Chapter I: The Secret of the Alcohol Habit (2)

The regulation of immigration by states is one of the anomalies of our government. It is a relic of the early conflicts between the powers of state and nation. After the infant Yankee nation had outgrown its first constitution—that absurd, distrustful experiment of setting up a nation and denying it all governmental powers—the matter of imposing and collecting duties on imports of merchandise, etc., which had formed one of the chief bones of contention between states, was taken from state authority entirely, and given in charge of the general government. But at the same time the regulation of the more important _human_ importations was left with the states, and to this day the general government assumes no control in the matter of what is strictly an international interest, and concerns the welfare of all the states. Thus it came about that the states in which are immigration ports acquired a large control over the character of the population, and hence over the prosperity of other states. That a business so much international and interstate in character should have been left to local governments is a curious illustration of the lack of foresight on the part of the founders of the constitution, as well as one of the many evidences that they were not at heart democratic enough to thoroughly believe in and understand the common people. Had they anticipated that the time would ever come when human cargoes should disbark upon our shores to the number of half a million in a year, of people unused to our institutions and uneducated in self-government, they doubtless would have devised a protective tariff which would have prevented an invasion so threatening, as they might think, to our peace and stability. It is often well that statesmen are not more prescient. Legislating for the future in the light of the present, they would most certainly go wrong, especially in legislating for a country of such rapidly changing conditions as have followed each other here. Those adopted citizens who raise the cry against the Chinese and demand protection against imported labor, may thank their stars that the same spirit did not seize the prophetic minds of the earlier law-makers of the country.

Castle Garden, on the Battery, gives on the loveliest and healthiest park of New York and the noblest harbor in the world. The main structure is old Castle Clinton, a large circular fort built early in the century for the protection of the city. Now it is converted to the uses of peace, to welcome invaders instead of repelling them, but still to protect the city, and the state and the nation. The open central space has been roofed over and converted into a great rotunda; while the embrasures and casemates designed for great cannon and magazines are used for baggage rooms and various apartments. This is better than hammering swords into plow-shares, this using forts to welcome ploughmen to our broad acres. Wooden excrescences around the wall provide offices, hospitals, insane asylums, labor bureaus, and various other departments. The rotunda and fort walls can accommodate 3,000 immigrants and their baggage—and do you know all that the words, immigrant’s baggage, implies?

On this little amphitheater of war is daily held a Congress of All Nations. If you want to see Europe, come to Castle Garden, not go abroad. There is nothing left over there but the houses and the superfluous nobility and wealthy. Men are Europe, and the manhood of Europe is being skimmed off for America’s use. A gentleman told me that when he traveled in Circassia he looked in vain through the mass of awe-inspiring female ugliness for the famous types of Circassian beauty. “Where are the beautiful women?” he asked. “In Constantinople, all,” was the answer. So, he said, it is with the manliness of Europe—it goes to America. Not the most cultured, intelligent and favored. It would be small merit in them to break away and come to America; that they do not proves that they are too contented, fat and selfish for our use. But a man who, being born and trained to a life of subjection and dependence; rooted to the spot on which generations of his fathers have lived and died; who hardly knows whether his native hills or city streets bound the world or not—when one of these tears up his roots and sets out three thousand miles in search of a chance to breathe and grow, be sure, be very sure there is a spark in him of something that is wanted in this country. There is the germ of an American citizen; the growth of it will appear in a few generations. It is this surviving, vital spark of character that enables this nation to assimilate so much crude human material and convert the so-called “offscourings of Europe” into elements of national prosperity and strength. What could we have done in forty years with seven and a half million foreign aristocrats and capitalists? What would have become of us if they had come to us! A few of them have come lately, and they are already trying to build here a landed aristocracy, and on stolen land at that. Men should be estimated by the abuses and disadvantages they have survived, as well as by what they are. The courage, independence and aspiration that outlive centuries of subjection in sufficient force to carry a man half around the world into _terra incognita_ are the elements of empire.

A ship load of six or ten hundred does not make a very big caucus in this rotunda of the world’s congress, but it makes the scene picturesque, as to costumes, more so as to goods and chattels—the latter seeming to include women and children. All the family heir-looms, such as pots, pans, feather-beds and nondescript furniture came along. I can believe in all the dozen ship loads of “traps” that “came over in the ‘Mayflower,’” since seeing one load of later immigrants debouch. And they come, like a lot of wealthy bankrupts, with all their property on their wives’ backs. The loads on these biped beasts of burden make one think of the loads of hay on small donkeys in Spain, or those mountains packed on camels in the East. At the head of the family caravan marches the _pater familias_ loaded down with a shot-gun, half a dozen canes, a long-tailed pipe or some queer fiddle-looking instrument. Well, he has never been able to stand upright and hold up his head in the presence of anybody _but_ his wife. A man must rise superior to something. One of these years, mayhap, the order of superiority will be reversed, and some of the daughters of this flock be advocating, or at least thinking, women’s rights at Chautauqua. Housewives can tell you how soon some of the daughters of these subjugated women learn a goodly degree of independence. I anticipate this result more for the girls than the boys, because when the caravan files before the clerk’s desk for registration these “beasts of burden” are often the only ones self-possessed enough to give the names, ages and intentions of the family. Often the lord and master has forgotten the names, generally the ages of his children, and not infrequently he has to refer to his chattel for his own name and age. There is a scared look in all eyes. I don’t wonder, after such an uprooting and hegira, that they look dazed, and that some go clean daft—as they do.

