Scarcely had their boat got well out from shore, before the waters swiftly receded, only to be suddenly brought back by a huge wave, swelling in resistless majesty as it advanced. As its base touched the bottom of the shoaling water, the top curled into a gigantic comb, and, as it fell forward, the mighty mass was thrown with deafening roar upon the beach. The boats still lying at their moorings were caught up like feathers, and hurled yards farther inland. With the same terrific dignity which marked their incoming, the waters rolled back, leaving the little fleet in indescribable confusion-bottom up, or end up, or on their sides, some piled two or three together, others stove in, and not a few wrecked irreparably. Around their boats quickly swarmed the now thoroughly aroused fishermen. Each crew seizing their craft, if happily it could be got at, ran it up the beach still higher, out of the reach of the waves which experience had taught them were yet to come, and higher than before. Not half the work was done, when a very mountain of water buried the recedence of the first wave out of sight, advanced as before, picked up a number of the unfortunate boats, and dashed their luckless owners, half-strangled, bruised and dripping, high up the beach. Recovering their feet as the water left them, these returned bravely to the rescue of their crafts, and by dint of tugging and hauling, when the third and greatest wave rolled thundering on the beach, most of them were safe, high and dry. Soon the ocean settled down into its accustomed quiet, and the inspection of damages commenced. The sides of Jack's boat were stove in, Bill's thwarts torn out, and Rob's mast, oars, and tackle all lost, while Steve's craft was an entire wreck. Hardly a boat had saved its mast and rigging unharmed, saving alone the one which got out to sea before the first swell came in. THE ORIGIN OF GROUNDSWELLS. Such is a grounds well-a mighty upheaving of the waters, grand, resistless, terrible, its power never to be withstood, and to be eluded only by the utmost watchfulness and skill. It is born of a struggle for mastery between the winds and waters, perhaps hundreds of miles away, or it may be even in mid-ocean. Cast a stone into a pond, and it produces ripples, at first large and well defined, then gradually fading out, but not dying away entirely until they have broken upon the shore, be it never so faintly. So a tornado or a submarine earthquake in mid-ocean stirs the mass of living waters, and transmits its mighty undulations to the utmost shores. When least expected, when the knowing ones and weather SOME MODERN GROUNDSWELL. 25 Wise predict a continuance of fine weather, when there is no appearance of a commotion among the elements, near or remote, the far-reaching effects of a distant storm may catch the unwary coaster in his fancied security, and dash him high on the beach, crippled for life, or a dead and sightless corpse. . As the effects of a groundswell are proportionate to the violence of the storm or disturbance which occasioned it, so in the bodies politic and social we observe a similar proportion in the strength of periodic agitations resulting from mal-administration, or other grievances which have grown up in the lapse of years and become strong and odious. SOME MODERN GROUNDSWELLS. Modern history records many popular upheavals which may well be termed groundswells, some of them actually marking epochs in the life of the human race upon the earth. Such was the convulsion, which, after centuries of misrule and corruption, shook English society to its center, in the days of the first Charles, and ended only after that monarch, more sinned against than sinning, had lost his life. Not even then was the struggle between kingly domination and the rights of the people to a voice in the government permanently decided. The "last and worser Charles," recalled to the throne of his ancestors, provoked another storm, which James II. was unwise enough to raise to fury, and this time the Stuart was expelled from England, finally and forever. That awful tragedy in modern history, known as the French Revolution, in like manner was the direct consequence of long years of oppression and misery, coupled with ignorance and superstition. That groundswell was a fearful thing, wave following wave, until every city and hamlet in France had been baptized with the bloody spray. Every nation in Europe felt the successive shocks, and before their force was fully expended, more than one of them found themselves stranded on the shores of the nineteenth century, in the condition of battered wrecks after a storm. The Revolution in our own country was another groundswell of gigantic proportions, having a corresponding origin in the resentment of a high-spirited people against manifest injustice. The monarchical principle was virtually swept from the continent, and the founders of our glorious republic were left free to build, broad and strong, the framework of a popular government, the very best ever launched upon the sea of Time. Let us hope also that it will prove the most enduring; for what American heart but thrills to the prayer in song of our best-loved poet THE GROUNDSWELL OF TO-DAY. "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great With all the hopes of future years, 27 THE GROUNDSWELL OF TO-DAY. If there be one danger of more threatening aspect than any other in the present juncture of affairs in the United States, it is the disturbing and corrupting influences flowing out of the existence of great moneyed corporations that, year by year, take on more and more of the characteristics of conscienceless and irresponsible monopolies. By various arts, extending even to the shameless purchase of legislative votes, these strive to shape the domestic policy of the State to their own ends, with less and less regard for the general welfare. The industrial classes are keenly sensitive to the effects of this policy of selfishness and greed, since upon them the burdens imposed by the "all-controlling few" fall the first and most heavily. What wonder, then, that we behold to-day another popular uprising, in earnest protest against attempted wrongs; or, that the farmers, emphatically the great producing class of the whole community, should seek a closer union in council, business plans and influence, and thus to roll onward the waves of their mighty. groundswell? A groundswell on approaching the shore is irresistible; the surging waters, as one mass upheaving and sweeping onward, bear all before them; no anchorage will hold. The only chance of safety is to give way by degrees, and thus allow the wave to spend its strength more gradually. Directly the force of one shock is past, the slack must be hauled in, and the vessel drawn back to its anchors, ready to be |