VOL. 5.

OHN BROWN'S GRAVE

J

AND FARM.

The fanatic hanged at Charlestown, Virginia, has more friends to-day than he had in 1861; he will have many more fifty years hence. He who fought a lifetime for one idea can wait a century for immortal justice. When the Homer of this Republic is born he will find in Osawatomie Brown a hero worthy of his verse. Once upon a time I camped out in the North Woods, and before leaving a glorious region where Nature has not been entirely robbed of her virgin beauty, I made a pilgrimage to John Brown's farm in Essex County, a few miles from picturesque Lake Placid. saw the name of John Brown carved on the face of the huge boulder lying at the head of his grave, as if cast for the purpose from God Almighty's foundry.

Plucking roses and buttercups that sprang from the giant's heart, I turned. What! that humble, unpainted I stood upon farm house John Brown's home? the threshold and knocked in vain. Trying the door, it opened, and venturing to enter, I saw signs of habitaThere seemed to be no tion, but none of comfort. angel in the house. A portrait of John Brown, a few memorial wreaths snatched from some recent grave, were the only visible remains of sentiment.

Several men were pitching hay in a field near by, and when I hailed them one sad man came forward to bid me return. He was the owner of the farm, for John Brown's homestead was no longer the property of his own family, although it had been his wish that there they should remain.

"I am Alexis Hinckley," said the thin, sad man. "My sister married John Brown's son Salmon, who went West and is now in California. Mrs. Brown was very lonely without any of her children, and in order to join Salmon, sold the farm in 1863 for eight hundred dollars. She did not want it to go out of the family, and so I bought it; but I do not feel like staying here any longer. I buried my wife last winter. The place is not what it used to be, and, in fact, I must sell it. I have spent money on it, and have offered it for two thousand dollars."

"Does that plat of land go with the farm? "I asked, looking from the window to the spot where John Brown's body lay mouldering in the grave.

"Oh, no! That is reserved by Mrs. Brown. There are two hundred and forty-four acres, and one thousand dollars' worth of timber."

So John Brown's farm was for sale!

One month later I told this story in Boston. With the enthusiasm of youth, I imagined that the old friends of a rugged, historic character would vie with each other in rescuing his homestead from possible vandals. 1 applied first to Wendell Phillips and received a kind note, but no money. Then I ventured to address Ralph Waldo Emerson, who sent me an autograph letter, very interesting, but without a suggestion as to ways and means. Those two letters are now valuable, but where I've put them, only a seer can tell.

Disappointed but not crushed, I turned to Judge "Tom" Russell, whose face glowed with assured success. "Of course I can easily raise the money," he said. "I'll

NO. 2.

go to George N. Stearns and will let you know the result in a few days.'

Hope had whispered too flattering a tale in Judge Russell's ear. When he came back, his face told a story of defeat. "Useless," he said. "I can't raise a cent.' And this was abolition Boston! The only person there who gave me sympathy and aid was Mrs. Robert C. Watterston, who is ever true to the principles of her family, the Quincys.

In disgust and despair, I wrote to Mr. Isaac H. Bailey of New York, and within forty-eight hours received this telegram: "Stock all gone and at a premium." Mr. Bailey put on his hat, went into the street and secured the necessary subscribers in fifteen minutes. Here are their names:

The farm was bought, a good tenant secured who still remains, and when I revisited the Adirondacks recently, I found our property worth three times what we had paid for it, the house in good repair and John Brown's grave the Mecca of all tourists.

Of the twenty subscribers to our fund, ten have already joined John Brown in his march of eternity. The last to go was that admirable citizen, Jackson S. Schultz, with whom I had serious talks about the disposition of the farm only a few months before his death. Sinclair Tousey, too, long our faithful secretary, wrote me letters of warning when he felt the angel of death approaching. Both friends realized the importance of putting this historic farm in such a condition legally as to fulfil the original intention. Being the first subscriber to the fund and the inspiration of Mr. Bailey's patriotic action, I had a perfectly defined idea. I wanted the farm to be

held as sacred ground, as proof that even in the nineteenth century there is such a thing as poetic justice. I wanted it to be the centre of a great National Park. Nature made the Adirondacks the sanitarium of New York no less than the store-house of its waters.