One naturally looks here for the queer in dress, action or design, and there is plenty to gratify the curiosity. Far across are two men who look like Digger Indians in queer costumes—dirty red, long sacks and short laced leggings. They are squatty, swarthy, sluggish, and outwardly uncanny-looking. We go across the wide rotunda and find that each of these unpromising delegates has a Bible, and that one of them is writing the fly-leaf over with much small, neat chirography—a language which no one here can interpret. They are Russian Finns. Despise nothing you see here, my friend. You would look a trifle out of condition, and mayhap your “plug hat” would excite a smile after a steerage journey to Finland. I doubt if, arrived there, you would settle to as intelligent and philosophical an occupation as writing a commentary on the Bible.

Then come a more canny couple—two manny-clad, bright-faced boys, Scotch bairns, as their pretty dialect reveals. One is ten and the other eleven years old; and these bit laddies are making the journey all the way alone from Loch Lomond to Loch Michigan; billed and ticketed to their widower father in Chicago. It is a picnic to them, you can see, yet in their childish faces there is a sedate gravity, such as belongs to the earnest race of the Covenanters. Nearly six hundred children last year came thus alone “over the back of the round sea” to seek parents or friends. There are in the United States Senate, in gubernatorial chairs, at the head of great industries, in leading positions of all kinds, other boys who in other years came thus alone to the land of promise. So we despise not the day of small things at Castle Garden, says our attentive _chaperon_.

The most out-of-place delegate that I saw here was a Bedouin Arab. “What sought he thus afar!” Very tall and slender and sinewy; swarthy skin, black, close-cropped hair, intensely black stubbed beard, behind and amidst which his white teeth, constantly exposed like a bull-dog’s, shine like a battery behind a bristling _chevaux de frise_. His head is raised, his nostrils dilated, his black, piercing eyes look far away over the unseen crowds; he moves restlessly with a swift, cat-like tread and an undulatory motion of his long, lithe body, like that of a tiger. He seems a veritable wild beast at bay, and I watch from a respectful distance to see him pounce down on some unsuspecting emigrant. Yet might not this animal some day turn up an alderman in a “growing city,” having first studied law? ’Twere not to consider too curiously to consider so; no, faith, not a jot. I admit it were some time a paradox, but now our time gives it proof.

Plenty of romances and not a few tragedies are enacted or consummated here. If the re-unions that take place in this old fort consecrate it to humanity, and make it a temple of affection, its disappointments make it a theater for melodramas and tragedies in reality. Last year one hundred and fifty-three emigrants were sent to the insane asylum on Ward’s Island, East River, a large proportion of whom were young people, and a majority women. They come over to find their mates, and either do not meet them, or worse, find they have lost them indeed. Thence they become aliens to the whole universe and find their only home in the Fantastic Realm. Melancholia is the prevalent form of aberration. The shock of transplanting and the excitement of new scenes upon simple and undeveloped natures are also a pregnant cause of mental overthrow. A little negro boot black, contemplating the insane asylum, said to me reflectively, “I think anybody is foolish to go crazy.” As three-fourths of the crazy ones here are unmarried, it might seem foolish to expose themselves when so simple a remedy is so available as marriage is here.

For Castle Garden is a famous place for weddings. Romances begun in the old country or on shipboard, and eke runaway matches to this distant Gretna Green find fusion here. Plenty of girls also come to America to unanticipated homes. A curious feature of the supply agency of the bureau is its match-making offices. The commissioners are applied to by men in this country for wives—perhaps on the principle that if a man marries he will be compelled to support a German or Irish girl anyway, so he might as well marry one and have done with trouble on that score. Sometimes, also, a man sends by mail his request, as who should say, “Please forward to my address in good order, upon approval, one (1) wife, per express.” The original of the following letter was shown me at the superintendent’s office:

“FORT CŒUR D’ALENE, IDAHO TERRITORY.

“DEAR SIR:—Having noticed in the columns of some New York papers
that some young men have procured good wives at the Castle
Garden, and as I presume that the demand is not equal to the
supply, I am desirous of having a good, honest woman for a wife
and would make an offer of a comfortable home to a deserving
woman. Of course the lady must be consulted about taking her
chances in coming out this far, but I am making this offer in
good faith and would like an answer as soon as your convenience
will permit. My reasons for sending so far are—I am keeping a
hotel, stables and ranch on one of the few routes to the newly
discovered Cœur d’Alene gold fields, am doing a fair business, am
a young bachelor not yet thirty-two, and can’t find a girl of any
use to me inside of three hundred miles. So I thought I, being a
New Yorker myself, would send and have you try and procure me a
life-partner. Hoping this may meet with kind favor I am, yours,
etc.,

“M. E. L.”

