Chapter XX: Love and Electioneering (1)

The soul of Keeton, as a local orator expressed it, was stirred to its depths by the events which succeeded. The three estates of the town, whereof we have already spoken, were alike concerned in the election. Had it never occurred, there would have been enough in the death of Mrs. Saulsbury and the rearrangement of Mr. Grey's property to keep conversation up among the middle grade of Keeton folks. But business like that would not interest the park, and of course it had no interest for the working class of the town. The election, on the contrary, was of equal concern to park, semi-detached villa, and cottage, or even garret. A contest in Keeton was an absolute novelty, so far as the memory of living man could go back.

It may perhaps be said that the opinion of the class who alone concerned themselves about her affairs had been, on the whole, decidedly unfavorable to Minola. She had gone as a sort of rebel against legitimate authority out of Keeton, and had flung herself into the giddy vortex of London life. No one well knew what had become of her; and that with Keeton folks was another way of saying that she must have rushed upon destruction. Some persons held that she must have gone upon the stage. This idea became almost a certainty when a Keeton man, being in London on business, brought back with him from town a play-bill announcing a new opera bouffe in which one of the minor performers was named "Miss Mattie Grey." If the good Keeton man had only looked in a few other play-bills, he would have no doubt found Greys in abundance--Matties, Minnies, Nellies, and such like, Grey being rather a favorite name with young ladies in the profession. But he made no such investigation, and it was at once assumed that Mattie Grey was Minola Grey in disguise--a disguise as subtle as that of the famous knight, Sir Tristam, who, when he wanted to conceal his identity from all observers and place himself beyond all possibility of detection, called himself Sir Tramtrist.

When, however, it was found that Minola was to have her father's property after all, a certain change took place in the opinion of most persons who concerned themselves about the matter. It was assumed generally that Mr. Grey was far too good and Christian a man to have left his property to a girl who could be capable of acting in an opera bouffe. Then, when Miss Grey in person came to the town in the company of so distinguished a man as Mr. Money, even gossip started repentant at the sound itself had made, and began to deny that it had ever made any sound at all. Mr. Money was a sort of hero among the middle class everywhere. He was known to have fought his way up in life, and to be now very rich; and when Miss Grey came into the town in the company of Mr. Money and his daughter, the report went about forthwith that Minola Grey had got into the very best society in London, and that she was going to marry the eldest son of Mr. Money, and to be presented at court.

Mr. Money had taken a couple of floors of the best hotel to begin with. He had brought his carriage with him--a carriage in which he was hardly ever known to take a seat when in town. He had brought a sort of retinue of servants. He went deliberately about making what Mr. St. Paul would have called "a splurge." Mr. Money knew his Pappenheimers. He knew that he was well known to have sprung from nothing, but he also knew that the middle and lower classes of Keeton would have given him little thanks if he had tried to please them by exhibiting there a modesty becoming of his modest origin. He knew well enough that the more he put on display the more they would think of him and of his clients. Therefore he put on display like a garment--a garment to which he was little used, and in which he took no manner of delight. There was generally a little group of persons round the hotel doors at all hours of the day waiting to see Mr. Money and his friends go out or come in. At first Minola positively declined to go out at all, except at night; and the recent death of her father's widow gave her a fair excuse for remaining quietly indoors. Lucy delighted in the whole affair, and often declared that she felt as if she had been turned into a princess. When Mr. Heron came down he too seemed rather to enjoy it. At least he took it all as a matter of course. The experiences of colonial days, when the ruler of a colony, however small it may be, is a person of majestic proportions in his own sphere, enabled him to take Mr. Money's pomp quite seriously.

Meanwhile Mr. Augustus Sheppard had got his committee-rooms and his displays of various kinds, and was understood to be working hard. The election contest, so long looked for, had taken every one a little by surprise when it showed itself so near. It was natural that Mr. Sheppard and his friends should feel confident of the result. The retiring representative was now an old man. He had faithfully served out his time; he had always voted as his patrons wished him to do; he had never made a speech in the House of Commons; he had never, indeed, risen to his feet there at all, except once or twice to present a petition. The delights of a Parliamentary career were, therefore, this long time beginning to pall upon him. He had been notoriously anxious to get out of Parliament. He had been sent into the House of Commons by the late duke to keep the seat warm until the present duke should come of age. But the present duke succeeded to the peerage before he came of age, and therefore never had a chance of sitting in the House of Commons. The man in possession was allowed to remain there through years and years, until the present duke could be induced to return from abroad and take some interest in the political and other affairs of Keeton. His own son was yet too young for Parliament, and as the sitting member found himself getting too old and begged for release, there was nothing better to do than to get some safe and docile person to take on him the representation of the borough for some time to come. Those who knew Keeton could recommend no one more fitting in every desirable way than Mr. Augustus Sheppard.

