water, is a sure sign of rain. A baker, who kept a parrot in the dry atmosphere of the bake-offices, noticed that a few hours before rain the bird took an imaginary bath, fluttering as if splashing water, and preening her feathers.

The woodpecker before rain becomes uneasy, uttering its cry, "Yoo, yoo-yoo, yoo, yoo," although at other times the most silent of birds. Rain generally follows within the twenty-four hours, often very soon. This may be accepted as an infallible sign. On no occasion, except in the dry summer of 1884, did I ever hear the woodpecker call without downfall following. Then one called on two separate occasions, and no rain followed, although in a few hours threatening clouds rose from the west, but dispersed without rain; still in that year heavy rains fell in one parish, while the adjoining one was left dry, so that after all there may have been rain within a very short distance. If domestic fowls keep out feeding in rain, it will continue; but if they run under shelter directly it comes on, there will probably be only a shower. Rooks, before stormy weather or gales, tumble and pitch in the air, and if they croak as they fly, "Kerk, ke-rack, kerk," instead of their usually long-drawn "Karr-r," stormy weather is coming.

If flocks of fieldfare and redwing suddenly appear on the ploughed land, sharp, hard weather follows. Robins singing at night on the topmost branches of trees, or on the tops of tall buildings, is a pretty sure sign of a fine day on the morrow. If they keep low, the contrary may be expected.

Before rain or thunder flies are unusually troublesome in stinging. Sometimes on a summer day, without warning, all the cock pheasants in a wood will start crowing-very often because they hear thunder too far distant to be perceptible to the bystander.

Should moles, after dry weather commence throwing up their mounds and working briskly, rain will follow. In a frost this foretells a thaw.

Gnats flying in columns in the setting sun portends a fine morrow; but sometimes the winter gnat will do so if the rain only ceases for an hour or two.

The opening of the pimpernel has been given as a sign of a fine day, and its keeping closed the reverse. No reliance can be placed on it. Sunshine causes it to open, while in cloudy weather it keeps closed, even if it be dry.

Besides the foregoing, there are numerous weather signs; but among those mentioned will always be found one or more by which a coming change can be predicted.

IN an article, entitled "English Rule in India," which appears in the North American Review for April, Amrita Lal-Roy asserts that English rule in India

"Is a tale of ruffianism, of sorrow and of shame. Civilization has brought back to us, in the nineteenth century, the darkest days of human suffering. Wherever you go through the vast dominions of the Empress of India' you see a population starved, luckless, cowed, crest-fallen, brooding thoughts of darkness or despair; while stalks hither and thither the Anglo-Saxon, riding over their breasts, spitting in their faces, spreading desolation and and leaving a nightmare wherever he has passed. The peasant slowly stoops to pick the food that allays no hunger, wondering wearily if death is as bad as life, while the wounded ego of the awakened mind mournfully asks if indeed it is for a trumpery British prestige' that it must put up with a condition in which life is one long suffering, and to be born a shame." THE opinion of Prof Noah K. Davis on "The Future of the Negro," in the April number of The Forum, is given in the following words:

"When his growing intelligence has set him free from demagogues, we may expect him to take a responsible and creditable place in public affairs. The gross and injurious blunder of the war party in giving suffrage to the indigent and igno. rant negro has happily resulted in its overthrow. But for many years to come this must still be a disturbing and dangerous factor in our politics, and our only hope is to bring the negro up to a fair understanding of their privilege. The existence of two socially incompatible races in a common government is certainly to be lamented, but Jews and Gentiles have found possible to harmonize their interests, and we may expect a like result. All mere prejudice must give way. What should we care whether the laws, so they be good laws, be made by white or black? We want in Congress men of capacity, honesty, strength. Color is nonessential; a man's a man for a' that. Time and talent made Disraeli the Lord Premier. The time may come when a negro shall be our Secretary of State; and who will be foolish enough to object? With a sublime faith in the vigor of AngloSaxon blood, we do not apprehend the dominance of any other race, but hopefully look forward to the day when the best men, regardless of their origin, shall be our public servants."