There is never any difficulty in making up these improvised matches, but the wooers, like young Lochinvar, have to come out from the West and make their own selections. So far as reported, these matches result happily, which goes to show that connubial felicity does not always follow the law of natural selection. Perhaps the matches that are made in Castle Garden are different from those reputed to have been made in heaven.

Somewhat too much of incident.

Is there in all history a human migratory movement like this? Men have always been, like poor Joe, moving on, but generally for conquest or subjugation of other races. No such fusion of bloods has ever before taken place—the nearest approach to it being the amalgamation of races through which the modern Englishman came. But that commingling was always the result of conquest and subjugation, and the antagonistic nature of the union delayed the peaceful fusion and left its impress of belligerency on the resultant race characteristic. In this last Anabasis of Liberty, however, everybody is welcome, all elements are assimilated, everything converted to the uses of empire and the work of peopling a continent with an entirely new race of men—new in blood, thought and aim. Whether as a result of the varied forces of heredity or the unprecedented influences of environment, it is evident that here a new people is being created for a new purpose. The future Greene who shall essay the writing of “The Making of America,” will find in the mutual reaction of race characteristics on each other, in the influence of material surroundings and in the stimulus of free institutions, the profound study of the origin and evolution of the American citizen.

ALONE WITH MY CONSCIENCE.

[The following poem was read by Dr. Vincent on the morning of August 25, 1884, at the closing exercises of the Chautauqua Assembly. This poem Dr. Vincent has read at the close of several Assemblies, and always with marked effect.]

I sat alone with my conscience,
In a place where time had ceased,
And we talked of my former living
In the land where the years increased;

And felt I should have to answer
The question it put to me,
And to face the answer and question,
Throughout an eternity.

The ghost of forgotten actions
Came floating before my sight,
And things that I thought were dead things
Were alive with a terrible might;

And the vision of all my past life
Was an awful thing to face,
Alone with my conscience sitting
In that solemnly silent place.

And I thought of a far-away warning
Of a sorrow that was to be mine,
In a land that there was the future,
But now is the present time;

And I thought of my former thinking,
Of the judgment day to be;
But sitting alone with my conscience
Seemed judgment enough for me.

And I wondered if there was a future
To this land, beyond the grave;
But no one gave me an answer,
And no one came to save.

Then I felt that the future was present,
And the present would never go by,
For it was the thought of my past life
Grown into eternity.

Then I woke from my timely dreaming
And the vision passed away.

And I pray that I may not forget it
In this land before the grave;
That I may not cry in the future,
And no one come to save.

And so I have learned a lesson
Which I ought to have known before,
And which, though I learned it dreaming,
I hope to forget no more.

So I sit alone with my conscience,
In the place where the years increase,
And I try to remember the future
In the land where time will cease.

And I know of the future judgment,
How dreadful soe’er it may be,
That to sit alone with my conscience
Will be judgment enough for me.

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN.

BY MRS. PATTIE L. COLLINS.

No other issue of the day has absorbed me like the ever vexed problem of woman’s work. I have read at various times many learned dissertations upon women’s duties, women’s spheres and women’s capabilities; her few successes and countless failures; most of them from the pens of men, and a few from her own sex, but the first have, as a class, been almost purely theoretical, and the second incomplete, one sided and argumentative rather than instructive. A certain popular author wisely observes that “Everything depends upon the point of view.” It is scarcely possible for a man from his standpoint to take in the difficulties and intricacies that lie all along the path of the gentle sex in the pursuit of work, and after having obtained it, its successful accomplishment at a salary not at all commensurate with its value. And the task is equally difficult for a woman, since misfortune begets the most disagreeable and unreasonable form of egotism, and the burden of her grievance demoralizes her logic and vitiates the force of her statements. I am distinctly conscious of all this as I approach the subject, and only a long and crucial experience has given me the courage of opinions. One fact seems to be lost sight of in the ceaseless clamor concerning “women’s rights,” viz.: that most of them have more “rights” than they enjoy, and conspicuous among them, the privilege of earning their own living. The avenues of remunerative employment are only too few, and each is filled to repletion with a hungry multitude. There are those, the achievements of whose genius have lifted them beyond all praise or blame and given them a rich and well merited reward, but it is not to these exceptional cases that the ordinary laws of the great struggling masses can apply. The world has known but one Mrs. Browning, one George Eliot, one Patti, one Nilsson, but the example of these daughters of the sky soaring and basking in the sunlight has only served to accentuate the gloom and toil of the dwellers in the valleys below. Spirits such as these must ever remain apart from the constant, harassing struggle of average women, and this is the class for which I write.

I have often thought that it was the shadow of the curse of slavery still resting upon our land that prevents, even in the wide and generous light of the present day, a proper recognition of the true majesty of labor. Unfortunately, the term is still regarded as synonymous with servitude, not precisely degraded servitude, but certainly something so near akin to it that it could never be confused with badges of the Legion of Honor!

