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the saying is substantially true. If two persons are traveling together, and wish to have a coach to themselves, they have merely to intimate as much to the guard and put a piece of silver in his hand, and the thing is accomplished. If you are going from London to Edinburgh, or intend to take any other night-ride, you can have a coach alone by paying the proper fee. In this way you can enter a second-class compartment, which has no divisions of seat, stretch out at full length, wrap yourself in rug and shawl, and get a good night's rest. Before sleeping-coaches were introduced into Europe, all experienced travelers chose such method.

I understand matters have gone so far that persons often buy second, even thirdclass tickets, and obtain first-class accommodations by bribing the guard of the train. The bribe is much less than the regular tariff, hence its economy and liberal employ

ment.

Railway-attachés seldom if ever ask for gratuities openly. But they do negatively, and in a manner difficult to resist. Positive demand is wellnigh superfluous, so well settled is the custom, so fixed the price, so perfect the silent understanding between the patron and the client. This methodic, wholesale tipping has not been introduced by foreigners or strangers, who in the beginning are wholly unacquainted with it, but by the native and resident population, and is sustained and strengthened by them. Why do they practise it ? Do they like to pay twice for the same thing? Not at all. They practise it partially because they deem it essential to convenience and comfort, but mainly because others practise it. As true Englishmen they must follow in the lead of their fellows they have not the moral courage to depart from popular usage. They all acknowledge it to be wrong in principle; that it is a serious tax on the purse; that a great many feel obliged to pay fees when they can't afford to; and still they continue the habit, defending themselves by asking, "How are we to get rid of it?" It ought to be broken up, they admit; but nobody is willing to make a move to that end.

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The charge of service in European hotels was originally made to prevent servants from importuning travelers; in other words, to deprive them of any excuse for begging for fees after the regular bill had been paid. To a certain extent this has been effective on the Continent, though it is wholly inoperative in Britain. In England, especially servants expect fees, and ask for them with their whole expression, quite as much as before service was a regular charge. If questioned, they sayno doubt truly-that they do not get the service, and by a queer logic reason that, because the inn - keeper deceives or imposes upon his patrons, the patrons should in turn be imposed upon by his servants. Nearly all Englishmen pay the proprietor for service, and pay it over again to the servants. They declare it a licensed extortion; but then everybody does it, you know, and they hate to be odd-another way of saying they fear to be thought mean. They have fully as great timidity on this subject as we financially-sensitive Americans ourselves. In London and other large English cities service has crept

into the restaurants. At breakfast, or luncheon, or dinner, you pay sixpence for service in the bill, and sixpence-frequently a shilling to the waiter who brings you the bill!

In the United States we think the obligation, if any, is on the side of the person receiving money, The English seem to think the obligation rests with him who pays. Thousands of gratuities are given every day in England for no better reason than because the English find somebody kind enough to take their shillings. They often tip a flunky who has done absolutely nothing; whom, indeed, they have not seen until he condescends to accept their cash. Not infrequently they pay service three times I confess my own guilt in this-by giving it at the inn where they may not take their meals (service is always charged without any reference to its renderings); by giving it to the restaurant where they eat; and by giving it to the waiter who has served them. The nuisance is growing so rapidly that the time may not be distant when all respectable persons will be expected to pay six times for one service.

Marvelous is the potency of a shilling, or its multiplication, everywhere in England. You need have no apprehension of offending any Briton by the presentation of silver. Some may not take silver; but they will take gold, and, if not gold, they must be pervious to bank-notes. Occasionally you may blun der, as an American is reputed to have done when the wife of his Oxford friend kissed him on his departure for the Continent, and he rewarded her with a glittering sovereign. This, however, lacks confirmation.

People in the street, policemen at the corners, ushers at the theatres, tradesmen, custodians of all sorts, subordinates, and superintendents-men, women, and children-scan your face for a shilling, and are uneasy until they clutch it. The British are a sterling people in more than one sense. They may not care for their pound of flesh; but they insist on the pound that is composed of twenty shillings of silver.