Such was the dream of a young girl who, now a woman, is firmer than ever in her faith in the North Woods, and is more anxious than ever to see John Brown's farm properly administered. I know that Mr. Schultz, Mr. Tousey, Mr. Chittenden and Mr. Cowdin, could they speak from beyond the tomb, would advocate immediate action. I know that Mrs. Watterston

and I are in accord. For several years I've been trying to get the living to meet in council. What is everybody's business is nobody's business. As my private notes seem to have about as much effect as appeals of the press in behalf of the Grant monument, I now call upon Messrs. Bailey, Clews, Cannon, Smith, Lee, Robbins, Murphy and Wales to join me in the performance of a public duty. We must have a legally acknowledged steward of John Brown's farm, with legally defined powers. Who shall it be? When will you give an hour's time to considering how best to preserve the grave and home of the gamest man Governor Wise ever saw?

"Save me from my friends," Breckinridge of Kentucky may already exclaim, for a more ignorant and brutal exhibition than the majority made of themselves in the House on January 6, is fortunately not often seen.

So ex

Impelled by refined selfishness, the great Northwest offered to give to starving Russia many bushels of its grain, provided our Government furnished transportation. "Here is our chance, perhaps, to make a new market," argued the Northwest. "Russia has always spurned our grain. If we feed her people in their adversity, they may learn to like what they have heretofore rejected, and thus we can help ourselves while helping them." cellent was the proposition that Senator Washburn at once espoused it, and the Senate passed a joint resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Navy to transport these contributions to Russia's suffering poor. Speakerpro-tem McMillin laid this resolution before the House; thereupon certain Representatives proceeded to disgrace themselves. Mr. Pendleton of West Virginia declared that "Russia was a menace to civilization and a threat to peace," and that the friendship between the two countries was "the friendship between the Puritan and the blackleg." I don't know what sort of constituents Mr. Pendleton represents, but if they are intelligent Americans, they will blush at this uncalled for insult to a friendly nation. Russia has asked nothing of us. Why slap her in the face because the Northwest offers corn to her starving subjects? Such language reeks of the pothouse, and is a scandal to Congress.

Mr. Chipman of Michigan covered himself with glory by doubting "whether Russia's treatment of her people entitled her to the comity extended to civilized nations." Here's reason and Christianity with a vengeance! Assuming that Russia does not treat her people properly, is there not more cause for foreign aid? If a man beats his wife, shall the police not interfere because this husband is a brute? Was ever such logic conceived outside of Mr. Chipman's head?

The great American objector, Mr. Holman, moved to strike out the appropriation clause of one hundred thouand dollars. He thought Russia amply able to transport this American corn herself. No wonder Mr. Breckenridge of Kentucky rose to protest against higgling over so small a matter. "If the Government offers this relief in good faith," said he, "let it load the ships out of the public treasury with the contributions of the teeming North. west. It is constitutional; it is humanity; therefore it is American, and therefore it is Democratic, and for one I am willing to take Democratic responsibility for it." Would that Mr. Breckinridge represented the Democratic majority of one hundred and fifty-four. Then it would not have been possible for one hundred and sixtysix votes to have been cast against this humane appropriation, defeated by a majority of ninety-six!

I wish those one hundred and sixty-six men no worse punishment than the reproof of a quickly enlightened

conscience. In their efforts at cheese-paring they have driven many nails into many coffins, they have been false to their religion and they have been blind to the financial interests of the farmer whom they are supposed to watch over. If the Breckinridges, McCrearys and McMillins do not come to the rescue, this Democratic majority will be the death of Democracy next autumn. A bad beginning is said to make a good ending. We shall see.

C

AMPAIGN

LITERATURE.

*

I'm told on good authority that the Republican National Committee propose to make votes for the next election by a novel campaign of education. Look out in leading periodicals for stories and sketches addressed to the feminine half of the world, in which the taxed materials of the McKinley bill are introduced and the prices shown to be no more or less than on the other side of the Atlantic. Whether this new form of advertising literature will be illustrated I don't know, but, as most people have not evoluted beyond the kindergarten, it seems a great mistake not to append a pictorial department. Why not organize a panorama of the McKinley Bill, with prices before and after, not forgetting those tin pans which played so prominent a part in the late campaign and frightened careful housewives into Democracy?