Sewing, for a woman, means starvation, or slow death by torture; factories and shops tell their own pitiful stories; the paths of music, art, literature, and the drama, are strewn with dismal failures; and when I come to teaching, that worst abused vocation of all, language fails me. In Boston, I have heard it said that a faithful teacher can support the burden of existence only about seven years. I can well believe it; but on the other hand, to one such worker there are ten thousand drones. The first impulse of every gentlewoman, thrown upon her own resources, seems to be to teach; as to what or how, she is nebulous, delightfully vague, the only point settled being the choice of occupation. Governesses are engaged, to whom the entire charge of children is given, who receive the treatment and wages of servants. In our public schools the felicitous standard of excellence is a high percentage in examination, while the far more important considerations of adaptability, patience and self-control are disregarded. The evil effects of such a system are visited upon defenseless children. Women, as a rule, regard their work, whatever it may be, as only a temporary makeshift; the hope of something better lures them like the _ignis fatuus_; the dim and uncertain prospect of a distant future imparts a half-hearted exertion to the present, and this fact touches the key-note of a large proportion of their failures. If all of them could be brought to a thorough realization that we are a surplus quantity, an unwelcome factor, yet one that can not be eliminated, the answer to these problems which confront us might still be hidden, but we should at least stand upon the threshold. On the other hand, I have known women of singleness of purpose, of unalterable resolution, and the courage of heroes arrayed in the ranks of the breadwinners. True, they belonged to a hopeless minority, but this only served to render their virtues the more conspicuous. Long observation and thorough investigation have led me to the conclusion that the government departments at Washington afford the best field for female labor now open to the sex. Best, because the hours are not unreasonable, and the compensation fair; best, because there are no three months’ vacations to be tided over without pay, and also, on account of the certainty of retention unless just cause can be shown for removal. It has been now nearly a quarter of a century since it was decided that women were eligible to these positions, being, I believe, during the late war that the first appointments were made. Small experimental beginnings have crystallized into wonderful results. Hundreds of women through the liberality and enlightenment of our government are enabled to maintain themselves and those dependent on them in comfort and respectability, and each of them holds her office by the same tenure that their superiors hold theirs, so that she is equally independent and fearless, owing her allegiance not to them, but to the government which claims absolute fidelity over a solemn oath. Our public service has been much and justly criticised; it is still very far from invulnerable, but within the last two years it has made more than creditable progress in the right direction. That there have been, at various times, ignorant, careless and corrupt abuses of the appointing power can not be denied. For many years the sole power behind the throne was political influence, and thousands of appointments of both men and women have doubtless been made without reference either to the educational qualifications or moral character of the appointee. Sometimes it was a case that appealed only to the sympathies, as a needy widow, or a wounded soldier; or sometimes the unscrupulous tool of a more unscrupulous politician; not unfrequently a poor relation—all of these were made pensioners upon the treasury of the nation. Liberal pay for conscientious, intelligent labor scarcely constituted one plank in the departmental platform, but a pernicious sentiment looking toward a minimum of work and a maximum of pay exerted a wide influence. In view of the heterogeneous clerical assortment this is scarcely a matter of surprise. There are comparatively few natures so strong that they unflinchingly continue to do right simply because it is right. Even so recently as five years ago, no clerk, not even the most capable and faithful, could possess the assurance for a single day that his or her dismissal might not be demanded to make a vacancy for some one commanding stronger political influence. Inevitably, this knowledge had an injurious effect. Another circumstance: the salaries being similarly apportioned, it often chanced that a clerk doing five times the amount of work, and of infinitely better quality than his neighbor, received the same pay; and in the course of events a promotion would come to the idle and inefficient employe, while the competent and industrious one toiled on at the old salary.

The Treasury, the Interior, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, the Postoffice Department, the Pension Office, and the Government Printing Office, all employ a large proportion of female clerks. The average rate of compensation is $900 per annum. For some years it was much lower, but the end came, and the reward, as it usually does to those who patiently labor and patiently wait. It has proven another verification of the old adage “A work well begun is half done.” The progress has been very slow, but all prejudice is obstinate and difficult to remove; every reform fights for its foothold inch by inch; the gates of light ever unclose reluctantly. The legislative halls of the nation have not been wanting in men who have vehemently maintained that no government clerkship should be filled by a woman. Not on account of mental, moral or physical lack, but because these places were their legitimate spoils, which they prostituted their high offices to unworthily bestow. And on the other side, there have been great and generous spirits that have emphatically declared that _all_ of these offices should be given to females, unless, indeed, the charge of bureaus requiring an unusual degree of executive ability. Many women are skillful accountants, neat and rapid copyists, and accomplished linguists, and these are what government work demands. Their accuracy and rapidity in counting money is marvelous. Beyond and far above their intellectual or mechanical capabilities, I should mention honesty. The peculations and defalcations of male employes have been legion, but no woman has ever been known to betray her official trust. A former Secretary has affirmed that in his opinion this unfailing honesty was attributable to cowardice; that they were not too good to steal, only that they were afraid! Well, let the honorable gentleman have his way. No matter how low the motive, the fact remains, and the result is favorable to the national exchequer. Even with the odium of this ungenerous construction, they will probably continue to enjoy a pardonable pride in this bit of departmental record.

