confined to those who read. Books are largely bought by people who fancy books, who take them home intending to read, but don't.

We have ourselves little doubt that the decline in serious reading, which Mr. Holt says interferes with the sale of solid works, is now to be witnessed in continuous reading of any kind, and that it is from this that novels in a book form are suffering. To read a book-any book whatever-with pleasure or even comfort, the attention has to be so disciplined that it can pursue one line of thought for at least an hour or two. Keeping one's mind on a book of any kind needs practice, just as much as keeping one's mind on a speech or sermon. The capacity for listening well is now rarely found except among judges and lawyers, and even among the judges it is said to be falling off under the influence of printed briefs and arguments. But it has to be cultivated in order to be either attained or retained, as everybody knows who only occasionally goes to hear a sermon or lecThe untrained attention runs hither and thither like a restless child, and nothing but a very determined effort of the will keeps it fixed on the words of the orator or wards off sleep, in which, again like a restless child, it is very apt to take refuge on the slightest approach of fatigue. Curiously enough, too, the incapacity for sustained attention or mental effort is one of the most marked characteristics of the savage, as distinguished from the civilized man. All who have had to do with the savage in any part of the world testify that the greatest difficulty in communicating new ideas to him is that of getting him to listen long on any one subject. His mind is as prone to wander as that of a child.

ture.

The capacity for reading a book—that is, for keeping the mind fixed on one argument or narrative for a period more or less prolonged-has always, in modern times, been much more widespread than the capacity for listening, owing to the fact that we all get our earliest mental training through books. As long, too, as books were the only sources of entertainment, and large numbers of more or less cultivated people lived in the country, and there were no newspapers or other periodicals, and few amusements, and travel was rare and expensive, the habit of reading was kept up. But there is great reason to fear that, what with the newspapers, and the magazines, and the art galleries, and the museums, and the theaters, and facility with which we can get other people to gossip with us when we are both idle and lazy, the number of those who can or ever do read a book—even a novel, even a poor novel-is rapidly declining. In fact, we fear that any one who inquired among his friends, outside the professors and professional literary men, would find that the number of those who now ever read a serious book of any kind is exceedingly small, and that those who read even novels is growing smaller. Most men who have not kept up the habit of reading, in fact, go to sleep over a serious book almost immediately, and throw down a novel after a few pages if the plot does not thicken rapidly or the incidents are few. The thoughtful novel, such as George Eliot's, filled with reflection and speculation, would fare much worse now, even coming from an author of her powers, than it did thirty years ago. The newspaper is fast forming the mental habits of this generation, and, in truth, even this is getting to be too heavy, unless the articles or extracts are very short. The reader begins more and more to resent being asked to keep his attention fixed on any one subject for more than five minutes. In short, any one who flatters himself during the busy years of an active career, when he does no reading but newspaper reading, that he is going to become a reader of books at a later period when he gets more leisure may rest assured that he is greatly mistaken. When leisure comes he will find that a serious book will tire him or send him asleep in ten minutes, just as a dumb bell would tire a long unused arm. To be able to read continuously for long periods, at any time of life, just as to be able to row, or walk, or ride, one must keep in practice year after year, by doing more or less of it every day or at least every week. The man who finds that he shrinks from a book and longs for a Sunday paper may feel as sure that he is mentally "out of condition as the athlete who cannot bear to leave his easy-chair without a cocktail.

The falling off in the practice of book-buying, even among those who mean to read but do not, of which Mr. Holt speaks, we think is due, in a considerable degree, to the superior attractions of what we may call other kinds of furniture. For books, whether old or new, are to the collector-that is, to the man who buys books without seriously meaning to read them, and without feeling much interest in what they contain-books are furniture rather than literature. Thirty years ago, before the aesthetic movement-that is, before the days of "art" and bric-abrac in this country-a "substantial citizen," who had made money and wanted to show it, ordered a library, as a matter of course, when furnishing his new house. It filled some of the vast spaces on the walls of his parlor, which, in those days, the upholsterer, who used to be wholly occupied with the carpets, tables, and chairs, did not reach. But about 1860 the painters and sculptors began to get hold of the rich men, and pictures and statues began to take the place of books as evidences of wealth, and the hold of the author on him has ever since been steadily loosening. The aesthetic movement has loaded him with wood-carving, China, Japanese ware, rugs, tapestry, bronzes, gems, and bibelots of all sorts, which call for every inch of room he has in his house, and tickle the pride of his wife and daughters as much as his own, which the books never did. Consequently he has ceased to be a book-buyer, and has become, either mildly or furiously, what is called a "collector." With literature, in any sense of the word, he has now little connection, except through the monthly reviews, and these his wife is more apt to read than he is. Of serious books he knows little more than the knights knew in the middle ages, and the "literary feller" stands to him very much in the position of the "clerk" at that period, as the possessor of a curious art, but one which was of little practical use, beyond occasionally keeping the possessor out of jail when brought up for felony.-The Nation.