The time was when Mr. Sheppard would only have had to present the orders of the reigning duke to the constituency of Keeton and to take his seat in the House of Commons accordingly as if by virtue of a sovereign patent in ancient days. But times had changed even in sleepy Keeton. The younger generation had almost forgotten their dukes, it was so long since a chief of the house had been among them. Even the women had grown comparatively indifferent to the influence of the name seeing that it had so long been only a name for them. There had been for many years no duchesses and their lady daughters to meet at flower-shows and charitable bazaars, by the delight of whose face, and the sound of whose feet, and the wind of whose tresses, as the poet has it, they could be made to feel happy and exalted. There once were brighter days when the coming and going of the ladies at the castle gave the women of Keeton a perpetual subject of talk, of thought, of hope, and of quarrel. Some of the readers of this story may perhaps have spent a little time in small towns on the banks of foreign--say of American--rivers which have a habit of freezing up as winter comes, and becoming useless for navigation; in fact being converted from rivers into great frozen roads, until spring unlocks the flowers and the streams again. Such travellers must have noticed what an unfailing topic of conversation such a river supplies to those who dwell on its banks. How soon will it freeze this season? On what precise day was it closed to navigation last year--the year before--the year before that? In what year did it freeze soonest? Do you remember that particular year when it froze so very soon, or did not freeze for such an unprecedented length of time? That was the same year that--no, not that year; it was the other year, don't you remember? Then follow contradictions and disputes, and the elders always remember the river having been regularly in the habit of performing some feat which now it never cares to repeat. The time of the frost melting and the river becoming really a river again is a matter just as fruitful of discussion. The stranger is often tempted to wonder what the people of that place would have to talk about at all if suddenly the river were to give up its trick of freezing, and were to remain always as fluent as our own monotonous Thames. There seems to him some reason to fear that the tongues of the people would become frozen as the river ceased to freeze.

Like the freezing and the melting of their river to those who lived on its bank was the annual visit of the ladies of the ducal family to the womankind of Keeton in Keeton's brighter days. Girls were growing up there now who had never seen a duchess. The arrival, the length of stay, the probable time of departure, the appearances in public whether more or less frequent than this time last year, the dresses worn by the gracious ladies, the persons spoken to by them, the persons only bowed to, the unhappy creatures who got neither speech nor salutation--it is a fact that there was a generation of women growing up in Keeton with whom these and such questions had never formed any part of the interest of their lives. They could not be expected to take much interest all at once, and as it were by instinct, in the political cause of the ducal family.

There was therefore a good deal of uncertainty about the conditions of the problem. The followers of the ducal family were some of them full of hope. The reappearance of a duke and duchess and their train might do wonders in restoring the old order of things. In Keeton petticoat influence counted for a great deal, and in other days those who had the promises of the wives hardly thought it worth while to go through the form of asking the husbands. But now there was a new condition of the political problem even in that respect. The ballot, which had made the voter independent of the influence of his landlord or his wealthy customer, had converted the power of the petticoat into a sort of unknown quantity. There could be little doubt that the moral influence and the traditional control would still prevail with some; but he must be a rash electioneering agent who would venture to say how many votes could thus be counted on. It is a remarkable tribute to the moral greatness of an aristocracy that the influence thus obtained in old days over the wives and daughters of Keeton was absolutely unearned by any overt acts of favor or conciliation. The later dukes and their families had always been remarkable for never making any advances toward the townspeople. None of the traders of the town, however wealthy and respectable, found themselves or their wives invited to any manner of festivity up at the ducal hall. All that the noble family ever did for the townspeople was to come at certain seasons to Keeton and allow themselves to be looked at. This was enough for the time. The illustrious ladies could be seen, and, as has been said, they did sometimes speak a word to favored and envied persons. They were loved for being great personages, not for anything they did to win such devotion. "Love is enough," says the poet.

All these considerations, however, rendered it hard to calculate the exact chances of opposition in the borough of Keeton. Of course revolutionary opinions were growing up, old people found, there as well as elsewhere. There was a new class of Conservatives springing up whom steady, old-fashioned politicians found it not easy to distinguish from the Radicals of their younger days. On the other hand, keen-sighted persons could not fail to perceive that, whereas in their youth almost all young men had a tendency to be or to fancy themselves Radicals, it was now growing rather the fashion for immature politicians to boast themselves Tories, and to talk of a spirited foreign policy and the dangers of Cosmopolitanism. It would be hard to say how things might turn out, knowing people thought, as they shook their heads, and hoped the expected contest might not come on for some time.

Now the contest was at hand. At least the sitting member had positively declared that he would sit no longer, and it was announced that the Duke was coming to Keeton, and that Mr. Augustus Sheppard was to be the Duke's candidate. No more striking proof could be given of the recent change in the political condition of Keeton than is found in the fact that the adoption of Mr. Sheppard as a candidate by the ducal family did not even to the most devoted and sanguine followers of the great house make Mr. Sheppard's election seem by any means a matter of absolute certainty. There was a tolerably strong conviction everywhere, long before any opposition was announced, that the Duke's candidate would not be allowed to walk over the course and right into the House of Commons this time. Nobody in the town would oppose the Duke very likely, but the man to oppose would come.