The English policeman is generally obliging, but how much of his obligingness is due to his scent of remuneration it is needless to inquire. He rarely asks in words for money, but he will receive it with amazing alacrity. He is always prepared to take any thing, from a sixpence to a sovereign, ever so many times duplicated. Entrance to more than half the places in London, where an order is supposed to be indispensable for admission, can easily be had by "tipping a bobby." To the House of Peers, for example, where nothing less than the autograph of one of the lords, spiritual or temporal, is said to secure ingress, half a crown to a policeman has been for years the regulated price. The same or less will serve for closed palaces, historic houses, art-galleries, or curious collections. When in England, never be intimidated by shut doors and flaring notices of inaccessibleness. Seek a policeman and produce your shilling.

me."

These will prove your "open sesaIf you sec a vast crowd before you anywhere, and you fancy you are not going to get in, appeal to a policeman with silver, and straightway you will have precedence.

Never despair of any thing in England

while you can call a policeman and command a shilling.

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Show places like Eton Hall, Blenheim, Warwick Castle, Chatsworth, can be seen for a pecuniary consideration. The opulent noblemen who own them are very kind to open them to the public, but visitors must fee the servants. The noblemen are not rich enough to render the gratuity unnecessary. No Englishman could be so rich as that. Such affluence is not to be measured by British money. I remember, years ago, when I first visited the Bodleian Library. After I had been through it, notwithstanding a well-dressed, intelligent man, who had opened two or three doors, kept suspiciously near me, I hesitated to offer him any thing. I thought books refine the mind; the very presence of immortal works softens, broadens, spiritualizes. Men privileged to breathe this atmosphere must be lifted above pecuniary consideration. Still, the fellow was at my elbow, and his every feature resembled a financial point of interrogation. Waveringly I placed a shilling in his hand. He glanced at it, and seemed surprised. I turned crimson, and begged his pardon. I blushed again-the second time for him as he said, "Couldn't you make it half a crown, sir?"

Since then I have learned England and the English better.

The persuasive power of the shilling in England has its advantages, particularly for strangers and tourists whose time is limited. It unlocks doors, removes difficulties, cuts red tape, reduces friction. But it has its disadvantages, also, notably for the English themselves. Willingness to take money for aught but honest work is a bad sign. It mars manliness, impairs independence, dulls sensibility, integrity, honor. It is one of the many inconsistencies of British character; contradicts much of its sterling worth. We frankly confess that we pursue the almighty dollar too ardently. It is the mote in the American eye. But until the English have cast the beam of the omnipotent shilling from their own, they should extend to us the charity of silence.

JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE.

THE PERUVIAN AMAZON AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. NOTES FROM A JOURNAL OF TRAVEL.

V.

June 15th.-Before daylight this morning we got under way, the Indians all manifesting great dissatisfaction, and protesting against going farther. They discover, very suddenly, that they have ailments of various kinds, pleading sore hands and feet from exposure to sun and water, though they have known nothing else all their lives. One old fellow is pitiable to see. He is in such terror of the Campas that you can actually see him trembling as he stands out in bold relief as popero of one of the canoes. Many years ago he was one of a party under the leadership of a priest, who attempted to reenter the Campa country. They were at

tacked by the Indians; and this old fellow and one other were the only ones so fortunate as to escape alive, he bringing away a Campa arrow in his body, the scar of which is now plainly visible.

At ten A. M. we arrived at the head of canoe-navigation on the Pichis, in latitude 10° 22′ 55′′ south; longitude, 74° 49' west of Greenwich; elevation above sea-level, 213.359 metres; distance from the Brazilian frontier at the mouth of the river Yavari, thirteen hundred and fifty-six miles, and from the mouth of the Amazon (following the course of the river), thirty-five hundred miles; and, in a direct line, only one hundred and ninety miles from the Pacific coast. The river here was so rapid and shallow that it was necessary for the men to get out and haul the canoes up over the rocks. Among these rocks we found numerous specimens of coral and sea-shell; and just ahead of us loomed up the eastern spurs of the Andes. As the canoes could float no farther, this terminated our exploration of this river. We named this point Port Tucker, in honor of the chief of the expedition, and determined to remain here until the next day, before starting on our downward voyage. The average current of the river Pichis we determined to be two and one fifth miles per hour. This average seems to be small for a rapid stream; but the difficulty in ascending arose from the fact that there were beds of round stones and gravel at intervals of every two or three miles, over which flowed a very rapid current, and between which a comparatively slow one intervened, thus making the above average.