MR. JOHN A. MARTIN, in the North American Review for this month, thinks that

"The most assuring prophecy of the future of Kansas is the character of her population. From the date of her territorial organization to the present time Kansas has attracted the best blood and brain of the civilized world. Hither, thirty years ago, came thronging a host of bright and generous men, to oppose the aggression of slavery; and when the Civil War was over, a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union established homes on our broad prairies. No State in the Union can boast of a braver or more intelligent, enterprising, sober, and law-respecting population; and no country in the world can point to achievements or results rivaling those wrought by the citizens of Kansas. These people have wiped a desert from the map of the continent, and replaced it with a garden; they have pushed the plains to the foot-hills of the mountains; they have dotted the treeless prairies with forests; and they are harvesting, each year, crops exceeding in value the products of all the gold and silver mines of the United States. The limits that bound the progress and development of a State having such a citizenship and such resources cannot now be defined; but it is certain that, for at least a quarter of a century, the growth of Kansas will equal, if it does not excel, that of the past." PROF. DAVID SWING says, in The Forum, for April, that

"He is of opinion that the ideal Church will be one in which piety shall outrank doctrine; in which the words of Christ shall outrank all the words of the law-giver, prophet and psalmist; in which the spirit of Christ shall be the overwhelming proof of the presence of a Christian; in which the infinite variety of thought, interpretation, belief and dream shall be forgotten by hearts full of toleration and full of a friendship which shall make a brotherhood out of sentiment, character and duty rather than out of doctrines and definitions."

MR. GEORGE GUNTER advocates the eight-hour system in The Forum, for April, and shows what, in his opinion, must be done to make it effectual:

"For an eight-hour law to be economically and morally effectual, however, it must be national; international would be even better. There is nothing that is susceptible to governmental influence, with which local or State legislation is so Under our present system inadequate to deal, as economic and moral interests. of industry, with the division of labor and the extensive use of machinery, production has to be conducted on such a large scale that no industry of any importance can be sustained by the consumption of its own locality. Indeed, it is too well known to need stating, that there is no important industry in the country that does not depend for its success mainly upon the consumption of many and distant localities. New York and California, South Carolina and New England, Pennsylvania and Texas, are all inseparable parts of the same industrial confederacy, and therefore any legislation upon the subject, to be effectual, must be general. Some good result will follow the local adoption of this measure, as in Massachusetts; but its advantage will be proportionally greater in each locality, according as the area of its application is extended. Accordingly, we find that the economic and moral influence of the eight-hour law, as applied to the isolated navy-yards, is almost imperceptible; while that of the ten-hour law, when applied to a whole State, as in Massachusetts, is very marked and general; and in England, where it has been applied to a whole country, the results are still more striking and permanent. Thus, while the good influence of the general adoption of an eight-hour system upon the prosperity of the community is a scientific certainty, its local or partial adoption would not produce the same proportional benefits. The question therefore is, how can its general adoption be most effectually accomplished?"

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, in the March number of the New Princeton Review, gives his opinion of Gray thus:

"In spite of unjust depreciation and misapplied criticism, he holds his own and bids fair to last as long as the language which he knew how to write so well and of which he is one of the glories. Wordsworth is justified in saying that he helped himself from everybody and everywhere and yet he made such admirable use of what he stole (if theft there was) that we should as soon think of finding fault with a man for pillaging the dictionary. He mixed himself with whatever he took-an incalculable increment. In the editions of his poems, the thin line of text stands

at the top of the page like cream, and below it is the skim-milk drawn from many milky mothers of the herd out of which it has risen. But the thing to be consid. ered is that, no matter where the material came from, the result is Gray's own. Whether original or not, he knew how to make a poem, a very rare knowledge among men. The thought in Gray is neither uncommon nor profound, and you may call it beatified commonplace if you choose. I shall not contradict you. I have lived long enough to know that there is a vast deal of commonplace in the world of no particular use to anybody, and am thankful to the man who has the divine gift to idealize it for me. Nor am I offended with this odor of the library that hangs about Gray, for it recalls none but delightful associations. It was in the very best literature that Gray was steeped and I am glad that both he and we should profit.by it. If he appropriated a fine phrase wherever he found it, it was by right of eminent domain, for surely he was one of the masters of language. His praise is that what he touched was idealized, and kindled with some virtue that was not there before, but came from him."