Now the man actually had come. Victor Heron had issued his address and was in Keeton. His address was original; he had positively refused from the first to make any grand professions of superior statesmanship or patriotism. He would tell Englishmen, he said, that he was seeking a seat in Parliament as a way of getting redress for a great wrong done to him, and through him to some of the principles most dear to the country. When he had fought his battle in Parliament and won or lost, he promised that he would then place himself in the hands of his constituents and resign the seat if they desired. The whole address was frank, odd, original, and perhaps seemed a little self-conceited. The author's absorption in his subject was mistaken by many people, as will happen sometimes, for self-conceit.

Mr. Sheppard's address, on the contrary, talked only of the good old Conservative principles which had made England the envy and admiration of all surrounding States; of the local interests of Keeton and the candidate's acquaintance therewith; and of the many splendid things done for the town by the noble family who had done it the honor to have a park there.

"I don't think Heron's address reads half badly," Mr. Money said, one evening in the absence of Heron, to his two companions; "on the whole, I shouldn't wonder if it took some people, the women particularly. Anything personal, anything in the nature of a grievance, is likely to have a good effect on many people, especially where the injured personage is young, and good-looking, and plucky. I wish the women had the votes here just for this once, for I think we should stand to win if they had."

"Then, papa, do you think we shan't win now?" Lucy asked.

Minola looked up eagerly for his answer.

"Well, Lucelet, I don't like to say; I am not quite charmed with the look of things. I find there are a good many very strong Radicals grown up in this place since there was a contest here before; and Heron's not wild enough for them by half. They are a little of the red-hot social-revolution sort of thing--the _proletaire_ business, with a dash of the brabbling atheist--the fellows who think one is not fit to live if he even admits the possibility of another world. I am afraid these fellows will hold aloof from us altogether, or even take some whim of voting against us, and they may be strong enough to turn the scale."

Minola hoped that if her friend Mr. St. Paul had really any charm by which to extort victory for Heron as he had promised, he would not forget to use it in good time. But she began to have less faith, and less, in the possibility of any such feat. She was a little in the perplexed condition of some one of mediaeval times, who has entered into a bargain for supernatural interference, and is not quite certain whether to wish that the compact may be really carried out or that it may prove to have been only the figment of a dream.

"I'm told we ought to have some poems done," Money went on to say. "Not merely squibs, you know, but appeals about right and justice, and the cause of oppressed humanity, and all that."

"I'm sure Minola could do some beautifully!" Lucy exclaimed, looking beseechingly toward her friend.

"Oh, no; I couldn't indeed! My appeals would be dreadfully weak; they could not rouse the spirits of any mortal creature. Now, if we only had Mary Blanchet!"

This, it must be owned, was Minola's fun, but it gave an idea to Mr. Money.

"Tell you what," he said; "we ought to have her brother--the bard you used to call him, Lucelet."

"Oh, no, papa; indeed I never called him anything of the kind. I never did, indeed, Nola."

"Well, whatever you called him, Lucelet, we can't do better than to have him. We'll put Pegasus into harness, by Jove--a capital good use to make of him too. I'll write to what's-his-name?--Blanchet--at once."

"But I don't think he would like it, papa; I think he would take offence at the idea of your asking him to do poems for an election. I don't think he would come."

"Oh, yes, he would come; we would make it worth his while. These young fellows give themselves airs to make you girls admire them, that they never think of trying on with men. It would be a rather telling thing here too if it got about that we had brought a real poet specially down from London. I'll write at once."

This seemed rather alarming to Minola.

"I doubt whether Mr. Heron would much like it," she pleaded. "I don't know whether they are such very good friends just now. I am rather afraid."

"Oh, yes; of course they must be good friends! Heron is not to have it all his own way in everything anyhow. He must like the idea; he shall. I'll write without telling him anything about it, and Heron couldn't help being friendly to any fellow who came under his roof, as one might say."

No one made any further objection.

"I wish Heron had not been so confoundedly particular about St. Paul," Mr. Money went on to say in a discontented tone. "That was absurd. St. Paul's no worse than lots of other fellows, and in such a thing as this we can't afford to throw away any offer of support. We have to fight against the Duke and his lot anyhow, and the help of St. Paul couldn't have done us any harm in that quarter, and it might have done us some good in others. I shouldn't wonder if St. Paul had some friends and admirers here still; and it is as likely as not that his being with us might conciliate a few of the mad Radicals. They might like him just because he is against his brother, the Duke."

"But Mr. Heron would not have such help as that," Lucy said, in tones of pride.

"Oh, by Jove! if you want to carry an election--and now, I suppose, if St. Paul has any influence at all, it will be given against us."

Minola thought of her unholy compact, and did not venture to say a word on the subject.

THE "UNIFORMED MILITIA" SERVICE.

I spent seven years of my boyhood at school among the hills of old Connecticut, about fifteen miles back of Bridgeport, in a region even now in almost its primitive simplicity and pastoral beauty. It has been left quiet and untouched between the iron ways of Housatonic and Danbury, equidistant from both, and sufficiently far away from either to be free from the impulse and incentive of that practical missionary of modern progress, the railroad.

