Chapter II: Part 2

A communication of a yet different kind is an imitation of Rabelais, which is not so badly done, but cannot be well translated into English, because of its grotesque and idiomatic character.

As to the identity of spirits, even if it could be demonstrated that the preceding quotations emanated from disembodied minds, this would not be a sufficient reason for admitting that the signatures are not entirely apocryphal.

5

In a great many cases, too long to be reported in this essay, where the communicating cause has declared itself to be the soul of a certain dead person,--of a father, a mother, a child, or a kinsman,--names, dates, and details were given, which were absolutely in accordance with facts whereof the medium was ignorant; but in the cases where the identity appeared to be best indicated, the questioner had his hands resting on the table, repeated the alphabet, and might have unconsciously induced the result. You try to invoke a man who bore, let us suppose, the name of Charles. When the letter _c_ is pronounced, you exercise your influence without knowing it. If the experiment is made by rocking the table; you exercise a different pressure at that particular moment. If the communication is by raps, and the letter passes without the expected sound, you naturally allow it to be seen that there is a mistake. We deceive ourselves without being aware of it. This frequently happened to me during two years with this word Charles, which was the name of my mother's brother, living in New Orleans. During those two years he told me how he died; yet at that very time he was in the vigor of life. This was in 1860 and 1861, and he did not pass away till 1864. We had, therefore, been the dupes of an illusion.

Auto-suggestion, or self-suggestion, is also extremely frequent in these experiments, as well as with writing mediums. I have before my eyes some charming fables, published by Monsieur Jaubert, President of the Civil Tribunal of Carcassonne, and some delicate poems, obtained through planchette, by P. F. Mathieu,--besides some historic and philosophical works,--all leading to the conclusion that these mediums have written under their own influence; or, at best, affording no scientific proof of a foreign influence.

There remain still unexplained the raps, and the motion of objects more or less heavy. On this point I fully share the opinion of the great chemist, Mr. Crookes, who says:

When manifestations of this kind are exhibited, this remark is
generally made: "Why do tables and chairs alone show these
effects? Why is this the peculiar property of furniture?"

I might reply that I am simply observing and reporting facts,
and that I need not enter into the _whys_ and _wherefores_.
Nevertheless it seems clear that if, in an ordinary dining-room,
any heavy inanimate body is to be lifted from the floor, it
cannot very well be anything except a table or a chair. I have
numerous proofs that this property does not appertain alone to
articles of furniture; but in this, as in other experimental
demonstrations, the intelligence or force--whichever it be that
produces these phenomena,--cannot choose but use objects
appropriate to its ends.

At different times during my researches I have heard delicate
raps, which sounded as if produced by a pin's point; a cascade
of piercing sounds, like those of a machine in full motion;
detonations in the air; light and acute metallic taps; cracking
noises, like those produced by a floor-polishing machine; sounds
which resembled scratching; warbling, like that of birds.

Each of these noises, which I have tested through different
mediums, had its special peculiarity. With Mr. Home they were
more varied; but, in strength and regularity, I have heard no
sounds which could approach those which came through Miss Kate
Fox. During several months I had the pleasure, on almost
innumerable occasions, of testing the varying phenomena which
took place in the presence of this lady, and it was the sounds
which I specially studied. It is usually necessary with other
mediums, in a regular séance, to sit awhile before anything is
heard; but with Miss Fox it seems to be merely necessary to
place her hand on something, no matter what, for the sounds to
manifest themselves like a triplicated echo, and sometimes loud
enough to be noticeable across several intervening rooms.

I have heard some of these noises produced in a living tree, in
a large pane of glass, on a stretched wire, on a tambourine, on
the roof of a cab, and in the box of a theatre. Moreover,
immediate contact is not always necessary. I have heard these
noises proceeding from the flooring and walls, when the medium's
hands and feet were tied, when he was standing on a chair, when
he was in a swing suspended from the ceiling, when he was
imprisoned in an iron cage, and when he lay in a swoon on a
sofa. I have heard them proceed from musical glasses. I have
felt them on my own shoulders, and under my own hands. I have
heard them on a piece of paper, fastened between the fingers by
a string through the corner of the sheet. With a full knowledge
of the numerous theories which have been brought forward to
explain these sounds, especially in America, I have tested them
in every way I could devise, until it was no longer possible to
escape the conviction that these sounds were real, and produced
neither by fraud nor by mechanical means.

An important question forces itself upon our attention: Are
these movements and noises governed by intelligence? From the
very beginning of my investigations I have satisfied myself that
the power producing these phenomena was not simply blind force,
but that some intelligence directed it, or at least was
associated with it. The noises, whereof I have spoken, were
repeated a determinate number of times. They became either
strong or feeble, at my request, and came from different places.
By a vocabulary of signals previously agreed upon, the power
answered questions, and gave messages with more or less
accuracy.

The intelligence governing these phenomena is sometimes
obviously inferior to that of the medium, and is often in direct
opposition to his wishes. When a determination has been reached
to do something which could not be regarded as quite reasonable,
I have seen communications urging a reconsideration of the
matter. This intelligence is at times of such a character that
one is forced to believe it does not emanate from any person
present. (Researches in Spiritualism, by William Crookes.)