Literature's DeBT TO THE STAGE.-Mr. Henry Irving, having produced the play of "Faust" for one hundred and eighty-eight successive nights in London, is on his way to New York again, not to act, but to give a dinner to his friends at Delmonico's, and thence to betake himself to Newport and a yachting cruise. Now, whatever else may have been the effect of this last adaptation of Goethe's masterpiece, it is a noteworthy fact that during its run the London booksellers have sold

more than one hundred thousand copies of the original drama in its various translations. The special fact that we cite teaches a valuable lesson. It proves with considerable certainty that many thousands of persons have been prompted, through the medium of the stage, to read a great literary work of which they knew nothing before. It is a well-attested truth that numbers of English-speaking people have derived their sole acquaintance with English history from seeing Shakespeare's plays, and the effect of Irving's production of "Faust" is a fresh instance of a similar result. If the stage owes much to literature, literature, it is plain, owes something also to the stage.-New York Herald.

THE PROFITS OF GEN. GRANT'S MEMOIRS.-The Philadelphia Times publishes some authoritative figures as to the sales of Gen. Grant's Memoirs, and as to Mrs. Grant's share of the profits thereon. The lowest subscription price is $7.50, while the cost of manufacturing the book is only 75 cents a volume, and it costs as much more to distribute each volume. Other figures of cost are given, and the following is the summing up:

The foreign and future sales are estimated at another $100,000. The cost of translation into several tongues must be accounted for. It will be safe only to count the gross returns at the same rate as that given for the larger number.

MR. HOWELLS ON ZOLA.-Speaking of Professor Davidson's discussion of Zola, at the Concord School, Mr. W. D. Howells said: "To my thinking, on the moralistic side Zola does not need any defense, but to group him with Christ and Plato was where Mr. Davidson made his great mistake. Of course, if a man treats vices frankly he makes them ugly, because they are ugly, and that, suppose, is Zola's chief merit as a moralist. It seems to me that Zola is a very earnest man, and while I would not touch his material with a pair of tongs, a ten-foot pole, or anything of the kind, still, he has a right to do what he is doing, and he is not doing it in any vicious way at all, to my thinking. In ability Zola is the greatest Frenchman living, though he does not compare with such Russians as Tolstoi."

-The news

NOTES. The Critic calls Mr. Churton Collins a new Macaulay.papers are circulating a report that the Century is about to follow up its war series with a series of illustrated articles on the workings of the Russian penal system in Siberia. It is said that these articles will be written by a Washington journalist named George Kennon.- -J. B. Lippincott Company have in press a "Manual of North American Birds," by Prof. Robert Ridgway, curator of the department of birds at the Smithsonian. The work is to contain some 425 illustrations. -The New York Tribune thinks the description of the bull-fight which appears in Miss Tincker's story, Lolita (Lippincott for August), the best ever written by a woman.

-The San Francisco Post says of modern American literature: "Colorless novels, inane descriptions of unnecessary journeys over hopelessly familiar roads, inconclusive and distressingly polite arguments about the capacity of needle points for angelic hops, share, with exquisite illustrations, the honor of having brought our periodicals to their highest pitch of prosperity."- -Mr. Gladstone, replying to inquiries as to the best books on the historical side of the Irish question, is reported to have recommended Goldwin Smith's article on Pitt in his " English Statesmen," Lecky's "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," and "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," many portions of Froude's " English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," "Lord Cloncurry's Personal Recollections of His Lifetime, with Extracts from His Correspondence," and above all Burke, especially his writings on America as applied to Ireland. As regards the recent history of the land question, Mr. Gladstone recommended Barry O'Brien's articles in The Nineteenth Century.-Inane summer novels have made their appearance in large numbers this season. American publishers have somehow got the idea that the public are satisfied with any insane drivel during the heated term.-The Keynote. -Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, who enjoys the celebrity of having written more novels than any American author, past or present, has just published another book through the Petersons. It is over six hundred pages long, and bears the characteristic title of "The Missing Bride."- -W. D. Howells new novel will commence in the November Harper's. It will deal with American life.- -John Ruskin's "Examples of the Architecture of Venice" in the first large paper edition is bringing higher prices each year. A copy brought $250 at a London sale last week.. Of the new cheap edition of "Vanity Fair" recently published in England, 60,000 copies were taken by the trade at once.— -Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" will be issued by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in a pocket series soon to be started by them, and to comprise in all ten volumes. Miss Jewett's "Deephaven" will be included in the series.. Mr. Alfred Austin is finishing a long dramatic poem called "Prince Lucifer." The story, which is a romantic one, the action of which takes place in the neighborhood of the Matterhorn, is intended to reflect, in a fanciful garb, the religious conflict and ethical uncertainties of the age.

THE AUGUST MAGAZINES.

THE CENTURY.-Seriel stories and illustrations make the midsummer number of the Century Magazine charming means of literary recreation on a holiday. Historical and biographical sketches are entertaining and instructive, the war papers occupy a prominent place among the illustrated articles, and the labor

question is not neglected, though it is not considered of the first importance in the summer months.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.-The venerable North American Review completes a notable anniversary with the August number, which rounds up the seventy-second year of its continuous publication. But age has not abated its force or dimmed its insight, and the present number is abreast of the times in its treatment of topics of contemporaneous interest.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.-The success of this popular magazine is well understood by those who are its regular readers. It never has its "off" issues, but each number is replete with the most instructive and most entertaining papers. The August number now before us is one of the best ever issued.