City born, but partly country bred, I understand well the sentiment of the New Englander for his old home, and often live over again the days in those familiar hills and valleys of Fairfield. I would revel in enjoyment if it were possible for me to revisit them. It was there my eyes were open to the delights of a "town muster," and my steps taught rhythm by fife and drum.

In occasional musings I hear the old music as it used to reach me in waves of sound, now faint, then loud, as the variable wind would waft it, or as it escaped from obstructing hills. And I see the tall white and red plume of the commandant, undulating with his stride, and dipping salutes to the wind. Reader, if you have never realized the excitement of a "general training day" in the country, you have missed the freshest and most genuine pleasure of youth.

In the fall of 1842 occurred the Croton water celebration, a real city holiday. The procession was long, interesting, and gorgeous, for all of it except the military portion was profusely decorated with autumn flowers, odorless but beautiful, rich in color and variety. It might properly have been called the feast of dahlias.

The old fire department was out in all its glory, and richly arrayed. It always took part in metropolitan rejoicings, heartily and generously. But my interest was centred in the soldiers; fired then by a longing to shoulder a musket. I waited impatiently for the freedom of manhood and a fitting opportunity. When both came I enlisted in a city regiment, and continued the connection till after the close of the late civil war.

Twenty years of service with musket and sabre failed to dull my enthusiasm. I left it, warned by the heaviness of approaching age and the demands of business, convinced of the propriety, the usefulness, and the value of a well regulated militia force.

Aware of how much has been said and written against such service, and of the misapprehension of those who had never studied its organization, its possibilities, and necessity, I propose to draw upon the practical experience of the past twenty-five years for the purpose of correcting wrong views without and suggesting new measures within. The service has been charged with costliness, uselessness, and pretentious display; with vain ambition, absence of organic purpose, and with being inimical to the morality of the individual member. All the charges have some foundation for their utterance, though the evils referred to are not the legitimate results of the organization, but rather the baleful fruit of irresponsible and ignorant commissions. The service is really worthy of conscientious labor and the support of the people.

In the present relations of government and society, a disciplined militia force is an essential part of the body politic, and an organism with vitality if properly administered. The central idea of the organization is a military body, directly from the people, for the conservation of governmental integrity and a protection to the State. Its collateral uses are an initial school for soldierly training, and in cities especially a supplementary and occasional aid to the police forces. In a general way the central idea is accepted, but in particulars is not carried out in equity between governments and the people. The theory is that the people are the State, and therefore must provide their own protection, but under proper authority. The authority exacts the service, at a great cost to the State, but denies reasonable compensation and encouragement to the individual member; therefore the people are not in sympathy with the organization. The service is brought in conflict with the people, in fact with itself, and the anomaly is presented of an organism in internal opposition. It is the duty of legislation and constituted authority to harmonize such an unnatural condition and change indifference into interest, ignorant neglect into intelligent support. Only in times of strife, like our late civil conflict, or the wars of 1812 and 1776, does the service rise to the dignity of an establishment and a recognized power. In times of peace it is permitted to exist, mainly in skeleton condition, without organic discipline, because the people have a false idea of its use and value. State military departments are not administered with intelligence, and military codes are subject to yearly legislative amendments without understanding; conditions of enlistment are altered, generally to the injury of the enlisted soldier, while recruiting for the uniformed corps languishes from lack of encouragement.

It is interesting to follow some of the changes of the New York State code and their inconsistent applications. For instance, when the law allowing relief from jury duty and the partial remission of assessment, to continue during life, was amended to cover terms of enlistment only, the Adjutant General of the State decided the amendments applied to prior enlistments, thereby breaking a contract between the State and enlisted men under the old law. But when the term of service was reduced from seven to five years, enlistments under the former law were held for the longer term. It is in such a spirit that all amendments are interpreted in favor of the State and against the individual. Fortunately the former provision has been reconsidered, and in a spirit of compromise relief from jury duty is reinstated in the code for life, but the abatement of assessments covers only terms of service. The State considers exemption from jury duty for life a relief, the nominal abatement of assessments during the service a benefit, and both together ample compensation to the militiamen. They would be in part, if immediately available, but the compensation is questionable, as the duty is generally performed too early in life for those legislative provisions to be of practical application. The abatement of an assessment is of little benefit to those who, probably, are without property till after their terms of service are completed, and the measure fails by limitation. Fortunately the relief from jury duty is a life provision, for it generally comes later in life, and after the militia service is performed. One does not, however, repay the cost of uniforms and other necessary expenses, nor the other compensate for the time which the service requires.

The New York State code says: "All able-bodied male citizens, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, are subject to military duty," but also says that minors must obtain the written consent of parents or guardians to legalize an enlistment in a uniformed corps. Why such an incongruous distinction between uniformed corps and ununiformed militia? What right has the code to exact military service from a person who is condemned by the law as incompetent for citizenship, and is legally recognized by the law only as a child? And why exact military service from those who are in the decline of life? There are many who are physically able to do the duty under the age of twenty-one and over the age of forty, but they should be regarded as exceptional. Such service should be voluntary by the individual and optional with the State.

