Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The Military Society of Massachusetts was organized in 1876, with the object of investigating questions relating to the civil war. Up to the date of the publication of this volume, about forty papers were read, six of them being devoted to the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, eleven to General Pope's campaign of 1862, three to the campaign of Chancellorsville, three to the Antietam campaign, sixteen to the campaign of 1864, and one each to the battle of Mobile Bay and Grouchy controversy,--all, with the exception of the last two, bearing upon the operations of the Army of the Potomac in 1862 and 1864, and including discussions from different standpoints of the objects and general plans of the several campaigns and battles in which it participated, and of the controverted questions that have arisen concerning them. The first printed volume of the Society contains the following papers:--"General McClellan's Plans for the campaign of 1862, and the Alleged Interference of the Government with them," by John C. Ropes, Esq: "The Siege of Yorktown," by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. John C. Palfrey, U.S.A.: "The Period which elapsed between the Fall of Yorktown and the Beginning of the Seven-Days-Battles," by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Francis W. Palfrey, U.S.V. "The Seven-Days Battles--to Malvern Hill," by same author. "The Battle of Malvern Hill," by same author; "Comments on the Peninsular Campaign," by Bvt.-Brig.-Gen. Charles A. Whittier, U.S.V. All of these are earnest discussions,--but of unequal worth--of the various merits or demerits of General McClellan in the Peninsular campaign, or the attitude of the government toward him at that time. The ground is traversed as often before; all the old arguments are again brought into comparison, and a very small amount of _new_ evidence is discovered. What has previously been said in many books and pamphlets and by a score of writers, is here said in one volume by three writers. But nothing appears to be _freshly_ said, and, as usual, the conclusions reached are colored by the political likes or dislikes of their several writers. The sole merit of the volume lies in the fact that its papers embody a mass of very valuable material, gleaned from trustworthy sources, for the future historian. It is very safe to assume, however, that the future historian while expressing gratitude for their investigations, will not be tempted to place much weight upon the conclusions of the gentlemen who hold the monopoly of this volume but have not solved a single mooted question.

LIFE OF JAMES BUCHANAN, Fifteenth President of the United
States. By George Ticknor Curtis. 2 vols. octavo, pp. 625, 707. New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1883.

The second volume of this exceedingly painstaking and meritorious biography sheds much light upon the events preceding, and those transpiring during, the civil war. As another writer has remarked, "there is something very pitiable, something almost tragic, in the figure of James Buchanan during the last months of his administration." He found himself wavering between two factions, between Right and Wrong. So long as he wavered, the South stood by him; when he ceased to be a wary politician and manifested a decision of character such as the times demanded, the South turned against him as one man. His biographer proves conclusively that the weak and time-serving President was _opposed_ to secession; but as positively proves without intending to do so, that he favored it by his singular unfitness and indifference in emergencies. When secession threatened, Mr. Buchanan took the ground that he would not precipitate war by applying force to prevent a State from seceding, but that he would defend the flag and property of the United States. With this policy in his heart, he permitted public property to be seized, without striking a blow; he discovered treason in his cabinet, and coolly allowed the traitors to consummate their work and to depart. The fact was, that he was a very weak man, and his biographer is the best authority for the statement. The work is important; it will always, as it richly merits, be consulted by students, and may be read with interest and profit by all.

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

ASSESSMENT LIFE INSURANCE.

BY SHEPPARD ROMANS.

Life insurance, by whatever system, plan or method, has, for its fundamental basis, the laws governing the rates of mortality at the different ages. These fundamental laws have been developed and made clear by a vast amount of statistical data obtained from observations among persons insured in life insurance companies among annuitants, among inhabitants of various towns and cities, and among the whole population in certain countries, notably in England and in Belgium. One uniform, unvarying, certain law has been thus established, which is that the rate of mortality, or in other words the cost of insurance, increases as a man grows older. From this law there is no escape. We must accept the inevitable. Hence any system of insurance which is not in accordance with this first principle, this unalterable law of nature, is unsound, and any company, whether charging level premiums or natural premiums, which does not recognize and conform to this fundamental law of nature, is doomed to disaster and wreck, sooner or later.

There are two methods of life insurance worthy of the name, and two only. The one is by payments accurately adjusted to the cost of insurance at each actual age, and which inevitably, unavoidably and inexorably, must increase with the age of the person insured, and the other is by level, or uniform payments extending over the whole duration of life or for a stated number of years. The first is the natural system and has been adopted _in part_, and imperfectly, by assessment companies; the second is the artificial system, and is the one which has been offered exclusively until lately, by all the regular life insurance companies. Properly carried out, the one is as sound in theory and as safe in practice as the other. In fact, the artificial premiums are the exact mathematical or commuted equivalents of the natural premiums.

Until within the last decade, the level premium system was practically the only one in use. Since then there have come into existence hundreds of co-operative or assessment companies. These institutions have had a wonderful growth. It is claimed that the number of members and the amounts insured, double those, respectively, in the old or regular companies.