MR. E. S. NADAL, in the New Princeton Review, combats the opinion "that the office of the diplomat throughout the world will in time become obsolete," and

says:

Time and space may be abolished, as the phrase is, by inventions like the telegraph, but it must always remain true that a person in a foreign country will understand the affairs of that country better than persons who are not there. A foreigu office cannot skip about the world like Aladdin's Palace, and, if it might, it could

not be in a hundred places at the same time and know them all intimately. Governments will always need agents in foreign countries. Does not a business man who is corresponding with persons in a foreign country feel the need of some correspondent to whom he may say things which he does not wish to say to others, and from whom he may obtain information which he could not expect to obtain from others? As soon as his business is large enough, does he not get a correspondent? If a business man needs such an agent, why should not a great government? To send a special agent, as has been proposed, when occasion required, would not meet the necessities of the government. The government needs some one with whom it may communicate instantaneously; it is in constant need of communication upon matters too important to be slighted, and yet not great enough to justify the sending of a special agent to take care of them. The government needs an agent to personally influence the members of the foreign government, and the agent can do this to the more advantage for having the good position which custom has prepared for diplomats, and which is retained by the agents of other countries with whom he would be, to some extent, in competition."

MR. DAVID DUDLEY FIELD discusses the "The Child and the State" in The Forum, for April, and is of opinion

"I. That there should be a public guardian of homeless children under twelve years of age, whose duty it should be to find out the condition and treatment of those brought before him, and when he sees that they require it, to place them in some institution incorporated for the care of such children, to be kept there or sent by them to homes here or in other States. In the category of homeless children may be included not only orphans without homes, but all children under twelve years of age, who are abandoned by their parents or so neglected or abused as to require that they should be taken in charge.

"II. That every police officer should be required and every citizen should be permitted to bring a homeless child before this guardian.

"III. That a child under seven years of age should never under any circumstances be treated as a criminal, and a child between seven and twelve should not be so treated until he has been examined by the guardian and by him sent to the criminal magistrate. No child under twelve should ever be left in the society of criminals under any circumstances whatever."

Mr. Henry GEORGE, in his Essay on American Landlordism, in the North American, says:

"Since man is a land animal that can only live on land and from land; since land is is to him the store-house of all material, the necessary basis of all production, the place and the thing on which alone his power to labor can be put to any use, wherever one part of the people are made owners of the land and another part of the people are denied all legal rights to its use save as they buy or rent it, a fundamental tendency to inequality is set up, which as population increases and inventions are made and the arts develop, operates with increasing force. In the neces

sary relation between man and the planet; in the simple truth, obvious to the veriest savage or the most unlettered child, that it is beyond man's power to make something out of nothing, and that men who are denied all right to the bounty of nature cannot avail themselves of their own power to labor, and hence must be forced into a cut-throat competition to sell their labor to those who alone can provide opportunity for its use, lies the explanation of all those social paradoxes that are so perplexing to men who search for explanations where they cannot he found. Why labor saving invention is turning into a curse, and the opportunity to toil is considered a boon; why, with millions of acres of virgin soil, our roads are filled with tramps; why, with unsatisfied desires for wealth, thousands of willing workers stand idle; why biting want and actual starvation co-exist with what is called "overproduction;" why, in the shadow of church and library and museum, are growing up those fiercer Huns and Vandals of whom Macaulay prophesied; why great armies are marshaling in what is blindly termed the conflict between labor and capital,' and a war is in its incipient stages that may soon give cities to the flames. all this is clear to any one who will regard first principles. Given a world tenanted by human beings like ourselves, with its surface made the property of some of its inhabitants as we are making this continent, and though invention went to the length of enabling all possible wealth to be produced without labor, it would only be to make paupers of those who owned nothing but their labor. Given such a world, and though wealth rained down from the heavens as manna did upon the ancient Israelites, it would all become the property of a class, and, amid mountainous" overproduction," those who had no rights in the land which intercepted the gifts of heaven could only be saved from starvation by degrading charity.

"At the root of all our social difficulties lies a social crime-the crime of denying to the children born among us their equal right to the use of the material universe into which their Creator brings them."

In the current number of the North American Review, Mr. Abraham Payne, in an argument on The Constitutional Reform in Rhode Island," says:

"I think that the power to vote should be imposed upon the citizen to be exer. cised for the welfare of the State, and that every resident citizen, without distinction of sex or race or place of nativity, should be clothed with this power and made to feel its responsibility. I think the danger to the institutions of the State lies not in the direction of the extension of political power to the people, but in its limitation to special classes of the citizens. A government of the people by the people for the people, if it means anything, means a government by the permanent will of the majority of the whole people lawfully expressed. Abraham Lincoln, as was his wont, stated the case in concise and accurate language when he said that " ment by a minority is either anarchy or despotism."