This last sentence might be slightly modified, and the words _forced to believe_ might be replaced by the words _disposed to believe_; for human nature is complex, and we are not perpetually the same, even to ourselves. What uncertainty we often find in our own opinions, upon points not yet elucidated; and this we feel, even when called upon to judge actions or events! Are we not sometimes contradictions to ourselves?

Among the experiments made with these physical and psychical manifestations of the tables, I will mention, as among the best, those of Count de Gasparin, and of my sympathetic friend, Eugene Nus. The Count has obtained rotations, upliftings, raps, revelations of numbers previously thought of, movements without any human contact, and so on. He concludes that human beings are endowed with a fluid, with an unknown force, with an agency capable of impressing objects with the action determined by our wills. (On Table-turning, Supernaturalism in General, and Spirits.)

Eugene Nus has obtained, besides sentences dictated by the table, certain philosophic definitions given almost invariably in exactly a dozen words each. Here are some of them:

Geology: Studies in the transformation of the planets in their
periods of revolution.

Astronomy: Order and harmony of the external life of worlds,
individually and collectively.

Love: The pivot of mortal passion; attractive sexual force; the
element of continuity.

Death: Cessation of individuality, disintegration of its
elements, a return to universal life.

Let us note, in passing, the strangely singular fact of a departed soul declaring that death is always the cessation of individuality!

There are whole pages of this kind. Eugene Nus had, as companions in his experiments, Antony Méray, Toussenel, Franchot, Courbebaisse, a whole group of transcendental socialists. Well, this is absolutely the language of Fourier. The words _aroma_, _passional_, _solidarity_, _clavier_, _composite_, _association_, _harmony_, _pivotal force_, are in the vocabulary of the table. The author therefore inclines towards the following explanation, as given in his Choses de l'Outre Monde (Things of the Other World), Volume I. Paris, 1887.

Mysterious forces residing in human nature; emanations from
inmost potentiality, unknown till our day; the duplication of
our experimental power, which gives ability to think and act
outside ourselves.

(_To be concluded in July Arena._)

THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESS.

BY JULIUS CHAMBERS.

In the splendid days of Rome, the editor was he who introduced the gladiators as they entered the arena to fight the tigers.

To-day, the editor directs the newspaper and he often affects to believe that his mission on earth is to fight the tiger himself.

The editor of this class is a barbarian who forgets that Rome is only a memory.

The successful editor of to-day recognizes the fact that the newspaper exists to amuse and instruct, to uphold public honor and private virtue quite as much as to denounce fraud or expose official corruption. The newspaper is powerful exactly in proportion as it is successful in representing the people who read it; in following, rather than dictating, their line of policy; and, whether it exists for the people or not, it certainly endures only by their sufferance and good-will. Therefore, it is well that we consider the relations of the people at large to the newspaper; then, the editor's relation to his neighbors, the public; and, finally, the chivalry of editors toward each other.

The newspaper is so large a part of our modern life that it would be trivial to argue the question whether it can be dispensed with. Men who live abreast of the age cannot consent to miss a single day's communion with the news of the world. The non-arrival of the mail will render an active man absent from town utterly miserable. The purchaser of the daily newspaper of to-day receives for the price of a half yard of calico a manufactured article that has required the employment of millions of capital to produce,--to say nothing of genius to sustain.

And he is often somewhat grateful.

But the chivalry of the public toward the newspaper is peculiar. The public would appear to believe that anything it can coax, wheedle, or extort from the newspaper is fair salvage from the necessary expenditures of life.

Recently I listened in amazement to the Rev. Robert Collyer boast at a Cornell University dinner of having beguiled the newspapers of the country. He told how he had schemed and got money to build a new church after the Chicago fire. He did not make it very clear that the civilized members of his race clamored for the new edifice, but he made painfully apparent his ideas of chivalry to the press.

"In this matter," he began, "I have always been proud of the way in which I 'worked the newspapers.' I succeeded in raising the money, because I coaxed the editors into coöperating with me. I wrote long puffs about the congregation and its pastor, and got them printed. Then I hurried 'round with the subscription list and a copy of the paper."

Of course, this was all said good-naturedly, was meant to be funny, and was uttered from a public rostrum with an utter obliviousness to the mental obliquity that a moment's thought will disclose. It left upon my mind much the same impression as that once made by hearing an apparently respectable man boast of having stolen an umbrella out of a hotel rack.

Later in the evening, when the reverend gentleman occupied a seat near mine, I asked, with as much naiveté as I could command, if he had "worked" the plumbers, the architects, the masons, the carpenters, and the bell-founders? To each of these questions he returned a regretful, "No."

Despite his apparent innocence regarding the purport of my inquiry, I doubt if this gentleman would have boasted that he secured his clothes for nothing, that he wheedled his chops from his butcher, or coaxed his groceries from the shopkeeper at the corner of his street.

And yet, he spoke with condescension of the editor and his means of livelihood!

Theoretically, the editor is the public's mutton. Men who know him boast of their influence with him, and over him. They dictate his policy for him--or say they do, which, of course, is the same thing. Men who never saw him claim to own him. Strangers, casually introduced, ask him questions about his personal affairs that would be instantly resented in any other walk of life.