ST. NICHOLAS FOR AUGUST.-Goes out of doors to seek congenial topics for its readers, who are spending their vacations by the sea, amoung the mountains, or in country homes. The frontispiece, by Mary Hallock Foote, gives us a bright glimpse of child life at the seaside, while the opening article, "A Rocky Mountain Hermit," by Alfred Terry Bacon, is a delightful account of a Robinson Crusoe summer spent among the birds, the beasts, and the mountains of Wyoming.

THE FORUM.-Positive views are conspicuous in most of the contents of the August number of the Forum, and indeed this has been a noticeable characteristic since its first number. It is a gratifying fact not only to its publishers, but to the intelligent public that the Forum is proving a great success. It will deserve it. THE PANSY comes to our table again as bright and beautiful as ever. Such a flower of literature and art must leave a sweet odor in the nursery, as its influence on children's minds is most remarkable.

THE BROOKLYN Magazine.—A splendid array of light, brief, and seasonable articles makes the August number especially adapted for summer reading.

WIT OF THE WEEK.

"WAS the man intoxicated who fell in the circus tent last evening?" asked Mrs. De Groof of her husband.

"No, the man was all right," was the reply. "He was walking a tight rope.— Life.

CUSTOMER -"But ain't the trousers too long?"

Merchant-"Too long? Dey is made to fit a man exzekly your size. If your legs happen to be a drifle short you must quarrel mit nature-not de tailor."Fudge

FRED "What time is it by you watch, Gus?"

Gus I don't know. I've just been there myself."—Judge.

"You can get a watermelon a yard long for twenty-five cents," says a Florida paper. And you can get a cramp forty-seven feet long, done up in a knot as big as your fist for the watermelon, and have the rinds left for sweetmeats and pickles. Washington Critic.

ON THE VERANDA AT NEWPORT.-Mamie Van Astorbilt-"Oh, Mr. De Fly, see that Van Islip girl with Baron von Giesenbach? Did you ever meet the Baron in New York?

Mr. De Fly (laconically)—" No-shave myself."—Puck.

CUSTOMER (from Rhode Island)-"I want them 'ere pant'loons made for quarts."

Tailor-"Beg pardon, sir; but I don't know what you mean by making the trousers for quarts."

bottles.

Customer-"Why, I mean for you to make the pistol pocket to hold quart Puck. You see, we have to cart our own saloons around up our way."PERSPIRATION is pore relief these days.- Washington Critic.

THE RULING PASSION STRONG IN DEATH.-A stranger loitering about a mill the other day was caught by a belt and drawn into the machinery. He was taken out in a dying condition, but smiled faintly as he remarked to his rescuers: "I see you are determined that I shall no longer remain incog." He was a professional humorist.

AT a revival meeting in a country town not long ago a young convert, who was by business a milkman, arose to speak. Just at that moment one of the brethren started in with the hymn: "Shall we Gather at the River ?"

"Now I lay me down to sleep,"

A little fellow said;

"If I should die before I wake How will I know I'm dead?"

I should

-Merchant Traveler. SCRAWLEY" So old Smoothbore is going to start a daily paper? think a man as far behind the times as he could find something more appropriate to do."

Pennibs" Well, he says he wants to mold public opinion.”

Scrawley-"I guess he can do it; his own opinions are moldy enough."-The Rambler.

MISS CLEVELAND, rumor says, is engaged upon a novel depicting Washington society, to be called "Ex-Rex and Rex."

The chapter relating the Brown-Potter-Hostler-Joe episode will be called "ExNecks and Necks." This is reliable.-The Rambler.

EVENTS OF THE WEEK.

THURSDAY, JULY 29.

DOMESTIC.-The Concord School of Philosophy closes its session. Destructive hail-storms occur in New York and Pennsylvania. Two men are cowhided by a woman editor at Indianapolis. The Ohio Prohibitionists nominate a ticket. There is much talk in New York about the Squire-Flynn letter. Hubert O. Thompson is buried.

CONGRESSIONAL.-The Senate debates the Morrison Surplus resolution, and the House considers pension vetoes. The President nominates Geo. A. Jenks for Solicitor-General. FOREIGN.-The new English ministry is informally announced and much discussed. A Dutch steamship is captured by pirates.

FRIDAY, JULY 30. DOMESTIC-Disastrous storms occur throughout the country; two villages in Ohio are reported swept away. Mayor Grace says the now famous letter of Rollin M. Squire to Maurice B. Flynn was handed by the late Hubert O. Thompson ten days ago to a friend of the mayor. The mayor, however, says he never saw the letter or knew its contents definitely until the commissioners of accounts presented it to him in the discharge of their duty.

DOMESTIC.-Mayor Harrison is a witness in the anarchist trial in Chicago. General Butler and others visit Lieutenant Henn on the Galatea, in Marblehead harbor. Forcible possession of the city hall of Utica, N. Y., is taken by the United States marshal. James L. Whittier, a lawyer, is arrested at Boston, Mass., charged with embezzling $125,000 of the estate of Mrs. Harriet D. Reed. During a sham fight at the Indiana State encamp ment one militiaman is mortally wounded and twenty-five are prostrated with the

heat.