MR. W. P. SHEFFIELD, his opponent, is of opinion that

govern

Every man ought to be entrusted with the privilege of voting who has intelligence enough to know what is for the public benefit, and the integrity to use this

privilege for the benefit of the public; but, unhappily, the State has no standard by which it can ascertain the exact intelligence and integrity of all its citizens. The possession of real property affords evidence of intention to remain in the locality of the property, and, inasmuch as the property will be affected by the action of the government, the holder of the property will become interested in the government so as to protect his property. Then, generally, the possession of property affords some evidence of the industry, economy and prudence of its owner. At any rate, it has a tendency to bind the naturalized citizen to its locality. Property ought not to be a qualification to vote, but it affords evidence that its owner may have the proper qualifications. Under any rules yet devised, many men will be allowed to vote who are unfit repositories for the trust, and many others will be denied the privilege who would faithfully execute the trust. In this country there is more danger of extending the privilege of voting too broadly for the public good than there is to be apprehended from restricting it within too narrow limits."

In the current number of the Popular Science Monthly, David A. Wells says: The popular opinion concerning Mexico is that it is a country of marvelous and unbounded natural resources. Every geography invites attention to the admirable location of its territory, between and in close proximity to the two great oceans; to the great variety, abundance and richness of its tropical fruits-—sugar, coffee, tobacco, dye and ornamental woods, vanilla, indigo, cacao, cochineal, fruits, fibers and the like; and to the numbers of its mines, which for more than two centuries have furnished the world with its chief supply of silver, and are still productive. The result is, that with a majority of well-informed people, and more especially with those who have read about Mexico in those charming romances of Prescott, and who, in flying visits to its capital, have found so much to interest them in the way of the picturesque, and have brought to their eyes little capacity for seeing anything else, the tendency has been to confound the possible with the actual, and to encourage the idea that Mexico is a rich prize, unappreciated by its present possessors, and only waiting for the enterprising and audacious Yankees to possess and make much of, by simply coming down and appropriating.

Now, with these current beliefs and impressions the writer has little sympathy; but, on the contrary, his study and observations lead him to the conclusion that the Mexico of to-day, through conjoined natural and artificial (or human) influences, is one of the very poorest and most wretched of all countries; and, while undoubtedly capable of very great improvement over her present condition, is not speedily or even ultimately likely, under any circumstances, to develop into a great (in the senge of highly civilized), rich and powerful nation."

THE Popular Science Monthly, for April, contains an essay by Mr. Lewis Hochheimer against the revival of the whipping-post for wife-beating in the State of Maryland. In it he expresses opinions that

"Crime is inherent in our defective civilization, and you can't hurry up the march of civilization in any such patent way as lashing men. Criminal law is not a panacea to soften the human heart. Civilization has reached a certain height or While state of development, and sin and crime are concomitants of that state. crime must be punished, it cannot be wiped out. Human nature is so constituted that men revolt at the deliberate infliction of pain upon a fellow-being, more so, indeed, than at any violence or brutality committed by the offender in the heat of passion. Any punishment that shocks the moral sense of a community, as all cruel punishments are calculated to do, falls short of its mark and fails signally to produce the general satisfaction always arising from the administration of wise punishments. Wife-beating is the outcome of a state of society that produces numerous evils of equal degree of which the general public, not acquainted with reformatory work among criminals, are entirely ignorant. Brutal as the offense is, brutality will not be suppressed, civilization will not be advanced one shade nor society benefited or protected by resort to retaliatory punishments. That kind of proceeding always defeats its own object."

THE Nation has its "Opinions on the Scientist in Politics." Referring to Professor Huxley's manifesto on the Irish question, it says:

"It is extremely interesting as showing what kind of government the modern world would get were the Comtist scheme of having councils of scientific men set to rule over the nations, carried out. He expresses in thorough Carlylese his contempt for government by average opinion,' which he says is merely a circuitous method of going to the devil,' and demands instead of it one real statesman' of 'the caliber of Pitt or Burke, to say nothing of Strafford and Pym.' The only mark of such a statesman that Mr. Huxley furnishes to the English people is, that he (the statesman) would 'stand up' and tell his countrymen that the proposed disruption of the Union [with Ireland] is cowardly wickedness,' an act base in itself and fraught with immeasurable evil.' But if this performance is all that is necessary for statesmanship, England swarms to-day with real statesmen. Hundreds of politicians, and particularly Lord Randolph Churchill, have stood up and told Englishmen this very thing, and yet Mr. Huxley says, a little further on, that at the last election he would have voted for the Conservatives for the first time in his life had it not been for Lord Randolph Churchill.' He says