Spiritual, natural, and physical laws have stamped twenty-one the minimum age of manhood, and forty the culmination. Why should military law assume the power to control more?

The young absorb the elements of the future, the old dispose of them; within these life lines is practical manhood.

Patriotism enthusiastic becomes patriotism triumphant; during its passage the sentiment hardens into use.

Fault has been found by tax-payers with State and city governments for maintaining militia forces at such an expense. The censure is justified by the yearly exhibit of military expenditures, which is due in part to the unnecessary maintenance of skeleton regiments and battalions.

The prejudices of the people against soldiers in time of peace will never be overcome till they are educated to the necessity of a military establishment by intelligent administration of its affairs, proper information, greater proficiency, and a more decided application of its use. Satisfy the people of the necessity of the service, enlist their pride in its support by its efficiency, and its maintenance may be secured without opposition. People never grumble when they can see their money's worth.

If States have treated their militia forces as an inferior part of themselves, if military authorities have acted arbitrarily and ungenerously, militiamen themselves are not blameless. They have frittered away their opportunities, and belittled their profession, by vain-glory and personal ambition, and invited censure by inefficient service. Fortunately there are men and officers, companies and regiments, who, recognizing their mission, have conscientiously performed their duty and redeemed the service from greater obloquy. Their work has acted like leaven to the whole body. All honor to them for their intelligence, honest pride, and patriotic labor.

The "uniformed militia" system has a foundation of inherent strength capable of being built upon and extended to a perfectness not at present thought capable of. With its present incompleteness, its degree of usefulness is positive, and even under all the adverse circumstances referred to the condition of ably administered battalions bears upon the side of success and prosperity. Singular as it may seem, part of its weakness is from its own elements of apparent strength.

Recruits enlist with a very inadequate idea of its requirements. Many go through their term of service, sometimes pleased, oftener bored, but always with a sense of personal importance, and take their discharge with feelings of relief.

Some members are guilty of license when in uniform that they would not indulge in as citizens. Officers without capacity accept commissions and occasionally intrigue for command, from ambition and vanity, without a sense of their responsibility or a proper knowledge of their duties. There are also elements of disorder within the lines of duty which are hard to bear and difficult to control, because they arise from personal animosities. The judgment of an officer is warped to his hurt by his selfishness, wounded pride, and ambition, who will hold a commission to the injury of his company or battalion, even with the support of part of his command.

Is it to be wondered at that an organization with such elements of disorder in it should be regarded with disfavor by those ignorant of its trials, its duties, and its aims? And is it not an argument in its favor that its discipline is able to control and surmount such demoralizing tendencies?

It is not pleasant to deprecate a continuation of long services, but under certain circumstances it may result in injury to a corps. Officers of merit and distinction, with the personal veneration of their men, have been known to outlive their usefulness by retention of command after the freshness, activity, and judgment of their earlier manhood have departed. The idiosyncrasies of age and confirmed habits of authority do not readily accept advanced ideas, improvements in methods, and the inevitable changes of time.

Recruiting for uniformed corps has been and is a process without a system--a method without a principle; it is simply a necessity. As conducted at present it is derogatory to the dignity of the service, and in its practice humiliating and unpleasant to its members. The code really offers no inducement to militiamen.

Its failure to provide proper encouragement for recruiting is a defect which should have the serious consideration of military authorities and legislators at the earliest opportunity. It is a matter of vital importance to the service, and forces itself upon the attention of all commandants to their great concern.

It seems as though battalions are expected to perpetuate themselves, and they have to be, by force of circumstances, recruiting organizations for the State.

Personal application and argument have to take the place of official encouragement, and a service whose necessity, propriety, and benefits should be patent to all is left in a measure to factitious circumstances for a support. It is not, however, the sole purpose of this paper to cavil at authority, to criticise military codes, or condemn existing methods, but rather to show how the uniformed militia forces can be better rewarded by proper recognition and acknowledgment, and made more honorable by a higher standard of service. The indifference of the world and the early hostility of the church to amusements were fatal blunders which both have ascertained, and are now atoning for generously, but too thoughtlessly. Opposition has become permission without proper direction, and indiscriminate pleasure anticipates regulated and orderly recreation. This is a question of as great importance to the State as to society, of as vital interest to the church, as of welfare to the individual. Every care should be taken to recognize as orderly only those pleasures which have their foundation in use.

In every community, between the extremes of the artisan, who is almost precluded from the continuous and regular duties of a militiaman, by his occupation and necessities, and the student, who is generally unfitted for them by his intellectual preoccupation, is a numerous class, for whom the service is eminently adapted. Their inclination for occasional relief from business and clerical labors is a proper desire, and should not be permitted to degenerate into undisciplined sport for want of a legitimate pastime.