CONGRESSIONAL.-The Senate spends much of the day in secret session. The House agrees to Senate amendments to Naval Ship Construction bill. The President signs the Oleomargarine bill.

FOREIGN.-The returns do not yet show definite results of the French elections. Ther is a strike threatened against the payment of rents in Ireland. TUESDAY, AUGUST 3.

DOMESTIC.-Mr. Blaine speaks at Chautauqua Camp, in Maine, on college education. A. P. Williams, a San Francisco merchant, is elected United States Senator from Califor nia. Snow falls to the depth of one and one-half inches on Mount Washington. By the explosion of an old and condemned boiler at Lanford, Pa., four men are killed and several injured. Whittier, who embezzled $125,000 of the money of his client, Miss Reed, in Bostun, confesses his guilt and is committed to jail. Near Brookfield, Mo., John Garner 18 arrested for a misdemeanor, when his brother Edward kills the constable, nearly chop ping his head off with an axe. As a neighbor comes to help the constable Garner kills him also, slashing the axe through his ribs. He escapes, and is pursued by lynchers.

VOL. I.

POLITICAL.

THE LATE SAMUEL J. TILDEN.

THE death of Samuel J. Tilden, at Greystone, on the 4th inst., has elicited extended and varied comment.

New York Star (Dem.), August 5.

On the evening of election day the plan to seize the Government was formed in the brains of men, who, whatever may be said against them, did not lack the courage to carry out their hearts' desire. Zach Chandler, coarse and even brutal, but with the will to dare and do, stood in strong and decisive contrast with the politic Tilden, secretive, cautious, and hesitating. The men typified the events and the results. All the later years of his life Mr. Tilden strove to make his countrymen forget his recreancy at that fateful time; but the assertions that have been made in his behalf are either false or only true in part. He was the leader of his party, but he refused to lead. He was looked to as the guide of the people, but he had no counsel to give. There is no stranger, no more pitiful spectacle in history than this wise old statesman, striving by his wily arts to meet the requirements of a time which could not be met except by open and defiant action. During all these later years he has lamented the dishonor which the Electoral Commission brought upon the country, and the violence that it wrought upon our institutions; but at the time he did nothing to defend his country from the disgrace and the violence. Those who went to him for knowledge got no reply. In the very hour of his fate he was speechless and without resource. The greatest crime of our history could not wring from the lips of its chief victim even a cry for help.

Galveston News (Dem.), August 5.

THE death of Mr. Tilden adds an intellectual figure of colossal height to the Pantheon of Amerian citizenship. It can hardly be said that the event makes a very perceptible void, for Mr. Tilden had lived beyond his career as a potent, organizing, and directing influence. Though he retained his intellectual vigor to the last, a variety of causes conspired to neutralize it, and for a long while before he died he had survived his hour, and in some sort his opportunity. The living statesmanship of the day, in its self-complacent conceit, may well feel that it has suffered no grievous loss by the death of this intellectual giant and this sagacious patriot, and the country has all the more reason to feel that for it the event denotes a great need, if it does not actually mark a grievous loss. As a statesman, Mr. Tilden was a striking instance of the union of philosophical grasp and practical aptitude. An intense reformer of public abuses in the true sense of abatement and elimination of the abuses, he was also an intense conservative in the true sense of jealous regard for sound principles and invincible repugnance to dangerous extremes.

New York Commercial Bulletin, August 5.

WE think there can be no doubt that, as a matter of history, had Mr. Tilden been actuated by selfish ambition instead of a spirit of self-denying patriotism, the country could hardly have escaped the throes of a second civil war following the memorable contest for the Presidency in 1876. All the elements of a tremendous explosion were then at hand, but his hand declined to touch the fuse, and an angry controversy, upon which the peace of the country hung as it were by a hair, was happily brought to a peaceful conclusion. It was a rare opportunity for a daring demagogue or publicist of the Cromwell or Bonaparte type; but in this instance the influence of the man was employed in stilling the tempest of political passions and subordinating personal considerations to the welfare of his country. We say such a man-quite apart from party leadership-was the highest type of an American citizen, and as such his name and his memory will be revered long after the political contentions and the personal rivalries of his time have passed into oblivion.

New York Evening Post (Ind.), August 5.

MR. HEWITT is quoted in a Washington dispatch to the World as saying that Mr. Tilden lacked the courage to assert his claims to the Presidency in a public proclamation, and go on to Washington on the 4th of March, 1877, to be inaugurated, in which case Mr. Hewitt believes that he would have secured the office; but it is both more reasonable and more creditable to attribute Mr. Tilden's rejection of such advice to a sense of patriotism. He knew, as everybody else knew, that it was impossible that any such assertion of his claims should be peacefully acceded to; that a civil war over the succession would have been inevitable if the verdict of the Electoral Commission had not been accepted. Mr. Tilden will stand infinitely better in history, with the record as it is now made up, than if he had sought to take his seat, and it is greatly to his credit that in the stress of that stormy period he had such a clear comprehension of the requirements of a farseeing patriotism; but most likely Mr. Hewitt never said anything of the kind. New York Tribune (Rep.), August 5.