The creation of a Civil Service Commission has drawn a broad line of demarkation between the abuses of the past and the reforms of the future. It would be difficult to over-estimate the good already accomplished. In the first place, it has destroyed the incentive for removal, since the vacancy can no longer be filled save by the wholly disinterested and impartial Commission. Secondly, an employe may now indulge a reasonable expectation, if his services warrant it, of advancement from grade to grade as opportunities occur; in any event he will no longer be subjected to the mortification of seeing a wholly unworthy person passed directly over his head to a position to which he was entitled by every law of right and justice. But one of the very best features of this Commission is, the outer wall, the bulwark itself that they have reared, _i. e._, the examination. It is thorough and comprehensive, and need not be tampered with, or even approached, by the illiterate, since only ignominious failure could result. There is no escape from the ordeal. It is the one narrow path that leads to the inner courts, and there is no avoiding nor evading its labyrinths. It is by no means uncommon to hear complaints and repinings over their hard lot and small salary, from clerks of both sexes, who receive a far greater amount for their services than they could possibly obtain elsewhere. To use the mildest language, it comes with a very bad grace from women who could not earn twenty-five cents per day scrubbing door steps, and men whose highest occupation outside would probably be driving a dray. This class is now effectually shut out. Henceforth none but the intelligent laborer need apply. I do not mean to say that liberal culture, or even a very superior order of education is necessary for the performance of ordinary clerical work—it is not—but a decent, rudimentary knowledge is indispensable, and this the government has a right to demand. Even this, unfortunately, is but one of the requirements that go toward making up a desirable clerk. The more highly educated are often inefficient, while those of moderate attainments attain an enviable standard of excellence. Acute perception and rapid and accurate performance, an ability to use instantaneously whatever knowledge possessed, a ready and retentive memory, conscientious and never flagging industry—these make up the model clerk. I bear willing and glad testimony that there are many such; those who have an honest pride in their work, who do it well, because it would be impossible for them to do anything carelessly, who do not look forward to “pay-day” for their reward, but find it every day and every hour in the consciousness of duty done. I once heard a chief say to one of his subordinates: “Whenever I give you anything to do I am satisfied that it will be right. I no longer have any sense of responsibility in regard to it. I am _sure_ of you.” This seemed to me a compliment of the best order, for, alas! the number is very small of whom we can be perfectly “sure.” Emerson says of the working classes that “finishers” such as these are very rare, but that the world is blessed in having even a few.

To those whose desires or ambitions lead toward this branch of national service, I would say, the channel for all information is the Commission, with its headquarters at Washington. Neither the member of Congress from your own district, nor even your powerful Senator can now pronounce an “open sesame.” Nor can a political force from California make an appointment from Maryland and accredit the appointee to his own State, while Florida grapples with the rights of Oregon, and Maine and Texas are inextricably mixed. Such measures as these have been of frequent occurrence, but the despoilers are now themselves despoiled. Each state has always been nominally entitled to its quota, but practically the law was of no avail. Henceforth a just distribution of favors will be demanded. The English Civil Service, which is the perpetual boast of our cousins across the water, even so late as the time of Trollope’s experiences, was in a deplorable condition; the evils of ours are not of such ancient and stubborn growth, and the remedies lie near at hand. We have taken no half way measures; the treatment is heroic, and the cure is to come from the ground up. We may in time arrive at the ideal arrangement of retiring and pensioning these public servants as France does her postal employes, but this will probably be much later on, since our Republic is not modeled after Plato’s!

This article is designed specially for women. I have wished to give my fellow laborers not familiar with this particular vineyard some general ideas in regard to these positions, how they are obtained, what qualifications are necessary, and lastly the salaries. As I said before, the average salary for women is $900 per annum, but there are many who receive $1,000 and $1,200, while a more limited number are paid $1,400 and $1,600. Leave of absence for thirty days during the year is granted, with pay. Absence, other than this, must be without pay, unless on account of sickness. Of course the departments are closed on legal holidays. The hours are from nine until four, with thirty minutes intermission at noon for luncheon. The offices, are well heated, well ventilated, and furnished with the best desks, chairs, stationery, pens and ink; every appliance and convenience that could be desired is liberally supplied. Certainly the last vice of which Uncle Sam could be accused is niggardliness. Payment of salaries takes place on the 15th and 30th of each month. Many employes draw their salaries only on the 30th, but all who wish can do so at both the dates mentioned. One strong argument against the employment of women has been that they lose much more time than men from sickness. This is lamentably true; whether it comes from an abnormal state of existence, the forcing of weak hands to strong work, and the necessary out-door exposure to heat and cold, rain and snow, I can not say; it may be that the answer is found in the sad and homely saying that “A woman’s work is never done.” Too many, alas! turn from their desks only to a change of labor at home; to bake and brew, to patch and darn, to nurse the sick, to answer and instruct eager, tireless, little questioners; to be, in a word, father, mother and servant, to an entire household. I can not apply this palliation without a great deal of discrimination. I will generously say that it perhaps covers the cause of one half of the absenteeism attributed to sickness. That there are many conscienceless ones who take advantage of every pretext to remain away from their duties and make false representations in regard to their absence can not be doubted; and naturally in making up the general percentage the innocent suffer for the guilty, but as this injustice has prevailed throughout human affairs from the beginning of time, it will probably continue. On the other side, I will say that in the important bureau with whose workings I am most familiar, I believe the most careful and painstaking work is done by the female clerks, and the compensation to male clerks is correspondingly much greater. The doctrine of “Equal work, equal pay,” is not yet enforced, but the chances are better and the prospects brighter in this direction than in any other. In conclusion, let me add, that I have made this impartial exposition of a dry subject in behalf of such of my readers as stand face to face with that dragon of the century—the unending struggle for food and raiment.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS.