Assessment companies do not, strictly speaking, grant insurance. They are rather agencies, or trust companies, and their functions or covenants are to make assessments upon survivors when deaths occur, and to pay over the proceeds of such assessments to the beneficiaries of the deceased members. There is no definite promise to pay in full, and no obligation to pay more than the assessments yield. There is no capital, no risk, no _insurance!_ It is a voluntary association of individuals. There is usually but little if any penalty for discontinuance of membership, and the permanence of such institutions depends mainly upon the volition of their members. They spring into existence suddenly by the voluntary association of a few individuals without capital or personal risk, and as suddenly they may go out of existence by the voluntary act or withdrawal of their members. A breath may create, a breath destroy.

It must be evident then to the merest tyro, that the permanence and success of assessment companies depend upon the most rigid observance of those principles which science and sound business experience have demonstrated to be fundamental. Among these principles may be mentioned the following.

1. Rates of assessments or payments adjusted to the cost of insurance at the actual age of each person. These rates must inevitably and inexorably increase with the age of the individual.

2. The creation of a guaranty, or emergency fund, available not only to meet extra mortality, but as a cement to secure cohesion among the members, and prevent the exodus of the sound lives.

3. An assessment in advance at issue of certificate, otherwise some persons will be insured for nothing and the cost will fall on the persistent members.

As was well said by a contributor in your last number, assessment insurance has its defects, and these are well known to the managers of these institutions, and that great improvements have been made by the National Convention of assessment companies, which is composed of representatives from the best companies organized in almost every state. They recognize existing defects, they point out the remedies, and yet, but few seem to have the courage of their convictions. It is a fact beyond dispute, that with perhaps a half-dozen exceptions, the rates of assessment in every assessment company in the country remain constant as at the age of entry. That is to say, a man entering at the age of forty, pays the rate at forty only, as long as he remains a member. This is a direct violation of the inexorable law of nature which says, that as a man grows older the risk of dying, or in other words the cost of insurance, increases. It is all nonsense to urge that the _average_ age and the average cost will be kept down by the influx of new members. The contract is made with the individual, and unless each person pays enough to compensate the company for the indemnity or insurance furnished to him, it follows of necessity, that others will be overcharged in order to meet the deficiency so occasioned. And this evil is intensified each year as the company grows older. When younger and fresher men find that they are overcharged in order to meet deficiencies arising from the act that older and inferior risks pay less than cost, they will either not enter, or, if members, will speedily desert and join an institution which is on a sounder and more equitable basis. No institution can be permanently successful which does not observe equity. I have no hesitation in saying that every assessment or corporation company which violates this fundamental law of nature by not making its rates of assessment increase with the age of the individuals insured, is _doomed_, and that disaster and wreck is only a question of time. This is not a new opinion. It's truth is attested by more than one wreck in this country already.

In every level, or uniform premium, there is a provision for the payment to the company of the rate of insurance at the actual present age, (no matter at what age the insurance was affected) on the net amount at risk.

The great danger for co-oporative or assessment companies lies in the facility with which such institutions may be organized, and by men without capital, character, experience or financial ability, who may thus be ushered into corporate existence by the indulgent laws of different states.

The members of the National Association of assessment companies should see to it that the laws of the different states should be so amended as to require at least a small capital, say $25,000, as a guaranty of good faith and ability on the part of the promoters, and that no company should be admitted to membership unless its system was founded on sound principles as demonstrated by science and business experience.

The managers of assessment companies should be careful lest their claims should prove to be unfounded. For instance, the writer of the article in your last number boldly asserts that it "is susceptible of mathematical demonstration that one or two million of dollars of reserve is adequate to perpetuate any well-conducted assessment company for all time, however large or small it may be, while the spectacle is presented to us of level premium companies holding fifty to one hundred millions of accumulations belonging to their policy holders, from which no possible benefit, in most cases, will ever accrue to them." On reflection he must see the absurdity of such statements.

The level premium system is a combination of insurance and investments. The hundred millions are _investments_, and are necessary for the integrity of the level premium contracts. Any assessment company in which the rates do not increase as the members grow older should be compelled to have the full premium reserve required by state law and actuarial science to be held on level premium contracts. This is capable of mathematical demonstration.

It must be borne in mind that the cost of insurance _proper_, that is, the provision to meet current death claims alone, is quite as high in the best assessment company as in a regular life insurance company, for this cost depends on the careful selection of lives. The difference in the two institutions is that the former dispenses with the investment element, while the latter exacts it in connection with all their contracts. Hence the price to be paid is greater. But is not the _guarantee_ also greater?

The beneficiary under a death claim in an assessment company has for her security the _hope_, or promise if you please, that one thousand men will pay ten dollars each for her account. The beneficiary under a death claim in a regular life insurance company has for her security not only the actual payments of ten dollars each by one thousand men, but the definite promise to pay in full by an institution which has ample capital, assets, and surplus to back its contracts.

Assessment insurance is yet on trial, and its only hope of permanent business lies in a rigid compliance with the laws of mortality and of sound business experience.

* * * * *

THE OLD STATE HOUSE.

BY SIDNEY MAXWELL.