FOR the present, criticism is hushed. To-day finds his countrymen reflecting only

No. 18.

upon the great good that was in the man, and sincerely sorrowing at the loss of so much sterling worth. That his death is a most serious calamity to the political organization to whose fortunes he was so passionately devoted is evident. There seems to be no one to take his place. Horatio Seymour-that other favorite son of Democracy who preceded him but a little into the silent land-was a wise counselor, and an always-inspiring presence, but he lacked that combination of qualities which made the Sage of Greystone such a political force. Seymour was a statesman, but not a politician. Tilden was both. He understood how to organize and conduct a canvass on the most skilful lines, while, at the same time, he was an accomplished student of the underlying principles of government; he was equally at home in practical and philosophical politics.

L'Eco d'Italia (Ind.), New York, August 6.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

MR. TILDEN, the most earnest champion of Democracy, has associated his name with all the memorable events evolved in the United States during the last half century. It was by his act and deed that the Democrats achieved a moral and, numerically considered, material victory in the Presidential election of 1876. It was by his admirable wisdom, and foresight as well, that the country was spared the scourge of civil war. If in the matter thus happily adjusted a proper tribute of praise is to be accorded to the civil education of this people, the debt of public gratitude should none the less be forgotten which is due to the man who, the most deeply interested and directly the most injured party in the transaction, could silence every whisper of selfishness or personal ambition in the single endeavor to preserve the peace of the country.

St. Paul Press (Rep.), August 5.

PERSONALLY above suspicion, with integrity that no one could attack, his campaign for the Presidency, with the subsequent attempts to secure the needed electoral vote, showed on a larger scale what was demonstrated by all the minor facts of his public history, that he was not a stranger to the most reprehensible tactics of politics, and that he would freely profit by the work of men whose acts and methods he might disown with all the horror of indignant virtue. Such was the man, no less remarkable than distinguished, who was the life and strength of his party for so many years. Even in his age and weakness he was worth a legion to the Democracy. History, while dissipating the absurd halo of submission to alleged injustice which it has suited party purposes to throw around him, will mark him as one of those Americans who have been great as leaders of men.

New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Ind.), August 5.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

THE fruits of his relative activity have not resulted according to his endeavors, inasmuch as his personal ambition did not attain its supreme gratification; but to the people they have proved useful in a very high degree, and through this he has justly won a claim to their enduring gratitude. These fruits may have matured otherwise than they hovered before his mental perception, but, notwithstanding, they sprang from seed which he himself had planted, and in whose dissemination he was peculiarly interested. For this very reason his name deserves to be held in especial honor, and this will make it all the easier to judge more mildly, by his bier, of certain shadows upon his public and civic life than in manifold ways has been done during his lifetime.

Hartford Courant (Rep.), August 5.

THERE are many Northern Democrats who will always believe that he was duly elected President. The great majority of the Republican party, on the contrary, believe that, except for the most egregious frauds on the ballot in the Southern States, the result never would have been in dispute. The Electoral Commission, originated by Mr. Tilden's party friends, decided the result, and that decision stands, and will forever stand. With the feeling that then existed in the Republican ranks, in relation to the frauds in the South, any attempt to forcibly dispute the result as announced by the Commission would have resulted very disastrously to those making it. Mr. Tilden had the wisdom to recognize the situation, and accepted the result, although some of his unwise backers have endeavored to keep the issue alive.

Buston Herald (Ind.), August 5.

MR. TILDEN was a patriot in his impulses, a thorough Democrat in his convictions, and an honest man in all his private dealings. His greatest gift, aside from those which we have considered, was his power as a writer upon public questions. No such incisive, clear, forceful writing has been done by any statesman of either party for many years as has marked Mr. Tilden's letters on public affairs. They have been characterized, furthermore, by the kind of wisdom that pertains to statesmen who have become spectators of events rather than participants in them, of which wisdom the calmness of retrospect and the light of prophecy are constituent parts. Mr. Tilden's recent letters on the need of coast defences were examples of his work of this kind which will be long remembered.

New York News (Dem.), August 8.

THE Community's special debt of gratitude is due to the dead statesman for the

great service that he rendered it while living, in inspiring and directing the movement that resulted in the exposure and overthrow of the dishonest but powerful combination that, under the leadership of the astute but unprincipled Tweed, manipulated for years a machinery of fraud and corruption at the expense of the taxpayers of the metropolis. The example thus given of stern, efficient, and uncompromising hostility to dishonesty in office ought, at this day of mourning for the passing away of the exemplar, to energize the work of detection, trial, and punishment of unfaithful public servants to which our judiciary and other guardians of our local interests have been recently called.

Rochester Herald (Rep.), August 5.

He was noted for his thoroughness in the mastery of details, his persistency in the pursuit of an object or in carrying out a policy; his shrewdness and sagacity as a political leader and adviser, and his bias toward philosophic principles in political economy. That he was a great organizer, his campaign for the governorship and the Presidency amply demonstrated. In temperament he was cold and calulating. He had few confidential friends, though he shrewdly led many to believe they were such. He never failed to do full justice to his own personal interests, and rarely suffered loss, whatever might be the experience of his friends and associates. In the intellectual qualities we have specified he was a great man.