An experience of my own will illustrate what I mean. At a country house, near Philadelphia, I was introduced to a respectable-looking old man. In the period following dinner, as we sat on the porch to enjoy a smoke, this stranger interrogated me in the most offensive way. When he had paused for breath I gave him a dose of his own medicine. "The deadly parallel" column will tell the story.

WHAT HE ASKED. WHAT I ASKED.

I hear you are an editor? I am told you are a hatter?

Do most newspapers pay? Is hat-making profitable?

How much do editors earn? How much does your business net
you yearly?

You began as a reporter? Grew up in the trade?

Does it require any You can "block a hat while I wait"?
education to be a reporter?

Do you write shorthand? You can handle a hot goose?

Eh? used to? Could once?

Please write some: let's Please take this hat and show me how
see how it looks? it is put together.

Curious-looking Have seen a great many queerly shaped
characters, aren't they? hats in your time, no doubt?

How many columns can you How many hats can you make in a day?
write a day?

Do you write by the column? Do you work by the piece?

What? Don't write at all? Ah? Don't work any longer? Supposed every
How strange!--and so on. hatter made his own hats!--and so on.

The editor may be to blame for this state of things; but if so, his good-nature is responsible. He endures more than other men. He is often worried by the troubles of other people; but he never has been weaned from the milk of human kindness. He may be over-persuaded, he may be deceived, and editors have been fooled, like judge and jurors, by the perjured affidavit of apparently honorable men--but he still continues to believe in mankind.

The chivalry of the politician toward the press is comprehended to a nicety by every man who has served as a newspaper correspondent at Washington.

The average congressman thinks it clever to deceive a newspaper editor or correspondent. He believes they are to be "used," whenever possible, for the congressman's advantage. A correspondent is to be tricked or cajoled into praising the statesman, revising the bad English in his speeches, "saving the country and--the appropriations." All the charities require and demand his aid, and, I am ashamed to say (knowing as I do what a hollow mockery some of the alleged charities really are), generally get the assistance they ask.

The chivalry of the press toward the public is unquestionable. The editor keeps awake nearly all night to serve it, and the facts are not altered because in best serving the public he serves himself.

Journalism, I regret to say, is often spoken of as a "profession," and while we may accept the plebeian word "journalism," as describing a daily labor, I sincerely desire to enter a protest against its designation as a profession. It seems entirely proper to me that this word be relegated to the pedagogue, the chiropodist, and the barn-storming actor who so boldly assert a right to its use.

The making of the newspaper is a mechanical art. It matters very little how much intelligence--or genius, if you prefer the word--enters into its production, the inter-dependence of the so-called "intellectual" branch of the paper upon its mechanical adjuncts is so great that it cannot be maintained that the manufactured article offered to purchasers in the shape of a newspaper is the product of any one lobe of brain tissue. Of what value are a hundred thousand copies of the best newspaper in this land, edited, revised and printed, if its circulation department break down at the critical moment? And what about the newsman? Who shall say that he does not belong to journalism? He's to the service what the Don Cossack is to the Russian hosts. He's the Cossack of journalism--our Cossack of the dawn!

While it is easy to determine the point at which the newspaper begins its existence, it would be very difficult indeed to decide exactly where it receives its finishing touches. For years, geographers wrangled regarding the point at which the day began. In other words, this being Monday, they quarrelled regarding the point at which the sun ceased to shine on Monday, and began to shine on Tuesday.

Philosophers who have discussed the nice points of the daily newspapers have claimed that it dates its origin from the paper mill; but I fail to see why, if we are to go back to the paper mill, we shall not go much further and seek the component parts from which the paper is originally made, showing at once the absurdity of any such an assumption. While not inclined to argue this point, it is my humble judgment that the newspaper begins its existence the moment the managing editor opens his desk for the day's work. He is its main-spring! Whatever of distinctive character it possesses in methods of handling the news of the day it owes to him, and it is these very features that render one journal better or worse than others. He it is, as a rule, who establishes the chivalry of the press toward the public. It is he who decides the line of attack or defense when the vast interests which he represents are assailed.

The peculiar kind of mind required for such a post is probably not developed in any other known business. The longer a man has served the art, the more confidently he trusts to intuition and distrusts a decision based wholly upon experience. Several of the worst blunders ever made in American journalism have been committed after a careful study of the historical precedents. Throughout all his troubles, however, all his anxieties by day and by night--because his responsibilities never end--the managing editor's thoughts are constantly dwelling upon the public service that may be rendered to the reading constituency behind him.

The executive head of a newspaper, great or small, lives in a glass house, with all the world for critics. Every act, no matter how suddenly forced upon him, no matter how careful his judgment, is open to the criticism of every person who reads his paper. The columns of printed matter are the windows of his soul.

These thoughts are all in the line of duty, somewhat selfish in their character, perhaps (because fidelity to the public is the only secret of success); but the sense of chivalry is there,--should be there and seen of all men, on every page of the printed sheet.