The Old State House! Within these antique walls
The early fathers of the hamlet met
And gravely argued of the town's affairs.
Another generation came; and in
This hall the Tory Council sat in state
While from the burning lips of Otis, or
The stem, defiant tongue of Adams sprang
That eloquence whose echoes thundered back
From Concord, Lexington, and Bunker's Hill!
Between those years and ours a century lies;
Those patriot's graves are deep with moss and mould,
And yet these walls--the same whose shadows fell
Athwart the crimson snow where Preston charged[3]--
Still cast their shadows; not on troops, nor mob
Exasperated by their wrongs, but on
A jostling, hurrying throng--freeman each one,
Unless in bondage to himself. O Man:
Pass not all heedless by, nor imprecate
This aged relic of the past because
It lies across thy path! From avarice
Redeemed; restored unto its former self,--
We hail thee, noble Sentry of the years,
And greet thee with a thousand loving cheers!

[Footnote 3: The "Boston Massacre," March 5th, 1770.]

* * * * *

THE PRECIOUS METALS.

BY DAVID N. BALFOUR.

From the earliest times to the commencement of the Christian Era, the amount of the gold and silver obtained from the surface and mines of the earth is estimated to be $5,084,000,000; from the latter event to the epoch of the discovery of America, $4,363,374,000 were obtained; from the date of the last event to the end of 1842, an addition of $8,500,000,000 was made; the extensive working of the Russian gold mines in 1843, and subsequent years, added to the close of 1852, $1,400,000,000 more; the quadruple discovery of the California gold mines in 1848, those of Australia in 1851, of New Zealand in 1861, and the silver mines of Nevada and other countries bordering upon the Pacific slope of the United States, added, at the close of 1884, $7,093,626,000, making a grand total at the present time of $26,441,000,000.

The average loss by the attrition of coin is estimated by Prof. Bowen at one-fortieth of one per cent, per annum; and the average loss by consumption in the arts, and destruction by fire and shipwreck, at $9,000,000 per annum. The amount of the precious metals in existence is estimated to be $13,670,000,000, of which gold furnishes $8,166,000,000, and silver $5,504,000,000. Of the amount now in existence, $10,500,000,000 are estimated to be in coin and bullion, $2,000,000,000 in watches, and the remainder in plate, jewelry, and ornaments. Of the amount now in existence, $9,448,000,000 is estimated to have been obtained from America, $1,908,000,000 from Asia (including Australia, New Zealand, and Oceanica); $1,004,000,000 from Europe, and $1,310,000,000 from Africa.

The following statement will exhibit the product of the precious metals throughout the world in 1884:--

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.
Alaska, $300,000 $30,000 $320,000
British Columbia, 2,000,000 80,000 2,080,000
United States, 30,800,000 48,800,000 79,600,000
Mexico, 1,000,000 30,000,000 31,000,000
Guatemala, 40,000 200,000 240,000
Honduras, 50,000 50,000 100,000
San Salvador, 100,000 150,000 250,000
Nicaragua, 100,000 100,000 200,000
Costa Rica, 50,000 50,000 100,000
Columbia, 1,900,000 500,000 2,400,000
Venezuela, 3,000,000 200,000 3,200,000
Guiana, 75,000 50,000 125,000
Brazil, 400,000 50,000 450,000
Bolivia, 50,000 12,980,000 13,030,000
Chili, 60,000 5,000,000 5,060,000
Argentine Republic, 50,000 200,000 250,000
Patagonia, $10,000 $5,000 $10,000
Other countries, 15,000 45,000 60,000
__________ __________ ___________
Total, $40,000,000 $98,480,000 $138,480,000

EUROPE.

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.

Russia, $22,000,000 $300,000 $22,300,000
Prussia, 900,000 8,000,000 8,900,000
Spain, 70,000 2,500,000 2,570,000
Austria, 950,000 1,500,000 2,450,000
Norway, 60,000 300,000 360,000
Other Countries, 20,000 320,000 340,000
__________ __________ ___________
Total, $24,000,000 $12,920,000 $36,920,000

ASIA.

Countries. Gold. (America) Silver. Total.

Borneo, $700,000 $470,000 $1,170,000
China, 600,000 450,000 1,050,000
Japan, 120,000 353,000 473,000
__________ __________ ___________
Total, $1,420,000 $1,273,000 $2,693,000

Australia, $26,000,000 $80,000 $26,080,000
New Zealand, 4,000,000 500,000 4,500,000
Africa, 2,000,000 500,000 2,500,000
Oceanica, 580,000 247,000 827,000
__________ __________ ___________
Grand Total, $98,000,000 $114,000,000 $212,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the annual product of the precious metals at different periods:--

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.D. 14, $800,000 $4,200,000 $5,000,000
A.D. 500, 200,000 2,800,000 3,000,000
A.D. 1000, 120,000 880,000 1,000,000
A.D. 1492, 100,000 150,000 250,000
A.D. 1550, 800,000 3,200,000 4,000,000
A.D. 1600, 2,000,000 9,000,000 11,000,000
A.D. 1700, 5,000,000 18,000,000 23,000,000
A.D. 1800, 17,000,000 38,000,000 55,000,000
A.D. 1843, 52,000,000 42,000,000 94,000,000
A.D. 1850, 106,000,000 47,000,000 153,000,000
A.D. 1853, 236,000,000 49,000,000 285,000,000
A.D. 1863, 208,000,000 63,000,000 271,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the amount of the precious metals estimated to be in existence at different periods:

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.D. 14, $427,000,000 $909,000,000 $1,327,000,000
A.D. 500, 100,000,000 400,000,000 500,000,000
A.D. 1000, 65,000,000 200,000,000 265,000,000
A.D. 1492, 57,000,000 135,000,000 192,000,000
A.D. 1550. 76,000,000 284,000,000 360,000,000
A.D. 1600, 105,000,000 391,000,000 496,000,000
A.D. 1700, 351,000,000 1,410,000,000 1,761,000,000
A.D. 1800, 1,125,000,000 3,622,000,000 4,747,000,000
A.D. 1843, 1,975,000,000 5,040,000,000 7,015,000,000
A.D. 1850, 2,368,000,000 4,963,000,000 7,331,000,000
A.D. 1853, 2,942,000,000 4,945,000,000 7,887,000,000
A.D. 1863, 5,107,000,000 4,945,000,000 10,052,000,000
A.D. 1884, 8,166,000,000 5,504,000,000 13,670,000,000

The following statement will exhibit the amount of the precious metals estimated to have been obtained from the surface and mines of the earth, from the earliest times to the close of 1884:--

Periods. Gold. Silver. Total.

A.C. $2,171,000,000 $2,913,000,000 $5,084,000,000
A.D. to 1492, 3,842,374,000 521,000,000 4,363,374,000
1493 to 1842, 2,700,000,000 5,800,000,000 8,500,000,000
1843 to 1852, 900,000,000 500,000,000 1,400,000,000
1853 to 1862, 1,869,000,000 560,000,000 2,429,000,000
1863 to 1884, 3,145,626,000 1,519,000,000 4,664,626,000
______________ ______________ ______________
Grand Total, $14,628,000,000 $11,813,000,000 $26,441,000,000

During the first period (prior to the commencement of the Christian Era,) the annual product of the precious metals was $2,000,000; during the second period (prior to the discovery of America,) it was $3,000,000; during the third period (prior to the extensive working of the Russian gold mines, in 1843,) it was $26,000,000; during the fourth period (prior to the double discovery of the California gold mines in 1858, and the Australia gold mines in 1851,) it was $140,000,000; during the fifth period (which immediately succeeded afore-mentioned discoveries,) it was $243,000,000; during the sixth period (immediately succeeding the double discovery of the New Zealand gold mines in 1861, and the silver mines of Nevada and other countries bordering on the Pacific slope of the United States,) it was $212,000,000. The annual products of the precious metals attained its acme in 1853, when it was $285,000,000. The increase in the amount of the precious metals in existence has been greater during the last forty-years than during the previous two hundred and ninety-four. Of the amount ($6,441,000,000) of the precious metals estimated to have been obtained from the surface and mines of the earth, from the earliest times to the close of 1884, $12,100,000,000 are estimated to have been obtained from America $6,724,000,000 from Asia (including Australia, New Zealand and Oceanica), $3,751,000,000 from Europe, and $2,866,000,000 from Africa.

* * * * *

AMESBURY: THE HOME OF WHITTIER.

BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK.

Amesbury is only a town. It has defects that would strike a stranger, and beauties that one who has learned to love them never forgets; they linger in glimpses of wood and hill and river and lake, and often rise unbidden before the mind's eye. The poet Whittier says that those who are born under the shadow of Powow Hill always return sometime, no matter how far they may have wandered. He himself, though not Amesbury born, has found it impossible to desert the old home, full of associations and surrounded by old friends. He always votes in Amesbury, and he often spends weeks at a time in his old home. The river that he has sung, the lake that he has re-christened, the walks and drives with which he is so familiar, all exercise their spell upon him; he loves them, just as he loves the warm hearts that he has found there and helped to make warm and true.

But what a stranger would first notice in coming into town is, that the houses, instead of being on land regularly laid out for building, seem to have grown up here and there and everywhere, a good deal in accordance with their own sweet wills, and without the smallest regard to surroundings.

But there are handsome houses in Amesbury, and these are growing more numerous every year. The people themselves would assert that the walks and drives about the village, the hills and the river are the things to be longest remembered about the place. If they were inclined to boasting, they might say also that they had as good a right as any people in America to be considered of ancient stock, for some of the names of the earliest settlers are the familiar names in the town to-day, and few towns in America are older than Amesbury. The names Barnard, Challis, Weed, Jones, and Hoyt, appear on the first board of "Prudenshall," and that of Richard Currier as town clerk. This was in April, 1668, the year after the new town was named.

Early in 1735 the settlement of Newbury (then spelled Newberry) was begun. In a little over three years a colony was sent out across the Merrimac. The plantation was at first called merely from the name of the river. In 1639 it was named Colchester by the General Court; but October 7, 1640, this name was changed to Salisbury, so that in 1638, almost two hundred and fifty years ago, Salisbury began to be settled. It seemed as if there was need of new settlements at that time to counteract the depletions in the Old World, for the Thirty Years' War was still impoverishing Germany; Richelieu was living to rule France in the name of his royal master, Louis XIII; England was gathering up those forces of good and evil which from resisting tyranny at last grew intoxicated with power, and so came to play the tyrant and regicide. For it was about that time that Charles I had disbanded his army, trusting to the divinity that, in the eyes of the Stuarts, did ever hedge a king, and at the same time thrown away his honor by pledging himself to what he never meant to perform. While this farce, which preceded the tragedy, was being set upon the stage of history, here, three thousand miles away, nature had begun to build up the waste, and to prophesy growth.