Detroit Free Press (Dem ), August 5.

MR. TILDEN was a magnificent type of the best American statesmanship. He was endowed with solid erudition. He had not only political sagacity but political scholarship. He had a large and patient mind, quick to perceive, robust to retain the great principles of the Government under which he was born and lived. Like all master minds, his was indefatigable and toilsome, circumscribing an enormous field of details, but capable of absorbing, classifying, and using them with powerful effect. He was versatile, but not superficial; clear and virile, but without extravagance or bluster. He was gifted with extraordinary foresight and a capacity for adapting means to ends which signify the leader and organizer everywhere. New York Sun (Dem.), August 5.

MILLIONS of men, and men of all parties, have desired that the great wrong should be righted, and that they might be allowed to give him their suffrages. This feeling has remained ardent and intense to the very hour of his death. Many friends of his were ready to urge that, willing or unwilling, well or ill, he should be nominated and elected to the Presidency, to vindicate the right of the people and to correct the unspeakable infamy committed in 1877. But his death has put an end to all these hopes, and the man who more than any other represented the very principle of the Republic, and whose part in its history is unique and imperishable, has passed away from among us forever.

Indianapolis News (Ind.), August 5.

In the absence of perspective which contemporaneous opinion has, it yet seems to us that it can be safely said of Tilden that he did much to make him a prince of practical politicians, and nothing to rank himself among statesmen; that he left no impress of a noble character. Who will point to it with pride as an American product? Who will commend it to the sons of his blood or his affections as a pattern? Who, even in a worldly sense, beyond its fine, razor-like keenness of acquisition in material things, would hold it for a model manifestation, with its whisperings, its phantom-like flittings, its disappearances, its dark-lanternism, and the "chink! chink!" of money in cellar and closet.

Cincinnati Enquirer (Dem.), August 5.

THE intellectual gifts of Mr. Tilden were of the highest order, but the most remarkable quality of his mind, next to its moral courage and its fidelity to principle, was the comprehensive nature of his judgment. He saw the whole of a subject. He studied it through and through. He mastered it in every respect. He pursued it in all of its remote ramifications, and when he came to discuss it in public his views were so expansive, his arguments so clear, and his presentation so luminous that all intelligent minds were carried along with him, and the results at which he had arrived were transferred to his audience, to his readers, to the public.

Brooklyn Eagle (Dem.), August 5.

His death finds his principles dominant in the Government and his pupils administering it. The people, under the lead of those whom his self-abnegation and wisdom raised to power, will tender present tribute to his character and genius, and America will write on her tablets of memory, and preserve in the Pantheon of her affection, the name and the fame of him, as the greatest of the statesmen to preserve and to augment, in the second century of the Republic, the blessings and the principles which its founders were permitted by God to establish in the world for the hopes and for the happiness of all the men in all the ages which are yet to be.

Springfield Republican (Ind.), August 5.

MR. TILDEN had the electoral votes necessary to his election, but returning boards cut them down to a minority and the Electoral Commission refused to go behind the returns. During that crisis, Mr. Tilden preserved a calm and dignified silence which saved the nation from the slightest turbulence or sedition over the result, disappointing as it was to his party and to many who did not support him but thought him elected. All criticism of his conduct because he did not "take his seat has long since been hushed, and his high patriotism shown in the self-restraint and dignity of that moment has been recognized.

Louisville Courier-Journal (Dem.), August 5.

His memory and influence will be perpetual. Fortunately, the record of his life and character is not all that is left to us. The results of his thought will be handed down in his written works, which will take a high rank in the literature of statesmanship. The master of a noble style, elevated and lucid, virile and polished, the principles of Democracy are expounded in his writings in a manner that is as

forcible as it is pleasing, as luminous as it is cogent. His published works will endure as the worthiest monument to a man whose name will perish only with that of the Republic which owes him so much.

National Republican (Rep.), August 5.

FEW men have ever possessed the confidence of a great party to such an extent as did Mr. Tilden. We do not think he was the object of anything like popular affection. There was nothing in the man, nothing in his mental qualities or habits, to touch the popular heart; but the Democratic masses, as well as politicians, relied implicitly on his judgment. They believed in his wisdom and sagacity. To the very hour of his death, in spite of failing nature and close seclusion, he could have exerted a greater influence in his party, had he sought to do so, than any other member of that party.

Brooklyn Union (Ind.), August 12.

AMONG Mr. Tilden's undisputable titles to greatness, his will is likely to take the first place. It is, perhaps, the clearest recognition that has been made in this generation of the fiduciary obligations of the owners of great wealth. That the rich man is primarily a trustee for society, and that he owes it to his fellowmen to distribute his wealth in such fashion as to give the most effectual aid to human progress, is a lesson which will be very hard to learn, here or elsewhere, and the man who illustrates it by a great example, as Mr. Tilden has done, takes a very high place among the benefactors of his kind.

Baltimore News (Dem.), August 7.