"In Parnell he recognizes a genuine leader of men of the Carlylese sort. of him: Mr. Parnell has great qualities. For the first time the Irish malcontents have a leader who is not eloquent and who is honest, who knows what he wants and faces the risks involved in getting it. Our poor right honorable rhetoricians are no match for this man, who understands realities. I believe that he will succeed, and I bethat success will destroy him, and I am very sorry for him. I respect him. lieve also that his success will destroy English politicians who permit themselves to be his instruments, as soon as a bitter experience of the consequence has brought Englishmen and Scotchmen, and I will add Irishmen, to their senses.' "Nevertheless, instead of rejoicing that the Irish have got a genuine leader who 'understands realities,' and encouraging the English, who have not got one, to listen to him and heed him, he dismisses him with the pleasant remark that 'success will destroy him.'

Carlylese philosophers discoursing on politics have always been a little obscure. They have never yet furnished the world with a good working plan of government, but we doubt if any of them have been more barren in their utterances than Mr. Huxley. What encouragement is there for public men to understand realities,' and become genuine leaders of men, when success will only ruin them? Surely, if the Carlylese gospel had real salvation in it, it would be the duty of the English public now to throw their own statesmen overboard and buckle to Parnell with all their might. In fact, it seems to us painfully apparent, that there is no use in being a real statesman, or grasping the verities, if one does not agree with Professor Huxley on the leading question of the day.

"The manifesto also gives no reason for despising the average opinion,' except that on a particular question Professor Huxley does not share it. If it agreed with his own, touching Gladstone's effort to settle the long quarrel with Ireland, it is plain it would be much more respectable. The appearance of Sir John Lubbock at the furious Jingo meeting at Guildhall, at which Gladstone and Parnell were hissed, makes the scientific opposition to Gladstone now very complete. Tyndall is as furious a Jingo and anti-Gladstonian as anybody, and we suppose there are other scientists of less note also boiling over with indignation against him more privately.

"The phenomenon is most regretable because it will help to increase the growing popular contempt and dislike for the scholar in politics.' The occasional appearances of scientists like Tyndall and Huxley in the political arena are mischievous, because they do not bring with them a scrap or vestige of their scientific equipment. When they get 'inside politics,' they rant and roar just like any stump orator. This is not all. They go much further in the direction of non-science than any politician, for they demand, before they begin their experiments, not the facts as they are, but facts as they would like them to be. Mr. Gladstone did not make modern England or modern Ireland. He found them as they are-t -that is, what six centuries of causation have made them; and the problem he has to solve is to make the actual Englishman and Irishman, and not the ideal Huxleyan Englishman and Irishman, stop quarreling. The 'average opinion,' which Huxley abuses him for regarding, is also one of the great facts of the problem. There is no more use in calling him names for taking it into account than abusing a chemist because alkalis are alkalis instead of being acids, or an artillerist for allowing for the resistance of the air. In truth, the scientists rarely open their lips about politics except when they are much excited about it, and they then almost invariably reveal their incapacity for political thinking. The difficulty of collecting and arranging the facts of all political problems, and the noise and confusion through which average opinion expresses itself, shock their sense of honor and disturb their judgment. If they were ever to succeed to the government of the w rld, they would never be satisfied with anything short of a drilled society, from which political opinion would issue in prescribed lengths with official labels of soundness."

The Courier des Etats Unis, New York, April 15, says:

The House of Commons of England has just ended the first phase of the discussion of the project presented by Mr. Gladstone for the political reorganization of Ireland. It has authorized without a division, the taking into consideration of the bill, which will reach a second reading the 10th of May next. It is well to note that taking into consideration on a second reading neither prejudges nor engages to anything. It coincides with the abandonment of the project by the Daily News, which is the only daily journal in London that supported it. It is worthy of remark that in the whole of this discussion, in which so many impassioned orators have opposed a redress of the grievances of Ireland, not a voice has been raised, not a solitary one, to contest the legitimacy of these grievances and vindicate England from the charges of injustice and oppression which have been brought against her. Meanwhile, the separation demanded is treated almost as a monstrosity or treason, and it seems that minds, the most elevated even, see no other issue than that of coercion, without mercy and without end. But coercion can be an expedient only; it is not an issue. One might believe in it if it had not already been tried; but nothing else has ever come of coercion, while it has served only to envenom hatred. "The policy of coercion," says Sir William Harcourt, "is like strong liquors-the need of them increases with their use." What, then, is to be done, for it is necessary to do something? This is the only point upon which there is agreement, and it is at this question that the first period of this great debate has arrived. The adjournment of the second reading to the 10th of May leaves three weeks of reflection; and public opinion, which is a great power, will have time to make itself felt. The impression which appears to prevail is that the measures proposed by the government will gain ground, and that they will represent themselves before Parliament with chances of success sufficiently augmented to reach a solution; if not, it can be foreseen that the Irish question will issue from this discussion more imperious and more difficult of solution than ever.