The militia service, on a peace footing, is really a recreation, with an object and an organization of the most singular merit. Its system of physical training is superior to the abnormal development of the gymnasium, the fitful excitement of the ball-field, the constrained pull and single purpose of the oar, and the violent termination of a "shell" race. Its normal object, military training, is exacting, methodical, and thorough, and moral force of character, self-reliance, discipline of the mind, and knowledge of human nature are collateral results of company and battalion associations. There is an element of possible strength to the militia forces of the several States, which may have been thought of, but never utilized. I refer to the youth in every community who are old enough to be free from the constant necessity of elementary study and relieved from the absorbing application of higher educational branches, who are yet at school, but with sufficient leisure to do well or ill--that age between the watchful eye of maternal care and later parental authority: inchoate manhood, rough, awkward, and susceptible; wild with their first taste of liberty; full of anticipation and courageous in the future. The struggle between them and society for a place is long and doubtful. The State should adopt and help them by recognizing a cadet system to be attached to the uniformed corps, whose officers could inaugurate no wiser, more charitable, or more popular measure than to accept their services. The measure of good to the boy and the measure of benefit to the service would be reciprocal and incalculable. The cadet would take to the "school of the soldier" with enthusiasm. It would give him something proper to do, something right to think of; it would perfect his growing physique with grace, and engraft on his system the elements of manhood.

To all graduating classes in school, a membership in a cadet corps would be an incentive, and school commissioners could make such membership a reward of merit.

It would relieve the service from the present unpleasant feature of recruiting by keeping behind it a subordinate corps of well-drilled young soldiers from which its ranks could be kept full. It would relieve officers from the drudgery of squad-drills, and give the service the full time of their men instead of wasting six, perhaps more, months in the present recruit classes. It would also perfect the enlisted men and subordinate officers for their prospective duties by detailing them for detached service in cadet corps, in grades next higher than their own. Such detached service would be an honor and a prime incentive for all subordinate officers.

The uniformed militia system has been the growth of years upon the single theory of a military power direct from the people. Whatever merit has been developed in its practice is intrinsic, and has been brought to the surface by force of circumstances rather than by encouragement or appreciation. Upon the minimum basis of inherent value can be constructed a maximum power of State economy, by honoring the service with an establishment of intelligence and efficiency. Make the uniformed corps to the State and to the militia forces, in a comparative, what the West Point Academy is to the United States and to the regular army in a superlative degree.

I have treated militia service thus far as a recreation, because the members of uniformed corps have made it so. I will now refer to it as a duty, and endeavor to show how the service can be adjusted to the greater benefit of the State and be made of greater use to the people.

Declare all male citizens between the ages of twenty-one and forty subject to military duty as ununiformed militia, to be enrolled and brigaded, but kept immobile except for emergencies, to be officered when necessary from the subordinate officers of the uniformed corps.

The object of enrollment is twofold: to ascertain the available force of the State, and for the purpose of special taxation, to reimburse the State for military expenditures.

Eliminate all extrinsic material from the present force; disband skeleton battalions; make supernumerary their officers; reduce the force to the efficient corps now existing, or which may have to be organized, in place of ineffective ones, for the purpose of creating normal schools for military instruction. Never call out an ununiformed battalion in time of peace, or put a uniformed corps in the field in time of war; consider them component and interchangeable parts of one system. In active service let the former be the lungs and the latter the heart of a vital organism.

In no instance should a normal battalion be disbanded for the purpose of officering ununiformed corps, but should be kept intact with its field officers and company commandants--a kind of Gatling educational battery for the propulsion of brains. It would be just as sensible to put the West Point cadets in the field as a fighting corps as to put some of our best regiments. Their heads are worth more to the country than their bodies.

I have suggested special taxation of the enrolled militia to reimburse the State for its military expenditures. It can probably be collected more expeditiously and with less expense through a special department of the Commissioner of Jurors than through any other channel. It is now necessary for the Commissioner to keep lists of jurors and register all exempts, and the plan would certainly aid him in those duties of his department by giving him a fuller and more correct canvass of citizens.

The encouragement needed to induce men and officers to spend their leisure hours for ten years in these normal battalions is to void the present remission of assessment, as an inequitable provision--reimburse them for clothing, relieve them from jury duty for life, and exempt them from any possible future draft. With their discharges give the men sergeants' warrants, non-commissioned officers lieutenants' commissions, and advance officers' commissions one grade, waiting papers for possible future services. Furnish comfortable and substantial drill-rooms and armories, and reimburse battalions for proper musical expenditures.

The State should hold itself responsible to the general Government for its officers who may be touched by a draft and furnish the necessary substitutes as compensation in part for their former and prospective services.

Experience furnishes proof that well made, good-fitting clothing, stylish, but not extravagant, is much better and cheaper than the low-priced, ugly State uniforms, ground out by contract, allotted by sizes, and fitting by chance. There is no economy in the joint ownership of a uniform; the nominal owner is niggardly in purchase and the wearer careless in use. Let the uniform be chosen by corps, made in accordance with regimental bills of dress, by individual measure, and let the State reimburse the corps by a liberal commutation. To reimburse battalions for their music may seem a costly item--it certainly is a great expense to the present uniformed corps--but as the project is based upon the idea of a self-supporting establishment, there is no injury to the State; a nominal tax paid by the enrolled ununiformed militia should be sufficient to pay the entire expenditures of the State military department.