This idea of the newspaper's duty to the public is a comparatively new phase of the journalistic art. It has arisen since the brilliant Round Table days of Bennett, Greeley, Webb, Prentice, and Raymond. Their standards were high. Their energy was tremendous. And when they came to blows the combat was terrific. But Greeley, the last survivor, found his Camlan in 1872. He was ambushed and came to his end much as King Arthur from a race that he had trusted and defended. In Greeley's defeat for the Presidency all theorists who had dwelt upon the so-called "Power of the Press" received a shuddering blow. The men who had affected to believe that the press could make and unmake destinies began to count on their fingers the few newspapers that had opposed Horace Greeley. To their amazement they found that, excepting one journal in the metropolis, every daily paper in the land whose editor or chief stockholder did not hold a public office was marshalled in his support. The echoes of their enthusiasm can be heard even to this day. Some of those editors ranted and roared like Sir Toby Belch; but the professional politicians, serene and complacent as gulligut friars, saw their editorial antagonists routed--cakes, ale, and wine-coolers.

To the believers in printer's ink, that presidential campaign was a revelation. Mr. Greeley was the most thoroughly defeated candidate this country has ever known.

I remember the period well, for I was a reporter on the _Tribune_, and as a correspondent travelled from Minnesota to Louisiana. It seemed utterly impossible in May that Mr. Greeley could fail of election; in September, his defeat was assured. That revolt of the people against the dictation of the newspapers was momentous in its results. The independent voter thoroughly asserted himself, and those editors who could be taught by the incident knew that the people resented their leadership. The one sad and pitiful thing about the affair was the ingratitude of the negro race. They deserted their apostle and champion. (I speak frankly, for I was born an abolitionist.)

Throughout the Civil War, the newspapers had harangued, badgered, and dictated; had bolstered up or destroyed men, character, and measures. It was well, perhaps, that the men who directed these same newspapers should be taught a severe lesson.

Without doubt, the stormy period in which Greeley, Bennett, Prentice, Webb, and Raymond tilted, was necessary as a preparatory era to the more brilliant age of chivalry that succeeded! We as a people were younger in journalism than in any other intellectual or mechanical art. Great statesmen had been grown in plenty--the very birth of the nation had found them full-fledged. A constellation of brilliant preachers of the Gospel and expounders of the law are remembered. We can all name them over from Jonathan Edwards to Theodore Parker and from John Marshall to Rufus Choate. Great mercantile families had been created, such as the Astors, the Grinells, the Bakers, Howlands, Aspinwalls, and Claflins.

Large fortunes had been amassed in commerce; but not an editor had been able to accumulate money enough to keep his own carriage!

Journalism languished until about 1840. The great public did not seem to require editors. The people of New York, possibly, persisted in remembering that the first man in this country to write an editorial article had been hanged in the City Hall Park. He had died heroically, immortalizing the occasion when he said: "I regret that I have only one life to give for my country." But some people believed he had suffered death because he wrote editorial articles.

The art of making the newspaper steadily gained in public appreciation. To employ the simile chivalric, its young squires were changed into full-fledged knights by the propagation of a new idea, a new aim--the rendering of public service! True enough, the motto of the noblest English princedom, "_Ich dien!_" acknowledges the high duty of service; but, when proclaimed as a journalistic duty it took the form of a new tender of fidelity from the best men at court to the people at large. It was so accepted, and has drawn the people and the press closer together. It was as if these true knights drew their weapons before the public eye and offered a new pledge of fidelity in the thrilling old Norman usage of the word "_Service!_"

A gleam of something higher and nobler than mere swashbuckling was in every editorial eye. The idea developed, as did the nobility and purity of Chivalry under Godfrey, the Agamemnon of Tasso. In all truly representative editorial minds the feeling grew that any power which their arms or training gave them should be exercised in the defense of the weak and oppressed. They renewed the old vow: "To maintain the just rights of such as are unable to defend themselves." It was a great step--as far-reaching in its results as was the promulgation of that oath in the age of Chivalry.

At this point rose the reporter. He had been recognized for years as the coming servitor of the press. But a few of him in the early days had been dissolute, had written without proper regard to facts, and had brought discredit not only on himself but the chivalry which others believed in. He began to brace up, to pull himself together, to be better educated, to dress in excellent taste, and, above all, to write better copy. Henry Murger had published a series of sketches under the title "_Scenes de La Vie de Bohéme_." These few pictures described the Paris life of that period, beyond a doubt; but here in New York a few bright men sought to revive the spirit and the _couleur de rose_ of the Quartier Latin. It was a clever idea, but it didn't last.

In one of the bleakest corners of the old graveyard at Nantucket stands a monument to Henry Clapp, the presiding genius of the Bohemian Club that sat for so many years in Phaff's cellar on Broadway. Its roll contained many of the brightest names known in the history of the American press. They were true Bohemians,--once defined by George William Curtis as the "literary men who had a divine contempt for to-morrow." How cleverly those choice spirits wrote and talked about their lives away back in the fifties. Get a file of the New York _Figaro_, or some of the Easy Chair papers in _Harper's_ of that period, and enjoy their cloud-land life! I only quote one sentence and it is from "the Chair," though I half suspect Fitz James O'Brien, rather than George William Curtis, penned it:--

"Bohemia is a roving kingdom--a realm in the air, like Arthur's
England. It sometimes happens that, as a gipsy's child turns out
to be a prince's child, who, perforce, dwells in a palace, so
the Bohemian is found in a fine house and high society. Bohemia
is a fairyland on this hard earth. It is Arcadia in New York."