BY CHANCELLOR M. B. GOFF, Western University of Pennsylvania.

THE SUN,

While affording such accurate methods of determining time, does not directly furnish that by which we are accustomed to be guided, so that astronomers are wont to speak of _solar time_, as _mean solar time_, and _apparent solar time_, the former being that kept by our clocks and the latter that from which the former is estimated. If the earth moved around the sun at an unvarying rate, then each time the sun threw the shadow of a vertical rod directly north (in the northern hemisphere) would indicate noon at the point where the rod was located; and the interval between two such successive shadows would be exactly one day, and we could divide the time into twenty-four equal spaces and call each space one hour. Now, this is what we imagine the earth to do; or rather, for the sake of convenience, and because the results are the same in either case, we conceive the sun to move around the earth, and make a _mean_ or _mock sun_, move around the earth in a day of twenty-four hours of equal unvarying length, and call this a _mean solar day_. But the _true_ or _apparent solar day_ is considerably different from this, being sometimes less and sometimes more than twenty-four hours in length, the _true sun_ reaching the meridian as much as 16¼ minutes before or after the _mean sun_, both reaching it together only four times each year, viz.: On April 1, June 15, September 1, and December 24. Of course it would be impossible to construct a time-piece that would keep pace with the _true sun_. Indeed, it is difficult enough to construct one that will keep with the mean sun. But all difficulty is obviated by making clocks whose _rate of error_ can be determined. This rate being known it is easy to estimate the correction, and thus obtain exact time. For example, suppose a clock to _gain_ 0.24 of a second per day, then in two days it will gain two times 0.24 of a second, and in three days three times 0.24 of a second, etc. These amounts subtracted from the noon-time of the clock would give the correct noon. For any other hour, a part of the 0.24 depending on the number of hours after noon must be subtracted. If the clock _loses_, then in a similar manner the proportioned loss must be added. In actual practice, we may say that even the best chronometers do not keep exact time; and every one has to be “corrected” in the manner indicated.

To obtain mean time from apparent time we apply to apparent time a correction called the equation of time. Thus, at noon, on October 1st, in Washington, the equation of time is _minus_ 10 minutes 34.58s., which means that if from 12 hours we subtract 10m. 34.58s. we shall have 11h. 49m. 25.42s., the mean time of apparent noon, or noon as indicated by the north shadow of the vertical rod. Or, if at 10m. 34.58s. after the sun crosses the meridian we set our watch at 12 o’clock, we shall have exact mean time. On the 31st of October the real sun will be 16m. 17.56s. ahead of the mean sun, while on the 31st of December it will be 3m. 38.11s. behind the mean; that is, will reach the meridian at 12h. 3m. 38.11s. p. m. mean time.

Beside the ordinary clocks, the chronometers used by navigators keep mean solar time, and family almanacs usually in some form give the “equation of time” under the headings, “clock slow” or “fast,” or “sun south.” Astronomers use also another kind of time called “sidereal,” of which we may have something to say in the future.

On the 1st, 16th and 31st of this month the sun rises at 5:57, 6:13 and 6:30 a. m., and sets on the same days at 5:42, 5:18 and 4:58 p. m. respectively, showing a decrease of one hour and seventeen minutes in thirty days, or at an average rate of 2m. 34s. per day. On the 18th and 19th the sun will be eclipsed, entering the moon’s shadow at 10:20 p. m. on the 18th in longitude 132° 0.6′ east, and in latitude 63° 30.5′ north; and leaving it at 2:15 a. m. on the 19th in longitude 134° 22.7′ west, and in latitude 33° 25′ north. Greatest eclipse occurs at 12:18 a. m. on the 19th. Magnitude, 0.638. As the entire eclipse is during our night, it will of course be invisible to us, but can be seen by the inhabitants of the northeastern part of Asia and the northwestern portion of North America.

THE MOON

Will be eclipsed on the 4th, beginning at 3:07 p. m. and ending at 6:41 p. m., Washington mean time. The beginning of totality will be at 4:07 p. m., and the ending at 5:40 p. m.; the middle at 4:53 p. m. Magnitude, 1.533. As the moon in this section does not rise till about 5:20, only the latter half of the eclipse will be visible. On the 16th, the moon rises at 3:45 a. m.; on the 1st, sets at 2:21 a. m., and on the 31st at 3:11 a. m. On the 4th, at 4:52 p. m., full; on the 11th, at 9:21 a. m., enters upon its last quarter; on the 18th, at 7:23 p. m., new moon; and on the 26th, at 11:46 p. m., enters upon its first quarter. Is nearest to the earth on the 7th, at 8:48 a. m., and farthest away on the 23d, at 7:48 a. m.