He was a pure and patriotic citizen, an earnest Democrat, and a wise and prudent patriot. To him the Democratic party owes more than to any one individual for its success, indeed for its existence, and to him the country is indebted for whatever service the Democratic party in power or as a powerful opposition has achieved or influenced. He has been, since the war, the guide, adviser, and captain of that organization, and if it had obeyed him more implicitly and followed him more faithfully, it would long ago have won success for itself and been instrumental in accomplishing great good for the country.

Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.), August 7.

IT is a matter of surprise that the Democratic press does not understand the folly and bad taste of perpetuating the fraud clamor, now that the only possible chance of gaining anything by it has passed away forever. Of the dead, speak nothing but good, and it surely is not good to say of Samuel J. Tilden that he. was such a pusillanimous and driveling old dotard as to permit a high-handed outrage on himself, on his party, and on the country when the people had just consigned the whole power of the nation into his keeping.

Der Deutsche Correspondent (Dem.), August 5.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

FOR half a generation Samuel J. Tilden was the foremost man in the Democratic party, and although for nearly eight years he had withdrawn from public life, his influence was yet very considerable up to the last hour of his life. He had regenerated and reorganized the Democratic party, and under his banner the latter had won its first national victory. He is, in fact, an ex-President of the United States, and in respect to his memory all the honors justly due such a distinction should of right be accorded him.

Mobile Register (Dem.), August 5.

It has been his good fortune to live to see the Democracy in control of the Government. More fortunate than Moses, he has been permited to enter the promised land, while the sun of his life has set in a horizon roseate with the hues of hope for the land he loved so well; and the legacy he has left to his country and his party is his devotion to constitutional government. In following his example, in remembering his precepts, the Democracy will follow the path of duty, and will deserve and will gain continued success.

Atlanta Constitution (Dem.), August 5.

A GREAT and good man has gone to his final reward. When this is said what more need be said? There will be flags at half mast and demonstrations of mourn ing all over the land, but these are only the outward signs of the nation's grief. Deep down in every American heart there is a feeling that "passeth show," and it can not be adequately voiced in any of the fleeting tributes of the day. We must look to the eulogist and the historian for the fitting commemoration of the virtues of our great leader.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Rep.), August 5.

THAT he was a great man in his time and way it would be idle to deny. No man of common endowments could have made himself the power in American politics that he did. His ability was unquestionably the highest of its kind, and he applied it always with a view to practical results. It was not statesmanship of the best sort by any means; it was rather the talent that is manifested most potently in the successful control and direction of great financial or commercial enterprises.

Charleston News and Courier (Dem.), August 5.

THE measures by which Mr. Tilden was deprived of the Presidency and the people were cheated out of their votes are familiar to the world. It was in this crisis of his career that Mr. Tilden displayed a weakness which led many of his

supporters to the conclusion that he was no longer a safe leader, and was unfit for any great emergency. But, weak as he was at that critical juncture, no one has ever questioned the sincerity of his convictions or the purity of his motives.

Courrier des Etats-Unis (Ind.), New York, August 5.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

MR. TILDEN was regarded as the most sagacious mind in the Democratic party of New York, and as one of its ablest political chieftains. The elevation of his character and the wisdom of his counsels are chiefly manifested in circumstances wherein great interests were compromised by abuses of power, and his energetic contention against peculation and venality have placed him in the front rank of reformers. This was the dominant feature in his career as a public man.

Army and Navy Journal, August 7.

His last public utterance took the form of a letter addressed to Senator Hawley urging an appropriation for fortifications. The spirit in which this wise and patriotic suggestion was received by Mr. Tilden's political associates is shown in the fact that the fortification bill was the only one of the appropriation bills that failed to become a law, the House having refused to yield to the amendments of the Senate, which were in the line of Mr. Tilden's recommendations.

Boston Globe (Dem.), August 5.

THERE was an element of martyrdom in Mr. Tilden's treatment, and, in the imagination of posterity, the martyr is an even more impressive figure than the warrior. As time rolls on, and the impartial light of history beats, with cold and steadfast glare, upon events which are still too recent to be seen entirely free from the heat and dust of passionate party conflict, Tilden will balance Grant in the grateful recollection of a united and mighty Republic.

Frank Leslie's for August 14.

MR. TILDEN lived long enough to receive from those who had been his bitter political enemies the tribute due not only to profound wisdom, but also to unswerving loyalty and lofty patriotism. If his memory does not inspire love, it will com mand increasing respect and admiration; while the writings which he has left will give him rank second only to that of Thomas Jefferson as a philosopher and an expounder of the principles of American Democracy.

Harper's Weekly for August 14.

A POLITICAL disciple of Jefferson, it was, undoubtedly, very gratifying to him to fill a kind of Jeffersonian position at the end of his life, and to feel that Graystone was a kind of Monticello. A sagacious, self-possessed, skilful, and untiring political student and politician, with signal executive ability, he was not in sympathy with the true American feeling and movement of his time, and he will hardly be ranked with great American statesmen.

Vicksburg Post (Ind.), August 5.

THERE is a great difference of opinion as to Mr. Tilden's rightful claim to statesmanship, his friends extolling him in most extravagant terms, and his enemies, some of them Democrats, giving him credit only for being a smart politician and a shrewd, money-making man. There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Tilden will occupy a high place in the estimate of the people, though not the highest among the departed leaders of the Democratic party.