Salisbury, and afterwards Amesbury, were named from the two towns so famous in England, the Salisbury Plain of Druidical memory, on which is the celebrated Stonehenge, and near by, the Amesbury where was one of the oldest monasteries in England. It is supposed that the towns were so named because many of the new settlers came from those old English towns. The latter name used to be spelled Ambresbury, and Tennyson in his "Idylls of the King" spells Almesbury. After the discovery by Modred of the guilt of King Arthur's fair and false wife, he says:--

"Queen Guinevere had fled the court and sat
There in the holyhouse at Almesbury
Weeping."

Describing her flight, he tells us that she sent Lancelot

"Back to his land, but she to Almesbury
Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald."

There Arthur sees her for the last time and mourns over her before he goes forth to his last battle with Modred.

On the whole, it is not strange, considering its associations, and moreover the fact that this town in Massachusetts is the only Amesbury in America while so many other names are duplicated, that the people of Amesbury are not willing to merge the name of their town into that of the elder sister, even when those parts called in each "the Mills" are so closely united in interests and in appearance that no stranger could recognize them as two towns. It is only the Powow that makes the dividing line here. Blocks of offices and stores on both sides of the street, among them the post-office, common to both towns, hide the narrow stream at that point, and further up and down the towering walls of the factories make it unobserved. It is not here that one sees the Powow. But there is, or a little time ago there was, a place not far off from this main street where the river is still harassed, yet as it slips past in its silent toil with a few trees hanging low on the right, it has a fascination in spite of its prosaic surroundings; it takes naturally to picturesqueness and freedom.

One of Whittier's early poems speaks of an Indian re-visiting the stream that his forefathers loved, and standing on Powow Hill, where the chiefs of the Naumkeaks, and of the other tribes held their powows. Here for a moment, says the poem, a gleam of gladness came to him as he stooped to drink of the fountain and seated himself under an oak.

"Far behind was Ocean striving
With his chains of sand;
Southward, sunny glimpses giving
'Twixt the swells of land,
Of its calm and silvery track
Rolled the tranquil Merrimack."

The Indian's feeling about "These bare hills, this conquered river," was not strange. But to us it naturally occurs that we are more likely to wake up with our scalps on our heads, instead of sleeping our last sleep, while they dangle at a red man's girdle. Yet the very state of warfare that at that time existed between the races showed that in the settlers themselves was an element of savagery not yet eliminated. For in all this fierce strife of the tomahawk and the gun, the Quaker ancestors of the poet Whittier who met the Indians, armed only with kindness and the high courage of their peaceful convictions, were treated by the red men as friends and superiors. In the raids of general devastation they were unmolested. Their descendant has a natural right to express the pathos of the Indian's lot.

There is a fine exhibition of human nature in the records of the first settlement of Amesbury. The place was called "Salisbury new-town" until 1669, and was merely an offshoot of the latter, though much larger in extent than it is today, for now it is only about six miles by three. Then it reached up into what is now Newton, N.H. But why should not the people of those days have been generous as to the size of townships, for as to land, they had the continent before them where to choose?

But in regard to the human nature. The settlers of Salisbury went at first only beyond the salt marshes, their town being what is now East Salisbury. The forests beyond had a threatening look, and were much too near. It was determined, therefore, to drive them back by having clearings and settlements across the Powow. So, December 26, 1642, about three years after this little colony had crossed the Merrimack, a town meeting was held in which it was voted:--"Yere shall thirtie families remove to the west side of ye Powowas river." This motion was very easy to carry. But it had not been voted what families were to move on beyond the immediate protection of the small colony at East Salisbury. Who was to go? Every man sat still in his place and nodded to his neighbor with a "Thou art the man," in manner if not in words. It seems to us a very little thing to give or take the advice, "Go West young man,--or woman." But it was very different then. To do it meant, besides living encircled by forests, to be obliged to go on Sunday through these forests, worse than lonely, to the meeting-house at East Salisbury, and always with the possibility of being at any moment obliged to flee all the distance to that town for comparative safety, perhaps of being obliged to flee in the night. Signals of alarm were arranged by the General Court. Alarm was to be given "by distinctly discharging three muskets, or by continual beat of the drum, or firing the beacon, or discharging a pesse of ordnance, and every trained soldier is to take the alarm immediately on paine of five pound." It was also ordered, "That every town provide a sufficient place for retreat for their wives and children to repaire to, as likewise to keepe safe the ammunition thereof." And also, "That all watches throughout this country bee set at sunset at the beat of the drums, & not bee discharged till the beate of the drum at sunne rising."

But those old Puritans were not men to be bundled by any of the weaknesses of human nature. In ten days, when it was found that nobody had started "westward, ho!" another town-meeting was held, in which, in spite of the dangers to be encountered by the new colony, the first vote was re-affirmed, and it was decided that "the thirtie families be chosen by ye seven men," probably the selectmen. And to ensure the matter, it was determined that this vote should not be repealed except by the consent of every freeman in the town. So, in the spring, this tiny colony went out to Salisbury new-town.