Ah! yes, this is all very beautiful, but rent had to be paid; and the literary workers of to-day never forget that journalism is the only branch of literature that from the outset enables a man to live and pay his way. And yet when we remember Henry Clapp, Fitz James O'Brien, N. G. Shepherd, and Ned Wilkins, we feel that every working newspaper man is better to-day because they struggled and starved; because they lived in the free air of Bohemia.

With the worker in the art, "the struggle for existence" begins with his first day's apprentice task as a reporter. No man ever became a journalist who did not serve that apprenticeship. There is no hope for him outside of complete success. It requires several years for him to learn to get news and to properly write it. One failure will blight his entire career. Unlike any other commercial commodity, news once lost cannot be recouped.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was the first Parliamentary reporter. He got a list of the speakers, then went to his lodgings in a dingy court off Fleet Street and wrote out speeches for the Lords and the Commons. He did this for years and not one of the men so honored is on record as having denied the accuracy of the report(?). Dr. Johnson made the reputations of half a dozen men who are to-day mentioned among the great English orators. They were honorable men, as the world goes, but not one of them, except Edmund Burke, ever acknowledged his indebtedness to Samuel Johnson. I never have known a senator or congressman to thank a Washington correspondent for making his speech presentable to educated eyes. He has been known to grow warm in praise of all classes of humanity, from Tipperary to Muscovy, but never a word of commendation escapes his lips for a newspaper man. He believes in philanthropy, but as Napoleon said to Talleyrand, he "wants it to be a long way off!" (_Je veux seulement que ce soit de la philanthropie lointaine._)

With the rise of journalistic chivalry came the search for news. It became a precious prize. The special correspondent and reporter sought it. Truth was to be rescued from oblivion! Facts began to be hunted for like the ambergris and ivory of commerce. At first the search resembled the quest for the Oracle of the Holy Bottle,--a test as to the public's opinion of news. What kind of service did the public want? Adventure followed, as a matter of course, but love of adventure was not the impelling motive.

The American newspaper, like the American railroad, developed along new lines. Girardin, who had created all that is worth considering in the French press, had pinned his faith to the _feuilleton_ and the snappy editorial article, with its "one idea only." News was of no account. In the English journal, the supremacy of the editorial page was asserted and maintained. News was desirable but secondary; and there was no hurry about obtaining it. In the Spanish press blossomed--and has ever since bloomed--the paragraph. News was a good thing, if it could be told in a few lines, but generally, alas, dangerous. A paragraph must only be long enough to allow a cigarette to go out while you were reading it. Wax matches cost only a cuarta per box, but cigarettes were expensive. Beaumarchais understood the Spanish press when he put the famous epigram into "Figaro's" lips: "So long as you print nothing, you may print anything."

The chivalry of the editor toward his "esteemed contemporary" is a sad and solemn phase of this true commentary.

After you have carefully reread the "editorial" pages of two metropolitan journals from 1841 to date, and remember that the contemporaries of Guttenberg called printing "the black art," you will marvel that public opinion has ever changed. If the contemporaries of the old Nuremberg printer had lived in 1882, and taken in the _Tribune_ of February 25th, they would have gone out to gather faggots to roast an editor. The excuse for one of the most savage attacks ever made by one American editor upon another was that a rival had printed a private telegram, sent by an editor to the chief magistrate of the nation, which had found its way into wrong hands or had been "taken off the wires," as many other messages had been before. And yet, young as I am, I remember that in 1871, the treaty of Washington was "acquired" by means even more questionable and printed entire, to the confusion and indignation of the United States Senators. The very same editor laid down a dictum that was thought to be very clever at the time: "It is the duty of our correspondents to get the news; it is the business of other people to keep their own secrets." This was all very well in 1871, but in 1882, the moral "lay in the application on it."

From the very moment in which the American newspaper attained a definite policy and impulse, its direction has been forward, and it has daily grown in wealth and popular respect.

I have called the special correspondent the knight errant of the newspaper. Let me prove it. The greatest, noblest of them all was J. A. MacGahan, of Khiva and San Stefano. He was an American, born in Perry County, Ohio. I can sketch his career in a few brief sentences: He was at law-school in Brussels when the Franco-Prussian war burst upon Europe, in 1870. Having had some experience as a writer for the press, he entered the field at once. Danger and suffering were his, though he did not achieve renown in that brief campaign. He then made his memorable ride to Khiva, and wrote the best book on Central Asia known to our language. Another turn of the wheel found him in Cuba describing the Virginius complications. There I first met him. Thence he returned to England, and sailed with Captain Young in the Pandora to the Arctic regions, making the last search undertaken for the lost crew of Sir John Franklin's expedition. MacGahan returned to London in the spring of 1876 in time to read in the newspapers brief despatches from Turkey recounting the reported atrocities of the Bashi-Bazouks. He determined at once to go to Bulgaria. In a month's time, he had put a new face on the "Eastern Question." The great trouble between Christian and Turk was no longer confined to "the petty quarrel of a few monks over a key and a silver star," as defined by the late Mr. Kinglake, but assumed proportions that could be discerned in every club and in every drawing-room of Imperial London. MacGahan had begun his memorable ride, the results of which will endure as long as Christianity! He visited Batak and painted in cold type what he saw. He caused the shrieks of the dying girls in the pillaged towns of Bulgaria to be heard throughout Christian Europe. A Tory minister, stanch in his fidelity to the "unspeakable Turk," sent its fleet to the Dardanelles, but dared not land a man or fire a single gun. Popular England repudiated its old ally. And MacGahan rode onward and wrote sheaves of letters. In every hamlet he passed through, he said: "The Czar will avenge this! Courage, people; he will come!"