June 16th.-When we awoke this morning we could hardly recognize our Indians. During the night they had all painted; some to protect themselves from the effects of the sun and water, and some to protect themselves from the Campas. The manner of painting to keep off the Campas was very simple. It consisted in a streak of blue vegetable paint, passing through the mouth and terminating at the ears, thus giving the wearer the appearance of having a bridle-bit in his mouth. I do not know wherein consisted the charm, but it was firmly believed by those who had thus painted themselves that they could not be struck by a Campa arrow. At half-past seven A. M. we embarked, and, much to the joy of our Indians, commenced the descent of the river.

getting her off; so, in a second, they were overboard and at work. They got it off, however, so as to come in just behind the rear-guard canoe. We continued our voyage, nothing more of interest occurring; and in one day, going down-stream, we accomplished what it had taken three days to do in ascending. Why we were not attacked we cannot understand. We heard the Indians in the bushes, saw their tracks, and saw where their balsas had been moored within the last day or two. We supposed, however, that it was because we did not remain long enough for them to collect in sufficient numbers; for numerically we made quite a show.

June 18th.-At two P. M., yesterday, we reached the mouth of the river Trinidad, a tributary of the Pichis, and which we had passed on Trinity Sunday on our ascent, and which we intended to explore as we went back. When the order was given to turn up into this river, there was almost open mutiny among our Indians. At four P. M. we stopped for the night, the current being so strong that we had made only four miles in that time.

Under the cover of darkness five Indians deserted, thinking it better to try to navigate two hundred miles on a raft through the country of the Cashibos, and trusting to the fish that they might catch for subsistence, than to again run the gantlet of the Campas. Our numbers were so reduced by this last desertion, and the remaining Indians so worn out, that it was impossible to get the boats up higher, and so the exploration of this river had to be abandoned, and all our energies directed to regaining our old camp at the confluence of the Pichis and Palcazu. This we reached at five P. M., to find that our old ranches had been washed away by a rise of water. Thus ended the exploration of the Pichis proper. The vegetation along the banks is almost identical with that of the Ucayali and Pachitea, the trees being only remarkable for their general worthlessness as fuel for steamers and for timber. On all these upper rivers we have met with only three or four varieties of trees that serve as fuel for steamers, and these varieties are not very numerous close to the banks.

For a

mile or so back from each bank, the trees are not so tall, so large, or so close together, as in our virgin forests in the United States, and resemble enormous weeds more than

In a short time we were borne by the swift current down to the confluence of the any thing else I have ever seen. I have seen Herrera-yacu, where we stopped to breakfast a tree three feet in diameter and eighty feet and to verify observations. We found the high exactly resembling a stalk of purslane, presents, which we had left here for the Inor, as it is commonly called, pursley. For dians, untouched; and this our Indians re- the most part the undergrowth consists of garded as rather a bad sign. Here we cleared varieties of palms, with creepers and weeds. for action, and made every thing ready, as There were many signs of animal life on the we had to pass the outpost settlement. The Pichis, but few varieties. We saw innumercurrent was strong, and we went at the rate able tracks of tapirs and ronsocos. We of four or five knots per hour. When we saw several large snakes also, but none reneared the point where we expected the In-sembling the boa. Two varieties of turkey dians, we heard a tambour in the woods, and knew that they were astir. Here there were rapids in the river, and the foremost canoe went aground. It was impossible to stop, and one by one each canoe shot past like an arrow. The Indians of the grounded canoe knew that their salvation depended upon

and two of duck were the only fowl we saw fit for eating. After leaving the hills the river runs through a low basin, and I suppose that, for a large portion of every year,

the banks for miles and miles back are under water, thus rendering it impossible for other animals than those mentioned to exist. There

were no mosquitoes or sand-flies; and there is an old Indian proverb that where the mosquitoes will not live the country is unhealthful. This proved to be so, all of us getting chills or some sickness, the result of malaria, that clung to us as long as we remained in South America.