To honor discharged men and officers with a kind of brevet commission would be an incentive for ability and efficiency, and would be of sufficient value to invite the best class of young men to the ranks. Whatever may be questionable in the action of Congress for reducing the force of the regular army, there can be none in the policy of the State for reducing its force to the lowest possible point. Every man should be released from the ranks that can be, both in justice to himself and for general industrial effect. The cost of company drills, regimental brigade and division parades in time and money is immense, and out of all proportion to the doubtful value of such services, constituted as the force is. But a compact, thoroughly disciplined, and perfectly drilled force, of the highest obtainable military character, is necessary and should be well maintained for contingent purposes.

I have thrown out these views as applicable to the city and State of New York; but the ideas can be applied to the military department of every State, with such modifications as may be found necessary.

It would be expensive, impolitic, and unnecessary for the general Government to keep a regular army, through years of peace, of sufficient numerical force to meet successfully internal outbreaks or external pressure. The militia force should be trained to be the supporting power of the army for such contingencies. The doubts and fears and awful suspense of the people during the early days of the late rebellion would have been greatly lessened, perhaps quite avoided, had the regular and militia forces been in effective readiness for the struggle, and met the necessity of the hour. The uniformed corps could have been ordered to the front for temporary defence, as some were, and time given for mobilizing the ununiformed troops.

As it was all was confusion, distrust, and almost despair; only for the instinctive loyalty and inherent courage of the people, all would have been lost. The men of the first levy, the rank and file, were magnificent in material, confident in ability, honest in purpose, crude in development, difficult to discipline--it was hard for them to come under military law. Many of their officers were adventurers without experience or qualifications for command. They obtained commissions through personal influence rather than by merit. Militia officers, with all their imperfections, would have been of much greater service.

Is the affair of Bull Run to be wondered at, with such material, and in the light of later education? It was the incisive action of the war; it punctured the conceit of both armies.

C. H. MEDAY.

THE YOSEMITE HERMIT.

The shadows were lying tolerably long on the green hillsides when the lumbering yellow stage, somewhat the worse for wear, drawn by four lean, dusty horses, also somewhat the worse for wear, drew up with a grand flourish in front of the Grand Hotel, Mariposa.

It was a long, low building, with a broad piazza in front and along one side; the facade was painted a dingy yellow to match the stage apparently, but the rest of the edifice had been neglected, and the superabundant rain and superabundant sunshine of Mariposa had left marks of their handiwork on the bare boards.

The loungers rushed out of the bar-room as soon as the wheels were heard, and stood grouped about the broad piazza exchanging jokes with the driver, who was known as Scotty, and asking the news from Hornitos and other way places.

Meanwhile the "Doctor," a stout, ruddy-complexioned man, whose appearance spoke well for his profession, descended from his seat on the box, and, opening the stage door with an air of pride and satisfaction, he assisted the one lady passenger to alight with a grace which would have done credit to Chesterfield. The loungers on the piazza started and drew back. All ceased their gibes with Scotty, and two or three removed their hats. She was not only a woman, but a very pretty woman--she was even beautiful.

She thanked the Doctor with a pretty grace, and turned her clear, hazel eyes upon the admiring group, scanning each face eagerly and wistfully. The Doctor said, "Allow me," and was about to escort her into the small den at one side known as the "Ladies' parlor," but she swept past him and walked straight into the bar-room, the Doctor, the loafers, and Scotty crowding in after her and regarding her movements with an undisguised admiration, and as much reverential curiosity as though she had been a visitant from another sphere.

The proprietor of the "Grand" was a podgy man, with an aggressively bald head and scaley eyes like an alligator's--though for that matter I may be libelling the alligator. His name was Sharpe, commonly corrupted into "Cutey" by some mysterious process.

He was pouring whiskey from a bottle into a glass, preparatory to serving himself, when the new comer walked--she walked like an angel--straight up to him and said, "Is this the landlord?"

Cutey was so astonished by the apparition that he dropped the glass--he called it a glass; it was in reality a stone-china cup about half an inch thick--and wasted the whiskey; it was only by the greatest presence of mind that he succeeded in saving the bottle.

"Ma-a-a'm?" he stammered, clutching at his bald head to see if there was a hat there.

The woman repeated her question; the crowd by the doorway, headed by the Doctor, strained their ears to listen. She had a low voice, tolerably sweet. Such music had never before been heard within those low walls, perhaps. They wished she would say more. Old "Punks" muttered that she 'minded him of his Lyddy--"jest sech a voice!" which remark brought down upon him much contumely afterward, and a threat from the Doctor to "put daylight through him." After a helpless look around him, Cutey admitted that he _was_ the landlord, with the air of a cornered scoundrel confessing a crime.

"Then perhaps you can tell me what I wish to know," said the woman, fixing her clear, sweet eyes upon him. "I want to find a man named Wilmer--James Courtney Wilmer."