MERCURY

Presents himself as an object of interest for a few mornings before and after the 5th, the day on which he reaches his greatest western elongation, 17° 58′ from the sun; and as he rises nearly an hour and a half earlier than the latter body, may with a little care be clearly distinguished. His times of rising are as follows: On the 1st at 4:33; 16th, at 5:12; and 31st, at 6:22 a. m. His motion is direct and amounts to 43° 46′. As he moves away from the sun, after 6:00 a. m. on the 3d, his diameter diminishes from 7.4″ to 4.6″. On the 17th, at 7:58 p. m., he is 2° 1′ north of the moon.

VENUS

Remains a morning star during this month, shining, toward its close, with somewhat decreased brilliancy. Her motion is altogether eastwardly, and amounts to 33° 12′ 46″, diameter changing from 21.6″ on the 1st to 17.6″ on the 31st. On the 1st, she will rise at 2:13; on the 16th, at 2:35; and on the 31st, at 3:01 a. m. On the morning of the 7th the trio, Jupiter, Venus and _Alpha Leonis_ (Regulus) will give an exhibition worth much more than all the trouble it costs to obtain the view. Jupiter rises first at 2:30; a few minutes later, and to the south, Venus appears, and almost at the same time a little northward, Regulus: the three presenting a combination rarely witnessed. On the 6th, at 11:00 a. m., Venus will be 1° 15′ south of Jupiter; on the 7th, at 7:00 p. m., 55′ south of Regulus; and on the 15th, at 2:48 a. m., 3° 35′ north of the moon.

MARS,

Though accounted an evening star, will be above the horizon in the day time most of the month, on the 1st rising at 8:55 a. m. and setting at 7:01 p. m.; on the 16th, rising at 8:50 a. m. and setting at 6:32 p. m.; and on the 31st, rising at 8:46 a. m., and setting at 6:08 p. m. Its declination on the 31st is 21° 34′ south. Motion for month direct and amounting to 22° 28′. Diameter decreases from 4.6″ to 4.4″. On the 21st, at 6:15 a. m., 4° 10′ south of the moon.

JUPITER

(Together with Venus) makes this month’s mornings brilliant. Rising on the 1st at 2:26, on the 16th at 1:44, and on the 31st at 12:57 a. m.; and his diameter increasing from 31″ to 32.2″, makes each stay appear longer and each return brighter. His motion is direct and equals 4° 56′ 51″. On the 6th, at 11:00 a. m. he is 1° 15′ north of Venus; and on the 14th, at 11:57 a. m., 4° 42′ north of the moon.

SATURN

Rises on the 1st at 9:29 p. m., and sets on the 2nd at 12:09 p. m.; rises on the 16th at 8:29 p. m., and sets on the 17th at 11:09 a. m.; rises on the 31st at 7:29 p. m., sets 10:02 a. m. on November 1st. His motion, 42′ 26″, is retrograde. Diameter increases from 17.8″ to 18.8″. On the 5th, at 8:00 a. m. is stationary; and on the 9th, at 3:50 p. m., 3° 30′ north of the moon.

URANUS

Will be morning star throughout the month, moving eastwardly 1° 40′ 45″; diameter increasing about one-tenth of a second. On the 8th, at 3:00 a. m. will be 1° 10′ south of Mercury; on the 16th, at 7:19 p. m., 2° 5′ north of the moon. Its times of rising are as follows: On the 1st, 5:13 a. m.; on the 16th, 4:19 a. m.; on the 31st, 3:24 a. m.

NEPTUNE’S

Motion for the month is 44′ 22″ retrograde; diameter, 2.6″. On the 7th, at 11:44 a. m., he is 1° 33′ north of the moon. His night ascension on the 31st is 3h. 21m. 23.5s., and declination 16° 36′ north, about 1h. 8m. west of _Aldebaran_ in the constellation _Taurus_. He rises on the 1st, at 7:38; on the 16th, at 6:39, and on the 31st, at 5:39 p. m.

THE MERCIFUL INSTITUTIONS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

BY PROF. CHAS. J. LITTLE, PH.D., State Librarian of Pennsylvania.

The State of Pennsylvania makes generous provision for her poor—or, since one half of the inmates of her alms-houses are foreign born, it will be better to say, for the poor within her borders. In the twenty counties of the state in which there are no alms-houses, and where the poor are cared for under the township system, there are expended perhaps $300,000 annually. How the poor are cared for under this wretched system, it were perhaps better not to inquire too curiously. In the remaining counties of the state there are sixty-one alms-houses, the total cost of maintaining which amounted in the year 1883 to $1,296,945. In addition to this sum, these same counties spend a quarter of a million of dollars in what is called “out-door relief.” Much of this latter expenditure is, judging from the report of the Commissioners of Public Charities, sheer waste.