June 19th.-There is one point, the posi tion of which we are anxious to establishPort Prado, on the river Palcazu; and this morning a call was made for volunteers from among our Indians. At ten A. M., with two canoes manned by the most unwilling set of volunteers I ever saw, we set off; and by nightfall accomplished ten miles. The Pal cazu only differs from the Pichis in having higher banks and a stronger current.

Port Prado, June 21st.-Last night we ar rived within a few hundred yards of this place; but it was so dark we were afraid to attempt a passage of the rapids. These are formed by the pouring in of the waters of the river Pozuzo at right angles to the direction of the Palcazu; and so all hands slept on a playa of round rocks not four inches out of the water, and the river slightly rising. Some of our men waded to the nearest bank to collect firewood for the night, and reported having stirred up a jaguar.

Port Prado, in latitude 9° 55′ 22′′ south, longitude 75° 17′ 45′′ west of Greenwich, is at the head of navigation for light-draught steamers on the Palcazu. It is the point to which the people of Huanoco and all the interior mountain-country have been for so long a time looking as the terminus of a railroad that would connect them with the ocean and furnish a market for their many valuable products.

It is just at the mouth of the river Mayro and half a mile from the mouth of the Pozuzo. Judging from their mouths, these are bold mountain-streams, their high, abrupt banks being strewed with immense bowlders brought down from the Andes, and their courses obstructed by numerous rapids. For several months during the year, on account of the bowlders and débris, washed down from the mountains, the Palcazu itself, even after its volume has been increased by the two aforementioned streams, is unnaviga ble for light-draught steamers. Every few miles the stream spreads out, and ripples over immense beds of round stones and gravel; and over these inclines we had, at this stage of the water, great difficulty in drawing our canoes. Along the banks, however, the marks on the trees indicate the water as bav ing been, during the rainy season, at least twenty feet higher than at present.

As in the Pichis, there is, between these gravelly beds, but little current, the average being three and a half miles per hour. Port Prado is distant from the Brazilian frontier, at the mouth of the Yavari River, thir teen hundred and seven and a half miles; its elevation above sea-level is 242,315 metres.

The general characteristics of the scenery are boldness and ruggedness, and from the port are visible many mountain-spurs and tall peaks. One of these, a very lofty and beautiful mountain, seemed to be recognized by our Indians as a landmark, and was called by them "El Miradero," or "the Watch-tower." This

is the point at which the padres, in their visits to Ocopa, abandon their canoes and strike out into the forest. For the maintenance of their Indian crews that have to remain here until their return, they have set out some plantains and other fruits; but these before they are ripe are generally stolen by a small, weak, wandering tribe called the Lorenzos.

We found here a party of Christianized Indians waiting for the return of a priest from Ocopa. We noticed also an enormous old canoe, with the name "Pio IX." burnt on its side. This canoe must assuredly have made the lengthy voyage, and have gotten over the mal-pasos by a miracle only. Many of these Indians were suffering with tertiana -chills and fevers- and were completely prostrated by it.

June 22d.-At an early hour we got under way, and at three P. M. joined our companions and sick men whom we had left at the mouth of the Pichis. To-morrow we start for the steamers. This morning, before setting out, when breakfast was announced, we were all struck with a savory smell; and, with more than usual alacrity, formed a circle around the pot into which the sergeant was scooping. For a long time rations had been scarce, and the idea of something fresh was very pleasant. One by one we received our plates of stew, and one by one each person, after taking a few mouthfuls, seemed to lose his relish for it, until finally about two-thirds of the plates were put down only partially emptied.