It's a poor idea that isn't good both ways. Here's a fine opportunity for the Democratic National Committee to beat Republicans at their own game, provided their writers and artists are equal to the occasion. It is a rare genius that can turn an advertisement into attractive literature, so the success of the scheme depends upon its execution. It may be that the introduction of literature into politics may drag the former out of the mire of poverty into the realm of riches. It may be that parties will vie with each other to possess the exclusive right to poets, novelists and essayists. If so, the campaign of 1892 will certainly entitle the United States to be called the Republic of letters.

A

STATESMAN

RE-ELECTED.

*

Not to have reëlected Mr. John Sherman would have been an unpardonable sin. Whatever criticism may be passed on Ohio's senior senator, it cannot be gainsaid that he is head and shoulders above the politicians who aimed to walk in his shoes, and that he is one of the few men now in Congress deserving of the name of statesman. That he returns to Washington for six more years is a source of gratification to friends and intelligent foes. Ohio could not afford to dispense with the services of her foremost citizen, who, still in the plenitude of his power, is needed in the Nation's councils. The WASHINGTON extends hearty congratulations to Senator Sherman and to the Senate.

INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE

【NT

OF PRESS CLUBS.

The brotherhood of man is slowly but surely embracing woman. One year ago there was organized in Pittsburg, Pa., an International Association of Press Clubs, which not only recognized the existence of women in journalism but invited their coöperation. Of the twenty-four clubs represented at this organization, six were women's-from Boston, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Georgia. Georgia. It was then that Foster Coates, president of the committee on permanent organization, announced that the old order had changed, that the day of soiled linen and bad manners as badges of genius had passed away, and that the aim of the new league was to make the brotherhood of man more than a rhythmic phrase.

"We have," continued President Coates, "invited the

newspaper workers of the world to join with us. Not in a half-hearted way, but in a spirit that recognizes no sex in work, has this been done. We have not asked women to come here and sit in the outer circle. No, thank God, they are to be equal with the men on this floor; they are to have all the privileges of men; they are free to discuss any question with men, and if I err in my rulings I shall err on the side of women, who at this day are toiling as women never toiled before to make fame and fortune in a profession that recognizes no sex in work, and knows the difference between brass and brains! This is the woman's golden hour. She has done good work in the past, and will do better in the future, and the time is not far distant, I hope, when she will fill with as conspicuous ability as men, editorial chairs in our great newspapers

A League founded on principles of justice not only has a right to exist, but holds within its body corporate seeds of growth, the great results of which no mortal can calculate. Within twelve months six new clubs have joined this association, and, as I write, one hundred delegates, men and women, are speeding their way across this continent to attend the first annual meeting in San Francisco. The unique spectacle of ten score busy members of the Fourth Estate travelling three thousand miles for the love of one another so impressed railroad magnates that transportation of every description, from baggage to Wagner and dining cars, has been placed at their service, free of expense, over a route at least eight thousand miles long!

"I never heard or saw anything like it," exclaims a representative of the London Telegraph. "It's princely." No, it's not princely. Never yet did it occur to any prince to do anything of the kind. He couldn't if he would; his treasury would not permit. It is purely American. It is the tribute of one great power to another. It is the flower of Mr. Blaine's principle of Reciprocity.

ever is, is right," he didn't know what he was writing about. There are moments when whatever is, is intolerable. We've been enduring these moments recently. Because I grumbled at cold, rainy weather the thermometer jumped into the nineties, and the sun glared as though it were preparing us for an expedition through Central Africa. I adore heat when I know it's coming and am prepared for it, but when it takes one by surprise, I rebel. Could we emerge from furs in the costume which adorns the most, and which our first parents made fashionable, nothing would be more economical; but society is inexorable on some points. Though it pays half a guinea to sit in a stall and gaze upon ladies wreathed principally in smiles, it frowns upon a similar system of ventilation in private, and forces unhappy man, regardless of temperature, to go about in wool and stovepipes. Cousin Tom once ventured out in a white linen suit and Panama hat. He was mobbed, and took refuge in a cab. I verily believe, if the thermometer stood at 212 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, the noble male Briton would exclaim: "Give me broadcloth and stovepipes, or give me death!"