THE following is the belief of Eastern Jews in very queer remedies: For hoarseness and complaints of the throat and air passages an approved prescription is to take a new plate, write on it with ink the three mystic names, compounded of the Hebrew letters, "Ain, Yod, Aleph," "Vau, Teth," and Teth, Yod, Koph;" then wash them out with wine, and after adding three grains of a citron used at the Tabernacle festival, drink the beverage. Fits, epileptic, and ordinary, are treated after the following fashion: The patient's head is covered and a pious neighbor stands by the bedside while the "practitioner" called in recites this invocation: "In the name of the Lord of Israel, in the name of the angel Raphael, and in the name of the Hosts of Heaven, and in the name of the One hidden and concealed, I adjure you to quit the body of So-and-So, the son of Soand So, to quit him at once and without doing him hurt: and if you do not go, I curse you with the curse of the tribunal above and of the tribunal below, and with the curse of Joshua the son of Nun." In cases of severe prostration and debility, pounded mummy and human bones are administered, but this is considered a very dangerous medicine, and great precautions are taken to prevent evil spirits interfering with the patient, or hindering his recovery.

SOCIOLOGY.

WHEN SHALL OUR YOUNG WOMEN MARRY?

Brooklyn Magazine for April.

My reply to the important question, "When Shall our Young Women Marry?" is from twenty three to twenty-five, as few girls are ready for the duties of married life before then, either physically or mentally. Many are never fit, owing to the serious defects in our modern education and inherited ills.-LOUISA M. ALCOTT.

It seems to be as impossible to lay down any general rule with regard to the proper age for a woman to marry, as to prescribe a universal diet which shall agree with all stomachs. Of course, the orthodox conventional theory is that a woman should not become a wife and mother until she is fully developed in mind and body. But the time of this development varies with the individual. I have known women in the country homes of Virginia and Kentucky who married at sixteen, reared twelve and thirteen sturdy children, controlled with intelligence and ability large households and estates, and lived to ninety years, hale, wholesome and healthful. And I know many women in New England at thirty whose bodies are weak and flaccid from insufficient food, and whose brains are diseased from morbid introspection, who will never be fit to marry at all.

I am old-fashioned enough to believe that marriage, provided it to be based on pure, strong affection, is better for a woman, even under the worst circumstances, than a single life under the best; and I think, therefore, that the time for a girl to marry is when she meets a man who heartily loves her and whom she heartily loves, if she is old enough to be a helpmeet to him and not a dead-weight.-REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

With regard to the mooted point presented as to when our young women shall it seems to me that in a question so largely dependent upon extraneous conmarry, ditions, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to indicate any fixed rules. In an expression of opinion, however, some things may be noted, although climate, temperament, education and surrounding influences must all tend largely, not only to form the character, but also to create positive adaptations to modes of living.

control,

An early marriage would be safer, for instance, and more likely to conduce to happiness, where the young girl had been trained in habits of obedience and selfAs to any particular age, it seems to me that a young woman of twenty must have seen enough of the social atmosphere in which she lives to be able to discriminate wisely, and if she will only let her tastes and inclinations be measurably guided by parents or guardians who are disinterested, she will not be likely to make any serious mistake. Yet, at an earlier period than twenty, total inexperience of the world makes any choice dangerous.-MADELEINE VINTON DAHL

GREN.

I do not believe in early marriages. The most suitable age seems to me from twenty-five to thirty years. The grave responsibilities which attach to the marriage relation require enough of age to enable one to discriminate and judge of the character of a possible married partner, and also to rear and guide children wisely. There are, of course, many cases where earlier maturity warrants earlier marriage. But the divorces which come from the want of age to give ability to judge of character, and the death rate among children of inexperienced mothers, are "danger signals" warning against the losses which come by too early marriages.-LUCY STONE.