About this time, however, it occurred to some one to ask the old major, who was the caterer, what kind of meat he had been for

tunate enough to procure. His reply was, "Moño, señor!" ("Monkey, sir!"). Those who were eating at the time seemed suddenly satisfied, and without a word the ring around the pot was broken, and each person, apparently wrapped in the deepest reflection, strolled off by himself.

On this trip our Indians have reveled in young alligators and monkeys; but most of our party have not become sufficiently Indianized to consider such things delicacies.

June 27th.-Started this morning for the steamers. Our return down-stream is very monotonous. We now accomplish, in one day, the distance it took us three to make, when going up, although our Indians work very lazily, and had to be called up last night and threatened with a flogging should they not do better on the morrow.

We were paddling along to-day downstream, keeping out in the middle of the river, so as to get the full benefit of the current, and making about four or five knots an bour, when we discovered four canoes crawling along the right bank, and almost hidden by the overhanging brushwood. They proved to be a party of Conibo Indians on the warpath, their women accompanying them. They had a supply of fresh fish and plantains, a portion of which they sold us, much to our joy.

According to their custom, they saluted us by bringing out masato in enormous calabashes, which they passed round from mouth to mouth, and were much surprised at our not drinking. However, our Indian crews swigged it, to the satisfaction of all parties.

We made them some small presents, and learned their mission and plans. They were the advance-guard of the Conibos of the Ucayali, and were going against the Cashibos, to steal their women and children. Three or four times during every year, these parties are organized, and make expeditions for this purpose. But this was on a larger scale than usual. This advance-guard consisted of fifteen or twenty men, with their wives. Not allowing themselves to be seen, they were to proceed well up into the country of the Cashibos, pull their canoes out of the water, and hide them away; then take a position in the woods, and live for weeks, and probably months, trying to spy out, and find where the Cashibos were best situated for attack. As soon as all was ready, they would communicate with the main body, which was collecting from all directions at the mouth of the Pachitea.

The mode of capturing their brother-savages is this: The Cashibos, during low-water season, come down from the hills and back country to collect turtle and fish on the playas. As soon as they have assembled in a kind of encampment on the bank, the Conibo spies send word to the main body. This steals up, traveling by night, and in the darkness a circle of Conibo warriors is formed around the Cashibo encampment, and, at a given signal, begins to contract toward the centre. The Conibo women are waiting, with the canoes all ready in some secluded spot, to embark the warriors, in case of defeat. But the Conibos, their bows and arrows being better, having the advantage of being the surprising party, and always taking care to attack in superior numbers, are seldom defeated. If the surprise is a success, all old men and old women are put to death, and all young women and children kept, the best-looking women for wives for themselves, the ugly ones and children to be sold to the occasional merchants, who come up the Ucayali to trade with them. At a Conibo village, where I staid for several weeks, fully one-third of the inhabitants were Cashibos, and slaves of the Conibo braves. These little cannibals are very much sought after by the whites of the low country, as slaves; and their price varies from ten to fifty soles apiece. Recently, a steamer, having on board almost a dozen of these little infieles (as the good padres call them), of both sexes, arrived in Yquitos. They were locked up in a room on board the boat, and some show made of keeping it secret, as it is against the laws of the country, although the trade is openly carried on by the highest officials on this side of the Andes. I suppose there are some thirty or forty of these little savages in Yquitos, and, as their owners know that they will run away as soon as they get big enough, they get the most they can out of them now. One, a little boy, about ten years old, is very intelligent. He has learned to speak Spanish; and says he remembers traveling through the woods once with his father and mother, and some other Indians. They were attacked by Conibos, and his father and all the men killed. He, his mother, and all the other women, were taken prisoners. He knows no more, and cannot remember how

he got to Yquitos. He shows that he was bred in the forest of South America, for, if he sees a rat eating any thing, he will creep up behind it, and, before it knows what is the matter, catch it by the tail, and jerk it hard enough against the ground to kill it.