Quincy, Ill., News (Ind.), August 5.

MR. TILDEN was not a brilliant man, but he was a great man. He will be remembere l as a scholarly, broad-minded, and sagacious statesman-not as a politician. As a statesman he outranked the contemporaries of his time and stood without a peer in the Union. He was beloved of Democrats, honored and respected by all political opponents. No one ever questioned the honesty of his motives or doubted that he was a patriot of patriots.

Las Novedades (Ind.), New York, August 5.
[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

SINCE the close of his gubernatorial term, the only notable public act of Mr. Tilden was his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic in the year 1876, in which he was defeated, if not by the popular vote, at least by an adverse fate. Since that event, Mr. Tilden has lead, withdrawn from active political life, an existence crowned with the esteem and the consideration of his fellow-countrymen, and his death is universally deplored.

Arkansas Gazette (Dem.), August 5.

As A far-seeing statesman, familiar with the arts of government, and devoted to the growth of the sound principles upon which alone the fabric must rest to successfully resist assault, the country has furnished few equals to Mr. Tilden. He was the most sagacious of the eminent public men of his time, and his death has deprived the Democratic party of the ablest, most venerated exponent and exemplar of its principles.

San Francisco Chronicle (Ind.), August 5.

THERE is no doubt of one thing. Had Tilden been inaugurated he would not have committed the grave political blunders which Cleveland has to answer for. He used "reform" as a campaign shibboleth, but he would never have considered himself bound to carry out impracticable ideas, for he was above all things a practicable man. The Democratic party by his death has certainly lost a most able

leader.

Memphis Avalanche (Dem.), August 5. ADMITTING much that was powerful, much that was excellent, much that was, perhaps, even great, dimmed though it all was by his failure to assert himself with sufficient courage in 1876, and the question may well be asked, Does his career present that completeness, and fullness, and roundness, and fruitfulness, privately and publicly considered, which leaves it as an exemplar for the American youth ?

TILDEN towered above the leaders of the second rank in his party as Blaine does on the Republican side of the line. But there is this difference. If Blaine were to die, his place could be filled. There are leaders in the second rank by the score, men of brains and popularity, to whom the people would look with confidence. But the loss of Tilden is a stunning blow to the Democracy.

Washington Sunday Herald (Dem.), August 8.

MR. TILDEN began his political life, it is true, in open revolt against the nomination of Cass, and ended it by the surrender of the Presidency. But of late years he has been regarded by the people of his own party, and thousands of Republicans as well, as a patriot and a statesman, and his recent public utterances have been so wise and manly as to add greatly to his fame.

New York World (Dem.), August 5.

A WORD from Mr. Tilden would have caused his inauguration by the strong arms of the Democratic majority, but at the cost of bloodshed and civil war. Mr. Tilden was silent. Calmly he submitted to the infamous wrong to save the country from a terrible fate. History will do him justice, and his patriotic and noble selfsacrifice will be the brightest chapter in his record.

Portland Advertiser (Rep.), August 5.

WHETHER he was rightfully elected in 1876 is a question which will never be settled; the electoral commissioners themselves found no clue to guide them through the maze of conflicting testimony, except their personal preferences. Had their conclusion been different, Mr. Tilden would doubtless have given the country an able administration in many respects.

New York Independent, August 12.

HE was a deep thinker, a brilliant scholar, and a shrewd student of men and events. He had faith in American institutions and in the integrity of the American people. His death leaves the Democratic party without any leader. A more distracted party, with a President who refuses to lead and leaders who pull apart, has never been known in our history.

Cincinnati Commercial Gazette (Rep.), August 5.

MR. TILDEN was a student of history and public affairs, and thoughtful, and commanded a style of statement that was vigorous. He had qualities of leadership and equipoise of judgment, and, while he is the first in importance of Democratic politicians since the war, he will not take rank among the foremost men of the country.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, in his dispatch of condolence yesterday, called Mr. Tilden New York's "most distinguished son." Governor Hill, restrained by the consciousness of his own individual greatness, was unable to get any nearer the same verdict than by referring to the dead statesman as "one of the most illustrious sons" of the State.-New York Commercial Advertiser (Rep.), August 5.

TILDEN patriotically bowed to the decision of the Electoral Commission, because it had been made the arbiter of the dispute by law; and to-day, with no great title to make his name illustrious, he is lamented in every section and by every faith, while Hayes lives in charitable forgetfulness in Ohio, and Wheeler is a forgotten name in the list of statesmen.-Philadelphia Times (Ind.), August 5.

No patriot can cease to feel a warm sympathy with the man who was not merely deprived of an office that any man might honorably aspire to, but of a still more desired object, namely, to crown a busy life with a work of reform in the nation's Government that would entitle his name to be written among those of the greatest statesmen.-Maryland Republican (Dem.), August 7.

MR. TILDEN, who down to 1876 had been regarded simply as a brilliant lawyer and a politician of the higher sort, was fortunate in having his life prolonged suficiently to enable the country to see that he was also a patriotic statesman, and, above all, a man of strong character and courageous self-control.-Washington Star (Ind.), August 4.