No fixed and immutable law is to be discovered. No man nor woman is to be measured by one standard. The law most fit for one would be death to all progress in the other. So far as my private opinions are concerned, I have said for many years that one remedy for the chaos of married unhappiness, with its tragedies of separation, divorce and general incompatibility, would lie in educating our boys and girls to realize that, as a rule, no man is fit for marriage before thirty, and no woman before twenty-five. The girl who has dreamed of lovers since she could walk alone, and who marries at seventeen or eighteen, has had no discipline to form character, or make her in the faintest degree ready for the ordeal of marriage. -HELEN CAMPBELL.

It seems to me that there can be but one answer to the marriage question, and that is this, "Circumstances alter cases." Maturity is a matter of temperament and condition rather than of years. One girl is older at twenty, or even at eighteen, that is, wiser, more patient, and with more of the "sweet reasonableness" that will fit her to rule a little kingdom well and wisely, than another at thirty. One flower blossoms in May, another in August. Strawberries ripen in June, and pears in September. Probably, as a rule, between twenty and twenty five is the best age for a girl's marriage. But there can be no positive statements as to such a matter. -JULIA C. R. DORR.

Who knows, or who shall venture to decide, what is the most suitable age for girls to marry? There are no two cases alike. In disposition, taste and character great dissimilarities will always be found. No rule can meet the peculiar condition of all. We might as well attempt to number the stars in the heavens or count the sands on the seashore.

There are many reasons why marriage of girls from eighteen to twenty-one would seem to promise the happiest union, always provided that true love was the foundation, and the right one made his appearance, in due season, and was not himself much older. At that age, if the character is above reproach, there should be every promise of their developing into pure and noble maturity. Habits and peculiarities have not become so fixed that it might be a hard struggle for either to yield gracefully their own wishes for the occasional gratification of the other. In early marriages there would seem to be a brighter promise of a perfect union.

They learn more readily to bear one another's burdens, until it becomes a second nature, and neither is conscious of practicing any self-denial.

Those who delay marriage until their habits become too firmly fixed to yield kindly to another's wishes, or peculiarities, have not, we think, so sure a prospect of a pleasant and harmonious life. We would sooner trust an early union to carry the wedded pair down to a peaceful old age, not only without decreasing the love that first drew them together, but with full assurance that it will grow purer and brighter, until that perfect day when both, having passed over the dark river, shall stand with clearer vision and purified love before the throne of God.-EUNICE WHITE BEECHER,

Without favoring very late marriages, I regard immature marriages as a fruitful source of unhappiness. Circumstances being equal, no girl should marry until she is fully mature in body and mind, with tastes sufficiently formed to enable her to make an intelligent choice of the companion of her future life. Furthermore, it is desirable that before marriage she should have an opportunity to see something of the world and to partake of the amusements of her age, that she may not afterward be pursued with regret for having been defrauded of the enjoyment of her youth. To fix a precise limit of age is impossible in a case which varies with each individual.-MARY L. BOOTH.

Among the happy marriages I have known intimately, there have been some of the happiest where the contracting parties were both in middle life, or even past it; and I have known some where they were so young that under the inspiration of first love and generous youth, the two became one so completely as to realize Swedenborg's dictum that a truly married pair appears in the spiritual world, at a distance, as one angel, and on nearer approach two free contrasted individualities tenderly disciplining each other into a divine harmony; while in the case of the elderly couples, it was the harmonious coming together of two self-sufficing worlds. You will say that I am rather stating the question than answering it. Practically, my advice would always be that the girl should never marry till she meets with some one whom she feels to be the satisfaction of her ideal, in the spirit if not entirely so in the form of his character; nor ever sacrifice to circumstances or personal influence her absolute freedom to choose for herself.-ELIZABETH P. PEA

BODY.

I fear, should I undertake to answer the question under discussion, I should speak from a grandmotherly realization of responsibilities, and of the full sense of them to which I seem but just arrived, and say: Don't marry till sixty! But seriously, I hardly think the answer is one to be put in figures; it is a matter of with circumstance and qualification-of heart, mind and conscience-and must vary all varyig condition and development. It should be a question of what makes a I have given woman fit for married life, not of when she shall be pronounced so. my views briefly. I could not come nearer my decision on such a point, though I might dissect to any extent upon the heads involved.-ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.