Aunt Fanny, who, as a rule, never wants to stir, was the first to propose a change of base.

"We've come to the end of our wardrobe," she said. "It is blankets or nothing. Blankets are de trop, nothing n'est pas assez. Let us go to Paris and fill our empty trunks. The London season needs seasoning. Any thing more lugubrious it is impossible to conceive.

The

municipal authorities have torn up our street again by way of excitement, the butler has drunk up all the wine and threatened cook with the best carving-knife, so I propose that we discharge everybody, lock up the house, and turn our backs on what's left of our property and our friends."

"Agreed," cried Bob.

66

'Agreed," echoed I, and here we are au troisième, in a quiet hotel near the Grand Opera, where we pay six francs a day each for our rooms, service included, one franc fifty centimes for "thé complet" in the morning, and fifty centimes for the perennial luxury of "bougies." I buy a dozen "bougies" for one franc twentyfive centimes, and we have an illumination whenever we like for very little money, while the landlady furnishes the bougie by which we light our way up-stairs at the witching hour when ban-dogs are supposed to bark. Thus we circumvent the "bougie swindle," as Bob calls it. In other hotels the unwary traveler pays one franc for every miserable stick of tallow he burns.

Our living is not nasty because it is cheap. We are more comfortable than our neighbors at the Grande, Splendide, and Continental Hotels, who are spending small fortunes weekly. Several days ago Mr. Smith was charged thirty francs per day for one room, au second, at the Splendide, and when he threatened to leave the landlord deducted fifty per cent. Even then our friend paid twice as much as the room was worth. Service, washing, bougies, and food are equally exorbitant at these grand hotels. Mrs. Jones, at the Continental, pays eight francs for a very good table d'hôte dinner; we pay four francs for an equally good dinner at our capital little restaurant around the corner, where we have a cabinet to ourselves and are well served. Mrs. Jones dined friend at the Continental restaurant yesterday, and paid sixty-five francs for the pleasure. We had a jolly party of five at the same time at our restaurant, and expended forty-five francs.

It is nonsense to imagine that Paris is necessarily expensive during its Expositions. All depends upon the individual. If he will go to certain hotels and restaurants, he must take the consequences. If he'll be content with a quieter but equally convenient street, with a café which is off the Boulevards but not off color as to cooking, he'll pay out less money than in London and get much more for it. I never name our "finds," because we want to keep the prices down. If we send all our extravagant friends in search of us, we simply ruin our chances of living within reason.

We've escaped from England, but we've not escaped from the English language. It pervades the atmosphere. Even the classic stage of the Théâtre Français is not free from the infection. We hear such words as "shoking" and "luncher" in "Les Fourchambault," while Judic says "I love you," at the Variétés. And on the Boulevards-well, it's simply dreadful. Let us stop but a moment before an enticing shop-window, and a shoal of "ces Anglais" will swoop down upon us, discussing their own affairs and other people's as though they had taken out a patent for language of which the rest of the world knew nothing. They seem to think that nobody has crossed the Channel but themselves, and look quite disgusted when others venture to challenge their monopoly. And the loudness of tone! I've heard more private histories on the Boulevards and in cafés since my arrival, than during the rest of my mundane career. Bob takes notes, and every day at dessert brings out what he calls the "carte du jour," which he reads aloud for our amusement.

Our own country people are quite as objectionable, particularly the type that can't speak French, and loathes everything and everybody, wears soft felt hats, swears

like a trooper, and "spoils" for a fight. This is the kind that seeks society in questionable resorts, and then coolly declares that there are no virtuous women in France! I should like to know what would become of France without her women. Who do the hard work, keep the books, save the money and bring out stockings filled with coin when a national loan is issued? Whenever I hear men abusing French women, I feel like hiring somebody to knock them down. Whatever we seek we generally find, and those who handle pitch become pitchy.