Among some of the interior tribes human heads are another article of traffic, in opposition to law. They are those of captives taken in war, and afterward put to death. By some process, known only to themselves, the heads are shrunk, leaving the features perfect, and the hair of the usual length and colcr. The skin becomes dry and hard, like parchment, though looking perfectly natural. It is said that pins are driven through the lips, to prevent their talking while undergoing torture, and also to enable the head to be hung erect. This custom of preserving the heads is still practised, though they cannot be induced to divulge the secret. The tradition, however, is this: the bones are taken out, and the cavity thus formed is filled with hot stones, which are shaken about until the drying and shrinking process is completed.

June 28th.-After a canoe-voyage of forty-one days, at twelve M. to-day we reached the steamers, and found them anchored just within the mouth of the Pachitea. Our descent of the river was, as a general thing, of not much interest-the only things worth mentioning which I have not recorded being an attack on the rear canoe by the Cashibos, resulting in the wounding of one of the latter; the grounding of a canoe in shooting some rapids, throwing some of us overboard and far out into the water; and the ascension of Inca Rock, which resulted in no new discoveries, except that the Cashibos were about there. One thing rather interesting that we observed was the total destruction of one of their chacaras by the Cashibos, because, in going up, we had taken a few plantains from it. Day after to-morrow we start back to Yquitos.

Physically the Indians of the Ucayali and Pachitea are not so large nor so strong as the white men of North America or Europe. Of their minds there is no good way of judg ing, but they certainly evince great ingenuity and skill in the manufacture of weapons for war, canoes, and household and cooking utensils. Those who are friendly and have business relations with the white man are in some instances honest, and have great regard for their word. They are very superstitious and cruel. They believe firmly in an evil spirit or devil, but whether or not they believe in a good one is not certain. Their laws with regard to chastity are very severe. Among the Conibos, if a woman bears her husband twins, both of the children are killed, because one is the child of the devil, and it is impossible to discover which. Among the Cashibos the same custom prevails, with the additional enormity that both are buried alive. The Cashibos are, I believe, the only known tribe living on the tributaries of the Ucayali that are cannibals, and, besides being cannibals, they eat even their dead. Their weapons consist in the bow and war-club. Their arrows, from the greater size, have not the same range as those of our North American

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A GREAT deal is said at the present day with the gratifying exception of the two years

upon the question of crime, and some uncertainty appears to exist as to whether offenders against the law have increased or decreased. A recent address by Lord Aberdare before the British Social Science Association takes a very favorable view of the present condition of things in this particular, as compared with those of half a century ago. At that period pauperism, the greatest curse of the poorer classes, and the fertile mother of crime, was directly fostered by the laws and by the spirit with which they were administered. The police was inefficient, the prisons dens of moral corruption and physical disease; reformatories and ragged-schools were unknown; English laws were so extravagantly severe as to insure their lax and uncertain application; punishments were so devised as neither to deter nor to reform, and to be as expensive as they were ineffectual. So that, in commenting on English prisons and penal settlements, a thoughtful writer of the last generation (James Mill) could say, without exaggeration: "In regard to the reformation of the offender there is but one testimony that New South Wales, of all places on the face of the earth, except, perhaps, a British prison, is the place where there is the least chance for the reformation of an offender; the greatest chance of his being improved and perfected in every species of wickedness." The natural result of this state of things was an enormous increase in crime of every kind in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, to the terrible extent of a sixfold greater ratio than the increase of population. In one decade, from 1834 to 1843, not fewer than 39,844 criminals-an average of nearly 4,000 a year-were transported to Australia. The means taken for the repression of crime were most ineffectual, and transportation, which had gradually su perseded the extreme penalty of death, was proved to have failed in every object which should be sought for in a penal system.