In 1647, a law was passed requiring every township of fifty families to maintain a school. This is the way that the preamble reads:--

"It being one chiefe pr'ject of yt ould deluder, Satan, to keepe men from ye knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in former times by keeping ym in an unknown tongue, so in these latt'r times by pr'suading from ye use of tongues yt so at least ye true sense & meaning of ye original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, yt learning may not be buried in ye grave of o'r fath'rs in ye church & commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavor. It is therefore resolved," &c.

It seems overturning the cornerstone of our forefathers' intentions to banish from our schools the Scriptures, those finest examples of the strength and beauty of the English language, to say nothing of their lessons in individual self-government, which is the only foundation that a republic can be built upon.

From this old law have grown up all the public schools of Amesbury. There is now a high school, and there are, of course, the required number of small schools; some of these in the outlying districts having very few scholars.

Several years ago Mr. Whittier, who has the keenest sense of humor, told a friend that in one of these the whole number of pupils was three, average attendance one and a half! He was deeply interested in that half child.

Amesbury has among its attractions a Lion's Mouth! In the old days of Indian ambushes it must have earned its right to the name. But now the only existing danger is lest one should be eaten up--with kindness. It is a short mile from the mills, and a pleasant walk in spite of its ending! At last there comes a little hollow with a large farm-house on the left, and a grass road winding past it at right angles with the main road and leading into beautiful woods. These woods are the very jaws of the lion; and it is very hard, on a hot summer's day, for those who go into them to come out again. A few rods up the road from the hollow are other houses. People bearing some of the earliest recorded names in Amesbury, descendants of the brave pioneers, are to be found here, or having departed this life, have left good records behind them. One of these latter lived here in the pleasantest way. He and his wife carried on their large farm in an ideal manner; everything was upon a generous scale. There was money enough not to wear out life in petty economies, and largeness of soul enough not to put the length of a bank account against the beauties and refinements of life. The loss of their only child, and a few years afterward of their grand-daughter, one of the loveliest children earth ever held, was--not compensated for, that can never be, but made much less dreary by a friendship of many years' standing between them and their summer neighbors. In this case, too, the gentleman is a native of Amesbury, proud and fond of his birthplace. Every summer he comes to the cottage of this friend, a charming little house only a few rods from the larger one, and spends the summer here with his family and servants. He has made a great deal of money in New York, but fortunately, not too much, for it has not built up a Chinese wall around his heart; his new friends are dear, but his early friends are still the dearest.

Between the Mills and this formidable Mouth of the Lion, is the Quaker Meeting House, a modest, sober-hued building on a triangular green, on which, before it was fenced in, the boys delighted to play ball on the days and at the hours (for the Quakers have meeting Thursday also) on which the grave worshippers were not filing into what cannot fairly be called the house of silence, because it has been known to echo to exhortations as earnest, if not as vehement as one may hear from any pulpit. Still, there are sometimes long intervals of silence, and then the consciousness that silent self-examination is one purpose of the coming together, gives an impressiveness to the simple surroundings. It must have been here that Mr. Whittier learned to interpret so wonderfully that silent prayer of Agassiz for guidance when he opened his famous school from which he was so soon called to a higher life.

"Then the Master in his place
Bowed his head a little space
And the leaves by soft airs stirred
Lapse of wave and cry of bird
Left the solemn hush unbroken
Of that wordless prayer unspoken
While its wish, on earth unsaid,
Rose to Heaven interpreted.
As in life's best hours we hear
By the spirit's finer ear
His low voice within us, thus
The All-Father heareth us:
And his holy ear we pain
With our noisy words and vain.
Not for him our violence
Storming at the gates of sense,
His the primal language, his
The eternal silences."

Mr. Whittier always goes to this meeting when he is well enough. The May Quarterly Meetings of the Society of Friends are held at Amesbury. There are a good many members of this Society in the town, and there is among them a hospitality, a kindness, and a cordiality that added to their quiet ways and the refined dress of the women makes them interesting.

It goes without saying that Amesbury has also the allotment of churches of other denominations usual to New England towns.

Thirty years ago and more, the Amesbury and Salisbury Mills were two distinct companies. The agent of the former mills, Mr. Joshua Aubin, was a gentleman of fine presence. After he left Amesbury, he sent to the town as a gift the nucleus of its present Public Library, which, although not absolutely free has only a nominal subscription to pay the services of the librarian, and for keeping the books in order.