If it's a bore to hear English spoken at every turn, in every possible and impossible accent, it's simply awful to hear the Anglo-Saxon, insular and continental, wrestling with French. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!

"I say, you! cochon! arret! Stop! nous voulez ung voucher!" was the frantic cry of a Yorkshireman, who jumped up and down to-day in Rue Scribe, wildly waving his umbrella at every empty cab, while a fat wife and two fat daughters brandished parasols with similar intent.

Sacré bleu!" exclaimed the first driver, "whom do you call 'cochon?' Cochon yourself!" and off he drove.

Bob and I nearly died laughing to see the procession of cabs that the Yorkshireman reviewed in the course of ten minutes, and the rage into which the cochers flew. Not one but drove away faster than he came.

"Why the devil don't they stop?" at last cried the Yorkshireman. Then Bob ventured to tell him that if he would substitute "cocher" for "cochon "he'd have no further trouble.

"What's the difference?" he asked. When Bob informed him that "cochon " was one of the most insulting epithets in the French language, Yorkshire replied: "Confound these people! Why don't they get some other word and spell it differently? I'll wager they do it to bother us English! Cocher! arret! stop!" Cocher stopped.

Μι

THE GERM-CULTURE CLUB.

ISS MARIETTE ANTHONY began it, and it always met in her dark little parlors. I was visiting my pretty cousin, Betty Pollock, and she took me to the third meeting. When I asked her what the club name meant, she said she was "not sure whether it signified the culture of germs, or the germination of culture, but that as Miss Anthony herself originated it, nobody dared or desired to inquire too curiously."

"Does it make any difference what I wear?" I asked Betty.

"Well, I should think so!" she cried. "Gossiping in one's best dress is an important part. It occupies the whole first hour usually!"

An air of social elegance pervaded the room as we entered. Here was no "literature on a little oatmeal," nor was there sign or portent that suggested the consumption of midnight oil. Miss Anthony, in a Paris gown, received us with a solemnity befitting the occasion, and placed us near the red piano-lamp, whose circle of rosy light shut off the hoi polloi from the sacred corner where the perpetrators of the entertainment were half concealed, half revealed in the light of the wax candles. After an hour's delay, accompanied by profane explanations and hootings from Betty, the club began to cultivate or germinate. Miss Anthony-who was, as Betty said, "the midshipmite the bo'sun tight, and the crew of the Nancy Bell,"-swept forward from the dusk and announced that "by kind arrangement with Mr. Jermyn Hardying, he will open the session, leaving my own little contribution to be the finality." "She wants the last word, of course," Betty.

muttered

I forgot to say that we had been supplied with the literary menu, on jaggly yellow paper, a young woman in sepia on the cover, with a most pronounced psychical twist as to her hair and her spinal column. Mr. Jermyn Hardying came languidly forward, carrying about him, even in correct evening dress, a Wilde aroma, and in his buttonhole a folded rose, evidently a mementum mori. Mr. Hardying slowly drew from a corner of his décollett é vest a tiny bit of paper, and in a soft and soothing monotone full of tears, let fall the following:

SONG.

Shall I bid Love go or stay?
Love, who came to me one day

In the sweet spring-time.

I was but a careless child,
Under bluest skies that smiled,
It was joy enough for me,
In so fair a world to be,
In a sweet spring time.
Shall I bid Love stay or go?
Love, who brought me joy and woe,
In a sweet spring-time.
Bliss the gods might wish to share
Woe my heart must breaking bear—
Yet could I the whole forget
I'd but clasp Love closer yet,

Since the sweet spring-time.
What say I of go or stay?
All my sky is turned to gray-

Gone the sweet spring-time!
Tears but trifles light as air,
Smiles hid but a moment share,
Weary of my prayers and sighs
To another One he flies,

Lost my life's spring time.

Mr. Hardying sank again into the darkness-followed by the glances of the women-with a tender melancholy. I thought I heard Betty,murmur "bosh," but couldn't be certain.

The next to offer at the shrine was a large, florid woman of the parlor-drama variety. When she tossed a

O! a Buddha under a Bo-tree
Esoteric I would be.

With hair as long and thought as free
As only a Buddhist's dare to be.