From that time history was made as by a cyclone. The Russian hosts were mobilized at Kischeneff, and the Czar of all the Russias reviewed them. Then the order to cross the Pruth was given, as MacGahan had foretold; our Knight Errant rode with the advanced guard. Through the changing fortune of the war, grave and gay, he passed. Much of his work, now preserved in permanent form, is the best of its kind in our language. The assault of Skobeleff on the Gravitza redoubt was immortalized by MacGahan's pen. When Plevna fell, our hero was in the van during the mad rush toward the Bosphorus. The triumphant advance was never checked until the spires and minarets of Constantinople were in sight. Bulgaria was redeemed, the power of the Turk in Europe was broken, the aggrandizement of Russia was complete--and all because J. A. MacGahan had lived and striven.

At San Stefano, a suburb of the capital, on the Sea of Marmora, our hero died of fever. Skobeleff, whose friendship dated back to the Kirgitz Steppe and the Khivan conquest, closed his eyes and was chief mourner at his grave. To-day on the anniversary of his death, prayers for the repose of his soul are said in every hamlet throughout Bulgaria. His service to the newspaper and to the civilized world extended over less than eight years, but he accomplished for the public the work of a lifetime.

Hail to his memory! His was the chivalry of the press!

For years the name of Latour d'Auvergne, "first grenadier of France," was called at nightfall in every regiment of the Imperial Grenadier Guard. When the name was heard, the first grenadier in the rank would answer, "_Mort--sur le champ de bataille_."

So, when the roll is called of those that have added to the chivalry and glory of the American press, every fellow-laborer who knew "MacGahan of Kiva and San Stefano" will salute and answer: "Dead--and glorious!"

Philogeny, the new and brilliant science that treats of the development of the human race from the animal kingdom, teaches that the history of the germ is an epitome of the history of the descent. It is equally true in journalism, that the various forms of discouragement, hope, and final success through which the individual worker in the art passes, during his progress from the reportorial egg-cell to the fully developed executive-editorial organism, is a compressed reproduction of the long series of misfortunes and interferences through which the ancestors of the American newspaper of to-day have passed. The simile is true, aye, to the supreme part played by "the struggle for existence!" Under its influence, through the "natural selection" of the public, a new and nobler species of journalism has arisen and now exists. The newspaper of to-day, evolved from rudimentary forms, is a splendid and heroic organism; and the last upholder of the dogma of its miraculous creation and infallible power is dead.

SOCIETY'S EXILES.

BY B. O. FLOWER.

It is difficult to over-estimate the gravity of the problem presented by those compelled to exist in the slums of our populous cities, even when considered from a purely economic point of view. From the midst of this commonwealth of degradation there goes forth a moral contagion, scourging society in all its ramifications, coupled with an atmosphere of physical decay--an atmosphere reeking with filth, heavy with foul odors, laden with disease. In time of any contagion the social cellar becomes the hotbed of death, sending forth myriads of fatal germs which permeate the air for miles around, causing thousands to die because society is too short-sighted to understand that the interest of its humblest member is the interest of all. The slums of our cities are the reservoirs of physical and moral death, an enormous expense to the State, a constant menace to society, a reality whose shadow is at once colossal and portentous. In time of social upheavals they will prove magazines of destruction; for while revolution will not originate in them, once let a popular uprising take form and the cellars will reinforce it in a manner more terrible than words can portray. Considered ethically, the problem is even more embarrassing and deplorable; here, as nowhere else in civilized society, thousands of our fellowmen are exiled from the enjoyments of civilization, forced into life's lowest strata of existence, branded with that fatal word scum. If they aspire to rise, society shrinks from them; they seem of another world; they are of another world; driven into the darkness of a hopeless existence, viewed much as were lepers in olden times. Over their heads perpetually rests the dread of eviction, of sickness, and of failure to obtain sufficient work to keep life in the forms of their loved ones, making existence a perpetual nightmare, from which death alone brings release. Say not that they do not feel this; I have talked with them; I have seen the agony born of a fear that rests heavy on their souls stamped in their wrinkled faces and peering forth from great pathetic eyes. For them winter has real terror, for they possess neither clothes to keep comfortable the body, nor means with which to properly warm their miserable tenements. Summer is scarcely less frightful in their quarters, with the heat at once stifling, suffocating, almost intolerable; heat which acting on the myriad germs of disease produces fever, often ending in death, or, what is still more dreaded, chronic invalidism. Starvation, misery, and vice, trinity of despair, haunt their every step. The Golden Rule,--the foundation of true civilization, the keynote of human happiness,--reaches not their wretched quarters. Placed by society under the ban, life is one long and terrible night. But tragic as is the fate of the present generation, still more appalling is the picture when we contemplate the thousands of little waves of life yearly washed into the cellar of being; fragile, helpless innocents, responsible in no way for their presence or environment, yet condemned to a fate more frightful than the beasts of the field; human beings wandering in the dark, existing in the sewer, ever feeling the crushing weight of the gay world above, which thinks little and cares less for them. Infinitely pathetic is their lot.