Mr. James Horton, agent of the Salisbury mills, was more of the rough-and-ready type of man, a little bluff, but frank and kind-hearted. Both gentlemen as it happened, lived in Amesbury and were of one mind in regard to the character of their operatives. It was before the influx of foreign labor, and the men and women in the mills belonged to respectable, often well-to-do American families. Rowdyism was a thing unknown to them, and as to drunkenness, if that fault was found once in an operative, he was reprimanded; if it occurred again, he was at once discharged. And so Amesbury, though a manufacturing town, was in its neatness and orderliness an exquisite little village with the Powow Hill at its back and the hem of its robe laved by two beautiful rivers. After Mr. Aubin's ill health had made him resign his place, the father of Prof. Langley, well-known to science, was agent for a time, and carried on matters in the spirit of his predecessors. But there came a change, the mills were united under one control, and an agent was sent to Amesbury for the purpose of forcibly illustrating the fact that corporations have no souls. He did it admirably. Work was started at high pressure, there came a rush of foreigners into the place, many of the old towns people moved away in disgust, and the new took the place of the old as suddenly as if an evil magician had waved his wand and cried: "Presto!" But this agent soon gave evidence that great unscrupulousness doesn't pay, even as a financial investment. After several other short regimes the present agent, Mr. Steere, came to Amesbury, and the corporation has found it worth while to keep him. The effect of the sudden influx of foreign population into Amesbury has never done away with; it has its "Dublin" in a valley where the corporation built houses for its operatives. And with what indifference to cleanliness, or health these were built! The poor operatives were crowded together in a way that would make neatness difficult to the most fastidious. A physician in Amesbury who considered the poor, presented this state of things so strongly and so persistently to the agent, spoke so forcibly of the moral degradation that such herding increased, or induced, that when it became necessary to build new tenements they were much better arranged. Every manufacturing town in New England has now its unwholesome because untaught population, a danger signal on the line of progress of the republic. It is only popular education that can remove this obstruction of ignorance. The foreign population of Amesbury today is large, and although it gives hands to the mills, it adds neither to the beauty nor the interest of the town. But it gives a mission to those who believe in the possibilities of human nature, and the right of every man to have a chance at life, even if the way he takes it be not agreeable to his cultivated neighbor.

The mills in the days of their greatest prosperity were all woolen mills: now a part of them are cotton mills. They are all running, and, although not with the remarkable success of a score of years ago, have a future before them.

The making of felt hats, now so important a business, was started here a number of years ago by a gentleman who built a hat factory near his house at the Ferry. He was a gentleman in that true sense in which, added to his nerve and will (and he had abundance of both) were those knightly qualities of generosity and kindliness that have made his memory dear, while the Bayley Hat Company, called after him as its founder, bears witness to his business ability.

The great, oblong, many-windowed carriage manufactories meet one at every turn, and often the smithy stands near with its clangor. This business used to be confined to West Amesbury, now Merrimac. At the beginning of the century it was started on an humble scale by two young men, one a wood-worker, the other a plater, while another young man was trimmer for them. One of the firm lived in West Amesbury, the other in South Amesbury, now Merrimac Port, and after each had built his share of the carriage, it was found a little difficult to bring the different parts together. This was the beginning, and now Amesbury ships its carriages over the world. One of the first to bring this business from what was then West Amesbury to the Mills was a young man who in the beginning of the war had been unfortunate in business. He gave his creditors all he had, and went to the front. After serving his time there he came home, went into the carriage business, made money this time instead of losing it, and paid up his old creditors one hundred cents on the dollar. He deserves a big factory and success. And he has both. And he is not the only one of whom good things could be said.

They have a Wallace G.A.R. Post in Amesbury, not in commemoration of the Wallace of old Scottish fame, but of a man no less patriotic and brave who lived among themselves, an Englishman, a shoemaker. He was lame, but so anxious during the Rebellion to have his share in the struggle for the Union that he tried to get a place on board a gunboat, saying that he could "sit and shoot." As this was impossible, the town sent him to Boston as its representative, and he was in the Legislature when the members voted themselves an increase of pay. Mr. Wallace believed the thing illegal. He took the money in trust. One day after his return to Amesbury he limped up to his physician (the same one who had brought about the better construction of the new corporation houses) and handed him fifty dollars of this over pay, to be used at his discretion among the poor, explaining as he did so where the money came from, that he felt that it belonged to Amesbury, and that he returned a part through this channel.

Half way between the Mills and the Ferry stands an old well that a native of Amesbury dug by the roadside for the benefit of travellers because he had once been a captive in Arabian deserts, and had known the torments of thirst. Here was a man to whom the uses of adversity had been sweet, for they had taught him humanity. Mrs. Spofford has written an appropriate poem upon this incident.

The elms in Amesbury are very beautiful, and they are found everywhere; but on the ferry road there are magnificent ones not far from the river. They are growing on each side of the road, arching it over with their graceful boughs.

The Ferry proper near which was born Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, is at the foot of the street that runs from the Mills down to the river. In old times there was a veritable ferry here a few rods above where the Powow empties into the Merrimack. This ferry is mentioned in the records, two years after the town had been set upon its feet. In a book written about Amesbury by Mr. Joseph Merrill, a native of the town, it is stated that the town petitioned the general Court for leave to keep a Ferry over the river at this place. This is the record from the same source:--

"The County Court held at Hampton, ye 13th of ye 8th month 1668, Mr. Edward Goodwin being presented by ye Selectmen of ye town of Amesbury to Court to keep ye Ferry over Merrimac river about ye mouth of ye Powow river where ye said Goodwin now dwelleth, the Court do allow and approve of ye sd person for one year next following and until ye Court shall take further orders therein, and ye prices to be as followeth so, for every single passenger two pence, for a horse and man six pence, and for all great cattle four pence, for sheep and other small cattle under two years old two pence per head."

In 1791 there came up a question of a bridge being built across the Merrimac. A town meeting was called to oppose the measure, and in this it was argued that a bridge would throw into disuse the ferry with which much pains had been taken. Precious old fogies! In those days, too, they lived, for they were as old as the centuries. Nothing of the mushroom about them. There is a tradition that once in Revolutionary days, Washington was carried across this ferry. But it is impossible to say what the tradition is founded upon, and how much it is worth.