One must be wise and very good
Ere one achieves a Buddhahood.
And if one still would higher rise,
One must be good and very wise.

From mysteries one must not shrink,
With mind devout, just simply think-
When of pure thought, you really feel a
Rapid increase, then you're "a chela."

You're going to live on seven earths
In something like eight hundred births,
And every time you're born again,
You may a higher life attain.

Between these births you stay a spell
Perhaps in Heaven, perhaps in-well,
It is important, it appears,
For it may be a million years.
If you are most tremendous bad
There's no salvation to be had,
For you'll "dissolve into Avitchi”
If to be good, you don't a bit try.

Seven worlds in seven spaces,
Seven lives in seven races,
In a mystic cycle turning
Only known to occult learning.

Having swept the circle round
And all light and greatness found,
Only then can you attain a
Right to enter on "Nirvana."

This is not the dreamless sleep

Of annihilation deep,

But, instead of you and me
There's universal entity.

O, a Buddha under a Bo-tree

That is what I long to be.

Losing my own identity,

In "esoteric entity."

"She belongs to the Society of Practical Occultists,' said Betty. "Practical, indeed! I could do better my

self: "

or:

Do not pound on the piana
After nine o'clock at night,
It disturbs the sweet Nirvana,
Which is every neighbor's right.

If you never, never harm a Bird, or worm, or animile, You will add unto the Karma Which you revel in a while.

"For Heaven's sake be quiet. They're beginning again," I said, as Miss Anthony, magisterial, severe, awe-inspiring, came forward to conclude the program. She opened a little blue and silver book with a lock and key of filigree, and read from it slowly and sonorously:

COSMOS.

Wild through the lonely chambers of my soul
Calls the weird voice of an invisible sea,

Cold, chaste, inviolate. A wintry lea

Spreads waste and far beyond the sun's control,
Starving his riotous light to monkish dole.
Vast clouds of hollow dun, in wicked glee
Round and about each other hurtling flee
Up to the concave void that cups the whole.
Instant their elemental ardor stilled,
Sound, motion, light, in dreaming syncope,
The tortured soul from sentience, conscience, free,
All in a breathless, fateful silence chilled
One moment !-then in awful chaos shrilled
"Thyself! Thyself! to all eternity!"

"Let's go home," said Betty feebly.

НЕ

DOROTHEA LUMMIS.

A SON OF the grEEN ISLAND.

E sat on the rear seat of a crowded cable-car, between a pig-tailed Chinaman and myself, and back to back with a stylish girl in a flat sailor hat with quills in the back and a long feather boa, who discontentedly sat bolt upright in order to avoid touching him.

He wore a flannel shirt of indeterminate color, blue overalls, enormous boots bedaubed with yellow mud, and an apology for a hat on his grayish red bristles.

His huge black hands rested on the handle of a pickax held between his knees, his small gray eyes looked out over them meditatively, his flabby lips, beset by a three days' stubble, closed peaceably upon a villainous little dudheen, from which, however, no smoke issued.

The conductor made his way toward us, jingling his bell, swung himself on the back platform-also incidentally upon my foot-madly jerked the bell-rope, twisted the brake-wheel as though he had a grudge against it, and when the car had stopped and started again with dislocating jars and jerks, fixed his weary gaze upon me and said crossly, "Fares, please!"

I handed him a nickel, and watched Pat fish out a similar coin from some mysterious recess and pass it over without moving his eyes from the perspective of cartrack. No danger of mistaking that solitary coin, my friend.

Then the conductor's eyes fell on the little black pipe, and he said with a snap, "You can't smoke here!"

"Oi'm not smokin'," said Pat, with calm good-temper. Conductor collected the rest of the fares on our seat and came back again. "I say you can't smoke here!" he reïterated angrily.

"Oi'm not smokin'," returned the offender meekly. "You've got y'r pipe in y'r mouth!" yowled the conductor.

Pat's eyes woke up.

"And Oi've got me feet in me boots, too, but Oi'm not walkin'!" he retorted crushingly.

"Tenth street!" yelled the conductor, and started off again.

I looked around at Pat, and our eyes met appreciaLively. NEITH BOYCE.