The causes that have operated to produce these conditions are numerous and complex, the most apparent being the immense influx of immigration from the crowded centres of the old world; the glamor of city life, which has allured thousands from the country, fascinating them from afar much as the gaudy colors and tinsel before the footlights dazzle the vision of a child; the rapid growth of the saloon, rendered well-nigh impregnable by the wealth of the liquor power; the wonderful labor-saving inventions, which in the hands of greed and avarice, instead of mitigating the burdens of the people, have greatly augmented them, by glutting the market with labor; the opportunities given by the government through grants, special privileges, and protective measures for rapid accumulation of wealth by the few; the power which this wealth has given its possessors over the less fortunate; the spread of that fevered mental condition which subjects all finer feelings and holier aspirations to the acquisition of gold and the gratification of carnal appetites, and which is manifest in such a startling degree in the gambler's world, which to dignify we call the realm of speculation; the desire for vulgar ostentation and luxurious indulgence, in a word the fatal fever for gold which has infested the social atmosphere, and taken possession of hundreds of thousands of our people, chilling their hearts, benumbing their conscience, choking all divine impulses and refined sensibilities; the cowardice and lethargy of the Church, which has grown rich in gold and poor in the possession of moral energy, which no longer dares to denounce the money changers, or alarm those who day by day are anæsthetizing their own souls, while adding to the misery of the world. The church has become, to a great extent, subsidized by gold, saying in effect, "I am rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing," apparently ignorant of the fact that she "is wretched, poor, blind, and naked," that she has signally failed in her mission of establishing on earth an ideal brotherhood. Instead of lifting her children into that lofty spiritual realm where each feels the misery of his brother, she has so far surrendered to the mammon of unrighteousness that, without the slightest fear of having their consciences disturbed, men find comfort in her soft-cushioned pews, who are wringing from ten to thirty per cent. profit from their fellowmen in the wretched tenement districts, or who refuse to pay more than twelve cents a pair for the making of pants, forty-five cents a dozen for flannel shirts, seventy-five cents a dozen for knee pants, and twenty-five cents a dozen for neckties. I refer not to the many noble exceptions, but I indict the great body of wealthy and fashionable churches, whose ministers do not know and take no steps to find out the misery that is dependent upon the avarice of their parishioners. Then again back of all this is the defective education which has developed all save character in man; education which has trained the brain but shriveled the soul. Last but by no means least is land speculation which has resulted in keeping large tracts of land idle which otherwise would have blossomed with happy homes. To these influences we must add the general ignorance of the people regarding the nature, extent, and growing proportions of the misery and want in the New World which is spreading as an Eastern plague in the filth of an oriental city.

It is not my present purpose to dwell further on the causes which have produced these conditions. I wish to bring home to the mind and heart of the reader a true conception of life in the slums, by citing typical cases illustrating a condition prevalent in every great city of the Union and increasing in its extent every year. I shall confine myself to uninvited want as found in civilized Boston, because I am personally acquainted with the condition of affairs here, and because Boston has long claimed the proud distinction of being practically free from poverty.

I shall briefly describe scenes which fell under my personal observation during an afternoon tour through the slums of the North End, confining myself to a few typical cases which fairly represent the condition of numbers of families who are suffering through uninvited poverty, a fact which I have fully verified by subsequent visits to the wretched homes of our very poor. I purposely omit in this paper describing any members of that terrible commonwealth where misery, vice, degradation, and crime are inseparably interwoven. This class belongs to a lower stratum; they have graduated downward. Feeling that society's hand is against them, Ishmael-like they raise their hand against society. They complement the uninvited poor; both are largely a product of unjust and inequitable social conditions.

The scenes I am about to describe were witnessed one afternoon in April. The day was sunless and dreary, strangely in keeping with the environment of the exiles of society who dwell in the slums. The sobbing rain, the sad, low murmur of the wind under the eaves and through the narrow alleys, the cheerless frowning sky above, were in perfect harmony with the pathetic drama of life I was witnessing. Everything seemed pitched in a minor key, save now and then there swelled forth splendid notes of manly heroism and womanly courage, as boldly contrasting with the dead level of life as do the full rich notes of Wagner's grandest strains with the plaintive melody of a simple ballad sung by a shepherd lad. I was accompanied in this instance by the Rev. Walter Swaffield, of the Bethel Mission, and his assistant, Rev. W. J. English.