In 1857 this latter system was universally replaced by the present system of penal servitude, and a steady and progressive decrease in crime has followed. In the year 1843, when the population of the United Kingdom was estimated at 16,332,000, the numbers sentenced to transportation were 4,488. Thirty

preceding it. Categorically, almost every
class of indictable offense had decreased, with
the sad and solitary exception of murder,
which maintains a striking uniformity in re-
gard to the number of persons capitally sen-
tenced for the crime. The proportion of
murders to the population has not greatly
varied in the United Kingdom in the last fifty
years. On the other hand, as a small com-
pensating measure of comfort, it is on rec-
ord that the numbers of the criminal classes
of the United Kingdom at large and known
to the police, including known thieves and
depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and
suspected persons, have fallen from 56,723
in 1864 to 43,555 in 1874. These results,
Lord Aberdare says, have been secured
-1. By an efficient system of police;
2. By the deterrent and reformatory na
ture of the punishment now awarded for
crimes; 3. By reformatory schools specially
adapted for the correction and reformation
of the more hardened youthful offenders,
but possessing none of the characteristics
of the jail except the enforced confinement
within the house and the fields attached to
it; 4. By the coöperation of discharged pris.
oners' aid societies. The progress of educa-
tion and the decrease of crime, Lord Aber-
dare holds, will march together, and one of
the strongest influences which can be brought
to bear against the fostering of a crimina!
population in overcrowded cities is attention
to sanitary regulations.

While it is impossible not to respect so
high an authority as that of Lord Aberdare,
who has studied this question with great
closeness, we can but look upon some of his
statements with caution. It is always neces-
sary to scrutinize social statistics with care
if we would not be misled thereby. We sus-
pect that public records are not altogether
trustworthy guides to the moral condition of
a people, nor safe indexes to the absolute
prevalence of crime in comparing one period
with another. As civilization advances, the
police becomes a greater force in society, and
takes cognizance of a larger class of of
fenses; and it also acts as an
intimidating
power, preventing the commission of crime
by its ubiquitous presence, and the certainty
of discovery and arrest. In the last century

the police were powerless in the face of innumerable acts of violence; to-day any form of disorderly conduct brings the offender promptly to a police-station. Hilarious young gentlemen cannot now capture door-knockers, carry off sign-boards, imprison night-watchmen in their boxes, or play similar pranks, without finding their misdeeds appearing in the police-reports. House-breaking as a lost criminal art is not due to the repression of criminal instincts, but to the efficiency of the police, which has rendered that sort of pastime altogether too dangerous to be indulged in. It is said that density of crime and population go together. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that density of population and police arrests go together. These facts and instances show how the criminal records may be increased without a real increase of crime. On the other hand, the thoroughness of the modern police organization prevents accessions to the criminal ranks, and is the indirect means of keeping some young people to the paths of rectitude; but it is principally potent in driving many persons from the commission of crimes that fall under police jurisdic. tion, to arts and tricks not amenable to law. While certain crimes decrease, dishonesty may increase. While the law may render life and property more secure from direct attacks, we may all the time be the more extensively victimized by the dishonest devices of those who live by their wits. The criminal class are forced to find out how to be criminal in such a way as to keep out of the hands of the law. Ingenious scoundrels do not now resort to house-breaking; they get a contract. They do not take to the highway; they go to Wall Street. However, it is well if we can begin by driving crime out of the more open courses; perhaps byand-by we can reach it in its hidden places and under its plausible devices.

and hence people are prone in seeing one or
even several of its manifestations to over-
look or forget some other of its outcomes.
It is unmistakably a pushing, energetic,
money-making age; it is distinctly an age
where practical and utilitarian things have a
very high place in the schemes and purposes
of the people; but let us see whether poetry
and heroism are not also great existing so-
cial and moral forces.

Notwithstanding all the great practical

earlier ages; it is searching amid the ruins of buried cities for precious art-memorials of the past, and placing the discovered treasures in places of honor; it is bringing into practical use ancient suggestions in decorative and ornamental art; it is, in fact, full of reverence for the great achievements of the imagination that have come down to it, and is instinct with pleasure in the stimulating and often daring productions of to-day. The literature about art is swelling ceaseless

admire are eagerly listened to; and everywhere are the evidences of how large a place this form of poetic feeling holds with us. It is distinctly a poetic and not an unpoetic age that evinces in so many ways its catholic and large-hearted sympathy for all the periods of imaginative creation in the various arts.