The three questions, whether it is more conducive to woman's happiness and usefulness to marry young, to marry at whatever age seems preferable, or not to marry at all, appear to be about as equally balanced as the three sides of an equilateral triangle. One might as well attempt to square the circle as to settle the matter definitely. And, let us shake our sagacious heads as we may, young folks will still do as they please.-LUCY LARCON,

"First show me your girl," for there can be no doubt that some girls are mentally, morally and physically better fitted to marry at twenty than others at twentyfive.-LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

RAILROADS.

Scranton Truth.

Railway World.

The Liverpool Review.

The Railway Age.

REPUDIATION Repudiated.—A majority of the authorities of Columbus, Miss., recently undertook to disgrace their town by voting to repudiate bonds to the amount of $100,000, issued by it in aid of the construction of a road now forming part of the Georgia Pacific railroad. The excuse for this dishonest project was that the railroad had discriminated against the town in rates on coal-a flimsy pretext for repudiation, even if the charge were true, although it is now admitted that it was not true. A firm of lawyers was, of course, found willing to declare the bonds invalid, but the honest portion of the community refused to countenance this dishonorable trick, and at a large meeting of citizens a committee was appointed to induce the board to rescind its action and to pay the interest on the bonds, the money for which is already on hand. It is gratifying to observe that this southern town has refused to be guilty of the dishonesty which marked so many western communities during the disgraceful era of repudiation of railway bonds which prevailed some years ago.

The Railway Age.

SUPPLIES FOR RAILROAD MEN.-A correspondent suggests, in an interesting letter in this issue, that one of the ways in which railroad companies can keep the affection and confidence of their men is by furnishing the latter with certain supplies at cost, and also by paying them their wages more frequently than once a month. We believe that these suggestions are entitled to consideration in connection with the matter of better relations between employers and employes. It is a fair question for discussion whether or not railway employes should not receive their pay every week, as nearly all classes of wage laborers do. True, such a course would entail increased labor and expenses upon the railway companies, but if it would promote the comfort of the men, remove from them the embarrassment and expense of buying their household goods on credit, and the accompanying temptation of running up larger bills than they can afford, on account of the ease of getting trusted, will be well worth extra cost and trouble to the railways. At this time, when everything that can properly be done to make the relations of railway employes more satisfactory and more permanent is under consideration, this matter certainly deserves thought and discussion.

Railway World.

A GROWING IMPRESSION.-The London Railway Times says that "The custom seems to have gained ground of late regarding the railways, not as commercial concerns, as they really are, struggling for a return upon the capital invested, but as national institutions existing merely for the benefit of the public; and it is this which renders it almost impossible to arbitrate between two interests so diametrically opposed." The fact that railways are commercial concerns, "struggling for a return upon the capital invested," is so generally ignored by the agitators of anti-railway measures in this country, that it is refreshing to notice a repetition of this fundamental truth. Horatio Seymour indirectly reiterated it, in a discussion of transportation questions published a short time before his death, when he said, in substance, that the efforts of railway managers to secure a reasonable return for the capital invested in railway property were commendable. But this vital consideration is usually treated with contemptuous indifference by the average advocate of important changes in existing railway legislation.

National Car Builder.

HANDLING COAL.-They have a very economical system of handling coal at the coaling stations of the Pan-Handle railroad shops at Indianapolis. The road coal-cars are placed for unloading on a raised track, under which the coal dumpWhen a cars can be run on short tracks set at right angles to the main tract. dump-car is not in under the road-car, the coal is dropped by gravity through a hatch in the bottom of the latter car. The dump-car, now loaded, is run out to a simple elevator and hoisted to the coaling platform, where it is weighed on scales provided for the purpose. A large quantity of coal is handled in this way by a couple of men. The system is well worth looking into by companies desirous of handling their coal with the least possible expense. We have no doubt but Mr. Swanston, the master mechanic, would supply details of the system to any one desirous of adopting it.

The Railway Age.

THE NORTHERN PACIFIC LAND GRANT.-After observing the haste of many members of Congress to keep in the supposed popular current by attacking railway land grants it is gratifying to observe that a minority of the Committee on Public Lands has dared to take a stand in opposition to the proposed forfeiture of all the land grants to the Northern Pacific Railway Company west of the Missouri river. The minority, Messrs. Strait of Minnesota and Van Eaton of Mississippi, seem to think that railway companies ought to be treated with the same quality of justice and the same degree of liberality that is given to individuals, and they evidently cannot sympathize with the clamor for depriving those companies which have built great national highways through the wilderness of the land which was voted them as a partial consideration therefor. After reviewing the law and the facts the minority report says that under all the circumstances the company has done all that the Government could reasonably expect or require.