Cutey shook his head sorrowfully.

"Thar be so many names," said he: "skurce any man goes by his own name. Be he livin' in Mariposa, ma'am?"

"I do not know," was the reply, with a suggestion of tears in the voice, at which every heart in the crowd by the door was touched and unhappy.

Punks nudged Scotty with his elbow.

"What's that fellow's name that wus partners with Circus Jack in the Banderita?" he whispered.

Scotty rapped his forehead with his horny hand, and ran his fingers into his bushy, tow-colored hair, with a clutch of desperation.

"Punks," he whispered, "I allers counted you a fool, but you ain't; you air a shinin' light! His name _wus_ Jim Wilmer."

Then, coloring up to the roots of his hair, he advanced and said:

"If you please, ma'am."

The woman turned at this, meeting a whole battery of eyes without any seeming consciousness of it.

"There wus a feller named Jim Wilmer here--wus partners in the Banderita, with a feller named Circ--leastways, I don't know his name, but we called him Circus Jack, ma'am."

The woman's face--her beautiful face--turned as white as the collar at her throat; she leaned against the bar and tried to speak, but the words died on her lips.

Finally, with an effort, she half whispered:

"Do you know where he is now?"

Then, as the men looked at each other, she cried in a clearer tone, "Is he _dead_?"

"No, no, ma'am. He wus here, 'taint a month," said Scotty. "I think he's off huntin' in the hills. I'll find Circus Jack, and bring him up here. He'll be likely to know--him and Jim wus real good friends."

"Thank you," said the stranger softly, in a voice which smote Scotty's heart exceedingly.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had gone for Mrs. Sharpe, who presently entered, and invited the stranger to "hev a little tea."

She was a small fair woman, with a washed-out look, and a mouth not innocent of _dipping_, but she looked and spoke kindly, and the stranger was glad enough to answer, "Yes," and follow her into the dining-room. The crowd fell back as she approached, but only enough to give her room to pass. Some stealthily touched her dress as she swept by them, and when she had disappeared, and the door had closed, forty tongues were loosed at once, and a scene of excitement ensued only equalled by the one which followed on the shooting of "the Judge" by "Little Jack," over a game of poker, in that very bar-room of the Grand Hotel.

"Mought I ax your name, ma'am?" inquired Mrs. Sharpe.

"Marian Kingsley," was the faint reply.

"Miss or Mrs., ma'am?" pursued Mrs. Sharpe, glancing at the shapely, white, ringless hands.

The stranger gave a slight impatient twitch. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Call me Marian. That will do as well as anything."

Mrs. Sharpe was a washed-out woman. Many of the natural and laudable instincts remained, perhaps being fast colors; but a horror of the class to which she now supposed Marian to belong was one which had faded out of her nature. She gave a slightly supercilious look, which fell upon the woman like moonlight on ice, and pursued her inquiries.

"Came from 'Frisco?"

"I came through there. I didn't see anything of the place."

"Whar _did_ yer come from?"

"Philadelphia." The tone was changed. She evidently felt the impalpable rudeness of the faded woman, and knew how to resent it in the same way. More conversation ensued, in the course of which Mrs. Sharpe discovered that Marian had a little money--enough to pay her board for a few months--and that she had come there to find "James Courtney Wilmer."

Mrs. Sharpe had information to give as well as to take, for she knew something of Jim.

"_We_ called him _Jim_," she said, a little scornfully. "He didn't git no 'Courting' from _we_."

Poor Marian gave a faint smile. "There might be other James Wilmers," she said. "I wanted to be sure."

Mrs. Sharpe didn't think this could be the one.

"He's a rough, ragged creeter," she said, "and 's had the snakes fur weeks at a time."

Marian shrank and cowered at this, with a pitiful look of pain on her beautiful face.

"Hed money left him?" asked Mrs. Sharpe.

Marian nodded.

"'Twon't do him no good. Soon as he hearns of it, he'll drink himself into snakes. Allers did when they struck a good lead on the Banderita. Circus Jack, he loses all hisn's at poker; so thar they go."

In the course of an hour Circus Jack, scrubbed and "fixed up" to a degree which made him almost unrecognizable by his comrades, appeared, escorted by Scotty, also prepared by a choice toilet to enter the presence of "the ladies."

"'Scuse my not comin' afore," said Scotty. "Hosses must be 'tended to, and them of mine wus about dead beat."

Marian smiled graciously, if absently, and turned her clear, hazel eyes to Circus Jack, who, with many excuses, circumlocutions, and profane epithets, most of which he apologized for instantly, and some of which he was evidently unconscious of, gave her all the information in his power in regard to the man she had come to find.

No one in Mariposa knew him better. As "Jim" he was almost an integral part of the city of "Butterflies." The butterflies, by the by, for which the town is named, are not those which soar in the air, but "Mariposas," fastened by long, tough filaments to the ground.

Many a night had Jim Wilmer crushed his swollen face into them, and slept a drunken sleep with their soft wings folded sorrowfully above him.