As to the river, there are rivers and rivers, as the saying is; at some we marvel, some we fear and to some we make pilgrimages as to the Mecca of the faithful. But the Merrimac is a river to be loved, and to be loved the better the more familiar it is. What its poet, Whittier, says about it must be literally true:

"Our river by its valley born
Was never yet forgotten."

It is worth while to try to imagine it as he writes it in "Cobbler Keezer's Vision" two hundred and more years ago, when that old fellow was so amazed at the prospect of mirth and pleasure among the descendants of the stern Puritans that he dropped his lapstone into the water in bewilderment.

This was the time when

"Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scarlet maples
Flashing in foam and spray."

"Down on the sharp-horned ledges
Plunging in steep cascade,
Tossing its white-maned waters
Against the hemlock's shade."

"Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
East and west and north and south;
Only the village of fishers
Down at the river's mouth;"

"Only here and there a clearing,
With its farm-house rude and new,
And tree-stumps, swart as Indians,
Where the scanty harvest grew."

What a picture that is! And then behind these tree-stumps, the great forest with its possibilities of comfort and even of competence in its giant timbers,--when they were fairly floored, but; as it stood, a threatening foe with a worse enemy in its depths than the darkness of its shadows, or the wild beasts.

Several of Mr. Whittier's songs of the Merrimac were written for picnics, given at the Laurels on the Newbury side of the river by a gentlemen and his wife from Newburyport. They were early abolitionists, friends and hosts of Garrison, of George Thompson and others of that brave band, and of course friends of the poet. This hospitable couple gave a picnic here every June for twenty years. The first was a little party of perhaps half-a-dozen people, the twenty-first was a large assembly. Mr. Whittier was present at these picnics whenever able, and, as has been said, sometimes wrote a poem to be read there. He never reads in public himself.

Although the Powow river has been made so emphatically a stream of use, there are glimpses of a native beauty in it that its hard fate has never obliterated; these are still there, as one stands upon the little bridge that spans its last few rods of individual life and looks up the stream upon a wintry landscape, or upon summer fields, and longingly toward the bend.

Whether the Powow has any power to set in motion the wheels of fancy as it does the wheels of the factories it is impossible to say, but this much is certain; on its banks was born an artist who has made his name known on the banks of the Seine. The father of Mr. Charles Davis, our young artist of great promise and of no mean performance, was for years a teacher in Amesbury, and the garden of the house where this son was born bordered upon the Powow.

At Pond Hills, between Amesbury and Merrimac, is lake Attitash, which, before Mr. Whittier took pity upon it, rejoiced in the name of Kimball's Pond. There is a slight suspicion that it is still occasionally called by its old name. In dry seasons the water is used by the mills. But the blue lake is as beautiful as if it were never useful. On its shore enough grand old pines are left to dream under of forests primeval, of Indian wigwams, and of canoes on the bright water; for the red men knew very well the hiding places of the perch and of the pickerel. So did the white men who chose the region of the Merrimac for their new home. In the "Maids of Attitash" is described the lake where

"In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen."

All these are still here, but one misses the maidens who ought to be sitting there

"In the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash."

No doubt they are about here somewhere, only it takes a poet's eye to find them. And yet it was not very far from here that there lived a few years ago a young girl, a descendant of one of the early settlers of Amesbury, who on her engagement said to a friend proudly:--"I am going to marry a poor man, and I am going to help him." And so she always nobly did, in ways different from tawdry ambition. The courage of the old Puritans has not died out here any more than the old beauty has deserted the land.

* * * * *

KATE FIELD'S NEW DEPARTURE.

BY EDWARD INCREASE MATHER.

Miss Kate Field has been so exclusively identified with artistic and literary success that her new departure as a lecturer on existing political evils has excited no little surprise and comment. An exceptional degree of public interest as well as of purely private and personal regard has followed her almost, indeed, from childhood; partly due, it may be, to a certain indefinable magnetism of temperament which always makes the place where she chances to be at the time seem a social centre, and somewhat, too, from a life that has not been without its picturesque setting of scenery and circumstance. "Kate Field was started right,"--remarked Miss Frances E. Willard of her one day. "As a child Walter Savage Landor held her on his knee and taught her, and she grew up in the atmosphere of Art." The chance observation made only _en passant_, never the less touched a salient truth in that vital manner in which Miss Willard's words are accustomed to touch truth. She was, indeed, "started right." The only child of gifted parents, endowed with a rare combination of intellectual and artistic talent; with a nobility and genuineness of nature that has ever been one of her most marked characteristics; attuned by temperament to all that is fine, and high, and beautiful,--it is little wonder that her life has presented a series of advancing achievements. She has studied, and read, and thought; she has travelled, and "sipped the foam of many lives;" and a polished and many-sided culture has added its charm to a woman singularly charming by nature and possessed of the subtle gift of fascination. When very young she studied music and modern languages abroad in Florence, and in London. To music she especially devoted herself studying under Garcia and under William Shakespeare, the great English tenor, whose favorite pupil she is said to have been. Walter Savage Landor conceived a great fondness for her, gave her lessons in Latin, and left her at his death a valuable portfolio of old drawings. In some verses addressed "To K.F." he alludes to her as:--

Modest as winged angels are,
And no less brave and no less fair.