The first building we entered faced a narrow street. The hallway was as dark as the air was foul or the walls filthy. Not a ray or shimmer of light fell through transoms or skylight. The stairs were narrow and worn. By the aid of matches we were able to grope our way along, and also to observe more than was pleasant to behold. It was apparent that the hallways or stairs were seldom surprised by water, while pure, fresh air was evidently as much a stranger as fresh paint. After ascending several flights, we entered a room of undreamed-of wretchedness. On the floor lay a sick man.[2] He was rather fine-looking, with an intelligent face, bright eyes, and countenance indicative of force of character. No sign of dissipation, but an expression of sadness, or rather a look of dumb resignation peered from his expressive eyes. For more than two years he has been paralyzed in his lower limbs, and also affected with dropsy. The spectacle of a strong man, with the organs of locomotion dead, is always pathetic; but when the victim of such misfortune is in the depths of abject poverty, his case assumes a tragic hue. There for two years he had lain on a wretched pallet of rags, seeing day by day and hour by hour his faithful wife tirelessly sewing, and knowing full well that health, life, and hope were hourly slipping from her. This poor woman supports the invalid husband, her two children, and herself, by making pants at twelve cents a pair. No rest, no surcease, a perpetual grind from early dawn often till far into the night; and what is more appalling, outraged nature has rebelled; the long months of semi-starvation and lack of sleep have brought on rheumatism, which has settled in the joints of her fingers, so that every stitch means a throb of pain. The afternoon we called, she was completing an enormous pair of _custom-made_ pants of very fine blue cloth, for one of the largest clothing houses in Boston. The suit would probably bring sixty or sixty-five dollars, yet her employer graciously informed his poor white slave that as the garment was so large, he would give her an _extra cent_. Thirteen cents for fine custom-made pants, manufactured for a wealthy firm, which repeatedly asserts that its clothing is not made in tenement houses! Thus with one of the most painful diseases enthroned in that part of the body which must move incessantly from dawn till midnight, with two small dependent children and a husband who is utterly powerless to help her, this poor woman struggles bravely and uncomplainingly, confronted ever by a nameless dread of impending misfortune. Eviction, sickness, starvation,--such are the ever-present spectres, while every year marks the steady encroachment of disease, and the lowering of the register of vitality. Moreover, from the window of her soul falls the light of no star athwart the pathway of life.

[2] NOTE ON PICTURE OF INVALID IN CHAIR. The picture given in
this issue of this apartment represents the poor invalid
placed by some friends on a chair while his bed could be
made. Our artist preferred to take it this way, knowing
that it would bring out the strong face better than if
taken on his pallet on the floor, where for two years he
has lain. Through The Arena Relief Fund, we have been
enabled to greatly relieve the hard lot of this as well as
many other families of unfortunates. Now the invalid is
provided with a comfortable bedstead, with a deep, soft
mattress, and furnished with many other things which
contribute to life's comfort. When the bed, mattress, and
other articles were being brought into this apartment, the
tears of gratitude and joy flowed almost in rivers from the
eyes of the patient wife, who felt that even in their
obscure den some one in the great world yet cared for them.

The next place we visited was in the attic of a tenement building even more wretched than the one just described. The general aspects of these houses, however, are all much the same, the chief difference being in degrees of filth and squalor present. Here in an attic lives a poor widow with three children, a little boy and two little girls, Constance and Maggie.[3] They live by making pants at twelve cents a pair. Since the youngest child was two and a half years old she has been daily engaged in overcasting the long seams of the garments made by her mother. When we first called she had just passed her fourth birthday, and now overcasts from three to four pairs of pants every day. There seated on a little stool she sat, her fingers moving as rapidly and in as unerring manner as an old experienced needlewoman. These three children are fine looking, as are most of the little Portuguese I visited. Their large heads and brilliant eyes seem to indicate capacity to enjoy in an unusual degree the matchless delight springing from intellectual and spiritual development. Yet the wretched walls of their little apartment practically mark the limit of their world; the needle their inseparable companion; their moral and mental natures hopelessly dwarfed; a world of wonderful possibilities denied them by an inexorable fate over which they have no control and for which they are in no way responsible. We often hear it said that these children of the slums are perfectly happy; that not knowing what they miss life is as enjoyable to them as the young in more favorable quarters. I am satisfied, however, that this is true only in a limited sense. The little children I have just described are already practically machines; day by day they engage in the same work with much the monotony of an automatic instrument propelled by a blind force. When given oranges and cakes, a momentary smile illumined their countenances, a liquid brightness shot from their eyes, only to be replaced by the solemn, almost stolid, expression which has become habitual even on faces so young. This conclusion was still more impressively emphasized by the following touching remark of a child of twelve years in another apartment, who was with her mother busily sewing. "I am forty-three years old to-day," remarked the mother, and said Mr. English, "I shall be forty-two next week." "_Oh, dear_," broke in the child, "_I should think people would grow SO TIRED of living so MANY YEARS._" Was utterance ever more pathetic? She spoke in tones of mingled sadness and weariness, revealing in one breath all the pent-up bitterness of a young life condemned to a slavery intolerable to any refined or sensitive nature. Is it strange that people here take to drink? To me it is far more surprising that so many are sober. I am convinced that, in the slums, far more drunkenness is caused by abject poverty and inability to obtain work, than want is produced by drink. Here the physical system, half starved and often chilled, calls for stimulants. Here the horrors of nightmare, which we sometimes suffer during our sleep, are present during every waking hour. An oppressive fear weighs forever on the mind. Drink offers a temporary relief and satisfies the craving of the system, besides the environment invites dissipation and human nature at best is frail. I marvel that there is not more drunkenness exhibited in the poverty spots of our cities.