activities of the age, the people are eagerly; teachers who instruct what and how to
readers of imaginative literature. They lis-
ten not only attentively to the poets and sing-
ers of the time, but they are manifesting a
marked disposition to go back and study pe-
riods of the past. There are signs of a re-
vival of classic taste, and the early produc-
tions of English literature have now their
hosts of students and admirers. While on
one hand we see that realism is cultivated,
we also note that higher forms of imagina- |
tive thought lead captive the whole rank of
readers. Sentimentalism, such as marked the
literature of the Minerva press, is honestly
and vigorously detested; and, although the age
bas its affectations, yet elevation of thought
and fidelity to one's own convictions are
imperatively demanded of every leader of
song.

There have been more brilliant eras of
dramatic and even of lyric literature, but
none in which the poets have enjoyed so large
a concourse of readers, none in which they
have been permitted so freely to follow their
individual poetic instincts, or have more ef
fectually stirred the popular heart. Those
who look may see evidence of the truth of
these assertions on every hand. The inter-
est felt in every new production by Tenny-
son, Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Morris,
Swinburne; the endless essays upon poetry
and the poets in all the magazines-these are
substantiating facts. We might also cite the
un-subjective nature of most of our prose writ-

Ir is repeatedly said that the age is poetic and unheroic. Such is the recent complaint of a writer in a contemporary journal. Is it true? Poetry and heroism change some of their aspects from age to age, and it may be that those who lament their decadence are simply failing to discern those virtues under their new guise. It may, moreover, be suspected that the very fact of lamenting the death or the decay of certain qualities is almost proof that they still flourish among us. Those who admire poetry enough to feel a deficiency of poetic feeling show by this very fact their poetic sympathies; and those who render their suffrage of praise to the heroic are quite certain to find their quiet opportunity for enacting some form of true, unobtrusive heroism.

The age is really neither unpoetic nor unheroic, but it is manifold and many sided;

ings to prove the poetical under-moods of our
people, but we can do no more now than
mention the fact.

Art also is inspired with both realistic
truth and imaginative force. Mere story
telling by pictures has declined, but the ex-
pression of poetic feeling and sentiment by
color and form has taken a lofty place. We
do not deny that there have been greater
art-epochs, but there is now a marked pas-
sion for studying those epochs; there is an
eagerness to be at home with their spirit and
to master their teachings. Mere imitations
of ancient methods are not tolerated, but
originality, passion, individual sentiment, in-
ventive power, are quickly recognized and
applauded. This so-called unpoetic age is
completing in some instances and restoring
in others the great poetical architecture of

Heroism no less than poetry takes its place in this many-sided era. The loud proclamation and noisy defiance of some of the earlier forms of heroism do not exist; men now believe it incumbent upon them to seek no opportunity for the mere display of their gallantry, but also to shrink from no occasion that exacts fortitude or involves self-sacrifice. That is emphatically not an unheroic age that with such zeal dares the wilderness of ice in the arctic seas and the wilderness of forest and swamp in the heart of Africa-that delights in conquering hitherto-inaccessible mountain-peaks-that penetrates everywhere, explores everywhere, and knows no such word as "fail" in its multitude of splendid enterprises. Recent wars showed no decline of that physical courage which in earlier ages was so worshiped; and in all the ordinary exigencies of life, fortitude, endurance, the courage to do and to suffer, evince no lack of the true spirit of heroism.

We have been enabled to glance only at a topic large enough to admit of an extended essay. Our readers, however, will readily supplement many arguments and facts to those we have advanced, and will see that the age has neither lost imaginative sympathy, which is the essential spirit of poetry, nor the fibre of genuine heroism.

In a very quiet way-so quiet that even the English people seem to have scarcely noted it the whole judicial system of England has just undergone a change. Of a sudden, all those ancient and historic courts which have so long clustered around Westminster, Guildhall, and Lincoln's Inn, have dissolved into one august tribunal. The courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, of Admiralty and Probate, of Arches and Chancery, have ceased to exist-or, at least, instead of being separate and independent

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