These sixty-one alms-houses of the state shelter 8,630 inmates, of whom 2,328 are women, and 1,024 children. In the year 1883, 1,739 inmates of the alms-houses were reported insane. By act of the last legislature children over two years of age are excluded from the county alms-houses, and insane persons are ordered to be removed to the state hospitals. Unfortunately, the legislature neglected to appropriate the money necessary to carrying out this reform, and as a consequence, there has been serious trouble, and probably not a little suffering throughout the state. It would not do to speak of all these sixty-one alms-houses as merciful institutions. Some of them are branded by the Commissioners of Public Charities as abodes of cruelty; others, as breeding places of vice and immorality; others still as utterly inadequate, both in building and management, to the purposes of their existence. Among those thus branded are the alms-houses of two of the richest counties of the state—Chester and Cumberland. On the other hand, many of these institutions are worthy of all praise, the taxpayers having spared no expense in the erection and equipment of the buildings, and the management being intrusted to conscientious men and women.

In addition to this provision which the state has made for the poor within its limits, there are numerous private institutions for the care and comfort of the adult poor. There is, for instance, in Reading, a “Home for Aged Widows and Single Women,” which, at present, contains eleven inmates, its full capacity. Many more seek the benefits of this institution than can be accommodated in the two story brick dwelling which has been built expressly for its purposes. In Philadelphia there is a “Home for Aged Couples,” containing twelve inmates; an “Old Man’s Home” in West Philadelphia, containing 65 inmates; the “Penn Asylum for Indigent Widows and Single Women;” the “Maypother Home for Women;” a “Home for Infirm Colored Men and Women;” and the “Edwin Forrest Home for Aged and Infirm Actors.” These are undenominational. They are supported, partly by admission fees, which are required of those receiving the benefits of the various homes; partly by the property conveyed to the homes by the inmates, but chiefly by contributions and bequests of benevolent individuals.

The Roman Catholic Church supports, through the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, “Saint Ann’s Widow’s Asylum,” to which widows over fifty years of age are admitted; they also have a “Home for the Aged Poor,” under the care of the Little Sisters of the Poor, which has at present some three hundred inmates. Christ Church, Philadelphia, has a “Home for Aged Women,” as have also Saint Luke’s Church, in Philadelphia, and Saint Luke’s Church, Germantown. There is also in Philadelphia, a “Home for Aged and Infirm Methodists,” with accommodations for one hundred men and women.

Under the Constitution of 1873, the legislature is forbidden to appropriate any monies to denominational or sectarian institutions, no matter how large their scope, or how unsectarian may be their benevolence. But there is nothing to forbid generous appropriations to such homes for the aged and infirm as are not under denominational control; yet the managers of such institutions should bear in mind that in order to secure any help from the state, they should make report of their workings to the State Board of Public Charities. Next to the institutions for the adult poor, it will be best to consider the large provision which has been made both by the state and by private individuals for the care of children; especially for the care of orphans. First of all stands that magnificent network of charities which covers the entire state—

THE SOLDIERS’ ORPHANS’ SCHOOLS.

For these the total appropriations have been, in round numbers, eight millions of dollars. They were begun in 1865, and have therefore been in operation nearly twenty years. These homes may be divided into two classes: first, the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Schools and homes, of which there are twelve—three in Philadelphia, and the remainder in other parts of the state; and secondly, homes which have undertaken the education of soldiers’ orphans, but which are not exclusively devoted to that work. There have been admitted to these schools since the establishment of the system, 13,011 children; and there were in school on the 31st of May, 1883, 4,630 children, of whom 1,931 were girls. In the report of John W. Sayers, special inspector and examiner of orphan schools, it is stated that “the schools are fully up to all reasonable expectations; splendid work has been done, and is still being accomplished for the best interests of the scholars.” By the Extension Act of 1883, these schools will be continued until June 1st, 1890, at which time Pennsylvania may rest satisfied that she has discharged some of her debt toward her deceased soldiers in no ungenerous fashion. The schools will, by that time, have cost the state nearly ten millions of dollars; a sum which no citizen of the Commonwealth will begrudge to the children of the men whose bones are scattered from Gettysburg to the Gulf of Mexico.

Next in order to the Soldiers’ Orphans’ Schools is the magnificent charity of Stephen Girard, known throughout Pennsylvania, and throughout America, as “Girard College.” This institution, in its buildings, in its general equipment, in its corps of teachers, is one of the most remarkable in the world. The buildings were erected at an expense of two millions of dollars; subsequent additions have largely increased this original outlay. But the property and funds now in the hands of the Girard Trust amounts to nearly ten millions of dollars, and is administered with great care and intelligence. The gross revenue of the Girard estate in 1883 amounted to $931,295. By the will of Mr. Girard this college is for the benefit of poor white male orphan children. The first preference being given to orphans born in the city of Philadelphia, the second to those born in other parts of Pennsylvania, the third to those born in the city of New York, and the fourth to those born in the city of New Orleans. No child can be admitted before the age of six, nor after the age of ten. At present the institution contains 1,104 pupils. Under the will of Mr. Girard no attempt can be made to give these boys what is sometimes spoken of as “higher education;” the shrewd old merchant thinking it much wiser that they should be apprenticed to trades than that they should be turned into the world without capital to make a living by their wits.